Month: March 2014

As the newspapers are filled with images and stories of civic engagement, protests and demonstrations around the world and citizens trying to collectively achieve change within the national context of politics, I start wondering over the actual effects; the pragmatic achievements of these protests.

During the last few weeks there have been several cases of demonstrations, protests, clashes and uprisings in for example Turkey and Ukraine. Political reasons aside, as they differ substantially, these demonstrations are the result of an increased civic engagement as counter-reactions to political establishments and governmental attempts to control the public spheres of society. One of these spheres is constituted by digital technologies and social media in particular; tools for which activists can organize and mobilize the protests with pace and low budget in coordination efforts. Social movements are dependent on high numbers of participants in order to have effect (as in get attention and gain further support) and social media simplifies the path to reach this high number. And when protests become mass events, like the case of Ukraine and Turkey during the last days, as well as Egypt in 2011, pundits often refer to this as spectacular events through which days for regimes must be numbered.

 

However, as for example the case of Egypt hs shown, the long-term aim of the protests is seldom achieved as new forms of authoritarianism and repressive powers seem to take charge. Since the Arab spring of 2011, this retainment has taken place in several nations in the region. One important explanation for this is that before the Intrenet and digital mobilization, social movements had to take time to coordinate actions during a longer period of time, thinking about sustaining momentum after the initial phases of the protests (including infrastructure for decision making, political renewal strategies, long term policies etc.) These days, movements leap over this work, taking mobilization beyond these processes, all in the midst of excitement over possibilities for rapid change but without a solid preparation for the times to come. Occupy Wall Street is yet another example of this. Noble ideological agenda, rapid growth, excessive international support with minor fractions, but the result so far… well.. not correlated with the stated aim.

 

The Indignados in Spain 2011 (a group of protesters who labelled themselves this, meaning ”the outraged”) is another example. What happened in Gezi Park in Istanbul last year did however get wider attention and a more progressive outcome, however when reaching the local election, the ruling party is still set to remain in power.

This does not mean that I oppose to the civic engagement and use of social media to organize or mobilize. On the contrary, the fact that the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan during the Gezi protests called Twitter and other social media a ”menace to society” bear witness of the need to actually use the available tools to challenge and to question the political establishments. But the last couple of years can actually enlighten and help future social movements and civic engagement to combine pragmatic political work and organization with rapid mobilization through digital technologies. In that way, the effect, outcome and pragmatic socio-political change may actually succeed and remain in a longer period of time than the days people were on the street chanting for freedom.

We are experiencing a Ukraine on the brink of war as Russia is mobilizing. The tension in the region is focused on how Putin will proceed his military intervention. It’s rather hard to write on the subject as events are changing hour-by-hour and the situation is, as always in these type of evolving events, complex and characterized by lack of information and/or dis-information.

Something that however is possible to discuss is a clear pattern of political ambitions that are now at stake in the rebuilding of the country. And I am not just talking about parliamentary posts, but rather a larger conceptual understanding of ideological tendencies thoughout Europe.

 

Let’s take a starting point in the simplified image of Ukraine’s opposition movement and demonstrations that has been prominent during the last weeks. The demonstrators have often been depicted as a homogenous ”opposition movement” or just simply ”protesters”. But when scrutinizing the images, the interviews and the more solid information on who is participating, who is seeking power and who is setting the agenda for the political future, one soon learn that there are very close links to right-wing extremism and nazi-organizations at play among the opposition movements. In the contours of Maidan, we can observe a progressive trajectory of intensified transnational unification of far-right movements in Europe. Let me explain.

 

This form of transnational ideological warfare against minorities and oppositional dissidents are now beginning to seriously take root in this continent where national mobilization gradually accelerates to supranational ideological propagation. In a short article in swedish newspaper DN today it is described how both swedish and nordic parties and organizations at the far-right in various ways support the right-wing parties in Ukraine, both with people on site and via fundraising online. There are numerous examples of similar support across borders between right-wing parties and extremist organizations in countries such as France, Poland and Bulgaria. Ukraine represents only the latest and most recent high-profile case.

 

What this example expresses is both worrying and a significant historical development. Firstly, the ultra-conservative definition of ’nationalism’ is extended in times and contexts of political instability into a trans-nationalist (or pan-European) idea where dystopian ideologies become greater than the nation itself. Previously, national introversion around a set of ideas has started off from an extremely strong bond between leader, country and ideology (Mussolini-Italy-fascism, Stalin-Soviet- communism, Hitler-Germany-Nazism). What distinguishes today’s ideological state is above all how repressive and violent tendencies, much due to the radical right forces strategic use of the Internet as mobilization tool, are spreading at a much faster rate than before and get a wider scope. It’s not the existence of the Internet creating this form of unification, but network society’s global and largely democratic nature may thus have the opposite effect and turn to itself.

 

Secondly, this right-wing ideological propagation is happening additionally in parallel with an increased xenophobic and anti-Islam rhetoric which not only demonizes religious dissident groups and individuals, but also oppressed minority groups who are fighting for their human rights and equality (in Ukraine hatred is directed mainly against homosexuals, Russians and Jews).

The intersections between these two developments chains already had, and could get even further and more direct, wide-ranging implications.

It is time to look beyond the national mobilization of right-wing, fascist and Nazi-parties and instead scrutinize its transnational propagation.

It is time to mobilize to counter the ideological transnational spread of xenophobia.

It’s time to take the ideological condition of Europe seriously.

 

Otherwise, tomorrow’s history books will be written with even greater regret than those we read today on European and human darkness during the 1900s.