Stopping Hitler

Those on the political left, particularly those whose views have Marxist overtones, usually tend to be keen on reading the teacup of history, drawing lessons from the leaves. Yes, they read history…and they almost invariably draw the wrong conclusions.

The classic example here, the one I am thinking of, is the rise of Hitler. Talking, so the argument goes, was not enough to prevent this; only direct action would suffice, only violence and more violence; only getting Nazis off the streets.

Oh, but there was violence in the last years of the Weimar Republic, intense violence directed against the Nazis by their opponents, particularly the KPD, the German Communist Party. In the early 1930s Germany was in a state of political civil war. I suspect that the peace time murder rate for 1932 has never been exceeded. Yes, there was violence and the Nazis grew strong and stronger; the more their opponents hit out, the more they benefited, nowhere more so that in ‘Red Berlin’, where Joseph Gobbles, Gauleiter since 1928, increased membership dramatically.

So, yesterday, Nick Griffin was forced to abandon a press conference by an egg throwing mob, shouting “Off our streets, Nazi scum”, a mob that was clearly mindful of the ‘lessons of history.’ Weyman Bennet, the organiser of the attack, and the national secretary of an organisation that goes by the name of Unite against Fascism, said that it was important to ‘stand up to the BNP’. Standing up to the BNP is apparently to allow the nation to see a chanting and vicious mob throwing missiles, in the belief that political victory for them lies in silencing those they do not want to hear; those they do not want anyone else to hear.

For smart-suited Griffin the propaganda value of these scenes probably carried far greater weight than what he would have said, if he had been allowed to say it.

Violence will not stop the BNP, oh no it will not; only words will. And the words I have in mind are their own. Yes, I would allow a platform for Fascists for the simple reason that once people at large know just how simplistic their words are it will collapse from under them. That is the intelligent deduction, not the ‘lesson of history.’

All Votes Are Equal, but Some Are More Equal Than Others

OK, let’s begin with my fallback position and my lifeline: I don’t like the British National Party; I do not like its brand of politics; I do not like its racism and I do not like its ideology. I say this to avoid any misunderstanding arising from what I’m about to write, for I know how easy it is for misunderstandings to emerge. I would also suggest that this particular piece be read in tandem with The Resistible Rise of the BNP, which I wrote last week.

Anyway, I find it particularly amusing how certain political developments are received; for that reception usually tells me more about recipient than the object of their concern. Democracy is democracy, and all votes are important, all votes are meaningful in one way or another. But, oh no, they are not. Look at the pious statements, the expressions of shock and outrage, following in the wake of the BNP’s minor triumph in the European elections, allowing them to send two representatives to Europe. David Cameron, leader of the Conservative Party, a man whom I personally happen to admire, says that, “It sickens me and it should sicken everybody…it brings shame on us that these fascists, racist thugs should have been elected to the European Parliament.” Corporal Clegg of the Liberal Democrats says that the BNP, “…don’t provide any hope and any answers.” Paul Kenny, the General Secretary of the GMB union, said, “On D-Day, Britain sent an army to Europe to stop Nazis getting to Britain [Not exactly, Mr Kenny, but never mind!]….Britain is now sending Nazis to Europe.”

We have seen it all before, have we not, that democracy is a ‘good thing’ when it produces the results that we want. We, in the west, hold up democracy, with all of our cultural conceit and arrogance, as the panacea for the ills of the world, the ills, for example, of the Muslim world. For democracy, as Graham Greene’s Alden Pyle would have preached, is the ‘Third Force’, the new beginning, is it not? But give Muslims the vote then what do you get? Why, Hamas among the Palestinians, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad among the Iranians. The latter just happens to have much popular legitimacy as Barack Obama and a hell of a lot more than Joker Brown.

So, now Nick Griffin and Andrew Brons are off to Strasbourg, and the other politicians walk off the stage to demonstrate their self-righteous disapproval. Not many are prepared to face the simple fact that the corruption of our whole complacent political system is to blame; and by corruption I mean so much more than the expenses scandal.

Our prized national democracy is little better than an elected dictatorship, where a government is chosen often not just on a minority of the popular vote but on the basis of contests in key ‘swing constituencies’, where a fraction of the vote determines the eventual outcome. There are whole areas of the country that can safely be ignored, because we all know the vote there is, so to say, predetermined.

The worst parts, the most neglected parts, are those huge fiefdoms of the Labour Party, particularly strong in the north of the country, ruled over by the modern version of the Robber Baron. I would go so far as to say that people in places like Humberside have effectively been ‘disenfranchised’, whether they vote or not, if that makes sense, in our Westminster elections. Oh, we would not have these Fascists in Europe if the elections were on the basis of good-old ‘first past the post’, say the jeremiads. No, we would not; but we would still have close on a million people with no effective voice.

The fact remains, as I said in my previous piece, that people are turning to the BNP precisely because their concerns over immigration, over their own position in society, over housing and over jobs, are simply being ignored. For God sake, forget the shock horror over the success of the BNP; look at its manifesto. What will you see? Why, it’s pure ‘Old Labour’, with a strong emphasis on nationalisation, high taxation, subsidy and protectionism. Yes, every vote for the BNP is an expression of disquiet over immigration policy. More than that, it’s the call of the marginalised and the dispossessed; it’s a call for the old left-wing certainties and shibboleths of the past. Now, there is a paradox upon which to take my leave!

The Resistible Rise of the BNP

I’m referring, of course, to the British National Party, or Fascists in Suits, as I prefer to call them! I suppose I have to admit to a certain grudging admiration for Nick Griffin, the Party Chairman and public face, for his tenacity, his skill and his political savvy. Under his guidance the far right has made greater advances than it ever did under the charismatic Oswald Mosley, who was so ignorant of the tastes and prejudices of the English people that he remained blind to the simple fact that they were always going to perceive his brand of uniformed Fascism as foreign and ideological. And as we all know, as George Orwell certainly knew, the English don’t do ideology!

Griffin, in contrast, has little of the tub-thumping rabble-rouser about him, and he is not much of an ideologue. His greatest virtue is his patience, his ability to promote his brand of small-scale politics among the marginal and the dispossessed. And when I use these terms I am not referring to the ‘outcasts’ and the misfits, to those that Marx referred to dismissively as the ‘lumpenproletariat’, the natural fodder for Fascism. Oh no; for the ‘outcasts’, for want of a better term, are the traditional working class, once the backbone of Labour and the Labour movement. These are the people who have continually been taken for granted by the corrupt political oligarchy that controls England at the present; the New Labour establishment, created by the Tony Blair, and perpetuated by Gordon Brown; an establishment that concocted ‘marshmallow politics’ out of spin, sound bites, media manipulation and outright lies.

It’s so sad, is it not, when politicians fail to take account of the warnings passed before, warnings handed down by history? Lincoln was right, you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. We have in Gordon Brown, probably the most ludicrously incompetent person ever to occupy the office of Prime Minister, promising ‘British jobs for British workers’, knowing full-well that he was signing up to agreements with Europe that made these words a stupid lie, one which leaped up and struck him in the face.

Ordinary people, people long treated by Brown and his ilk as voting fodder, do not have a limitless capacity for stupidity. So they turn, slowly, perhaps, but they turn. This brings me back to Mr Griffin. Yes, I have said that he possesses certain political skills, but he is not likely to have travelled very far but for the indirect assistance of the old political establishment; Labour for their condescension and contempt for the working class, and the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats for accepting a hidden consensus, that there are political issues, unfashionable issues, that dare not speak their name! The present scandal over expenses has seasoned the mix with wormwood.

People by and large now have the deepest contempt for the whole political class, for the cesspit that Westminster has become. The BNP has travelled far, but it did not do so unaided. That is the most worrying thing of all.

Waving the Flag for Hungary

It’s inevitable that right wing nationalism will wax strong in the current climate, fostered not just be economic problems but a general resentment against the bureaucratic absurdities of that monstrous monolith, the European Union, as well as more local resentments.

Anyway, I like to keep my eyes open for any new developments. I read a report at the weekend on Dr Krisztina Morvai, who is standing in the forthcoming European elections for the far-right Jobbik movement in Hungary. I’d never heard of Jobbik prior to this, but it seems to me to carry strong overtones of the Arrow Cross, the Fascist movement that controlled Hungary in the dying stages of the Second World War. Jobbik even has its own paramilitary wing, the Hungarian Guard. Oh, sorry, they are not paramilitaries at all; they are merely a collection of guys and girls in traditional Hungarian costume, at least they are according to Balzco Zoltan, the vice-president of Jobbik. Would you like to see the Hungarian national costume? Well, here it is. :-))