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Immigration See other Immigration Articles Title: Xenophobes, not workers, are uniting across Europe East European racists are giving new muscle to the continental far right by preying on the losers from the region's upheaval Monday January 29, 2007 The long awaited and welcome accession of Bulgaria and Romania to the European Union has already had a nasty side-effect. It has made it possible for the extreme right to form its own group in the European parliament - giving its parties extra time and money - Identity, Tradition, Sovereignty. Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front, formerly a vociferous opponent of the EU's enlargement, has delegated Bruno Gollnisch, a recidivist Holocaust denier, to head the group. He has received with open arms the five representatives of the Greater Romania party and Dimitar Stoyanov of the Bulgarian Ataka party, who had already made his debut in the European parliament commenting on the bodies and purchase price of Gypsy women. The newcomers will certainly feel at home in the company of Alessandra Mussolini ("proud to be a fascist"), Ashley Mote (formerly of the British Ukip), and the MEPs of the migrant-bashing Belgian Vlaams Belang, and the Austrian FPO, formerly headed by Jorg Haider. The proletarians of the world seem to be so disoriented by the blows of industrial change and deregulation that they are rather slow to move. So it is the xenophobes of Europe that are uniting - and demonstrating a great deal of mutual tolerance, despite not so long ago having depicted each other as dangerous aliens. Bulgaria, a delightful country that saved its Jewish citizens during the second world war and has been living in peace with its Turkish minority, will be represented at the highest political forum of Europe by a party whose manifesto calls for "Bulgaria for the Bulgarians" and whose leader is quoted as claiming that Turks still dominate his country and Jews exploit it. Its supporters have been accused of calling for Gypsies to be turned into soap. Romania has more extreme-right traditions to reach back for, and since these were demonised by the Communists and mystified by the nationalists, they have now re-emerged with a frightening virulence. The Greater Romania party's president, Vadim Tudor, openly proclaims his hatred of foreigners and ethnic minorities - in particular the Roma, the largest group of losers in eastern Europe's transformation, who are marginalised and despised with a shameful unanimity in the whole region. As a Hungarian, I would be proud that my country's extreme-right Hungarian Life and Justice party did not make it into parliament at the April 2006 elections - were it not for the fact that by the autumn its rhetoric and demands were being echoed by angry crowds outside the parliament building (as well as some opposition politicians inside it). For more than two months Budapest was targeted by violent protesters who shouted xenophobic slogans, daubed anti-semitic graffiti and demanded the head of the prime minister who revealed the truth about the state of the economy and the corruption of the political class. Legitimate criticism was turned into fake demands. Some years ago, when Le Pen threatened to become the president of France, French society mobilised itself to stop him. When Haider's party entered the Austrian government, half of Austrian society protested vehemently. Even at the recent municipal elections in Belgium, the advance of the Vlaams Belang was halted by the awakening of civil society and the emergence of liberal-left coalitions. But when the Poles and Slovaks voted extreme-right, racist parties into their parliaments, it was accepted with apathy tinged with incredulity. Two factors are smoothing the re-emergence of the extreme right in eastern Europe and its ability to prey on the many losers from the region's social and economic transformation: the democratic deficit accumulated during the region's peripheral pre-war and state-socialist past, and its undigested history. Historical myths remain powerful political tools, as the bloody Yugoslav wars painfully showed. The post-first-world-war partition of Hungary remains such a trauma that discriminatory rhetoric can exploit it with frightening success. In Poland it is enough to evoke the country's multiple partitions - or in Slovakia the scars of Hungarian domination - to get massive support for extremist policies. People have still not come to terms with their 20th-century history, and many political players are doing their best to confuse them further. Democratic institutions and civil societies are not yet mature enough either to distinguish between justified protest and manipulation or to resist when fundamental human and political rights are in danger. Extreme-right rhetoric is a powerful and long-lasting poison, because it addresses people's darkest anxieties. If it is not exposed and confronted clearly, it lingers on in people's minds, like cyanide in polluted waters, killing flora and fauna invisibly, but systematically. The unexpected eastern contribution could give such an impetus to the European extreme right that it might succeed in establishing itself as an accepted political actor in the continent. This would endanger the precarious political balance and wobbling institutional systems of Europe and add to its external vulnerability as well. A continent in which identity politics, exclusion and xenophobia become accepted political currents would be easy prey for radical extremist mobilisation and attacks.
Poster Comment: Go to the url to read the comments re this article..rather interesting: http://www.guardian.co.uk/farright/story/0,,2000940,00.html
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#1. To: Zipporah (#0)
The "Turks" and "Jews" are the same ethnic group ... dominating and exploiting ... looks like delightful Bulgaria has wearied of the minorities. Gypsy soap, now there's a "zesty" new market commodity.
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