WARNING: This thread is a self-Godwinning one by default.
They are called the Golden Dawn. Here is a photo of their current party leader, Nikolaos Michaloliakos, and that emblem hanging on the way behind him is the flag representing their political party.
(Okay, look, I realize it's a multi-millenia old bit of graphic design called the "Greek key" and that the decorative graphic has appeared on ancient Greek pottery and that it has adorned the trim of Greek buildings and Greek tunics alike for thousands of years. But still.... The word "creepy" is most appropriate in ths instance.)
They are making major headway in converting to their cause existing members in the lower ranks of the Greek military, as well as police officers in many of the various city and town police forces throughout Greece. (Sound familiar, my history-savvy AWer's?)
The real icing on this Godwin cake is that they recently won 19 seats in the Greek Parliament.
Meanwhile, I have a cyber-acquaintance in Greece who has reported (to a group that I hang with at a different message forum) that Greek citizens are going to the police to report thefts and burlgaries and vandalisms, and those police officers who are members of Golden Dawn are saying to these citizens (my paraphrase of his claims): "It was those dirty immigrants who broke into your home. They are ruining Greece and are the real reason why we are in such a huge financial mess. Go back to your neighborhood and contact this man whose name I am writing down for you. He is the local organizer of the neigborhood watch group called Golden Dawn for your neighborhood. He will arrange to protect your house and you will be safe then. And don't trust the immigrants. We Greeks need to band together and make arrangements to get rid of them once and for all and take back our country for the good of all true Greeks."
Yes. Brownshirts are coming to Greece VERY soon.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/01/w...ight-wing-extremists.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
And here's a lovely article from July of this year where a sort of a "Krystalnacht, Take II" is being threatened against Greek shop owners who aren't Greek born:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/11/w...mmigrant-violence-follows.html?pagewanted=all
They are called the Golden Dawn. Here is a photo of their current party leader, Nikolaos Michaloliakos, and that emblem hanging on the way behind him is the flag representing their political party.
(Okay, look, I realize it's a multi-millenia old bit of graphic design called the "Greek key" and that the decorative graphic has appeared on ancient Greek pottery and that it has adorned the trim of Greek buildings and Greek tunics alike for thousands of years. But still.... The word "creepy" is most appropriate in ths instance.)
They are making major headway in converting to their cause existing members in the lower ranks of the Greek military, as well as police officers in many of the various city and town police forces throughout Greece. (Sound familiar, my history-savvy AWer's?)
The real icing on this Godwin cake is that they recently won 19 seats in the Greek Parliament.
Meanwhile, I have a cyber-acquaintance in Greece who has reported (to a group that I hang with at a different message forum) that Greek citizens are going to the police to report thefts and burlgaries and vandalisms, and those police officers who are members of Golden Dawn are saying to these citizens (my paraphrase of his claims): "It was those dirty immigrants who broke into your home. They are ruining Greece and are the real reason why we are in such a huge financial mess. Go back to your neighborhood and contact this man whose name I am writing down for you. He is the local organizer of the neigborhood watch group called Golden Dawn for your neighborhood. He will arrange to protect your house and you will be safe then. And don't trust the immigrants. We Greeks need to band together and make arrangements to get rid of them once and for all and take back our country for the good of all true Greeks."
Yes. Brownshirts are coming to Greece VERY soon.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/01/w...ight-wing-extremists.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Right-Wing Extremists’ Popularity Rising Rapidly in Greece
By LIZ ALDERMAN
September 30, 2012
ATHENS — The video, which went viral in Greece last month, shows about 40 burly men, led by Giorgos Germenis, a lawmaker with the right-wing Golden Dawn party, marching through a night market in the town of Rafina demanding that dark-skinned merchants show permits.
Some do, and they are left alone. But the action quickly picks up, as the men, wearing black T-shirts with the party’s name, destroy a stall with clubs and scatter the merchandise. “We saw a few illegal immigrants selling their wares,” Mr. Germenis says in the video. “We did what Golden Dawn has to do. And now we’re going to church to pay our respects to the Madonna.”
Just a few months ago, the name Golden Dawn was something to be whispered in Greece.
But three months after the extremist right-wing group won an electoral foothold in Parliament, talk of Golden Dawn seems to be on everybody’s lips.
In cafes, taxis and bars, Greeks across the political spectrum are discussing the palpable surge in Golden Dawn’s popularity, which has risen in recent political polls even as the group steps up a campaign of vigilantism and attacks against immigrants....
And here's a lovely article from July of this year where a sort of a "Krystalnacht, Take II" is being threatened against Greek shop owners who aren't Greek born:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/11/w...mmigrant-violence-follows.html?pagewanted=all
Greek Far Right Hangs a Target on Immigrants
By LIZ ALDERMAN
July 10, 2012
ATHENS — A week after an extremist right-wing party gained an electoral foothold in Greece’s Parliament earlier this summer, 50 of its members riding motorbikes and armed with heavy wooden poles roared through Nikaia, a gritty suburb west of here, to telegraph their new power.
As townspeople watched, several of them said in interviews, the men careened around the main square, some brandishing shields emblazoned with swastikalike symbols, and delivered an ultimatum to immigrants whose businesses have catered to Nikaia’s Greeks for nearly a decade.
“They said: ‘You’re the cause of Greece’s problems. You have seven days to close or we’ll burn your shop — and we’ll burn you,’ ” said Mohammed Irfan, a legal Pakistani immigrant who owns a hair salon and two other stores. When he called the police for help, he said, the officer who answered said they did not have time to come to the aid of immigrants like him....
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