The events of Anti-Fascist September, marking 13 years since the murder of Pavlos Fyssas by the Nazi criminal organization Golden Dawn, began on Monday, September 14. The events will culminate in the major rally on Friday, September 18, in Keratsini, at 5:30 p.m., starting at the memorial of the anti-fascist musician. The march will proceed to the Kokkinia Blockade site, while demonstrations will take place that same day in many other cities across the country.
The discussions, screenings, artistic events and performances taking place at the Lipasmata Cultural Complex in Keratsini-Drapetsona are once again this year accompanying the anti-fascist movement’s major gathering (the full program is available on the social media of the “Pavlos Killah P Fyssas” Cultural Association). All the events connect the anniversary of the murder with the struggle against fascists today and against those who are once again paving the way for them.
The mass turnout at the mobilizations is the best response to Kasidiaris’s release from prison and to the systematic efforts by the mass media, which once again rushed to give him publicity. The anti-fascist movement is not waiting for the institutions to decide whether or not he can participate in elections. It declares loudly that the place of the “Fuhrer” and all those like him is behind bars.
Developments in Germany raise the stakes for the rallies. The anti-racist struggle, against governments that target refugees and migrants and devastate the lives of workers and young people, is emerging as central to stopping the rise of the far right and fascists.
Below is the latest statement from KEERFA, explaining the reasons behind their electoral success in Germany and highlighting the force that can crush them everywhere:
The election results in Saxony-Anhalt, with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) winning 43.8% of the vote, are a dangerous development. Trump and Musk are rushing to celebrate the growing strength of their far-right agenda. Just days before the 13th anniversary of Pavlos Fyssas’s murder, “authoritative analysts” in the media are taking for granted a rapid rise of the far right following Kasidiaris’s release from prison.
We have the power to prove them wrong again! In the United States itself, the far right has suffered setbacks through the uprising in Minneapolis, when Trump sent ICE’s immigration agents and they killed nurse Alex Pretti and poet Renee Good, while Orbán in Hungary is a thing of the past.
What went wrong in Germany?
Discontent with the Merz government, the political counterparts of Mitsotakis, over its involvement in wars and savage cuts to public Education and Health in order to support the arms race, and over the burden of the crisis being placed on ordinary people through high prices and layoffs, turned toward the far right, which shamelessly engaged in demagoguery by posing as an anti-establishment force. The Merz government fueled the rise of the far right through racism and increasingly brutal attacks on migrants. The AfD capitalized on the government’s openly racist agenda to normalize even the presence of Hitler nostalgists within its party.
This development was not inevitable. In Greece, we fought and crushed Golden Dawn. How? Through the mass, united action of trade unions and young people in universities and schools, hand in hand with the struggle against racism. Through mass strikes, we fought against austerity, and with the same weapon we ultimately secured the conviction of the Golden Dawn Nazis.
The opposition in Germany did not fight the battle against racism and the far right, and that is why the far right grew stronger. Yet the German labor movement was and remains engaged in struggles against layoffs; young people have been fighting against compulsory conscription for the war; and the solidarity movement with Palestine stood up against its wholesale vilification as “antisemitic.” In recent days, thousands have repeatedly demonstrated against the far right in dozens of German cities. It was disillusionment, not the population’s shift toward conservatism, that led to the electoral surge of the far right.
On the 13th anniversary of Pavlos Fyssas’s murder, we have a battle to fight against the New Democracy government and Plevris, who are opening the way for the fascists through the murders of migrants in Pylos, the extermination of people in death camps such as the one in Sintiki, and the vile campaign of Islamophobia.
At the major nationwide demonstration at the Thessaloniki International Fair on September 5, we showed that this government is a minority and can be brought down. Thousands of workers and students marched side by side with migrants. We have the power to crush every attempt to regroup the remnants of Golden Dawn and all the likes of Kasidiaris. We must not allow anger against the government responsible for the deaths at Tempi, Pylos and in Palestine to fuel Velopoulos and Latinopoulou.
That is why we need to fight against racism in every workplace, every university department, every school and every neighborhood. We must unite our struggles for wage increases, permanent contracts for temporary workers, and decent housing from the Prosfygika housing complex to Kypseli, in order to put a stop to the destruction of our lives, together with the anti-racist and anti-fascist struggle. That is how we become stronger and win!
We must stand alongside the uprising of migrants in Sintiki, demanding that the detention camps be closed, that borders be open, and that asylum be granted to refugees. We must fight for the trial to take place in the Naval Court and for those responsible for the deaths of the 600 refugees in the Pylos disaster to be imprisoned.
Let us send our own message of solidarity to the people who rose up and demonstrated in Germany against the threat of the far right.
On September 18, we will flood Keratsini and every city in Greece to remind everyone that this is how we crushed the fascist killers of Golden Dawn—and that we will continue until they have not a single inch left to gain a foothold in our neighborhoods.