Langmaid Practice

Sunday 30 September 2012

A Dreadful Consequence of Inequality?

Does this look familiar? Probably not. But look more carefully, in the centrepiece you will see a Swastika and we have seen that before.

Readers of this blog will have noticed my concern with the rising inequality across developed nations. This boils down to a redistribution of wealth massively in favour of the richest 1% and big corporations. As resources and self-respect drain away from those deprived of work and status, I have argued that this will have the consequence of mobilising activists who purport to be the saviours of the people. The one represented by this symbol, Golden Dawn, has been called ‘some sort of Robin Hood of the Greek people’ in high immigration areas of Athens, where they are distributing food & clothes – but only to real Greeks. To establish your eligibility you must show a valid ID card and fill out a form. Once you have done so, you are then ‘requested’ by Golden Dawn blackshirts to make donations of food, clothes or other assets.

In a related arena, Golden Dawn members are giving blood – real Greek blood of course – that may be used for transfusions for real Greeks. There are some modern sophistications, but this is exactly the way that the SA or Brownshirts, who later became the SS or Blackshirts got started in Germany. They were created as a group of law-enforcers to ‘keep the peace’ at Nazi rallies, where they quickly became infamous for attacking anyone they didn’t like, particularly Jews and communists.

Worryingly, it appears that this role of ‘law enforcement’ is increasingly being assumed by Golden Dawn members in Athens, where citizens are being openly directed by the police to seek help from the Neo-Nazi group. A growing number of Greek crime victims have also sought ‘protection’ from Golden Dawn.

We can see elements of 30′s Germany here, a population desperately short of esteem, status, money and resources: a population who are castigated and rendered powerless by external opinion and derision from other nations. In a peculiar twist of fate, Germany is involved again, though now as the Superpower of the region – as it was to become as the Nazis expanded. Perhaps among ordinary Greeks, deserted by their mainstream politicians, there is a growing sense that only by organising in a para-military fashion can they acquire leverage – and such leverage inevitably involves striking out at people even more deprived than themselves – and this time round for Jews, substitute immigrants.

He who forgets history is destined to repeat it.

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Posted by roy at 10:58 am. No comments