Natalie Bakopoulos: Is Greece Going Back to the Colonels?

Natalie Bakopoulos is the author of the novel “The Green Shore.”

FORTY-FIVE years ago, on April 21, 1967, a right-wing group of colonels seized power in Greece. Tanks rolled into the center of Athens; politicians, artists and journalists were arrested; and the ensuing military dictatorship lasted for seven years.

Decades after the restoration of democracy, we are again hearing echoes of the junta and its aftermath. Nationalistic slogans are uttered by right and left. The rising phoenix — the colonels’ emblem — has been featured on some candidate posters for the far-right-wing party Golden Dawn, and its leader, Nikos Michaloliakos, has glorified the period. It would be easy to dismiss him as a fringe voice were it not for the fact that his party gained parliamentary representation in last weekend’s elections for the first time. It gathered votes from the traditional supporters of the junta and the political right, but it was also the second most popular party among young voters.

It’s clear that Greeks — derided throughout the Continent as lazy and corrupt, hobbled by the bailout deal’s austerity measures and humiliated by the troika (the European Central Bank, European Commission and International Monetary Fund) — have put their trust outside the mainstream....