Currently we are witnessing an astounding amount of people willing to vote for far-right parties who in collaboration with libertarian economic policies are flirting if not outright pushing for fascist ideology in terms of basic human rights. And people are so afraid of "terrorism" that they think that the only solution to the problem is giving up fundamental humanistic principles and discriminate people from certain areas of the world.
And the worst thing is that there's a higher chance of people being killed by their own couch than a "terrorist" attack. People are dying in traffic, by alcohol, by regular murder, by tobacco, and on and on, yet people think that they will die tomorrow somewhere because of a terrorist attack. We don't see billions of Euros thrown at these things, yet terrorism and refugees are all of a sudden the reason our societies will be destroyed. European countries are some of the richest in the world, yet they appear to completely break down because of war refugees that only amount to 0.2 percent of the European population.
This summer, I've heard the following:
People are so afraid and think that immigrants / refugees from only one part of the world will kill them (When they say immigrants and refugees, they don't think about people moving from the US, Canada, Japan, China, or any other rich country) And when the government says that we can't afford education, health, or welfare functions (because of the refugees!), they at the same time see no problem giving tax breaks to the most rich segments of the country, or giving money to meaningless security that cannot be preventive.
Frankly I'm just disgusted and worried that people are really moving into the arms of fascism and playing around with the ideology that lead to the oppression and murder of vulnerable minorities who simply just want to survive. It's unbearable to live in and engaging both voters and politicians is like throwing water up against the wall where they resort to cultural racism and irrational fear of brown people. I don't see how talking and discourse can lead to a better state of the world either, so protest and disruption to put an end to fascism seem to be the only game changers.
(It should be noted that this is not exclusive to Europe. See India's Modi for example or the Republicans in the US for the last 30 years.)
And the worst thing is that there's a higher chance of people being killed by their own couch than a "terrorist" attack. People are dying in traffic, by alcohol, by regular murder, by tobacco, and on and on, yet people think that they will die tomorrow somewhere because of a terrorist attack. We don't see billions of Euros thrown at these things, yet terrorism and refugees are all of a sudden the reason our societies will be destroyed. European countries are some of the richest in the world, yet they appear to completely break down because of war refugees that only amount to 0.2 percent of the European population.
This summer, I've heard the following:
- Politicians actually saying that Muslim people shouldn't be allowed into Europe
- Actual talk about pulling out of the human rights charter because they shouldn't count for refugees. This is supported by not only the far-right, but also the center-right parties who think the human rights should be up for discussion and maybe pull out
- Neo-nazi parties have become eligible for election and their solution is to throw all brown people out because they are not "true European" (read: white).
- A new party has been formed that combines libertarian economic principles (think Republican economic policies) with clearly fascist and racist ideology
- These same parties state that Russia should be the ally of the EU without mentioning the money the receive from Russia when they run for elections.
- All the center parties are moving further right and embracing the hate and fear in order to not lose voters.
- Meanwhile, the welfare state is being dismantled with talk of cutting funding of public service media, of schools, of universities, relaxing labor protection laws, of healthcare, etc. Yet they have zero problem investing more money into "security" such as police, military, surveillance, intelligence agencies, and they also are cutting taxes for the top rich people in the country.
- Climate change measures are defunded and abandoned
People are so afraid and think that immigrants / refugees from only one part of the world will kill them (When they say immigrants and refugees, they don't think about people moving from the US, Canada, Japan, China, or any other rich country) And when the government says that we can't afford education, health, or welfare functions (because of the refugees!), they at the same time see no problem giving tax breaks to the most rich segments of the country, or giving money to meaningless security that cannot be preventive.
Frankly I'm just disgusted and worried that people are really moving into the arms of fascism and playing around with the ideology that lead to the oppression and murder of vulnerable minorities who simply just want to survive. It's unbearable to live in and engaging both voters and politicians is like throwing water up against the wall where they resort to cultural racism and irrational fear of brown people. I don't see how talking and discourse can lead to a better state of the world either, so protest and disruption to put an end to fascism seem to be the only game changers.
(It should be noted that this is not exclusive to Europe. See India's Modi for example or the Republicans in the US for the last 30 years.)
