A rising intolerance of minority communities, Right-wing extremism, debasement of the currency, disenchantment with capitalism. Add to that a crash in Wall Street. This pretty much sums up the scene in the West today. Except that this was exactly the scenario in the 1920s when Europe was recovering from the ravages of the First World War and Germany was under the unpopular Weimar Republic.

After Germany was comprehensively defeated and its rulers made to accept humiliating terms, its currency went into a tailspin. Hyper-inflation made the currency worthless from one day to another, so much so that people used to frequently visit bars and clubs just to spend. The intelligentsia said that capitalism was over and demanded a newer paradigm. Conservatives, too, were expressing their disgust at the “Americanisation” of their culture. The more Right-wing among Germans, angry at the truncation of their borders, blamed it all on Jews and socialists. This paved the way for Hitler and National Socialists to emerge.
When Wall Street crashed in October 1929, the shock waves hit Europe too. America went into Great Depression and could no longer fund the continent’s reconstruction. In Europe, local economies worsened and the next year the Nazis entered Parliament with 18 per cent of the vote.
The world is a very different place today, but some parallels are visible. The world’s greatest economic power is staring at double-dip recession. Global investors are no longer giving the dollar a thumbs up and are showing little faith in American equities or bonds. In less than three-and-a-half months, Wall Street has fallen more than 18 per cent.
US President Barack Obama might say America remains a “Triple A” economy, but there is no doubt that the downgrading by Standard and Poor’s has been a psychological hit. If it were any other country, there would have been massive flight of currency, crippling the economy. The US has been saved from that because of its sheer size and the simple fact that the dollar is the only reserve currency in the world.
Europe presents an even more grim picture. The economies of at least four countries are in a shambles and though Germany is strong, its citizens are asking why they should pay for the profligacy and shoddy economic management of others, like Greece. Very reluctantly and somewhat churlishly, Germany and France have doled out help to Greece, but only because they know the alternative is too horrible to contemplate — a default and the possible unravelling of the Euro, which will most certainly lead to economic chaos and political and social instability across the continent.
Meanwhile, the Right-wing is beginning to assert themselves. What Anders Behring Breivik did in Norway — killing scores of youngsters in a murderous spree — was certainly abnormal, but his love for extremist ideology and his professed hatred for Muslims is not. In all of Europe, people and parties freely express their anger at what they see as the gradual “takeover” of their societies by Muslim immigrants, never mind if the latter remain tiny minorities ghettoised away from the mainstream.
The reaction of officialdom has not always been encouraging either. One country bans the hijab, another votes against mosques and minarets and now a mayor in Italy has banned kababs because their smell is peculiar and they are against Italian culture! When British Prime Minister David Cameron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel proclaim their severe scepticism about multiculturalism and talk about the need for assimilation, the message is not lost on the population. Nor is there any ambiguity in the drive against Roma (gypsies) by French President Nicolas Sarkozy. All these leaders know exactly what they are doing; aware that Right-wing forces are gathering steam in their country, they try to pander to their followers instead of clamping down on such extremism.
As the economies of many countries worsen, such extremism will only rise, because minorities and “outsiders” are the first to feel the brunt of popular anger in times of adversity. As it is, marginalised elements feel that the success of globalisation has passed them by; the riots in London may have been triggered by a specific incident, but the resentment was building up over years among poor and mainly black Londoners. The scenes of destruction caused by rioters (many of them from the minorities) is bound to nudge ordinary citizens. Right-wingers will speak even more stridently against immigrants. And so the wheel turns.
Hitler was initially supported not by the rich but by the working class and then by the middle classes. They were so fed up of what they saw and how their lives had been destroyed, they felt he had something to offer. Gradually political parties and leaders too moved over to him. The eventual outcome is known to all of us.
This is not necessarily how things will turn out; there is much that is very different from what it was then. For one thing, nowhere is the Right-wing in a position to seize power the way Hitler did, even if such parties have been scoring in elections. Also, while Western economies may be declining, relatively speaking, the rise of Asia is a stabilising force of sorts. The world during the 1930s was ruled by colonial powers and what happened in Europe had immediate repercussions everywhere. But even so, it is fascinating to see that not all the ghosts of the past have been exorcised and could come back to haunt us.