by Patrick Strickland
Melville House Publishing
4/15/2025, hardcover
SKU: 9781685890667
In the vein of George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia and Martha Gellhorn's The View from the Ground, a remarkable work of reportage based on hundreds of hours of on-the-ground reporting, that tells how Greece's violent far right is trying to destroy the birthplace of democracy . . .
In 2012, Greece's far-right political party the Golden Dawn were building a significant street presence in Greece. Over the previous decade they had grown from a tiny group of neofascist brawlers to a formidable vigilante force responsible for multiple murders, street fights and shootings.
On the eve of the 2012 election one of their candidates said that the "knives will come out after the elections." And the knives did come out. Golden Dawn became a significant parliamentary presence and used it as a platform to escalate their terror campaigns against migrants and leftists across the country. They also became an inspiration for far-right groups across Europe and the Americas.
Journalist Patrick Strickland first arrived in Greece in 2015 to cover the European refugee crisis, just as Golden Dawn were ramping up their campaign of terror. With an eye for journalistic detail that recalls Orwell's reportage in Spain, Strickland traces the antecedents of Golden Dawn to the dark years of Nazi occupation and subsequent military dictatorship, and looks at the post 2008 economic crisis that emboldened the far right.
He also introduces us to the resistance forces standing up to the right, taking us to the Greek islands where people rallied together to support the hundreds of thousands of refugees traveling across the Aegean Sea. Strickland also takes us to the anarchist squats in Athens where activists took over abandoned buildings and opened them up to the refugees, a tactic they viewed as an anti-fascist alternative to dooming migrants to life in the squalid refugee camps.
You Can Kill Each Other After I Leave is an exemplary work of narrative nonfiction and compelling journalism that provides an intimate portrait of the stories of migrants and activists resisting the growth of the far-right, as well as a vivid and shrewd analysis of the evolving political landscape in Greece and Europe.
Reviews:
"You Can Kill Each Other After I Leave tells the story of the global rise of the far right by centering the reader in the Greek experience. The book weaves together a story that rests both on the heartbreaking reality of racism's violent rise across Europe, and the inspiring commitment of the communities who have fought back. Strickland prose is incisive and poetic, lending incredible warmth to the struggle against the politics of fear and division. This is one of the best books written about our current political crisis, and it never loses sight of the real struggle for justice happening on the border and in the streets." --Shane Burley, author of Safety through Solidarity, Fascism Today: What It Is and How to End It
"Veteran journalist Patrick Strickland provides a rigorous, thrillingly written look at how Greece became Europe's ground zero for resurgent fascism--and at the activists fighting back." --Molly Crabapple, author of Drawing Blood
"The number of forcibly displaced people globally is currently at record highs and yet we too rarely hear their stories and challenges. This startling book could not be timelier as the far right surges in popularity from Austria to Germany and Sweden to Greece. Star investigative journalist and chronicler Patrick Strickland goes deep into today's Greece and finds an ugly core, an emboldened fascism that provides inspiration to Europe's anti-refugee alliances. This book is a warning that we'd be foolish to ignore." -- Antony Loewenstein, investigative journalist and author of The Palestine Laboratory
About the Author:
Patrick Strickland is a journalist and author from Texas who has reported from some fifteen countries across Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, covering immigration, the rise of the far right, humanitarian catastrophes, armed conflict and more. His reportage has appeared in The New York Review of Books, The Nation, The New Republic, Politico, The Guardian, Vice, In These Times, and elsewhere. He is the managing editor of Inkstick Media, based in Athens, Greece. His previous books are Alerta! Alerta! Snapshots of Europe's Anti-Fascist Struggle and The Marauders: Standing Up to Vigilantes in the American Borderlands.