‘Broken Greek’

Those who still believe that human genes are separated into two categories, making a small portion of the population good and righteous and all others prone to evil, were certain that the crime at Glyka Nera was a matter of ethnicity – i.e. not Greek. Such malice and brutality, they said, had to be imported. A Greek and Christian soul could not contain such darkness within, such wretchedness.

The fact that, according to the story that pilot Haralambos Anagnostopoulos wrote, directed and acted out on camera, the “murderer-robbers” spoke “broken Greek” was exactly the kind of explanation most people wanted to hear. So they could sleep peacefully and proudly. The pilot clearly knew which stories are popular, which would move the media and the public, which would sound plausible to the public authorities. He chose the most suitable story for the occasion and his empty, dry soul defended it better than any criminal expert ever could. He surely patted himself on the back when the police put a 300,000-euro bounty on those phantoms speaking in “broken Greek,” or when it was said that the perpetrators were “most likely Georgians, although the authorities cannot eliminate the possibility that they are Albanian.”

And now what? With intolerable arrogance, or mere naivete, the Community of the Georgian Diaspora “expresses its sorrow for the way these events were covered by the Greek media,” and complains that a fellow Georgian was arraigned and tortured in order to confess to a crime he hadn’t committed, adding that it “expects the Greek media to redress this repeated public vilification of the Georgian community.” Let them expect that.

The Albanians, even more denigrated, declare that they’re not only expecting redress but also a “public apology for the constant vilification of their own community.” Let them expect that too. Where do these people live? Have they not realized, after all these years, that public apologies are not part of our great culture? Have they not realized that here the media are always right, even if they do commit grave errors? What do they expect after that? Citizenship? Oh boy, do they need Makis Voridis.