In late 2010, the ‘European Freedom Alliance’, a group of four European politicians from populist radical right parties: Heinz-Christian Strache, Chairman of the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ); Filip Dewinter, a senior leader in Belgium’s Vlaams Belang (VB); René Stadtkewitz, founder of Germany’s Die Freiheit; and Kent Ekeroth, the International Secretary for the Sweden Democrats (SD), travelled to Israel and the West Bank. Their trip culminated in the signing of the ‘Jerusalem Declaration’, a document conveying their staunch support for Israel and its right to defend itself against ‘Islamic aggression’. The author analyses key interviews and the Declaration to demonstrate how the event is indicative of a reformed and realigned populist radical Right. Open anti-Semitism, he argues, has been replaced by calls to prevent Islam’s supposed contamination of the nation’s cultural heritage and new positions are being adopted on post-national cooperation and European identity. Also, wider transformations in Western European politics have resulted in the populist radical Right increasingly framing the electorate’s insecurities as evidence of the cultural erosion of the nation state. Through comparing the experiences of Israelis with those of non-Muslims living in Europe, the Alliance argues for the need to toughen Europe’s defence against a common enemy.
The term ‘populist radical Right’ is borrowed from Mudde’s research. While it may not be perfect, I think the term embodies the three central tenets of populist parties on the Right, i.e. they are distinctly populist, are radically opposed to state-sponsored pluralism and adhere to a rightist conception of the nation state. At the same time, it is important to recognise that these parties differ from fascist and neo-Nazi groupings in that they reflect a large consensus within Western European society which supports democracy and is opposed to biological racism. Others using the term ‘radical Right’ or ‘new Right’ are largely analysing the same phenomenon. See MuddeC., Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007).
2.
SutcliffeA., ‘The unfinished history of philosemitism’, Jewish Quarterly (Vol. 58, no. 1, 2011), p. 68. As Sutcliffe also mentions, Fini declared in 2008 that ‘the burning of the Israeli flag by left-wing protesters in Turin was “much more serious” than the murder of a young Italian by skinhead gangs on the same day’, ibid.
In an interview with the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Filip Dewinter claimed in 2005 that ‘Israel is a sort of outpost for our Western society, an outpost of democracy, of freedom of speech, of protecting common values within a hostile environment’; see SchwartzA., ‘Between Haider and a hard place’, Haaretz (28August2005), available at: http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/features/between-haider-and-a-hard-place-1.168287.
5.
FeketeL., ‘The Muslim conspiracy theory and the Oslo massacre’, Race & Class (Vol. 53, no. 3, 2012).
6.
Not to be confused with the European Alliance for Freedom, see below.
7.
The trip to Israel is just one instance of cross-national alliances between the parties in recent years. In 2005, the FPÖ’s thinktank, Die Freiheitliche Akademie, organised an international conference with the FPÖ, the Front National and the VB in attendance. Also ‘Cities against Islamization’ brought together the FPÖ, VB, and the German movement ‘pro-Köln’. The FPÖ, VB and the SD previously worked together alongside other like-minded parties such as Geert Wilders’ Partij voor de Vrijheid in the pan-European ‘European Alliance for Freedom’, an officially recognised grouping in the European Parliament (EP) from 2011 until 2014. Out-manoeuvred by UKIP’s Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy, the group failed to secure the support of members from seven member states following the 2014 EP elections and is no longer officially represented.
8.
For instance, a 2008 policy position paper argued that the occidental Christian culture must be defended against Islam. Similarly a 2009 European election slogan called for the ‘Occident in hands of Christians’, as cited by RosenbergerS.LeilaH-A., ‘Anti-Islamic mobilization of the extreme eight in Austria’, in MammoneA.GodinE.JenkinsB., eds, Varieties of Right-Wing Extremism in Europe (Abingdon, Routledge, 2013), p. 153.
9.
As cited by ErkJ., ‘From Vlaams Blok to Vlaams Belang: the Belgian far-right renames itself’, West European Politics (Vol. 28, no. 3, 2005), p. 495.
10.
The current chairperson of Die Freiheit is Michael Stürzenberger, who incidentally also interviewed the European Freedom Alliance on behalf of Politically Incorrect. Indeed he makes very little attempt to hide his political views in many of the questions he puts to the interviewees. For instance, in his interview with Dewinter he asks: ‘Tell us a bit more about the situation in Belgium. We hear in Brussels the most em popular name of newborn babies is Muhammad. Ehm how is the state of Islamisation in Belgium nowadays?’
11.
As cited by SchellenbergB., ‘Developments within the Radical Right in Germany: discourses, attitudes and actors’, in WodakR.KhosravinikM.BrigitteM., eds, Right Wing Populism in Europe: politics and discourse (London, Bloomsbury, 2013), p. 154. Thilo Sarrazin is the controversial ex-board member of the German Federal Bank who claimed Muslims in Germany were both integrationsunwillig (unwilling to integrate) as well as integrationsunfähig (unable to integrate).
12.
JanssonMikael, then leader of the SD, wrote an article in 2000 titled, ‘Our loathing of Nazism’, see OjaS.MralB., ‘The Sweden Democrats came in from the cold: how the debate about allowing the SD into media arenas shifted between 2002 and 2010’, in Wodak et al., ibid., p. 280.
13.
As cited by WidfeldtA., ‘Party change as a necessity – the case of the Sweden Democrats’, Representation (Vol. 44, no. 3, 2008), p. 272.
14.
As cited by MulinariD.NeergaardA., ‘We are Sweden Democrats because we care for others: exploring racisms in the Swedish extreme right’, European Journal of Women’s Studies (Vol. 21, no. 1, 2014), p. 48.
The platform’s motto is: ‘News Against the Mainstream – Pro-American – Pro-Israeli – Against the Islamisation of Europe – for Constitution and Human Rights.’
19.
According to Der Spiegel, during the visit to Yad Vashem, Strache chose to wear ‘a cap that identified him as a lifelong member of the right-wing student fraternity Vandalia’, a student fraternity long associated with Pan-German nationalism and anti-Semitism; see MayrW., ‘Right-Wing Populists on the Rise: Austria’s Freedom Party goes from strength to strength’, Spiegel Online (14July2011), available at: http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/right-wing-populists-on-the-rise-austria-s-freedom-party-goes-from-strength-to-strength-a-774255.html; See also Thiel, op. cit.
20.
Adapting Reisigl and Wodak’s approach to discourse analysis, the Discourse Historical Approach, which was developed specifically to investigate anti-Semitism in Austria to show how individuals establish and reaffirm racist images and concepts, I analysed the nomination, predication and framing strategies employed by the European Freedom Alliance in their interviews and in the Jerusalem Declaration itself. Note that Reisigl and Wodak also analyse two additional strategies: argumentation and intensification/mitigation. See ReisiglandM.WodakR., Discourse and Discrimination: rhetorics of racism and anti-Semitism (London, Routledge, 2001).
21.
This and all following translations from German to English are mine – the interviews with Strache and Stadtkewitz took place in German.
22.
Strache, however, in contrast to the other participants on the trip, takes extra measures to stress his party’s apparent neutrality, evident in his amendment to the Jerusalem Declaration: ‘[I]t is important to stress the Austrian neutrality and the political tradition since Bruno Kreisky … and we feel bound to this neutral position.’
It is unclear what Ekeroth is referring to; since 2005 there are in fact no Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip. Such a statement calls into question his earlier assertion that ‘I actually read up on the legal status’ of Gaza.
25.
Mudde, op. cit., p. 80.
26.
For instance, a Pew Global Attitudes Project survey in 2008 showed that 20 per cent of respondents in France, 25 per cent in Germany and 46 per cent in Spain still harboured prejudice against Jews, cited by Williams, op. cit., p. 125. Similarly the situation in Eastern Europe differs somewhat, where populist radical right parties in, for instance, Hungary or Poland, are much more openly anti-Semitic.
27.
BunzlM., Anti-semitism and Islamophobia: hatreds old and new in Europe (Chicago, Prickly Paradigm Press, 2007), p. 29. See also AnsariH.HafezF., ‘Islamophobia: an introduction’, in AnsariH.HafezF., eds, From the Far Right to the Mainstream: Islamophobia in party politics and the media (Frankfurt am Main, Campus, 2012), p. 23.
28.
Williams op. cit., p. 128.
29.
ZúqueteJ., ‘The European Extreme-Right and Islam: new directions?’, Journal of Political Ideologies (Vol. 13, no. 3, 2008), p. 329.
30.
This is also true of populist radical Right parties in highly secularised societies, with parties like the Danish People’s Party combining secular liberal values with traditional ‘Judeo-Christian’ ones, see BetzH-G.MeretS., ‘Revisiting Lepanto: the political mobilization against Islam in contemporary Western Europe’, Patterns of Prejudice (Vol. 43, no. 3–4, 2009), p. 333. For an excellent account of the populist radical Right’s newfound love of Judeo-Christian culture, see Bunzl, op. cit.; see also Zúquete, op. cit., p. 330.
31.
BetzH-G., ‘Mosques, minaret, burqas and other essential threats: the populist right’s campaign against Islam in Western Europe’, in Wodak et al., op. cit., p. 79.
32.
See FeketeL., ‘Enlightened fundamentalism? Immigration, feminism and the right’, Race & Class (Vol. 48, no. 2, 2006), pp. 7–12.
33.
For a rigorous overview of how government policies and media campaigns in a post 9/11 world have been quick to interpret any unrest within predominately Muslim communities as a sign of cultural difference, see FeketeL., A Suitable Enemy: racism, migration and Islamophobia in Europe (London, Pluto Press, 2009), pp. 43–73.
34.
A 2012 poll in Britain showed that 37 per cent of respondents would likely vote for a political party were it to halt Muslim immigration and reduce the presence of Islam in society; cited in TownsendM., ‘Voters more likely to back an anti-Muslim party than reject it – poll’, The Observer (16September2012), available at: http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/sep/16/voters-support-anti-immigrant-party.
35.
As suggested in slogans like the Front National’s ‘No to Maastricht – yes to a Europe of Fatherlands’, cited in Mudde op. cit., p. 165; similarly, in a 2008 speech, Strache said: ‘We say: Patriots of all the countries of Europe, unite! Because only together will we solve our problems’, cited in ‘EU Far-Right Groups to Form Party’, BBC News (25January2008), available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7210036.stm.
36.
See Mudde op. cit., pp. 174–7.
37.
Such sentiments are not limited to the populist radical Right and also appear in the comment pages of European broadsheet newspapers.
38.
Bunzl, op. cit., p. 13.
39.
I borrow heavily here from the work of Kriesi et al. and Bornschier and their analyses of contemporary Western European politics. They suggest that political actors now operate within a space more differentiated than the classical ‘left versus right’ division of politics. What is particularly interesting is the link they draw between the salience of cultural conflict and the success of the populist radical Right. See BornschierS., Cleavage Politics and the Populist Right: the new cultural conflict in Western Europe (Philadelphia, Temple University Press, 2010); KriesiH.GrandeE.LachatR.DolezalM.BornschierS.FreyT., eds, West European Politics in the Age of Globalisation (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2008); KriesiH.GrandeE.DolezalM.HelblingM.HöglingerD.HutterS.WüestB., eds, Political Conflict in Western Europe (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2012).
40.
MarsdalM. E., ‘Loud values, muffled interests: third way social democracy and right-wing populism’, in Wodak et al., op. cit.
41.
Adam Sutcliffe, ‘Power and the politics of prejudice’, in BunzlMatti, ed., Anti-semitism and Islamophobia: hatreds old and new in Europe (Chicago, Prickly Paradigm Press, 2007).
