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WAKE UP!! IT'S YER NUTTY CONSPIRACY THEORY RAG...
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Darkness at Dawn

The degeneration of the situation in Greece has led to a rise in fascist and racist ideals within cells of the Greek populace. As the economic crisis continues to torture the Greek public many have turned to narrow minded, bigoted attitudes towards innocent migrants. Rather than blame the Greek government, the EU fat cats and the political and capitalist system that has led to this situation, it is easier, for some, to blame the people that are easy to pick on and can be attacked. This paved the way for the rise of the Golden Dawn, a paramilitary neo-Nazi organisation.

Members of Golden Dawn carry out acts of violence and hate crimes against immigrants, political opponents and ethnic minorities on a regular basis. As refugees try to reach a haven and some form of safety in Europe they get stuck in Greece, where they have to remain as that is their first European country of arrival. There they are welcomed with lack of housing, no basic amenities, hunger and daily racist abuse in the hands of members of Golden Dawn, the police and the Greek public in general.

On Sunday (17th), elections were held once again in Greece to decide the course the country would be steered in. The right-wing party, New Democracy, won with 29.66% against the 28.69% leftist Syriza scored. So now Antonis Samaras can form a government with a pro-austerity attitude, in the probable relief of other European heads. The governmental campaigns were influenced by the Greek and euro crisis. Syriza are opposed to the austerity measures that Berlin, Brussels and the IMF want Greece to take. However Samaras needs to have a majority in Parliament to be able to start paving the way for the reduction of public wages and spending to receive another pandora's gift box from the Troika, the European Central Bank, the European commission and the IMF. The 7% of the vote that Golden Dawn won on the national elections of May 2012 gave the party 21 seats in the Greek Parliament, following the second election in June, this was reduced slightly to 18 seats. In the elections of May 2012, the exit polls conducted showed that in the large urban regions of Greece on average 50% of the members of the various police divisions (increasingly towards the special task and anti-riot units) declared having voted for Golden Dawn.

Hours after the election results came in Nazis attacked numerous neighbourhoods in Athens and other Greek cities. At one instance an 100 strong Nazi gang assaulted a Syriza meeting in Piraeus, kicking in one of the members of the leftist group. Later on at the Attica metro station, in Athens a migrant was attacked by the same gang. There have been many reports of racist attacks that are escalating as the financial crisis continues.

Earlier in June, Golden Dawn MP, Ilias Kasidiaris had attacked two female left-wing MPs on live television. He slapped female politician Liana Kanelli three times to the head, after she swiped at him with a newspaper for throwing a glass of water at a discussion colleague. He was subsequently locked in a room in the studio but he knocked down the door and escaped. Greek prosecutors have issued an arrest warrant. Golden Dawn blamed Kanelli for the incident. An occurrence which sadly managed to get 6 thousand likes on facebook in a matter of hours. On Tuesday (12th) four Egyptians had been attacked in the early hours of the morning in their own home by 20 members of the Golden Dawn. One of the four was seriously injured. Anti-fascist demonstrations were called on Friday (8th), two weeks after the last had occurred, across Greece as these atrocities rolled on. The protests were focused on Golden Dawn and were called by United Movement Against Racism and the Fascist Threat (KEERFA).

During the elections Golden Dawn ran under the slogan "So we can rid this land of filth”. Party founder Nikos Michaloliakos appeared to give a Nazi salute an Athens city council. In some of his earlier writings dating back to the late 1980's he ends an article by writing "1987, 42 years later, with our thought and soul given to the last great battle, with our thought and soul given to the black and red banners, with our thought and soul given to the memory of our great Leader, we raise our right hand up, we salute the Sun and with the courage, that is compelled by our military honor and our National Socialist duty we shout full of passion, faith to the future and our visions: HEIL HITLER!".

There is 1 comment on this story...
Added By: Cade - 5th December 2012 @ 7:04 AM
Innocent migrants ?
The issue is people illegally entering the Greek nation, like an invasion.
Greece has no formal multicultural policy and this is why limited amounts of Europeans (English, Italians, Spanish, etc.), etc. are allowed to live in Greece.

The "slap" incident was preceded by a verbally-accentuated negative atmosphere (on/off camera) promoted by other entities. At the climax Ilias (being human and not perfect) had let off "steam". What people seem to forget is that the derogatory preceding comments said to Ilias concerning the Golden Dawn party were, like other instances, comments also against the Greek people (old and young) who voted for Golden Dawn. Golden Dawn make valid arguments about the financial/corruption/agricultural/resource/migrant/military/etc. status of Greece that Greeks have been interested in listening to but other parties appear to avoid these real themes.

I guess your not aware of the meandros symbology common in ancient/modern Greek pottery, clothing, etc.; RE: image in article.

The salute by Nikos in the Athens Council was a comical reply intended to "stir" an opposing councillor that had thrown derogatory remarks to Nikos. Nikos decided to "offend" him with the salute. Any references to Hitler/etc. are in context of nationalism aspect of Hitler age and it is an oxymoron to think that the patriotic Hellenic nationalists/ethnicists in Golden Dawn would have preferred Greece to be taken over by Germany. The Hellenes have a rich-enough history and do not need to explicitly admire any subsequent civilisation. The swastika is an ancient symbol used in ancient Greece (tera-gammon; i.e. 4 gamma), India, Buddhism, etc. in a good context (e.g. Zeus' emblem, intersection of meandros patterns in Greek architecture, weddings in India, etc.) millenia before Hitler popularised the symbol. Also, the ancient Roman salute/eagle-symbology pre-dates Hitler's use of these themes but many of today's historically-literate people have too much tunnel vision to figure these things out.

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