Memories from December of 2008
It is hard to speak about those days. For me it is when it all began; the downfall. A lot has happened since. We had not even begin to lose hope, we had not yet felt or had any idea what the financial crisis would actually mean. I was a senior at high school and was very excited about this final year. Member of the student council and considered myself a radical leftist (which I still don’t know if I was). We were the generation which up until that point, had grown up in probably the best conditions Greece had ever seen. We were dreaming and making plans for our future. And so did Alexis.
The 6th of December is a very popular name-day in Greece and naturally our friend Nikos took us to the movies to celebrate his. We saw RockNRolla. Quite violent film. I remember everything very specifically. Just after the film was over, Nikos got a call from his father. “The cops shot a kid dead at Exarchia, downtown, there’s gonna be a war” he told me right after he hung up.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7769710.stm)
We were the only ones living in the very centre of the city, and probably the only ones that already started feeling uneasy about this. Still, we had no idea what it really meant.
I was frustrated, I started discussing the problems of police violence, our generation’s duty to revolt against any forms of oppression and other teenage heroic things that no one was really interested in. Suddenly I remembered my brother. I knew he was gonna be out pretty close to Exarchia and I did not know if he had heard. It was a couple of years before scrolling down and finding out about everything became part of our lifes. I got the underground and went to find him.
I got to him a few hours later hanging out near Plaka which was not affected by the riots. He had heard about it but he too had not conceived the seriousness of this thing. We tried to get home but we could not. The centre of Athens was a war zone. Most of the roads closed, fires everywhere and conflicts between the ‘anarchists’ and riot police. We ended up staying at a friend’s place for the night, which was in that side of the city. Early next morning we woke up and went to the march for Alexis. Rumours had started spreading, everyone had an opinion, we were all very angry. I met some of my friends there, some of my cousins and people I just knew from Exarchia. “It could have been any of us”, “He was harmless”, “He did not even provoke the cops”. And that was true. A 15 year old, hanging out in Exarchia the neighbourhood of ‘rebels and troublemakers’ but also a place of young people, students, artists, families. It could really have been any of us.
We were confused. The demonstration ended 15 minutes after it started when the police shot tear gas upon us. We ran away, regrouped, then ran away again, and ended up at Exarchia wondering what we should do. There were news of another demonstration being organised at the moment and we tried to get there. Nothing. At some point we realised there was not much left to do and went home. Still mad at the cops, the government, the system.
The week that followed was awful. There was no school for a couple of days and all around Greece students were demonstrating. As part of the student council I tried to be heavily involved in the protests. We had this feeling that it is our generation’s duty to address this issue, to make our own revolt against a clearly rot system and an incapable government. Little did we know. Things got out of control very quickly, the demonstrations started becoming manipulated by political parties, student parties and organisations and every day, Athens was literally on fire. It was the ‘troublemakers’ of Exarchia. We now know they are straightforward, violent street hooligans taking advantage of the situation but back then we thought they were the ‘angry youth of Greece’. And the truth is a lot of teenage students joined them back then. Most of the people were disgusted by this. We even tried to hold peaceful demonstrations, in a student spirit, but it would never work out. Provocateurs from the police and the ‘troublemakers’ always made sure all hell would break loose. It was a nightmare.
(http://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/dec/13/athens-greece-riots)
Somehow we were under the impression this was a Panhellenic, common revolt that would change things. Today 7 years later I feel sorry for us. I feel mad at all everyone who took advantage of confused youths to play games of power and politics. Being out on the streets for about a week I met all sorts of people. Some cared, some were against violence, some wanted violence badly, some were there just for the looting and maybe the fights, some were scared. But one thing we all had in common was that we failed. We failed to react in a unanimous, peaceful maybe even creative way to address some issues. We failed to connect Alexis’ name with a turn towards the good, with a condemnation of violence. Violence became more common the following years; protesting, and the burning of our city was not a big deal. In May 2010, when we went officially under supervision and bailout packages to control our debt crisis, a demonstration took place. The ‘troublemakers’ set a bank on fire and 3 people died inside. One of them a pregnant woman.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8661385.stm)
Without knowing it or wanting it, the student movement of December 2008 became another small piece of the decay of modern Greek history. Another systematic conflict that lead nowhere. It had happened before, again and again in Greece’s violent history. We were raised with stories of our parents heroic resistance towards the dictatorship and probably tried to take our own stand. But history can not repeat itself in the same way again. Things change.
Our police is still violent. Our youth is still angry, only now they are running out of directions to point their anger towards. Our system is still corrupt. And if anything, things have taken a turn for the worse in Greece ever since. Our governments are still incapable. I can only hope that we have learned some things, even as units. You can not protest against violence violently. The game is over for you exactly the moment you decide to be take a part of it. You can not rely on the instinct of the mass. Most of the time it is guided. There are always important things you can do and have an impact, small or big, before deciding to destroy instead of creating.
We owe it to Alexis to remember him every year when the 6th of December comes. We owe it to every other victim of senseless violence in this country and there are many; police victims, leftist-terrorist group victims, neo-nazi victims. Times may get harder but I will always hope that the generation that comes next will be wiser and capable of finally getting this country a tiny step forward for once.
