July 19, 2019

Something more sinister than Trump's tweets is happening

topic:	Humans
located:	Germany, Italy, Greece, USA
editor:	Gurmeet Singh

Let’s get it out of the way and be done with it: Trump’s tweets were racist, as were his follow-up actions. The GOP, in failing to provide a course correction, endorsed Trump’s racism, and the Trump supporters who shouted “send her back” (as well as those continuing to support Trump) are actively engaging in racist politics.

Why do such a quick run-through of this? Why not take it apart more thoroughly? Well, because the news has been amply covered by many outlets, but also, because there is a more serious trend across major liberal democracies. This is the trend of State collaboration with the far-right.

Here in Germany, the former spy chief Hans-Georg Maassen, has once again raised eyebrows about his political stance. Indeed, so surprising have his statements and remarks on public events been, that people have started to ask questions about whether the State’s relationship with the far-right is more than flirtatious. As spy chief, Maassen questioned both Edward Snowden’s status (suggesting he was a Russian spy – something no other Western spy chief has done), and also insinuated that the footage emerging from Chemnitz during far-right attacks on people of colour could have been faked. He recently tweeted a far-right blog post about an ARD documentary on Sea-Watch and Carola Rackete (saving lives in the Meditteranean), which questioned the authenticity of the events in the documentary. As the New York Times comments, Maassen’s messages to the far-right “could not have been clearer: You have people on your side in the heart of the state bureaucracy.”

It is more than cynically courting votes. The same article goes on to say: “When it comes to far-right extremism, German law enforcement has made little secret of its priorities. While a paltry number of police officers responded in Chemnitz and to similar incidents elsewhere, they were deployed en masse – and with state-of-the-art gear – for a protest days later in North Rhine-Westphalia, where German environmental activists continue to defend a primeval forest against a coal-mining project."

"During the visit last month by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey to Germany, two police officers deployed to Berlin from Saxony were discovered to have used the code name “Uwe Böhnhardt”, the name of one of the members of the terror cell the National Socialist Underground, which in the 2000s murdered 10 Turkish-Germans alongside others in the most striking known example of domestic right-wing terrorism since the end of the war."

Furthermore, the rise of the Alternativ fuer Deutschland party has enabled civil servants with far-right sympathies to engage in partisan politics in a very direct way. As TruePublica comments, “Just two years ago, many right-wing politicians were still politically unable to officially endorse nationalist, anti-immigrant street movements such as Pegida. Now it is normal for not only Alternative for Germany politicians to back them officially, but even members of the putative political centre to make shows of sympathy."

"For hundreds of civil servants, the rise of Alternative for Germany has presented them with an opportunity to engage in more right-wing political activities than would have been possible only a few years ago. Evidence has emerged of leaks and briefings from senior civil servants against the government in cases of prioritizing anti-right policies over the solving of crimes committed by refugees or the “left-green indoctrination of students” in public schools.”

And of course, there are more serious and depressing examples across the continent. In both Italy and Greece, far-right politicians have been shown to have links with violent extremists. Nevertheless, the effects have barely registered across the countries. Even when in Italy a cache of weapons belonging to far-right extremists was discovered by police, it barely made headlines. This cache contained, among other things, missiles; but of course, such a thing is not worth talking about – the racism charge must be exaggerated, or so we can assume Matteo Salvini would argue. 

States are doing more than simply flirting with the far-right. They are enabling and collaborating with them. Such collaboration seeks to disrupt and overthrow democratic power in favour of violent fascism. So don’t just get annoyed at Trump, look at the bigger picture. As Primo Levi wrote, “A new Fascism, with its trail of intolerance, of abuse, and of servitude can be born...walking on tiptoe and calling itself by other names."

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