A ghost is again floating over Europe, the ghost of racism! From the recent electoral far-right breakthrough (6%) in the former poster child of social democracy, Sweden to blackshirt vigilantism in the Italian South, to Vienna municipal elections, to the endless tragedy of drowned and imprisoned immigrants in the Aegean and other Mediterranean islands right next to blissfully oblivious package tourists.

Based on the Greek experience since the early 1990s, when a local community suddenly receives a far greater number of economic immigrants, refugees fleeing imperialist or local wars (and soon climate refugees) that it can immediately absorb in menial jobs, agriculture, construction and industry, its fringe racist & fascist elements, seconded by arch-conservative religious elements and the tabloid press & TV, become vocal and mainstream. Once this happens, right wing parties but also social-democrats try to follow, so as not to lose votes and the whole political discourse moves to the right. Ordinary people, already exploited by capitalism, and with their own prejudices and fears can not easily resist. Imagine levels of solidarity on a crowded bus full of tired workers returning home, when 10 immigrants (or even 10 tourists) also want to get in.

That said, unfortunately, racism and fascism (and indeed nationalism) are not exclusively right-wing traits, they are very much alive in the minds of some left-wing leaders, sometimes dressed up under other language as economic nationalism, localism, patriotism, emancipation etc. We must also realise that the exploitation of immigrants, at least in Greece, does not only take place by big capitalist industrialists benefitting from cheap immigrant labour, but also from ordinary families, small businesses, self-employed, contractors working for the state, small hoteliers, restaurant owners etc.

Our response should be enlightenment of the masses through a message of love, tolerance, sharing and respect for diversity but also - actively - through the creation of collectives and cooperatives, and small-scale tourism is a very suitable sector, where immigrants and the 'indigenous' can actively participate as equals, not as boss-employee. To easily blame capitalism for the immigration flows and then shrug our shoulders is unacceptable.

Note that in some countries of the global south the 'indigenous' have been historically exploited and decimated by the 'immigrants', whereas in the global north, it is the immigrants who are the 2nd class citizens. The truth is that we are all immigrants or descendants of immigrants, even though state myths desperately try to hide that.

If the Left, at least those left libertarians looking for a both stateless and classless future, is waiting "for the State" to do something to help the immigrants, we are fooling ourselves and avoiding the real question - the state, invariably controlled by self-propagating nationalist elements, has a simple barbaric recipe: expel some, detain others, and semi-legalise the more 'dynamic' immigrants, for use as docile 2nd class citizens (or not even citizens - e.g. post-war Gastarbeiter 'guest worker' Turks in Germany, and a similar version in the police state going by the name of GDR for Vietnamese. The nazis of course also used 'Fremdarbeiters' during WW II).

As a young, moderate right-wing greek politician cynically stated in parliament earlier this year, "if we make it nice for immigrants, more will come". Clearly an example of the barbarism of both capitalism and nationalism!

But there is hope: Slovenia has just elected eastern Europe's  first black mayor