Thread by @PRoufos

Make no mistake: in the future, these days will be remembered not only for the ecological devastation that took place in Greece in the summer of 2023 but as a key conjunctural point of the country’s final descent into fascism. 1/

There are currently hundreds of wildfires in different parts of Greece. This is an official list that shows the largest ones. “Εκτός ελέγχου” means “out of control". 2/

One of the largest and most dangerous wildfires is in Evros, the region that borders with Turkey in Greece’s north east. According to Copernicus, the wildfire there is the largest recorded in European soil for years. 3/

https://twitter.com/CopernicusEMS/status/1694643392863465488?s=20

While the police and fire department have officially declared that this wildfire was caused by lightning, the prevailing narrative is that migrants started the fires. This propaganda is spreading faster and wider than the fire itself. 4/

https://twitter.com/daphnenews/status/1694333424012505310?s=20

Fascist parties claim that Greece is “at war” and openly call for the formation of militias to take the law into their own hands and hunt down migrants. 5/

https://twitter.com/nastaziarev/status/1694091582020948185?s=20

They are joined by academics like this former University Dean who, after stating he is against vigilantism, offers his “exceptional” support for citizens “arresting” migrants. 6/

Local vigilantes respond and publicly organise ‘hunting parties’. Here, a man in military outfit instructs the crowd not to bring “weapons and knives” because “the [state] won’t let them”. Someone is heard asking:“can’t we kill them [migrants]”? 7/

https://twitter.com/ThePressProject/status/1694322163149353155?s=20

Two days ago, a local found and kidnapped around 15 migrants, locking them up in a closed wagon. The video went viral and the comments were dominated by calls to execute or burn them on the spot. 8/

https://twitter.com/EFSYNTAKTON/status/1694020764012359710?s=20

According to sources, while the man responsible (an Albanian closely connected with the local New Democracy apparatus) was arrested, so were the migrants : their kidnappers accused them of arson. 9/

This local vigilantism is not new. It was the prominent response in March 2020 when, with the official support of EU officials who visited the area, the Greek state “turned a blind eye” to locals mobilising to hunt down migrants. 10/

That 18 migrants, hiding from the police in the forest, died horrifyingly in the fire does nothing to spoil the cacophony of inhumanity. In proper fascist fashion, the actual victims of the disaster are transformed into its perpetrators. 11/

Following closely this fascist narrative, the Ministry of Migration declares that the death of the 18 migrants is a consequence of illegal crossings. 12/

Passionate calls for mass murder are by now normalised, further fuelled by the most idiotic conspiracy theories: migrants are for example accused of obstructing the work of aerial firefighting by … throwing rocks at the planes! And people believe it. 13/

What is the official state doing all this time? Following the established strategy of their PR team which is reduced to taking credit when things go well and disappearing when they don’t, the PM is still on holiday (perhaps still with EU commissioner von der Leyen). 14/

While some regurgitate migrant culpability as it conveniently distracts from state responsibility/failure, others are engaged in imaginative tiptoeing around reality: the situation is “unprecedented” since “climate change came earlier than expected”. 15/

https://twitter.com/SophistMammoth/status/1694090122738749667?s=20

Government spokespersons, erroneously referred to as “journalists”, are more than happy to throw further fuel into the fire. In live broadcasts they “innocently” ask lawyers and cops “when it is legal to take the law into your own hands” 16/

https://twitter.com/daphnenews/status/1694592471676690466?s=20

At the same time, any hint of criticism towards the government is immediately suppressed from live broadcasts: the “journalists” speak over them, the camera is re-directed away from the interviewee, the interview is stopped. I kid you not. 17/

https://twitter.com/ThePressProject/status/1694626746203611534?s=20

Government-controlled state television also facilitates the dehumanisation of migrants by shamelessly declaring that the 18 migrants who died in the fire DO NOT COUNT AS LOSSES OF HUMAN LIFE. 18/

https://twitter.com/ninarei/status/1694638992577196099?s=20

Fascism can also be defined as a moment when domination is propagated by the dominated. This particular regression, fuelled by years of economic decline and the gradual but certain disintegration of social relations, is now coming full circle. 19/

The performance of national unity through the meeting of governmental authoritarianism with the violence from below “allows the class-relationship it denies to triumph more implacably”. 20/

All we are left with is recording the decline.