Political Violence in Contemporary Greek Politics

Violence as a means of dealing with opponents has a history as old as our species. Modern Greece illustrates the complexity of the issue. Violence arises from many sources, such as the quest for power, factional struggles, ethnic differences, vendettas, love triangles, ideology, and class. The post-austerity Greek social landscape is witnessing shifts in traditional party strength as well as new pieces on the game board. These developments have already altered the political composition of the Greek legislature. The last

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major election quite possibly decided Greece’s continued membership in the European Union (EU), the fate of the euro, and, not implausibly, global economic recovery.

Since 2010, as a reaction to EU-imposed austerity measures, Greece has witnessed a rise in violent actions directed at those perceived to be responsible for the suffering of the country. Engaging in political discussion in Greece guarantees hearing the word “they” employed countless times. More than likely, in the past “they” alluded to the “Invisible Government,” the financier puppet masters, the CIA, the millionaire tax evaders and unnamed bogymen who are declared to really control the world from behind the scenes. Over the last two years, however, the political landscape has altered. The word “they,” for a measurable segment of the population, is no longer some nebulous reference, some speaking device to help one present an opinion without defining it. For many, it is an identifiable, recognizable enemy. Since the Athenian riots of 2010, this new focus has escorted violence unparalleled since the end of the military junta in 1974.

Last June, viewers of the popular Greek television show Good Morning Greece were startled when a member of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party assaulted two female members of far left parties while on the air. This moment of physical violence reflected the country’s politically charged atmosphere of anger, aggression and the propensity toward violence. Golden Dawn had done better than expected in recent elections (especially in Athens, with its almost daily strikes, occasionally violent demonstrations and burgeoning migrant population), winning representation in the parliament (18 seats). Still, with a memory of the military junta (1967-1974) and civil war (1946) against the communists, the Greeks are keenly alert to the ramifications of political chain reactions. These 20^th century episodes of the triumph of violence as a means for one group achieving and retaining political hegemony were calamitous for Greece. It would be good if collective memory would engender a will to renounce any internecine conflict. Indeed, most newspapers reacted with revulsion. But recent failed attempts at unity coalition governments have illustrated how conflict resolution remains elusive on the Greek political stage.

Neo-Nazis, semi-legitimized by an angry electorate, are

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added to an already volatile political cauldron. Five days after the television brouhaha, an “unpapered” (in European parlance) Iraqi was brutally murdered. In the last six months, more than 500 undocumented immigrants have been stabbed and hospitalized in and around Athens. Perpetrators are assumed to be affiliated with Golden Dawn. An August viral video shows muscular, blackshirted Golden Dawn members kicking over marketplace stands owned by foreign proprietors who were unable or unwilling to show permits to the self-appointed enforcers. The party’s flag, with its red background and black stylized fret (envision a single section of the ubiquitous strip ringing a diner’s coffee cup), is unmistakably fashioned after the Nazi emblem. Their aping of the fascists even includes the straight armed salute.

Anger, aggressive behavior, and manifest violence are the hallmark of extremist political groups. But to what extent are they merely the product of “fringe” groups? Fringe suggests that they exist at the distant penumbra of the social matrix. Rather, do they exist symbiotically with the society at large, drawing from feelings of despair, frustration with the system, conspiratorial notions, or xenophobia? Psychological and sociological studies have both found correlations between economic hardship and the popularity of extremist movements and parties. Greece’s unemployment is around 25 percent, salaries have been cut by as much as half, and the country has an overall misery index unknown to the present generation. In this situation, the outrages committed by hate groups are not unanticipated. With an additional $15 billion in loan payments announced in early November, austerity measures will intensify. As a consequence, the New York Times writes that Golden Dawn is poised to become Greece’s third largest party. A few individuals animated by hatred are not simply isolated anomalies within society; rather, they express the concerns and emotions of the larger society. It is worth considering that the violent rhetoric and actions of extremists are a manifestation of social proclivities finding an outlet in times of stress: inclinations we humans could easily revert to if they were not suppressed or proscribed by social conventions, taboos, and the societal superego. Newspapers, political and religious leaders, and spokesmen for various civic groups, all deplored with pious indignation the actions of the violent fringe. Yet, public

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reaction appeared to be apathetic. The government responded to the murder by rounding up thousands of illegal immigrants in a massive sweep code named Operation Xenios Zeus (ironically the ancient god of hospitality).

Consider the Greek triple jumper Voula Papachristou. She was withdrawn from Greece’s Olympic team on July 25 after tweeting what she believed to be a humorous opinion on the reports of an increase in cases of West Nile Disease in Greece. More than this, it was a commentary on the increase in African immigrants: “With so many Africans in Greece…the West Nile mosquitoes will at least eat homemade food!!!” (http://www.reuters.com/places/greece). One wonders whether or not she was only repeating an insipid quip that had already been viral throughout the Greek social media. In a recent opinion column in the popular newspaper, The Daily, the writer decried the lack of a “culture of toleration” in Greece and closed his column by stating that toleration is something which the Greeks ought to adopt from Europe.

If this editorialist’s assessment is correct, Greece’s paucity of toleration may in fact be due to its excess of nationalism. Greece has nurtured a powerful nationalism that can be traced to its 400-year struggle to preserve its ethnic identity while under Ottoman rule—the long, bloody War of Independence, territorial disputes, and wars with their northern neighbors. There is the nagging realization that since Greece was reduced to provincial status by Rome, her fate has been in the hands of great powers. By the mid 19^th century, currents of Greek nationalism had been transformed into the “Great Idea” informing later irredentist, expansionist policies. Ever fueling Greek nationalism is the notion that somehow they, the modern Greeks who live in the lands of the ancient Greeks, are the inheritors of their past glories. A souvlaki vendor will feel smugly confident that he has some small share of the bequeathal of democracy to the world. Who of us did not laugh at the father in the popular movie, My Big Fat Greek Wedding? His buffoonish cultural chauvinism, completely defanged, made for hilarious caricaturizing.

Generations of Greek leaders have played the pipes of nationalism/cultural chauvinism with deadly adeptness. Contemporary politicians need not play this card. It lies ever face up on the

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table, and it is imprinted on the psyche of so many Greeks. Should it surprise us that the lines of Golden Dawn’s anthem begin, “Followers of our great ancestors…we are the new Spartans… led by the light of Hellenism which will cover the earth…”?

Consulting any typology of violence, we are made aware that there are different categories of violence. But given the contemporary increase of violence in Greece, does this convenient taxonomy compartmentalize violent activity in a way that misses or ignores the socially imbedded nature of violence? Take the common approach that trifurcates violence into self-inflicted, interpersonal and collective. Let us consider the instance of the television show. One would assume that a right wing attack on left wing party leaders follows an obvious collective to political connection. I would argue instead that we are observing gender roles in action. The perpetrator was a male weight-lifting enthusiast and the victims were women. It has become well known that the purpose of gender violence essentially is to control and intimidate, not simply to inflict injury. Paternalism permeates Greekness as a prominent and important aspect of it. On a scale of social measures to empower woman, Greece scores next to the lowest (that distinction falls to Italy) in UN research on European countries. The attacker later told reporters that he was quite sure that the host of the show was in full fraternal agreement with him as he, the host, was slow to intervene.

Violence is a topic best approached from a historical and social psychological perspective. It would be good if by measuring violence we could control it, but categorizing violence can at best elicit means to identify the immediate occasion for violence and thus arrest its widening and intensifying, such as in the law enforcement area of crowd control. However, the deeper causes dwell in a complex cultural matrix. That Greek journalist’s desire that his compatriots adopt more evolved, European social norms faces psychic patterns established under Ottoman rule, what some even call a muted Orientalism. These morphologies of culture defy prediction and legislation.

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