Or to put it another way: Are violent protests ever justified?
I remember talking to my mom, a few years back, when the anti-globalization crowd was trashing Seattle, and, well, let's just say that mom and I had a different view on the use of force to stop people from turning over cars, looting stores, and more generally setting the city on fire. You might be surprised to know that mom was against the police using more force, I was for it.
I'm reading the news from Greece, and I just can't help but feel that when mobs are turning over private cars, and setting commercial buildings on fire (when hundreds of innocent families live above those buildings), that maybe the cops ought to use more than tear gas. If someone is setting fire to a building that houses hundreds of families, including children, you don't get into an argument about Marxist theory, you shoot them. My gut tells me that the people who were trashing Seattle, and who are setting fire to buildings in Greece, are not "angry students" - they're violent thugs. I've done a lot of pretty hard-hitting political activism in my years, and never resorted to violence.
(And even if you argue that the police in Greece are more corrupt than the police in America (I have no idea if they are), and thus non-violence isn't an effective option, then how does destroying the cars, homes, and businesses of private citizens somehow help the cause? Well, I guess you could argue that you cause so much chaos, so much destruction, that the government feels compelled to fix the problem so that more death and destruction doesn't happen in the future. But is that ever really justified? I don't know. Then again, I don't live in Greece.)
Read this article, then tell me, what am I not seeing here? I get that using violence may only provoke the hoodlums to get even more violent, but putting that practical argument aside, it seems that many people feel that there's a moral argument for not using violence to stop these kids. What is that moral argument, because I just don't see it.
Youth angry over the killing of a teenager by police rioted in Athens and other Greek cities for a second day on Sunday, while the police announced that two officers had been arrested for their roles in boy’s death.Use the comments to weigh in, you don't have to register.
The country’s worst riots in recent years began hours after a 15-year-old boy was shot Saturday night during a confrontation between police and youth in the Exarchia neighborhood of central Athens, a district of bars, bookshops and restaurants where clashes between far-left youth and the police have previously occurred.
As news of the death spread, hundreds of youth took to the streets, burning scores of shops, cars and businesses while throwing fire bombs and stones at riot police, who countered with tear gas. At least six people were arrested in Athens for looting goods from the debris of destroyed department stores and boutiques.
The violence spread to other cities on Sunday, including Greece’s second-largest city, Thessaloniki, as well as Chania on the island of Crete....
Authorities fired several rounds of tear gas, which cloaked parts of Athens with plumes of acrid grey smoke. At least one apartment block was evacuated after masked youth torched a French car dealership and ensuing flames reached the balconies of residents, the private television state Alpha reported.
