Is the West Experiencing a Right-Wing Drift?

Italy and Poland to some extent?

Yeah, that's probably otm. But it's interesting because in Northern Europe (UK included) I can only think of fan groups being right wing/fascist skinheads, at worst (dumbest), but never left-wing/radical/anarchist.

The real question obviously being which English club will be the first to embrace Radical Suk

St Pauli! And in Denmark BK Frem, a bit. Though they mostly express their anarchism through being relegated routinely for not following league rules...

In Italy Livorno definitely and I think Atalanta are two clubs whose ultras have a leftist bent, but most ultra politics is fash as fuck.

Anyone from, or knowledgeable about, New Zealand have any thoughts on new governing coalition between labour, greens and NZ First?

St Pauli and Celtic have a strong connection. When I went to Prague recently I did a bit of research on their football teams, and Bohemians are virtually the only Czech team with 'a left wing ideology' (to quote Wiki) - also the play in green and white so a no-brainer for any Celtic fan who happens to be at a loose end in Prague.

... also this:

Bohemians' mascot is a kangaroo, the legacy of a 1927 tour of Australia. Following the tour, the club was awarded two live kangaroos, which they donated to the Prague Zoo.

St. Pauli and Atalanta are good calls!

Great tidbit on the kangaroos.

this is all v interesting, ta for the map

Roma’s ultras are supposedly mostly left wing/left leaning, and at least one of their high profile ultra groups (Fedayn) has communist origins. Though this article seems to call them anarchist too?

http://www.romatoday.it/cronaca/maroni-identikit-scontri-15-ottobre-2011.html

The club’s politics are interesting and there’s a very comprehensive piece on them here: https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2014/dec/11/roma-serie-a-alternative-club-guide

the roma thing is quit weird with the left-wing nature of the ultras often being touted and as you say the communist origins of the fedayn. have read (on forum of the Celtic ultras group by one of their members who has left-wing pals in the Roma ultras and who goes over for games) that nowadays it's really a mixed bag with both far-left and far-right in the same end or curva and definitely not with left predominating anymore.

Thanks for that article Gyac.

Not surprised about 'extremists' from both sides flowing over into one angry mob losing their political identity or class roots. I wen to the Anoeta stadium a couple of times this spring, Sociedad, with knowledgeable fans, and was genuinely pleasantly surprised to see the ultra's there carry banners and chanting for 90 mins against racism, fascism and their rival clubs, however easy it is to get swept up in that (and I was in a vip seat all the time; not my choosing, just saying they dictated the atmosphere with anti-fascism chants, which was a new one for me).

I mean all of Holland's "ultra's", or most fanatical fan groups, are just bigot, racist, boneheads whose ideology is best summed up with: our desire is to bash in the skulls of others because of no reason. As trite as this sounds, seeing a political undercurrent and having people who know tell me where that originated from (class struggles, obv Franco) was enlightening.

Centrists bashing centrists.

it's all islamphobia now, the train that cannot be stopped

't Is true. Though I'd love to pretend to live in a world where Charlton Athletic supporters chant Jute Gyte songs like tru bros and fuck with Das Kapital tbh. Make it so LJ.

Espanol, the right wing club in Catalunya

OK, that explains this...

http://i4.dailyrecord.co.uk/incoming/article9394097.ece/ALTERNATES/s615/IMG-20161203-WA0018.jpg

Roma's left/commie leanings perhaps explained by Lazio being far-right and Mussolini's team

The founder of the Espanyol Rangers Supporters Club is a Spanish native with a Scottish mother and a Glasgow accent named Andy, who insists there are more similarities between the two clubs than initially meets the eye.

He lifts the lid on the origins of the link, explaining Espanyol supporters are mostly loyal to the Spanish union in a city where so many want Catalan independence.

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/how-rangers-became-espanyol-fans-9394051

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/oct/20/roma-uefa-chelsea-antonio-rudiger-champions-league

Maybe not the day to be making any very strong claims for Roma's lefty credentials.

Yeah, I was under impression Roma lefty stuff was all way in the past.

ah okay, fair enough

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-czech-election-farright/far-right-scores-surprise-success-in-czech-election-idUSKBN1CQ0T3

"Surprise"

Anti-migrant policies of Czech socdems sure worked out for them lol

Oh hey I'm in New Zealand, governing coalition is pretty damn left. In fact NZF went out of their way to go that way.

Tu meke. Heard some unpleasant stuff about NZF, but if they've made a deliberate effort to dial down the nasty, that's great.

Although this means that after that Patrick Wasteman guy in austria last week, there's now another head of government who is younger than me, a disturbing trend.

‘Pray for an Islamic Holocaust’: Tens of thousands from Europe’s far right march in Poland

one of only three nations standing up for that poor beleaguered minority -- the nazi

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-un-nazi-glorification-resolution-vote-against-free-speech-far-right-white-supremacist-neo-alt-a8066761.html

USA! USA! USA!

thought about bumping this with the collapse of merkel's coalition but it's still unclear to me how that's going to pan out

Friends in Germany are confident that the far-right party has split its support in recent weeks. But who knows anymore?

America votes against the resolution each year

come on i can only afford to worry about brand new shit.

i disagree that voting against that resolution is either an example of the US experiencing a right-wing drift or the West as a whole (who, except for the US, voted for the resolution).

Good municipal elections in Denmark yesterday. The populist right-wing party lost votes for the first time in municipal elections ever, and didn't get a single mayoral post - which is quite impressive, as they are the second-biggest party nationally. A lot of new far right parties failed to go anywhere, the main one, which has had so much attention that 12 local politicians has switched over to them, lost 11 out of 12 seats.

nice!

This is good background on the Polish far-right March and associated issues:

https://newsocialist.org.uk/poland-2/

https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/freedom-world-2018

more the world at large

Seventy-one countries suffered net declines in political rights and civil liberties, with only 35 registering gains. This marked the 12th consecutive year of decline in global freedom.

This isn't the Dark Ages and the global backlash will be magnificient.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/26/world/asia/china-xi-jinping-authoritarianism.html

The surprise disclosure on Sunday that the Communist Party was abolishing constitutional limits on presidential terms — effectively allowing President Xi Jinping to lead China indefinitely — was the latest and arguably most significant sign of the world’s decisive tilt toward authoritarian governance, often built on the highly personalized exercise of power.

The list includes Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt and Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, all of whom have abandoned most pretenses that they rule according to the people’s will. Authoritarianism is also reappearing in places like Hungary and Poland that barely a quarter-century ago shook loose the shackles of Soviet oppression.

There are many reasons for such moves by Mr. Xi and others — including protecting their power and perks in an age of unrest, terrorism and war amplified by new technologies — but a significant one is that few countries have the standing or authority, morally or otherwise, to speak out — least of all, critics say, the United States.

not really the West surely

true, but it draws parallels to corresponding trends elsewhere

The list includes Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt and Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, all of whom have abandoned most pretenses that they rule according to the people’s will.

an awful lot of "dictators" have claimed a mandate based on the will of the people, especially from the 19th century onwards

Rousseau doesn't advocate representative democracy iirc

i just think it's important to note that w/ some of these guys we're talking about widely popular cults of personality. sometimes from the vantage point of the west we forget that there is more than one path to legitimacy and just bc it's not democratic does not mean that it's in defiance of the popular will.

Not disagreeing per se, but is there some kind of objective measure for 'the people's will to rule' in undemocratic democracies?

xp

i agree, that's why i was saying there's a history behind this - a history that goes a very long way back if you think of the tensions in the ancient Roman polity and how people like Julius Caesar manipulated popular support without belonging to a democracy

I mean, propaganda is a helluva drug precisely because it instills the notion that it's in your best interest to conform, regardless of whether you buy into it or not.

xp

and the measures for "people's will" are frequently contested even within representative democracies. the UK's Brexit referendum being a current shining example, with pol's queueing up to claim that only their path represents the electorate's choice

saw this today: https://www.axios.com/china-leads-the-world-in-optimism-1513304665-e04fa0d2-8837-4604-957d-aeb6d779458d.html