For the past week, citizens have watched in amazement as the justice system crumbles before their eyes. Makarios Drousiotis denounced signs and monsters, documenting alleged widespread corruption involving judges, abuse of power, pedophilia and laundering. And almost the whole society identified with the revelations. Convinced, beyond all doubt, that they are. In this climate, the DISY hastened, with its announcement, to preempt the investigations and attack other parties, accusing them of playing the dangerous game of smearing people and institutions, “seeking to cause chaos and destabilization of the country”. However, how did DISY conclude that what Drousiotis is complaining about is not true? But mostly, how come they were worried about the fact that such revelations lead to chaos and destabilization and not if what Makarios amazingly records is true? Because even half of what Makarios denounced were true, we are no longer talking about chaos but about the absolute dissolution of the rule of law. For a mafia state.
Obviously, Makarios also has to document the complaints he has made. And let’s all wait to see if these complaints are true. But I have the impression that apart from whether Makarios will substantiate his accusations or whether these complaints are well-founded, what should concern everyone (including DISY) is the ease with which society adopted Makarios’ claims. Which reflects the climate that has long been formed in public opinion regarding the state and its institutions. When the vast majority of society is convinced that judges are caught, that the Attorney General is being watched, that there is a state operating as an underworld then, really, one can’t just focus on whether there is evidence. For it is confirmed that in their entirety the institutions of this country are in complete disrepair. This is what should concern everyone. That the institutions as a whole have reached such levels of disrepute that the public is ready to believe even the most outrageous claims. And for this, the institutions are not without responsibility. Because this image – that the country is capable of everything – is not arbitrary. It is based on their own deeds. It is precisely “characterized” by the general image they emit. From the way they handled situations and complaints. From the way they worked politically. From the way they responded institutionally.
If people today believe that even the most unimaginable complaints are valid, the system itself gave them that right. The current administration with videogate and its insistence on not giving the list of donors to the first lady’s fund. Or the previous government with a series of scandals and no guilty parties. The DISY, with its decision, and after daily asking for the organization’s donors to be made public, to vote against a resolution that required the government to do just that. And if he believes that any complaints are valid, regardless of whether they do not lead to convictions, again this right was given to him by the institutions with the management they did all the previous period. The courts with decisions like those on Cooperative or Iliadis. The general prosecutor’s office with the management it did with the black van, Katsounotos or the Syllouris case, Giovani. The whole system in the way it handled similar complaints and scandals. And it has led an entire society to believe that the country’s main problem is the institutions that should properly be there to protect it. This absolute collapse that Cyprus is really experiencing has nothing to do with Makarios Drousiotis, nor with the revelations, nor with the criticism of the institutions, even the most leveling. But with the way the country’s institutions worked all the time before. Which led the world to believe that he lives in a failed state.
The “setting” in the eyes of the world is given precisely by the functioning of the state itself. This is what makes categories “reality”. Because the “truth” in matters of the public sphere is, to a large extent, determined by the conviction of public opinion. Which in turn is determined by the image that the institutions emit. And the image they transmit does not simply raise the issue of the functioning of the institutions. It raises the issue of the functioning and sustainability of democracy itself. After all, the functioning of democracy is based precisely on this relationship of trust between state and society. The citizen’s confidence that those in positions of responsibility are there to ensure the common good. When this certainty turns into a certainty that the exact opposite happens, then the Drusiotis turns into an antidote to society. And every whisper, every complaint, in its own truth.
https://x.com/AntonisPolydoro