----- Original Message ----- From: Alain Kessi <kessi at bitex.com> To: Savanne <savanne at savanne.ch> Sent: Sunday, December 05, 1999 1:27 PM Subject: [right-left] LA Times, Fascist Response to Globalization
> >From Antifa Info Bulletin No. 227, December 5, 1999
> http://burn.ucsd.edu/~aff/afib.html
>
> THE FASCIST RESPONSE TO GLOBALIZATION
>
> LOS ANGELES TIMES
> Sunday, November 28, 1999
> http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/19991127/t000108453.html
> By MARTIN A. LEE
>
> WASHINGTON--Austria's far-right Freedom Party sent shock waves through
> Europe when it won 27% of the vote in recent national elections. Joerg
> Haider, the Freedom Party's youthful, charismatic fuehrer, is now in a
> strong position to contend for the Austrian chancellorship, despite his
> penchant for expressing pro-Nazi sympathies.
>
> While Austrian officials struggled to put together a viable governing
> coalition, Switzerland's extremist right-wing People's Party, led by
> Christoph Blocher, scored a major electoral breakthrough, winning 23% of
> the vote in late October. Blocher, like Haider, is a tub-thumping,
> xenophobic multimillionaire who rails against immigrants, government
> corruption and the European Union. Blocher caused a stir when he praised
> the author of a book that denied the Holocaust. Austria and Switzerland
> are small countries with comparatively little influence on the world
> stage. But if such enthusiasm for the extreme right extended across the
> border into Germany, it would be a matter of grave concern for the
> entire international community. Currently, in economically depressed
> eastern Germany, an alarming 15% to 20% of young men vote for
> neo-fascist parties. "To say that one-third of East German youth is now
> prone to the extreme right is an understatement," warns Berlin
> criminologist Berndt Wagner. "The point of no return has already been
> reached for many. It's growing. It's getting worse."
>
> "Neo-fascism and neo-Nazism are gaining ground in many countries,
> especially in Europe," says Maurice Glele-Ahanhanzo, special rapporteur
> of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. Of particular concern,
> Glele-Ahanhanzo noted in a recent report to the U.N. General Assembly,
> is the "increase in the power of the extreme right-wing parties,"
> thriving in "an economic and social climate characterized by fear and
> despair." Among the key factors fueling the far right, according to the
> U.N. report, are "the combined effects of globalization, identity crises
> and social exclusion."
>
> Radical right-wing populist movements with openly fascist roots have
> made significant inroads into mainstream politics in several West
> European countries, including Belgium, where the neo-fascist Vlaams Blok
> outpolls all rivals with 30% of the vote in Antwerp, the second-largest
> city. Far-right parties have also gained at least 15% nationwide in
> France, Italy and Norway. While this percentage may seem inconsequential
> in terms of the U.S. two-party system, it can carry great weight in
> parliamentary balloting and determine the political makeup of
> government.
>
> Even when they lose elections, neo-fascists are like a toxic chemical in
> the water supply of the European political landscape, polluting public
> discourse and pressuring establishment parties to adopt extremist
> positions to fend off challenges from the hard right. Scapegoating
> foreigners and ethnic minorities, ultra-right-wing demagogues have
> touched a raw nerve in a tumultuous post-Cold War world still reeling
> from the demise of Soviet-bloc communism, the reunification of Germany,
> global economic restructuring and major technological change.
>
> In Western Europe today, there are 50 million poor, 18 million
> unemployed and 3 million homeless--and Eastern Europe is faring much
> worse. Such conditions are ripe for exploitation by extreme-right
> organizations that range from tiny splinter groups and underground
> terrorist cells to sizable political parties. While skinhead gangs may
> function as shock troops of the far right's march through Europe,
> leaders of the more successful mass-based neo-fascist organizations have
> softened their image and tailored their message to appeal to mainstream
> voters.
>
> Riding the crest of a populist backlash against globalization, far-right
> opportunists couple their anti-immigrant tirades with pointed criticisms
> of the European Union and the recent introduction of a single currency,
> the euro. They have gotten mileage out of exploiting justifiable qualms
> about the European Monetary Union, which they present as an attempt by
> Europe's big business to adapt to the needs of the new global economic
> order.
>
> Full participation in the European Union required painful budgetary
> retrenchment by member states, which, for better or worse, relinquished
> authority on key fiscal matters to unelected central bankers in
> Frankfurt. The adoption of the euro and the globalization of financial
> markets, in general, have significantly limited the capacity of national
> governments to regulate their economies and redress high unemployment by
> adjusting their currencies and tweaking their interest rates. Not
> surprisingly, voter turnout among Europeans has dropped precipitously,
> along with public confidence in elected representatives. Disenchantment
> with the conventional political spectrum is heightened by the failure of
> erstwhile left-of-center social democratic parties to offer an
> alternative agenda to rigid EU policy nostrums. This, in turn, has
> strengthened the hands of neo-fascists and other right-wing extremists
> who have successfully tapped into widespread resentment of unresponsive
> state governments.
>
> President Bill Clinton has spoken about "the inexorable logic of
> globalization" that no country can escape. While economically driven,
> this phenomenon also has far-reaching social consequences. Global
> commerce acts as the great homogenizer, blurring indigenous differences
> and smothering contrasting ethnic traits. Consequently, many Europeans
> are fearful of losing not only their jobs, but their cultural and
> national identities. Where local traditions lose influence, individuals
> tend to become atomized psychologically and thus more susceptible to the
> lures of ultranationalists who manipulate deep-seated anxieties.
>
> The much-ballyhooed new information technologies have created an
> environment conducive to financial speculation and the rapid growth of
> global commerce. Increasingly, the key players in the global economy are
> multinational corporations, transnational lobbies and elite trade
> associations, rather than popularly conscripted officials. These global
> forces have usurped many of the usual prerogatives of the nation-state,
> while also calling into question democratic notions of political power
> and representation.
>
> Though free markets are supposed to guarantee maximum efficiency, they
> have instead magnified inequalities and hastened the breakdown of
> certain social structures, leading to instability, mass migration and
> ethnic strife. At the same time, the waning power of the nation-state
> has triggered a harsh ultranationalist reaction, as demonstrated by the
> surge of support for mass-based far-right parties in several European
> countries.
>
> Supporters of the EU have long argued that economic integration is a
> crucial step toward creating a political union, which, they hope, will
> end forever the scourge of pitiless nationalism that has ravaged the
> continent in the past. But just the opposite seems to be happening. As
> economic globalization has accelerated, producing definite winners and
> losers, so, too, has the momentum of neo-fascist and right-wing
> extremist organizations.
>
> If anything, European integration is likely to foster the continued
> growth of radical right-wing parties. Burgeoning ultranationalist
> movements are collateral damage inflicted by unfettered globalization,
> which breeds the very monstrosities it purports to oppose. And the
> extreme right provides an alibi for globalization while revolting
> against it.
>
> A product of democratic decay, radical right-wing populism and its
> current fascist manifestations, which vary from country to country, can
> only thrive in situations where social injustice is prevalent.
> Converging economic, political and social trends suggest that increasing
> numbers of people in the Western democracies will become vulnerable to
> the appeals of neo-fascists posing as national populists offering simple
> solutions to complex problems.
>
> "It is becoming frighteningly evident that unspeakable evil can take the
> stage again," Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson declared at a recent
> conference on resurgent racism and neo-fascism in Europe. The ghastly
> miscarriage of free-market restructuring in much of the former Soviet
> bloc and the Third World, the abdication of the socialist left as a
> vehicle for discontent in Western Europe and the homogenizing juggernaut
> of transnational capitalism across the globe--all are elements of a
> potent witches' brew that propels mainstream governance further and
> further into the politics of resentment.
>
> Shortly before he died in 1987, Primo Levi, a survivor of Auschwitz,
> warned of the advent of "a new fascism . . . walking on tiptoe and
> calling itself by other names." This new fascism is a decidedly
> contemporary phenomenon that looks different in many ways from its
> antecedents. When Adolf Hitler came to power, he took the world by
> surprise. Those who remain fixated on images of the fascist past and
> neglect the growing dangers of the present may be taken by surprise
> again.
>
> Martin A. Lee Is the Author of "The Beast Reawakens," a Book About
> Neo-fascism.
> Copyright 1999 Los Angeles Times. All rights reserved.
>