Why is no one doing anything about the Golden Dawn in Greece? | Hacker News Reader

Why is no one doing anything about the Golden Dawn in Greece?

2 pointsDracosphinx11 comments

The truth is Democracy is a bitter pill. It's not all sunshine and rainbows. Like it or not it seems this group represents some of the Greek people and it's their right to elect these people. If you want to "do something" about the Golden Dawn, donate money or volunteer for an opposition party. You can't suppress opinions you find inconvenient or even offensive. Even in the US, there's tons of things that happen every single day that I'm completely outraged about, but I don't try and silence people I disagree with. Instead, I donate money and time to people who I feel will work to change these things.

I'm not overly familiar with the Greek Golden Dawn, other than what I've read on Wikipedia or bits in the news.

I realize they are a neo-nazi organization, and even seem to embrace Nazism, but what is their significance currently? Are they seeing widespread support? Is their support growing at startling levels or what? What is their significance that led to this interesting posting?

Until very recently they were a fringe party with microscopic public support. The ongoing Greek financial debacle and resulting terrible economic impact and sometimes violent civil unrest has given them enough of a boost to actually win seats in the Greek Parliament.

It's not so much that Neo-Nazi's in Greece exist, but that the Greek people are starting to take them seriously and listen to what they have to say. It might be akin to members of the KKK being elected to the US Congress.

From Wikipedia:

"In May 2009, Golden Dawn took part in the European elections, receiving 23,564 votes corresponding to 0.46 percent of the total votes ... In the Greek parliamentary elections of May 2012, the party received 6.97% of the popular vote. In the rerun of the elections in June 2012, their share of the vote was 6.92%. A survey in September 2012 showed that 22% of respondents expressed "positive opinions" about Golden Dawn, up from 12% in May."

We did have KKK members in congress http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_C._Byrd and somehow we managed to survive.

Survive, yes. But then even Sen. Byrd later said, "I know now I was wrong. Intolerance had no place in America. I apologized a thousand times ... and I don't mind apologizing over and over again. I can't erase what happened." He also stated that he was no longer a member when he ran for Congress.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06...

The Golden Dawn party has had 18 officials elected to office. They have also been linked to racial and hate crimes since 2002. They used to be a relatively fringe group, but since Greece's bankruptcy, they have been gaining very strong support very fast.

Thank you, this is very concise and useful. If I sounded like I discounted your claims, please don't take it that way. I only wished to learned more about this situation, which I know little about, but could have major implications across Europe and by proxy, the US.

I just wish more people were aware of the disturbing similarities to Wiemar Germany... Here's the leader of GD denying the holocaust and defending Hitler.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXy7f17GXtQ

They seem to be very closely mirroring the Nazi rise to power in the 1930s.

Europe responds very poorly to political and economic upheaval, which they seem to undergo near the start of each century. Germany was in shambles after WWI and so fomented the rise of National Socialism (which nearly conquered the world) and France after the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror gave rise to Emperor Napoleon (who nearly conquered all of Europe.) It looks like it might be Greece's turn to experience collective insanity.

The European Union will either become far more powerful as a central government, or it will collapse and even more chaos will follow.

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