Fighting for Democracy on No Tyrants Day
By Basil Scaperdas*
When I was a teenager, I witnessed firsthand the brutal authoritarianism of the Greek junta. Now as an adult, I see uncomfortable parallels in a growing authoritarianism in America, the country of my birth.
The year was 1973 and my family had just moved to Greece from the U.S. I was 14 years old and a young film buff with a nifty Kodak Super 8 movie camera and a passion for current affairs. I was in Athens when the Polytechnic University was attacked by tanks in the early hours of Saturday, November 17.
Recognizing that history was in the making, I filmed as much as I could. On that Sunday, the curfew was lifted, and I went outside with my camera in the center of Athens. Suddenly a Greek military policeman, carrying a loaded rifle with a bayonet, snatched the movie camera and beat me over the head with it. I crumpled to the ground as he continued kicking me and then smashed my camera.
A group of concerned mothers gathered around to see if I was hurt. The policeman fired several shots in the air to disperse everyone. In light of the dozens killed in those days, I felt lucky to get home alive with just my wounds.
Most American citizens may not recognize what dictatorship looks like within their own country. It’s too new for them. However, the average Greek citizen of my generation knows well what it means to experience authoritarian fear. And there are disturbing similarities between what is taking place in America now with what I witnessed in Greece back then. And those memories are particularly relevant to the October 18 No Tyrants protests staged by millions of concerned Americans across the U.S. and around the world.
Just in the past few months, armed military personnel have been deployed on the streets of Washington, Los Angeles and Chicago – and there are plans to do so for Memphis and Portland. President Donald Trump has threatened to make war on other cities and told senior military officers that America faces an ‘enemy within’. Meanwhile, U.S. residents are being detained and deported without due process. Giant detention centers are being built around the country and the Trump Administration is building up its thuggish, new police force, ICE, providing it with more money and people than the FBI.
Sound familiar? The Greek junta also focused its military on internal security, set up special prisons and suspended civil liberties. People were disappeared or exiled, and the secret police operated with impunity. Eventually, the junta collapsed because it failed to provide for external security against foreign enemies. Ever since, Greeks have done an excellent job of holding on to their democracy.
By contrast, rampant voter apathy in the U.S. played a major role in Donald Trump’s 2024 win. Of the 174 million registered voters, 20 million did not bother to vote at all. Voter apathy is also manifest when voters are too lazy to seek out the truth, or don’t know what the constitution says, or fall into rabbit holes on social media corrupted by foreign adversaries. A proper democracy needs an informed voting public, not a population that cannot agree on basic facts.
America is facing the consequences of taking democracy for granted. The good news is that after six months of authoritarian overreach, a clear majority of American citizens feel that their constitutional democracy has gone astray. This is prompting public action through large, nationwide protests. Average people are standing up to armed, masked immigration agents to stop the terrorization of immigrants.
But the true test will be the U.S. midterm elections in November of next year. Based on precedent, the Democrats may gain control of one of the two chambers of Congress, restoring some balance to America’s political discourse. Fearing such an outcome, Trump and his henchmen are already trying to rig the elections by re-drawing election districts in states like Texas and Missouri.
It has never been more important for American citizens everywhere to register to vote. And, come next year, it is vital that they cast their ballots. In Greece, the tens of thousands of U.S. citizens who live here may hold the future of American democracy in their hands. We who live in Greece understand what authoritarianism means. We need to ensure it doesn’t happen in America.
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*Basil Scaperdas is a Greek-American journalist. He is an active member of Democrats Abroad Greece.