Australia's Greek community rejects visit by Golden Dawn representatives.

[pampango]

Golden Dawn visit dismays Australia’s Greek community

Greek Australians vow to stop neo-fascist party from spreading hate as extremist group steps up efforts to tap diaspora for support


The Golden Dawn party more than doubled its showing in May’s Athens mayoral elections and racist attacks have proliferated over the city’s summer.

A planned visit to Australia by members of the European parliament representing Greece’s neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party has been met with embarrassment and dismay by leading members of the country’s Greek community.

Days after the extremist group announced that former army generals Eleftherios Synadinos and Georgios Epitideios would visit Sydney and Melbourne in October, Greek Australians vowed to stop the organisation spreading its message of hate. “Greeks in Australia oppose Golden Dawn,” Bill Papastergiadis, the president of the Greek Orthodox Community of Melbourne and Victoria, told Guardian Australia. “The visit by an anti-immigrant party is incompatible with the pluralist and multicultural society in which we live.”

The visit aimed to raise awareness and funds, Gavrilidis said. He acknowledged that some ultra-nationalist Golden Dawn MPs admired Hitler – with its leader, Nikolaos Michaloliakos, keeping a portrait of the Führer in his home – but they neither espoused nor endorsed Nazi ideology.

“Yes they have admired the leadership of Hitler, just like we also admire the leadership of many strong leaders across the world,” Gavrilidis told the public broadcaster. “Vladimir Putin is a very strong leader. He’s got integrity. Benjamin Netanyahu is a very strong leader.”

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/28/golden-dawn-visit-dismays-australias-greek-community

That's quite an eclectic group of 'strong leaders' that Golden Dawn admires - Hitler, Putin and Netanyahu.

I wonder if the president of the Greek community in Australia knows that the terms "pluralism" and "multiculturalism" are despised by the far-right.