Racism and Chauvinism a very Greek trait

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  • TrueMacedonian
    Senior Member
    • Jan 2009
    • 3810

    #31


    The ugly face of state racism. On the Greek government’s attempt to treat immigrants as a public health risk

    Panagiotis Sotiris

    Aggressive state racism is going to be an important aspect of the public debate in Greece in the run-up to the general election expected to take place in May. The aim is to move the political agenda to the right in order to avoid discussion of the social devastation brought by the extreme austerity measures and also to answer the electoral challenge the Far Right poses, since opinion polls show that even the neo-Nazis of the ‘Golden Dawn’ have a strong chance of passing the 3% threshold and entering parliament.

    The result is a turn towards openly racist policies by both PASOK and New Democracy, the two parties of the coalition supporting the Papadimos’ government. A program of new detention centers for illegal immigrants has been announced, accompanied by police tactics of mass arrests of immigrants. On top of this, the Ministers of Health, A. Loverdos, and Public Order, M. Chrysochoidis, want to introduce new legislation according to which illegal immigrants will be treated as a public health risk. If this legislation is passed through parliament, illegal immigrants will be subject to forced detention in health facilities, if the on the grounds of their country of origin or their practices, such as drug use or prostitution, they are considered a danger to public health.

    This is accompanied by increased press Media coverage on the situation in the centre of Athens where thousands of immigrants live in conditions of extreme poverty and lack of access to basic sanitation. These dwellings have been presented as a ‘health bomb’ and an extreme danger for public health. The same goes with the exploitation of data regarding HIV infections in drug users and the expansion of illegal prostitution. It is obvious that the Greek government is trying to send the message that immigrants carry infectious diseases and therefore its anti-immigrant policies are in the interest of the health of Greek citizens.

    It is obvious that this rhetoric is based on a complete distortion of reality. Immigrants do not pose a health risk, they are facing an extreme health risk, because of anti-immigrant policies from the part of the Greek government and the European Union (especially the “Dublin II” regulation), and also because of the practices of property owners and employers that exploit them and force them to extreme poverty. Moreover, if we are going to think about an actual danger for Public Health in Greece, this is no other than the Health Minister himself. He has been responsible for an aggressive program of health cuts that have already led to a severe deterioration of health services in Greece. If there is an increased rate of HIV infection in drug users this has not to do with the fact that poor immigrants are also drug users but to the fact that needle exchange programs have been suspended or reduced. And the Media reports about the return of ‘forgotten’ infectious diseases fail to stress is that this is due to the situation in immigrant’s countries of origin that led to the dismantling of public health infrastructure and also the result of the policies implemented in Greece that deny illegal immigrants access to basic health services. Moreover, health statistics and epidemiology suggest that much more people will face disease as a result of the insecurity and socio-economic stress brought upon them by the austerity packages and increased unemployment, than by the ‘exotic’ diseases supposedly carried by immigrants. And of course despite all the exaggerated and inflated reports about a growing number of immigrants in reality many immigrants are actually trying to flee a country with a 21% official rate of unemployment.

    All these attest to the fact that we are facing a classic case of political investment in racist policies. Association of immigrants and foreigners with disease and biological degradation has been a basic tenet of racist and colonial discourse that tends to present the ‘other’ as a threat to the ‘biological’ purity of the nation. One can only think of Nazi extermination policies based also upon the preservation of the ‘hygiene’ of the German nation.

    This open use of archetypical racist discourse, this combination of racist biopolitics with electoral politics only makes this ideological mix more toxic. This is another evidence of the extreme cynicism of the Greek political class. The fact that moving the political debate towards this direction also gives increased legitimacy to openly neo-fascist and neo-Nazi positions, is something they can accept as long as they think that in this way they might turn immigrants into scapegoats.

    Hopefully, there is a great chance that this strategy will fail. Despite an attempt to make racism the center of political debate in early 2011, as it was made evident by the vicious attacks on the heroic hunger strike of 300 immigrants, in the end the effort failed and we witnessed the impressive movement of the squares and subsequent struggles. Where there is struggle, one can also expect to find solidarity.



    [1] Panagiotis Sotiris teaches social and political philosophy at the Department of Sociology of the University of the Aegean. He can be reached at [email protected]
    Slayer Of The Modern "greek" Myth!!!

    Comment

    • TrueMacedonian
      Senior Member
      • Jan 2009
      • 3810

      #32
      http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2...Breitbart+Feed)

      World View: Nationalism and Neo-Nazi Violence Increase Across Europe
      by John J. Xenakis19 Oct 2012, 2:21 AM PDT

      Tens of thousands protest against austerity in Greece

      Some 70,000 furious Greeks took to the streets in Athens on Thursday, while European officials were at a summit in Brussels discussing the next round of austerity measures to impose on Greece. Protesters in Syntagma Square through rocks, petrol bombs, bottles and chunks of marble at police, who responded with rounds of tear gas and stun grenades. One 60 year old protester, Nikos Xeros, is quoted as saying:

      "After nearly 50 years of work and paying into an expensive pension fund, I have been forced to retire on 1,000 euros a month and if they pass these measures it will be even less. It's like having a noose about your neck that is getting ever tighter. The next time I come out to demonstrate it's going to be with a gas mask and a big wooden club."

      Xeros has been working as a shipbuilder since age 16. AP and Guardian


      Neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party gains support in Greece

      Proceedings in the Greek parliament were disrupted Thursday when Eleni Zaroulia of the far right Golden Dawn party, an MP and member of a Council of Europe anti-discrimination committee, described immigrants as subhumans:

      "It is unacceptable that they be assimilated to this kind of subhumans who have invaded our fatherland with the diseases that they lug around."

      The loud support that she received is symptomatic of the growing support that the Golden Dawn party is receiving from the public. Violence against "subhuman" immigrants is growing, and there is some evidence that some Greek police are supporting the violence, or at least doing nothing to stop it. Greek Reporter



      Greeks shocked at Golden Dawn attack on Corpus Christi play performance
      Another Golden Dawn MP, Ilias Panagiotaros, last week led a protest against a performance of the Terence McNally play, Corpus Christi. Panagiotaros shouted racist, homophobic and threatening remarks against the director of the play. The 1997 play dramatizes the story of Jesus and the Apostles, and includes a scene where Jesus administers a gay marriage between two apostles. A Youtube clip has Panagiotaros shouting, "Wrap it up you little faggots. Yes, just keep staring at me you little hooker. Your time is up." and "You Albanian assholes." Golden Dawn members threw rocks at audience members and, through it all, the police just stood by and let it happen. Panagiotaros is commemorating the Greece's civil war that ended in 1949:

      "There is already civil war.
      Greek society is ready - even though no-one likes this - to have a fight: a new type of civil war.

      On the one side there will be nationalists like us, and Greeks who want our country to be as it used to be, and on the other side illegal immigrants, anarchists and all those who have destroyed Athens several times."

      The attack on Corpus Christi has become a signal moment in Greek politics, and greater nationalism and violence directed against immigrants. BBC
      Slayer Of The Modern "greek" Myth!!!

      Comment

      • TrueMacedonian
        Senior Member
        • Jan 2009
        • 3810

        #33


        'Greece: Policing racist violence in the 'fenceless vineyard'
        By Georgios A. Antonopoulos
        Slayer Of The Modern "greek" Myth!!!

        Comment

        • Risto the Great
          Senior Member
          • Sep 2008
          • 15658

          #34
          The problem I see with the Greeks is they want a slice of the EU cake, they want to eat it as well AND they want to stay out of the kitchen when the cake is getting made or the cooking implements are being washed.

          Merkel recently stated the EU should have the right to override national budgets. This would be deathly to any democratic nation. But then again, that is the purpose of the EU.
          Risto the Great
          MACEDONIA:ANHEDONIA
          "Holding my breath for the revolution."

          Hey, I wrote a bestseller. Check it out: www.ren-shen.com

          Comment

          • TrueMacedonian
            Senior Member
            • Jan 2009
            • 3810

            #35


            Anti-immigrant Golden Dawn rises in Greece

            By Anthony Faiola, Published: October 20The Washington Post
            ATHENS — At first glance, the shop on a nondescript street in this chaotic capital looks standard-issue military. Fatigues. Camouflage. Hunting gear. Deeper inside, the political message emerges. Black T-shirts emblazoned with modified swastikas — the symbol of the far-right Golden Dawn party — are on sale. A proudly displayed sticker carries a favorite party slogan: “Get the Stench out of Greece.”

            By “stench,” the Golden Dawn — which won its first-ever seats in the Greek Parliament this spring and whose popularity has soared ever since — means immigrants, broadly defined as anyone not of Greek ancestry. In the country at the epicenter of Europe’s debt crisis, and where poverty and unemployment are spiking, the surplus shop doubles as one of the party’s dozens of new “help bureaus.” Hundreds of calls a day come in from desperate families seeking food, clothing and jobs, all of which the Golden Dawn is endeavoring to provide, with one major caveat: for Greeks only.

            To fulfill its promise of a Greece for Greeks alone, the party appears willing to go to great lengths. Its supporters — in some instances with the alleged cooperation of police — stand accused of unleashing a rash of violence since the party rose to national office, including the stabbings and beatings of immigrants, ransacking an immigrant community center, smashing market stalls and breaking the windows of immigrant-owned shops.

            Attacks have not stopped at foreigners. One Golden Dawn legislator slapped a left-wing female politician on national television. Party supporters have attempted to shut down performances of progressive theater. Activists see the party’s hand behind three recent beatings of gay men. The Golden Dawn has also begun engaging left-wing anarchy groups in street battles — more evidence, observers say, of a societal breakdown that some here fear could slide into a civil war if Greece is forced out of the euro and into an even deeper crisis.

            But perhaps more worrisome, critics say, are signs that the Golden Dawn is establishing itself as an alternative authority in a country crippled by the harsh austerity imposed by its international lenders. It has set up its own “pure” blood bank, providing and accepting donations to and from Greeks only, in a nation of 11 million that is also home to roughly 1.5 million refugees and migrants, many of them from the Middle East, South Asia and Africa. As the party attempts to place a swelling number of unemployed in jobs, its officials say they have persuaded a major restaurant chain to begin replacing immigrants with Greek workers.

            Landlords can seek the party’s help with the eviction of immigrant tenants. The Golden Dawn can provide not only government health inspectors and lawyers sympathetic to its goals, but also security, in the form of black*-uniformed followers with military haircuts who salute one another with upraised fists.

            From his office inside the shop, Elias Panagiotaros, one of the new national legislators from the Golden Dawn, denied that the party is engaging in systematic attacks. But ethnic Greeks, he added, “have the right to protect themselves and their property from all these illegal savages.”

            “During difficult periods of war or economic disaster, as we are facing now, there are people who have to do the hard job, the dirty job,” Panagiotaros said. “We are the ones.”

            As deeply indebted European nations undergo waves of harsh government cuts in exchange for European Union-backed bailouts, observers warn that the fabric of society in some countries is being stretched to its breaking point. As countries trim spending, the elderly and disabled are enduring deep reductions in aid and pensions. Workers are losing their jobs or facing sharp salary cuts. Taxes are increased in the middle of steep recessions.

            The crisis has fanned the fires of independence in Catalonia and Dutch-speaking Belgium, threatening to break up the Spanish and Belgian states. But nowhere is the stress of the crisis more profound than here in Greece, where the deepest of cuts have left a grim tableau. One in every four Greeks is without work. Youth unemployment is above 50 percent. The suicide rate is climbing. Medical treatments for cancer and other illnesses have become harder to get. Growing intravenous drug use is causing a spike in the rate of HIV infection, according to a study published in the Lancet medical journal.

            The collapsed economy is fertile ground for the Golden Dawn. Born in the 1980s and populated by Greek nationalists, including some who fought with the Serbs in the Balkans and had ties to Greece’s former military dictatorship, the party won its first-ever seats in Parliament in May with 7 percent of the vote. A recent poll showed that 22 percent of Greeks view the party favorably.

            To be sure, nationalist and *anti-immigrant parties are rising across Europe. But observers put the Golden Dawn in a league of its own. In 1987, the magazine of the party — headed by Nikolaos Michaloliakos, a former commando in the Greek special forces — published an issue hailing Hitler as “the great man of the 20th century.” On a recent visit to the help bureau, a poster heralding the Third Reich’s 1936 Berlin Games hung on a wall.

            In a nation where memories of World War II-era atrocities remain fresh, polls have shown that most Greeks who support the Golden Dawn are doing so based solely on its anti-immigrant stance and that they largely dismiss the group’s more hard-core attributes. But its extracurricular activities are becoming more violent.

            “They speak of ‘cleaning-up’ operations,” said Vassiliki Georgiadou, an academic who has studied the movement. “They will try, violently if needed, to ‘clean up’ whole neighborhoods, towns, the country.”

            Greek Justice Minister Antonis Roupakiotis said he is concerned about the party’s alleged ties to the police and military. Accusations are rife that police may be working with the Golden Dawn on a new nationwide stop-and-search campaign targeting illegal immigrants. Activists also allege that segments of the police may be colluding with the party in anti-immigrant attacks, which the government estimates number at least two or three a week.

            There have been limited attempts to investigate the party, including lifting parliamentary immunity for two Golden Dawn legislators who were recently videotaped harassing an immigrant market. But critics say the government has been reluctant to more broadly confront the party’s alleged abuses. Rather than banning the party, as some here suggest, Roupakiotis said the best solution is to improve social conditions in Greece to undermine the Golden Dawn’s strength.

            ‘Taking advantage’


            “Greece fought the fascists in World War II, thousands of Jews ended up in crematoriums and now we are facing this threat again,” Roupakiotis said. He later added: “This is being caused by the tough conditions Greece is being forced to endure. Extremists are taking advantage of the situation.”

            Yet Roupakiotis and others also blame the heavy flow of migrants from the Middle East and Asia who use Greece as a back door to enter the European Union, most often via Turkey. The situation is being made worse by European policies that allow E.U. countries to deport undocumented immigrants to their entry point in the union, often meaning Greece. As a result, the population in Greek jails is 40 percent non-Greek.

            Since the Golden Dawn’s rise to office this year, immigrant communities across Greece are reporting what they describe as a reign of terror. In the America Square neighborhood of Athens, for instance, immigrants have begun organizing night watches after shopkeepers had their storefronts vandalized and immigrant men were assaulted. Earlier this month, residents say, a group of Greek men dressed in black stripped and humiliated an Ethiopian woman.

            Some alleged attacks involve nothing more than insults. Others are more serious.

            On Sept. 22, Ali Riasat Ghulam, a 47-year-old Pakistani man who has lived in Greece for 22 years, was at a gas station near his home in northern Athens. Two Greek men clad in black drove up in a car. The men, he said, asked him where he was from. After Ghulam replied “Pakistan,” the men attacked him with a knife, leaving him with three stab wounds that are still healing, including a 12-inch circular gash on his chest.

            “We are terrified,” said Ghulam, who shares a rundown apartment on the edge of Athens with five other Pakistani immigrants. “We do not go out alone anymore, not even to the grocery store. We know the Golden Dawn is out there.”

            Elinda Labropoulou contributed to this report.
            Slayer Of The Modern "greek" Myth!!!

            Comment

            • TrueMacedonian
              Senior Member
              • Jan 2009
              • 3810

              #36


              Metropolitan Augustine Blasts Racism in Greece

              By Nicky Mariam Onti on October 28, 2012 in Germany, news

              Orthodox Metropolitan Augustine of Germany’s Ecumenical Patriarchate has condemned what he called “xenophobia and racism, wherever they’re coming from,” noting an increase in racist and anti-immigrant attacks in Greece.

              Speaking to the Greek version of Deutsche Welle, he stressed that, “When such events occur, the Church cannot remain silent,” although the Greek Orthodox Church in Greece said nothing about an anti-blasphemy protest in Athens that included assaults.

              He also said that because of Greece’s crushing economic crisis that has put two million people out of work and increased hopelessness that there should be a return to spirituality. He noted that Greeks living in Germany share concern over the fate of their homeland.

              His remarks came as Greeks of the Diaspora noted Oct. 28, Oxi Day, the refusal of Greece to surrender to Italy at the beginning of World War II, an event remembered by The Federation of Greek Communities of Germany.
              Slayer Of The Modern "greek" Myth!!!

              Comment

              • TrueMacedonian
                Senior Member
                • Jan 2009
                • 3810

                #37
                Here are some comments to the article above. Nothing new of course this is the grk mentality.

                bloodandsoil•14 days ago−“xenophobia and racism, wherever they’re coming from,”
                You people love using emotional labels to try and discredit Golden Dawn. The fact that you people are still playing the 'xenophobia and racist' cards is laughable at best. Despite these labels Golden Dawn continues to rise is popularity, which is fantastic. On the other hand all the left can do is throw infantile names around like a school yard brat.

                It's time to move over people. Golden Dawn is here to stay. Don't be such 'bigots'... LOL!
                Joec•14 days ago− If you look at crime in multicultural Europe you will see it's not whites who are attack minorities but the other way around. Crimes against whites goes ignored just like it does in the united states. These crimes against white people are rarely mentioned on so anti-racist pages and the the more left and progressive the more hypocritical lying scumbags you will find. This is why whites must support the far-right because they are the only people who will stand up for their own. We keep getting lectured about racism from the people who are violently beating us in the streets and targeting our women for rape.

                I have no sympathy for immigrants in Greece they have all reaped what they sowed.
                Solutreans•14 days ago−This so called "Orthodox Metropolitan" should hand in his resignation from the Greek Orthodox Christian Church, because he clearly has no problem with the fact that there are 2 million ILLEGAL MUSLIM immigrants in Christian Greece(& yes Greece is Christian as 97% of Greek CITIZENS are baptised members of the Greek Orthodox Christian Church).
                This so called "Orthodox Metropolitan" doesn't care about the violent hellish crime wave these illegal muslim immigrants perpetrate against Greek citizens & he seems upset that Golden Dawn protested against a perverse grotesque anti-Christian theatrical play that depicted the Lord Jesus Christ & his Apostles as homosexuals.
                Darthkuriboh•13 days ago−I'm certain the true Orthodox Church knows that unless the Golden Dawn patriots do get in control in Greece and remain that way, the rest of Greece will go the way of Constantinople. How many Orthodox Churches are there again in that formerly glorious city of the Eastern Empire?
                Chrisoforos•13 days ago−It is time for the great Greek nation carrying the banner of Christ's original church to rise up in arms under the leadership of the great patriots of Golden Dawn to march and recover Konstantinopoli, Smyrna, Skopje, Alexandria, Varna, Odessa and all of Greece's ancient territories which have been Greek since the time of the first humans. If muslims can launch a holy war we can too, Holy Jesus never meant it when he said "Turn the Other Cheek". Building the spears, bows and arrows we need for the fight will rejuvenate our economy too.

                Wow. I guess these same grks would freak out to learn that their real ancestors looked like this
                Slayer Of The Modern "greek" Myth!!!

                Comment

                • TrueMacedonian
                  Senior Member
                  • Jan 2009
                  • 3810

                  #38
                  I don't fully agree with this entire article but the author does make a few key points worth illustrating.


                  Mainstream politicians have been playing a dangerous game. It remains unclear to what extent these tactics represent a conscious attempt to distract those suffering most as a result of the longterm maladministration of the country. But this constitutes only a small part of the scenario we are investigating here.


                  Is Greece a racist state?
                  Iannis Carras 21 December 2012

                  Mainstream politicians have been playing a dangerous game. It remains unclear to what extent these tactics represent a conscious attempt to distract those suffering most as a result of the longterm maladministration of the country. But this constitutes only a small part of the scenario we are investigating here.

                  Though the surge in support for the neo-fascist Golden Dawn has gained considerable attention in the international media, this phenomenon is better understood within the context of developments affecting society as a whole. It is Greek society in economic depression and its attitudes towards the other – the migrant or the foreigner – that will be the subject of this article.

                  Modern Greek history will be read as a history of migrations, both international and internal, older and newer migrants finding themselves in competition as they seek to renegotiate their position in society and their identities. It is in the light of these previous migrations that an effort will be made to comprehend contemporary policies and current attitudes towards immigration. European legislation on migration is increasing the instability of the Greek state at this crucial juncture, and, as a result, contributing to the magnitude of the crisis.

                  Urban strangers

                  Migration is not new to the region. Nicholas Purcell and Peregrine Hordern have chronicled how variable microclimates in the mountainous Aegean rendered movement and hence migration a necessary technique for survival. Population hubs on islands or peninsulas were linked by sea to distant hinterlands, relying on them for nutrition and much else.

                  Against this backdrop, climatic, economic or political disturbances led to population movements on an even grander scale: the flow of migrants from the Balkans to the northern Black Sea coast (increasingly part of the Russian Empire) in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, or migration in waves from the western to the eastern Aegean, from Greece to what is today Turkey and to Egypt in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries - to cite two examples from the recent past. Unlike the nation-states which followed in its wake, the port cities of the Ottoman, Russian and British Empires provided a suitable framework for such movement, and not a few Greeks grew wealthy trading throughout the Black Sea and the Levant, even as far east as Calcutta.

                  Two further migrations, however, have left an indelible mark on Greek society in the twentieth century. First, the forced migration of Orthodox Christians (some Turkish speaking) from the newly constituted Turkish state, and Muslims (a large number Greek speaking) from Greece, both prior to and following the treaty of Lausanne of 1923. Their story has recently been re-narrated by Bruce Clark in his poignantly named “Twice a Stranger”.

                  Ethnic cleansing on this scale was justified by the requirement of creating homogeneous and hence functioning nation-states, the resulting homogeneity being primarily religious. Despite efforts to settle migrants and provide them with gainful employment, these migrants, some 20% of the total population (and over 45% in Greek Macedonia), became the determining factor in Greek politics. With little allegiance to the royalist status quo, and denigrated as an inferior underclass by the bourgeois of old Greece, urban refugees provided the backbone of the Liberal and, slightly later, the Communist party, KKE.

                  Already in the 1920s KKE was arguing in manifestos for the imposition of a “workers' and peasants' and refugees' government”. Though it is important to take into consideration the effects of depression in the 1930s when support for KKE surged, a direct line connects the migrations of the 1920s to the Civil War of approx. 1943-1949.

                  An equally significant migration from the 1950s up until the 1990s saw millions leave their homelands for Athens (and, to a lesser extent, Salonica and western Europe). These were the boom years of “Build, Build, Build”, the disarmingly earnest title of a book by a trusted Minister in the elder Karamanlis' administrations. The construction sector did serve as the first job opportunity for a large number of internal migrants, and a significant part of the industrial sector was vertically integrated into construction. However, this construction-based development model led to a combination of low productivity and labour-intensive methods of work. What is more, illegal housing in urban peripheral areas constituted the main form of construction in Greek cities. The combination of construction, environmental degradation and disregard for law remains a dominant development paradigm to this day, despite the crisis.

                  Internal migration linked to urbanisation is not unique to Greece, of course. In the Greek case, however, two elements stand out: firstly, this development can be closely correlated to the swelling of a centralised state apparatus (from the 1980s on, reliant on EU financial support); and, secondly, migrant allegiances largely remained in their regions of origin, real or idealised, being transferred to the country as a whole only following further migration overseas.

                  Though different in many respects, migration from overseas and internal migration fed common myths. Popular songs of the period tell the story more effectively than other media: “My father Batis / came from Smyrna in 1922 […] in this world those who love eat dirty bread […] and their desires follow / underground paths”. This smash hit from the 1972 album “Dirty Bread” in fact contains two stories: a traditional zeibekiko (partly quoted above) sung by Sotiriou Belou and an electric-rock commentary narrated as a backdrop by the singer-songwriter Dionysis Savvopoulos. Whereas the older generation are the migrants, the younger are in search of their father, Georgos Batis, a classic figure of the rebetiko genre (with its antecedents in the musical traditions of Asia Minor). And yet the younger are also migrants: “I will get lost / in the world like a refugee”, sings Savvopoulos' destabilising second voice, while simultaneously slipping away from the patriachal order it purports to be seeking.[1]

                  Where this was possible, citizens even continued voting in the regions of birth: their idealised politiai being constantly juxtaposed to the dystopia of urban Athens. In Athens and elsewhere hundreds of organisations sought to connect Greeks to their origins: over five hundred exist for the Greeks of Asia Minor alone. The chasm between belonging to a local community and the foreignness of Athens' labyrinth was bridged through the patronage of political parties and, also, increasing access to consumer goods.

                  Essentialist discourses of a three-thousand year old nation separated Greeks from their Balkan and Ottoman neighbours while projecting an ideological construct that could not and cannot be lived by the majority of Greeks in any meaningful way; these discourses did however serve a unifying purpose, while linking Greece to a similarly idealised vision of Europe.

                  Migrations to Athens from its Balkan hinterlands and from the former Soviet Union in the years following 1990 provided cheap (un-unionised) labour, crucial for the GDP growth rates of the Simitis years. This high GDP growth served, in turn, as a catalyst for Greece's entry into the Euro. Despite widespread racism against Albanians, these were populations that might have creatively coexisted, or even been assimilated (many parts of southern Greece were Albanian speaking only a generation or two back and the central role of Albanian-speaking areas in the War of Independence of 1821 is well known), a process that was under way prior to its reversal in the current crisis.

                  In short, though there has been much talk of migration in an age of globalisation, the interplay between the immigrant/emigrant and the resident has been a constant factor in the creation and recreation of a Greek polity. This should not come as a surprise. After all, Greece's indented coastline and crossable northern borders render it an ideal gateway for migrations both eastward and westward. The nature of this migration explains some of the weaknesses that are endemic to the Greek polity: the lack of trust between groups, and the lack of allegiance and non-payment of taxes to a state that is almost universally viewed as the fiefdom of a kleptocratic elite. As will be argued further on, contemporary attitudes towards migrants in Greece are in large part a consequence of the interplay between feelings of alienation related to previous migrations and a sense of estrangement from a discordant modernity. With the post-Junta generation, its democratic rhetoric and visions of Europe, seemingly discredited, essentialist narratives are the only official ideology left standing.

                  One further element is, however, increasing the pungency of this brew, and that is Europe. Though the ideal of Europe has repeatedly been used to differentiate Greeks from their neighbours on an ideological level, European legislation has achieved the same result in fact. With entry into the EU and, in particular, with the Schengen Agreement, Greece negotiated for itself the pulling power of a modern-day European Empire. The Dublin II Regulation and, more particularly, the European Pact on Immigration and Asylum, however, have left it with the absorption capacity of a peripheral nineteenth century nation-state. It is this imbalance between pulling power and absorption capacity in a part of the world prone to migration that renders the current situation in Greece so perilous; and, also, given the series of conflicts triggered by various actors in a broad ark spanning from Afghanistan to Libya – and the population movements that inevitably ensue – so unjust.

                  The neo-fascist party Golden Dawn is dominating discussion of racism in Greece. A glance at the web-site of the party is instructive. Narcissism is writ large in the glorification of ancient Sparta, Thermopylae, Alexander of Macedon, the dictator Ioannis Metaxas, the Greek Junta and such like. But scraps from Plato, the Church Fathers, William Blake, Friedrich Nietzsche, Ioannis Makriyiannis (who launched a revolt aiming for constitutional monarchy in 1843), the philosopher Panagiotes Kondyles and others also find their niche.

                  Further articles denigrate constitutional democracy, international capitalism, cosmopolitanism and the Greek left, casting the left-wing politician and leading member of the resistance Manolis Glezos as Soviet / Stalinist and the leader of the opposition, Alexis Tsipras, as a latter day Avraam Benaroya, the Jewish Salonikan who played a prominent role in the founding of the Greek Communist party. A piece by party leader Nicholaos Michaloliakos champions his version of ‘Hellenism’ which is, “not a body of ideas and of cultural achievements […] but a term with racial content”. The overall impression is of a party of the deracinated and the deranged grasping at fragments. Tormented by the absence of clear meanings in their post-modern condition, it is “blood” and “violence” that inevitably have the last word.

                  The most recent but also effective rebuttal of the essentialist and racist ideologies propagated by Golden Dawn has come from within the Orthodox Church. Paul Metropolitan of Siatista (a small town in Greek Macedonia, its elegant mansions testimony to migrations as far north as Budapest and Vienna in the eighteenth century) launched a series of stringent attacks on Golden Dawn calling the party a “black night” for Greece. Bartholomew, the Istanbul based Oecumenical Patriarch, journeyed to Siatista to commend the Metropolitan. “The real causes of this crisis lie not in economics, but are spiritual and moral” he stated, praising Paul for his “spiritual guidance of his flock”. Hieronymous, Archbishop of Athens also condemned racism in general and Golden Dawn in particular. In a move redolent with symbolism, he presided over the funeral of Paul, Alexis Tsipras' father, who had been imprisoned by the Junta. Many other Hierarchs joined in this unprecedented (and it would appear coordinated) intervention by the Church into politics.

                  The actions of these Hierarchs are significant in part because the Church's flock is relatively conservative – and thus prone to nationalist discourses – but even more because essentialist views of Greek history cannot bypass the role of the Church as the only institution which existed throughout four hundred or more years of “Turkish yoke”. Though the Hierarchs' campaign received minimal coverage in Greece's liberal press, opinion polls do suggest that support for Golden Dawn dropped shortly thereafter. The Golden Dawn website itself hosted an article by a Member of Parliament, expressing the “surprise” of a true believer on hearing the Hierarchs' condemnations. Not all Church figures have been so enlightened, however. The role Church organisations played as a bulwark of support for the Greek Junta has been well documented. Drawing on this latter tradition, the Metropolitan of Piraeus and the Metropolitan of Kalavrita openly express extreme right-wing opinions. It remains to be seen whether the Hierarchs of the Church can keep up the pressure against the rising tide of racism in Greece.

                  The left for its part has long cast itself as the foremost ideological opponent of fascism in Greece. Anarchists and others have organised patrols in immigrant areas of Athens to challenge Golden Dawn's monopoly of violence on the streets. SYRIZA has also attacked the essentialism of Golden Dawn's narrative by pointing to links between the party and collaborationist Security Battalions during the Second World War. There is a clear correlation between those regions where the Security Battalions drew the mass of their support and recent electoral successes for Golden Dawn. The Golden Dawn has replied by beating up left-wing politicians.

                  Institutionalised racism

                  This focus on Golden Dawn as the locus of racism in Greece is however misleading. To a considerable extent it plays into discourses of two commensurate plagues, with SYRIZA and Golden Dawn both being censured by elements within the commentariat as peddlers of extremism and violence.

                  Rather it is racism institutionalised through the actions of the Greek state that is an even greater cause for concern. The support for Golden Dawn within the police force has been widely reported, a connection that constitutes one of the reasons for Golden Dawn's emergence as a substantial political force (the same does not seem to be true of the army, however). It also explains the impunity felt by those carrying out racist attacks.

                  Despite a front page article in the daily Ethnos listing instances of police use of indiscriminate violence, for the most part directed at foreigners, the use of such methods and even torture by sections of the police has not received the attention it deserves. During the course of research for this article, two migrants interviewed claimed that they had been at the receiving end of police violence. At the same time, the government is widely reported to be restricting if not terminating uninsured immigrants' access to basic health care. Mainstream politicians have been playing a dangerous game, gendering racism by giving prominence to “foreign prostitutes” purportedly bearing illnesses and contaminating Greeks. There can be no doubt that such stories play well on sensationalist TV channels. It remains unclear to what extent these tactics represent a conscious attempt to distract those suffering most as a result of the longterm maladministration of the country.

                  The lack of an officially functioning mosque in Athens is equally troubling. Though there are official mosques elsewhere in Greece, this absence is a side effect of the Treaty of Lausanne and the religious homogeneity that resulted. The government had promised to build a new mosque in time for the 2004 Olympics, and it is still promising to do so. Under pressure from the Church and other circles it has procrastinated however, and to this day Muslims in the capital pray in rented basements and apartments, easy prey for racist assaults.

                  With little police protection, both Bangladeshi and Pakistani places of worship have been attacked in recent months. The lack of an officially functioning mosque is all the more surprising, because two mosques do in fact exist in the centre of Athens. The first, the Fetiye Mosque, or Mosque of the Conquest, was originally built on the walls of a demolished Byzantine basilica in 1456-58, shortly after the capture of the city by Mehmet II. Its reconsecration as a mosque would therefore prove needlessly provocative. The elegant Tsistaraki Mosque (named after an eighteenth century governor of Athens) now functions as a museum. It could be reused as a mosque at no cost, at least until such time as the authorities construct a larger edifice. Foreign governments owe it to all Greeks to put pressure on the Greek state to right this clear instance of institutionalised racism.

                  If the lack of a mosque in Athens is a result of inaction by the state apparatus, a government decree freezing citizenship applications from second generation migrants represents a policy initiative. The citizenship law of 2010 had constituted an attempt to build virtuous cycles, creating a relatively inclusive citizen body and addressing Greece's demographic deficit (rendered even worse by the ongoing emigration of young Greeks since the onset of the crisis). The decree of 2012, which follows on from a decision by the Council of State, Greece's highest administrative court, for the most part affects second generation immigrants from the Balkans. That decree, together with any new more restrictive citizenship law that ensues, represents the antithesis of policies followed by the Greek state following the treaty of Lausanne, which aimed at maximum integration of new arrivals.

                  Less obviously, an overly restrictive citizenship law also undermines official ideology. For as Jakob Philipp Fallmerayer argued in his controversial study of the Peloponnese, the Greeks cannot, on the basis of any sound reading of the evidence, claim to constitute a racial continuity from the ancient world up until the present day.

                  Greek nineteenth century historians countered that continuities in Greek history were not racial but cultural. It is not for nothing that one of the main libraries in downtown Athens bears Isocrates' aphorism on the pedestal over its main entrance: “Greeks are those who share our common education”, alternatively translated as, “culture”. Citizenship through shared language and education is therefore the sine qua non for Greeks claiming connections to Byzantium and the ancient world.

                  In any event, the consequences of the message sent through the repeal of access to citizenship rights for second generation immigrants are being realised in Greece's educational establishments. With no avenues left open for integration, both resident and migrant school children are retreating into their cocoons, forming gangs along narrowly ethnic lines. A new generation, embittered and demoralised, is coming of age. If this decree represents the future of Greece, then it is a bleak future indeed.

                  The establishment of a chain of (initially) thirty “closed hospitality centres” for unauthorised immigrants is another unprecedented policy innovation for an EU country. These camps are meant to serve as detention centres for undocumented immigrants, rounded up as part of a police operation named “Xenios Zeus” (meaning “Zeus who looks after strangers”, a clear case of doublespeak).

                  Their numbers will more than double Greece’s total prison population, perhaps reaching 20,000 by June of 2013. Reports of human rights violations are already widespread. Given the defects of the state apparatus and the lack of resources, such reports are likely to multiply. Just as important, the amount of time migrants can be legally held in these centres has been increased from the original three to twelve months. By way of comparison, applications by migrants in the United States have to be processed within six months.

                  What happens to migrants that no country will receive after the twelve months are completed? Journalists are already naming them “concentration camps”; it is in fact likely that we are witnessing the initial stages in the creation of an Aegean Gulag Archipelago. Nikos Dendias, Minister of Public Order, remains adamant however. He has called large-scale immigration, “a bomb aimed at the foundations of society and of the state”.

                  To add to all the above, the lack of a functioning immigration system is a source of myriad injustices. Temporary papers are renewed every six months and rights forfeited as a result of delayed payment of charges to the state (a recurrent problem due to the economic crisis). Migrants requesting asylum are trapped in a waiting game that can last for years. As one migrant interviewed put it: “it’s like a stone thrown at night. You don't know where it will land. No one knows what is legal and what is illegal. Your fate depends on luck”.[2] Demetris Papademetriou, President of the US based Migration Policy Institute, is even more categorical: “dealing with migration is all about developing systems that are functional and predictable. That means genuine political refugees, who are usually between five and ten percent of the total, but in some circumstances may be as much as thirty percent, have to be granted asylum. But there also has to be the political will and resources for repatriation, and stringent penalties for human traffickers to prevent flows from becoming uncontrollable”. He adds that Greece, acting alone, does not have the capacity to accept even the genuine political refugees. “The numbers are simply too large”.[3]

                  On the other hand, a variety of non-state actors are at the forefront of efforts to aid migrants arriving in Greece. Migrants and social workers spoken to during the course of research for this article mentioned the work of NGOs such as the Greek Council for Refugees, Aitema, Caritas, Doctors of the World and the state-funded EKKA. At the Greek Council for Refugees I met a number of migrants, all waiting for documents of one sort or another (“others wait much longer than the year that you have been here” a social worker consoles a middle-aged man from Afghanistan), and seemingly grateful for such help as had been provided. Outside the main door an elderly man sits with a few possessions scattered around him; he is among the lucky ones, officially recognised as a political refugee. And he has nowhere to go.

                  The Orthodox Church also runs charities with the aim of helping migrants. One such, the Ark of the World feeds over four hundred children daily and provides health and medical care. (“The place where the blacks go to eat?” was the disparaging remark of a man on a street nearby when asked for directions). Theatre, dancing, computer and vocational training are also provided. The only condition for entry is that children must attend school. “Parents with children who are entirely Greek come in and ask if their kids can come here too”, a social worker at the Ark explains, “so now we look after migrant and Greek children together”.[4]

                  Outside Athens, citizens groups have been helping migrants on their own initiative. To Horio tou Oloi Mazi (the village where we all come together) on the island of Lesbos is a union of over twenty five organisations (including NGOs, the Boy Scouts, doctors, local parishes and monasteries) set up to help locals suffering from the economic crisis. They now run a reception centre for an even more vulnerable group: migrants arriving on the island. “Some one hundred and twenty five individuals are fed every day, three times a day, simply through collections from locals. These are not only young men but women, children and the elderly” relates Michalis Bachas, one of the coordinators. “But another twenty Afghanis, Syrians and Somalis are arriving almost every day”. The state does not have the resources to help, though the municipality did provide a building.[5] Many migrants do not make it: more than twenty died in a shipwreck off Lesbos over the weekend. Similar groups have been set up in other parts of the country.

                  Diktio, a left-wing network for the support of refugees and migrants that operates throughout Greece, makes a point of not being an NGO but a political organisation: its activities include debates, demonstrations and campaigns for the rights of migrants. It also provides legal support. “The increase in racism has made Greek language courses less popular”, Nasim Lomani, originally from Afghanistan and spokesperson for the Diktio, relates, puffing on a cigarette. On the wall behind him the slogan “Freedom, not Frontex” is prominent.

                  “Still, we run a whole range of other language courses: English, French and German”. As if to prove the point, a Bulgarian woman enters the room to ask about courses in German. The Diktio also organises what it calls an “Underground Free University” with courses ranging from computing to dance. “The emphasis throughout is on Greeks and migrants learning together,” Nasim Lomani adds. “Over the last few years we've had about four hundred students on average. But people also vanish, probably picked up by the police”. Diktio has been subjected to a hand grenade attack in 2009 (fortunately without victims) and a police raid in 2010. A young Algerian outside one of the classrooms confides: “this is a very beautiful country, but it is also very messed up”. He told me that he had been helped by a number of Greeks, however.

                  The combined efforts of such organisations – spanning much of the ideological spectrum from left to right – constitute testimony to the courage of human beings, despite the ravages of economic depression. They also point to the limits of a purely economic analysis of events in Greece today. For if Greek society is on the verge of collapse, it is also at that precipice where people have the potential to rediscover the values of social support and creativity, values that make a cultural community meaningful for those who belong to it. This community cannot be fixed, or exclusive; it has to grow in relation to others, to include others in its midst and to mobilise new potential, or else to atrophy.

                  In other words Greek society has the means to reconstitute itself along new lines provided that it strengthens those institutions that mediate conflicts between competing groups. To prevent such efforts being swamped, however, European governments must act with urgency to alter the overall framework for migration into the EU.

                  Racism and reform

                  Etienne Balibar's argument that racism should not be considered a hangover from pre-modern fantasies but that it is the “composition of disavowal and projection that arises from a modern aggressivity against cultural difference” fits Golden Dawn. Thus the dictator Metaxas, whom Golden Dawn considers its ideological forefather, was in fact rather pro-Jewish. It is not Metaxas per se (or indeed any other aspect of Greek history) that interests the ideologues of Golden Dawn but the ability to manipulate culturally significant symbols to project power.

                  Overall attitudes towards migrants in a country forged through these various migrations remain necessarily ambivalent. The migrant has been and is viewed as a threat, while simultaneously serving as an embodiment of a foundational narrative, the journey of many – perhaps even most – Greeks' grand or great-grandparents, of their father “Batis” and all their respective fathers. As a result, both state and society have oscillated between welcome and hostility. Similarly, for Greeks newly arrived in Athens from their regional homelands the state remains both “ours” and “alien”, a duality which accounts, in part, for the discrepancy between informal practices and formal laws (alternatively known as corruption). This discrepancy characterises the Greek polity as a whole, and earlier Greek immigration policies in particular. If there is anything new in this equation, it is the import of strictly racial criteria as somehow diagnostic of “Hellenism” as seen in challenges to the citizenship law of 2010.

                  However, a complete reduction of phenomena to discourses should be avoided. It is impossible to explain the institutionalisation of racism in contemporary Greece without taking into account economic and social variables that both stem from and contribute to the weaknesses of the Greek state. The capacity/incapacity to absorb migration flows is one such variable. Ioannis Albanis, a popular figure on the central committee of SYRIZA and an expert on human rights issues, explains: “Greece has taken the place of Libya or Morocco. It has become a giant concentration camp for refugees, this time within the EU.”

                  Following bilateral agreements between Italy and Spain and their respective southern neighbours, Greece has ended up accounting for approximately ninety percent of illegal immigration to the EU. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's International Migration Outlook (2010) estimates that nearly half of the 1.2 million immigrants in Greece are unauthorized. With civil war in Syria reaching a crescendo, these numbers are likely to rise. Albanis concedes that the issue of migration is costing SYRIZA votes (migrants serving as scape-goats for society's ills), but adds: “The EU must change the framework for migration for its own good. Current policies are simply not viable”.[6] Demetris Papademetriou agrees: “everyone abhors the migration crisis and points a finger at Greece. But Greece is stuck. It is resorting to the failed politics of symbols because it does not have the institutional capacity to deal with migration itself”.

                  If EU policies are currently making matters worse, this need not continue to be the case. Following on from a European Courts of Human Rights decision that Belgium would be in breach of the Human Rights Convention if it sent asylums seekers back to Greece, the EU should suspend Greece's participation in the Dublin II Regulation and permit asylum seekers to apply directly to other EU countries. If deemed absolutely essential, camps for migrants should be run by the EU authorities (a proposal made by Tony Blair in 2003), and audited by the European Parliament and external human-rights organisations. No migrant should be held at any camp for more than six months. The EU is currently integrating the Dublin II Regulation and the European Pact on Immigration and Asylum into a Common Asylum System for Europe. To function, such a system must distribute successful applicants according to the population size and wealth of receiving countries.

                  There is a certain incommensurablity which is at the root of arguments over mass migration. The cohesion of the community, in this case the nation-state, is often pitted against the needs of the suffering other; the demand for assimilation against the aesthetic of diversity. Large scale migration does constitute a potential source of conflict, today as it did in 1923.

                  Whether the stage of unrest will be reached does not depend primarily on the displaced persons, however, but on the institutions that receive them, both within and across countries. As Nasim Lomani explained: “there is no society without racism. But things have changed from the time when I first came to Greece. Violent racism is now legitimised by the authorities.”

                  And yet, as long as other countries remain unwilling to make fundamental changes to the framework for migration into the EU, articles accusing the Greek state of institutional racism will continue to miss the point. The institutionalised racism described here should not be considered exclusively Greek, but in large part a consequence of European policies towards peripheral states and migrants. And the EU as a whole should share in the opprobrium.


                  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                  [1] I am indebted here to Dimitris Papanikolaou, Singing Poets: Literature and Popular Music in France and Greece, Legenda, 2007, pp. 142-144.

                  [2] Interview in person, 9 December 2012. The person interviewed asked to remain unnamed.

                  [3] Telephone interview for this article, 16 December 2012.

                  [4] Visit to the Ark of the World, 9 December 2012.

                  [5] Telephone interview for this article, 19 December 2012.

                  [6] Telephone interview for this article, 12 December 2012.


                  About the author
                  Iannis Carras is an economic and social historian of the 18th century Balkan and Russian worlds. He is active in Greek NGOs and has been a parliamentary candidate in the Athens region for the Greek Green Party.
                  Slayer Of The Modern "greek" Myth!!!

                  Comment

                  • TrueMacedonian
                    Senior Member
                    • Jan 2009
                    • 3810

                    #39
                    ‘National exceptionalism’ has long served as an antidote to the many disappointments that being a Greek has often entailed. But historically, has this now opened the door to populist forces in Greece’s political culture?


                    National populism and xenophobia in Greece
                    Aristos Doxiadis and Manos Matsaganis 27 November 2012


                    ‘National exceptionalism’ has long served as an antidote to the many disappointments that being a Greek has often entailed. But historically, has this now opened the door to populist forces in Greece’s political culture?

                    ‘National exceptionalism’ is one of the founding myths of modern Greece – perhaps the main one. The idea that the Greek nation is not just distinct but radically different from (read: “superior to”) all others is steeped in history. Current members of the Greek nation learn early in life to assert a direct line of descent from the Classical Greece of Homer, Pericles and Socrates, to take pride in the latter’s achievements, to claim them as their own.

                    Never mind that in 1830, when Greece emerged as a modern state (with decisive support by the Great Powers), after a long War of Independence from the Ottoman Empire (with the active involvement on the battlefield of many hundreds of philhellenes from Western Europe and beyond), most Greeks did not define themselves as Greek, and many did not speak the Greek language (itself the subject of many transmutations and bitter controversies over the last two centuries)
                    .

                    The notion that an unbroken line connected Modern Greece to the glory that was Classical Greece proved extremely useful in diplomacy, in 19th century nation- and state-building, and later as a morale-booster and an antidote to the many failures and disappointments that being a Greek often entailed.

                    ‘Fatherland-Religion-Family’ (1946-1974)

                    After the 1946-1949 Civil War, the mantle of nationalism was monopolised by the victorious Right, claiming for its own supporters (some of which had collaborated with the Nazis in 1941-1944) exclusive membership of the national community, and portraying the defeated communists as enemies of the nation. The nationalist rhetoric (“Fatherland-Religion-Family”) reached an apogee with the Colonels’ coup d’état of 1967, and came crashing down together with the military regime in 1974. The event that triggered the Colonels’ downfall, the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, which led to the division of the island lasting to this day, showed that more often than not it is nationalism itself that lies at the roots of the most catastrophic national tragedies.

                    ‘National Popular Unity’ (1974-1996)

                    With rightwing nationalism entirely discredited, and the ruling conservative party (New Democracy, founded in 1974 by Constantine Karamanlis) firmly pro-European and more liberal than ever, the late 1970s witnessed the transformation of nationalist energies. This time it was the new socialist party PASOK (also founded in 1974, by Andreas Papandreou) that played the game of holier – i.e. more patriotic - than thou. Its rallying cry, the platform of ‘National Popular Unity’, blended anti-imperialist sentiments, quite diffuse on the left then as now, with the conviction that the ‘People’ were the sole depositories of wisdom. Belief was reasserted in the timeless allure of the ‘national character’ .

                    Early PASOK was a movement not a party (Papandreou never tolerated internal dissent, and had no time for party democracy and other such bourgeois niceties); it was radical (it promised ‘socialism’); it was fiercely nationalist (“Greece to the Greeks”, a slogan borrowed from Nasser’s “Egypt to the Egyptians”) and anti-Turkish; it was anti-western: i.e. against the US, against NATO, and against Greece’s entry into the European Economic Community (in 1980, as the Karamanlis government officially signed the accession treaty, PASOK mobilised its supporters and joined KKE in mass demonstrations against “the EEC of monopolies”) .

                    This recipe proved a winner. PASOK’s meteoric rise to a mass party that won one general election after the other and ruled the country for 21 out of the 30 years from 1981 to 2011 amounted to a triumph of national populism.

                    PASOK in power moderated its anti-western stance, but never entirely abandoned it for as long as Papandreou remained in charge. Under Costas Simitis, PASOK leader and Prime Minister in 1996-2004, a pro-European party discourse was tacitly adopted. Too tacitly, most probably: the new party line, taken forgranted at leadership level, never really convinced the rank and file. By that time, the anti-American and anti-European sentiments of party activists were too deeply entrenched to let go of.

                    In the meantime, the Berlin Wall had come down, shattering all remaining illusions of ‘proletarian internationalism’. Moreover, much nearer home, and too close for comfort, Yugoslavia had imploded into full-scale war, with extensive ‘ethnic cleansing’ practised on all sides. Both events caused a resurgence of nationalism in Greece, this time across the political spectrum…

                    The previous rise of the far Right

                    Hostility to immigrants and a reasserted Orthodox identity were key ingredients to the success of LAOS (the ‘Popular Orthodox Rally’). The party (founded September 2000), originally a breakaway of New Democracy, exploited the shrewdness and media savvy of its leader George Karatzaferis to make a splash.

                    Rather moderate by the standards of Golden Dawn, the agenda of LAOS emphasised law and order, and featured calls for the repatriation of those illegal immigrants in excess of a certain limit and ‘not needed’ for their skills. The party also made symbolic gestures towards die-hard supporters of the 1967-1974 military junta, including the demand that those officers still in jail for their role in the coup should be released ‘on humanitarian grounds’. On the whole, LAOS managed (for a while) to attract ‘traditional conservative and ultra right voters, who were disaffected with New Democracy and its shift [to] the centre of the left-right ideological scale’ .

                    In electoral terms, although it failed to enter the national parliament in March 2004 (having won 2.2% of the vote), LAOS entered the European Parliament in June of the same year (4.1%). It did better in the general election of September 2007 (3.8% and 10 MPs), and better still in October 2009 (5.6% and 15 MPs), having achieved its best ever result in the European Parliamentary election of June 2009 (7.2% and 2 MEPs).

                    As described earlier, at about this point the party’s fortunes ebbed. Its decision to enter the coalition government of Loukas Papademos in November 2011, itself a confirmation that LAOS had gained the respectability it coveted, proved fatal: its share of the vote shrank first to 2.9% in May 2012, and lower still to 1.6% in June 2012. As of now, the party, left with no seats in Parliament, is in disarray - with some of its former MPs (including the two Ministers under Papademos) having joined the New Democracy of Antonis Samaras.

                    Xenophobic nationalism as mainstream ideology

                    As the previous narrative demonstrates, undercurrents of xenophobic nationalism have now become accepted parts of popular culture and are present in the political discourse of all mainstream parties.

                    In the light of this, it should come as no surprise that a recent survey found that 63% of respondents thought “the Greek nation superior to other nations” (up from 43% in 2011), or that 65% said, “they were willing to support what the country did irrespective of whether it was right or wrong” (up from 41% in 2011).

                    On the whole, national populism PASOK-style (since the mid-1970s) and the “Macedonian Question” (since the early 1990s) has built on deeply rooted notions of “national exceptionalism” and helped legitimise xenophobic nationalism once again – in the media, across the political spectrum and in society at large.
                    Mass immigration into Greece, first from the Balkans and Eastern Europe, then from Asia and Africa, gave this a further boost. The current economic crisis, often experienced as impotence and humiliation, has made it the default reflex of both left and right. It is only in this broader context that one can make proper sense of the recent electoral success of Golden Dawn, Independent Greeks and – in a different sense - SYRIZA.

                    This article is an excerpt from Aristos Doxiadis and Manos Matsaganis’ pamphlet for the Counterpoint “Europe’s Reluctant Radicals” series, which investigates the reasons for the recent fragmentation of the Greek political system and the rise of populisms on both the left and right of the political spectrum. They focus in particularly on the success of the left-wing Syriza and the shocking growth of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn in a wide-ranging discussion that covers Greece’s economic and social structure, the recent influx of immigrants into the country, Greece’s history of protest, and the new forms of national populist economic theory and action that have taken root since the debt crisis.

                    It forms part of an editorial partnership with Counterpoint launched in a guest week in November 2012. The partnership will continue over the coming months with articles timed to coincide with events to disseminate the ten pamphlets commissioned through Counterpoint's project 'Recapturing Europe's Reluctant Radicals" , funded by the Open Society Foundations.
                    Slayer Of The Modern "greek" Myth!!!

                    Comment

                    • TrueMacedonian
                      Senior Member
                      • Jan 2009
                      • 3810

                      #40


                      Greek racists nurtured in schools
                      (12-06 11:04)

                      Schools in crisis-hit Greece are proving a fertile ground for Golden Dawn, the neo-Nazi group suspected of orchestrating attacks on immigrants, anti-racism activists warn.
                      Once a secretive group on the fringe of Greek politics, Golden Dawn picked up over 400,000 votes in a June election dominated by anti-austerity anger. Capitalising on popular anger with the perceived decades-old corruption of mainstream parties, the group elected 18 lawmakers in the 300-seat Greek parliament and is now the party of choice for one in 10 Greeks, polls show, AFP reports.
                      Still thin on numbers, Golden Dawn now seeks to spread the word to the next generation.
                      In November, a brawl broke out between Albanian and Greek high school pupils on the island of Crete over a Golden Dawn event advertised on Facebook. A fight had previously broken out at the same school over neo-Nazi slogans on a blackboard.
                      In various schools “there are organized gangs harassing foreign pupils and their parents, verbally so far but with an intensity that could at any minute turn into physical violence’’, said Nicodemos Maina Kinyua, the 35-year-old editor of Athens-based African magazine Asante.
                      The Kenyan-born journalist, who has lived in Greece since childhood, says the country's education system offers “fertile ground'' for neo-Nazi influence.
                      “The dominant concept in school is that Greeks invented everything at the time when the rest of humanity was perched on trees, eating acorns,’’ he said
                      .
                      Golden Dawn has taken a strong hand in enforcing the teaching of “accurate’’ history in schools. The group denies that students were killed by security forces inside the Athens Polytechnic in 1973, a seminal event considered to have hastened the downfall of the army dictatorship then ruling the country.
                      And its leader Nikos Michaloliakos has publicly complained that Greek media are ruled by a “Red junta’’.
                      During a recent school visit to parliament, one Golden Dawn deputy openly told pupils to resist the “terrorism’’ of the Left.
                      School authorities were already forced into action last month to halt the transfer of a maternity school teacher on the island of Lefkada, demanded by Golden Dawn after she decorated the classroom with both Greek and Albanian flags – in deference to her Albanian pupils – ahead of a Greek national holiday.
                      And a disciplinary procedure was opened in Athens against a high school principal who threatened to call in Golden Dawn to chastise his pupils.
                      “This threat is very much in fashion,'' admits a high school teacher who was recently insulted by three of her pupils for her left-wing sympathies.
                      “What is worse is that two-thirds of my colleagues saw this incident as a justifiable dispute over politics,'' she said.
                      Another teacher, Artemis Kalogyri, said it was a constant struggle to keep neo-Nazi arguments and behavior outside the high school in the working class Athens district of Kallithea where she teaches literature. “Teens are being recruited, particularly those from poor families, and receive a training in theory and paramilitary tactics so that Golden Dawn can pass on the flame,'' Kalogyri told a recent anti-racist gathering.
                      “Most of these youths want to change the world. They see the far-right as the guarantor of Hellenism against the threat of dissolution in which migrants are involved. Most of them want to join the police or the army,'' she said.
                      Slayer Of The Modern "greek" Myth!!!

                      Comment

                      • momce
                        Banned
                        • Oct 2012
                        • 426

                        #41
                        As if these apes built the ancient cities of greece ayh right they were the gypsies cleaing the toilets. It amazes me how much these freaks believe is fed to them by their looney tune Greek church and I mean those freaks are loon balls of the highest order.

                        Comment

                        • momce
                          Banned
                          • Oct 2012
                          • 426

                          #42
                          Originally posted by Risto the Great View Post
                          The problem I see with the Greeks is they want a slice of the EU cake, they want to eat it as well AND they want to stay out of the kitchen when the cake is getting made or the cooking implements are being washed.

                          Merkel recently stated the EU should have the right to override national budgets. This would be deathly to any democratic nation. But then again, that is the purpose of the EU.
                          Problem with greece is they have big hypocrite mouths, steal other peoples land, history etc, commit fraud and then pass the buck to other people and engage in hysterical fits. Clearly a case of pathology by any scientific standards. Clearly the results speak for themselves. We have to be ready for the next wave of this greece "phenomenon" hopefully theyll be sold as cheap whores soon.
                          Last edited by momce; 01-17-2013, 07:25 PM.

                          Comment

                          • momce
                            Banned
                            • Oct 2012
                            • 426

                            #43
                            You know I am convinced everything that drove the modern greeks in these regions was some kind of sick ritual being enacted by the greek orthodox church and business community because I see the same patterns everywhere the demonic "Megale Idea" unfortunately ran its terror campaign, "Epirus", Macedonia, Cyprus, Asia Minor, against Vlachs, Albanians, Macedonians, Arvanites, Muslims, against the Jewish community of the Peloponnese, Thessaloniki the Holocaust etc. These interests still control the country of "greece" and no one who strays from their lunacy and power is safe.
                            Last edited by momce; 02-16-2013, 02:10 PM.

                            Comment

                            • George S.
                              Senior Member
                              • Aug 2009
                              • 10116

                              #44
                              racisim in greece is a state sponsored thing they the greeks cannot tolerate anyone else apart from themselves.Right under the noses of the un,eu,etc greece does not care one iota.It thinks it can do anything it wants within it's borders.They beleive in a greek only soveregnity..
                              "Ido not want an uprising of people that would leave me at the first failure, I want revolution with citizens able to bear all the temptations to a prolonged struggle, what, because of the fierce political conditions, will be our guide or cattle to the slaughterhouse"
                              GOTSE DELCEV

                              Comment

                              • EricTheRed
                                Junior Member
                                • Oct 2012
                                • 41

                                #45
                                Originally posted by momce View Post
                                As if these apes built the ancient cities of greece ayh right they were the gypsies cleaing the toilets. It amazes me how much these freaks believe is fed to them by their looney tune Greek church and I mean those freaks are loon balls of the highest order.
                                Wow, you apparently question even that? And calling us ''apes''? Regarding that, isnt it shameful that proud Macedonia cant face these lowly apes herself, but has to lick Turkish asses just for reassurance versus Greece? These apes you know, managed to outplay your compatriots in a number of occasions, the effects of which you see today.
                                I really hope your sentiments do not represent the average Macedonian.

                                Comment

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