A few days before the crucial June 17 election in Greece, the far right has just burst spectacularly into the public debate. The assault perpetrated against the Communist Party deputy Liana Kanelli and myself, on the air from a television studio, by the spokesman for the neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn (GD) has had a catalytic effect.

Since its entry in the Hellenic Parliament (for the first time ever in the history of modern Greece), thanks to the 7% of the vote that it obtained in the May 6 elections, the thugs of this fascist organization have been picking fights: attacks, insults… But in reality GD has always acted in this way. What has changed is that it is now a parliamentary party…

But the most shocking thing has been the reaction of many people in the alternative media, of the Twitter, Facebook, etc. type, who have raised their voices, for example, not only in favor of the GD spokesman but also in favor of violence in general, as a means to be used against the “rotten political class.”

And there’s the rub: for too long we have wanted to ignore the threat that this party represents for our democracy. Golden Dawn was not born on May 6, but its influence has grown with the revelations concerning the corruption of the dominant political class. If you add to that the fact that, for a very long time, the two parties that have shared power for almost 40 years, PASOK (the Socialists) and New Democracy (the right-wing party), have not taken care to deal appropriately with the question of immigration, leaving an open field for GD to spread its message of hate, then it is easy to explain the approval of many people vis-à-vis the violence (for that is its ideology) of the fascist party.

But, at the same time, we note that the right is working to exploit GD’s breakthrough indirectly, especially via Facebook and Twitter, by associating it with the very dynamic growth of Syriza and by speaking of two extremes. Thus Syriza is made out to be a party that is as dangerous as the fascists of GD. This is revolting. But it is already worn-out…

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