Keynote speech at ”Criminalization of Antifascism: Insights from the Budapest case & strategies of resistance” -event at the European Parliament, December 11th 2024.
Dear friends,
At the time of the European elections this year, Finland, Italy and Hungary were the only EU countries with far-right or extreme-right parties in government. In Sweden, the far right Swedish Democrats officially support the government, although they do not have posts in it.
Since then, Geert Wilders’ PVV party came first in the national elections in the Netherlands and is now part of the government. In Germany, AfD came first in the regional elections in Thuringen and second in Saxony and are currently second in national polls. In Austria, FPÖ came first in the national elections and in the US, Donald Trump won the presidential elections.
All around Europe and the world, far-right and extreme right parties are making significant gains and, which is important to note, are also gaining real influence on policy in more and more countries.
Although there are differences between these parties when it comes to specific questions, such as their stance on Russia and Ukraine, the similarities are evident when examining the core of their politics: they are all anti-immigration, and more specifically, islamophobic. Their way of describing nations and people is based on an exclusive and hierarchical perception of ”cultures”, emphasizing incompatibility of different and unalterable cultures to coexist.
Where in the 20’s and 30’s, people were ranked based on ethnicity and race, today this category has largely been replaced with cultures and more specifically islam, or what they perceive as it. Nevertheless the logic of ranking and incompatibility has remained the same.
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These far-right parties have largely also used the same strategies of replacing a traditional class analysis based on material interests of people with low income and an insecure status on the labor market, to instead create identity-based categories for politics, where subjectivity is built on hetero-pathriarcal nationalism, the perception of contributing to what they define is relevant in society, and a counterreaction to lifestyles described as belonging to the elites or others. Today, resistance to climate policies is therefore another factor clearly uniting different parties on the far and extreme right.
In the context of the relationship between politics inside parliamentary structures and outside them, it is important to emphasize the dangers of this kind of rhetoric and policies.
When people in power present other human beings, often living in very precarious circumstances, as dangers to the welfare, safety or the future of the nation, or parties and politicians defending universal and fundamental rights and freedoms are labelled traitors, it has concrete consequences.
The consequences are particularly dire for those living without the security and protected status of politicians or other privileges. Words are not just words, but when used for incitement they lead to racist violence, attacks, segregation and death. These are already real results of the rise of the extreme-right political forces and other parties agreeing to co-operate with them.
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But far-right influence is now growing also inside parliamentary structures. What has enabled the rise of these parties to positions where they do not only gain a significant share of the vote, but in far too many countries also have gained positions where they are able to influence the policy at the highest level?
I believe it is a combination of many factors. One of them is the failure of the current economic model to respond to the major challenges we are facing. We have not been able to respond to the environmental crisis, nor to the unequal concentration of wealth. Since the financial crisis we have only heard and read bad news: less welfare, less jobs, less hope for the future.
The lack of hope has been especially prevalent in many rural areas and cities outside the big ”growth centers”. In recent years these problems have been worsened further by the inability and unwillingness to create tools for addressing problems created by the rising cost of living and the energy crisis.
Insecurity and disillusionment feeds anger, which has been capitalized by many of these parties and movements against what has been portrayed as the politics of liberal elites. We should not underestimate the power of affect surrounding many of these parties and movements. The cultural project of the extreme right is a big motivator for many to cast their vote not so much in favor of their programmes as a vote against the current elites, state of affairs and lack of hope for something better.
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However, the biggest single factor that has enabled this development is the breakdown of the anti-fascist consensus after the Second world war, meaning the mainstreaming of far-right policies. The traditional conservative and many times also liberal right-wing parties have in many countries accepted the way the extreme right has described the problems of our current societies, their version of reality. By doing this, they have willingly moved focus away from structural issues such as the failings of our current economic systems and its impacts on both the working class and the middle class, and instead approved the cultural focus of the extreme right. Whereas the first steps in this normalisation process usually has been to incorporate the themes of the far right into their own agenda, keeping the parties at arms length, the following steps have in Italy, Finland and the Netherlands been to normalize the parties themselves, by opening up the doors for government participation.
This normalization is also what enables the far and extreme right to enlarge their voter base from a more anti-elitist and anti-systemic vote, to a more strictly anti-immigrant and conservative agenda, gathering votes in many different classes, including the upper middle class. This mechanism and larger voter base was what cemented the possibility of rise to power of the fascist parties between the world wars. With a broader mobilization of support and other parties accepting their argumentation as part of their own policy, there is a risk for even greater success for the far-right.
I will use Finland as a short example of what this development looks like. The True Finns party originally had its roots in an agrarian populist party that had risen by criticizing “old parties” and speaking about the “forgotten people”. The party started as True Finns in 1995. At the start of the 2000’s, they started getting attention and small electoral victories based on populist rhetoric directed at the ”old party elites” and by campaigning against the EU. At the same time, people active in the ethnonationalist scene organized around the organization Suomen Sisu, that can justifiably be noted as fascist. Within this group the True Finns were evaluated to constitute a party for their political project. In the municipal elections in 2008, several people with backgrounds in Suomen Sisu were running as candidates and some were elected. The party leader at the time, Timo Soini, an old-school populist, made a conscious decision to take these people into the party, to be able to gain more votes in elections.
In 2011, the Finns party got a historical land-slide victory and several people with background in the ethnonationalist scene were elected into parliament. In 2015, the victories continued, and this time their party leader decided to take them into government. The right-wing coalition made severe cuts in the social security and labour market reforms which cut wages especially in the public sector. Since the party mainstream was still more agrarian populist, these policies had a significant impact on their electoral support, and they lost half of their support in one year.
Within the party, this created significant turmoil and an opening for the forces that wanted to transform the party in a more hardline and openly anti-immigrant direction, focusing less on social themes. At a party congress in 2017, Jussi Halla-aho, a prominent figure and blogger in the Finnish extreme right internet scene, cited by Breivik in his manifesto and also convicted for incitement to ethnic hatred, was elected party leader. At this point, the conservative right announced they will not participate in government with a party led by him and the True Finns went through a major split. The more extreme remained in The True Finns, which had now undergone a transformation from more agrarian populist to islamophobic far-right.
Since then the conservative and liberal right wing parties have changed their stand towards the True Finns party. In the elections 2023, they got 20,1% of the vote, placing second. A right-wing coalition was formed, which has introduced several restrictions of immigration laws, cut funding for development co-operation and introduced severe austerity measures, affecting workers with low wages, sickness and unemployment. Jussi Halla-aho was elected speaker of the Parliament. They have also attacked the trade unions in an unprecedented way: limiting the right to strike, restricting wage increases in the public sector and taking away incentives for employers to unionize. Last summer, based on threats of Russia using asylum seekers as so-called instrumentalised migrants, a law was introduced which legalizes pushbacks at the Eastern border. Many legal experts have pointed out that the law is contrary to international human rights law, EU law and the Finnish constitution.
At the same time, their politicians are using their position for pushing the boundaries for what is deemed accepted. Several ministers from the Finns have publicly spoken about the Great Replacement theory. Last Saturday, on the Finnish Independence Day, an MP from the Finns participated in a nationalist march, originally co-founded by neo-nazis, who still participate in the march. The decision was publicly supported by the speaker of the parliament and the finance minister. His participation was publicly praised by neo-nazis, saying that this participation helps in moving the so called Overton’s window, that is, mainstreaming their extremist project.
So, what kind of counter-strategies should we focus on to respond to this development, and what is the role of parties and parliamentarians, and what of social movements and ordinary citizens?
Firstly,
We need a restigmatisation of the extreme right, to rebuild the antifascist consensus everywhere that it is possible. In parliamentary structures this might mean for example what was done in France, through the formation of the New Popular Front and the electoral co-operation to vote against Le Pen. In the European parliament, this can be done through actively participating in forming majorities without the far and extreme right and also pushing the right wing when they co-operate with the far right.
This does not mean participating in coalitions with the center or liberal right on all issues, but finding common ground for cooperation especially on issues that are important for our democratic institutions and fundamental rights. The independence of the judiciary, the independence and the funding of the public broadcasting companies, the defence of international law and fundamental rights and freedoms. On these issues, it is also in our interest that the center right and liberal right find their own way of formulating a position in defence of democracy, against authoritarian tendencies. On these kinds of issues, the Left must be willing to co-operate and participate in politically broad coalitions to defend democratic institutions.
For those working outside the parliament, this means making antifascism a project for everyone. That means non-violent, broad popular action to block neo-nazi events or protesting against legal initiatives aimed at immigrants, like we have seen many times around Europe. For me that means young, old, colorful, joyful and safe mass movements showing that there is a broad and versatile majority against the extreme right. I think we need a vision of how we make antifascism something for everyone, for the antifascist consensus to be rebuilt and to avoid marginalization of something that is so fundamental.
This being said, secondly,
The Left must push even harder to challenge the economic policies of the right. These conflicts cannot be handed over to the far right. The disillusionment, the anger, the lack of hope and vision that so many feel can and that is real, must be channeled through a political force and a political programme that does not direct this anger at other people, but against the economics that make rich richer and everyone else fighting to make means end throughout their lives. This means being braver and bolder and better at developing and pushing for our economic alternatives both inside parliamentary structures and outside them, to address the cost of living crisis, the lack of vision for many rural areas and the increased precariousness of the middle class.
Thank you.