“We see you, we hear you and we empathise with you!” This slogan is how Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook, a German-American political scientist, recently described the message of the far right in Europe at an event on “The Future of European Security”. According to her, this message is the reason why they are increasingly winning power in today’s political landscape. From Chega!, AFD & Vox to the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands, almost in every European parliament, a far-right party is represented. 

Why is this the case? Why do we Europeans want to go back to 1945 fascism ruling our world? Is it because our current governments are incapable of addressing the citizens’ needs? 

We as Europeans, but also as global citizens, need to deal with climate change, wars, gender inequality, poverty, rising costs of living, immigration and whatnot else. It is easy to become overwhelmed at the sight of all these issues, especially if incumbent political leaders are seemingly not able to fight any of them actively and are rather focused on maintaining their power as sovereign. Hence, it is no wonder that distrust in our political systems is on the rise. We see this also within our community here at Forward College. Just recently in an IPT class, Ruairidh asked the students whether they trusted their government and the broad majority decisively said no! So where does European democracy fail?                  

In Portugal, we have seen that the government failed to address the housing crisis.

In France, we have seen that the government failed to address immigration. 

In Germany, we have seen that the government failed to address the increasing polarisation of society. 

In Hungary, we have seen that the government failed to address ongoing corruption.  

While governments continuously fail to gain or maintain the trust of their citizens, as more and more issues come up, they allow the far right to enter the stage. The far right is hard to define but it is often used interchangeably with right-wing extremism and can thus be classified as a broad movement that opposes everything and anyone that differs from their ideal of a homogenous nation, may it be skin colour, supposed origin, sexual orientation or religious beliefs. They tend to be radically conservative, ultra-nationalist and even authoritarian.  

However, in today’s difficult times, the far-right parties present themselves as saviours – a unified voice with a cohesive action plan as they provide easy answers to today’s complex problems, even though their populist policy swings should not be forgotten.  It is understandable to a certain extent why people vote for the far right because often their claims are valid-at least on a superficial level. 

Just give the movie “Je suis Karl” a look to recognise this better! Due to the distrust towards the political system, people want to give the opposition and the “different and new ” parties a chance because can it get worse than how it is currently? And it is definitely easier to blame all of our problems on the current leaders, on minorities, on the LGTBQ+ community, on the foreigners whoever they may be – war refugees, motivated workforce, etc. But what does blaming the presence of modern issues on these people entail? Is the solution to kick everyone out of the country who does not look like you or does not share your nationality as far-right extremists proposed at a secret meeting in Germany (Düsseldorfer Forum)? And then let’s create a homogenous society whose beliefs, values and norms all follow a certain nationalistic ideology? But who decides the details of such an ideology? Who do we put in charge? A Marine Le Pen, Santiago Abascal or Alice Weidel? Well, Victor Orbán, Giorgia Meloni and Geert Wilders have already received certain powers as prime minister or president. Clearly, it has become inevitable to ignore the far right and its power. 

So how should governments opposing this resurging far-right movement deal with it? Going back to Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook and her comment on the far-right’s popularity stemming from them having empathy with the people, I would argue that maybe European governments should take inspiration from such a strategy. Of course, politicians must consider and tackle all of the above-discussed issues that concern, polemically speaking, “the end of the world” to ensure a prosperous European future, they should not neglect the “end of the month” problems. This idea implies addressing the citizen’s current, most-pressing needs so that they feel acknowledged by their government; such initiatives can already start within the school setting as children must be educated about the dangers of any form of extremism, specifically the ones that aim to threaten our democratic systems. However, democracy is only actually realised if honesty is maintained – politicians must be honest to their electorate, admit when they are wrong and not change their public statements every other day. 

A last reminder that even if far-right parties address valid fears and democratic governments should be criticised so that they can improve, the far-right is still far-right. This means that although all these parties portray themselves as new and different, they are frankly speaking, inherently not, they have just moved away from the brute and obvious interwar-fascism to a new modern notion.

maximakrage

Maxima Krage is a second-year student at Forward College in Politics and International Relations. She is interested in international affairs, feminism, literature and photography. You can either find her in the library, exercising or wandering through the streets of Paris, exploring the city arrondissement by arrondissement. You can contact her on Instagram @maxima_sophie.