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A free and anarchic bubble survives in Athens, a city under constant surveillance: the National Technical University is surrounded by thick bushes and graffiti, as if it wanted to camouflage the political ebullition that goes on inside. The terrain that nowadays houses only the architecture course at the University of Athens, is considered a police-free zone. If the police ever step in, the country will fall down.
The person explaining that is student Giorgos Koroneos, 24 years old, who tells in the style of an encyclopedia, the story of how, in November, 1973, during the middle of the Greek military governments (1968-1974), Coronel Georgios Papadopoulos sent a tank to decimate a group of students that was encased inside, resisting the military board. Twenty four students were killed and contemporary Greece gained a scar in its history.
Roberto Almeida/Opera Mundi
Giorgos Koroneos, 24 years old
Proud of his university’s past of resistance, Koroneos, an architecture student, son of the Greek middle class, stops smiling when he calculates how much his parents lost because of the crisis. Freelance workers, they took dozens of defaults, and will probably have their retirement pensions cut down.
His eyes show how frustrated he is with his country’s decadence. It also shows how tired he is of seeing the kind of decisions the Parliament makes. “We need to become a healthy society again. Everybody is pissed off about anything and violence is the common answer to that. We have to start thinking again, use our brains”, he says.
Even though he is not associated with any political party within the university, he is active in the anti-austerity protests. Like a lot of people, he doesn´t see himself as part of Greece’s future. “I’ll work on my final project until February and wait for the future. I thought I could work here (in Athens) as soon I graduated, but now there’s not a chance for that to happen. I’m going to leave the country”, he said.
What is he going to miss? “The anarachy itself. I’ll miss how people are nice. It’s good to be in Greece, to live in Greece. But this is changing now. This was never an organized country, but it’s no longer a good place to live.”
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