The discreet charm of latent fascism
When UBS (Union Bank of Switzerland) chairman Marcel Ospel, in a discussion with economists in Basel last week declared that he considered the Swiss People's Party as the most competent and trustworthy political party in Switzerland in terms of economic policies, his remark earned mixed applause. One of the leading figures of that party, Christoph Blocher, now Minister of Justice of the Swiss Confederation, has been known for years for his inflammatory rhetoric style mixing talk of economic liberalism and xenophoby with the intention to bring elements of the extreme right onto his bandwagon. The recent success of Nicolas Sarcozy in the French presidential elections has been built on a similar rhetoric: praise of the nation's "grandeur", mixed with a more ot less subtle xenophobia and a call for economic reforms under a strong central government.
A heated discussion on Marcel Ospel's stance was launched on the Swiss Blog http://www.arlesheimreloaded.ch, and it came to an abrupt stop decided by the blog master when on some posts the term "national socialism" was used to define certain emerging trends in Swiss politics.
In recent years, there have been reciprocal accusations between the Swiss Social Democrativ Party (SP) and the SVP of "national socialist" behaviour, without arousing much interest by the electorate until recently.
But by the fact that radical nationalist and xenophobic movements are en vogue again in post-communist Eastern Europe and that the rhetoric of the Western European Right is getting tougher in terms of discimination against foreigners, the interest in the origins of national socialism (Germany) and fascism (Italy) has been awakened once again.
The National Socialist Movement, as ist existed in Germany between 1933 and 1945, used for it's image a specific blend of promises of economic growth, an exaggerated role for the nation (built on racial criteria) and social justice based on the exlusion and eventually extermination of those who did not comply with he rules or where considered as unworthy by racial criteria. The Soviet system, on the other hand, used social class as central criterion for the exclusion from economic and political life, and for eventual liquidation of persons of bourgeois origin.
After the downfall of the Third Reich, race was no longer a criterion for exclusion, liquidation, annihilation, but the struggle of the classes according to Marx and Engels continued to be considered as the single most important motor for progress of society on the road towards socialism.
After the downfall of the Berlin wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, there was at first a period of complete desorientation. From the chaos that followed the collapse, a new class of entrepreneurs emerged in the Russian Federation, the so-called oligarchs, who took control of the economy and tried to do the same in politics.
President Boris Yeltsin, uncapable of controlling a systen that had rund wild, passed his power to a brilliant, healthy (and tough) young lawyer, Vladimit Putin, brought up within the Soviet System, and who had made his carreer in the KGB.
Since his arrival to power, Putin systematically has reverted the chaotic and unstructured political and economic freedom that Russia had known for less than ten years by what he called "the Dictatorship of the Law". The oligarchs were driven into exile or jailed and the central government succeeded brilliantly in bringing economic decision power back again under it's control.
To regain the confidence of the estranged population, the colours of Putin's rethoric have turned more and more nationalistic, culminating in the restoration of the national anthem of the former Soviet Union created in 1944.
The objectives of this nationalistic trend are evident: to strengthen the defenses of the population against globalisation, in the interest of economic elites that actively participate in the process of gobalization while instrumentalizing the xenophobic reflexes of the masses for their own interests. The "Dictatorship of the Law" is the mechanism by which the new ruling class finds it's legitimation in the confrontation with the classical left. By actively supporting the xenophobic tendencies within society, the ruling elite successfully reduces the risk of an active participation of "foreigners" in the national economy.
The result is a new form of National Socialism in the mask of what might be called "patriotic free market economy". No wonder that those who consider liberalism as a philosophical and political struggle for freedom in terms of market economy, but siumultaneously an attitude that does not tolerate discrimination on the basis of race, nationality, religion of gender, are the natural enemies of the new "patriotic" movements that call themselves "liberal".
The leaders of the Swiss People's Party know exactly what they do when selling their perfect mixture of talk on free market economy and a monopoly over the most important national symbols: the flag, the folks sports such as "Schwingen" and "Hornussen" and last but not least Swiss country music.
1 comment:
Let us begin with the most recent event that you quote, France. Though I agree that the rhetoric used was emphasizing the „grandeur de la nation“, as much as the virtues of it I do think one should nonetheless differentiate by the motive, the purpose of doing so, of using it - i.e. such nationalistic rhetoric. Naturally unlike in contemporary Russia or any eastern European country with a couple of exceptions perhaps and obviously most unlike in Nazi-Germany the modern western European Democracies are in my perception confronted with, I am sorry to say, no more and no less than the usual degree of nationalism and racism. Though it is disconcerting and most regretful that fanatics of this kind find an as devoted as eager as grateful an audience for their more than absurd ideologies, the problem lies, I dare say, not so much in the message (i.e. the “ideology”) itself but much rather in the disposition of probably about a third of the people of those countries, in their utterly perverted longing for discriminatory ideologies which of course and by definition always are based upon irrationalities. And I should like to make no exception. I refer to extremism of any sort. Be it a Catholic, conservative, Islamic or Judaic moral, or a communist, nationalist, socialist or racist Ideology.
The fundamental question to be addressed in France, Italy, Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland and probably to a lesser degree in Great Britain and the Scandinavian countries however is, I should think: How does one politically best combat “political parties” who have no hesitation whatsoever to cruelly address those instincts of the said third of the democratic electorate in order to “overthrow” the competing, ruling parties for the sole purpose of gaining the power and consequently abusing it for whatever sort of nepotism or worse?
And there it would appear we fundamentally disagree with our assessment of Nicolas Sarkozy and of France. I find it central to present a program that addresses soft and tough issues, without exception. A program too that does not make any concession whatsoever to courteous protection of one s own class, one s own people or even one s own friends for that matter. For: Those very people have most dreadfully failed in opposing trends that per se are the very seed for demagogues successfully appealing to the sort of instincts referred to. It is at this point that I would turn to Nazi-Germany and thus inevitably to causalities. Who was responsible for the monumental disaster? Was it the peace treaty of Versailles? Was it the People of Germany? Or was it not a blend of both?
Should we want to rid this country of the agony of Blocher s troops, who unlike Blocher himself, I repeat, are in essence clearly of national socialist disposition, we must at last commence to call the things by their proper names, dear Osservertore! We must stop to indulge politicians because of their kind and good nature, when they brutally failed in their political performance. … Oddly I find there still is no one able or willing to stand his man or his woman and to get cracking on GENUINLY LIBERAL POLICIES. Someone like David de Pury!
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