The obsession with deconstruction

There are many issues and reasons to oppose the government. After all, we live in turbulent times and in a society that has been struck by two consecutive crises. But sometimes the opposition can go too far. The obsession with total deconstruction as a method of opposition is bound to bring negative results.

We are evidently a divided society. Neither fetishes nor idols exist, and rightly so. But when you try to virtually destroy young athletes who make Greece proud around the world, then you provoke the average Greek, irrespective of your political views. You fanaticize, perhaps, your own audience of hooligans, but at the same time you repel many people who need to feel proud of our country, without bitterness, without asterisks.

The same thing has been happening with the Hellenic Police (ELAS) since the Glyka Nera crime. When the crime occurred, the opposition argued that the problem was unbridled crime or, as some populists rushed to declare, the criminal code.

The Hellenic Police did its job well, as it has proven it can when there is the will. Only a few days later there began a vicious attempt to deconstruct this success. One might say that it is proper to ask questions about police conduct with regard to certain suspects. Of course it is. Democracies are judged by the manner in which institutions treat the weakest.

We have, between us, much less in common than in the past. This common denominator is hard to determine. Some things, however, have the power to unite the grand majority. Every citizen has the right to question, to doubt, to fight and to try to tear down these things. Democracy leaves enough room for everyone.

Let us not confuse the noise inside our echo chambers of public discourse with society. The politician who confuses the two risks ending up among a cluster of fanatics, and is then bound to crumble into the lower digits.