In addition to calls to “Make Spain Great Again” through the mass deportation of Muslims from Europe, Abascal also wants to build a long wall along the borders of Spain’s African enclaves Melilla and Ceuta to stop migrants coming in from Morocco and other parts of (Northern) Africa. It is not a surprise that Vox’s current boss, Santiago Abascal, chose to launch their 2019 campaign in the town of Covadonga - the site of the first victory of Christian Spanish against Muslims who governed the Spanish peninsula for over 780 years - a gesture meant to suggest a new “Reconquista” against so-called invaders from the south. ![]() They openly support Israeli fascism and advocate for war against Iran. Emerging in 2013 as a split from the traditional right-wing Partido Popular (People’s Party), Vox openly advocates against immigrants, Muslims, women’s rights and what they see as “radical” social values associated with multiculturalism. In Spain, the fascist virus has reared its ugly head in the form of Vox (Latin for “voice”). ![]() In Europe, many “neo”-fascist parties have been gaining significant ground, playing on the sentiments of alienated workers who have been subjected to mass austerity in the wake of the global financial crisis that continues to widen.įrom Italy to Hungary to the UK and beyond, parties of the far right have been able to build platforms upon anti-immigrant racism, anti-corruption, anti-feminism and anti-communist affectation.įundamental to the dogma of neo-fascism in Europe is ultra-nationalism and imaginary claims to ethno-centric heritages that have laid the basis for racist violence against migrants fleeing inter-imperialist war, economic exploitation and oppressive regimes and environmental catastrophe in Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia, forcing millions to seek protection in the global North. The video ends with the words: “Do you want a future like this?” and doomy music.The crisis of neoliberal capital has fostered the rise of far-right politics across the globe. One of the party’s earliest promotional videos was a spoof news broadcast depicting a veiled woman reporting from outside the mosque-cathedral of Cordoba after an imagined consecration to Islam by a fictional left-wing government (the building was erected during Spain’s Moorish era and was turned into a cathedral in the 13th century). Vox isn’t afraid to stoke Islamophobia, in keeping with other right-wing populists. The party claims to be surging thanks to recent events.Īnother thing that makes Spain different is that many of the immigrants to the country have been Latin Americans, whom even Ortega says share “a language, culture, a common history, and way of life” with Spaniards, which makes it easier for them to “integrate.”Įasier, Ortega means, than immigrants from “Arab countries.” He points to Muslim immigrants’ supposed lack of respect for women and belief in a theocratic state as things that make it difficult for them to integrate with Spanish society. Franco’s death in 1975-should be abolished. It believes that the “autonomous communities”-regional governments set up in the years after Gen. ![]() Along with the sort of hard-line stances on immigration and the European Union that are now familiar from emerging right-wing parties throughout Europe, Vox’s raison d’être is to protect the unity and sovereignty of Spain. Vox was founded in 2014 out of disenchantment with the center-right People’s Party, the dominant force of conservatism in Spanish politics for the past 40 years. There’s something faintly ridiculous about the whole scene. Above them is a forest of Spanish flags nearly touching the ceiling-a ceiling so low it makes the room look like an underground bunker. Members of the audience, largely male, not young, greet the Vox leader with slaps on the back and bear hugs as he makes his way down the aisle. Abascal finishes his speech and steps off stage to piped music that sounds like the soundtrack from The Lord of the Rings.
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