What evidence is there of the emergence of new forms of racism within Europe?

Term Paper , 2004 , 7 Pages , Grade: Good

Politics - Region: Western Europe

Racism changes over time it adapts to the current circumstance therefore, it is not a new form racism. At the moment Europe is in the geographical and in the political sense unfinished and unsure about its future. People living in this circumstance reflect that insecurity and have the need for justifications. Right-wing politicians blame foreigners and on that basis find easy solutions to complex problems. Racism is not a mysterious phenomenon, but the question remains when, why and by what actors it is used as a strategy of domination, and what kind of conditions can stimulate this use. Therefore, this essay will outline old racism and illustrate its occurrence with examples of Nazi-Germany. Secondly, new forms of racism will be explained. The new right attracts both working class and middle class voters. This essay will argue that unemployment, violence and crime, and the abuse of the social welfare state are issues problematised by the new right to gain votes. And finally, it will demonstrate that the European Union stimulates racism in a direct and indirect way.

The concept of old racism was based on biological discrimination. The example of Nazi- Germany will be used as it had enormous consequences for the country and the world. The Aryan race was defined as superior to all others. The Nazis needed to blame someone for the economic and social misery of the 1920s, and the failure of the Weimar Republic. People where insecure about the future and unsatisfied about the present partly because of high unemployment and devaluation of money. As a result the UNESCO proved racism on biological grounds is a falsification of the scientific basis (Miles and Brown 2003 p. 59). Until the 1980s Germany became very cautious in using the word racism in the context of migrant workers as it was argued to be an offence against the Jews and Gypsies. Cox actually defined old racism as a “rationalisation of exploitation in the colonial time, where white people used it as a justification to suppress black people” (in Räthzel 2002 p. 4). Banton argues that the concept of the ideology originally referred to is dead. The analytical reason for Banton’s argument is that when black people joined capitalistic societies they still joined them on the bottom of society. This points to the fact that it is a “structural subordination rather than an ideological transformation” and not a racist.

Contents

1. Introduction

2. Old racism

3. New racism

4. How the new right uses racism

5. How the European Union stimulates racism

6. Conclusion

7. Bibliography

What evidence is there of the emergence of new forms of racism within Europe?

Racism changes over time it adapts to the current circumstance therefore, it is not a new form racism. At the moment Europe is in the geographical and in the political sense unfinished and unsure about its future. People living in this circumstance reflect that insecurity and have the need for justifications. Right-wing politicians blame foreigners and on that basis find easy solutions to complex problems. Racism is not a mysterious phenomenon, but the question remains when, why and by what actors it is used as a strategy of domination, and what kind of conditions can stimulate this use. Therefore, this essay will outline old racism and illustrate its occurrence with examples of Nazi-Germany. Secondly, new forms of racism will be explained. The new right attracts both working class and middle class voters. This essay will argue that unemployment, violence and crime, and the abuse of the social welfare state are issues problematised by the new right to gain votes. And finally, it will demonstrate that the European Union stimulates racism in a direct and indirect way.

The concept of old racism was based on biological discrimination. The example of Nazi- Germany will be used as it had enormous consequences for the country and the world. The Aryan race was defined as superior to all others. The Nazis needed to blame someone for the economic and social misery of the 1920s, and the failure of the Weimar Republic. People where insecure about the future and unsatisfied about the present partly because of high unemployment and devaluation of money. As a result the UNESCO proved racism on biological grounds is a falsification of the scientific basis (Miles and Brown 2003 p. 59). Until the 1980s Germany became very cautious in using the word racism in the context of migrant workers as it was argued to be an offence against the Jews and Gypsies. Cox actually defined old racism as a “rationalisation of exploitation in the colonial time, where white people used it as a justification to suppress black people” (in Räthzel 2002 p. 4). Banton argues that the concept of the ideology originally referred to is dead. The analytical reason for Banton’s argument is that when black people joined capitalistic societies they still joined them on the bottom of society. This points to the fact that it is a “structural subordination rather than an ideological transformation” and not a racist (in Miles 1989 p.67).

Baker’s new racism refers to an allegedly new political discourse within the British state which started in the 1970s, and that asserts it is natural for people to prefer to live among “their own kind” (in Miles and Brown 2003 p. 61). He emphasises that it is part of human nature to form a bounded community, a nation, aware of its difference form other nations. The Others, which are non-whites and non-western-Europeans, Turkish, North African and Asian and increasingly people form ex-communist countries, are not better or worse, just different. Germany responded to this with a discussion about the German “guiding culture” which the migrants are asked to assimilate if they want to belong to the country. However for many anti-racist scholars, the lesson from history is to avoid what is seen as the ethnicisation and culturalisation of communities. The catchphrase “threshold of tolerance” is used to argue that individuals cannot bear the presence of more than ten percent of “strangers” without becoming aggressive. This is an attempt to naturalise racism on the grounds of a naturalisation of culture and difference. One wonders then, how is it possible that so-called Others can manage not to be in a permanent state of aggression as they are constantly surrounded by more than ninety percent of strangers (Rathzel 2002 p. 9). According to Rathzel (2002 p. 7), both Taguieff, the advocate of the French “racisme differentialiste”, and Baker claim that new racism does not speak about hierarchies, but just about the difference and the necessity to respect them. However this is only an explanation that attempts to justify that one can be racist. But what is important is why people have the need to justify racism and why this need is there. Whether new or scientific racism, it seams that this time the biological fact which justified racism has transformed into a cultural argument that people prefer to live among their own kind. Baker argues that the cultural factor was not so much the reason to call it new racism. Since the experience of India in colonial times, calling it new racism is rather the discourse of the New Right that is producing racism (Miles and Brown 2003 p. 62).

The new right has two strands of thought, the neo-liberal and the neo-conservative. Thus it combines a free market philosophy, that freedom should be enhanced by diminishing the state power and with social authoritarianism centred around a concern with upholding traditional morality and preserving the British nation from the present danger of cultural decline and disintegration of law and order (Brah 2001 p. 215).

Many rich small countries, such as Austria, Switzerland, Denmark and Belgium, took on the extreme rightist course in order to segregate and protect themselves as they enjoy the status quo where goods are more easily available and cheaper at the same time. In terms of racism this means ‘consummative interculturalism’ were one can visit the places of the other cultures as a tourist abroad, but the other-culture should know their place and stay there, away from the richer citizens. The opportunities are clearly not equal for all parties; the Others have no free choice like the better-situated natives have. (Pinxten and Cornelis 2002, p. 218). Again here the white Europeans enjoy the suppression of the Other as they benefit from it. Therefore it resembles similarities to racism in colonial times. Miles explains that “what is new about European racism is not the proliferation of racist social movements but an intensification of ideological and political struggle around the expression of a racism that often claims not to be a racism” (in Solomos and Wrench 1993).

At the same time working class feel excluded form the wealthy societies. They live in very poor conditions and have a very precarious position in the labour market and stagnation of opportunities. Thus they see the intellectuals and the European Union as enemies. Therefore they turn to the new right parties where communitiarianism is embraced, as the French presidential elections in 1995 showed when Le Pen of the Front National attracted more working class voters than any other candidate. These parties reject the Union in favour of smaller community to which one can belong to, and it interprets freedom as laxism and lack of safety and care. “The populist slogan of primordialism and the ideological claim of the sanity of ethnic cleansing and cultural separation is the alternative that is presented as a utopia here” (Pinxten and Cornelis 2002, p. 219).

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• College: University of Southampton (Department of Politics)
• Grade: Good
• Author: Caroline Wirth (Author)
• Publication Year: 2004
• Pages: 7
• Catalog Number: V32112
• ISBN (eBook): 9783638329149
• Language: English
• Tags: What, Europe