Capitalism destroys identities of both the host nation and newcomers

31.05.2016

The US-Croatian philosopher and political analyst Tomislav Sunic explains the main reasons for the rise of right Eurosceptic parties in Europe:

The breaking point for this sudden surge of right-wing movements and parties in Europe has certainly been the flows of migrants, non-European migrants, over the last two years. This certainly boosted the interest in nationalist parties from different parts of Europe from Finland to Greece. The changing demographic, racial, and religious profile of Europe (and I use the word racial even though it is not politically correct because there is no better word) has led to the resurgence of right-wing parties. We see, for example, what is now happening in Austria with the presidential nominee. One of the presidential candidates, Mr. Hofer, did not win, but the other person did…This shows again that European society is very polarized. It is in fear of losing its identity. This is leading more and more people, especially the youth, to adopt nationalist identities. Of course, there are different modalities because the quest for a new identity in Austria is not the same as the quest for identity in France. These people are not coming out saying “we are racists.” I would call them implicit white nationalists. They are becoming strangers and foreigners in their own lands. Look at Frankfurt, Munich, and even Graz, which is only nominally still an Austrian city.

We have to make a clear distinction between religious identity and ethnic identity. Religion and race are not synonyms. There are many whites, such as Bosnians for example, who are Muslim and do not consider themselves Europeans in a cultural sense. This is another interesting point which we need to cover and critically examine. The policies of Frau Merkel are certainly not going to lead to multicultural understanding, nor to a consensus between different racial groups. I think that this will lead only to more frustration and more civil disturbances. We also have to be very critical of the capitalists and liberals. They hire cheap labor from the Muslim world, and I would call this liberal hypocrisy. Every time I sum up my comments, the main enemy is liberalism. Capitalism destroys the identities of both the host nation and newcomers.