The rise of the right has hit the headlines across Europe but it smells more of elite prejudice than a real resurgence of racism.
From my obscured vantage point in Ireland it’s hard to know precisely what is going on in, say, Hungary, but the much-vaunted swelling of Britain’s fascist ranks looks rather unlikely to me. And yet, according to press reports the sound of jackboots is getting louder across Europe with every passing day.
The latest scare is the English Defence League, an “anti-Muslim street army” that in an unusual twist reportedly includes Sikhs and Jews in its ranks (though why Sikhs and Jews should be any more or less racist than anyone else has yet to be adequately explored in any newspaper report I have read).
Undoubtedly the appearance of boot boys is regrettable but the narrative being presented in the press is a little unlikely sounding to my ears. For a start, haven’t we been here before?
As soon as the recession hit we were told that “people” (which people?) would immediately become racists. The idea is a simple – and simplistic – one: the public is only willing to tolerate Jeannie Foreigner when the times are good; as soon as there is the slightest economic pressure our inner beast comes out. A dimmer view of humanity is hard to imagine.
It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the real prejudice at work is one on the part of the elite: that the “lower orders” are, at best, sheep and, at worst, aggressive, paranoid, ignorant and dangerous. The one group it is still acceptable to hold in disgust is the working class.
The “rise” of the British National Party (BNP), which has been anything but stellar, has been constantly bemoaned in Britain since the mid-1990s and yet the party still hasn’t got a single seat in Britain's parliament. Yes, it has two Euro MPs but it's important to remember that no-one takes the European elections seriously. Why would they? MEPs have no power and the European parliament is pointless and sterile talking shop with no executive power, entirely overshadowed by the European Commission.
The real function of the BNP, as far as elite discourse is concerned, is to create a rallying point for “ordinary, decent people”. It goes like this: we may not know what we stand for anymore, but we really don’t like those unreconstructed thugs.
Liberal opinion has no answer to why racism exists beyond a crude mixture of economic determinism and socio-cultural phrenology. Soi dissant liberals see racism and xenophobia as the senseless acts of simple-minded people who live on nasty council estates. Drawing room – and cabinet office – racism never come into the picture.
Even those who have some kind of answer to what racism is seem to be rather confused on the issue.
Britain’s Anti-Nazi League (ANL) is a particularly interesting example. The group appeared in 1977 as a far-left response to the rise of the right. All very laudable but by casting local fascism as “Nazism” and channeling British patriotism over World War II, the ANL was saying that racism and fascism were exotic foreign imports, not a response to native politics.
Instructively, the ANL and similar British groups during the 1990s had plenty to say about Jean-Marie Le Pen – a foreigner and a fascist? Double whammy!
Oh, and Jörg Haider. And Pim Fortuyn. And every other would-be demagogue in Europe.
The ANL has subsequently merged into a broad front group called Unite Against Fascism that incorporates much more mainstream opinion in the form of senior political figures, even claiming the support of Conservative prime minister David Cameron, of all people.
And yet, it’s not so long ago that British mainstream politics supported the racist regime in South Africa. Ancient history? OK then. More recently still, Britain’s then-Labour government was far from adverse to whipping-up a bit of xenophobia over the issue of asylum seekers (never forgetting to stick the boot into the working class while refusing to acknowledge that the government’s pronouncements were the source of the refugee panic).
It’s not just in Britain that politicians think the untermensch are on the march, either. European Commission president José Manuel Barroso thinks the European public are too volatile and freedom of movement must be curbed in order to keep them from voting for nasty right wingers in an apoplectic frenzy.
“It is a mistake to say that freedom of movement is absolute. This is what creates many Le Pens,” he told El Pais yesterday.
In a richly ironic move, Barroso, displaying some cognitive dissonance, has been busy criticising French president Nicolas Sarkozy's stoking of anti-Roma sentiment, specifically his deportation plans. So, which is it José? Are we to be free to move around the EU or not?
When the EU elite is both in favour of freedom of movement and against it at the same time, seemingly unable to express an idea, never mind a policy, it's hardly a surprise that phantom fascists have become a handy stage army used to blame the public's supposedly innate beastliness for racism, rather than the contradictory positions of our political leaders.
But inflating every fringe group to blackshirt status or even presenting every protest as if it’s Cable Street ’36 all over again not only makes a mockery of history, it contributes nothing to our understanding of society as it is today.
As long as Sarko and chums are kicking people out of France and the likes of Barroso are chipping away at freedom of movement, one of the EU's most tangible benefits, it is pointless to talk about the rise of racism among the hard-up. In Europe the rot is seeping down from the top, not from the bottom up.
