General Election ~ 'a new and more volatile chapter'

Voting in the Greek General Election is tomorrow. There’s a polling station in the middle of the village. I hear the sound of politicians talking on people’s televisions as I walk down Democracy Street. On 2 May it was Lefteris’ 70th birthday.

Irini, Kostas, Lefteri and Vasiliki

Lin and I bought greetings and chocolates and sang a universal ‘Happy Birthday to you’. In the background the ignored TV showed politicians speaking from podiums in Q & A sessions with studio audiences. Now and then I followed enough of the chat round the table to know politics was also being discussed in the family.
“No-one knows what will happen” Heads nodded politely when I repeated the widely held opinion that there will be no overall majority and asked, rhetorically, whether any new government would be a coalition, all of whose members will be committed to continuing the current austerity policies. The grim intractability of the picture may explain why the run-up to the Hellenic General Election has felt so quiet, with minimal canvassing, few posters or strewn leaflets. I get more news via phone texts and the web about local elections in the UK, but Teacherdude in Thessaloniki reports to the contrary.

...For many 6th May national elections will mark the end of an era begun in the 70's in which PASOK and New Democracy dominated national politics and promises to usher in a newer, more volatile chapter in public life in Greece...

Here in the village it does seem quiet. The law says voting is compulsory in Greece but as Cinta told me, Greece shares with twelve other countries the habit of not enforcing this. Jim Potts dug out a quote from a chapter on Greece in Cultural Patterns and Technical Change, ed. Margaret Mead (UNESCO 1955)

Government is not personal, and the law is external to the organic, structured whole. It is not the voice of Greece. There is therefore no obligation to obey the law; the guide to conduct here is expediency, and the ability to circumvent.

A low turn-out for polls would be in line with what has happened in local elections in the last couple of years. This is not apathy. Politics is there – but its forms have become a cover for much more that remains unspoken. A plethora of inarticulated apprehensions and passions not yet connected with the exciting organisation of ideas capable of refuting the vice-like hold of the neo-liberal fallacy. It as thought we see the disparate vestiges of an emerging paradigm, held with strong and even happy conviction at the proofs contained in its detailed and diverse manifestations in daily life, in friendship, in talking, writing, gardening, housework and digging across the world, yet arrayed against our disorganised rabble -the fluttering banners of common-sense, faith and normal science. Thus it was between Ptolemaic and Copernican understandings of the cosmos, between Darwin and the bizarre fantasy of special creation. It’s so easy to miss out on inexpressed tensions, hidden even from the self, inside families and friendships, as we know from periodic outbreaks of violence we’ve known in our own part of Birmingham – ‘out of a blue sky’ said the authorities.

Not so. I strive uselessly to make sense of a messy confusing incubation of ideas – some, the worst of the new, others the best of the old, like a human leaving childhood, a gestation whose climax can be predicted, and yet abrupt and unexpected as the breaking of an egg. (See Teacherdude on 'what it takes to be part of the new Greek/EU middleclass')
I asked a friend in the north of the island what he expected in the aftermath of the election.
His reply: 'Chaos'

BBC Radio 4 programmes on Greece

Greece: An Unquiet History (Mar 2012) Writer Maria Margaronis returns home to listen to those living through the Greek disaster - 2

Greece: Broken Marble, Broken Future (Dec 2011) Writer Maria Margaronis returns home to listen to those living through the Greek disaster - 1

Analysis: Preparing for Eurogeddon (Feb 2012) What if Greece had to get a new currency?

Generation E: Far Right Extremists in Greece (Sep 2011)

In Greece, financial meltdown and soaring illegal immigration have led to the rise of young right-wing extremists 

You and Yours: Greek Tourism (Feb 2012)

Winifred Robinson speaks to the Greek Culture and Tourism Minister to find out how the tourist industry in Greece is faring.

*** ***
I am excited that we've received conditional permission to place a bee-hive on Plot 14 of the Victoria Jubilee Allotments. Getting permission is not straightforward. Birmingham City Council wants to encourage bees on allotments, having for quite a while prohibited them. I realise, as I did not earlier, that the ‘return of bees’ to urban allotments is fraught with risk-averse considerations. There’s only to be one, let alone two, publicised incidents of negative encounters between bees and the public, and the process of making it normal to allow and indeed encourage beekeeping on allotments will be set back, not to mention the local authority facing litigation from parties inclined to blame them for not protecting the public. I do not, despite the frustrations of getting permissions and removing possible risks and observing probation and being reviewed, consider that council officers are being over-zealous about rules and conditions. This is the price beekeepers within a thoroughly urbanised population must pay for the distancing of so many people of all ages from the details of the cultivation on which we all depend for our food. Everyone knows bees can sting; far fewer know about their vital role in pollination.
Bar Maine, my grandmother, kept bees on Mill End Dairy Farm - where I was born. Many years ago - in the late 1940s - one of her bees got caught in my sister’s hair (she was about 5 or 6) and stung her. I think in curiosity Bay might have wandered rather close to a hive. She naturally screamed in shock and then cried. I was inclined to think ill of bees. Bar came to the rescue, calmed my sister and treated the sting (I think she removed it with tweezers) and told us that the bee who’d stung my sister would now die. I was 7 and I remember even now that my sympathies spread to include the bee (even tho' I now read that idea that a bee's death after it has stung is a 'myth'. It's not automatic) . So it has been since. I am, though, a newcomer to the whole process and the initiative by a friend to use my allotment - encouraged by me - as a hive site, has spurred my interest in the ancient art.

The conditions:

- The bees should be from a new colony, rather than an established one.
 - the beekeeper must have public liability insurance and be a member of the National Bee Keepers Association - No more than one hive can be placed on the plot
- A screen (including insect netting) of around 8ft should be installed a metre away from the boundary of the site alongside the fence. This will also help to shield the bees from unwanted attention from park users, and so ensuring the security of the hive. There is still concern that the bees are rather close to both park users and people working on the site, but the screen should mitigate some of the concerns.
- No bees are to be placed on the plot until the requisite screening has been added to the plot. If you could let your Allotment Liaison Officer know when it has been installed, he will be able to inspect it.
- A risk assessment should be completed by the beekeeper as soon as possible. The Allotment Liaison Officer can advise the tenant of the format of the risk assessment
- The introduction of the bees to be reviewed after this summer in late September, early October.
- Any complaints that the Allotments Team receive will be forwarded to the Victoria Jubilee Allotments Association for action. If any complaints are received, they will form part of the information used as part of the 12 month review.
- An approved bees expert to show where to position the hive on your plot.

With these conditions I was referred to 'a very useful document from NSALG in relation to keeping bees on Allotment sites.' (see also this from the British Beekeepers' Association)

I phoned my neighbour John Rose whose wife Gill, has public liability insurance and is a member of the National Bee Keepers Association. I hope and pray she will be placing her bees on Plot 14 in the very near future. John's already planning the safety netting
"I'll pay you when I see you, John. Brilliant!" We also chatted about local government news. So elected mayors have been voted out everywhere they were proposed except Bristol, though Liverpool went ahead with their Mayor without waiting for a vote.
"I voted against." said John "We are being asked to vote for the post without being told what powers the proposed elected mayors will have."
Nice news that all BNP councillors - sitting and proposed - have disappeared from the local electoral map.
*** ***
My friend John Martin - my host and colleague for three lecture tours in Australia - has set out on a Canadian bicycle odyssey, working his way across the continent visiting sustainable communities, research that compares them  them with those in his own Australia and will surely enrich the concept and practice:

We now have our itinerary for the first month worked out. Some people are welcoming, others rather pedestrian in their response. I guess we are the ones who are excited, why should they be. My colleague at U Concordia Bill Reimer - whom you would get on superbly with - is very good smoothing the way forward for us. He has bought an old car and in June will come to Vancouver with his wife Fran and they will travel across Canada with their oldest grand daughter (also an Amy!). They will stop off in many places (Bill's family history is Russian Mennonites and  his relative settles across the plains of Canada) so their Amy can learn about her family history (the Google map of our itinerary on Annie's blog was an idea from Bill).
I will do an update to sustainable canadian communities (the site about the study) early next week. I expect Al will do one his site - canadothis - mid next week and I believe Annie is always working on her site - visual journey across canada. I like the way these are all linked. Enjoy cycling and boating in Corfu. We have great memories of how special a place it is. You guys are very lucky to be able to live there for a good time of the year. Love to Lin, John and Annie

Why the bicycles? This from the project's website:

There are three of us involved in this research across Canada. Professor John Martin is Director of the Centre for Sustainable Regional Communities at La Trobe University. Alistair Walker is an Analyst with the Rural Finance Corporation, both based in Bendigo, Victoria. John and Alistair will cycle to each community and the story of these places will be part of a documentary on the sustainability of small Canadian towns produced by John’s partner, a filmmaker Annie Guthrie. Annie will be in a car. The car travelling with us will provide a backup for safety purposes as well to enable Annie to transport film equipment.
We have chosen to visit these places by bicycle because we are interested in seeing the country through the eyes of a cyclist, allowing us to take our time to take in more along the way. While we are both experienced cyclists we wanted the meet the challenge of the rigour and length of this 7,400 km ride. We believe using a slower means of transport will bring a new perspective to what we find on our journey.
We know from our previous journeys in Australia, you see things as you are cycling along that you don’t see in a car. We also have found that people are most welcoming when you arrive by bike. I can’t explain why but suspect people admire the tenacity or courage in taking on the challenge of a long distance ride. Arriving this way gives you an introduction to people and places that you would not otherwise get when rushing in and out in a car or bus. As such our itinerary below might slip a day or two here and there but it is our intention to stick with it as close as possible assuming the weather and other unforeseen events don’t intervene.

Outline of the research: Canadian and Australian rural communities have much in common. They are located in federations similar in structure and function with provinces/states having considerable authority over these places. Governments are often challenged to provide equitable services to all places, especially so in rural communities. Yet these communities continue to survive often facing the most challenging demographic, economic and environmental circumstances. In this comparative research study we ask:
What is it about these places, people and institutions that sustain them over time.
How does their past, current economic fortunes, social networks and public institutions work together to ensure their sustainability?

I recognise this research is not only about Canada and Australia. Apart from my pleasure (and envy) at following the adventure on which John, Annie and Bill are embarked, I am fascinated by their work; interested in the application of their research to the places and people that matter to me.

Three bloggers on Greece

There are three blogs in English I rely on for news and thoughts about Corfu, Greece and the world - via them and the hyperlink that can turn one sentence into a tapestry of reference** across which I can roam with the ease of a monkey swinging through the canopy of a rain forest. I’d start with Richard Pine, founder of the Durrell School of Corfu, author among many other things of The Diviner, a major work on the Irish playwright Brian Friel, guest lecturer on campus's around the world, but though the opinion goes unsaid, Richard regards blogging as somewhere on a par with glue sniffing, so we get, instead, regular emails announcing a fascinating, informed op-ed in the Irish Times, (in which even he does not eschew an occasional hyperlink, inserted, I suspect, by an editor in Dublin) and I’m told there’s an unpublishable manuscript on Corfu.
Of the blogs, the least introspective is Teacherdude’s, citizen-journalist Craig Wherlock, based in Thessaloniki, also on Flickr, exploring with camera - un-pressed. His words are from the left; seemingly without dilemmas or historical perspective, but his pictures brilliantly catch contradictions others write about.
A blog of greater economy, Corfu Blues - writer, poet, musician Jim Potts is Philhellene, citizen of an imaginative Greek landscape; seamless elision of classical and modern Greece. enduringly married to a dear and talented Corfiot who's also a writer. Jim’s more perfectly that English invention André Maurois describes – a gentleman - than I; discretely, unashamedly in love, as open-eyed with Maria about Hellenic depravity (her Jeremiad against the corrupting greed of fellow Corfiots) and weakness as Homer, and with the best links to intelligent contemporary analysis – especially his relatives Bagehot and a TV journalist daughter, Nina-Maria.
Most entertaining is Corfucius, musician Chris Holmes (died in Corfu - January 2018)...,

...the uncourtly courtier, son of a war hero, on a perch above Kontokali, apt with a keyboard, does acrobats with grammar as conjurors spice their acts with mistakes, issuing lasciviously illustrated comment on gossip in Britain’s reptile press, reminiscence – un-English revelations about family perfidy - and invention, revelations about sins of lust and alcoholic indulgence cleansed by the Church of England in Corfu, he’s the Greekest of the three, son of an exceptional mother only now gone to her long home, he's silent on anything as tedious as ‘the crisis’, venomous on anything as worthy as housework or gardening (honouring Lin and I with the monicas - Charles and Carrie), a sweet recluse, seductive misanthrope, artful in flattery. How pleasurable it would be to get these three together for a day. Impossible because Potts is likely to be in Dorset while I’m here, or I’m on my allotment in Brum while he and Maria are in Zissimos; Wherlock’s a teacher - too poor to travel, too proud to accept expenses - and Holmes hates company.

**I know I know, human expression has always been able to perform this miracle of resonance, the poet’s auditory imagination, musician’s leit, the painter’s reference in colour and form…but we tap into a level of intra-species communication that Fred Emery and Eric Trist anticipated forty five years ago as ‘a greater mutation than if man had grown a second head’ p.217 ‘The Next Thirty Years: Concepts, Methods and Anticipations’, Human Relations, 1967, 20  

** ** **
I'd been in Gatwick overnight so slept on the Easyjet south, and woke to see blue, aware of islands*, Erikoussa passed below, then the north coast at Sidari, the zig zag road down to Trompetta, then Skripero and Ano Korakiana.

Ano Korakiana - the village north east of a small cloud

Later at Easter lunch in the village, Mark said "We saw you coming over. 'That'll be Simon and Lin!'"
A cup of tea in the house, greetings to Effie, Vasiliki, Natasha and Adoni about to start their Easter lunch, and we strolled up Democracy Street to watch our lamb turning on the spit

The table sat twelve, a mix of Greek and British, both languages mingled, wine and beer and then the food.

Just before lunch

Around five I was being teased for dropping off, sometimes mid-sentence, feeling the effects of little sleep, happy company, food and wine
"Yeah! And being old" said Lin.

After lunch

*A phrase I stole
At my peril
From the poet
Lawrence Durrell

*** ***
On Tuesday we woke just before noon - which stills feels like 10 GMT. There was an email from Charles Webster at Delta:

Hi Simon. I thought you might like to know that we have a signed, sealed and delivered contract with Endemol for the 34 Out of Town episodes. Our copies of the original nine DVDs, formerly from Contender, go into shops from this week and we expect to see sales immediately. I think these will be the only products in the market for at least six months as we work out the best way to sell the “34 missing episodes”. I am delighted that we have done the deal with Endemol and I hope they see the wisdom in sharing their royalties for the “34” episodes with you. Fingers crossed. Now you have the tapes back from the SWFTA perhaps we can look forward to more releases in the future. See you soon. We should celebrate with fish and chips and mugs of tea! (Sound like the Famous Five…..) Regards, Charles

Dear Charles. Wet and grey in Corfu. Thought that might please you (:)) My chief worry about the letter to Cathy M to which she’s not yet replied (18/4/12) was that it might distemper our friendship given I was questioning Endemol’s right to buy and sell the ’recovered' episodes on the grounds Southern TV or its agent had no right to sell them having agreed to sell them to Jack for £1 in lieu of pension. Instead you approved my letter. Furthermore, given present understanding of rights in relation to these tapes you had no obligation to even tell me of your intentions or indeed the progress of your plans to complete a contract for their distribution with Endemol. I don’t call that just good customer relations...Now the tapes and the film from Plymouth (minus Old Country masters which I let David take home to Hythe to look over) are in Birmingham I am waiting royalties on the re-issue to help pay for the transport and storage. These expenses are not that much but I want to keep accounts and could even afford to buy you the next lot of fish and chips (I owe you four of those so that we’re even).
There’s also the simple fact that we must transfer any film and tape we think may match to digital before splicing them, as to do that operation with raw film and tape over 29 years old is just too risky. At present I’m only at the stage of trying to get shelving installed in the store locker so I can take the film cans and tapes out of the boxes in which we transported them and line them up so that possible matches of image and sound can be surmised and a batch of - say - five can be taken somewhere to be digitised and hopefully matched. David Knowles, as you can see on the short video I made of the transfer, knows as much as anyone I know about this material and the challenges of creating workable matches. A lot of it has his writing on it. He is hoping that the letters and numbers on the cans and tape boxes will be good enough to identify potential matches, but given how little they did at SWFTA I am wondering whether he is right. I’ll start on this in June. Congratulations on the whole project of the 9 DVDs...Simon

Hardly dressed we heard the band approaching, marching down Democracy Street and around the village boundaries to finish with sweet bread and wine at St Athanasios.

Easter Monday on Democracy Street

The road was closed to cars, so I cycled down to an appointment a mile below the village with Mark and his brother Paul, to see and touch a 70th birthday present to myself - a new or rather nearly new - well - wonderfully re-conditioned engine for Summersong which Mark had been seeking in the secret workshops of Corfu, relying on word of mouth...and now after nearly a year it was here, looking spic and span with new pipes and belts and all attachments - starter, gear box, alternator - a Yanmar 2GM, about 18hp. At my age I need a reliable engine, and one more powerful than the present ageing 9hp engine in the boat. The regular calms are one problem; the other's getting home in half a gale on the nose.

I’m lucky and wise in my friends. These skilled guys work year round, often, and certainly for the season, six days a week - often at weekends - applying their energy, craft and experience to mending, making, building, maintaining, transporting, checking just about everything – heating and electrical systems, all types of yachts, all kinds of engines, every sort of building. They’re all round grafters who do work, work, and more work, and yet they took the trouble to track down this engine, the means by which in my pension years I and my friends can continue to mess about in boats on the mercurial sea of Kerkyra. I left out other gifts, since it wasn’t immediately my point - knowing how to be friends, playing a full part in preparing food for delicious eating, hunting and fishing, tending stock, looking after the land, studying and knowing the wild things – insects..

One of the wild things on the steps

...plants, chickla, raptors, the lively repertoire of our Greek garden, entertaining, speaking another language, being in and of this village, conversing and drinking and – to embarrass them – sharing their lives with women of equivalent and complimentary art and skill.

Cycling home I bumped into Dr Savannis getting into his car.
"Have you collected sweet bread from the church?" he asked
"No"
He handed me a loaf. Mark had given me two new laid goose eggs from the stables, and I reached into the cycle basket and gave one away.  Later Lefteris arrived next door - back from the church. We embraced and he too gave me sweet bread. So to work, Lin tidying and weeding the garden, while I cleared greenery along the path below that leads to the bus stop. Swallows are all about feeding inches above the ground, bells are ringing, bees exploring despite the wind and wet.

Wesley up the road had made a damper for our stove chimney. Re-installed it's already saving fuel - in this wind you hear the draft slowing with a turn of the small handle mid-way up the pipe

Kindling

*** ***
Key dates in the run up to the next Greek General Election on Sunday 6 May'12

Getting ready for Christmas

I've enjoyed being chilly with warm breaks most of the week, cycling in the dark, threading through city traffic, catching trains, waiting on station platforms - a morning on scrutiny for Staffordshire County Council - one of three seminars for them; a morning on Managing with political awareness for Hounslow London Borough; an evening on how to do scrutiny reviews for Milton Keynes Council; a conference paper delivered with Lesley Prince and Andrew Coulson on Local Government Leadership; two hours as a volunteer being tested and sampled for the UK Biobank; my 90th blood donation; and yesterday a visit to London to take

presents to the Greek side, to have fish and chips with Jim Brooks at Seafresh and supper with Ziggi at Pasta Plus; the assurance that using YouSendIt I can share video size files with John in Australia. Meanwhile Lin and I have been tidying up Amy's old bedroom, and taking her stuff to hers and Guy's new house at Minworth. I've attended a most lively AGM of the Handsworth Breakthrough Credit Union at Cannon Hill Baptist Church off Soho Road; and two suppers at the Quality Street Centre off Soho Road with Rajinder who, when I expressed my anger at Penny Woolcock's Handsworth-based blacksploitation movie 1Day, said "Kids with guns crapping their pants. We're the gangsters."

A few days ago, cycling home down Wycliff Road, I saw Alan Orr strolling along holding a red brick. "Alan! what are you up to with that?" "Checking on a planning application. They must use a certain colour," "I'll believe you. What's happening with the VJA (see p.8 of the FoE Newsletter)?" He told me the gardeners' shed was in place, which I'd seen before I went to Australia, "...and the water supply and the path and topsoil. The last thing will be the laying out of specific plots" "There seems no change since I've been away" "Oh yes there has been more work's been done on the playing fields." I've no way of knowing if this is so. Meantime Ziggi in London has already taken up her allotment in Haringey. We had fun chatting about her first experiences as we had supper last night.

* * *

Andrew C was on the train to London. We discussed next week's Oversight and Scrutiny module on campus - my last piece of teaching before Christmas - after which I'm up to the Highlands and then back to beloved Greece where the economic news is as bad as I've heard. He also told me the back story about the crisis in our Sociology department.This is all rather depressing especially after the data massage leak from University of East Anglia. It goes back to allegations of plagiarism by an academic in the department. Publishers of the journal Citizenship Studies, have retracted a 2005 paper of his, having determined that some sections were copied without attribution.

Further allegations of plagiarism led to this academic's departure from Birmingham last June. The story went public after a history of legal advice on campus to respect sub judice, but the story has only just started to spread (see the latest Times Literary Supplement), uncovering a contentious morass. While this remained unknown to those outside the department, Dr Abbas left and got an appointment at another university. When a head of department was appointed recently, all unknowing, she soon resigned, reckoning she faced an unmanageable situation.

** ** ** Lin has picked up a superb Chinese carpet on freecycle. How could anyone givethat away?Lin's always been good at finding bargains and freebies. This morning we spent a half hour spreading the carpet under furniture legs so that it would brighten and warm the sitting room.

* * *

I've been getting an almost constant stream of text messages from André, a soul met busking in the city centre about five years ago. He has become more and more monologic. Increasingly isolated and victimised in the hostels in which he was lodged by various agencies he became subject to being transferred from street to hostel by the police, ultimately sectioned. Amy would tell me of him now and then. He had my mobile number and started

using it - intensely, continuously; well spelled messages full of vivid complaints about the cruelty he'd suffered and bizarre things that had happened around him to which he would treat a reply as warrant to resend the same message again and again and again. I could not block these. Orange, when I got through to a human being, said I could change my number or complain to the police. I changed it; emailed and texted the new number to friends. Rajinder phoned me yesterday "Hi. I met this black guy in town. He wanted to know how to get in touch so I gave him your number." I knew he was joking, but I feel angry with André for going mad. He's intelligent and was interesting to talk to about theology.

I enjoyed joining in his cut and thrust with fundamentalists - Islamic and Christian - soapboxing in town. But he slipped away from verbal fencing into incoherent filibustering. Wasteful abandonment ... 'cliff sold the black church pudding made from pigs blood'. I kniw black pudding's made from pig's blood, but why is 'church' inserted? What's the link between 'black pudding' and 'the black church'. Is this just synaptic short circuiting or is there an intended connection?

** ** ** Meanwhile in Ano Korakiana the Spyros Samaras band, pictured outside Ag. Nikolopoulos, are to be in a film being made for the TV programme Μένουμε Ελλάδα (Greece Enduring?) encouraging enjoyment of Greece.

I was also interested to read on the village blog that there's a way up to the three crags -Τριοκάτσουλο - towering over Ano Korakiana, above which we catch glimpses of eagles from the garden at 208. Apparently there's a marked path through thickets of oak surrounded by the perfume of ragweeds - ambrosia - rooted in inaccessible spots along the ascent. I wonder if I could manage this climb and leave a flag to mark my achievement.

* * *

The mainstream broadcasters focusing on news about the Hellenic economy seem, after passing references, to have ignored events on the streets of Athens and Thessaloniki. In this respect TeacherDude's citizen journalism is closer to the ground.

** ** ** John Ariss was killed on 9 December while riding his bicycle at the junction of Lancaster Circus and James Watt Queensway as a result of a collision with a bus.

The end of December

I'm taking down the decorations, storing the tree, removing the wreaths, getting ready to head for the Highlands with Oscar. Lin's on the phone to Jill ~ "Let's hope 2009 makes things a bit better, but I don't think it's going to somehow." Now she's said goodbye to me for a week and gone to take her dad into Stafford Hospital for a check. Karen and family stayed overnight and kept us happy company yesterday. They've headed south. I've got lots of small errands and a job-list of things to do when I'm in Scotland and books to read. * * * Just before Christmas I'd asked teacherdude's permission [he's a photographer, street journalist, blogger, teaching EFR in Thessaloniki and someone whose occasional confusions bespeak the honesty of a reporter, rather than a celebrity remora] to quote him and he replied this morning:

Thank you for mentioning me. I thought I'd add a few points concerning the tactics of the riot police here in Greece. I think that the first point that should be made is that they often have a very poor level of discipline (my note: see Kat's excellent recent interview with a MAT officer) ... they are easily provoked to violence, often at targets unconnected with the hard core of rioters they are meant to be confronting. Time and time again their wrath is directed at some hapless demonstrator who was in the vicinity rather than the guys throwing rocks etc. Apart from firing tear gas to break up large groups and the occasional baton charge I have seen no evidence of any kind of strategy. I feel most of what they do is designed for media consumption, to show that the authorities are 'doing something'. As far as escalation of violence is concerned I think both sides realise that would quickly spiral out of control as there are literally millions of guns in circulation.

It's less a shared reading of the manual on policing urban disorder - as I'd implied after asking my daughter about police methods - than shared awareness of Greek history and alertness to the awful danger of everyday hatred, the words of Yiorgos Seferis in January 1945, having observed the Δεκεμβριανά - a hideous spectacle of 'buffoons' - that 'blood brings blood and more blood'.

"Violence cannot be fought with violence"

The dog Λουκάνικος, Bangers, successor to Κανέλλος, Cinnamon

Adam Schatz London Review 19 December 2008:

The police, curiously, have retreated from confrontation with the street-fighting anarchists, preferring to chase down protesters at the tense but mostly peaceful daytime rallies. Amnesty International has reported that two of its Greek members were beaten with batons, and accused the police of engaging in ‘punitive violence against peaceful demonstrators, rather than targeting those who were inciting violence and destroying property’. (Riot police emptied 4600 tear gas canisters, and had to make an emergency request to Germany and Israel to replenish their reserves.) But when the cities were burning at night, the cops were scarcer than firefighters during the great forest blaze: after midnight the cities belonged to anarchists, arsonists, looters – and, it seems, to hooded agents provocateurs with iron clubs. The stated objective behind this ‘defensive posture’ was to avoid further casualties, but many Greeks wonder whether the government had struck a tacit deal with the rioters. ‘We let you torch and plunder to your hearts’ content, and you let us continue pretending that we are in charge’ was the wording suggested by Michas Takis, a journalist at the liberal newspaper Eleftherotypia. [quote ~ Panagiotis Stathis, spokesman for the national police "Violence cannot be fought with violence."]

In one film, from a fixed camera above Syntagma Square, I viewed a road nearly empty of vehicles, campaigners standing in separate clusters on the broad pavements, and near the top of the square a pair of evzones in brown winter uniforms doing their traditional march at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in front of Parliament. On one forum a visitor to Athens leaving his hostel to visit the Acropolis writes that:

...we hit up the shopping area and people watched. then i saw a tv reporter setting up and asked if i could get a photo of her pretending to interview me. well, me and my big mouth, b/c she asked if she could interview for me, about the presence of police in large numbers around the christmas tree and pedestrian mall. so at least my photo is now genuine. look for me on the AP greek story regarding athens resembling a police state now. i didn't say that i had just come from israel and am used to it, but 'twas fun all the same. tomorrow will be ancient sites day, and at night olympiacos versus some team that will lose badly. fingers crossed for no rain. nap time now.

I was talking, this evening, to Amy who'd dropped in with Liz. She looked at some of the street action on the many videos of events in Athens, and referred me to current thinking in her work books on policing public disorder. I've started looking again at the way the Athens police are deploying, grouping and regrouping and begun to notice patterns in the fog. Having already had intuitions about symmetry in the dynamics of these dramatic scenes - not quite velvet, more like dralon. Amy's pointed me to a missing part of this puzzle. Of course it's been mentioned by others - the limited number of injuries among rioters and police, the minimal use of guns (none authorised) or even baton rounds, the shock aroused by the 'second shooting' - a spent bullet striking a young man's hand rendering it numb; the absence indeed of blood letting except that of Alexandros Grigoropoulos, whose death is unreservedly deplored by the government. These guys (and some women) have been on workshops and courses, taken notes from slide presentations, discussed scenarios introduced by senior officers who've attended international conferences on the management of urban riots. I know the police have training - of varying quality - but I hadn't realised how far practice had advanced informed by global experience. The Wikipedia entry on riot control is solely about weaponry - and daunting though that is - omits the volume of knowledge accumulated and diffused about crowd behaviour and its implications for policing. The arts of reaction and counter-reaction have been refined and must have spread - notwithstanding the low wages and lack of training that Greek police complain about - to the uniformed men I'm seeing in the gassy flaming streets of Athens. Riots judged as 'failures' by professionals, are those where violence is escalated or even provoked by police action; especially when police attack violent demonstrators - either because provoked, or because officers who enjoy violence are given rein, or because violent men have been planted in the crowd to provoke ill-trained and undisciplined police and/or because one or more politicians sees advantage in escalation. e.g. Berlusconi in Genoa. These acts of violence against violent mobs have either played into the hands of those who desire violence - on either side - and have diverted the police from directing their control measures against the violent, so that they end up playing into the hands of the violent, either by attacking peaceful elements in the crowd or killing or injuring aggressive demonstrators who's fate wins the sympathy of moderates, increasing animosity towards the police. I think Machiavelli would have at least reviewed some of his thoughts on the proper application of ruthlessness in the light of research on crowds since Le Bon's pioneering work in the 1890s. According to the text books on this subject, the worst thing the police can do is to return violence with commensurate violence. Blimey! For a testosterone charged male kitted up in riot gear that's counter-intuitive. The police have to avoid being drawn into violence without appearing to appease or permit violence. Those who seek confrontation among the rioters understand this, as do those who wish the same among the police, in collaboration with those in government or with aspirations to government, who seek confrontation to achieve their ambitions. The police have to be wise, as do those who give them orders - if peace is to be waged. So all those millions going into the Bloody Sunday Enquiry are, as well as being a search for truth, an investment in the competence of those handling mass disorder. The situation is complicated by the likelihood that many rioters, some with parental connections in government, including those who steer the police, are reading (a variety of social web links to virtual environments) the same manuals. Given that proportionality has been normal in cold war manoeuvring most of my life, how unsurprising that similar dynamics apply to conflict in civvy street - tailored to the circumstances of Greece. * * * *

A man cries "shame"; a woman claps

[photo: Teacher Dude's Grill and BBQ, in some of the most intimate records of these weeks, captures mixed reactions]

Observations by the citizen-journalist Teacher Dude who's been posting images and comments from Greece on Flickr: There were times over the last two weeks when what I witnessed seemed taken from the script of an outlandish movie, the kind where everyone tuts and says, "That is just so Hollywood. That would never happen in real life". William Goldman, the writer of movies such as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid once said that there were things taken from real life he couldn't put in his scripts as nobody would believe them. Here is a selection of the few I remember from the riots and protests that I covered over the last two weeks. The two guys wearing masks are ready to charge the bank, all set on smashing the security camera and disabling the ATM. However, there is a young woman there, oblivious to the mayhem around her who is taking out her money. The masked men wait, politely ask her if she has finished, then set about the cash machine with hammers. A march goes past a van, inside two tiny Shetland ponies stuck in a space not much bigger than they are. The protesters, enraged by this discuss what to do. In the end they take down the number plates as to....report the owners to the authorities. Just a few metres behind them riot police approach menacingly. 50 kids, one no more than 10 years old pelting the central police station with rocks as bewildered shoppers seemingly unable to grasp what is happening gawp while pieces of paving stone clatter around them. The quasi - military riot police up against tweenies Walking along Egnatia Boulevard lit up by at least a dozen fires, acrid smell of tear gas and burning plastic everywhere. Two middle aged bystanders argue over whether the anarchists about to firebomb a bank are doing the right thing. The older, white haired guy, says, "What do you care? It's not your money". An old woman buttoning holing a passing masked teen, scolding him about what has been happening. Others join in a passionately debate what has been happening over the last few days. A smartly dressed woman, shopping bags around her, waiting at the bus stop claps and cheers masked protesters marching by. The man next to her shouts out "Shame, shame on you" [Teacher Dude, citizen journalist, originally from England, living in Northern Greece, teaches English as a Foreign Language (EFL)...writes of loving photography...cpwefl2003@hotmail.com. His comment below - following a request from me for permission to use his words and this photo - refutes my remote observation but confirms some shared awareness of history among potential assailants 'As far as escalation of violence is concerned I think both sides realise that would quickly spiral out of control as there are literally millions of guns in circulation.'] [Big Fat Greek Summer - 13/12/08 - eye witnessing the ordinary and the dramatic were mingling in central Athens]

* * * * The Tango Team: Tango stands for Tactically Aggressive and Necessary Gambit of Options. This team goes forward and 'dances' with the crowd. The Tango Team can bring to bear the entire spectrum of use-of-force options-from command presence through deadly force-in a controlled, self-contained package. * * * * Last night - Saturday - Lin beckoned me round the other side of the kitchen table from where I was street watching Athens to see the last dance on BBC iPlayer of the Strictly Come Dancing final - between Tom and Camilla (see 32.50 on) - who she knew, though she'd missed the live show, had won. They were good - even I could see.