Why is it whenever the Greeks have something meaningful to protest against, the action gets overshadowed by “anarchists”?
For example, there were 80-100,000 people protesting in Athens yesterday against the austerity measures and the incompetence of their politicians, yet violence broke out and that is all you see on the televised media. You have commentary on the situation in Greece, with pictures of youths attacking police and police using tear gas. Pictures like this do nothing to help the cause of the protesters. Or to spread the word of what exactly their issues are, why they think they are being treated unfairly and who exactly is being effected.
Is it possible that these youths are organised and/or funded by outside interests who want to discredit the marches? Is it possible that these youths are being used to divert attention away from the real issues?
For the last ten days people have been protesting outside the Greek parliment and in cities throughout Greece with zero televised coverage. The one day that the world was looking at Greece and all of a sudden these “anarchists” come out of the woodwork. Why? To get on the TV? If they wanted confrontations with the police or to get on TV they could have kicked off violence at the peaceful protests and get the same effect. These peaceful protests may even have benefited slightly as they were not getting any TV coverage.
It seems the protests only turn ugly when
1. mass unionised strikes are involved and
2. Greece would be on the international news anyway for other things.
I mean put yourself in the position of the peaceful protesters. Your union has declared a strike and a peaceful march into central Athens. But everytime this happens the marches are overshadowed by a tiny group of people causing trouble which in turn leads you into a cloud of tear gas and the risk you will be hit with pieces of masonary or trampled under the feet of your fellow protestors or unintentionally you will be associasted with a fire that kills 3 innocent people minding their ow
Is this going to make you more or less inclined to get involved with these protests? And if the answer is no, who stands to benefit from you not going into the street to voice your disapproval.
Are these anarchists being used by groups who want to discredit and discourage public displays of dissent against the politicians?
Athens News I belive touched upon this subject but I could be mistaken The agitators found a weak spot in the lower part of the square, where they “set base”, giving the police the opportunity to attack with every available mean in order to break the demonstration, including the peaceful protesters. The strange thing is that the agitators seemed to be coordinated to their target selection by the police’s use of stun grenades, as if it was some kind of internal code”.
Another article in Athens News quotes politicians whose quotes echo the same theme as this article A statement issued on Wednesday by the opposition Communist Party of Greece (KKE) referred to the violence in downtown Athens, condemning what it called the “the provocation by hood-wearing individuals and anti-riot police, exercised to terrorize the people and overshadow the success of the nationwide strike.”
[youtube
The KKE statement underlined that “the responsibility [for the violence] belongs to the government and the state mechanisms”, adding that “the people should not be intimidated and give their response to the terrorizing dilemmas or any intimidation effort”.
“The people must have faith in their power,” the KKE statement underlined.
On its part, the Radical Left Coalition (Syriza) condemned “the unsuccessful provocation at Athens’ Syntagma Square, attempted by circles of the terrified system of power”.
Syriza also condemned what it claims was the “presence of dozens of undercover police that wore hoods over their heads and in collaboration with police forces attempted to break up the tens of thousands of demonstrators who protested peacefully at Syntagma Square” and blamed the government stressing that it “chose violence over democracy”.
At 3.22 in this video you can see protestors turning on each other, I assume people trying to control the trouble makers [youtube
More Stories
Βασίλης Κασσελάκης: Ευπρόσδεκτες οι ψήφοι των Σπαρτιατών
Φορολογικές δηλώσεις: Ανοίγει σήμερα η πλατφόρμα – Από 1 Μαΐου ενεργοποιούνται τα τέλη κυκλοφορίας με τον μήνα
Άκης Σκέρτσος: Αποκαλύπτονται οι διαδρομές που συνδέουν τους λαϊκιστές των άκρων, τον «κασσελακισμό» με τον «βελοπουλισμό»