Excellent Serb Hellenic Forums Commentary On The Greek Mass Media Blackout On Nationalist And National Issues In Greece

I don't know how many Greeks know specifically about this incident but I know that mainstream newspapers and news channels suppress news that has the potential to reinforce national and religious feelings.

For example, about a year ago anarchists attacked three Greek students with hammers, tire irons, and saws because one of them was seen wearing a shirt with a Greek flag on it. Two of the three students suffered serious, life-threatening injuries, with one of them falling into a coma. Despite the fact that the media goes into a frenzy for days, if not weeks, when there is a rumor of an attack on a leftist, homosexual, or foreigner, absolutely nothing was reported on this incident on any major television channels even though there are eyewitness reports that those channels had initially sent reporters to get information on what had happened. Likewise, the police did not seriously investigate the attack since they have a policy of not investigating criminal or terrorist acts committed against nationalists. As a result, nationalists numbered in the hundreds held a vigil outside of the hospital where the Greek student was being cared for. Although a television station was again on the scene to take statements, no television station reported on the vigil. As it was obvious that the media was suppressing all news of this event, nationalists held a protest outside one of the television stations that had investigated the incident but never broadcast any news reports regarding it. Despite the protest, the station in question did not broadcast news about the attack or about the protest. In reaction to this news blackout, nationalists from European countries who were informed of what had happened staged demonstrations in their own countries to show solidarity with the victims and to show that terrorism by the state would not be tolerated. In fact, Italian nationalists not only occupied the offices of two Greek ferries to help bring attention to the situation in Greece but also directly appealed to the Euro-Parliament. Alessandra Mussolini, granddaughter of Benito Mussolini and a member of the Euro-Parliament, formally brought attention to the incident, along with the media's blackout and the police's failure to investigate the crime, to the Euro-Parliament by calling for initiatives to be taken against the Greek political establishment for maintaining a climate of violence against nationalists. One would think that this act would have earned attention in the Greek media, but it didn't. (For more information regarding this incident, see Brutal attack on Greek students by Anarchists.)

When the media cannot suppress news and the people become informed and outraged over the political establishment's actions, the political establishment does not change its position because of public opinion -- regardless of mass mobilizations.

For instance, several years ago the political establishment decided to remove all references to religion off of the Greek identification cards in an attempt to slowly secularize the country. Since the Church is powerful and cannot be ignored, this issue gained much media attention, even outside of Greece. The majority of Greeks realized that the establishment was trying to minimize Orthodoxy so, with the Church leading them, massive protests, sometimes numbering in the hundreds of thousands, occurred. In addition, the Church managed to collect a petition of over three million signatures calling for a national referendum to determine the matter. More people signed this petition than the number of people who voted into office the party who made these changes to the identification cards. Despite this, the establishment refused to hold a referendum! (For more information regarding this event, see: "Simitis to the Greek People: 'Drop Dead!'" which can be found listed here.)

These examples should give you an idea of how terrible the situation is. That said, I should also note that when the Greek political establishment announced its plans to create a mosque in Athens (since there are no mosques in the city), many Greeks were very opposed to the idea (and still are). So it goes without saying that Greeks would be equally opposed to the establishment building mosques in areas that belong to Orthodox Christians, like Sarajevo. Unfortunately, Greeks are kept uninformed by the establishment and, when they manage to become informed, there is not much they can do to force the establishment to listen to them.