Raw material related to the Greek riots [2008]

Greek political overview [general, up to 1998]

Dr. Roufagalas [whoever he may be]:

* 1920: Sultan of the Ottoman Empire was deposed, and so was Venizelos. The King had imperial aspirations on the Turkish mainland. Wanted to create a Greek empire.

* 1922: Huge transfer of populations from Turkey to Greece and vice versa. Greeks living in the Ephesus, Turkey, area moved to the Greek mainland. They gave up an area that the Greeks had occupied since 500 BC.

* 1945-49: Greek Civil War. Royals helped by the U.S. to fight against the communists and reunify the country.

* 1967: Military coup. Military dictatorship created.

* 1974: Military dictatorship finally collapsed because of the fighting in Cyprus. 70% of the people vote to create a Greek Republic and not bring the king back.

* 1974-81: Right wing government ruled.

* 1981-89: Socialist government ruled.

* 1989: Berlin wall torn down in November, caused ripples throughout the continent.

* 1993: Turmoil in Greece; socialists come back into favor. Two new political parties formed: the New Democracy (ND) and PASOK, the Panhellenic Socialist Movement. PASOK is currently in control.

The Turks believe that the Greeks have no claim to oil in the Aegean because the oil deposits would be below the ocean's floor. They figure that since the Greeks control only the islands in the Aegean that they do not also control the ocean floor

[S]ince the U.S. navy needs free and easy access to Turkey, Greece can only claim 6 nautical miles -- thereby leaving the U.S. a corridor of international waters.

One final problem with Turkey is the fact that some of the Greek islands are within 2 or 3 miles of the Turkish mainland.

What Wiki has to say

After liberation, Greece experienced a bitter civil war between Royalist and Communist forces, which led to economic devastation and severe social tensions between its Rightists and largely Communist Leftists for the next 30 years.

In 1975 a democratic republican constitution was activated and the monarchy abolished by a referendum held that same year. Meanwhile, Andreas Papandreou founded the Panhellenic Socialist Party, or PASOK, in response to Constantine Karamanlis' New Democracy party, with the two political formations dominating Greek political affairs in the ensuing decades.

Greece rejoined NATO in 1980. Relations with neighbouring Turkey have improved substantially over the last decade, since successive earthquakes hit both nations in the summer of 1999 (see Greece-Turkey earthquake diplomacy), and today Athens is an active supporter of Turkey's bid for EU membership.

Greece became the tenth member of the European Union on 1 January 1981, and ever since the nation has experienced a remarkable and sustained economic growth.

Greece is a leading investor in all of her Balkan neighbors with the National Bank of Greece in 2006 acquiring the 46% of Turkish Finansbank and 99.44% of Serbia's Vojvođanska Bank.

[T]he foreign population (documented and undocumented) residing in Greece may in reality figure upwards to 8.5% or 10.3%

[A]n estimated 97% of Greek citizens identify themselves as Greek Orthodox.

Macedonia

Macedonian view

The name “Macedonia,” is shared by the former Yugoslav republic and by northern Greece. From the moment the former-Yugoslav Macedonia declared independence in 1991, the Greeks — reflecting byzantine Balkan politics — vehemently objected to the new state’s use of a name and symbols they regard as theirs.

Greek view

I’m sorry, but I greatly disagree with this post as a Greek citizen! If FYROM was so concerned about the region’s instability, then a petty name shouldn’t be a problem for the “Macedonians” either, instead of putting all the blame on the Greek side! They’re the ones who started the dispute anyway.

Islamic incursion into Europe

Muslim conquests in history

Dagestan story in 1998/9

732 AD

Islam did not stop dead in its tracks in 732, as many believe; Muslim attacks on central Europe not only continued but intensified. If the Islamic forces had prevailed over Charles Martel -- known as "The Hammer" -- at Poitiers, scholars at Oxford and the Sorbonne might have been teaching interpretations of the Koran instead of the Bible afterward. If Charlemagne had been successful in his invasion of Islamic Spain in 778, the confrontation between Christianity and Islam there might have been accelerated by four centuries.

The Sicilian/Catalanian incursion

The Aghlabids rulers of Ifriqiya under the Abbasids, using present day Tunisia as their launching pad conquered Palermo in 831, Messina in 842, Enna in 859, Syracuse in 878, Catania in 900 and the final Byzantine stronghold, the fortress of Taormina, in 902 setting up emirates in the Italian peninsula. In 846 the Aghlabids sacked Rome.

The Iberian peninsular incursion

The conquest of the Iberian Peninsula commenced when the Moors (mostly Berbers with some Arabs) invaded Visigothic Christian Iberia (modern Spain, Portugal, Gibraltar, Andorra) in the year 711.[3] Under their Berber leader, Tariq ibn Ziyad, they landed at Gibraltar on April 30 and worked their way northward.[4]

Islam in Britain

Besieged by a national identity crisis, Britain has lost confidence in its Christian roots over the past 50 years and embraced the “novel philosophy of multiculturalism,” wrote Michael Nazir-Ali, bishop of Rochester, in the Telegraph Monday. One of the most dangerous consequences has been the dramatic spread of Islamic extremism across Britain.

The radicalization of Muslims has become so bad, says Nazir-Ali, some communities in Britain have turned into “no-go” areas for non-Muslims.

The Byzantine Empire

Byzantine security relied on pacifying an assortment of barbarian tribes to the West, and keeping the sophisticated Persian Empire at bay to the East. The Byzantines and Persians warred continuously for a century, battling for control of Armenia, the Fertile Crescent and the Holy Land.

When the determined and zealous Islamic juggernaut burst out of the Arabian Peninsula in the 7th century, both empires were too weak to mount a proper defense. Christian Syria fell to the Muslims in 637, Christian Armenia and Egypt in 639, and North Africa in 652. By 661 the Byzantines had lost all their holdings in the greater Middle East, and nearly half of their core territory of Anatolia.

In 674 the Arabs laid siege to Constantinople itself, but were thwarted by a harsh winter and their inability to breach the famous Theodosian Walls. They tried again in 717. This time they were defeated at sea by the Byzantine fleet, with a revolutionary naval weapon known as Greek Fire. This 2nd victory delayed the Muslim crusaders for nearly 700 years.

In 1453, the Mediterranean, Europe, Christendom, and the world, changed forever. The Ottomans under Sultan Mehmed II amassed 100,000 troops outside of Constantinople, including 20,000 Janissaries, an elite guard made up of Christian slaves.

They bombarded the city for 40 days, and finally breached the ancient walls on Tuesday May 29th of 1453, a date which the Greek world considers unlucky to this day.

The Turks built four Minarets around the defiled Hagia Sophia, transforming it into a mosque. It served as the chief mosque of Constantinople, now known as Istanbul, for over 500 years.

A process of ethnic and religious cleansing begun by the Arab Muslims in the 7th century, and continued by the Ottoman Turkish Muslims in the 15th century, was completed by the new modern state of Turkey in the 20th century. The remaining pockets of Greek Christians on the North and West coasts were massacred or exiled, while 1.5 million Armenian Christians were decimated in the East, in a genocide that foreshadowed the Holocaust.

It was an inspiration to Adolf Hitler who justified the viability of his radical plans by asking, “After all, who speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?”

Modern incursions into Greece

Greece over the past decade has become a source country concerning the entrance of an unspecified amount of illegal immigrants, mostly from Asian and African states, that enter mainly through the Greek-Turkish borders and with the complicity or indifference of the authorities of the neighbouring country, despite the bilateral and international agreements that have been sealed for this matter.

Illegal immigration is actually an asymmetrical threat aimed at destabilizing the Greek state and it is of critical interest to view it under the prism of Ankara’s stance concerning Greece’s role in the region. In simple terms Turkey uses the masses of desperate people being gathered in its territory in order to inflict great losses in the Greek economy and alter its ethnic and social profile.

Currently it can be safely estimated that there are 1 million illegal immigrants “in transit” from Turkey to Europe and many of them will end up in Greece and allocate themselves in the newly founded ghettos in the centre of Athens, in the port of Patras or in various locations in the countryside, thus adding up to the 2.5 million illegal aliens already present in Greece.

The domestic intelligence network of Greek informants and collaborators that cooperate with their Turkish counterparts should be neutralized and disbanded before any sustainable gain could be made.

The destabilization of Greece

Important characteristics include the rapid mobilization of the rioters. For example they were out in the streets destroying property in just 20-25 minutes after the death of the young person was announced. It happened in 21.03, it was first announced in a website around 21:30 and the riots were already swinging at 22:00. I have served in the Navy but I don’t think armed forces are that quick in mobilizing their personnel!

Secondly, after the riots broke out in Athens, almost simultaneously riots begun in all major Greek cities with the same style. Next day, almost 50 Greek cities were experiencing street battles and the following incident was reported were groups of people were moving from a city to city to start a riot for a few hours and then moving to the next one. Also in one city, named Kozani, groups of people that started the riots came from Athens, rented a hotel room and took the streets the next day.

So we have people that are coordinated, able to control their “anger” and expose it with ferocity when needed. I would call them “urban guerrillas-mercenaries”. There were reliable estimations by police circles over the past few months, that something is “happening” in the Greek radical scene and there are evidence that Greek NGO’s collaborate with foreign ones by bringing volunteers in Greece from abroad, which in reality turn out to be radicals-anarchists. So a web of relations has been developed between Greek radicals and foreign ones.

Moreover Greece is an ideal base for anyone wishing to enter EU for ill purposes. A strong Greek security system deters the flow of drugs, illegal immigration and terrorists into Europe. A destabilized Greece along with the already dysfunctional state of affairs in the Balkans will cause a number of security issues for the whole of Europe.

I have to note that many analysts here in Greece believe that the USA Intel. Services were involved due to the recent business deals the government made with Russia, China, Germany and France. I think this is not feasible, but it cannot be excluded that private intelligence firms based in USA could have offered consultation or information. Of course this is another facet of globalization and doesn’t involve Washington with which Greece cooperates strongly in many important fields.

The Greek Mafia

One story here.

Another here.

Just as I linked contemporary terrorism to the horrors of the Second World War in The Last Red Death, I’ve located the roots of at least a section of the Greek Mafia in the dictatorship of the Colonels between 1967 and 1974. Although Greek criminals haven’t infiltrated the state to the extent of the Mafia and other such organisations in Italy, there are unquestionable links between the ruling elite and the lords of misrule.

I can add two anecdotes from the Richmond, Victoria area and from a stand-off between the Russian and Greek mafias over fur coats. The Greek mafia appears to be under the control of women.

No great surprises here – ties with the government, drugs to the Balkans – you can draw your own conclusions.

From the anti-communist and anti-jihadi stance
Ioannis Michaletos
09 Dec 2008

The riots were orchestrated since late summer 2008. There were reports within the Greek police that the riots would commence by the Christmas period at the latest; the location and the justification was not known, but any event could have caused them. This is a copycat case of what happened in France in Octomber 2005.

The culprits in the higher level are Islamic netowrks in the Middle East, hand-in-hand with corrupted Western officials that are selling their services for the highest bidder.

The purpose is to destabilize Greece, since it is the “Weakest link” of the Eurozone countries. The ultimate goal is the creation of a European space suitable for expansion of the Middle Eastern networks. For the moment the latter use a variety of techniques to bolster their aims:

Terrorism, disinformation, Psy Ops, bribing officials. They are trying to throw USA against Russia from one side and disentegrate the bonds between EU-USA from the other side. They are the ones that burned Greek forests in summer 2007, in an operation some call “Ibrahim Project”, thus reminding of the same damages in the same region by Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt during the Greek revolution in the summer of 1827.

There is a great issue nowadays with the existence of more than obvious links between renegade intelligence officers of Western origin with anarchist-radical movements in order to destabilize European countries.

The anarchist-radical network of disoriented youth is very strong in Europe as the riots in 2005 showed where the radicals and the Muslims joined forces to damage Sarkozy’s image to no avail. In France recently it was announced by the Ministry of Interior that French anarchists that were in contact with Greek and Italian counterparts, tried to sabotage the railway network (TGV trains).

Moreover the deals being made between European and Russian energy companies that will increase natural gas imports by the former, greatly diminishes the influence of the Saudis in Europe along with their long-term income.

Back to Greece, the riots were executed using internet-new media techniques, such as instant messaging from a mobile phone to webpages such as Indymedia along with use of CB’s, facebook pages, walkie-talkies, and construction of “Flow-networks” and already established “dark networks” within the city.

Quite a few Greek “radical groups” have adopted Arabic "Noms de Guerre", promote illegal immigration of Muslims into Europe and call in for the destruction of Western civilazation. They are part of an almost global network that acts as a “Soft power” element of the hard one as envisaged by Al Qaeda.

From the communist trade union network
December 11, 2008
by Mikael Altemark
Hat tip: Cherie

The murder of 16 year old Alexandros Grigoropoulos by the roving assassins of the Greek Police was not a chance incident, nor an isolated one. In the last few months alone Toni Onoua in Kalamaria, Mohamed Asraf in St Panteleimonas and Maria Koulouri in Leukimi have all died as a result of polie actions. All this isn't the result of a few hot-headed policemen but the results of the general tactics of the repressive forces. Those who continue to talk of chance or bad luck are not just ridiculous they are accomplices of the system.

Tear gas and chemical weapons have been the more lenient weapons used to repress them. Often there have been beatings, arrest and even torture of those held in police custody.

Faith in the false well-being that capitalism promised has ben destroyed by the economic crisis we, the workers, have been experiencing these last few years as bosses and the state illegally attack the world of work and brutally repress any voices of protest. The democracy of the bosses, of the industrialists and of the authoritarians doesn't merely resemble dictatorship, it is dictatorship.

Let our anger lead to a popular insurrection

From the anarchist-communists
Spyros Fragos, OADE (Greece) member
James Sotros, OADE international relations and Melbourne ACG member
Hat tip: Cherie

[T]he general tendency of capitalism for globalisation, the particular
capitalist arrangement of the country continues to de dependent on state help
to conserve and further the maximisation of its profits. So, Greek capital it
is not a non-existent identity. It is, of course, dependent on the central
financial powers of the European Union and those of the USA, but this
dependance - especially over the last decade - has brought Greek capital into a
more beneficial position with regard to the other economies in the Balkan area,
where it already plays an important role.

[C]lear and natural responsibility lies with the former
"socialist" government of PASOK (Panhellenic Socialist Movement). At the same
time, the country, through the clammy mass media had been drawn into a kind of
official "informantry" with an attempt to transform a large number of people
into informers

With the government of PASOK in power for almost 20 years after 1981 (with the
exception of the interval between 1989 and 1993), the effort to passivise Greek
society was the number one objective. Thus, we reached a point where the
complete Americanisation, dependance at the same time on the European Union,
the new big National Idealisms such as the success of the Olympic Games in 2004
and the establishment of strict "anti-terrorism" were considered as renewal,
hope and prospect

Now it seems that "Nea Dimokratia" (New Democracy), the right-wing conservative party, with its leader and now prime minister Kostas Karamanlis, which won the last (March 2004) elections, is the selected choice of the American and European sovereignty in order to promote their interests better in Greece and the wider Mediterranean and Balkan area.

But the biggest fraud in contemporary history took place in 1999 through the
Athens Stock Exchange. Through this fraud, the money of thousands of people was
stolen even through government advertising before the elections of 2000,
telling the people that if they invested their money in the Stock Exchange then
all their financial problems would be solved!

An important ally of the former "socialist" government was the controlled trade
unions, especially those who lean towards the former ruling party, PASOK. The
General Confederation of the Workers of Greece (GSEE) stuck to the union
sectors of the four biggest political parties (Nea Dimokratia, PASOK, the
Communist Party and the Coalition of the Left) and was unable during these
years to even organise a successful 24-hour strike

Over recent years, one of the biggest social struggles was the struggle of
unappointed teachers for the ASEP (High Council for Personnel Selection) in
1998, when the then government wanted to "make an order" in the appointment of
teachers mainly in secondary education, but which, in reality, wanted to set
the terms of the whole case supposedly through of the introduction of a system
of "meritocracy" in their appointment. This pushed not only the concerned but
also wider social groups into revolt and there were also in some cases wild
clashes with the police forces.

The struggle against reforms in the social security system (1999) was another
serious struggle against the government's plans. We had also the struggle of local communities against the destruction of their
local natural and ecological environments (since 2002) because of the
construction of stadiums, freeways and other works for the Olympics Games.

In 2003 and 2004 one of the main issues that the various leftist groups and
anarchists focussed on was direct resistance to the Olympic Games.

The migrants are another important issue in Greece over recent years. At the
moment roughly over a million migrants live and work in Greece. Most of them
come from neighbouring Albania (more than 600,000), but also from other Balkan
countries such as Bulgaria and Romania.

There are also thousands from the countries of the former USSR, especially from Georgia, Ukraine and Russia, and also from Poland. In addition, there are lots of Filippinos, Pakistanis, Iraqis, Ethiopians, Eritreans, Egyptians, Sudanese, Sri Lankans, Indians and others. Only a few of them legally live and worke in Greece, as only in the last two years have there been attempts by the State to register them and to give them "green cards" for residency and work.

The vast majority of migrants work in the hardest and dirtiest jobs, where
Greeks do not want to work, in various small factories and small businesses.
Many migrant women are servants or do similar jobs. Thousands of migrants also
worked in workshops for the Olympic Games. A significant number of women,
mainly from the former USSR, are particularly oppressed because they have been
forced by underworld networks to work as prostitutes.

[In] general, racism against migrants, are theories and practices which are popular
in Greek society during recent years. This was also contributed to by the
almost complete absence of a State immigration policy and the brutal and
barbaric confrontation by the police and other repressive forces against the
migrants.