Fanning the flames of hatred

Worldwide, the far right phenomenon takes various guises: from Nazi thugs spraying swastikas on Jewish graves, to apparently mainstream politicians making inroads by fanning the flames of xenophobia to score electoral points. 

What unites the different factions of the far right and fellow travellers who reject that tag is hostility towards immigrants from poorer countries.

On the surface it seems that the respectable brand has displaced the more extremist hard core of Nazis and fascists. 

A new generation of “respectable” politicians like Marine Le Pen in France, Roberto Maroni in Italy and Geert Wilders in the Netherlands dominate the right wing landscape in Europe.  

Moreover even more mainstream centre-right politicians like Nicolas Sarkozy have tried, without much success, to quell their rise by adopting parts of their programme. Hence his decision to expel gypsies from France and to block the frontier with Italy to prevent North African migrants from entering his country. 

Still this has not prevented the rise of Marine Le Pen, the daughter of the more brusque Jean Marie Le Pen, who once described the holocaust as a “detail of history”.

Some, like the Italian Lega Nord, consider immigration as a threat to ‘Catholic’ traditions; others like Wilders consider Muslim migrants as a threat to western secular values.

On the other hand former fascists like Gianfranco Fini have gone the opposite direction, upholding liberal democratic values and accepting the realities of a multi cultural society.

But the old demons continued to lurk beneath the surface as evidenced by the increase in the desecration of Jewish graves across Europe.

The Community Security Trust (CST), a charity which monitors attacks against Jews, recorded a 69 per cent increase in anti Semitic attacks in the UK in 2009.   

Moreover a new generation of right wing activists has come to the fore. Completely divorced from the Nazi-fascist ideologies of the past, their pet hates are immigrants and Islam, rather than Jewish conspiracies.

One of the myths propelled by groups like English Defence League is that the Muslim migrants will change Europe into ‘Eurabia’. These claims are contrasted by the findings of a Pew Forum study, published in January 2011, which forecasts an increase of Muslims in European population from 6% in 2010 to 8% in 2030.

Unlike the old right, some of the newcomers openly sympathise with rightwing Israelis who share the same loathing of Islam.   

Even more worrying is the tendency of these extremists to join populist right wing parties in Europe. One such activist was Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian charged with a killing spree in which at least 91 people died.

Breivik was a former member of the Progress Party: a populist anti-immigration party that has grown to become Norway’s second largest party. Like most other leaders of the emerging constellation of populist parties they have always denied being racists. But that did not prevent Breivik from joining them. What seems to have changed is the definition of racism, which is now more focused on perceived cultural threats than skin colour.

The Maltese far right

Malta has been no exception to the European trend and has seen an increase in far right activism over the past few years. 

A hardcore of vehemently anti-communist fascist activists are known to have been active on the fringe of the Nationalist Party in the 1980s; however, the far right only emerged as a force to be reckoned with in the past few years when for the first time Malta faced an influx of migrants from Africa.

The Maltese far right has already taken different guises. For a time it even took a more respectable form in the now defunct Azzjoni Nazzjonali (AN) and the Alleanza Nazzjonali Repubblikana (ANR) which combined an appeal to Christian traditionalists with inflammatory anti-immigrant rhetoric. 

In contrast to its rivals on the Maltese far right, the party was firmly pro-Israel and closer to the Tea Party brand of US republicanism than to traditional European fascism.

Despite being led by the charismatic Josie Muscat, and attracting businessmen like Angelo Xuereb, the party failed to take off.

Its final blow was getting fewer votes than the maverick and more extreme Norman Lowell in the 2009 MEP elections.

In this sense Malta seems to betray the European trend, where more mainstream populist politicians enjoying a wider appeal are displacing mavericks. 

It was Lowell who scored the best result for the far right, gaining 3,559 votes in the 2009 European elections.

Lowell’s perverse appeal

It remains a mystery how some Maltese can take Lowell seriously.  Perhaps part of his appeal is his eccentricity and anti-establishment rhetoric. 

Nor are the Maltese particularly concerned with much of what Lowell says about Zionist conspiracies, or his delusional plan to make Malta the centre of a European Empire based on the “Europid bond”.

Moreover his visceral anti-clericalism has enhanced his appeal among a category of people who rebel against the church by rejecting its most positive values.

But what struck a chord with a minority of Maltese were his inflammatory speeches against black immigrants.

In a speech in the Safi square in January 2005, following a violent clampdown by the army on a peaceful protest by detained migrants, Lowell warned that the “enemy is not only at the gate but manning it” – enemy being the word used to describe asylum seekers escaping atrocities back home in the hope of starting a decent life in the West.

“Our house is burning and we continue bringing in more black coal,” Lowell charged. His solution to the immigrant problem was; “stop them 14 miles away.”

In a crescendo tone, Lowell insisted the military should stop them once, twice and three times, “it takes what it takes”…

He was later charged with incitement to racial hatred, under legislation enacted in 2002. He was sentenced to two years imprisonment suspended for four.

Neither Lowell nor his movement has ever been convicted or accused of acts of violence. But a spate of arson attacks targeting journalists and people who work with asylum seekers in 2006 exposed the risk of right wing violence rearing its head in Malta, long before the Norwegian tragedy.

The fact that nobody has so far been convicted of these attacks should be further cause of concern.

Bizarrely the reaction of far right leader Norman Lowell to the tragedy in Norway was to distance himself from the terrorist attack by blaming it on the Jews, whom he insultingly refers to as “rodents.”

Writing on the vivamalta far right portal, Lowell claims that Breivik’s manifesto was written by “the Rodents”.

“They used him to butcher a hundred Nordics - and blame Muslims. Exactly what they did at 9/11 and the London Tube bombings”.

He also describes the killer as a “Christian Zionist – the lowest form of life.”

In this way Lowell has found a way to distance himself from the Norwegian killer by blaming the eternal scapegoat: the world Zionist conspiracy, the fodder of so many crimes carried out in the past two centuries.

Unsurprisingly both Lowell and Breivik uphold a world vision based on conspiracy theories. While Lowell blames the Jews for conspiring against the Europid race, Breivik blamed Muslims for waging a “demographic jihad” – through a combination of immigration and uncontrolled breeding with the aim of controlling Europe.

What Lowell seems to overlook is that despite their differences, both he and Breivik share a visceral hatred towards immigrants and multiculturalism.  

The populist temptation

As happened in the rest of Europe, the far right has also succeeded in influencing the agenda of mainstream parties.

One of the twists is in the story is that in his rambling dossier Breivik referred to Malta’s Nationalist Party as a far right anti immigrant party, ignoring the fact that on this issue the Maltese equivalents of the victims of Breivik’s madness stand to the right of the PN.

In contrast to most European social democratic parties for the past couple of years the PL has been harping on the “national interest” which is being threatened by the failure of the EU to share Malta’s immigration burden. Labour has also criticised the government’s weakness in not resorting to unilateral actions like suspending international obligations.

Privately Labour exponents argue that this is their way of nipping fascist extremism in the bud. If Labour does not speak on immigration, workers would vote far right, they argue.

The argument has been partly shattered by the rise of Marine Le Pen in France despite Sarkozy’s shift to the right.

Labour cannot be in any way accused of stirring prejudice based on racial or cultural identity. Muscat has always been careful to point out that immigrants are not to be blamed for the government's and EU's faults.

The problem with Labour’s discourse is that it perpetuates the idea that immigration is a burden and a threat, which we would rather do without.

In so doing, Labour ignores the fact that immigration is a reality of any modern society in a globalised world.

It also gives a false impression that a future government would make the “problem” disappear by stamping its feet in the European arena. It could raise expectations, which a future Labour government will find hard to fulfil without turning the country in to an international pariah.

Recently Muscat even had to distance himself from Norman Lowell after the far right leader praised his stance on immigration. It was an embarrassing moment for a social democratic leader, even if Muscat took the opportunity to condemn Lowell’s racial creed.

On its part the Nationalist Party surely did not deserve being included in Breivik's list of far right right organisations. In fact, far rightists including Lowell have openly attacked the PN for being too soft on this issue.

But while the PN has largely honoured the country’s international obligations with regards to asylum seekers, it has failed to come up with integration policies to govern an increasingly multicultural society.

The PN also has its own demons to contend with.  The divorce issue has brought a number of extremely conservative elements out of the woodworks.

The “religio et patria” motto, re-evoked by leading exponents of the party, harks back to the party’s traditionalist and reactionary roots. 

Some of the party’s young activists at university are also known for their visceral hatred anything remotely left-wing. At university this antagonism has often come in to the surface in open hostility towards left-wing groups like Graffitti and the Ir-Realta newspaper collective.

While for Labour the risk of hard right contamination is presented by a catch-all populism and an appeal to the national interest which exploits anti immigration sentiments, the Nationalist party risks depending on the support of cultural conservatives whose vision of the common good turns off more liberal elements.