We deserve better than this

Just when I thought the reputation of the police in Greece couldn't fall any lower this video surfaced in the local media. It shows two suspects being beaten and forced to beat each other by a sadistic cop in some sick game that one of his colleagues videoed on his mobile phone. This is not an isolated incident, there are have too many such public examples of such behaviour. Also, I've many friends who've suffered similar treatment the hands of the "law and order" community for being in the "wrong place, at the wrong time" or simply demanding their rights as citizens from these uniformed thugs.



In November I wrote about a similar case of a Cypriot student beaten to a pulp for "resisting arrest" (click here). In reality, his crime was simply walking by a bunch of bored, vindictive plain clothes police who were eager for revenge after failing to deal with rioters. In that case TV footage shows that the cops' uniformed superiors sat by idly and let the boot boys get on with their work (click here).

I'm sure many of you would say that; "you'd cry a different tune if you needed the police's help." Well, the problem is that when they are needed for the boring, routine work of catching criminals their best efforts range from ineffective to non-existent. Once again, bitter personal experience of me and my friends , not to mention the cases highlighted in the media (click here) show that crime detection is far less important than "public order", a euphemism for the protection of those in power.

Click here to see more on this in English.

How low can you fall and still look yourself in the mirror?

I was just talking to friend here in Thessaloniki who is also a language teacher. Unfortunately, she has recently lost her father to cancer. As you can imagine this has come as a devastating blow to her and her family. To add to her distress, not to mention anxiety she has been told that she ill have to make up the lessons she has missed organising and attending her father's funeral over the coming Easter holidays, otherwise she will not be paid. As she is married and has a family this is money she can ill afford to miss, especially considering the expenses she has incurred.

Words can not describe the anger I feel over this. Yet this kind of incident is not isolated, but rather indicative of the attitude of many, if not most school owners here in Greece. They feel that their staff are utterly disposable and hardly worth the effort of addressing civilly, let alone treating with respect. High unemployment combined with an endless stream of possible replacements means that language teachers have as much job security as your average fast food employee.

One can't help but wonder if one of the reasons why Greece does so badly in international EFL?ESL exams (click here to see the statistics) is because of such attitudes.