Investigating Golden Dawn: “They thought I was easy to manipulate, and I let them believe it”
Angélique Kourounis explains how it was, getting close to Golden Dawn.
French-Greek journalist Angélique Kourounis has followed Golden Dawn since the 80s. With her new documentary ‘Golden Dawn — A Personal Affair’ she manages to get into members houses, knowing that she, herself, would become one of their targets.
“I never trapped them, I want to underline this,” journalist and documentarist Angélique Kourounis tells us over a Skype call from France.
“I never used any hidden cameras. I didn’t start the movie by saying: I want to fuck them up. This is not the way I work,” she explains.
“When I make a movie, I want to discover what people really are, or what they want to hide, if there is anything they want to hide,” she continues.
We are talking about Golden Dawn, of course.
In her latest documentary ‘Golden Dawn — A Personal Affair’ she, along with a small team, follow Golden Dawn members and their activities throughout the last five years.
The documentary is personal; as is very clearly stated in the opening line, with the voice over of Angélique Kourounis:
“I’m a journalist, my partner in life is a Jew, one of my sons is gay, another is an anarchist, and I am a left-wing feminist, as well as a daughter of immigrants… If Golden Dawn comes to power, our only problem would be which wagon they will put us on…” she says.
“I didn’t start the movie waiting for authorization from a channel or something like that. I just started the movie because I felt I had to.”
Angélique Kourounis has since an early age been interested in fascism and dictatorships; how they could occur at all. Brought up in France, with ideals of the republic, going to a secular public school, and then visiting Greece in the 80s seeing racist, sexist headlines in newspapers made her wonder, how could this take place?
Evidently this question followed her, leading her to Golden Dawn: how could a fascistic party exist, so openly?
“That would never be the case in France,” she tells us.
How did she manage to get so close to members of Golden Dawn? How did a journalist, who over the years has covered Golden Dawn critically, who never stopped calling them neo-nazis, and who had already made two smaller documentaries about them, manage to get so close?
There are many small answers, Angélique Kourounis says.
“First of all, I didn’t start the movie waiting for authorization from a channel or something like that. I just started the movie because I felt I had to.”
From the moment she decided to do the documentary, she woke up everyday looking into what they were doing, where they were going, and then going there herself. Continuously for five years.
“In the beginning I was going where the general press was going. At a certain point they wanted to establish a press connection, due to various things. In this period, I was always there. Eventually they started to call us; asking why are you not here?” she says.
But there are also other reasons, why she was allowed so close.
“They were absolutely convinced that I was stupid and silly, and that I was very easy to get rid of,” she says.
“They thought I was easy to manipulate, and I let them believe it.”
Why did they think you were stupid?
“Because they are sexist,” she replies without having to think.
“It is very easy: A woman is stupid. Point blank. Then a fat woman, because I was very fat at this moment, 30 kilos more. And that helped,” she says with no trace of irony.
“The real question,” Angélique Kourounis says “is, why didn’t they have the curiosity to search for my name?”
Well frankly, that is a good question.
“I have a double nationality,” she explains, “my name is not the same in French and in Greek. They are similar but not the same. I always gave them my Greek name.”
“But if they were a little more intelligent or curious they would have found out that I was working as a journalist and I was covering the trial and that I was always using the word neo-nazi. Always. This was the line Thomas (my colleague) and I would never give up,” she says.
“My fear was that they would see that somewhere, or the documentaries I did…”
“I’m conscious. I never go back home alone, in Greece. Not any more. Or I ask the taxi to bring me to a point, and then ask my man to come and pick me up there.”
Angélique Kourounis is walking on thin ice. Following clear threats and hate mail from members of the party directed at her family as well as herself, and continuing to cover them critically meanwhile, she is in a dangerous situation.
“I was beaten. Thomas was beaten, and the cameraman was beaten. In the end I could not find any cameraman, so Thomas had to do the job” she tells us stoically.
As I ask how it felt being so close to Golden Dawn she evades the question; saying how she wouldn’t use the word enemy in talking about them.
The second time I asked how she felt, she just brings another example to the table: how she was threatened with a bullet in her head on social media.
I try again. She seems to be avoiding the question, but she is getting closer:
“It would be untrue to say that I’m not alert. Yes I am,” she says.
“I’m conscious. I never go back home alone, in Greece. Not any more. Or I ask the taxi to bring me to a point, and then ask my man to come and pick me up there.”
The different events; the beating-up; the threats on social media, have all influenced Angélique Kourounis, but she sees it as something embedded in her job description.
She has worked for Charlie Hebdo since 2011, and after the terror attack on the paper on 7th January, 2015, the staff and the building have been under special security measures.
“From that day, we have all had questions in our mind,” she says, “and there have been two answers. One is to say: ‘okay, I want my life; I give up and I’m going to do documentaries on the future of Europe.’ Or: ‘I continue what I am doing, because it is the best thing I can do. It is the way I resist. It is the way I fight. I believe I have to do that, not only for me, but also for my kids’.”
She didn’t have to tell us which answer she chose.
Angélique Kourounis is working along with Loukas Stamellos, the producer of the documentary. They have both been following Golden Dawn for years, but their views on the party, the movement, and the reasons for its rise are still being developed and discussed.
And they don’t agree on everything; that is clear after interviewing them both.
“It’s not, and I agree with Angélique on this issue” Loukas Stamellos starts out, “the crisis is not the reason for the rise of Golden Dawn.”
“The crisis is probably a catalyst for the phenomenon, but it is not the reason behind it,” he continues.
“I would say that the mentality of Golden Dawn is cultivated by the political system, by the church, by the education system. It is not something new, it is something deeply embedded in Greek society. It was always here,” he says.
“It is a very personal belief, but a nation state is built on nationalism. And nationalism has very bad repercussions, even for democracy itself. The state has cultivated nationalism all these years in order to maintain the exception of marginalized groups. At some point this nationalism, the group which see themselves as the nation’s roots, who have a strong national identity; they will try to take over, when they feel that they are threatened,” Loukas Stamellos continues.
Here we see some of their main disagreements concerning understanding Golden Dawn as a fascist phenomenon.
While Loukas Stamellos sees the nation state as a reason for fascism, Angélique Kourounis see the nation as a necessity, and one which shouldn’t be overthrown to nationalists.
“I think it is a big mistake to give up on the national symbol of a state to fascism,” she tells. “To leave the flag to fascists is blasphemy, and not only, it is a political mistake, because you give them the right to say that they are the real Greeks,” she continues.
“But no! Who says you are the real Greek? If we go back to antiquity and ask who is Greek? The Greek is whoever received a Greek education; so the black guy from Ethiopia, the Albanian guy, you or me… Because we have had Greek education, philosophy, history,” she continues.
Loukas Stamellos and Angélique Kourounis will probably not settle on the reasons for the existence of Golden Dawn anytime soon, but it seems they will keep on doing their job; following Golden Dawn…
“As a person said yesterday at Charlie’s” Angélique Kourounis explains,“if I gave up now, I know they would be very pleased, and I am not sure I want to please them… I would say the same: I am not sure I want to please them…”
Interested in the Golden Dawn trial? Follow Golden Dawn Watch
If you liked this post, please click on the ♥ below to recommend it to your friends, and follow us to catch the next one. Thanks!
Don’t forget to like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and Instagram, and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
If you have any corrections, ideas, or even profanities to share, feel free to email us info@athenslive.gr
