Nationalism: The Pendulum Swings

[PoliticalChic]

Nationalism: The Pendulum Swings
1. If Muhammad were alive today and living in the Netherlands, Geert Wilders says he would have him “tarred and feathered as an extremist and deported.” Wilders calls the Koran “an inspiration for murder” and wants radical mosques shut down. Wilders’s anti-immigration Party for Freedom (PVV) won a stunning 24 parliamentary seats out of 150 in the Netherlands’ national elections on June 9. This nearly tripled the nine seats the PVV had previously. Pundits assumed Europe’s financial troubles would cause the election to be dominated by economics, not immigration. They were wrong. Wilders’s party is probably the most benign; his policies could be seen as a reasonable response to problems caused by Islam and immigration. Many of the other fringe groups, however, are neo-Nazis.

a. Many of these parties that are attracting 15 or 20 percent of the vote are violently racist. Wilders’s party, which simply opposes Islam, is actually in the minority: The majority of right-wing fringe parties are anti-Semitic and would gladly bring back concentration camps.

2. In April, the far-right, anti-Semitic party Jobbik won 17 percent of the vote, and 26 seats, in Hungary. Jobbik has strong links with the paramilitary Hungarian Guard; its leader, Gabor Vona, was one of the Guard’s co-founders. The Guard, whose uniforms copy those of Hungary’s fascist party during World War II, has attacked Roma settlements and vilified Jews.

3. In September 2008, two pro-Nazi parties won a third of the seats in Austria’s national election. Six months later, Austria’s main far-right party, the Future of Austria (BZÖ), won a landslide victory in regional elections in the state of Carinthia—taking 45 percent of the vote. As well as being anti-Semitic, both parties are anti-Islam.

a. The head of the BZÖ, Stefan Petzner, has said he will not deviate “one millimeter” from the path of his predecessor, Jörg Haider, who led the party until his death in 2008. Haider admired SS soldiers as men of honor and once praised Hitler’s economic policies as being superior to those of the current Austrian government. He called Nazi concentration camps “punishment camps.” Spiegel Online reported that his popularity derived from his “constant, often xenophobic, attacks on immigration and his vocal opposition to accelerating European Union integration” (March 2, 2009).

4. Elsewhere on the Continent, mainstream parties are enacting laws that would have once been seen as extreme. Switzerland banned the construction of new minarets after 57.5 percent of voters supported the measure in a national referendum. In Belgium, a ban on wearing the burka has just become law. France is considering a similar ban.

5. For years, liberal European politicians have bent over backward to accommodate Muslims, who have migrated to the Continent in enormous numbers. Now, many Europeans are surveying the results of that policy and don’t like what they see. “f the 2008 economic crisis has revealed one thing,” wrote think tank Stratfor, “it is that nationalism is slowly becoming politically convenient, and a successful political strategy” (April 13).

a. “We are witnessing a process in which the elite—once happily co-opted by EU solidarity—turns toward nationalism,” Stratfor continued. “We can therefore expect to see not only a rise in far-right nationalism, but also a reorientation of center-right parties … toward a more traditional nationalist platform.”

b. Last year in Italy, for example, the mainstream center-right party, the People of Freedom bloc, merged with the pro-fascist National Alliance party, whose leaders have openly praised Benito Mussolini.

6. Wilders has said that the Western world is in “an undeclared war”—a clash of civilizations. With mainstream parties supporting burka bans, European governments are starting to push back against Islam on the domestic front.

a. Nationalism is tied to war. French leader Charles de Gaulle once said, “Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.”

7. Imagine a Europe led by nationalistic parties, looking to an imperialistic, anti-Islamic Catholic Church. This would be a Europe completely different to that of the past 50 years. It would be more akin to the Europe of Hitler, Napoleon, the Habsburgs and Charlemagne.
How to Be Popular in Europe | theTrumpet.com by the Philadelphia Church of God

 

[waltky]

Can it happen again?...

Historians ask if 1930s nationalism is returning
Thu, Nov 24, 2016 - In the 1935 novel It Can’t Happen Here, an ignorant US demagogue called Buzz Windrip becomes president, promising to make a depressed and fearful country proud, rich and safe again.

Eight decades later, the satirical piece of fiction by Sinclair Lewis has gained a new lease of life, becoming a bestseller online following US president-elect Donald Trump’s victory at the polls. Observing Windrip at a presidential campaign event, a journalist describes him as “almost illiterate, a public liar easily detected, and in his ‘ideas’ almost idiotic.” Written as virulent nationalism spread disastrously in Europe, and to a lesser extent in the US, the book’s revival reflects a surge of interest in one of the 20th century’s darkest decades. The parallels between the current time and what one writer describes as the “Morbid Age” of the 1930s has led to a fierce debate between historians about how far the comparison can be taken. “We are facing a cataclysmic moment,” renowned British writer Simon Schama said following Trump’s election, recalling that Adolf Hitler came to power via the ballot box in the 1930s.

Antony Beevor, another best-selling heavyweight on European history, rebuked him. “It is too easy for alarmists to fall for the temptation of lazy historical parallels,” he wrote. So, as the return of ultra-nationalism, xenophobia and anti-elitism spur Trump, anti-EU voters in Britain and a host of far-right parties in Europe, does history offer comfort or cause for concern? Some historians point to several striking parallels. The Great Depression of the 1930s, sparked by the Wall Street crash of 1929, has echoes of the global financial crisis caused by the sub-prime crash of 2008. Seething with anger at the financial and political elite, struggling or unemployed workers in the 1930s grew bitter and despondent and openly questioned the future for their children.

Many blamed foreigners or Jews, became attached to an idealized past, and worried about the spread of their enemies, abroad and at home. In the 1930s, the threat was communism, now it is radical Islam. Governments reacted by trying to protect their economies with tariffs and barriers, sparking an international trade war. On the other side of the world, a nationalistic Asian power with territorial ambitions added to concerns. It was Japan, which invaded the present-day Asian hegemon China in 1931. In Austria, where the far-right came within 31,000 votes of winning a presidential election in May and could still win in next month’s re-run, a far-right chancellor came to power in 1932 and destroyed the country’s democracy.

As fascism spread, the decade was defined by Germany looking to avenge its humiliation after World War I. Could President Vladimir Putin’s Russia, pained by the decline of the Soviet Union, be the modern equivalent? Ian Kershaw, a world authority on the rise of Hitler, admitted to reporters that during his research for a new book on Europe from 1914 to 1949 some similarities “make the hair stand up on the back on your neck.” “But I don’t think we are returning to the dark ages of the 1930s because there are big differences as well as superficial similarities,” Kershaw said. Chief among the differences is the role of Germany, now a beacon for liberal democracy, committed to peace and a lynchpin of the stabilizing force that is the EU, Kershaw said.

MORE

 

[PoliticalChic]

Can it happen again?...

Historians ask if 1930s nationalism is returning
Thu, Nov 24, 2016 - In the 1935 novel It Can’t Happen Here, an ignorant US demagogue called Buzz Windrip becomes president, promising to make a depressed and fearful country proud, rich and safe again.

Eight decades later, the satirical piece of fiction by Sinclair Lewis has gained a new lease of life, becoming a bestseller online following US president-elect Donald Trump’s victory at the polls. Observing Windrip at a presidential campaign event, a journalist describes him as “almost illiterate, a public liar easily detected, and in his ‘ideas’ almost idiotic.” Written as virulent nationalism spread disastrously in Europe, and to a lesser extent in the US, the book’s revival reflects a surge of interest in one of the 20th century’s darkest decades. The parallels between the current time and what one writer describes as the “Morbid Age” of the 1930s has led to a fierce debate between historians about how far the comparison can be taken. “We are facing a cataclysmic moment,” renowned British writer Simon Schama said following Trump’s election, recalling that Adolf Hitler came to power via the ballot box in the 1930s.

Antony Beevor, another best-selling heavyweight on European history, rebuked him. “It is too easy for alarmists to fall for the temptation of lazy historical parallels,” he wrote. So, as the return of ultra-nationalism, xenophobia and anti-elitism spur Trump, anti-EU voters in Britain and a host of far-right parties in Europe, does history offer comfort or cause for concern? Some historians point to several striking parallels. The Great Depression of the 1930s, sparked by the Wall Street crash of 1929, has echoes of the global financial crisis caused by the sub-prime crash of 2008. Seething with anger at the financial and political elite, struggling or unemployed workers in the 1930s grew bitter and despondent and openly questioned the future for their children.

Many blamed foreigners or Jews, became attached to an idealized past, and worried about the spread of their enemies, abroad and at home. In the 1930s, the threat was communism, now it is radical Islam. Governments reacted by trying to protect their economies with tariffs and barriers, sparking an international trade war. On the other side of the world, a nationalistic Asian power with territorial ambitions added to concerns. It was Japan, which invaded the present-day Asian hegemon China in 1931. In Austria, where the far-right came within 31,000 votes of winning a presidential election in May and could still win in next month’s re-run, a far-right chancellor came to power in 1932 and destroyed the country’s democracy.

As fascism spread, the decade was defined by Germany looking to avenge its humiliation after World War I. Could President Vladimir Putin’s Russia, pained by the decline of the Soviet Union, be the modern equivalent? Ian Kershaw, a world authority on the rise of Hitler, admitted to reporters that during his research for a new book on Europe from 1914 to 1949 some similarities “make the hair stand up on the back on your neck.” “But I don’t think we are returning to the dark ages of the 1930s because there are big differences as well as superficial similarities,” Kershaw said. Chief among the differences is the role of Germany, now a beacon for liberal democracy, committed to peace and a lynchpin of the stabilizing force that is the EU, Kershaw said.

MORE

And your perspective on that query?

 

[xyz]

Nationalism: The Pendulum Swings
1. If Muhammad were alive today and living in the Netherlands, Geert Wilders says he would have him “tarred and feathered as an extremist and deported.” Wilders calls the Koran “an inspiration for murder” and wants radical mosques shut down. Wilders’s anti-immigration Party for Freedom (PVV) won a stunning 24 parliamentary seats out of 150 in the Netherlands’ national elections on June 9. This nearly tripled the nine seats the PVV had previously. Pundits assumed Europe’s financial troubles would cause the election to be dominated by economics, not immigration. They were wrong. Wilders’s party is probably the most benign; his policies could be seen as a reasonable response to problems caused by Islam and immigration. Many of the other fringe groups, however, are neo-Nazis.

a. Many of these parties that are attracting 15 or 20 percent of the vote are violently racist. Wilders’s party, which simply opposes Islam, is actually in the minority: The majority of right-wing fringe parties are anti-Semitic and would gladly bring back concentration camps.

2. In April, the far-right, anti-Semitic party Jobbik won 17 percent of the vote, and 26 seats, in Hungary. Jobbik has strong links with the paramilitary Hungarian Guard; its leader, Gabor Vona, was one of the Guard’s co-founders. The Guard, whose uniforms copy those of Hungary’s fascist party during World War II, has attacked Roma settlements and vilified Jews.

3. In September 2008, two pro-Nazi parties won a third of the seats in Austria’s national election. Six months later, Austria’s main far-right party, the Future of Austria (BZÖ), won a landslide victory in regional elections in the state of Carinthia—taking 45 percent of the vote. As well as being anti-Semitic, both parties are anti-Islam.

a. The head of the BZÖ, Stefan Petzner, has said he will not deviate “one millimeter” from the path of his predecessor, Jörg Haider, who led the party until his death in 2008. Haider admired SS soldiers as men of honor and once praised Hitler’s economic policies as being superior to those of the current Austrian government. He called Nazi concentration camps “punishment camps.” Spiegel Online reported that his popularity derived from his “constant, often xenophobic, attacks on immigration and his vocal opposition to accelerating European Union integration” (March 2, 2009).

4. Elsewhere on the Continent, mainstream parties are enacting laws that would have once been seen as extreme. Switzerland banned the construction of new minarets after 57.5 percent of voters supported the measure in a national referendum. In Belgium, a ban on wearing the burka has just become law. France is considering a similar ban.

5. For years, liberal European politicians have bent over backward to accommodate Muslims, who have migrated to the Continent in enormous numbers. Now, many Europeans are surveying the results of that policy and don’t like what they see. “f the 2008 economic crisis has revealed one thing,” wrote think tank Stratfor, “it is that nationalism is slowly becoming politically convenient, and a successful political strategy” (April 13).

a. “We are witnessing a process in which the elite—once happily co-opted by EU solidarity—turns toward nationalism,” Stratfor continued. “We can therefore expect to see not only a rise in far-right nationalism, but also a reorientation of center-right parties … toward a more traditional nationalist platform.”

b. Last year in Italy, for example, the mainstream center-right party, the People of Freedom bloc, merged with the pro-fascist National Alliance party, whose leaders have openly praised Benito Mussolini.

6. Wilders has said that the Western world is in “an undeclared war”—a clash of civilizations. With mainstream parties supporting burka bans, European governments are starting to push back against Islam on the domestic front.

a. Nationalism is tied to war. French leader Charles de Gaulle once said, “Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.”

7. Imagine a Europe led by nationalistic parties, looking to an imperialistic, anti-Islamic Catholic Church. This would be a Europe completely different to that of the past 50 years. It would be more akin to the Europe of Hitler, Napoleon, the Habsburgs and Charlemagne.
How to Be Popular in Europe | theTrumpet.com by the Philadelphia Church of God

I agree with you completely, except for the Geert Wilders praise.

Also, the burka ban has been in place for a while in France:
French ban on face covering - Wikipedia
and it is not anti-Islam, as there are not that many Muslims which practice it except for Salafists, and is not in the Koran, . Most of the people who are against the ban are saying the reason not to ban it is that it would give the Salafists too much attention if you ban it.

It is not the same as a ban on head coverings which do not cover the face, and I don't think that should be banned. However, those are also more related to tradition because there is nothing in the Koran specifically saying women should cover their heads, except for maybe one passage saying they should cover their breasts with their headgear, so that is open to interpretation.

Also would like to point out that Trump is riding on the same wave.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Nationalism: The Pendulum Swings
1. If Muhammad were alive today and living in the Netherlands, Geert Wilders says he would have him “tarred and feathered as an extremist and deported.” Wilders calls the Koran “an inspiration for murder” and wants radical mosques shut down. Wilders’s anti-immigration Party for Freedom (PVV) won a stunning 24 parliamentary seats out of 150 in the Netherlands’ national elections on June 9. This nearly tripled the nine seats the PVV had previously. Pundits assumed Europe’s financial troubles would cause the election to be dominated by economics, not immigration. They were wrong. Wilders’s party is probably the most benign; his policies could be seen as a reasonable response to problems caused by Islam and immigration. Many of the other fringe groups, however, are neo-Nazis.

a. Many of these parties that are attracting 15 or 20 percent of the vote are violently racist. Wilders’s party, which simply opposes Islam, is actually in the minority: The majority of right-wing fringe parties are anti-Semitic and would gladly bring back concentration camps.

2. In April, the far-right, anti-Semitic party Jobbik won 17 percent of the vote, and 26 seats, in Hungary. Jobbik has strong links with the paramilitary Hungarian Guard; its leader, Gabor Vona, was one of the Guard’s co-founders. The Guard, whose uniforms copy those of Hungary’s fascist party during World War II, has attacked Roma settlements and vilified Jews.

3. In September 2008, two pro-Nazi parties won a third of the seats in Austria’s national election. Six months later, Austria’s main far-right party, the Future of Austria (BZÖ), won a landslide victory in regional elections in the state of Carinthia—taking 45 percent of the vote. As well as being anti-Semitic, both parties are anti-Islam.

a. The head of the BZÖ, Stefan Petzner, has said he will not deviate “one millimeter” from the path of his predecessor, Jörg Haider, who led the party until his death in 2008. Haider admired SS soldiers as men of honor and once praised Hitler’s economic policies as being superior to those of the current Austrian government. He called Nazi concentration camps “punishment camps.” Spiegel Online reported that his popularity derived from his “constant, often xenophobic, attacks on immigration and his vocal opposition to accelerating European Union integration” (March 2, 2009).

4. Elsewhere on the Continent, mainstream parties are enacting laws that would have once been seen as extreme. Switzerland banned the construction of new minarets after 57.5 percent of voters supported the measure in a national referendum. In Belgium, a ban on wearing the burka has just become law. France is considering a similar ban.

5. For years, liberal European politicians have bent over backward to accommodate Muslims, who have migrated to the Continent in enormous numbers. Now, many Europeans are surveying the results of that policy and don’t like what they see. “f the 2008 economic crisis has revealed one thing,” wrote think tank Stratfor, “it is that nationalism is slowly becoming politically convenient, and a successful political strategy” (April 13).

a. “We are witnessing a process in which the elite—once happily co-opted by EU solidarity—turns toward nationalism,” Stratfor continued. “We can therefore expect to see not only a rise in far-right nationalism, but also a reorientation of center-right parties … toward a more traditional nationalist platform.”

b. Last year in Italy, for example, the mainstream center-right party, the People of Freedom bloc, merged with the pro-fascist National Alliance party, whose leaders have openly praised Benito Mussolini.

6. Wilders has said that the Western world is in “an undeclared war”—a clash of civilizations. With mainstream parties supporting burka bans, European governments are starting to push back against Islam on the domestic front.

a. Nationalism is tied to war. French leader Charles de Gaulle once said, “Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.”

7. Imagine a Europe led by nationalistic parties, looking to an imperialistic, anti-Islamic Catholic Church. This would be a Europe completely different to that of the past 50 years. It would be more akin to the Europe of Hitler, Napoleon, the Habsburgs and Charlemagne.
How to Be Popular in Europe | theTrumpet.com by the Philadelphia Church of God

I agree with you completely, except for the Geert Wilders praise.

Also, the burka ban has been in place for a while in France:
French ban on face covering - Wikipedia
and it is not anti-Islam, as there are not that many Muslims which practice it except for Salafists, and is not in the Koran, . Most of the people who are against the ban are saying the reason not to ban it is that it would give the Salafists too much attention if you ban it.

It is not the same as a ban on head coverings which do not cover the face, and I don't think that should be banned. However, those are also more related to tradition because there is nothing in the Koran specifically saying women should cover their heads, except for maybe one passage saying they should cover their breasts with their headgear, so that is open to interpretation.

Also would like to point out that Trump is riding on the same wave.

You have a nice Turkey Day!

 

[Correll]

Nationalism: The Pendulum Swings
1. If Muhammad were alive today and living in the Netherlands, Geert Wilders says he would have him “tarred and feathered as an extremist and deported.” Wilders calls the Koran “an inspiration for murder” and wants radical mosques shut down. Wilders’s anti-immigration Party for Freedom (PVV) won a stunning 24 parliamentary seats out of 150 in the Netherlands’ national elections on June 9. This nearly tripled the nine seats the PVV had previously. Pundits assumed Europe’s financial troubles would cause the election to be dominated by economics, not immigration. They were wrong. Wilders’s party is probably the most benign; his policies could be seen as a reasonable response to problems caused by Islam and immigration. Many of the other fringe groups, however, are neo-Nazis.

a. Many of these parties that are attracting 15 or 20 percent of the vote are violently racist. Wilders’s party, which simply opposes Islam, is actually in the minority: The majority of right-wing fringe parties are anti-Semitic and would gladly bring back concentration camps.

2. In April, the far-right, anti-Semitic party Jobbik won 17 percent of the vote, and 26 seats, in Hungary. Jobbik has strong links with the paramilitary Hungarian Guard; its leader, Gabor Vona, was one of the Guard’s co-founders. The Guard, whose uniforms copy those of Hungary’s fascist party during World War II, has attacked Roma settlements and vilified Jews.

3. In September 2008, two pro-Nazi parties won a third of the seats in Austria’s national election. Six months later, Austria’s main far-right party, the Future of Austria (BZÖ), won a landslide victory in regional elections in the state of Carinthia—taking 45 percent of the vote. As well as being anti-Semitic, both parties are anti-Islam.

a. The head of the BZÖ, Stefan Petzner, has said he will not deviate “one millimeter” from the path of his predecessor, Jörg Haider, who led the party until his death in 2008. Haider admired SS soldiers as men of honor and once praised Hitler’s economic policies as being superior to those of the current Austrian government. He called Nazi concentration camps “punishment camps.” Spiegel Online reported that his popularity derived from his “constant, often xenophobic, attacks on immigration and his vocal opposition to accelerating European Union integration” (March 2, 2009).

4. Elsewhere on the Continent, mainstream parties are enacting laws that would have once been seen as extreme. Switzerland banned the construction of new minarets after 57.5 percent of voters supported the measure in a national referendum. In Belgium, a ban on wearing the burka has just become law. France is considering a similar ban.

5. For years, liberal European politicians have bent over backward to accommodate Muslims, who have migrated to the Continent in enormous numbers. Now, many Europeans are surveying the results of that policy and don’t like what they see. “f the 2008 economic crisis has revealed one thing,” wrote think tank Stratfor, “it is that nationalism is slowly becoming politically convenient, and a successful political strategy” (April 13).

a. “We are witnessing a process in which the elite—once happily co-opted by EU solidarity—turns toward nationalism,” Stratfor continued. “We can therefore expect to see not only a rise in far-right nationalism, but also a reorientation of center-right parties … toward a more traditional nationalist platform.”

b. Last year in Italy, for example, the mainstream center-right party, the People of Freedom bloc, merged with the pro-fascist National Alliance party, whose leaders have openly praised Benito Mussolini.

6. Wilders has said that the Western world is in “an undeclared war”—a clash of civilizations. With mainstream parties supporting burka bans, European governments are starting to push back against Islam on the domestic front.

a. Nationalism is tied to war. French leader Charles de Gaulle once said, “Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.”

7. Imagine a Europe led by nationalistic parties, looking to an imperialistic, anti-Islamic Catholic Church. This would be a Europe completely different to that of the past 50 years. It would be more akin to the Europe of Hitler, Napoleon, the Habsburgs and Charlemagne.
How to Be Popular in Europe | theTrumpet.com by the Philadelphia Church of God

So, what definition of "Nazi" or "violent" are they using? The lib one or the real one?