About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

9 E. Eur. Const. Rev. 48 (2000)
On Post-Fascism

handle is hein.journals/eeurcr9 and id is 168 raw text is: Special Reports Political exclusion in an age of globalization On Post-Fascism G. M. Tama's I have an interest to declare. The government of my country, Hungary, is the strongest foreign supporter ofJ6rg Haider's Austria, along with the Bavarian provincial government (provincial in more senses than one). The right-wing cabinet, aside from other misdeeds, is attempting to suppress parlia- mentary governance, is penalizing local authorities of a different political hue from itself, and is busy creating and imposing a novel state ideology, engaging the services of a number of lumpen intellectuals of the extreme right, including some overt neo-Nazis. It is in cahoots with a fascistic party, alas, represented in parliament, which is openly and viciously anti- Semitic. People working for the prime minister's office are engaging in more or less cautious Holocaust revi- sionism. The government-controlled state television gives vent to raw anti-Gypsy racism. The fans of the most popular soccer club in the country, whose chairman is a cabinet minister and a party leader, are chanting verses in unison about the train that is bound to leave any moment for Auschwitz. On the ground floor of the Central European University in Budapest you can visit an exhibition concerning the years of turmoil a decade or so ago. There you can watch a video, recorded illegally in 1988, and you can see the person who is the current Hungarian prime minister, defending and protecting me with his own body from the truncheons of communist riot police. This same person appointed, ten years later, a communist police general as his home secretary, the number two or number three in his cabinet. Political conflicts between former friends and allies are usually acrimonious. This is no exception. I am active in an incipient anti-fascist movement in Hungary, speaking at rallies and demonstrations. Our opponents-in personal terms-are too close for comfort. Thus, I cannot consider myself a neutral observer. I do not consider the phenomenon I shall call post-fascism to be unique to Central Europe. Far from it. Germany, Austria, and Hungary are important, though, for historical reasons obvious to all; familiar phrases repeated here have different echoes. I saw, the other day, that the old brick factory in Budapest's third district is being demolished; I am told that they will build a gated community of suburban villas in its place. It was there that the Budapest Jews awaited their turn to be transported to the concentration camps. You could as well build holiday cottages in Treblinka. Our vigilance is perhaps more needful in this part of the world than anywhere else, since innocence, in historical terms, cannot be presumed. Post-fascism, then, is a cluster of policies, practices, routines, and ideologies that can be observed everywhere in the contemporary world; that have little or nothing to do, except in Central Europe, with the legacy of Nazism; that are not totalitarian; that are not at all revolutionary; and that are not based on violent mass movements and irrationalist, voluntaristic philosophies; nor are they toying, even in jest, with anticapitalism. Why call this cluster of phenomena fascism, however post-? Post-fascism finds its niche easily in the new world of global capitalism, and does so without affecting or upsetting the dominant political forms of electoral democracy and representative government. What it does affect, on the other hand, is what I EAST EUROPEAN CONSTITUTIONAL REVIEW

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most