HOW FAR TO THE RIGHT CAN WE GO?
By Andreas Stadler
On June 23, we were fortunate to host a stimulating panel discussion between historian David Bennett of Syracuse University and sociologist Max Preglau, of the University of Innsbruck. In this, our final event of the season, the two participants discussed the right wing shift of politics in both the US and Europe following the financial crisis of 2008. While the traditional Left appeared surprised and lacking politically viable answers, the political Right seems to react with well-known strategies such as the repression of the state, gender questions, and of minorities.
Max Preglau maintained that the political Right successfully exploits rising insecurity and angst in a globalized risk society. He felt that European elites should rather address the real economic and social problems of a risk society than adopt the anti-minority and anti-foreigner rhetoric and policies of the Right: “They should acknowledge that immigration has become an important factor in demographic development that needs to be paralleled by efforts of integration."
David Bennett, on the other hand, presented a stunning history of right wing movements in the United States. He held that earlier xenophobia (such as Anti-Catholicism, or the Red Scare before, and Anti-Communism after World War II) and anti-immigration "nativism" has been replaced in the years since 2000 by anti-Washington sentiments and anti-government conspiracy theories such as the "birther question". To paraphrase: the new real enemy is among us!
The author is the director of the Austrian Cultural Forum, and moderated the panel in June 2011.
