2012-03-31

Escalating racial tensions across the world; European right begins international organization

During rising social mood, society is open to new ideas, tastes, cultures and people. This reaches extreme levels as the social mood peak causes people to ignore potential problems, such as immigrants bringing cultures that are incompatible with their own. Thus, during peak social mood, people will only see the positive effects from a policy and not the negative effects, which is why the decline in social mood is necessary to correct policy mistakes. In the area of race and cross cultural relations, however, this can quickly turn into heated tension. Extreme xenophobia doesn't appear until social mood gets very negative, but tensions are already stirring up trouble across the globe.

It's all about race now
But now that it is being investigated by a special prosecutor, the FBI, the Justice Department and a coming grand jury, what is the purpose of this venomous portrayal of George Zimmerman?

As yet convicted of no crime, he is being crucified in the arena of public opinion as a hate-crime monster and murderer.

Is this our idea of justice?

No. But if the purpose here is to turn this into a national black-white face-off, instead of a mutual search for truth and justice, it is succeeding marvelously well.
Americans want to fight, thus many are picking a fight over the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. The anger coming from some segments of the black community are a reflection of social mood and the desire to fight, as is the media's decision to play up the conflict and cast it in a confrontational light. However, what is happening in the U.S. does not hold a candle to what is unfolding in Europe. America may see increased tensions and riots, but it will pale against the change in Europe.

Europe: Terror fuels immigration tensions (Socionomic rewrite: Social mood and immigration policy fuels terror)
An al-Qaeda-inspired gunman kills paratroopers and Jewish children in southern France. A far-right fanatic enraged by Muslim immigration guns down dozens of youths at a summer camp in Norway.

Two atrocities in the space of the year, coming from opposite ends of the spectrum, are raising fears across Europe that a growing climate of ethnic and religious hostility is inspiring extremist violence - and creating the conditions for deadly clashes.
The conditions for deadly clashes are a combination of immigration policy and social mood. It was the immigration policies during rising social mood that put people of extremely different cultures next to each other and did not require the newcomers to assimilate, instead allowing them to maintain their separate identity. Now that social mood is declining, instead of xenophobic ideas expressing themselves at the national level, they are expressing themselves at the individual and community level.
The attacks in France and Norway represent the most horrific extremes of two trends of intolerance troubling Europe: Strengthening far-right sentiment that has sometimes bled into the mainstream, and growing Islamic radicalisation in Europe's disadvantaged, immigrant-heavy neighbourhoods.

With Europe still stunned by last week's killings in Toulouse, France, a loosely knit group of xenophobic "defence leagues" plans to rally in Denmark on Saturday against what they call the growing Islamic presence in western Europe.
Yes, but notice the difference. It was government policy to import Muslims and their radicalization is not in reaction to the far-right. Instead, the rise of the far-right is in fact the result of the center-left/far-left's open immigration policies that ignored the threat of radical Islam. Now they have created the perfect powder keg with a foreign population that doesn't require any scapegoating. Had Europe imported millions of Chinese or Mexicans, there would still be some racial tension and opposition from the far-right due to social mood, but the extremists would need to manufacture scapegoats and crimes to further their case. In Europe, they let in enemies of their own civilization, and when the far-right attacks the situation, average people see the common sense in their argument. Thus, whereas anti-Chinese or anti-Mexican sentiment might remain on the fringes, anti-Islamic sentiment is widespread and Europe's left is handing this issue to the far right, essentially catapulting them into the mainstream of the debate. This is one reason why the right-wing in Europe will remain ascendant for years to come.
Volatile mood

Danish intelligence services expect up to 700 of these strident, anti-Muslim "counter-Jihadists". A counter-demonstration is anticipated to draw several thousand people. Police vow to keep the two groups apart. But the clashing views on display show Europe's heightened polarization.

"These terrorist events are creating sparks, and a small spark can set off a huge fire," said Magnus Ranstorp, research director of the Centre for Asymmetric Threat Studies in Sweden. "It can set off huge social polarisation, and this is what the terrorists want to achieve. Now there is an increased rightwing climate - the counter-jihad movement - feeding off these Islamophobic forces."

The mood is volatile, Ranstrop said, made more so by the methods of the killers - citing how in France, Mohamed Merah shot video of his attacks that was mailed to the Al-Jazeera television network.

"You have the counter-jihad movement, and on the other side you have an old al-Qaeda structure giving out directives for people to carry out their own personal jihads by solo terrorist activity. The manner in which you carry out these attacks matters: Recording them, sending films to Al-Jazeera, shooting people execution style, all to create polarisation and revulsion, to create an overreaction."
The media is generally left-wing and so is the political establishment of nearly all Western governments, so it is easy to see their thinking. In the mind of the European left, immigrant terrorists and the home grown radicals who oppose them, are equivalent. The reality is that when push comes to shove (and what we have seen thus far are only pushes, the shoves will come later when social mood declines sharply), the average European will side with their own people against foreign elements.

A key thing to remember is that there would be conflict no matter what because social mood is negative and declining. However, the fault lines, the specific cases are the result of previous policies during rising social mood. In the case of Europe, we might have seen an anti-capitalist movement given the failure of the banking system and the involvement of the Anglo-American financial system. Instead, immigration policy has created a much greater fault line because it transcends politics and economics and goes to the core identity of individual Europeans. As the previous article notes, this is not a nationalist movement but an identity movement:
The rally was organised by one of the rising forces of Europe's far-right scene - the Danish Defence League. It's backed by the English Defence League, which gained prominence in Britain amid urban rioting last summer.

Similar groups from Russia, Finland, France, Germany, Norway, Poland, Romania, and Sweden are expected.
The far-right is often accused of nationalism, but it's major political issue is now pan-European.

Ultimately, one cannot have an optimistic view for Muslims in Europe. If Prechter's social mood/Elliot Wave forecast is correct, we must assume the far-right will not only gain majority power in government, but also that xenophobia will reach illogical extremes to match the illogical openness of peak social mood. In the end, we may see Muslim religion banned or the outright deportation of Muslims from Europe with widespread popular approval.

Anti-fascists mobilise against English Defence League summit in Denmark
Hundreds of demonstrators will confront the English Defence League tomorrow as the far-right group holds its first ever European summit in a bid to set up a Continent-wide alliance of anti-Islamic organisations.
Who are the anti-fascist forces?
Last week, a group of around 5,000 people attended an anti-EDL concert. The Mayor’s Office said the concert was set up to show that Aarhus “does not want to be associated with extremist groups [which represent] everything we want to distance ourselves from”.
The establishment in Europe has positioned itself against the most powerful pan-European political force in a generation. Conflict is assured because the government will oppose this force, rather than channeling it by passing immigration restrictions or other laws aimed at sapping support for the far-right. Simply put, by the end of this phase of negative social mood, the far-right will no longer be the far-right, it will be the center-right.

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