2017: ‘Trump’s effect’ & political earthquake in Europe

Geopolitica.ru presents the interview with the editor-in-chief of the Swedish newspaper ‘Nya Tider’ Vávra Suk.

Geopolitica.ru: At the beginning of the year 2017, many experts predicted a conservative turn in the political space of Europe, it was also called the“Trump effect”, did it happen in your opinion?

Vávra Suk: Trump was a disappointment in all levels. Instead of changing the US policy, he just went on to do more of the same. More troops to lost wars. More aggressive rhetoric. More provocative measures, as recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. However, there surely has been a Trump effect, no matter how Trump himself failed.

Trump’s election campaign activated many conservative activists, it united philosophers, bloggers and true news outlets. When he was elected, the true victors were the people, those thousands of idealists and activists, who made his victory possible. They achieved a great triumph, and now they know they can beat the system again.

This also emboldened the conservatives in Europe. I think everybody could feel they were on the winning side, that the tides have changed. I don’t think the conservative victory in Austria or Le Pen’s huge gains would have been possible without the Trump effect, not in the short term anyway.

It doesn’t matter anymore if Trump stays or goes. No one will really believe the system fake-media again. The perceived invincibility of the establishment has been shattered, we now know they can be beaten. In US, in Europe, anywhere. This has shaken the confidence of the ruling elite and exposed that they are not at all in control of everything, as they have tried to convince us along with some conspiracy theorists. ‘Trump effect’ is one of confidence and sense of victory, but Trump himself is just a bystander in all this. It was a victory of ideas, not of one person.

Geopolitica.ru: What major political events in the European space would you single out in 2017?

Vávra Suk: One might think that the political victories of Austrian conservative and national parties, together with the gains of AfD and Le Pen, are the most important. Social democrats eradicated in one country after the other. Or maybe the resistance of the Visegrád countries to the immigrant quotas and Brussels’ dictates generally.

I would however single out the immigration crisis as the main event. Yes, it started already in late 2015, but it has been ongoing, it has not stopped and has been the driving factor behind most of what’s been going on in Europe also through 2017. It united the eastern countries, it boosted Lega Nord, AfD and other anti-immigration and Eurosceptic movements and put the issue of immigration on the table. Previously, the establishment could just sweep the immigration problem under the carpet, but it is now in the open.

I can see it in Sweden too. People who would have never spoken out against the government immigration policy has now done so in public; police chiefs, cultural people, business men. Unfortunately, we still see that they tend to probe the limits and only say things within what they think will be tolerated by the ruling elite. They often just state the obvious, which is of course a step in the right direction, but the only thing we learn from them is how they themselves perceive the limits of the day. We get no new thoughts or possible solutions from them.

AfD is a mess of conflicting political ideas, Front National is afraid to take a firm political stand, Geert Wilders only criticises Islamization but not the influx ‘per se’. We need public voices that would point out that European nations have the moral right to demand laws that would safeguard our continuing existence, indeed not only a moral right but a moral responsibility to do so. For the sake of our forefathers and future generations.

Geopolitica.ru: Does the victory of Kurz (who adheres to anti-immigration positions and criticizes the EU policy) in the Austrian elections attests the processes of formation of a new Europe and shows the serious political changes in the structure of the EU?

Vávra Suk: I hope so, but we still don’t know in which direction Sebastian Kurz will take Austria and Europe. He is not a nationalist in the way Heinz-Christian Strache is, and his actions so far have been to integrate the immigrants who have come to Austria, not to send them home. The message seems to be that if the Muslim uses the version of the Koran that has been sanctioned by the state, then the Muslim has even the right to pastoral care in the military. For our cause, it would have been better to allow for example separate Muslim schools in order for them not to integrate. Repatriation will be more difficult if the immigrants are integrated.

On the other hand, all these integration measures have only a limited effect. A public survey in August 2017 showed that one out of three Turks in Austria thinks that Austrian laws should be adjusted to Muslim faith. Remember that Turks are the immigrant group with the longest history in Austria and is regarded as fairly well integrated. The survey also showed that 60 percent of all immigrants think that jokes about Islam should be punishable by law. It doesn’t matter how much you give them, they will always demand more.

One thing that the election results in Austria shows, as well as elections in many other countries, is that the electorate’s views have shifted. They demand an end to multiculture and restoration of safety and prosperity. Maybe not everyone realizes that a precondition for this is a reversed flow back to the Middle East and Africa, but it has become much easier to show this for those political parties and movements who advocate this solution.