What ex-minister Avgenakis reminded us
Why shouldn’t a minister who blackmails people whose homes and businesses have been destroyed by floods, saying that they won’t get any compensation unless they vote “correctly” in the local elections (as Lefteris Avgenakis did in Thessaly in the fall of 2023), go on to physically bully an employee who won’t let him break the rules (as he did last week at Athens Airport)?
He will because he believes that his immunity from prosecution as a member of Parliament is a guarantee that he’ll also skate away from criminal action, that his party is hospitable to autocratic and antisocial personalities like he is, and that its voters are accustomed to and tolerant of such delinquent behavior.
Avgenakis was ousted from ruling New Democracy’s Parliamentary Group (though not from the party itself!) because a video was made public showing him physically assaulting an airline clerk who did not treat him as being above the rules. Five whole days passed from when the incident occurred for the prime minister to react, even though the union representing airport employees had filed a formal complaint and the police had become involved, obviously informing the political leadership.
In other words, if the incident had not been captured on camera and made public, Avgenakis would probably have carried on with his vacation in Crete, which he represents in Parliament, without any judicial or political backlash.
This recent incident involving Avgenakis reminds us not just that some animals are more equal than others in this farm called Greece, but mainly that these superior animals can devour the smaller ones without fear, because they are at risk only if luck (and not the state) sides with the weak. When the perpetrator of a crime is part of the political or economic elite, the institutions and the state of law respond only by happenstance and only on some occasions.
An Avgenakis who commits violence off camera is most likely never to get punished because he is protected by a system that is tailor-made in his favor and at the expense of anyone, man or woman, who stands against him on his destructive path.
The terrified young clerk at the airport discovered in no uncertain terms that all passengers do not have the same rights and obligations, and that he can get in trouble if he’s not lenient – subservient in fact – to those “above” him. The same has happened to ushers who won’t let latecomers into the theater, servers who didn’t wait on a bigwig’s table first, to salespeople who reacted to an insult from a disgruntled customer and to employees who rejected the sexual advances of their superiors.
If the law of the jungle is not diffused into social media, the victims of oppression, exploitation and violence may have no recourse but to fear and despair. Even then, every Avgenakis can remain a member of Parliament and have a police officer protecting them.
