Unfortunately the Greek media is very bias with the Golden Dawn party, or better yet it loathes this party, and throughout the election campaign this was very evident every time they invited one of their representatives to speak on television or on the radio. One such example of this was viewed on Sunday night, when Greek Communist Party (KKE) MP Liana Kanelli once again characterized them a "neo-Nazi" party on an ANT1 political news show.
Although the Golden Dawn party has continuously denied this neo-Nazi label and has insisted on more than one occasion that it is simply a nationalist patriotic party, the media, and all the political parties in Greece continue to insult, ridicule and slander them and what is worse, the Greek media encourages them to do so.
She said that Greece's national elections in 2012 took a "conservative" turn, and the Golden Dawn party will now have the power to get its voice heard. Kanelli then lashed out at the supporters of Golden Dawn characterizing them as "desperate souls who today target the Communist Party and illegal immigrants, and tomorrow they will target you and the day after someone else".
Then she said the incredible, and although we have a huge respect for her we could not believe our ears when she stated that the reason citizens voted for this party was because they have "a fascist mentality".
The worse part though is what a reporter, or MP (we are not quite sure) said right after this statement. "They (referring to the supporters of Golden Dawn) will carry this decision in their conscious throughout their lives."
This shocked us and although we here at HellasFrappe do not politically support the Golden Dawn party we were bothered that both she and her party can openly insult Greek voters. We want to believe that Mrs. Kanelli was bitter about the poor results of her party in these elections, because we would hate to believe that this venomous rhetoric against Greek voters was out of spite.
She knew very well ahead of the elections what analysts were saying about the Golden Dawn party, but she rather preferred to omit this from her memory during this interview.
She also forgets that she is related to the wife of the Golden Dawn leader (as heard in the video below).
But we will try and inspire her to remember. Ahead of the 2012 elections analysts were saying that even if the Golden Dawn party did not make it to Parliament in the second round of elections (on June 17) they would have still achieved a broader political debate about national issues. They were right, we saw this during the campaign period from both the New Democracy party and to a lesser degree by the socialist PASOK party as well.
We actually believe that one of the primary reasons the New Democracy party won the June 17 elections is because it decided to integrate nationalism sentiments into its campaign.
Again, we repeat we do not politically support this party, but HellasFrappe feels that it has to be open to all political ideologies. Golden Dawn, just like any other party, will have to prove its worth in the Greek Parliament, but before they do, we as a blog cannot simply X them because the establishment tells us so. It is this very establishment that we criticize everyday, and besides, we have our own views and opinions about what is just and not just and certainly we respect democracy. In fact anyone who respects democracy cannot X any political ideology.
Some people have to finally accept the fact that this far-right party or better yet ethno-nationalist party (as it is referred to throughout Europe) held its bloc of seats and retained support in the June 17, 2012 elections, and this is probably because it is stable in what it says and maybe just maybe this is why people favored them to begin with.
The foreign press ofcourse overlooks all this, but then again when it comes to Greece the foreign press always overlooks everything and produces its own reports, never looking at the truth. If you google the Golden Dawn party then all you will see before is the words "Golden Dawn" are the words "neo-Nazi". Why only Golden Dawn? Isn't that a wee bit hypocritical when all of Europe is full of ethno-nationalist parties?
Quite hypocritical don't you think?
It is obvious that the media targets this party in order to influence public opinion to turn their backs on them, because the establishment does not want free-thinking citizens, but rather sheeple that follow flocks. That is why they present this party as the "terminators" of democracy and insult them everyday -and their voters- by labeling them as "Nazis".
So once again, we ask: Why is this accepted all across Europe and not in Greece?
- France - France's far-right National Front and its leader Marine Le Pen received millions of votes several weeks ago in France's presidential elections.
- Austria - The Far-right Freedom Party (FPOe), with leader Heinz-Christian Strache is close to being second in popularity to the leading Social Democrats.
- Netherlands - The Dutch Party for Freedom (PVV) and its anti-Islam lawmaker leader Geert Wilders became the third largest bloc in the Dutch Parliament in 2010 elections with 24 seats.
- Italy - The Italian Social Movement, which saw itself as the heir of Benito Mussolini's Fascist party, was Italy's fourth largest party in the decades after the war.
- Hungary - Hungary's Jobbik party - The Movement for a Better Hungary - won nearly 17 percent of the national vote in the 2010 parliamentary elections and is currently the second-largest opposition party in the legislature,
- Denmark - The anti-immigrant Danish People's Party is Denmark's third largest party and has pushed the country to adopt some of Europe's strictest immigration laws, leading to a drastic cut in the number of refugees seeking shelter there to just over 5,000 in 2011, from 13,000 in 2001.
- UK - British nationalism has broad support across the political spectrum in the United Kingdom; from the Euro-scepticism of the UK Independence Party and far-right British National Party, to the principally centre-right Conservative Party, to the centrist to centre-left Liberal Democrats. Politicians such as British Prime Minister David Cameron of the Conservative Party and his direct predecessor Gordon Brown of the Labor Party, sought to promote British nationalism as a progressive cause.
- Switzerland - In Switzerland, the Swiss People’s Party (Schweizerische Volkspartei – SVP) at one point had 64 seats in the Federal Assembly, and its vote share - 29% - in one election was the highest any party has ever recorded in Switzerland.
- Bulgaria - The Bulgarian “Ataka” (National Union Attack), a popular nationalist right wing party held 21 seats in the national parliament and another 2 seats in the European parliament at one point.
- Romania - The Greater Romania Party (Partidul Romania Mare) ultra-nationalist party and New Generation Party (Partidul Noua Generatie) combined held 3 seats in the European parliament.
The question that everyone should be asking themselves is why are these ethno-nationalist parties so popular and what is making them more attractive to Europeans.
(Notice we did not use the word neo-Nazi like the media does).
In a book published two decades ago that is, unfortunately, quite relevant today, Stanford sociologist Susan Olzak wrote:
“Factors that raise levels of competition among race and ethnic groups increase rates of ethnic collective action.”Building on the work of anthropologist Frederik Barth, she goes on to identify four processes as the major instruments of increases in ethnic competition:
- migration and immigration,
- economic contraction,
- dispersion from previously segregated spaces
- rising prosperity for previously disadvantaged groups.
The other thing we should ask ourselves is why do we as Greek citizens permit the left to engage in name calling and mud-slinging and believe that this is a good thing, but when right wing parties do this then this is a bad thing? Also.. why do we support television networks that clearly endorse this type of mud-slinging, or that show favoritism to specific establishment made political parties, when we all know that this is undemocratic.
Shouldn't we as a society be open to ideologies?
Shouldn't we respect all political views?
Shouldn't we finally have peace in this country and disallow the Left to conquer and divide?
Don't those who endorse chaos in our society realize that this is what is dangerous for every democracy?
Friends, let us not forget that Hitler became the Chancellor of Germany because people were frightened from the rise in popularity of the far left and thus supported his Nazi party. The Greek media should take this into consideration next time it says it conducts objective journalism.
We already know that television channels such as MEGA, Antenna, Star and Skai channel openly and shamelessly support the PASOK party. Skai channel tends to lean a bit more on SYRIZA's side, and did so throughout the 2012 political campaign, while Antenna which was always a conservative channel basically flip flops anywhere its interests are served.
These are the forces that are guiding public opinion...
They should be the last ones to talk about democracy and concentrate on what they do best, produce Eleni Megaki style tacky shows that teach us how to do Brazilian hair removals and broadcast Turkish drama shows from morning to night.
If the Greek press really respects our democracy then they will first stop broadcasting Turkish shows, they would be open to all political ideologies, they will stop trying to divide our people and lastly they should stop criticizing the voters of this country because we pay their salaries! Besides, their hate, their hypocrisyy and their lack of objectivity is what drove Golden Dawn where it is today.