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Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Theater / International Greek Fascists, Nuns, and Anarchists Clash Over Terrence McNally Play

Posted by Brendan Kiley on Tue, Oct 16, 2012 at 9:56 AM

This sounds like one hell of an opening night.

It's a warm night in Athens and the nuns have broken the police line. They didn't have to try too hard. The lines of riot cops assembled outside the Chytirio theatre are mostly trying to stop the anti-fascists from reaching the neo-nazis, nuns and priests who have come to protest the opening of the “gay jesus” play Corpus Christi, not the other way around. So when the little old lady in the black habit bobs past the shields and helmets to harangue assembled anarchists and activists about blasphemy and sodomy, nobody tries to stop her.

This is the opening night of Corpus Christi, Terrence McNally's iconoclastic 1998 play which casts Jesus and his disciples as gay men in rural Texas. It wasn't supposed to be the first performance – last night's opening was violently shut down by a gang of thugs from the fascist Golden Dawn party, who warned that that "in any case where the religious sentiment of Greeks is insulted, the Golden Dawn will react dynamically”.

"Dynamically" meant, in practice, that audience members and journalists were beaten, threatened and called "faggots" and "ass-munchers", and the police – 50 percent of whom, according to some polls, are Golden Dawn supporters – allowed it to happen. Eventually the fascists managed to lock the actors inside the theatre and opening night was postponed...

Tonight, 200 anarchists and anti-fascists have come out to protect the theatre from the Golden Dawn. Right now, there is a stand off.

Besides attacking theatergoers, these Golden Dawn fascists are filling a vacuum in Greece's economic and political chaos—electing legislators and aligned with a police force "that increasingly appears beyond state control, and which has long forsaken its role of protecting citizens from the thugs they now side with."

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Jesus was not Texan. I am offended.

Posted by MacCrocodile

on October 16, 2012 at 10:02 AM

Jesus not only was Texan, he rode a Texan Dinosaur.

That's why he's called Jesus. Pronounced "Hay-Seuss".

Posted by Will in Seattle

on October 16, 2012 at 10:07 AM

Corpus Christi has sure stirred up a lot of shit for being such a crappy play. I thought it was tired, predictable and gimmicky.

Posted by Bub on October 16, 2012 at 10:12 AM

Well,fascism is nothing new to Greece. Ask Costa-Gavras. And the answer to resistance against controversial Jesus plays is more controversial Jesus plays until the old superstitious fucks die out and cracks begin to appear in that whole belief system. Hopefully, it will be replaced by a system of tolerance, enlightenment, and understanding. Many believe that without religion there is no moral purpose. In other words, if the Ten Commandments didn't exist, we'd all lie and kill and cheat, etc. And of course, the purveyors have encouraged that belief. It keeps their larders filled and their floors waxed.

What more can you say about people who cloak themselves in "good will and doing for others" but protest theater events?

Posted by Bauhaus I on October 16, 2012 at 10:20 AM

Wait until the new play of Mary, Full of Grace, Wife of Jesus opens next week ...

Posted by Will in Seattle

on October 16, 2012 at 10:24 AM

Looks like SPD will be hiring these thugs as consultants for reform; they are already halfway there.

Posted by hmmmmm on October 16, 2012 at 10:57 AM

Eventually the fascists managed to lock the actors inside the theatre and opening night was postponed...

Phew. When I started reading that sentence, I imagined it ending with the fascists setting the theater on fire.

Posted by keshmeshi on October 16, 2012 at 10:58 AM

Fascism is Jesus' baby.

Posted by Pope Peabrain on October 16, 2012 at 11:53 AM

The Greeks brought all this shit on themselves. It's an entire society of tea-bagger "Gubmint outta my Medicare" tax evaders. Well, the chicken have now come home to roost

Posted by tkc on October 16, 2012 at 12:29 PM

@9 I guess your a troll so a simple "haha fuck you troll" will do since you don't have a single clue what your talking about and probably just managed to get through the easy read version of some pundits column about Greece.

The problem with Golden Dawn goes beyond Greece. First of all they are part of a growing right wing reactionary movement against the EU and austerity measures put in place by the IMF. In former east-block the same kinds of parties are growing and combined with the well-combed, nice-talking right wing versions in Northern Europe (Sverigedemokraterna here in Sweden for example) its just shows of a rather nasty trend. As we in Scandinavia are doing well economically the more extreme or open racist parties don't get much leg room but they still influence politics and with a right wing party at the head of many states, a dismantling of social security rights and worker rights the stage is set for a larger confrontation.
The usuall conservatives are simply picking up the racist parties rhetorics and have included criticism against immigration more and more the last year and even though their own members rebel against this (since most of our conservatives are kinda what you guys would call "right wing liberals") they know it will get them votes and cooperation from the extreme right.
The same pattern is occurring around Europe and it will just get worse the more austerity measures are used as a way out of the economic crisis (which has never really worked historically but wtf). The Imf and the banking industry is raking in cash right now from the crisis and they even put their own man in the Greek Parliament (the technocrat the Greeks basicly had to chose if they wanted the last loan a few months ago).

Its gonna get shittier I think (hell people are preparing for Greece to return to the Junta already and Spanish Civil War slogans are going about which is weird)

More...

Posted by JensR

on October 16, 2012 at 12:47 PM

@10 Ah. The old "lable everybody with who disagrees with you as a troll."

First off I am AGAIST the EU austerity measures. But that is irrelevant. The problem goes back before all that. And if you knew a single thing about Greece, you'd know that.

I spend a reasonable amount of time (a few weeks a ever couple of years) in Greece and have relatives there. My relatives live in Crete.

Here's an interesting little aside from Athen News on Tax evasion on the islands.

http://www.athensnews.gr/portal/1/57256

Tax evasion rates as high as 100 per cent were recorded in resorts on the islands of Zakynthos and Lefkada, in Rethymno on Crete and in Kastoria. Other areas on Crete also recorded very high rates of tax evasion, reaching 87 percent in Hania and 78 percent in Iraklio, followed by Santorini (83%), Corfu (75%), Naxos (73%) and Mykonos (68.5%).

Did you read that? 83% Tax evasion!

Tax evasion in Greece is epidemic. This is a fact. Right or left. It's both side of the political spectrum. It's been that way for... well... for fifty years. And it only got worse once the Greeks started viciously exploiting immigrant labor in an underground economy of epic proportions. All of this has it's roots in Greek failure to trust and support a government. Which goes back to before the military juntas of the seventies.

BTW. It's you who don't know shit about Greece or Greek culture.

Posted by tkc on October 16, 2012 at 1:17 PM

@11, Shrinking GDP by 25% is directly responsible for the rise of fascism. Greeks didn't choose austerity willingly. It was forced onto them by bankers and technocrats who were told many times it would lead to the present situation. Note that authoritarian rule isn't foreign to neoliberalism.

Posted by anon1256 on October 16, 2012 at 4:09 PM

Isn't being gay the most traditionally Greek thing you can do?

For the record I have also met Greek Anarchist, they also act like a bunch of misogynistic fascist thugs.

Posted by Cascadian Bacon on October 16, 2012 at 5:16 PM

@3: So it's just like every other Terrence McNally play?

Posted by Joe Glibmoron on October 16, 2012 at 5:24 PM

This is all about power. The fascists are basically attempting to assert, "you have no right to say things that we find offensive, because we have the power to dominate you by violent force." That the police are supporting them instead of countering them is absolutely appalling and those police who allowed them to get away with this should all be fired to send a message that this will not be tolerated. Because if they do tolerate it, it will only embolden them, and they will soon be attacking more targets, taking away more people's rights.

Posted by I have always been... east coaster on October 16, 2012 at 10:33 PM