Right wing diaspora communities form a fertile climate in which ultranationalist groups can grow. These organisations then combat the political Left in their host nations. Multiculturalism is a wonderful policy, but the right wing leadership of diasporic communities misdirect their anger at vulnerable minorities.

Let’s examine this multifaceted topic by starting with a recent news story.

Germany and Turkey have a fractious relationship at the best of times, and the connection soured even further this month. The German authorities denounced a Turkish football player, and his team’s supporters, for making the wolf gesture during a soccer match.

The wolf salute is a signature of the ultranationalist neofascist Turkish outfit, the Grey Wolves. Calling themselves the Idealist Hearths, they are a paramilitary formation, strongly anticommunist and advocating an ethnically pure expansionist Turkish nation.

These Turkish ethnonationalists, while originating in the turbulent political climate of Turkey decades ago, have found supporters among the expatriate and refugee Turkish communities in Germany and France. Espousing a racist ideology of Pan-Turkism, they wish to expand Turkey’s borders to include the putatively Turkish-origin populations of Central Asia.

Indeed, the mythical expanded ethnonationalist Turkish empire sought after by the Grey Wolves, includes the Xinjiang province of China, to which they refer as East Turkestan. What a coincidence, the Turkish ultranationalist formation is incredibly concerned about the human rights of the Uyghur Muslim community in Xinjiang, China. That is a cynically emotional tactic to disguise their own advocacy of American-backed violent regime change in China.

Building on the political rapprochement between Turkey and Nazi Germany in the 1930s, the Grey Wolves are the street-fighting arm of the ultranationalist Nationalist Movement Party (MHP is the acronym in Turkish). Targeting Kurds, Armenians, and antifascist Turks, the Grey Wolves have implanted themselves in the refugee Turkish communities in Europe.

Marching against refugees

Grey Wolves use violence against their political opponents, not only in Turkey, but in Europe as well. Such extremist violence only plays into the hands of far right Islamophobic politicians, such Le Pen in France, and Geert Wilders in the Netherlands.

The Turkish ultranationalists have also marched against any refugee intake from Syria and other Middle Eastern nations. Wait a minute – Turks in Germany, who were themselves once refugees, are now opposed to granting entry to prospective asylum seekers?

Is not that hypocritical and selfish? Yes, it is. It also reflects the end-logic of ultranationalist political philosophy. Far right extremism not only hates foreigners, but supports foreign-born racists and right wing extremists.

Chinese Americans – a right wing diaspora

Conservative Chinese Americans are among the most vociferous supporters of MAGA Republicans and Donald Trump. But just wait a minute….does not Trump express Sinophobic sentiments? Yes, he does. He also circulates the bizarre ‘lab leak’ conspiracy theory beloved by MAGA conservatives. Targeting China as a supremely evil nation, in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic, Trump and his partisans have their supporters among the Chinese-American community.

Chinese-American far right supporters cheered on Donald Trump, and were excited by the January 6 attempted coup d’état by the MAGA ultranationalist American camp.

Conservative Chinese Americans have donated to the Proud Boys, an ultranationalist neofascist street gang which, among other things, engages in violent attacks against migrants and refugee ethnic minorities. Fund raising appeals for the Proud Boys were accomplished by sympathetic Chinese proverbs; “For those who pave the road to freedom, do not leave them struggling with thistles and thorns”. The ideological crossover between conservative Chinese Americans and American ultranationalist groups is not difficult to fathom.

Migrant communities, due to language and cultural barriers, avoid the mainstream English language media, and resort to news in confined areas. It is easy, in this day and age of social media, to create an ecosystem of conspiratorial hate. The Chinese American community is no exception. The pandemic has brought forth not just the Covid virus, but the viral superspreader of misinformation.

Social conservatism among migrant communities is nothing new. Try speaking about or teaching evolutionary biology to groups of Sydney Armenians, and you will feel the full force of social outrage. What is different this time around is the weaponisation of such conservatism for political gain.

To be sure, importing conservative migrants has long antecedents. It is no secret that Australia, Canada, and other Anglophone nations welcomed Eastern European Nazi collaborators not only for their political qualifications and intelligence assets, but also as a bulwark against labour unions and the Left.

Far right groups are certainly not the friends of the labour movement. If anything, they have a durable track record of dismantling labour militancy and union organising. Yes, we need multiculturalism; every ethnic group makes its unique contribution to the wider polity. But we must not turn a blind eye to the dark underbelly of multiculturalism, where right wing hypernationalism can flourish.

There is a renewed Cold War, with China and Russia once again demonised as the enemy, despite all the economic and political changes undergone by those two nations since 1991. Right wing diaspora communities are yet again being corralled into becoming foot-soldiers for the American empire – in both the foreign and domestic realms.

It is crucial for migrant communities to speak out against war and mass killings done in the name of regime change. Imperialist wars overseas require domestically-produced cannon fodder. Cultural conditioning plays an essential role in building public support for war. We would do well to change our mindset, and resist backing those parties calling for further ethnic conflict.