Racism and xenophobia in Europe stemming the rising tide

UN Chronicle, Dec, 2004 by Glyn Ford

For over two decades, Europe has seen a rising tide of racism and xenophobia threatening to engulf its politics. Increasingly since 9/11, this has become particularized in the form of Islamophobia, coupled with an ideological anti-Semitism propagated by neo-Nazi parties. Since 1984, the political expression of this social disease has been the growth of neo-fascist and far-right parties; the two have fed off each other. Yet, to a degree, it has been held in check by the "historic memory" of the horrors of Hitler's Germany. However, this has begun to change, as recent events have triggered the perception that Christendom is at war with the Dar al Islam, allowing far-right parties to claim a popular resonance and repackage themselves in a way that jettisons much of their historical baggage.

In June 2004, 732 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) were elected by 350 million voters in what was one of the world's largest-ever elections. What was the outcome? Parties of power were punished across the continent, except the winners were often not their traditional opponents from the left and right, but right populist parties. In these elections, 25 MEPs from ten neo-Nazi and extreme right-wing parties across seven member States, including three of the recent accession States, were elected to the European Parliament. They were joined by dozens more MEPs who share the rhetoric if not the underpinning ideology. This threatens to further intensify the discrimination against the 12 million to 14 million third-country nationals and the 4 million black Europeans living in the European Union (EU) who already face the threat of physical violence, daily discrimination and verbal harassment--a second-class status with third-class treatment. Following Europe's enlargement into the former Soviet Empire, the far right have new victims in the millions of Roma.

The EU insists on the inclusion of equal rights in the law of all new member States. Yet its practice is threatened by the seductive appeal of the new right-wing parties' innumerate policies on lower taxes and higher public services, while their narrow nationalism strikes a chord with areas of the general public, drip-fed on a tabloid diet of xenophobia. Before the election, the political and media climates were certainly in the new right's favour. For example, the Belgian Vlaams Blok, France's Front National (FN), the Italian Alleanza Nazionale, and the British National Party (BNP) had all performed well at recent local and regional elections, bettering political predictions and in some cases their own expectations. In Europe, the press enjoyed a feeding frenzy with the supposed threat of a torrent of economic immigration as a result of the EU enlargement that in reality turned out to be barely a trickle. However, this factoid--something believed but not actually true--had enabled the far right and the new right to stoke up the public fear and reap the benefits, while minority groups were libelled, assaulted and fearful.

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In Britain, the result was that the climate created by the tabloid press and the neo-fascist BNP rhetoric combined to collude with the racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic and Little Englanders of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP). The historical baggage of the BNP and its leadership, with its neo-Nazi connections, was just too heavy to be countenanced by most voters. Instead, it was UKIP that stole the BNP thunder and the Tory's glory. They targeted the tabloids and garnered a support that is reflected in the final vote: BNP got 4.9 per cent of the national vote, while UKIP recorded 16.1 per cent (more than the British Liberal Democrats) and 11 seats. UKIP is packaged in Tory colours, but inside it is a "BNP-Lite" party with policies on immigrants, Europe and trade unions that are barely distinguishable. As one leading light of UKIP theologically put it at their 2003 Conference, "a pact with the trade unions is a pact with the devil". The same is true elsewhere.

Across the Channel, Jean-Marie Le Pen's Front National was fighting its own internal battle over its leadership succession and direction in the run-up to elections. Le Pen intends the next leader to be his "right reformist" daughter, Marine, rather than his current "national revolutionary" deputy, Bruno Gollnisch. Marine is willing to dump the FN ideology in order to break out from their electoral ghetto and expand beyond the 20 per cent of the French electorate already willing to vote extreme right. This year's result was a victory for Le Pen, with the FN improving their standing, coming fourth behind the Socialists and the two Conservative parties. Seven MEPs from FN were elected, compared to five in the previous Parliament, on a reduced number of French seats and with a new less favourable electoral system.

In Italy, Gianfranco Fini's Alleanza Nazionale, an avowedly neo-fascism party a decade ago but now a right populist party and a key component of the Government, maintained its strong support despite the fall in support for Berlusconi's Forza Italia, while the overtly fascist Alternativa Sociale of Alessandra Mussolini (Benito Mussolini's granddaughter) won just a single seat. Among the new member States, Poland saw far-right, ultra-nationalist parties triumph, with the Liga Polskich Rodzin (Polish League of Families), Prawo i Sprawiedliwosc (Law and Order) and Samoobrona (Self Defence) recording worrying high votes. Elsewhere, the former Soviet colony countries saw similar if less spectacular results, with xenophobes out-polling internationalist parties. Yet, it was not entirely one-way traffic. In some member States, the populist right were disappointed. Euro-sceptics lost two thirds of their seats in Denmark, and the anti-immigration Lijst Pim Fortuyn, which had a desert blowing after the assassination of its leader two years ago, came in a resounding ninth in Holland. In Austria, the extreme right-wing Freedom Party of Jorg Haider crashed, from six seats to just one in the European Parliament. In all of these countries, mainstream parties have embraced the anti-immigration rhetoric of the new right.