When we were kids, we used to place bets on flea jumping. But we knew from the beginning which of these the loser would not honor. They had one thing in common: lots of zeros…
Shall we have a bet?
Yes hey!
How many?
One hundred million!
(and in the pocket, twenty drachmas…)
This instinctive knowledge that we possessed at ten we shed with adulthood. Some of us at least. There is, you see, a deep Greek belief that every social problem is solved if you add those many zeros to the end of a number. It does not matter if it is tax evasion, arbitrariness, traffic violations or animal abuse. The state manages the legislation like my uncle Diamantis at backgammon: if you don’t get the lot, you hit the checkers harder.
And so we arrived at the point of imposing fines, so outrageous that the defense attorneys saw them with relief. Because they already know the work: The offender incurs an administrative fine that resembles the budget of a small country. The animal welfare community applauds ecstatically. Social networks are flooded with triumphant posts about “historical vindication”. Ministers post like people who just saved the planet’s biodiversity.
And then comes reality – that sleazy bureaucrat, who ruins every romantic narrative. The case reaches the courts. There, some judge, who has a bad habit of looking at the principle of proportionality instead of reading hashtags, sees the fine and wonders if it is a sanction or an order for physical extermination. The result is always the same: the monstrous amount shrinks to something that can stand up within a rule of law.
And so everyone leaves unsatisfied: The offender because he was punished. Animal lovers because he was not punished enough. And the rest of us because they treated us again with beads and mirrors.
“It is not possible to impose three years suspended on the rapist and 270,000 euros on the one who abandoned the kittens,” writes a woman on social media. What do you answer her?
It is comical and tragic at the same time that this policy is presented as pro-life – because it is the cheapest version of it. No control mechanism is needed. There is no need for training, prevention programs, spays, surveillance or law enforcement. All it takes is a keyboard and a finger that will furiously hit zero multiple times.
Real protection requires boring stuff: Systematic policing. Administrative competence. Judicial speed. Politically unpleasant procedures that do not go viral and do not fit into festive announcements. Instead, an astronomical fine has theatricality. It is the legislative equivalent of fireworks. It goes “bang!”, lights up the sky for seconds… and leaves smoke behind.
We asked for philanthropy to become a serious request of Culture – yes, with a capital pi – and they turned it into a paper stage for a communicative performance. The citizen enjoys the spectacle. The politician the applause. And the court is left with the bill.
Animals, as usual, get nothing.
