When Chemicals Collide
"It seems that fate is intent on making fools of us all."
"What is a democracy that can be usurped by the people?"
Yesterday, I was tear-gassed. I saw the most intense fires , the scaredest group of cops, and the youngest mob of cop-hating, debris-launching students. And immigrant looters. It may seem obvious, even a priori, to decide what went on here. Over-reaction, unthinking violence, tyranny of emotion, large-scale peer pressure. But watching all the destruction first-hand was one of the most pensive moments of my life. All the answers, judgments, and pronouncements that my upbringing had prepared for such an event were for me only the first words in a still ongoing dialogue. So as you look at the images, which normally may evoke certainty and even a touch of gratitude that we do not live in a country that cannot maintain the "proper" order, I hope they instead cause you to think about why this happened, what such actions really signify stripped of their stupidity and youthful excess, and how they relate to what we have in our past styled as more honorable protests, demonstrations, and rebellions against authority.
In case the cause of the riots is unknown to anyone, here is a brief, though still vague, summary: during some rather typical demonstrations, a 15 (or 16?) year old boy was shot and killed by a policemen. The police maintain that the cop fired two shots in the air and one into the ground, which ricochet-ed and hit the boy. Witnesses say that he fired at the victim. Forensics is supposed to confirm one of the stories today. Either way, the anarchist movement was incensed at this latest infringement of propriety by the police--and ultimately an in their minds inefficient and corrupt government--and began organizing demonstrations throughout the country, aimed at any symbol of the state or mass commercialism.
With apologies for any misrepresentation or implied stance that my own subjectivity has transmitted.
Just after I took this (of a cell phone store), about ten guys, seemingly immigrants, ran in and looted the store. Before that little or nothing had been taken by the vandalizers, who had long since passed by.
Protestors spray painted "15 year old dead/ Cop-pigs murderers" in front of the Parliament building in the main square of Athens.
Moments later, a troop of riot police march over the graffiti.
Firement work to put out a four-story building engulfed in flames. By the time I arrived it was impossible to tell what business originally was run there. Later on we saw a travel agency ablaze. It's unclear if these were targeted or just on the route of the rioters and especially susceptible to the molotov bombs.
A snack shop stays open directly next door to a completely burned out building (actually, part of the same building, but protected by the concrete walls).
The not-to-be-spared downtown McDonalds, doors battered in, garbage bins overturned. The cash registers were also uprooted behind the counter.
"What is a democracy that can be usurped by the people?"
Yesterday, I was tear-gassed. I saw the most intense fires , the scaredest group of cops, and the youngest mob of cop-hating, debris-launching students. And immigrant looters. It may seem obvious, even a priori, to decide what went on here. Over-reaction, unthinking violence, tyranny of emotion, large-scale peer pressure. But watching all the destruction first-hand was one of the most pensive moments of my life. All the answers, judgments, and pronouncements that my upbringing had prepared for such an event were for me only the first words in a still ongoing dialogue. So as you look at the images, which normally may evoke certainty and even a touch of gratitude that we do not live in a country that cannot maintain the "proper" order, I hope they instead cause you to think about why this happened, what such actions really signify stripped of their stupidity and youthful excess, and how they relate to what we have in our past styled as more honorable protests, demonstrations, and rebellions against authority.
In case the cause of the riots is unknown to anyone, here is a brief, though still vague, summary: during some rather typical demonstrations, a 15 (or 16?) year old boy was shot and killed by a policemen. The police maintain that the cop fired two shots in the air and one into the ground, which ricochet-ed and hit the boy. Witnesses say that he fired at the victim. Forensics is supposed to confirm one of the stories today. Either way, the anarchist movement was incensed at this latest infringement of propriety by the police--and ultimately an in their minds inefficient and corrupt government--and began organizing demonstrations throughout the country, aimed at any symbol of the state or mass commercialism.
With apologies for any misrepresentation or implied stance that my own subjectivity has transmitted.
Just after I took this (of a cell phone store), about ten guys, seemingly immigrants, ran in and looted the store. Before that little or nothing had been taken by the vandalizers, who had long since passed by.
Protestors spray painted "15 year old dead/ Cop-pigs murderers" in front of the Parliament building in the main square of Athens.
Moments later, a troop of riot police march over the graffiti.
Firement work to put out a four-story building engulfed in flames. By the time I arrived it was impossible to tell what business originally was run there. Later on we saw a travel agency ablaze. It's unclear if these were targeted or just on the route of the rioters and especially susceptible to the molotov bombs.
A snack shop stays open directly next door to a completely burned out building (actually, part of the same building, but protected by the concrete walls).
The not-to-be-spared downtown McDonalds, doors battered in, garbage bins overturned. The cash registers were also uprooted behind the counter.
posted by Jeremy LaBuff at 12:38 AM
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