Abandoned to the far right: Europe's Resurgent racism
Last month, the Institute of Race Relations (IRR) published Pedlars of hate: the violent impact of the European far Right. Analysing over a hundred cases, its author Liz Fekete draws attention to a pattern of far-right violence which moves from the peddling of hate online, to violence and deaths in the streets, to the stockpiling of weapons in preparation for ‘race war’. From within these cases emerges a picture of a rapidly changing European scene, with certain towns, cities and villages more open to far-right penetration than others.
Of the cities where the far right have penetrated, Rome (where Gianni Alemanno, the former youth leader of the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement, MSI, was elected mayor in 2008) and Athens (where the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn made their first significant electoral breakthrough in November 2010) feature prominently. But perhaps the most rapid changes are occurring in the depopulated rural villages of Germany where the National Democratic Party of Germany has become so firmly ensconced in local politics that it is staffing local fire departments, running leisure activities for young people, and even providing citizens’ advice for those claiming welfare. The conservative rural vote is also a factor in the electoral success of both the Swiss People’s Party, and the Freedom Party in the Netherlands, where the vast majority of attacks on mosques have happened not in the largest cities but in smaller towns and municipalities. As the IRR concludes, the cases documented in Pedlars of Hate suggest that we have most to fear from the far Right at a local, or even regional, rather than the national level.
What is clear is that whilst most mainstream political parties condemn the violent actions of far-right groups, the messages which they promote – against ‘Islamification’, for the promotion of ‘core values’, protecting the population against the ‘threat’ of immigration, for example – are drawing from similar political sentiments to those many politicians electioneer on. As a consequence, the gap between mainstream and far-right politics is narrowing, with the far-right as the beneficiaries. Obviously, the specific histories of and conditions within different countries inform the extent, as well as the manner, in which far-right ideologies take root. But as the report exposes, specific patterns of ‘hate’ are emerging and the far right is frequently garnering support by mobilising and making inroads in smaller towns and cities. These places are rural, once-industrial, experiencing marked inequalities and going through relatively recent demographic change... Read more:
