How the world sees Greece
Unusual Wedding Venues: Greek Couple Holds Reception At Gas Station Huffington Post When photographer Nick Hannes visited Patras, Greece earlier this month to scout locations for a photo project, he stumbled across a scene he didn't expect -- a wedding reception at a gas station. He stopped and spoke to the family, who permitted him ... |
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Whatever happened to liberté, égalité, fraternité? Fear of Muslims is putting Europe's secular tradition at risk
I have spent my entire life at the borders of continental Europe. From the window of my home or office, I've looked out over the Bosphorus to see Asia on the other side; and so, in thinking about Europe and modernity, I have always felt, like the rest of the world, just a little bit provincial.
Like the many millions who live outside the west, I have had to understand my own identity while observing Europe from afar, and so, in the process of working out my identity, I've often wondered what Europe could represent for me and for us all. This is an experience I share with the majority of the world's population, but because Istanbul, my city, is situated just where Europe begins – or maybe where Europe ends – my thoughts and my resentments have been a little more pressing and constant.
I come from one of the many upper-middle-class Istanbul families who wholeheartedly embraced the westernising, secularising reforms introduced in the 1920s and 30s by Kemal Atatürk, founder of the Turkish republic. For us, Europe was more than somewhere we could go to find a job, a place to trade with, or whose investors we could seek to attract: it was primarily a beacon of civilisation.
At this point I should highlight an important fact: historically, Turkey was never colonised by any western power, never oppressed by European imperialism. This allowed us later to nurture more freely our dreams of European-style westernisation, without dredging up too many bad memories or guilty feelings.
Seven years ago I used to try to persuade audiences how wonderful it would be for us all if Turkey were to join the EU. Back in October 2005, relations between Turkey and the EU had reached their peak. Turkish public opinion and most of the press seemed happy that talks between the EU and Turkey had officially begun. Some Turkish newspapers speculated optimistically that things might move very quickly indeed, that Turkey might enjoy full membership of the EU by 2014. Other papers wrote fairytale accounts of the privileges Turkish citizens would finally gain once full membership was secured. Most importantly, investments would be made and untold treasures would find their way to Turkey from the EU's various funds so that, like the Greeks, we too would collectively take a step up the social ladder and be able to live as comfortably as other Europeans.
At the same time, the European chorus of conservative, nationalist protest against Turkey's possible entry into the union was growing increasingly vocal, especially in Germany and France. I found myself caught in this debate, and began to ask myself (and others too) about what Europe really means. If religion marks the boundaries of Europe, I thought, then Europe is a Christian civilisation – in which case Turkey, whose population is 99% Muslim, may be geographically European, but has no place in the EU.
But would Europeans be satisfied with such a narrow definition of their continent? After all, it is not Christianity that has turned Europe into an example for people living in the non-western world, but rather a series of social and economic transformations, and the ideas that these have generated throughout the years. This intangible force that has made Europe such a magnet for the rest of the world over the past two centuries is, to put it simply, modernity. As our trusted history books have taught us, modernity is the product of such quintessentially European developments as the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution. Crucially, the forces behind these paradigm shifts were not religious, but secular.
A few years ago, whenever the topic of the EU came up for discussion, I used to say that Turkey should join the EU provided it could respect the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity. "But does Turkey respect these principles?" people would rightly ask me – and so the debate would resume. When I look back at those days now, I can't help feeling nostalgic about how passionately we debated – both in Turkey and in Europe – the values that Europe should stand for.
Nowadays, as Europe struggles with the euro crisis, and EU expansion has slowed down, very few of us still bother to think and talk about these issues. And unfortunately, the positive interest surrounding Turkey's possible future membership has also waned. This is partly because freedom of thought remains regrettably underdeveloped in Turkey. But the biggest reason is undoubtedly the large influx of Muslim migrants from north Africa and Asia into Europe that, in the eyes of many Europeans, has cast a dark shadow of doubt and fear over the idea of a predominantly Muslim country joining the union.
It is clear that this fear is leading Europe to put up walls at its borders, and to gradually turn away from the world. As the slogan of liberté, égalité, fraternité is slowly forgotten, Europe will sadly turn into an increasingly conservative place dominated by religious and ethnic identities.
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 Telegraph.co.uk | Greek opposition rejects new cuts but won't force poll Reuters PARIS (Reuters) - Greece's opposition leader denounced international lenders' demands as dealing the "final blow" to a devastated economy but said on Friday he would not seek to bring down the government. Alexis Tsipras, head of the far-left Syriza ... Greece faces €30bn bill for two-year delay to meet bail-out targets There are no national solutions for Greece, or any other country Next Economic Crisis: The US is No Greece, But the Policies of Mitt Romney ... |
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 Reuters UK | Political conflict put aside as Fenerbahce beat AEL Chicago Tribune NICOSIA (Reuters) - Cyprus and Turkey temporarily put aside their decades-long conflict on Thursday to focus on football as Fenerbahce clinched a 1-0 win over AEL Limassol in the Europa League. Hundreds of police were on alert in the ethnically split ... Bagis Warns Greek Cypriots ahead of Europa League Match Reported ban on Turkish and Turkish Cyprus flags at intense AEL Limassol ... |
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U.S. Stocks Fall on Report of German Concern Over Greek Bailout San Francisco Chronicle Oct. 26 (Bloomberg) -- The Standard & Poor's 500 Index fell, extending a weekly drop, as German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble reportedly said there are doubts on whether Greece will meet requirements for its European bailout. Nine out of 10 ... |
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 Bloomberg | Germans, Dutch Says Greece's Future in Euro Hangs in Balance Businessweek Germany and the Netherlands signaled that Greece's future in the euro is not yet assured, as the northern neighbors sought to maintain pressure on Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras to hold to agreed reforms. “It's not yet decided,” German Finance ... U.S. Stock Futures Drop as Apple Earnings Miss Estimates Schaeuble Doubts Greece Has Met All Commitments Schaeuble: Doubt Greece Has Fully Met All Commitments: Press |
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 NPR (blog) | Malaria Creeps Back Into Greece Amid Health Budget Cuts NPR (blog) Budget cuts have been tough on Greece's health services, causing medication shortages and a sharp rise in HIV cases over the past year. Cuts to public health spending could also be contributing to malaria's reappearance, says Dr. Apostolos Veizis, who ... |
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 Business Recorder | Germany Warms to Extending Greek Aid Deal Wall Street Journal Hans Michelbach, the senior finance policy spokesman for the Christian Social Union, the Bavarian sister party in Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative parliamentary alliance, said the German government was actively seeking to extend the Greek aid ... Draghi says not aware of any Greek bailout decision |
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 Economic Times | Euro zone ministers to hold call on Greece October 31 Reuters BRUSSELS (Reuters) - - Euro zone finance ministers, called the Eurogroup, will hold a conference call next Wednesday afternoon to discuss Greece, the spokesman for the Eurogroup president said on Friday. Greece is due to receive almost 31 billion euros ... Greece says it has been given more time on austerity Greece's coalition government faces split on major austerity vote Greece debt extension could cost up to 30 bn euros: Source |
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 CNBC.com | FOREX-Euro falls as concerns over Greece flare up Reuters Euro falls broadly, traders cite Greece uncertainty. * Dollar retreats after hitting 4-month high vs yen. * U.S. third-quarter GDP due 1230 GMT. By Anooja Debnath. LONDON, Oct 26 (Reuters) - The euro hit a two-week low against the dollar and fell ... Euro Falls to Two-Week Low on Greece Worries |
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The far-right party Golden Dawn has gained ground in Greece - winning votes with both food donations and neo-nazi rhetoric
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Dutch Not Willing to Give Greece More Time, De Jager Says Bloomberg European policy makers are awaiting the report on Greece's progress in meeting internationally agreed targets compiled by the so-called troika of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The German ... |
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Officer says government has turned blind eye to fascists and far right may be being used to provoke clashes with demonstrators
A senior Greek police officer has claimed that the far-right Golden Dawn party has infiltrated the police at various levels, laying the blame on consecutive governments and the leadership of the police force for turning a blind eye to what he described as "pockets of fascism".
Speaking to the Guardian on condition of anonymity, the officer said that the Greek state had been fully aware of the activities of Golden Dawn for several years, with the National Intelligence Service (NIS) and other security agencies monitoring them closely. The officer claimed that the leaders of the police had the opportunity to isolate and remove these small "pockets of fascism" in the force but decided not to. The state, he said wanted to keep the fascist elements "in reserve" and use them for its own purposes.
The officer said he believed that Golden Dawn members could be used against the Greek left, which has led popular street protests against the government and austerity measures imposed by the EU. He expressed his belief that neo-fascist groups may have already acted as "agents provocateurs" during demonstrations across the country, in order to provoke clashes between demonstrators and the police or even between demonstrators themselves.
A press spokesman for the Greek police, Christos Manouras, denied the suggestion that the police were being using, or had been used by "any political formation against any other". Manouras rejected the existence of "pockets of fascism" within the force and assured that no unlawful behaviour would be tolerated. He conceded that "individual cases can be found everywhere and at any workplace". But, he added, "it is unfair for the Greek police force to be accused with no evidence that they tolerate or support specific actions or to be identified with certain [political] beliefs … You should note that – in accordance with the constitution and laws of the Greek Republic – only illegal acts can be prosecuted and punished. The same does not apply for political positions, even if characterised as 'extreme' by the other parties and the overwhelming majority of public opinion."
Golden Dawn won 6.9% of the vote in elections in June this year, giving it 18 seats in parliament, but a recent opinion poll conducted by research company VPRC suggested the party had doubled its support since then. A number of human rights groups have accused the Greek police of being either sympathetic or acting in collusion with the group, and earlier this week a report of the Racist Violence Report Network, a group consisting of 23 NGOs and the UN high commissioner for refugees, highlighted violent incidents in which police and racist violence overlapped. "These incidents concern duty officers who resort to illegal acts and violent practices while carrying out routine checks," says the report. "There are also instances where people were brought to police stations, were detained and maltreated for a few hours, as well as cases where legal documents were destroyed during these operations."
"On some occasions there is a blurred line between Golden Dawn and the police," said Kostis Papaioannou, former head of the Greek national commission for human rights. Allegations of collusion resurfaced after anti-fascist protesters told the Guardian they have been "tortured by police" after clashes with Golden Dawn supporters. The minister of public order, Nikos Dendias, has denied the allegations.
The officer who spoke to the Guardian accused the government of abandoning Greek police officers and thus creating the conditions for Golden Dawn to infiltrate the force. "These policemen feel depreciated and isolated. They are badly paid, they work under the worst conditions and they look for support," he said, which they find among the neo-Nazi community. He also called on the ministry of public order to disclose reports of the internal affairs division, which he said showed cases of police brutality. "We should never accept policemen who attack journalists from behind," he said, referring to an attack against the president of the Greek photojournalists' union who was taken to hospital with a traumatic brain injury last May. Talking to the Guardian, the press officer of the Hellenic police restated the ministry's commitment to establishing a special response team to combat racist violence.
Several cases of violent attacks carried out in the presence of Golden Dawn MPs have been reported recently, including the storming of flea markets and an incident in which stones were thrown, and racist abuse hurled, at audience members during the Athens premiere of Terrence McNally's play Corpus Christi.
Earlier this year, Liana Kanelli, an outspoken Communist party MP, was assaulted during a live TV talkshow by Ilias Kasidiaris, Golden Dawn's spokesman, in an incident that made headlines around the world. This week the Greek parliament voted in favour of lifting the immunity of three Golden Dawn MPs who could now face trial for violent attacks and assisting in a robbery. Among them was Kasidiaris, who has claimed he is "the victim of political persecution".
Kanelli, talking to the Guardian, characterised Golden Dawn as an "ideological and political pimp" serving "a mission that the system assigned to it". According to Kanelli, immigrants were just the first victims of the party, which also threatens workers and has attempted to infiltrate unions. "If an employer wants to blackmail you, he threatens to call Golden Dawn," said Javed Aslam, a leader of the Pakistani community in Greece.
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In austerity-ravaged Greece, neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn is on the rise. Their MPs give fascist salutes, while on the streets black-shirted vigilantes beat up immigrants. And some of their most enthusiastic supporters are in the police
You can hear it from blocks away: the deafening beat of Pogrom, Golden Dawn's favourite band, blasting out of huge speakers by a makeshift stage. "Rock for the fatherland, this is our music, we don't want parasites and foreigners on our land…"
It's a warm October evening and children on bicycles are riding up and down among the young men with crew cuts, the sleeves of their black T-shirts tight over pumped-up biceps, strolling with the stiff swagger of the muscle-bound. They look relaxed, off-duty. Two of them slap a handshake: "Hey, fascist! How's it going?"
Trestle tables are stacked with Golden Dawn merchandise: black T-shirts bearing the party's name in Greek, Chrysi Avgi, the sigma shaped like the S on SS armbands; mugs with the party symbol, a Greek meander drawn to resemble a swastika; Greek flags and black lanyards, lighters and baseball caps. I lean over to talk to one woman stallholder, dressed in Golden Dawn black with thickly kohl-rimmed eyes, but as soon as she opens her mouth a man in a suit strides up: "What are you writing? Are you a journalist? Tear that page out of your notebook. No, no, you can't talk to anyone."
Tonight is the opening of the Golden Dawn office in Megara, a once prosperous farming town between Athens and Corinth. The Greek national socialist party polled more than 15% here – double the national average – in the June election, when it won 18 seats in parliament. (One was taken up by the former bassist with Pogrom, whose hits include Auschwitz and Speak Greek Or Die.)
Legitimised by democracy and by the media, Golden Dawn is opening branches in towns all over Greece and regularly coming third in national opinion polls. Its black-shirted vigilantes have been beating up immigrants for more than three years, unmolested by the police; lately they've taken to attacking Greeks they suspect of being gay or on the left. MPs participate proudly in the violence. In September, three of them led gangs of black-shirted heavies through street fairs in the towns of Rafina and Messolonghi, smashing up immigrant traders' stalls with Greek flags on thick poles.
Such attacks are almost never prosecuted or punished. Ask Kayu Ligopora, of the Athens Tanzanian Community Association, whose premises were vandalised by around 80 "local residents" on 25 September after police walked away. He's lived in Greece for 20 years; for the first time, he says, he's thinking about leaving. Or Hussain Ahulam, 22, who told me how four men with dogs and a metal crowbar left him bleeding and unconscious by the side of the road as he walked home one day. Or 21-year-old HH, a Greek citizen of Egyptian origin, who was beaten on 12 October by three men with chains as he stepped off the trolley bus, and whose sight may be damaged for good.
Or ask @manolis, a blogger for Lifo magazine, who on 11 October went to photograph Golden Dawn's attack on a theatre showing Terrence McNally's Corpus Christi, which casts Christ and the apostles as gay men in Texas. He says four or five people surrounded him in front of the riot police, hit him and spat on him, and put a lit cigarette in his pocket. "A known Golden Dawn MP follows me, punches me twice in the face, knocks me down," he tweeted. "I lose my glasses. The MP kicks me. The police are exactly two steps away." Another MP, Ilias Panagiotaros, stood on the sidelines ranting in front of video cameras: "Wrap it up, you little faggots. Wrap it up, arse-fuckers. You little whores, your time has come. You fucked Albanian arseholes." A third, Christos Pappas, was filmed releasing a man from police custody. He is the only one now under police investigation.
In Megara, as the light fades, people are gathering: families, children, grandmothers. A woman in a long green dress and high-heeled silver mules is choosing a black T-shirt; another asks the price of a Greek flag. Suddenly there's shouting, a thunder of boots on asphalt: 50 yards from the stage, a group of braves have pushed a man off a red motorbike and are kicking and punching him as he lies on the ground. His arms are protecting his head; I can hear the boots go in. No one stirs until an older member calls them off: "Come back to our space, fellow fighters. The Leader is on his way." The Leader, Nikolaos Michaloliakos, squat in a baggy suit, threads his way through the crowd accompanied by the party's spokesman, Ilias Kasidiaris, a former commando with five criminal charges pending, famous abroad for assaulting two women candidates on TV in June. On talkshows, Kasidiaris scowls and slouches like a delinquent teenager, but tonight he looks expansive, almost rock star cool. The office door is flanked by men in camouflage trousers, with crash helmets and Greek flags rolled around wooden staves; more stand guard on the balcony and the roof.
Standing among the citizens of Megara as Michaloliakos addresses them, I feel as if I've slipped into a parallel universe. As a Greek, I've known these people all my life: middle-aged women with coiffed hair and well-upholstered bosoms, men in clean white shirts and neatly belted trousers. They're the people who run the cafes and corner shops; who work hard every day, often at two or three jobs; who pinch children's cheeks and won't let you pay for your coffee; who were always cynical about politicians' promises. I never thought they could fall prey to fascist oratory. Yet here they are, applauding Michaloliakos as he barks and roars, floodlit against a low white building next to the petrol station. We could almost be back in the 1940s, between the Axis occupation and the civil war, when former collaborators whipped up hatred of the left resistance.
Michaloliakos has his populism down pat. His message is pride, and purity, and power. He lambasts the other parties for selling out the country, for their lies and corruption, with special attention to the left party, Syriza. Golden Dawn, he says, are the only patriots, the only ones who haven't dipped their hands in the honeypot. He praises Megara, which used to supply all of Greece, "before we started eating Egyptian potatoes, Indian onions and Chilean apples". Then he turns to "the two million illegal immigrants who are the scourge of this country", who sell heroin and weapons with impunity. "Voting for us is not enough," he says. "We want you to join the struggle for Greece. Don't rent your house to foreigners, don't employ them… We want all illegal foreigners out of our country, we want the usurers of the troika and the IMF out of our country for ever."
After the fireworks and the flares and the national anthem, Efthimia Pipili, 67, gives me her reaction. "Foreigners have come twice to my house to rob me in the night," she says. "If I didn't have my rottweiler, I'd be dead by now. I used to vote for Pasok [the Panhellenic Socialist Movement]. Last time I voted for Tsipras [the leader of Syriza] because I thought he was different. But Tsipras wants to protect the foreigners. I have €100 to last for the next three weeks. I owe €400 to the electricity company; they're going to cut me off. Why shouldn't I be for Golden Dawn, my love?"
Golden Dawn is many things: a party, a movement, a subculture; a vigilante force; a network inside the police and the judiciary. Vasilis Mastrogiannis of the Democratic Left, a former senior police officer turned politician, describes it frankly as "a criminal organisation". New Democracy MP Dimitrios Kyriazidis, who founded the Greek police union, calls it a "political excrescence". "Because of my past in the police, I know very well where these people come from," Kyriazidis says. "Most declare their profession as 'businessman'. But one has to pause at that."
The party's founder and leader, Nikolaos Michaloliakos, served time in the late 1970s for assault and illegal possession of guns and explosives. While inside, he met members of the military junta that ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974, but his political views, as expressed in Golden Dawn, the magazine he started when he was released, were well to the right of theirs. Breaking the boundaries of "acceptable" rightwing nationalism, Michaloliakos published paeans to Adolf Hitler, arguing that Greece should have been at the side of the Axis in the second world war. The magazine, its covers periodically adorned with portraits of the Führer and his acolytes, served up a weird amalgam of Nazi propaganda, antisemitism, traditional nationalism and pagan fantasy. The party that now courts and counts on the Orthodox church once advocated a return to "the faith of the Aryans" – the Olympian gods – claiming that Christianity had "grafted Jewish obscurantism on to the trunk of European civilisation". In the one interview I was allowed with a Golden Dawn official, MP Panagiotis Iliopoulos told me that, as a young man, the magazine expressed his ideas completely. Have the party's views changed since then? "Not at all," he said. "There are no neo-Nazi articles in the magazine. Only historical ones."
Golden Dawn first drew attention in the early 1990s, when the dispute over the name of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia fuelled an upsurge of Greek nationalism. It found fertile ground in the anti-immigrant sentiment that spread through Greece with the first wave of migrants from Albania and eastern Europe; it gathered strength as the failures of Greek and European policy turned Greece into a lobster trap for refugees and migrants coming from Asia, Africa and the Middle East. As thousands struggled to survive beside impoverished Greeks in neighbourhoods shattered by the economic crisis, Golden Dawn vigilantes began to "clear" Athenian squares with fists and clubs and knives; to storm unofficial mosques; to sell protection to shopkeepers; to escort old ladies to the supermarket. In 2009 the party polled a mere 0.29% in the national election. In 2010, Michaloliakos was elected to the Athens city council; he celebrated his arrival with a fascist salute.
As the crisis deepens – 25% unemployment, and 54% among the young; a third of the businesses in central Athens closed; savings gone and faith in the two old mainstream parties lost; violent scenes erupting even in parliament – there is a smell of fear in Athens, as well as one of numb depression. In June, many voted for Golden Dawn as a protest against the parties that brought the country down: "I want them in parliament to beat the others up." Now they are turning to it because hope is exhausted; because things are out of control and they want someone to take charge; because it's "doing something". "It's not that Greece is going to be saved," one voter said to me. "Greece can't be saved." What, then?
The Golden Dawn office in downtown Athens is open three evenings a week. Most of the visitors are middle-aged women with dull eyes and sunken cheeks, faces too old for their bodies, hardened, tired expressions. More than 50 come in an hour. Quietly, they ask the bouncers, "Are they giving out food inside?" "Third floor," the bouncers say; but most of the women come out empty-handed save for a mauve piece of paper with the Golden Dawn logo on it. There's only enough today for voters from this ward; they'll announce the next distribution on a poster, in the papers, if you phone.
Away from the door, Maria Kirimi tells me she's been locked out of her flat with all her things inside since 29 July; the family are crowded at her mother's now, seven people surviving on €400 a month. "We're the living dead," she says. Isn't she troubled by Golden Dawn's violence? "The boys in the black shirts are the only ones I'm not scared of. I feel they'll protect me." I ask her mother, old enough to remember the junta, what she thinks of their far-right views. "I heard Michaloliakos say on TV that their sign isn't Hitler's sign but a patriotic one," she says, and then looks down at her feet. "It does upset me a bit. But I haven't heard of anyone else giving out food."
For the young people drawn into its inner circle, Golden Dawn means much more. Vetta has Celtic crosses on her collar points, a pack of Stuyvesants and a can of Red Bull clutched in her left hand. Her kohl-rimmed eyes dart back and forth as she speaks, but she is open, friendly. The 33-year-old says she helped to "clear" Aghios Panteleimon square three years ago and was stunned by people's gratitude. She's a member now, one of 20 chosen each year for their contribution to the cause and given lessons in ideology and behaviour: "We have to welcome everybody, to be polite but serious." There's a dress code for women – no heels, low-cut tops or bare backs – and a growing Women's Front, which offers training in self-defence. "But there's no difference between men and women here. We all sweep and mop. And, yes, the men make coffee."
The Golden Dawn office in industrial Aspropyrgos is in a flat above an empty garage, next to the old elevated motorway. The stairs are lined with crash helmets, black shields and Greek flags rolled on to wooden staves, ready to snatch up at a moment's notice. The walls are hung with the slogans of Greek nationalism – "Macedonia is Greek soil" – and a blown-up photograph of Golden Dawn supporters fighting the riot police. Arete Demestika – six months pregnant, ponytail down to her waist, earrings like black roses – waxes lyrical in praise of the party: "It's an attitude, a way of life, it's what's called Greece. It awakens new parts of you and makes you stronger, it arms you with knowledge, it's a secret school. We learn our true history, the lore of the nation, because the Greeks are a superior race. And it's given me my family – I met my husband here – and made me feel I'm not alone in the struggle for our country."
But outside, as the sun goes down, 27-year-old Costas, a black-booted Golden Dawn cadre, slips out from under the rhetoric and speaks in his own words. He's an inspector now in the Eleusis oil refineries, but that's not his vocation. He's a craftsman, a marble carver; he used to work at the Acropolis, but the pay was terrible and you couldn't get a decent contract if you weren't in the right party. His face softens and sweetens as he talks about working the marble, learning the craft as a boy, and I realise that he comes from a village I know well. Suddenly we're two people – two Greeks – talking about a place we love, a place full of memories, almost as if things were normal.
Deliberately, inexorably, Golden Dawn is moving into the gaps left open by the crippled Greek state. Its strategy is a blend of seduction and extortion, the exploitation of need backed by the threat of violence. To its existing "solidarity projects" – "Food for Greeks only" and "Blood for Greeks only" – the party has now added a third: "Jobs for Greeks only". Golden Dawn members are visiting workshops and factories, counting and publicising the number of foreign workers there, "encouraging" employers to hire Greeks instead. But its biggest success has been the provision of "security", with the collusion of the authorities: the intimidation of migrants, protection of Greek shops, vigilante patrols.
Adept at spectacle, the party claims new territory with a show of black-shirted strength, fireworks and flares and fanfare, masculine energy. Physical fitness is a big part of its culture. There are Golden Dawn gyms that don't admit foreigners; Golden Dawn security firms. MP Panagiotaros owns a shop called Phalanga that sells military memorabilia; bovver boots and black gloves; ultra football shirts; kit by Pit Bull and Hooligan. Members of the military junta beam from photos on the wall. The heavy stuff is said to be kept in a back room.
As middle-class Greeks have fled the centre of Athens, immigrants have moved into their empty properties. It's common knowledge that if you want to get squatters out of your flat, you call Golden Dawn, not the police, who at best will quietly pass you a Golden Dawn telephone number. The story has become a staple of dinner-party conversation; in the version I heard from unemployed journalist Julia Iliakopoulou, the Golden Dawn heavies who cleared the Pakistanis out of her friend's flat by "beating them black and blue" made them clean it up and paint it afterwards. "Don't upset yourself," they said. "We're Greeks helping Greeks."
It's hard to measure just how deeply Golden Dawn has penetrated the police. In Athens wards where the police vote in large numbers, the party polled 19-24% last summer; Panagiotaros crows that 50-60% of the force is now with the movement. What's obvious is that rightwing violence almost always goes unchecked, even when it happens under officers' noses or on camera. Early in October, anti-fascist protesters told me they had been tortured in the Athens police headquarters: burned with a cigarette lighter; forced to strip naked, bend over and spread their buttocks; filmed by officers who said they'd give the pictures to Golden Dawn. As I tried to interview some of them in a public lobby of the Athens courthouse, an officer grabbed me by the arm and pulled me roughly away. A police spokesperson denied the protesters' allegations.
Lawyer Yianna Kourtovik is familiar with Athens' most notorious police station, Aghios Panteleimon, which in 2010 was censured by a United Nations special rapporteur. She tells me that migrants trying to bring complaints of racist violence are routinely threatened with counter-charges and held in the cells; that local supporters of Golden Dawn wander freely in and out of rooms where complainants are giving statements; that she has had to prevent a friend of accused attackers from removing evidence. "If that isn't giving cover to Golden Dawn, I don't know what is," she says. A few weeks ago, she was egged by Golden Dawn outside the station while the police looked on. Then: "The other day, as I was walking down the road, two uniformed officers behind me started chanting, just loud enough for me to hear, 'Blood! Honour! Golden Dawn!'"
Why are such allegations never investigated? The usual response from those on the left is that Golden Dawn is "the long arm of the state" – that the government tolerates it to discourage immigration and keep people in a passive state of terror. But Golden Dawn is now much more of a threat to public order than protesters against austerity. There is also the fear of further alienating a desperately underfunded, underpaid and demoralised police force. New Democracy's Kyriazidis has led efforts to isolate Golden Dawn in parliament and, as a veteran union organiser, has intimate knowledge of the old militarised, post-junta police. But when I put the question to him, he hesitates: "Now that Golden Dawn is a legal party in parliament, we can't do anything… If there is an investigation, it has to be done internally, to remove individuals who act in this way but not weaken the police as a whole."
Through some lethal cocktail of intention, incompetence and inertia, the state has let a violent, anti-democratic force take control of law enforcement.
Greece has bitter experience of what can happen when the far right infiltrates the security services. But the Democratic Left's Mastrogiannis thinks what is happening now is more dangerous than a coup. "With the junta, you knew the enemy," he says. "But these people are acting inside society, undermining the system from within. People doubt that democracy is alive. They see it as something that works only for the few, who exploit it to make money. And the circumstances are not transient. This situation could go on for 15, 20 years."
Already Golden Dawn's success has moved the agenda to the right. Speaking in Paris last month, prime minister Antonis Samaras compared his country to 1930s Weimar. Trying to win back ground before the last election, he launched an ill-thought-out campaign (Xenios Zeus, or Zeus the Host) to round up illegal migrants, and spoke of taking back Greece's city centres. "I try to tell myself that he meant from criminals," says Dr Yunus Mohammadi of the Greek Forum of Refugees, "but really he meant from migrants."
People quickly become inured to hate speech and violence. Panagiotaros now speaks openly of a "new kind of civil war" between Greeks and "invaders", nationalists and leftists. Two years ago, a friend who sits on the Athens city council came in late to find only one empty seat, beside Michaloliakos. He hesitated, but the Golden Dawn leader waved him over. "Do sit down," he said. "Fascism isn't contagious." At the time, we thought it funny.
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Greece's New Americanized Healthcare System Truth-Out In the past, Greece provided universal care thanks to employers, individuals, and the government contributing to a fund to administer medical services to the entire population. Even those Greeks who lost their jobs still received health benefits for ... |
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Malta PM: Euro Zone Will Avoid Break-Up But Greece a Problem Wall Street Journal LONDON--Malta's prime minister said Friday he is optimistic the euro zone will survive its fiscal crisis without losing any of its member states, even though solving Greece's problems will be something of a challenge. Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi also ... |
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 Business Insider | Greek debt to badly miss target: euro zone official Reuters BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Greek debt will be above the target of 120 percent of GDP in 2020, a preliminary report by the IMF showed on Thursday, and Athens will need more reforms before emergency credit from international lenders can start flowing again. Greek tragedy turns epic Greek FinMin:Leftist Partner's Reform Refusal is Hurdle to Austerity Deal Greek government faces split on austerity vote |
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Euro falls as concerns over Greece flare up Reuters LONDON (Reuters) - The euro hit a two-week low against the dollar and fell against the yen on Friday, with traders citing concerns that Greece may miss its austerity targets and political uncertainty in Athens. A report from the International Monetary ... |
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The eurozone crisis means the status quo is no longer an option for Labour. If it doesn't act, the UK may end up out of the EU
When talking to diplomats, policymakers and journalists from around the EU, by far the most common question I get is: "What do you think the Tories will do on Europe?"
That question may soon have to be revised. It may not be the Tories, but the Labour party that will decide Britain's place in Europe – possibly even pushing it out altogether.
Much can happen before 2015, but there is a possibility that the Tories could suffer defeat at the polls at the next elections. Then Brussels' biggest fear – a sweeping Tory-led renegotiation of the UK's EU membership terms – will not materialise, at least not any time soon. Instead, either as part of a Lib-Lab pact or majority government, the ball will be in Labour's court. So what will Labour do?
In its 2015 election manifesto, the Conservative party could well promise renegotiation followed by a referendum on the result. It's far from set in stone, but increasingly likely. Tory scepticism on Europe as an issue may not allow David Cameron to get away with less. Labour effectively has two choices in how to respond:
Gamble on Europe not being an electoral issue. The thinking is that the EU always ranks low on the list of voters' concerns. National elections are never fought over Brussels. This is only partially true. Europe is a low priority if presented as a single issue – but the fact is, it's not. To varying degrees, it permeates other issues such as the economy, general trust in politicians and, most importantly, immigration (which consistently ranks high) – something that is likely to be established by the current government's "balance of competences" review. Labour could try ducking the question in a campaign, but if the Tory party manages to successfully tap into the public's growing hostility towards the EU status quo – and with the eurozone's demands for greater integration unlikely to go away – it could really hurt Labour.
Promise a referendum of their own and so neutralise the Tories' pledge. The Labour party is unlikely to promise a public vote on a renegotiated EU deal – in large parts, they have already rubbished the idea – so it will have to be a straight in/out vote. The plan would be to call a referendum shortly after the elections, campaign for a yes, win the vote and move on to other business.
This would be a massive gamble. The experiences of François Hollande in France and Mariano Rajoy in Spain show that political honeymoons are rare in today's EU politics. And heaven knows what Europe and the British economy will look like in 2015/2016, with the Greek bailout package set to expire, for example. If the referendum coincides with, say, a major new drive for more EU integration, with fresh demands put on the UK; and with a large number of Tories campaigning to leave (more likely in opposition), the British public may be pushed over the edge. It would then be Labour that unintentionally pulls the UK out of Europe.
There may be some options in between, such as promising a referendum on forthcoming treaty changes – or pledges to pursue some milder reforms – but that will not sound overly convincing. And even leaving aside the referendum issue, Europe could hit Labour like a steam train: in a few years' time, the free-standing "fiscal treaty" is meant to be incorporated into the EU treaties. Will Labour nod that through, given that it effectively codifies the Bundesbank-style austerity, much criticised by Ed Balls and co? Will it veto Germany's plans for a fiscal discipline commissioner, if they materialise? How will it relate to the evolving eurozone banking union and potential accompanying treaty changes? Will it tear up the coalition's EU "referendum lock"? The more the eurozone agrees to do in common, the harder it will be for the UK to stand still. In fact, the eurozone crisis means that the status quo is no longer an option for Britain.
The problem is that, fundamentally – and much like the Tory leadership itself – it does not yet appear that Labour knows what it wants for the UK in the multi-tier Europe that is developing. The previous Labour administration's policy of simply sitting in the "euro waiting room" and hoping the public would come along for the ride is no longer credible. However, the wing of the party that said it always opposed euro membership has yet to articulate what its alternative plan is.
There are a lot of good and clever people on Labour's front benches. So far, it has suited Labour to treat Europe as a coalition piñata. Not for much longer. Labour now has the chance to develop a coherent and positive European vision and a plan of its own – designed around a flexible model for EU co-operation, in which Brussels does less in the UK, but does it better. Bank on the status quo or Tory splits, and both the party – and Europe – may be in for some unexpected surprises.
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