The jubilation that police raids against Nazis have inspired among people who consider themselves to be democrats is incomprehensible. If these raids have any effect at all, then it will be exactly the opposite to what was (perhaps) sought: They will legitimise this stain on the political scene.
It’s because a spectacular action organised once in a blue moon will not protect the democratic system – and raids organised as often as you mow the lawn would probably not protect it either. It’s not a few hundred noisy guys on the fringe of society that brings Nazism to life. It’s the hidden dissatisfaction of the majority. Hardly anybody can deny that it exists – and that the Nazis have already learnt how to handle it.
In other words, those in power – by creating places in the country where the law is unenforceable, where the perception is that citizens mainly have duties while the so-called unadaptable have the rights, where police, law and justice are inefficient – pave the way to power for the Nazis much more effectively than the teenage dummies who heil when drunk.
And when a citizen watches on the police supermen showing off on television when arresting the Nazis, then he may think of where the police had been in the instant that he was being robbed on the street or when a band of “unadaptables” was devastating his home. If his mind is simple, he may even regard the arrested racists as martyrs suffering for his cause. When the “heroes” are released from prison, he might even vote for them …
What may also raise questions is the timing of the police action: Why did it happen just after the elections in which the Nazis might have succeeded? It might more resemble the way that power clans settle their accounts in nonfunctioning states than the protection of democracy. The latter would require much more effort than a one-off police action, something that appears almost unacceptable for the current political elite: good laws and enforceable laws for all people.
Another hard-to-understand aspect of the action is describing the Nazi activists as the far right. Fascism and Nazism nationalised businesses, established trade unions, turned individuals into mandatory components of the whole – what for heaven’s sake does this have in common with the right?
The typical Czech Nazi is basically a funny character: He screams “Nothing but the nation”, but worships dead German leaders despite the fact that he would be among the first to go to a concentration camp if these leaders returned. What makes Czech Nazis dangerous are the politicians of major parties who are either capable of anything or totally incapable. So police action against racists appears to be mainly for show.
