Greecepeace

In 1988 Metallica released this song -‘And Justice for All’- a political song talking about how biased, corrupted and unfair justice is. Well, I assume that this was the general idea…They probably had in mind a specific judicial system but truth is the lyrics of this song could refer to any country around the globe.

Talking about the injustice of law wouldn’t be new nor would add anything to what we already believe. I just want to talk about the price we pay for accepting this situation; the lives changed or lost, because some people just put profit above anything else.

An EU law of a few years ago, states that it is forbidden to put large advertising boards on the sides of heavy traffic streets in cities, highways, etc. In fact, as far as I know, in UK France and Italy this law is already applied since I haven’t seen boards like that near any street-or at least any busy street. The reason a law like that is necessary, it’s because these advertising boards were more than once responsible for the death of drivers who lost control of their vehicles and crashed on them. Hadn’t these boards been there, these people would have had a better chance of surviving the crash.

In Greece and especially in Athens, the presence of these massive boards in the city’s streets is related with large amounts of money, given to municipalities by the advertising companies. Moreover, on these boards are advertised not only products but politicians as well, during electoral campaigns. To decide to ‘clean’ the streets from them requires a lot of money as well as a strong will by any given mayor who decides to protect his fellow citizens. The law is on people’s side on this matter, the system however, not. No matter how hard some people, only a few unfortunately, try to do something, they only manage to disturb the surface…The Media do promote this issue every now and then, mainly though after a death has occurred. After all, they too get advertised on these boards.

In numbers, from about six thousand (6.000) advertising boards around Athens, only 1-2% has been removed, sometimes only for a few months. Police records indicate that 300 accidents every year involve these boards (http://www.ekathimerini.gr/4dcgi/_w_articles_politics_2_20/06/2008_274618 Link in Greek only unfortunately). Most of them are still out there, waiting for their next victim. I wonder if the people responsible for this mess ever thought that there is a chance, this next victim might be someone they really care about…

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