The current government now resembles a corruption reality show. Only it doesn't have commercials in between – it has scandals. One after the other, at a pace that doesn't allow the previous one to be archived. And every time, like a well-tuned clock, the prime minister appears with a stern look, a blue tie and another announcement to tell us that... he knew nothing.
He didn't know about the wiretapping. He didn't know about Predator. He didn't know about the monkey bonuses to OPEKEPE. He didn't know about the golden boys who hoarded money on the backs of the people. He didn't know about the sell-off of EYP, nor about the Patsis lists, nor about the offshore loans. He didn't know about anything. And when he doesn't declare ignorance, he declares slander. All liars, all morons, all envious of the "efficiency" of the government.
Amidst all this orgy of impunity and misinformation, the crime of Tempi stands like a bloodstained tombstone on the word “irresponsibility.” Dozens of young people were lost because of a state structure that operates – or rather does not operate – based on cost and customer balance.
And while we were told it was "human error," the reality is much darker.
A study by the National Technical University of Athens commissioned by the families of the victims revealed something chilling: the explosion that leveled the first carriage did not come from a collision, but from an illegal cargo of hydrocarbons carried by the freight train. Xylene, toluene, butane – all explosive, all deadly. And all outside the declared cargo. Nobody told us. Nobody looked into it officially. And of course, the prime minister… didn’t know.
This "I didn't know" has become a national joke. Neither when lives are lost, nor when the ERGOSE archive is burned, nor when the security videos from the railways are lost, does anyone seem to be responsible. No one at the helm. No one in the dock.
And while the citizen is crushed by the truth, they govern as if there is no tomorrow.
The supermarket has become a survival field, the PPC looks like a winter nightmare and taxes swallow the family budget before the tenth of the month arrives. VAT on food remains provocatively high, profiteering is considered "market freedom" and the golden boys continue to receive bonuses for the disaster.
But if one turns to the opposition, all one sees is an equally cloudy mirror. The opposition parties are stuck in the past and the rest are just shouting without a proposal.
The opposition does not seem capable of even shouting in a way that is heard – let alone governing in a way that inspires.
And if we turn our gaze outside the Parliament, where saviors and "incorruptibles" appear, we come across the same cartoons, the same petty politicians inflated with air. A typical example is that supposedly rising politician who, when someone asked him for the loans, responded with the most nauseatingly arrogant line ever uttered in the Greek political arena:
"You shall not take from him who has not."
He told it to the man who had lent him money. And he thought that was how he proved his intelligence. Only it proved that he was just like the rest of them: arrogant, ungrateful, and worthless.
So the rot is not just governmental. It is total. We are dealing with a political system that has been trained to live without responsibility. To govern without knowledge. To remain silent when people are burned. To smile while impoverishing citizens. To promise, to be denied and start over again.
But tolerance is complicity. And as long as the world continues to believe in individuals who either ruled or dream of ruling only to justify themselves, we will live in a country that produces scandals and buries truths.
And as it turned out in Tempe, some of these truths explode.
Good luck — and good luck with the truth, because it… does not remain silent!
photo EyeEm, Image license by freepik.com
