Not all Europe’s ‘right-wingers’ fit the hackneyed profile the press and politicians put them in
msnbc.com
Family and friends have their
photo taken with the portrait of
slain Dutch politician Pim
Fortuyn outside the cathedral
after his funeral service in
Rotterdam, Netherlands.
By Anne Applebaum
SLATE.COM
May 13 — What does it mean to be “far right”? Who qualifies as
a right-wing “extremist”? Quite a lot of European politicians
think that they know. Yesterday British Prime Minister Tony
Blair and German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder called on
“democratic people of all persuasions to stand together in
solidarity against extremist policies.” Romano Prodi, president
of the European Union, has also recently joined many others in
congratulating France on the rejection of “extremism” in
French politics. Expect to hear more of them weigh in later this
week, after the Dutch elections Wednesday.
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QUITE A LOT of journalists think they know, too. Two weeks ago,
the Economist published a neatly drawn chart listing “far right parties in
Europe,” showing what percentage of the vote each one had obtained,
country by country. The BBC’s Web site also now contains a nifty chart
that lets you click on an interactive map and thereby gauge the state of
the “far right” in each nation of Western Europe.
I am as guilty as anyone else in overusing these terms: Sometimes
“far right” is just a simpler phrase to use than “anti-establishment,
pro-free-market, anti-immigration, possibly racist right,” when you don’t
feel you have enough space to explain the details of a particular party or
politician - but I won’t do it again. In the wake of Jean-Marie Le Pen’s
somewhat freakish success in the first round of the French presidential
elections, and the shocking murder of the Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn
almost immediately afterward, I have concluded that it is now time to call
a total moratorium on the use of the phrases “extremism” and “far right”
in political debate, since it is becoming clear that nobody has the
slightest idea anymore what they mean.
RIGHT AND LEFT
Fortuyn, an open
homosexual and avid
libertarian, hardly fit
the traditional image of
a European ‘far
right-winger.’
Certainly over the past few days, quite a number of people, most
notably Andrew Sullivan, have pointed out that Fortuyn hardly fit the
traditional image of a European “far right-winger.” An open homosexual
and avid libertarian, Fortuyn wanted to restrict immigration into Holland
on the grounds that Muslim immigrants were threatening liberal Dutch
traditions of feminism and sexual tolerance. “Right” in some senses,
“left” in others, the death of Fortuyn - who was apparently murdered by
a (far left?) animal rights activist - left many commentators, the BBC’s
Angus Roxburgh among them, feeling “confused and perplexed.” And
not only commentators. While attending Fortuyn’s funeral last weekend,
Roxburgh met a Dutchman who told him that the Dutch didn’t get it
either: ”[W]e don’t understand a thing. It’s a complete mystery.”
Yet Fortuyn’s ability to confound political stereotypes is hardly
exceptional. Look more closely at some of the parties that the
newspapers blithely describe as “far right,” for example, and
preconceptions quickly break down. You’re unlikely to find
anti-Semitism, for example - and if you’re looking for skinheads and
neo-Nazis, you probably won’t find them either.
Nor will you find that many of these groups have much in common
with each other. Some years ago, I met some members of the Danish
People’s Party, whose name comes up when you click Denmark on the
BBC’s interactive “far right” map. In one breath, they denounced other
European right-wing parties, called for some restrictions on immigration,
and said they opposed Danish membership in the European single
currency, all policies that would sit happily in the center of Tony Blair’s
Labor Party. The BBC’s Web site also points out that the Danish
People’s Party has “pursued newspaper campaigns to expose ‘welfare
cheats’ among the immigrant community.”
But this is a clear case of the
pot calling the kettle black: The
Evening Standard, a dead center
British newspaper that has backed
Blair in the past, conducted very
similar sorts of campaigns for
years without anyone, not even the BBC, appearing to be particularly
bothered by it.
More anomalies abound. On the Economist’s “far right” list, for
example, is a Polish political party called Law and Justice. This is a party
led by a former justice minister and a former member of a mainstream
center-right government, whose role model is Rudy Giuliani and who can
hardly be anti-immigrant since Poland hasn’t got any. His party qualified
for the list on the shaky grounds of “populism” - according to an editor
at the Economist I happened to speak to about it. Defending his
magazine, the same editor also told me that Law and Justice is in favor of
the death penalty. When I pointed out that George Bush is also in favor
of the death penalty - and does that make him “far right”? - the editor
made his excuses and hung up.
BLURRING THE LINES
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But these are easy cases. It gets even more complicated when you
come to Jörg Haider, the Austrian politician, and Jean-Marie Le Pen.
Both men do, at times, nod and wink openly at the Nazi and Vichy past.
Both also represent some views that would be considered mainstream
almost anywhere else. Many Austrians voted for Haider’s Freedom
Party, for example, not because Haider sometimes says nice things to
Wehrmacht veterans, but because his party advocates straight
Thatcherite economics and feels skeptical about the European Union,
which no other Austrian parties do. Le Pen is also one of the few
politicians in France who openly regrets the loss of the French franc,
which has now been replaced by the euro. Those who feel strongly
about that issue have no one else to vote for either.
In quite a lot of places, in fact, the “far right” parties have simply
become the beneficiaries of discontent with politicians, or discontent
with politics, or the place where people go when they feel that no one
else represents their views. Descriptions of the far right’s beliefs are also
affected by the beliefs of those doing the describing. Yes, to passionate
opponents of the death penalty, those who advocate it do seem
“extremist.” Yes, to devotees of the European welfare state, free
marketeers may seem “extremist,” too.
But perfectly mainstream, perfectly well-adjusted people are also
capable of thinking otherwise-which is why we need to assess all this
again. In fact - given that “conservative” is now a word commonly used
to describe the communist leadership of North Korea and “extreme left”
is now a word used to describe the backward-looking ex-communist
politicians of Eastern Germany - we might be better off giving up
altogether the attempt to use 19th-century political terminology in a
post-1989, post-9/11 world.
Anne Applebaum is a journalist based in London and Warsaw. |
