POLITICAL APOLOGIES
An item from the Morning Star October
25th 2018:
The leader of the European
Conservative and Reformists group in the European Parliament, Syed Kamall – MEP
for London – took offence when the German MEP leader of the Socialists and
Democrats group warned of the rise of right-wing extremism in Europe,
responding thus:
‘I would remind you, when you talk
about right-wing extremists,that the Nazis were “national socialists” – it is a
strain of socialism. Let’s not pretend.’ When heckled, Mr Kamall continued: ‘It’s
a left-wing ideology. They wanted the same things as you, let’s be clear. You don’t
like the truth, do you?’
The resulting uproar forced Mr Kamall
into a tactical retreat: ‘I get tired of people saying Nazism is a right-wing
ide0logy. I believe in freedom of speech, but if I have offended you – and clearly
I have – I apologise unreservedly.’
This F-grade in political science
comes from the man who leads our Tories and other conservative parties in the
European Parliament. No doubt Mrs May continues to give him her ‘unreserved’
endorsement. Yes, the Nazis were indeed the NSDAP: National Socialist German
Workers Party, a cynical catch-all intended for confusing ordinary German
voters of the time, reflecting no views that Hitler, Goebbels, Goring or other
Nazi leaders, backed by major industrialists, ever gave the slightest thought
to except in terms of victimisation. After
the Nazi Holocaust - which included the mass deaths of socialists, communists,
trade unionists and even liberals on top of the Jews, Romany, gays and others –
does all this have to be said again? In the light of the phony kerfuffle over
alleged mass anti-Semitism in the Labour Party this past summer, it apparently
does.
But it is the nature of Mr Kamall’s ‘apology’
that sticks in the craw. The more so as such public ‘apologies’ are becoming
common: that is, not to apologise for acting or saying what one has done or
said but for the ‘distress’ it has caused in some offended parties. It’s not an
apology at all, but a dog-whistle statement implying that really it was not
wrong to say what one said even if the offended snowflakes can’t bear the
truth. Not ‘we are sorry to have done/said this,’ but ‘we are sorry it upset
you’. ‘Fly-By-Night Rail apologises for the upset that delays may have caused
some customers’ is not an apology for
the delays but for the (alleged?) unhappiness they caused. The delays go on –
the company never said they wouldn’t. No doubt at some point in the future the
fracking company Cuadrilla will have to apologise to local Lancastrians over
27+ earthquakes for having disturbed them. But there will never be any
apologies for fracking in the first place. Looked at one way, the first type of
apology is a kind of insult, not to say tacit justification. Mr Kamall’s ‘apology’
was a further attack, inasmuch as it intimated that his opponents don’t believe in ‘freedom of speech’ as he does, and so living up to their
socialist/Nazi character by objecting to what he said.
We find that various right-wing commentators
viewing those who object to such as Steve Bannon or ‘Tommy Robinson’ being allowed
to give talks at universities accusing the objectors of failing to endorse ‘freedom
of speech’. And by all means give them ‘equal time’ on fair-minded BBC current
affairs debates. Hitler and various runners-up like Oswald Mosley and Enoch
Powell got their own kind of ‘equal time’ in their day. Fighting for a platform
in mainstream media has never been a problem for the far Right. A consistent
liberal can always be counted upon to help give fascists a leg up.
For those who fear expropriation of
their wealth, socialists and Nazis may be much of a muchness – but if anything
the socialists are much worse. The one
thing the National Socialists did not
do in Germany in the 1930s was to expropriate non-Jewish capitalists, which
makes Nazism – as it always was – the preferred option in any choice between
the ‘two evils’.
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