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EDITORIAL Its tough being a Greek in London watching the scenes of Athenians, Cretans and other Greeks tearing up parts of your motherland in order to express their “democratic” rights. The death of a young man at the hands of a policeman, if this is the cause of death, will probably see two families lives destroyed and a nation traumatized for the next few years. But what is equally annoying is the fact that media coverage in Greece has been on the whole anti-establishment and has provided even more tension in an already tense climate. Indeed commentators on some of Greece's leading radio and television station have said that “the kids are justified to act in this way”. No one is justified to loot, steal from businesses and then burn down buildings. Its likely some of the protesters never knew Alexis Grigoropoulos the young man killed on Saturday. So why make others suffer? There is this sentimental yearning in Greece for the days of the “Polytechnic” or the days when Greek students rose against the military junta in Athens. Many of those who rebelled against the junta are now in their mid-forties or fifties and have kids in university or college. The protesters are mostly students, the siblings of the revolutionaries of the seventies. This does not explain the real failure, the systemic collapse of the government in Greece and its inability to address the growing problems in Greek society. “We are neither Europeans, or are we Anatolites, we are confused as to who we are anymore”, said one commentator in Greece. The Greek diaspora does not have such dilemmas, we are Greeks and we are proud of what that means. We stand by Hellenism when we need to but we cannot support the wholesale rubbishing of a nation by a group of thugs. Greece now needs strong leadership, Prime Minister Karamanlis failed to give an immediate response to the Greek nation and quell the civil unrest. Today five days on small pockets of rioters are fighting with the police, Greece should have installed a curfew to all cities around Greece during the unrest and arrest at will the trouble makers. Meanwhile London's only Greek radio station did not even bother to have a debate or a discussion on the troubles in Greece, an opportunity missed to galvanise the Greek community in London. Through adversity a nation like Greece will always come out stronger and with greater awareness of its faultlines and the need to address them. In London the Met police raid the offices of an elected politician without a warrant, and arrest him and no one even demonstrates at the “big brother” state we live in here in the UK.
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