Characteristics of Far Right-Wing Politics - Essay Example

Characteristics Of Far Right Wing Politics Today, the threat of fascism no longer comes from a terrorist, and imperialist government in lieu of making wars upon its minorities and neighbours, it appears from right wing, racist vigilantes, who possess, a passive police force and judiciary. Right-Wing politics in Europe is characterized by extreme racism which manifests itself in the areas of discrimination and social exclusion in the labour market, in segregation, in the housing market, in unequal opportunities in the educational system, in marked differences in general health and well-being between migrant categories and majority populations and in differential access to power and influence. (Weinberg, 2003) Fascism is also characterized by social stratification along these crucial variables, especially in the UK where it is identified by the establishment it gained over the last 50 years following by the growing influence of less education, those holding negative views of the EU and, indirectly, among rural dwellers which are increasingly becoming determined of Right Wing by perceived vision of race, culture, ethnicity and religion. The most common examples of Radical right-wing parties success can be seen where they have managed to combine a strong appeal to anti-establishment ressentiments with an equally strong claim to democratic reform or renewal. The most prominent case is the FPO, which has consistently promoted itself as ‘the driving force behind the political renewal of Austria’, seeking to bring about an ‘Austrian cultural revolution with democratic means’ which would lead to the overthrow of the ruling class and the intellectual caste. (Turner, 1975) Italian Fascism and German National Socialism are characterized by sharing the common aspects of totalitarianism; followed by supremacy of a leader, an exclusive ideology, a single mass party, a monopoly of communications media and education, and a secret police and terror apparatus. The fascist movements and parties that arose in Italy and Germany developed into regular totalitarian dictatorial regimes in the early nineteenth century. But fascism also appeared in various western and eastern European countries without achieving major political power. Fascism resulted as a devastating impact of World War I, emerging from economic and demographic devastation and moral exhaustion that took close to ten million human lives, broke up empires, and undermined the political credibility of monarchs and democrats alike. The ideals of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution rationalism, liberalism, democracy, and egalitarianism were increasingly challenged by new philosophical, scientific, pseudoscientific, and political precepts, which provoked new ideas among the intellectual sources, upon which some fascist ideologists and politicians would draw. The Italian fascist party of Italy suffered from economic and political problems in which, 650,000 lives had been lost in the war, yet Italy failed to get all that had been promised for joining the Allies in the war when peace was made. The national debt had swelled as a result of the war, bringing inflated prices and depressed wages. (Blum, 1998) The disorder and frustration in the postwar years raised the specter of a socialist revolution, an abhorrence too much of Italian society. Mussolini’s movement was designed to attract converts from the many discontented, the disillusioned, and the uprooted to passionate nationalism and direct action. But despite of all consequences, he was driven by a quest for power. In Germany fascism was emphasized by German Nazist Movement which not only added and explored to the knowledge and understanding of fascist, but also Nazi and radical nationalist movements in Europe during the early nineteenth century, achieved toward a scholarly consensus on the exact definition, significance and usage of “fascism.” The characteristics of fascism in Germany and Italy were during their thrive for power which included a minimum list of common traits as those movements which opposed the traditional European left but which, unlike the traditional Right, scorned conservative institutions and reveled in the energy and violence of “revolutionary” methods and goals. (Turner, 1975) Italian Fascism lacked the spur of this centrifugal explosion and thus never achieved the bitterness of the Spanish experience of Nazism, which it faces in this era; today, fascism has emerged in elected form of proto-fascist, quasi-fascist, semi-fascist, fascistic, fascoid, and fascistoid. The only political entity to which the term “fascist” can be exactly applied is the Italian regime of Mussolini. The dominant characteristics of Italian Fascist doctrine may be briefly summarized as: Exaltation of hyper nationalism. Preaching of national ‘mission’ and ‘empire’. Espousal of radical tactics and aims, including positive evaluation of the use and significance of violence, and the positing of the goal of ‘national revolution’. Doctrine of elitism. Rationale of the totalitarian state, based on the single party and principles of leadership and hierarchy. Corporatist doctrine of national class and economic integration. Goal of economic development; some emphasis on productionism and modernization. Exaltation of youth. Philosophical vitalism, stressing emotion and the function of myth or idealism. Cultural goal of the ‘new man’. Nominal aim of incorporating the major aspects of the national cultural and spiritual tradition in a new synthesis. (Turner, 1975) These characteristics are based on the supposition of Fascist and Nazi-type movement’s similarity and preciseness and in some respects distinct from Nolte’s specification of a hypothetical ‘fascist minimum’. The latter notion is based on the supposition that Fascist and Nazi-type movements are so nearly similar that it is not worthwhile to distinguish between them. Hence Nolte’s ‘fascist minimum’ is designed as the simplest typology that can include both Fascism and Nazism as distinct from other political movements. It has often been observed that fascist type movements could be more easily defined by what they were against rather than what they were for. (Turner, 1975) Consequently Nolte’s six point postulation begins with three negations anti-Marxism, anti liberalism and anti conservatism to which are added three other characteristics: the leadership principle, a ‘party-army’ and the aim of totalitarianism. This typology of the ‘fascist minimum’ is reasonably successful in isolating the qualities that Nazism and Fascism had in common and that set them off from other political movements. It ignores the traditionalist dimension in fascism, approximating it to Nazi radicalism, and cannot deal with the normativeness of racism for Nazism when contrasted with the originally character of Fascism. Other prime differential characteristics of Nazism that cannot be assimilated into a ‘unifascist’ concept include the fixation on militarism and aggression as a primary goal, the genuine lack of seriously codified culture and ideology, and the radical insistence on approximating, rather than merely postulating, totalitarianism. Nazism was obviously less fit for imitation than Fascism because of its grounding in racism and its thoroughly irrational warrant-Lebensraum approach to politics. The only other notable Political variant in Europe that could easily be compared to the Nazi type was the sector of radical Hungarianism. Smaller North European movements such as the Danish National Socialists, the Latvian Thunder Cross, and Quisling’s little band were clearly based on the Nazi model but altogether lacked significance. The Finnish Lapua movement had some of the same characteristics, with a mystical racism and heavy stress on direct territorial expansion involving large-scale militarist irrendentism. Under Nazi occupation, fascist movements tended more and more to take on radical Nazi characteristics, the most obvious examples being the main Western fascist leaders, Mussolini, Doriot, and Degrelle. The category of ideologically flexible systems is admittedly vague because it includes regimes ranging from the conservative Catholic type of Dollfuss’ Austria, Salazar’s Portugal, and Smetona’s Lithuania through the Balkan regimes of Antonescu and Metaxas to the major Hispanic military-based regimes and on down to primitive Caribbean dictatorships. (Turner, 1975) Each of these regimes has had distinct historical-structural characteristics and the entire group may be broken down into subtypes if one so desires. What distinguishes such regimes from those of fascism or Nazism is their lack of unified ideology together with the absence of fully elaborated authoritarian state structure. At least one of these the Spanish Franquist state harbored a major fascist component during its early years and has also achieved the most precise and developed structure. Yet the regime’s ultimate rejection of ideology and normative fascism due in large measure, to the change in the international power context has given it a distinct meaning that could not at all be assimilated into the Italian typology. Thomas Mann wrote of fascism in 1938 “A disease of the times, which is at home everywhere and from which no country is free.” (Turner, 1975) Fascism at large was a reaction against the liberal pluralism and Marxian dogma of an age of materialism. But if the generic cause of the fascist movements were uniform, the results varied. Where the perplexities of an industrialized community became overwhelming, fascism responded in an anti-transcendental, atavistic fashion. It propounded a radical reordering of society, and its logical conclusion was a totalitarian regime. In practice, this occurred in Nazi Germany alone. In neither Great Britain nor Belgium did the fascists come close to winning power, and in France the Vichy regime was more fascist-oriented than genuinely fascist. In industrial Western Europe fascism only promised and hinted at the primitive barbarism that Hitler actually realized. On the other hand, we have several examples of fascism in practice in less advanced societies. There, fascist movements remained mostly within a modern, rationalist framework; and perhaps because of this partial attachment to traditional values, they were able to cooperate with traditional conservatives. (Turner, 1975) Thus, the Spanish became a part of Franco’s coalition of monarchists, aristocrats, clerics, and military nationalists. Hungarian fascists relied on the favor of Admiral Horthy, the regent and true representative of the Magyar ‘historic classes.’ Even in Fascist Italy, Mussolini never succeeded in displacing the twin pillars of the establishment, the monarchy and the church; at best he neutralized them by co-operation. Comparing Racism with right wing politics, evolves the revival of right-wing extremist ideological conflicts over values and ideas, or a reflection of new socioeconomic pressures for example of the information revolution or economic globalization on the least educated, most vulnerable sections of the working class which distinguishes, between subcultures of the extreme right wing which produce its basic values and ideas, its social movements and, highest on the food chain, its political parties. To give an example, right-wing recruits may grow up amidst the socialization processes of Italian, German or Spanish families, once identified closely with the regimes of Mussolini, Hitler or Franco, bitterly remembering their families’ reactions to their downfall and subsequent purges. Or they may have grown up in families associated one way or another with former colonial empires, with prejudicial views of colonial subjects-especially when the latter become immigrants or asylum-seekers in the mother countries. Or they may grow up in otherwise stable settings of middleclass or working-class families that find themselves increasingly impoverished or displaced by major economic changes over which they have no control. People may also be socialized into these sub cultural attitudes and never become political activists of the extreme right. (Turner, 1975) By way of contrast, a right-wing social movement is the dynamic product of a right-wing subculture and exhibits some degree of organization, for example as an association devoted to the defense of certain salient issues, or the tribe’s identity, or against threatened measures of antagonists or government agencies. References Blum P. George, 1998. “The Rise of Fascism in Europe”: Greenwood Press: Westport, CT. Maerkl H. Peter & Weinberg Leonard, 2003. “Right-Wing Extremism in the Twenty-First Century”: Frank Cass: London. Roshwald Aviel, 1994. “Colonial Dreams of the French Right Wing, 1881-1914” in The Historian. Volume: 57. Issue: 1. Society, Inc.; COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group Turner A. Henry, 1975. “Reappraisals of Fascism: New Viewpoints”: New York. Witte De Hans & Klandermans Bert, 2000. “Political Racism in Flanders and the Netherlands: Explaining Differences in the Electoral Success of Extreme Right-Wing Parties”: Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. Volume: 26. Issue: 4. Carfax Publishing Co.; COPYRIGHT 2002 Read More