Racism and Fascism - new material (14)
01 January 2010
The Swiss Referendum on Minarets: background and aftermath. European Race Audit Briefing No. 1 (February) 2010, pp. 7. This paper discusses the Swiss referendum banning the construction of minarets on mosques by amending Article 72 of the Federal Constitution. The article has been amended to include the statement “the construction of minarets will be forbidden”, thereby contradicting fundamental principles of international law. Responses by other European countries – France, Belgium, Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic / Slovakia – are included. Available from the Institute of Race Relations: http: www.irr.org.uk/europebulletin/index.html
Io non ci stò [I will not stand for this]. Anonymous letter by a citizen of Adro, 13.4.10. Following the decision by the Adro public administration (in the province of Brescia, Lombardy) to stop serving school lunches to the children of 40 families that had fallen behind in their payments, a wealthy private citizen paid the school the amount needed to cover costs for the 2009-2010 school year. He also wrote a letter to explain his decision that was highly critical of the rising intolerance that he perceives among his fellow citizens. After explaining that he is not a “communist” and voted for the centre-right candidate at the last regional elections, he expressed his anger at the “gentlemen” who sit in restaurants and curse third-country nationals while “an Albanian has just washed their Mercedes”, “their food was cooked by an Egyptian” and “a Ukrainian lady is taking care of their mother at home”. He criticised the silence of institutional figures, from the church and political parties alike, claiming that he is witnessing “growing intolerance towards those who have less”, noting that many small steps led to the creation of “Nazi concentration camps”. He acknowledges that his act is one-off and “symbolic”, and will not resolve the families’ problems, but he explains that the children will probably grow up in Italy, and hopefully some of them will make a telling contribution, and he does not want them to “remember this day”. He also reminisces about when the town was very poor, noting that his fellow citizens of Adro “have forgotten where they came from. I am ashamed that it is precisely my town which is the champion of the lowering of the bar of intolerance one step at the time, first with rewards [of 500 euros for municipal police officers for every ‘illegal’ migrant they detain], then by refusing regional benefits, then with the children’s school meals, but I could cite many other cases”. Available at: http://www.corriere.it/Media/Foto/2010/04/13/letteracittadinoadro.pdf
Angry Bennett blows lid on "Laurel and Hardy" BNP leadership, Denise. Lancaster Unity website 5.5.10. This piece is on the dispute between the British National Party’s webmaster, Simon Bennett, and the BNP leader, Nick Griffin, when the former pulled the plug on the organisation’s website on the eve of the general election due to “attempts of theft...with regards to design work and content” owned by Bennett. The dispute revolves around the BNP's unauthorised use of the Marmite logo on the web version of the party's general election broadcast with Bennett arguing that he was “deliberately put in the frame and left to carry the [legal] responsibility whilst those that were responsible went to ground”: http://lancasteruaf.blogspot.com/2010/05/angry-bennett-blows-lid-on-laurel-and.html
Pensad que esto ha sucedido. Lecciones del Holocausto, Mugak/SOS Arrazakeria, Centro de Estudios y Documentación sobre racismo y xenofobia, no. 49, December 2009, pp. 75. This issue focuses on the issue of minorities, prejudice and the Holocaust, reminding readers of the importance of not forgetting what happened because: “the educated society of the first half of the 20th century witnessed the most serious crimes that the century experienced in silence, showing that these terrible tragedies were not a result of barbarianism or of the brutality of men and women who lacked education and culture”. Educational approaches for teaching about it are illustrated, as are the experiences of sexual minorities and Holocaust survivors in that period, highlighting that “prejudices” were the starting point for the tragedy. The French debate on national identity, Islamophobia, discrimination against the gipsy community and conditions in CIEs (Spanish detention centres for foreigners) are among the other topics that are covered. Available from: Mugak, Peña i Goñi, 13-1° - 20002 San Sebastián / Donosti.
The BNP and the Online Fascist Network: an investigation into the online activities of British National Party members and online activists, Edmund Standing. The Centre for Social Cohesion 2009, pp 65. This investigation into the online activities of BNP members and activists reveals that the racial ideology of the party “has not changed from the early days in which the founder John Tyndall was party leader, when open expressions of Nazism were tolerated.” Party members and online grass-roots activists “displayed significant ideological affinity with key tenets of the neo-Nazi ideology, including: support for violence; antisemitism and an admiration of the Third Reich; extreme racist views; and Holocaust denial”. It concludes that Nick Griffin’s rebranding of the party is cosmetic and that the “BNP continues to promote an ideology centred on race and racism. It is a socially divisive organisation that is attempting to rebrand as a conventional political party in order to gain the legitimacy that some European far-right parties have managed to achieve in recent years.” (The Centre for Social Cohesion Email: mail@socialcohesion.co.uk. Available at: http://www.douglasmurray.co.uk/TheBNPandtheOnlineFascistNetwork.pdf