Lawrence Wittner - The Emerging Worldwide Alliance of the Far Right, led by Putin and Trump
Political parties on
the far right are today enjoying a surge of support and access to government
power that they have not experienced since their heyday in the 1930s.
This phenomenon is particularly
striking in Europe, where massive migration, sluggish economic growth, and
terrorism have stirred up zealous nationalism and Islamophobia, but it
resonates through large areas of the world including the Asia-Pacific. In
France, the National Front - founded in 1972 by former Nazi collaborators and
other rightists employing anti-Semitic and racist appeals - has tried to soften
its image somewhat under the recent leadership of Marine Le Pen. Nevertheless,
Le Pen’s current campaign for the French presidency, in which she is one of two
leading candidates facing a runoff, includes speeches delivered against a
screen filled with immigrants committing crimes, jihadists plotting savage
attacks, and European Union (EU) bureaucrats destroying French jobs, while she
assails multiculturalism and promises to “restore order.” In Germany,
the Alternative for Germany party, established three years ago, won up to 25
percent of the vote in state elections in March 2016. Led by Frauke Petry, the
party calls for sealing the EU’s borders (by shooting migrants, if necessary),
forcing the migrants who remain to adopt traditional German culture, and
thoroughly rejecting Islam, including a ban on constructing mosques. According
to the party platform, “Islam does not belong in Germany.”
Elsewhere in Europe,
the story is much the same. In Britain, the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP),
led until recently by Nigel Farage, arose from obscurity to become the nation’s
third largest party. Focused on drastically reducing immigration and
championing nationalism (including pulling Britain out of the EU), UKIP
absorbed the constituency of neo-fascist groups and successfully led the
struggle for Brexit. In the Netherlands, a hotly-contested parliamentary
election in March 2017 saw the far right Party
for Freedom emerge as the nation’s second largest political party.
Calling for recording
the ethnicity of all Dutch citizens and closing all Islamic schools,
the party is headed by Geert Wilders, who has been tried twice in that country
for inciting hatred and discrimination against Muslims. In Italy, the Northern
League (so-named because
it originally pledged to liberate industrious Italian workers in the north from
subsidizing lazy Italians in the south), demands drastic
curbs on immigration and removal of Italy from the Eurozone. Its leader, Matteo
Salvini, contends that Islam is “incompatible” with Western society.
Other European parties
of the far right include Hungary’s Jobbik (the
country’s third-largest party, which is vehemently hostile to immigration, the
EU, and homosexuality), the Sweden
Democrats (now vying for second place among Sweden’s parties, with
roots in the white supremacist movement and a platform of heavily restricting
immigration and opposing the EU), Austria’s Freedom
Party (which, founded decades ago by Nazis, nearly won two recent 2016
presidential elections, vigorously opposes immigration, and proclaims “yes to
families rather than gender madness”), and the People’s
Party-Our Slovakia (which supports leaving the EU and the Eurozone and
whose leader has argued that “even one immigrant is one too many”)... read more:
http://apjjf.org/2017/09/Wittner.html
