Private ‘centers,’ public sins
The word “centers” sounds reassuring, especially when accompanied by the word “hospitality” or “welfare.” What does the automatic mental translator tell us when we hear “hospitality center” or “welfare center”? We think, “Here is a legally organized human space, with rules, order and accountability, which is under the administration of the state or under its strict and uninterrupted supervision, if it is managed by private individuals.”
Despite the well-sounding definitions, our experience of these centers, private and state-run (e.g. migration centers), becomes more bitter every year. So much so that we think that we have to adapt the famous saying of Greek poet Lorentzos Mavilis, that “vulgar language does not exist, there are only vulgar people,” and say that “there are no good words. There are good people.” When they exist.
The qualification for appointing an administrator to a state welfare center is traditionally his party affiliation. It doesn’t matter if he has any experience of this kind of job, as long as he has the right connections. The higher his connections, the higher the position he will be assigned, as a reward for his contribution to the party. In this case, the description “failed politician” does not even begin to describe the candidate, and yet this undesirable quality is a passport to the top of such public bodies.
Two centers have recently been in the media maelstrom. The first is the children’s charity Ark of the World, a private body after all, which apparently took advantage of all the opportunities offered to it by Greece’s dormant rule of law, and the dormant welfare state. In the ministries, they knew at least since August that Noah did not call the shots in that Ark (besides, Christianity after all, does not accept transmigration). And yet, they didn’t even care about protecting the witnesses. On the contrary, they allowed their personal information to be leaked and now they are being threatened by unknown individuals.
The second, the Social Welfare Center of Central Macedonia, is a state-owned center that houses children with disabilities. Here, complaints of child abuse went back two years, but the inaction of the authorities was older. On Nov ember 22, the ministry renewed the term of the center’s Board of Directors along with the president’s, Vasiliki Nakou, who failed twice to be elected, as a candidate of ruling New Democracy. Just three days later, the Board of Directors was ousted after the publication of the damning findings of the National Transparency Authority.
