Europe’s dark side that feeds on fears

Berlin, July 24: The attacks in Oslo have riveted new attention on right-wing extremists not just in Norway but across Europe, where opposition to Muslim immigrants, globalisation, the power of the European Union and the drive towards multiculturalism has proven a potent political force and, in a few cases, a spur to violence.

Anders Behring Breivik, the man blamed for the Norway attacks, has said he was motivated by a desire to bring about a revolution in Norwegian society. Police and his lawyer have said Breivik confessed to the twin attacks, but denied criminal responsibility.

Geir Lippestad, Breivik’s lawyer, said his client, charged with terrorism, has asked for an open court hearing “because he wants to explain himself”.

The success of populist parties appealing to a sense of lost national identity has brought criticism of minorities, immigrants and in particular Muslims out of the beer halls and Internet chat rooms and into mainstream politics. While the parties themselves generally do not condone violence, some experts say a climate of hatred in the political discourse has encouraged violent individuals.

“I’m not surprised when things like the bombing in Norway happen, because you will always find people who feel more radical means are necessary,” said Joerg Forbrig, an analyst at the German Marshall Fund in Berlin who has studied far-right issues in Europe. “It literally is something that can happen in a number of places and there are broader problems behind it.”

The bombing and shootings in Oslo also have served as a wake-up call for security services in Europe and the US that in recent years have become so focused on Islamic terrorists that they may have underestimated the threat of domestic radicals, including those upset by what they see as the influence of Islam.

A combination of increased migration from abroad and largely unrestricted movement of people within an enlarged European Union, such as the persecuted Roma minority, helped lay the groundwork for a nationalist, at times starkly chauvinist, revival.

Groups are gaining traction from Hungary to Italy, but it is particularly apparent in northern European countries that long have had liberal immigration policies.

Friday’s attacks were swiftly condemned by leaders from across the political spectrum in Europe. Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel was particularly sharp in speaking out against what she called an “appalling crime”.

The sort of hatred that could fuel such an action, she said, went against “freedom, respect and the belief in peaceful coexistence.”

Yet some of the primary motivations cited by the Norway suspect, Breivik, are now mainstream issues. Merkel, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and Prime Minister David Cameron in Britain all recently declared an end to multiculturalism.

Multiculturalism “has failed, utterly failed”, Merkel told fellow Christian Democrats last October, though stressing that immigrants were welcome in Germany.

Perhaps the most surprising about-turn came in Britain, a country that had long considered itself among the most immigrant-friendly in Europe until a series of co-ordinated bomb attacks in London six years ago.

Cameron told a Munich security conference in February that the country’s decades-old policy of multiculturalism had encouraged “segregated communities” where Islamic extremism can thrive.

France, a fiercely secularist state where all religion is banned from the public sphere, was long isolated and berated for its staunch opposition to the laissez-faire of multiculturalism. Girls who show up in public schools there with the Muslim headscarf are suspended, as are teachers or other employees in the public sector.

If Sarkozy appeared to soften his understanding of official secularism earlier in his political career, even toying with the idea of affirmative action, he has recently scrambled to backtrack.

That hasn’t stopped the far-right National Front, now led by Marine Le Pen, the daughter of its founder, to surge in opinion polls. She compared Muslims praying in the streets outside overcrowded mosques to the Nazi occupation.

Norway does not exist in a vacuum. Its right-wing scene is connected to the rest of Europe through the Internet forums where hate speech proliferates and through right-wing demonstrations that draw an international mix of participants.

“This may be the act of a lone, mad, paranoid individual,” said Hajo Funke, a political scientist, referring to the Norway attacks. “But the far-right milieu creates an atmosphere that can lead such people down that path of violence.”