Greek Paradoxes: Anti-German chauvinism and the gestation of fascism in the "Anti-Memorandum block", 2010-2012

Spring of 2010: the first Memorandum is introduced in Greece by then PM George Papandreou (Jr). The Greek political imagination goes wild with a persistent and impeccably orchestrated fantasy: this is not about capitalism, it's not about imperialism and the Greek bourgeoisie's bonds with EU finance capital. This is an enemy attack, the "new German Occupation". Germans are all Nazis, the Greek government is a Nazi collaborator that wishes to "Germanify" us, and the issue is the formation of a "new EAM", a purely "patriotic" one, which the traitorous KKE refused to undertake, arguing that this ain't 1941, that Greek capitalism was not "dragged" anywhere against its will, and that it's not interested in "unifying all the real Greeks against the Germans and their local collaborators" but in national class struggle.

So the heroic mantle falls on the muscular shoulders of the "anti-Memorandum alliance": a melange of wild-eyed SYRIZA Social Democrats believing themselves Maoists, extreme right wing crackpots, social media enthusiasts and sundry petty bourgeois remnants of decaying PASOK and ND clientelism, who coagulated into a political movement in 2011, in the framework of the "Greek Indignados".

Some months later, Golden Dawn had gone up from 0.29% in 2009 to 6.92% in June 2012 (a 2386% increase), real rather than photoshopped swastikas and Storm Troops filled the streets of Athens, and the pogroms against immigrants and communists were unleashed through the hot summer. Another part of the recent Greek story no one wishes to remember, but one which reveals volumes about the organicism of the SYRIZA-ANEL coalition and explains the current, ludicrous remnants of showcase "anti-Germanism": bread and circuses for brain-washed masses who were duped into supporting the "real patriots" against the "fake" ones. The "healthy --and healthily patriotic-- business interests" must after all still be saved...

Transitional PM Papadimos as a Nazi, from a "left" anti-Memorandum blog, 2012

George Papandreou Jr as a fascist, "left" anti-Memorandum blog, 2011

KOE (former Maoists, SYRIZA): "No to the new Occupation", poster for Greek "Indignados"

George Papandreou Jr. as a Nazi, EAM as parody. Poster for "EAM B" organization (extreme right wing conspiracy theory crackpots)

The Nation's enemies: A Nazi Merkel, the KKE, and ND

EAM as parody: "Chains don't fit our country!", EPAM.

"Down with the Occupation by IMF, EU, Memorandum", ANTARSYA banner

KOE (SYRIZA) poster: "We will not become a German Protectorate!", 2011

"Our country is under Occupation; we have been dragged to the IMF in chains"

Greek actor Thymios Karakatsanis imagining himself as an EAM partisan: "Resistance to the new Occupation of the IMF"

Papandreou as Nazi, right-wing "anti-Memorandum" blog, 2011

"The Black Book of the Collaborationists: History repeats itself" (as "antifascist" fascist farce...)

Merkel on a painting of the heroic national struggle against the Italians of Mussolini: Typically surrealist ANEL poster from the period. Slogan: "You are messing with the wrong people!"

"Out with the Occupation government" KOE (SYRIZA) poster, avec hammer and sickle, circa 2011.

White Power and Che Guevara: Fascist play with semiotic delirium of the "anti-Memorandum" heyday. Slogan reads: Patria or death!

Another "we will not become a protectorate" poster from KOE (SYRIZA) before it dropped the hammer and sickle and the slogans on EU and ΝΑΤΟ exit in 2012, when its leader, Rudi Rinaldi,  finally got himself a Parliament seat. Tomato on German helmet. The tomato on German boot poster was also a grand success, but I can't seem to locate it anymore.