Open letter: we are all Greek Jews

by Benjamin Abtan, president of the European Grassroots Antiracist Movement (EGAM); Dario Fo, Literature Nobel Prize; Jovan Dijvak, general defender of besieged Sarajevo; Svetlana Gannushkina, Memorial leader in Russia; Anthoy Giddens, sociologist; Amos Gitaï, director; Béate et Serge Klarsfeld, president of the "Fils et filles de déportés juifs de France"; Bernard Kouchner, former French minister of foreign affairs; Bernard-Henri Lévy, philosopher, writer; Adam Michnik, historian, essayist, journalist, former member of Solidarnosc; Amélie Nothomb, writer; Dominique Sopo, president of SOS Racisme; Oliviero Toscani, photographer; Elie Wiesel, Peace Nobel Prize, writer; AB Yehoshua, writer, essayist

Guardian
May 28, 2012

The neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn entered the Greek parliament this month. With its swastika-inspired emblem, Hitlerian salute, reference to Mein Kampf, antisemitic and racist ideology, Holocaust denial, violence against migrants, threats against journalists and personality cult, the party is the lineal heir of the German national-socialist party that led Europe and the world into chaos and bloodshed.

Unfortunately, Greece is not the only country threatened by this revival of Nazi ideology. In Latvia this year, the president of the republic has for the first time supported the annual former Waffen SS march, in spite of strong criticism. In Austria the FPÖ, an extreme right organisation that nurtures Third Reich nostalgia, is favourite in the polls for the next parliamentary elections. In Hungary, the Hungarian Guard Movement, descendant of The Arrow Cross party – the former militia responsible for the extermination of Jews and Gypsies – terrorises Jewish populations and holds direct responsibility for provoking deadly attacks against Roma people.

This revival was made possible by the systematic attack by extreme right parties against the republican ideal that recognises that everyone belongs to the same national community, together. This campaign against "togetherness" is modelled on Geert Wilders' strategy for his Freedom party, launched in the early 2000s. The core of this strategy is to hide a rhetoric promoting race inequality behind a "cultural" fight against the so-called "Islamisation of Europe".

More

The text can be signed online at weareallgreekjews.eu

The leader of the rightwing Golden Dawn party, Nikos Michaloliakosis, is sworn in to the Greek parliament in Athens.