Hadjidakis on fascism

Neo-Nazism is not the others

By Manos Chatzidakis

(June 15th, 1994 – Manos Chatjidakis crosses the threshold of immortality. A few months before his death, he wrote the following, which was published in the program of a concert against Nazism, given by The Orchestra of Colours)

Neo-Nazism, fascism, racism and every anti-social and anti-human behavior are not products of ideology, do not contain ideology and neither do they constitute ideology. It is the magnified expression/manifestation of the beast within us growing unhindered, because its barbaric and anti-human presence is aided, enhanced or contributed to by social or political circumstances.

The only “antibiotic” against the beast within is Education. I am talking about real education and not the irresponsible education and unfiltered information which avoids the restless and questioning thinking process. I am talking about the education which does not rest on its laurels and does not create complacency to the student, but instead multiplies questions and insecurity. This kind of education is not favored by political parties and all the governments, because it produces free and non-submissive citizens, who are of no use to the lowly game of parties and politics. The conviction that beasts can be goaded and tamed with the proper method and manipulation, is a long standing tradition in politics. But birds are different… Only murderers and miserable hunters who follow “every nation’s noble traditions” are suitable for the birds. And there are times when circumstances help the beast multiply and under the guise of “popular demands and requests” spread like a contagious disease that infects large masses of people and causes lethal epidemic outbreaks

A recent example is World War II. This war, however, generated for some time a strong fallacy, an illusion. We all believed that in this war Democracy fought fascism and won. Think about it: “Democracy”, in other words us Greeks with Metaxas[1] as our leader and Stalin as our ally, we fought Nazism, as if it were an ideology alien to us. And we… beat it. How utopic and audacious! We never thought that refusing to take responsibility for the beastly part of ourselves and placing it on another nation completely subjugated to the beast, we weren’t defeating fascism, just another dangerous nation looking to conquer us.

It was a war like so many others, waged by dangerous fools against other fools who were only occasionally harmless. Naturally, the mumbo-jumbo regarding “Freedom”, “Democracy” and “spiritual cradle” was meant for naïve readers of easily consumed newspaper columns. Freedom can never win as long as it is supported and carried by people who insist on transferring their responsibilities to others. (It reminds one of the ethics of older Christians; they want no responsibility with either good or evil—that responsibility belongs to Christ or the devil. They believe in a God who forgives our weaknesses when and if we remember him during our irresponsible life. They constantly try to ensure their everlasting presence after death. They are incapable of conceiving the concept of our absence; the fact that there can be a world without us and without “righteous priests” like bishop Kadiotis of Florina.)

It is better not to expand. I’m afraid I do not have the proper knowledge for a theoretical analysis, nor the vocabulary required for such a topic. The issue, however, is burning me up inside. Many years ago I tried to clarify it in my head. Today I know that my sensitivity was foreseeing the developments and the reemergence of the beast. I refused to get used to its constantly increasing presence. I always prefer to get scared.

Neo-nazism is not the others. It’s not the hated murderers, who always find the police sympathetic 1towards them due to a strange but not inexplicable similarity. Who the government and the authorities have been used to and consider them a political extension of themselves or an acceptable opposite carrying no particular or disturbing significance. (Lately I read that in Patras, a neo-Nazi party inaugurated their headquarters right across the street from the police station. There was no concern for the fascists, neither a concern for the policemen; and of course no concern for the people around.)

Nationalism is also Nazism. The soldiers’ shaved heads, even though done without their consent, facilitate the exit of thought and reason, in order to subdue them and make them more suitable to accept orders and directives to inflict death: To themselves or someone else. Experience teaches me that real thinking and reasoning must end somewhere. It’s for nobody’s good. So I stop. Focusing and expanding on the subject makes my amateurish approach vulnerable to the enemy.

Still, I must proclaim my passion for the real and unobstructed freedom for humans. Fascism in our day appears in two forms. It is either provocative, on the pretense of reacting to political or social events that do not favor its cause, or passive, dominated by fear of everything that is going on around us. So it is tolerance and passiveness. And that is how provocation establishes itself: With the tolerance of the many. A slow and silent death is preferable to the reaction of the sensitive system which is alive within us.

The ghost of the beast is particularly strong among the young. The young are also the target of marketing. The Media dictate a lifestyle that favors sales. Just as drug dealing finds a favor ground in the youth, so is with music, ideas, dancing and everything revolving around their way of life that have created an industry with huge and unthinkable financial interests. When there is no solid education to pose resistance, all the above create a fertile ground for self-centeredness, self-absorption, emptiness and brutal instincts to flourish. Observe their dance, full of uniform military movements, completely detached from any desire for contact and communication; observe their song full of codified repetitious words; observe the absence of books and reason from their behavior and their goal of a toil-free career full of profit and easy success.

Day after day we express the part of ourselves that is either full of fear or does not think, pursuing constantly more and more profit. Until someday the right “leader” emerges, taking advantage of our despicable content. But then it will be too late to react. Neo-Nazism is you and me – just like in the play by Pirantello. It is you, us and our children. We accept the inhuman way we treat AIDS carriers out of ignorance and show our “humanity” and leniency when it comes to those humanoid serpents of fascism, again out of ignorance but also out of fear and habit.

And the Evil lurks, unabashedly without cover. Neo-Nazism is not a theory, nor thought and anarchy. It is a play. With you and me playing and Death at the starring role.