Thursday 22 February 2007

Everything In Its' Right Place


Everyone in Greece is concerned with the recent scandal that involves the man in charge of the most important social security institute in Greece who had an illegitimate affair with an employee whose husband killed him -or maybe it wasn't his fault, we're currently investigating the case- on the doorstep of his mother-in-law house at the moment the victim had just finished what it was he was doing with the recently-added-to-the-list-of-femmes-fatals and was ready to return home after a long day at work...

At the same time, at a "peaceful/quiet" village, an unemployed , psychiatric patient, father to two children (5 and 8 years old), husband to a paraplegic woman takes his shotgun at 05:00 a.m., points at his mother in law (who was the one taking care of the paraplegic woman and the children) and at his youngest son (who was sleeping) and kills them. The other son is injured at the head. The father turns the gun at his feet in order to commit suicide and ends up at the local hospital. The mother having witnessed the whole scene, unable to intervene, dies four days later, alone in her bed, due to cardiac arrest. The boy is currently hospitalized for his trauma and the father is going to be transfered these days to the central prison...

However everyone is concerned about whether, in the first case, the head of the institute had used Viagra, whether it was that that sent him to the other side and not the husband's punches, whether the fatal woman was using her boss to gain wealth or a higher post...

We are a nation of liars. We are shocked by an affair which was unveiled, we feel appalled by adultery yet we sneak and watch through the key hole with a sadistic mood. We feel superior; only because we get away with adultery. We are in position to feel petty for the dead, for the betrayed husband since they were just victims of a promiscuous, ambitious woman. Yet we avoid taking the blame for what happened in that village that day. The father is to blame; he was a psychopath with a shotgun. We cannot identify because we are so far away from madness... We fail to understand that it is the society we have built which leads people to the edge of the cliff.

A society full of unemployment, low salaries, exploitation, racism, corruption, decay of the province, economical crisis; a society which has lost its' social bonds. Yet a great part of this society is concerned with where to have the third coffee for the day, where to go for the night, how to leave work early to go shopping or have another coffee and -of course- the everyday-bursting scandals. One way or the other the government is always the one to blame for everything...And yet (!) we are far from madness...