SVP Federal Councilor Ueli Maurer and violent neo-Nazis are on the same topic: gender diversity. When he announced his resignation, Maurer said of his successor: “As long as it’s not it, it’s still okay.” Two weeks later, masked right-wing extremists stormed a children’s drag queen reading session at the Tanzhaus in Zurich. Her tagline: “Family instead of gender ideology.”
In recent weeks, the debates about sexual and gender freedoms have reached new heights. Or better: a low point. Right-wing circles took over the sovereignty of interpretation, discrimination against the LGBTQ community became socially acceptable.
In the far-right scene in Switzerland, the focus is currently shifting. While the main enemies have always been the same – Muslims, refugees, leftists – they have now been replaced by gays and transgenders. The scene has always rejected diversity, the environment with male ties sees the white core family as a threat. What is new, however, is that the fight against it is number one in agitation.
The SVP as a pioneer
It’s not a coincidence, it’s a strategy. The right-wing extremists pick up on current debates and respond to resentment that is anchored in mainstream society. When the SVP shoots at the «gendergaga of the left-green moralists», the neo-Nazis gratefully accept the provocation – the inhibition threshold drops.
The Junge Tat is the most successful in addressing this problem. At the beginning of the week, the new right-wing group promised to disrupt the Tanzhaus. In June she allegedly attacked a Pride service in Zurich – the public prosecutor is investigating.
With their hip appearance and professionally produced propaganda videos, Junge Tat knows how to make right-wing extremism attractive again. Through her anti-gender actions, she hopes to connect with the right-wing middle class and the Christian-conservative camp.
On Wednesday, the groups of the Zurich city council condemned the right-wing extremist attack on the drag queen lecture. Only the SVP could not bring himself to distance himself. On the contrary, your city councils took on the criticism of the neo-Nazis and demanded the immediate cancellation of the series of events. The country’s largest party as a deputy agent for neo-Nazi concerns. A leading member of Junge Tat cheered on Twitter: “We applaud this. Activism works!»
The rhetoric of LGBTQ-critical circles is similar, the slogans are similar. The same keywords are now used in the “NZZ” serial as in the telegram chats of the right-wing extremists: “gender mainstreaming”, “transhype”, “queer ideology”.
Free media advertising
The strategy works for the Junge Tat. Their march in front of the Tanzhaus alone earned the group two front pages in the country’s most widely read newspaper, “20 Minutes” last week. Also last week, the Mitte party marked a post from Junge Tat with “I like” on their Instagram account – allegedly by accident. “20 Minutes” let its readers vote online for the Like. 26 percent voted: “I’m fine with it. It’s a shame the center has now removed something like this.” Subsequently, the portal removed the vote.
Campaigns against sexual and gender freedoms are likely to intensify in the coming months and years. Only recently did the German Constitutional Protection Agency warn: “As the issues of diversity and equality increasingly become the focus of social perception, it is to be expected that right-wing extremists will try even harder to occupy these issues ideologically in the future.”
The attack on LGBTQ rights is an international phenomenon. With the fight against transgender issues, hostilities have again intensified. Neo-Nazi groups, Christian-conservative parties and authoritarian governments are increasingly trying to impose their moral understanding of society. In the western world, the US took on an inglorious pioneering role. For years there has been a moral panic in the United States – fueled and fueled by the alt-right and evangelicals. The Republican Party has long since jumped on the bandwagon, trying to curtail gay rights, especially transgender people, in the states it dominates.
Nazis get their inspiration from abroad
The far-right scene in Europe copied its antigen strategy from like-minded comrades in the US. Last June, dozens of Patriot Front militias planned to attack a Pride event in Idaho. The police were able to arrest and arrest them just in time.
The arrested men were masked in white tube scarves, just like the troublemakers of the Junge Tat in Zurich. Similar actions against Pride events have also taken place in Austria, Germany and France in recent months.
Two weeks ago it became clear in Slovakia that the militant rhetoric of the neo-Nazis can turn into violence. In Bratislava, a right-wing extremist shot and killed two gay men in front of an LGBTQ club. Strange terror. Shortly before the attack, the perpetrator posted a 60-page manifesto full of hate and homophobia on Twitter.
In Switzerland, verbal hostilities and acts of intimidation have largely remained so far. But the atmosphere has warmed up like never before. When non-binary Swiss author Kim de l’Horizon won the German Book Award, comment columns exploded on social media. De l’Horizon is a “monster”, a “pedophile”, a “psychopath”. His award-winning book “Idiot”, “Sickness Ideology”, “Devil’s Work”. Due to threats, the publisher hired a security service to protect the author.
Kim de l’Horizon then took the floor in an acclaimed essay in the “NZZ”. And wrote directly to Ueli Maurer, who had devalued people like de l’Horizon as “It”: “You send me fists, I kiss them. They deny my existence, I flourish.” And further: “For my part, I would like to understand you better. So I invite you to meet me for a beer.”
Maurer declined the offer.