Anti-arabism/semitism in Europe?

[PopoSmash!]

Often, when I watch news programs on Youtube pertaining to immigration or demographic issues in relation to Europe, I see a surprising amount of comments attacking Muslims, Africans, Jews, or some combination of those three. Now, this perplexes me, as for the longest time (although maybe this is a product of simultaneous conservative and liberal exaggeration) I've associated Europe with being at the current high end of societal progress. So, to any Europeans here, are these just pseudo-fascist trolls that happen to be more vocal, or am I getting a skewed picture of Europe as an American?

[Smashcapitalists]

Well, I am not a European. Immigration to Europe is mostly middle eastern and very few Jews immigrate to Europe. There are good amount of Africans coming to Europe but I do not believe as much as Arabs. So Yes they are very very anti-Islamic.

The Movements anti-Islamicism and anti Arabism has caused the BNP and the EDL to support Israel. Jared Taylor's Proto-Fascist American renaissance has even invited Rabbis to speak at his confrences.

But on the other hand, the Nazis believe Arabs to be their allies in their fight against Jews and Israel and the USA government. Which they seek to overthrow and they even sympathize with Islamicist groups in the middle east that employ reactionary ideals to oppress women and halt progress. These sentiments are felt by more radical groups including the Northwest Front and many Christian Identity believers.

The Nazis want no Muslims in Europe and no Jews everywhere. They believe Jews are the greatest enemy and to build this up have made up a lot of conspiracy theories about them that are very conflicting.

[Manifesto]

I'm not a European but just going off of what I can tell of the situation I'll say this. The situation in Europe does mirror America in ways, I can't really say how popular the white nationalist movement is there but it is probably just really vocal like the teabaggers. They say that they aren't racist or anything and just the "saviours of Europe" but their actions say otherwise, as well as their words since it doesn't take a genius to tell they're racist.

[agnixie]

The Movements anti-Islamicism and anti Arabism has caused the BNP and the EDL to support Israel. Jared Taylor's Proto-Fascist American renaissance has even invited Rabbis to speak at his confrences.

It's mostly an excuse to give themselves legitimacy. Polls in France have showed regularly that antisemitism and anti-muslim (which tends to be really aimed at arabs and berbers) goes more or less hand in hand. The EDL's support of Israel is very much skin deep and it doesn't take much scratching to find the same people whining about "kikes" - it's a lot like the rather skin-deep support of Palestine by some arab and muslim nations mostly to play to the gallery.

[Agnapostate]

Effects of terrorism on attitudes and ideological orientation: "A quasi-experimental study on the effects of terrorism on racial prejudice and ideological orientation is presented. Two independent samples were contacted before and after the Islamic terrorist attacks against railways in Madrid (11 March 2004). Anti-Arab and anti-Semite prejudices, authoritarianism and ideological orientations (liberal against conservative) were evaluated. Results showed that those terrorist attacks provoked changes in a reactionary and conservative direction: stronger prejudices not only against the target group (Arabs), but against another uninvolved group (Jewish); an increase in authoritarianism; stronger attachment to traditional conservative values, and a reduction in the attachment to liberal values."

[Lacrimi de Chiciură]

Often, when I watch news programs on Youtube pertaining to immigration or demographic issues in relation to Europe, I see a surprising amount of comments attacking Muslims, Africans, Jews, or some combination of those three. Now, this perplexes me, as for the longest time (although maybe this is a product of simultaneous conservative and liberal exaggeration) I've associated Europe with being at the current high end of societal progress. So, to any Europeans here, are these just pseudo-fascist trolls that happen to be more vocal, or am I getting a skewed picture of Europe as an American?

While I am États-unisien, I have spent a bit of time in Europe so I feel like I can comment here with some accuracy... The image Americans get of Europe is definitely skewed. Often times Tea Party types use phrases like "European-style socialism" and there is a pretty widespread notion among the U.S. public at large that countries like France and Sweden are "socialist" countries. Of course we leftists should know better, this is not accurate at all. Still, having been subject to this myth, I did not quite expect the level of reactionary beliefs and casual racism that I encountered when I went there.

In France, racism is particularly directed towards immigrants and can be seen in the de facto segregation of neighborhoods (banlieues, faubourgs, péripheries, i.e. working-class suburbs) where youth unemployment is high. Historically, it is a product of the racism of colonial society. For instance, in 1961 during the Algerian war for independence (1954-1962) there was a massacre in Paris of 200 pro-independence Algerians. More recently in 2005 there were riots across the country sparked by the police killings of African immigrant youths. In 2002, the extreme right-wing Front national party led by Jean-Marie Le Pen caused a scandal when he made it to the second round of presidential elections. It is perceived that President Sarkozy has moved further to the right, pandering to the xenophobic NF voters to gain their support, a similar phenomenon to what we see in the US with the Tea Party shifting the whole discourse to the right. Recently Sarkozy sought once again to pander to the xenophobes by targeting "illegal" Roma (Romani people) camps, deporting over a thousand EU citizens, this despite the fact that they are being deported to countries like Bulgaria and Romania which supposedly guarantees the right to travel to any other EU country. Another famous case of the criminal anti-Roma attitude in Europe was a few years ago in Italy where two Roma girls drowned at the beach and their corpses were left to rot in the sun while tourists continued to swim and sunbathe. Also in Italy the government systematically fingerprints all Roma people because they are essentially considered a socially criminal group.

One other thing I noticed in France was that indigenous Native American cultures were often depicted in an offensive light. One advertisement--I can't remember what it was for, I think a soft-drink or chewing gum--depicted a group of Indians doing a stereotypical pow-wow. Anyways I wish I could remember the details but suffice to say it seemed pretty offensive. Another example was, in one city, there was a discothèque called the "Disquaw" which used stereotypical Native American iconography.

[jake williams]

Often, when I watch news programs on Youtube pertaining to immigration or demographic issues in relation to Europe, I see a surprising amount of comments attacking Muslims, Africans, Jews, or some combination of those three. Now, this perplexes me, as for the longest time (although maybe this is a product of simultaneous conservative and liberal exaggeration) I've associated Europe with being at the current high end of societal progress. So, to any Europeans here, are these just pseudo-fascist trolls that happen to be more vocal, or am I getting a skewed picture of Europe as an American?

In Europe, in a way, class struggle is a lot more advanced and sharpened than it is in the US. This means the working class is more powerful, and has won stronger welfare programs, but it also means that the right wing is pretty deep and pretty powerful. Europe also has histories both of total rule by the Church and of capital-f Fascism that North America never really saw.

Europe absolutely has neo-Nazis. I think there's an interesting tendency though for European neo-Nazis to be at least superficially pro-Israel, because they hate Muslims more than they hate Jews, while American neo-Nazis tend to be anti-Israel, hating Jews more than they hate Muslims.

[Apoi_Viitor]

I asked my teacher a similar question last year, and he responded by stating that; the European elites and those in power are much more socially liberal than the average populace. Thus, the actually policies that are implemented don't exactly represent the wishes of the general populace. However, I believe that racism and discrimination is becoming much more of an issue in Europe now then in previous years. For example, there's often discourse about how "multiculturalism failed", etc.

[Manifesto]

Europe absolutely has neo-Nazis. I think there's an interesting tendency though for European neo-Nazis to be at least superficially pro-Israel, because they hate Muslims more than they hate Jews, while American neo-Nazis tend to be anti-Israel, hating Jews more than they hate Muslims.

You sure about that? When I created a fake account on stormfront and asked them who they sided with and they said Muslims because they hate Jews the most but it is a close call.

[jake williams]

You sure about that? When I created a fake account on stormfront and asked them who they sided with and they said Muslims because they hate Jews the most but it is a close call.

That's exactly what I said, what are you disagreeing about? Stormfront is predominately American, no?

[scarletghoul]

Well the british fascist movement is divided over that very question ("who do you hate more, jews or muslims"). The BNP are more traditional neonazis, whereas the EDL view muslims as the biggest threat and support israel

[An archist]

There's definitley quite some anti-arab racism in Europe, it may be disguised as anti-islamic feelings or being though on crime, but in almost every European country there's a right-wing liberal party who's main points are against immigration, and against Islam.
In some countries they cosy more up to neo-nazis and are therefore more anti semetic (like the Front National in France), in other countries they are more por-Israel (like the PVV in the Netherlands) and in yet other countries they try to have their cake and eat it too (like the VB in Belgium, who cosy up to the jewish community, but have quite some rank-and-file neonazis).

But generally speaking, there's a lot more anti-arabic racism then anti-semitism.

The parties that have picked up the anti-immigration issue get votes up to about 25%, depending on wich country they're in.

[Tim Finnegan]

I asked my teacher a similar question last year, and he responded by stating that; the European elites and those in power are much more socially liberal than the average populace. Thus, the actually policies that are implemented don't exactly represent the wishes of the general populace.

He's got that pretty backasswards, I would say- at least, unless we are to assume that the British public are crying out, crying, for ID cards, national DNA databases, and even more security cameras, but that damn hippy Cameron just keeps holding out on us.

[Manifesto]

That's exactly what I said, what are you disagreeing about? Stormfront is predominately American, no?

I really have no idea. I presume there is a fair amount of Europeans on there.

[Agnapostate]

You would have gotten a predominantly American response if you'd posted in English on the main forums. Try posting in the British forum, or in one of the other European forums if you can write in their respective languages.

[Bronco]

Well the british fascist movement is divided over that very question ("who do you hate more, jews or muslims"). The BNP are more traditional neonazis, whereas the EDL view muslims as the biggest threat and support israel

I'm not really sure about that, the BNP seem to have moved away from anti-Semitism and have put more of a focus on combating Islam. At least publicly anyway.

[CynicalIdealist]

I think there's an interesting tendency though for European neo-Nazis to be at least superficially pro-Israel, because they hate Muslims more than they hate Jews, while American neo-Nazis tend to be anti-Israel, hating Jews more than they hate Muslims.

Fucking clowns.

[Black Sheep]

An apolitical stance leads to identifying arabs as the problem, rather than capitalism and islam.

Just as it leads to blaming the jews, or the X president, or corruption, etc

[Reznov]

Often, when I watch news programs on Youtube pertaining to immigration or demographic issues in relation to Europe, I see a surprising amount of comments attacking Muslims, Africans, Jews, or some combination of those three. Now, this perplexes me, as for the longest time (although maybe this is a product of simultaneous conservative and liberal exaggeration) I've associated Europe with being at the current high end of societal progress. So, to any Europeans here, are these just pseudo-fascist trolls that happen to be more vocal, or am I getting a skewed picture of Europe as an American?

Its a really complex issue and each place is unique, but generally, the lower and middle class homes are prone to lose theirs jobs more often to cheap Immigrant labour, this causes this new unemployed and lower strata of society to basically blame these problems on these immigrants. Instead of actually getting angry at the problem that caused immigration like this in the first place, Capitalism.