Friday, May 09, 2014

Eastern Europe - still a worry

In parts of Europe, the far right rises again
Last month, I traveled to Hungary and Greece, where the neo-fascist movements are strongest. In Hungary, the extreme-right Jobbik party won 1 in 5 votes in last month's parliamentary election. In Greece, even as the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party is being prosecuted by the government as a criminal organization, it remains the fourth-largest political party in the country. Golden Dawn lawmaker Ilias Kasidiaris, who sports a
swastika tattoo and once read from "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" on the floor of Parliament, is running for mayor of Athens.


Both parties deny being inherently anti-Semitic or anti-Roma, but their
symbols and rhetoric suggest otherwise. Party leaders are unapologetically hostile to LGBT rights, and Golden Dawn is vehemently anti-immigrant. And in both Greece and Hungary, many voters appear to be either overlooking the neo-fascist message or embracing it.

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