cally tested formula of ultra-right extremism – the strategy of tension, which fuels people’s fear of a particular social group by dividing and manipulating public opinion through terror, propaganda and provocation. Let us add here that any reference to “civil war” is not meant to prompt associations with the Greek historical experience, nor to general connections and vain historical analogies, as has been fashionable the last few years with the comparisons of Greece and the Weimar Republic. In contrast to these usually inaccurate historical associations, what should be seriously studied is the experience of Italy from late 1960s to early 1980s, where the terms “civil war”, or at least “low tension civil war”, or “violent political conlict”, are, according to the best analysts of Italian neo-fascism, valid descriptions of the situation in the country at that time.36 To conclude, the situation in the Hellenic Police today is indeed alarming. One wonders how it is possible that the current Greek government does not understand the danger entailed by the existence of police divisions that seem summarily to engage in a long-term romance with ultra-right ideology in its most extremist form. The cynical explanation would be that the government does indeed understand the danger. However, a truly democratized Hellenic Police would harbor a diferent danger, that of potential deiance. During these borderline times for the country and for Greek police oicers themselves – who, along with all Greek workers, saw their wages drastically cut in 2013, with the revocation of the Hellenic Police’s special payroll – the present crossroads are more critical than usual. A part of the Greek political authorities prefer to put their minds at rest. They may well acknowledge the problem, yet keep repeating that it is marginal – the wellknown “individual incidents” theory. If the slide to this theory aims at saving the Hellenic Police’s public honour, one may reasonably fear that it is already too late. For quite some time now, the Hellenic Police’s international image has been at its lowest. State media and big mainstream newspapers all around Europe publish reports about the “collaboration”37 of the Hellenic Police with Golden Dawn and the “intrusion” of neo-Nazis into the police38, and it is surely going to take time and efort for the Hellenic Police to remove the international infamy for torture practices that have repeatedly exposed it. In order to save what can still be saved of the Hellenic Police’s public image, it would be much more efective to assume responsibility for the problem and make an honest efort at solving it. This, however, had stumbled until recently upon the fact that a major part of the Greek political authorities – no doubt hegemonic within the current government – clearly seem to prefer the danger of having an uncontrollable racist police, a virtual incubator of a hardcore ultra-right political culture, than to face the possibility of a democratized police with some elemen- 36. 37. 38. An annual average of 25 dead from 1969 to 1982, with 11,000 violent incidents in total; 47% of them are attributed to the extreme let and 53% to the neo-fascists (Cento 2007: Prologue, 15). Cf. our own analysis in Christopoulos 2013: 113-118. Among many others, cf. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-19976841. See http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/oct/26/golden-dawn-iniltrated-greekpolice-claims. MAPPING ULTRA-RIGHT EXTREMISM, XENOPHOBIA AND RACISM WITHIN THE GREEK STATE APPARATUS | 41