Vol. 77/No. 4      February 4, 2013

Layla al Khatib

Demonstration in Athens, Greece, Jan. 19 to protest Jan. 16 killing of Pakistani worker and other assaults on immigrants by supporters of ultrarightist Golden Dawn party.

The march was called by a number of anti-racist and immigrant rights organizations. Lead banners read: “Punishment for the fascist murderers of Shehzad Luqman” and “Neo-Nazis Out!”

Luqman, a Pakistani worker, was stabbed to death as he was riding his bicycle to work Jan. 16. Police found knives and stacks of literature from Golden Dawn in the house of the two men charged in the murder.

“We reject all efforts that aim to turn immigrants into scapegoats for the catastro-phic crisis which we have been plunged into due to anti-worker and anti-social policies,” the Athens Labor Center wrote in a Jan. 11 letter calling on affiliated trade unions to join the march. “All workers together, immigrants and Greeks, face problems of unemployment, unpaid labor, tearing up of collective labor agreements, poverty, misery, destruction of the social state and repression.”

Contingents of immigrants from Pakistan, Afghanistan, numerous African countries and elsewhere, as well as union and student contingents, were followed by groups of supporters of Syriza and other political organizations. Syriza, a Social-Democratic coalition, represents the main bourgeois left opposition and is currently polling the largest support of any party in the country.

The deepening social crisis and government austerity over the last two years has begun to polarize politics in Greece, where one in four workers is jobless, wages and pensions have been slashed by up to 40 percent, and more than half of youth in the country are out of work.

Support for Golden Dawn—with its populist and nationalist rhetoric and thuggish actions—has grown among small businesspeople and other middle-class layers, as well as demoralized workers and youth.

The ultrarightist party has scapegoated and organized violent assaults against immigrant workers, claiming they—along with foreign bankers—are the cause of unemployment and crime.

Greece is a central gateway into Europe for hundreds of thousands of workers seeking a better life than war and crushing poverty in South Asia and numerous other countries in Africa and the Middle East.

“There have been 800 reported violent attacks against members of our community by supporters of Golden Dawn,” Javied Aslam, of the Pakistani Community, told the rally before the march. “We demand punishment for the perpetrators of these attacks. If it had not been for the support of the residents of the neighborhood and of a taxi driver who followed the killers, Shehzad’s murderers would never have been arrested.”

“I am an immigrant from Palestine. Greece is home, I have lived nowhere else,” Layla al Khatib, a 17-year-old high school student at the march told the Militant. “I think that racial discrimination is one of the main problems that has to be dealt with.”

“You know that people without papers cannot go to the police when attacked,” al Khatib added. “But this demonstration showed we are not alone. I saw all those people standing by immigrants. Finally I see some humanity today. It feels amazing!”

“We need a mass movement that will take possession of public space,” Babis Koukidis, a 46-year-old airport worker, told the Militant. “Schools, students, neighborhoods and workers all need to stand in solidarity. Golden Dawn will still be able to be heard, but they would find it impossible to act.”

“I hope we wake up and realize that Golden Dawn is a fake representative of the frustrated citizen,” a 46-year-old teacher and union member, who did not wish to give her name, said. “They’re fascists.”

“My younger brother’s friends are influenced by Golden Dawn,” Martha Pissanou, a 25-year-old laboratory technician, said. “They tell young people, when you come out of university the immigrants will have taken your jobs.

“We need to fight them on every street, every corner, every individual,” she said. “We need to explain to young people that immigrants are … here to try to have a better life.”

“We are here because of the rise of fascism in Greece,” Loretta Macauley, president of United African Women’s Organization, told the Militant. “I have been here 30 years. The Greek government is a racist government. There has been a big change with the crisis. We need to expose them as well as Golden Dawn.”
 
 
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