Reichsrock by Kirsten Dyck

Author:Kirsten Dyck
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: MUS020000 Music / History & Criticism, POL042030 Political Science / Political Ideologies / Fascism & Totalitarianism, SOC052000 Social Science / Media Studies
Publisher: Rutgers University Press

Greece

Contemporary Greece, like Poland, is home to a vibrant white-power music scene comprised of bands that express both old-style national chauvinism and newer pan-European and neo-Nazi ideologies. In the early years of white-power music, the Greek white-power music scene seemed insignificant compared with larger scenes in places like Britain and Germany. As a result of the recent financial crisis, which has devastated the Greek economy and caused some of the worst recent socioeconomic problems anywhere in the European Union, Greek white-power music circles and neo-Nazi organizations have increased exponentially.

Greece is unique among the countries surveyed in this chapter in that, unlike Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, or Poland, post–World War II Greece never fell under the control of the Soviet Union or a Soviet-supported communist satellite government. Originally a neutral state in the war, Greece rebuffed an Italian invasion in 1940, only to fall to Hitler and the Nazis in 1941; the brutal German occupation ended only in October 1944, when Greek partisans and British troops finally seized Athens.115 Greek communists did struggle for leadership of the country in a civil war between 1944 and 1949, but eventually lost to democratic forces supported by both Britain and the United States. With the help of Marshall Plan aid, the Greek economy recovered quickly after the end of the Civil War, making Greece seem to be one of the democratic success stories of post–World War II Europe.116

However, deep divisions between the political left and right remained salient in Greece long after the end of the Nazi occupation and the conclusion of the civil war. In the mid-1960s, while left-wing and right-wing politicians squabbled among themselves, a group of military officers saw a chance to seize power. On April 21, 1967, these right-wing officers staged their own coup d’état by using the element of surprise to snatch important political and military installations and arrest key opponents.117 They installed an ultra-nationalist military junta in place of the ousted democratic government, stripping Greek citizens of most political freedoms and civil liberties by playing on fears of a communist takeover.118 During the seven years that the junta remained in power, its authorities arrested, detained, and tortured thousands of political opponents in prisons on coastal islands.119 In 1974, under mounting public opposition, the junta descended into political infighting that led to its collapse.120 Greece at this point restored its democratic government and began, once again, to expand its economy. Yet as in other European countries which experienced right-wing dictatorships during the mid- to late twentieth century, the demise of the junta did not mean that supporters of ultra-nationalist ideologies simply disappeared. With economic growth came increasing numbers of migrant workers and refugees from the Third World, who constituted as much as 10 percent of the Greek labor force by the mid-1990s.121 Compounding this influx of foreign workers into Greece has been the recent civil war in Syria, which has spurred a massive wave of refugees and asylum-seekers to flee to the European Union; Greece, as one of the primary

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