Qualms & Wires

Another day another victory for a xenophobic nationalist party in Europe.

They're dropping like flies. The latest victim to succumb to the smooth-talking bigots is Finland, that mysterious country I've always wanted to move to, for literally no other reason than being inexplicably but desperately in love with the sound of the language.

I'm beginning to think the prophecy might be about to come true. That's the prophecy that Ariyeh King, uber-zionist and founder of the Israel Land Fund (which organizes the building of illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian land), made during our discussion in the pleasant and leafy courtyard of the American Colony Hotel in Jerusalem.

In King's estimation, the levels of discrimination and division that exist in Israel, though they would make the founders of apartheid proud, will soon appear moderate in comparison to the massive scale of racism within Europe. This phenomenon, he predicts, will eventually culminate in a full-scale expulsion of immigrants (islamic, essentially) or even, presumably in the case where they fail to go quietly, “a war”.

To back up this contentious proposal, he cited the bans on minarets in Switzerland, and on the veil in France. But he didn't have to stop there. He could also have mentioned the creeping banalisation of the far-right discourse in the UK (English Defence League "spokesperson" invited onto Newsnight, and then allowed to leave freely afterwards?). Or even the way that European countries like France, Austria and Germany, those great shining beacons of human rights, have pulled up the drawbridges, shut their borders and told trains carrying migrants from North Africa to kindly go back from whence they came (unfortunately for them that was Italy - the country that either allows migrants to drown in the sea, or uses military weapons to prevent them from entering).

The case of the French burka law is particularly staggering. Apart from the fact that virtually every other type of face-covering conceivable appeared to be exempt from the law, I must confess I fail to understand the logic by which making the wearing of an item of clothing into a political offence empowers muslim women and instantly frees them from the complex social and religious structures of oppression that hold them back. Although it did clearly succeed in empowering the two women in burkas who promptly went out and got arrested. Good for them, standing up for themselves, exercising their right to protest, that's what freedom is all about!

Because that was the point, right? It wasn't just about legitimising a pernicious perspective whereby people who do things a bit differently and don't look like the majority are automatically flouting, and engaged in a lifestyle totally incompatible with, the fundamental values upon which the republic was founded, was it? Or was it a pathetic last-ditch attempt by Sarkozy to drag up the opinion poll ratings a notch or two before the election campaigns get underway? No, probably and yes, respectively, would be my guesses.

Suffice to say, there is no shortage of reasons not to be cheerful. The lies, the racism, the political opportunism of it all is, like, wow. But when has it been any other way, in Europe…

Still. No amount of relativising matters historically makes it possible to stomach anti-immigrant politicians bemoaning the relentless influx of scroungers and criminals into their previously edenic nations, who are then treated like privileged citizens to the detriment of the white working-class (especially male, weirdly enough) population. While at the same time barely adult victims of sex-trafiking are being deported. Wonder what demographic of society is generally driving this trade by frequenting these kinds of girls? Hmm, on the other hand, perhaps best not to...

I have to commend the Guardian for helping to raise awareness recently of just some of the projects, organisations and charities that are going to get axed by the cuts. Given the way David Cameron's government has run its operations so far one might be tempted to think they're doing it on purpose, actively seeking to elicit as much outrage as possible at their attempts to destroy the social fabric of absolutely everything in an attempt to shake us out of our complacency and remind us what's important in society, what needs protecting.

So maybe we'll have to wait it out. For a few more nationalists to celebrate their landslide victories, and a few more fascist lunatics to get scarily close, to the point where things have gotten so bad that nobody can get away with ridiculous arguments about politics correctness gone made or immigrants being treated like royalty. To the point where one day Europeans wake up and realise that they are putting the Israelis to shame. That for all their routine violations of the basic rights of Palestinians, bulldozing through houses and cutting off water supplies, they look like care-bears compared to the bigoted, racist pieces of work leading most European countries.

Maybe then we'll remember why it was so important to fear racism.