#1 European Populist Parties
Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2007 4:55 am
(Hope this is the best forum)
This little piece was originally written when I was on stardestroyer and read about this attack on an SVT rally in case you wonder the SVT is a right wing Swiss party that wants: Less immigration, less government, more law and order, and no more speed cameras.
Oh yeah they also make computer games.
I realised that posting it on SD would be fairly futile, so I'll put it up here:
These parties are not there because people are evil knuckle dragging racists; they're there because over the last twenty years certain problems have appeared in regards to mass immigration. Even these problems needn't be so bad, if the governments would acknowledge them, and try to address them. That's not what happens.
I can't talk of other countries, but I can tell you what things were like in Norway. When I was in school we had special anti-racism days; we had special anti-racism, pro-UN school assignments; we had a day that you'd spend trying to collect money for the UN; our schoolbooks often had stories with anti-racist messages; when I got to high-school there were anti-racism posters wherever you looked; On the TV they had special anti-racism TV-ads, and the TV people (NRK) would frown and talk about how the local populist were Evil Racists.
All of these had one thing in common: None of them ever acknowledge that there was, or could be, a problem with immigration. All of them claimed, and repeated, that the problem was purely due to racism.
However logically we know that mass immigration leads to certain problems, for one if an immigrant group is poorer and less educated than their host country, they will turn to crime. Look at the Irish, the Italians, and even the East European Jews in the United States! All of these ethnic groups formed criminal gangs, and settled in more or less bad neighbourhoods.
Why, oh why should immigrants from Africa or the Middle-East be any different? Yet for some reason the idea that they might display the same behaviour as other ethnic groups under the same circumstances, is seen as heretical or racist.
As a result there's often a deep groundswell of resentment, which is ignored by most mainstream parties. A groundswell that is slowly coming to the fore by populist parties who will at least address peoples worried, rather than trying to shame for being worried.
Some of these populist parties are legitimate parties, who address legitimate issues, and have actual integration plans to make the immigrants part of the community. Others are disturbing anti-Semitic, anti-everythingthatisntus kind of people, they lean towards the Mussolini side of the fence.
People may realise that these disturbing parties are not good, but often they're viewed as the lesser evil, since no other party will address these kinds of issues.
I don't know if the SVT comes down on the "Genuine Scum" or the "Legitimate But Maligned" side of the fence. Most Euro-Populist parties fall into one of those camps. I do know one thing the SVT makes games and seems to use a bit of humour too, their opponents throw rocks... I also know who came out of this mess looking best, and it's not the left wingers.
This little piece was originally written when I was on stardestroyer and read about this attack on an SVT rally in case you wonder the SVT is a right wing Swiss party that wants: Less immigration, less government, more law and order, and no more speed cameras.
Oh yeah they also make computer games.
I realised that posting it on SD would be fairly futile, so I'll put it up here:
These parties are not there because people are evil knuckle dragging racists; they're there because over the last twenty years certain problems have appeared in regards to mass immigration. Even these problems needn't be so bad, if the governments would acknowledge them, and try to address them. That's not what happens.
I can't talk of other countries, but I can tell you what things were like in Norway. When I was in school we had special anti-racism days; we had special anti-racism, pro-UN school assignments; we had a day that you'd spend trying to collect money for the UN; our schoolbooks often had stories with anti-racist messages; when I got to high-school there were anti-racism posters wherever you looked; On the TV they had special anti-racism TV-ads, and the TV people (NRK) would frown and talk about how the local populist were Evil Racists.
All of these had one thing in common: None of them ever acknowledge that there was, or could be, a problem with immigration. All of them claimed, and repeated, that the problem was purely due to racism.
However logically we know that mass immigration leads to certain problems, for one if an immigrant group is poorer and less educated than their host country, they will turn to crime. Look at the Irish, the Italians, and even the East European Jews in the United States! All of these ethnic groups formed criminal gangs, and settled in more or less bad neighbourhoods.
Why, oh why should immigrants from Africa or the Middle-East be any different? Yet for some reason the idea that they might display the same behaviour as other ethnic groups under the same circumstances, is seen as heretical or racist.
As a result there's often a deep groundswell of resentment, which is ignored by most mainstream parties. A groundswell that is slowly coming to the fore by populist parties who will at least address peoples worried, rather than trying to shame for being worried.
Some of these populist parties are legitimate parties, who address legitimate issues, and have actual integration plans to make the immigrants part of the community. Others are disturbing anti-Semitic, anti-everythingthatisntus kind of people, they lean towards the Mussolini side of the fence.
People may realise that these disturbing parties are not good, but often they're viewed as the lesser evil, since no other party will address these kinds of issues.
I don't know if the SVT comes down on the "Genuine Scum" or the "Legitimate But Maligned" side of the fence. Most Euro-Populist parties fall into one of those camps. I do know one thing the SVT makes games and seems to use a bit of humour too, their opponents throw rocks... I also know who came out of this mess looking best, and it's not the left wingers.