Civil Disobedience

“Do you hear that? Sounds like a protest,” my roommate Cassie says as we wander into the Temple of Olympian Zeus. “Wanna go check it out?” I say, enticed by the opportunity to observe civil disobedience. We followed the noise and chants for about 15 minutes until we finally arrived at the source:

(I took videos, which I'll upload (hopefully) soon, here are pictures for now)

The police were standing nearby with riot-gear on, watching patiently and giving the protesters plenty of room to march. Even the traffic diverted itself so the protesters could use the street (and this is a major street, equivalent of a highway), which was pretty impressive, since Athenian drivers don’t stop for anything. We tried to figure out why the protest was happening, but figured we could just ask one of the participants.

After asking around until someone vaguely understood English (even though they didn’t speak it very well, they could understand our questions), we found out that they aren’t happy with the current man in charge (he’s very dictator-like, apparently) and want to see changes in the government union.

What I found most fascinating about this entire event was the relationship between the police and masses. I’ve personally never had a bad experience with an American police officer, but I do know plenty of people who hate the police (most often because of how strictly they enforce drug laws, next most often because of how strictly they enforce traffic laws). Athenians and their police have a completely different dynamic—likely because the police officers here are extremely lax in enforcing drug/traffic laws, which I think they consider petty—and the protesters seemed to appreciate having the police around. The officers stood afar and observed, ready to intervene if things got violent but offering plenty of room to protest. They were even redirecting traffic instead of breaking up the protest!

The Greeks seem to be much less apathetic about their politics and government than Americans, too. Protests apparently happen very frequently here, though I can't say how effective they are. It’s also interesting to see “The Socialist Party” and “The Communist Party” in the playing field, instead of “The Conservative Party” and “The Slightly Less Conservative But Not Too Much Because We Don’t Want to Offend Party”.