Greece’s political paradoxes and labels
I have begun to wonder whether the term “extreme right” is the most suitable one for us to understand the wide range of politics adopted by significant sections of the population and which include radical, conservative (reactionary) concepts, extreme nationalism and nativism, the rejection of experts and institutions, suspicion towards local and foreign elites, and antagonism towards migrants and other minorities.
Perhaps the term, as it evolved after the political classifications which arose from the French Revolution, is useful in other Western societies, where the leader of a party corresponding to Greek Solution’s Kyriakos Velopoulos would not be annoyed by his grouping being termed “extreme right.” Last week, Velopoulos threatened legal action against anyone who tried “to blacken our reputation” with this label. “I did not know that ‘Homeland-Religion-Family,’ and ‘Bread-Education-Freedom,’ in which we believe, betray an extreme-right mentality,” he declared. Though he had not protested the label before the last elections, now that he must fight for influence with other parties in the suddenly crammed neighborhood to the right of New Democracy in Parliament, Velopoulos yoked together two slogans that represent the right and left of the political spectrum. His aim is to prove that his party’s identity is undeniably Greek.
The leader of Greek Solution, a former member of the extreme-right Popular Orthodox Rally (LAOS) and, before that, of New Democracy, could well have added the slogan, “Greece belongs to the Greeks.” It would be the most appropriate one to support his position, as it was Andreas Papandreou’s rejoinder to Konstantinos Karamanalis’ seminal “Greece belongs to the West.” Although himself a product of the West (by education, experience and behavior), the late Socialist leader chose to exploit the rich vein of anti-Western thinking which flows through large sections of Greek society, from one extreme to the other, and which predates the Greek Revolution.
The society that developed after independence is full of paradoxes to which we have become so inured as to consider them normal. Among them, the nationalism and anti-Americanism and suspicion of the West that one finds both on the right and the left; a contradictory faith in the EU and suspicion of it; a general conviction that we Greeks are always in the right and always victims of injustice. For some, this introversion and insecurity is expressed through the demand that the Church play a dominant role in politics and society. It is from this great reservoir of heterogenous trends and beliefs that many politicians draw support and legitimacy.
Another paradox is that those who admire anti-Western authoritarian leaders, whether they be Vladimir Putin or Fidel Castro, enjoy the fruits of the freedom, security and prosperity which stemmed from the visions inspired by the French Revolution, as well as long membership in NATO and the EU. Democracy (the ancient Greek invention which returned to us, radically modified, via the American and French revolutions) guarantees the right of even its enemies to be elected and to represent their supporters in Parliament.
It is up to institutions, the press and citizens to be alert so as to distinguish between the positions and actions of parties that stem from a traditional introversion and suspicion of change and of everything foreign, or whether they are inspired by the criminal practices which we see elsewhere and in history. For this reason, the terms “anti-Western,” “anti-systemic” and/or “fascist” may be more precise when we want to understand more clearly where a political force is coming from, what “justice” it seeks, and how we will deal with it.
