Civil Disobedience In Greece

Because we had been talking about Civil Disobedience in class, i wanted to to find a current example of it and see if it followed Emerson's ideas. While looking through the Chicago Tribune online, i found an article explaining protests and riots going on in Greece. A little over a week ago, Alexandros Grigoropoulos, a 15-year-old, was killed in a police shooting incident, which triggered the outrage of thousands. Though the riots/protests began regarding distrust towards the police, it expanded to be a protest of the entire state of Greece. The protests are about the economy being bad, politicians being corrupt, and the general decay of their society. It is hard to know what Emerson would have thought about these riots, for while they are protesting a failure on the part of their leaders, they are also injuring innocent people, causing millions of dollars worth of damage, and not pausing to offer a solution to the problem. I think that Emerson would have disapproved because this is not civil disobedience in the effort of creating a greater good, it is just a display of anger by an unhappy populace. Though the country will undoubtedly rethink how they are operating, i don't think that angry riots are the best way to accomplish anything, peacefull protests should be done instead.