Europe is caught in a Wheel of Xenophobia
The assimilation policy of integration, actively practiced across Europe, is one of the main prerequisites of Xenophobia.
The latest measurements in Europe show that after a sharp spike in xenophobia and radicalism in 2015 caused by the migration crisis, the situation has improved slightly, but in some respects it has become even worse. In 2017, for example, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia recorded the highest level of Roma-phobia in the last four years, and in Italy and France the same is true for anti-Semitism. A peak of anti-Islamic attitudes over the same period was recorded in Britain, Germany and France.
The situation surrounding hate crimes has further deteriorated. In 2017, an increase in violence was recorded in Britain, France, Greece, Italy, Poland and many other countries. The Netherlands, Germany and Russia are an exception, but this summer Germany experienced right-wing riots in Chemnitz, and in September there were inter-ethnic clashes in the Russian region of Kabardino-Balkaria, which indicates that the situation is still very far from stable.
The level of hatred is still extremely high, and the trends are not encouraging. There are reasons to doubt that this is exclusively the result of the activities of the parties and movements we call extremist or radical. These trends are part of a more complex system that reproduces xenophobia and radical attitudes on a large scale. A variety of political forces are involved in this system — not only extremist ones. In a certain sense, the state plays a significant role here.
