The Los Angeles Times Sunday, September 21, 1997
Europe:
WITH TIMES TOUGH, FASCISM COMING BACK
By Martin A. Lee
WASHINGTON -- An Italian wine company recently sparked an uproar
when it introduced a new brand with a picture of Adolf Hitler on its label.
The same company also produces bottles of wine featuring Benito
Mussolini's picture. A marketing strategy that uses such images might be
dismissed as a tasteless joke if not for the fact that a multifaceted neofascist
revival has gained alarming momentum in Europe since the end of the Cold
War.
The revival is not orchestrated by a sieg-heiling dictator flanked by men in
brown shirts and swastika armbands. Rather, a new breed of right-wing
extremists have trimmed their sails to suit the political moment. Realizing
that the fascist game can be played in many ways, the more sophisticated
tacticians underwent an ideological face-lift and mainstreamed their
message for the sake of democratic appearances.
The end of the bipolar Yalta system demagnetized everybody's compass
and provided fresh opportunities for the Front National in France, the
Austrian Freedom Party, Italy's National Alliance, Vlaams Blok in Belgium
and other right-wing extremist parties that have successfully tapped into
widespread post-Cold-War uncertainties. The rise of these mass-based
electoral movements has coincided with a dramatic increase in hate crimes
throughout Western Europe, where a racial assault occurs once every three
minutes, according to the European Parliament.
Peddling a ready-made politics for the economically disenchanted, far-right
demagogues have touched a raw nerve by deceptively linking jobless
statistics to the number of guest workers and asylum seekers in their
countries. The presence of 20 million migrants in Western Europe is
perhaps the most visible sign of the major structural transformation that has
accompanied the emergence of a global economy, with its interdependent
markets, unfettered capital mobility and novel information technologies.
Third World and Eastern European immigrants are routinely depicted as a
threat to national identity, as well as economic stability, at a time when the
Western European work force is reeling from high unemployment,
stagnating wages and cutbacks in social services.
Neofascists posing as national populists have gained at the ballot box by
coupling their anti-immigrant message with harsh denunciations of the
1991 Maastricht Treaty and its plans for a common European currency.
They have also benefited from foraging on a political terrain where the
ideological distance between the mainstream parties has shrunk. This has
propelled the growth of the extreme right, which appeals to disillusioned
voters by assuming the mantle of the opposition and attacking a corrupt,
bipartisan status quo.
Lacking new ideas and eager to deflect attention from their own policy
failures, mainstream politicians throughout Western Europe have been all
too willing to fix the blame for complex social and economic problems on
immigrants. Government officials mouthed neofascist catch-phrases that
put the onus on foreigners for crime, drugs, job scarcity and nearly every
other difficulty. Before long, it was politically correct even among socialists
to speak of an invasion of foul-smelling aliens.
But this imitative response did not lessen the appeal of far-right candidates;
instead, it served to legitimize many of their ideas in the public mind. By
jumping on the xenophobic bandwagon, mainstream politicians incited an
atmosphere of racial hatred, which opened the door even more for the
jackals of the far right. The growing popularity of radical right-wingers
forced mainstream parties to adjust their policies to stop the hemorrhaging
of their electoral base. As a result, government officials in one country after
the next removed the welcome mat for refugees and adopted other
extreme-right policy measures.
In Austria, the ruling coalition tried to steal the thunder of Joerg Haider's
Freedom Party by imposing sharp restrictions on immigration. But Haider
still gained credibility. In October 1996, his party won 27.6% of the
national vote, only a shade behind the two mainstream parties. Haider, who
recently claimed that all soldiers in World War II, whichever side they were
on, fought for peace, is poised for a serious run for chancellor.
In France, mainstream leaders kowtowed to Jean-Marie Le Pen's up-and-
coming National Front. In 1994, the French National Assembly, hoping to
take the wind out of Le Pen's sails, reversed a law that granted citizenship
to anyone born on French soil; henceforth, the privilege of bloodline would
supersede all other factors in determining whether someone is a French
national. But Le Pen's party continued to expand its base of support,
grabbing
3.7 million votes in recent legislative elections that saw the pendulum move
from conservative to socialist after swinging dramatically the other way a
few years ago.
Gianfranco Fini's National Alliance commands roughly 15% of the
electorate in Italy. His breakthrough came in 1994, when his neofascist
party was given five ministerial posts and several other key assignments in
a short-lived coalition government headed by billionaire media tycoon
Silvio Berlusconi. This broke a long-standing antifascist taboo and
established a precedent for conservative politicians, who had previously
shunned alliances with the ultraright. Several public opinion polls indicate
that Fini is currently Italy's most popular politician.
In Germany, the ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has been able
to buck the trend and successfully defang its neofascist opponents. In
effect, the CDU became what it set out to destroy. In addition to passing
tough anti-immigrant legislation, top CDU officials routinely talk of
"Middle Germany" when referring to what had previously been Communist
East Germany. Germany's federal budget also describes former East
Germany as "Mitteldeutschlands," thereby lending credence to neo-Nazi
revanchists who insist that parts of Poland and the Czech Republic
rightfully belong to Germany.
By mimicking the language of the far right as part of their calculated
attempt to stay in power, German leaders have perpetuated long-range
problems that make the future appearance of a more virulent strain of
nationalism likely. With unemployment officially above 12% (the highest
since Hitler), discontent is rife. "A lot of people think that the increasingly
difficult problems can be managed only with authoritarian means," says
psychologist Horst-Eberhard Richter, as if an open society can't manage
capitalism, and only a hard hand and an iron broom will work."
Although there are definite parallels to the interwar years, today's neofas-
cist movements have emerged under a unique set of circumstances.
Ironically, their success has hinged to a great extent on their ability to
distance themselves from the historical image of fascism. While some small,
marginalized neo-Nazi groups still cling to the heritage of the Third Reich
and the Mussolini regime, the more astute fascist strategists understand
that it is best not to advertise their fidelity to the creed. Thus Le Pen, who
founded the Front National 25 years ago while selling recordings of Hitler's
speeches, insists that his movement has nothing to do with fascism, which
he dismisses as an antiquated Italian doctrine. Fini calls himself a "post-
fascist." Similarly, Xavier Buisseret, formerly the editor of a Holocaust-
denial journal and the leader of a Flemish terrorist organization that was
banned by the Belgian government, tried to moderate his image when he
became the propaganda chief of Vlaams Blok, which is currently the
biggest vote getter in Antwerp, Belgium's second largest city.
Fascism is on the march again. No simple formula, however, can predict
how strong contemporary fascist movements or their functional equivalents
will become. "It is only a matter of time," predicts historian Paul Johnson,
"before the fascism of the 1990s, under new names, of course, and
'responsible' leaders, becomes respectable." That time may already have
arrived.
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Martin A. Lee is author of "The Beast Reawakens," a book about
neofascism.
