A report on Golden Dawn – entitled ‘Greek Tragedy: The rise of Europe’s neo-Nazis’ – that aired last Sunday night on 60 Minutes has sparked concern from members of the Greek Australian community about perceptions of Greece by the wider Australian community, and also the accuracy of the report itself.

Comparisons to Nazi Germany dominated the report, even though Golden Dawn MP Ilias Panagiotaros denies claims that they are neo-Nazis, stating they are “Greek nationalists”.

The 60 Minutes journalist, Allison Langdon, begins her report by stating: “Nearly 80 years after the end of World War II and the downfall of Hitler, Nazism is very much ‘alive and kicking’ right across Europe.

“In fact, neo-Nazi groups are on the rise again. They’re well-organised, often violent, and they’re muscling into mainstream politics. Nowhere more so than in Greece, where the economic crisis has offered fertile ground for neo-Nazis.”

Bill Papastergiadis, president of the Greek Orthodox Community of Melbourne and Victoria, said the comparisons of WWII Germany to modern day Greece didn’t “make sense” to him given the destruction Greece suffered following WWII.

“I would never have done a story the way this was done,” journalist and author Phil Kafcaloudes tells Neos Kosmos.

“Clearly the journalist was outraged by what she heard and what Golden Dawn have said so she allowed herself to be emotionally weighed.
He said the reporter used “a lot of pejorative terms and a lot of phrases that was put into that piece that didn’t actually explain what was going on”.
Mr Kafcaloudes added that the Greek government has cracked down on Golden Dawn, with arrests and investigations into the party, but this wasn’t reported on until much later in the story.

“By the time you got to the end of the report you would have thought that this Golden Dawn represents Greece but it doesn’t, it doesn’t represent anything like what is going on in Greece at the moment.”

“It didn’t reflect the view of over 90 per cent of the population of Greece and it marginalised their political views as they weren’t expressed and somehow we were given a story about a particular political party that’s not representative of Greece,” states Mr Papastergiadis adding he felt saddened watching the report as “it didn’t remind [him] of the Greece I know, and the Greece [he] visit[s] with [his] family and children”.

Dr Panayiotis Diamandis, Lecturer in Genocide Studies, UTS tells Neos Kosmos he found the “reporting very dodgy”.

“It had footage from three months ago, with an interview from I don’t know when, with slap dash commentary,” he says of the report.

Mr Kafcaloudes says rehashing old footage in a story without stating the date and time it happened is “irresponsible” of the reporter. As a former journalism trainer at the ABC, he says one thing he would always reiterate to his students was time dependency and recent content as one of the most important factors in reporting.
Dr Diamandis adds that it was damaging for the reporter to state that Golden Dawn are the third biggest political party and have ten per cent of the vote.
“It’s saying that Golden Dawn has the same support that the Greens have in Australia,” he says adding “they are not a major force” in the politics of Greece but were portrayed to be so in this report.
Support for Golden Dawn in Greece is waning. Mr Kafcaloudes says that the number of MP’s the party has in parliament is decreasing “so even the Greek people are being turned off Golden Dawn and I think that needs to be put into that story”.

“If they had an election tomorrow I wouldn’t be surprised if Golden Dawn went down even further,” Mr Kafcaloudes adds.

Concerns that Golden Dawn has chapters in Sydney and Melbourne were raised yet again with Golden Dawn’s MP Mr Panagiotaros stating in the report “‘there are a lot of Greeks in Australia who support us and in Melbourne we have a branch and in Sydney and we plan to spread Golden Dawn all over Australia”.

GOCMV president Mr Papastergiadis says he is unaware of any chapters and he hasn’t spoken with anyone that supports Golden Dawn.

Yet in the report, a Greek Melburnian was interviewed showing support for Golden Dawn adding many Greek Australians are too.

“What saddened me the most to have a Greek Melburnian who expressed views about immigrants when we are immigrants in Australia; if it wasn’t for multiculturalism our lives would have been so different,” says Mr Papastergiadis adding that even though the gentleman had the benefit of multiculturalism in Australia has not learnt anything from his experience.

“He represents no community in Australia, no Greek association in Australia and says that there are branches in Sydney and Melbourne – where?” asks Dr Diamanidis.

“There are Golden Dawn supporters in Sydney, they walk around in their t-shirts, like KKE, ND all the other parties, but do they have a structure? A PO Box? An office? An elected committee? I haven’t heard anything, and nobody else has,” says Dr Diamandis.

According to an event on Facebook, supporters of Golden Dawn will be marching alongside the Brisbane Branch of the Australia First Party. The rally is expected to begin at The Greek Club and then march to the Greek Consultate.

Mr Kafcaloudes says there is already support from the Greek community who want to protest against this demonstration.

“You can see a lot of people saying ‘let’s go and rain on their parade’,” he says, “I think there are far, far more Greeks who are saying we don’t want to go down this path.”

As for the report itself, Dr Diamandis claims that there may have been an ulterior motive to air it so close to Greece’s summer
“I think they were there to try and undermine tourism to Greece as this year they are expecting a better year than last.”