Page 149 - Šolsko polje, XXIX, 2018, no. 5-6: Radicalization, Violent Extremism and Conflicting Diversity, eds. Mitja Sardoč and Tomaž Deželan
P. 149
b. vezjak ■ radical hate speech: the fascination with hitler and fascism ...
threaten to destroy the nation. Undeniably, the fires of the anti-refu-
gee political propaganda are in a large part stoked by politicians; Stanley
(2018: p. 92) makes a detailed report on Trump’s completely fabricated ac-
cusation of Mexican refugees being rapists. Casual epistemic fascism and
racism is indisputably the result of international migrations, creating an
increasingly nationally and ethnically heterogeneous society. Intolerance,
the creation of stereotypes, the division to “us” and “them”, discrimina-
tion and new racism, which is adopting the ideas of the Third Reich and
the fascination with Hitler are based on national, religious and ethnic
identities. Bučar Ručman (2014) finds that the ideological machinery of
a state is a key player in the (re)production and dissemination of (neo)rac-
ism, the discourse of Otherness, stereotypes and prejudice, operating be-
hind the curtain of such a discourse upon which discriminatory and ra-
sist social practices are founded. At the same time, the recourse to hatred
and the division between “us” and “them” follows from the feeling of be-
ing endangered, direct assault, rape, terrorist attack, the expected loss of
jobs and abuse of subsidies in the destination country.
Casual epistemic fascism as a form of hate speech is certainly based
on social stereotypes on refugees; the formation of a feeling of threat from
a Muslim invasion took place through the processes of attribution of char-
acteristics based on group membership and not individual traits. The par-
anoia, so typical of islamophobia, is propped up by the dichotomy be-
tween the external Other, perceived as an enemy, and an internal saviour.
The framework of such a dichotomous division is also the birthing plane
of a homogenous demand for a super “us” that would face off with the im-
agined enemy. The evocation of Hitler by means of a wide-spread political
and media propaganda is the logical, though radical, offspring of the psy-
chopolitics of hatred, permanently fostered by certain political parties in
Slovenia and their media.
Conclusion
On 27 January 1945, the Red Army liberated one of the worst Nazi con-
centration camps – Auschwitz in Poland. At least 1.6 million Jews, Roma,
Slavs and other “lesser” peoples died there. Auschwitz is also the final rest-
ing place of 1,351 Slovenians. At its session on 1 November 2005, the General
Assembly of the United Nations designated Auschwitz liberation day as
the Annual International Day of Commemoration to Honour Holocaust
Victims. The Slovenian government designated in 2008 27 January as the
National Holocaust Remembrance Day. Slovenians, too, remember the
holocaust as a terrible experience of the unhuman, the beastly, the experi-
ence of ethnic cleansing and a history of extermination. According to Alič
147
threaten to destroy the nation. Undeniably, the fires of the anti-refu-
gee political propaganda are in a large part stoked by politicians; Stanley
(2018: p. 92) makes a detailed report on Trump’s completely fabricated ac-
cusation of Mexican refugees being rapists. Casual epistemic fascism and
racism is indisputably the result of international migrations, creating an
increasingly nationally and ethnically heterogeneous society. Intolerance,
the creation of stereotypes, the division to “us” and “them”, discrimina-
tion and new racism, which is adopting the ideas of the Third Reich and
the fascination with Hitler are based on national, religious and ethnic
identities. Bučar Ručman (2014) finds that the ideological machinery of
a state is a key player in the (re)production and dissemination of (neo)rac-
ism, the discourse of Otherness, stereotypes and prejudice, operating be-
hind the curtain of such a discourse upon which discriminatory and ra-
sist social practices are founded. At the same time, the recourse to hatred
and the division between “us” and “them” follows from the feeling of be-
ing endangered, direct assault, rape, terrorist attack, the expected loss of
jobs and abuse of subsidies in the destination country.
Casual epistemic fascism as a form of hate speech is certainly based
on social stereotypes on refugees; the formation of a feeling of threat from
a Muslim invasion took place through the processes of attribution of char-
acteristics based on group membership and not individual traits. The par-
anoia, so typical of islamophobia, is propped up by the dichotomy be-
tween the external Other, perceived as an enemy, and an internal saviour.
The framework of such a dichotomous division is also the birthing plane
of a homogenous demand for a super “us” that would face off with the im-
agined enemy. The evocation of Hitler by means of a wide-spread political
and media propaganda is the logical, though radical, offspring of the psy-
chopolitics of hatred, permanently fostered by certain political parties in
Slovenia and their media.
Conclusion
On 27 January 1945, the Red Army liberated one of the worst Nazi con-
centration camps – Auschwitz in Poland. At least 1.6 million Jews, Roma,
Slavs and other “lesser” peoples died there. Auschwitz is also the final rest-
ing place of 1,351 Slovenians. At its session on 1 November 2005, the General
Assembly of the United Nations designated Auschwitz liberation day as
the Annual International Day of Commemoration to Honour Holocaust
Victims. The Slovenian government designated in 2008 27 January as the
National Holocaust Remembrance Day. Slovenians, too, remember the
holocaust as a terrible experience of the unhuman, the beastly, the experi-
ence of ethnic cleansing and a history of extermination. According to Alič
147
