A year and a half ago the European editorial teams of PRESSENZA have proposed to the Global Forum of DW (media partner of Pressenza) to host an event on the golden dawn trial. We were about to invite (own costs) the team of the Golden Dawn Watch to talk about the process of the trial and focus also on the sociopolitical aspects of it. Unfortunately the proposal was rejected. This is an example of how big media didn’t use at all or used a little such opportunities to talk about an issue that poses a threat for democracy in the European societies and is “a grown concern for our common future”, as usually they say.
On Wednesday 7th of October, is the day of the verdict of the Golden Dawn’s trial. We talk about the neo-fascist organization that has been created in the 80s and gained force during the next decades, being backed by specific political forces and using a specific far right agenda and practices: violence against migrants, militarization of their members, new nationalistic reflexes concerning the political issue with the neighbor state of Macedonia over the ownership of this name and with Turkey over the boarders of Evros. The economic crisis of the late 00’s is the right moment to turn this organization into a political force once again backed by other political forces that adopted a right or a far right agenda. The Golden Dawn manages to use the crisis, form a rhetoric full of distortions and hate, use violence against migrants and LGBT, bring fear everywhere on the streets using assault teams, provide food only for greeks, help the aged voters and finally get elected for the first time in the greek elections in 2012 and a year later enter the European parliament too. Dark ages for the parliamentarian democracy.
During the last weeks a massive wave of people that stood for 5 and half years side by side with the mother of the murdered by fascists, Pavlos Fyssas, forces the big media to talk about the trial and the upcoming verdict by demonstrating, marching, campaigning and urging the societies to take a stand. Not only in Greece but in several cities across Europe. All of us who don’t want neo-fascism to doom our lives with its darkness, we have a concrete appointment on Wednesday outside of the court of law in Athens.
