The recent riots in the UK have once again demonstrated the inability of liberals and leftists to find a way to appeal to the working class who are turning to the far right. When fascism is present, it is pointless to pander to xenophobia, as liberals do when they embrace an anti-immigrant agenda, or to fight austerity, as the left does. To confront the British rioters, as well as similar groups across Europe and the United States, progressive forces must first commit to not abandoning them.
My shocking introduction to the fascist way of thinking happened three decades ago, when Kapnias, an elderly Greek peasant, decided to educate me. His distorted views, while disgusting, still hold clues to understanding places like northern England, eastern Germany, and the American Midwest.
Kapnias grew up in extreme poverty, as a semi-slave wage earner, in a Peloponnesian village dominated by his landlord - a liberal elder who, during the Nazi occupation, was an associate of the British intelligence service, and his house functioned as the headquarters of the resistance. Watching the British officers, who arrived by parachute, enter the Soska house, sometimes accompanied by bearded communist partisans, Kapnijas knew something was up - something he was excluded from.
"I was untouchable," Kapnias told me. "Until I was touched by my white angel," he added, proudly placing in my hand a decaying leather-bound book: a 1934 edition of Mein Kampf, which, during the last stages of the occupation, had been given to him as a parting gift by his instructor from the Gestapo, his "white angel". Enjoying watching my disgust, he continued to explain his hatred of the Allies.
"Their arrogance, their conceit, their hubris has led countless people to their deaths," he said. Even before he joined the collaborationist unit, where he met his white angel, he was already driven by hatred.
Of course, if Kapnijas had been better off, he might not have succumbed to the call of Nazism. But poverty is no explanation for his cooperation when most of the young men from his village, who were no less vulnerable, joined the resistance movement. When marginalization is combined with scarcity, a certain type of person plunges into a moral vacuum. Like Capnias, such individuals become susceptible to the perverted logic of a superior race whose time has come.
When I mentioned the Nazi massacres of his own people, Kapnias did not want to listen. For him, the British, his Greek boss and the leftists brought carnage to the country. (I hadn't heard anyone use the word "massacre" with such enthusiasm until Donald Trump launched it in his 2017 inaugural address.) When I pressed him to comment further on the Nazi murders of hundreds of people in a nearby town, he excitedly said:
"Real men eliminate those who stand in their way and thus survive. If they die, through death they accept their inability to live. My white angels were above God. Unlike the Italians, the British or our mafia, they did not hesitate to use any means. No cramps! No fear! Passionless! Without love! No hate! You had to see them with your own eyes. They were magnificent!”
As he spoke, his face lit up, and my painful reaction to his every word filled his heart with pleasure. British anti-immigrant rioters, supporters of the German Alternative for Germany, and resurgent American white supremacists may not be as vocal or articulate in their fascism, but they have the same psychological origins. We can draw four lessons from their example.
First, fascist violence is a recruitment tool. Its main purpose is to enrage us to the point where we condemn them and demand violent police action and long prison sentences. This is how they gain recruits who, like Capnias, enjoy watching their rage infect us.
Second, fascists are not protectors or builders of communities. They talk nicely about broken communities, but in community building they do not go beyond the chaos and discussions on social networks, which they cause do not satisfy the human hunger for community.
Third, although fascism thrives on austerity soil, fascists will never stand up to it. Austerity measures have no face, unlike Jews or Muslim asylum seekers. And fascism needs faces as the center of the violent hatred that drives it.
Fourth, immigrants are unimportant. As Kapnias taught me, fascists are happy to accept foreigners as their white angels, including the likes of Elon Musk or Donald Trump, who boast enormous wealth even though they supposedly despise it. Even if there are no dark-skinned faces or newcomers, the fascists will invent some "other" on whom to direct their hatred.
These four lessons indicate what to avoid. First, when governments and leading political parties adopt "soft" anti-immigrant policies, fascists feel this as weakness, and their hunger for cruelty grows. Similarly, those who treat fascists as victims of economic policy, poor education, or unfortunate circumstances only infuriate them. Telling them that anti-Semitism or Islamophobia are silly forms of anti-capitalism (even if true) doesn't help either.
So what to do? I propose an answer that also comes from Britain through Ken Loach's latest film "The Old Oak", for which the screenplay was written by Paul Laverty. When a group of Syrian refugees arrive in a ruined town in the north of England, a pub owner and one of the refugees manage to calm the conflict between the new arrivals and the impoverished locals, who have been made susceptible to fascist ideas by deindustrialization and austerity measures. Under the slogan "we eat together, we stick together", they establish a communal dining room where no fascist idea is tolerated, and no one is subject to criticism, humiliation or attack.
The moral clarity of "Old Oak" and its testimony to the power of solidarity provide a contemporary guide on how to prevent victims from turning against each other. His message is universal: the revival of fascism is not inevitable.
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2024. (translation: NR)
Bonus video:
