Aurel Braun - The Extreme Right: Freedom and Security at Risk

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The Extreme Right

The
Extreme
Right

Freedom and Security at Risk

edited by
Aurel Braun and
Stephen Scheinberg

First published 1997 by Westview Press

Published 2018 by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Copyright 1997 Taylor & Francis

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Notice:
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Braun, Aurel.
The extreme right : freedom and security at risk / Aurel Braun,
Stephen Scheinberg.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8133-3150-1 (hardcover).ISBN 0-8133-3151-X (pbk.)
1. Fascism. 2. Radicalism. 3. Right-wing extremists.
4. Democracy. I. Scheinberg, Stephen J. II. Title.
JC481.B694 1997
320.533dc20 96-35186
CIP

ISBN 13: 978-0-8133-3151-5 (pbk)

To our wives,

Julianna Braun and Sandra Scheinberg,

and our children,

Daniel, David, Ellen, and Martin

Contents

, Aurel Braun

,
Michi Ebata

,
Stephen Scheinberg

,
Stephen Scheinberg

,
David Matas

,
Ian J. Kagedan

,
Aurel Braun

, Aurel Braun

, Aurel Braun

, Aurel Braun

, Michi Ebata

, Stephen Scheinberg

We are grateful to our main funding source, the Cooperative Security Com-petition of Canadas Department of Foreign Affairs. Roger Hill and Grazyna Beaudoin were the dedicated professionals of that agency who helped us at all stages.

This project was initiated under the auspices of the Institute for International Affairs of Bnai Brith Canada. Paul Marcus, its director at the time, played an absolutely crucial role. A remarkable individual with a keen interest both in human rights and in scholarship, Paul Marcus was instrumental in pulling together the contributors and the Advisory Committee, applying for funding, and helping to organize public seminars across Canada. He was, in addition, consultant, friend, traveling companion, and the essential aegis of our work.

Bnai Brith Canada, directed by its executive vice president, Frank Dimant, and its national president, Brian Morris, was essential to the success of the project. The organizations long-term commitment to human rights inspired our work. A second Bnai Brith agency, the League for Human Rights, and its director, Karen Mock, gave us valuable assistance in our endeavors. We also thank Len Butcher of the Bnai Brith Tribune, who copy-edited an early version of the work.

The Advisory Committee members did much more than lend their names to this effort, and for their participation we thank Frank Dimant, Ian Kagedan, Paul Marcus, David Matas, Thelma McCormack, and Mark Webber. Of course, we assume responsibility for errors and omissions.

Michi Ebata and David Cooper ably served as project coordinators. David Coopers input during the second phase of the preparation of the manuscript was invaluable. Talla Klein, research associate, provided crucial help toward the completion of this book.

We wish to thank also all those diverse experts and members of the public who attended seminars in Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, and Winnipeg and gave us the benefit of their responses to our initial formulations. This process was an interesting and perhaps unique experience in the gestation of a scholarly work. The Department of Canadian Heritage helped us to provide translation services at our Montreal and Ottawa seminars.

We would also like to express our gratitude to Susan McEachern, former senior editor at Westview Press, for her encouragement, suggestions, and patience and to Rebecca Ritke, Melanie Stafford, and other members of West-view Press as well as Diane Hess, the copy editor, who have so ably helped us to bring this work to completion.

Finally, we want to thank our families, who not only provided us with encouragement but graciously coped with a great deal of disruption.

Aurel Braun
Stephen Scheinberg

Introduction

Aurel Braun

During a visit to Moscow in May 1994 I asked an old academic acquaintance about his perceptions of the political conditions in Russia. He lamented the disarray among the democrats and was perturbed by the economic hardships and the all too visible poverty. But overall he remained optimistic. The transition was painful, but he assured me, We are perfecting democracy. In a society that had spent more than seven decades perfecting communism, this Russian democrat, a proponent of fundamental transformation, was employing, almost amusingly, Marxist language to describe the process of democratization in Russia. There was a kind of pride in his remarks that somehow Russia was catching up to the West. We are joining, he added, what President Boris Yeltsin has called the ranks of the civilized nations. His remarks, though, raised two issues: one about the understanding of the core characteristics of democracy and the other about the state of democracy in Western nations.

It is reassuring to see the tremendous interest in democratic theory in Russia. Many Russian intellectuals, for instance, have been reading the Federalist Papers. Yet it is surprising how many misconceptions about the nature of democracy remain. First, the belief that a political system can be perfected is deeply rooted in some ideologies but not in democracy. Democracy, as Thomas Jefferson and others have contended, is a continuing struggle. It is a system that involves checks and balances to compensate for human frailty and ambition. Unlike totalitarian ideologies, it does not represent a once and for all solution. It requires patience, commitment, and participation. It relies not only on institutions and processes but also on a vigilant and vibrant civil society. Therefore, an assumption that democracy can be perfected endangers the continuing commitment to the struggle to keep democracy viable and diminishes the will to deal with those who would undermine it.

Second, the notion that democracy somehow has been perfected in Western states is a misunderstanding of the character of political systems in pluralistic democracies. In the established democracies, institutions and processes have continued to evolve in order to ensure the protection of basic human rights and have indeed involved a continuing struggle against forces that in a variety of ways have challenged democratic ideals or have sought to diminish human dignity. The horrific carnage caused by right-wing extremists when they exploded a bomb in Oklahoma City in the United States in 1995 or the spectacle of millions of French citizens giving the right-wing demagogue Jean-Marie Le Pen, the leader of the Front National, a record 15 percent of the vote in April 1995 are but two of the manifestations of the continuing dangers of extremism in long-established democracies. In both emerging and established democracies, then, there is the need to deal with threats to freedom and security.

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