Switzerland reeling as radicals create havoc at rightwing political rally

Source: The Gaurdian

The Swiss capital of Berne was turned into a battle zone at the weekend when leftwing radicals seized control of the main square outside parliament, routing the main far-right political party two weeks before a general election and catching the Swiss police off guard.

Dozens of protesters were arrested and around two dozen people injured, mostly police officers, as police deployed tear gas, water cannon, and rubber bullets to try to regain control from gangs of highly organised, masked people who turned the small and normally sleepy capital of Switzerland into a scene of devastation.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2185760,00.html

Regardless, I don't condone what these left wingers did, whoever they are. Non-violent resistance to hate is the answer. Granted, the right wingers are likely nothing but Neo-Nazi sympathizers and proto-fascists, but it's not excuse to destroy everything in sight. The only time violence is acceptable if it's in defense of one's self.

everywhere... We shouldn't bury are heads in the sand about this.

Sarkozy was largely elected in France because people believed he would have a more strict immigration policy... :(

. . because of several high profile Islamist inspired terrorist attacks in the last few years (9/11. London, Spain, etc.) - and statements by Islamists that their purpose is to rule the world and place it under Sharia law and are willing to kill millions of non-Muslims if necessary.

No-one knows if they can succeed but based on the numbers of dead civilians, fatwas being issued against cartoonists, etc. - in non-Muslim countries many non-Muslims are understandably concerned. These democratic states will elect right wing leadership as one way to respond. That's why GWB was elected in 2004 and Sarkozy this year. If the current efforts in the ME fails - perhaps by some spectacular Hamas / Islamic Jihad attack on Israel - then there's no question that Netanyahu will be the next prime Minister of Israel.

This is human nature. All people have the capacity for both liberal and conservative approaches to problems. How threatened they feel determines which they choose to apply.

friends who are 'liberal' in Germany and Switzerland calling for the removal of immigrants.

This isn't just about 'attacks' ...

<snip>

"The campaign poster was blatant in its xenophobic symbolism: Three white sheep kicking out a black sheep over a caption that read "for more security." The message was not from a fringe force in Switzerland's political scene but from its largest party.



The nationalist Swiss People's Party is proposing a deportation policy that anti-racism campaigners say evokes Nazi-era practices. Under the plan, entire families would be expelled if their children are convicted of a violent crime, drug offenses or benefits fraud.

The party is trying to collect the 100,000 signatures needed to force a referendum on the issue. If approved in a referendum, the law would be the only one of its kind in Europe.

"We believe that parents are responsible for bringing up their children. If they can't do it properly, they will have to bear the consequences," Ueli Maurer, president of the People's Party, told The Associated Press.

Ronnie Bernheim of the Swiss Foundation against Racism and Anti-Semitism said the proposal was similar to the Nazi practice of "Sippenhaft" - or kin liability - whereby relatives of criminals were held responsible for his or her crimes and punished equally.

more

are Turks and other Muslims.

Relations were never great, as I understand it, but I think that the previous poster makes some good points in her summary of fear of additional attacks by Islamic radicals and the inability of some Muslims to adjust to open criticism of their religion in countries with general free speech. Bombings and calls for a radical replacement of Enlightment inspired laws and institutions do cause some folks to be afraid. Criticizing their fear without trying to understand where they are coming from doesn't really help.

I think that there is legitimate cause for concern about the activities of extremists, but calls for wholesale depotations are overblown.

when wars loomed in the 19th and 20th centuries but they had no problem providing a haven for Nazi gold, for example, even when it became clear that much of that gold was stolen from Jews, including the morbid practice the Nazis had of extracting the gold teeth of their victims. They have also served as bankers for many right wing dictators and facilitated the fleecing of their citizens. I have Swiss ancestry but I have never been proud of the Swiss willingness to look the other way for financial gain.

After WWII right wing political parties were outlawed in Germany. Why can't they learn.

Because the right wing in every nation are a far more consistent voting bloc/power base than the left wing are. Conservatives are brought up to conform to the beliefs of their group, and not question. Therefore, it is more tactically and politically expedient for those in power to ally themselves with right wing whenever possible, and to strengthen and promote right wing values.

I really don't know what else to tell you.

It wasn't even extremist Rightwingers.

The SVP (Swiss People Party) is so big and blurred it makes up most of the right wing itself.
So there were families, elderly and all the other normal people who don't think enough to let Blocher think for them.
But hey, it's their free choice and the walked peacefully.

And "our" stupid black bloc chaots had nothing better to do than "rough them up".
They are despised by most of the left wing because the damage the leftist, social-democratic views with their pure violence and destruction and havoc they cause. They are known to take over major political events as their stage of violence. Labour day, the economic forum in Davos, now this.

The result:
Normal people are more and more scrutinized, whole no-go-areas around Davos to protect politicians and bosses.

Now who's tactic was it to rough demonstrations up in the Third Reich?
The left extremists have certainly learned from it, it seems.
Now how does a peaceful left politician justify THAT? Not easy!

And the media of course jump on it, they want a left vs. right fight all along, God forbid that politicians actually talked with each other, how boring would THAT be?

Almost everyone's tactic. The leftists didn't march around with pillows and teddy bears, either. That was part of the problem :-( I so wish we could talk across the lines. Then, now, in the future... that's the kind of action we need, but even here on DU, there's precious little willingness to talk with those of a different political viewpoint or identification. That, in itself, feeds extremism.

I think we're all screwed, what do you think? :-)

When someone comes at you with a knife, or when an organization destroys your ability to support your family?

No need for violence in the latter option. Frankly, it strikes me as a false dichotomy, since the latter doesn't include the use of force or terror.

Violent radicals threatening the democratically granted right of assembly and demonstration.

What do you except is going to be the answer from the right side, next time I attend a left wing demonstration?
Yes, paramilitary uniformed bald heads with baseball bats!

People need to understand that demonstrations ARE LEGAL, whether you like it or not.

I'd rather burn a leftwing extremist on the stake who threatens democracy by such actions than a right wing guy who voices his stupid ideas peacefully.

It was a peaceful right wing party march.
And the "Chaots", left radicals usually clothed in black with face mask (therefor called the black bloc) wanted to disturb this march which was perfectly legal and granted to the right party people under the freedom of assembly and demonstration.

The black bloc is also known for turning peaceful leftwing party events like labour day into street fights.
They are all about violence and chaos, they are well organised and even come from Germany, Austria and France just to "have fun" with the police.

I'm not discussing the world views of the right wing party SVP (Swiss People Party), but whether we want it or not, they are part of our democracy and have a right to assemble and they were in fact peaceful.

The extremist black bloc ALWAYS damages the left parties and this is starting to really piss me off.
Their vision of anarchy is as stupid as the SVP's vision of a blooming Switzerland with cows and grass and an always shining sun!

Stupid extremists that mess up the meaningful political discussions in this country.

When people stop talking and start throwing stones, that's it for me, regardless which side!

the folks that did this want anarchy, total chaos. They even sacked stores that had nothing to do with the political party they supposedly opposed. The left wing and the right wing should hold a rally TOGETHER to condem these anarchist fools.

That being said, I agree that anarchists (like the 'black bloc') use infantile tactics that accomplish nothing.

From the article:

The clashes on Saturday and the revulsion triggered among mainstream Swiss by the unusual street violence are likely to play into the hands of Christoph Blocher, the tough-talking populist and millionaire industrialist who leads the Swiss People's Party (SVP), the far-right movement tipped to win the elections later this month following a campaign denounced as overtly racist by a United Nations watchdog.
(snip)

And the opposition is too stupid to have been able to recognize this without going through the act of rioting? Not likely.

You nailed it IMO.

the scary "anarchists," etc. are actually provocateurs to imagine this would be different from what has already been learned!

You may remember a "confrontation" in Canada not too long ago, with masked demonstrators carrying rocks in their hands who were found out by a bunch of senior citizen retired union workers and exposed, along with far more than enough photos, down to the views of the cops and the "protestors" wearing IDENTICAL boots. ALL OF THEM.

Liberals, progressives are far brighter than the idiots in the right-wing. They've known for years and years about right-wing provocateurs (scum, filth, vicious liars, cheats) showing up to wreak havoc in order to mold public perception.

...is not a small thing to organize. If this was a staged provocation the evidence for same will soon be forthcoming with disasterous electoral effect for the SVP. If the reality was as The Guardian reported - a left-radical attack on a RW political event - then the orchestrators of the attack severely miscalculated. So the perpetrators really screwed up and have stirred up public opinion. But then people who resort to violence to prevent the peaceful expression of political opinions they dislike are not prone to rational consideration of their actions anyway.

. . of the WTO meetings in 1999 I find that pretty funny.

Puleeze. Never underestimate the abilty of a self-righteous group of people, convinced that THEY have the TRUTH to decide that this entitles them to take any action they see fit.

Your claim (with no evidence) is that they are provacateurs, and you cite the statement "Leftists aren't that stupid" in support of this assertion. What wonderfully circular reasoning. By that definition the Khymer Rouge were either not leftists in pursuit of an agrarian socialist utopia, or they really didn't slaughter 1/3 of the population of the country they ruled in order to bring this utopia about. Because even hard core leftists (at least most of them) will agree that emptying the cities, murdering millions for offenses such as wearing glasses (bourgeois intellectual habit), and trying to wipe out the foundations of Khymer culture was stupid. Rule 1 - The Left is always correct. Rule 2 - When the Left is wrong, Rule 1 applies.

Rereading some of the other comments, it would seem that Crayson (#4, #5, #6) has some familiarity with these folks, this "black bloc". Crayson said "The black bloc is also known for turning peaceful leftwing party events like labour day into street fights." Googling "black bloc" provides an interesting document - a testament of someone in the group who believes that the destruction of private property and violent political action is justifiable, and that actions by the police to stop it from doing so are illegitimate. And this testament seems to fit perfectly with what I wrote at the beginning of this post.

http://www.alternet.org/story/11230/?page=entire

So a black bloc insider's point of view would seem to make your post appear to be less than grounded in reality.

Face it. There are plently of people on the left as well as the right who, in the face of their inability to get others to agree with them through discussion and peaceful argument, are quite willng to use violence to get their way. Just like the National Socialist German Workers Party.

Where on earth do people dream up this idea that Nazis are leftists?

In fact they are often very much at odds with traditional conservatives. For example, Libertarians are pro-choice. They believe the state has no right to interfere with a woman's right to do what she wants with her body. Ron Paul is very much anti-war, and he was the Libertarian presidential candidate.

Libertarians are really orthogonal to the simplistic, 2-D left-right coordinate system. Get out of the 2-D rut and get into the N-dimensional manifold.

The big difference on economic issues they have with Republicans is that Libertarians oppose both social welfare as well as corporate welfare. Republicans are more than willing to issue subsidies to major corporations, while Libertarians oppose that. If anything, political groups can be measured on two sliding scales of collectivist vs. capitalist economic stance and libertarian (small "L" libertarianism) vs. authoritarian tendency.

If you read the post it says:

"There are plently of people on the left as well as the right who, in the face of their inability to get others to agree with them through discussion and peaceful argument, are quite willng to use violence to get their way. Just like the National Socialist German Workers Party." (emphasis added)

However, the NSDAP tactics were quite similar to the Bolshevik practice of politics (Hitler very much admired the show trials), and the state that Hitler built had much in common with the USSR (including an alliance for the division of Poland). Roehm's brownshirts would feel very much at home in the black bloc.

As far as NSDAP ideology and political stance, it was actually a curious mix of classic reactionary elements that resonated with the old ruling classes (anti-deomcratic, anti-semitic, nationalist), while also being quite corporatist, statist, and revolutionary in the sense of overturning the old social order and creating something extremely new based on principles that grew out of 19th/20th century European thought (social Darwinism, eugenics, collectivism - see "Triumph of the Will" for a cinematographic vision of same). The NSDAP program also had some quite anti-capitalist elements, such as the following points from the "25 point program" - the official party platform http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Program make clear.

10. The first obligation of every citizen must be to work both spiritually and physically. The activity of individuals is not to counteract the interests of the universality, but must have its result within the framework of the whole for the benefit of all Consequently we demand:
11. Abolition of unearned (work and labour) incomes. Breaking of rent-slavery.
12. In consideration of the monstrous sacrifice in property and blood that each war demands of the people personal enrichment through a war must be designated as a crime against the people. Therefore we demand the total confiscation of all war profits.
13. We demand the nationalisation of all (previous) associated industries (trusts).
14. We demand a division of profits of all heavy industries.

These kinds of demands don't square with a simplistic view of Nazis as "right wing". And remember that Benito Mussolini was a revolutionary socialist before he was a fascist. Both communism and fascism have the same origins and share many of the same impulses, though they are not the same. Both came out of a twisting of Enlightenment philosophy on the relationship between man and the state. One branch of that discourse led to constitutional democracy (out of which came democratic socialism). The other branch, its antithesis in a suitably ironic Hegelian turn of events, was the totalitarian impulse which manifested itself in the last century as fascism and socialism/communism. While as political forces, both 20th century monsters are spent (though not completely extinguished), the underlying totalitarian impulse is alive and well. And mutating.

Concise and excellent analysis.

"Left" and "right" can mean ... and be used to mean ... quite different things.

Two dimensions of meaning (there are more) are illustrated in the Political Compass's graphs.





Hitler was considerably farther "left", economically, than most current candidates for the presidential nomination of either US political party.


But sorry, you got this one wrong:

For example, Libertarians are pro-choice. They believe the state has no right to interfere with a woman's right to do what she wants with her body. Ron Paul is very much anti-war, and he was the Libertarian presidential candidate.

Ron Paul himself is virulently anti-choice. And being anti-war, in the present circumstances in the US, is no left/right litmus test, no matter what sense "left" and "right" are used in.


edit to add link: http://www.politicalcompass.org

"Both communism and fascism have the same origins and share many of the same impulses..."

Yes, I know that real Leftists (not the namby-pamby, really-liberals-trying-to-be-cool types) bristle at the comparison, but the comparison is apt. The suppression of the individual, the primacy of the state and party, the demonization of entire categories of people and the brutality with which those people - Kulaks, Jews, Crimean Tatars, Gyspies, Homosexuals, Polish army officers, etc. - were treated are very much in common. The rhetoric shared many similarities. The utopia is around the corner! We are the real representative of "the people" and we will destroy the "enemies of the people"! The farce and pretense of having the common good in mind, to the point of demanding active participation in the political organs of the state so that it could be claimed that this new society was "more perfect" than bourgouis democracy - all this was an orc-like twisting of Enlightenment philosophy.

Thus the actual history of the implementation of the communist program poses a real problem to serious Leftists. Those who really think about things realize that the Soviet Union (and its minions) was a monstrosity that made a mockery of freedom. The Khmer Rouge promised a socialist paradise and produced hell on earth instead. And just look at North Korea. In fact, in every country where a party claiming the mantle of Marx has come to power, the result has been disaster. More inequality, less freedom, and worse yet - horrible economic performance. This last one is the nail in the coffin for Marxism, Europe's only indigenous religion. For a religion that promises paradise here, instead of the hereafter, material failure is like scientific proof there is no heaven.

So what is a serious Leftist to do? Abandon religion and view Marxism as an interesting analytical tool while searching for other framework by which to organize the universe? Or perhaps that is just too big a pill to swallow, and to wriggle in cognitive dissonance, to ignore the world and the verdict of evidence, is less psychic trauma. The easiest thing is to deny that any of the failed "experiments" have been true to the faith - just like Salafi Jihadists who say that the reason the Islamic world is not triumphant and paramount in the world is that Islam is not being practiced "purely" enough. Another tack is to remain ignorant as possible and simply to lash out against those who point out reality.

How do you deal?

Micheline Calmy-Rey, a social democrat, has complained that the SVP campaign is giving Switzerland a bad name and partially blamed it for the weekend violence.

"One should not play with fear just to win a few votes," she said. "The current provocations and attacks in politics leave their mark."

It worked here, guess it will work there as well.

The clashes on Saturday and the revulsion triggered among mainstream Swiss by the unusual street violence are likely to play into the hands of Christoph Blocher, the tough-talking populist and millionaire industrialist who leads the Swiss People's Party (SVP), the far-right movement tipped to win the elections later this month following a campaign denounced as overtly racist by a United Nations watchdog
...........



The city mayor admitted "impotence" in the face of the riots. The trouble raised questions about the readiness of the Swiss authorities to cope with potential hooliganism at next summer's Euro 2008 football championship being hosted jointly by Austria and Switzerland.

Mr Blocher's SVP is expected to emerge as the strongest party with more than a quarter of the vote in the elections in two weeks due to a blunt anti-immigrant campaign, broadsides against the European Union, and a robust affirmation of traditional Swiss isolationism. The party's main election poster bears the slogan: My Home, Our Switzerland, Keep It Secure. It shows three white sheep kicking a black sheep off the red-and-white Swiss flag. The UN's xenophobia watchdog, based in Switzerland, described the explicit anti-immigrant message as openly racist.

There have been clashes in Switzerland between police and leftist activists who were protesting against an election rally by the right wing Swiss People's Party. Police moved in to clear demonstrators after they blocked the square outside the parliament in Berne where the rally was to be held ...

http://euronews.net.nyud.net:8090/index.php?page=info&article=446834&lng=1