Yesterday was a beautiful, sunny, spring day. The kind of day that makes you think nothing can be bad all the time! There is warmth and life and beauty. As I drove down towards the sea the road was quite packed with like minded people, venturing out to savour the beauty of a longed for Spring.

At some point, in the middle of the street there was a young man distributing newspapers. I thought it was a freebie, but didn’t stop to take one because the traffic light was green. As I passed by him, however, I was in for an unpleasant surprise. The paper he was handing out was Chryssi Avgi, or Golden Dawn, the name of the Neo Nazi party of Greece,

As I drove along there were several young men in the street giving out their paper. Then as I approached another traffic light I saw a lot of Greek flags and wondered if it was some sort of celebration day or perhaps that the flags had been left over from the 25th March Independence Day celebrations.

But when I stopped at the light I found that the flags were being  vigorously waved by a crowd of similarly attired men, in sort of navy blue army fatigues with caps, and Golden Dawn arm bands. All very neat and disciplined. Out en masse making their presence felt.

In the opinion polls published last night they had scored a high rating of 5.5%! To enter parliament a party needs to gain 3% of the vote. Which means, if this is born out, that the Golden Dawn nazis will enter parliament after the next elections. Uniforms, arm bands and all?

You’d have thought that the Germans of all people would be alert to the dangers of stringent austerity. They know, or should know, what kind of reactions such policies lead to. But no, oh no. All they can remember from Weimar is the hyper inflation. And all that matters to them is that hyper inflation should never happen again.

Surely, Nazi party members, all trooping into parliament in uniforms and arm bands, as the Golden Dawn boys are set to do, should be something The Frau would rather not see either? You’d think so. You’d also think she’d know that squeezing a whole nation till the pips squeak as she is currently doing in Greece (and elsewhere to a greater or lesser extent), might, might just lead to some such extremism. Dangerous extremism.

Now this is a contagion that risks spreading! Not just the so called debt crisis, is it not?

 

And this is not a joke!