A Conversation About Radicalism in Contemporary Greece
- A Conversation About Radicalism in Contemporary Greece
Because of its economic issues, Greece has been often in the news during the past several years. But the news often offers only superficial accounts of what is happening in Greek society. In the summer of 2015, on a warm day in Athens, I joined Dr. Vassiliki Georgiadou (VG), (political science, Panteion University); Dr. Lamprini Rori (LR), a Marie Curie fellow (Bournemouth University); and Dr. Despina Papadimitriou (DP), (history, Panteion University) in a faculty office in Panteion University to talk about radicalism in contemporary Greek society and how various kinds of radicalism are related to economic, social, and political upheaval. As research collaborators and coauthors, their recent research, particularly that of Dr. Georgiadou, has focused on the right-wing group Chryssa Avgi, or Golden Dawn, and in the following conversation they discuss not only this group but also their broader assessment of the connections between political and economic unrest, and they offer some surprising observations about radicalism of the left and the right “on the ground” in contemporary Greece. [End Page 145]
I’m speaking here in Athens with three Greek scholars who collaborate in ethnographic and other kinds of research into radicalism in Greek society. Some of your work has focused on Golden Dawn, a contemporary radical right movement in Greece, and I thought you might begin with how you compare Golden Dawn to other far-right movements in Europe.
This is a good starting point for our discussion. Golden Dawn is an almost unique phenomenon within the European party family of the far right. We tried to find other cases to compare Golden Dawn with. But with what? With NPD [National Democratic Party] in Germany? This could be a case, but NPD is a minor local party without having been represented in the German Federal Parliament (Bundestag) from its very beginning until now. Apart from differences in electoral strength between the two above-mentioned parties of the extreme right—at its best, NPD has gotten votes from no more than 1.6 percent of German voters in each first-order electoral process after 1969, whereas Golden Dawn gathered 7 percent of the Greek voters in the two general elections of 2012 and 6.3 percent in the last parliamentary election of January 2015—they differ concerning the use of political means. NPD is not an openly violent party mainly because German democracy is a militant one with constitutional elements that legitimize the state to fight against radical movements or organizations following undemocratic purposes or using undemocratic means. So there are some points relatively to which we can compare the two cases—the Greek and the German one— but there are differences too, between these two cases and the respective parties of the extreme right. Another comparable case is that of the Hungarian Jobbik. I think this is a more common comparison by party analysts.
Golden Dawn and Jobbik are comparable, since they both share the violent side and the electoral politics arena. Whereas in other movements, like let’s say the organization of CasaPound in Italy, it’s more a militant group than a party.
There are similarities and cooperation between Golden Dawn and CasaPound, although the latter is not a political party but a social center [End Page 146] of profascist inspiration that became a political movement. Both organizations share common views on social problems, in particular those of housing in Italy and the immigration in Greece.
It’s more advocacy and also has social dimensions.
Yes, social and cultural dimensions, in the case of CasaPound.
Maybe you should start with what it is you are focusing on and why and how you came to work together on it.
Our research on Golden Dawn started in 2010, first with Lamprini Rori and three other colleagues (Professors N. Marantzidis, I. Konstantinidis, and E. Dinas). It was some weeks before the local elections of November 2010 when we realized that it would be possible for Golden Dawn to become a politically relevant party for the first time in its long-lasting presence within the Greek political...
