Editorial: Nakedness

The prosecutor’s report on the disastrous Mati wildfire does not only pinpoint the causes and those responsibly for the tragedy.

It reveals the nakedness of state services at all levels.

From elected officials at the top of the administrative pyramid down to the base there is something clearly rotten in the entire structure of the state.

When was a dignified assumption of responsibility replaced by the shirking of any responsibility? When did indifference supplant a sense of duty? When did cynisism obliterate any shred of sensitivity? When did nonchalance annul empathy?

Certainly, the entire state is not like that. All politicians and all civil servants are not the same.

We must note, however, that the stance of the political leadership offered a very negative example.

At the very top of the government there was a lack of a sense of duty and of a sense of responsibility, but there was plenty of cynicism.

There is a visible link between elected officials who depict the Mati catastrophe simply as a mishap and civil servants involved in emergency management who express annoyance towards fire victims who call them on a help line.

This link may be just part of a deeper problem. That is why the prosecutor’s report gives Greek society the opportunity to look in the mirror without fear. We must look in the mirror without being scared by our nakedness.