For seven weeks now the Indignados of Athens have been gathering almost on a daily basis in front of the Greek Parliament in protest against the austerity measures, the rising unemployment, the deepening of the recession in the country and a proclaimed surrender of sovereignty to the mechanisms of the IMF and the European Union. Despite the fact that the movement has lost some of its original momentum in the rest of Greece, the Indignados of Athens are still occupying the front pages of domestic newspapers and the headlines of the electronic media. Journalists are quick to present romanticized images of the protesters and to expose polls put together in haste that show a high degree of sympathy and support for the movement by the wider Greek public opinion. The international media were even quicker in comparing the Indignados not only with their equivalent movements in Spain, but with the Tahrir Square protests in Egypt and the turmoil in the Middle East making ill-founded claims on the similarities of violence, the raison d’être of the movement and issues of democracy and legitimacy. So what can we make out of this movement so far
