The rise of the far right in Spain

Lisa Abend:

In November, a match between a Spanish team and an English one in Madrid's Bernabeu stadium provoked international outrage when some Spanish "ultra" fans yelled monkey sounds at the opposing team's black players.

As it has in the United States and Britain, the Internet has played a significant role in promulgating neo- nazism here. According to the Movement against Intolerance, there are nearly 100 neonazi websites based in Spain. One site, NuevOrden, states: "As White Men, we must defend the historic continuity of Our Race."

That kind of rhetoric appears to be having an effect. Although national police will not release statistics on hate crimes, the Movement against Intolerance asserts that neonazi and ultraright groups have killed at least 60 people in recent years. On April 7, the civil guard in Castellón arrested a disc jockey who was disseminating racist songs via the Internet.

Xavier Casals, a history professor at Barcelona's Ramon Llull University, who has published several books on the far right, sees these acts of violence as evidence that xenophobic ideas are spreading to new arenas. "The ideas of the extreme right," she says, "are penetrating a variety of environments," including working class neighborhoods, soccer stadiums, and among sectors of urban youth culture.

So far, that kind of xenophobia has not translated into a successful political party like Jean-Marie Le Pen's Front National in France. In the most recent Spanish elections, none of the far-right parties won a single seat in parliament.

But with immigration growing fast, some observers say that the threat of xenophobic politics is real. A new, National Front-like party probably won't take root in Spain, says Carmen González, who teaches politics at the National University for Education at a Distance. "What is more likely," she says, "is that the already established parties will adopt xenophobia. We are going to see a hardening of the general climate."

Of course, the best way to stop the spread of xenophobia would be to place stronger restrictions on immigration. Unfortunately, this is something that the Spanish government seems to be unwilling to contemplate.