#61 - Ce înseamnă extrema dreaptă? Originea opoziției stânga-dreapta
În ediția precedentă a newsletter-ului am discutat despre partidele de extremă dreaptă, în contextul viitoarelor alegeri europarlamentare. Dar ce înseamnă partide de extremă dreaptă?
Până atunci, important de menționat de unde provine această opoziție stânga-dreapta: în timpul Revoluției Franceze de la 1789, susținătorii vechiului regim s-au așezat la dreapta președintelui Adunării Naționale - aceștia devenind exponenții politicii conservatoare. La stânga, în schimb, s-au așezat cei ce susțineau schimbarea regimului. Atât de simplu.
Materialul de astăzi, disponibil în integralitate, analizează originea partidelor de extremă dreaptă și concluzionează, de la nivelul anului 1988, cum aceste partide nu vor avea succes cât timp stabilitatea politică și economică a statelor europene nu va fi amenințată. Din păcate, această previziune pare a se fi dovedit destul de reală.
Conform statisticilor, doar unul din trei români alege să redirecționeze 3,5% din valoarea impozitului pe venit către o organizație non-guvernamentală, sumă care oricum se duce altfel către bugetul de stat. Această sumă, indiferent de valoarea sa, este importantă pentru susținerea activității acelor entități care nu vizează profitul, dar care au nevoie de finanțare pentru a își acoperi cheltuielile operaționale.
Alege să redirecționezi, în mod gratuit, 3,5% din valoarea impozitului pe venit datorat în 2023 către Asociația Espresso Filosofic și susține continuarea acestui newsletter. Îți mulțumesc pentru completarea formularului de aici.
The Far Right in Western Europe has received much more attention than its size and performance in elections would seem to deserve. One reason is that whenever a party of the Far Right enjoys a sudden spurt in its support, fears of a Fascist revival return. The speed with which the Italian Fascists and the German National Socialists advanced from a very low base of support and membership to control of the state has not been forgotten.
What is the Far Right? The Far Right is a broad category that is not easy to define. In organizational terms it signifies the fringe of right-wing parties and groups that are independent of the constitutional mass parties of the Right and Centre Right. In ideological terms its identity is much less clear. It shares many ideas and values with other parts of the Right, and there is no neat dividing line between the Right and the Far Right on attitudes toward race, nation, and social order. One solution is to reserve the term Far Right for those parties that see themselves as part of a Fascist tradition, such as the Italian Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI), the West German Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands, and the British National Front. This, however, would mean excluding other parties, such as Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front in France and the Progress Party in Denmark. It has also been questioned whether any of the parties of the Far Right in contemporary Europe should be labeled "fascist" on the grounds that true Fascism belonged to a particular phase of European history, which has ended and will not return. Yet because of the attempt by some groups and intellectuals on the Far Right to keep Nazi rituals, symbols, and ideology—in particular anti-Semitism—alive, controversies over the responsibility of the Nazi regime for the Holocaust remain important issues in Europe. Some leaders of the Far Right have seen the Nazi link as a major liability, but they have not always succeeded in suppressing it. In terms of their political methods and objectives, there is also less difference between the parties of the Far Right and the right-wing groups within the political mainstream than is sometimes supposed. The parties of the Far Right often support constitutional reforms, such as a strengthened executive, but they no longer advocate the overthrow of parliamentary democracy and the founding of a new political and social order. The Far Right’s hostility to democracy and pluralism is more muted than in the past. Parties of the Far Right have often been distinctive for their readiness to use force to achieve their political objectives, particularly through street violence and demonstrations. There are also important links between some of the parties of the Far Right and political terrorism.
This connection has sometimes been difficult to prove, however, even in Italy, where right-wing involvement in outrages such as the Bologna railway station bombing in 1980 has long been suspected.
How Widespread Is Its Support? In terms of electoral support the record of the Far Right is not impressive. Only the Italian MSI has consistently polled a significant percentage of the vote, and then only in a range between 4 and 8%. Most other parties have experienced sudden upsurges in support that has been lost just as quickly. This has been the pattern in France (1956-58 and 1986-88), the U.K. (1973-79), and West Germany (1965-69). In most postwar elections the Far Right parties in those three countries have failed to achieve more than 1% of the vote. Far Right parties have sometimes succeeded in mobilizing a protest vote, reflecting temporary disaffection with the established parties, but then have been unable to establish a solid social base. Their support has been transient, built around specific issues—particularly unemployment and race—and has been drawn from many groups, including white-collar workers, the self-employed, and sections of the white male working class, such as British football hooligans. The vote for Far Right parties has sometimes been explained as an expression of "authoritarian personalities" or the status anxieties of lower-middle-class groups, but there are many more authoritarian personalities than there are Far Right voters. Similarly, many groups with status anxieties do not turn to right-wing political extremism.
What Are Its Prospects? All contemporary industrial societies possess a potential for mobilization and recruitment of the Far Right. The question is, under what circumstances is such a potential realized? The existence of a strong, mass democratic party of the Right inhibits the growth of the Far Right. It is when the main party of the Right suddenly weakens or divides that support for the Far Right can surge. The continuing legitimacy of the political systems of the European states is therefore an important factor in containing the Far Right. Such parties have their best prospects in relatively new democratic systems like that of Spain. The Alianza Popular (AP) has thrived on the collapse of the centrist mass party of the Right, the Union Centro Democratico, and is able to mobilize a significant base of former supporters of the Franco regime. Even the AP, however, has publicly accepted the legitimacy of the new constitutional order in Spain. The Far Right in Europe has recently received new impetus from the growth of the New Right in the 1970s and 1980s. The market liberal strand in the New Right is far removed from the traditional attachment to protectionism and nationalism of the Far Right parties. However, these parties have much in common with the conservative strand of the New Right, including the Nouvelle Droite in France, the Nuova Destra in Italy, and the Salisbury Review in the U.K. All seek the restoration of a conservative intellectual and cultural hegemony. The emergence of this powerful and novel right-wing discourse on race, culture, authority, and national identity has already influenced internal political debate in France and the U.K. It may assist the emergence of a much stronger tFar Right political presence within the existing democratic parties of the Right and help to make the fringe parties of the Far Right more legitimate. Nevertheless, a major breakthrough for the Far Right is likely to occur only if the political and economic stability of the European states is seriously threatened.