I'm writing this in light of the news about the Korean tourist who was arrested and physically abused by the Greek police recently. In case you haven't gotten wind of it yet, here is some initial information.
On the 24th one of our citizens logged on to a famous internet portal site and posted the outrageous story of his trip to Greece on the 14th, where he suffered a beating delivered by multiple police officers because he, fearing that they might be imposters, had asked to see their identification after they had stopped him to ask about his travel bag. He wrote that he firmly intends to stay in Greece until the officers who attacked him, and their superiors, are punished.
Here is the full article on that. Potential updates to follow at the end of my post.
Now, there are a few things I'd like to comment on here. The first and obvious one is that these cops (or possible members of the 'Golden Dawn' fascist party who work with the cops) are major dicks. I think that's pretty clear. But what most people abroad might not have realized yet, is that part of our police force is acting like a junta in Greece right now. People don't have control. Voting is probably manipulated, if not staged. The police and army can do anything they want and so can our politicians, since no one can stop them. Just like pretty much anywhere in the world, as much as you'd like to deny it.
This incident is definitely saddest for the poor tourist who had to experience that and my sincere apologies to him, as a Greek. It's also admirable that he's trying to get justice, although I can safely say he won't and that he's endangering his life the longer he stays in that place. Which brings us to the problem. These pathetic excuses of human beings who do these things do NOT represent the people. We have a lot of good people in Greece. Smart, kind, capable, humane and accepting people. As for Korea, you can tell how much we like them from our Kpop and K-Entertainment fanbase.
But, unfortunately, when such things happen, people don't usually search too deep or look too far. In the eyes of a lot of people abroad, "Greeks are dicks". It's the sad truth. Very few know we have a junta, because "these things don't happen to modern countries in this day and age". Unfortunately, they do and mainstream media doesn't cover it. Also, jerks are always the most vocal, so a lot of the netizens commenting online truly are a bunch of racist nationalist morons.
Which makes the situation even sadder for us Greeks too. It's not enough that our own government and officials treat us like garbage, we have to hear how awful we are from the rest of the world as well.
Some Korean netizens are apparently angry and I can't blame them. But I'd like to remind them that their politicians and police are probably as corrupt as Greek ones. I'm sure many Koreans would agree with me. So, I hope that those who do understand who the real culprits are and that they have nothing to do with Greeks as a whole will channel their anger towards the right persons and institutions and not Greeks in general. I hope the rest of the world would too.
As I said, the latter won't happen, because people enjoy badmouthing others more than praising them and it's easier to lump everyone together than to search and think about who the real bad ones are. Still, there are good people everywhere and I am hoping those will see the bigger picture.
As for the scum who did this, if they do find them, a proper punishment would be to send them for a holiday to Korea. Let's see if you'll like spending some time with their cops abusing you and making you call them "oppa".
