Greece observes five minutes of collective memory in mourning
Greece briefly mourned two girls who died by suicide in Athens last May, but collective memory quickly faded as media moved on, leaving families grieving while promised reforms remain unimplemented.
For a few days, Greece froze. But today, how many remember the two girls who took their own lives in the most tragic way in Ilioupoli, Athens, just last May? That tragedy did not last long in the collective memory. It continues, of course, within their families and in the empty school desks of the new school year. Our collective emotion, however, had an expiry date, as happens in almost every similar case in our era of news bombardment.
The analyses from psychologists, sociologists, psychiatrists, criminologists, and educators that succeeded one another on television screens have fallen silent. The weighty observations, delivered with the confidence of someone who knows they will be called upon to comment on another tragedy in a few days, have faded away. The cameras left, the panels changed subjects, the “experts” found a new crisis to interpret, the media sought the next event that would guarantee viewership or traffic, demonstrating that even tragedies operate according to the rules of the market.
You see, the ruthless algorithm captures (if it doesn’t actually teach!) the tendencies of a society that has learned to consume even human pain. And like every consumer product, it becomes easily boring and even more easily surpassed and forgotten.
Forgetting is the most dangerous form of social aphasia, since we choose not to remember what obliges us to change as people. Because if we continued to remember, then today we would be discussing what has changed in schools, how many psychologists have been hired, how many social workers are beside children struggling alone, how many families have gained immediate access to mental health services, without months-long waits and financial obstacles.
The state certainly cannot prevent every tragedy, but it must prove that its obligation is not exhausted by a support helpline, which however necessary it may be, cannot substitute for a school or a broader community that would recognize warning signs early and prevent unpleasant developments.
For its part, journalism must not limit itself only to the shock of the moment, but must investigate what became of any government announcements, and also exert pressure if it finds that public interest has receded. Otherwise, it simply transforms human tragedy into a consumable product.
The greatest responsibility, however, belongs to all of us, who create the market of forgetting and consume the news for a few days, continuing as if nothing happened, perhaps because it is easier to believe that all these things happen only to others and that despair always dwells in the house next door.
But when the face of the news acquires the name of our own child, friend, colleague, and we are called to give painful answers to questions like but how did I not see it? or where were we all? then we will realize that memory and empathy constitute our social obligations. Because only when a tragedy remains in public discussion is it capable of giving birth to policies, institutions, changes, and accountability.
When it is forgotten, it leaves behind two categories of people: those who mourn forever and those who promise costlessly that this time something will change. And who then wait for the next tragedy, to say it again…
Yiannis Ch. Kouriannidis
Director of Endohora magazine
endohora@yahoo.gr
