SPOTLIGHT
By T. Walter Foner
November 27, 2000

How long can the German government maintain a prohibition on nationalist political parties as more and more attain positions of power throughout Europe?

Since the attempted banning of German populist organizations and parties, those affected are ridiculing government charges by pointing at populist parties, voted into governments in countries surrounding Germany.
In Switzerland, the Swiss Volks Party under Dr. Christoff Blocher's leadership is the strongest party with 22.6 percent of the popular vote.
Austria's populist party of Joerg Haider is now the second strongest and forms part of the government.
In Denmark, the right-wing populists of the Danish Volks Party defeated the euro by campaigning under the slogan, "For Fatherland and krone." The party is led by Pia Kjaersgaard, a woman, drawing 15 percent of the popular vote.
In elections last month in Belgium, the populist Vlaams Blok has increased its presence in many Flemish municipalities, winning 33 percent of the vote in Antwerp, the most multicultural city in the country. Even foreign-born residents were able to vote. Antwerp, with a population of 460,000, is also the diamond capital of the world. How many of the 200,000 Jewish inhabitants cast their vote for the Vlaams Blok?
Right-wing populists are the Norwegians most popular vote gatherers. They are already holding government positions under the strong leadership of Carl I. Hagen.

More victories are in the cards for the liga Nord and the National Alliance in Italy. They have control of mayoral positions in cities around the country.
Jean-Marie Le Pen and his National Front in France hold many positions in local governments and are only kept out of parliament by the shenanigans of the French government.
The ultr-nationalist party is the second largest in Turkey. Millions of Turks who live in Germany are also receiving the nationalist message. Although offered German citizenship, most Turks in do not want it. Time will tell the implications for the left coalition in the Berlin government.
Euroland now wants to embrace all the Eastern European nations that clamor to get in. If these nations become European Union members, the present control of the EU will no longer be in the hands of the internationalists and multiculturalists.
Bringing the Eastern Europeans into the Union is a priority in Brussels, but their dilema remains: How can they keep nationalism out?
Recently, the head of the EU, Romano Prodi, an Italian, was asked: What about nationalists in prospective joining nations?" He replied that Brussels' machinations against right-wing radicalism are futile, the new nations are swarming with it, he told European press as reported in National Zeitung.
The German government's position is that the country walks a dangerous path allowing right-wing parties to exist, so Germany must make every attempt to ban them out of government.
Of course this is doomed to failure, because nationalist of all EU nations are already sitting in parliaments throughout Europe.
Germany is wandering a lonely path of no return and will make democracy a farce with its futile attempt to isolate German voters from the rest of Europe. It will backfire.