The European political parties called far-right by Establishment politicians and media (but civilizationist by me) are justly criticized for their mistakes and extremism.
For example, the Sweden Democrats party in its first years, 1988-95, did have some members with Nazi backgrounds and some who supported racist and white nationalist ideas. Even today, the party does foolish things – like call for a ban on circumcising boys.
Civilizationists also have a problem with antisemitism. Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of the National Rally in France, has repeatedly been fined for dismissing the Nazi gas chambers as a "detail" of history. When Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) leader Heinz-Christian Strache in 2010 visited Yad Vashem, the Jerusalem memorial to the Holocaust, he wore the distinctive beer-cap of the Vandalia fraternity, an organization associated with antisemitism.
In Poland and Hungary, the ruling PiS and Fidesz parties have built soft autocracies where governments control the judiciary, economy, media, and educational institutions. Corruption has increased. Elections are free but not fair.
All true. But two points in reply:
First, over time civilizationist parties have generally moderated, moving away from racism and antisemitism. The Sweden Democrats started this change already in 1995. Precisely because of her father's persistent antisemitism, Marine threw Jean-Marie out of the party he had founded 43 years earlier. On a return visit to Yad Vashem in 2016, Strache wore an innocuous homburg.
 FPÖ leader Heinz-Christian Strache wore a Tönnchen in his 2010 visit to Yad Vashem but a homburg in his 2016 visit. |
Second, the mainstream parties' errors and sins exceed those of the civilizationists.
In Sweden, Prime Minister Stefan Löfven of the Social Democratic Party in 2016 called the Sweden Democrats "a Nazi party," which was rich, given his party's record of appeasing Nazi Germany when governing Sweden before, during, and after World War II. It:
 Nazi leader Hermann Göring (L) and Sweden's King Gustaf V in Berlin, February 1939. |
- Actively cooperated with Berlin in the late 1920s to get around the Versailles Treaty's limitations on German rearmament.
- Censored anti-Nazi opinions during World War II.
- Provided the Swedish iron ore that was "the raw material of four out of every ten German guns."
- Sold ball bearings and machine tools to the Germans in such quantities that these "significantly affect[ed] the outcome of the war."
- Permitted Hitler to transport massive amounts of soldiers, matériel, and provisions through Sweden to Norway – and send Norwegian prisoners to concentration camps in Germany.
- Allowed a fully equipped German division to travel across Sweden to fight the Soviets in Finland.
- Did not investigate or punish after the war's end those hundreds of Swedish soldiers who served the Nazi regime, some at the Treblinka concentration camp where 800,000 Jews were murdered.
Other socialist parties also have troubling histories. In 1994, French president François Mitterrand admitted to having helped the Vichy regime and acknowledged lasting friendships with such Nazi collaborators implicated in the Holocaust as Xavier Vallat and René Bousquet.
UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn is a "a terrorist sympathizer, supporter of Holocaust distorters, anti-Israel inciter, and part-time anti-Semite," writes Manfred Gerstenfeld; in contrast, Strache's choice of headgear or Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán's campaign against George Soros (which Israel's government implicitly endorses) are trivial. That Corbyn despises Israel, while Strache and Orbán seek warm relations with it, only confirms the contrast.
 Nazi collaborator Marshal Philippe Pétain (L) receiving Marcel Barrois and future French president François Mitterrand, October 1942. |
As for authoritarianism: No one is jailed in Poland or Hungary for expressing views contrary to the government. But Tommy Robinson, an English activist, in the space of five hours, lost his freedom and was sentenced to 13 months in prison for standing outside a courthouse, livestreaming information already in the public domain about a Muslim rape gang on trial.
For expressing his views, Dutch politician Geert Wilders has repeatedly been subjected to criminal charges of "hate speech." When Marine Le Pen defended the National Rally from a comparison with ISIS by tweeting out grisly pictures of ISIS victims, the French government called her tweet a crime of "disseminating violent images" carrying a potential five years in prison. Resorting to Soviet-like methods, it also ordered her to undergo a psychiatric evaluation.
Yes, civilizationists have real problems and need to improve, but many of their opponents are more flawed. Sweden's Social Democrats cooperated with the real Nazi party in contrast to the Sweden Democrats' making some inconsequential, dumb statements. Great Britain's Labour Party is more antisemitic than Austria's FPÖ. Freedom of speech is more imperiled in the United Kingdom than in Hungary. Irregularities in Sweden's recent election suggest it was less fair than Poland's.
Civilizationists are flawed but the Establishment is worse.
Mr. Pipes (DanielPipes.org, @DanielPipes) is president of the Middle East Forum. © 2018 by Daniel Pipes. All rights reserved.
Nov. 2, 2018 addenda: (1) This article builds on an almost identically titled one from January 2015, "In Defense of Europe's So-called Far Right." That one differs from this article in that it justifies the civilizationists' concerns.
(2) The Sweden Democrats compiled a documentary, Ett folk, Ett parti - Socialdemokraternas historia ("One People, One Party: A History of the [Swedish] Social Democratic Party") that exposes the Social Democrats' racism, pro-Nazi policies, and eugenics. It does not make for pleasant watching but it is very instructive.
(3) Eric Zemmour speaks about the tendency of leftists to become collaborators in France at "La plupart des collabos étaient de gauche pendant la seconde guerre en France."
May 14, 2019 update: Elisabeth Åsbrink provides rare criticism from the Left of Sweden's Social Democrats' record vis-à-vis the Nazis.
July 17, 2020 update: Need proof that Sweden's war-time collaboration with the Nazis remains a sensitive topic in that country? Swedish prosecutors are calling a book on this topic not just to be censored by actually physically destroyed, and all this on this flimsy excuse that the cover image of a propaganda campaign (En svensk tiger, or "A Swedish tiger") infringes on a 1941 copyright. Yeah, right.
 En svensk tiger, or "A Swedish tiger." |
