By Nickos Ventouras
One would expect politicians and political columnists to be jaded pragmatists, involved as they are in the day to day hardline realism of politics. One would be wrong.
A glance at the news is enough to reveal them as the most easily startled members of the population, always surprised at things that the general public already knew or suspected all along. A goldfish-like memory, or the ability to feign one, seems to be a requirement for a successful career in politics and political commentary.
So it’s no surprise (no pun intended) that [general secretary of government] Baltakos’ recent revelations came “as a surprise”. In the days that followed we had resignations, heads rolling, breaking stories, special reports and commentary upon commentary with everyone expressing their shock and dismay ― even people that have been working together with Baltakos for decades.
I, for one, wasn’t startled in the least. Many months ago, when the naive were still cheering for the political coup by which the government sent Golden Dawn MPs to prison, I wrote here, in ThePressProject, that what we were witnessing a political ploy by a government trying to “eradicate an annoying blackhole at its right, that is sucking in voters” and that those that tolerate this “give the government exactly what it most wants: the legitimization of several extended powers and the abolition of established democratic rights”.
But how naive, really, were those who supported and voted for those government proposals? Why did they accept to be pawns in a political settling of scores between right and far-right gangs, co-signing legal enormities (that could be used against them in the near future)?
Did they really think that Samaras and Dendias genuinely cared about eradicating “neonazism” instead of merely destroying a political rival?
Some might have believed those things. Especially those who grew up in the apolitical embrace of the Simitis years which numbed their political instincts ― until the Crisis brought them back abruptly to the “desert of the real”.
Others, too clever for their own good, were trapped by investing politically on an all too easy “crusade against fascism” [1].
To put it simply, using the language of football: they knew that they needed a lot of practice to play ball at Merkel’s European league (to propose, that is, a concrete solution against the Memorandum and the Troika), so they preferred to have small league matches between the Left and the Golden Dawn, to rile up their fans, playing clock management until the government falls by itself (the so called “ripe fruit” approach).
By accepting, for tactical reasons, that Golden Dawn is the biggest danger for democracy, they were lured (with a few, shining, exceptions) into making the strategic mistake of voting in favour of the government’s attack against it. If the fabrications were to succeed they would have given Samaras not only the gift of legitimising power abuses (for future use against the Left), but also that of the voters fleeing the banned Golden Dawn.
It’s telling that the issue of the lifting of Golden Dawn MPs immunity had divided (main opposition) Syriza, with several of its MPs speaking against it (Konstantopoulou, Sakorafa, Mitropoulos etc) and Manolis Glezos himself proclaiming, and rightly so, that “Golden Dawn should only be countered through political means”.
Do those who voted in favour of that Dendias backed proposal consider themselves as greater anti-fascists than the man who risked his life to bring the nazi flag down from the Acropolis during the occupation, spent years as an exiled communist, and even today, in his nineties, fights against the Memorandum from the front lines?
The previous lie of the supposedly “anti-fascist” fight of the government (which barely hid an attempt to get rid of an political opponent), is now met with the new spin that tries to downplay the significance of Baltakos’ revelations.
For those with any political experience, what the leaked video shows is obvious. A high ranking government official has a friendly talk with an MP of Golden Dawn (as MPs from opposing parties do all the time). While talking (and not knowing that he is recorded, if he did, it would have been willingly committed political suicide saying what he says) the official reveals that the imprisonment of the Golden Dawn MPs was a result of political pressure, so that Golden Dawn loses voters and (governing) New Democracy gets ahead of Syriza. This conversation also reveals how the government sees politics and what kind of relations it has with the “independent” justice.
One really has to spin like a master ballerina in order to see the video as proof that of a “New Democracy far-right wing supporting Golden Dawn” ― as if its not common knowledge that MPs from all parties talk to each other all the time, gossiping, making jokes, and exchanges that kind of “secrets” cynically (under an unwritten law of silence ― something which the rookie Golden Dawn broke for its own reasons).
Newspaper TO VIMA, for example, writes that “the general secretary of the government talks to the GD MP as if he is his advisor”, implying that Baltakos, who has worked close to Samaras for decades, and is the secretary general of the government, was some kind of double agent, working for the Golden Dawn (and perhaps he said what he said to harm the “innocent” government of ours).
For those that don’t buy the party line as served by pro-government outlets, such a conversation is neither surprising, nor does it show any deeper cooperation between Baltakos and (Golden Dawn MP) Kasidiaris. It’s hardly a novelty to see cynical parliamentary old foxes from all parties having friendly chats over a stiff one ― sometimes right after they put up a show of vehement opposition in the parliament or a TV talk show.
[Pro-government] website Antinews, on the other hand, tries to keep New Democracy’s herd at peace, albeit not a very sophisticated way: “it is stupid to claim that poor little Golden Dawn got under prosecution because it did well in the polls”.
In other words: don’t believe what you’ve heard the general secretary of government admit with your own ears. If Antinews claims that it can’t be true and that New Democracy had the best of intentions all along, it must undoubtedly be so. After all we all know how much our government respects democracy.
Besides such panicked attempts at damage management after the scandal broke out, there also were more surrealistic takes on the issue. Of those, one of the most striking was that by [journalist] Aris Chatzistefanou, who described the video as a “gift to Samaras” because (wait for it…) “it portrays New Democracy’s will to destroy nazism”.
For one, the negative public impact to the government is obvious. The video shamed the prime minister, exposed political pressure on justice, and lead to the resignation of the general secretary of the government. It’s by no means a gift ― except if we use the term in the way the British used to, when they were giving smallpox infected blankets to the Native Americans. Second, New Democracy could not care less about showing its “will to destroy nazism”. But even if it did, the video shows nothing of the short. It proves that they did it just to steal voters from Golden Dawn (because these “prevent [News Democracy] from being ahead of Syriza”, as Baltakos admits).
Many want to frame the discussion between Baltakos and Kasidiaris as the “far right wing of New Democracy who collaborates with Golden Dawn”.
For the pro-government side this framing is needed because it deflects from the main issue (that the government used the justice system to neutralise a political opponent) and because it puts the whole blame on Baltakos and a few “bad apples” (that is, the one who unmasked the conspiracy and not the conspirators).
For the main opposition this framing is convenient because it frees them from having to admit their mistake of voting in favour of the government’s political ploy (and one that was ultimately against the Left at that). It also gives them another opportunity to rile their voters against Golden Dawn, which it constantly portrays as a covert operation, set up by the New Democracy, instead of trying to understand and fight the right wing phenomenon politically and socially.
Baltakos’ video doesn’t just reveal one more political ploy among many, but documents the end of any pretence of democratic governance. What we all knew came to light officially. The fact that instead of the PM's, we had the resignation of the person that, unwillingly, made those revelations, tells all that needs to be said. We must not be surprised with anything such a government does anymore.
P.S So that we avoid getting startled in the future, we shouldn’t rule out the possibility of more such recordings, perhaps with members of other parties too, to be presented when the time arises.
[1] “Easy” because it’s 2014 Greece, and not 1940s (so you don’t even have to enlist in the army), and also because Golden Dawn is just a bunch of bouncers and right-wing bullies who got into the parliament riding the “protest vote”, and not the heavily armed army of a mighty industrial power. Scary as he is, Barbarousis is not quite Romel.