Today in a decision that surprised many the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that workplaces could enforce bans on obvious religious garments and/or paraphernalia. We have gotten used to seeing headlines about local municipalities in France banning the Burkini (the wetsuit that covers the head that religiously observant Muslim women choose to wear when swimming), or a German province ruling that hijab-wearing Muslim women teachers cannot wear hijab in state schools, or the banning of the niqab (or full face veil that some conservative Muslim women choose to wear). But to have a court of justice whose job it is to protect the rights and freedoms of all European citizens - including the Muslim ones come down in favor of allowing corporations or other workplaces to ban religious items or clothing is shocking.
What we are seeing in Europe today is something we've seen before. The slow moving train that started with the Dreyfus Affair in France in the late 1800s and moved on to the ban in Germany of outward displays of Jewish clothing and the wearing of fabric stars of David - side locks on the Ultra-Orthodox, tzittzit, kippahs, etc. To Kristalnacht and the Final Solution. Am I getting a little worked up and blowing the horn too loudly perhaps? It seems like everyone and their friends are making Nazi references. About President Trump, about Steve Bannon, about Turkish President Erdoğan or from him against others. But since I'm not hearing any other horns going off on this particular issue then please let me blow it.
This is not a high speed train. Rather just like the 1930s it is a slow moving train that creeps slowly enough that nobody pays a lot of attention. But we cannot be in any doubt about its destination. The moves by Le Pen, Wilders, AfD, PiS, UKIP, The Northern League, Fidesz, etc., have one endpoint - the end of Islam and Muslims in Europe to one degree or another. And if European Jews or Sikhs or other minorities think they will get off without any problem they need to think carefully. In the 1930s and 1940s it started with the Jews but ended by sweeping up the Roma and homosexuals too.
It is also not just political rhetoric or posturing. When AfD in Germany rails against refugees, attacks against refugees spike. When Geert Wilders in the Netherlands calls Moroccans "scum" there is a rise in hate crimes against Arabs. It means there is a direct correlation between what they are calling for and the outcome they seek. Thus if Wilders states his goal is to ban the Qur'an and close all mosques in the Netherlands, you had best be assured that this is exactly what he will do - using whatever chicanery he can find.
The push for these rising nationalist parties to leave the EU is not just a nativist urge, I believe that they also wish to exit the EU so they are not beholden to its democratic institutions or human rights courts. When they begin the process of stripping citizenship from their minority and non-Christian populations and expelling them or worse they do not want to be part of any extra-national entity that may try to check them. They seek impunity. You see this also in the Polish nationalist party's moves to weaken their supreme court and curtail press freedoms.
Nor do I see this rising nationalism as only a European phenomena. Europe is certainly the epicenter right now, but Turkey's movements against press freedom and concentration of power certainly mirrors parties in Europe and in Putin's Russia. And the increasingly nationalist Myanmar government and their subjugation of ethnic and religious minorities there also flows along this path.
We have a world where the worst types of nationalist right-wing parties and governments having taken a rest from the chaos of 60 years ago are now coming out of the woodwork again. The United States along with her NATO allies formed a bulwark not only against Communism but also against the type of destructive nationalism that had destroyed the world previously. But how can it be a bulwark when its original members are the ones with the biggest problems with these parties today? How can it thwart tyranny, nativism, and autarky when our own President is too busy worried about fighting the last conflict and navel-gazing?
We are in a dangerous situation. The slow train left the station a while ago. It is picking up speed. Who is going to halt it before it brings the destruction it promises?
What we are seeing in Europe today is something we've seen before. The slow moving train that started with the Dreyfus Affair in France in the late 1800s and moved on to the ban in Germany of outward displays of Jewish clothing and the wearing of fabric stars of David - side locks on the Ultra-Orthodox, tzittzit, kippahs, etc. To Kristalnacht and the Final Solution. Am I getting a little worked up and blowing the horn too loudly perhaps? It seems like everyone and their friends are making Nazi references. About President Trump, about Steve Bannon, about Turkish President Erdoğan or from him against others. But since I'm not hearing any other horns going off on this particular issue then please let me blow it.
This is not a high speed train. Rather just like the 1930s it is a slow moving train that creeps slowly enough that nobody pays a lot of attention. But we cannot be in any doubt about its destination. The moves by Le Pen, Wilders, AfD, PiS, UKIP, The Northern League, Fidesz, etc., have one endpoint - the end of Islam and Muslims in Europe to one degree or another. And if European Jews or Sikhs or other minorities think they will get off without any problem they need to think carefully. In the 1930s and 1940s it started with the Jews but ended by sweeping up the Roma and homosexuals too.
It is also not just political rhetoric or posturing. When AfD in Germany rails against refugees, attacks against refugees spike. When Geert Wilders in the Netherlands calls Moroccans "scum" there is a rise in hate crimes against Arabs. It means there is a direct correlation between what they are calling for and the outcome they seek. Thus if Wilders states his goal is to ban the Qur'an and close all mosques in the Netherlands, you had best be assured that this is exactly what he will do - using whatever chicanery he can find.
The push for these rising nationalist parties to leave the EU is not just a nativist urge, I believe that they also wish to exit the EU so they are not beholden to its democratic institutions or human rights courts. When they begin the process of stripping citizenship from their minority and non-Christian populations and expelling them or worse they do not want to be part of any extra-national entity that may try to check them. They seek impunity. You see this also in the Polish nationalist party's moves to weaken their supreme court and curtail press freedoms.
Nor do I see this rising nationalism as only a European phenomena. Europe is certainly the epicenter right now, but Turkey's movements against press freedom and concentration of power certainly mirrors parties in Europe and in Putin's Russia. And the increasingly nationalist Myanmar government and their subjugation of ethnic and religious minorities there also flows along this path.
We have a world where the worst types of nationalist right-wing parties and governments having taken a rest from the chaos of 60 years ago are now coming out of the woodwork again. The United States along with her NATO allies formed a bulwark not only against Communism but also against the type of destructive nationalism that had destroyed the world previously. But how can it be a bulwark when its original members are the ones with the biggest problems with these parties today? How can it thwart tyranny, nativism, and autarky when our own President is too busy worried about fighting the last conflict and navel-gazing?
We are in a dangerous situation. The slow train left the station a while ago. It is picking up speed. Who is going to halt it before it brings the destruction it promises?
