Are We Complicit If We Stay Silent?

If we remain silent, are we condoning, or being seen to condone, the actions of a few extremists?

Lately I've read of two actions that have shocked me to the core. The Identity Soup being served in 'soup kitchens' run by extreme right elements in both France and Belgium was written up in der Spiegel and now a blogger in Austria writes her response to an extreme right advertisement in a newspaper there. The post is titled Burkah Blues.

I wanted to try and understand the seeming lack of reaction to extremist racism within Europe. It took some time but perhaps this paper goes some way towards explaining the thorny beast that is extreme right politics in Europe.

Jérôme Jamin, a researcher in Political Science at the University of Liège in Belgium writes .

Why is it so hard to tell people about the extremist threat to democracy? A second explanation lies in the evolution of extremist parties over the past twenty years. In all European countries, there are laws to curb racist, xenophobic and "negationist" rhetoric. Enacted in response to the electoral success of extreme right parties, these laws punish incitement to racist behaviour, notably against foreigners and migrants. After many convictions in Belgium, France, the Netherlands and other countries, most of the extremist leaders have changed the way they talk about World War II and about migrants in general. To evade laws against racist rhetoric, they replaced their overt xenophobia with a defense of ethnic homogeneity. Instead of attacking foreigners, they advocated the right to cultural expression for their own people; they set aside their nostalgia for fascism to champion their European heritage. Except for the Front National with its leaders who maintain their negationist rhetoric, most of the parties tried to change their discourse in order to avoid legal challenges and to give a better image of themselves to the electorate.

Perhaps we all need to question our silences ... every country, every race, every religion. It's the 21st century, haven't we learnt anything?