Golden Dawn dangers

The arrest this morning of the leader of Greece’s Golden Dawn party may well precipitate the resignation of the party’s MPs and a new election in Greece – but this may not aid the fascist party. The Golden Dawn is an authoritarian organisation with a high but secret membership amongst the police, security service and army; anti-libertarian and aiming for an all-powerful state, they would close down blogs, control the press and throw free-thinkers such as you and I in concentration camps.

Like a Hydra, the party has powerful members everywhere. Recently, a very senior Greek intelligence officer from the EYP (the National Intelligence Service), the equivalent of a Director in our own security organisations, was removed from post, and both the Greek Police and Army are suspected of training and arming GD members of a shadow paramilitary wing.  

It looks as though the Greek government are acting now either because they fear a GD coup to be imminent (or have been told so by the intelligence agencies of other EU nations and the US) or are acting now because they can’t trust their domestic intelligence agencies or police to be loyal and useful. For Greeks there are now two choices – the same two choices that faced Germans in the 1930s. If they support GD whilst the party is still small and semi-legal, they could accrue protection and favouritism in the event of its seizing power; if they oppose it now, they could end up buried in a shallow grave in an olive grove. 

Whilst the Leader of GD may now be facing a short period in Greece’s equivalent of Landsberg Prison, the question is how far GD members have penetrated the key offices and departments of state – and whether this is too far to be reversed.