The Economist: Greece - Disorder on the Hellenic street | When nettles go ungrasped

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Disorder on the Hellenic street | When nettles go ungrasped

There is something weird and frightening about the sight of a modestly prosperous European country—assumed by most outsiders to have recovered from its rocky history of coups and civil strife—that is suddenly gripped by an urban uprising that the authorities cannot contain. Greece’s travails seem all the odder after a recent economic record which, to judge by the basic numbers alone, looks tolerably good. Could this take place in any seemingly stable democracy, or does the land of democracy’s birth have special features? Well, the incident that sparked Greece’s mayhem—the killing by police of a teenager—could have happened almost anywhere. And there are many cities where an angry minority is ready to run amok: think of Budapest in 2006 or Paris in 2005. But in the Greek case a spasm of rage among youngsters and the bohemian underworld has laid bare a deeper seam of discontent: with corruption, maladministration and the sheer frustration of life at the bottom of the Athenian pile