Crete: family feud escalates into gun battle
A gun battle between two feuding families in the mountain village of Vorizia on the Greek island of Crete left two people dead and four injured on Saturday. Members of the rival families shot at each other with pistols and a Kalashnikov. Three brothers are wanted in connection with the deadly shootout, and the police fear further bloody acts of revenge.
Violence as an everyday phenomenon
The combination of widespread possession of guns and archaic values is fatal, observes the regional newspaper Nea Kriti:
“Gun ownership is not an isolated phenomenon on the island but a deep- rooted tradition in local society. A society in which some accept violence as an inevitable part of everyday life. Behind every shooting and every armed confrontation lies a long-standing problem that touches on values, education and responsibility. 'Honour' - a concept deeply rooted in the popular consciousness - often translates into actions that turn differences of opinion into tragedies. And every time a weapon is raised, a family suffers, a community is wounded and a child learns a wrong concept of masculinity.”
Nineteenth-century morals
The online portal Protagon exevents across Greece:
“Crete is presented as an exotic island, but in those areas that are not on the coast the concept of law has decayed. No one really wants to mess with the 'proud Cretans'. And so blood continues to soak the ground, children are named after the dead, and lives continue to be sacrificed for the sake of an 'honour' that people have forgotten to whom it is supposed to belong. The Crete of iPhones and Kalashnikovs is not an exotic paradox. It is the whole of Greece, stripped of its shell. A country that wears the mask of the 21st century but has a 19th-century mindset.”
When honour becomes a curse
Excessive emphasis on family honour is a social evil, Naftemporiki writes:
“From Crete to South Asia, the curse of honour haunts entire societies. This reality, rooted in patriarchal stereotypes, traps people - especially men - in vicious circles from which they find it difficult to escape. Like invisible chains that tighten with each generation, toxic masculinity dictates that a 'real man' must be tough, dominant and willing to defend his 'honour' with blood. And while such ideas may seem archaic, they still haunt modern societies and lead to tragedies such as the one in Vorizia, where violence seems to repeat itself like a curse. Feuds driven by codes of honour force people to take up arms, partly out of fear of social condemnation.”