My blog does not deal with the extreme right. It deals with European Muslims. However, after I recently voiced my opinion that the extreme right is dangerous, I got responses that I'm overreacting. Maybe. For a Jew it is easy to overreact to the right-wing violence in Europe.
In any case, here's a bit of a roundup of what Neo-Nazi organizations have been up to recently. When available, I found an English source. Some articles actually deal with the response to the right-wing violence, and not the right wing actions itself.
I do not think that neo-Nazism is right around the corner. However, I think it is wrong to suppose that it does not exist or that it is "harmless" just because in many European countries it is illegal. These stories do not represent everything that happened in Europe in the past few weeks, they represent those stories I happened to run across in my regular news reading.
Sweden:
- Two 16-year-old boys, members of the National-Socialist Front, have been convicted of the murder of a physically disabled 55-year-old man ( The Local, English)
Spain:
- Girl from Ecuador attacked on train in Barcelona, apparently for racist reasons ( Global Voices , English)
- 16-year old killed by right-wing soldier in Madrid after being called "Nazi". The soldier was on his way to a right-wing demonstration, the victim on his way to a counter-protest. ( Expatica, English)
- In both cases, the murders sparked riots.
Germany:
- National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD) staged protest against mosque in Hausen and against the "Islamization of Europe" ( Expatica, English)
- Five men charged for attacking Sudanese and Egyptian ( Expatica, English)
- 237 Jewish graves have been desecrated in 2002-2006 ( HLN, Dutch)
UK:
- Racist graffiti in Ipswich ( Evening Star, English)
Czech Republic:
- Young National Democrats march through Prague Jewish Quarter on Kristallnacht in protest against Iraq War ( Expatica, English)
Netherlands:
- Dutch musician knifes three Poles in night-club after suffering from racist abuse (HLN , Dutch)
- 65 year old charged with threatening to run his car into two girls, apparently for racist reasons (NHD , Dutch)
- Nationalist People's Movement (NVB) allowed to march in Slotervaart, Amsterdam (Parool, Dutch)
- Centre Information and Documentation on Israel (CIDI ) reports antisemitism rose by 64% in the past two years in the Netherlands. The CIDI blames the extreme right wing for most attacks. ( Telegraaf, Dutch)
Croatia:
- Croatian hooligans flirt with Nazi ideology (Expatica, English)
Italy:
- Judge allows sell of "Nazi" wine with pictures of Hitler and "Seig Heil" slogans (6 minutes, Dutch)
Denmark:
- Head of the Danish National-Socialist Movement sentenced for attacking policeman during protest (Berlingske Tidende, Danish)
17 comments:
Esther:
"Dutch musician knifes three Poles in night-club after suffering from racist abuse "
Snouck:
This looks more like anti-white racist violence. Or one must think it is an appropriate response to knife people for ethnic slurring.
The musician may probably have been a black rapper. Rap music is rife with the most vicious anti white racist lyrics. And these rappers never get any troubles for texts that would get a white ethnic fined, fired, locked up and shunned in any Western country.
Double standard anyone?
Question: "How can anyone that belongs to a group called the National-Socialist Front be considered Right Wing?"
I believe that the conflating of Leftist nationalist racists with conservatism has gone on long enough.
Here's one more: Danish National-Socialist Movement ...A Right-wing conservative movement?
Under what definition?
*L* KGS
KGS,
I've been having a discussion with somebody else about this same issue, so if you'll allow me to vent for a second..
The Nazis are not leftist. They are socialist-leftist just like the Chinese are democratic and the Muslims blow up people out of peaceful feelings.
This is a video put out by Danish National Socialist Movement (DNSB). Notice the username naziviking. This video is linked straight from the DNSB site.
I understand that people don't like thinking of racist right wingers. I really don't mind changing my language and instead of calling neo-Nazis "extreme right wing" I'll call them "racist-leftists". I'm willing to call them anything you'd like. It will not change the fact that they're nationalist xenophobes.
By saying that neo-Nazis parties and movements are "not right wing" and "not conservative" you're just giving the problem another name. You're not really solving the problem of racism and antisemitism.
I am a liberal-conservative. I don't need to call racists "leftists" in order to feel good about my conservatism, or to understand that there's a big difference between being conservative and being a racist nut.
Hi,
I am reading and linking you in my blog frequently, but I have to say that your attacks on the “extreme right”, which you push to the national-socialist zone, are a little bit strange. For instance, as far as the Spanish news you mention here are concerned, I have to let you know the following.
In the first case, the aggressor was a young person with long and known psychological problems, who kicked another young South American person with no injuries… It was aired in all Spanish TVs and news papers for several days, while they hide more frequent and violent incidents by immigrants. You are not to blame for this, but do you think this is a nazi attack?.
Concerning the second news, the “nazi” was going to an authorised demonstration and was attacked by a group of “antifas” who were going not to a counter-protest, but to break the authorised demo.
Third, the riots mentioned have been actually very violent non-authorised gatherings by the so-called antifas. Are you sure these are the nazis that you would want to incriminate.
I am very sorry to say that this approach is regrettable. You are risking that if the real mazis come no one will believe you.
Esther, you are free to vent, this is your blog :-)
Please allow me to press my my point. Properly defining the political spectrum that racists come from is important.
Far too long the Left has managed to squeek by in placing national socialists squarley in the camp of conservatism. The logic by itself, of a group calling itself socialist but somehow belonging to the right wing...is illogical.
The national socialists long gor centralized power, the heart of conservatism strives to lessen the central government's control.
It of course serves the Left's purpose quite well, and allows them to place the European Right Wing politics as being responsible for socialist fascism, when all along it was Marx's socialist principles that defined the Fascist movements.
Bigotry and racsim can be found throughout the politcal spectrum, but the defining of fascism as a "right wing" philosophy has to be the grandest, successful myth and canards of all time.
The testing ground for any nationalist group --whether they come from the left, right or center-- should be how willing they are to safegaurd the rights of minorities.
Nationalism is one thing, socialist racist superiority is entirely another.
amdg,
The Moroccan youth who stepped into a police station in Amsterdam and stabbed two policemen was suffering from known schizophrenia.
The fact that it was an authorized demonstration does not prove anything, as neo-Nazi and other extreme right wing groups are regularly allowed to protest. Looking it up - the attacker was going to a Democracia Nacional protest - a group which according to Wikipedia at least follows in the footsteps of the French National Front. Their site prominently features the "kick out the black sheep" which I've seen being used by the Swiss extreme right and a German neo-Nazi party.
Most of the people I've mentioned in my article are the ones waving swastika flags. If they're not the real Nazis, who is?
What worries me is that I'm being told that the Nazis are actually Leftist and therefore there is no reason to be concerned about the Rightists. I can't understand this logic, since it is the RIGHT wing in Europe who has former Nazis and Nazi sympathizers in its parties and it is the RIGHT wing which talks about nationalism and kicking out foreigners.
I am not saying the Left are not violent or complete nuts. Every European country also has non-political thugs, sport-thugs etc. But all of that does not negate that there is a danger from the extreme right. The fact that people are arguing with me about whether Nazis are right or left worries me. It means that you can be as extreme right as you want, there is no danger of becoming neo-Nazi.
KGS,
In that case: China is a democracy, just because it says so, and the Bolsheviks were a majority already when they started off, just because they said so. Is Islam also a religion of peace?
I've been reading up on the Swedish Nationalsocialistisk Front, and if they're leftist, then being a conservative right winger would mean I should support multiculturalism and the building of mosques.
Yes, they're not consistent. They can bring Ahmed Rami of Radio Islam to talk about the "Jewish Question" and the Zionist worldwide conspiracy, but they can also run a campaign "no mosques in Sweden". I suppose their antisemitism is so great they're willing to talk to a Muslim about it, but that doesn't mean they won't be the first in line to throw Rami out of the country. Is this what you call the left wing?
To me this is simply doublespeak. I don't care if they're left or right. I do care that they exist and that two of their members murdered a man.
How do you think they intend to solve the "Jewish question"?
A bit jumping of the gun Esther. I never said that right wing folks can't be racists. If you look more closely, I said that racism and bigotry spans the political spectrum.
How can you square socialism and right-wing conservatism? I can't. If you are able to explain it to me, I'm all ears.
As for redfining terms in order to dismiss racism....that's a bogus claim. I have not done any such thing. WE STILL NEED TO WATCH OUT FOR FASCISTS. The can be found coming from the traditional home of socialism, in other words the evil twin of the Left.
Nazism by its own definition revolves around national socialism with full state control, or should I say a monopoly on power. Please show me where I'm wrong if you still disagree.
KGS
KGS,
I definitely agree with you that the Left has its own type racism, but its a very sly racism.
The Nazis are not Leftists and they're not socialist in the 'leftist' term of the word.
Nationalists are right wing by definition. The left wing supports internationalism, it supports the EU and the UN and international brotherhood. The difference between the extreme right and left is not the issue of full state control, but rather the reason behind it. For the left, its an issue of redistributing wealth, for the right its nationalism.
Can you give me an example of one *recognized* left wing party in Europe which uses Nazi symbols?
Esther: "I've been reading up on the Swedish Nationalsocialistisk Front, and if they're leftist, then being a conservative right winger would mean I should support multiculturalism and the building of mosques."
Again, you read into to their overt racism and Jew hate as signs of not being Leftist, when in fact, they have deliberately chosen for their party name "Swedish Nationalist Socialist Front".
Please tell me what conservative right-wing group would incorporate SOCIALISM into their party name.
Kind of like Jewish political party in Israel incorporating "Islamic" somehow into its party name.
Oil and water don't mix.
The Nazis parted ways with communist socialism because they were indeed racists. They loathed the "internationalism of brothers" that the communists espoused.
But they were in fact a product of the Left. I would suggest that you read Paul Berman's Terror and Liberalism.
He explains the ease of communists becoming fascists before WWII and then returning to communism after the second world war ended. Very enlightening.
KGS: congratulations for saying what I was thinking of saying myself. Since this can of worms has been opened, I might as well add a few words.
Just a few weeks ago I learned that the first to come up with the idea of cleansing Central Europe of inferior races was none other than Marx' buddy, Friedrich Engels. George Watson (The Lost Literature of Socialism) has even claimed that every genocide of the last 150 years was carried out by self-defined socialists. So it's really the "socialist" part in national-socialism that is the problem, not the "national" part.
Anyway, does it really make sense to say that nationalism is right-wing? nationalism was born as a revolutionary movement, opposed by conservatives like Metternich (my sympathy goes to the nationalists here). Besides, replace "nation" with "society" and you have turned nationalist rhetoric into socialist rhetoric.
But I insist that the real problem is socialism: nationalism has done a lot of good in breaking up various empires, both within Europe and overseas.
Of course, the Italian fascists were not racists (at least not by the standards of the time), but even Italian fascism originates from socialism: check out A. James Gregor on this. Not only fascism came from socialism, but the New Deal was an adaptation of the Italian fascist model. You can check Wolfgang Schivelbusch (Three New Deals) on this. Reagan, by shifting American politics to the right, shifted it away from fascism.
WRT antisemitism in particular, remember the words of Ulrike Meinhof: antisemitism is really a hatred of capitalism. That's true in Europe, anyway: in the USA, it might be different.
In conclusion, I should add that I have restrained myself to commenting on fascism and nazism. That does NOT mean that I think that conservatives and libertarians are blameless, and it does NOT mean that racism always comes from the Left (although I think this is almost always the case *in Europe*).
People should remember that the "right" is a projection of the left. That's to say the left-right distinction is not some objective terminology, but a creation of the left, the means by which the left came to define itself at the very moment it emerged in the French Revolution. Serious conservatives do not think of themselves as on the right. You can't think seriously about conservatism when you are trapped in leftist terminology. You first have to refuse to think in their terms.
It's pretty clear that the Nazis and the Communists were basically cut from the same deadly cloth, whatever the small differences that they blew up into some great polarizing divide. The true opponent of both Nazis and Communists was a conservative like Winston Churchill, someone, by the way, who looked kindly on F.D. Roosevelt's New Deal. As I say, the conservative does not fit neatly into left-right distinctions.
First case. He kicked (not stabbed) a person; he has NO connection with nazis, yet you insist. Ok, a "nazi".
Second case. He was travelling in underground and was attacked by "antifas". Another nazi? Ok, still I understand even nazis have the right not to be attacked personally. He could be a nazi (of course, he was not), still this would NEVER be a nazi attack?
The third. What about the third? Were they nazis (I mean what you call nazis) or "antifas"?
AMDG,
No, the riots were definitely left-wing. This was meant as a comment, not as a 3rd case.
I do admit, that the more I read about it, the more I realize that the extreme Left is responsible for quite a lot of violence and that it's not only the anti-globalization riots.
As other people here note, the rightwing nazi thing is an invention of the left.
Jonah Goldberg has written an excelent new book with the title: "Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning" that documents this all.
Amazon link:
http://www.amazon.com/Liberal-Fascism-American-Mussolini-Politics/dp/0385511841/
For a good overview one can also listen to Jonah Goldberg his radio interviewed at the libertarian Glen and Helen Show:
http://politicscentral.com/2007/12/27/the_glenn_and_helen_show_jonah.php
Post a Comment