The Greek ‘Success Story’ (mail aus Athen, Vοl. 3)

From 2006 onwards the greek people observes happily, one after the other, the various demands of the right-wing or neonazi agenda being satisfied. In our last issue we tried to track down the traces of this ‘success story’ during the last seven years:

“At the beginning, it was the political decision to reject the new textbook of History for the sixth grade (2006) and then it was the right-wing campaign against ‘illegal commerce’ by immigrant sellers and one or two years later there was the first attempt of … liberating a neighborhood (2008), that is the occupation of the Agios Panteleimonas square, which was then repeated several times in other parts of Athens. It was the time of their social experiment: ‘people’s committees’. And then the campaigns for the Greek nationality for immigrants – again victorious! Then, after the 300 immigrants hunger strike, it was the time of the big pogrom of May 2011, the abolition of the university asylum, as well as the imposition of a series of measures that did not allow immigrants to travel inside the country without providing their papers for getting their boat tickets. Then, it was the law that prosecuted the wearing of hood as a crime. And then it was the time of the law that forced hospital doctors to call the police whenever they were to examine immigrants without papers. Then, the crisis came and whatever bullshit you could listen to before its coming, now it was totally mainstreamed in the public discourse, e.g. the petrol or the gas that the Greek or Cypriot sea territories were hiding underneath. Afterwards, it was the time to close the Athens Indymedia and a series of 15 squats around the country. Then, we woke at some day, 7 years later, and the ideology of the extreme neo-liberals is just the official communicative policy of the state.  […] The campaigns worked. And that is happening because Greeks are fond of neo-Nazis, and also, because their agenda was, fully and constantly, publicly promoted. All these achievements, after all, were the links between neo-nazism and social fascism.”

[«Greek History X: racism, the experience, the ‘2nd generation’ and its defamation’, June 2013]

Not much has been changed for the last three months. We have a new Health Minister in charge, who is actually a former television salesman of right-wing and anti-Semitic books, such as Konstantinos Plevris’ book that encouraged to keep Auschwitz in good condition in case we might need it in the future… It is not surprising, thus, that Mr. Adonis Georgiadis as soon as he took over the Ministry of Health, imposed a legislation that would allow the prosecution of hundreds of – HIV positive or not – women who work in the sex industry in Greece.

Not far from that, the Ministry of Citizen’s Protection prosecuted tens of transgender women in Thessaloniki, keeping them in custody without any prominent reason. A permanent activity taking place in this pretty straight canvas, with the greek family seen happily enjoying at the background, are the non-stop immigrants’ ‘suicides’ or suicide attempts in the police departments or the detention camps of the country. The widely known incidents for this hot greek summer are the suicide of a 20-years-old immigrant from Ivory Coast in the police department of Grevena (24/06/2013), the suicide of an immigrant from Pakistan in the police department of Servia-Kozani (12/07/2013), or the suicide attempt of another immigrant from Afghanistan in the detention camp of Corinth (24/08/2013).

The end of July indicated the area of Peloponnese, in northern Greece, as an open-area for Roma hunting. In Laconia, Mesinia and various other places, the Roma settlements received spectacular police visits from police forces of all the neighboring areas and Athens. Other settlements were evacuated and in other occasions the only purpose was to just frighten their inhabitants. This summer’s massive anti-Roma operations, again with the excuse over the extent  of Roma criminality, reminded us of the last year’s great operation “Xenios Zeus” that initiated the targeting of the immigrants of the country.

Nobody needs to be a political scientist in order to understand it would be disproportionate to say that these great social and state achievements owe themselves to the neonazi/right-wing power in the parliament or the society. Not at all! The neo-Nazis got their 7% in  last the national elections and the other right-wing party, ‘Independent Greeks’ (ANEL), took their own 7%.

So, the question remains: how is it possible to have such a full-scale achievement of the neonazi agenda for the last seven years even though all of the scumbags receive 14% (in the elections of 2012, while formerly were not even present in the parliament)?

Notwithstanding, we must say it explicitly: there is not the quietest resistance to all these achievements. The thumb of the mob shows onwards in favor of ‘a more present, more dynamic and more greek’ state. The fact that the conservative liberal persona of the Minister of Education M. Giannakou-Koutsikou, who introduced the new History textbook for the sixth grade, was finally not even elected in the parliament, while a former ‘traitor of the party of the conservatives’, but also hyper-nationalist, Mr. Antonis Samaras, not only managed to be voted as the Head of the conservative party (Nea Dimokratia), but also become a prime minister, from half of the electoral body, is a clear sign of the social change in Greece. Another sign that will help us understand the greek success story is that although the neo-Nazis earn their 7%, the citizens that justify violence against immigrants increased up to 22% while those that just ‘don’t want them in the country’ are more than 80% of the population. On the other hand, the majority opposition party, SYRIZA, enacts its’ own racist-nationalist inheritance. People who shared anti-nationalist views have been silenced, while the so-called ‘immigrant issue’ is deep down in the last priorities of the party (allowing usually some unimportant minorities from their movement’s representatives to deal with it) and, in parallel, the party is hurry to set up its own ‘patriotic fraction’ during August 2013.

However, luckily enough, another thing is happening for the greeks, which actually does not let them rejoice with their success stories. The crisis, you see, and the following defamation that it accompanies it. The unfortunate occasion that, although the country suffers from a financial deficit, nobody seems to congratulate it for its great social … surlpus  in fascism. Not even a euro for all this unprecedented attack against whoever this society deems “unworthy”. Not even a friendly gesture for this tremendous initiative of, European standards, anti-Roma hysteria. Not even a good word from the British media for Mr. Dendias, the Minister of the Citizen’s Protection, for the second consequent August of repression against Roma, trans and immigrants.

So, does it worth it to be called ‘European Union’? That’s what worries the Greeks at the present time. Does it worth it to keep their country into this political entity where they cannot admire their own achievements from the higher levels that their fellow-Germans occupy? On our part, as people that have grown up in this society, we fully understand these sick worries of theirs and that is why we hope they get used to the bottom of the barrel. We can, undoubtedly, share 10 million reasons to smile then, exactly as many as the citizens of this blessed land.

Antifa Negative, 10.09.2013 (for FSK Hamburg)