Editorial Ta Nea: Memory and stability

It would be a welcome change if those who are mainly responsible for an event recognise their errors and compensate the victims of these mistakes, instead of trying to shirk responsibility and accuse others for things that they did not do.

To err is human and citizens will accept an apology even if they have been trapped on Athens’ most expensive motorway for many hours in a snowstorm.

It would be a welcome change as well if those who bear responsibility for tragedies in which many people died when they were in power [SYRIZA], and for an ensuing cover-up operation, exhibited greater self-awareness and modesty when their successors are confronted by analogous phenomena and manage at least to avert any deaths.

Naturally, the main opposition is entitled to avail itself of all parliamentary means to check and wear out the government, but citizens remember.

The dysfunctions and weaknesses of the state in managing natural disasters – fire fires, floods, and snowstorms – are not a matter of ideology.

The more climate change intensifies such phenomena, the more urgent the need becomes to restructure state, private, and municipal services and to better coordinate them in order to serve the public good.

Instead of the main opposition leader exclusively banking on the failures of the government and spurring sterile skirmishes in order to respond to his being disputed within his party and to make headway in the centre-left pool of voters and the competition beyond the centre-right, he would do well to contribute with constructive proposals for solving problems that have bedevilled the country for decades.

Aside from remembering, citizens want to build. Memory must be accompanied by stability