Page 32 - ARUBA TODAY

A32 FEATURE
Wednesday 4 april 2018

Far-right, even racist views go mainstream in Central Europe

By VANESSA GERA and DU- assimilate.
SAN STOJANOVIC The Balkans, bloodied by
Associated Press ethnic warfare in the 1990s,
ZAGREB, Croatia (AP) — are also seeing a rise of
The Croatian president nationalism, particularly in
thanks Argentina for taking Serbia and Croatia. Politi-
in notorious pro-Nazi war cal analysts there believe
criminals after World War II. that Russian propaganda
In Bulgaria, a top politician is spurring old ethnic resent-
calls the country's Roma ments.
minority "ferocious human- Croatia has steadily drifted
oids." And Hungary's prime to the right since joining the
minister declares the "color" EU in 2013. Some officials
of Europeans should not there have denied the Ho-
mix with that of Africans or locaust or reappraised Cro-
Arabs. atia's ultranationalist, pro-
Ever since WWII, such views Nazi Ustasha regime, which
were taboo in Europe, con- killed tens of thousands of
fined to the far-right fring- Jews, Serbs, Roma and an-
es. Today they are openly ti-fascist Croats in wartime
expressed by mainstream prison camps.
political leaders in parts On a recent visit to Argen-
of Central and Eastern Eu- In this photo taken Thursday, March 15, 2018, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban sings along tina, Croatian President
rope, part of a populist with performers wearing traditional outfits at the end of his speech outside the Hungarian Parlia- Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic
surge in the face of global- ment building in Budapest, Hungary. thanked the country for
ization and mass migration. Associated Press providing post-war refuge
"There is something broad- to Croats who had be-
er going on in the region strident anti-migrant cam- anti-Semitic clichés of the "the greatest judicial farce longed to the Ustasha re-
which has produced a pa- paign. 20th century. He said Hun- in the history of Europe." gime.
triotic, nativist, conservative Casting himself as the savior gary's foes "do not believe Arkadiusz Karbowiak said The world's top Nazi hunt-
discourse through which of a white Christian Europe in work, but speculate the Nuremberg trials were er, Efraim Zuroff of the Wi-
far-right ideas managed being overrun by Muslims with money; they have no only "possible because of esenthal center, called her
to become mainstream," and Africans, Orban has in- homeland, but feel that the the serious role of Jews" statement "a horrific insult
said Tom Junes, a historian sisted that Hungarians don't whole world is theirs." in their organization, and to victims." Grabar-Kitarov-
with the Human and Social want their "own color, tradi- In Poland, xenophobic lan- called them "the place ic later said she had not
Studies Foundation in Sofia, tions and national culture guage is also on the rise. where the official religion meant to glorify a totalitar-
Bulgaria. In many places, to be mixed by others." When nationalists held a of the Holocaust was cre- ian regime. Meanwhile in
the shift to the right has in- Orban, who is friendly with large Independence Day ated." Bulgaria, which holds the
cluded the rehabilitation Russian President Vladi- march in November and Across the region, Roma, EU's rotating presidency,
of Nazi collaborators, of- mir Putin, was also the first some carried banners call- Muslims, Jews and other the government includes
ten fighters or groups cele- European leader to en- ing for a "White Europe" minorities have expressed a far-right alliance, the
brated as anti-communists dorse Donald Trump in and "Clean Blood," the in-
or defenders of national the 2016 U.S. presidential terior minister called it a
liberation. In Hungary and race. In 2015 he erected "beautiful sight."
Poland, governments are a razor-wire fence at Hun- Poland's government has
also eroding the indepen- gary's borders to stop mi- also been embroiled in a
dence of courts and the grants from crossing, and bitter dispute with Israel
media, prompting human has since been warning in and Jewish organizations
rights groups to warn that apocalyptic terms that the over a national law that
democracy is threatened West faces racial and civi- would criminalize blaming
in parts of a region that lizational "suicide" if the mi- Poland for Germany's Ho-
threw off Moscow-backed gration continues. locaust crimes. Critics say
dictatorships in 1989. Orban has also been ob- that could allow a white-
Some analysts say Russia is sessed with demonizing fi- wash of history.
covertly helping extremist nancier and philanthropist With tensions running high,
groups in order to destabi- George Soros, falsely por- Polish Prime Minister Ma-
lize Western liberal democ- traying the Hungarian-born teusz Morawiecki listed In this photo taken Saturday, March 24, 2018, people wave Cro-
racies. While that claim is Holocaust survivor as an "Jewish perpetrators" as atian flags during a protest against an international convention
difficult to prove with con- advocate of uncontrolled among those who were re- they say indirectly legalizes gay marriages and gives rights to
crete evidence, it's clear immigration into Europe. In sponsible for the Holocaust. transgender people, in Zagreb, Croatia.
that the growth of radical what critics denounce as a He also visited the Munich Associated Press
groups has pushed moder- state-sponsored conspira- grave of an underground
ate conservative European cy theory with anti-Semitic Polish resistance group that
parties to the right to hold overtones, the Hungarian had collaborated with the anxiety about the future. United Patriots, whose
onto votes. government spent $48.5 Nazis. But nationalists insist they members have given Nazi
That's the case in Hungary, million on anti-Soros ads In the same vein, an official are not promoting hate. salutes and slurred minori-
where Prime Minister Viktor in 2017, according to the tapped to create a major They argue they're defend- ties. Deputy Prime Minister
Orban and his Fidesz party investigative news site at- new history museum in War- ing their national sover- Valeri Simeonov has called
— the front-runner in the latszo.hu. saw has condemned the eignty and their Christian the country's Roma minor-
country's April 8 parliamen- In a recent speech, Or- postwar tribunals in Nurem- way of life against global- ity "ferocious humanoids"
tary election — have drawn ban denounced Soros in berg, Germany — where ization and the large-scale whose women "have the
voters with an increasingly language that echoed top Nazis were judged — as influx of migrants who don't instincts of street dogs."q