Episode 5: Addicted to Revolution without Revolution (First Draft)

@Tempi, Greece. The Tempi Disaster shook Greece, but did it spark real change? Through the lens of Slavoj Žižek’s philosophy, we question the nature of protest, ideology, and meaningful transformation in a world where the status quo persists.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPTS

G. Michalis Papadopoulos

2/6/20257 min read

You say you cannot assist me? Similarly frustrated you seem to be? Allow me to suggest an idea, from that burden, to set us free. To act, without acting, is the key, can’t you see? To shout and complain, to show our discomfort, yet back it up with no further action to drive change! Agree? No? Sure, feel free to disagree. But be prepared to go against your nature. Never forget, the path of least resistance, is the sole, true, human decree.

Kalispera, Good evening, Buenas Tardes, Dobry Wieczór.

You’re listening to 'After the Dragon. A reflective, existential podcast about navigating life’s changes. Episode 5. Let us begin.

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11:20 PM, February 28, 2023. Tempi, Greece.

A delayed train from Athens to Thessaloniki was racing to make up for lost time.

Inside, there were over 350 passengers - many of them being university students, having spent the last three days in Athens due to a local holiday.

But many of those passengers never reached their destination. Because a freight train, barreling down the same tracks in the opposite direction, sealed their fate.

At 11:21 PM, they collided head-on.

The toll was massive; 57 deaths and 85 injured. A whole nation woke up numbed & angry, facing the deadliest rail disaster in their history.

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In a truly modern, democratic European state, a disaster of this scale would ignite a massive scandal—a wake-up call for change in a weary society.

But Greece—Greece is not truly a modern, democratic European state.

Greece’s leaders boast of credit upgrades and growth rates. and foreign investments, yet its citizens remain among the poorest in Europe. The glossy exterior hides a crumbling foundation.

For instance, Greece features the second-to-last GDP per capita in the EU. The worst freedom of speech index scores in the bloc. And tanking almost every part of the OECD Better Life indexes except Health & Work-Life Balance. Groceries compared to local wages are highly expensive. The energy market is the same. The systemic banks race against each other in offering the least competitive offerings to the market. As an actual Greek, please trust that I could continue such a list virtually forever.

So, functionally, Greece is not a modern, democratic European country. And its reaction to the Tempi train disaster reflects that.

After the incident, the minister of transportation decided to resign but faced no prosecution. And in a display of political dynastic resilience, he reappeared on the ballot and was re-elected.

And the investigations were, frankly, a sham, marked by weak cover-ups, unexplained gaps, missing recordings, and critical delays in handling key evidence. To this day, no real justice has been served.

This is why, after some recordings resurfaced on January 2025, showing that people may have died inside the crashed train, due to a lack of oxygen within the wagons, people in Greece decided to head to the stress.

On Sunday the 26th, of January 2025, hundreds of thousands of people gathered in cities all around the country and even abroad, to commemorate the victims, to remind politicians that Tempi is still in everyone’s mind. In fact, it will stay there until there will be punishments, until there will be change.

The government's knee-jerk reaction to the protests was a silly attempt to cover their significance. For example, the official statement of the Hellenic Police about the protest in Athens claimed that only 30 thousand people attended - which is a massive understatement, having a quick look at the pictures. ERT, Greece’s Public TV channel, covered the event only for less than a minute, with no real footage from the march itself, as the fourth most important news of the day.

But when this didn’t work, creating even more outrage, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the country’s Prime Minister, appeared in a recent 40-minute TV interview following the protests, to address its people. He appeared to backtrack on his earlier statements about the disaster. For instance, while he had previously dismissed—with absolute certainty—any possibility that the freight train’s cargo contained illegal, flammable materials, he now acknowledged, for the first time, that this might indeed have been the case. However, during the same interview, he repeatedly emphasized that he had not been informed about certain aspects of the incident and argued that he had no obligation to be. He also made it clear that he had no intention of stepping down from his position.

Which, as you might guess - created even more outrage.

People do show their dissatisfaction left and right, they post about it on socials, and they talk about it to their friends and family. Yet, there are no immediate calls to continue the protests, for now.

Maybe people just wait for the disaster’s 2nd anniversary, which is at the end of this month to march once more. Or maybe, without realizing it, they have already played their role within the system. The protests happened. The government responded with dismissals, deflections, and half-measures. And now, the outrage peaked and is seemingly settled. All according to the plan.

This is exactly the kind of ideological trap that Slavoj Žižek warns about.

Slavoj Žižek is a modern-day philosopher with a strong focus on current political, economic, and societal issues, originating from current-day Slovenia, and he is fighting a… crusade against ideologies. For Zizek, ideologies are not just a set of political beliefs or doctrines but the unconscious framework through which we interpret reality. Every one of us is immersed in one, and fully being aware of the fact is a pivotal step for actual change.

As part of his work, he critiques forms of resistance that are not only permitted but encouraged, the ones that are grandiose as they are marketable, that they feel important, yet they lack any real meaning.

You can’t think of an example? Well, what happened last Sunday?

The protests happened. Social & traditional media flared up. The nation felt a surge of collective defiance. But then… Monday came. People returned to their routines. The same government, the same corruption, the same daily struggles. The protest felt like resistance, but was it? Or was it, as Zizek would argue, another ritual that ultimately reinforces the system we claim to fight?

Yes, the protest was ideological. But the continuation of everything else was also ideological - as it reinforces the same system they are opposing. Can you now see the point a bit clearer?

Zizek’s critique of ideology is precisely this: we believe we are resisting when, in reality, we are reinforcing the very thing we claim to fight against. A system does not survive merely through brute force, it survives because we internalize its logic. We are a living part of it. We protest one day and go back to work the next, convinced that the single act of protest itself was enough.

It’s not that the protests themselves are wrong; quite the contrary. Any mobilization of that scale, when things go wrong, is a step in the right direction. Zizek himself has praised the Greek people for their protests against the anti-austerity measures in the last decade.

Yet, breaking free would mean stepping beyond the act of systemic, single-time-show protesting and reflecting on how one’s daily decisions fuel the very thing one opposes. Real change begins with recognizing and resisting the subtle ways the system co-opts even acts of rebellion.

Real change occurs when one comes to the painful experience of seeing that they view everything in life with an ideology. With their bad faiths. With how they were getting out there protesting, wearing the costume of a lion while your camel humps are in full display.

And so, the Tempi disaster, and everything that followed suit for the last two years, remains not just a tragedy, but a mirror. It reveals not only the failures of the state, but the ways in which we, its citizens, keep those failures alive.

And, as this is a reflective, existential podcast, this is where I need to stand. Since the Greek case is not only relevant for Greeks but everyone who wishes to drive change in themselves. Actual, meaningful change.

Us Greeks, for the past 15 years or so, have constantly demanded change. Change from whom? From corrupted politicians? From money-blinded oligarchies? From weak, incompetent institutions?

What would be the incentive for these actors, the benefactors of the current system, to change? When the real people are not even willing to bring change to themselves?

Every person responsible for allowing and attempting to cover what happened at Tempi should face justice. No questions about it.

But. even if that happens, nothing truly will be altered. Another Tempi can be around the corner. Because the system will remain, the same chair will govern, no matter the figurehead in charge.

When I lived abroad, I often said I never felt at home in Greece. Yet, paradoxically, I couldn’t escape a strange—perhaps even perverted, as Zizek might say—a sense of pride in being Greek. Wanting it or not, these lands are where my roots were spread. A detrimental part of me remains Greek, and will always remain Greek.

And it hurts! It hurts me to see my home retained in a state of constant decay, in a depressing attempt to hold what little is of a life that’s non-sustainable, slowly losing everything in the process.

While I am a pessimist, I secretly hope that we Greeks will find the strength to change ourselves. To stop hitting our heads on the same wall, hoping that the wall will break next time. To resist in ways that matter; to gather and collaborate in forms of protests that create, not destruct. And to show up for all these. Not only once, but continuously - as successful, long-lasting democratic systems require the constant participation of its citizens.

I may only hope for all these. And I guess I will forever do.

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You have reached the end of this episode - and I gladly thank you for that.

For sources, Slava Zizek’s movie “The Pervert's Guide to Ideology” is a strong starting point of his manifesto, although there are countless videos & interviews of him discussing all sorts of topics. You may also review Philosophize This’ series on Slava Zizek, mainly spanning from episode 196 to episode 201. All data sources will be also linked in the description.

If you enjoyed the episode, leave a like or a review, or recommend it to your loved ones. For any comments or feedback, feel free to reach out on the show's social media at @AftertheDragon.

The next episode will be on February, Thursday 20th. See you then!

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