The government has failed to clamp down on violence and vandalism at the country’s public universities. After the fiasco with the campus police force, it passed a new law last summer for campus security. That law has obviously not been put into force, though, as last week’s rampage by anarchists at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH) amply demonstrated.
However, the announcement issued by the PASOK opposition in response to that incident also exposed the lack of will on behalf of the two parties that have almost exclusively governed the country since the end of the 1967-1974 dictatorship to deal with the issue of delinquency and violence on Greek campuses. SYRIZA’s position on the issue is not even worth mentioning.
PASOK’s announcement said: “The effort to replace the campus police with a campus prosecutor is not going to solve the problem of violence at universities, and it is also deeply problematic, since, instead of strengthening a culture of education, prevention and inclusive administration, it chooses to criminalize campus life and to impose strict disciplinary and criminal mechanisms.” Is the party really expecting the hooded thugs who beat up students at the University of Thessaloniki to aspire to a pedagogical culture and participatory administration?
