AS someone who grew up in a multiethnic neighborhood of London, I have difficulty understanding why a growing number of Britons and other Europeans invest so much energy in hating others simply because of their religion or race. Are they fearful of people who are superficially different from them? Are they concerned about foreigners taking their jobs? Are they just hate-filled individuals in search of an easy target as an outlet for their own negative emotions or just easily influenced sheep who derive a sense of belonging from sharing their hate with co-members of right-wing or neo-Nazi parties?
Because I’ve always derived pleasure in mixing with people of different cultures who have given me so much in terms of understanding and knowledge, I would like to think that cross-cultural mingling would “cure” such contemptuous attitudes because, in the end, regardless of their color or garb, people are just people the world over. But, now, I’m not sure.
A very close British friend — let’s call him Brian — who has lived and worked abroad for most of his life, tells me that he supports the racist British National Party (BNP). His anger is palpable when our phone conversations occasionally turn to the subject of race. He maintains that the traditional face of Britain has been changed forever due to the influx of immigrants, whom he resents for failing to assimilate into the British way of life, preferring to reside within community pockets. “I want my country back,” he usually says. “What can we do about this? They should go back.”
“Go back to where?” I ask. “Most have been born in the UK. They are as British as you or I.” I then remind him of our country’s colonial past, which opened Britain’s door to “subjects” of Her Majesty and of the indisputable fact that the vast majority of his own friends are non-British. And I know, for a fact, that, although he is not particularly wealthy, he has been generous to many of them in terms of helping to pay for operations and even donating toward a Thai family’s aspirations to own a small farm.
I also tell him that Britain would be in a sorry state without its doctors, nurses, transport workers, factory employees, and small business owners, whose fathers and grandfathers once flocked to UK shores in search of a better life. How bland and boring would Britain be without its 24/7 Indian-owned corner shops, its Greek and Turkish kebab houses and its Italian-style al fresco cafes? The discussion almost always ends with his admission that his feelings are irrational but even knowing that on a cerebral level does not defuse his frustration.
Brian and I have agreed to differ on this topic. There is nothing scientific about this anecdotal tale, but because Brian is such a genuinely nice man of above intelligence his story begs the question how many other ordinary throughout Britain and Europe feel similarly? He is not inherently racist. He feels a loss of identity and an erosion of his inherited roots. Do they? Are these the sentiments that are driving the indisputable rise of European nationalist parties?
Enough of the personal stuff! Let’s look at the facts.
The horrendous fatal stabbing of the young Egyptian pharmacist Marwa El-Sherbini within full view of courtroom officials, compounded by a seeming lack of interest by the German media, has latterly become a symbol of European race-hate. But the issue goes much deeper.
FOLLOWING EU elections Britain’s BNP celebrated its win of two seats in the EU Parliament. Its controversial leader Nick Griffin, a former organizer of the National Front, was recently quoted as advocating the sinking of immigrant boats. Only such drastic action could prevent Europe “being swamped by the Third World,” he said.
His party’s constitution says it all. The party is “committed to stemming and reversing the tide of nonwhite immigration and to restoring, by legal changes, negotiation and consent the overwhelmingly white makeup of the British population that existed in Britain prior to 1948. Party membership is also restricted to “indigenous British ethnic groups deriving from the class of ’Indigenous Caucasian’.”
The BNP’s unprecedented EU victory was mirrored by far-right parties in Italy, Denmark, Romania, Finland, Hungary and the Netherlands. The extreme right-wing Freedom Party in Austria actually ran an anti-Islamic campaign with posters calling for “The Occident in Christian hands.” Throughout Europe, the left and the center left, which has been termed irrelevant, took a serious beating.
Nationalist German parties such as the National Democratic Party (NDP) failed to win seats in the EU but they did achieve massive gains in Eastern Germany, managing to grab 120 seats on various local councils. Some observers are crediting the recession, job losses and pension fears for this trend. But Germany, which is so sensitive to anything that smacks of anti-Semitism for obvious reasons, has a lot more to worry about. Recent decades have witnessed the rise of a neo-Nazi movement that becomes more aggressive as each year passes. Ruthless and highly organized, they are using the recession as propaganda to garner recruits in the same way that Hitler capitalized on the Great Depression to gain power. Desperate people want a channel to vent blame for their own woes and neo-Nazis are conveniently holding up foreigners as a scapegoat.
An article written by Alan Hall and published in The Telegraph last February titled “Neo-Nazis Plotting “Fourth Reich in Germany” paints a worrying picture. Hall got an insight into the mentality of these morons when he interviewed a former member turned whistle-blower. “He told of weapons stores and how members greet each other with ‘Heil Hitler’ salutes, sing the banned songs of the Third Reich and relish the idea of a new Holocaust against the Jews,” wrote Hall. The informer described these new Nazi adherents as being failures, school dropouts, thugs or alcoholics who delight in tattooing Nazi symbols on their arms and shaving their heads. “Many have an IQ close to my shoe size,” he told Hall. Incredibly, they are being financially supported by ex-Nazis hiding out in parts of South America. Intellectually, spiritually and emotionally challenged they may be, but this doesn’t stop them being dangerous. Germany is attempting to deal with burgeoning neo-Nazi attacks, while, last May, Austrian neo-Nazis screaming “Heil Hitler” and “This way for the gas” fired guns at elderly Italian and French survivors of the Nazi death camp Mauthausen attending the 64th anniversary of the camp’s liberation. If European governments don’t work together to combat this monstrous hate that is permeating their societies one can easily envisage a day when their main streets will once again become rivers of blood. They must act now!
