The politics of fear: A Critical Discourses Analysis of Golden Dawn’s “ideological” texts
The hate speech that is being projected by the modern populist far-right parties in Europe creates fear and demonizes every kind of diversity, while the dissemination of this hate speech into public “normalizes” the politics of fear in the political system, thus contributing to the adoption of (xeno/homo-) phobic social practices. In this study it is attempted a Critical Discourse Analysis of Golden Dawn’s “ideological” texts, one of the most extremist political parties in Europe. Specifically, from the analysis of seventeen ideological texts in 2012-2013, we will attempt the investigation of the ways that fear is cultivated through speech, aiming to promote it as a basic tool of manipulation of their political propaganda. The theoretical framework and the research tools for this specific analysis, were drawn from the Discourse Historical Approach developed by Ruth Wodak and other scholars in Vienna. As it seems from the research categories of the main arguments – “topoi” -, Golden Dawn’s speech systematically builds fear, based on imagined or realistic dangers, obtaining context from crisis discourses, the mythical national identity and the complex socio-political circumstances of the Greek society, while simultaneously, it is targeting groups or people as “scapegoats”, showcasing their actions as threatening or damaging for “Our Nation”. At the same time, the revival of the extreme concept of the purity of blood – “common blood, common race, common nation” – and the creation of an enormous threat of “parasites”, raise the necessity for protection by the “saviors” of the Golden Dawn’s members.