Syntagma, summer 2011: Tear gas and distrust of the media

I can't forget the day in 2011 riot police fired 1,000 rounds of CS gas into Syntagma. I started at the top of the square, where the nationalists told me to get lost because I was "Zionist Media." When I asked, "Don't you want me to tell your story?" they replied, "It's too late for that." And it was only June 2011.

As the fighting intensified I tried to interview a man, face caked in Maalox; I could hardly breathe but he seemed used to it. Like almost every other person I met he was a small businessman, his business ruined by high taxes and the worst man-made slump in history.

I walked along Stadiou Street trying to make sense of it all, but the closer to Omonia I got, the more the poverty and closed shops and the graffiti and the homeless people made sense of it for me.

We were staying on the edge of Exarchia - in TV the tradition is you edit the video in the...