Moville Community College Magazine 2020/21

frustrated with the current situation. People such as Philip Dwyer, who ran in the general election for the far-right National Party, claim that they are ‘providing security’ for the protesters, much in the same way that the Nazi SA and SS ‘claimed to be protecting’ their own rallies and protests during the 1930’s.

History has shown that, in difficult times, people turn to extremist groups and ideologies to find a solution for their problems. The Great Depression, for example, brought sudden, enormous support for extreme right-wing parties such as the NSDAP, commonly known as the Nazi party in Germany. Some of these groups eventually garnered enough support to either overthrow the fledgling democratic regimes that were established in Europe after the First World War. In 1930, the Nazi party only had 12 seats in German Parliament, whereas by 1932, another two years into the Great Depression, they won 107, an eight-fold increase.

Now, this process appears to be repeating itself. Should high unemployment rates and financial insecurity continue, it is not out of the question that these parties might eventually obtain a majority of the vote, and with the wide availability of social media to spread hurtful ideas quickly, this is made all the more likely.

We must learn to spot these people, and not give them the attention that they so crave. We must educate ourselves and others on how extremism corrupts the mind and makes it capable of feeling only fear and hate. We must make it our objective to be patriots during these difficult times, not nationalists for should nationalism prevail once more, the millions who sacrificed their lives on the battlefield will have died in vain.

'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it’ -George Santayana

By Leon O’ Donnell: TYA