ABSTRACT
FOR MORE than a decade now, academics, clerics, journalists, along with public officials from countries belonging to the EU, have voiced alarm about the revival of right-wing extremism in the seemingly stable democracies of Western Europe.1 The alarm has been set-off by two broad trends. First, in various EU countries there have been serious episodes of violent attacks on Third World immigrants, ‘guest workers’, members of the Roma community and other racial and religious minority populations.2 In Sweden, Germany and elsewhere these assaults have often been carried out by members of right-wing youth gangs displaying Nazi era paraphernalia and chanting slogans, ‘Foreigners Out!’ reminiscent of the Hitler dictatorship.
