If my own experience is anything to go by, you will have seen many - far too many - attempts to draw parallels between events of the 1930s (and I'm talking about Nazis here) and current affairs. They are all, I find, very silly, tending to the "Nigel Farage grew a moustache - do you know who else had a moustache?" line of argument.
One reason why people reach for this period in history for their analogies is that it is one of the few periods that pretty much everyone knows about. Which means that, for example, it's a safe bet that no one who uses a swastika at their rallies nowadays is a nice person who spotted the device in a Hindu temple and liked the look of it. People understand the symbolism and iconography of the 1930s, and know what they are doing when they use it today.
All of which makes it seem extraordinary to me that there is in fact a sizeable number of people in America who put on black shirts and beat people up at political rallies. In California, no less. You should read this for an account of a half-Japanese man and a Samoan not getting killed by these people. It's even funny in parts.
The black shirted characters call themselves 'antifa' (meaning 'anti-fascist'), but then North Korea is officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Sometimes actions speak louder than words.
Symbolism matters too. This is the caption to one photo: "Masked counterprotesters kick and punch a Hispanic man in Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park, August 27". What is the symbolic impact of putting on a black shirt and then beating up a member of an ethnic minority in a park named after Martin Luther King?
No comments:
Post a Comment