Eyes to the far right

The political map of Europe is radically changing. Nativist and ultra-right populist parties - born outside mainstream Social and Christian Democracy - have found parliamentary footholds across western Europe, and show little sign of retreating. Their anti-immigrant/anti-élite rhetoric chimes with a considerable number of voters. Geert Wilders, who in his own words ’hates Islam’, and his Party for Freedom (PVV) prop up the Dutch government. The Front National leader, Marine Le Pen, is outpolling Nicholas Sarkozy in the run-up to next year’s French presidential election. In Austria, Italy and Denmark, parties of the far right have been in partnership governments during the last decade. In Norway, Switzerland and Finland, an insurgent radical rightwing has become an accepted part of national politics, playing a critical role in defining the public discourse around culture and diversity.

Debates on ’national identity’ are blurring the lines between acceptable political discussion and divisive rhetoric that marginalizes minorities. These ’conversations’ redefine what it means to be a citizen, and Europe’s non-white citizenry is largely left out of them. Disorganized parties that once garnered disparate, fluctuating support have honed their language, policies and organizational capabilities to be voted into parliaments throughout the continent.

Commentators often argue that the far right thrives because mainstream politicians have failed to discuss immigration, for fear of offending minority ethnic groups. But listen to the tough-talking statements made by Europe’s political leaders in recent years and you may question this logic. Angela Merkel has claimed that ’multiculturalism has utterly failed’ in Germany. Nicholas Sarkozy has said that France does not want immigration ‘inflicted’ on it. Silvio Berlusconi has stated that Italy is not, and should never be, a ’multi-ethnic country’.

It is not just politicians on the conservative right who seek to make political capital from anti-immigrant sentiment. In Britain, Labour’s former immigration minister, Phil Woolas, looked to ’make white folk angry’ by exploiting racial and religious divisions in his 2010 general election campaign. Dutch Labour chair Liliane Ploumen raised the question of ’self-designated victimization’ and the disproportionate levels of ’criminality and trouble-making’ among immigrants in the Netherlands.

Nativist politicians have noticed the change and are taking heart. Kent Ekeroth, the International Secretary of the far-right Sweden Democrats (SD), which made its parliamentary breakthrough last year with the election of 20 MPs, says: ’What happened recently in Germany is astounding. First, Merkel talked about the failures of multiculturalism. Then the interior minister said that “Islam has no place here”. Then the finance minister said that third-generation immigrants are worse than the first generation.’ They were all referring to the history of Turkish Muslim integration in their country, which is seen as contributing to a loss of identity.

The argument that mainstream figures are in some way frightened of discussing immigration obscures the key reasons why the far right thrives: it opportunistically takes advantage of economic and social fears, a lack of trust in the political class, and the growing ’legitimization’ of Islamophobia in public discourse.

Economic fear

Across the continent, far right populist parties have sought success around places of intense economic deprivation and social breakdown. Europe’s immigrants disproportionately live in urban areas where poverty and unemployment are highest, and it is around here that xenophobic political parties have been successful. The global economic meltdown has given these parties a chance to attack ’open door’ immigration policies as a drain on essential resources, arguing that their native countrymen are being overlooked.

Last year alone, regional elections in France saw Marine Le Pen and her predecessor father, Jean Marie, take substantial votes in areas severely hit by recession. In northern Italy, with its high levels of poverty and significant non-white population, support for the Lega Nord strengthened. There was a strong showing for far-right parties in Vienna and Malmo, cities with a firm socialist heritage where industrial and demographic changes brought bitterness to decaying communities desperate for someone to blame.

Far-right populist parties try to pitch themselves as the authentic voice of the people; representatives of ’the silent majority’ addressing issues they claim have long been ignored by politicians. They align themselves with public concerns as a way of extending their reach – championing popular initiatives such as defending social housing or tackling violent crime, or starting their own initiatives, for example against the building of local mosques or asylum centres.

They mobilize the public by speaking not just about them but directly to them. Much of their success in recent years is down to hard work - their vote is won through vigorous campaigning on the doorstep and by independent net activism, rather than by relying on exposure in the mainstream media. It is in non-regulated public arenas that they hear the range of people’s material concerns – around jobs, pensions, housing, healthcare, welfare – and direct authentic anxieties into action against the political élite.

Glory days

An anti-establishment, anti-politics thrust is mirrored across the continent, at a time when trust in the political class is at an all-time low. The far right paint existing groups of representatives as feeble and corrupt - political pygmies compared to their predecessors. Only their parties, it is argued, can return European nations back to the glory days.

Party leaders invoke Eisenhower or Churchill in an attempt to shed the ’Nazi’ label often thrown at them - a tactic shared with the British National Party, which portrays Churchill beaming down at viewers of their election broadcasts. Front National’s election posters show General De Gaulle arguing that ’France will no longer be France’ unless other races remain a minority. Steps have even been taken by ultra-right parties in Italy to rehabilitate the legacy of Mussolini. The implication is that the mantle of patriotic heroism has been passed onto their parties, as the current crop of politicians is powerless to save their countries from external threats.

When Jorg Haider’s far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) entered into a coalition Government in Austria in 2000, it was greeted with alarm - Haider was considered a pariah by the international community, tainted as a xenophobic ultra-nationalist with a history of anti-semitism. The EU advocated sanctions against Austria, and leading statesmen, including Gerhard Schroeder, Bill Clinton and Jacques Chirac, publicly registered their consternation.

Haider’s successor and protégé, Heinz Christian Strache, is leading the FPÖ into the next election, when it may emerge as the largest parliamentary party. Alfred Gusenbauer, the former Social Democrat chancellor who stood against both figures, is dismayed but not surprised: ’The mix of anti-immigration policy and an anti-Europe/anti-establishment discourse is determining the public agenda,’ he says. ‘Firstly, the FPÖ portrays Austrians as foreigners in their own country, due to immigration. Secondly, more and more sovereignty has been transferred to Europe, meaning that decisions taken by the national parliament are limited in scope. And thirdly, decisions at an economic level are taken far away from Austria in the globalized financial markets. The narrative is that the nation and the self-determination of the people is lost.’

Parties like the FPÖ have been fortunate to break through at a time of heightened awareness of a new, globalized threat: Islam. The success of many far right parties is predicated on a significant public distrust of Muslims. Over half of Danes believe that Islam hinders social harmony; three quarters of citizens from the former East Germany want to ’seriously limit’ the practice of Islam; half of Britons associate Islam with terrorism; four in ten French people see Muslims living in their country as a ‘threat’ to their national identity; more than 50 per cent of Austrians believe that ’Islam poses a threat to the West and our familiar lifestyle’.

Even though Muslims in Europe originate from different parts of the globe - Turks in Germany, north Africans in France, Pakistanis in Britain - they are seen as a single monolithic block, unable to integrate into European society.

Eurabia

It is no surprise that arguments about the incompatibility of Islam with ’western values’ have shifted from the fringes into mainstream discourse. In recent years, we have seen a growing ’intellectualization’ of Islamophobia. Some prominent western commentators (many of whom have historically displayed little or no interest in Islamic culture) have gone out of their way to add credibility to anti-Muslim hysteria.

Reputable publications regularly print scare stories around a supposed Islamic takeover of Europe, filled with overblown talk of demographic timebombs caused by Muslim immigration and high fertility rates. The continent is forever depicted as being on the frontline of the West’s struggle with Islam, facing the real prospect of a ‘Eurabian’ state.

The American columnist Christopher Caldwell argues that Muslims are ‘patiently conquering Europe’s cities street by street’; the late Italian author Oriana Fallaci claimed that Muslims have been told to come here and ’breed like rats’. Canadian writer Mark Steyn paints a dystopian future with everyone under ’40 - make it 60, if not 75’ destined to live in an ‘Islamified Europe’.

Last summer, the Social Democrat Thilo Sarrazin caused a publishing sensation with his book Germany Does Away with Itself, in which he declares: ‘I don’t want the country of my grandchildren and great-grandchildren to be largely Muslim, or that Turkish or Arabic will be spoken in large areas, that women will wear headscarves and the daily rhythm is set by the call of the muezzin.’

The implication is that the Islamic threat is real and urgent; being Muslim and being European is incompatible; Muslims can never be moderate. These writers and their disciples have their viewpoints endlessly repeated in public and reposted on internet message boards, gifting the far right a ‘legitimate’ scapegoat, as well as the arguments and language to spread its message successfully.

Extreme right-wing politicians exploit ‘respectable’ Islamophobia, knowing that a hard line against Europe’s Muslim communities is a surefire vote winner. Across the continent - in Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, France, Austria, Switzerland - radical right political parties have won large numbers of votes by focusing on the ‘Islamization’ of their countries.

Aligned with popular campaigns, such as banning the construction of mosques and minarets or legislating on which garments Muslim women can wear in public – in Geert Wilders’ words, a tax on ’head-rags’ – their voices have been successful in creating a cultural climate that is aggressively hostile to Europe’s Muslim communities.

Violent clashes

This atmosphere inevitably leads to physical clashes. Across Europe, Muslim populations have become regular targets of violent attacks. Centres of worship are routinely vandalized - Berlin’s largest mosque, Sehitlik, was attacked four times in five months last year - and women wearing religious clothing are frequently abused and assaulted in public.

Often entire communities are intimidated by anti-Muslim protests that take to the streets. The English Defence League has held forty marches across the country in two years, all of which have ended in violence. In the city of Peterborough, supporters circumvented police cordons and attacked Muslim youths after a series of inflammatory speeches. Their actions, which have included daubing mosques with hate-speech and placing bacon and pigs’ heads on Muslim premises, are designed to promote community division and provoke a violent reaction, lending credence to a confused ‘clash of civilizations’ narrative.

Anti-immigrant politicians are channelling the energy of extra-parliamentary movements into their campaigns, organizing meetings with those able to mobilize people previously thought to be beyond the reach of representative politics. Wilders, with his contacts both within parliaments and outside conventional political structures, is forming an International Freedom Alliance, which aims to ‘stop Islam’ and ‘defend freedom’.

A decade after Austria was ostracized, Haider’s successors are being accepted, their agenda adopted by established parties they sit alongside. In the Netherlands, Italy and Denmark limits on immigration from Africa and the Middle East can be directly attributed to these parties acting as government support partners. They drive popular, often successful campaigns to restrict visible signs of Islam in Europe - against the mosque, the Qu’ran, the face-veil - often supported by people who would never dream of actively endorsing the far right.

The mainstream, after years of denying these parties the ’oxygen of publicity’, frequently goes out of its way to accommodate far-right views in order to reflect the diversity of political opinion. Geert Wilders writes for the Wall Street Journal; SD leader Jimmie Akesson authors a pre-election op-ed for the Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet; Marine Le Pen is winning support on her ’detoxification’ tour of the globe, granting interviews to Britain’s Daily Telegraph, Israel’s Ha’aretz and the Associated Press – something completely denied to her father.

As their influence grows across the continent, so must their ambitions. Their parties have successfully put ’natives first’ policies, and even the voluntary repatriation of immigrants, back onto the political agenda, decades after they were last considered seriously by lawmakers.

The social reforms developed by the conservative and social democratic consensus over six decades were in part introduced to ensure that Europe never again saw extremists holding the levers of power. In 21st century Europe, a populist far right sees an opportunity to dismantle institutional, ethical and legislative structures that the continent has built upon since the Second World War. Agreed principles around non-discrimination, tolerance and diversity are under threat by opportunistic figures who care little for the livelihoods of Europe’s minority communities. As Kent Ekeroth declares: ’We are not bound by someone else’s principles.’