Chating with my cousin, follower of the greek neonazi party "Golden Dawn"

Everything started with me sharing an article commenting on how the greek neonazi party “Golden Dawn” (hereafter GD) has risen (greek speakers will find the article here). The author of the article claims that the bankruptcy of Greece is primarily cultural and he attributed to the fact that a large portion of the greek population is deprived from the essential education and knowledge to face the crisis with rational terms. This very same portion of people are susceptible to the trash circulating in TV and buy more easily the extremist positions of GD.

After the share of this article, I received a series of messages from a cousin who supports this “party”. I was quite reluctant to be engaged in a conversation about this topic but I stepped into it partly because I wanted to discover how he thinks and because I wanted to challenge the prejudice I carry. The conversation was going on in a rather mild way from my side until he wondered if he should become an humanist in order to face the problem of “illegal immigrants” (=immigrants without papers).

That was the turning point because it came as a confirmation of the original article. Humanitarian values which are in the core of the modern european civilization were first developed in ancient Greece, Athens. This set of values, which put the human being in the centre (anthropocentric) of the attention are rejected by GD. Actually, the core members of GD are inspired by the nazi theory and the atrocities it implied. So followers of GD, who consider themselves as guardians of the Greek nation and are particularly proud about ancient Greece and its achievements, are indeed rejecting what is the most significant heritage of ancient Greece to the world, the humanitarian values. They just consume hatred spread by the core of GD and don’t bother to study what Plato or Aristotle said. Ignorance is (their) strength.   

Another point that impressed me was that in his mind Hitler was just a bad implementer of the nazi theory! Therefore maybe Mihaloliakos would implemented in a proper way once in power... 

 

Photo: Christos Papas (on the left) and Nikos Mihaloliakos (on the right) in their youth, now leaders of GD.

The real problem is not my cousin. It is that 500.000 people in Greece and more people all over Europe believe that extreme right/neonazi parties can be a solution to the recession which hit Europe and even more to the recent immigrant crisis. Millions of voters buy xenophobia either because they are disappointed by current politics or because they feel immigrants as a menace to their life. Of course the situation is very complex and I am afraid I am not able to give a convincing explanation of it. I have the feeling that if unemployment was not a serious problem in many european countries, many people would have the temper to notice that other people who lost their homes and seek a better future are not a menace.  Yet again this feeling cannot explain the rise of Sverigedemokraterna in Sweden.

Immigration flows towards Europe are expected to be more intense in the years to come and Europe has to find a way to undergo smoothly the transformation immigrants bring with them. This situation concerns me especially because there are citizens who believe that violence, xenophobia or racism can be an option to face this transformation… I hope european leaders will find a way to integrate peacefully the amount of immigrants which can be absorbed before the extreme right gains more power.