"No More Brother Wars!" The European and national past in the visual culture of Dutch extreme right movements

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“No more brother wars!”

The European and national past in the visual culture of Dutch

Extreme Right Movements

Juliëtte Dekker, MSc

Heritage and Memory Studies

Graduate School of Humanities

Master’s Thesis

April 2018

Supervisor: dr. C. Vos

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1. Introduction

In 2014 the east German city of Dresden was stage to the weekly demonstrations by a far right group known as Pegida. The demonstrations concerned the refugee policy of the Merkel administration, which the protesters perceived as furthering an undesirable Islamisation of Germany. This critique was part of a wider discontent with the political establishment and the media (Dostal 2015: 523). The demonstrations can be seen to mark the rise of a new voice in European political debate. After Pegida’s success in Dresden, several local offshoots appeared in other cities throughout Germany and Europe, attracting many supporters who were previously not members of extremist organizations. Today, extreme right movements (ERMs) are becoming more active in every European country. As many perceive these demonstrations and protest actions either as a threat to the democratic order at large, or as an expression of their own feelings of discontent, such ERMs are often given much media coverage. Most people living today, then, have at least some idea of the rising popularity of the ideas propagated by ERMs.

ERMs, by definition, operate outside the circumscribed domain of established political institutions: they represent standpoints at the extreme ends of the political spectrum and are therefore not representative of political sentiments of the majority. Yet it seems clear that the rise of ERMs cannot be seen separately from the rise of far-right political parties (FRPs) in European politics since the 1990s, parties that do participate in parliamentary politics. In several European countries, including Germany, the United Kingdom, Finland, Hungary, France and the Netherlands, FRPs are either already a part of the government or rapidly growing in electoral success.These political parties are often motivated by a dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs in European politics and a worry about external cultural influences within the European borders, frequently xenophobic and Islamophobic in nature (Mudde 2016; Kaya 2016: 3). This has had a dual consequence for the structure of the European political debate. On the one hand, the rise of FRPs has, in a sense, ‘normalized’ views previously held only by a relatively small, extremist part of the European population. They have brought ideas that were previously considered ‘extremist’ to mainstream political debate (Kaya 2017; Eatwell 2004; Mudde 2016). On the other hand, the establishment of democratic FRPs in European politics has created a space more friendly to extremist political standpoints; ERMs, as a consequence, seem to be more legitimated to voice their opinions in public forums.

This process of ‘normalization’ calls for a reflection of extreme right standpoints. When studying the extreme right, scholars have often focused on expressions of violence, racism, anti-Semitism and aggression by ERMs (Tierolf et al. 2017; Koopmans 1996; Lee 1997). While these expressions are important to understanding ERMs, the tendency to focus on the more ‘confrontational’ aspects of ERMs has led to an underappreciation of the ideals and values members

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4 of ERMs consider worthy or desirable. One way to investigate what these are, is to study how ERMs relate to the past, to study their construction of heritage and memory. By studying those parts of the past these groups consider as important, we gain a better picture of the collective identity of these groups.

Identity is inherently tied up with the past. Both on an individual and on a collective level, people always define themselves in relation to their history. This ‘present use of the past,’ as it is often described, is arguably the central theme of the field of heritage and memory studies (Harvey 2001: 320; Smith 2006). References to the past people can identify with—in the form of myths, traditions, monuments, legends or commemoration—are constitutive of group life. An example of this is the phenomenon of invented traditions which helps with nation building (Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983). Symbols, myths, legends and traditions help to establish a past narrative, biography or story of a group or a nation.

Both in academic research and in public media, the extreme right is often associated with patriotism and nationalism. Naturally, these ideas are reflected in their approach to the past. Yet alongside such nationalist expressions of identity there appear many references to transnational, pan-European ideals. Organizationally, many ERMs are rooted in networks of the pan-European extreme right. Examples of this are the local and national offshoots of the German Pegida movement and the national fractions of the European Generation Identity movement. The national ERMs have often close ties with their European counterparts and are exchanging many ideas and strategies. A sense of ‘Europeanness’ is reflected in the values that are expressed in the outward communication of ERMs. In the case of Pegida this becomes clear in the name, an abbreviation of Patriotische Europäer gegen

die Islamisierung des Abendlandes (Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the West).

Generation Identity defines itself as a ‘pan European Identitarian Movement sweeping Europe that originated in France’ (Generation Identity UK and Ireland 2018). Many patriotic ERMs, then, simultaneously value a collective ‘European’ identity and a distinctive national identity.

In the ideology of ERMs there seems to be a connection between the focus on nationalism on the one hand, and the emphasis on a shared European identity on the other. Research on ERMs has, as of yet, given little attention to the European values of ERMs. To fill this empirical gap, this study investigates the relation between European and national expressions of identity in ERMs in the Netherlands. In order to study this connection, the research attends to the articulation of a national and a European past in the visual culture of Dutch ERMs. What kind of myths, expressions, traditions and symbols are used in the visual discourse of these kind of movements? Is there some sort of extreme right understanding of a European heritage? What is the connection between notions of ‘nationalist’ and ‘European’ identification in the use of past narratives in the visual culture of ERMs? The research question of this study is: How is the past used to articulate a European and national identity in the

online visual communication material of Dutch extreme right movements over the last four years? To

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5 material published on the Facebook pages of the ERMs. This material is understood here as performative of a certain type of identity. By semiotically analyzing the principles underlying the varied references to European and national pasts in ERM visual culture, this research aims to work towards a more complete understanding of the extreme right ideology that is currently taking foothold throughout Europe, extending research focused on the purely confrontational, ethnic nationalist aspects of ERM ideology. For this purpose, the following section sets up a theoretical overview of conceptualizations of the relation between heritage and identity.

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2. Theoretical framework

The following section discusses various theoretical insights relating to the way in which ERMs use the past, starting with a question of definition: what is an ERM? Subsequently, several conceptualizations of the relation between heritage and identity will be discussed, both for the national and the European level.

2.1 Defining Dutch extreme right movements

This study investigates how the past is used to articulate a sense of European and national identity by Dutch ERMs. But what is an ERM? What is extreme? Though many news media use the word ‘extreme right movements’ to describe the collective action of groups of individuals, giving a precise definition of what an ERM is not easy thing to do. Indeed, what counts as extreme is by definition dependent on that which is considered normal or mainstream. Trying to give such a definition is not a purely theoretical matter: Dutch government agencies—like for instance the Nationaal Coördinator

Terrorisme Bestrijding en Veiligheid (NCTV) and the Dutch General Intelligence and Security

Service (AIVD)—have been giving increasing attention to the rise of the extreme-right in the Netherlands. In reports written by these agencies, finding distinguishing characteristics of ERMs becomes a practical necessity of their investigations.

In the investigation of ERMs in the Netherlands, the yearly report by the Verwey-Jonker Instituut on racism, anti-Semitism, extreme right-wing violence and discrimination in the Netherlands takes a prominent position. Commissioned by the Anne Frank Foundation (Tierolf et al. 2015), This report is also published on the website of the Dutch government and by the then minister of Social Affairs and Employment Asscher (2016) considers this research as leading in monitoring and the registration of violent incidents concerning right-wing extremism. In these reports, the institute makes use of the following definition proposed by Van Donselaar (Moors 2009) to demarcate their field of enquiry:

Extreme-right/right-radical political formations uphold a more or less articulated ideology characterized by (varieties of) orientation to ‘Sameness’,1

(varieties of) aversion to ‘Otherness’, of political opponents, and by authoritarian tendencies. Because extreme-right formations, as their public presence becomes more pronounced, arouse greater societal opposition potentially leading to conflict (and repressive counteraction), leaders

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Following the translation chosen by Anne Frank Foundation in several of their publications, I have translated the Dutch pronoun ‘het eigene’ with ‘Sameness’. The Dutch ‘het eigene’, however, has a somewhat different connotation from ‘Sameness’. Whereas the former conveys a sense of being one’s own, of propriety so to speak, the latter more strongly focuses on the connotation of identity. The word ‘Sameness,’ however, is conventionally used as an antonym to ‘the Other’—a word widely used in English spoken academic discourse. I have for this reason chosen to follow this translation throughout the rest of the thesis.

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7 of such formations tend to either conceal or omit parts of their ideology. Since a formation may ideologically speaking have unclear boundaries, social genealogy (descent from one or more extreme-right formations) and ‘magnet function’ (attraction exerted on radical right extremists) may function as indicators aside from ideology.2

This definition focuses on the ideology of a formation and emphasizes the relation between ‘sameness’ and ‘otherness’ embedded in the ideas of ERMs. ‘Sameness’ may refer to the idea of a homogenous ethnicity with a unified cultural identity and a set of shared interests. In contrast, ‘Otherness’ signifies the large domain outside of the ‘we’ or the ‘sameness’ of the homogenous group. In some cases the notion of ‘the Other’ is based on racial or biological grounds, such as the ‘blacks’ and the ‘Jews’, while in other cases it implies groups defined on the basis of their nationality, ethnicity or religion, such as the ‘refugees’, ‘Muslims’, ‘Syrians’ and ‘foreigners’ (Wagenaar 2017: 35). In this case, ‘the Other’ is defined in terms of the ones who are not accepted as part of the community, group or nation. Defining ‘Otherness’ is always a process of negation, depending on the leading principles of the group.

In the definition used in the report by Wagenaar a tension arising in much research on ERMs is reflected. The ideology propagated by ERMs is, owing to its extreme nature, often either controversial or prohibited. As a consequence, researchers of ERMs need to allow a degree of flexibility with regards to the definition they employ, as right-wing groups often shield off the more extreme elements in their ideology from the general public (Eatwell 2000: 4). The difficulty of defining ERMs is even more clearly exhibited when we take into account that Van Donselaar’s definition may well include other groups than ERMs, such as FRPs. The report of the Verwey-Jonker Instituut indeed regards political parties, such as the French Front National, the Austrian FPÖ, the Italian Lega Nord, the Flemish Bloc, and the Polish Congress of the New Right (KNP) as extreme right (Wagenaar 2015: 49). Yet, although ERMs and FRPs may show an overlap both in their potential member base and in parts of their ideology, they arguably differ in their degrees of public acceptance.

What an ERM is, what counts as being extreme, is dependent on the political norms at work in a society under investigation. It is necessary to attend to the sometimes subtle but vital distinction between the far and- extreme-right political groups. Whereas the former is widely accepted as a part

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My translation from: ‘Extreemrechtse/rechts-radicale formaties hebben een meer of minder uitgesproken ideologie die wordt gekenmerkt door (varianten van) oriëntatie op het ‘eigene’, (varianten van) afkeer van het ’vreemde’, van politieke tegenstanders, en door een hang naar het autoritaire. Doordat extreemrechtse formaties, naarmate zij meer in de openheid treden, maatschappelijke weerstanden oproepen die tot conflicten (en repressieve reacties) kunnen leiden, zijn de leiders van deze formaties geneigd delen van hun ideologie te verhullen dan wel achterwege te laten. Omdat een formatie in ideologisch opzicht vage contouren kan hebben, kunnen naast ideologie ook sociale genealogie (afstamming van één of meer eerdere extreemrechtse formaties) en de magneetfunctie (op radicale rechts-extremisten uitgeoefende aantrekkingskracht) als indicatoren dienen’ (Van Donselaar cited in Moors 2009).

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8 of the democratic political arena, the latter is definitely outside the domain of what counts as normal or mainstream politics. In a later publication, Wagenaar (2017: 36) indeed seems to be aware of the need to distinguish modern FRPs focused on themes such as the Islam and immigration and movements inspired on classical national socialists (or Nazi) ideas, which are anti-Semitic and racist in nature. Van Donselaar (Moors 2009) made as well a distinction between the ‘classical extreme right’ and ‘new radical-right’, to distinguish today’s widely accepted FRPs, such as the PVV and Forum voor Democratie (FVD), from groups with their foundation in Nazism or Italian Fascism.

Since the increase in popularity of FRPs in the Netherlands, more radical right-wing ideas are regarded as ‘acceptable’ and ‘mainstream’. ERMs and FRPs are constantly interacting: at times they move closer to each other, while at other times they dissociate from the other. What is sometimes described as the ‘swing to the right’ in European politics has created a climate in which ERMs have grown in popularity, with a larger group of people involved in extreme right demonstrations like those organized by Pegida. On the other hand, many topics belonging to ERMs, are currently used in, or some would say claimed by, the political discourse of FRPs. This may result in a smaller need of many people in society to support the marginal ERMs. For example, since 9/11 the public attitude towards Muslims changed markedly (Eatwell 2004: 2). Before 9/11 anti-Islam rhetoric was mainly reserved to marginal ERMs, while after it became topic of political discourse of relatively more mainstream FRPs. The position of ERMs in society is continuously reliant on its dynamic relation with the larger political environment in the Netherlands and Europe. It seems that many topics originally reserved to be the domain of the extreme right, are incorporated in the discourse of a larger group and, therefore, the thought of ERMs becomes more mainstream.

Coming back to the question of defining ERMs, this research follows the definition of Van Donselaar (Moors 2009) which is also used in the rapport by the Verwey-Jonker Instituut and the Anne Frank Foundation. ERMs are understood as political movements that operate outside of the political arena, thereby distinguishing them from FRPs, which are positioned inside the field of parliamentary politics. In order to understand how the identity of ERMs is constructed by using the past in the visual culture, we have to take a look at how heritage is related to identity, nationalism and Europeanism. The next sections discuss how authors in the field of heritage studies have conceptualized the relation between identity and heritage.

2.2 Heritage as identity

Among today’s heritage scholars there is no clear-cut definition of what heritage exactly is and what the scope of research is within the interdisciplinary field of heritage studies. Different definitions of heritage co-exist, but many heritage scholars agree on the ambiguity of the concept in both the its theoretical as its daily use (Harrison 2013; Lowenthal 1998). When you think about heritage, monumental buildings, churches and memorials quickly come to mind. Today forms of intangible

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9 heritage, such as traditions, local practices and religion could also be included in this list. Why are some past practices, objects or events considered as more important than others? What values are expressed in specific heritage practices and how do these practices shape the ways in which people think and act? These are the questions central to the field of heritage studies.

Despite disagreements about its definition, scholars concur on the fact that heritage is a kind of social activity. Walsh (1992), for instance, makes clear that heritage is a set of presently held attitudes towards the past. Harvey (2001: 320) indicates that “heritage has always been with us and has always been produced by people according to their contemporary concerns and experiences”. These authors stress the active, present-day construction of heritage. Unlike historians, heritage scholars are not primarily interested in describing historical occurrence practices, objects and events, but rather look at the social processes and social meaning of relating to the past instead. Tunbridge and Ashworth (1996: 6) also emphasize this approach and highlight that today’s users are deciding

selectively which things of the past should be preserved for the future and what should be forgotten.

In her book ‘Memorylands’ Macdonald has described today’s increasing attention to the preservation of the past as a collective memory complex (2013: 5). She adds that “it should be seen as shorthand for something like ‘the memory-heritage-identity complex’ for these are tightly interwoven” (Ibid.). The terms heritage and memory are often used interchangeably, since they both concern the present-day relation to the past. Traditionally, the connotation and framing of heritage was mostly concerned with material forms, where memory, in contrast was associated with individual psychological forms (Ibid.: 17). Today, with the discussion on intangible heritage, this distinction got further blurred. However, heritage often implies selectivity, as Macdonald puts it: “one of the most important accomplishments of heritage is to turn the past from something that is simply there, or has merely happened, into an arena from which selections can be made and values derived” (Ibid.: 18). For this particular reason, this study mainly uses the term ‘heritage’ when referring to the past, since many ERMs use the past in a selective and value-laden manner.

With the notion of a ‘memory-heritage-identity complex’ Macdonald means to make clear that identity is intimately tied to expressions of the past. This happens in two interrelated ways. The choices made in relating to the past both reflect our presently held values, while at the same time strengthening currently held conceptions of ourselves. With respect to identity, then, the selection of heritage is both an active and a passive process. In reflections on the notion of identity, it is often possible to distinguish two broad ways of understanding the term. The difference between these approaches can be expressed by saying that we either have or create identity. On the one hand, there is what we may call the social-constructivist stance, which sees identity as being performed, constructed or enforced; on the other hand there is the ‘primordialist’ stance, which focuses on stable aspects of identity: identity as a stable given that affects how one thinks, behaves and makes choices. Both views of identity articulate a different relation between identity and agency. Whereas the former views identity as the result of agency, behavior or whatever one chooses to call it, the latter

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10 understands identity as its source. These two categories are, naturally, ideal-typical. Most authors writing on identity will incorporate both static and dynamic understandings of identity.

Two prominent authors promoting a constructivist conception of identity are Brubaker and Cooper (2000). These authors urge us to speak of what they call ‘identification’, using the concept identity. This idea is articulated in their influential work ‘Beyond “identity”’ in which they criticize the overuse and devaluation of the concept ‘identity’, its use often being unclear and imprecise. It is more fruitful to use identification instead, because it specifies the “agents who do the identifying” (Ibid.: 14) as well as emphasizes the fact that identification always happens in relation to a certain object one identifies with. While speaking of the heritage of the members of ERMs, it is more productive to speak about a group that can identify with those particular elements of the past, rather than to consider something as their heritage.

While Brubaker’s and Cooper’s (2000) understanding may seem like a purely theoretical device, it has a definite advantage in empirically analyzing what ideas and values are expressed in ERM heritage. Socio-historical analyses of the extreme right have generally tended to focus on behaviors that violate dominant societal norms: acts of violence, racism, anti-Semitism, aggression and so forth (Tierolf et al. 2017; Koopmans 1996; Lee 1997). This has led researchers to focus on those expressions that confirm extant conceptions of the extreme right. Brubaker’s and Cooper’s focus on processes of identification, rather than expressions of static, entrenched identities is a way to more open, less normatively inspired understanding of the values held by members of ERMs. Taking a more constructivist stance towards the relation between heritage and identity, may allow for a complete understanding of extreme right ideology. .

The work ‘Modernity and Self-Identity’ (1991) by Giddens has been of great influence in debates on identity in the last two decades. In this book, Giddens argues how self-identity has become

reflexive in today’s highly developed global society, what he has called late modernity. In the

post-traditional order of late modernity, both the self and institutions are characterized by reflexivity. The individual constructs a set of revisable biographical narratives in order to create and maintain a self-identity (Ibid.: 54). Giddens calls this ongoing narration process the reflexive project of the self (Ibid.: 32). In contrast to traditional societies, late modernity gives individuals the a relatively greater freedom in choosing who to be and what to do (Ibid:. 70). Where in more traditional ways of living life choices and a person’s identity are more destined and fixed, late modernity allows people to construct, revise and maintain their own personal life story. Giddens shows how the anonymous organizations that characterize today’s late modern societies replace the protecting framework of traditions and fixed communities of traditional societies (Ibid.: 33). Late modernity is regarded by larger degrees of uncertainty and insecurity (Ibid.: 142). Members of Dutch ERMs are constructing a kind of life story of themselves which is related to the national and European past to deal with various insecurities in present-day society. By narrating a clear story of their past, the members of ERMs maintain a self-identity.

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11 In today’s late modern society a person’s future is something of constant renegotiation, while the past is not a given thing. Increasing opportunities to establish a personal life story enables individuals to shape the future and to remember specific parts of the past (Giddens 1991: 72). For instance, in present-day society there is discussion what can be regarded as the national canon, the selection of the most important elements of a nation’s culture, a process unthinkable in medieval societies. Part of the reflexive project is that people are capable to come up with their own life story, in which the past and the future are more fluid. Giddens shows in his work how the autobiography of an individual is “a corrective intervention into the past, not merely a chronicle of elapsed events” (Ibid.). In this way, the past is reconstructed in favor of a coherent life trajectory for a person’s future plans. One could say that the notion of heritage indeed reflects a peculiarly modern, reflective way of relating to the past. The past is not something given by historical facts, but it is a process that is actively constructed by actors. In the case of ERMs, members are actively using the past in a coherent narrative to give meaning to the present world and their future plans. Particular past narratives are selected which symbolize their present-day values and identity.

For different reasons, both Giddens and Brubaker and Cooper, then, point to the need to approach heritage for a largely constructivist understanding of identity. Whereas Brubaker and Cooper show that such an understanding may lead to a more complete understanding of identity, Giddens shows that a constructivist understanding of selfhood is more appropriate to the socio-economic conditions characteristic of contemporary societies. The visual culture of ERMs studies here must, then, be understood as an active process of identification, a process in which certain identities are created at the expense of others. Looking at the visual communication produced by ERMs we may see that the historical symbols that are chosen reflect certain principles of selection, certain values. In the next section a principle that underlies how people relate both to themselves and their past: the idea of nationalism.

2.3 Nationhood, nationalismand ethnicity

The previous section demonstrated that heritage is inherently tied up with identity. We have seen that all the discussed authors conceptualize heritage as an active process of relating to the past in the present. In this section we discuss a specific form of this process, one which has been historically dominant in Europe. From the 18th century onwards, people have gradually come to understand themselves by using symbols expressive of belonging to a nation state. National symbols and ideas, such as the flag and the national anthem made it possible for individuals to feel that they are part of a people. With the help of these symbols it has become possible for people to understand themselves as Dutch, French or German, rather than belonging to this or that village or region. Having a shared heritage is indispensably connected with the existence of nationalism.

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12 What is nationalism? Similar to other abstract concepts used to describe social structures and ideologies, such as liberalism, democracy and religion, it is not easy to give a simple and general definition of nationalism. An influential attempt to sketch a framework in which nationalism might be understood is found in the work of Anderson (2006). In his main work Imagined Communities: on the

origin and spread of nationalism Anderson suggests that the ability to ‘imagine’ oneself as part of a

certain community is central to all societies. A specific type of imagination, Anderson argues, has been central to the rise of the nation-state: the imagination of a nation-state as a community that is both limited and sovereign (2006: 7). Nationalism is, in other words, a specific way of understanding yourself as part of a larger community. The central characteristics of this nationalist imagination are the idea that the nation has an unquestioned right to exist and is distinct from certain other nations.

Naturally, heritage plays an important role in articulating and disseminating such an imagined community. Through symbolism that expresses the existence and distinction of a sovereign nation in relation to other nations, people learn what the specific characteristics of their community are and what nations count as ‘the Other’. Examples of this are the national flag and the national anthem who demarcate the borders of a national imagined community, from another national community. Another example is the imagined community of Nazi Germany, in which the ideology was defined primarily in relation to ‘Otherness’, the ones who were not accepted in society, such as the Jews, Roma’s, homosexuals, Slavs and communists (Evans 1996: 33). It is in and through such ‘Othering’ that the norms and ideals associated with a certain nation come to be articulated.

Hobsbawm and Ranger have similarly stressed the fact that traditions that appear to be deeply embedded in national identity are often the product of ‘invention’. In a collection of essays under the title ‘The invention of tradition’, Hobsbawm and Ranger (1983) explain how national symbols and traditions are constructed. They show that with the development of the modern nation state, many traditions are invented to guarantee a continuity with the past. Many traditions seem to be old, though they are often ‘newer’ than they appear to be. Modern nation states propagate an appropriate past with traditions that fits into their norms and values, which leads to the socialization of large communities (Ibid.: 1-2). An example of an invented tradition is the distinctive Highland culture of Scotland with its clothing custom with the kilt and musical tradition containing the Scottish bagpipe (Trevor-Roper 1983: 15). The musical tradition with the bagpipe is actually not as old as it appears to be, but it is actually based on a new myth: an invented tradition. According to Trevor-Roper the distinctive Scottish culture is based on the idea to distinguish themselves from the dominant English culture. In this way, the Scottish people get the feeling of collectiveness that is different from the English. With this idea, Hobsbawm and Ranger (1983) implicate that the national identity, with its traditions, heritage and symbols, is actually an invention constructed over time. The invention of tradition thesis proved that people indeed use the past for their present purposes. Some might say that the references to past traditions, myths and stories by ERMs are manufactured or invented, while others would argue that all traditions are made up at some point in time. The use of particular symbols

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13 and myths in the national narrative is a politicized process, with no real dichotomy between real and

invented traditions. Imagining the national identity is an unstable process, constantly subject to

change.

Anderson’s (2006) thought on nationalism is criticized from different angles. A critique which is related to the topic discussed in this thesis, is formulated recently by Greenfeld (1999), an author who has written extensively on nationalism. Greenfeld criticizes Anderson’s notion of nationalism on two related grounds (Ibid.: 47-48). On the one hand, Anderson’s notion of nationalism is too broad: it is also applicable to other groups, such as the church or a city. On the other hand, Anderson’s concept is limited in describing the content of nationalist thought. Greenfeld shows that Anderson is mainly concerned with the act and conditions of imagining of a community, rather than describing what it is in itself. In addition to the earlier mentioned conditions that an imagined community should be limited and sovereign, Anderson focuses on the rise of printing as a form of mass communication in the capitalist production system. The Marxist focus on the economic conditions of cultural phenomena disrupt the attention of the characteristics of the content of specific nationalist ideas of a community (Ibid.: 47-48). Though, to summarize, Anderson’s framework correctly indicates the constitutive role imagination in the emergence of communities, such as ERMs, Greenfeld rightly points out that Anderson’s work leaves us wondering what specifically characterizes nationalism as a species of such imagination.

What characterizes the content of nationalist ideas? When writing about nationalism a general distinction is often made between two poles of nationalism: civic vs. ethnic. On the one hand, civic nationalism is grounded on the idea that a person is part of a collective on the basis of a kind of rational decision. This ideal type is based on the idea of a common citizenship of the people in a nation, regardless of a person’s race, gender or language (Habermas 1994; Gellner 1983). We can trace this notion of nationalism back to the French Revolution and the Enlightenment, where the idea of autonomously ‘choosing’ to be part of a collective has been expressed through the notion of a social contract (Habermas 1994: 23). An example of this is the unification of the English, the Scots, the Welsh and the Irish on civic grounds in the United Kingdom in the late 18th century. Values, such as liberty, equality and democracy are celebrated, rather than the ethnic sense of belonging. Civic nationalist heritage often emphasizes those ideals that give expression to this choice, such as the attachment to the constitution, the town hall and civic institutions. This type of nationalism is inclusive, universalist and liberal in nature, because the members of a nation are united on civic principles. An example of this is the opportunity of immigrants to become a full member of the nation when sharing the principle values and norms of society. ‘Others’ are those entities that fail to live up to these values and norms of rational civility. Because of this, civic nationalism is fundamentally open, as membership of the collective is not dependent on historically contingent characteristics like race or religion (Gellner 1983: 141).

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14 On the other hand, ethnic nationalism defines the nation in terms of a common ethnicity. A person is part of the collective on the basis of a common ancestry, shared heritage, common memory and collective religion (Smith 1986; 1992: 60). This type of nationalism has its roots in primordialism and German Romanticism highlighting the common roots, kinship, fraternity and inheritance as foundation for the nation (Jenkins and Sofos 1996: 15). Nationalities exists due to the existence of primordial entities, such as the biological and territorial basis for a people (Gryosby 1994: 168). An extreme example of this type of nationalism can be found in the Blut und Boden (blood and soil) ideology of Nazi Germany indicating the racial idealization of the unification of the national body with its natural settlement area. The ethnic identity of a person is understood as permanent and fixed. Such notions of nationality can also be found in present-day immigration procedures of many states, as part of the repatriation laws which give automatic citizenship to the Diaspora living abroad. Ethnic nationalism emphasizes pre-existing ethnic characteristics of the nation highlighting for instance, the founding myths and symbols of a nation (Smith 1986: 2). Therefore, it is impossible for a migrant to become a full member of the nation, because the migrant does not share the same ancestry, history and identity. The identity of a nation is continually reshaped and passed onto the next generation through history textbooks, folklore, customs, rituals, ceremonies, political myths and symbols (Smith 1992: 62). Ethnic nationalism is opposed to civic nationalism, because it is characterized as exclusive, particularist, illiberal and ascriptive. A form of ethnic nationalism is present in the various independence movements in Europe, such as the Catalans or the Basques who belief to have distinctively other ethnicity than the Spaniards (Smith 1986: 94).

Thus, the ideology of a nation is often based on something that binds the collective identity together, varying from mental representations of communities to shared traditions, civic principles of liberty or a common ancestry, kinship and heritage. In empirically analysing national movements or nation states it is often impossible to distinguish between the ideal types of civic and ethnic nationalism. Processes of ethnic and civic nationalist identification often coincide or overlap to some extent, as Brubaker has recently argued (Brubaker 1999: 69). The shared elements of a group are often defined in opposition to another group, community or nation (Jenkins and Sofos 1996: 11; Nagel 1991: 85). A nation is frequently defined in terms of who is in and who is out and the definition of ‘the Other’ might function as a yardstick of self-definition (Evans 1996: 33-34). This process of negation demarcates the symbolic boundaries of belonging and ‘Otherness’, defining who is an insider and who is an outsider (Yuval-Davis et al. 2005: 528). Many symbols, traditions and myths are grounded on ideas of ethnicity, nationhood and Europeanness by Dutch ERMs. The next section investigates how notions of a European identity can be performed through the past.

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2.4 European heritage

In the previous section we have seen that the basis of a nation can be defined on different grounds that can be divided into ethnic or civil, which overlap to a large extent in practice. The extreme right mostly defines the nation in terms of ethnicity. Apart from the national identity, many members of Dutch ERMs identify with Europe to some extent. For this thesis, it is important to question how conceptions of national identity may exist next to conceptions of the European identity. Where does the identification with the national stop and with the European starts? For instance, the perception of European heritage by members of ERMs varies to a large extent from the dominant political discourse of the European Union (EU). Different notions of what Europe is may exist side by side.

A dominant way to define Europe is part of an Enlightenment narrative, portraying Europe as rational, secular, modern and civilized opposed to non-European parts of the world that are considered as irrational, tribal, traditional and barbaric. In this Enlightened vision, Europe is considered as a civil partnership between sovereign states (Pocock 2002: 70). In this narrative, the dominant vision of what European heritage is about is mainly centered around classical antiquity, Christianity and the Enlightenment (De Cesari 2012: 158; Sierp 2014: 105). The founding myths of Europe, such as the stories from the Greek mythology and the Enlightened idea of a European rational order, emphasize a break with the past to construct a new European order (Ibid.: 104). To legitimate Europe’s existence, definitions often focus on its ‘uniqueness’ (Macdonald 2013: 19). When defining what Europe is and what its borders are, it is always opposed to something what Europe is not (Smith 1992: 75). This ‘Othering’ of the non-European is a process which has taken place in the course of recent history.

The integration of sovereign states into the EU raises many questions over the meaning of the European cultural identity and if it is more than just the sum total of the national identities. Smith rightly points out that there are several domains where specific European characteristics can be found, varying from linguistics, cultural geography and territorial symbolism, religious cleavages, a sense of the ‘outsider’, shared history, a political and legal tradition and shared heritages and symbols (1992: 68-70). Yet it is difficult to find a single shared characteristic between all national cultures. Some historical events and traditions have some European peoples more than others, while at other specific fields other communities were affected. There is, for instance, much linguistic overlap due to the shared Indo-European origin of most languages that are spoken in Europe today, but the language of the Fins and Hungarians are excluded from this family; Christianity plays a major role in the unification of Europe, but there is much disagreement between Catholics, Protestants, Eastern Orthodoxy, Jewry and the legacy of Arab Islam. Smith shows that there is no single European tradition shared by all European peoples, but that all of them have contributed to some of these areas. For this reason, Smith introduces the concept of a ‘family of cultures’ which contains the idea of partial shared traditions, histories and heritages between the European peoples (Ibid.: 70). Smith stresses that shared traditions, symbols and myths are vital for the concept of the European identity, rather than defining Europe in rationalist terms of a shared scientific culture or a shared set of

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16 economic interests. Yet, as he notes, the ultimate lack of cultural unity between the European ‘family of cultures’ presents “the New Europe’s true dilemma: a choice between unacceptable historical myths and memories on the one hand, and on the other a patchwork of memoryless scientific culture held together solely by political will and economic interest that are so often subject to change.” (Smith 1992: 74).

The rapprochement of the EU member states in the 1990s meant a new chapter in the way people perceive Europe in relation to their national identity. How can a European identity exist next to the national identity? To capture both national identity as well as European identity, the EU promotes the motto of ‘United in Diversity’ since 2000 (EU 2000). This motto accentuates the distinctiveness of every nation, while simultaneously emphasizing the overarching themes binding the European nations together. With such a narrative the EU recognizes the value of every nation, celebrating the national culture, history and traditions. On the other hand, this narrative highlights the somewhat universal values of Europe, such as peace and prosperity, which are not bounded to national borders and to which the national identity could conform to. This makes it possible for nationalist identities to coincide with European unification without posing a threat to the sovereignty constitutive of nationalist imaginations (Chebel d’Appollonia 2002: 172).

With the construction of the EU, many symbols have come into being, in a process similar to the construction of a nation state (Pagden 2002: 33). Examples of such symbols are the introduction of the European flag, a European anthem, a European passport, festive ‘European weeks’, the nomination of a European capital of culture and so on (Macdonald 2013: 35). An illustration of how European identity is actively constructed by the EU is the Museum of Europe project, which is called the House of European History. The creation of the museum is inspired on Nora’s (1989) influential idea of lieux de mémoire. Here, Nora argues that every memory needs a material place. In 2007, the first exhibition was entitled ‘It’s our history!’ which explores European History starting at the end of WWII by showing various overarching historical narratives binding Europe together. This exhibition is an example of an attempt to create a common European heritage (Macdonald 2013: 37). The content of the exhibition space is criticized by many. Aleida Assmann (2014: 550) states that the museum proved that it is difficult to construct a common European past that includes a supra-national identity shared by all member states. Instead of being a site of European history, the museum becomes a space in which “memory is still in the making” (Ibid.).

The exhibition in the House of European History takes WWII as starting point of the collective history of Europe. This is exemplary for the way how WWII and the Holocaust are perceived as the founding myth of Europe. According to the dominant memory work of the EU, the war should be commemorated as a pan-European massacre which concerns all Europeans as victims equally (De Jong 2011: 378). The primary goal of European collaboration, in this context, is to maintain peace. In the first decades after the war, most memory work concerning WWII was focused on national trauma and bravery (Mälksoo 2009: 663). In the case of the Netherlands, the memory

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17 culture focused on the national suffering the Nazi’s occupation causes, emphasizing narratives of brave resistance fighters. Certain themes were prominent in the patriotic national story with the purpose of creating a positive self-image of the country (Sierp 2014: 107-108). Continuous efforts have been made to create from the fragmented memories of Nazi aggression and occupation of the individual nations, one common European memory of WWII. Since the 50th anniversary of the end of WWII in 1995, the collective memory focused on the Holocaust as the crime against humanity. This shared memory of human-rights abuse legitimate the status of the EU as an apparatus to maintain peace in the European continent (Mälksoo 2009: 663). An example of this effort to legitimate the existence of the EU is the phrase “Never Again”. The common European memory of the Holocaust unites perpetrators, victims and bystanders into one narrative. Currently, the heritage of WWII and the Holocaust is institutionalized and functions as a yardstick to measure and evaluate other political conflicts (Sierp 2014: 111).

The introduction of Europe Day and Holocaust Memorial Day as official commemoration days in Europe shows the instrumentalization of the Holocaust as a European collective memory. In 2000, the Stockholm Declaration declared that the Holocaust should become a common memory of humanity that should encompass the universal values of European civil society and human rights (Assmann 2014: 548). Assmann argues that with this declaration, the collective European memory of the Holocaust was carried beyond Europe’s borders and a transnational memory for all United Nations member states was born (Ibid.: 549). The influential work of Levy and Sznaider (2002: 88) also observes that the Holocaust memory is ‘deterritorialised’ and can be considered as a cosmopolitan memory, instead of a national or European. The collective memory focuses on the “moral story of good against evil” (Ibid.: 98) and is, thus, separated from its historical time and space. The Holocaust functions as some sort of common and universal memory of Europe.

Characterizations of heritage and identity, such as symbols and language, might differ between groups and competitive heritages exist side to side. An example of a counter narrative to the European imagined community is the notion of Europe by neo-Nazis and veterans. The SS-veterans position themselves as ‘European’ in the existing tradition of the EU (Hurd and Werther 2016: 429). The SS-veterans uphold the narrative that they believed in the idea of the voluntary integration of semi-autonomous nations into the ‘Greater Germanic Reich’ during WWII. The conception of Europe by the Waffen-SS differs from the notion of Hitler and many of his party members, whose expansionist ideology was based on nationalist grounds (Ibid.). In this way, the SS-leaders distinguished their ideology from the other Nazis, considering themselves the vanguards of the European unification of the Germanic countries. This gives the SS-veterans the potential to create a heroic counter-narrative and to reposition themselves as the voluntary protectors of the pan-European ideal against the threat of communism. In this narrative the collapse of the Soviet Union confirms that the battle of the Waffen-SS ‘for a Europe of fatherlands’ was successful in the end. The idea of a united European Community including the East European states had become reality. The SS-veterans

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18 claim they fought for this pan-European ideal (Ibid.: 433). The approach to the past by the SS-veterans provides a counter narrative of WWII in European history. The SS-SS-veterans organized commemoration practices, such as they erected memorials and held public marches (Hurd and Werther 2016: 443). Many neo-Nazis sympathize with the ideas of the SS-veterans and join their commemoration practices. Both the SS-veterans and the neo-Nazis consider themselves nationalists and emphasize the European foundation of their identity. According to Hurd and Werther, the memory work of the SS-veterans function as an inspiration for the transnational network of European neo-Nazis and they are keen on to continue the battle of the Waffen-SS for a ‘European’ racial elite (2016: 443-444).

The memory work of SS-veterans and neo-Nazis give many Europeans with a different perspective on Europe a somewhat uncomfortable feeling. A great part of the collective European heritage has to deal with what Macdonald has called ‘undesirable heritage’ (2006: 9). The legacy of Nazi Germany is part of history that the majority of the Europeans prefer not to have. Many post-war dilemmas show the need to create a form of historical consciousness (Ibid.). There are different stories, interpretations and memories of the events during WWII and the Holocaust. Tunbridge and Ashworth (1996) have called this kind of uncomfortable heritage ‘dissonant heritage’. “Dissonance in heritage involves a discordance or a lack of agreement and consistency” (Ibid.: 21). When something is someone’s heritage, it is automatically not the heritage of someone’s else. This encompasses the heritage which is contested between groups. Different individuals and groups might give different meanings to a form of heritage. ERMs give a different meaning to the heritage of WWII than what the authoritative Holocaust discourse proposes. Dissonance in heritage is always related to the question ‘whose heritage?’ The process of contestation is a theme which is inherently related to the heritage and memory of the extreme right, because their ideas are opposed to the dominant voice of the Authorized Heritage Discourse (AHD). This influential idea is proposed by Laurajane Smith (2006) who observes that the uses of heritage are always grounded in the power to legitimate or delegitimize one’s heritage. Where institutions such as the EU and UNESCO have the power, authority and resources to legitimate uses of the past as heritage, ERMs in contrast, find more difficulties in legitimating something as heritage. The way that EU perceives the legacy of the war is considered as an authority, while the memory work of the extreme right is perceived as less influential.

Overall, the authoritative memory culture of the EU substitutes the national memory of WWII. The European project, embodied in the House of European History, offers new frameworks to commemorate national trauma’s against the yardstick of common Holocaust memory.

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3. Methodology: heritage as a discursive practice

Much work on heritage is focused on practical preservation and conservation. However, as we have seen earlier, heritage is deeply involved in all dimensions of social life, such as identity, nationalism and politics. To study those aspects of heritage it is important to take heritage into critical consideration, to ask questions about value and the selectiveness of heritage. Why are some past events memorialized and others forgotten? What values are expressed in practices of heritage and memory? How do these practices encourage certain patterns of thought and behaviour? One dominant approach to questioning the position of heritage within different historical, political and social settings, is to consider heritage as a discursive practice. By semiotically addressing heritage as a ‘text’ one could gain a better understanding of the function of heritage within society and how it relates to power.

In today’s academic world, discourse is a widely used term and approach in many disciplines, varying from anthropology, gender studies, sociology, cultural studies and so on. The work of Foucault (1974) has greatly influenced the notion of discourse as it is currently employed in many academic fields. Foucault investigates how language, practices and objects in society are expressive of power relations. Through what he calls his ‘genealogical’ method, Foucault aims to trace the origin of contemporary forms of thought and behaviour through a detailed analysis of how historically situated practices, texts and objects express certain power relations. Foucault (1974) calls this the ‘history of the present’, an analysis of how notions of subjectivity and selfhood have been historically shaped (Ibid.: 121). This history, for Foucault, can be written by attending to the practices in which individual minds and bodies are categorized, divided, identified and named according to a given normative principle. Foucault calls the constellation of these individualizing practices ‘discursive formations’ (Ibid.: 31). Foucault analyses how certain discursive formations composed of language, practices and objects—psychological institutions, the prison system, science— have produced certain kinds of individuals (Ibid.: 44).

Foucault’s work (1974) provides a powerful means to study the structures of contemporary social life. Heritage, then, may be considered as a peculiar kind of discursive practice productive of power. Many heritage scholars have argued that discourse is central in the formation of identity. Thus, Hall emphasises the discursiveness of heritage and explains it as “one of the ways in which the nation slowly constructs for itself a sort of collective social memory (2005: 5). Hall compares the story of the nation to the narrative of the individual and the family, in the way that individuals are gluing random incidents and outstanding events of one’s life to a single and coherent story. Nations use the same strategy in constructing a national narrative: memorable events and outstanding accomplishments are selected and canonized into a coherent national story. This process of ‘storying’ is what Hall calls tradition (Ibid). In his analysis of heritage practices, Hall criticizes the dominant narrative that

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20 represents traditions, because it is only a part of the national story instead of the collective heritage and memory of the whole nation’s. He points to the power and dominance of the colonizer in the selection process of the nation’s heritage and tradition, since “it is always inflected by the power and authority of those who have colonized the past, whose versions of history matters” (Ibid: 6). He advocates for a revision and re-negotiation of the national story in order to deconstruct the existing power relations in social life.

Following Foucault’s (1974) thought on discourse, many studies focus on unrevealing power relations which are set in language between the authority of the dominator and the obedience of the subordinator. A prominent approach in the study of language in social cultural contexts is Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) which is grounded in Foucault’s understanding of discourse. According to Fairclough (2010) CDA is form of analysis that unravels how discursive practices, language and texts influence organizing structures in society. Discourse here refers to the way how people and institutions understand structures of the outside world (Wu and Hou 2015: 39). At the same time, discursive practices have effect on the production of knowledge, ideology and identity of people. In other words, discourse influences the way people act, feel, value, belief and interact (Gee 2005: 7). In this type of analysis, the main focus is on power relations in society and how power is articulated in language and practices. According to Fairclough, CDA “is not analysis of discourse ‘in itself’ as one might take it to be, but analysis of dialectical relations between discourse and other objects, elements or moments, as well as analysis of the “internal relations’ of discourse” (2010: 4, original italics). In this manner, CDA is not solely a textual analysis but it aims to discover how people organise social life and how these power structures are produced, maintained and reproduced over time.

In heritage studies, among many other disciplines, CDA is a widely used approach because of the political and social nature of the field and the relevance of heritage as initiator of social change (Harrison 2010: 77). Wu and Hou (2015: 37) distinguish the notion of discourse in heritage studies on three levels: firstly, in the theoretical field, subsequently, as a method or methodology in heritage research and, lastly as cultural discourses of ‘heritage’ which might be considered as alternative explanations of heritage practices. A prominent voice in shaping discourse analysis in heritage studies is Smith (2006). She proposes to see heritage not as a concept for characterizing certain objects, traditions or sites, but rather as the process “that engages with acts of remembering that work to create ways to understand and engage with the present, and the sites themselves are cultural tools that can facilitate, but are not necessarily vital for, this process” (Ibid: 44). In other words, heritage is a discursive construction of the language that is used by us. In addition, Harvey (2001: 372) stresses the human action and agency that is present in heritage practices. For this particular reason, Harvey considers heritage as a verb that is concerned with the process of the legitimization of power of all different kinds of identities, such as the individual, the national, and the cultural. The AHD is dominant in legitimating what can be considered as heritage and what not (Smith 2006). AHD encourages a consensus approach to the past, without much space for diversity. Waterton, Smith and

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21 Campbell (2006) demonstrate how CDA is a useful method to study heritage semiotically and to develop an inclusive understanding of heritage practices which are not regarded as heritage according to the AHD. Both, Harvey (2001) and Smith (2006) emphasize the agency and the action of heritage practices. Heritage is not a static entity but is constructed every day again through discourse. As such, the analysis of language used to describe past events provides insight in how heritage, as well as social life in general, are constructed in a discursive manner.

This study considers how people living in the present relate to the past. How is the past used to shape the present? More specifically, the research focuses on the meaning of the political discourse of ERMs in the Netherlands and how their visual language is related to notions of a national and European identity. Here, language is understood in the broad sense: as forms of expression that convey a particular meaning. ERMs use all kinds of visual images to construct and communicate their perception of the past in order to shape their present identity. When studying visual culture multiple layers of meaning of the identity of a group or a person can be identified (Schreiber 2017: 47). Using the method of CDA, this study analyzes semiotically the visual language used by ERMs on social media. Waterton et al. (2006: 342) demonstrate that the way how people talk, create and visualize the past matters for the meaning of heritage. Semiotic analysis focus on how signs and texts in the broad sense produce meaning and, thus, cultural identity. According to Fairclough (2010: 212) semiotic analysis is concerned with the way that texts, like visual language, relate to, produced by and interpreted by people. Fiske (1982: 43) distinguishes three fields of study in semiotic analysis, varying from the study of the sign in itself, the organization of signs into a code or system and the users of the sign. This study focus particularly on the analysis of the sign in itself, but takes the other two fields into consideration. In this study the visual language that is used in the online communication material of ERMs is considered as text from which meaning is produced.

Poynter (2010: 108) indicates that in the case of semiotic research on the meaning of symbols and signs, it does not matter much if the research is conducted with online or offline material. Social media function frequently as platform for politically oriented communication (Mayr and Weller 2017: 5) and is, therefore, a fruitful platform to gather visual data of ERMs. Three ERMs are examined on the visual language that they use in their communication material. What is said is visible in the visual language of an image (Schreiber 2017: 41). What are the values expressed in the visual texts? Why are certain symbols, myths or historical events considered more important than others?

The investigation aims to get more insight in the discourse of Dutch ERMs by analyzing the meaning that emerges from their visual language. The leading reports of the AIVD, the Verwey-Jonker Institute and the Anne Frank Foundation distinguish six ERMs in the Netherlands in 2017 (Tierolf et al. 2017: 37-41). These six movements are taken as starting point, from which three movements were chosen for the analysis undertaken in this study.3 The online visual communication

3

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22 material published on Facebook by Voorpost (Outpost), Identitair Verzet (Identitarian Resistance) and the Nederlandse Volks-Unie (Dutch People’s Union) are analyzed.

The social media analysis focuses specifically on the images that were published on Facebook by the official account of the ERM over the last four years. Other types of social media, such as Twitter or Instagram are not taken into account, since the content posted on the different platforms is often almost entirely the same. Mayr and Weller (2017: 8) emphasize the importance to demarcate the most relevant platforms on social media, because of the endless opportunities. This specific medium is chosen, because the content on Facebook has a visual focus and fits to the means of this study. A social media website like Twitter, in contrast, has more a textual focus. Facebook is also the most used social media website in the Netherlands and is widely used among the members of Dutch ERMs. The analysis takes all the published images on Facebook by the ERMs into account. An image is included into the analysis when it has a reference to the past. The analysis starts with the first image published on Facebook, which was in 2014. There is no online data with a reference to the past publicly available from the period before 2014. Due to this practical constraint the analysis starts in 2014. The timeframe of the studied material consists all the images between 2014 and the end of January 2018. By conducting a discourse analysis of all the visual communication that these movements have produced online on Facebook, this research gets a comprehensive insight in the way ERMs are visually performing identity by using the past.

The data collection focuses only on the visual material that is published by the official account of the ERM and which is accessible for everyone. Responses on these official Facebook posts or posts by individuals are not included in the analysis. The goal of this investigation is to gain a better understanding in the heritage and identity construction of the groups as a whole, instead of the individual views of their supporters. The analysis focuses on the official message these groups are spreading, and not on personal opinions of the members of these groups. For that reason, individual posts or reactions are out of the scope of this research.

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4. Setting the scene: the Dutch extreme right in the national and

European context

This chapter introduces and contextualizes Dutch ERMs. When writing about Dutch ERMs, it is important to look at the European context as well. Many Dutch ERMs have close ties with European networks of right-wing extremism. The following section gives a short contextualization of the European extreme right. This is followed up by a historical overview of Dutch ERMs to understand how their organization and ideology have developed over time. The last section shows the increased attention that is given currently to ERMs.

4.1 The European context

ERMs in the Netherlands cannot be seen separately from the European context in which they exist.. Many Dutch ERMs have close ties with European networks of the extreme right and are related to the European developments. These groups exchange ideas and strategies for future actions.

The recent history of both the European as the Dutch extreme right started after WWII and the condemnation of war criminals. WWII reached a scope of terror, genocide and mass destruction unprecedented in human history. In 1945 the Allied Control Council dissolved the NSDAP which meant an end to the official Nazi ideology. After the war a process of ‘denazification’ started throughout Europe, which had as result that most of the people suspecting of committing war crimes were convicted and Nazi sympathizers had to distance themselves from Nazi and fascist ideology. Nazi symbols, such as the swastika’s became a symbol of hate and was prohibited in most West-European countries. After the accusations of the war perpetrators, Nazis and fascists maintained a low profile and operated mostly underground in neo-Nazi groups. Many former international Waffen-SS soldiers organized themselves in veteran associations around Europe to preserve a sense of comradeship and to keep the memory of the fallen soldiers alive (Hurd and Werther 2016: 420). These veteran associations actively engaged in memory work and produced an extreme right counter narrative that celebrated the Waffen-SS soldiers as heroic European volunteers who fought against communism in the war (Ibid.). In the following decades, extreme right parties were not represented in the parliamentary democracy. In many European countries, among which Austria and West Germany, National Socialist parties were defined as anti-constitutional by law.

In the 1980s, youth cultures, such as the skinheads came up and created platforms on which white power and neo-Nazi ideology could flourish. Particularly music, bands and concerts formed a fertile basis for the growth of racism, hate and violence against migrants (Schedler 2014: 242). Skinheads often wore clothes and have tattoos with white power and neo-Nazi emblems, such as rune symbols and Celtic, Nordic and Germanic imagery. The 1990s were characterized by a rapid growth

"No More Brother Wars!" The European and national past in the visual culture of Dutch extreme right movements