The Default Line: THE INSIDE STORY OF PEOPLE, BANKS AND ENTIRE NATIONS ON THE EDGE by Faisal Islam Page A
Authors: Faisal Islam
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His party, which has a swastika-like logo, argues he was joking. But anti-immigrant violence has surged since Golden Dawn burst onto the scene.
Greece does have a serious issue with migration. Turkey turns a blind eye to thousands trying to cross into the European Union via its only land border with Asia. Even though most of the migrants have no desire to stay in Greece, Golden Dawn has capitalised on their presence, and this, together with the economic collapse, saw them win eighteen parliamentary seats in June 2012. In the subsequent months, the party regularly polled double digits, equivalent to more than thirty seats. Wherever I saw economic calamity in Greece, there seemed to be a strategically positioned office of Golden Dawn. At the very least, the economic situation seems to have led to an acceptance of openly racist gestures and an escalation of vigilantism – especially in areas where the police decline to act. A leading Greek footballer gave a Nazi salute after scoring a goal. Something extraordinary is happening if Greece, which suffered terribly under Nazi occupation, is seeing its young people increasingly attracted to neo-Nazism.
The rise of political extremism is hardly surprising given the absence of economic hope for Greece’s young. Economic calamity has only served to exacerbate the divisions in Greek society. Some left-wing campaigners insist that there is a low-level civil war going on between violent neo-Nazis and sympathisers among the Greek police on the one hand, and left-wingers, anti-fascists and anarchists on the other. A look at economic historian Brad DeLong’s seminal history of the economic factors behind the democratic rise of Hitler in Germany ( Slouching Towards Utopia ) shows that Greece now ticks many of the same boxes, including surging unemployment, the politicisation of a formerly apathetic electorate, deflationary budget balancing, acute cuts to welfare, fears about banks and saving, the collapse of an international system of fixed exchange rates, and the obliteration of mainstream parties at the hands of the hard left and the hard right. Of course, right now it seems absurd to think that Golden Dawn could ever top the polling in a Greek election. But in 2011 it was absurd to suggest they could have any MPs at all. In 1928 the Nazis won 2.8 per cent of the vote. By 1933 Hitler was chancellor. What propelled the surge in support for the Nazis? A strong showing by the far left, which drove the centre-right to Hitler. It is not unthinkable that history could repeat itself, in a situation where hundreds of thousands of young men and women have been left desperate and desolate.
Greece is not just about economics. When I visited his local polling booth, Alexis Tsipras was mobbed by supporters and non-supporters alike. He tours the world drumming up support for his anti-austerity message. The public face of Syriza has certainly moved to the centre, in what might be called the ‘Syriza shuffle’. After the May election the threat of a disorderly euro exit was Greece’s fundamental bargaining chip in a renegotiation of the EU loan agreement. By June, drachmail had been replaced by pragmatism. Syriza said it would stick to some of the headline targets of the Troika deal, but achieve them through tax rises rather than spending cuts. Within a month, all talk of mutually assured destruction had disappeared.
New Democracy knew their trump card. At their final rally in Syntagma Square before the June election, there were flares, dodgy dance music, and an attempt at an impassioned speech from Greece’s would-be euro saviour, the ND leader Antonis Samaras. ‘The first choice Greece must make,’ he declaimed, ‘is: euro or drachma?’ The mood was not helped when the Financial Times Deutschland published an open letter to Greeks, advising them to vote for Samaras, and ‘resist the Demagogue Tsipras’. Samaras had greatly angered the Troika by undermining Papandreou, but now he was the
Greece does have a serious issue with migration. Turkey turns a blind eye to thousands trying to cross into the European Union via its only land border with Asia. Even though most of the migrants have no desire to stay in Greece, Golden Dawn has capitalised on their presence, and this, together with the economic collapse, saw them win eighteen parliamentary seats in June 2012. In the subsequent months, the party regularly polled double digits, equivalent to more than thirty seats. Wherever I saw economic calamity in Greece, there seemed to be a strategically positioned office of Golden Dawn. At the very least, the economic situation seems to have led to an acceptance of openly racist gestures and an escalation of vigilantism – especially in areas where the police decline to act. A leading Greek footballer gave a Nazi salute after scoring a goal. Something extraordinary is happening if Greece, which suffered terribly under Nazi occupation, is seeing its young people increasingly attracted to neo-Nazism.
The rise of political extremism is hardly surprising given the absence of economic hope for Greece’s young. Economic calamity has only served to exacerbate the divisions in Greek society. Some left-wing campaigners insist that there is a low-level civil war going on between violent neo-Nazis and sympathisers among the Greek police on the one hand, and left-wingers, anti-fascists and anarchists on the other. A look at economic historian Brad DeLong’s seminal history of the economic factors behind the democratic rise of Hitler in Germany ( Slouching Towards Utopia ) shows that Greece now ticks many of the same boxes, including surging unemployment, the politicisation of a formerly apathetic electorate, deflationary budget balancing, acute cuts to welfare, fears about banks and saving, the collapse of an international system of fixed exchange rates, and the obliteration of mainstream parties at the hands of the hard left and the hard right. Of course, right now it seems absurd to think that Golden Dawn could ever top the polling in a Greek election. But in 2011 it was absurd to suggest they could have any MPs at all. In 1928 the Nazis won 2.8 per cent of the vote. By 1933 Hitler was chancellor. What propelled the surge in support for the Nazis? A strong showing by the far left, which drove the centre-right to Hitler. It is not unthinkable that history could repeat itself, in a situation where hundreds of thousands of young men and women have been left desperate and desolate.
Greece is not just about economics. When I visited his local polling booth, Alexis Tsipras was mobbed by supporters and non-supporters alike. He tours the world drumming up support for his anti-austerity message. The public face of Syriza has certainly moved to the centre, in what might be called the ‘Syriza shuffle’. After the May election the threat of a disorderly euro exit was Greece’s fundamental bargaining chip in a renegotiation of the EU loan agreement. By June, drachmail had been replaced by pragmatism. Syriza said it would stick to some of the headline targets of the Troika deal, but achieve them through tax rises rather than spending cuts. Within a month, all talk of mutually assured destruction had disappeared.
New Democracy knew their trump card. At their final rally in Syntagma Square before the June election, there were flares, dodgy dance music, and an attempt at an impassioned speech from Greece’s would-be euro saviour, the ND leader Antonis Samaras. ‘The first choice Greece must make,’ he declaimed, ‘is: euro or drachma?’ The mood was not helped when the Financial Times Deutschland published an open letter to Greeks, advising them to vote for Samaras, and ‘resist the Demagogue Tsipras’. Samaras had greatly angered the Troika by undermining Papandreou, but now he was the
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