Neo-Nazism on the Rise
by Yojana Sharma
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by Yojana Sharma |
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(IPS) BERLIN --
Alberto
Adriano never had a chance. A German citizen of Mozambican origin, he was kicked to death on the streets of the east German city of Dessau by racist attackers earlier this year.
They stripped him naked and screamed "nigger pig" and "this is the march of the German resistance" as they kicked his head with steel-tipped boots. In August, his attackers were jailed for murder. The victim's wife was too scared to attend the trial and remained under police protection. The murder was part of a fresh wave of racial violence sweeping Germany. German police are investigating 11,000 racist attacks in the last year alone -- an increase of 20 percent over the previous year. These statistics prompted a rally of 200,000 protesters in Berlin on Nov. 9, the anniversary of Kristallnacht, when Hitler's Nazis went on the rampage to destroy Jewish property in 1938. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder called for an "uprising of the decent" to combat racism. The message, he said, should echo across Europe where support for far-right groups was growing. The rise of the far-right Austrian Freedom party under Jorg Haider prompted seven months of EU diplomatic sanctions against Austria, which ended in October. Still, enough Austrians supported Haider, in part because of the corruption of the mainstream parties, that the Freedom party with its anti-immigration platform became the second largest party in Austria. In Belgium, the far-right Vlamse Blok took one-third of the vote in the city of Antwerp during the elections in October -- its best showing in local elections ever. Its leader, Filip Dewinter, considers Haider to be a moderate. And, like other far-right politicians in Europe who have been attracting growing support, he believes that immigrants are overrunning the country. He wants no more "non-Europeans" and wants those already there to assimilate or leave. In Denmark, neo-Nazi groups meet regularly with their German counterparts, participating in "hate marches" and "white power" music concerts together. Pia Kjaersgaard, leader of the far right Danish People's Party, says: "It's a problem in a Christian country to have too many Muslims." His party commands 18 percent support in the country. There are similar situations in Sweden, Norway, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland and Russia. In Poland, neo-Nazis from across the country gathered in Rogiedle in the northeast in July, and a second rally was prevented by police in October.
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The
far-right with its social network, organized activities and camaraderie is often attractive to disaffected youth. But some sociologists note that many only join because it is "cool." Not enough has been done in the past, they say, to condemn such groups.
In Germany, the violent National Party of Germany (NPD) has existed for years, but it is only this year, when racist attacks have reached crisis levels, that the government wants to ban it. In Sweden, a government-backed initiative called "Exit" run by former neo-Nazis helps young neo-Nazi's leave their groups, backed by Sweden's police, social services and other agencies. Some 80 have been helped to leave the racist groups since Exit was set up two years ago by Kent Lindahl, a former neo-Nazi. The main impetus came when Swedish newspapers, two years ago, published the photographs, names and addresses of known neo-Nazis. Many immediately lost their jobs. It was no longer worth being a member of a hate gang. In Poland, the State Protection Office, an internal security organization, has said it intends to inform companies that some of their employees are neo-Nazis. "We have stopped counting the number of phone calls we receive from neo-Nazis who want to get out," says Lindahl, who estimates the overall number of neo-Nazis to be over 1,000 in Sweden. But he readily admits that Swedish society in general is tolerant and dislikes the racists. To be a racist is to be an outcast in Sweden. Matthias Wikstrand, 24, has successfully left the Swedish neo-Nazi movement with the help of Exit and now works as a youth ambassador to the Swedish culture ministry's department against racism. He says he joined a skinhead gang at 13. The gang recruited him to beat up foreigners and others they did not like. He later joined a neo-Nazi group "because they thought like I did, you know 'kill the nigger, gas the Jews' -- that kind of thing. We followed the Germans and worshipped Hitler." Later he joined the Swedish neo-Nazi party the National Socialist Front, before deciding to get out and lead a "normal" life. "It's not cool to be a racist in jail," he says. Yet in Norway, a similar help organization has had to close for lack of funding, and in Germany, the size of the problem seems too overwhelming to tackle without major political and educational initiatives. Marginalizing the neo-Nazi groups which openly provoke and attack foreigners and others in the streets is one way to reduce their support among the youth, but this is not always possible. Germany's domestic intelligence service, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, estimates that tens of thousands of neo-Nazis are active in the country, mainly in the east, with a hard core of around 9,000 particularly violent individuals. The sheer size of the far right movement in Germany and the historical legacy of Nazism pose a particular challenge. In Germany, extreme-right leanings do not have the stigma they bear in many other countries. Young Germans have grown up aware that many of their grandparents and great-grandparents were Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s. Indeed, many of their parents, born after the war, also have extreme-right tendencies, particularly in the eastern German states. Bernd Wagner, a former policeman who is trying to set up a German Exit program, notes "there are areas in eastern Germany where entire classes in a school might be right-wing. There are clubs and communities of 100 percent extremist tendencies." In other words, far from being a fringe activity, racism, violence and neo-nationalism have become normal in some communities. That is why anti-fascism groups insist that governments should take the lead in combating xenophobia. In Germany, a survey showed that 78 percent of the population did not want immigration, but an even higher percentage were opposed to far right groups. The lesson in Austria is only too clear. If mainstream parties fail to respond to the public's needs, the electorate can turn to the far right as an alternative.
Albion Monitor
December 31, 2000 (http://www.monitor.net/monitor) All Rights Reserved. Contact rights@monitor.net for permission to use in any format. |
