Opinion Owning a madman

Which is why,the current predicament of Europe’s far-right — running for cover for a change,turning up with placards and mourning in front of Norwegian embassies — is a desperate performance. The far-right never shies of publicity. Now,for all the talk of Breivik’s anti-Islamism,how many of his victims were third-world Muslim immigrants? He targeted his A and B Category enemies (as he advised the Hindu right to do their own) — those who enforced “Cultural Marxism” in Europe and helped its “Islamisation”. That would be the Labour Party. So it’s right to ask if far-right activists would have jumped to condemn and rushed to mourn had Breivik’s victims been mostly,only Muslim immigrants. The far-right blogs have been ruing that Breivik the Fool massacred the children of his own race!

To explain a Breivik running amok,killing kids and penning 1,500-page tomes (much of it lifted from online ideologues and copy-pasted),something in his shared ideological space has to be investigated. His political antecedents and recent online activities apart,he has been a loner for some years. There’s a problem of ideological space that led to the Norway events. Now,isn’t the far-right’s electoral mainstreaming that’s bringing its ideology closer to more and more conservative voters (an extremism also at once mitigated by the very fact of contesting polls) an expansion the far-right would never have achieved otherwise? Ironically,it would seem the far-right’s electoral success is making Europe vulnerable to the fringe individual on a killing spree.

It appears,this toning down is alienating the most extreme elements who are then left without an ideological space where their fanaticism would find an audience and also,simultaneously,be moderated by the presence of others. Breivik had been a member of the Progress Party in his youth,which he left for fringe outfits,whereon he moved to embark on a fantastic medieval crusade. So the legitimisation of the far-right has created outcasts among their midst who may all be waiting to do a Breivik. At least one analyst has already pointed out this was exactly the case with left-wing extremism in Europe,as with the Red Army Faction or Baader-Meinhof Group. The electoral route chosen by far-left outfits and their shift to the social democratic political space was a failure that shut all doors for the militants except downright violence.

That’s why,the far-right,which has a stake in national parliaments now,has understood the import of Breivik. He’s being called “a conservative catastrophe”,who may have just extended the tenures of social democratic governments and improved the prospects of social democratic oppositions in the next rounds of national elections. Thus,they rush to condemn and mourn.

Which brings us to the heart of the far-right’s worry — how representative is Breivik? Friendliness towards Jews and Slavs,cheering on Hindu nationalists — the first two certainly would be anathema for neo-Nazis,the first and third for most Christian fundamentalists. Yet,the far-right blogs,busy distancing themselves from Breivik’s violence,will find it hard to disown him (publicly as a fringe lunatic,privately as a hotchpotch). Pro-Americanism,a suspension of anti-Semitism,militant Christianity,admiration for the Tea Party — these are markers of an evolving far-right legitimising itself. The Jewish Defence League’s common cause with the English Defence League is the kind of “crossover” that makes it impossible to isolate Breivik. One thing unites them all and forms the beginning and end of Breivik’s manifesto: anti-Islamism. Breivik’s hatred defines the far-right. He is every bit their own. He will cost them votes.

sudeep.paul@expressindia.com