For a few months, all we’ve heard is Donald Trump. The world’s most powerful person has been embroiled in a scandal over allegations he sought Russian help to win the 2016 presidential election. The news from Washington is always on the internet or on TV. But for most of us, the scandal barely gets mentioned as the year progresses. While American media obsesses over investigations into the president and his closest allies, ordinary people in the rest of the world are moving on. So when the BBC World Service contacted us last week about our research on the far-right, we were immediately struck by the coincidence. Here we were in the US, while the far-right in Europe was experiencing one of its quietest years since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Since the end of the Cold War, far-right parties have been losing ground. But the past year has seen new beginnings for those who want to revive fascism. But how can you know what it’s like, unless you experience it? That’s why we spent a week with those who support the cause. Our researchers spoke to white supremacists, Holocaust deniers, and conspiracy theorists, and even a woman who was fired for her extreme views. It was chilling and eye-opening. It changed our views on how we relate to news and the future of democracy. ‘It was shocking. It wasn’t just shocking, it was awful’ When our producer Ben Bland went to a secretive neo-Nazi music festival in eastern Europe, he had no idea what he was about to discover. ‘They weren’t just a few people in a cellar, they were a movement,’ Bland said. ‘I was completely overwhelmed by the level of activity. They were organising demonstrations, raising money, giving speeches, having public marches — and they had support from the authorities.’ He was only allowed to meet some of the activists behind the scenes, and we were unable to verify everything that happened that day. But he came back with this — a rare snapshot of the far-right in a part of the world that you may never have heard of. We were fascinated by the story of someone who left a community behind in the US to join the far-right scene abroad, finding a new level of support that he couldn’t get back home. One of the activists was a man from Virginia, who is currently a wanted man in the US. He talked about the American government’s role in the world. ‘You can’t put your finger on it, but there are things that make you go hmmm — things that don’t add up. That’s the kind of thing that made me move out here.’ We spoke to a couple from London, who’ve spent years promoting white supremacist views online. They told us of the support they had from their local community, even to the point of getting invited to public meetings. For these activists, ‘being here [in Europe] is easy. In America, it’s a whole different scene’. They are at the forefront of a movement with links to the traditional far-right parties of Europe. But they also find support from a different direction. Our investigations found that some extreme right-wing parties in Europe have received funding from a little-known organisation that does business in Russia. We spoke to the leader of one of these parties, who has held public office in his country for eight years. He told us that his party stood for ‘the traditional values of the United States and Europe’ and that he was concerned about the spread of radical Islam. ‘It’s obvious that there is a threat of globalisation from Islamic countries,’ he said, acknowledging some of the anti-Muslim positions of groups on the far-right in Europe. ‘One of the things that we oppose is the political correctness. It is the key of our life.’ Our producer, Ben Bland, went to a small town in eastern Europe, close to the Polish border. He was taken to a farmhouse, and he was told to take off his shoes. He couldn’t believe what was going on here. And we can’t show you what he saw or heard because we had to black it out, because we’re not revealing where this happened. He met a group of neo-Nazis who were trying to start an uprising, using secret meetings, money and military uniforms. The activists in the area, who are now being hunted by authorities, spoke openly about their links with a party in Poland and with Russia’s state-backed media organisation RT. ‘We believe the revolution will happen when it happens,’ one activist told us. ‘There is a great Russian community [here]. And [the Russian state news agency] Sputnik, it is a big source of information for us.’ On the way back to London, our producer Ben Bland went back through the archives of Russian state media, to explore how the Kremlin uses information to whip up discontent among ordinary people. He found some pretty scary stories about white supremacists. One story was about a Jewish-American couple who had gone missing. The Russian news agency, Sputnik, reported that the couple had been murdered by the far-right. ‘One thing the story doesn’t tell you is what came after,’ says Bland. ‘Those bodies never turned up. It’s like an ad for the far-right there, really creepy. ‘ You can see more from the BBC World Service’s report below: We want to hear from you: Do you think what we did on this story is helpful or harmful? Share your thoughts here. Like this: Like Loading...