Golden Dawn anti-bank protest. Piraeus, April 2013.

In Golden Dawn’s lair

Although it claims allegiance to the Military Junta (1967-74) and is hostile to trade unions, the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party is gaining ground in working class districts, where it has struck a chord with the primary victims of a never ending crisis. A French journalist reports from Piraeus, where unemployment and misery are grist to the Golden Dawn's mill.

Published on 24 September 2013 at 15:38
Golden Dawn anti-bank protest. Piraeus, April 2013.

On Tsaldani Street in Keratsini, in front of a bakery, someone has laid fresh flowers. It was on this street that, in the early hours of the morning of September 18, a young rapper, Pavlos Fyssas, was murdered by a member of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party.

Pavlos' murder, although it shocked public opinion and revealed - if need be – the criminal nature of the neo-Nazi organisation, was part of an planned strategy. For several months, the party, which is founded on nostalgia for the Military Junta, has attempted to spread terror and to gain ground in the Piraeus region, in the working class suburbs and trade union bastions that are today stricken by the collapse of the naval industry and by the economic crisis. In Keratsini, Nikaia and Perama, three neighbouring communities, where the unemployment rate is over 40 per cent, most of the men used to work in the dockyards or in the metal industry.
The Communist-affiliated union, the All-Workers Militant Front (PAME), ruled over hiring practices; it had the power to defend the workers and their working conditions. In the naval yards, a day's work was paid €100 and work was never scarce. But at the end of 2008, everything went haywire. Employers began to relocate to Turkey, Cyprus or China. Work days became less common, the union dug in its heels to maintain the same level of wages and working conditions but was unable to make the employers renew the previously-bargained collective agreements. Most of the workers soon found themselves unemployed.

Simplistic explanations and promises

Four years later, the rate of pay for what little work there is the dockyards is less than half of what it used to be, several key businesses have shut down and jobless workers, after one year of obtaining benefits, are no longer eligible for unemployment or even healthcare payments. "Many hold the unions responsible for this situation, and behind them the Communist Party," says Takis Karayanakis, a former union official who used to work in the Perama yards. Golden Dawn, with its virulent anti-communism and its rejection of the political system, "expresses the disarray, the frustration, of these people who have lost everything," he says.

The party offers simplistic explanations and promises: "It is the fault of immigrants," We will find you a job"... The ground is fertile: many voters have shed all political affiliations since the crisis, such as Keratsini resident, Dimitris Karavas. "My family and I always voted for the [centre right] New Democracy but today, we are nowhere on the political spectrum," he says. Karavas is a taxi driver who must work 14 hours to earn, at best, €20. "You have to keep a cool head, it isn't easy, I understand that people are tempted to vote for Golden Dawn," he says. He preferred to abstain in the last two elections.

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Little by little, Golden Dawn is seeping into the community. Last winter, its troops forced their way into the Perama offices of a nongovernmental organisation, Doctors Without Borders, demanding that immigrants be expelled. Several cafés and service stations have become hangouts for the organisation. Greek flags, muscle-men and black outfits leave no doubt that this is a Golden Dawn zone.

The party finances legal fees. "Golden Dawn is our only hope," says Tassos, an unemployed worker while sipping his coffee. They are a criminal organisation capable of killing a man? "So what? Today people die of hunger and no one talks about it..," he replies with uncontained vehemence. Like the others present that morning in a café around the Perama dockyards, he has but one desire "to see Samaras [the New Democracy Prime Minister] and Venizelos [the PASOK Deputy PM] hanged". He no longer wants to hear any more about these two parties that alternately governed Greece over the past 40 years.

Golden Dawn is resolutely committed to a power struggle with the traditional unions in the dockyards. Some ten days ago, PAME supporters putting up posters near the Golden Dawn zone were swarmed by about 40 Golden Dawn members coming from the neighbouring streets, wearing their black uniforms and wielding clubs. Nine trade unionists were injured.

Infiltration and racist attacks

[[In Piraeus, Golden Dawn began appearing in public in early 2012 when about 20 members patrolled the centre of town]] on Saturdays and Sunday afternoons. Their presence became more and more aggressive as the country's early legislative elections approached. On two occasions, the neo-Nazis encircled and beat anti-fascist activists.

"There are more and more beatings that are aimed directly at those on the left," says Piraeus resident Dimitris Kousouris, adding, "These happen in working-class districts where the neo-Nazi party has decided it must win the 'battle for the street' – as they say. It's obvious that they have a mission to strike what is left of the organised workers' movement." Kousouris is a historian specialised in 1940s Greece, and was himself a victim of Golden Dawn 15 years ago when he was the leader of a students' union. At the time, the party represented a tiny group attacking left-wing students in universities. Golden Dawn then focused its attacks more and more on immigrants – Albanians, then Afghans and Pakistanis in particular. Three years ago, the party began targeting a disadvantaged district north of Athens, (Agios Panteleimonas) carrying out racist attacks under the impassive — not to say complicit — gaze of the police.

Along with other left-wing activists, Takis has created a mutual support group in Perama, which, from its central headquarters, organises the distribution of food, free tutoring for school children, and demonstrations against austerity policies. Meeting each week in a general assembly, the members of the group are constantly faced with the rise of Golden Dawn. Some unemployed workers easily make racist comments. In recent months, several people have quit the group to join the ranks of Golden Dawn.
"We are witnessing a kind of low-level civil war," says historian Kousouris, "made possible both by a kind of collective amnesia and people's despair. That is the combination that has awakened the sleeping fascist beast".

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