How serious a threat to Greek democracy are the Golden Dawn fascists?

I think the worst that can happen, is they will have a short run of fascism, followed by a swift revolution. They are just not in a position to be able to go down that path, if they do things will get even worse and bring on revolution.

They don’t have any resources to cause major problems in the world, there would be massive pressure on them from other countries, and it’s just not a ball they can afford to pick up and run with.

Obviously it is serious, many people could die if things go that way. However, the tradition for them, and their region of the world, is democracy, and in the end I think it will win over fascism.

It’s hard to say, but people often turn to facism in times of serious economic downturn. An economic recovery will probably make this go away. However I don’t know if an economic recovery is in the cards for Greece.

Germany is imposing such harsh terms on Greece that I fear the recovery will be delayed for decades. Greece, I guess, will grow more and more chaotic, as a result. With events like these, tourism will take a hit, too, and that will make it even harder for the nation to recover.

I’d love to go to Greece. But if this kind of thing is happening there, they clearly don’t take kindly to visitors. I’m not sure I want to go over there and risk getting singled out just because I happen to be touring the wrong place at the wrong time.

Golden Dawn, after more than two decades of bare existence, has only lately been able to garner the 5% votes in their (mostly urban) districts to make it to Parliament. Their strength lies in their soup kitchens and food assistance in poor neighborhoods most heavily hit by this latest economic debacle. They effectively buy their votes with food.

The average middle class Greek, although financially ruined, still holds a living memory of the horrors during the invasion of fascism 60 years ago which cost over a million Greek lives and well understands the benefits of democracy. There is not one Greek family that didn’t suffer. They have become more nationalistic because of the understandable bunker mentality of feeling the world has abandoned them, but this doesn’t necessarily interpret as fascism. From their point of view, the Germans have never paid for the damage they did and the stark austerity measures required by the German banks in the bailout are seen by many Greeks as mostly punitive and as another form of German fascism. The Golden Dawn will play a small part in Greek politics, and by loudly proclaiming themselves fascist, they are ensuring this will continue.

I wouldn’t hesitate to vacation in Greece at this time. They desperately need and welcome the tourist dollars and there are bargains not seen since the immediate post WWII period. As a matter fact, I’ve lately been looking at real estate prices on the islands as a place to retire when my time comes.

Wow. Time flies. ^^^Make that 70 years ago.

It is not the tourists they are after, it is the immigrant communities! It is a safe place and really worth your time and money.

Since I am living in Greece right now, I can say 2 things:
1) The election results are not really accurate. The Golden Dawn has been around for decades, they’re nothing more than a bunch of thugs, who, as wundaytta rightly said, have used financial strife to gain social support. There is a lot of racism and nationalism, but the core thugs are no more than a couple of hundred. Those votes could just have easily gone to ND, LAOS (where they originally belonged) or AE, or even to the left wing parties. These are just desperate people thinking the Golden Dawn will help them.
2) There is however a worrying shift to the right. Understandable or not, it is real. I’m more concerned about people such as Voridis or Georgiadis joining the New Democracy party, than the rist of the Golden Dawn extremists. Because, even if most ND members (and voters) do not condone nationalist ideals, they accept such extremists in their party, and Voridis was even appointed minister for a while. Overall, Greek society as a whole is more tolerant towards extremism and less tolerant towards foreigners. They are trying to find a scapegoat, and Pakistani or Afghan immigrants seem to be an easy target.

The situation in Greece is so chaotic, that it could easily spiral out of control, even without the outside pressures. The only reason there’s no civil war yet is that people are not exactly sure who’s on the “other” side. They throw stones in the general direction of McDonald’s, any Mercedes passing by and maybe even their local Germanos phone shop, but there’s no real, easily definable “bad guy” to attack. Except perhaps Merkel, who is compared to Hitler in a dress.