6th January 2025. I drew attention to two femicides towards the end of the year. On Christmas Day, there was a news report of another incident in West Thessaloniki (code for poor and a high percentage of immigrants) where a man from Sierra Leone attacked his wife in front of their three kids. One wonders how this family ended up here; Thessaloniki is not on the average Sierra Leonian’s migration route. Yesterday, there was a report on ‘Evgenia’ attacked by her partner in Xanthi last October. The poor woman (Bulgarian, it is reported) succumbed to her injuries yesterday or the day before. No mention was made of the partner’s nationality, but the charges against him have been upgraded from grievous bodily harm to murder.
I wonder why nationality is so emphasized. I mean it is not a Greek phenomenon. I have just read the annual femicide toll in the UK. It is proportionate with Greece’s total. And in the Six Counties of the north of Ireland, the ratio is much higher. I have no answers, but I wonder if growing up in a conflict-ridden society and now living in a post-conflict society (but where there has been no meaningful reconciliation) is a contributing factor. Or are the men in question just evil bullies that can’t control their tempers?
Today is the Epiphany – Θεοφάνια in Greek – a religious and public holiday here. I have just been interrupted by a neighbour who has called to give me some αγίασμα (holy water) to sprinkle round our flat for peace and prosperity in the coming year. This from a fucker who spends his afternoons bawling and berating his wife. (NB: I wrote ‘bawling’, not ‘balling’; there are no fringe benefits to the earful the woman gets in the afternoons.)
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