When Nettles Go Ungrasped

摘要

There is something weird and frightening about the sight of a modestly prosperous European country-assumed by most outsiders to have recovered from its rocky history of coups and civil strife-that is suddenly gripped by an urbanrnuprising that the authorities cannot contain. Greece's travails seem all the odder after a recent economic record which, to judge by the basic numbers alone, looks tolerably good.rnCould this take place in any seemingly stable democracy, or does the land of democracy's birth have special features? Well, the incident that sparked Greece's mayhem-the killing by police of a teenager-could have happened almost anywhere. And there are many cities where an angry minority is ready to run amok: think of Budapest in 2006 or Paris in 2005.