Can we talk about the “Tempe generation”? You should be careful. After all, we know that a generation is not just an age convention; it has value when it refers to an experience on a universal scale, to the broader conditions in which a common ground, an “identity” is formed – even if it is never monolithic.

However, in our case, this may be more than a “journalistic” description. Because the Tempe disaster is just such a universal event. It’s not just the emotional shock it causes in 20 year olds, as the victims were mostly their peers and everyone thinks, “I could have been there too.” It’s also that the self-evident sense of security that their most “own” means of transportation provided was suddenly lost. The train was a cheap means, clearly cheaper than an airplane, and despite the fact that after the privatization of the railway, its price increased without improving service, at the same time, unlike the cheap but miserable KTEL, with dogs in the speakers and Jason Statham films on the screen, it was identified with a culture of freedom and carelessness – those who traveled in reality or in imagination on Interrail understand this very well.

Such a tragic event, with all the connotations associated with it, is imprinted in the collective memory, is a common reference. Again, it’s more than that. The visible result is a feeling of deep anger as a stage of the grieving process. This fury of impotence, however, explodes momentarily on a more permanent psychic substratum, which is best characterized by one word: frustration.

Let’s think about the experience of people in their 20s and 30s. They knew nothing but the “eternal crisis,” a palimpsest of crises, each one building on the previous one. The rigidity and the victims of the economic crisis have not made society even more just (the Gini inequality index, especially in recent years, is rising again). “Necessary reforms” of the labor market have created a state of extreme insecurity that prevents any young person from organizing his life in a rudimentary and decent way – combined with unthinkable rents on the altar of Airbnb, weaning is postponed indefinitely. . The tough lockdown measures have paid off in a short amount of time as Greece sits at the top of the EU. based on the number of deaths per million population (data from Our World in Data) and despite claims, the NHS has been left to the patriotism of its people. The country is closing its doors to the possibility of mere rain because it cannot face natural disasters like the Evia fires two summers ago. And now the Tempe disaster has reminded us in a dramatic way that the public has become cheaper without getting better, and the private sector continues to largely follow the logic of “cheap (autumn) growth.”

The same applies to today’s 40-year-olds. At the very least, they got ahead of years of heightened expectations, although that may only add to their disappointment. Generations that are educated, “wired” to the Internet and platforms, open to the world, radical in values ​​and with a strong sense of freedom and self-realization, are faced with the impossibility of constructing a biography. “An archive of failed projects”, individual and collective – I borrowed the name of Pantelis Flatsousis’ magnificent theatrical performance staged last year in Athens.

The sensational mobilizations after the accident were not only about that, they were a condensation of what had gone before, just like the mobilizations in France were not only about pensions, or May 1968 was not only about the separation of male and female dorms at the University of Nanterre. And in the run-up to the election, we can assume that anger and frustration will have political repercussions.

While it’s best not to bet, it would be fair to assume that the “Tempe generation” will go to the polls more often than before. He will potentially lash out at a government that has not delivered on its promises of security and administrative efficiency. Perhaps this will strengthen SYRIZA, although another failure of 2015 is still relatively fresh, when indicators of political trust, destroyed by the crisis, briefly rose to collapse again (for today’s 20-something, the referendum is one of the first political memories). Rather, the strengthening of smaller parties, such as MePA25, which retains the potential of radicalism even as a style, or extreme right-wing formations that preach a complete rejection of politics.

Whatever happens, the problem remains: what political outlets can be found to frustrate a generation that sees the country zigzag from crisis to crisis, catastrophe to disaster, never achieving the promised triumph—like a reconstituted cavalry regiment—in 2023?

Mr. Yannis Balapanidis is a political scientist and writer.