[Marxism] To the Right of the Right

[Walter Lippmann <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

(There's no softness on holocaust-denial in Cuba.)
======================================================

JUVENTUD REBELDE

To the Right of the Right
Neo-fascist MPs have formed their own groups in Europe â such are the 
paradoxes 
of the âdemocracyâ

By: Luis Luque Alvarez

Email: luque@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
2007-01-17 | 11:22:48 EST
http://www.juventudrebelde.co.cu/international/2007-01-17/to-the-right-of-the-right-/

A Brahim Bouraam, an Arab immigrant, was thrown into the Seine in Paris amidst a
chorus of mockery. Ibrahim Ali, a fellow Arab from the Comoros Islands, was shot
to death, pumped full of bullets. In both cases, the misdeeds were carried out 
by
members of the neo-fascist National Front.

To the northeast, in Belgium, while a politician from the Vlaams Belang (Flemish
Interest) speaks bitterly of immigration from the South, a young skinhead named 
Erick hurries to remove a Celtic cross, like the ones worn by the neo-Nazis. 
When
asked by a journalist from Spanish newspaper El Pais, Erick answers, âNo, 
weâre 
not Nazis; we just want the best for our people, the Flemish â without 
immigrants.â

It is all about nostalgia for the swastika, the cross of Hitlerâs regime. If 
the
Fuhrerâs grudge was against the Jews, the neo-Nazisâ are against 
immigrants, gypsies,
Turks, and... âothers.â Curiously enough, democracy is so âadvancedâ 
that these 
groups are represented in their national parliaments. And, moreover, they are a 
political bloc in the European Parliament!

This became news last week. Far-rightwing MPs in parliament have a sufficient 
quorum
to create a separate caucus with its own identity. On January 9, Tuesday, 
âultra-right
representativesâ signed their charter of principles and sent it to Parliament 
President
Josep Borrell. The documentâs character, according to reports, has been 
described
as âbroadly anti-immigrant, opposed to the European Constitution and is 
against 
Turkey joining the UE.â

On January 15, the group was officially recognized during a plenary session with
the name âIdentity, Tradition and Sovereignty,â and will have the right to 
receive
funding from the UE just like any of the others bloc in the parliament, such as 
the Socialists, Greens, etc.

But here is a bit of information and irony: to create this political group in 
the
European Parliament, there must be at least twenty representatives from six 
different
countries. On January 1, with the membership of Rumania and Bulgaria, this 
condition
was met. This occurred despite a vote against the expansion by the Austrian 
ultra-right
organization Freedom Party of Austria (FPO).

Who are the new members of the ensemble? Heading the list is the French National
Front, with seven representatives; in second place comes the Great Rumania 
Party,
with five; there are three from the Belgiumâs Vlaams Belang, two from 
Italyâs Social
Action and Tricolour Flame, one from FPO, and one British independent.

But names are just names; they can be beautiful and say nothing. To get a better
sense of these elements, we will have to know the members of the new tribe.


A PHOTO WITH ADOLF

âI didnât say the gas chambers never existed, although I havenât seen 
them personally,
nor have I studied the question in particular. However, I think they are only a 
detail of the history of the Second World War.â

Gas chambers are a simple âdetailâ to the head of the National Front, 
French European
representative Jean Marie Le Pen, one of the heads of the new group. This lord 
of
the right, who has gone so far to say that the Nazi occupation of France âwas 
not
especially inhuman,â has been taken to court more than once. He was even 
expelled
from the European parliament in 2003 for physically attacking a political 
opponent.

Some of Le Penâs other âgemsâ has been to criticise the French football 
team for
having âtoo many blacks,â becoming upset when they sang the La 
Marseillaise, and
to say that when AIDS patients âbreath air through their pores, they alter 
the equilibrium
of the nation;â this of course is the same way that Hitler sensed handicapped 
people
to be a source of danger!

It freezes ones blood to think that this individual obtained the votes needed to
run for office against Jacques Chirac in 2002. Fortunately, the motto âVote 
for 
the thief, not the fascistâ mobilized the electorate and the dinosaur was 
defeated
in the second round.

Anther of the âneoconsâ of the National Front is Bruno Gollnisch, who is 
supposed
to head the caucus. An interesting piece of information is that he is still 
awaiting
a court verdict on his expressing ideas similar to those of Le Penâs. In 
October
2004 he opened his mouth to say, âI donât question the existence of 
concentration
camps, but historians can debate about the number of deaths. As for the 
existence
of gas chambers, it is up to the historians to reach an agreement on the 
number.â
Is there any doubt about the quality of this guy?

Moving north on the map, we find the Belgian organization Vlaams Belang, which 
is
frantically anti-immigrant and supports dividing the country, declaring the 
independence
of Flanders (the Dutch speaking northern part of Belgium) to the detriment of 
French-speaking
Wallonia.

This political organization, which has requested total amnesty for those who 
collaborated
with the Nazi regime, was born out of the ashes of Vlaams Blok, an organization 
condemned by a court in 2004 for âinciting hatred and discrimination.â Its 
members
then dissolved the organization to set up Vlaams Belang, a rearrangement 
described
by the Belgian security services as a âcosmetic operation.â

One of its MPs, Koenraad Dillen, was at the center of a scandal in 1995, when it
was learned that in 1992 he had visited Leon Degrelle, a fascist who 
collaborated
with the Waffen-SS during the Second World War. If this was not enough, Dillen 
had
in his living room a photo signed by Degrelle in which he appears sporting a 
uniform
of the SS while being congratulated by Hitler himself. Is this something about 
which
this democrat is proud!

And among the most colorful figures of this troop is the distinguished 
Alessandra
Mussolini, granddaughter of you know who. The last name, in this case, is not 
the
problem, but her track record: Alessandra, an ex-porno star and cover-girl on 
two
Playboy editions (in 1983, in 2003), founded her own party âSocial Actionâ 
after
abandoning the ultra-right National Alliance. She left because one of its 
members,
the then Minister of Foreign Affairs Gianfranco Fini, supposedly said 
âfascism was
an absolute evil.â

That sounded like an insult to the granddaughter of Il Duce, so she broke with 
them.
Nonetheless, she is a âlegitimateâ representative in the European 
Parliament, where
she is part of the Justice and Social Liberties Committee. In addition to this 
she
is an honor member of the Italian Red Cross.

She is almost an angel, no?


NEITHER GYPSIES, TURKS OR ANYONE ELSE

The war chest of the recalcitrants has now been enriched with the emergence of 
the
Rumanian and Bulgarian ultra-right representatives. In the case of the 
Rumanians,
their five representatives belong to Great Rumania, a party which is 
characterized
by its extremist nationalism, its deep hatred against gypsy and Hungarian 
minorities,
and its unconcealed desire to annex the neighboring Republic of Moldova â an 
ex-Soviet
territory which is currently an independent state.

Their leader, Corneliu Vadim Tudor, as early as 2003 said he would not fight 
against
the Jewish people and that he had become a philo-Semite. Likewise, he said he 
was
âwrong for having denied the holocaust in Rumania, which took place from 1941 
to
1944 under the regime of (Ion) Antonescu.â The dictator has killed between 
280,000
and 380,000 Jews and more than 10,000 Gypsies. And it was just yesterday, as 
people
say, that Tudor figured it out!

A short time later, an ex-advisor denied his strange âconversion.â

Finally, there is the Bulgarian legislator Dimitar Stoyanov, who the president 
of
the community legislature wanted thrown out. What was the motive? Learning about
the possibility of electing the Hungarian Gypsy Livia Jaroka as a 
parliamentarian
in 2006, he circulated an e-mail that read: âIn my country there are 
thousands of
Gypsy girls more beautiful than this honorable woman. In fact, if you are at the
right time and place, you can even buy one âa 12 or 13 year-oldâ to be your 
beloved
wife.â

The elegant Euro deputy is proud of children prostitution in his country, and 
also
utters his racist tones against the gypsies. This is not a surprise since the 
leader
of his Ataka party, Volen Siderov, has repeatedly accused all the people 
belonging
to this ethnic group of putting âgypsy fearâ into practice against 
Bulgarians, under
the supposedly conspiratorial eye of the state.

The racist implications are very rampant in those preaching. And the young 
Stoyanov
will have the opportunity to repeat them frequently in the halls of Strasbourg.

If you look at the web site of the European Parliament you will see that, among 
the requirements to be elected deputy is being of legal age and âbe a citizen 
of
a member state and to meet the requirements of residence defined by the 
electoral
law of the state.â

However, there is no section specifying that those who support xenophobic 
practices,
incite discrimination against minorities, and admire or minimize Nazi crimes, 
are
not allowed to enter the EU.

It seems that this matter is left to the consideration of national laws. Because
of this we are witnessing the great paradox of this bloc within the community. 
While
the UE professes to âguarantee that its citizens can live in peace, liberty 
and 
prosperity,â it also allows into decision-making positions supporters of the 
most
notorious criminals in history and agitators of violence against minorities.

Is this positive for Europe? Is it an example of its âtoleranceâ and its 
ârespect
for diversity?â

 





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