all governments since the 1970s have stood by while an anarchist subculture grew, complete with its exclusive urban enclave […]
In regular intervals and on a variety of occasions… anarchists engage in violent demonstrations and widespread destruction. These are led by a hard core of 500 to 1,000 individuals which has grown in strength since the late 1990s and fantasizes that it is enacting some sort of 19th century social revolution against the bourgeois. Depending on the popularity of the issue they are joined, by hundreds or thousands of others of lesser commitment and varying motivations, from ideology to simple looting, who are nevertheless socialized into this culture.
Undergirding these actions is a more or less complete absence of sanctions – few people get arrested and almost no one gets sentenced. Participation in these riots is seen as a fun and low-risk activity, almost a rite of passage.
That is my colleague, Stathis Kalyvas, writing in the IHT. Greece is now entering its eighth day of riots. In essence, Stathis argues that social norms govern acceptable behavior, and a perverse set has been allowed to settle upon Greece. It’s an appealing theory, but one that has not been popular back home (judging, he says, by the angry hate mail).
Readers: alternative theories?
8 Responses
Well, this occupation is not in Greece! http://www.newschoolinexile.com/
It’s been a long time since 1986, when prof. Kalyvas graduated from Athens’ University. I suppose that the fact his whole academic career of the last 20 years or so is outside Greece has led him to generalizations and suppositions that wouldn’t stand even to his own mind if he could keep an eye on facts from a closer distance or a more objective perspective.
You’re asking: “why now, why in Greece, and why some youth and not others? Why do greater inequalities, greater poverty, and arguably greater political grievances not lead to violence in other nations?”.
I suppose you’d care for some short answers of a left-wing greek citizen living in Athens these harsh days:
Why now: Because there was a police brutality incident. Remember Rodney King?
Why in Greece: Is it just here? Check this: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/3796099/Nicolas-Sarkozy-u-turns-on-key-reform-pledge.html
Why some youth and not other: Generally, youth that has the priviledge to live in a socially active environment, that is universities and schools, are always ready to protest if they feel their rights are being threatened. Prof. Kalyvas tries to describe this active part of greek people as 500 hundred anarchists thirsty to use violence. Well, this is not the case.
I’d suggest http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/7781516.stm and http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/15/world/europe/15greece.html for a closer look to what’s going on in Greece.
Why not in other nations: That Sarkozy story gives a good answer to why this is not the right question.
Oh, and Exarchia is nothing like a no-man’s land for police, you know, it’s exactly the opposite. For God’s sake, a 15-year-old boy was shot by a cop there last week. Check http://exarchia.pblogs.gr/ for a neighborhood initiative (unfortunately in greek!).
And for some fun, a group of protesters takes over the national TV for 1.5 minute while the audience watches the prime minister take responsibility for a recent scandal: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PK9lpMk7fiY
Several journalistic reports mention “high youth unemployment” but provide no specifics.
It’s hard on the ‘Net to get a clear picture of the unemployment scene in Greece. A glance at:
http://www.indexmundi.com/greece/unemployment_rate.html
seems to show Greek unemployment overall declining. The Gini coefficient is narrowing too, and income inequality in Greece sure seems lower than in the USA. There may have been serious changes in 2007-8.
There may be more fine-tuned data available, but I think we need to look at other “causes” as well. And I believe some of these will turn out to be cultural.
It is interesting that until recently, many of the big public demonstrations in Greece were against perceived nomenclatural outrages by the Republic of Macedonia to the north, an impoverished state that posed no danger to Greece. Some very cruel official and unofficial embargoes, plus refusal to allow Macedonian admission to NATO and the EU, have contributed to a truly awful unemployment rate in that country. And Greeks in the streets did not seem very concerned about this at all.
One point that I have noticed in the observations made by those who have witnessed the riots is that very often, symbols of wealth and conspicuous consumption have been attacked.
They rioting is against the realities of economic exclusion. Those who riot just are tired of being told by the advertising/consumption machine that they are worthless, while that same satanic mill denies them social as well as economic participation in larger society.
@8:57: The Helena Smith article is evocative but feels muddled. Youth have grievances, which are linked to economic exclusion, low wages, or some (unspecified) set of anti-establishment values. That statement describes youth in approximately 90% of all nations, if not 100% in these uncertain times. The questions are: why now, why in Greece, and why some youth and not others? Why do greater inequalities, greater poverty, and arguably greater political grievances not lead to violence in other nations? If we see it in Greece, we ought to see it in dozens more locales, dozens of times more frequently. Smith’s article doesn’t answer these questions. It is atheoretical. Kalyvas may not be correct (his is a supposition, not a conclusion) but it has the advantage of being a clearly specified theory.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/14/greece-riots-youth-poverty-comment
this i think is a more informative-insightful article on the riots
Prof. Kalyvas analysis reminds me of how pointless and dangerous it is to analyse from a distance without considering the socio-cultural specificities of the situation, without attempting to know who the people involved are or what in fact they are protesting about. It seems that his anlaysis is primarily based on the media’s representation and so is highly problematic. The fact that his analysis is not popular back home I would assume has to do with him being really out of touch with ‘home’, although my guess would be that he never lived there…
‘Anarhist’ does not reflect the background or ideology of the protesters. It is a title given by the Greek media which has surprisingly beeing caught up with foreign media and is just being reproduced with no quetioning. I was on the phone with a friend who’s doing his PhD in Social Anthropology on the Greek demonstrations (he’s been conducting fieldwork for almost a year by now) and from being part of them he said the make up of the demonstrators is very mixed- highschool students, university students, immigrants (who have sentenced for most of the looting) and the so called ‘anarchists’.
The fact that Prof. Kalyvas condemns middle class students is also ungrounded and as the comment above says, invaluable. If anything, them being dissatisfied is perhaps even more understandable because of the exposure they have to opportunities in other EU countries for example. The largest percentage of them will have to, and do study outside of Greece. They are able to experience first hand the opportunities that arise for them in other countries and face the problem of being highly qualified, yet highly unemployed in Greece (unless it is to work for their parents and their parents’ friends…) An example of this is many students’ reasoning for doing a PhD in the UK which goes like this: ‘i’m 25, i’ve done a master’s here, i could go back to Greece but wont be able to do what i want, thats if i find a job at all- i might as well do a PhD and have funding for three years and think about this later…’
I think the real ‘rioting’ in these demonstrations is happening in how the Riots are represented by the media, which will in effect largely define the outcome. The sensationalist TV channels that have access to most Greek homes, and the internet, the channel of the demonstrators and the Universities that have been taken over as part of this.
He may be right, in the sense that the culture in Greece cultivates this kind of violent reaction. Certainly it seems likely that these riots, and probably most mass-riots of this kind, are fueled by a relatively small group of ideologically committed individuals. Indeed, this kind of behavior is common in other places in Europe as well (most notably, France).
However, this is not necessarily grounds for an immediate condemnation of this behavior, as Dr. Kalyvas seems to think. People – not even culturally entrained youth – do not riot for no reason whatsoever. Rioting of any kind on this kind of spontaneous scale are an indication of a deep dissatisfaction with some element of society. Riots may not be the most appropriate or effective response, but are almost invariably a manifestation of a feeling of dissatisfaction combined with powerlessness. Such acts beg us (especially those of us in academia or government) to delve deeper into the questions of why such feelings exist.
Dr. Kalyvas also contends that the youth involved in these riots are primarily well-off, middle class youth. I’ve seen no evidence to support nor disprove these claims in the international media coverage of the riots, so I’m not sure the contention has any value. Moreover, even if this is the case, that doesn’t give us the right to dismiss the dissatisfaction of these individuals as fake. Dr. Kalyvas seems to automatically judge their feelings as the the product of being frivolous and spoiled. Can’t middle class individuals have complaints about their government and society equally as valid as those of the poor? Certainly, middle class individuals can just as powerless as the poor (especially youth, who have no access to the corridors of power). In fact, I think a feeling of powerlessness among the youth is endemic across the western world – a feeling they will often attribute to corrupt, unresponsive, and irresponsible government. If these rioters are in fact middle class, perhaps that indicates a deeper social problem that needs our immediate attention.