Geopolitical Review 2008

Fascism Had a Good Year

Austrian far-right political parties won their greatest victory since the end of World War ii on September 28 when two pro-Nazi parties won nearly a third of the vote in Austria’s federal election. On October 1, the Scotsman wrote:

There is something rotten in the psyche of Austria that allows a protest vote against mainstream political parties to morph into an endorsement of the extreme right. Make no mistake, getting a third of a country to put their X next to the names of men who think SS soldiers were honorable, who want to deport any immigrant caught so much as shoplifting and who want to repeal a law banning Nazi imagery, takes more than mere political chicanery.

It takes a national will. The victory for the immigrant-hating, Nazi-idealizing rightist parties on Sunday was a stunning example, if any more were needed, of this land’s inability to deal with a monstrous past.

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This shift to right-wing conservatism across Europe is unifying nations on the Continent in the face of some of its problems. This presents a scenario that will allow a single European nation to rise up and dominate a united, imperialistic continent.