The voices of the European Union, which have been imposing a model of society for decades, are today warning about the growth of far-right parties, as in Italy, Sweden, Spain, Poland and Orbán’s Hungary, and say that the phenomenon has its origin in the increase in immigration. What they do not assume is that such migration comes from countries that have been destroyed by NATO.
In the midst of this current situation, we are told, these anti-humanist currents have modified several of their historical postulates, which does not detract from the fact that such far-right parties recognise themselves in the post-fascist movement.
Their strategy, they explain, is to convey an acceptable discourse with centre-right codes, but without losing their emotional rhetoric firmly attached to the cult of tradition, fear of difference, selective populism and machismo. Consequently, they have a strong anti-immigration and anti-women’s rights discourse, they are against abortion and want to increase the birth rate in an ageing Europe.
But we have to say that there will be no legitimacy in the discourses against the political violence of the far-right, coming from the political and economic elite that has been in power for years, until they recognise that violence is exercised and advances towards extremism, from a model that they themselves installed, and that they have historically defended, and when they define it necessary, even with the brutality of internal repression and the invasion of foreign territories.
What is required is a change of look at the current crisis, a profound acceptance that the inequality that is at the base of the installed model and its logic of societies that not only accept but also promote privileges for a few, is what irremediably ends up projecting a future in which the progress of no one is foreseen.
It is necessary these days to make it clear to this elite that violence is not restricted to the physical violence of war, but manifests itself in multiple ways.
There is economic violence, in which the powerful do not hesitate to accumulate exorbitant profits at the cost of having the majority of the world’s population submerged in a humiliating economic situation, while they have to put up with the news broadcasts of the mass media chains, in the voice of their ineffable economists, telling them that wealth measured in macroeconomic indicators is always marvellous.
There is gender violence, which keeps women as second and third class citizens, with lower pay than men for the same work, which requires them to procreate, raise children, care for the sick and elderly of the family, not only without compensation, but with harmful consequences for their economic, social, political and security development; thus, the figures of femicides are naturalised, and are unleashed unchecked in all latitudes.
There is racial violence, in which the peoples of the global south endure discrimination, humiliation, the degradation of their cultures and lifestyles, and they are forced to homogenise, criminalising them, discrediting them with editorial lines in all the media, which, coincidentally, are in the hands of the “social democratic” elite.
There is generational violence, in which young people are stripped of their condition as human beings, seeing them as unfinished beings, which allows the mistreatment, forgetfulness and murder of children and adolescents, with horrifying global figures, to which the authorities give false, dilatory responses, which do not resolve the monstrous future offered to the new generations.
Not to mention the violence suffered by sexual dissidents.
Ecological violence, whose iconic expression, in a chaotic context of environmental destruction, is climate change, and that the unilateral measures of commercial and financial punishment against Russia, imposed by NATO on the political leadership of the European Union, indefinitely postpones the commitments made in successive international meetings on the climate issue, and whose costs will have to be paid by the entire salaried population, including the European population.
Other forms of violence against the world’s population are cultural, psychological and moral.
Furthermore, these first world powers are responsible for the brutal violence of war, the transgression of the human rights of citizens in different parts of the planet. The numbers of victims of mass killings of civilians, torture, beatings, and imprisonment in lawless prisons are scandalous, without all of this implying that they assume any responsibility.
Certainly, the responsibilities for the ills suffered by the world’s citizens are not exclusively the responsibility of the elite. It is decades of dormant consciousness, and in this lethargy, citizens have taken on the anti-values of consumerism and individualism.
It is not the elite’s call not to go along with the violent discourse of the ultra-right that is being criticised, but the hypocrisy. To be heard, such a call cannot come from today’s most violent people, even if it is a great necessity for our society.
How we wish the call of the elite were sincere, but it is false. For they have allowed their own irrationality, the reason for the unreasonableness of their actions in power, to push the emergence and validation of ultra discourses, which are promoted on the basis of the fear instilled in populations in every corner of the planet.
If they really want to confront these atrocities, and not just make speeches, they need to overcome the self-fulfilling prophecy that we cannot escape a future with governments that mix autocratic and police power with the imposition of a globalised economy that lives from day to day, without attending to the dynamics of the disasters of individualism and unhinged consumerism without limit, which obscures the possibilities of humanity.
Concrete actions are needed to change the situation of inequality, to recognise the failure of the model, and to rethink the real options for a way out; and for this, to have the courage to radically change direction, no longer submitting to the speculative power of finance and the international military-industrial complex.
And since it is not possible to continue waiting for those who created the problems to be the ones to solve them, such a change, although complex, is in the hands of the people who, in every latitude, assume the responsibility of carrying out exemplary actions, denouncing human rights abuses with courage, rebuilding the fabric at the social base, placing faith in the long future of humanity, with sincere affection and the joy of living.
Collaborative writing by Sylvia Hidalgo, Guillermo Garcés and César Anguita. Political Commission.
