Remembering Pavlos Fyssas – this Thursday 18th

16 09 2014

Thursday 18th September marks one year since the death of Pavlos Fyssas – a Greek metal worker, anti-fascist and hip-hop artist who was knifed to death in the street in Athens by Golden Dawn neo-Nazis as police stood by and watched. His tragic death helped wake up the world to the danger of the Golden Dawn and Europe’s resurgent fascist movements.

Greek anti-fascist movements have called for this Thursday to be a Europe wide day of remembrance for Pavlos. There are events taking place across the continent on the 18th.

Following his death the Greek state switched from subtly promoting Golden Dawn to declaring them illegal and putting much of their leadership on trial. In the ensuing police and media attention even more was uncovered about their murders of immigrants, their paramilitary training and their outright Nazi sympathies. This process is still ongoing, with a murder trial implicating the whole Golden Dawn hierarchy in Pavlos’ death seeming likely before the end of the year.

Of course we should remember all victims of fascist violence, but on Thurday we remember Pavlos Fyssas as an active anti-fascist and as someone whose death was hopefully not in vain if it serves to be a turning point in Europe’s slow sleep-walk back into the 1930s.

There is a memorial event in London at the Cable Street mural organised by London Anti-Fascists and four separate events in Ireland – in Cork, Derry, Dublin and Belfast – organised by Anti-Fascist Action Ireland.