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| Europe | |
| EU far right aims anti-'Islamization' coalition | |
| 2004-12-10 | |
| Europe's far right parties are considering the creation of a pan-European far-right movement, which would be the first such extreme hardliner coalition covering EU territory. Filip Dewinter, the leader of the Belgian Flemish extreme right-wing party, told Austrian media yesterday that they were considering creating an extreme right grouping in the EU legislative body, the European Parliament. Last month, Vlaams Blok officially changed its name to "Vlaams Belang" (Flemish Interest) in response to a court ruling that found the party had violated Belgium's anti-racism laws. The Belgian Supreme Court confirmed a lower court's ruling that the Vlaams Blok was a racist organization under Belgian law, cutting off the party's access to state funding and television airtime, and effectively shutting down the extremist group. The planned European-level coalition would include Austria's Freedom Party, Italy's Lega Nord, France's National Front, the Dutch New Right Party, and Dewinter's own Vlaams Belang. Dewinter said forces should now be joined to combat the "Islamization of Europe". All these parties are known for their anti-immigration stances in their home countries, while the Belgian right-wing party is also known for its radical xenophobic platform and a separatist campaign for independence in the northern region of Flanders. Dewinter said he was considering Jörg Haider, leader of Austria's Freedom Party, to head the new movement, which they hope to form in time for EU elections in 2009. "I've had several talks with Jörg Haider and have the feeling that he's interested in this cooperation. I'm proposing to Jörg Haider that he be the top candidate of our movement," Dewinter told the Vienna weekly News magazine. Haider became a well known personality in Europe five years ago, when his party joined the center-right government. Other European countries responded by slapping sanctions on Austria. One of the key figures from Haider's party, Andreas Mölzer, met in Antwerp last week with like-minded figures from Belgium, the Netherlands, France, and Italy. Mölzer, an early strategist behind Haider's rise to power in Austria, is now a member of parliament representing the Freedom Party.
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| Posted by:Steve |
| #18 my point was, unlike you, I can see this clay being molded into something terribly familiar.... no, I don't have a quote, and never said that I did, strawman |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-12-10 10:30:42 PM |
| #17 Not as I see it, Aris Too bad that, unlike me, you can never share the factoids you supposedly see, nor the data-points that lead you to said conclusions. Makes your smug and fact-free posts a complete waste of time. Find me a single Communist party that supports the European Constitution in any parliament of any European nation. *Then* dispute my facts. Unless as usual, you don't care about facts, you only care about your preconceptions. |
| Posted by: Aris Katsaris 2004-12-10 8:45:31 PM |
| #16 Don't be ridiculous. Communists hate the EU, and so do the most left-leaning socialists Not as I see it, Aris - this is the perfect |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-12-10 8:20:35 PM |
| #15 In Europe, being either pro-capitalism, pro-Israel, anti-UN, or anti-EU automatically makes you a right-wing extremist in the eyes of the mass media as well as a "fascist" in the words of the communists, socialists, and eco-fascists. Don't be ridiculous. Communists hate the EU, and so do the most left-leaning socialists. Being anti-EU is indeed to a far greater extent the province of the *leftist* parties, with only the most moderate of the leftists supporting the EU. (for example in the French Socialists' referendum for the European Constitution, it was the leftist side that opposed it, it was the moderate side that supported it. Similar examples from my own nation exist and the socialist parties there.) It'd be much more accurate to say that moderate right-wing and moderate left-wing both support the EU, and it's both the extreme right-wing and the extreme left-wing that hate it. Which makes sense. |
| Posted by: Aris Katsaris 2004-12-10 8:02:35 PM |
| #14 Kalle, civil war is never good, but at least we know how well Islam does in real war lately.... |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-12-10 6:53:09 PM |
| #13 In Europe, being either pro-capitalism, pro-Israel, anti-UN, or anti-EU automatically makes you a right-wing extremist in the eyes of the mass media as well as a "fascist" in the words of the communists, socialists, and eco-fascists. Not to speak of the names thrown at those who uphold the death penalty, the right to self-defense, or the right to keep and bear arms. At college I was regularly called "fascist" because I denounced communism (even when I was denouncing fascism...). I know first-hand that decent classical liberal parties in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Switzerland were called right-wing extremists within and across borders by the mass-media. Le Pen is a racist who mixes a few arguments for economic freedom in his speeches -- which makes it complex to argue against him when you're a confused leftist or centrist. Remember that he was the only alternative the French people had when they last elected Chirac... The European problem is that there is no national dream similar to the American Dream, thus no motor of integration for immigrants. And then, there are the millions of anti-Western Moslems they've let in. Anyone who speaks up against the Moslem invasion is immediately called racist or fascist, thus strangling any rational, public debate on the topic of immigration and Islamofascism. In my eyes, there is no way out for Western Europe -- it's fast leading to a violent civil war. We'll see Europeans expel the Moslems the way the Greeks did in the 19th century. And it won't be pretty. The only alternative would be to make the Moslem world (e.g. Morocco, Algeria, Turkey) more attractive and prosperous than Western Europe -- which is not going to happen anytime soon. |
| Posted by: Kalle (kafir forever) 2004-12-10 6:46:09 PM |
| #12 Haider, Le Pen anti-US and Israel Vlamm Blok and Lega Nord pro-US and more pro-Israel. A marriage of anti-islamic convenience. |
| Posted by: anon2 2004-12-10 5:51:48 PM |
| #11 phil b, i tend toward the anglo assimilationist approach, but im not closeminded - shutting immigration MAY be the right thing for some countries. But these guys arent JUST antiimmigrant (well other than the Italian Northern League, IIUC) theyve got other baggage along as well. |
| Posted by: Liberalhawk 2004-12-10 4:50:36 PM |
| #10 If they really are brown shirts, I doubt they can gain all that much power. I don't really understand parlimentary systems. But... if flyby night competition puts your globally entrenched Enron competitor out of business...is everyone better or worse off? |
| Posted by: 2b 2004-12-10 4:47:53 PM |
| #9 lex, yours is a very typical American/Anglophone response- assimilate - Americans/Angloculture as the Borg, and why not, it works for us. But you have to keep in mind that large parts of Europe, ethnicity, language, race is institutionalized. Take Belgium as an example. In 200 years Flemish and Walloons have lived largely separate existances. To suggest they take an assimilation approach with their muslims immigrants is ludicrous when after 200 years they failed to assimilate their existing cultures. These so called extremists are people who want to go back to they way things were and not get assimilated into a global culture, which is the only alternative on offer. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2004-12-10 4:40:35 PM |
| #8 Oriana Fallaci and Chris Hitchens, sure. Willen (?sp), that courageous Dutch legislator now under police protection-- absolutely. But not Haider or Le Pen. They won't make us any safer or prove effective partners in the long run. |
| Posted by: lex 2004-12-10 4:32:48 PM |
| #7 I don't want Le Pen's people on my side. Because they're not on my side-- they hate the US and Israel as much as they hate the muslims-- and also because, like the Russian Army, they're a group of incompetent hacks with no real staying power or capability. Their support isn't worth it. |
| Posted by: lex 2004-12-10 3:45:07 PM |
| #6 You don't defeat fascism with fascism. You do if it's the only force fighting fascism. |
| Posted by: Mrs. Davis 2004-12-10 3:36:00 PM |
| #5 err, right medicine, maybe, but wrong doctors. Many of these guys are smelly little racists who not long ago (Le Pen, esp) were trashing Israel and the US. The point re the Islamist threat is not their religion but their politics, which is fascist. Which is why liberals should be front and center in opposing and denouncing it. You don't defeat fascism with fascism. |
| Posted by: lex 2004-12-10 2:53:12 PM |
| #4 I stopped reading after the 3 'extreme's in the first sentence. This isn't news. It's ideologically driven propaganda. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2004-12-10 2:29:06 PM |
| #3 Amen. |
| Posted by: Secret Master 2004-12-10 12:42:07 PM |
| #2 LH Since there is no good way to deal effectively with Islamic radicalism other than reduce immigration and tighten security, wouldn't the best way to combat the goofy right be to essentially steal the best part of their platform? |
| Posted by: mhw 2004-12-10 11:57:30 AM |
| #1 i think it varies, a bit. The austrian freedom party includes Haider, a Nazi apologist,and Le Pen is an antisemite and Vichy apologist. The Italian Northern League is, IIUC, more libertarian and antiimmigrant, without the antisemitism - but then Italians (even in fascist times) were always more sane (and less antisemitic) than their neighbors north of the Alps. The Belgian group Ive heard mixed things about. So not quite Brown shirts, but definitely NOT our friends. And avoiding extremists like these, is one of the good reasons why centrist and liberal euros MUST deal more effectively with Islamic radicalism, and with unassimilated immmigrants. |
| Posted by: Liberalhawk 2004-12-10 10:39:05 AM |