Photos of riots in Greece
Boston.com's "The Big Picture" has an amazing portfolio of photos from the riots in Greece, which erupted after Special Guards of the Greek police shot a 15-year-old boy. Shown here: "Youths vandalize the inside of a bank branch during a night of riots in Athens on December 08, 2008." (Angelos Tzortzinis/AFP/Getty Images)
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The kids are alright.
Wow. So what will Greece do to restore order?
anyone in Greece care to explain this phenomena?
Read the first comment on this event announcement for a perspective from someone from Greece:
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/90166
As for "restoring order" I think the point is that the people who are suppose to maintain order are corrupt, murderous and brutal. "Order" is just code for people rolling over while the fascists and the police kill people with impunity.
Dec 20th is the International day of Solidarity against Police Brutality and State Murders. Please organise in your community!
This doesn't look like Revolution 2.0 to me. All the violence is just playing into the fascists' hands.
BTW, wikipedia has a great article on the whole affair:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Greek_riots
the photo of the guy firing a slingshot wearing a nike jacket is amazing.
That photo-set didn't show a single instance of police violence or misconduct, something which is happening constantly in Greece right now. There are also widespread accounts of neo-nazis acting as de-facto riot control, fully supported by the police.
Obviously really crazy, violent stuff is happening in Greece, but this photo-set gives a profoundly one-sided account of it.
http://athens.indymedia.org/ is a good resource to get the other side, if anyone's interested.
These photos are beautiful.
Forget your politics and what you think is the right response to state-sanctioned brutality, because these images were posted because they are really well done.
Kudos to the phototags who risked their safety to make these well-documented, dynamic images.
And kudos to Boston.com's large format presentation of these professional shots.
i love how greece can respond with such passion and fury over the death of one boy but in america so many people have been wronged by our government and nothing happens.
Zikzak - they're one sided, but what side they're on isn't really apparent. From your comment, I assume you feel they're critical of the rioters. Other commenters here on BoingBoing seem to feel the opposite.
I do have to wonder how safe it is to take photos of police brutality in Greece right now. If I were the kind of base thug that would brutalize folks from behind the protection of a badge, I'd be really leery of more inflamatory footage getting into the media to spur the rioters on further.
magnificent photography!
I'm conflicted about the photos. On one hand, they document an important current event, and do it beautifully. Give the photographers the awards they deserve.
But at the same time, I don't want to think of these images as beautiful. I don't want to look at fires, and riots, and urban destruction as beautiful images. I don't like people who romanticize these things. Its far to easy to get caught up in this mob mentality, no matter what side of the conflict you're on.
This isn't revolution. This is a side effect of all the things that are wrong with the modern world. The kid who got shot just provided enough spark to push the tension over the edge. Burning everything down won't fix corruption, or fascism, or poverty, but its the only thing a mob knows how to do.
Breathtaking fire photos. And why are there so many beautiful protesters? The photos are like shots from a European art film!
there is much more in the fire besides a mob.
I am trying to understand what's going on here, but it's all Greek to me.
Thanks to this Boing Boing post and the commenter's links, I understand the situation much better (the news reports I've been reading didn't seem to give a full, clear picture).
I also must join Clueless (#8) in saying that despite the distress and chaos they report, the pictures are absolutely breathtaking. I just couldn't help being in awe. I suspect that calling them 'art' is totally beside the point (and the political discussion) but on the other hand, they strike me as a shining example of what art can be: Skillful, eloquent and thoroughly relevant.
Politics aside, the photos are downright stunning. Almost too beautiful to be true. Great find.
Comment #728 under the photos on that page is really noteworthy. It contains an anti-materialist letter/poem that the poster claims was written by the shooting victim's friends, and distributed at his funeral.
Ah, whites vs. reds. Who says history never repeats?
#12, ChrisL
These are beautiful.
Beauty is not pretty.
@jerril: It's not that they're critical of the rioters or not, it's that they only report what's happening on one side.
The situation in Greece isn't just a riot, it's a fairly widespread civil uprising in which two forces are fighting against each other. Almost all of these pictures depicted the establishment suffering violence at the hands of anti-establishment forces, and not one of the pictures showed the reverse.
I trust people to decide for themselves whether they think smashing the shit out of a bank is awesome or not, but the discussion should also be about whether smashing the shit out of kids doing civil disobedience is awesome or not.
Most of these are shots are really breathtaking and moving at first sight. Hopefully they will in some indirect way help the situation.
I couldn't help but notice the gun flag thing:
http://cache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/athens_12_15/a34_17349929.jpg
Reminds me of a book I very nearly bought once about the graphic design that exists in protest--damn near heraldic images designed with easy reproduction, instantaneous shock value, and a message in mind. If anyone has or knows the name of this book, please link it so I can stop losing sleep over it.
Problem with the media is they focus a lot on the riots and no one shows how many protesters demonstrate peacefully and how fast police shower them with tear gas to prevent a riot. As far as destroyed property is concerned, this is because there's all sorts of people rioting for different reasons (or just looting). Then again, local banks have destroyed a lot more small businesses and people and are left unpunished like the totally corrupt political system that supports them.
Just last night a young man in the suburbs was shot on his wrist by an unknown shooter. At first it was reported as a bb gun shot but later on the ballistics report mentioned a firegun direct shot.
The photo used in this article is from a bank being vandalized and ironically enough, the poster ad on the right translates as "save your euros"...
As a Greek I would like to express my thoughts on recent events in Greece.
It is my opinion that this is nothing more than an attempt by extreme left wing thugs to strike at the very heart of our society. It is not an uprising.
Greece has a very strong democracy, where we can do or say pretty much whatever we want. If the Greek people are unhappy about a situation or a public figure they have no problem getting to the streets and demonstrating. No one will or can stop us. We can demonstrate anywhere and anytime, without restrictions and without needing a license from the police.
This situation is totally different. These vandals, these barbarians tried to set fire to national treasures, like the National Library, http://www.nlg.gr/english/index.php , and the National Archeological Museum, http://odysseus.culture.gr/h/1/eh151.jsp?obj_id=3249 ,that houses some of most important classical works of art.
These people hate their own country. They are violent nihilists who have nothing to offer so they just want to destroy everything.
Their actions are condemned by all major political parties that represent 95% of the Greek people. The only party that supports them is the Coalition of Radical Left Movements who are going to find themselves marginalized by the Greek people for offering political and organizational support to group of armed thugs and looters.
The Rioting is still going on, now in it's 13th day. Best watched from the roof-top cafeteria at the Great britain hotel. Parts of Athens now look like Beirut during the civil war..or downtown Detroit.
Most of the professional photographers now shoot only with tele-lenses or from roof-tops because the rioters are turning against them too. I've seen 3 instances of rioters VS photographers violence. Yesterday they ripped a Canon DSLR out of the hands of a Swedish guy right in front of me.
To say the situation is out of control is an understatement, the government and police appear to be paralyzed, and the rioters strike at will on the targets of their choice: Universities, banks, police stations (even the HQ)and hundreds of random shops and offices. I took some pictures too, during night with a compact camera (Panasonic LX3, incredibly capable little cam.):
http://www.estiasis.com/v/chino/Riots/?g2_page=1
I'm going downtown right now, will upload more pics tomorrow.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z_(film)
It doesn't matter how shitty the police are. Doing what some of the protesters are doing is flat out wrong. Destroying property, especially of utterly innocent parties, does nothing. Even if you can justify burning down a Starbucks or whatever in your head because it is a big evil corporation, your vandalism just put some working SOB out of a job.
People who do this crap are either zealous idiots or opportunistic assholes who care nothing for their cause. They harm countless innocents and set public opinion against their cause.
If you want to see civil disobedience done right, study the American civil rights movement. In fact, a lot of places in the world could learn a thing or two from that time in America not just on injustice, but how to fight it. The US civil rights movement victories didn't come from the occasional spats of violence that punctuated it, but from the peaceful protests that won the hearts of the people. When battling a government that refuses to use its full force (i.e. they won't go Tiananmen on you), especially a democratic government, violence by protesters is always a failure and a loss for the movement.
I was in Athens last week. I fail to see how smashing the windows of coffee shops, setting fire to private cars and ATMs, trashing bank branches, looting small jewelry shops, and breaking into travel agencies is a proper form of political protest. None of it was beautiful. A lot of these shop-owners could not afford insurance, so now that everything has been broken and stolen their lives are basically ruined. Furthermore, conversations with locals (who were in a bit of despair over a bad economy before this all started and are now totally screwed) revealed that nobody felt really sure who was behind the riots. No one seemed to believe it was merely a popular violent uprising; it was assumed hidden players were using the shooting death of Grigoropoulos as their chance to cause politically useful chaos. The guy we met who seemed best informed was of the mind that the far right was behind it. There was clearly also a lot of simple opportunistic looting. The students are legitimately unhappy with their country; they study for years for degrees, only to find that satisfying job opportunities are just about nonexistent in the Greek state. But this is not the right way to change things. That said, these shots are terrific photojournalism and it's perfectly fine to commend the photographers on getting memorable shots.
Strophe,
Urban Guerrilla Protest?
I saw a similar book, with a black cover and (I think) a molotov or fire symbol in red, about the same thing - but more about graffiti than banners. Can't remember what it's called or find it on Amazon though..
Wow. Just wow.
Last week a 15 year old boy was shot by police in Melbourne Age Story.
It's been quite the news story as Police shooting people doesn't take place too often down here and certainly not against people that young.
"Tyler is the youngest person to be fatally shot by Victoria Police, according to the chief executive of the Youth Affairs"
All that said, this story is nothing compared to what's happening over there and I can't imagine that level of rioting ever happening in Australia.
Until of course global warming fucked up everything.
Ito, did you miss this historical series?
I'm conflicted too. Generally violence goes against everything I believe, yet when I look at those photos I feel a warm inner glow.
I have a question for the Greeks reading and posting here: What is needed to fix (repair) Greece?
Me @ 31
Oops, Itsumishi, not Ito.
I'm feeling polemic.
Greek anarchists are well known for their persistence, militancy, and willingness to start fights rather than always reacting to the state. There seems to be a good deal of post-left sentiment. It flies in the face of rights, democracy, citizenship, property, and all the other lies that bind this world. Fires are the only things of beauty that can grow from a world covered in buildings, cars, and paving stones.
Nation states are in trouble. The plunder pyramid is crumbling. As the globalized corrupt corporations have turned democracies into a farce through their proxies politicians, soldiers, police and preachers, they have cut the branch they have been sitting on.
Oh yeah, greed is good. More the better. The sooner the global atheist "establishment" joins the fossils of history. Welcome to 21st century.
Nothing makes you feel more alive that being in the midst of large scale civil disobedience.
Greek Anarchists have been fighting the police for a long time. This is the most widespread resistance for a long time, but police stations have been getting firebombed and police cruiser torched for years. One aspect of the current struggle is the widespread school occupations that are going on, including over 200 high schools across Greece.
The best coverage I've found is here
http://anarchiststrategy.blogspot.com/
In response to post #19, there have also been attacks by anarchists against Communist Party offices in response to the CP's alliance with the state.
Akirabergman
I reject your athiest slant.
#39 ARKIZZLE
While there are many atheists who I appreciate, I also see that they are a reflection of the theist extremists. The fuzzy tip of the plunder pyramid are also atheists. Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut is actually a reference to and warning about these atheist cults who are all powerful and all seeing. Just check your dollar bill. They are a cynical bunch, to say the least, and their god is money and power. They use religious extremists as proxies. They are a reflection of the sheepish consumer culture.
Nothing is certain in reality. You are stuck in the certainty of atheism and that makes you a religious extremist. Listen to some Bach. Have a look at the night sky. Hear the music. Restore your faith in the creation. Feel the creator within you. Improvise a song.
Akirabergman, I can only presume you researched my religious views to be so sure of what I believe.
That said; I am not in an atheist cult. My god is neither money nor power. If you knew me or my life you could not, in good faith, say that I'm "a reflection of the sheepish consumer culture".
I was an atheist before I knew what "theist extremists" were. I was an atheist before I knew what religion or god was, or anything in fact. Before I could read or speak, before a sense of self had even manifested itself within my brain, I was as without-god as I am now.
Just as I am not-a-ballerina, or not-a-driver-of-cars, I am also not-a-believer-in-the-supernatural. It has never come up, I have never tried my hand. You talk as if the supernatural is plainly manifest, and the choice is to believe or not. I say the world before me is manifest, and the choice is to embellish it or not.
"Nothing is certain in reality. You are stuck in the certainty of atheism and that makes you a religious extremist."
By that logic, all but the confirmed agnostics are religious extremists, and not just 'wrong'. How utterly ridiculous. People believe stuff, on faith or proof. If nothing is certain in reality, then, according to your logic, we are all physical-reality-extremists for even engaging in the world, and not curling up fetal, and wallowing in solipsism.
In fact I agree, in philosophical terms, that "nothing is certain in reality", but you have mistaken that as a vote for your team, and not a general rule of the game.
#41 ARKIZZLE
"I can only presume you researched my religious views to be so sure of what I believe."
I am not into that kind of thing. I just followed your comments here. I don't hide behind an alias either. What you see is what you get.
"If you knew me or my life you could not, in good faith, say that I'm "a reflection of the sheepish consumer culture"."
As I said, I appreciate many atheists. If my comments have been hard, please forgive me.
"I was an atheist before I knew what "theist extremists" were."
I have been attracted to atheists all my life as well, probably as a reaction to growing up in an oppressive Islamic society. But I have mellowed in the last few years. Maybe as a sign of middle age ;-) Seriously tho, adopting animals, seeing the natural destruction, listening to music, and most importantly being free of work have helped a lot.
Lately I have been really disappointed by few atheists like Dawkins, P.Adams and some others. They won't attack the really hardened super rich, but instead attack the weak. Adams is sponsored by the establishment, and Dawkins seems to be so as well. Have you noticed how they flooded the market with atheist books in the last few years. They were very quiet when Bush almost declared a christian crusade against the whole world. I think it is all about damage control.
"You talk as if the supernatural is plainly manifest, and the choice is to believe or not."
While I can see the miracle that is the existence and the universe, I never referred to an almighty. I would rather find comfort in my nothingness. I don't believe in an all powerful supervising entity separate from reality. If I believe in anything, it is that the whole thing is a creation fractal. We all take equal part in it. In that way, it seems very open and democratic. I hope this clears the reference to agnostics.
Best regards.
I said: "I can only presume you researched my religious views to be so sure of what I believe."
You said: "I am not into that kind of thing. I just followed your comments here."
That was my point; your presumption of my beliefs. You boxed and lectured me before you even knew a thing about me, other than the six words I wrote to you.
You said: "I never referred to an almighty."
You also said: "Feel the creator within you.
They sounded like the same thing to me.
"If I believe in anything, it is that the whole thing is a creation fractal. We all take equal part in it. In that way, it seems very open and democratic."
And you quibble with me over "nothing is certain in reality"? Surely all we have is our senses and our thoughts, and anything else is supposition. I don't see atheism as somehow more 'extreme', theistically, as your ideas.
Honestly, some of the things you have written make you sound like a kook. A friendly kook, but a kook nonetheless. Not your ideas of reality (whatever), but all the "fuzzy tip of the plunder pyramid" and the "check your dollar bills" bits. You sound like a conspiracy nut, but you replaced "Jew" with "Atheist" in the tired, old secretly-ruling-the-banks-and-world meme.
#43
"You boxed and lectured me before you even knew a thing about me, other than the six words I wrote to you."
The current atheist philosophy you subscribe to is more than enough to make comments about you. They are crude materialists. They claim that there are no spirits. That the observable universe is all there is. Let me tell you something, it is not. There seem to be infinite dimensions outside this universe.
"You said: "I never referred to an almighty."
You also said: "Feel the creator within you.
They sounded like the same thing to me."
They are not. You are the product of the creator within you. It is you.
"Honestly, some of the things you have written make you sound like a kook. A friendly kook, but a kook nonetheless."
Now you are the one jumping. You must have felt an opening. And all the other insults. It shows you are hurt. Do some research on OBE. There is a current link at the Reality Carnival;
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article5324234.ece
"The current atheist philosophy you subscribe to is more than enough to make comments about you."
No. Seriously. WhoTF are you? You don't know me from your mother. You have no clue what "current atheist philosophy" I subscribe to. You need to stop telling me who I am, and who "they" are, it is paranoic broad-strokes with little basis.
"They are crude materialists. They claim that there are no spirits. That the observable universe is all there is. Let me tell you something, it is not."
I never said there is nothing but the observable universe. I said that all we have are our senses and our thoughts. Not the same thing at all.
"You are the product of the creator within you. It is you."
Solipsism then.
"Now you are the one jumping. You must have felt an opening. And all the other insults. It shows you are hurt. Do some research on OBE. There is a current link at the Reality Carnival;"
You have connected the comment I made to the answer you wanted to give. I specifically said nothing about the kookiness of your ideas about reality. If you continue the quote you took "..but a kook nonetheless. Not your ideas of reality..".
Not connected after all then. I said, in different words, that your remixing and replaying of old conspiracy memes made you sound like a kook. They do.
#45 ARKIZZLE
"I said, in different words, that your remixing and replaying of old conspiracy memes made you sound like a kook."
I see. You were in fact angry with the "plunder pyramid" and the "establishment" comments. Why don't you say so from the beginning? Beating around the bush trying to hide your motivations. That makes makes you an agent. There are so many around the web, jamming the critical sites. It is called cyber wars. I won't reply to any more of your comments.
Ahhhh Hah hah haha hah Haahahaha haa hah hah!
Well played ya fckin* kook. I nearly fell for it. Woo, that was good. you should stay around here, that kind of razor-sharp wit is welcome..
* self dv'd, coz I'm playing nice