The last few days a series of surveys in Greece show the neo-Nazi party of the Golden Dawn rising to the position of the third party in popularity with more than 12%. The same time the insolence of their representatives in the Greek parliament has crossed every single line of legality. The last few days, members of the neo-Nazi party have said in public speeches unbelievable things reminding that parliamentary immunity gives them the right to do and say whatever they want.

The other day the speaker of the party – an obviously very disturbed young man – said that under the parliamentary immunity the MPs of the party can carry guns legally and say whatever they want without been afraid that they will be legally charged. Oddly one of the things Golden Dawn has flagged since before their appearance in the parliament is their opposition to the parliamentary immunity which, always according to them, has protected the politicians of answering to the Greek people for their mistakes and crimes.

So in Greece this moment there is a party that believes that two periods of the Modern Greek history, two periods shadowed by two dictatorships are the best periods politically and socially for the country. In both periods the parliament was shut. Any opposition was suppressed and there were thousands of Greeks in prisons or in exile in rock-islands where isolation is a life-style and abroad. Freedom of speech was an unknown word and any try to say what you really thought was a passport either for the torture champers or prison. In both cases there was no political life; most of the parties were illegal with the excuse that they were infiltrated by communists and people were not allowed to have opinion. Even thinking something against the regime was enough to throw you into a prison cell.

During both periods Greeks died. They died in torture champers, they died in prison cells, they died in exile, they died in dark aisles. During the last dictatorship (1967 -1974) a gathering of more than three people needed permission from the police – your kid’s birthday in their limited brain was a communists’ conspiracy - and every single newspaper, article, book even a song was going first from a censorship committee that would decide if the lyrics of a love song were not expressing any opposition to the regime or calling for an uprising. There are a lot of anecdotes from that period most of them having nothing funny in them. Sophocles was forbidden from the schools just because he dared mention in one of his books – a book written more than 2,000 years ago – the word democracy. And till here I have mentioned only the things they did to their own compatriots. These people are full of hate for anything that doesn’t fulfil their prejudice and stereotypes. Physical and ideological stereotypes. For them the whole world is us and them and for this ‘them’ there is only one place and that is death. Actually these people ideologically and in practice they have absolutely no difference with Saddam Hussein and his followers in Iraq.

So these people believe that these were the best periods for the country. I emphasized the second dictatorship in the period 1967-1974 because the memories from that period are fresh. People over forty years-old remember and they know beyond history books. They actually have memories. So why more than 700,000 will support anybody who champions these ideas?

In 2012 and after decades of strangling and living in the boarder of legality taking something under 1% in the elections we saw the Golden Dawn, the Greek neo-Nazis, taking 426.000 votes, 6,92% and 18 seats in the Greek parliament. That came after two years of a lethal recession that has brought the Greek people on their knees with desperation having become a daily companion. What led to that situation has many names. Internal and external and we have talked about it many times before but what made 426,000 people vote for a party that flags the most inhuman measures in opposite to an inhuman recession is still not answered.

I know the arguments and I have heard them all. Desperation leads people to these short of parties. Desperation leads people to dispirit measures. Yes. When somebody is hungry and dispirit to feed his/hers kid otherwise the kid will die then they will steal. This is true. But how many people despite their desperation will steal? I think this is the question we forget. How many of those lethally dispirit are ready to do the crime especially before even testing all alternatives? How many people will choose – because here we talk about a choice - to kill for a piece of bread? Miserable is our reality but how many can be Jean Valjean beyond Hugo’s novel?

So who were these 426,000 people and who are the over 700,000 who support this neo-Nazi group in Greece this moment? They are the 12% who did the torturing and the raping; they are the informers and soldiers who sustained and supported these regimes. They are the ones who profited from these regimes with the death and extinct of thousands. Mihaloliakos and Kasidiaris, the leading figures of the Golden Down with the rabble that supports and follows them are a group of thugs who use the political system this moment, supporting mafia methods like their ideological ancestors – Hitler, Mussolini, Saddam - to eliminate anything that stop them of profiting. Because in their case we are talking about profiting. What was the first thing  all of them did when they came into power, it was to make sure that they lived in palaces, they had endless access to money and let their ego live the “rich life” Just like caricatures in reality shows. These are the 700,000 people who support them, caricatures of a dangerous reality show and it will be democratic if we start asking for their legality.

Last but not least. These people, Mihaloliakos and Kasidiaris and the rabble that supports and follows them, are often emphasize that they are true Greeks and they do everything for the best of the Greek people. All my life I’ve been proud to be a Greek – and living abroad is not always easy – and I’m proud for many reasons including historical and cultural. But I’m embarrassed Mihaloliakos and Kasidiaris are Greeks.

P.S. The neo-Nazis of the golden Dawn in Greece have come with a new despicable trend lately and especially before the anniversary of the Polytechnic Uprising in Athens. Mimicking their ideological comrade thugs Nazis they say that everything is a myth, nothing really happened and that there were no dead.

This is the list of the names with the dead in the Athens Polytechnic, 17th November 1973:

Spiridon Kontomaris, age 57
Diomidis Komninos, age 17
Socratis Mihail, age 57
Vasilios Famellos, age 26
Torill Engeland Magrette, age 22
Georgios Samouris, age 22
Dimitrios Kyriakopoulos, age 35
Spyros Marinos, age 35
Nicolaos Markoulis, age 24
Ekaterini Argyropoulou, age 76
Stylianos Karageorgis, age 19
Marcos Karamanis, age 23
Alexandros Spartidis, age 16
Dimitrios Papaioannoy, age 60
Georgios Gertzidis, age 48
Vasiliki Bekiari, age 17
Dimitris Theodoras, age 5
Alexandros Vasilios, age 43
Alexandros Papathanasiou, age 59
Andreas Koumpos, age 63
Mihail Myrogiannis, age 20
Kyriakos Panteleakis, age 43
Eystathios Koliniatis, age 47
Ioannis Mikronis, age 22