Madrid, The Fascist Riviera

In this week's Camino a ÍtacaCamino a Ítaca a look at the recent Fascist Fest in Madrid, where the Spanish capital was momentarily converted into Neofascism ground zero. Click over to read the original version in Spanish in the HOY or read the English translation below. (PDF en castellano abajo)

The only pictures that were missing were those of Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Benjamin Netanyahu and Darth Vader. The rest were a literal who’s who of the global fachosphere. It was an event that promised performances by the horsemen and, surprisingly enough women, of the looming illiberal apocalypse.

Well known fascists like the seriously unhinged president of Argentina, Javier Mieli, the grand dame of France’s ultraconservatives, Marie Le Pen, a televised appearance by Italy’s Mussolini admiring prime minister, Georgia Meloni, the Islamophobic Zionist and Minister of Diaspora Affairs of Israel, Amichai Chikli, the contingent from neighbouring Portugal represented by Chega’s leader Andre Ventura, who’s proposed measures are a specific confinement plan for Roma communities and their local host, the man who has never had a job outside the public administration, Santiago Abascal all would be on hand to share their neofascist ideas and hatred of liberal, Western democracy.

It was an event that promised to make the Palacio de Vistalegre in Madrid ground zero for the different neofascist movements from around the world. Each with their own specific holy book under their arms, from Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, the Trump authorized Bible, the Torah, el Cantar de Mio Cid and Mein Kampf, they networked with the likeminded.

You might wonder what might draw people with such disparate ideas, from outright Holocaust deniers with staunch Zionists on the same stage. But while they might differ on certain ideas, what they all share is a common, deeply held belief that some people are inherently better than others.

Whether they be Abascal’s illusory Hispanic race, or Chikli’s chosen people with a land deed granted them directly from a celestial sky god, each movement depends on a scapegoat for their existence. Many of them may not even support anything, or at least have any coherent proposals, but what they all share is the idea that ‘the other’ is to blame for all the world’s problems. They promise that life would be better if it just weren’t for that marginalized community, be they Muslims, homosexuals and transexuals, scientists, atheists, Roma, and yes, even Jews. And we know where that once led, except for the holocaust deniers of course.

What would bring someone to actually support such unpleasant, toxic views is hard to fathom, that is until I spoke to one of their supporters and they explained  their reasoning and new found faith. This was someone who had traditionally been on the left, but felt that they no longer represented him.

The left had abandoned their central purpose of improving worker’s rights, reducing workdays, increasing pay, bettering education and health care and instead had embraced the cultural wars on issues that really only affected a very small minority of people and had no effect on him. Life was not getting better and in fact was getting worse. With the cost of living almost doubling, life and become a struggle.

It was then that he said the most chilling thing. “If the economy and life isn’t getting any better for me, I don’t want to see it getting better for anyone and that’s why I support them.”

Now are nihilistic words the horsemen can definitely feed off of.