Greece? Wake-up Call For Germany!

Here is an article written by a Austrian comrade and its about the days he spend in Athens during his first visit for the Golden Dawn`s IMIA march at the 28th of January 2012. The article contains his very intresting views on Athens (Actually his hotel was in one of the most dirtiest and most criminal parts of the center.) and also how he saw Golden Dawn and the march. Its the expiriences of an outsider and a first time visitor in Hellas. This make the article much more intresting.

The article first published in German HERE.

Greece? Wake-up Call For Germany!

Already when looking at the Athenian travel guide my anticipation rises, while I'm cleaving my way through the branched streets and alleys together with the other members of our German tourist party. The in the brochure imprinted pictures of great cultural treasures and the for that purpose added information make me full of expectations for the next few days of my stay in Greece. Regardless of the increased reports that even show in the German media an economically heavily stricken Greece that is also populated by an angry people I won't let it cloud my thoughts an am convinced that it won't be that bad yet.

The expected cultural magic while wandering through the streets of Athens at night works more than disillusioning on me after a few meters. My eyes are confronted with a bizarre play carried by nightmarish sceneries and characterized by human abysses. The travel guide claims a homelessness that shows a tendency of around zero percent and calls Athens one of the safest cities with a comparatively low crime rate. Though the streets are full of homeless in wheelchairs, crippled existences, whose unclothed bare feet seem to downright rot off. Some car stands demolished and broken up at the roadside, the walls of the houses are sprayed with slogans that are directed towards the government, former shops closed and collapsed. On a street corner I become a witness of a brutal brawl among a few gypsies.

Countless lurking views of shady creatures that, believing the official credo, enrich Greece culturally, economically and ethnically examine me curiously, not even lowering their gazes when I return their staring with a determinedly looking face, to signalize that I won't be the next one in line of their victims. The immediately by myself noticed police car, that has been following our group inconspicuously, now drives along the road next to us. Due to the obvious realization that we were seemingly non-Greeks the cop gives us the advice to be careful in this area. He doesn't leave the car itself and after his unsettling advice he quickly speeds up and drives on. My perceptions on the way through the Greek capitol become more grotesque and drastic. Prostitutes that are barely older than 14 years line the streets, on the precincts kneeling weary, miserable beings that jab the syringes into their arms and legs, taking the drugs right from the dirty asphalt. In contrast to what I've seen so far the content of the travel guide seems to me like a bad joke and after re-reading multiple times I ask myself If no one has ever noticed all these things, If they just decided to ignore these things?

The answer to my question is simple and significant: The book is from the year 2001. Can it really be that democrats almost guide a whole country within ten years completely into the abyss? In the light of this horror that spread like a baleful shadow across the whole city and with all the derelict buildings that shape the view of this city in a shattering and way, the aforementioned question can only be answered with a sad but clear yes.

The historic buildings and monuments now seem to me, despite their beauty, like a monumental copy of a country whose culture and broad public got ruinous and shows several cracks. I've seen enough for now and I retire, retire back into the safety of the hotel where even there prostitues go in and out as well.

After spending the last few hours between restlessness and thought-storms that even won't fade away after a sightseeing of this 4 million people city I walk towards the meeting point of the annual Imia March, the actual reason for my trip to Greece. Once started 1996 as an answer of a territorial conflict between Greece and Turkey to commemorate three officers of the Hellenic army, who died during the conflict, it is now the biggest gathering of nationalist forces in whole Greece.

Here you become the witness of a different image; the image of a strong and upright people, the image of a companionship of battle. An image that no travel guide and new German newspaper informs you of. The place of the meeting point fills slowly with the thousands whose future seems just as uncertain as the future of the German people. Though here on the place I don't feel any resignation, no faint-heartedness and no careful looking around. A sea of flags as far as one can look. Torches burn in uncounted hands driving away the darkness of the night with the power of a light of resurrection. From tens of thousands of mouths the concentrated protest of a people's rage sounds that the democrats hear clearly and just fear as much. Determined, the gigantic marching group starts moving. Past the windowless banks, past the democrat-temples that are damaged by molotov cocktails and paint bombs, spreading a message where you don't need to speak the Greek language to understand it. The residents of the surrounding houses examine us with curious looks from behind their windows, waving to us, join the loud protests and sing the songs of this nationalist show of force with a strong voice.

I feel the fiery thoughts of a revolutionary will in the air. They float across the resistance that doesn't want to accept the dishonor of democrats any longer. They are being carried by the still quiet majority that starts rising slowly against what turned Greece into a heap of ruins. In this night the wake and awakening part of the Greeks bans the shadows of downfall back into the darkness: The commitment to people and homeland to culture and tradition burns in the heart of this country, in an impressive way as the one and only alternative to stop the downfall.

And still: The horrible scenarios of the one, the dark and lost Greece make me thoughtful. What will Germany and the rest of Europe have to face? Even in our country democrats work on turning the nation into an economic and ethnic ruin while they eat themselves round and fat at the feeders of the system, talking about economic rise like a self fulfilling prophecy, fixing it to stock market numbers - just as if the new high export figures of the German car industry towards Far East were an indication for a nation's prosperity!

Back on the plane I read in a newspaper of the preparations for carnival 2012. Of the energy that countless Germans put into a preferably original costume with elaborate bricolage. Other than that the newspaper is full with articles that scare and should wake anger and resistance and I'm definitely not the only reader. But around me I look into careless faces. It seems as If the Germans first have to make the same development as the Greece before they wake from their decadent fairy-sleep to realize the dangers the democrats caused them.