This story could begin in Briviesca, a municipality in Burgos with 6,000 inhabitants. Located in a communications hub, the city prospered and in the 1970s opened an industrial estate with large companies. Demographics were generous until 2008, when the real estate bubble burst and the economy suffered. Many people had to leave. Today, there are small businesses and agricultural warehouses in the estate. Briviesca is a monumental and open city. But in July 2023 the PP and Vox government canceled “for technical reasons” a theatrical performance about Antoni Benaiges, the republican teacher who taught in a neighboring town until he was shot by the Francoists in 1936 and who inspire the film The Master Who Promised the Sea.
This story could also begin 500 kilometers away from Briviesca. In Manresa, industrial city of the textile era, with a past of splendor as still shown by Cal Jorba, an art deco building that housed a department store. The city today has 78,000 inhabitants and a demographic that made a spectacular jump in 2000. Today almost 20% of the population are immigrants. And its presence, notorious in the old town, as it happens in other medium-sized cities in the interior of Catalonia. 2008 was also key for Manresa. The crisis took away the local savings bank, around which a diversified economy pivoted. Last weekend, Aliança Catalana, an Islamophobic party that thrives on independence disenchantment, obtained 9.4% of the vote in the city in the parliamentary elections.
Everywhere there is a before and an after 2008. The before is the years of happy consumption and easy mortgages. The next are the precarious jobs and the loss of security. Sociologists say that anxiety about losing status changes people. Those who have reached somewhere, no matter how small, are terrified of falling a step lower. When economic security is threatened, cultural traits, nationality, ethnicity, religion begin to gain value…
The extreme right has distant roots. But the crisis of 2008 was its European launching pad, and the wave of refugees of 2015-2016, the trigger. To abandon marginality and achieve normalization, its theorists prepared thoroughly. They read Antonio Gramsci and appropriated his theories. To win, it was necessary to seek social acceptance, to gain cultural hegemony.
So goodbye to shaved heads and Nazi symbology. The priority was to control the conversation on social networks, to declare war on “political correctness”, feminism, anti-racism and the LGBTQI. And promise easy solutions to complex problems.
In the post-war years, traditional conservatism and the center-left had built a consensus to make politics. The extreme right taught conservatives how to radicalize. To break the rules of the game. To turn the opponent into an enemy and to make him responsible for everything. To divide the world between us and them.
The councilors of Briviesca canceled Maestro Benaiges’ play because someone had previously demonized the Republic of 1936-1939. For the voters of Aliança in Manresa, the young people of Maghreb origin who frequent the center mark the advent of what is known in their environment as the “great replacement”, the replacement of natives by newcomers according to a hidden plan (in the his particular version, instrumented from Madrid).
Should we worry about the extreme right? From historical experience, yes. In the 1930s his ideas destroyed democracy and led to National Socialism and fascism. In contrast, today’s far right is neither warmongering nor calling for action (for now). But it is ambiguous in the objectives and in the acceptance of democracy, which combats liberal values.
As a movement it is diverse. But they all share the worship of the past and tradition, the hostility to criticism and the fear of difference (Islamophobia is a distinctive feature). They believe in conspiracies and have a troubled relationship with femininity. They hate feminist policies, to which they oppose family protection policies, and praise women as mothers.
No country is immune to the extreme right today. His most important victory has been to ensure that his priorities (immigration, security) are on the agenda of all governments and are part of common sense. All this in increasingly diverse and complex societies. They have come to power in Italy and Finland and share it in Sweden and the Netherlands.
Of the magma of groups and politicians, the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, stands out. It has made a meteoric irruption in European politics. Seu is the project to outsource the management of immigration in fields in third countries. After June 9, he will be a key figure in the European Union. Viktor Orbán is less sophisticated but more ambitious. It has turned Hungary into an authoritarian country. He insults the EU and blackmails it for money. He shares the table and secrets with Putin and is convinced that he will save the continent from decay.
The European extreme right lives in a sweet rhythm of waiting. From the results of June 9. And the presidential elections in November in the USA. A victory for Donald Trump, politician of reference for many European leaders and true leader of the flock, would give a special boost to this 2024, a year of insomnia.
