On November 11th, 60,000 people mobilised by the Far Right marched through the streets of Warsaw on a Police Independence Day march. Poland and Hungary are two EU member countries where the Far Right has been able to mobilise, greatly encouraged by the Right populist and chauvinist parties that are in government there.
There are some, particularly on the British Left, the Lexiters, who believed that a Brexit vote would open up the way to further progress. In reality, it has been the Right and Far Right in Europe that that has been strengthened. It is a sad indication of the disorientation of the ‘internationalist’ Left over Europe, that it is the ultra-nationalist Far Right that is able to mobile internationally across Europe for its vision of a ‘White Christian Europe’. Because British Left has no alternative vision for Europe, it is leaving it to the Far Right to put forward its European vision to counter the neoliberal EU bureaucracy. Instead the Lexiters are trying to revive a British road to socialism, this time via a Corbyn-led British Left government.
The following two articles are from Tony Greenstein’s blog (see http://azvsas.blogspot.co.uk). The first article describes the politics of the march. The second shows the close relationship between the Israeli state under Benjamin Netanyahu with the Right populist governments of Poland and Hungary, and explains this link.
‘WHITE CHRISTIAN EUROPE’
60,000 FAR RIGHT SUPPORTERS MARCH IN WARSAW
Xenophobic phrases and far-right symbols mark event described by anti-fascists as a magnet for worldwide far-right groups
Tens of thousands of nationalist demonstrators marched through Warsaw at the weekend to mark Poland’s independence day, throwing red-smoke bombs and carrying banners with slogans such as “white Europe of brotherly nations”.
Police estimated 60,000 people took part in Saturday’s event, in what experts say was one of the biggest gathering of far-right activists in Europe in recent years.
Demonstrators with faces covered chanted “Pure Poland, white Poland!” and “Refugees get out!”. A banner hung over a bridge that read: “Pray for Islamic Holocaust.”
The march organised by far-right groups in Poland is an annual event originally to mark Poland’s independence in 1918. But according to Nick Lowles, from UK anti-extremism group Hope Not Hate, it has become an important rallying point for international far-right groups.
“The numbers attending this year seem to be bigger and, while not everyone on the march is a far-right activist or fascist, it is undoubtedly becoming more significant and is acting as a magnet for far-right groups around the world.”
Some participants marched under the slogan “We Want God!”, words from an old Polish religious song that the US president, Donald Trump, quoted during a visit to Warsaw earlier this year. Speakers encouraged attendants to stand against liberals and defending Christian values.
Many carried the national white-and-red flag while others held banners depicting a falanga, a far-right symbol dating to the 1930s. A demonstrator interviewed by state television TVP said he was on the march to “remove Jewry from power”.
Among the far-right leaders attending the march was the former English Defence League leader Stephen Lennon, better known as Tommy Robinson, and Roberto Fiore from Italy. It also attracted a considerable number of supporters of Poland’s governing conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party.
TVP, which reflects the conservative government’s line, called it a “great march of patriots”, and in its broadcasts described the event as one that drew mostly ordinary Poles expressing their love of Poland, not extremists.
“It was a beautiful sight,” the interior minister, Mariusz Błaszczak, said. “We are proud that so many Poles have decided to take part in a celebration connected to the Independence Day holiday.”
The march was one of many events marking Poland’s independence in 1918, when the country regained its sovereignty at the end of the first world war after being partitioned and ruled since the late 18th century by Russia, Prussia and the Austro-Hungarian empire.
A smaller counter-protest by an anti-fascist movement took place on Saturday where, although organisers tried to keep the two groups apart, nationalists pushed and kicked several women who had a banner saying “Stop fascism” and chanted anti-fascist slogans.
“I’m shocked that they’re allowed to demonstrate on this day. It’s 50 to 100,000 mostly football hooligans hijacking patriotism,” said a 50-year-old Briton, Andy Eddles, a language teacher who has been living in Poland for 27 years. “For me it’s important to support the anti-fascist coalition and to support fellow democrats, who are under pressure in Poland today.”
Earlier in the day, the president, Andrzej Duda, presided over state ceremonies also attended by the European council president, Donald Tusk, a former prime minister of Poland.
Tusk’s appearance comes at a time when Warsaw has been increasingly at odds with Brussels because of the PiS government’s controversial interference in the courts, large-scale logging in a primeval forest and a refusal to accept migrants. Relations between PiS and Tusk have been so tense that Poland was the only country to vote against his re-election as council president in March.
THE LINKS BETWEEN NETANHAYU AND THE ANTI-SEMITIC POPULIST RIGHT IN POLAND
Thousands of far-right nationalists marched through Poland’s capital, Warsaw, on Saturday, waving red-and-white Polish flags and carrying flares.
The crowd at the march, which coincided with Poland’s Independence Day, commemorating the reinstatement of sovereignty at the end of World War I, far outnumbered those at official government events earlier in the day. Many participants held up Christian iconography.
But others held banners of white supremacy, including one that read “White Europe of brotherly nations,” according to The Associated Press. Still others carried signs equating Islam with terrorism, waved signs denouncing same-sex marriage, and carried banners of the National Radical Camp, an anti-Semitic group founded before World War II on extreme nationalist values.
The annual march has become something of a magnet for white supremacists and far-right groups from across Europe since it began in 2009.
As Poland has moved further to the right, the rally has grown. The right-wing Law and Justice Party, which was voted into power in 2015, has moved the nation from liberal European cooperation to an inward-facing agenda.
The slogan for Saturday’s march, “We want God,” comes from an old Polish nationalist song. President Trump quoted the phrase during his visit this year.
The crowd at a counterdemonstration, with the slogan “For our freedom and yours,” was greatly outnumbered. Some participants held umbrellas that spelled out “Stop Facism” and others carried a banner that read “Rainbow is the new black.”
60,000 strong fascist march in Warsaw for a White Europe on Poland’s independence day
“Pray for Islamic Holocaust” reads the banner and the crowd chants “remove Jewry from power”
It was one of the largest fascist rallies in Europe in the post-war period. But to Interior Minister, Mariusz Błaszczak “It was a beautiful sight,” Poland’s far-Right Law and Justice government is led by Prime Minister Beatta Szydlo (Beata Szydło).
The Law and Justice Party is an anti-Semitic party, one of whose missions is to write out of history Polish collaboration with the Nazis in the murder of Jews. This has not stopped Netanyahu welcoming Beata Szydło to Israel and returning the honour.
Poland, along with Hungary and the other East European countries are the most hostile to refugees in Europe. Their racist hostility to Muslims and refugees is shared by most Israelis and Netanyahu which is one reason for the symbiosis between Israel and Poland.
Of course the anti-Semitism of the Polish government is no obstacle to its friendliness to Israel. As the Times of Israel reported Is new Polish law an attempt to whitewash its citizens’ roles in the Holocaust? “the Education Minister Anna Zalewska insinuated that the Jedwabne massacre of 1941, when Poles burned alive more than 300 Jews in a barn, was a matter of “opinion.” This was in an interview in July on the Polish public broadcaster TVN.
Polish Newsweek, a Polish public opinion survey reported, following Zalewska’s statements that 33% of the population agreed with the minister that the Polish massacre of Jews at Jedwabne is an opinion, 29% were undecided and only 38% agreed with the statement that “Poles burned Jews in a barn in Jedwabne.” The highest percentage of disbelief was found among youth.
In fact the number of 300 Jews who were burnt alive is a conservative estimate. Anna Bikont, in The Crime and the Silence – A Quest for the Truth of a Wartime Massacre estimated that up to 1,600 hundred Jews were herded into a barn which was then set alive by those villagers in Jedwabne who were supporters of the Nationalist Party. Polish-Jewish historian Jan Tomasz Gross, in his book Neighbours: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne concurred.
I have already written previously about how former Law and Justice MEP Michal Kaminski, who led the Committee to Preserve the Good Name of Jedwabne, was also a vehement Zionist and was defended by Jewish Chronicle editor Stephen Pollard who described him as the ‘best friend’ that the Jews could want in the Guardian. [David Miliband’s insult to Michal Kaminski is contemptible’] In 2009 Kaminski was a guest speaker at the World Summit on Counter Terrorism:Terrorism’s Global Impact – ICT’s 9th International Conference at Herzliya in Israel. And of course he paid the obligatory visit to Yad Vashem, Israel’s holocaust propaganda museum.The newly elected President of the Polish state’s Institute of National Remembrance Jaroslaw Szarek, recently told a parliamentary committee that “the perpetrators of this crime were the Germans, who used in their own machine of terror a group of Poles.”
Also present last Saturday was the founder of the English Defence League Tommy Robinson. Robinson, like so many fascists these days, combines anti-Semitism with strong support for Zionism and Israel. He is one of an increasing band of White Zionists. Robinson’s affections for Zionism are reciprocated.
The Jewish Chronicle reported that
‘A lawyer for the Jewish Human Rights Watch organisation has appeared alongside former EDL leader Tommy Robinson in a politically motivated video made for a right-wing media website.
Robert Festenstein is filmed by the Rebel Media Youtube site being introduced to Robinson, as he visits a Sunderland based shop owner who had been contacted by police and asked to remove a sign he had placed outside his shop relating to the funding of terrorism.
Festenstein of Jewish Human Rights Watch is a far-right Zionist. He attempted, together with fake charity Campaign Against Anti-Semitism to stop Palestine Expo 2017 in the Queen Elizabeth Centre II last July by making false allegations of anti-Semitism.
Other visitors from the British Far-Right were Jayda Fransen the Deputy Fuhrer of Britain First and a contingent from BF. They headed for Wroclaw, Poland’s third largest city which was the scene of the burning of an effigy of a Hasidic Jew about a year go.
The naked anti-Semitism of Britain First doesn’t stop former Vice Chair of the Zionist Federation, Jonathan Hoffman and other Zionist activists, including Simon Cobbs of Sussex Friends of Israel keeping company with BF’s ‘Intelligence Chief’ (I use the term Intelligence lightly) Paul Besser.
Although in Western Europe the overwhelming bulk of racism is directed towards Muslims and Roma, this is not true in Eastern Europe where anti-Semitic attitudes are common.Even in Spain, where half the people have unfavourable attitudes to Muslims or Roma, 21% have negative attitudes to Jews. In The Netherlands just 4% of people have negative attitudes towards Jews compared to over one-third to Muslims and Roma.
Although in Western Europe the overwhelming bulk of racism is directed towards Muslims and Roma, this is not true in Eastern Europe where anti-Semitic attitudes are common.Even in Spain, where half the people have unfavourable attitudes to Muslims or Roma, 21% have negative attitudes to Jews. In The Netherlands just 4% of people have negative attitudes towards Jews compared to over one-third to Muslims and Roma.
But in Eastern Europe although negative attitudes to Roma and Muslims afflict over half the population, there is still significant hostility towards Jews.
In Poland 47% are hostile to Roma and 67% towards Muslims compared to 24% with Jews. Given there are a maximum of 10,000 Jews in Poland this is an anti-Semitism without Jews.
In Hungary which has the largest Jewish community in Eastern and Central Europe (about 80,000) although hostility towards Roma and Muslims are higher (64% and 72%) negative opinions of Jews are a third (32%).
In Italy, which is surprising given the role of Italians in saving Jews during the war, 24% have hostile attitudes to Jews although this is dwarfed by a figure of 69% and 82% towards Muslims and Roma respectively.
It is clear that although anti-Semitism has virtually died in Western Europe it still plays a key ideological role in the fascist arsenal in Eastern Europe. There is no doubt that the reason for this is the economical condition of Eastern Europe with high unemployment and poverty. Anti-Semitism plays a different role from for example anti-Muslim racism and functions primarily on the ideological level. The Jewish conspiracy theory, of Jews owning the banks and controlling credit and therefore being responsible for the economic plight of these countries seems to play a large part. It is to a great extent an anti-Semitism without any Jews.
What is also clear though is that the far-Right racist regimes of Eastern Europe combine anti-Semitism with a slavish support for Israel. Israel in turn is more than happy to ignore the anti-Semitism of these regimes. Why not? Zionism has always thrived on anti-Semitism.
12.11.18
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Also see:-
Anti-Semitism Has Never Been a Problem for Zionism
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A Critique of Jeremy Corbyn and British Left Social Democracy, Part 1, section 4A. Brexit
A CRITIQUE OF JEREMY CORBYN AND BRITISH LEFT SOCIAL DEMOCRACY
Brexit Counter-Revolution
Debates and Discussions on the Emancipation & Liberation Blog about the EU and Migration
Which Way Now ‘ ‘Brexit’ or ‘Ex-Brit’
Little England
From Farage’s Brexit to Trump’s ‘Brexit Plus, Plus’, Plus and on to ‘Madame Frexit’
FROM FARAGE’S BREXIT TO TRUMP’S “BREXIT PLUS, PLUS, PLUS”, AND ON TO ‘MADAME FREXIT’? – a dialogue
Report of Meeting to Set Up Campaign for a European Republican Socialist Party
REPORT OF MEETING TO SET UP THE CAMPAIGN FOR A EUROPEAN REPUBLICAN SOCIALIST PARTY
The Reality of the European Democratic Revolution
June 24th – The FUKers’ Black Friday or Red Friday for a European Democratic Revolution
JUNE 24th – THE FUKers’ BLACK FRIDAY OR RED FRIDAY FOR A EUROPEAN DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION?
An Open Letter to Lexiters
Racism, Imperial Nostalgia and the EU Referendum
John Tummon comments:-
In today’s Guardian (17.11.17) Joseph Stiglitz labels Trump a Fascist who is only constrained by the ability of US institutions to stop any President from doing what he wants. Hitler faced similar constraints because of the Weimar constitution and needed the Enabling Act to circumvent it before he could implement his political vision.
This raises the republican question in the UK. The Crown in Parliament system gives the unelected executive untrammelled powers via the royal prerogative and absence of any countervailing Bill of Rights. Weimar and the US checks and balances can hold off full blown Right wing dictatorship for quite some time, giving opposition forces time to organise against it.
The current stand-off in Westminster over Brexit may seem similar, but it’s not really – the problem for the proponents of ‘Hard Brexit’ is the parliamentary strength of Tory, Labour and SNP Remainers; not the institutional power of the Commons vis-a-vis the executive, which does not exist of itself. This means that it is prey to the ever present possibility of a deal between different forces within the ruling class.
At the most, this slows down the bandwagon of populist nationalism via temporary compromises with other sections of the ruling class, but it does not facilitate the growth of an extra-parliamentary opposition to populist nationalism, because there is no kind of sovereignty of the people or popular constitutional rights and, consequently, no mass certainty of collective entitlement to protect our rights as citizens against the threat of right wing nationalism, rather than just accept, as subjects, what comes out of the political class’s parliamentary manoeuvres.
Fascism and right wing nationalism has to be fought outside Parliament, which is what Die Linke can do in Germany and the forces around Melanchon’s presidential campaign can do in France and the Black Lives Matter campaign can do in the USA.
There is no organised, independent political alternative to right wing nationalism in the U.K., just a succession of ‘anti’ groupings like the ANL, which have no independent vision of a society, which is neither the status quo nor what the right wing nationalists want.
That, for me, is why things are potentially worse in the UK, even though the politics of right wing nationalism may not currently be anywhere near as strong here as in Poland. I don’t think you are right that the rest of Western Europe is as exposed as we are, for the reasons stated above. Both the ideology flowing from the differences in our 20th century history and the ideology flowing from the polity’s governance system combine to make it massively more difficult here to build an independent alternative to the nationalist right. The historical economism of the British Left means that the ideological overlap between it and right wing nationalism is more pronounced, more confusing and more disabling of independent socialist politics. Yes, the European republican project is sorely needed, but the republican argument has to be won here on these islands.