Never Again! Ils ne passeront pas!
The Belgian Antifascist Coordination (CAB) has hit back at criticisms that its mobilisation against the controversial far-right National Conservatism Conference (NatCon) was an assault on freedom of speech.
After days of farcical cat-and-mouse between organisers and Brussels authorities, the not-really-banned NatCon ended on Wednesday night as planned, amid a consensus that the attempt to ban or disrupt the conference was anti-democratic.
The event saw advocates of Brexit, Netanyahu, Orbàn, Vlaams Belang, and PiS, attack the European Union, the left, liberals, Islam and traditional conservatives in speeches replete with sweeping generalisations.
Speakers promoted a return to a nationalist Europe – a continent of municipalities each vying for their own interests and influence.
We pointed out that despite electoral gains, far-right policies remain a mortal danger for large swathes of the population. We therefore have a legitimate right to defend ourselves and to organise actively against them,
- reads the statement from the Belgian Antifascist Coordination (CAB).
One Belgian political expert told The Brussels Times that most of the far-right speakers at NatCon advocated rolling back universal human rights and instead organising society according to racial, ethnic, gender and social divisions, as seen in Britain, Italy, Hungary and Poland (up until the 2023 election).
One by one, speakers at the Claridge Events hall held up social progress as an excuse to fabricate oppressive and authoritarian fantasies.
Many presented the EU as a "one-party state" led by "totalitarian forces". One Spanish MEP from Vox argued that EU orchestrates "mass migration", "woke ideology" and "climate madness" – ideas common in addresses by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
https://moera.page/@M2aAVGuuQnW/m2aavguuqnw.moera.blog/post/a30c7ac0-231c-46be-b889-912c25d76b59
