Athens did not turn into Paris, thankfully. Nor did it become Marseille, Milan or Tirana, which is even better.
We owe this to the limited numbers and passion of the protesters, to the restraint of the political forces that support or incite them and, of course, to the readiness of the security forces.
They were not caught off guard, as happened in France. Not to mention that stores had taken precautions and secured their windows before the “activist” looters showed up.
Of course, the TV crews that rushed out to capture “The Last Days of Pompeii” were left standing around with their cameras in hand.
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We won’t shed any tears. It simply seems that Pompeii has more days ahead of it.
Behind all this, however, lies a reasonable conclusion. Greek society may grumble, be frustrated and struggle, but it is not up in arms.
Poll after poll shows a political landscape that is remarkably stable, with only minimal ups and downs.
The older parties have no real momentum, the newer ones are struggling when they are not losing ground, and the balance of power is hardly changing.
That makes sense. Any political shift requires political events to happen, and no one has claimed that the clash between Vissi and Karvelas counts as a political event.
In other words, for the current situation to be overturned, someone or something has to overturn it. So far, we have seen neither.
But there is a simple explanation for this. We all understand that the governing party is heading to the polls with a dilemma that may be real or manufactured, but is in any case unspoken: “Mitsotakis or chaos.”
It is a dilemma that is reinforced by the unstable international situation.
What are the others doing? Of course, no one is asking them to choose Mitsotakis.
They could, however, do a little less to feed the image of chaos. Above all, they could put forward a convincing alternative plan for governing. At the very least, they could tell us who would govern and how.
Nothing. They do none of this and simply fight among themselves.
Under the current conditions, then, I suspect that even if Mitsotakis takes a beating in the first election, he will sweep them all away in the second.
And for anyone who believes he will step down if he drops to 25%, I have an even better story.
It is called “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” and it features evil queens, handsome princes and poisoned apples.
As for Snow White, I won’t comment; that is a matter of taste. But as for the dwarfs, I will leave it to your imagination.