New Order...

The new generation is here...Confused, angry, ready for everything, and above all with purpose. I went to see some friends yesterday playing...Let me set straight that I really liked them...I was delighted to listen to a true hardcore band born and raised in Greece. It was the crowd that somehow baffled me. Punks, hardcore, trendy, and skinheads all together in the same joint, sizing each other up, waiting for a chance...A chance to do what? I looked around, and what I saw really bothered me. I remember punk-rockers...I had the pleasure and at the same time misfortune of dealing with them in the past, both as friends and foes. But they always had my respect and deep admiration...and do you know why? Because they were original, true to their beliefs. Either they had to or they chose to, but either way they were real. They straggled for everything, from survival to social recognition, social alienation to isolation. They had to deal with less liberal minds, and they had to do it with any means available. And above all, what I most vividly remember, is that they were the natural enemy of skinheads, which back then equaled to nazis and/or fascists. Yesterday however, I saw both in the same joint. Both corroded from modern standards and beliefs. Punks with clothes that cost on average about 60 euros per piece. Skins, with a dressing code and attitude supported clearly from their parents income, being all too macho and tough. But yet, side by side with what would be otherwise, in another time their mortal enemy.

I realize that this is a change, and I also favor it, because now (surprisingly) they team up against something that had fallen asleep for about 8 years. Extreme fascism, and man-hunts for anyone looking different from what is expected in the minds of the few, that due to poverty they now believe that they are to blame.

Nonetheless, they know nothing of the past, not do they hold any glory. They are kids, letting go some steam, hiding behind the protection that the numbers provide. So far they do nothing different from the mere sheep. They simply do it under a different pretence. What is disappointing for those that know of the past, and that participated in the past, is the fact that they cannot even defend themselves, even under the cover of numbers. They get attacked and they are slaughtered when they are few in number by the fascists, but when their lines are such so that they can respond, they simply violently protest, taking their rage on to each other. A lesson of history is required for them...Maybe then they will know the gravity of their choice, and why things happen as they do...

It is not personal people...It is history repeating, and they don't even know it.