Greek Fires - The terrible price of our apathy
ENGLISH August 29th, 2007
A large part of the Greek press seems to focus on the usual finger-pointing; the media in Greece is severely polarized and more or less follow the hard-coded lines of a political party. However, a few publications see things with objectivity and open-mindness, featuring editorials that attempt to step outside the box and treat this disaster caused by the Greek fires as a direct result of the people’s overall apathy.
One such great editorial article is summarized below:
The worst thing is that we will probably not learn anything from this disaster. We will continue to search for arsonists or for anarchists as more fires burn forests and more people die.We will condemn arsonists, the system, our “criminal society” in order to shirk our responsibilities. But there is one thing we will certainly not be doing, and that is to assess the situation with level-headedness, to ascertain where there were mistakes and omissions and to correct them. And tomorrow should we – God forbid – face an even greater disaster, we will take the same shortcuts and adopt the same temporary solutions.A country that does not learn from its mistakes will simply progress from disaster to disaster. It will mock the meticulousness of our fellow citizens in Western Europe, who scrupulously analyze every incident and implement measures that we – in our Eastern-style apathy – feel are unnecessary.
“Get real, what can possibly happen?” is our constant refrain every time there are calls for preventive measures, whether these relate to safety belts in cars or fire-safety zones in forests.
June 19th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
Basically in Greece, the biggest criminals of all are the politicians and people of power and prominence. Who do you think it was that set 3 million acres ablaze last year - you and me or some ordinary old crone who happened to be burning some brushwood or cooking out of doors or some Albanian doing some metallurgy work on the exterior of his house. Come on of course the fires were seat ablaze by people affiliated in high social circles and all this with the condoning of the fascist “New Democracy” government of Greece.
In light of the enormity of the disasters hardly anybody has bothered to do anything to avert this tragic state of affairs in our country. Everybody from citizens to politicians live in utmost apathy and the only thing concerning Greeks is whether they will have a Longchamp handbag, a Cayenne or other stupidily extravagant SUV car and in which hair and beauty salon they will be able to pay in excess of 150 euros per visit. And of course I forgot the most important of all, where they will build the next illegal villa -but in any case you can count for sure that it will always be built on land where forest used to be, where forest was purposefully burnt, where land has been set aside for re-forestation but this being Greece - this never materialises nevertheless, and you can witness a pattern starting to establish itself anywhere where it is deemed illegal to build.
Unfortunately Greece is the worst country in the entire EU, its citizens the worst and they deserve no less since ther only ploy is “well what’s the point-nothing will change” unfortunately if citizens of a country uphold such a mentality then they truly deserve the worst and will render their country in utter disaster. What really surpirses me most however, is that hardly anybody has taken any action - even albeit in the verbal or blog form via the internet - PEOPLE IN GREECE ARE TOO BUSY WITH ALL AFOREMENTIONED BEHAVIOURS AND LOST IN THE PRETEND-WORLDS OF MY-SPACE AND FACEBOOOK.
POOR GREECE YOU ARE DYING AND YET YOU STILL HAVE NOT REALISED THIS…..POOR GREECE
Just for the sake of mentioning, the fires in Greece last year killed 34 million birds in addition to the 92 people.Does anybody care? No! Will anybody care? No! Has anybody ever cared? No! Will anybody ever care? No.
I do my part as much as I can to protect my country!
1. I do not drive or own a car by personal choice.
2. I am an active volunteer for the Hellenic Ornithological Society in close cooperation with the R.S.P.B. of the UK.
3. Through my work in consulting, I try to become actively involved in projects which are closely associated or dedicated to environmental protection.
4. I try to discourage foreign tourists and visitors from visitng Greece informing them on each and every occasion of the very sorry state of affairs in Greece.
5. I try to encourage all fellow citizens to drop the car and do something for the environment but nothing - typical degenerate, third-rate Greek inferiority complex syndrome that “Only us Greek know best”.
It saddens me truly because I was born in the UK and lived all of my life in the UK, deciding to return to Greece in 1999 on a permanenet basis out of sheer want, love, care and interest at heart for my country Greece…….and look how Greeks who have never left treat Greece, look how the Greek politicians treat Greece, look how Greece comprises 90% citizens bearing and sustaining this inferiority complex driving wherever they can and doing whatever they like with their cars - running red lights - even the police and politicans do this with no apparent reason,, parking on pavements, parking on zebra crossings, parking on disabled acces parking spaces and other access spaces…
GRREKS ARE THE WORST RACE TRULY AND THEY DESERVE THE WORST - AND I AM GREEK……