In 2013, Jordi Borràs was forced to stop covering extreme right-wing acts after being singled out and receiving death threats. His name, his image and his information ran through the ultra forums. The skin and professional career of the Catalan photojournalist were in serious danger after years of specializing in far-right movements in Catalonia. But a trip to Germany made him discover that far from home he could regain anonymity and continue studying the phenomenon. Abroad he was just a guy with a camera. In recent years he has traveled across Europe attending neo-Nazi rallies and rallies, interviewing anti-fascist activists and soaking up the history of the successes and failures of the fight against hate ideology.
As a result of this investigation, he publishes ‘Tots els colors del negre’ (Ara llibres), “the journalistic investigation of a lifetime”, he assures. A book about the complex world of European far-right groups that can be read -almost- as a photojournalist’s personal diary, whose last few years have been anything but boring.
What happens to Europe so that the presence on the political scene of extreme politics has been normalized?
The new wave of the extreme right that is different from the one that existed years ago. This ideological niche has evolved for almost a century and has done very well. They govern in some countries and in others they are second or third force. In the European Union, the only countries where there is no extreme right in the national Parliament are Ireland, Luxembourg and Malta. The last country they have entered is Portugal, with Chega. It is a black spot, a ghost that runs through Europe. This populist radical right has occupied the place that the left surely has not been able to occupy because it has been more aware of adapting to the markets and a new political scenario rather than being faithful to its own. In addition, all the historical political magma behind the last decades. Globalization, social inequalities, the dream that we had been sold of the middle classes… all this is evaporating and in Europe a large part of the population feels that they are the big losers. This affects politics, even part of the left has adopted his speech. The extreme right is very clever, much more than people think. He has occupied a place that others have left deserted.
This populist radical right has occupied the place that the left has not known or has not been able to occupy.
They have managed to generate a discourse that sets the agenda. Is this your big win?
To reach these quotas of voters and power, the extreme right has had to do a very important job, the results of which we are seeing today, but it has come a long way. There is a reactionary reply to the French May 68, the so-called ‘White May’. Neo-fascist intellectuals realize that they have to succeed in setting the political agenda. They read Gramsci and discovered the concept of cultural hegemony and decided to discuss certain concepts that we had already assimilated, such as women’s equality. They come to dynamite these consensuses. The great triumph of the extreme right is not only to reach a quota of power, it is to change the discourse and carry out what they call the cultural war. They know that if you change the paradigm of social and cultural debate, climbing to power is only a matter of time. We are seeing it in Poland, in Hungary and in the Spanish state with the appearance of Vox. They do not have any kind of mania when talking about concepts such as “gender ideology” or “first those at home”. Another of the great successes of the extreme right is when their political opponents buy part of the speech. We have seen it in France when the candidate of the traditional French right, Valérie Pécresse, endorses a very dangerous speech such as the theory of the great substitution, one of the theories defended by Éric Zemmour. The great triumph of the extreme right is not that it governs, it only governs as such in very few European countries, but rather that it sets the agenda in all states.
In your book you describe a surprising level of professionalization of the anti-fascist struggle in countries like Germany.
In Germany, anti-fascism is experienced as a shared issue with the bulk of the people who consider themselves democrats. Being anti-fascist is a consequence of declaring yourself a Democrat. Instead, here, when you talk about anti-fascism, the collective imagination has in mind a hooded young boy throwing stones. In Germany it is much more than that. You have the prototype of the hooded man who wears black and throws stones, but you have the Social Democrats who go with the children and the balloons to the demonstrations, to the Lutheran church that organizes masses for the harmony of the different confessions before a neo-Nazi demonstration that celebrate Hitler’s birthday… Anti-fascism is extremely more transversal. Here, many times from the official left itself it is intended to ridicule or stereotype anti-fascism, and with this you leave a very large space. When there is a neo-Nazi demonstration, there is a blockade of all the democratic forces. We also start from the assumption that the Nazis lost the war there. This does not mean that they were intellectually defeated, as we have seen, but here the allies of the Nazis, the Francoist soldiers, won the war and none of those responsible has ever paid. And at the level of organization of anti-fascism itself, for example, there are documentation centers dedicated to monitoring the Nazis. They make records and have information parallel to that of the police forces. The police hate them because they know things they don’t and sometimes use your information to do their jobs. It can be controversial, it is a very interesting debate, but thanks to this they have managed to limit a potentially very dangerous criminal problem such as neo-Nazism in Germany.
The great triumph of the extreme right is that it sets the agenda in all states”
The German authorities recognize that the extreme right is the main threat to public security, but it does not seem that there is such an important social concern as, for example, with radical Islamism.
If in Spain they had to make the same speech that Germany makes, they would surely have to dismantle entire units of the army and the police or the Civil Guard.
We are heading towards a presidential election in France in which it seems that a new space has been opened in the French extreme right with the appearance of Zemmour, who attracts voters who would never have voted for Marine Le Pen.
The National Front, although it has changed its name to National Rally and has tried to renew it, is still a party that has been in French public life since the mid-1980s. It is not a new party, it is one more. In recent years they have tried to occupy the space of the French classical right. Even Le Pen’s ex-partner, the mayor of Perpignan Louis Aliot, has partly won the mayor’s office with a moderate speech, lowering revolutions. What Zemmour has done is advance Le Pen on the right. In addition, he has made use of having published bestsellers and being a polemicist in several media outlets. The fact that it can reach the second round is a huge defeat for Le Pen. I don’t know if it will be the end of him, but his game will have to reinvent itself. It is very difficult for Zemmour to reach the presidency, but the fact is that the castle is increasingly under siege.
It is very difficult for Zemmour to become president, but the fact is that the castle is increasingly under siege”
How do you assess the meeting of the great leaders of the European extreme right last January in Madrid?
Its goal is to get its own group in the European Parliament, but I think that meeting was more of a package deal than a real will of all the actors to unify efforts. The extreme right, by nature, has very little internationalist. It is very difficult for him to collaborate. They have that point of national exaltation that makes understanding with the neighbor difficult. What Steve Bannon tried is not easy at all. When he arrived here it was thought that this Europe was a United States with more borders, and it is more complicated. Sooner or later they will probably be able to unify efforts to have a group, but achieving the coordination that has been attempted for many years will not be so easy.
In the book you state that you have a great interest in understanding why people hate in the name of the country, of identity… Have you reached any conclusion?
One of the main elements is the fear of the unknown or of what you think you know but which is based, above all, on prejudice. It can lead to a hatred that is legitimized in the name of freedom, love of country, whatever. There is a myth that has to be broken, and that is that people who vote for the extreme right or that the movements of the extreme right are ignorant. It is the other way around. As comrade Miquel Ramos says, surely the facha has read and traveled more than you and me, because to reach the quotas of power they have they have had to do a very good job. Vox has not arrived here by chance, behind its appearance, in addition to a specific political moment, there are some very well drawn strategies and lines that have made it, for example, have a very high youth vote or penetrate through the networks social more than other parties. We are not talking about ignorant people.
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