The events in the Vorizia Heraklion was not a bolt from the blue. It was the eruption of an old, deep wound - a wound that the Crete, stubbornly, refuses to heal.
An island «blessed», but also deeply divided.
Let's be absolutely honest: Crete is not one. It is a Crete that is progressing, with its mistakes and failures, and a Crete that is burdened.
The second - the Crete of lawlessness, silence and the possession of weapons - does not simply coexist with the first - the undermines, the defames and the hurt every time blood is spilled in the name of «honor».
And the Crete of knowledge and hospitality is forced to apologize for a person who, for the most part, does not belong to it, but who can no longer continue to ignore.
The big cities are home to a different kind of Crete: mostly educated, open, creative, extroverted. With its problems and pathogenesis, of course, mainly as a result of the conditions found in most urban societies of the 21st century.
Universities, business, tourism, the arts - a world that usually operates with rules and institutions, that rejects - in its vast majority - violence and invests in progress.
This Crete, which honours the History wants to leave behind the stereotype of the «wild island». And she often feels ashamed when she sees her place making headlines for murders and feuds.
It is Crete that sees itself as an equal member of modern Europe.
But at the same time, he lives with the burden that somewhere, a few kilometers away, a another reality still defines, to a large extent, the image of the island.
In the hinterland, in the mountains, in the villages, life moves at a different pace.
There - often, not always, by some, not by all - kinship is law, honour is currency and the state is a stranger.
Η Feud, once an instrument of justice in times without institutions, has today become a blood ritual.
Η gun ownership, which started as a symbol of freedom, ended up becoming social pathology - a dangerous normality.
The patches is not a quaint custom; it's a sign of loss of control - and every now and then they pay with lives.
And yet, around all this lies the silence.
A silence that is identified with the tolerance.
Politicians, government officials, priests, high-ranking police officers - all know, few speak.
Because silence has no cost; the rupture has.
But also Crete «of light» is not without responsibility.
At feasts, festivals, social events, the two Cretans meet.
And there, too, «urban» Crete tolerates, remains silent or even participates: in the patches, in excessive alcohol consumption, in the «cups» that easily become an excuse for tension and often lead to traffic accidents.
From Fear, habit ή pseudo-bullying, a part of society participates in the same ritual that he denounces. Sometimes it «adopts» it.
So the two Cretans are no longer in conflict; Communicate.
And tolerance is slowly but surely turning into - at least partial - «coalescence», in complicity.
Impunity is the oxygen of this reality.
When sentences are symbolic, when politicians support individuals and families who have been «protagonists» in illegal phenomena over time, when the police appear only after the blood, when «traditions» take precedence over laws, then the state ceases to have authority.
And so, power loses its moral legitimacy; and when that is lost, no law is enough.
Crete has learned to live with two value systems: one defined by the law - when and for those who «work» - and one dictated by fear.
The latter, unfortunately, often turns out to be Stronger.
Change will not come with words.
Needed continuous and fair policing, ruthless application of the laws, zero tolerance of gun ownership.
A constant «investment» is needed in education - not only in schools, but also in homes, in cafes, at parties.
Until then, the traditional sasm can only survive as a tool for reconciliation, not as a cover for silence.
And those who have a public institutional role must constantly remember that the Legitimacy is not the enemy of tradition; it is its precondition.
Crete is not an island of murder and feuds; it is an island of life.
But in order to prove it every day, it must choose: the Crete of the future or the Crete of blood.
Because it cannot and should not continue to have both.
True courage, today, is not in the gun, but in the courage to speak clearly, without fear: «Enough is enough». Why «freedom is not made of privilege, it is mainly made of debt», as, very aptly, said by Albert Camus.
George Georgakakis
