Senate European ultranationalists!

Hi Rogue_Ten,

Unfortunately no, I haven't seen Attenberg. Half the people I know loved it and the other half hated it.

In recent Greek films I recommend Strella and Dogtooth. I found that Dogtooth was a good allegory for everything that's wrong with Greek society. Be warned though, it's very, very dark and psychologically/emotionally violent. In a completely different style, there's Little England by Pantelis Voulgaris, a family/romance drama that takes place on the island of Andros. I'm not usually a fan of Voulgaris's work (I find him rather superficial), but this is definitely worth seeing.

More directly relevant to the subject of this thread, there have been some great Greek documentaries in the last year. I particularly recommend Fascism, Inc. by Aris Chatzistefanou, about the links between the extreme-right and big business in Greece, and Ruins - Chronicle of an HIV witch-hunt by Zoe Mavroudi about a major case of human rights violation against people with HIV/AIDS. Both are available online with English subs at the links I'm giving. I'm adding here a health warning for both, especially for Ruins, which is a pretty disturbing story.

Another great documentary is The Lost Signal of Democracy by Yorgos Avgeropoulos. It's about how the government shut down the public broadcaster ERT (3 TV channels, 19 regional radio stations etc) in one afternoon, claiming that it was to save money, but as Avgeropoulos shows it was to eliminate all forms of political opposition. I don't think the film is available online yet, but it's been screened on several TV stations around the world and I know that there's a theatrical version, maybe you'll be lucky?

Of all the above, if I should recommend one for today, seeing as it's the weekend, go for Ruins. You won't regret it

 

thank you, i had completely forgotten abotu dogtooth. i think someone sent me fascism inc not long ago and i forgot to actually watch it (may have been JoinTheSchwarz or Lord Vivec ) dunno if i can handle ruins right now but maybe ill try. thanks for the considered answer

 

You're welcome Rogue_Ten, I hope you'll find something you like in there.

I think that after studying those Golden Dawn documents for years, Psarras's ancient Greek must be completely mangled. I read their political manifesto once. It's written in such bad semi-ancient Greek that my eyes hurt (and my brain almost melted, but that's a whole other story.) You might not know that GD entered the public arena with a linguistic bang. On the night of the May 6, 2012 elections, they held a press conference. When Michaloliakos entered the room, they demanded that the journalists who were assembled there stand to attention, military-style. So one of their goons shouted the order, but he said "εγέρθουτου" instead of "εγέρθητι" or "εγέρθετε." You can imagine. Half of Greece was watching the scene in petrified horror, and we suddenly exploded with laughter (until we saw that most journalists complied instead of protesting and leaving, we weren't laughing so much then.)

 

wound up watching the french film "inside" tonight, instead. guess we were in the mood for ultraviolent horror, lol

but im def putting all your suggestions on my "to-do" list, along with attenberg

 

I'm very late to the party...

Something that is remarkable about European ultra nationalists, even neo-Nazi inspired, is majority of them are located in countries which suffered greatly under Nazi Germany. Eastern European is a prime example.

 

But, is that really surprising?

I haven't seen the vast majority of "ultranationalists" be of the minorities that the Nazi party probably subjected to the worst atrocities (Jewish, gay, gypsy, etc.) and, in fact, were probably the people who appreciated the trains running on time?

 

They just forget that the Nazis also hated/killed/enslaved Slavs.

 

Only the swarthy looking ones though...

 

is dimotiki even mutually intelligable with ancient greek tho?

EDIT: nvm, i guess a golden dawn politician would probably be using the constructed faux-ancient form (karthevousi(?)) anyways - are you sure you dont root for these guys, jello?

 

i basically just didnt even read enough of the quote you quoted. my bad

 

Video of Golden Dawn second in command teaching his toddler heil hitler

 

babby's first Final Solution

 

Looks like GrandAdmiralJello, Rogue_Ten and I are going to manage to turn this into a thread about the finest intricacies of Greek grammar

So. What the guy said doesn't mean anything, he just invented a new form of the verb. It's as ridiculous as saying "he standed up" instead of "he stood up" in English. But when you claim to defend "true Greek" culture and to love the army, either you know the correct form or you just prove that you're a ούγκανο <--- now that's a great demotic Greek word that doesn't exist in katharevousa and that means "barbarian", "ape" and "imbecile" all rolled into one.

Now about katharevousa, yes, it's a constructed language that was created in the 19th century and that's meant to be a "pure" version of modern Greek. Therefore it's based on ancient Greek grammar and syntax and, depending on the writer, it can get more or less archaic in style. For normal people on this thread (i.e. people who - rightly - never bothered to learn about the aforesaid intricacies of Greek grammar), the difference between vernacular Greek (demotic) and written Greek (katharevousa) was at the centre of a heated political debate throughout the 20th century. Proponents of katharevousa argued that a "purer" form of the language, based on ancient Greek, better expressed "true Greek" identity, whereas opponents argued that the average Greek didn't speak katharevousa and therefore that katharevousa excluded the majority of the population from public life. Long story short, katharevousa was last promoted as the one and only true form of modern Greek by the Junta (1967-1974) and was subsequently abolished as the official language of the state in 1976. It's now used only by the Church and by far-right extremists and ultranationalists, but because the latter are ούγκανα, they tend to mess it up.

That's it for linguistics. Oh, and a side note: Jello, it's a she, not a he.

Now back to the topic of this thread. DanielUK, what you're saying is true (with one caveat: Germany - of all EU countries - sent a neo-Nazi to the European parliament last May), however it must be added that the countries in question never underwent a denazification process after WW2 and became democracies only recently. Authoritarian regimes, whatever their self-proclaimed ideology, need thugs to operate, and they usually don't look too closely at the credentials of their thugs as long as they're willing to do their dirty work.

dp4m, while I agree with you that minorities in general don't support fascist parties, I should also tell you that you'd be amazed if you could hear some of the people on the Jewish side of my family, the sort that say "Oh, yes, GD are really bad, but the situation with immigrants is really out of control and someone has to deal with it." Better yet, they sometimes use a phraseology that really stinks of racial purity, like "we can't have Blacks raping our girls" or "having too many Muslims in Greece will pollute our culture." It's a classic case of having someone lower than you in the food chain. I keep telling them that their turn will come if GD have it their way, but it's like talking to a wall.

Need to focus on work now. I'm in the courthouse for the case of an African man who was held by the police in the basement of a precinct - the basement, as in, a room without a window - for eight bloody months. He sued the police after he got out, but the case keeps getting miraculously postponed, and by the looks of it, there won't be time to examine it today either. That's the wonderful, fair, unbiased Greek judiciary for you. Looks like we're going to end up going to the European Court again. In a similar case a while ago, the first instance judge ruled that the police has acted in the common interest because the detainee could have been carrying infectious diseases. Argh!

 

Oh, no, you misunderstand me -- Jews can be horribly racist, especially in the Orthodox sects. Like, really, really bad. Even among just regular Eastern European Jews there's also a lot of casual racism, though primarily against blacks rather than Muslims necessarily (like you'd find in the US).

My point was that, for the most part, much of the super ultra-nationalist sentiment (i.e. more towards the Nazi / neo-Nazi sentiments) are from the people who weren't particularly subjugated by Nazis and wouldn't be again.

 

I completely agree that direct support for ultranationalist/fascist groups comes primarily from people who weren't and won't fall victim to those groups' policies. However there's an issue of collective responsibility in the rise of those groups that can't be ignored. When you live in a country like mine where people say things like "I don't take public transportation because buses are full of Pakistanis and they stink" or where the Protocols of the Elders of Sion are a best-seller, and you don't speak up against this stuff, then you're indirectly responsible for the rise of GD because you just left the field open for them. And when you say that "someone's got to deal with the immigrant problem", even if you add a caveat about not liking GD so much, even if you're Albanian or Jewish, you still contribute to giving them legitimacy. The meteoric rise of a party like GD doesn't happen in a vacuum. One reason they could go from 0.3% of the vote in 2009 to 7% in 2012 was because so many other political parties co-opted their discourse and such a large segment of the population tolerated and/or supported the presence of these ideas in the mainstream.

Sorry for the rant. The court is wrapping up for the day in 15' and my client's case is going to be postponed for the 6th time, so I'm in a really foul mood by now.

 

Chyntuck thanks for the fantastic greek-posting. we are fortunate to have you

 

Thanks! I do feel that I'm hijacking the thread a bit talking about Greece all the time though. I'd really like to learn more about what's going on in other countries (both in terms of the rise of the far-right and how it's dealt with,) but it doesn't look like we have a lot of people from Ukraine, Russia or Hungary who'd like to chime in.

 

We need to get her to meet SkywalkerNumbers

 

"Now is the time to isolate, as much as possible, the reactionary, Nazi government of Ukraine, which rose to power in coup-like circumstances and with the support of the USA and Europe. This government is slaughtering [literally: dragging through blood] the Ukrainian people and violating the democratic, unionist, labour and political rights of workers and of the people of Ukraine as a whole. It is banning the Communist Party and proceeding with a series of measures such as arrests and repressive practices. The Greek Communist Party wants to express its absolute solidarity with the people of Ukraine, the communists of Ukraine. Keep your hands off the communists."

That's a statement by D. Koutsoumbas, Secretary-General of the Greek Communist Party and unreconstructed Stalinist, outside the Ukrainian embassy back in July.

Close enough?

 

Why would you need to number them if there was only going to be one?

 

*insert video of simpson's character doing stand-up comedy*