Various Views of Golden Dawn in the Centre of Athens

Various Views of Golden Dawn in the Centre of Athens

Authors:
E. K. Panteion University, Greece
Marlene van Eijsden University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Doreth van Manen Radboud University, The Netherlands

Nia Institute, Athens, Greece

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Table of Contents
1. Introduction................................................................................................................................................................ 3
Views vs Representations...................................................................................................................................................................... 3
Reflections on the field........................................................................................................................................................................... 4
A brief history of Golden Dawn.......................................................................................................................................................... 7
2. The images of Golden Dawn................................................................................................................................... 8
Defining oneself by looking at Others.............................................................................................................................................. 8
How Golden Dawn sees itself............................................................................................................................................................... 9
How Golden Dawn is seen by the rest of the World................................................................................................................... 9
How Golden Dawn is seen by Greek citizens.............................................................................................................................. 10
How Golden Dawn is seen by (irregular) immigrants........................................................................................................... 13
How former, now settled immigrants see Golden Dawn....................................................................................................... 15
How a police officer, a member of EGAM, and Ioanna Kourtovik see Golden Dawn.................................................16
Images in the street.............................................................................................................................................................................. 19
3. Conclusion................................................................................................................................................................ 21
Questions and Proposals for Further Research......................................................................................................................... 23
Bibliography................................................................................................................................................................. 24
Greek Bibliography............................................................................................................................................................................... 24

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1. Introduction
Since 2008, the far-right Greek political party Golden Dawn has grown enormously and, during the
elections of June 20121, has even won almost 7% of the parliamentary vote. Some people in Greece say
that the reason for this party to become so popular has to do with the economic crisis in combination
with the great number of foreigners in the country. Others argue that Golden Dawn has won so many
votes due to the fact that Greek citizens only voted for this party out of protest, not wanting to vote for
the other 'big' parties, such as PASOK and Nea-Democratia. Others again say that Golden Dawn has
become popular, because the media often define (irregular) immigrants as people who are killing or
stealing. This, together with the fact that Golden Dawn has as its mission to protect 'its Greek citizens'
by cleaning up the (irregular) immigrants, makes them popular among Greeks.
So the question is: What defines Golden Dawn? How do they present themselves? And do the views of
Golden Dawn, as held by other countries, Greek citizens, (irregular) immigrants and various authorities
and nonprofit organizations within Greece, match their own self-image? In order to answer this
question, the text below will describe how several countries in the world, how Greek citizens,
(irregular) immigrants, a Greek police officer and a Greek lawyer view Golden Dawn. Important to
note is that all of this information is based on personal interviews, held between the 8 th and 14th of
January 2013, as a research assignment of the seminar “Migration at the Margins of Europe,” an
element of the winter school organized by the Netherlands Institute Athens (NIA).

Views vs Representations
We chose the term "views" instead of "representations" for a number of reasons. First of all, in order to
present a social representation, the target group of people interviewed should be large enough so as to
justify the use of such a term. Because of the short period of time this project took, it is practically
impossible to talk about representations. Other than that, a representation as the way members of a
society perceive a given phenomenon is a term more familiar to a social anthropologist than to other
scientists, thus "view" appeared to be more appropriate. Finally, during our first discussions on the
research subject and the project setup, we discovered that our research focus, Xrisi Avgi, changed from

1 http://ekloges.ypes.gr/v2012b/public/index.html#{"cls":"main","params":{}}

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being a nonphysical discussion topic or joke to a concrete entity that had won votes in the recent
elections as a political party, with certain symbols being mostly found on walls around the centre of
Athens and beyond. The interesting point in this transition to physical concreteness are the "dialogues"
between people of diametrically opposed political orientations apparently taking place on walls, and
conducted by direct means of spray-painting or symbol erasure. In our view, even if symbols of either
side were "erased", it did support our use of the term “dialogue” for this ongoing interaction for the
purposes of our analysis.

Reflections on the field
Since the group that conducted the research comprised a political scientist (Marlene van Eijsden), a
human geographer (Doreth Van Manen) and a social anthropologist (Eleni Koufoudaki), we thought
that some reflection on the fieldwork exercise would be useful.
"Reflection" is a term that was developed in social anthropology during the 80s, when the approach of
cultural critique was well under way. We decided to add this part to the paper because one of the points
of cultural critique is that:

"The texts that [social] anthropology produces cannot in any way be conceived as neutral. That is the
reason why [cultural critique] addresses the reflective description of the circumstances under which
[each text is produced] –with clear reference to the ethnographer himself-" (Gefou-Madianou, 1998)

As for the social anthropologist, my part as the Greek speaker of the group proved unnecessary, first of
all because we had only one newcomer in Athens, secondly because our informants could communicate
well in English, and last but not least, it turned out that all the members of the research group were
culturally confident and coping very well with instances of cultural difference, whenever such
occasions emerged. Consequently, I was free to observe and concentrate on fieldwork more than
anything else. The cooperation among the group members was also more than fine.

Another interesting point is that, through this research project, we managed to discover the "other face
of Athens", which is just beneath the surface, but for which, in order to obtain a glimpse of it, one has
to have a legitimate reason, e.g. being a participant-observer. This does not imply of course that people

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are hostile to Athenians or others, but we felt that our being introduced either as researchers or social
workers opened doors not only to the communities studied, but also to cafes belonging to migrants and
to other places where they interacted socially.

Staying with how somebody introduces himself, a point worth considering is that migrants opened up
whenever we made clear that we were not asking for documents ("hartia" as some told us 2), but only
wanted to hear their stories as "social workers". In this respect, we were fortunate that our Somalian
informant, who granted us the first interview, used to work as a social worker before he left Somalia, so
he saw us more as colleagues.

After the above clarifications, we found ourselves in the Somalian cafe, frequented mainly by new-
comers, seeking help and information for their new lives in Greece. When we asked how they
supported themselves in Athens without any official documents and a paying job, they repeatedly told
us "We are a family here... You don't want your brother to have nothing, you help in any way you can".
Many people, whether with or without legal documents, were eager to tell us their stories, even when
verbal communication was not feasible due to linguistic barriers. Some people asked us to write down
their name in the interview even if they carried no documents. To us, that was a clear sign of trust and
their will to be heard.
We wonder what effect the presence of a Greek national had on the way they expressed themselves.
There is a feeling in our group that migrants open up more easily to foreigners, especially when they
are women. In any case, all of them complained about the state institutions, but none expressed
negative attitudes towards Greek people, on the contrary many emphasised how helpful Greeks can be.
Last but not least, none of the people from the African migrant communities we interviewed had
friendly connections with Greeks.

The role of the human geographer had mainly to do with the map which we were able to make during
the presentation. We wanted to create an image of Athens, to show the different meanings of the graffiti
in the streets. We wanted to show how graffiti changed meanings due to different group interventions.
Also, we presented a ‘danger’ map of Athens in which we were able to point out different dangerous
2 "The existence of a person is dependent on the documents he holds" (translated from: Petrakou (2001))

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areas according to what various groups of people had told us. I find it important to stress the
importance of a map during fieldwork. However, because of the fact that I did not have the Athens
database, I was unable to use GIS for this paper. Instead, I worked with Google Earth, which is a useful
tool, especially for presentations. However, due to the lack of a scientific computer program, I decided
not to include the map in the paper (Van Manen, 2013).

My most recent fieldwork was in Norway, where I worked on integration issues in Oslo. So, I already
had experience in the field, which helped me a lot during this fieldwork. Also, I knew at first hand that
the issues we were addressing here were extremely sensitive, so it was important to talk with the other
researchers about our experiences. I felt that it was an advantage to conduct the interview with another
Dutch girl and a Greek girl. We were open and friendly, which helped us a lot in collecting the
information. (Van Manen, 2013).

Women were absent from our interactions with the people. They were somewhere inside the Somalian
cafe. They only appeared when passing by, and never talked to us. There were also moments we were
stared at, or caught confused glimpses from those around us. Yet when our presence there was
somehow explained, people gathered around us asking about the project and sharing their own
experiences on the topic.

We end these reflections admitting that we did not have the opportunity to contact Golden Dawn itself,
directly and officially. We only managed to approach them indirectly through the press and their
official website. The closest we came to an interview with them was with someone who had voted for
them in the last elections, but voters cannot act as official spokesmen of the views of a party. It is
intriguing how the party labelled us as "people from the press" and refused to allow us to have more
information or allow us a glimpse behind the facade of its official discourse.

Furthermore, we learned during this fieldwork exercise that buying a small present for each informant
is polite and that people always appreciate it, whether they decide to keep it as a personal gift, or to
share it with the rest of the community. As Marcel Mauss pointed out, a gift creates bonds (M.Mauss
1923). Our interaction with the informants was limited, but judging from the way people reacted when

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we offered these presents, a gift really creates a bond no matter how short-lived that can be. When we
offered such a gift to a member of a community we were immediately re-invited there. In the Somalian
community, it also played a role, since after our second time there, we were asked to provide help.

A brief history of Golden Dawn
As documentary producer Konstantinos Georgousis points out in his documentary `The Cleaners`, the
far-right Greek political party Golden Dawn came from nowhere and succeeded in winning 7% of the
parliamentary vote during the elections of June 2012. According to him, the rising unemployment in
combination with the deeply-felt economic crisis have led to an increasing number of Greek citizens
starting to vote for Golden Dawn, because they believed this party would perhaps offer a possible
solution to their problems. Others, however, believe that it is not the economic crisis and the rising
unemployment that made the party more popular. Instead, they believe that the media played a very
important role. This will be explained later on. Additionally, contrary to Georgousis's vision, professor
Dimitris Dalakoglou notes that in recent years Golden Dawn did indeed grow more and more, but
according to him they already started their upward trend in the 1990s. According to an article published
online by Pikramenos, the 90s signify a period during which Greek public opinion and the "nationalist
reflexes" of the party were provoked by a series of incidents such as the name issue in 1992-1993
between the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Greece, the Imia incident in 1996, and the
Otsalan issue in 1999, which is how the rise of the far-right party becomes explicable. In a sense, and
up to a point both are right, but it was actually already in December 1980 that Golden Dawn was
established. In 1992, they drew up their platform, and in June 1993 they took part in the elections for
the European Parliament for the first time. Between 1993 and 2008, they kept to the background,
although Dalakoglou notes in his article ´City: analysis of urban trends, culture, theory, policy, action´
that one of the most notorious attacks of Golden Dawn against left-wing activists was the attempted
murder of the Leftist student Dimitris Kousouris on the 16 th June 1998, by Golden Dawn's Political
Committee member, Andritsopoulos.3 As such, it can be concluded that, although Golden Dawn gained
more and more power from 2008 onwards, it already existed and was active from the 1980s onwards.
Continuing with the rise of Golden Dawn in recent years, Regina Mantanika and Hara Kouki note in
their article ´The spatiality of a social struggle in Greece at the time of the IMF´ that since 2010, a

3 Article City: analysis of urban trends, culture, theory, policy, action p.542 from Dalakoglou

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significant shift has emerged in the political landscape of Greece with the fact that the extreme-right
party Golden Dawn was elected for the first time at local authority level in Athens4.

2. The images of Golden Dawn

In Chapter 2, the focus is on the different images of Golden Dawn, expressed by different groups in
Greek society and beyond. In order to understand the way groups look at other groups, we start with an
explanation of the term ´others´. Next, the different groups will be presented.

Defining oneself by looking at Others
In this paper, we analyze the rise of Golden Dawn and the way the party sees itself, and how other
groups view them. In order to do so, we use the concepts of Van Houtum , in whose work others are
defined by self-redefinition. In his article, Van Houtum (2005) points out that the concept of borders
has changed over time. For instance: “it has been claimed that the difference between the ontology of
borders, the study of what borders are, and the epistemology of borders, the study of what and how we
know what borders are, has decreased if not disappeared” (Van Houtum, 2005, p. 674). Van Houtum´s
view (2005) is important when explaining how others see us. The borders are not only between
nations, but also between cities and groups. Over the years, it has become clearer that a border is a
social construct. “The insight that the making of borders is the product of our own social practices and
habitus has led to the study of borders beyond merely states or nations. As this insight also applies to
territories other than states, such as (macro-)regions, cities or neighbourhoods, a border has become
less automatically connected to states alone, making the claim of a territorial trap in the present studies
in theory less applicable.” (Van Houtum, 2005, p. 674).
Golden Dawn is not only self-defined by its ideology, but also by others outside the party.
After the recent rise in the percentages of Golden Dawn, there seems to be a change not only in the
geography of Athens and especially its centre where our project took place. There seems to be a
significant change in what people started to conceive as a "dangerous area" and accordingly, there

4Regina Mantanika and Hara Kouki, The spatiality of a social struggle in Greece at the time of the
IMF p.483

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seems to be a change in the movements of (irregular) migrants or local Athenians in Athens, especially
when darkness falls. Important to note here is that we were notified by the Netherlands Institute in |
Athens to avoid certain places at night.

How Golden Dawn sees itself
Golden Dawn believes in nationalism. They believe they are a nationalist movement and they see
themselves as 'fighters' of the people. “We believe in nationalism,” as they point out themselves.
Furthermore, they do believe that their actions of abusing foreigners, throwing them out of the country
and 'cleaning' the places in Athens in order to be 'foreigners free' are legitimized by their ideology,
which stands for saving Greek nationals, who nowadays are facing many threats. This perspective of
migration as a threat to a given nation state is noted by researchers (Caldwell 2002). “As 'pure'
Greeks, we are not willing to sell the country to foreign interests. We believe in an 'independent Greek
society.” In addition, the members of Golden Dawn stipulate that "[We] are not fascists depending on
how they, (that is the others), define fascists". That is clearly stated in the official documents we
downloaded from the party's website.

How Golden Dawn is seen by the rest of the World
When crossing borders inside Europe and even when leaving Europe for America, Israel and other
countries, it is interesting to note that every newspaper article written on the subject refers to Golden
Dawn as a 'Neo-Nazi party'. For example, the American magazine The New Republic reports it as
follows:
“The terrifying Rise of Greece's Nazi Party. […] On the streets of Greece, it is now
common knowledge among immigrants that black clothes are the unofficial uniform of the
Golden Dawn, or Chrysi Avgi – a kind of cross between Hezbollah and the Tea Party.
Since 2008, Golden Dawn supporters have assaulted immigrants with brass knuckles,
knives, and batons. There have been nearly 500 attacks this year (2012) alone, according
to the Migrant Workers Association […].”

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The Canadian Nationalpost.com says the Neo-Nazi party has an election breakthrough in Greece; the
Dutch website Socialisme.nu claims that the Nazi-party said that foreigners, gays and handicapped
people are next in line after the immigrants; the French daily newspaper Midi Libre claims that in
Greece a Neo-Nazi party has entered the Greek Parliament; the German online weekly news magazine
Spiegel.de notes that Golden Dawn is a party that is extremely negative towards immigrants. The party
is xenophobic.

Interesting to take into account is that these above mentioned examples are just a few out of many
media articles worldwide. In addition, 'Neo-Nazi party' is not the only recent synonym for the Golden
Dawn party. Also, 'the cleaners' is often used as a synonym to refer to this party, although this is more
frequently used by the Greek citizens themselves.

How Golden Dawn is seen by Greek citizens
Continuing with how Greek citizens view Golden Dawn, there seem to be at least two categories of
people. Those who are opponents of Golden Dawn, and those who are supporters, with, of course,
many positions in-between and views we cannot include here for the purposes of our analysis. This bi-
polar way of presenting data is easier for the purposes of this paper . In most cases, these
categorizations have to do with the positioning of a social agent concerning migration. Migration is
treated as a "problem" in Greece. The democratic or liberal approach examines the problems migrants
face, the xenophobic approach focuses on the (alleged) problems migrants cause in Greek society
(Marvakis, Parsanoglou, Pavlou 2001). Starting with the opponents of Golden Dawn, during an
interview with a Greek owning a big construction company, it became clear that he does not really have
a clear, unambiguous opinion about Golden Dawn. What he does say, however, is that the immigrants
are a blessing and a curse, both at the same time. “They do not only cause problems, they also can
help!” Furthermore, he notes that Greece is a very difficult place for immigrants to begin a new life
(Marvakis, Parsanoglou, Pavlou 2001). According to him, the language is difficult to learn and it is a
conservative society that is not open-minded. Although he is absolutely not against the immigrants and
adopts a liberal approach towards the phenomenon of migration, he does mention that he does not feel
really safe when going into the city centre by night, but what he says is interesting to note: “The Greek
people are blaming the immigrants for all this mess, but they should rather blame the Greek state!”

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Another interview with two regular middle-aged Greek men pointed out that other Greek citizens vote
for Golden Dawn purely as a form of punishment. A punishment, because they do not want to vote for
PASOK, Nea-Democratia and other parties anymore. This, however, does not mean they are supporters
of Golden Dawn and its actions. As both men stipulate "We are a small nation of eleven million people,
having the same number of foreigners on top of it. Voting Golden Dawn is just a punishment. People do
not know what to vote anymore, and Greek people are more and more fascist minded and not
politically minded. Illegal migrants are only here, because the European Union funds them and the
immigrants constitute a tool for the state to reduce wages. Golden Dawn has no ideology, the political
extremes have destroyed Greece.”

Here, it is evident how, according to our informants, migrants constitute a threat towards Greek society.
Following Karakasidou's way of thinking "a [given] nation acts both as "a dominant value system and
practice [at the same time]" (Karakasidou, 2000). In the case under scrutiny, how the migrants are
categorized in the dominant value system is depicted in the words of our informants. It is also
important how these men associate migration with the EU. As Petrakou states: "Migration in Greece is
part of a wider phenomenon that is called international [migration]" (Petrakou, 2001). This means that
a certain nation state has to deal with its newcomers, yet that is a procedure that also involves other
states and institutions that deal with migration.
Continuing with the interview we held with a Greek woman of twenty-five years old, it became very
clear during the interview she is a supporter of the far-right Golden Dawn party. Although she does not
really have problems with legal migrants, she has many problems with illegal migrants. The distinction
she made reminded us of the way Sassen is quoted by P. Levitt, and N. Jaworsky (2007). According to
her there are:

'“Unauthorized yet Recognized” migrants, who have no formal status or rights but who practice the
duties associated with citizenship, such as raising a family, schooling children, or holding a job. [And
the] “Authorized yet Unrecognized” migrant citizens [who] may have full legal status but are not
recognized as political subjects because of factors such as discrimination and cultural stereotyping.'

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As she stipulated:

“The immigrants are a big problem within Greece! We have legal and illegal immigrants.
As a Greek citizen I don't have problems with those who are legal, but I DO have problems
with those who are illegal. It is those who are creating the problems here in Greece, they
create more problems than we can bear. Those who are legal and have families are fine, but
the illegals should be cleaned up. I don't care how... Either by throwing them into the sea
or just deporting them the way they came!”

This is obviously a statement by someone who supports Golden Dawn. Furthermore, when she started
talking about Golden Dawn and its actions, she said that Golden Dawn helps the Greek people with
illegal immigrants. “Right now for us as Greek citizens it is very difficult to find a job and there is not
enough space for the immigrants. The immigrants are dangerous, they steal, and kill people! Golden
Dawn is just helping us to control them, by cleaning various places in the city!”
The way she talked about migrants and the cause-and-effect relationship that seems to emerge from her
positioning on migrants and the rise of percentages for the far-right party is "exactly the social
construction of criminality according to which poverty and lack of property undoubtedly lead to
performing illegal practices. This is what makes migrants and their behaviour the cause of an
"inevitable" xenophobia and racism, a wrong starting point but it really legitimizes racist attitudes
through official practices" (Marvakis, Parsanoglou, Pavlou 2001).
Sassen is seen as the most influential thinker in human geography and sociology. She looks below the
surface for the feelings in a society. In her Masterclass in Nijmegen (5th November 2012), she explained
a society has losers and winners. She uses different terms to describe the “losers”. “I use the term
‘expulsed’ to describe a diversity of conditions: the growing numbers of the abjectly poor, of the
displaced who are warehoused in formal and informal refugee camps, of the minoritized and persecuted
warehoused in prisons, of workers whose bodies are destroyed on the job and rendered useless at far
too young an age” (Sassen, 2010, p. 24). In her paper, she explains the consequences of the capitalist
system, where the immigrants are the losers. In her paper, she stressed that the middle class in the
world are losing. The inequality between people is growing instead of shrinking, which was the case
before the 1980s. The fact that the middle class is shrinking, has an impact on a society. The financial

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crisis has led to a social crisis as well. Where some groups in society are suffering much more than
others. As she states: “One way of thinking of this systemic deepening is as the expansion of the
operational space for advanced capitalism—it expels people both in the global South and in the North
even as it incorporates spaces” (Sassen, 2010, p. 45). Where the focus in our paper is more on the
incorporates´ spaces, in our case Athens.

Interesting to point out, however, is that when we asked her if she would vote for the Golden Dawn
party again in the following elections, she answered: “NO”. According to her, she voted Golden Dawn
this time, because the other parties are unable to say even one percent of the truth about the immigrants
and they are manipulated by the European Union. Golden Dawn, however, does not mention anything
about the economic crisis and does not give any possible solutions to overcome this crisis. In our
experience, the party has constructed most of its ideology and political positioning exactly on the
grounds of the current situation, concluding from the official documents we read. To us, we wonder
whether such a party would have reached such percentages if it had not been for the global financial
crisis and the way it has been handled by the leadership, and the political parties in Greece. Therefore,
next time she will not vote for this party.

How Golden Dawn is seen by (irregular) immigrants
In order to understand how (irregular) immigrants view Golden Dawn, we visited the Tanzanian and
Somalian communities. In the case of the latter, we did not have an official interview in the community
building, probably due to the fact that "the place is not good and we don't want to bring you here..." as
we were told by some Somalians. During the interview with Kayu, the secretary of the Tanzanian
community, it became clear that there are differing views regarding Golden Dawn and its members. An
example is when this community got attacked on the 25th of September 2012 (News, 2012 and Left.gr
2012), most probably by the members of Golden Dawn. According to Kayu and the articles cited, the
members of the Tanzanian community differed in their reactions. In order to understand this, the attack
will be described first. On the 24 th of September several members of Golden Dawn were standing in
front of the Tanzanian community building, which at that time was still located in the centre of Athens.
Two female members entered the building and shouted those inside had to leave the building. Kayu,

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who was inside the building, started a conversation with these women and explained that it was a legal
community and that they were just watching television and spending their free time by being together.
In the end, it became clear that these women and the other members of Golden Dawn, who were
standing outside the building, had come to the community, because they believed the noise in the street
came from them, which was not the case. Nevertheless, when Kayu mentioned the Tanzanian
community was a legal community, the members of Golden Dawn, including the two women, left. The
evening of the next day, approximately ten Tanzanians were inside the Tanzanian community building
watching television, when the attacks began. People started breaking down the main door of the
building. The Tanzanians were very afraid and called the police. It took some while, but once the police
arrived they came inside and escorted the ten Tanzanians five blocks away from there, in order for them
to be safe. Interesting to note is that the police did not arrest any of those attacking the building. As
already mentioned above, this attack led to a distinction between the views of the Tanzanian citizens
towards Golden Dawn. Several Tanzanians who were in the building during the attack got really afraid
of Golden Dawn and its members. Contrary to them, however, Kayu, was and still is not afraid of them,
as he points out during the interview. As he says:”I hope to publish a lot regarding the actions of
Golden Dawn in the hope that they, the members of Golden Dawn, will slowly start to feel fear!” In
addition he adds:

“It is not because of the economic crisis, but because of the wrong information the Greek
people are fed by the media, which allows such actions and for Golden Dawn to grow!”
The media say things people like to hear, so any bad thing done by a foreigner becomes a
very big issue. As a result, Greek people start hating foreigners, who in their opinion are
killing and stealing!”

Furthermore, it became clear during the interview that according to Kayu, the police are working
together with the members of Golden Dawn. This will be further described in the interview with Ioanna
Kourtovik, who is the lawyer of Kayu and of members of the Tanzanian community.

Contrary to the Tanzanians, during interviews with several Somalians, it became clear that they do not
have any idea about Golden Dawn and its actions. This appeared to be true of those who talked to us,

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all of whom had been in Athens for only a few months. To us, their ignorance is attributed to this fact.
Although the Somalian community has been attacked, as well, Somalians did not say anything about it.
The time they had spent in Greece ranges from three months, to half a year for some of them. However,
instead of being afraid of Golden Dawn and its members, they did tell us they were scared of the
police. According to several Somalians, the police arrest illegal immigrants whenever they want to.
One Somalian said:”I have been living here in Athens for five months now and I have already been
arrested three times, only because I don't have a pink card!

How former, now settled immigrants see Golden Dawn
This part of the paper examines the opinions we gathered on the party and Greek reality from migrants
belonging to the first wave of immigrants in Greece in the 90s, as Hatziprokopiou presented the
migration phenomenon in Greece during the winter course. Our data are limited again. Most of them
come from individual interviews with people and not from a formal interaction between us and
established communities. That is because we had little time to interview members of the Bulgarian
community and because the Serbian community was scattered throughout Athens.

Yet, we managed to interview people of Bulgarian and Serbian background. What emerged from people
of these earlier migration influxes is that they had less problems with the authorities compared to
African cases, but complaints on bureaucracy were made ("We are all treated as illegal migrants").
They were also influenced by the arrival of the economic crisis, as everyone living in Greece
nowadays. When it comes to Greek people, the interaction with them is positively perceived and in
these cases of the older migration influxes from South Eastern Europe, there are strong ties with locals,
even intermarriage. As for the Bulgarians, their attitude towards Greeks tends to be slightly negative, in
some cases due to xenophobic experiences.

People belonging to the community of fellow nationals were described in bleak colours by my
informants. In the case of the Bulgarians, most of those who came to Greece are not like those living in
Bulgaria. "They are tougher". When asked why, he went on "...They came here as economic migrants,
they are of a low social and educational level and have lived through hard conditions... They are

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opportunists... The Greeks, with their behaviour towards them, made [these people] even tougher ". Our
informant, who is of university level, tends to avoid the community and so does his mother, who is also
academically educated and works in her field of study. "She can't communicate with them! They
usually have nothing in common, neither problems nor experience or interests." As for the Serbs, we
were told: "Serbs tend to be intensely competitive outside Serbia", "Greeks usually make better friends
than the Serbs living here".

Another significant difference between the Serbian and the Bulgarian people in Greece is that the
former migrated to Greece because of the war and the subsequent bombardments, while the latter
migrated for economic reasons. This did not apply to my informant and his family, who came to Greece
prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Many Bulgarians make a living by keeping shops selling Bulgarian
products in the area of Patisia or Kipseli. The Serbs are more scattered throughout Athens, with athletes
living in Glyfada. As for dangerous areas, no specific places were mentioned, our informants walked
without restrictions wherever they fancied.
Views on Golden Dawn vary, depending on who you are talking to, we were told. They take positions
on the matter as do the Greeks. "We do not discuss politics..." one of our informants stated and then as
the interview went on she discussed pensions, the public sector, and the way the Greek citizenry used to
vote. "No normal person would vote for them." No attacks were mentioned by the people interviewed.

How a police officer, a member of EGAM, and Ioanna Kourtovik see Golden Dawn

Giorgos is a police officer of approximately thirty years old. When asking him for his opinion on
immigrants, he said immigrants are people who came hoping for a better life, but unable to find a job,
they started stealing or selling drugs. However, he also says that when on duty and passing an
immigrant sleeping on the street, the first thing he does is to check whether (s)he is alive and if (s)he
needs help. When we asked him about Golden Dawn, he stressed the following: “The members of
Golden Dawn help people who are hungry and they find people jobs. If you can call them Nazi's, I do
not know. Maybe yes, maybe no.” Furthermore, he mentioned that he arrests those people who are
illegal, but also those who are calling the police names, or committing a crime. According to him, this

7 february 2013
16

would also include members of Golden Dawn, whenever they would do something wrong.
Interesting to note during this interview is that he did not really make clear if individual police officers
collaborate with members of Golden Dawn, as Kayu claims. The way Giorgos talks about the members
of Golden Dawn, however, makes us believe he is not really against their actions.

What should not escape our attention however is that unfortunately the police are almost the sole state
mechanism that deals with migrants on an official level. As a result of the above, migration became
identical to criminality and led to the rise of feelings such as uncertainty and hostility among members
of the Greek society (Petrakou, 2001).

According to Ioanna Kourtovik, the police do work together with Golden Dawn and its members.
During the interview with her, she referred to the Kayu case. Kourtovik is the lawyer of Kayu and the
Tanzanian community, and when they went to the police office to attend a trial, she suddenly saw
several members of Golden Dawn standing outside the building. As she stresses:

“Just before the trial regarding the attack on the Tanzanian building started, I found Kayu
in a cell at the police station and two other members of the community being detained.
Suddenly, outside the police station, several members of Golden Dawn gathered. We
believe the police officers had contacted them to inform them.”

In addition, she continued:

“Golden Dawn has an enormous influence and appeal to the people and in elections. In the
last three years, this party has grown enormously and there have been many attacks on
migrants, with the Greek police completely supporting the Golden Dawn members. In the
area of Agios Panteleimonas, the police are taking the side of the members of Golden
Dawn.”

Kourtovik and Kayu, however, are not the only ones believing there is a link between the police and
Golden Dawn. Dalakoglou also says that the neo-Nazis often seem to operate in collaboration with

7 february 2013
17

state institutions. According to him, the local police station seems to systematically refuse to record or
examine racist attacks, and he also claims there are close links between the police and Golden Dawn,
which became apparent in the elections of May and June 2012, when approximately half of the police
officers on duty in the headquarters of Athens Police voted for Golden Dawn 5.

Furthermore, Kourtovik said the following about Golden Dawn:

”Xrisi Avgi is not an extreme right party anymore. It is really a Nazi-party!” Recently, their
profile has been changing. At first, after they had just entered parliament, the members of
Golden Dawn were very aggressive. But now, they try to behave like the other
parliamentarians, wearing suits and the like. In addition, during the last two months the
attacks on immigrants have been decreasing. This has to do with the fact that people are
starting to have more and more ideas about what Nazi's are. At first, they did not know,
because nobody talked about it. Nowadays, people are starting to talk about the fact that
this party has a Nazi ideology and they are starting to mobilise against them.”

Kourtovik also referred to the Greek civil society, which is organized to prevent the rise of racism and a
far-right party. Her statement holds true, if we take into account the fact that on the 20th of January
2013 an anti-racist protest was organized in the centre of Athens from Omonia up to Syntagma and
ended with a concert held for the previously-mentioned reason. Petrakou also emphasises that
"irrational practices and behaviours with xenophobic or racist elements do not constitute the only trend
in Greek society. There are trends that "undo" and resist the violation of human rights, racism and
xenophobia" (Petrakou, 2001)

Finally, during the seminar, Ahmed Moawia, a founding member of the European Grassroots Antiracist
Movement (EGAM) gave a lecture about the situation of immigrants in Athens. This organisation was
launched in November 2010 under the auspices of SOS Racisme (France), in order to structure and
empower the European antiracist civil society. Nowadays, this organisation brings together
5 Article City: analysis of urban trends, culture, theory, policy, action p. 538

7 february 2013
18

approximately forty antiracist civilian organisations from all over Europe and is actively involved in
making the continent free from racism, anti-Semitism and racial discrimination 6 Like Kayu, Kourtovik
and Dalakoglou, Moawia also confirms that Golden Dawn attacks many immigrants and in many cases
the police seem to be involved. This means that if immigrants who are attacked by members of Golden
Dawn go to the police, the police simply replies: “Say that you have been beaten up during a conflict
between you and another member of your community.”

Moawia continues by saying:
“There is increasing support for Golden Dawn. Nowadays it is the third party. This means
we really need to stop them. We should prevent the representatives of Golden Dawn from
continuing. We have to stop them and convince all the political parties in Parliament!”

Images in the street
In this part, we will explain the on-going debate between Golden Dawn on the one side and the Anti-
fascist movement or ´antifa´ on the other, as expressed at times in the streets. Different aspects are seen
as important. We have seen a dialogue being conducted in the streets using graffiti. Athens is a city
which is going to face great challenges in the coming years. “Even comparisons with the developments
in American metropolises were commonly used to delineate a dystopia of increased criminality,
insecurity, alienation and pollution that were expected to bring about the social desertification of the
city centre ("We became Chicago!"). From this perspective, current discourses of anxiety and fear are
hardly new, except that today they can be connected to massive international immigration that has
altered the demographic composition of the city since the early 1990s, in successive waves of moral
panic” (Kandylis & Kavoulakos, 2011, p. 160).

An important way of looking at the city is to see what kind of socio-economic classes are represented
in certain areas of the city. What we discussed earlier is that, in recent years, there has been an
explosive growth of (irregular) migrants in the city of Athens. Kandylis & Kavoulakos (2011) did
research on this topic, and they demonstrate that the growth of inequality does indeed exist. However,
we would like to stress that the statistics are not always reliable due to the fact that many of the

6 Site: EGAM

7 february 2013
19

migrants are not registered. Data show that “immigrants’ position in the housing market differs
significantly. In addition to that, of the majority of Greeks regarding tenure: 90% of the immigrant
population lived in privately rented houses compared to 32,3% of the Greeks. The majority of the latter
are home-owners, at a percentage quite similar to that for the Greek population in the Municipality of
Athens as a whole” (Kandylis & Kavoulakos, 2011, p. 164-165).

Photo 1 “Fighting” through symbols Photo 2 “Discussion outside the school”

Photo 1 is taken in Agion Pandon street, (near the train station) in Kallithea. It is a dialogue between
the different symbols in the city centre. Photo 2 is taken near a school. Which says that: “Every hand
that is raised against migrants should be cut (a Greek). It is taken in Kallithea, Fragoudi on the
exterior of a school complex.

Photo 4 Discussion through symbols outside the bank Photo 5 “Hygienic bombs”

Photo 4 is taken in Kallithea, Charokopou & Grypari Street, outside a bank. Different symbols suggest
different meanings. This photo shows that everywhere in the streets the discussion is alive. Photo 5 is

7 february 2013
20

about the Hygienic bombs. It says that a hygienic bomb stands for Greek racism. That comment has
been erased and turned into ´a hygienic bomb is a Pakistan´. Interesting to note is that they put it
outside the Somalian café, instead of outside the Pakistan Community. The photo is taken in
Metaxourghio. The ´hygiene´ is an important aspect, also mentioned during the interviews. The
migrants are living in small spaces with a lot of people inside the room. This leads to inhuman,
unhygienic conditions.
Photo 5 Democratic crisis Photo 5 is taken near the Tanzanian Community, in
Patia. It is not only an economic crisis, it is a
democratic crisis as well.

3. Conclusion
Now that our research project is over, we tend towards the following conclusions. First of all, in
foreign media, the Golden Dawn party is portrayed as a 'neo-Nazi party' or as 'the cleaners'. Among
Greek citizens, they are seen either as racists, helpers and/or protectors, or as fascists and neo-Nazis. In
addition, there are Greek citizens who tend to believe this party has no ideology, or others who vote for
them as a form of protest, because they do not agree with the ideas of the established 'big' parties that
used to dominate the local political scene, namely: PASOK and Nea Democratia.

As their official documents state, Golden Dawn sees itself as a nationalist movement. It turned out from
our interviews that it is a party that helps Greek citizens simply by cleaning up various places, freeing
them from foreigners. When looking at the role Greek police officers play, it seems that Greeks are
divided again- On the one hand, there are those like Kayu, Kourtovik, Dalakoglou and Moawia who
tend to believe there is a link between the police and Golden Dawn. That they are working together.
Others, like Giorgos, a Greek police officer, do not mention anything about their connections with
Golden Dawn. Several times, however, it became clear that the police do indeed collaborate or simply

7 february 2013
21

allow Golden Dawn and its members to do things. This is done indirectly by not preventing attacks as
was the case with the Tanzanian Community.

Then, there also seems to be a distinction between (irregular) immigrants who are not afraid of Golden
Dawn because they simply do not know Golden Dawn, or because they believe they are strong enough
to stand up against them. Finally, when we asked what the reason was for the growing popularity of
Golden Dawn lately, we discovered another distinction. Some people are inclined to believe that
Golden Dawn has become popular due to the combination of economic crisis and the rising number of
(irregular) immigrants in Greece. Others seem to be of the opinion that it has not really much to do with
the immigrants, but more with the media´s blacklisting of the (irregular) migrants, making Greek
citizens believe that it is the (irregular) immigrants in particular who are stealing, killing and
committing crimes in general. In other words, what we earlier referred to as: "the social construction of
criminality".

Thus, generally speaking, it can be concluded that there is a major division in Greece regarding how
people see Golden Dawn. Some people's views tend to coincide with those of Golden Dawn itself,
namely as a nationalistic party. To these people, the far-right party is helping Greek society by cleaning
the streets of foreigners, since to them migrants are thought to be inclined towards adopting criminal
behaviour and practices. Others do not really have an opinion but just vote for Golden Dawn out of
protest. And then there are still the opponents of Golden Dawn, those who are of the opinion that it is a
neo-Nazi party, which needs to be stopped. They believe that Golden Dawn consists of people whose
practices we cannot and should not tolerate on democratic and human rights grounds.

Last but not least, there is also a category of people in Greece who are becoming more and more aware
of what effects the rise of the far-right might bring and are starting to be more actively involved in anti-
racist or anti-fascist protests taking place in Athens.
Yet, migration is publicly discussed in Greece as a matter of illegality. Other aspects of the
phenomenon seem to be of no interest to Greek society, as Petrakou observes. To us, this is also an
interesting point and an issue to be addressed.

7 february 2013
22

Questions and Proposals for Further Research

This paper cannot provide answers to questions such as "Why did Golden Dawn emerge the way it
did?" or "Why do people vote for them?" Yet, it is an attempt to provide some insight into such
questions, and it aims to provide food for thought. We were not able for example to find out whether
newcomers really did have no clue on this ´against-foreigners´ attitude, which this party is considered
to have. Beside the Tanzanian community secretary, we did not have enough time to meet with other
people that had been attacked. It might provide interesting results, if further research could focus on the
people attacked, or on the places that were "invaded" by Local Committees of Residents. Who are these
people? Is it a simple coincidence that such organizations started to become actively involved in
districts where migrants live after Golden Dawn had entered Parliament?
On Golden Dawn itself, there is also a huge gap needing to be filled. We were not able to contact them
directly. Whenever we managed to contact them, we were refused an interview, since they believed we
were working for the press. Our attempts to convince them of the opposite were fruitless. How then can
a researcher reach conclusions about somebody (whether a party, organization or a person) when that
somebody reacts this way? Trying to solve this problem of no data, we resorted to the official
documents the party uploads on its website. However, we do admit that this is not enough.

7 february 2013
23

Bibliography

Kandylis & Kavoulakos (2011): Framing urban inequalities: racist mobilization against immigrants in
Athens, The Greek Review of Social Research: special issue, Vol 136, No C, pp157-176

Karakasidou A., (2000): Essential Differences: National Homogeneity and Cultural Representation in
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Caldwell Μ., (2002): The Taste of Nationalism: Food Politics in Postsocialist Moscow, Ethnos: Journal
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Sassen, S. (2010): A savage sorting of winners and losers: contemporary versions of primitive
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Van Houtum, H. (2005): The Geopolitics of borders and boundaries, Geopolitics, 10: 672-679

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Γκέφου-Μαδιανού Δ. (επιμ.), (1998): "Εισαγωγή" στο "Ανθρωπολογική Θεωρία και Εθνογραφία:
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Πολιτικές Θέσεις

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Ιδεολογία

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Various Views of Golden Dawn in the Centre of Athens

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