Selective condemnation of violence
If a few days ago, when petrol bombs and naval flares were raining down on people during clashes between police and hooligans in Renti, a bystander or one of the hundreds of unsuspecting fans who had gone to the stadium to watch a match had been injured, then many would have protested – and rightly so – about the responsibilities of the police who did not prevent the tragic event, or their responsibility for not arresting the culprits in time.
Indeed, if the victim had been injured by police, then the protests and rallies would have been numerous and intense, and quite rightly so, because police officers are professionals whose job it is to ensure the safety of citizens, and therefore cannot pull a gun on civilians, except in extremely rare cases, which are very strictly defined by law and strictly controlled.
Police violence and abuse of power, after all, are not compatible with a mature European-style democracy, as Greece has been for decades now.
They are characteristics of regimes we see in other parts of the world.
The serious injury of the policeman in the tragic clashes in Renti, however, showed that a lot of people appear to have selective sensitivities to violence. They condemn it on a case-by-case basis, depending on the victim, while there are also those who instrumentalize the condemnation of violence, giving their protests an ideological tinge.
The selective condemnation of violence, however, takes us far back, rekindling social syndromes that were created in politically turbulent times. Condemnation of violence cannot have any ideological color nor can it be amenable to selective approaches.
The choice of whether to condemn violence really shows that we have not yet matured enough as a social body, seeing some of the reactions to the grave injury of the officer, which would have been completely different if the victim was a civilian.
With these facts in mind, the visit by the leader of the leftist main opposition SYRIZA party, Stefanos Kasselakis, to the hospital, where he was personally informed about the health of the injured policeman, is a move that declares to everyone that violence only has victims and only condemnation is appropriate.
Otherwise, if the victim determines the reaction, what really happens is that some people cunningly turn a blind eye to the perpetrators.
