Editorial: The duty to combat the far right

It has been one year since an Athens appellate court convicted 18 political cadres of the now defunct far-right Golden Dawn party.

The judiciary performed its duty by declaring the party a criminal organisation and imprisoning its leadership group, including six of its MPs.

Greek voters did their duty in the 7 July, 2019, general elections by denying the neo-Nazi party the three percent threshold required to enter Parliament.

Unfortunately, on the first anniversary of the verdict and of a historical moment for Greek democracy, the spectre of a rebound of the extreme right has preoccupied public discourse.

The recent incidents at the professional lyceum (EPAL) in the Stavroupolis area of Thessaloniki, and the rhetoric chosen by the political system to incorporate them in the clashes between parties, has brought to the fore the need to confront this part of the political spectrum.

Concerns over a potential return of Golden Dawn followers and of the organisation’s ideological current are widespread, as they are shared by citizens regardless of their ideological orientation.

However, one must not forget that in the very recent past a substantial segment of voters gave the fascists the opportunity to don the cloak of parliamentarism in order to undermine our democratic form of government from within.

Nobody has forgotten that and no one is entitled to overlook it.

All of us – citizens and politicians – must make sure not to repeat the mistakes of that period.

All democratic parties are called upon to form an alliance in order to ensure that we can put an end to all manner of neo-Nazi groupings.

Evil is indeed banal, as Hannah Arendt famously said, but to keep it from prevailing we must take care to remember that on a daily basis in order to isolate it.

We now have the experience needed to do so.