(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
The latest polls provide Golden Dawn (GD) from 6,5 percent support and up. This is despite the fact that the lawsuit against the party's leadership has recently begun, where they are accused of starting and leading a criminal organization. The trial was set in motion after party member and activist Giorgis Roupakia's knife stabbed left-radical rapper Pavlos Fyssas to death in September two years ago. Fyssas was sitting in a cafe watching a football game with his girlfriend when a car came running. The killer, who worked at GD's headquarters, drove the knife into Fyssas without further cause.
Why has Golden Dawn had such strong growth? Many other countries were also ravaged by the economic crisis, but Portugal, Spain and Italy have not yet seen the rise of strong fascist movements. "It is clear that the social and economic collapse has been important for the growth of Golden Dawn, but it is clear that we can not say we are satisfied with this as the only explanation," said Evangelos Lagos, a sociologist and researcher at the University of Athens. to New Time.
In May this year, the final results of a four-year research project on the topic were presented. Lagos and his research group are part of a larger right-wing extremism project: Memory, Youth, Political Legacy and Civic Engagement (MYPLACE). The project is funded by the European Commission, and takes place at 16 universities across 14 countries. "The findings are scary," Lagos says. "They show that the elements that form the core of fascist ideology are widely accepted in the Greek population."
Surveys show that the voters of the two parties that received just over 80 percent of the votes in Greece before the crisis – social democratic PASOK and conservative Nea Demokratia (ND) – to a greater extent than before believe that the country should be ruled by "a strong leader who is not bound by Parliament ». Many also believe that immigrants should be given poorer welfare services than Greeks. Over 65 percent of these voters believe that one should have at least one ethnic Greek as a parent if one is to obtain Greek citizenship. These perceptions are present in all groups, but are stronger the further to the right one goes. "Such ideas are fundamental to fascist ideology, and it turns out that they permeate Greek society," says Lagos.
Deep roots. "Our cities have been taken over by illegal immigrants. We have to take them back. " "What is happening now is the biggest invasion of Greece ever. Not since the Dorians invaded us 3000 years ago have we received such an enormous influx of immigrants. "
The quotes above come from former Prime Minister Antonis Samaras (2012–2015) and former Minister of Public Order from the same government, Nikos Dendias, respectively. "How far away are these really Golden Dawn's views?" asks Lagos rhetorically. "It was not Golden Dawn that brought right-wing extremist rhetoric into Greek politics. PASOK decided to establish pure concentration camps for refugees, while ND implements the decision. We have seen repeated police raids where everyone who looks like an immigrant is arrested. We have a political system permeated by corruption, where the center parties give themselves a mandate to suppress popular demands, where the introduction of cut policy is the most obvious example. "The country has not dealt with either the military dictatorship from 1967 to 1974, the civil war from 1946 to 1949 or the extensive cooperation with the Nazi occupation forces during World War II," Lagos said. "The ideas of authoritarianism, racist oppression and nationalism do not come from nowhere."
A fascist wave of violence. Eight months before Fyssas was sentenced to life in prison, Pakistani-born Shehzad Luqman was attacked while cycling to work on a January day in 2013. Two GD activists on a motorcycle stopped and stabbed him seven times, before leaving him lying and bleeding to death.
Earlier this month, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees stated that racist hate crime has become almost a daily phenomenon in Greece, and that the perpetrators operate "almost undisturbed and in a systematic and organized manner". Repeated attacks on activists from the left are in addition. On the holiday island of Kos, there have been cases where the police and local mob in collaboration have attacked boat refugees with rods and fire extinguishers.
The attacks on immigrants have largely been excused by Greek established media, which point to increasing crime in recent years – but this increase is not just due to immigrants. The impunity the attackers enjoy can have a lot to do with the great support the party has in the police forces: Opinion polls have shown that up to 50 percent of police officers in the country vote GD. Among the riot police, it is known that the number is as high as 70 percent, as these have used their own ballot boxes. This may also explain many of the violent clashes between left-wing protesters and police.
But attacks have also come from other sides than the Nazi movement, and are accepted in far more prominent circles than with the uniformed law enforcement. In 2013, around 200 guest workers organized, protesting that they had not been paid for six months. In response, they were attacked by four men with shotguns. 28 were shot, four seriously injured. In the trial that followed, two of them were acquitted, despite admitting to having shot at the strikers. When the verdict became known, tears flowed down the cheeks of the visiting strawberry pickers. The Supreme Court upheld the acquittal. The workers were ordered to pay legal costs.
As support for the party has increased, they have also become more daring in their attacks. In the small town of Meligalas, the right marks the deaths of about 200 Nazi collaborators each year. This was an official memorial service until the end of the military dictatorship in 1974. In September 2013, DG lit torches, stormed the celebration, chased the mayor who led the ceremony from the square and claimed that they were the real nationalists. They carried out the same attack at a similar marking in Giannitsa.
Nationalist and anti-radical history. The resistance movement in Greece was a broad coalition of everything from communists to liberals, although the former formed the bulk of armed anti-fascism. In 1946 another bloody battle began. The bourgeoisie and the political elite had been in exile during the war, and returned. They did not want to punish the Nazi collaborators, but rather use them in the war they were to start against the Communists, with the support of the United States and Britain.
This was followed by some peaceful years in which the left gradually gained strength. Then a military junta took power, justified by the fear of socialism. "The official Greek story of World War II is about a mythical 'national unity' against the Nazis," says Lagos. "The civil war is hardly mentioned, and so is the military dictatorship. The state won the civil war militarily, but lost it politically. Therefore, it has been hidden from the national memory. " The Communist Party became legal again shortly after the Civil War. According to the researcher, there is a fairly clear line through Greek history: "Police raids on people with a non-Greek appearance are an extension of similar operations decades before. The Communists were imprisoned, tortured and killed during the military dictatorship. At the same time, brutal police raids began on street prostitutes and others who made a living on the streets, "he says. "In the 1980s, it was the politically marginalized on the radical left who were affected. One could say that a line of anti-communism or anti-radicalism runs through the history of the Greek government. "
About-face. Since Benito Mussolini founded fascism in 1919 as an anti-socialist movement, hatred of the left has been at the center. Communists, Social Democrats and trade union activists were sent to the Dachau concentration camp as early as 1933, over five years before Crystal Night. Anti-communism has been one of the political pillars of the Ku Klux Klan. In Norway, the Nazis bombed the Blitz House and the May 1 train, and in Sweden the anarcho-syndicalist trade unionist Björn Söderberg was killed outside his home in 1999. Anders Behring Breivik's attack on Utøya in 2011 was aimed at what he called the "cultural Marxists". and AUF.
"The anti-radicalism of the Greek state has also legitimized rabid attacks from the Golden Dawn on the left," Lagos said. "The center has nodded understandingly and often voted in itself. The agreement between the center and the Nazis also made it almost a political collaboration out of it all. But this turned around after the murder of Pavlos Fyssas, "he says. "It was fine as long as they beat up immigrants and left-wing radicals, and the assassination of Luqman obviously did not make an impression, but after the murder of Fyssas, 15 Greeks spontaneously took to the streets of Athens. Then the political price became too high, and the center would have nothing more to do with GD. "
Opinion polls have shown that up to 50 percent of police officers in the country vote Golden Dawn.
The reversal of the ND is also seen by many as a move to secure votes. Before the Fyssas murder, Gyllent Daggry was able to record 16 percent support in opinion polls. There were votes they mainly took from other parts of the right. But even after Fyssas was taken off days, there were disagreements within ND about how the case should be handled. Takis Baltakos was a kind of chief of staff for the Conservative government, and was considered to be Prime Minister Samara's right hand man. He had to resign after discussing with a DG spokesman how he could help the party avoid prosecution.
Broad nationalism. "It is obvious that we are superior to the others. We were civilized while they were still living in the trees, " says one of the young GD voters in the interviews done in the research project.
"This is a mindset that is also found in Nazi movements in other countries, only with other national myths on which they attach their alleged superiority," says Lagos. "The special thing about Greece is that this statement is almost what our children learn at school. We build national identity on a mythical ancient greatness, where the rest of the world owes us when we should have invented both theater, philosophy, democracy and science, "sighs the researcher.
Jean Marie Le Pen was once asked why there were no nationalist parties in Greece. He replied that all the parties in the country were nationalist – even the Communist Party.
"It is through the collapse of the traditional parties that this has come to the surface," Lagos said. "These attitudes have always existed, but then within the political center. Now it has broken out in the form of an independent and strong fascist movement. "
In the early 1990s, many immigrants came to Greece from the Eastern Bloc countries. At the same time, Yugoslavia broke up, and Macedonia, which borders Greece, became a separate country. In Greek politics, great emphasis was placed on nationalism. A match was started against Macedonia for the right to the name, as it is also a Greek region. "Macedonia is Greece" was a widely used slogan. This was also the time when the DG took its first steps away from being a mini-organization.
"Immigration always brings with it social problems if it is not met with a social policy. In Greece, they chose instead to face immigration with nationalism, "Lagos points out. "Before this, Golden Dawn was a typical Nazi pariah organization. But circumstances were created in which the party was allowed to appear as if it were the hardest hit by the nationalist demands promoted by the political center. One could say that the Greek people have been predisposed to nationalist currents. Time and time again, the political center has used this for all it's worth, and now we see the results. "
Protest votes for Syriza. The surveys confirmed the image of Gyllent Daggry's young electorate as ideologically conscious and with a view that corresponds with general fascist ideology. Voters identify most with the party they vote for, and over 70 percent of them place themselves on the far right's two extremes on an eleven-point scale.
Syriza voters, on the other hand, showed little identification with both the party and the ideology. This leads Lagos to conclude that it was the left that got the protest votes. "The fact that these attitudes are so normal means that the problems we see today are likely to persist. It also means that a very large part of the Greek population is receptive to hate rhetoric. We can not hide behind the fact that 'this is the Greek mentality'. This is an ideology. It's politics. It's a problem we can do something about. "
Møllersen is a journalist and sits on the board of the Radical Finance Network. joakimm@gmail.com.
