Alexia Angelopoulou/DPA/PA Images. All rights reserved.Since Greece collapsed under the weight of unsustainable debts in 2010, the country has gradually sunk into a social, moral and legal abyss of a depth never before seen in the country's history, even during its darkest days.
Social cohesion is under threat as armed gangs commit contract killings, “anarchists” and other civil disobedience groups destroy buildings by throwing petrol bombs, attack doctors, judges and police stations and render the daily life of citizens ever more difficult and depressing. Pensioners have seen the pensions they saved for throughout their careers cut in half. The health service has failed with shortages of staff and medicines as well as a general lack of funds. Departments of universities are under siege by a minority of young with antisocial and destructive personalities, who act with impunity inside the “Academic Asylum” of Universities.
In Greece “Academic Freedom” is interpreted today not as the freedom to speak freely but the freedom to act freely and even illegally, without the police being allowed to intervene, as universities are forced to grant asylum for any activity undertaken within their campuses, however criminal. The young, educated middle class is leaving Greece in droves to live and work in other EU countries and further afield, so that Greece is losing the cream of its youth, its only hope for a better future.
