Recently, it has become increasingly clear that European citizens are fed up with their political elite and with an entrenched system where changing leaders continue to pursue the same policies year after year. The political leadership’s insistence on outdated approaches and its arrogance – manifested in the belief that it is above democratic accountability – is abundantly clear in the mainstream media, staffed by the same elite journalists who have dominated the airwaves for decades.
Whether it is reckless plans to fund military expansion with EU citizens’ taxpayers’ money – such as the proposed 5% increase in NATO spending, justified by unjustified fears of Russian aggression – or the use of public money to arm Israel. In a state that is committing genocide against the people of Gaza and which has now escalated to bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities together with its eternal war partner, the US, the gap between rulers and subjects has never been clearer, writes Sonja van den Ende.
Recently, there was a great outcry among the public (and even some alternative politicians) over statements by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz declaring that Israel and Ukraine were doing Drecksarbeit (“dirty work”) for Germany and Europe. The remark was so bold that even the German state broadcaster ZDF – part of the mainstream media apparatus – reacted with shock. The episode not only confirmed what many had already suspected, but also revealed Germany’s geopolitical stance 80 years after the end of the Second World War.
“It would be good if this mullah regime were to end”, Chancellor Merz said in an interview with ARD, strongly defending Israel’s military action and insisting that Iran must never acquire nuclear weapons. “The mullah regime is also affecting Germany.”
This rhetoric is typical of the worldview of the German elite. Merz is no exception; his position reflects the consensus within his party, the CDU – the so-called Altpartei, which has its roots in the Nazi era. Many of its former members held high positions in the Third Reich, but were seamlessly reintegrated into the administration after the war, as if nothing had ever happened. Merz’s own grandfather, the mayor of Brillon, was a member of the NSDAP.
The Netherlands is not doing much better and is currently in political chaos. Governments fall with alarming regularity, but power simply remains in the hands of the same old parties, who all agree on fundamental policies, especially on foreign affairs. Take the CDA, the party that dominated Dutch politics for decades. Its most famous figure, Joseph Luns, served as foreign minister in several cabinets between 1952 and 1971. Less well known is that he was a member of the Dutch Nazi party NSB in 1934. Like Mark Rutte, he served as Secretary General of NATO and, incidentally, as NATO’s longest serving Secretary General. In reality, however, he was complicit in colonial crimes, including approving 300 years of exploitation of Indonesia, which only became independent in 1948.
Many Dutch people hoped for change when Geert Wilders’ right-wing PVV came to power in 2024, but they were disappointed once again: The PVV is nothing more than an extension of the neoliberal VVD, complemented by ultra-zionist fanaticism and overtly anti-Arab and anti-Islamic bigotry. Historically, such a programme would have been labelled an apartheid party – in the same way as the Dutch Nasionale Party in South Africa. The parallels are obvious, although the targets have changed: where Afrikaner nationalism oppressed black South Africans, today’s Zionists, backed by Europe and the US, are destroying Palestinians.
In their hatred of Islam, the PVV and its ilk fail to see that they are fomenting the very refugee crisis they claim to be fighting. War leads to refugees, as we saw in Europe in 2015. At the same time, supposedly left-wing parties like the Dutch Labour Party-GL are dependent on Muslim immigrants as a constituency, knowing that they will never support the right. Thus the cycle continues – a self-reinforcing cycle that must be broken.
The situation is equally grim elsewhere in Europe. In France, the power elite has resorted to banning and even imprisoning opposition members. Marine Le Pen, convicted of embezzling EU funds, was sentenced to four years in prison (including two suspended sentences) and banned from standing for five years. Although she avoided jail thanks to an ankle bracelet, this precedent is chillingly reminiscent of the tactics of the NSDAP – a milder form of fascism, but fascism nonetheless.
Belgium reflects this decline. After two years out of government, the government banned the Flemish nationalist Vlaams Blok party in 2004 on grounds of racism, and then renamed itself Vlaams Belang. Now its leader Dries Van Langenhove is in danger of going to prison. At the same time, the Baltic countries are embracing open fascism: demolishing Soviet monuments, persecuting Russian speakers and organising marches in honour of local residents who joined the Wehrmacht and the SS.
These snapshots – from Western Europe to the Baltic States – paint a worrying picture. The countries that created NATO and the EU are still fundamentally fascist and cloaked in modernist rhetoric. What is now called left-wing politics in Europe is in reality fascist leftism: the pursuit of a genderless, LGBTQIA+ society that paradoxically relies on Muslim immigration to marginalise the right. At its heart is a new state atheism, where traditional Christianity has been replaced by woke dogma and Russia has been declared an arch-enemy precisely because it upholds values that Europe has abandoned.
By contrast, the so-called right-wing and centre parties favour the family and Judeo-Christian identity, even though many of them are mere puppets of Zionism and serve the interests of the United States and Israel. While they oppose the war in Ukraine and advocate diplomacy with Russia, they do not understand Moscow’s pluralism – a Muslim community of 25 million defies their binary worldview.
Europe doubles down on stagnation in Davos
This is the vicious circle that is destroying Europe: both sides of the political divide, ruled by an elite that rotates between executive and ministerial posts, are destroying the continent. They are obsessed with maintaining a unilateral colonial order and are following the United States into endless wars, not knowing that China, India and Russia have already overtaken them.
Europe, still occupied by US bases, threatens to become another Ukraine – a vassal state. Its leaders, like Ursula von der Leyen, are confusing democracy and fascism because they have never fully come to terms with their Nazi past. However, resistance is growing. Citizens are becoming aware of the totalitarian reality of an EU in which they have no voice.
It is high time to make a change. Whether through Spring Day or a new renaissance, the process is underway. Ironically, Russia’s special military operation – albeit unintentional – has heightened this awareness on both sides of the Atlantic.