Europe swings right

The new mayor of London is most famous for the trip to Africa when he called children “pickaninnies,” but also known for his professed dislike for Islam, city buses, public sector unions, the public sector in general, and other subjects that are more or less major concerns in his new job, you would think. Boris Johnson’s victory came on a day of local council elections that saw a near-collapse of the Labour vote in the UK, with the Conservatives the beneficiaries. It seems like the end of Labour’s mandate.

Johnson isn't as toxic as Gianni Alemanno, the new mayor of Rome, whose supporters celebrated with straight-arm salutes at a victory rally, shocking everyone but Italians. The elections of the conservative and the fascist had some similarities, however, with both winners openly hostile to their cities’ large immigrant populations, to the use of tax for public services, and to the supposedly homogenizing threat of Europe. Their campaigns appealed almost exclusively to the native-born white voters with the notable exception of Rome’s Jewish population. This demographic is shrinking but still in the majority and they are increasingly scared of crime, sick of immigrants, and distrustful of the European Union. Recently they expressed themselves by electing Alemanno, and then attacking Roma (gypsy) camps outside of Rome.

Coming from the U.S., it’s important to keep in mind that our two-party system, for all its faults, tends to keep the lid on most public expression of outright racism and hatred, for what that is worth. In a parliamentary system Ron Paul, David Duke, and their ilk would be representing their own parties instead of the Republicans, who keep guys like that off the stage whenever they can (although they still turn out voters). A scary thought, the GOP moderating someone’s views, but I think it’s true. Wait, both those guys have been elected as Republican candidates. Anyway you get the point.

It is surreal as an American to watch this, partly because my own country’s slide toward fascism has featured the vilification of the sort of multinational, multicultural, funny-talking, French-infused mélange that Europe is supposed to represent. It’s also confusing because Europe seems to kind of work: the euro is killing the dollar, people can take the train anywhere, the food in England and the Netherlands is getting better. But the majority of EU states have not ratified its constitution, which lost referenda in Netherlands and France. The rumored menace of “the Polish plumber” who takes your job by working cheap hasn’t materialized but people are still scared about it. Berlusconi says “we’re all Falange [Franco’s party] now.”

Europe, our best hope, is fragile. The Flems hate the Walloons, the Serbians and the Montenegrans hate the Bosnians, the Albanians hate the Greeks, and then there are the Basques, the RUC, Geert Wilders, Rita Verdonk, and Cyprus. This isn’t like rival football (soccer) fans—they might kill each other. Wait.