Anti-extremism frameworks, now utilised in policy and academic circles, are masking the multi-dimensional and pan-European nature of contemporary fascism and the role of the state. The author argues that the threat of fascist violence across Europe is now very great. Yet anti-fascists are being prevented both by the new narratives on cumulative extremism, which tend to equate threats including those from Right and Left, and by state security policies from developing the necessary democratic oppositions to the threat.
In 1991 and 1992 respectively, over a number of nights Nazi mobs attacked and set fire to hostels housing Third World migrant workers and asylum seekers in Hoyeswerda (Saxony) and Rostock (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern) whilst local people stood by and/or applauded their efforts.
2.
See FeketeLiz, Pedlars of Hate: the violent impact of the European far Right (Institute of Race Relations, 2012).
3.
Amongst politicians targeted was the Speaker of the National Assembly, Claude Bartolone who received an envelope containing ammunition and a threatening letter. The Justice Minister Christiane Taubira says that the anti-gay protesters targeted her personally rather than the government and that she was publicly compared to a monkey by a group of children whose parents had taken them to a protest against gay marriage. See ‘Threat sent to top parliamentarian over France’s gay marriage bill’, RFI (22 April 2013). See also ‘France turning racist? Black minister Christiane Taubira sounds alarm’, AFP (6 November 2013).
4.
See FeketeLiz, ‘Understanding the European-wide assault on multiculturalism’, IRR News (21 April 2011).
5.
In Italy, elections are contested not by individual parties, but by alliances (or poles) made up of several political parties. The People of Freedom (PdL) has within it many former fascists, whose far-right lineage can be traced back to the Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI) which was founded in 1945 by former ministers in Mussolini’s government and later dissolved into the ‘post-fascist’ Alleanza Nationale (AN), which, in 2009, dissolved following a merger with the PdL. The fact that when a former fascist youth leader of the MSI, Gianni Alemanno, was elected mayor of Rome in 2008, he was greeted by supporters with fascist salutes and shouts of ‘Duce, Duce’, says much about this significant strand of the PdL’s fascist lineage.
6.
See PalmerJohn, ‘The rise of the far right: a European problem requiring European solutions’, Guardian (15 November 2013).
7.
See ‘Ukraine government must act to stop racial discrimination’, Amnesty International (2008).
8.
The phrases are those of Ataka MP Magdalena Tasheva who hosts the programme ‘The Eye of the Storm’ which is broadcast on Alfa Ataka TV. See ‘Syrian refugees complain against Bulgarian MP’s hate speech’, novinite.com (2 October 2013).
9.
See FeketeLiz, From Pillar to Post: pan-European racism and the Roma (Institute of Race Relations, 2013).
10.
This is the definition provided by Collins dictionary today.
11.
See Political Quarterly (Vol. 77, 2006), pp. 204–16.
12.
I owe much to a conversation with A. Sivanandan (12 June 2013) in which he said: ‘We need to fight the language, the terminology in which the issues we face are framed, as issues are captured in words that compromise. The fight is against the terminology in which the act is perjured. We are against any narrative that simply equates different forms of hate or political violence (i.e. Islamism and Fascism, Left and Right, fascism and anti-fascism). The Left and the Right, Islamism and Fascism have different trajectories, any language that equates them prevents us from understanding the social (as opposed to the individual) provenance of violence, and its particular trajectory. A plague on both your houses equates the houses, and does not distinguish the plagues.’
13.
During a television debate about far-right violence during demonstrations in Roma neighbourhoods, the former interior minister František Bublan said: ‘It is known that the Romani sector of our population is a bit more aggressive, is better able to take advantage of the social system than the rest of the population. That is what prompts the hatred we saw now in Èeské Budìjovice.’ See ‘Former Czech Interior Ministers debate neo-Nazi activity’, Romea (8 July 2013). Miroslav Marěs, an expert on anti-extremism at Brno’s Masaryk University, argued on Radio Prague that discontent with Roma crime and delinquency was one of the factors leading to the radicalisation of ‘ordinary citizens’. Radio Prague (1 July 2013). See ‘Anti-Roma riots in Èeské Budìjovice point to extremist trend’, Radio Prague, as cited on ICARE News Service.
14.
See, in particular, FiesciCatherine, ‘A plague on both your populisms’, Open Democracy (19 December 2012).
15.
See FeketeLizMerzSibille, ‘German counter-extremism programme – a “spying charter”’, IRR News (24 February 2011); and FeketeLiz, ‘Anti-fascism – extreme necessity’, IRR News (30 May 2013).
16.
Former DPP Lord Macdonald, as cited in ‘Snowden leaks: MI5 chief accused of using “foolish self-serving rhetoric”’, Guardian (14 October 2013). Also see CallaghanVincent, ‘Is anti-fascism being criminalised?’, IRR News (21 November 2013).
17.
See MilneSeumas, ‘It’s the spies, not the leaks, that threaten our security’, Guardian (24 October 2013).
18.
LanchesterJohn, ‘The Snowden files: why the British public should be worried about GCHQ’, Guardian (3 October 2013).
19.
See KundnaniArun, ‘Blind spot? Security narratives and far-right violence in Europe’, International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, Research Paper (June 2012).
20.
See ‘Police smear campaign targeted Stephen Lawrence’s friends and family’, Guardian (24 June 2013).
21.
See FeketeLiz, State Intelligence Agencies and the far Right: a review of developments in Germany, Hungary and Austria (Institute of Race Relations, 2013).
22.
Ibid.
23.
‘The Stevens Enquiry: overview and recommendations’, University of Ulster, CAIN archive (17 April 2003).
24.
In Cyprus a case was brought against Doros Polykarpou, Executive Director of the anti-racist migrant rights organisation KISA. Polykarpou was charged with rioting and participation in an illegal assembly six months after the Greek Resistance Movement and other far-right groups violently attacked a multicultural event in Larnaca. The lengthy prosecution of Polykarpou collapsed in 2012 after a judge ruled that police accusations against him were ‘not credible’. The main witness in the case was the leader of the far-right organisation who initiated the march and attack on the Festival. See ‘Cyprus: human rights defender acquitted as police accusations are found “not credible”’, Statewatch News Online (June 2012). Another high-profile case took place in Greece where Savvas Michael-Matsas, the 66-year-old Jewish leader of the Greek Revolutionary Workers’ party (EEK) was charged with ‘libelous defamation’, ‘incitement to violence and civil discord’, and ‘disturbing the public peace’ after a complaint was made by Golden Dawn about anti-fascist slogans used on a 2009 demonstration. The trial lasted one day, and collapsed after the prosecution dropped the case. Michael-Matsas’s acquittal was seen as a landmark victory as it was the first time since the collapse of military rule in Greece that an individual had been put on trial for making an anti-fascist statement. See MargaronisMaria, ‘It’s absurd that Golden Dawn is being allowed to hound my friend into court’, Guardian (1 September 2013). In the UK, three anti-fascist demonstrators arrested at an EDL protest in Bolton in 2000 were awarded an out of court settlement after launching civil claims against Greater Manchester Police for false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, assault and homophobic assault. See SmithMark, ‘Police pay thousands of pounds to “anti-fascist” protesters who claim they were mistreated at Bolton EDL rally’, The Bolton News (30 August 2013). A case against the priest Lothar Kӧnig ongoing in Germany also looks close to collapse. Following an anti-fascist demonstration in Dresden in 2011 Kӧnig was charged with breach of the peace, obstruction of justice, resistance against police officers, incitement to violence and attempted coercion after a raid was carried out in his parish by police who suspected him of forming a criminal organisation. In July, the courts deferred a hearing after Kӧnig’s lawyers accused the police of manipulatively editing video footage. The police now must present 200 hours of raw video footage, which will take four to six months to evaluate. See ‘Prozess gegen Jugendpfarrer König ausgesetz’, Süddeutsche.de (2 July 2013).
25.
See Le Monde (11 June 2013).
26.
The irony that this would most likely include the Party of the Left, of which Clément Méric was a member, is not lost on its leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
The 34-year-old popular hip-hop artist and antifa rapper Pavlos Fyssas died on 17 September 2013 after being fatally stabbed in the chest by a group of around thirty men in Golden Dawn shirts and military style trousers in the working-class district of Keratsini in Piraeus, in the west of Athens. The perpetrator was later named as Golden Dawn member, Yiorgos Roupakias.
30.
At the time of writing, the police had not confirmed the authenticity of a report that the hitherto unknown Militant People’s Revolutionary Forces had claimed responsibility for the murders.
