I appreciate that there are two views on the issue of violence and the lack of security in Greek universities.
The first is that the nation’s universities are paying the price for their prolonged neglect by the academic community, their governing bodies and students, the political parties, the police and successive governments.
By absolutely everyone, in other words.
The other is that universities form part of a society that is, by definition, violent and unjust.
So it’s only natural that violence is endemic within them, too. Education is, after all, a field of socialisation and combative passions. Students don’t just plug in and have learning uploaded into their brains.
The first view is a particularly bitter pill to swallow for our democracy, but it’s well-founded. At least, we can still hope the situation will be remedied if the neglect is tackled.
The second is a convenient ideological construct, and has the added disadvantage of leaving no prospect of correction. The problem will only disappear when violence and injustice have been eliminated from society. So we may be waiting a while…
Until then, universities are doomed to serve as battlefields.
And those who aren’t convinced that sparing the rod will necessarily spoil the child can only watch on in shock as the ‘children’ turn the rod on each other!
The violent incidents at Athens’ Law School and Polytechnic Campus in recent days serve to underline that the current academic environment is unworthy both of our democracy and of our children, in particular.
Who go to university to get an education, not to form gangs or engage in urban warfare.
The government seems to have grasped the problem. Better late than never.
It’s just that the responses have long shared the same crucial flaw: the problem is not amenable to legal regulation. Why? Because no one enforces the law on our campuses.
The law restricting university asylum and allowing police to enter universities to remove trouble-makers has been in effect since 2021. The right to remove “eternal students” from the student body was granted in 2023. And as for the much-vaunted “university police”, well, may that idea rest in peace.
But no academic actor, nor the government itself which passed them, has shown the slightest interest in implementing these laws.
As a result of which, the universities continue to function more or less like out-of-control states.
I don’t know whether the recent determination will last, and whether it will produce results.
But I do know that our universities no longer have unlimited time to get their affairs in order. They heed to get serious.
Not only because the current ridiculous situation reflects badly on academic staff and students alike. But because the opening of private universities, and of course life itself, will force them to respond to the competition.
Which is when the sh…ambles will really hit the fan!
