A Note on EU and Nationalistic parties, in light of events in Ukraine
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BokxFmcCEAAG3T8.jpg:large
I have to comment on this graphic which was posted in another thread before it was closed.
There is a BIG difference between Svoboda or Praviy Sektor, and Dansk Folkeparti (People's Party of Denmark). Likewise FPÖ (Austrian Freedom Party) and even Front Nationale in France.
Dansk Folkeparti, FPÖ and FN want to restrict immigration from outside Europe, and they are anti-EU.
They want to be able to restrict EU immigration of people who commit crimes and live off benefits (i.e. certain gypsies).
That does not make them fascists or nazis! They do not wear uniforms, marsch in the streets, overthrow the government or beat people up in the street, or partake in any violence at all. Nazis and open racists are thrown out of such parties and it's happened quite a fair bit.
It's the same with almost all of these types of parties in the EU, with the exception maybe, of Jobbik in Hungary and a few others in Eastern European countries where it would appear that, quite frankly, they have never really dealt with Nazism and all of that. It's now used by some kind of manifestation against communism, Russia, non-Europeans, the EU and anything else they don't like....
Dansk Folkeparti is almost to the letter identical to the Danish Social Democrats 30-40 years ago, and nobody accused them of being either fascists or nazis.
The reason people voted for these types of parties in the recent EU parliament election, is because they want the type of country back that existed in their childhood; prosperous, secure, stable and relatively homogenous.
But on the street they see poverty, criminality. The sense of stability and safety is gone. The nationalist parties essentially say: We'll try to get back what we have lost and stay true to our nationality.
These voters see and hear foreign-looking people who appear to be supported by the state year after year, while not integrating and having more and more babies. Meanwhile they themselves don't qualify for benefitsm struggle to get a job and feel like their national identity is drowning in multiculturalism and McDonalds.
They see fat cats living in luxury commuting between Brussels and home while debating the length of bananas, and they imagine that EU is the source of their problems (it's globalism really, the EU is just a symptom - it can be whatever we want it to be, or allow it to be).
Voting for parties like this has nothing to do with any Nazi sympathies for people in the countries concerned. Whereas in Ukraine it would appear that it does, for quite a few people. They salute nazi statues wear nazi-like uniforms and much more.
Nobody is so foolish to believe that all Ukrainians are Nazis or Fascists, but it would appear that Nazism has a pretty strong foothold in Western Ukraine. They marsch in their honour and raise statues of them. They idolise people like Bandera. Not to mention the roles of openly Nazi people in the coup d'etat. So I'm sure most people are not Nazis, even in Western Ukraine, but it seems they are too busy hating Russia and constantly getting involved in political unrest, to worry about the fact that they have nazis among them. Why not elect a proper statesman as a politician, instead of yet another oligarch.
I personally think it's their business and as long as they keep it in their end of the country I wouldn't care.
But when it fuels a coup d'etat and when it leads to people being killed, then I think things have gone too far.
The new president in Ukraine seems fast to label the separatists "terrorists" (oh what a convenient new word this is for anyone who wants to justify violence against anyone else...) However he has not said a word of the Nazis that have significant influence in Kiev.
I really must iterate that Svoboda and Praviy Sektor can't be compared on the same day with Dansk Folkeparti which is simply in favour of reduced immigration and anti-EU! They are also in favour of keeping the welfare state rather than continue privitisations.
