Greeks show dislike of authority in street protests

ATHENS (Reuters) - If the riots of the past six days in Athens have shown one thing, it is the Greeks' instinctive disregard for authority.

The police shooting of a teenager on December 6 has unleashed a spasm of anger from a public jaded by years of economic hardship, with thousands taking to the streets in some of the worst civil unrest in decades.

It has highlighted a resentment of authority and a dislike of being told what to do that runs deep in the Greek psyche and can be seen, some say, in the tales of ancient history.

"Greeks are anti-authoritarian and they will always need to make their voice heard. They don't like authority," said James Ker-Lindsay, senior research fellow at the Hellenic Observatory of the London School of Economics.

Leonidas of Sparta set the tone at the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC. Told to lay down their weapons by an invading Persian army sure to defeat them, the response from the outnumbered Spartans was a derisory "Molon Labe"; Come and Get Them.

To this day, that remains the motto of the Greek 1st Army.

One of the most important days in the Greek calendar is October 28, known as Ohi, Greek for 'no'. It commemorates the day Greeks got an Italian ultimatum in 1940 to allow Axis forces to enter Greek territory. The Greeks preferred to go to war instead.

"They (Greeks) don't like being told what do do, and they won't go down quietly," Ker-Lindsay said.

Greek ire this time around is directed at police, with memories still vivid of police heavy-handedness during the military junta which ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974.

But even in calmer times, barely a week passes without some demonstration or another in Athens, the sprawling traffic-clogged capital city of four million people, that shows up an awkward streak.

One analyst says most Greek demonstrations are more of a symptom of personal disappointment rather than a display of political activism.

"It's a segmented society ... They don't really partake in what's going on, unless their own interests are trodden on," said Thanos Veremis, professor of modern history at the University of Athens.

At demonstrations, Greeks of all ages routinely turn up with surgical masks and bottles of milk of magnesia which they smear on faces to absorb the sting of teargas. They are undaunted at the sight of riot police, who liberally lob teargas into crowds.

"I am a Greek, where else would I be but at a protest?" said Stella Kotsaki, 37, a painter at a demonstration in Athens.

"Greeks are egalitarian, everyone has an equal right to have an opinion and be heard. There is a historic continuity there somewhere, its a heritage which lives on from ancient Greece," Ker-Lindsay said.

But Veremis said the present upheaval was more of an accumulation of grievances and shortcomings of the political system rather than the beginning of a public revolt.

"What we have is a remarkably incompetent government, a remarkably incompetent opposition and that is where the real problem lies. Not the destruction wrought by a small but active number of people," he said.

(Editing by Richard Balmforth)