Lessons on how to confront today’s fascists
I’ve been away in Britain for two weeks and have observed the reaction to white supremacists and their Antifa opponents through the banal absurdities of the U.S. president, the Canadian media and the European body politic.
It’s not an encouraging picture, and the most enervating, irritating part of it all is the idea that we are seeing two sides of the same coin, and that it’s a fight between Nazis and nasties of pretty much equal threat. It’s one thing for Donald Trump to utter such nonsense — we expect little else — but quite another when allegedly intelligent and informed commentators do the same.
The notion of moral equivalency is flippant and facile. It is rather like comparing the cure with the disease; the former may be unpleasant and even potentially harmful but it exists to eradicate something far, far worse. The anti-Fascist movement is a loose and broad coalition and while some of its members are indeed extreme and violent, most of them are not and, anyway, they are part of the solution and not the problem.
There are numerous ways to confront fascism. We should be doing so in the media, in political chambers and in everyday conversation. But we also defeat this atavistic evil with a good, strong dose of muscular democracy. When thugs carrying symbols and screaming slogans promoting division, hatred, racism and even genocide attempt to claim the public square we have to tell them they are not welcome. It’s not always pretty, but then the alt-right is positively grotesque.
Many years ago at university I wrote a thesis on the British Union of Fascists, a pro-Nazi, pro-Mussolini party of the 1930s. Although led by the charismatic Oswald Mosley, the BUF was a political failure. It did, however, cause enormous harm and havoc for some years in London in particular.
The response from moderate conservatives, many liberals, the political establishment and even the Jewish leadership was to try to ignore these zealots and to not oppose them on the streets. The militant opposition to the blackshirts, people were told, was heavily Communist, intent on violence and in some ways as bad as the Nazi right. It’s eerie how similar these words are to the arguments of so many columnists and politicians today. They were wrong then, they’re wrong now.
In 1936 an organization of radical and poor Jewish men and women from London’s east-end, dockworkers, the local Irish community, various labour unions and, yes, the Communist Party physically prevented a mass march by the fascists in something now known as the Battle of Cable Street. It broke the crooked spine of local fascism and obliged the government to take further action against the BUF.
Reluctant as I am to make any comparisons with Hitler — seldom a good idea — there is no doubt that the complacency of the vast pre-war German centre was a major cause of the rise of National Socialism. “Communists and Nazis are both extreme and as bad as each other” was their argument. “Let them fight it out but don’t take sides.” With hindsight it’s tragic and nauseating.
As a teenager in 1970s England from a working-class family and with a Jewish father I attended more than one protest against the National Front and the British Movement. These two nasty little fascist groups were drenched in soccer hooliganism and racism, and the unemployment of the time was empowering them to a worrying degree.
Sometime those confrontations did become violent but the bully boys were told they could not march where and when they wanted. It might be comforting to assume that this type of politics is never successful but that’s simply not the case. I wish civilized debate and middle-class manners ruled the day, but then I also wish that sugar was good for you. It’s not.
There is justification behind the anger of Black Lives Matter, there is reason behind the fear of many young Muslims, there is hope behind the passion of students and youthful radicals. I may not share all of their ideas but I understand why they are on the street and I’m glad they are there.
As civilized people, we have much in common with their struggle. As civilized people we have nothing whatsoever in common with the warriors of darkness. Never forget that.