Two months ago, at a government-sponsored training course for Bucharest's political elite, I had the opportunity to teach a section on the Holocaust. The topic sparked some unexpected reactions. One participant ranted on about how Israeli companies and employers doing business in Romania are allegedly the source of contemporary anti-Semitism in the country. Another wondered how so many Jews managed to escape from the Twin Towers on Sept. 11, 2001, thus giving credence to the anti-Semitic lie that the Jews and Israel were behind these terror attacks. On Romanian TV, meanwhile, it is not unusual to see Orthodox priests repeating that 2,000-year-old charge of deicide: "The Jews killed God."
Jew-bashing in Romania seldom comes without racist attacks on the country's other ethnic minorities, Roma and Hungarians. Nationalism is so popular that not one but two xenophobic parties compete for votes. There is the extreme nationalistic Party of Greater Romania (PRM), which won 13% in the last parliamentary elections and gets up to 18% in recent opinion polls. Then there is the New Party Generation (PNG), not (yet) represented in parliament but also gaining in popularity, getting around 6% in polls. Finally, the illegal but tolerated Iron Guard -- which traces its roots to the main pre-World War II fascist party of the same name -- is gaining influence on university campuses. Even the mainstream media have found praise for some members of this criminal movement.
The leader of the PRM is Corneliu Vadim Tudor, a megalomaniac demagogue whose political program boils down to vicious hatred toward Hungarians, Jews and Roma. He was Nicolae Ceausescu's court poet and denounced fellow writers and dissidents to the former dictator's feared secret police, the Securitate. An open admirer of Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein, Mr. Tudor regularly publishes in his weekly Romania Mare publication anti-Roma and anti-Semitic incitements, Holocaust denials and "black lists" of political adversaries he considers "guilty of anti-Romanian activities." Among his campaign promises is to rule with the machine gun and organize public executions. Mr. Tudor believes that "America is a colony of Israel...a small mouse dragging after it a giant elephant" and that "Zionism keeps the planet under terror, and puts Christianity and Islam into a state of conflict and of reciprocal extermination."
Gigi Becali, leader of the PNG and a rich, vulgar, violent man, promises to "turn Romania into a country like the holy sun in the sky," a close variation of an old Iron Guard slogan. Mr. Becali calls himself an "athlete of Christianity" and has generously endowed the Maglavit church, the gathering point of Romania's mystical extremists in the '30s.
While everywhere else in Europe the extreme right is politically isolated, some of Romania's political establishment help these demagogues gain an aura of respectability. One could not imagine Jean Marie le Pen even coming close to the gates of the Elysée Palace, let alone being invited into the president's office. And it would simply be inconceivable for a French socialist leader to negotiate with the extremist Front National. But in Romania, Mr. Tudor maintains friendly ties with many prominent members of the opposition Social Democratic Party (PSD), who discreetly try to help him gain credibility with Western governments in exchange for cooperation from Mr. Tudor. The two parties are in talks for a formal parliamentary alliance. The recently elected president of the Romanian parliament, Bogdan Olteanu, who represents the pro-Western, business-oriented Liberal Party, won his new job with the crucial support of the PRM. The president of Romania, Traian Basescu, receives Mr. Tudor at his palace and socializes publicly with Mr. Becali. The PSD, meanwhile, gives Mr. Becali campaign advice in hopes of weakening the PRM.
That mainstream politicians would find it so easy to rub shoulders with extremists is not that surprising in a country where the use of racist and populist rhetoric is not limited to the fringes of the political spectrum. Particularly anti-Hungarian, anti-Roma and homophobic comments have become vote-winners for all political parties. The boundaries between extreme and mainstream parties are more fluid in Romania than in other countries in the region. And although Holocaust denial is a crime, no Holocaust denier has ever been punished in Romania. As in many other domains, the country does not lack tough laws but rather the will to enforce them.
How are such odious dealings possible in a country that is a NATO member and ready to join the European Union next year? History is, as always, a good guide. Visceral nationalism has a long tradition in Romania, going back to pre-World War II times when the Iron Guard, which would later play an important role in preparing the destruction of the Romanian Jewish community during the Holocaust, advocated hate toward foreigners in general and Jews in particular. Communist dictator Ceausescu for years hammered the same themes into the national conscience.
Is Romania now reverting to its pre-World War II roots? Is nationalism the only real ideology in today's Romania? Is it justifiable to get close to the extreme right in order to divide it and steal its votes, as some mainstream politicians have claimed?
Romania's political class should not have a short memory. Striking alliances with extremists always backfires. After the 1937 elections, when the Iron Guard and the anti-Semitic National Christian Party won 22% of the votes, the Romanian political class followed the same course as it is doing again today. Back then, mainstream political leaders also entered into electoral alliances with extremists, foolishly believing they could control them. Fifty-one years of fascist and communist dictatorship followed. Playing this dangerous game with the extreme right tarnishes not only Romania's image abroad but threatens its national security.
Mr. Ioanid is author of "The Holocaust in Romania" and "The Ransom of the Jews."
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