Greek anti-antifa

01Nov12

A third Greek/fascism post in a row. This story has been chronically underreported:

A Holocaust memorial in Rhodes was spray-painted with swastikas. The Holocaust Memorial to the Jews of Rhodes in the Jewish Martyrs Square — the old Jewish Quarter — was defaced Saturday on its six sides. The initials AME also were spray-painted on the monument, possibly referring to an unknown organization, according to the Greek Helsinki Monitor. The Security Police of Rhodes has launched an investigation.

It is not the first time that the monument, which was dedicated in 2002, has been vandalized. On each side of the monument the words “Do not ever forget the eternal memory of the 1,604 Jews of Rhodes and Kos who perished in Nazi death camps” are etched, each side in a different language. Some 1,600 Jews were rounded up by the Nazis in July 1944. Today only a handful of Jews remain in Rhodes.

According to Panayote Dimitras, Greek Helsinki Monitor, the perpetrators were Ανένταχτοι Μαιάνδριοι Εθνικιστές (A.M.E.), who define themselves as non-aligned nationalists. A.M.E. play with anti-capitalist imagery, support the Syntagma square movement, and frame themselves as “autonomous ethnicists”. But they also call themselves national socialists and celebrate figures like Eugene Terreblanche. Like the “national anarchist” movement globally, they borrow from autonomist and antifa aesthetic, presumably competing for something of the same market, while purveying a far right ideology.

I won’t link to their site, but here is some of their iconography.