More than half a century after the horrors of the Second World War, the words “fascism” and “nationalism” are no longer taboo in Europe. With support for far-right movements and parties across the continent swelling at
an unprecedented rate, radical ideas are creeping into everyday political discourse. In some cases, these ideas are alarmingly reminiscent of 20th century ethno-nationalism; for instance, the Hungarian nationalist party Jobbik has recently called for the creation of a list of Hungary’s Jews and the reinstatement of the death penalty to deal with “gypsy crime.” The party currently represents the third largest political bloc in the country.
Some have blamed the fast-growing support for extremist groups on the dire financial conditions in Europe. Yet the recession cannot wholly explain the upsurge in nationalism, whose root cause is a deeper national identity crisis that governments have not been able nor willing to solve.
Recession and Scapegoating
Economic historians such as Harvard’s Benjamin Friedman have argued that stagnating and declining economic conditions often give rise to intolerance. Although this certainly applies to the current European situation—and particularly to the southern and eastern countries that have suffered most—higher taxes and rampant unemployment have only provided the casus belli for the widespread escalation of nationalism. In an interview with the HPR, Huub van Baar, assistant professor of European Studies at the University of Amsterdam, argued that the financial crisis has deepened a racialization process that has been under way in Europe for a few years now.
The clearest example of the relationship between recession and support for neo-fascism is Greece. The rise of the far-right Golden Dawn party, which today represents around 11 percent of the voters, has coincided with the implementation of severe austerity measures and the dramatic rise of unemployment. The discontent of Golden Dawn followers and sympathizers has recently degenerated into overt racial violence, mainly against the long-settled Romani minority.
On the other hand, considering the recession as the engine that set far-right movements in motion has questionable empirical grounding. Nationalist support comes disproportionately from the youth rather than the working class. Moreover, nationalist groups usually do not voice economic solutions to ameliorate the current situation.
The Challenge of Identity Politics
The current situation instead seems to be rooted in much deeper questions of identity and culture. Speaking with the HPR, Clarence Lusane of American University cautioned against thinking of Europe’s resurgence of racism and extreme nationalism as an acute phenomenon due to the financial crisis. “There has been a continuity,” he said, due to European countries’ struggle to maintain their own identity in the face of the dramatic social and political changes since World War II.
According to van Baar, the promise of a post-racial future inherent in the EU project caused a backlash in favor of nationalism. In some countries—particularly those more homogeneous like Italy and those on Europe’s periphery such as Hungary or Greece—the competition between national and communitarian identity results in a racialization process that victimizes minorities and newcomers. “In Europe, the notion of race is to be understood not as a biological or ethnical category, but as belonging to a particular nation state,” he said. Boston College Associate Professor Jonathan Lawrence added that the processes of globalization and EU membership have been eroding national identity from above, while migratory inflows threaten it from below.
Moreover, unresponsiveness on the part of European governments to popular fears has contributed to converting a perceived threat to national identity into support for far-right movements. According to Liz Fekete, executive director of the Institute for Race Relations, European governments, “instead of educat-
ing ordinary citizens about the fact that we live in a globalized world,” are cutting back on social welfare, education, and wealth. In turn, leaders across the continent need to use “national identity and nationalism as a kind of glue to hold society together,” she said. In this sense, the governments themselves are incentivizing their citizens to sympathize with the far right.
Finally, the war on Islamic terrorism that western European democracies endorsed in the aftermath of 9/11 has only added fuel to the fire. The Madrid and London bombings that took place in 2004 and 2005 respectively reinforced the EU commitment to counterterrorism not only abroad but also domestically. In this important struggle, not enough attention has been paid to making the due distinctions between the Islamic immigrant communities—which keep growing larger in Western Europe—and Islamic terrorist groups, thus giving rise to Islamophobia.
Social Media and Mobilization
The structural forces that have fomented far-right sympathies in Europe cannot explain how these movements have reorganized and in some cases turned violent, however. According to Lusane, the advent of social media has allowed for a form of political organization that escapes any kind of government control; some EU countries have attempted to outlaw racist organizations, he added, but the world of social media is beyond the governments’ reach. Moreover, there has recently been a shift from virtual violence to “actual physical attacks” that target both historical minorities like the Roma and recently-settled Muslim and black migrant communities. Fekete added that social media platforms create an “interplay between people and leaders,” thus facilitating mobilization.
The racist insults and threats that targeted the Italian Minister for Integration Cécile Kyenge, the first black minister in Italian history, are exemplary of the sociopolitical interplay that Fekete describes. Members of the Northern League, Italy’s extreme right party that currently occupies a total of 35 seats in the Parliament, have used Facebook and Twitter—in addition to conventional political venues—to post racist comments directed towards Kyenge. Some Northern League followers saw these posts as an invitation to act; days following the virtual insults,
a group of radicals hurled bananas at the minister, echoing statements that offensively likened her to an orangutan. Similar episodes have occurred in the Czech Republic, where nationalist groups have been creating Facebook pages to organize outright violent mobilization against the Roma community.
Counterforces
However, the social and civil conditions in Europe make a repeat of the 1930s and 1940s highly unlikely. Indeed, Germany and Italy of the mid-20th century lacked a strong, vocal, and organized anti-nationalist community, whereas today a vibrant European civil society provides a bulwark against rampant racism. Fekete observed that in 30 years of studying race relations, she has never witnessed such strong resistance against these movements, especially in Germany and Sweden.
Not everybody, however, is so optimistic. Lusane thinks
the solution should be a renewed dedication on the part of the governments to prepare their citizens to accept demographic changes, as well as a stronger commitment to enforcing antidiscrimination policies already in place. Some, including van Barr, argue that the situation must worsen before Europe can truly resolve its current cultural challenges. In the short-term he expects “more hostility towards both migrants and minorities” and an increase in stigmatization of these marginalized communities. A deeper social and political transformation may be necessary for Europe to finally bury the ghosts of its past.