Dawns are Gonna be Golden in Europe?

From Cold War time prison discussions with the Regime of the Colonels, the extreme right Golden Dawn first made it to the Greek Parliament. Now it reaches out to Italy and Spain. Are they doing it on their own?

Rise in Greece

Ever since the collapse of the world banking system in 2008, the EU and the Eurozone have been struggling with whopping levels of national debt, economic depression, stagnation and utter disillusionment of the general public. There are a couple of EU countries though that even have it worse. For instance Ireland, Spain, Italy, Hungary and especially Greece took a nosedive off the “fiscal cliff” with high rates of unemployment (particularly amongst the youth), high inflation levels and no economic growth – discontent is palpable on the whole continent.

In Greece, the mixture of total disillusionment in the political elite, staggering levels of corruption and nepotism and the high level of immigration without a sensible and sound integration strategy got hit by this enormous external shock, the great recession. The standard of living plummeted whilst unemployment skyrocketed. It did not take long for the reapers of such situations to emerge. GoldenDawn (GD), a tiny neo-Nazi extremist group developing into a party since the '80ies soon started to harvest what the political centre had sown.

A dishonourably discharged member of Greek special forces, the leader of the organization spent decades on the fringes of far-right politics while also being arrested several times for aggravated assault and illegal possession of explosive materials. His efforts to develop an impactful organization was fueled also by leaders of the far-right Greek military junta of 1967-1974 ('the Regime of the Colonels') whome he met while spending his prison sentence.

After decades of irrelevance, the Greek state meltdown since 2008 opened up the political mainstream to the organization – an opportunity it did not hesitate to grab. In doing so, Golden Dawn copied almost identically the tactics of Jobbik, the far-right Hungarian party that won 47 seats in the National Assembly during the 2010 general elections. Golden Dawn members started organizing vigilante groups and “neighbourhood watches”, intimidation campaigns and hostile propaganda actions against anyone who opposes them. Just as Jobbik did with Hungary's Roma community, Golden Dawn made a scapegoat out of (illegal or undocumented) immigrants while securitizing the issue of immigration (redefining a socio-economic problem as a security threat) portraying the foreign-born community as the roots of all that has gone bad in the country. GD's methods are becoming more and more successful: the organization won almost 7 per cent of the votes during the 2012 general elections and it seems nothing is capable of stopping them to become the third biggest parliamentary party during the next one.

Whilst the country is still in deep economic recession and societal turmoil, GD members and sympathisers wreak havoc on the streets. Racially aggravated assaults have become commonplace and they are becoming more and more violent eroding the reputation of the Greek state and political elite as the provider of security to Greek citizens. What is even worse is that the authorities seemingly do nothing to curb this trend and evidence is starting to emerge that shows that GD has infiltrated the Greek police and secret services, while also gathering evermore support amongst teachers and other state employees.

European Aspirations and Question Marks

However, it seems that GD is not satisfied with its local and national success story, they want to expand further. According to several sources Golden Dawn offices and branches have been established in Italy, Spain and even in New York, NY. In Italy and Spain, these offshoots have been founded by local extremists who had had close relations to GD even before (e.g. Forza Nuova, CasaPound). In New York, just like in Australia and Canada, the party organizes “charity events” to garner support that they will “dispense amongst ethnic Greeks” back on the old country. If GD hitherto had been a European problem, it may now becoming a European problem of a whole different magnitude.

The expansion of this extremist party on a European level, which only managed to win less than 1 per cent of the popular vote in 2009, begs several questions.

First, who is behind GD financially? A small parliamentary party could hardly afford to open and maintain offices all around the world without some kind of financial backing. Thus, one has to ponder the question of Golden Dawn being used as a proxy by some major player in international politics whose goal is to weaken the European Union via destabilizing its Southern periphery. Second, how could be GD stopped in Greece if Greek authorities are indeed littered with far-right sympathizers? And lastly, how can GD’s spread to other European countries be stopped when many EU countries, including all Southern member states, suffer from very similar systemic weaknesses as Greece?

Europe must realise that Greece is not a sad exception in terms of domestic extremism. The situation is only a little bit less grim in several other EU countries. The Greek state has already tripped over itself and it is really hard to for the Greek to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but they are not completely alone in this mess. Most European countries suffer from similar systemic weaknesses, high level of immigration, low level of integration, economic stagnation, deterioration of living standards, high unemployment. In an environment like this, the expansion of GD might not be stoppable, especially if mainstream politicians and key stakeholders will not start handling domestic extremism as a major threat to good governance, national security, policies, human rights and fundamental European values that it is.

Are European decision-makers to await when dawns are gonna be golden in Europe?