[MGSA-L] The trial of Savvas Michael-Matsas, one of the few Jewish public intellectuals in Greece, is a cheap sop to neo-Nazis

[June Samaras]

It's absurd that Golden Dawn is being allowed to hound my friend into court

The trial of Savvas Michael-Matsas, one of the few Jewish public
intellectuals in Greece, is a cheap sop to neo-Nazis



Maria Margaronis
The Guardian, Sunday 1 September 2013 19.45 BST

"I'm the embodiment of every fascist's fantasy. I'm a Jew, a communist
– and a heretical communist, a Trotskyist, at that. I don't fit
anywhere. The only thing I happen not to be is homosexual."

My old friend Savvas Michael-Matsas – activist, internationally
respected writer on philosophy and literature, general secretary of
the Greek Revolutionary Workers' party (EEK), utopian thinker, fiery
speaker and wild white-haired survivor of 17 courses of chemotherapy
("No compromise with death") – is on trial in Athens on Tuesday, 3
September, for "libelous defamation," "incitement to violence and
civil discord", and "disturbing the public peace".

The suit against him has been brought by members and supporters of the
neo-Nazi party, Golden Dawn; the background is a call to an
anti-fascist protest issued by EEK in May 2009, which ended with the
slogan: "The people don't forget, they hang fascists" (it's catchier
in Greek). As Anny Paparousou, Savvas's lawyer, explained to me, this
is effectively a prosecution of political speech – the first
prosecution of an anti-fascist slogan in Europe. It's as if the
National Front had sued the SWP for shouting "Smash fascism" – and
been taken seriously. But with 18 seats in parliament, 13% in the
polls and muscle-bound thugs on the streets, Golden Dawn makes the old
NF look harmless and almost sweet.

Though Golden Dawn's suit was filed against a long list of individuals
and organisations, only Savvas and Constantinos Moutzouris, former
chancellor of the National Technical University of Athens, have so far
been called to trial. Moutzouris's alleged offence is that he allowed
the radical website Athens Indymedia to use the university's server;
his prosecution may be seen as part of the government's campaign to
shut down the "alternative space" in which leftists, anarchists and
anti-austerity activists have thrived for many years. Savvas's trial
fits that category, too: EEK is a meeting place for Marxist and
anarchist currents, advocating, in Savvas's words, "not exit from the
euro, which is a Talmudic discussion, but exit from the system".
There's also a darker side: it's hard to avoid the conclusion that
Savvas has been selected not only as a radical but as a Jew.

The progress of the trial thus far raises questions about whether, and
if so to what extent, the authorities are colluding with the
neo-Nazis. Several of Golden Dawn's members have serious charges
pending but never seem to see the inside of a courtroom. Themis
Skordeli, a signatory to this suit, was charged with stabbing an
Afghan man in September 2011; her trial has been postponed eight
times. The MP Ilias Panagiotaros, another of the complainants, owns a
shop called Phalanga that sells street-fighting paraphernalia; he told
the BBC last year that Greece is heading for civil war.

But picking out the Jew to be the first to walk the plank is sleazy
beyond belief, a cheap sop to the fascist gallery. As one of the few
Jewish public intellectuals in Greece, Savvas has long been targeted
by neo-Nazi websites, with slogans like "Crush the Jewish worm" and
claims that he can be found lurking under every stone, fomenting civil
war among pure-blooded Greeks in order to establish a Judeo-Bolshevik
state. He has also been accused of being both an agent of Iran and a
fully paid-up member of the international Zionist conspiracy (in fact
he's a fierce anti-Zionist), as well as having long hair (he does,
despite the chemo and the rabbinical hat he bought in case he lost his
locks).

The absurdity of all this doesn't make it less dangerous. "There is
nothing reassuring about the repetition of a historical tragedy as
farce," writes Savvas in his recent book, The Horror of a Parody:
Three Talks About Golden Dawn. Article 192 of the Greek penal code,
under which Savvas is charged, has been used twice against minority
groups in the last 25 years; both times there were convictions. The
rise of the far right in crisis-ridden Greece has both fed on and
fuelled a blood-and-belonging nationalism and hatred of the other for
which antisemitism is the original historical pattern. "Kill the Jew
you carry inside you and is your negative self, incapable of giving
your life meaning through a higher ideal," counselled Golden Dawn's
first declaration of ideological principles. "Then, fight the Jew
around you."

The Greek government has made common cause with these people in its
desperate effort to drive home the neoliberal agenda of its creditors
and protect Greece's own corrupt elites. The admittedly violent
rhetoric of parts of the Greek left is equated with the widespread
physical violence of the extreme right, which is cosseted and
supported in its crusade against immigrants, leftists, homosexuals,
misfits of all kinds. There is to be no room in the new order for
anything counter, original, spare, strange.

I first met Savvas years ago at a conference celebrating the centenary
of the Greek surrealist poet and visionary Andreas Embeirikos. We
spoke about the writer's relationship to the work of Herman Melville,
especially Moby-Dick, and Savvas still puts me in mind of the white
whale: a force of nature sounding to great depths, bent on a single
quixotic quest, not for revenge but for liberation – no less vital for
being always out of reach. The black-shirted skinheads of Golden Dawn,
driven by fear and hate, are the Ahabs of this world. They must not be
allowed to win.


-- 
June Samaras
2020 Old Station Rd
Streetsville,Ontario
Canada L5M 2V1
Tel : 905-542-1877
E-mail : june.samaras at gmail.com