In Greece, a light-weight blue bar climbs just a little larger with every new opinion ballot. In the meanwhile, the quantity is beneath 10% and the pattern might show anecdotal. Besides that this gentle blue bar belongs to a darkish social gathering: Elliniki Lissi (Greek Answer), 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 might 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. In truth, the specialists questioned on the topic are inclined to have the identical response: an extended silence, adopted by “I do not know what to say”, or “it is robust”!
For filmmaker Angélique Kourounis, who has made two documentaries on the neo-Nazi social gathering Golden Daybreak (Golden Daybreak – A Private Affair in 2016, and Golden Daybreak – Everybody’s Enterprise 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 at all times the identical faces that present up. This although the Greek capital is dwelling to virtually 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 Risk 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 the use of analysis and academic materials.
“With a sequence of articles within the on-line newspaper Lifo, we are attempting to deconstruct the rhetoric and themes of far-right events”, says Meitani. For instance, with Greenpeace they regarded on the agriculture problem when the farmers had been demonstrating earlier this yr. 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 realize a foothold within the rural world and win votes. We revealed our different proposals.”
She provides that, sadly, “we would not have the assets to mount a marketing campaign to get out the vote, as Greenpeace France has carried out”.
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 Massive Oil. Theirs are additionally essentially the most watched.
Christos Papagiannis, director of the suppose tank Eteron, believes that “within the media there isn’t a actual house for a optimistic account of social developments or social actions. When the far-right’s antagonists do seem on the information – normally outdoors primetime – they face makes an attempt to discredit them: ‘you are leftists’, ‘you are not goal’, and so forth. Various concepts should not tolerated.”
Angélique Kourounis agrees: “Greek society shouldn’t be conscious of the risks which are coming. The rise of the far-right is occurring beneath the radar. Individuals’s foremost downside is to make ends meet.”
Ioanna Meitani provides: “Our society is afraid for its future. Individuals ponder whether they may nonetheless have entry to healthcare or training, whether or not they may be capable of 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 doable and stated so by voting for Syriza, a left-wing social gathering 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 had been shattered in every single place in Europe, however the disappointment was much more brutal in Greece. The federal government of Alexis Tsipras didn’t remedy any of the basic issues of Greek society, and worse nonetheless, it despatched the message that we should always anticipate 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 could 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 provide you with a response to the far-right.
Lastly, Greek society faces one other distinctive problem: “With the dissolution of the neo-Nazi social gathering Golden Daybreak in 2020, many individuals thought that the far-right had been damaged, however in reality 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 beneath different labels.
The image could appear bleak. Greeks haven’t appreciated thefar-right’s endurance in society. Nor are the rhetoric and actions of activists making a lot influence.
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