Strange times, extreme and sad events, difficult human walks on burning pavements, general flows on informal rails that have been rickety and public conversations with expected arguments that few now pay attention to. But, as long as black and white have their own fight, the other colors come out victorious.
Beyond the shock and suffering over the Greek territory, the multifaceted sounds of human dignity are heard. The ones that come out of “musical instruments” held in the hands of sad and angry ordinary people. Of the daily toil, the fewer good times and the pervasive feeling that those who are attacked are the same…
Those who either leave their party identities at home or not, who descend on the demonstrations sometimes as people and sometimes as bearers of ideological commitments, have created in recent days a huge river of social-popular participation. Which reminds of old times. Which oblige the staffs of power to take them into account and make scenarios for the future…
Unfortunately, usually in such cases the reason that prompts such massive social movements is never good. We would like the streets to be filled with consciences ripe to claim in times of calm something more, but usually all this is “motivated” by desperate attempts to secure what is now in danger of being lost (and while conditions of universal storm prevail)…
Even the devotees of insurgent violence, the “known unknowns”, the “hoodies”, the anarchists and the so-called wild youth (a duo that has been working together in the metropolitan streets of Greece for decades), appeared and acted in the demonstrations of the biggest cities. Composing them too, with their own share, in the “art” of the photography of the moments. Spirits are sharpened, the death of so many people puts different units of measurement and different limits of acceptability in the so-called social-popular sensorium.
So many people are taking to the streets after the fatal accident in Tempe. Too many people, who with their volume convince you that the silent, usually, majorities have not forgotten to speak. Only now they do it less often than before. They don’t waste energy, but they know when and how…
But what do they want to say? Two things mainly… How they have no confidence in the political staff and how there are some limits to the consequences of the outbreaks. When material is accumulated over the years, the climate is already set. And any burdensome occasion acts as a real detonator. If in this country everything worked like a Swiss watch such a tragic event would be an unexpected tragedy for which it would be easier to heal the wounds it creates in time. But now it looks like the climax, the culmination of a premeditated crime for which the irresponsible-responsibles not only did not take care to avoid, but on the contrary they even hastened it. As if they needed it, someone sly would say, to run the pre-decided things faster…
Now many are looking to see how much and how the upcoming election will be affected by the Tempe accident. There will certainly be significant effects and perhaps some surprises. For me, it reinforces the expectations of those who would like an “ecumenical” scheme… In this text I consciously do not want to expand further on these demands. This is not the time… After all, each party seems to be planning its tactics to get the best possible electoral result when the polls are set. And it’s clear how each side is doing…
But here I think that the initiative of the movements is no longer with the parties. Not even of the Left, allow me to say… Today, the initiative lies with ordinary people. As it happened in 2012. What will ultimately result from all this? Hard to predict.
Let us at least hope that each individual will remember again that they are human and that they have both obligations and rights. Because if each and every one takes out and transforms the anger and pain of today as a responsibility in everyday life, the dead of Tempe will be honored in the most meaningful and long-lasting way, but also the path to meaningful social-popular conquests will have be engraved… Even if these traces will have a strong blood red color…
The point is that those forces which can help to grow flowers and hardy trees around will soon take the social reins…