Why the Far Right is Sweeping Europe?

Why the Far Right is Sweeping Europe?

Why is the far right sweeping almost all the nations of the European Union (EU)? Is fascism making a comeback? Or is the far right of the new millennium qualitatively divorced from the jackboot fascist ultra-nationalism of the past?

In this entry, I will suggest a number of broad, sweeping explanations for the rise of far right-wing political parties from the French Front National (FN) and the Austria Freedom Party to the Italian Lega Nord (LN - Northern League) and the British National Party (BNP). Hardly any European country is immune to the rising tide of the European far right, although Southern European countries (Spain, Portugal, and Greece) that had prolonged authoritarian nationalist forces in power as late as the late 1970s have tended to generally reject the far right electorally. Here then are 15 explanations for the rise of the European far right:

1) Disdain and disillusionment with governments, politicians, and all political parties of both the right and left. They are all the same, goes the old refrain, about political parties and politicians. Ideologically, in a post-communist age, it is true that the parties are more alike in terms of support for the capitalist market. Governments are impotent to stop corporations and their impact on political life, citizens feels taken for granted and ignored, and politicians are increasingly associated with sleaze, cheating, and lying.

2) The hammering away of an anti-immigrant agenda since the early 1980s, which has increasingly found broader acceptance among mainstream political parties and the press. The French FN was born in 1972, but its message only started to grab national attention in the mid-1980s with regional and municipal election victories. It was the prototype for all far right-wing, anti-immigrant parties.

3) The anti-Islamic, anti-multicultural, and anti-globalization messages of the far right parties, which have become more potent after 9-11, as well as after the London and Madrid bombings. In the latter two cases, the bombers were European Muslims, which shocked average Europeans. One Austrian far right-wing party recently had as its anti-EU slogan "No to Turkey, no to Israel." Although Muslim Turkey has applied for EU membership, Israel has not. Thus the slogan combined two powerful European historical tendencies, anti-Islamism and anti-Semitism, with a distrust of open capitalist globalization processes. Geert Wilders, the Dutch far right-wing politician, has compared the Qur'an to Mein Kampf. Generally the far right parties reject multiculturalism, insisting it is a "racist" project designed to kill white Europeans! In a rather perverse logical formulation, anti-racism and multiculturalism are viewed as disguised forms of racism (see my book Where Have All The Fascists?, Ashgate, 2007, for the intellectual origins of this rhetorical trope with the French nouvelle droite).

4) Homogeneous notions of national identity and belonging throughout Europe, which can be resurrected in times of political, economic, social, and cultural crises. The perception that the far right creates, like it did in the inter-war years, is that Europe is in a period of profound crises that necessitates a revival of ultra-nationalism. For far right-wingers a period of cultural, political, economic, institutional, and geopolitical paralysis has hit Europe. Europeans, they insist, no longer control their political and economic destinies, but it is controlled by immigrants, wishy-washy liberal-socialists, rapacious corporations, and ascendant and foreign powers from the US to China.

5) A history of far right-wing, neo-fascist, and fascist political movements throughout Europe, from Hungary and Britain to France and Romania. In Germany, Nazism and the Holocaust were so awful, horrible, and profound that this is a burden for the far right today. In Southern Europe, memories of Franco, Salazar, and the colonels in Greece, all connected with the far right, were so recent that it is even difficult to elect conservative right-wing governments of a non-fascist hue. In Italy, Austria, Hungary, and Romania, where fascists all came to power (sometimes briefly, sometimes as collaborationist regimes), the far right was able to build on existing far right-wing traditions and thinkers and to relativize the past. In all these four countries, the fascist or proto-fascist past was never properly assessed and questioned, as in post-war Germany. As a result, the far right has already joined national coalition governments in Italy and Austria, while in Hungary and Romania it has made substantive gains in the new millennium.

6) The virtual collapse of hard communist left-wing political parties with their anti-capitalist, social message, particularly after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the demise of the Marxist-Leninist Soviet Union in 1991. The Italian Communist Party was the second largest political party in Italy in the 1970s (over 35 per cent of the popular vote in 1976 national elections) and today it can barely enter parliament. The far right parties now play the anti-system role formerly played by communist parties.

7) The appeal to xenophobic nativism in which slogans such as "France for the French" or "British jobs for the British" embody a rejection of liberal multiculturalism in favour of ethnic conceptions of belonging, welfare rights (e.g., welfare for "French French" rather than those of Muslim North African French extraction), and even citizenship (e.g., citizenship based on blood belonging rather than birth on the soil of the country in question).

8) Corruption scandals that indict all political parties, as in Britain before the recent 2009 European elections. In 1994, the neo-fascist MSI under Gianfranco Fini (photo above), as well as the LN, entered the national coalition government on the heels of a national corruption (bribery) scandal, which indicted all the major political parties from the Christian Democrats to Socialists. The far right, as it was shut out of government for years due to a post-war taboo of cooperating with fascists, was finally accepted into the European mainstream. It was the first time the far right participated in a national coalition government anywhere in Europe in the post-World War Two era.

9) The distant nature of the EU project in Brussels, which feels far away from voters, alienating, and excessively bureaucratic. Far right parties insist the EU means a loss for national or regional cultures, and an attack on principles of parliamentary democracy and national sovereignty. Both direct and representative democracy are undermined by the EU's political structures, argue far right-wing politicians. As a result, far right politicians have been at the forefront of anti-EU campaigns, rejecting Maastricht and Lisbon treaties on the functioning of the EU, and the call for authentic national independence against supranationalism.

10) The populist, charismatic appeals of far right leaders. They are said to represent the "heartland" of France or Romania, rather than "multicultural elitism," corporations, or EU bureaucrats. They are said to represent the ordinary people, or "les petits gens" (the small guys) (a slogan of FN leader Le Pen), against the distant, elitist, liberal-left-wing politicians and parties. The leaders are often very charismatic, whether Le Pen or Wilders, insisting that through immigration their respective national political classes have sold out native, white, European Christian nationals to a silent "genocidal" project that is "racist" against homogeneous, titular ethnic national groups. This is a clever multicultural, anti-racist inversion picked up from the intellectual new right. A Le Pen or Wilders insist they are sent like saviours to rescue their peoples from national collapse, whether due to neo-liberalism, social democracy, socialism, multiculturalism, or EU gigantism.

11) An attention to concrete issues, particularly uncontrolled immigration, which is made the cause of all Europe's ills: increased unemployment, the economic crisis, political dissatisfaction with the entire political class, the loss of national culture and national sovereignty, and a decay of social order and quality of life linked to increasing criminality.

12) Distancing far right parties from overt displays of support for fascism, Nazism, anti-Semitism, and violent extra-parliamentary politics (i.e., more attachment to legality or the rule of law). A good example is the current President of the Italian Chamber of Deputies and Alleanza Nazionale (AN - National Alliance) leader, Gianfranco Fini. In the new millennium, Fini has already been Italy's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs. His party has been in several national coalition governments since 1994, despite the fact that it was created out of the ashes of the neo-fascist MSI. Fini has steered the party towards full legality (i.e., severing overt ties with neo-fascist terrorism) and participation in Berlusconi's current conservative national coalition. In addition, Fini has distanced himself from overt manifestations of Fascism, anti-Semitism, and racism. He went to Israel in 2003 to apologize for the racist anti-Semitic laws under Mussolini's Fascist Italy beginning in 1938. Fini claims to be "post-fascist" today rather than fascist. His party has been less willing to scapegoat immigrants than the extreme right-wing and regional Lega Nord under firebrand Umberto Bossi, who ironically comes from an anti-fascist tradition. Some of Fini's supporters within the AN, however, retain lingering nostalgia for the fascist myths and symbols of the past.

13) Fading memories of the inter-war years, as well as Fascism and Nazism. This is bad news for those like me that want to challenge the far right, but good news for the far right itself because the old inter-war generation and its knowledge and wisdom are literally dying. The younger generation might not understand that the legality of the far right is often a tactical ruse for political parties that long for greater authoritarianism and the overturning of liberal democracy.

14) Proportional representation electoral systems, which tend to reward extremist political outfits with a decent share of the national popular vote. The BNP finally won two seats in the 2009 European elections precisely because the system used was proportional representation rather than Britain's first-past-the-post (single-member constituency) system. In some countries like Germany, there have been barriers of entry for smaller parties, even as high as five per cent. This hinders chances of success for the far right. If thresholds do exist, the far right will argue that the political class is anti-democratic. Yet, Popper's democratic paradox remains, as in the inter-war years. That is, authoritarians can come to power through the ballot box and later annul parliament and democracy.

15) A powerful appeal to emotion and total crises (political, economic, social, and cultural) based on a rejection of liberal individualism, democracy, and multiculturalism, and a collective sense of national or regional belonging and the superior destiny of a homogeneous national group. This certainly has echoes of the pull of fascism in the inter-war era. When one hears a Le Pen speak, the emotions are raw, visceral, and powerful. He wants to give voters the feeling that he is a patriot working for the destiny of France. When he speaks for the "silent majority" of French men and women that want to get tough on crimininals, or when he is silent but would argue his silence echoes the mystical, historical, civilizing grandeur of France.

Keep in mind that national histories and memories (particularly dealing with or ignoring the fascist or pro-Nazi collaborationist past), the performance of far right-wing parties in actual electoral contests, their interaction with parties outside the far right milieu, and differing levels of success of implantation in the various national party and cultural systems will determine the varied successes of respective far right-wing political parties.

What is clear is that the mainstream parties need to listen up to these far right voters. This may not be good news for immigrants, multiculturalists, and traditional liberals. The pressure for tightening immigration has been building since the late 1980s and it contradicts both capitalism and globalization. Yet, some contradictions might be accepted by Europeans beyond the far right-wing constituency to purchase social peace. For the far right there is the desire for new wars between cultures and civilizations, or at minimum, a war against liberal multiculturalism.

Luckily Europeans are now constrained by the anti-nationalistic impulse of the EU project. They are not making war against each other, which in the inter-war years had a major role in letting the Fascist and Nazi genies out of the bottle. Yet, 60 years after the defeats of Nazism and Fascism, a new genie is out of an old bottle. While it has shed many of the old trappings of fascism (street violence, excessive leadership cult, overt anti-Semitism and racism, and the doctrine of totalitarianism), historical memories should teach us of the lurking dangers of racist stigmatisation and scapegoating.

Tamir Bar-On