In Greece, a light-weight blue bar climbs a bit of larger with every new opinion ballot. In the interim, the quantity is under 10% and the pattern may show anecdotal. Besides that this mild blue bar belongs to a darkish get together: Elliniki Lissi (Greek Resolution), which falls on the far-right of Greece’s political spectrum.
Based on these polls, the three% threshold wanted to enter the European Parliament can even be handed by The Spartans and Niki (Victory), two different right-wing populist outfits already established within the nationwide parliament, the Vouli.
If the pattern continues, this ensemble may take greater than 15% of the vote and emerge stronger than ever. And but the response to this darkish flip of occasions has been weak, bordering on non-existent. The truth is, the specialists questioned on the topic are likely to have the identical response: an extended silence, adopted by “I do not know what to say”, or “it is powerful”!
For filmmaker Angélique Kourounis, who has made two documentaries on the neo-Nazi get together Golden Daybreak (Golden Daybreak – A Private Affair in 2016, and Golden Daybreak – A Public Affair in 2021), “solely people who find themselves already mobilised, on the left and the far-left, are participating within the anti-fascist motion”.
In different phrases, the battle in opposition to the far-right is being waged by a small circle of activists. Certainly, on the anti-fascist, anti-racist or migrant-rights demonstrations held in Athens, it’s all the time the identical faces that present up. This even if the Greek capital is residence to nearly a 3rd of the nation’s inhabitants.
These activists are members of organisations with eloquent names, most of which emerged from the “Greek disaster” of the 2010s. Amongst them: the Keerfa (an acronym for United Motion Towards Racism and the Menace of Fascism), Deport Racism!, and the Athens-Piraeus anti-fascist community.
All of them share one explicit concern: “Does civil society actually exist in Greece?”, within the phrases of Ioanna Meitani. She runs Simeio, a five-person group who’re elevating consciousness of the hazard of the far-right by way of analysis and academic materials.
“With a collection of articles within the on-line newspaper Lifo, we try to deconstruct the rhetoric and themes of far-right events”, says Meitani. For instance, with Greenpeace they regarded on the agriculture challenge when the farmers have been demonstrating earlier this 12 months. Elena Danali, of Greenpeace, elaborates: “We all know how the agricultural disaster and the local weather disaster are linked, and the way the far-right makes use of these crises to achieve a foothold within the rural world and win votes. We printed our different proposals.”
She provides that, sadly, “we don’t have the assets to mount a marketing campaign to get out the vote, as Greenpeace France has executed”.
In reply to the query of how a lot impact these efforts are having, Simeio’s Ioanna Meitani is frank: “Sadly, not a lot, for 2 causes: we’re a small organisation, solely three years previous. And in Greece, when organisations like ours suggest alternate options, it’s as if they’re topic to an embargo.”
A fast evaluation of TV talk-show line-ups confirms this: the appropriate and far-right are systematically invited onto these channels owned by shipowners, the development business or Large Oil. Theirs are additionally probably the most watched.
Christos Papagiannis, director of the assume tank Eteron, believes that “within the media there is no such thing as a actual area for a constructive account of social developments or social actions. When the far-right’s antagonists do seem on the information – normally exterior primetime – they face makes an attempt to discredit them: ‘you are leftists’, ‘you are not goal’, and so forth. Various concepts are usually not tolerated.”
Angélique Kourounis agrees: “Greek society isn’t conscious of the hazards which might be coming. The rise of the far-right is going on below the radar. Individuals’s important drawback is to make ends meet.”
Ioanna Meitani provides: “Our society is afraid for its future. Individuals ponder whether they’ll nonetheless have entry to healthcare or training, whether or not they’ll have the ability to make ends meet. They’re subsequently receptive to simplistic options.”
Issues are all of the extra delicate provided that in 2015, after 5 years of disaster – monetary, financial, social, political and democratic – many Greeks believed that an alternate was potential and mentioned so by voting for Syriza, a left-wing get together that spanned the spectrum from Euro-communists to Greek-style socialists.
For Yannis Androulidakis, a journalist and eager observer of Greek political life, “the hopes of the left have been shattered all over the place in Europe, however the disappointment was much more brutal in Greece. The federal government of Alexis Tsipras didn’t remedy any of the elemental issues of Greek society, and worse nonetheless, it despatched the message that we must always count on nothing from the left. It contributed to the expansion of the far-right.”
With a gun to his head, Alexis Tsipras ended up signing a memorandum which confirmed the insurance policies he was denouncing… And Europe’s establishments put an finish to the hopes for profound change expressed by Greeks in elections.
Thus, says Androulidakis, “the rise of the far-right may be defined by two concomitant phenomena: on the one hand, the European, and even international, local weather; on the opposite, a Greek specificity”. In his view, the employees’ motion and the commerce unions, that are shedding floor throughout Europe, are merely unable to give you a response to the far-right.
Lastly, Greek society faces one other distinctive problem: “With the dissolution of the neo-Nazi get together Golden Daybreak in 2020, many individuals thought that the far-right had been damaged, however in truth it has merely been restructured”, says Angélique Kourounis. A part of it has joined the ranks of the governing New Democracy, Greece’s affiliate of the conservative EPP. One other half sits in parliament below different labels.
The image could seem bleak. Greeks haven’t appreciated thefar-right’s endurance in society. Nor are the rhetoric and actions of activists making a lot impression.
Greek society appears divided between three tendencies: fatalism, a wait-and-see perspective, and outright paralysis. In the meantime, the far-right continues to rise: in bar charts, and in folks’s minds.
Angélique Kourounis died on 6 Could 2024, only a few days after contributing to this text. We want to pay tribute to her right here.
With the assist of Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung UE
