Archive note: This text comes from the old archive of Nomika Epilekta and is preserved with care for historical and informational reading.

Unemployment in our country reached 15.8%, according to the Hellenic Statistical Authority, and the unemployed rose to 786,459. In order for these numbers to be enlarged significantly and drastically, the guild of taxi owners decided on a full frontal attack against tourism. If tourism too is struck at its core, the economic destruction will be complete, thought the officials of the guild of taxi drivers.

Guided by this thought, they do not fail to destroy whatever can be destroyed, imitating Herostratus of Ephesus as well as their colleagues in the other all-powerful guilds. Herostratus, who wanted to remain in history by setting fire to the magnificent temple of Artemis, was punished, whereas those who blow up the structure of Greek tourism are not only unpunished but, on the contrary, find genuinely party-minded supporters across the entire political spectrum, even in government, who praise them while accusing the government, the ministers, policy and anything else one can imagine. You see, taxi owners are many, and their votes are more precious than the country, its image in the world and patriotic sentiments, which belong to other times and other perceptions unrelated to modern Greece.

And this specific guild will fulfil the modern patriotic duty, as it is served in our days by the inhabitants of our little state, seeking through continuous blackmail and violence to impose its own interests on the whole of society.

Thus, after all the indescribable things they did against the economy and society, the owners decided to continue the torment of tens of thousands of tourists who were misled by travel agents and wanted to enjoy their summer holidays in Greece.

Their attack against our country is described by the representatives of the guild as a strike, which is to continue without an end date, and they state, directly and indirectly, that they are not interested in the consequences of their illegal actions or in the fact of Greece's international humiliation as a tourist destination. What interests them is that their economic interests, as their representatives understand them, should not be affected; those interests are served by maintaining their popular profession as a hermetically closed guild profession.

The complete blockade of ports, the blocking of their exits, the obstruction of cruise ships from disembarking tourists who had planned to visit the Acropolis and other archaeological sites in Athens by the thousands, the blockades of Macedonia and Araxos airports, the creation of traffic chaos in the capital and the other felonies remain unpunished. No competent authority dares to apply the laws. Everyone confines themselves to announcements, statements and lofty admonitions, without taking action, thereby negatively violating their duties toward the state and society.

The result of this unprosecuted guild attack against society is that the view becomes entrenched that in Greece the systematic violation of the laws, as well as the exhausting harassment of society as a whole, are accepted as long as the attackers have the status of trade unionists who struggle for narrow and short-sighted guild interests that have been elevated into sacred, inviolable and untouchable rights.

While the consequences of the unlawful action of the specific organized guild of taxi owners are immediately perceived by citizens who are prevented from moving within cities, travelling, enjoying their holidays together with thousands of unfortunate foreign tourists and working, the familiar professional politicians appear in the media, people who do not intend to withdraw and give their place to others, younger and uncorrupted.

Thus the representative of the main opposition launches an attack against the prime minister, the former minister attacks the current one, the government spokesman calls on the parties to state openly whether they are for or against closed professions and to address the consequences for the economy from the strike of taxi owners, while the leaders and representatives of the other parties and splinter parties take positions with grandiose announcements without substance. All together they intensify the confusion and extend the chaos, without condemning with the directness of honest people the specific felonies and the substantive, drastic restriction of the democratic freedoms of all citizens imposed by the guild. Even the professional historian who represents the party with the fourth largest number of members of parliament plainly declares that the representatives of the taxi drivers' guild are certainly right.

Consequently, the justice of the taxi owners prevails over the justice and freedoms of the citizens. This, ultimately, is the lesson from this new disturbance, which is due to the incurable absence of true education, the absence of national orientation, the collapse of all ideologies and the removal from young people of visions for a better and brighter future.

On the basis of these findings concerning the action of the guild of taxi owners, which is illegal and coercive, and the inertia of those competent to react by enforcing the laws and protecting the fundamental democratic and human rights of all those in our country, citizens and non-citizens alike, we, the others, who are the majority, must try through our speech, actions and conduct to change the prevailing mentality. Only through a common and agreeable struggle for reason, civilization and genuine democracy, with cooperation and joint action, may we manage what seems impossible: for our society to become modern, a society of the 21st century, cut off from the Middle Ages and Balkan decline.