Caution is advisable. Not all of these incidents can be integrated in a mechanistic
and abstract way within an ideological framework and interpretation of society
and the political system as ultra-right. Rather, they indicate the survival of the
typical authoritarian mentality of impunity, one that has always been dominant
within the Hellenic Police and that was destined to become increasingly aggressive ater the police received the message sent by the political authorities: that
this kind of authoritarianism remained inherently desirable as part of a police
oicer’s job description. Still, the ideological reception of the immigrant as “intruder” has become a basic element of today’s new ultra-right. Faced with “intruders” who were legally invisible yet all too visible in the undocumented labour
market, the Hellenic Police once again became accustomed to the basest practices of human devaluation, lacking any sense of responsibility or accountability.
The framework for a mechanism of political capitalization and ideological constitution of a self-conscious ultra-right pole was now in place.
8/
… PLUS AN OLD ALLY: “INDIGNANT CITIZENS”
Looking back today at the turbulent period of 1990 to 1993, one sees that the
government in oice under Prime Minister Konstantinos Mitsotakis excelled in
authoritarian practices aimed at repressing the schools occupation movement,
strikes, and demonstrations that swept the country; yet did little to pursue the
organized crime that had come to stay in Greece. During those years, a new
type of collaboration between the Hellenic Police and the so-called “indignant
citizens” took hold in Athens. Viewed in its historical continuity, this constituted
a reunion of the security forces in Greek cities with the so-called “parastate” of
yore, efectively modeling the later tolerance (or active collaboration, according
to some) for the rise of Golden Dawn.
The term “indignant” was introduced to the Greek political vocabulary long before the
emergence of the “indignant” movement during the Memorandum protests at
Syntagma Square. In late 1990, pupils rose against a sweeping bill put forth by
the minister of education. The pupils and students’ response came inmassive
occupations of schools and universities and large-scale demonstrations, which
were attacked by the police and elements of the parastate – our familiar “indignant citizens”. During the winter of 1990 to 1991, the government summoned
forth more than its oicial forces of repression. The occupied schools were
supposed to be recaptured by indignant citizens acting as the “long arm” of a
State traditionally ready to take recourse in a kind of authoritarianism and even
biologically familiar to it. Let us not forget that the dictatorship had ended just
iteen years earlier. “Indignant citizens” are an eminent ally to repression, reconstituting and reviving underground liaisons between the police and criminal
groups and recalling well-known images from previous decades.
MAPPING ULTRA-RIGHT EXTREMISM, XENOPHOBIA AND RACISM WITHIN THE GREEK STATE APPARATUS
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