Campaigning for green space in the city

I woke early this morning feeling feisty about green space and decided to do a little more lobbying over the delay in laying out allotments and playing fields on the Victoria Jubilee Allotments - using some of my friend Luke Unsworth's images of the site in 2004 before it was cleared by the developer. I've sent this to various people in Birmingham City Council - Scrutiny in particular but also to the Portfolio Cabinet member that includes allotments, and to Adrian at The Stirrer - who mentioned the VJA on 20 November last. I'm also seeing Friends of the Earth at the Warehouse this Monday evening, in particular Ben Mabbett. His e-mail of a few days ago:

Hi There. Sorry about the delayed response, I've been a bit busy of late. Anyway, from a planning point of view as far as I know Section 106 agreements are legal agreements, so should be quite difficult for developers to wriggle out of. This is why they are used rather than conditions of planning approvals. I would imagine there is some sort of trigger level that the agreement would come into action on, and this is mentioned in one of the links on an earlier email. Do we know what this is? So many dwellings completed, so many dwellings occupied, so many dwellings sold? Also, is building work completed now, or is it still ongoing, or have the houses been finished to shell only? It may be given the current financial situation that some sellers or occupiers have pulled out of sales, or that the developer are only finishing houses to shell with no fit outs. If this is the case then they may have receded from the agreed trigger level. Equally, I know that Persimmon Homes (and Charles Church who they are part of) are having of financial difficulties at the moment and have made a large amount of redundancies, so there's the chance that they have no funding for the work, and/or the people dealing with it have left the company. They may well have agreed a breathing space with the council, or they may simply have no money and have chosen not to implement it and hence may be in breach of the Section 106. Not sure if I can make Monday as it's also my office Christmas party, but if I can offer any advice over email then you know where I am. Thanks, Ben Mabbett

My reply:

Dear Ben. I spoke to Karen and I'll drop down to the Warehouse as soon as I get back from York on Monday evening - around 8.30 pm. It should at least allow us to swap notes without disrupting your well deserved Christmas party. Our understanding from the site meeting with Alan Orr in May this year was that the trigger point - based on selling sufficient homes - had been arrived at and that work on laying out the green space next to the new houses was to begin in August 08. Alan Orr has said he understands our frustration at the delay in implementing the S106A and that the developer is now in breach of the what was legally agreed. Best wishes, Simon

* * * * Two pieces from Malcolm Brabant for the BBC on events in Athens - one an op-ed on the Greek crisis politely challenging the views of a military friend with experience of rioting in Northern Ireland who patronises events in Hellenic cities as an exercise in "blowing off steam"...

The officer, whose identity I cannot reveal, was convinced that the international media had overplayed the story of the biggest civil unrest in Greece since the end of the Colonels' military dictatorship more than 40 years ago. "You had the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia. These are the Velvet Riots," he said. "No one has been hurt in the disturbances. There is an unwritten pact between those throwing stones and the riot police. Neither side is trying to hurt the other...Sure, buildings have gone up in smoke. But the government should be praised for allowing all these young people to vent their anger and that there have been no casualties. This has been a huge non-event," he said. I have nothing but respect for my friend's military experience. True, there have been no serious casualties (since the death of Alexandros Grigoropoulos). But to dismiss this past week as insignificant because nothing has really changed, is premature in my opinion...Greece has the potential to be the most wonderful country in Europe. Besides exquisite landscapes, brilliant climate, unrivalled history, it is blessed with a well-educated youth whose ambitious parents are willing to sacrifice their present to enable their children to have a better future. But young people's expectations are suffocated by a system that borders on the feudal...

...and the other reporting further violence in Exarchia last night - though no-one seriously hurt - after a day of peaceful vigils by those brave ones earnest to hold the centre. * * * * Last year the Friends of Black Patch Park knew they'd succeeded with a mix of lobbying and luck to save this park from being decommissioned and zoned for industrial/retail development. Ted Rudge's superb study of the park's connection with Gypsies gave the place prominence in history, but most delightful was having the descendants of Gypsies evicted violently from the Black Patch at the turn of the 20th Century to make a treeless cindered heath into a green oasis amid the smokestacks of Smethwick, turn up to help us save it and sign our video petition - just one of many things that helped us turn a corner. Ted's dissertation as part of a Life Long Learning Programme at Birmingham University, tutored by Carl Chinn, was published by Birmingham City Council. It's title Brum Roamin'. It recovered the history of the Black Patch onto which we added its subsequent story as a Birmingham and then a Sandwell MBC public park. Sandwell could give little attention to a small green space up against the Birmingham border, from which most surrounding industries had disappeared along with residents, that designating it as a place for new shops, houses and factories made sense to them. We made their sense look more and more like non-sense, writing surveys of the place's natural history and value to footballers and residents from Birmingham just over the 'border', running events in the park, having our own folk song by Bryn Phillipsand meeting officers from Sandwell Council, so that quite abruptly, after Emma Woolf from BBC WM had picked up that YouTube petition and made it into a broadcast item one evening in May 2007, we got a meeting arranged by her with Councillor Bob Badham - our preferred enemy - portfolio holder for the built environment in Sandwell Council, agreed to meet and talk. Almost at once it was agreed to re-write the structure plan - the local plan for that area of Sandwell - to again include Black Patch Park. Without an enemy our group faltered. now the problem was one we had to share with Sandwell. Even though we know the park is popular - especially with footballers - how is the money to be found to recover it from its state of somewhat shabby dereliction and maintain it thereafter? There are red herrings and false hopes especially around partnership - a term suffering from increasing word-fatigue. Not that we do not need to know who are our friends and how deep are their pockets but pondering the park's future, now it's 'saved', leaves us bewildered at times. Watch this space - literally - in the sense that we've drawn up a draft plan to use as a basis for proposals, negotiations and lobbying. * * * * I realise it's early days but I wonder which people amid the marches, confrontations and public forums on streets and campuses is emerging to lead in this crisis. Are there charismatic students in Athens or further afield with the ideas and the capacity to stand when histories are written? Is there anyone out there capable of making history? What ideas, among the many that might provide maps for the future, will emerge as a result of these events? Googling 'student leader' I came up with Natalia Bersi who gave Helena Smith for the Guardian an overview of the last week in Athens. Were I a student I'd be discrete about naming 'leaders', even if I lacked the spittle to say "I am Spartacus!" But when the teargas and the smoke clears who, if anyone, will emerge with what ideas about what is to be done? * * * E-mail from IA:

S. I'm writing a piece for FirstPost.co.uk tomorrow [19/12/08 - actually published in Guardian comment] and wanted to ask for your comment on whether this explosion of student feeling is exclusively related to Grigoropoulos' death, if it's a principled stand by a newly-politicised generation, or if it's one of a series of tantrums being thrown by a spoilt generation threatened by the sweep of globalization. All best, iason Well yes indeed. Have you heard any voice of substance from those who hold the streets – men or women of the potential of Cohn-Bendit, Rudi Dutschke, Petra Kelly, Angela Davis, Mario Savio, Steve Biko and others I can think of? I cannot believe they are not there and may be spoken of with assurance on the streets and campuses. Who if anyone is emerging? Perhaps you with your journalistic links know who these must be and what thinking they bring to possible futures for Greece. The ideological stuff I’ve heard so far seems juvenile. Who's been writing about how things ought to be for Greece – perhaps over a much longer time? Any new ideas would have surely to come linked to a set of workable economic and social ideas that don’t look like the one’s I’m hearing. For example - On the Greek Riots But that could be because I don’t speak Greek and am too far away. Any thoughts? I guess the leadership or lead ideas and vision could come from other places than Athens – could come from Thessaloniki or other energised populations including the Greek diaspora. There have after all been student manifestations over Europe and even in the US and there’s talk of a big pow-wow on 20 December, with bold chaps (it seems to be chaps) talking about when we are in government. There’s also the matter of who else in Europe speaks interestingly and usefully about radical reform and workable futures different from the pragmatic extrapolations that seem to be failing – technically and psychologically. All the changes I can take seriously are incremental – and to do with local government and place-shaping linked to sustainability. S PS. Googling "student leader" I came up with this article dated 13 December by Helena Smith in Athens for the Guardian mentioning Natalia Bersi; mainly a diary of the last few days. S.

S. Thanks for that Guardian piece and this thoughtful comment. Reading the piece, I can't say that she bucks the trend and her testimony comes across as a narrative of what she did rather than a vision of what she hopes to create on the ashes of the current establishment. I'm deeply disappointed with my generation and I've lived them up close and personal. The ones who are half my age (the 15 year olds) are even more dispiriting, as far as I can tell...iason Iason. ...On being 'disappointed with my generation' - people of my age are supposed to say such things about a younger generation. I would like to go on a sort of tour of Greek campus’s – dressed as a cleaner or something – and listen out for political talent. Best, Simon

Photographer Melinna Kaminari's Christmas Card

received 15 December 2008

* * * * A blog called Tapes gone loose provides reflections, analysis - including translated Greek op-eds - and a variety of links on the developing crisis.

A society in denial (personal rant): To kick off with a necessary disclaimer, I haven't turned into a political analyst overnight. To the contrary, my knowledge of political theory is very limited & either too bookish or too cartoonish, plus I always seem to not comprehend &/or leave out some important details. If you choose to read what follows, then, do not take anything for granted - do your own research & form your own opinions, don't take it from me. (More importantly: instead of reading the entire ranting below, read the translations I point out in it, those articles are really insightful.)

* * * A survey for Kathimerini, reported 15.12.08, supports descriptive terms such as 'social unrest' and 'mass phenomenon':

As an opinion poll yesterday showed that six out of 10 Greeks believe the past week of violent riots were a 'popular uprising' and not the work of 'minority activists', politicians from across the spectrum expressed differing opinions about what action should now be taken. According to a survey carried out by polling firm Public Issue for Kathimerini, 60 percent of Greeks believe last week's unrest, triggered by the police killing of a teenager, had been 'a mass phenomenon'.

A wet day in the Midlands

Cycling to Dudley the other day to run a workshop for the council, I folded my bike and caught a 74 bus which stopped for a moment over the motorway, and I thought how the cartoonist Carl Giles had this gift for evoking a wet day in an English town. I like this chilly grey damp; the bright shop fronts above reflective streets, the tear of motorway traffic pushing up spray, the damp dog smell of Harris Tweed inside the bus and the memory of dank railway station platforms. * * * Patras 12 December 08: A video of the broadcast from the occupied station SuperB Patra, a major TV station of Western Greece. The station was occupied by demonstrators and students. After the broadcast the station was left to continue normally. * * * * Email from Iason Athanasiadis:

Dear Simon. It's been some time we hadn't been in touch and I wanted to write and see how you are. Needless to say, I've continued reading your writings, even as my year at Harvard finished and I moved to Istanbul (which felt like the best thing to do). Now I'm working on a project for the Pulitzer Center on contemporary Turkish society and preparing a show of my work in LA about Iran . Also writing about the recent riots. One of the most interesting aspects of this whole business - aside from the youth Intifadah side of it - is how Greeks are calling it an imposed Velvet Revolution from the side of the West. Have you heard anything about this? How are you and how is the teaching going? Warm regards from Istanbul. Iason

Dear Iason. What a pleasure to hear from you – as good as a landmail message from a friend hitting our doormat on this rainy day in Birmingham. I’ve not “heard anything about this” but my deep curiosity is redirected. Listening to Malcolm Brabant from Athens on BBC R4’s ‘From Our Own Correspondent’ second story – 7 minutes into the programme) talking about Karamanlis and whether the international press are over or underplaying the crisis, shortly after your mail arrived – the ‘velvet riots’ phrase was used, but without reference to ‘imposition’. (conspiracy theories are proliferating tho’) Brabant argues for the significance of the unrest – “a cluster bomb of grievances against deep flaws in the Greek state”...”a highly educated generation living in an economy that is practically feudal.” He also mentions Karamanlis’ reference to the ‘pimps’ - the toxic hidden influence of the quiet powerful – he’s failed to counteract. “Statesmanship is not an abundant quality among Greece’s political establishment.... The stone throwers are just discovering their own strength – who knows what they might achieve...” I am also interested in the views and facts of Nikos Raptis (e.g. his thoughts on parecon) on Friday...I’m an engaged spectator hungry for understanding about what is unfolding in Greece. Thank you for your story in the Washington Times. We wait on the moment So far as teaching and research are concerned – you may notice, on my blog, attempts to embed videos of political-management conversations I’ve been collecting over 30 years, with explanatory texts. This is a specialised endeavour for the benefit of people who'll be working in UK local government – but I’ve always had difficulty making this material accessible outside the lecture room. This is a shame because I am intrigued by the minutiae of conversations that make government. The issue is less technical (though I’d like to improve the quality) than legal. University lawyers get worried about having research material on YouTube – even though the most august figures are now using it as simply an extended part of the public domain. Now I must mend a puncture in my bicycle and venture into the festive streets of my own city. How many of students in Athens will be going home for Christmas?. Kindest regards. Simon

* * * An e-note at the Foreign Policy Research Institute website article by Cornelia Tsakiridou, a philosopher at La Salle University in Philadelphia about current Greek myths...

'that those in positions of authority cannot be trusted; that the rebellious and poor have a monopoly on justice; and that problems facing the nation are caused by obscure international enemies and their domestic operatives... Despite attempts in the national and international press (among them Le Monde and The Guardian) to give a deeper dimension to the Greek riots and to offer a mix of elaborate psychological and sociological explanations, the truth may actually be rather plain. The riots happened because the legal mechanisms designed to protect the public interest remained idle. The reasons are not difficult to surmise. First, in Greece the public domain is the designated arena of political and personal advancement. Thus, except in rhetoric, there is effectively no concept of public interest to uphold and defend. There have been no counter-demonstrations demanding that the violence, looting, and destruction stop because they are against the public good. Second, many in the public apparently sympathize with the rioters’ stance that state corruption justifies state disruption. Third, an increasing number of Greeks across the political spectrum believe that the riots are the result of sinister foreign designs too powerful for any Greek government to deter... As the majority of New Democracy supporters have conceded in recent polls, blame falls squarely on the Karamanlis government for failure to restore law and order and maneuver conniving opposition parties, PASOK and especially the radical left SYRIZA (whose hand in the riots is all but certain) into a show of unity. But even if against all odds Karamanlis proves resilient and survives this crisis, the mindset that made it possible and the dangers it poses for the country’s internal security and stability will persist.

To my Birmingham students

Welcome to Democracy Street. Have a look at these film clips with explanations and also these.

Parents of Greece could stop this

Parents of Greece could stops this educated disorder now, but part or all of them in part approve their children's public action against a rack of concerns about theirs and their country's future. The police are forbidden - since the "anomaly" of the Junta - to do what other European police forces could do to restore order. it is perhaps no wonder some individual officers in the fray of the street or the privacy of cells let loose the feral. The same goes for those they face. This is a dangerous but not entirely unintelligent game between government and some of Greece's best and brightest. It is tragic. It is so so sad to watch this ugly family row in a place so dear. I pray that the impulses of tame klephts remain restrained, but that's an oxymoron. I read the hatred and anger on the Greek web forums against those in the streets and sense the desire, leaping from their fingers to shoot, kill, torture and impound their countrymen, who they call scum and worse. These keyboard colonels, these virtual coupmongers, and those they may prompt to action make no contribution to resolving this long sowed crisis - except like me as part of the chorus. In Axion Esti Elytis describes this Greek struggle

...it cannot be they without you nor can it be you without them… and you must face them without fail…those who wear the black shirt...who speak the language of porcupines, raw-eaters, water-brutes, bread-fearers, the leadenfaced and the neocondors.

I do not refer only to the police. They clearly have their water-brutes, but to all those who lurk - leadenfaced - yearning to start hacking this Gordian Knot.

* * * *
The violence in Corfu in San Rocco reported by the BBC and from a participant via their mobile: * * * * Plato is called anti-democratic. What democrat isn’t, who knows himself and humans - perhaps Kazantzakis’ Zorba – but only after leaving the earth. Plato said ‘justice in life and the conduct of the state is possible only as first it resides in the hearts and souls of citizens’. My ancestor, Maine, warned idealists for democracy that 'democracy is just another form of government’. Its success depended, he argued so well in Popular Government, on the constant exercise of moral intelligence to prevent it falling into the same despotic excesses the idealists presumed exclusive to monarchy. Locked in the intimate company of family and neighbours for months in occupied Amsterdam, young Ann Frank wrote ‘I don't believe that the big men, the politicians and the capitalists alone are guilty of the war. Oh, no, the little man is just as keen...’
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Just got this via a Corfu contact who writes: For non Greek speakers, the reporter is horrified by:

# The screams of children being thumped by the fuzz # Bystanders trying to stop them. # People being dragged along the ground. # Children fainting or being beaten 'til unconscious

BALLISTICS: I've been with a policier pal, no-nonsense type. He says the bullet's been examined and there was NO ricochet. All this chatter from the defence about a "mistake" is crap. Also, he says the 'special' policeman(meaning not at all specially trained) was in his car and fired from the vehicle which was never under attack. I can't vouch for that bit; just quoting an In with an in. Accident schmaccident: Gonna be trouble oop t'mill over this one. You tube description: O thanatos tou Alexi Grigoropoulou den einai memonomeno peristatiko. H elliniki astynomia ksylokopei anyperspistous mathites akoma kai stis eirinikes sygentrwseis gia ti mnimi tou. Dimosiografos zontana metadidei to peristatiko sto radiofwno
* * * *
Kat - American in Athens blog - records an interview with a MAT police officer who describes how he came to Athens from Thessaloniki, choosing the police to have a job where wages, though low, arrive on time. He speaks of a 'broken country'; of being in a force that is ill-trained and unsupported.

"The guy who shot the boy isn’t someone I know, but his nickname 'Rambo' explains it all. I don’t want to know a person like this, but policeman around the world probably all know a co-worker who is (what do you call it?) irresponsible and trigger happy. All professions everywhere have bad people. It is a tragedy, and I understand why people are mad. All the MAT are paying for him, whether he is guilty or not"..."I’m sorry for the boy who was killed, but I want people to understand that many police officers are good. People call us pigs and hicks, and yes there are a few. But we’re human and have the same problems as everyone else, and we care about this country. Thank you for the chance to speak." [Police officer Epaminondas Korkoneas was charged with murder and police officer Vassilios Saraliotis was charged as an accomplice to murder.]

* * * *
11 December: They're speaking of burning cities on Radio 4 with Melvyn Bragg - in this case the two great fires of London. A modern city can't be burned down by men without nuclear weaponry or a firestorm like Dresden's in February 1945. Despite the dramatic images of flame and smoke Athens' present damage will have disappeared by Easter if not earlier. Notwithstanding the misery of shop keepers, the import of these events is not written in material harm. It never is. For an account of what happens when a city is destroyed by fire I think of Virgil's evocation of the fall of Troy in Aeneid Book 2 (Andrew Wilson's 2003 translation). Aeneas, the future founder of Rome, tells Queen Dido and her court how the Greeks - the Danaans - appeared to depart leaving a great wooden horse packed with hoplites on the beach as a gift. The world knows what followed but seldom hears the details as imagined by the Roman genius telling the story, centuries later, of the founding of Rome. I listened to David West's translation read by Richard Pasco on Penguin Audio during a long drive to Scotland ten years ago. Though I'd grown up rooting for the Greeks, I wept at the pity of Troy's destruction, Virgil's account resonating with every other story of the dreadfulness of soldiery amok in the streets of a fallen city.
* * * *
Global Voices covering blogs, videos and podcasts across the world has finally registered riots in Greece and offers a wide range of reactions - including asteris on twitter from Thessaloniki, a Wikipedia entry (which will no doubt be revised especially regularly) and these 30 (at time of writing - noon GMT 11/12/08) films on YouTube via #griots. And here I learn that my respected cyberfriend Stavros has placed a lengthy comment of mine - which he's titled 'From a Philhellene' - on his eloquent blog My Greek Odyssey - my dream about entering the home of a woman [back to the future: 29/12/08 - the Montreal Gazette publishes a belatedly story] * * * * On Wednesday I tried out the web streamed videos on political-management that I've been gently feeding into the web in the classroom. I had my own laptop with its freight of videos to show unstreamed extracts off an external hard drive and for others I was able - using the classroom PC linked to the campus LAN to show some of the extracts I'd posted on my quicklist on YouTube. It was easy to switch between computers and I think the session went really well - with my students, all practitioners, finding it useful to know they could look over the videos again, after reading the paper I'd handed out on political-management leadership. The next challenge suggested and helped by the Cochrane's via Facebook is to do that three minute introductory film to accompany the clips. From Jane C:

I think the intro would need to cover something like: 1 - this is a short intro to a series of x number of YouTube vids on the subject of political sensitivity and leadership, 2 - the videos explore aspects of the complex relationship between politicians and CEOs of local authorities and ? other public sector organisations, 3 - For some people leadership, trust and political sensitivity are natural skills and competences ... but for the rest of us they have to be researched, nurtured and honed - I hope this series will provoke your thinking and point you towards further resource material... you could always put up bibliography for further reading too.

And from Peter C who also sent some useful URLs

1) Use very few words 2) Use a big bold font 3) Use simple, telegraphese, style 4) Let pictures get your core message across

* * *
Flickr photos of the events from Teacherdude and Πορείες για το νεκρό μαθητή

* * *
A Greek blogger - Tempel or rebel - comments on narrowcasting:

And finally and most important the blogging…After french riots in 2005, Greece verified the rule : Blogging and internet are established as alternative source of independent information. Not because bloggers are objective, the opposite!!! But they are now too many!! So someone could read a variety of opinions that usually gives the whole picture. In that sense information on internet exceeds the limits of traditional media. The whole political spectrum is expressed here, without limitations of time or political correctness. And that helps the political dialogue significantly. And here comes the videotapes. The current riots boost a distribution of images by cell phones, amateur videos, photos and information on incidents minute by minute. Greek bloggers were testing the limits and discover that is not such thing. There are not limits in our passion for open and accessible information

[Back to the future 29 December 2008: 'Social media and the Greek uprising'] [Back to the future 10/01/09 Teacher dude speaks - last November but just read - of the tension between broad and narrow casting, between mainstream and webstream, between those who wrote and those who type, and how this is evolving in Greece]

Making government: "It didn't take an expert..."

Jane C via Facebook tells me she likes the political-management material I've been posting - experimentally - with encouragement from Tony B and Chris G. She suggests an introductory video by me and clearer text on the slides. Yes! The latter advice I realised but an introductory video's a really helpful suggestion. I can record myself talking to screen with my vidcam. Catch the essence in three minutes? * * * * We've been watching Branagh being Kurt Wallender on BBC1. This is so good. Linda and I have been reading Henning Mankell, the detective's creator for several years. The two films shown so far seem to catch the essence of his writing without spoiling the story even when we know the plots. * * * * Knowing about the severe southerly gales in Corfu via Corfucius and links (the seafront at Garitsa below the old fort has part collapsed) I phoned Dave in Korakiana for reassurance about Summer Song in Ipsos' well protected harbour. "All's fine" he said over resented miles "All well with you?" "Yes fine fine. See you soon", "See you soon". * * * * Lin's finally completed her seagull ensemble - a gull at a desk who's an accountant who likes football. She's sending it off to the person who commissioned it tomorrow. * * * * Quick off the mark, Linda found tickets to Corfu for April and May. So now we look to being in Greece late January through February, and again for Easter. Meanwhile in Athens and other Hellenic cities including Corfu, street riots...focused on the police station off San Rocco Square. Protesters have also been gathering at the Greek Embassy in London after a teenager was shot dead by police in Exarchia in Athens. A Greek friend in Birmingham just emailed me: BBC reports are not very accurate with the details but the events are tragic indeed. This whole situation can take a lot of analysis but two things are certain: 1) the government has tremendous responsibility for creating such a climate and 2) it didn't take an expert to know this would happen sooner or later. At least I hope they will take the chance for massive change in the way the state works. This destruction will take the economy back many years but if it triggers the right reforms it could even be a good thing in the long run. Fingers crossed... Malcolm Brabant in Athens some time early morning posted by the BBC at 20:06 GMT, Monday, 8 December 2008 and an English student speaks to the BBC from near the Polytechnic at 1641 on Sunday 7 December and there's a helpful set of comments at the superlative American in Athens blog. "Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars... Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that." Martin Luther King Jr. I feel so sad for Greece. We saw this in a small way - though it didn't seem small at the time - when riots broke out in our patch in Handsworth in 1981 and worse in 1985. Things did change for the better here but it took twenty years grind by people and government and there's endless work to be done. * * * * Kathimerini: English edition of one of Greece's most respected newspapers - 8 December 2008. An editorial by Nikos Konstandaras

Anger’s teen martyr

The rising tide of anger and despair of the past few years now has its martyr, a 15-year-old boy whose blood will be used to bind together every disparate protest and complaint into a platform of righteous rage against all the ills of our society (endemic and imported). Andreas Grigoropoulos – shot and killed by a police officer in Exarchia on Saturday night, caught in the crossfire of indifference, intolerance, stupidity and criminal neglect that allows minor problems to grow until they come to undermine our very society – will quickly become a flag of convenience for anyone who has a grudge against the state, the government, the economic system, foreign powers, capitalism and so on. The anger that every citizen feels when faced by the death of a young person murdered by employees of the state will be channeled into the renewal of public protests for any number of social or economic reasons. Political movements will reshape their policies around the public exploitation of the cult of the innocent murdered by the state. The state and the government, their hands indisputably dipped in blood, will now devote themselves entirely to their self-preservation; they will do nothing for the country’s inhabitants other than try to placate them with many words and little action.

If Greece had already appeared difficult to govern, it will now be out of control, as we can ascertain by the government’s grovelling and the police force’s spiteful inaction in the face of widespread rioting across the country over the past two days. If the members of the government had already given the impression that they would rather be doing something other than governing (seemingly incapable of dealing with the fallout from the controversial Vatopedi monastery land swap and the country’s runaway deficits), now they will try to vanish without a trace. If self-proclaimed anarchists had acted as if they had a grudge against the state, now that their aimless rage has been sanctified with the blood of one of their own, they will rampage until the last store, the last car, the last trash can in central Athens is burned. The romance of reaction against a nebulous, apologetic “establishment” and the impunity that these groups will enjoy for the foreseeable future, will ensure that the anarchists’ ranks keep swelling. If mainstream political groupings were trying to regain some of the street credibility they had lost by being pampered pets of the system, the blood that everyone now claims as their own will again see our bourgeois intellectuals at the barricades – this time with a score to settle, rather than expressing the rapacious though vacuous dreams of a generation ago, in 1968. If common citizens and hapless immigrants/refugees had already felt fear because of the absence of a caring state, today we all know deep down that it is “every man for himself.” Interior Minister Prokopis Pavlopoulos has already said as much: “The police will be on the defensive.” In other words, the institutional incompetence that resulted in a police officer’s criminal act will now be presented as a policy of wise restraint. We have already witnessed its results in the fires that keep springing up in Athens, Thessaloniki and other cities across the country. It is undeniably tragic that the meaningless but dangerous game of cowboys and Indians that has been played in Exarchia for decades should lead to the loss of life. It is tragic that the loss of one life should highlight so many impasses in our society and our politics. Instead of seeing that our refusal to resolve problems makes them intractable, I fear the way that we will use this death will simply make our problems worse.