people the opportunity for a normal coming of age, while cultivating unrealistic expectations. The recent events do not express a realisation of this situation, they are a symptom of it. They represent the outburst of a wounded society before the crisis. This‘youthful explosion’ might be considered a forerunner of a new kind of uprising in societies like Greece. But it cannot be linked to the international crisis whose effects have not yet become acutely apparent in the daily lives of ordinary people. Three Groups of Protesters What is clear, however, is that this unrest has no central mastermind or organisation, party or extra-parliamentary group behind it. In general terms, those who took part can be loosely divided into three groups. The first includes the few hundred anti-establishment militants who are against any form of government or authority and always figure prominently in incidents. They were particularly prominent in the National Technical University violence, especially after the big rallies and marches. The second group is a new element. It includes the thousands of young people who have taken to the streets for the first time and have acted alongside or independently of the first group. These did not wear helmets but hoodies, bandanas and scarves and they were not limited to the district of Exarchia, but set up small groups in many Athens neighbourhoods. They are usually young, aged 14–20, at secondary school or students, young workers or jobless. There are also some second­generation immigrants, but they do not set the tone. There are definitely links with the groups of known hooligans who cause trouble at football stadiums on Sundays. During the daily demonstrations, new technologies such as the Internet and mobile phones were used to the utmost, with the result that there was constant communication and exchange of information between the most diverse groups that otherwise knew nothing about each other. In this way, this unique movement of demonstrations spread with lightning speed to all major cities, especially where there are institutes of higher education. The third group comprises those who took the opportunity to loot damaged shops, among them several drug addicts but also immigrants, most of whom were arrested. Finally, we must not omit to mention the agent provocateurs and other agents used by the police and various other agencies, who, as always, acted alongside the‘hoodies’... The Government and the Police The government and the police were taken by surprise and proved incapable of dealing with the intensity and extent of the destruction wrought by the enraged protestors. The government, especially, found itself trapped between the extremist elements – whose actions it has tolerated within the police force and which were responsible for the death of the 15-year-old boy – and its inability to protect the property of small and middle-sized business owners, in other words the very people that make up its electoral base. This brings us to another peculiarly Greek circumstance. The police and the security forces in general have a chequered past. They supported the state during the Greek civil war, while they nurtured and collaborated with illegal organizations on the Right with links to the state during the years when the Right was all-powerful, after the civil war. Following that, they supported the colonels’ junta. Although their leadership and personnel have changed, the mindset and certain pockets remain almost untouched. Thus there has long been distrust towards the police, and no government since the return of democracy in 1974 has really done anything to change the relationship between the police and the public. One legacy of this situation is the public’s relatively tolerant view of attacks carried out in recent years on police officers and police stations, something that is also linked to the police force's dismal human rights record.