I can well imagine this homeless man standing with the 60,000 far-right extremists in Warsaw on Polish independence day, bellowing, "All Poland sings with us: Piss off, refugees,” or calling for a "white Europe of brother nations”. And as he stood there, demonstrating against Muslims and refugees – of whom there are hardly any in Poland – the far-right demonstrators would be looking at him with contempt because he's homeless. Simply being the object of discrimination doesn't make someone a better person. [...]
Things start getting particularly complicated when xenophobes flee abroad and meet other xenophobes. Is that too abstract? I can offer you a concrete example as an explanation: At a demonstration by the right-wing extremist Identitarian Movement of Austria in Vienna, I heard the language spoken by my parents. Many Serbs and Croats were there to demonstrate against "Umvolkung” ("ethnicity inversion,” a term historically used by the far right to describe demographic change through immigration), "Islamification,” or whatever else it is they fantasize about. [...]
Serbs, Croats, Poles and other people from Central and Eastern Europe are now marching in Germany and Austria alongside the people who not long ago wanted them thrown out of the country. Ever since the war in Syria, we Balkan refugees suddenly find ourselves a little further up the pecking order. We're now deemed good enough to join in demonstrations against refugees. If that's what you call integration, it's worked beautifully. European nationalists have a very efficient cross-border network. The bogeymen they all have in common are refugees and Muslims – regardless of whether or not there actually are any in their respective countries.
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