Expert Conference on Civic Education
„Right Wing Extremism in Europe“
April 28./29, 2010 in Bergisch Gladbach
Documentation
Speech: Current tendencies of right-wing extremism in Europe
Lecturer: Suzette Bronkhorst, International Network Against Cyber Hate (INACH), Amsterdam
I could give you a blow-by-blow overview on what is happening in individual European countries but
I’ve chosen not to do that because I think it would be more interesting to discuss general tendencies
that we see throughout the Western and Eastern parts of region.
Although it seems like populist and/or extremist parties are a relatively new phenomenon, nothing is
farther from the truth. Racism, antisemitism and xenophobia have been around forever and so have
extremist (political) groups. The real big difference though between now and let’s say the recent past,
20 years ago, is the response of society to these right-wing extremism. 20 years ago it was quite
fashionable to be anti-racist, pro Human Rights, and there was little acceptance in the mainstream for
racist ideas, nationalism or populism. Political correctness ruled the day, at least in western-Europe,
we all know that Eastern Europe had a somewhat different situation.
After the break- up of the Soviet Union, in the former USSR states and former Warsaw pact countries
right wing extremist groups and those with ‘ideas’ along those lines finally got a chance to regroup and
start anew. After all, ‘fascist-imperialist thinking’ ended you in the Gulag or in the secret service
prisons. So the born-again Nazis were overjoyed with the newfound freedom and made good use of
their restored right of assembly and demonstration. Within only a decade they became a force to be
reckoned with and the sometimes open support from society or politicians, did nothing to mitigate this.
What’s more, extreme-nationalism and populism with xenophobic and antisemitc undertones (or often
even overtones) became embedded in the ‘new countries in the east’, almost as if the demise of
communism prompted people to go back to pre-world war 2 values –even the bad ones. But also new
forms of nationalism saw the light: ethnic Russians, born and raised in Latvia, have Latvian noncitizens passports.
More examples from the east; since the tragic airplane crash in which a substantial part of Poland’s
political elite died, including president Lech Kaczynski, we tend to forget that his party Law and Justice
(PiS) is considered at least as an ultra conservative party bordering on right wing extremism. In 2006
PiS formed a coalition-government with the populist Self-Defense of the Republic of Poland and the
Nationalist League of Polish Families.
The recent elections in Hungary has put Viktor Orban's center-right Fidesz in power with nearly 53% of
the votes, The far-right Jobbik party won 16.6 percent making it the third party in Hungary. Jobbik's
rise from the political fringe over the past year has been based on an extreme nationalist message
with strong anti-Gypsy and antisemitic overtones. The Jobbik theme exploits stubborn EasternEuropean prejudices that the Gypsies - or Roma - are thieves who evade work, while cashing in on
state benefits, and that the nation is being sold out to a corrupt Jewish minority, many of them pulling
the political and economic strings. As I said, this rhetoric goes straight back to the bad old days.
It’s difficult to assess, I find, whether popular support for these extremists is ‘new’ or just has always
been there, but suppressed.
When it comes to Western Europe, the story is somewhat different. A shockwave went through Europe
when after the Austrian elections in 1999 Jorg Haider’s FPÖ formed a coalition government with the
Christian-democrat ÖVP. The heads of government of the other fourteen EU member states decided to
cease cooperation with the Austrian government, as it was felt in many countries that the cordon
sanitaire against coalitions with parties considered as right-wing extremists, which had pretty much
held up in Western Europe since 1945, had been breached. For several months, other national
leaders shunned diplomatic contacts with members of the Schüssel government, but the EU leaders
soon saw that their measures were counterproductive and returned to normality during the summer of
2000, even though the coalition remained unchanged. Haider was called a populist, rather than a rightwing extremist, which maybe made it easier for people to accept the grim reality.
Only 10 years later, a wave of anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim discourse is raging, not only in the
streets, but also in parliaments around Europe.
For example in my own country, the Netherlands. Since the rise of Geert Wilders the political
landscape has changed almost beyond recognition. In the run-up to the elections, which will take place
on the 9th of June, several political parties are rolling over each other to show they too can talk tough,
“Immigrants can get social security or state health care only after living in the country for 10 years”.
Budget cuts are proposed to be made: foreign aid and ‘left wing hobbies’ like integration activities and
culture should go!. Certain TV programs of the public broadcasting stations are taken off the air
because they are seen as ‘left wing’ and replaced by programs ‘that don’t just cater for left wing
intellectuals but for everybody’.
France and Belgium are working on imposing a Burka ban, even although France's highest
administrative office, the Council of State, advised that a full ban would be "legally very fragile”, and a
six-month parliamentary inquiry also concluded that a full ban would raise constitutional issues, as well
as enforcement problems. France, which has the biggest Muslim community in Western Europe (5
million) has an estimated 1500 to 2000 women wearing a Burka. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not in favor
of Burka’s. But I fail to see what banning them will accomplish. In case women are forced to wear
them, it will just mean they won’t be allowed to leave the house and if they do it by choice what is the
problem?
So, this is just a short overview, there is lots more going on but we can conclude that things are not
going well in Europe. I’m sure you are all painfully aware of what happens if one specific group of
people gets blamed for everything wrong in society. Didn’t we get rid of all this a long time ago? At
least, didn’t we agree it the eighties and nineties to let never again become our guiding principle?
How did this sudden turn-about happen? What changed?
Well, there are several identifiable events that lay at the root of the problem.
9/11, the Madrid and London bombings, the recent Moscow subway bombing, at all instilled and still
instill tremendous fear. The subsequent ‘war on terror’ made it acceptable to people to assign blame to
all Muslims. After all, if government can arrest people, seemingly at random, just because of their
Arab origin, all Muslims must be dangerous.
The extreme-right, the neo-Nazi’s, the populists, all those did not change, it is the reaction of society at
large, the mainstream, that has changed. There is more acceptance for racism, and the cocktail of
economic crisis, influx of migrants, terrorism and equating terrorism with Islam and more crime leads
to feelings of uncertainty and fear. Populist and racist parties play on those fears and have, as per
usual, easy solutions for complicated issues. When will we ever learn.
The role of the European Union in all this is not easy to gauge. As the EU expanded more and more
EU legislation started to get imposed on the ‘new states’ In general a lot of EU regulations do not sit so
well with the public. In some countries this fanned the flames of nationalism while in countries to the
east governments bend over backward to become a member state, while in practice not complying at
all with e.g. EU regulations on racism and Human Rights and letting nationalism and populism run
rampant. Sadly, the EU is not very big on sanctions against those who do not comply with this kind of
regulations.
Another factor impacting on the situation, especially for people of 25 and under, is the internet. It is
their main means of communication. Extremists recognised the possibilities of recruitment, incitement,
and command and control by use of internet early on, and although the internet is a brilliant medium
overall, there are some more disadvantages, the unfiltered information stream being a major one.
Enormous amounts of information of which it is often unclear what’s true and what not. Type
'gaschambers in Google and among the first few hits you’ll find the Leuchter report, denying their
existence. The protocols of the elders of Zion were made popular again through the internet, after this
document had been forgotten by the public at large for decades. Then there’s incitement to hate of
violence. In the Netherlands we saw how easily people can be rallied. After the murder of Theo van
Gogh in 2004 a whole string of incidents took place in the Netherlands ranging from pulling off
headscarves to the fire bombing of Islamic schools. Many of the incidents could be traced back to
excited discussions on the web about “how to get back at those Muslim killers” , and blog-reports
about the ‘heroic deeds’ of the perpetrators of violence.
Lastly, not only do extreme-right groups and organizations use the net to make propaganda and to
recruit young followers, making full use of all the easy and userfriendly web 2.0 interactive
applications, they also use it to direct demonstrations and actions by the use of twitter, skype,
facebook messages, et cetera. in short, command and control.
Internet allows us to communicate with the world, that’s a beautiful thing. However the internet doesn’t
have a hand coming out of the monitor to give a corrective slap if necessary. So, we need to be that
hand or rather we need to get out there, not only to get hate-speech and incitement to hate and
violence removed, but also to counter bad speech with good speech, to educate, to explain and to
prevent people from making the same mistakes all over again. Education is the key here. Media
literacy for young people, to teach them how to assess information, how to recognize holocaust denial
or revision, how to recognize hate. We need to work on that, and we need to do it now. That is ours –
and everyone’s- responsibility, on and off the internet.
http://www.inach.net/