I just needed to write something down, to express it…

The news are now all around the world. A 15 year old died after a policeman shot him in the chest. And rioting masses arrived in the cities…

 

(song Quand on arrive en ville, from the musical Starmani, lyrics Luc Plamondon, music: Michele Berger for the no french speakers there is an english version http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8_Oym-3atw)

Two days before in greek cinema was released the new Clint Eastwood film The Changeling with Angelina Jolie, as Christine Collins, facing a corrupted LAPD system, in order to learn the truth about her son.

The problem is that in the 1930 story of the film the corrupted heads of the LAPD never got actually punished and Christine Collins never got paid by captain JJ Jones, despite winning the second lawsuit for 10.000 $. Captain JJ Jones and Chief  Davies were obliged to leave their posts only to be reinstalled after the protests faded. What a coincidence, a child is always the victim of our pathetic society

Two years ago in Greece, some policemen brutally beated a student during a protest. Their first claim was that he fell on a flower stand on the street. After a video was released showing them beating him people waited for the verdict. Finally nearly none got punished. Some got tranferred, some lost their job for a period.

On Saturday the untouchable cops, went once more out of the line. Again the first effort they made was to lie and try to change the facts, this time they even tried to re-edit some video they found. When the original video came out and witnesses cleared the facts, the two cops were prossecuted for murder in the first degree. It was though too late.

People were already furious, and the goverment asked from policemen to keep back. Great! We have people getting paid to protect citizens and their property, we let them act without any actual control, they kill someone and when cities are in flames, we tell them to keep back. So why do they actually exist? In two days police force proved to be completely incapable of anything: they just killed a citizen and they failed to protect the rest.

The goverment is trying hard to say that it has no responisibility. But excuse me when the only thing you do is just giving power to uneducated fools, you leave them untrained and there is no evaluation of their services, you are actually responsible. When you know that during protestations the biggest part of the riots come from masked policemen pretending to be anarchist or I don’t know what, just beacuse you have to find a way to make the prostest come to an end, you have to admit that the sunday all day burning of Athens was not a result of angry kids.

I stronly believe that today should have been a day with all schools closed, all people in the streets and no nose bleeding, but I don’t think that this is going to happen.

The press shows people’s anger, in an hysterical way to make everyone afraid. I walked in the centre of the city today during the new riots, things are not that dreadfull, with the exception of the police’s chemicals that make the air hard to breath. The most title was one of Espresso (a gossip newspaper in general) who underlined that the s15 year old was from the up-town suburbs, contrary to the punks that actually burned cars yesterday.

The think is that Alexandros Grigoropoulos that died on Saturday, was a victim of the police and the goverments of Greece, who never managed to really surpass the reminiscents of the dicatorship. I wish I could say that te 15 year old is a hero, as a lot say, but he is a victim of a society that closes its eyes for a long time, and when decides to acts, still is ruled by fear and stays home, because no matter how sad feels about something there are punks and anarchists in the streets. Let your fears control you and stay in beacuse the your bourgeoisie lifestyle may be in danger, and then go vote for the same people that led us here.

Students are supposed to have their teen angst, tehir dreams and the school to face not bullets from police officers. Oh yeap that’s the greek so in control society that their only problems are gays that got married, albanian criminals and rioting students. (shhh don’t mention corrupted politicians, police force and terrible economy) The country that shined through the Olympic Games just to fall into the abyss and even deeper.

So happy sometimes… I past the age of 15 and I am alive…

(Celine Dion – At Seventeen, covering Janis Ian classic)