The name is absent

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building. Someone had painted a hasty anarchist sign on the wall next to the doorway
where my consultant leaned as he searched for his keys. I commented it was too bad
young people were vandalizing these beautiful buildings but my consultant disagreed
explaining “kai aυτo εfvaι Eλλaδa^,5 (this is also Greece).

By the following year my consultant had died, peacefully in his own home. His
widow had moved in with her son’s family and the Kypseli apartment was empty. My
consultant had died several months before one of the more dramatic events in recent
history had gripped Athens in December 2008. As I watched the events of that month
unfold, I wondered how he would have explained them - it seemed that the country was
falling into chaos.

*

On December 6^th, 2008, Athens was rocked by violence following the shooting
death of a young boy, Alexis Grigoropoulos, by a Special Forces policeman in
Messologiou Street, in the political dissident neighborhood, Exarchia. As news of the
shooting spread, thousands of young people gathered across the city to protest the event.
The crowds quickly grew large and boisterous causing traffic to stop and camera crews to
descend. Police stood nervously by as limestone and marble tom from the streets and
nearby Sfructures began to rain down on them, businesses, and government buildings.
This marked the end of public order and the beginning of a youth uprising that would last
for nearly three weeks and spread to several cities (Economides & Monastiriotis 2009;
Kontogiorgis 2009; Panourgia 2009ιxvi).

The street violence of December 2008 prompted researchers to question whether
Greece was returning to a period of Molotov politics unseen in the country since the

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