Bring out the Baby Strollers: Protest Madness in Greece

Before coming to Greece, I always named Bolivia as the most protest-crazy country I've visited, but Greece takes protesting to a whole new (and completely absurd) level. With the sheer quantity of absurd protests every day, it's easy to believe the stories that:

1. Students don't go to university here to learn; they go to learn to protest.
   
2. There are professional protesters in Greece that are paid by different organizations to hold signs and yell fervently for every cause from social security to trash pickup.

Every day we receive a new email from the US Embassy of the day's protests in Athens and they range from slightly plausible to downright outrageous. My favorite so far was a few weeks ago where the demonstrators expressed "their solidarity towards the political prisoners and Zapatistas in Chiapas State, Mexico". Not Tibet. Not Darfur. Not any type of really big pressing problem on the international stage in 2008.... I went to Chiapas in 2001 and it was a really great place to visit, but still?!?!?

This weekend had another nice slate of protests planned:

From: US Embassy Athens
Sent: Friday, April 11, 2008 4:09 PM
To: ATHENS-ALL EMBASSY; ATHENS-DAO
Subject: Weekend demonstrations

1. Citizens of Athens with baby-strollers, wheelchairs and, shopping carts have scheduled a demonstration for Saturday, April 12, at the Municipality Cultural Center of Athens (50 Akadimias Str.) at 12:00 hrs. The demonstrators will march to Exarchia Square. The demonstrators will protest for pedestrians’ rights and will call all citizens “to reclaim the streets of Athens”.

2. Panathinaikos Team fans have scheduled a gathering for Sunday, Apr 13, at Areos Park (downtown Athens) at 16:00 hours. The demonstrators will protest against the management leadership of Panathinaikos Team.

So this weekend, they've busted out with the baby strollers and shopping carts to protest Greeks' inability to park properly. And I'm trying to picture the equivalent of the second protest as a mad frenzy of Dallas Fort Worth residents storming Texas Stadium in a protest of the management of the Dallas Cowboys... :)

And a few weeks ago, the security staff at the US Embassy waited for hours for a anti-American protest to make its way up the street from the Greek Parliament building to the Embassy... but either the protesters didn't feel like they were paid enough for the day or maybe they just got tired, but they gave up before they even reached the Embassy and went home. It was only about a mile up the road.

ABSURD. But at least humorous.