could prove unproductive”, and happily concludes that “despite its shortcomings, our country is moving in the right direction”.33 If one wishes to talk responsibly about ultra-right and racist violence tolerated by or – worse – actively abetted by the Hellenic Police, then it is highly important to underline what many democratic police oicers told us during our research: that in the last instance the tone is not set by Golden Dawn, but irst and foremost by the government itself. Ater all, “the Dorians’ invasion” as a metaphor for immigration was not (only) used by the leader of Golden Dawn, but (also) by the minister responsible for the police. This is a message that straightforwardly legitimizes racist violence, and at the same time totally represses the racist motive as a possible motive of criminal acts. To highlight an issue as a political priority, as has been done with immigration in Greece the last few years – and most certainly so by the current government – gives fuel to arbitrary practices by police and, of course, serves to incubate ultra-right political ideology; in its national socialist version, no less. Thus, to talk about the ultra-right within the Hellenic Police is necessarily to talk about how the ultra-right keeps hostage the political right wing itself, at the level of its political leadership. This is crucial. To put it simply, if the message sent by the political authorities was not to “recuperate”, surely the Hellenic Police would deal in a wholly diferent manner with the all-too real “recuperation” carried out by members of Golden Dawn who beat or even murder immigrants on the streets of Athens. Yet while racist attacks climaxed between the two 2012 elections, the arrests or detentions of the perpetrators by the Hellenic Police were virtually non-existent: nobody was arrested.34 However, the groups that carried out these attacks were not the abstract Greek voters of Golden Dawn, and not even Greek racists in general, but a hard core of a few hundred criminals. For this very reason the police inaction was all the more blatant. In retrospect, the ease with which the dismantlement of the organization by this self-same Hellenic Police began in the autumn of 2013 only highlights the enormity of the earlier idleness. Most of the racist attacks (which for now have virtually stopped, though they are likely to resume in the future) were carried out at night by groups of young people wearing Golden Dawn t-shirts assaulting people who appeared to be immigrants. These attacks oten included thet. A wallet, a mobile phone or even a few euros carried by the victims are the perfect trophy from the “invader” and, of course, a convenient expropriation of others’ possessions. As testiied in documentations by organizations that systematically record racist crime, the detection of such criminal acts usually stumbles upon a dual unwillingness: police unwillingness to investigate the criminal act itself, as the immigrant is not 33. 34. Cf. https://wcd.coe.int/com.instranet.InstraServlet?command=com.instranet. CmdBlobGet&InstranetImage= 2270785&SecMode=1&DocId=2004288&Usage=2. Perhaps the only exception has been the arrest of the murderers of a Pakistani man in January 2013, thanks to the testimony of a taxi driver. MAPPING ULTRA-RIGHT EXTREMISM, XENOPHOBIA AND RACISM WITHIN THE GREEK STATE APPARATUS | 39