The intrusion by students and teacher which resulted in the committee for the national dialog on education to its meeting is further proof of how difficult it is to reach a bare minimum consensus in Greece. The anti-bailout rhetoric and demagogy that has been cultivated in recent years on the one hand has legitimized violence and on the other it has allowed a climate of lawlessness to prevail. Any group that feels its rights are infringed or simply disagrees with the proposals, ideas and policies, believes it may occupy buildings, break up meetings or in the most extreme cases throw petrol bombs to… defend its ideas.
The SYRIZA government is paying the cost today of political tolerance towards such phenomena that it observed all these years within the framework of its anti-bailout struggle. It is absurd that even now there are ministers and party officers who are calling the people to react to the measures they are passing, to demonstrate in the streets to support the government against the troika demands…
In recent years education has been the breeding ground for these anti-democratic practices, in the name of democracy no less. Especially in the universities all that was needed – and unfortunately this continues to be the case – was the will of a small group of dynamic pressure to paralyze operations. Instead of being a space of free speech, criticism and the juxtaposition of ideas, with the tolerance of political forces especially from the left, the amphitheaters and universities have now become battle fields.
Perhaps then the important task of the dialog committee should be not on the changes in education, but the restoration of democratic values within education. Perhaps by establishing a course on democracy we may understand at some point the value of dialog, criticism and why not, basic communication and understanding…
TO VIMA
