Those like the recently jailed Jayda Fransen, deputy leader of Britain First. If there were to have been any doubt about Trump’s propensity to fascist sympathies, he nailed his colours firmly to the mast by retweeting a series of films that she posted on Twitter with the aim of inciting hatred against Muslims. Donald Trump, President of the United States has almost 45 million twitter followers; Jayda Fransen, deputy leader of a far-right party, apparently way out on the margins of British politics, gained 10,000 followers after Trump’s retweets. So, words, and the means by which they’re shared, particularly in this age of social media, are powerful.
The Holocaust The Holocaust Memorial events that have recently taken place around the world are intended for reflection on past events and atrocities committed by the Nazis against Jewish people, other minorities and, of course, political enemies, including trade unionists. But there are clear political parallels between then and now.
One of my fourth year classes at University was modern German history which involved looking at Hitler’s ascendancy and how he was able to wield such power in office. We did the academic study and could rhyme off the reasons, backed up by the academic evidence in our essays but still I couldn’t quite get my head around how real people - almost a whole nation of them - could be corralled into colluding, either knowingly or otherwise, in the political and social malevolence, that amounted to genocide on an industrial scale. In the years subsequent to the opening of the first concentration camp, until the end of the Second World War, somewhere between 15 and 20 million people were
Picture: Yakir Zur
murdered at the hands of the Nazis. That’s around four times the population of Scotland wiped out over a six or seven year period. Why didn’t ordinary - most of them good - people, resist en masse, as soon as the first words of hate speech were uttered from the Nazi mouthpiece? The fact that they didn’t, shows that people are vulnerable, when the economic and social conditions are right, to persuasion by ill means, for ill purpose, by those who subscribe to fascist ideology. The fact that there wasn’t mass resistance perhaps also shows that people at the time didn’t know what the horrific consequences of inaction would be. Nothing in their living memory or even recent history hinted at the outcome. And, of course, the Nazis knew the power of words. It’s why a whole ministry of the Third Reich was devoted to propaganda with Joseph Goebbels at the forefront. Goebbels was charged with Hitler’s public image, regulating the content of all German media, and fomenting anti-Semitism. In the literary world, Goebbels forced Jewish actors, directors, newspaper and magazine editors into unemployment, and staged a public burning of books that were considered “un-German.” It is a surprise that Goebbels - the engineer of the Nazi propaganda machine against Jewish people - was not initially anti-Semitic. In his youth, the high school teachers he valued most were Jews, and he was at one time engaged to a half-Jewish girl. Even Goebbels is testament to the fact that racists are made, not born. He, as a young man contemplating political involvement, was persuaded, no doubt by the words of others, to join the National Socialists. He soon became one of their most zealous anti-Semites, inciting such vile sentiments in the wider populations of the Third Reich. He went about his work with terrifying skill. While the German people and the rest of those who found themselves living under the spectre of the Third Reich had no historical prism through which to view the prevailing fascism, subsequent generations have had. And yet further genocide has
occurred. The power of words and the power in words is evident in the fact that the definition of the word ‘genocide’ is contested by some. Regardless of definition, violence, killing and oppression on a mass scale, of one group, by another group on the grounds of nationality, race, ethnicity and religion have happened since the Holocaust: East Timor, Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Sudan - a litany of grim lessons unlearned across three continents, one of them Europe itself.
In Unity That said, we shouldn’t and can’t despair. We in the international trade union movement, have been constant in our resistance to racism and fascism down the decades, by word and by deed. When Mussolini’s Blackshirts marched in Rome, trade unions remained steadfast in their opposition in spite of the violence, threats and draconian censorship measures inflicted on them. When Hitler’s Blackshirts stormed their meetings and gatherings, trade unionists were undeterred. When Franco’s fascists threatened the democratically elected government of Spain prompting the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, trade unionists swelled the ranks of the International Brigade which rallied in defence of democracy against the fascists. And trade unionists were among those who built the barricades to prevent Mosley’s fascists marching down their East London streets. In solidarity with the International Brigaders, they shouted, ‘No pasaran!’ at the fascist mobs. Today there are 6 million trade unionists across the UK who stand against racism and fascism alongside allies like Unite Against Fascism. We organise anti-racist and anti-fascist public demonstrations every year, now twice a year at least, with banners and chants and speeches as expressions of solidarity with ethnic minorities, refugees and asylum seekers, and as resistance to the racists and fascists who’d seek to divide us. We use our words and our strength in numbers to resist. And we’ll turn out in numbers to show our resistance should Donald Trump, his alt-right henchmen and their hate speech, ever brave a state visit to these shores.
In simple but powerful words: No pasaran! Nae pasaran! Andrea Bradley, Assistant Secretary Education & Equality
www.eis.org.uk
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