Fertile ground for fascists

A great wave of militarisation, suppression and ultimately World War II followed.

Historic comparisons are always dangerous. No circumstances are precisely the same.

But two trends are once again threatening to return in the midst of the latest failed austerity policies being forced upon us in the wake of the bankers' crisis.

One is fascism.

At the weekend solidarity demonstrations were held across Europe in protest at the far-right Golden Dawn movement's rise in Greece.

This openly neofascist group, which praises Hitler and Mussolini, is growing in strength in the wake of the EU's demands that obedient Athens policy-makers send a wrecking ball through the fabric of the state in return for continued membership of the bloc.

Golden Dawn now stands third in opinion polls.

Attacks and murders of asylum-seekers and refugees hoping to carve out a better life in Europe are on the increase.

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And the countries from which many of these victims originate are now being threatened with a new wave of "decades-long" war against shadowy unspecified Islamists, if Prime Minister David Cameron's declarations following the Algerian hostage crisis are to be believed.

War abroad has long been the refuge of opportunistic politicians seeking a diversion from worsening situations at home.

It appears we are seeing this trick once again.

Undoubtedly the situation developing in north Africa and the Middle East is of great concern to Western powers seeking to retain influence.

Increasingly China has provided an alternative source of investment and know-how with fewer strings attached, threatening the comfortable status quo that the West established following the Soviet Union's dissolution.

Not just this, but, as with Afghanistan, Western-backed regimes' suppression of secular forces interested often in no more than economic self-determination has dealt the cards firmly in favour of religious-led expressions of alienation among these regions' youth.

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In some cases these economically and socially reactionary forces have been explicitly backed by the West or its proxies, in others they have been tolerated while self-serving regimes get on with torturing, murdering and hunting secular and socialist forces.

Now the extremist chickens are coming home to roost in a trend which opens the door to a new wave of interventions in these resource-rich regions.

At the same time the US-led West's message to China will be clear - this is our back yard. This is our mineral wealth to exploit.

The reasons for Golden Dawn's growing support and those behind the rise of hard-line Islamist movements are glaringly similar.

In both cases legitimate economic and social grievances are being channelled into a reactionary, extremist response.

And in both the real solution to counter this trend is the same - economic self-determination that puts development for the people before the interests of external powers.

A new era of war may be a useful tool for self-serving conservatives hoping to divert attention from their failure to deliver for ordinary people, but it will only add to the scale of the fire at home and abroad.

We can be equally sure that a diet of more austerity, policies of privatisation and expropriation of wealth by a tiny global financial elite will pour more fuel on the flames.