Fascism is returning to the Czech Republic: Okamura's campaign is racist, the voters are ineducable
If every extremist in the Czech Republic, instead of condemning "inadaptables", were to contribute to the scholarship fund for just one Romani student; if every extremist in the Czech Republic, instead of insulting people with his or her sense of superiority, would speak with Romani people and ask about the actual causes of their difficulties; if every extremist in the Czech Republic, instead of spreading hate, would convince his or her neighbors to resolve their local problems together, irrespective of their skin color, then the coexistence of the ethnic Czechs and Romani people would not be a problem two or three generations from now. We have already wasted an opportunity to do this with both of the generations who grew up immediately after the November 1989 transition.
We’ve already indicated why this is: Populism, racism and xenophobia have taken precedence over accommodating behavior for a very long time now. Things are about to get even worse in that regard.
The situation in the world, and therefore in the Czech Republic as well, does not favor any kind of correction, because the right-wing extremists have decided to fight even harder. Their power is slowly growing in the United States, in the European Union, and in our own country.
Opinions which used to be unrespectable in public are commonly expressed today in the Czech media in a conversational tone. Unfortunately, some Romani people are also contributing to this development.
I would be interested to know what the Romani supporters of Babiš (chair of the Association of Dissatisfied Citizens – ANO movement) say to the fact that their favorite politician has joined the same faction in the European Parliament as the extreme right, which spreads hate and lies against refugees, Roma – and even against Czechs (see the Freedom Party of Austria).
A campaign that is racist
In addition to ANO, the Motorists Unite (Motoristé sobě) party is now seated at the EP, and their chair, Turek, is an example of this. He rails against democracy much more juicily than do Okamura & Co. (the “Freedom and Direct Democracy” party – SPD).
In 2016, Turek openly espoused Golden Dawn, the Greek neo-Nazi party, and put their logo on his racing helmet. “Golden Dawn is Greece’s last hope. Death to all the left-wingers who are tearing Europe apart,” he wrote on Facebook.
Turek has been captured in other archival snapshots with his collection of Nazi-themed candlesticks as well as giving the Nazi salute. Czech-style fascism is returning to our country, and those who vote for such parties and for such politicians either have no idea this is the cause, or don’t care, or even welcome it.
In addition to Babiš and Turek, Okamura & Co. are now heartily assisting this effort. Okamura’s movement has been struck a blow, the number of those voting for him is declining, but many of his supporters have just temporarily exchanged their “brown shirts” for black motorcycle jackets when they moved to support Motorists United and the Oath party (Přísaha) in the EP election.
All of these parties strictly condemn the EU Migration Pact and invent total absurdities about it. Okamura wants his voters back, which is why he has ratcheted up his rhetoric into a racism that is shameless.
SPD and Tricolor are running a new campaign, the central focus of which is a poster depicting a Black man in a bloodied shirt wielding a knife in one of his bloodied hands over, which we can read these words: “Deficiencies in health care can’t be solved by importing ‘surgeons’. ‘Stop the EU Migration Pact!'”
When Okamura posted this graphic to Facebook, he added these lies: “This is a reaction to the adoption of the EU Migration Pact, thanks to which a mob of up to 30,000 migrants will flow into the Czech Republic each year who are unwanted by Western Europe. Every responsible person can imagine the devastating repercussions for our country. According to statistics, every day to the west of our country there is a brutal knife attack committed by these illegal migrants… Given that circumstance, this campaign of ours against what awaits our country is actually quite mild.”
Speaking in the Czech lower house, Okamura also said this (and posted it on Facebook): “The Ukrainians, for example, have better social support in some respects from the state here than our own citizens in need do. In our opinion, it simply is not this state’s job to make up for the welfare system deficiencies of a foreign country and for our own citizens to pay the price.”
Okamura hasn’t forgotten about the Roma, either, posting this to Facebook: “The inadaptables are destroying the town. I’m here with the people in Úpice in the Hradec Králové Region. Thanks for the nice meeting and your support!”
One more authentic bit of fake news from Okamura: “This is too much. ‘You’ll eat insects and like it,’ the globalist elite tell us. They want ordinary people in Europe to become even poorer and stop eating meat because of ‘global warming’. The Green Deal means energy poverty, deprivation and freezing for tens of millions of people in the next few decades all over Europe.”
The Czech fascists’ remarks
Okamura’s bunk can only be believed by somebody who is not very bright, or by someone who is either bitter or overflowing with hatred, and there are quite a few such persons in the Czech Republic, as we can see today. To be perfectly clear, in these upcoming elections to regional governments, and maybe even during the elections to the lower house next year, the SPD and Tricolor are now campaigning together with the PRO party of the infamous, deplorable Rajchl, whose name should probably be spelled Reichl (Reich in German means Empire and was what the Nazis called Germany and the territories it stole).
Let’s compare the remarks of all the above-mentioned movements with quotations from the Czechoslovak fascists during the interwar period. That will help us better comprehend why it is appropriate to argue that fascism is returning to our country now.
The difference between that past and our present is just in the details. While the First Czechoslovak Republic fascists hatefully railed against Jews, Marxists, migrants and Romani people, their successors today spread hate against LGBT+ people, migrants, and Roma.
Experience teaches us that the time for Jews to be targeted will come once the other “enemies” of the fascists have been pacified here. During the First Czechoslovak Republic, the fascist group VLAJKA (FLAG), in their journal of the same name, espoused ideas almost identical to the positions now taken by ANO, Motorists Unite, SPD, etc.
For example, they published this in 1933: “Hitler has driven all kinds of vermin into our country and four corporations are taking care of them right away. How many are taking care of our unemployed who no longer draw support? They are left to freeze to death as long as we have good Marxists and Jews in our country, even if it means our people fall to hunger and cold.” (From page 136 of Český fašismus by Tomáš Pasák, Práh: 1999).
It is probably not necessary to add that it wasn’t just the communists or Jewish people who were fleeing Germany in order to avoid the certainty of being transported to a concentration camp, but also democrats. Just like those refugees in the 1930s, today the Ukrainians, children and women above all, are fleeing to democratic countries because their own lives, their very existence, are endangered.
This will end in concentration camps
What will happen if fascists take power here today? Let’s look to the past again.
In October 1938, with the rise of what was called the Second Czechoslovak Republic, an umbrella organization was born called the National Fascist Camp (Národní tábor fašistický – NTF), and one of the first to set its tone was Radola Gajda (leader of the National Fascist Community). The following call by the NTF mentioned this requirement: “All Jewish emigrants as well as German social democrats and communists should be concentrated into designated labor camps.” (Český fašismus, p. 221.)
That is exactly how the camp was created that was first a labor camp and then a concentration camp in Lety u Písku, where Romani people died because of the merciless actions of the Czech camp commander and the Czech gendarmes/guards. Whoever believes today’s hate will apply just to Ukrainians and will never touch either the Jews or the Roma here is naive and doesn’t understand these things.
This hatred will not stop there. Some people never learn.
