A tragedy’s inconceivable aftermath

The head-on collision of two trains on the country’s main railway line at Tempe on the night of February 28, 2023, was inconceivable. It cost the lives of 57 people, left many more injured, and plunged their relatives and all of Greece into mourning. We had an urgent need to understand how this could happen, to see those responsible brought to account. We needed to see procedures, mechanisms and a new mentality that would never allow a repeat of such an accident. But what followed was just as unthinkable. Instead of all acknowledging the chronic errors which kill, which undermine every national and personal effort, our public life, our state services and our institutions quickly went back to business as usual.

The government wanted to get past the issue as quickly and painlessly (for itself) as possible, whereas the opposition parties’ priority was to damage the government as much as possible without pushing to get to the core of the problem. Shortly after the crash, the nation’s shock and the conspiracy theories that thrive in such a climate, shook people’s sense of security. The elections that followed showed their need for stability, as they granted New Democracy a comfortable majority in Parliament. But the pain provoked by Tempe did not ease, nor was it forgotten. The victims’ relatives demanded answers, as suspicions grew that the government was hiding something. The government, in turn, seemed to take its eye off the ball, perhaps because of its comfortable election win and the lack of a credible opposition party. Its manipulation of the parliamentary inquiry and the arrogant comments of some ministers strengthened the impression that the government’s priority was to close the issue as quickly as possible rather than to get to the root of what happened and who was to blame.

In all, the government appeared unable to disentangle itself from the functioning of institutions, which should have had the sole responsibility for dealing with the issue. So, when the right opportunity arose (the government’s falling out with a powerful businessman), opposition parties seized the opportunity to call for a no-confidence vote in Parliament. The government replied with the claim that it is being attacked by the tangled web of political-business-media interests that wield undue influence in Greece. If the year since the Tempe tragedy has shown anything, it is that we are still far from our destination – the country that we want to live in.