Rise of the far right

Engelhart, Katie . Maclean's ; Toronto  Tomo 126, N.º 49,  (Dec 9, 2013): 26.

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TEXTO COMPLETO
 
Headnote
Defying predictions, nationalist parties across the continent are tightening their networks, coalescing into
muscular--and dangerous--alliances.
[PHOTO OMITTED]

PHOTO CAPTION: Dangerous dawn: The Netherlands' Geert Wilders, leader of the Party for Freedom

PHOTO CREDIT: ROBIN UTRECHT/AFP/GettyImages

In August 2010, dozens of far-right politicians from across Europe flew to Tokyo for a week of plotting and
scheming. They were invited by Japan's right-wing Issuikai group, famous for its denial of Japanese war crimes
during the Nanjing Massacre, in which hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians were murdered, and tens of
thousands raped, by Japanese soldiers. The occasion was a conference: "The Future of Nationalist Movements."
By all accounts, it was a success. A who's who of European nationalists showed up: delegates from the British
Nationalist Party (BNP), Jobbik (Hungary), Tricolour Flame (Italy), Attack (Bulgaria), Freedom (Ukraine) and Flemish
Interest (Belgium). Jean-Marie Le Pen--former president of France's Muslim-bashing, European Union-trashing
Front National--gave the keynote address. The congress, said an Issuikai spokesperson, was focused on "how we
can protect the national identity in our respective countries and co-operate to win the battle against globalization."
The last few years have been good to Europe's far right. In 2010, extreme parties in the Netherlands, Hungary and
Sweden gave powerful electoral showings. Soon after, Austria's Freedom Party raked in over 25 per cent of state
election votes and doubled its parliamentary seats. That momentum has not waned. "I would never have imagined
that demons long believed to have been banished would return," wrote European Parliament President Martin
Schulz in 2012. "But simple-minded populism is once again gaining ground." This year in Norway--just two years
after a far-right militant named Anders Behring Breivik massacred 69 people on the island of Utøya--the Progress
Party that once inspired him won almost a quarter of the national vote.
But this is not, as some observers claim, the 1930s redux--for these are not the same far-right parties. Rather,
much of Europe's radical right has broken with its bellicose past. Today's far-right parties are more polished and
articulate, more welcoming of mainstream agenda points (like same-sex marriage and welfare assistance) and
more committed to playing by democratic rules. In some cases, their goals have changed too; many far-right
parties have sidelined the fight for electoral seats in favour of projects meant to push mainstream parties
rightward. In places like Britain, conservative parties have taken the bait. Earlier this year, the U.K. Home Office
dispatched government vans to drive around London, emblazoned with the message, "In the U.K. illegally? Go
home or face arrest"--in what many say was a nasty concession to far-right forces. For this reason, the new far
right appears all the more insidious. Experts speak of a continental "contagion from the right." In Hungary and
Switzerland, they worry about democratic collapse.
Europe's nationalists--by definition, domestically focused--have even shuffled toward a common foreign policy. In

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June, a far-right delegation travelled on a fact-finding mission to Syria, which included a visit to Marja Square,
where suicide bombers had reportedly just killed 14 people. Later, the BNP's Nick Griffin praised Hezbollah for
helping Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to recapture the rebel-held city of al-Qusayr and described Beirut as "less
alien than the streets of London."
And then there's the collaborating. Ever since the '90s, when Jean-Marie Le Pen started the EuroNat alliance of
nationalist parties, far-right parties have been talking. In recent years, however, their networks have tightened. In
mid-November, Marine Le Pen of France's Front National and Geert Wilders of Holland's Party for Freedom
announced an alliance meant to break the European parliament from within. "This is a historical day," Wilders
declared, after finalizing his pact with Le Pen in The Hague. "Today is the beginning of the liberation from the
European elite, the monster in Brussels." Le Pen and Wilders will now extend the invitation to like-minded parties
across the continent.
This is not what history predicted. "Historically, far-right groups have been pretty bad at getting together," explains
Matthew Goodwin of the Chatham House, a U.K. think tank. "They are not like socialists, geared to international
objectives. Parties on the right are intrinsically nationalist." But they're working on it. And national borders have
proven permeable. Far-right parties attend each other's conferences and demonstrations. They hold joint
meetings. And they follow each other on Twitter. The European Parliament funds a number of far-right political
alliances--to the tune of hundreds of thousands of euros--since they contain elected representatives who are
eligible for EU dollars.
Some ironies reveal themselves immediately: ultra-nationalist parties who rail against "internationalism" are
building international ties; anti-EU groups are organizing on the EU's dime. "Year by year, Jobbik is extending its
international activities," Márton Gyöngyösi, a Jobbik parliamentarian, told Maclean's . And it's not just political
parties that are collaborating. Last March, a number of thuggish Defence Leagues (English, Danish, Swedish, etc.)
gathered at a summit in Aarhus, Denmark.
More than ever, Europe's far-right is coalescing into muscular alliances. That can only help them in next year's
European Parliament elections, in which far-right gains are expected. Of course, this doesn't mean the old days of
street-level strong-arming have passed. Two months ago, a member of Greece's Golden Dawn party stabbed a man
to death in an Athens suburb--ushering in a state crackdown on the group. (Though Golden Dawn MPs have been
arrested--and their leader formally charged with belonging to a criminal organization--the party is still Greece's
third-largest.) "The threat of violent right-wing extremism has reached new levels in Europe and should not be
underestimated," warned a recent report from the European Police office.
That has many commentators invoking the Second World War, and dusting off the old George Santayana quote:
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." But while some are spurred to action, others
are bitterly questioning what the fight is actually about. Among them are British Prime Minister David Cameron and
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who argued respectively that multiculturalism has "failed" and "utterly failed."
Forty-one years ago, Jean-Marie Le Pen founded the Front National in France. A lawyer and former Foreign Legion
volunteer, Le Pen quickly attracted a clique of fascists, neo-fascists, reactionary Catholics, former Vichy
collaborators and colonial nostalgics. Over four decades, he would stand in five presidential elections--and serve
numerous terms in France's National Assembly and in the European Parliament. In his spare time, Le Pen made
puns about Nazi gas chambers, dismissed the Holocaust as "a mere detail" and produced a musical record of Third
Reich ballads. He doesn't like Muslims either, and was convicted in 2006 of inciting racial hatred against them.
Two years ago, his daughter Marine took over the party. A quick-tounged lawyer, Marine shed her father's crude
racism and thuggish entourage. She presented herself as a France-loving patriot: not buoyed by hate, but
responsive to lurking threats. (She took pains to identify the Holocaust as the 20th century's greatest tragedy.)
Marine wants to curb immigration, not abolish it. She touts protectionism, but not economic isolation. And she
replaced talk of "race" with that of "culture." In her insistence, she is not "waging war against Islam," but rather
guarding against "the Islamization of French society."
It's a popular mantra. "I don't hate Muslims. I hate Islam," the Dutch firebrand Geert Wilders has insisted. A recent

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report from the U.K.'s International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation argues that, across Europe, far-right
groups are softening their tone: ditching racial nationalism for a kind of cultural nationalism--in which it is not
whites that need protecting, but rather Europeanness.
The younger Le Pen picks her battles adeptly, stressing issues of national security. And she wins them. In 2010, in
a now-infamous interview with French broadcasters, she compared Muslims praying in the streets to France's
occupation by Germany during the Second World War. A year later, France banned street prayers and became the
first European country to prohibit face-covering niqabs in public--in an effort to appease Le Pen, many argue.
According to a recent poll, Le Pen boasts a 32 per cent popularity rating: an eight per cent lead on French President
Hollande.
Europe's far-right has come in waves. The first parties rode the tide of 1930s fascism, often drawing support from
neo-Nazi networks. They brought violence and uniforms and salutes, and a deep mistrust of democratic
institutions. Another wave appeared in the mid-'80s, with Europe's surge toward union and a massive influx of
immigrants. This new far-right was anti-tax, anti-EU and wholly populist. And more ideological than its forebear. It
argued for ethnopluralism: essentially, the view that every culture is valid but should be separated by borders.
And now a "third wave." Today's far-right is deeply steeped in the notion of a "cultural threat"--but encased in a firm
avowal of democracy. Islam-bashing, for instance, is couched as a discussion of human rights. Euroskepticism is
linked to support for national private industry. It is also politically savvy. New far-right parties are young and
charismatic, popular on Facebook and Twitter.
Anger and mistrust have not been dampened, but rather been channelled into the democratic system. For instance,
in recent years the Sweden Democrats--whose slogan is "Keep Sweden Swedish," and whose goal is to reduce
immigration by 90 per cent--has distanced itself from its 1980s neo-Nazism, which allowed the party to win
parliamentary seats in 2010.
Of course, in some places, the new veneer wears thin. A video leaked by the Swedish tabloid Expressen showed the
party's spokesman for economic policy exchanging banter with a Swede of Kurdish origins. "This isn't your
country, it's my country," he charged: "Don't f--k with Swedes."
Europe is indeed experiencing a great rush of immigrants, many of whom are Muslim. Greece and Italy, where
clashes with immigrants are often public and violent, receive disproportionately high numbers of Europe's illegal
immigrants. Many newcomers arrive via Turkey, or are Arab Spring refugees. This has led to a profound belief,
among right-wing elements, that their national culture is under attack. Anti-immigration policies have followed.
But settled Muslims are targeted too. Far-right parties paint Islam as inherently intolerant, and Muslims as
incapable of integration. In 2011, far-right groups gathered in Paris for an International Conference on the
Islamization of Our Countries. "What's at stake," Oskar Freysinger of the Swiss People's Party told the crowd, "is
your mortal soul." In recent years, far-right groups have introduced new terms into the European lexicon: like
"creeping sharia" and "stealth jihad" and "demographic jihad."
It has also introduced the term "counter-jihad." So-called counter-jihad groups began popping up several years ago,
some as street movements with a penchant for a fracas. These groups speak of an impending war with Islam. The
continent-wide Stop Islamization of Europe (SIOE) network has mobilized otherwise disparate actors for what it
describes as Europe's existential struggle. Several popular blogs provide theoretical backbone to like-minded
agitators, such as Jihad Watch and Gates of Vienna, whose name references "the siege of Vienna in 1683 [when]
Islam seemed poised to overrun Christian Europe." Anders Breivik, the Norwegian killer, found inspiration in many
such blogs, from which he borrowed extensively while penning his 1,518-page manifesto, "2083: A European
declaration of independence."
The counter-jihad narrative is heavily conspiratorial. SIOE's Danish president Anders Gravers writes: "Muslims have
many allies in the European establishment, in politics, religion and the judiciary. Together with our establishment
they suppress our free speech and stealthily introduce sharia law." It's a theory that ticks all the boxes: clandestine
plots, fifth columns and government collusion. But, bit by bit, the movement is showing its cultural transcendence.
"It's largely still a white movement," explains Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens, head of research and information at

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the U.K.-based International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation. "But because the ideology is not technically
race-based, there is space for other races to be involved. If you don't like Muslims and you think that Islam is
inherently against Western values, there is a place for you in this movement."
Frequently, critiques of Islam are cloaked in debates about women's headscarves, or mosque construction, or halal
meat--and so are linked with the likes of feminists and city planners and PETA activists. (Groups such as the
British National Party--which has failed to extend its reach beyond lower-class, angry old men and neo-Nazis--are
now all but extinct.)
This flexibility allows the far-right to embrace some unlikely bedfellows--like European Jews. Newer far-right
parties, explains Vidhya Ramalingam, project coordinator at the London-based Institute for Strategic Dialogue,
"have been very open in their support for Israel." Indeed, Geert Wilders has a serious case of philo-Semitism. He
has reportedly visited Israel some 40 times, and speaks of "the special feeling of solidarity that I always get when I
land at Ben Gurion International Airport." (He is also regularly photographed wearing a kippah.) Far-right street
movements have also allied with small radical Jewish groups, like the Jewish Defense League. "Anti-Semitism,"
says Ramalingam, "is not a convenient enemy anymore."
Even the English Defence League (EDL)--famous for parading its hundreds of members through the streets of
Muslim-populated areas, their rallying cry, in hoc signo vinces , "under this sign you shall conquer"--has changed its
rhetoric. The EDL portrays itself as a human-rights body, an ally of gays and Jews and women. "In my town, half of
my best mates are immigrants," EDL co-founder Tommy Robinson recently told Maclean's . "Their moms and dads
are Ghanaian, Kenyan. Everyone loves England. Everyone gets along just fine. Except for Muslims."
We still don't see far-right prime ministers or presidents. But that may be just the point. For the most part, far-right
parties know that they're not going to win parliamentary majorities--and they're no longer really trying to. Rather,
their objective is to gain enough support--to create sufficient noise, to test enough taboos--to shift the entire
mainstream debate. Academics in the field speak of a "mainstreaming" of far-right discourse. Across the continent,
European leaders are talking tough on immigration and Islam.
Take Italy, where the country's first black government minister--the Congolese-Italian Cécile Kyenge--has been
compared to an orangutan by colleagues, pelted with bananas, and accused by elected politicians of wanting to
impose "tribal traditions" on Italy. Kyenge recently received death threats before visiting a region where the far-
right Northern League party is active; a local politician wrote on Facebook that Kyenge should be raped so that she
could understand the pain felt by victims of rape by immigrants. In January, former prime minister Silvio
Berlusconi forged an alliance with the Northern League, which won 12.7 per cent of the national vote in 2010.
Northern League seeks more autonomy for northern Italy and is also anti-immigrant, anti-statist and opposed to
social policies like same-sex marriage.
Sarkozy may have been a harbinger of this. In 2007, he mulled over the idea of creating a "ministry for immigration
and national identity." Later, he pledged to halve immigration and mandate labelling on halal meat--in what Reuters
called "a bid to claw back rightist voters from Le Pen." And his government launched a scheme to deport
thousands of Roma back to Bulgaria and Romania. The move drew censure from the European Commission and
Pope Benedict XVI. "This is a situation I had thought Europe would not have to witness again after the Second
World War," bristled European Commission commissioner Viviane Reding.
Now many far-right parties do look poised to make electoral gains. Next year, "we are likely to see the number of
far-right and radical political parties increase in the European Parliament," says Matthew Goodwin of the U.K.'s
Chatham House. "We will also see more explicitly neo-Nazi parties in parliament. In lots of places, we will talk next
spring about record gains." Balázs Dénes, of the Open Society Initiative's Budapest office, refers to Hungary's
democracy as "endangered." The country's Jobbik party (Movement for a Better Hungary) shows no indications of
tamping down its rhetoric. It is known for its blatant neo-fascism, racism, anti-Semitism (Jobbik spokesman
Gyöngyösi recently called Jews a "security risk" and recommended that "all Jews living in Hungary be registered");
it has diplomatic ties with Iran, is chummy with Russia, and exhibits hostility toward foreign-owned corporations.
The party emerged in 2003, gaining just 2.2 per cent of the vote in 2006. By 2010, it claimed 16.7 per cent support,

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and became the third-largest party in the National Assembly. It now holds a sobering 43 seats (out of 386) in the
Hungarian parliament. Jobbik's electoral popularity has ebbed somewhat recently, but that doesn't mean the
situation is reversing in Hungary--for that would be to overlook the ruling party, Fidesz.
Fidesz has borrowed heavily from Jobbik. In 2012, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán enacted his new
constitution, which refers to Hungary as a Christian nation and strips some 300 faiths and religious institutions of
their legal status. "More than 200 changed laws basically re-regulated everything from the field of education to
criminal justice and law enforcement," explains Dénes, who identifies "limitation of the powers of the constitutional
court" as the most alarming change. The president of the European Parliament, Schulz, warned: "The European
Parliament is seriously concerned about Hungary with respect to the exercise of democracy."
The difficult truth is that in some cases, far-right groups are responding to real concerns and capitalizing on real
malaise, albeit with noxious methods. France does have security problems related to itinerant Roma groups.
Islamic radicalism is a threat in some places. New immigrants continue to flood into countries hit by the euro
crisis, which struggle to accommodate them. Extrajudicial sharia courts exist, and sometimes issue odious rulings
(like asking women to return to violent marriages). Mainstream parties often shy away from high-level discussions
of national culture, especially when it comes to Muslims. That leaves far-right parties to start the conversation and
define its terms.
It's likely that not all of this is new--but rather, the remains of long-standing grievances that were buried under
political correctness or election-time politicking. For instance, in a 2011 speech in Munich, British Prime Minister
David Cameron argued that "when a white person holds objectionable views, racist views for instance, we rightly
condemn them. But when equally unacceptable views or practices come from someone who isn't white, we've
been too cautious--frankly, even fearful--to stand up to them." Right-wing parties have chipped away at that fear.
The main challenge now is levels of engagement. Should mainstream politicians debate their far-right colleagues?
Should politicial extremists be banned outright? Internationally, should more leaders speak out against the likes of
Hungary's Victor Orbán? Some governments have adopted cordon sanitaires , whereby mainstream parties refuse
dealings with far-right elements. Jamie Bartlett, head of the violence and extremism programme at the U.K.'s
Demos think tank, cautions against strict silence: Far-right parties "already believe that they aren't allowed to
express themselves properly, that political correctness is preventing their right to express their views. [This] will
annoy and alienate them deeply."
As it stands, and with European Parliament elections looming, far-right parties are busy making their case that
Europe--as an economic entity and multicultural project--has had its day. "Far-right is a strange expression," mused
Luzi Stamm of the Swiss People's Party, in a recent interview. "Our party has a very simple thought behind it: a
majority of our people within our borders. This might look, from the outside, as nationalistic. But I think it is rather
democratic."

DETALLES

Título: Rise of the far right

Autor: Engelhart, Katie

Título de publicación: Maclean's; Toronto

Tomo: 126

Número: 49

Primera página: 26

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 Año de publicación: 2013

Fecha de publicación: Dec 9, 2013

Sección: International

Editorial: St. Joseph Communications

Lugar de publicación: Toronto

País de publicación: Canada, Toronto

Materia de publicación: General Interest Periodicals--Canada

ISSN: 00249262

CODEN: MCNMBC

Tipo de fuente: Magazines

Idioma de la publicación: English

Tipo de documento: News

ID del documento de 1462048890

ProQuest:

URL del documento: http://www.espaciotv.es:2048/referer/secretcode/magazines/rise-far-

right/docview/1462048890/se-2?accountid=142712

Copyright: Copyright Rogers Publishing Limited Dec 9, 2013

Última actualización: 2020-11-18

Base de datos: ProQuest Central

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