Aleksandar Spasov, Associate Professor in Legal Theory and Philosophy of Law, North Macedonia on the Panel “The Rise of Far-Right Nationalism” at the Conference |Defending Democracy and Human Rights”, December 12, 2024 Skopje.
I’ll address this issue with the problem with the rule of law in general and the justice in North Macedonia, but also in the region of the Western Balkans. But before that, since the general topic is the rise of far right nationalism, we usually speak about far right nationalism, and of course it’s all right to brand it as a far right nationalism.
But I would say it’s the rise of political extremism in general, whether it’s far right, far left. Of course, far left is not so present in Europe, because Europe has a tragic history of far right nationalism, but what we can see is that this is not a new phenomenon and I think that for the last decade, I have been on many conferences like this, we were constantly speaking that far right nationalism is a danger, proposes a danger for our societies, that we have to find a way how to face it, but the far right nationalism was constantly growing.
And I think that on many events, it was more important for some speakers to find the right words in order to speak properly or politically correctly and not to really speak openly about the problem of the far-right nationalism and why the far-right nationalism exists and why it’s on the rise.
So first, I think that we have to face a situation now where we have to admit that far right parties and far right political forces are among us and they are here to stay and we will have to accept that reality, learn how to live with that, and do not let them prevail and become governments, because if they prevail and become governments like in Russia or Belarus or in Hungary, then we have a real problem, because then we go into a position and we’ll have to fight them from a completely different position compared to the position when moderates, center right, center left governments are in power.
And why I said that, I mean, we are for too long time speaking about the problem of far-right nationalism and practically doing nothing to face it. I remember 11 years ago, 2013, I was in Heidelberg at the Max Planck Institute for International Law and Public Law when the elections in Germany took place and several months before that, the AfD party was established in Germany. And when the election results came in September, I remember the day after, I went to the institute with other researchers they are discussing. Among some of them, there was a jubilant atmosphere that AfD didn’t manage to pass the 5% precondition. It was 4.98% and they would say, oh good, I mean, the AfD is not in the parliament.
To be honest, I couldn’t understand that, because a party that was formed just several months before that almost managed to enter the Bundestag and I gave only one comment is that I’m now sure that on the very next elections, they would enter the parliament and they will become as they are now, the second political force in the country that is stronger even than the old German social democratic party, and I’m speaking very emotional about this because I’m myself social democrat, so it’s very hard for me to understand how many people, many clever people, didn’t realize and didn’t manage to develop some strategy of addressing the causes, not the party, the AfD party itself, but the causes for the right of the far-right nationalism.
And I think that one of the problems is that we, I mean, the moderate people, not just politicians, but also activists were avoiding admitting what is now inevitable to admit, and that is that the social contract established after the Second World War, as you said, is no longer enforced. There is decreasing trust of people in the institutions. People feel that the institutions are not working for them. People feel that they have no dialogue with the institutions and that the institutions are not delivering what they are supposed to do. Of course, most of these feelings are irrational and we can regret that they are irrational, but we have to face that that’s politics. It’s not only about making rational choices, although at university we are teaching students about making rational choices. It’s also about perceptions and irrational fears that were not addressed by the mainstream political parties, but that’s a problem, let’s say, for Europe.
Now I will go to our region and that is the problem of justice. We see in all of the countries of the Western Balkans and now in North Macedonia that anti-democratic forces, I would say, and political extremism is also on rise here and one of the reasons in the Western Balkans, it’s not only specifics for the Western Balkans, it’s specifics for most of the so-called democracies in transition or underdeveloped democracies, is the problem with the functioning of the rule of law. It’s the rampant corruption, especially the high corruption, the organized crime. Many promises were made to the people that this issue will be addressed, that justice would be delivered and then these promises were not fulfilled, and painful compromises were made, because of achieving some other important issues at the expense of the rule of law.
And now, for example, in North Macedonia, we see that the people are completely disillusioned with the justice system. We are one of the unique examples where people, less than 2% of the population believes the courts that they are able to deliver justice and this is not just a problem for the functioning of the system, of the judiciary. This is a problem for the stability of the society, of the entire society. Why? Because when people feel that they cannot receive the justice in front of courts, they are inclining towards more radical, more, let’s also say, revolutionary measures that are promising that instead of corrupted elites that are ruling the country, including the courts, they would bring the justice and this justice is not necessarily a justice in courts but it’s also justice that can happen on the streets.
One, I would say, fortunate element in this unfortunate situation is that the Balkans has a long history of nationalism. So, nationalism is part of the political mainstream for a very long time, so we have now also mainstream political parties that are still controlling the people, not to go too far right. So, we have parties on the right that are practically covering the bigger space from center right to almost far right but we now, at least in North Macedonia, see tendencies that although our right-wing parties, those parties who claim to be center right were right enough for many decades, now we see that even more right than the right-wing parties is emerging.
One party is practically trying to cover everything from far left to far right, except for the center, is becoming more and more populist. Their appearance in the public is very radical and when all decent, moderate people say, I mean, if we think rationally, such rethorics and such actions should lower their popularity.
But after every radical action, their popularity is increasing and I am confident that on the next elections in this country, either local elections next year or the next parliamentary and presidential elections, we will see how strong this far right and political extremism will be, and we shouldn’t be surprised because of the fight against organized crime and corruption and there are, of course, some actions that are perfectly okay, but whether this commitment will be really a sincere commitment, we will see when the fight against corruption will not be limited only to the formers, but will actually be expanded to those who are currently exercising political power – because it’s quite easy to combat corruption with the formers that are not anymore in power.
The problem comes when you have to combat corruption in your own ranks.
And to be honest, although the former government came on the vast popular support to confront the rampant corruption in the society, unfortunately, although there were some steps made in that direction, the former government didn’t manage to do that and I would admit that bears the responsibility for the rise of the far right or of the political extremism in our country.
So, to finish with this, I think that if we start speaking sincerely about the problems, the weaknesses of the mainstream, it is much better approach than just to speak about the problem of the far right and to explain to ourselves.
Because, I have a feeling that we are speaking with my like-minded people how far right is dangerous, we know that the far right is dangerous, now the question is how to oppose the far right and how to make the mainstream again attractive for normal people because of course we cannot expect to change the people. People are those who are, whether we like them or we don’t like them, with their rational and irrational nature, with their fears, with their problems, with their hatred, with their nationalism, with their cultures, identities, they are here, and we as mainstream will have to learn how to make ourselves attractive for them instead of putting the blame on political radicals.
D. Tahiri
Camera: Atanas Petrovski/ Igor Chadinovski
Editing: Arian Mehmeti
Photo: Robert Atanasovski
CONFERENCE, FULL VIDEO, Streamed live on December 12, 2024:
https://youtube.com/live/1f2Eo1ZXEQ0
PHOTO ARCHIVES: #DefendingDemocracy, Panel 1: Democracy under Siege
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#DefendingDemocracy, Panel 2: The Rise of Far-Right Nationalism
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#DefendingDemocrcy Panel 3: Countering Authoritarianism
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#DefendingDemocracy conference, Panel 4: Commitment to democracy
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#DefendingDemocracy Conference (overall)
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#DefendingDemocracy – workshop and meeting with the press
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