Latest Posts Under: Rechtsradikalismus

Aktualisiert am 13. Apr. 2016 Von gast Kommentieren

Judgment in Hungary: A filmmaker reflects

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This is the twelth article in our series Trouble on the Far-Right. For more information on the series, please click here.
Logo: Strike a Light by Rob Howard under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

by Eszter Hajdu

In 2008 and 2009, a group of Hungarian right-wing extremists committed a series of attacks on random members of the Roma community. Six people were killed, including a five-year-old, and another five were injured. The trial of the four suspects lasted two-and-a-half years, and the verdict was passed in August 2013. Director Eszter Hajdú filmed the trial and condensed it to create an oppressive Kammerspielfilm starring the cold-blooded suspects, an irritable judge and the victims’ families. Without any commentary, Hajdú recorded the drawn-out and sometimes chaotic trial from the cramped courtroom’s public gallery. A small static camera shows the judge’s point of view, while close-ups highlight the emotions of the people touched by the crime. Sometimes we see the protagonists outside the courtroom, for example during the reconstruction at the crime scene. At the start of the trial, the victims and next of kin assume there will be justice, and they have faith that the Hungarian authorities will protect them. But will the extremists be found guilty? The widespread anti-Roma sentiment in Hungarian society, and the bungling (intentional or otherwise) on the part of the police give them reason to fear they will not.

Judgment in Hungary: An independent documentary from Hungary

Aktualisiert am 10. Apr. 2016 Von gast 2 Kommentare

Patterns of far right and anti-Muslim mobilisation in the United Kingdom

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This is the eleventh article in our series Trouble on the Far-Right. For more information on the series, please click here.
Logo: Strike a Light by Rob Howard under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

by Graham Macklin

Far right and anti-Muslim politics in Britain have become increasingly fragmented. The British National Party (BNP), once the leading far right party, has largely collapsed. During the 2010 general election the BNP polled only 1.9% of the vote and was overshadowed by the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), a right-wing, anti-immigration populist party unencumbered by the BNP’s debilitating historical baggage. Thereafter, the BNP leadership descended into demoralization, bitter recrimination and factional rivalry, hastening the departure of its activist base, the collapse of its membership and leading, ultimately, to the expulsion of its chairman, Nick Griffin, as the party continued its further descent to political irrelevance. The BNP appears ‘finished’ as a political force, its ‘quest for legitimacy’ at an end.

Aktualisiert am 8. Apr. 2016 Von gast 1 Kommentar

What’s in the mind of the neo-Nazi next door? A personal reflection on the rise and persistence of Golden Dawn in Greece

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This is the tenth article in our series Trouble on the Far-Right. For more information on the series, please click here.
Logo: Strike a Light by Rob Howard under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

by Angélique Kourounis

How can a racist party that was getting less than 0.2% of the vote for years, enter parliament with 18 MPs? How can a party that promotes violence, hate, sexism and murders amplify its reach after each pogrom? How can Golden Dawn remain the third political power in Greece for four years? And what’s in the mind of a Golden Dawner?

Aktualisiert am 6. Apr. 2016 Von gast Kommentieren

The far right in Austria: small on the streets, big in parliament

This is the ninth article in our series Trouble on the Far-Right. For more information on the series, please click here.
Logo: Strike a Light by Rob Howard under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

by Bernhard Weidinger

Since around 1990, the state of the Austrian far right¹ has been characterized by the strength of the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ – Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs, more precisely translated as Freedomite Party of Austria²) and the relative weakness of extra-parliamentarian far right activism. Far from a mere coincidence, these two features are to be understood as closely linked: the FPÖ’s electoral successes have brought far right causes and talking points unto the political center stage on a national level, given them ample media coverage and made street militancy increasingly pointless. Insofar, the Austrian far right spectrum could – at least until recently – be described as a photographic negative of the situation in Germany: successful party politics, weak bottom-up mobilizations and a comparatively low incidence of street violence. Currently, however, the long held hopes of German right-wingers for a party both in the mold, and strength, of the FPÖ are apparently being fulfilled by the emergence of the Alternative for Germany (AfD). Conversely, both legal and illegal street activism have been on the rise in Austria in recent years, particularly since the start of the asylum crisis in Europe. Numerous violent incidents were reported in 2015, including a minimum of 25 attacks on housing facilities for asylum seekers.

Aktualisiert am 4. Apr. 2016 Von gast 3 Kommentare

But – where do these people come from? The (Re)Emergence of Radical Nationalism in Finland

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This is the eighth article in our series Trouble on the Far-Right. For more information on the series, please click here.
Logo: Strike a Light by Rob Howard under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

by Oula Silvennoinen

Trouble’s brewing for the European Union – also in Finland, where the next country-wide elections will see several new, EU-hostile nationalist groups attempt to establish themselves on the political map. At the same time, Finnish Fascism is seeking to entrench and normalize itself into a respectable part of the political framework.

Aktualisiert am 1. Apr. 2016 Von gast Kommentieren

The far right in Latvia: Should we be worried?

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This is the seventh article in our series Trouble on the Far-Right. For more information on the series, please click here.
Logo: Strike a Light by Rob Howard under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

by Matthew Kott

While one cannot say that the far right movements and ideologies in Latvia are in a state of flux, the current situation in Europe has prompted some developments that could turn into significant trends in the medium to longer term.¹ In turn, these could have an effect on broader European politics, if left unchecked.

Aktualisiert am 31. Mrz. 2016 Von gast Kommentieren

The turning fortunes of Romania’s far right. The rise and fall of Greater Romania Party

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This is the sixth article in our series Trouble on the Far-Right. For more information on the series, please click here.
Logo: Strike a Light by Rob Howard under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

by Mihnea-Simion Stoica

As everywhere else in Eastern Europe, ever since the fall of the communist regime, Romania’s political system has experienced dramatic changes from one electoral cycle to another, starting off with what was considered to be an inflation of political parties at the beginning of the 1990’s and arriving today at what seems to approximate a two-party system, with the Social-Democratic Party (PSD) on the left and the National Liberal Party (PNL) on the right side of the political spectrum. However, the fog surrounding the ideological identities of virtually all Romanian political parties has only intensified in time, leaving the party system in flux and creating the idea that there are no significant differences between the major political players. As was the case of many other countries, this situation has generated the (at least partial) success of a radical anti-establishment discourse. However, unlike other European countries, the far right in Romania did not benefit by the financial crisis.

Aktualisiert am 29. Mrz. 2016 Von gast 1 Kommentar

Right Wing Terrorism & Hate Crime in the UK: A Historical Perspective

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This is the fifth article in our series Trouble on the Far-Right. For more information on the series, please click here.
Logo: Strike a Light by Rob Howard under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

by Alex Carter

The threat that the far right poses to civil society changes across time and space. In Britain this threat has generally been in the form of hate-crimes and public disorder, yet in the past two decades there has been a shift towards solo-actor terrorism. By examining far right groups in the UK in the post-war period this paper explores the drivers of this change; namely, how membership in extremist groups combined with the proliferation of far right networks created by the internet can create a pathway to radicalisation which ends in acts of terror.

Aktualisiert am 23. Mrz. 2016 Von gast Kommentieren

Strategies of Contention. Right-Wing Extremism and ‘Counter-State Terror’ as a Threat for Western Democracies

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This is the fourth article in our series Trouble on the Far-Right. For more information on the series, please click here.
Logo: Strike a Light by Rob Howard under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

by Daniel Koehler

Terror from the extreme right has again gained a wider public attention in 2011 with the devastating attacks carried out by Anders Behring Breivik in Norway and the detection of the right-wing terrorist cell called “National Socialist Underground” (NSU), which had committed ten murders, three bombings and a dozen bank robberies during more than a decade of time in Germany. In many Western countries violence motivated by racism, anti-government hate, anti-Semitism or other aspects of right-wing extremism, appears to be a regular part of criminal activities. Hate crime legislation and statistics vary strongly but show that next to high intense terrorist attacks such as 9/11, the attacks in London, Madrid or Paris, right-wing violence and terrorism is the most dangerous politically motivated threat. In the United States for example Perliger (2012) counted 4,420 right-wing terrorist incidents between 1990 and 2012 causing 670 fatalities and 3,053 injuries. In Germany official statistics counted 69 right-wing attacks between 1990 and 2015 causing 75 casualties, while civil society watchdogs count up to 184 deaths. In Russia some experts speak of approximately 450 right-wing motivated killings between 2004 and 2010. Nevertheless, this specific form of political violence remains largely under-researched and misunderstood as non-terroristic. In consequence the threat from the far right is continuously downplayed with severe consequences for victims and the internal security.

Aktualisiert am 22. Mrz. 2016 Von gast 1 Kommentar

Debating with the Nouvelle Droite: What did I learn?

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This is the third article in our series Trouble on the Far-Right. For more information on the series, please click here.
Logo: Strike a Light by Rob Howard under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

by Tamir Bar-On

I am the author of two books about the French nouvelle droite (ND – New Right): Where Have All The Fascists Gone? and Rethinking the French New Right: Alternatives to modernity. In 2014, I published a piece entitled “The French New Right Neither Right, nor Left?”. Surprisingly, the French ND leader Alain de Benoist responded with a polemical and largely ad hominem article in the same journal.¹ I must stress that I neither identify with a political party, nor a political movement. I do not support any ideological current. De Benoist does. He is self-described as a man of the right. Hence, he cannot even claim intellectual objectivity.

In this piece, I want to offer some comments on my debate with de Benoist. I argue that while we should strive towards intellectual objectivity, we cannot be silent in the face of falsehoods. In this respect, the ND plays a dishonest game. Its leader and other ND intellectuals feign intellectual objectivity and the platitudes of transcending right and left, but they want cultural hegemony and the triumph of their decidedly radical right-wing ideals.

Aktualisiert am 17. Mrz. 2016 Von gast 1 Kommentar

The shifting shape of the European far right

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This is the second article in our series Trouble on the Far-Right. For more information on the series, please click here.
Logo: Strike a Light by Rob Howard under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

by Liz Fekete

Since 2011 signs have been multiplying in Europe of a far right grassroots insurgency in the making. And there were signals, too, of a racist insurrection: arson attacks, petrol bombs, paramilitary and vigilante activities, and the stockpiling of weapons. The first major indication of the far right’s capacity for mass murder came from Norway on 22 July 2011. Anders Behring Breivik killed 77 people, mainly teenagers, whom he shot dead at the Labour Party youth summer camp on Oslo’s Utøya Island. At his trial, Breivik described the youngsters he so cruelly murdered as ‘traitors’ who had embraced immigration in order to promote an ‘Islamic colonization of Norway‘.

Breivik’s actions, set against the backcloth of his 1,500-page manifesto, 2083: A European Declaration of Independence, sent out to 1,003 people he considered fellow travellers ninety minutes before he embarked on his killing spree, should have alerted people to the dangerous ideological underpinnings of Europe’s defence leagues, pro-identity and anti-Islam movements that were mushrooming across Europe. These cheerleaders for more and more wars in the Muslim world, which can broadly be described as counter-jihadism, began to emerge during the Gulf War but became more visible and vocal after the events of 11 September 2001. For a variety of reasons, the threat posed by these ultra-patriot movements was not taken seriously enough nor was there any reflection on the wider political context that was nourishing the far right.

Aktualisiert am 16. Mrz. 2016 Von gast Kommentieren

Trouble on the Far-Right – European challenge, national actors, local practices

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This is the first article in our series Trouble on the Far-Right. For more information on the series, please click here.
Logo: Strike a Light by Rob Howard under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

by Maik Fielitz and Laura Lotte Laloire

Europe is in trouble. Far right politics is spreading all over the place and its actors and discourses become increasingly influential at various levels: Parties from the far right achieved successes in French, Austrian and Slovakian elections. Far right movement organizations in Germany and Italy mobilized thousands of people to the streets. In Sweden and Great Britain, vigilante and terrorist groups wage armed struggle. And last but not least, ‘illiberal models of democracy’ in Poland and Hungary demonstrate the far right’s capacity to transform politics on the European level.

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