Riots in Greece aftermath - les Fleurs Du Male

It is inevitable that the sun will rise at the beginning of a new day. Not every day; but on most days this simple truth has held true so far.

The prevailing opinion was that "Greece is relatively sheltered from the crisis"; "Greece is fairly stable financially speaking". Well, these famous last words didn't last long before reality suddenly came crashing in, doing away with what can easily be now called wishful thinking. Out of seemingly nowhere, pent-up anger, frustration, even rage consumed the centers of all major Greeks cities for a few days - for Athens and Thessaloniki, the two largest cities, that was about two weeks.

All hell broke loose, as "anarchists" burned down cars, banks, shops and everything that was readily accessible. Almost without fail, day after day, a bit after the sun disappeared into the Greek seas, the Greek mainland was burned down by the angry protesters. Shop owners would not repair the damages, as they knew that come next day, they'd have to repair them anew. And in the morning, the smell of freshly burned garbage fouled major streets and avenues where real estate value in the not so distant past soared at several thousand Euros per m2. This, day after day, was what life in the center of Thessaloniki and Athens was like - not in 1821, the date Greece became an independent state, but in 2008.

The Greek political system was slow to respond, if it did respond at all. In a climate of despair and pending doom, trapped into a whirlwind of scandals and widespread corruption, ranging from Siemens to the "holy scandals" of Vatopedio, the government obviously decided to wait this one out. And so did the opposition. To be quite frank, nobody here in Greece knows where either party stands - or what really happened during this time. The whole thing is but a blur for most and what's left is essentially just a severe case of hangover.

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