“Every single, and I mean every single shop in the centre of Athens is damaged or destroyed”. “It is war, don’t you see? This is war.”
And so it begins. The biggest string of riots the country has seen in its post-dictatorship (1974) era. Talking heads on TV screens are completely freaking out. “What would the rest of the world say?” Endlessly shifting between the reaction of international media and the damage inflicted by the riots to the christmas shopping trade. The hanging threat of a declaration of a state of emergency. Government officials, for now, deny this is a possibility. But who can tell? No-one can; no-one has any way to predict what can happen from here on. Even for Greece, a country with high levels of violence in political demonstrations, this is terra incognita. No-one has been here before. No-one has come straight from three days of unprecedented rioting onto a fourth one (Tuesday, the day of Alexandros’ funeral) and a fifth one that is sure to follow on Wednesday, the day of the general strike. And no-one can possibly imagine just how things will calm down after that. The masses on the streets keep breaking through an ever-increasingly violent police: Students are injured inside the university of Thessaloniki, shot at with rubber bullets. In Athens, riot police beat senseless another 15-year old boy in front of shocked passers-by begging them to stop. And yet, the police have already lost control….On the other end of the line is a friend from Eksarhia. “I could not believe what I saw. Every single… Every single shop, every single traffic light, across the whole of the centre – all smashed up, burnt. I just can’t believe it”.
Anarchist News on the Greek Uprising
from One Day for the Watchman (1D4TW)
Also see:
ON THE GREEK RIOTS
Direct coverage, in English, from a blogger engaged in the struggle.
GREECE UNREST
A news roundup page from anarchist bloggers, at libcom.org
ZERO ANTHROPOLOGY 
elena
are u surious? I was downtown today!! Of course there are damages, but you present an image of a country destoyed!That is not true! I don’t know if the site is built by Greeks or not, but all this is a lie! The press is trying to create a false image! I can’t understand the reason! Please try to be more realistic and don’t manipulate people!
Maximilian Forte
And you really are in Athens, in case anyone thinks that maybe you are misrepresenting yourself, I had to check your IP.
The comments you are referring to above are by a taxi driver speaking to a Greek blogger arriving in Athens as the rioting broke out. I don’t think any of them meant to say that the whole country was destroyed. I also can’t understand why the press would wish to manipulate people into thinking that the rioters destroyed Greece…or perhaps now I can, since it feeds into hysteria about disorder and insecurity.
Anyway, since you are there, why don’t you contribute your observations, thoughts, photographs, anything? It is one thing to complain about manipulation and false information…but to then do nothing at all, and when you have Internet access?
Many thanks for visiting and leaving your comments, much appreciated, and you are welcome back.