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Showing posts with label Fascism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fascism. Show all posts
Gearóid Ó Loinsigh ☭ writing in Substack on 22-August-2025.


(So who shall we put on the list?)

Fascism is on the march around the world. Donald Trump is on an authoritarian warpath both at home and abroad, the Zionist Nazis are brazenly, openly and proudly engaged in a live streamed genocide against the Palestinians, the British outlaw protest groups, the German police remind us all that they have lost none of the swagger of the SS by beating up women on Palestinian marches, arresting people for wearing Keffiyehs and bizarrely anyone caught speaking Irish. It is hard to imagine in this context that Fascism also creeps up on us, the groundwork is laid years before, by people who should know better and do, but also know what their bank balance, pension and health plan look like too.

The Irish poet W.B. Yeats in his bucolic poem The Lake Isle of Innisfree says of the place that

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;

There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

Peace for him was something that crept up on him, small things added up, creating an atmosphere, a context. If you read the mainstream media and listen to liberal handwringing, Fascism is an overnight phenomenon that they had nothing to do with in creating. It is all the fault of Trump and Netanyahu and it happened not quite overnight but in a short period of time. But no, there were lots of crickets singing along the path and many a linnet spreading its wings. There are many elements to it, the collapse of working-class resistance and leadership, the stranglehold of the trade union bureaucracy on workers’ attempts to fight, a loss of political perspectives and reference points and the NGOisation of a left that has become dependent on state largesse just to exist. Censorship and the stifling of dissent is one small, but important element and it didn’t come out of the blue, the groundwork was laid long ago by right wing forces, often with the support of liberals or their stony silence. You can’t say From the River to Sea without fear of arrest in Germany and many other places. But of course, there are lots of things you can’t say.

When the US went after Julian Assange many liberals not only did not support him, but took at face value, not only the allegations of sexual assault and rape, which were bogus, but also the concern of those pursuing him on those charges. There are few presidents of the US, if any, who have not engaged in inappropriate sexual behaviour. And in Sweden, where the alleged assaults took place, politicians forced to resign over such issues demand severance payments even when it involves a minor.[1] The Swedes were not interested in the alleged assaults but in handing Assange over to the US and he was left to rot, first in the Ecuadorian Embassy and later in Belmarsh prison. It sent a message that we are not entitled to truthful information about what the great and the good do. Edward Snowden learnt that lesson too and had to go into exile, paradoxically to a country not known for its press freedom either. But when you flee persecution, beggars can’t be choosers and you go wherever affords you safety.

Aside from going after those who sought to put information into the public domain the dear leaders preferred we knew nothing about, there are those whose works, both fiction and non-fiction are subjected to attempts at censorship, sometimes not because of what the particular work says, but because of the authors views on unrelated matters. Liberals, conservatives, religious nuts and of course that moany self-obsessed cherub generation, that considers itself so progressive but hold many reactionary positions all engage in censorship in one form or other, sometimes of the same author but for different reasons. JK Rowling is criticised by trans activists for her defence of women’s spaces, whilst conservatives and religious nuts accuse her of promoting witchcraft. All have called for her books to be boycotted, banned, or otherwise suppressed. In the case of the conservatives, they actually managed to have some of her books removed from school shelves in Zeeland, Michigan and Nashville, Tennessee in 2019 over concerns about witchcraft.[2] A trans activist’s wet dream, though if witchcraft were real, well that would solve whether you can change sex or not.

The link between these attitudes and the current rampant attempts at or actual fascism (Israel is beyond doubt a fascist regime) is never made. In the US between 2001 and 2020 organised groups challenged 46 titles per year but in 2024 this reached 4,190 titles for that year alone. Conservatives, fascists and the deranged right challenge a wide range of materials, particularly LGBTQ+ titles, sometimes on the grounds of age appropriateness. Some of the books may indeed be inappropriate for children, but they really don’t want any positive books or discussion of LGB lives or TQ+. These are the people who in other periods across the world have banned books such as D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover, and also books such as the Joy of Sex. Prudes with issues about their own sexuality, who have perhaps never enjoyed sex, or a book, for that matter.

Liberals and conservatives like to think the authors they want banned, or those whose voice they would censor, fit into nice neat categories of reprobates. They don’t. Margaret Atwood is a case in point. She is a feminist and her novel The Handmaid’s Tale about a dystopian world where conservative attitudes towards women are taken to their logical conclusion is a feminist text and now thanks to the TV series a social reference point for all. It resonates with many women, as what it portrays is not a million miles removed from current reality. However, in 2018 she ran the gauntlet when she criticised the #Me Too movement. She didn’t disagree with women saying they had been raped, sexually assaulted or had their careers ruined because they had stood up to the powerful Hollywood men who tried to force them to have sex with them. She argued instead about the procedures of the movement and the idea that the allegation was enough to convict. She stated:

The #MeToo moment is a symptom of a broken legal system. All too frequently, women and other sexual-abuse complainants couldn't get a fair hearing through institutions – including corporate structures – so they used a new tool: the internet. Stars fell from the skies. This has been very effective, and has been seen as a massive wake-up call. But what next? The legal system can be fixed, or our society could dispose of it. Institutions, corporations and workplaces can houseclean, or they can expect more stars to fall, and also a lot of asteroids.

If the legal system is bypassed because it is seen as ineffectual, what will take its place? Who will be the new power brokers? It won't be the Bad Feminists like me. We are acceptable neither to Right nor to Left. In times of extremes, extremists win. Their ideology becomes a religion, anyone who doesn't puppet their views is seen as an apostate, a heretic or a traitor, and moderates in the middle are annihilated. Fiction writers are particularly suspect because they write about human beings, and people are morally ambiguous. The aim of ideology is to eliminate ambiguity.[3]

This seems a reasonable statement, a starting point for a discussion, but no, she was hounded and the usual calls for cancellation were made. She survived. She got back into their good books because she was on the side of the trans in the debate about women’s spaces. People are complex, have varied ideas that vary over time. This is not acceptable to the cherubs. Absolute uniformity of opinion is demanded on all issues at all times. Or at least on all the issues that the high priests of the dogma decide are important. This is easily seen on the right, where there is rarely a need for caricature. Frequently amongst liberals there is no need for caricature either, but some of the more sophisticated types are able to present themselves as being more nuanced, regardless of whether they actually are or not. Their position is that anyone who disagrees with them should be banished to some literary Devil’s Island, where like Papillon they may be allowed to escape many years later, if even then.

Margaret Atwood has once again come under fire. This time from the right. How the liberals who pilloried her will object, I do not know, given their past record on censorship and on her specifically. In her native Canada, Edmonton’s Public School Board has decided to remove 200 book titles from the libraries, including Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale due to sexual content.[4] Amongst the titles to be removed is The Color Purple by Alice Walker, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou. It is laughable, but liberals and are ill placed to object given their own behaviour. They have asked for everything from Shakespeare to Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mocking Bird to be removed from school and even university libraries. The cherubs have even demanded that some books be removed from courses, or that they be given trigger warnings when reading Shakespeare, students of history can even demand that when studying WWII or the Holocaust that they be given trigger warnings. They were coddled for years by liberals. It went hand in hand with the notion of safe spaces i.e. areas in which you couldn’t be challenged by ideas that made you feel uncomfortable. This led in the case of Maryam Namazie, an Iranian feminist and an ex-Muslim, who was invited in 2015 to give a talk on blasphemy in the age of ISIS by the Atheist, Securalist and Humanist Society at Goldsmiths being shut down midway through her talk. She was interrupted by the Islamic Society, who even turned off her PowerPoint presentation. When she told them to be quiet, the head of the society shouted Safe Space! Safe Space! Intimidation! The Feminist Society on campus did not support the Iranian feminist’s right to speak but rather the Islamic Society’s right to shut her down. There is a hierarchy of opinions and the liberals accepted and argued that there are lots of liberal views that should not be heard, ever.

You would think that given the recent history in stifling opinion on Palestine the left and liberals would have learnt the lesson. But no. Not one bit of it. Trump is not the only idiot who doubles down on nonsense. Most of the liberals do it with a similar zeal and lack of reference to the facts.

John Boyne, the Irish author of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is a case in point. His novella Earth, about sexual abuse, made the longlist for the Polari Prize, an award specifically for LGBTQ+ authors. He is a gay man and so qualifies. However, making even the long list brought howls of rage from the cherubs and their time worn elders. He should have been removed from the list they claimed, not on the basis of the literary merit of his novella about sexual abuse, but rather because of his position on trans, an issue not dealt with it in his work.[5] The uproar has led to the cancelation of the prize this year and its future is in doubt. Boyne himself was saddened by it all and asked the authors who withdrew their names to resubmit them and he would ask not to make the shortlist as he considered it a worthy prize for some of the new authors.[6] It fell on deaf ears. His sin in the matter was unforgiveable. Yes, even liberals talk like conservatives and have notions of sins: original, venial and mortal. His was a mortal sin with no redemption. He said biological sex was real, he as a gay man was attracted to other men, not genitals and less still some amorphous notion of gender and blue hair. I am paraphrasing of course, but that is about the measure of what he said.

What has all this got to do with fascism? A lot. The idea that some ideas are fought by suppressing them, is a common one in capitalist societies, mainly used by the state and the right. We have many examples of this, the most infamous of which is perhaps the McCarthyite witch hunt in the US, Section 31 of the Broadcasting Act in Ireland which banned interviews with Sinn Féin, the Ley Mordaza in Spain which banned the filming of the cops, laws in many countries that make insulting the royal parasites on the throne a criminal offence (Spain, Thailand etc). Now however, we have had about two decades of liberals demanding the state take such action, organising it themselves when the state fails to act, arguing for increased measures of suppression of free speech and even assembly, thought crime legislation and not just against right wingers, but also heretics from within their own liberal ranks.

Of course, were it just liberals we could dismiss them with the contempt they deserve and say no more. However, they are joined in their crusade by certain “Marxist” currents, some of which have been to the fore in this nonsense. Marx had a lot to say about censorship and why he opposed it. Trotsky also stated that “any workers ‘leader’ who arms the bourgeois state with special means to control public opinion in general, and the press in particular, is a traitor (bold not in original).”[7] Many of those demanding censorship and calling for cancel culture, such as the SWP in Britain and PbP in Ireland consider themselves to be Trotskyist, though they increasingly downplay their origins. Traitors all in the eyes of old man Trotsky. Lest anyone think, this is some particular aberration of Trotskyist groups, sorry to disappoint, many Stalinist groups and in an inherently contradictory manner Anarchists also call for such measures.

These liberals and erstwhile Marxists, of various hues, are not to blame for the rise of Fascism, but they did contribute to it by legitimating censorship and the very notion of thought crimes. They argued for states to have the tools they now use against pro-Palestinian activists and they have left the wider movement ill-prepared to challenge such attacks as their disagreement with the state is not whether thought crimes exist, or free speech should be curtailed, but about who the state should target. In their reformist cretinism they thought they had the state on their side. A genuine unforgiveable error. Perhaps it crept up on them, but now they see the monster in all its putrid decadence, they marvel at their baby instead of learning the lesson.

References

[1] The Nordic Times (11/04/2025) Swedish expolitician demands payout info after pedophile scandal. 

[2] The Guardian (23/08/2025) Banned! The 20 books they didn’t want you to read. Steven Poole.

[3] The Globe and Mail (13/01/20218) Am I a bad feminist? Margaret Atwood. 

[4] Global News (29/08/2025) Edmonton Public removing more than 200 library books to comply with provincial rules.

[5] Author statement on the Polari Prize Longlist. 

[6] The Telegraph (19/08/2025) Here’s what happened when they tried to cancel me. John Boyne. 

[7] Trotsky, L. (1938) Freedom of the Press and the Working Class. 

⏩ Gearóid Ó Loingsigh is a political and human rights activist with extensive experience in Latin America.

Fascism Comes Dropping Slow

Caoimhin O’Muraile  ☭  Historically in Britain the far-right tend to make electoral gains when a moderately left-wing Labour Government are in office (due to applying parliamentary socialist policies in a sea of capitalism, like oil and water, they don’t mix). 

During the mid-nineteen-seventies Harold Wilson, succeeded by Jim Callaghan in 1976, tried to enforce such moderate socialist policies and was forced to retract them, satisfying nobody, least of all the trade unions, leading to the rise of the fascist National Front (NF) on the streets. 

Today we are witnessing the rise both electorally and on the streets of the ‘Reform UK’ party and they appear to be winning in both theatres. ‘Reform UK’ are led by a very convincing Nigel Farage who, unlike his predecessors, does not come out, at least publicly, with language which could be equated with fascism. He does not use derogatory terms to describe ‘immigrants’ and people of different skin colour as those in the NF, and later the British National Party (BNP), did. In fact ‘Reform UK’ has among their ranks people of Asian origin who hold high office in their organisation at least as long as it serves the purpose of the party to be seen in such a multi-cultural light. Once this façade has served its purpose could this all change?

Farage has been clever and opportunist in taking advantage of Keir Starmer’s adoption of right-wing policies by stealing traditional labour socialistic clothing. Knowing the electorate have little if any idea of political ideology Farage can steal, without notice, traditional Labour Party policies such as nationalisation of certain industries like the Scunthorpe Steel Works and, on the surface, defending the Welfare State. A traditional Labour policy which comes to mind is the ’Reform UK’ support for the nationalisation of the water service providers and energy, Gas and Electric services. Farage is very vocal in his policies of nationalisation of these industries, and for a second confusion between an oration spoke by Farage in 2025 and Clement Attlee back in 1945 could be forgiven. The difference is when Attlee spoke of nationalising British industries he also aimed towards the ‘pluralist’ system of industrial relations involving regular talks between the trade unions and management with the understanding that ‘class conflict’ was probably inevitable but not insurmountable. The object was to minimise such conflicts certainly in the newly nationalised industries. This system of industrial relations was torn up by the far-right, in parliamentary terms, British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher who herself, I believe, privately held certain fascist views and who hated all aspects of the post-war political consensus in Britain including the ‘pluralist’ system of industrial relations.

Nigel Farage’s version of nationalisation is highly unlikely to include trade union participation in influencing decisions in these industries and certainly not an acceptance of ‘class conflict being inevitable but not insurmountable’. The existence of trade unions, certainly as we know them, under a ‘Reform UK’ Government would be questionable. Farage wants what he terms a “sensible” relationship with the unions to “prevent the need for strikes” and this very ambiguous description of policies could mean a multitude of things, perhaps having Reform people at the helm of union leadership? 

Adolf Hitler during his election campaigns pretended to court the working-class and once in power one of the first moves he made was to close down the trade unions, placing armed SA (Sturmabteilung) men outside their offices and making strikes illegal, punishable by a long spell in a concentration camp. He replaced the ‘free trade unions’ with the Nazi controlled ‘labour front’ which ‘dissuaded’ workers from taking traditional industrial action! In 1936 Oswald Mosley founder and leader of the British Union of Fascists (BUF) visited Hitler in Germany. He married Dianna Mitford at the home of Nazi propaganda chief, Joseph Goebbels, with Hitler as Guest of Honour. Mosley sought an alliance with Mussolini and Hitler and openly voiced support for the Nazis' anti-Semitism. Does Farage share some of Oswald Mosley’s political objectives? This is a question people should at least ponder before giving him and his party the vote!

It is all a façade by ‘Reform UK’ to entice Labour voters away from the Labour Party and Keir Starmer is playing right into their hands. Starmer’s abandonment of traditional Labour Party values has left a vacuum for Farage to temporarily occupy. The reality is ‘Reform UK’ do not wish to be a friend of the Welfare State and particularly the National Health Service (NHS) which, according to Labour, ‘Reform UK’ would “scrap the NHS” should they ever be in a position to do so. What is left of the British Labour Party’s left-wing should be rallying the government to turn course and begin re-enacting policies expected from a Labour Government. The problem Labour MPs face here is this; any of them who push in a left-wing direction, Starmer has the whip removed from them. Effectively this expels such MPs from the party with Rachel Maskel, MP for York, becoming the latest victim of Starmer’s right-wing approach. It is not only the Labour Party whose voters Farage is gunning for, the Conservatives are an equally open target for him to aim at. Nigel Farage, a former Tory Thatcherite, is finding it easy to entice the right-wing of the Conservative voters.

One aspect of fascist ideology which is pivotal and that is turning the country into a business on a maximise profits basis. One point Farage and ‘Reform UK’ often argue is there are not enough ‘business minded people in government’. One of their Asian leading members, Zia Yusuf, from Reform UK's ‘Department of Government Efficiency’, said; “not one of the Labour Cabinet has had a job of any significance in private business”, suggesting only business people should be in Cabinet! Perhaps, in their eyes, only business people should get the vote?! This form of corporatism is central to fascist thinking though Farage is careful to avoid the word ‘corporatism’. During the Nazi years in Germany the government consisted of such business giants as Krupps Armaments directors, Siemens board members, I.G Farben and many others alongside leading officers of the SS. Hitler turned Nazi Germany into a huge profit-making machine using slave labour who were worked to death usually in the armaments industries and the huge theft of Jewish property, especially Art. Like all businesses, opposition like trade unions are not wanted and, in the case of fascism, must go! If you are a trade unionist and thinking of voting ‘Reform UK’ think very, very, very hard.

The idea of business people holding office was reinforced by ‘Reform UK’ MP for Runcorn and Helsby, Sarah Pochin, who supports the idea of business people running the country. The party won the by-election in May overturning Labours 14,700 majority in Runcorn and Helsby which should sound the alarm bells for Starmer. Another aim of ‘Reform UK’ is to reform the prison system stating; “we should involve the army in opening new prisons”. The Runcorn and Helsby MP continued; “old MoD property should be used as prisons with soldiers as guards”. Such set ups would be more like the early Concentration Camps in the Third Reich than the prisons of a liberal democracy! When in 2016 the far-right candidate, Donald Trump, was elected as President of the United States Nigel Farage was the first politician to board an airplane to the US to congratulate him. In 2020 Trump was voted out of office to be replaced by Joe Biden something which Trump refused to accept. The former President orchestrated an attempted coup using his fledgling private army, the ‘Proud Boys,’ to overturn the election result. This attempted coup by Trump was not too far removed from Hitlers failed Putsch of 1923 in Munich! The similarities between Mosley’s visit to Hitler and Farage’s trip to congratulate Trump are plain to see. Perhaps Farage shares some of Mosley’s ideological aims?

A typical fascist tactic is to whip up racial hatred on the streets then retreat to the safety of the elected chambers and condemn such violence they themselves have largely orchestrated. Such an incident occurred in Essex on Thursday 17th July after an asylum seeker was arrested and charged with sexual assault. He was taken into police custody and at this point a ‘Reform UK’ councillor reportedly addressed a crowd inciting racial hatred in their innuendos hiding behind the lines of ‘common sense’ sounding arguments. These innuendos were easily dissected by ‘Reform UKs’ own agents within the crowd to then transmit to the less intelligent thugs who made up the numbers. Such a twin track strategy of preaching law and order in the chambers and orchestrating violence on the streets was used by both Mussolini and Hitler with devastating results. Are ‘Reform UK’ trying to emulate such strategies of nineteen twenties and thirties Italy and Germany?

‘Reform UK’ have had many successes in local elections as well as the last British General Election. According to YouGov “Reform would win most seats in a general election” if that election in Britian were to happen now. Fortunately such an election is not due until 2029, though Keir Starmer is doing his best to make a mess of things despite his huge majority which could force a national poll earlier! ‘Reform UK’ have four MPs, Lee Anderson, Nigel Farage, Richard Tice, and Sarah Pochin, and two - Rupert Lowe and James McMurdock - who were elected and are now under suspension. Not a great deal it could be argued but the frightening point is the last local elections in May they won council seats from both Labour and the Conservatives with Sarah Pochin winning Runcorn and Helsby in a by-election overturning Labour's relatively large 14,700 majority. Nigel Farage described the 1st May elections as a “great day” for his party. What perhaps the British electorate should ask themselves is this. If the ‘Reform UK’ party were to be elected to government, would the electorate after five years have the opportunity to vote them out? A very, very relevant question given the nature of their policies.

Caoimhin O’Muraile is Independent Socialist Republican and Marxist.

Are The British Electorate Blindly Marching Towards Fascism?

Azar Majedi ✊ On May 8 and 9 of this year the 80th anniversary of the end of WWII and the defeat of Nazis was commemorated in two different ceremonies, one in Ukraine with British, French, German and Polish heads of states, and one in Russia that was attended by 30 state leaders including the Chinese.


80 years after the end of WWII the world has turned around a whole circle and is back to where it left off. WWII is considered to be a determining point in the history of modern world. The war exposed the inherent inhumanity and brutality of capitalism. The death and destruction that the war imposed on the world was brutal.

Now 80 years later, after a year and a half of genocide, slaughter and mass murder in Palestine and the Middle East, few years of warmongering propaganda, expansion of NATO, monumental investment in arms, the extreme suppression of civil liberties (1), complete censorship of mainstream media and extreme measures against social media, suppression of freedom and the right to protest, we are witnessing the same horrid situation. Fascism is taking over the whole West. The threat of another world war is looming over us. It is unbelievable how it only took 80 years for the monster to reappear.

The war started by a European power and led to an unimaginable death and destruction. Around 80 million people lost their lives worldwide; 7 million Germans, 2.7 million Western Europeans and Americans, 27 million from the Soviet Union, 20 million Chinese and millions in Africa and Asia. WWII is recorded as the most horrendous crime of modern time (from 1500 to today) considering that since the rise of colonialism there have been many genocides committed by Western states, on top of slavery which is one of the darkest chapters of human history; it shows the extent of brutality and inhumanity exerted in this war.

WWII Just like the first one was about world domination and power. It was created to resettle the results of WWI which aimed at re-dividing the world. And the world indeed changed; some empires fell and some gained more power; new countries were created. However, one thing nobody had expected was the October 1917 revolution in Russia which changed the political dynamic and relationships and created a great challenge for the world powers. The threat of communism became the biggest threat of all time for capitalism and western imperialism. As a result fascism started to grow in Europe.

Hitler’s and the fascists’ aim was to defeat the working class and communist movements which were strong in Germany and also in Europe and to crush the Soviet Union. Many communist and labour activists were sent to concentration camps, something which is never talked about. Since WWI, when Russian revolution shook the world, fascism came to the political scene in Europe first and foremost as an anti-communist movement to combat the Soviet Union and the rise of socialist and working class movements in Europe, and in great parts of the world. Italy is considered the birth place of fascism, but it became very strong in Germany, it was in power in Portugal (Salazar regime) and Spain (Franco regime) collaborating with Hitler but officially neutral, it was the de facto power in France, and very strong in Austria, Greece, Romania, and Yugoslavia. Even though British government officially opposed Hitler, Its leaders, notably Winston Churchill were ideologically fascist.

In 1937, while speaking in favour of allowing Jews to settle in Palestine, Churchill made a statement which is eye-opener:

I do not admit ... for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.

Soviet Union was the main force in defeating the Nazis; the force that they waged the war against. According to all historical documents Soviet Union played the main role in defeating the Nazis, after losing around 27 million of its population. It was the “Red Army” who freed Auschwitz. The picture of the Red army soldiers raising the red flag over the Reichstag Building in Berlin has become iconic. (2) This is not about taking sides. It’s about historical facts and trying to understand and expose the West’s intentions for falsifying the history. Soviet Union was not a socialist state. It claimed to be one. But the world capitalism could not even tolerate a fake socialist state.

However, Western imperialism has been trying to change the history by creating a false narrative. This narrative portrays US as the saviour of the world from fascism and the country that ended the war. They even try to bury the abhorrent US crime of dropping nuclear bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of the war, just as a show of force, testing nuclear bombs or warning the world who the real boss is! The ruling class has created this fantasy world of the good and evil worlds fighting each other, and of course the West is the good, and Russia the evil.

As Western imperialism practically lost the war to the Soviet Union and as a result Soviet Union grew bigger and took over part of Europe, the West chose a very clever ideological-political path or solution to raise the flag of democracy, human rights, individual freedom, rationalism and international law. To create a welfare state with democracy in the West as a propaganda showcase against the Soviet Union and to destroy any socialist movement in the world under the banner of fight for democracy. It was this goal and obsession that led to the creation of Truman Doctrine (3) to rule the world and Marshal Plan (4) to assist Europe.

This only lasted a few decades. By the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the cold war, the “sweet” era of democracy and human rights came to an end in the West.

Comparing the world today with 80 years ago, brings to mind Marx’s deep observation of human history: “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.” (The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte) However, the farce has gone to the point of absurdity. Two years ago in May 2023 the G7 held a summit in Hiroshima and condemned the war crimes of Russia without even mentioning the nuclear bombs dropped by the US on that very same city!

This only shows how far the ruling class has come and how obnoxious they’ve become. They’re completely disconnected and feel untouchable. They don’t give a damn about what the public think and feel. This is when you scratch your head and ask how far they’re prepared to go and how far will the people take it? The answer to the first question is as long as they are forced to stop. The answer to the second one is more complicated.

The rise of fascism in the West is real. The ideological narrative promoted by the ruling class is fundamentally the same as the Nazi era, but turned around. Throughout history the WWII narrative has completely changed to Nazis against Jews and all the other factors have been minimised and sidelined. And now in a bizarre way anti-Judaism (anti-Semitism is used in mainstream discourse) has come to mean anti-Israel. By this jugglery they have arrived at the position to call anyone who opposes and condemns Israel an anti-Semite and therefore a criminal. Criminalising any opposition to Israel and its genocidal crimes and to criminalising defence of a suppressed and downtrodden people are the best proof of the rise and power of fascism. Upholding Talmudic values and principles has become officially acceptable and promoted: European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen recently stated that “Europe holds the values of the Talmud,” referring to the central text of Rabbinic Judaism. (5)

NATO has expanded both in size and military capability; warmongering is an integrated official narrative and more bold and practical steps are taken to violate the current international law in order to provoke Russia and China. These are worrying signs.

The West has never stopped creating wars. The West has been more or less safe from war, but wars have been ravaging all over the world, thanks to US, Britain, France, Israel, etc. (We said “more or less”, this refers to the war NATO waged against Yugoslavia that led to thousands killed and misplaced. Belgrade was bombed by NATO for 78 days in 1999). But when the dominant and mainstream spokesmen speak of world war, they mean war in Europe like the 2nd one. The US and the West are struggling with deep crises. Crisis is an inherent nature of capitalism. It is periodical; and each time to overcome the crisis, the stronger becomes stronger, and concentrate more wealth under its control and the weak gets eliminated. The chaotic nature of crisis, if deep enough, can lead to wars.

US while creating the UN as an international institution to deal with world issues, started a brutal campaign to take over the world, suppress any voice for equality, freedom and progress. In fact, the nuclear bombs dropped by the US on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were a glimpse to the future, a sign of the shape of the world to come. US organised more than 70 coups during the cold war, bombed many countries, including Vietnam, Cambodia, South Korea and Laos. Millions were killed under US bombs, by famine and starvation imposed as a result of war, under military juntas supported by the US.(6)

UN has been exposed as the instrument of US and the West to keep their supremacy and power over world affairs. UN is nothing but a theatrical show to engage and distract the minds. Its downfall was accelerated by the genocide in Gaza and its total inability to make any difference. However, when one delves into its history one discovers that from the beginning it was nothing but farce. The former UN general secretary Kurt Waldheim was a former Nazi military officer. He served in the German Wehrmacht during World War II, including in Greece and Yugoslavia.(7)

80 years from its inception, UN has become an exposed, discredited joke in the world. The Genocide of the Palestinians tore the mask and charade of human rights, international law and democracy. All the propaganda about democracy, human rights, superior science-based, humanitarian-based civilisation has been shredded into pieces.

We have enough proofs and documents to expose the ruling class and its plan for the world destruction in an attempt to deal with capitalist crisis on world scale. We need to mobilise. We need to wake up. We need to fight back. The future of humanity is at stake. Tomorrow might be too late.

(1) UK police is investigating Kneecap, an Irish band, and has charged for terrorist offence under terrorism act for singing against Israel and shouting Free Palestine.

(2)  The Red Army raised the flag over the Reichstag building in Berlin on May 2, 1945, marking the end of the Battle of Berlin and a symbolic victory over Nazi Germany. This iconic image, often referred to as "Raising a Flag over the Reichstag," is a well-known symbol of Soviet triumph in World War II.

(3) The Truman Doctrine, articulated by US President Harry S. Truman in 1947, committed the United States to providing political, military, and economic aid to countries threatened by communism. It aimed to counter the spread of Soviet influence and establish a policy of containment, where the US would work to prevent the expansion of communism. Another aim not addressed openly in this doctrine is threat of Arab nationalism which Eisenhower Doctrine, announced in 1957, addresses more openly. Eisenhower privately admitted that the real goal of the doctrine was to combat Arab nationalism. US under Truman was the first country to recognise Israel.

It’s been documented that former US National Security Adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, was promoting China to support the Khmer Rouge in 1979: “I encouraged the Chinese to support Pol Pot. Pol Pot was an abomination. We could never support him, but China could.” According to Brzezinski, the USA “winked, semi-publicly” at Chinese and Thai aid to the Khmer Rouge.

(4) The Marshall Plan was a US-led program of economic aid to Western Europe following World War II, aimed at rebuilding war-torn economies and preventing the spread of communism was a US foreign policy that pledged American support to nations resisting communist aggression or subversion.

(5)  1953 coup ‘d’état in Iran, Turkey 1960 and 1980, Greece 1967, Korean war 1950-53 which resulted in at least 3 million death, Indonesian coup 2-3 million death, genocides in Vietnam and Cambodia, bloody coups all over Latin America; these are some of the atrocities committed by US in cold war under the banner of defence of democracy.

(6) What is dumbfounding is the complete silence of the secularists and feminist movement and organisations with regard to this statement. Those who are lamenting over Islam condemn the misogyny and backwardness of Islam, said nothing, even to raise concern over such outright misogynist and reactionary values. Their silence is deafening.

(7) There were more high Nazi officers and collaborators in Western establishments including Hans Speidel: A general who served in the Wehrmacht and later became the Supreme Commander of Allied NATO ground forces in Central Europe. Adolf Heusinger: A general who served in the Wehrmacht and later became the head of the West German military and Chairman of the NATO Military Committee. Many were employed by NASA.

⏩Asar Majedi is a Member of Hekmatist Party leadership & Chairperson of Organisation for Women’s Liberation.

80 Years After WWⅡ 🪶 Fascism On The Rise

Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières ✏ Written by Naomi Klein. Recommended by Carrie Twomey.

The governing ideology of the far right has become a monstrous, supremacist survivalism. Our task is to build a movement strong enough to stop them.

The movement for corporate city states cannot believe its good luck. For years, it has been pushing the extreme notion that wealthy, tax-averse people should up and start their own high-tech fiefdoms, whether new countries on artificial islands in international waters (“seasteading”) or pro-business “freedom cities” such as Próspera, a glorified gated community combined with a wild west med spa on a Honduran island.

Yet despite backing from the heavy-hitter venture capitalists Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen, their extreme libertarian dreams kept bogging down: it turns out most self-respecting rich people don’t actually want to live on floating oil rigs, even if it means lower taxes, and while Próspera might be nice for a holiday and some body “upgrades”, its extra-national status is currently being challenged in court.

Now, all of a sudden, this once-fringe network of corporate secessionists finds itself knocking on open doors at the dead center of global power.

The first sign that fortunes were shifting came in 2023 . . . 

Continue @ ESSF.

Rise Of End Times Fascism

Azar Majedi ✊ On Tuesday 4th of January 10 people were killed and several others injured in a mass shooting at an adult education centre in the city of Örebro, Sweden. 

A significant number of students are immigrants who attend the school to learn Swedish or various professions. The police quickly ruled out what they described as “ideological” motive.

“Officers said he had no links to gangs and is thought to have acted “without any ideological motive.”

“They also do not believe the attack was motivated by terrorists.”*

Some reports stated that he suffered from mental disorder. The official and broadcast narrative is that he was a loner with mental health issues, as it’s usually the case with white non-Moslem mass shooters! This is at best ignoring and at worst a deliberate covering up of the real motive behind such a murderous attack.

Firstly, there is a video of the attacker chanting: “Leave Europe!” This slogan is enough to call the motive at least racist. Furthermore, you don’t have to be a psychiatrist to understand that anyone who takes a gun and shoots into a crowd, regardless of their proclaimed motivation, must suffer from a mental illness or disorder. The mental illness explanation is a deliberate sidetrack from the real issue. Why would this “psychopath” attack a group of refugees and immigrants from the Middle East who are associated with Islam? The deep-rooted racism and hatred of refugees, Muslims, Arabs, blacks, and Africans is the narrative that has dominated the brain of this psychopath and has been promoted in the society by the ruling class.

Creating division, hatred and hostility in society is a classic and well-known method of the bourgeoisie. In times of crisis, this method becomes more widespread and intense. And this is the situation we are now facing in the world and in the West. The rapid growth of fascism in the West is astonishing. Right-wing and even officially fascist parties are coming to power in Europe. Repression and censorship are rampant. Poverty and deprivation have spread enormously. Governments openly and brazenly speak of the forced migration of hundreds of thousands of refugees to the slave camps they have erected in Africa. The pretence of "humanitarianism" and respect for democracy has been completely abandoned.

It is in these circumstances that we are witnessing the rise of violent attacks on groups of people. This painful and frightening event raises two questions once again: 

  1. the root of the growth of such events
  2. why are the police, the government and the media treating these crimes differently?

The rise of fascism, the deepening of hatred and hostility

Whenever racist and right-wing propaganda rises, so do blind, hate-based crimes and racist incitement against refugees and immigrants, especially from the Middle East, Africa and Muslim background. It has spread rapidly throughout Europe, including Sweden. In recent years, Swedish society has shifted sharply to the right. It joined NATO last year and is considered one of the active forces inciting NATO's war with Russia. The government is currently in the hands of a right-wing-fascist coalition.

Such attacks and crimes happen in a negative and hateful environment. With the aid of media and by creating fear and hatred in society, creating artificial confrontations between different sectors based on race, religion and nationality the ruling class resort to spreading false narratives. Provocative and hostile propaganda against refugees and immigrants and against Muslims has been growing in Sweden and Europe for years. Demonization of Muslim people, especially Muslim men, Africans and Arabs has reached disgusting dimensions.

One way to counter this atmosphere is to question and expose this propaganda. For example, during the racist-fascist riots in England, we witnessed widespread demonstrations against racism and in support of refugees. The project of forcibly sending refugees to Rwanda was initiated and pursued by Britain. However, numerous attempts by the government to implement it were unsuccessful due to large demonstrations and pickets. Now Germany has decided to benefit from the facilities for the detention of refugees in Rwanda. Sensitivity and awareness of this issue are of great importance. One way to counter the rise of fascism is through exposing their lies and objectives and by organising protests and actions. Active defence of human rights of refugees must become an important issue in our struggle against fascism, censorship and the state’s suppressive measures. The Western world now treats refugees like slaves. This is a disgrace to humanity. Fascism is investing in this. It must be reversed.

Muslim and non-Muslim attacker

Whenever the aggressor is Muslim or of Muslim descent, it is immediately and without any investigation labelled a terrorist operation and a terrorist attacker. This is what the police say, what the media reports, and what the people describe. If the attacker is black, or the attack happens inside the ghettos where most refugees live, the crime will be describe as “gang” crime. If he is non-Muslim and white, they call it a crime committed by a loaner who suffers from mental disorder. There is no need to go into great detail. Let's just look at a few recent events.

In the latest case (in Sweden) the police declared that the attack was individual and not related to terrorism or gangs. How did the police, who declared that they are still investigating and do not know the reasons and motives, come to such a decisive conclusion so quickly that they have eliminated terrorism and gangs and called the motive purely personal? Let us recall that in recent months there have been two individual attacks on groups of people in Germany. In the first case, a young man from Afghanistan was identified as the perpetrator of the incident. Immediately, everyone from the media to the authorities, including the Iranian left, called this person a terrorist and the operation a terrorist one. No one has yet conducted any investigation into the motives of this person and his connection to an Islamic terrorist group. The cry of Islamic terrorism was unabashedly raised and a call for a war against Islamic terrorism and against Muslims was issued.

A few months later, a similar action was carried out in Germany, this time by an immigrant from Saudi Arabia. The cry of terrorism was not raised, but silenced. Why? This person was a well-known Ex-Muslim and, by his own admission, hated Muslims. In a short time, terrorism was renamed "psychosis" and pages were written about his mental problems and that he was not a true Ex- Muslim.

Every year, there are a few hundred mass-shootings in America. (Last year there were 488 cases.) Hundreds of people are killed. They are usually categorised as “Psychosis", "trauma" and “PTSD” related crimes, and soon forgotten by the media and government officials.

If trauma and PTSD are supposed to be the root and reason for so many crimes committed by "white people," which is very likely to be the case, why is a similar action not considered "psychosis" or trauma by an Afghan, Iraqi, Syrian, Libyan, Palestinian, and Sudanese whose entire lives have been imbued with the deepest and the most painful traumas due to the bombs and crimes of the United States, Israel, and NATO? Targeted racism, creating prejudice, and open discrimination against certain people are the answers to this question.

Categorising criminal offenses in this manner is highly discriminatory and biased. When the police, officials or media categorise an attacker who is Muslim as a terrorist, they deprive the offender of any possibility of impartial justice. They issue a verdict before trial by branding the attacker as a terrorist. Moreover, this method intensifies and provokes racist and blind violence by creating a false fear against a section of the population.

The dominant narrative of Islam has blinded the eyes to such an extent that any logic, fairness, impartiality and indiscriminate justice, have been set aside. The word Islam and Muslim immediately sounds the alarm of terrorism in the traumatised brains of anti-Islamists. Over the past thirty years, American imperialism in its war of destruction against Middle East, calling it “The New World Order” has created and promoted a false narrative: “the clash of civilisations”, The West against Islam. By doing so, it has demonised millions of people simply because they believe in a certain religion or belong to a society in which that religion is dominant. Over the past thirty years, a dark and demonic image of these people has been transmitted to the world. It is true that Islamic terrorist groups have committed brutal crimes, but these groups are created by America, Israel and the West. Al-Qaeda, ISIS and Hamas all three emerged from the CIA, Mossad and MI6. The Islamic Republic was imposed on the Iranian people's revolution through a regime change by the West. Just as the former leader of ISIS-Al-Qaeda has now become the President of Syria with a change of decor.

We must try to expose and reject the dominant false and provocative narratives. We are in a dangerous situation. Each of these events, large and small, is a warning of a dark and bleak future; these alarms must be taken seriously. The effort to build a solid barrier against fascism and right-wing reaction that is attacking society from all sides must become a priority for leftist and communist forces, as well as progressive and freedom-loving movements.

Reference

*BBC. 

⏩Asar Majedi is a Member of Hekmatist Party leadership & Chairperson of Organisation for Women’s Liberation

Terrorism Or Mental Disorder? Manipulating The Narratives 🪶 Mass Shooting in Sweden

Caoimhin O’Muraile ☭ The British establishment and governing classes with their representatives in ‘Pandoras Box’ or Parliament (my description) have a history of appeasing far right regimes around the globe.

Back in 1919 after the First World War with the defeated ‘central powers’ led by Imperial Germany a treaty was signed at the Palace of Versailles just outside Paris. This became known as the ‘Treaty of Versailles’ or the ‘Paris Peace Conference’ and it was particularly harsh on the defeated Germans almost blaming them exclusively for the carnage of WWI. The French in particular were hard on the Germans demanding huge war reparations. 

Even the US President, Woodrow Wilson, commented on the harshness insisted on by the French. Their attitude may well have had much to do with the harsh terms and reparations the Prussians insisted the French pay after France’s defeat in the Franco/Prussian War, 19th July 1870 – 28th January 1871, when the North German state inflicted huge reparations on the French along with forcing them to give up much territory. For the French it was perhaps payback time! The treaty of 1919 forced the Germans to destroy their submarine fleet, restrict their army to 100,000 men, have no Airforce or heavy artillery on the ground. These terms were humiliating to say the least and to crown it all, the Kaiser was forced to resign or abdicate. It was a bitter pill for the defeated German people to swallow and one which would come back to haunt the victorious allies two decades later.

In 1929 an economic collapse hit the capitalist world, the ‘Wall Street Crash’ and it affected Germany more than perhaps any other capitalist country. To the far-right it was music to their ears as they had been waiting for an opportunity to spout their hatred of minorities, namely the Jews in the case of Adolf Hitlers NSDAP or Nazis. Hitler had made a move earlier in 1923 in Munich in what is known as the ‘Munich Beer Hall Putsch’ which failed and cost Hitler a short term in prison. Now he and his Nazis were back campaigning on the streets fighting in brawls with the communists, which the Nazis won, and entering elections. 

In 1933 Hitlers party became the largest in the Reichstag and he wanted to be Chancellor and on 20th January 1933 President Hindenburg, despite his reservations, made him just that. Hitler then set about dismantling the hated ‘Treaty of Versailles’, introducing conscription into the army. This would make the army exceed considerably the 100,000 number stipulated in 1919. This was a clear breach of the ‘Treaty’ which the British and French could and should have acted on. They didn’t and the question is why not? Ostensibly the reason was neither of them wanted another war and neither did their respective populations but this was bollocks, an excuse. The real reason was they saw in Hitler and the Nazis a bulwark against Soviet Russia and their brand of ‘communism’. British and French businesses were trading well with the Nazi state despite their mistreatment of the Jewish population. When a tidy profit can be made then fuck the Jews or any other discriminated ethnic minority group! In 1936 Hitler chanced his arm again, this time marching into the demilitarised zone known as the ‘Rhineland’. Once again, the British and French failed to act and Hitler, understandably, began to think he could do what the hell he liked and fuck the ‘Treaty of Versailles’. And as for the allies they could go and fuck themselves!

The Nazis were now constructing, not very clandestinely, a new modern Airforce, the Luftwaffe (Air Arms) which would become, for a time, the most powerful in the world. Another breach of 1919 and another act of appeasement by those who were supposed to uphold the Versailles treaty. In 1938 the ‘Munich Crisis’ over Czechoslovakia came about. Hitler demanded the border lands of Czechoslovakia, known as the Sudetenland, be given to Germany vowing then if these were granted, he would have “no further territorial demands in Europe.” Germany had already annexed Austria into their ‘greater German Reich’ and this was done with no bloodshed and the agreement, eventually, of fascist Italian leader Benito Mussolini. Now they had carved up Czechoslovakia with British and French approval, and Czech PM Edvard Benes was not even consulted on this dismantling of his country!! 

British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, went to Munich for a ‘little chat’ with Hitler and made a second visit not long after with French Premier, Edouard Daladier. Chamberlain came back to a delirious crowd waving a ‘piece of paper’ around declaring “peace in our time”. Hitler must have been laughing his balls off!! While all this political upheaval was going on British business was still dealing with German companies and the Nazi state itself. During WWII they would continue to clandestinely trade via third countries with the Third Reich. ‘Business is bigger than war’ was the motto of many in the British business community. Once again it was worth it to the British and French leaders to avoid war and have a staunchly anti-Soviet friend.

When the Second World War was over, resulting in an allied victory due in no small part to the victories of the Soviet Red Army who had suddenly become allies with the British and French small ultra-right groups began springing up in Britian. In 1962, just seventeen years after the Nazi defeat, Colin Jordan and John Tyndal launched the openly Nazi ‘British National Socialist Movement’. This group preached anti-Semitism, anti-immigration policies and spouted pro Hitler propaganda while wearing Nazi style uniforms complete with swastika armbands. The establishment allowed this to go on, many high-ranking British establishment figures being members of this cabal. A total insult to the many brave anti-fascists who gave their lives not so much for King and Country, but to fight Nazism during the war. This is the contempt the Establishment, many of whom wear poppies at ‘Remembrance Sunday’ parades, think of those who died fighting this kind of scum. Since then, fascist groups like the National Front (NF) and British National Party (BNP) have made their presence felt on the streets of Britain. These organisations have support from some in the business classes who see them as an insurance against the far-left in Britain, just as German business saw Hitler as an insurance policy against the communists in defence of their profits and German capitalism. A picture of appeasement and accommodation can be seen dating right back to Hitler abroad and overtly Nazi groups at home on British soil.

In 1979 Margaret Thatcher and her conservatives were elected to government in Britain. Thatcher held privately many fascist views and among her personal friends numbered Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet was the far-right man in Chile who organised the overthrow of the elected left-wing government of Salvador Allende in 1973. He was a fascist in all but name and one of Thatcher’s friends. For the record Thatcher refused to accept she was no longer Prime Minister when she was ousted as the leader of the conservatives in 1990, in much the same way as Donald Trump refused to acknowledge defeat to Joe Biden in the 2020 US presidential election. Fortunately, the British Conservative and Unionist Party were/are not fascist: far-right on occasions yes, fascist no. It was her own party which stopped Thatcher going all the way with her ideologies. She would, in all probability, have outlawed trade unions and strikes if she could have got away with it. When she was booted out of office in 1990 it was the moderates within the party who carried out the execution.

In 2016 the British held a referendum on whether to leave the European Union. The charge to leave and encouraging a leave the EU vote was a man named Nigel Farage. His party, the right-wing United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP,) was the most prominent of the leave camp. England voted to leave the EU, but Scotland and the Six counties voted remain. Their votes did not count, such is the make-up of the UK, just as they do not count for much if England wants something. This man, Farage, holds many fascist views and is reportedly on record as once singing a Nazi song; “gas em all, gas em all” (Irish Daily Mirror Friday 17th November P. 16) referring to Hitlers gassing of Jewish people. This vile man, who likes to promote himself as the funny man, everybody’s friend who likes a pint in his local, once “marched through a Sussex village singing Hitler Youth songs” (Ibid). While he attended the prestigious Dulwich College in South London, teachers there reportedly “tried to stop the headteacher making Farage a prefect, writing a letter in June 1981 to warn he had professed racist and fascist views” (ibid).

Now, this dangerous self-perceived funny man Farage who reportedly once boasted his initials were the “same as the National Front, NF, at the height of Britain’s far-right movement” (ibid) is taking part in a programme called: ‘I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here’. Farage’s involvement in this ridiculous programme will involve him, and others, trying to survive in jungle conditions, a correct venue at least for this less than funny fascist. The dangerous thing about Nigel Farage is, as the referendum proved, people listen to his fascist style arguments and vote accordingly even when he is lying as was the case in the referendum over £365 million saved for the NHS which turned out to be a lie put out by him and future Conservative leader, Boris Johnson. 

Is this not how Nazi Germany started? A ridiculous looking little man with a moustache who many thought to be deranged. They were right there, sweeping to power on being ridiculous and spreading lies! Farage has played the funny man, the I’m everybody’s friend card which hides a hate filled interior blaming immigration for all Britain’s woes! Farage left the Conservatives in 1992 two years after Thatcher was booted out.  No doubt he, Pinochet, and she shared many views. He disagreed with new party leader, John Major’s policies on Europe. Farage also reportedly said “the basic principle of Enoch Powell's Rivers of Blood speech was correct, and he has aligned himself with right-wing figures from overseas like Donald Trump” (ibid).

When Farage made his less than funny remark about sharing his initials with a fascist organisation it could be argued he was still a teenager and it was just adolescent fun. Not very funny, granted, but nevertheless that case could be put. If Farage had not gone on to politically advance his views, perhaps ‘teenage fun’ may have been the end of it. It could also be argued that fascism is imbued within the ranks of the bourgeoisie, which is where Nigel Farage hails from. And this is typical of the contempt that strata of society treat the rest of us with - could this be the case? 

Away from the racist aspects of his policies other points include the privatisation of the National Health Service (NHS), reducing the BBC to a news channel only, forcing them to have advertisements to cover their costs, banning workers taking strike action by law, reducing if not outlawing trade unions to tea and biscuit clubs, and many other profiteering far-right policies.

The question must be asked, how far away from fascism and, even more frightening, Nazism, are the British establishment? If Hitler had won WWII how many adjustments would the higher echelons of British society, including the Royal Family, have had to make? Today they still tolerate fascists, even making them out to be OK guys, while calling former labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, an anti-Semite because he dared to condemn Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. If the Nazis had won the Second World War I don’t think the British establishment and industrialists would have been that much bothered - after all profits come first over and above all other considerations! Don’t they? 

Today Britain appeases fascism and fascist ideologies at home and makes friends and alliances with far-right leaders abroad. Presently the British Government so far have refused to demand a ceasefire be called by the far-right Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu in Gaza. British politicians, both in government and opposition, have backed the murderous actions of Netanyahu without question. In fairness many Labour MPs have defied party leader, Kier Starmer, and called for a ceasefire, some going as far as to resign from Labour. Britain, certainly at Establishment and government levels are continuing their appeasement of fascism, just as they always have. Perhaps they wish to keep this ideology in their arse pockets as an insurance against any popular upsurge in socialist policies and organisations particularly outside Parliament?
 
Caoimhin O’Muraile is Independent Socialist Republican and Marxist.

British Appeasement And Accommodation With Fascism and Nazism – Past And Present

Caoimhin O’Muraile ☭ The far-right in Britain is once again on the rise. 

Ever since the 1920s, after the rise of Mussolini in Italy 1923, there has been a presence of this evil ideology in Britain. The former intelligence and Security Head, Ormond Winter, based in Dublin Castle before 1922 went back to Britain and joined the fledgling fascist movement over there. Winter would have been ideally suited to such dictatorial ideologies and principles. 

This movement should not be mistaken with Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists (BUF) formed in 1932 by a former labour, conservative and independent MP Sir Oswald Moseley. The organisation Winter gave his allegiance to was a very mixed bag, including some former suffragettes. Other suffragettes, a majority, joined the Labour Party and even the Communist Party, but a few joined Ormond Winter and the fascists. This organisation could have been described as the forerunner to the BUF. BUF membership included the Second Duke of Westminster. After Britain and her allies, the USSR and USA chiefly, defeated the Nazis, the fascist ideology lived on, quite openly and legally despite so many good men, not forgetting the role women played in WWII, sacrificing so much fighting such evils.

During the Second World War against fascism Britain’s former King, Edward VIII, who abdicated late in 1936, sided not so clandestinely with the Third Reich. The former ‘traitor King’ as he was described in a documentary titled Britain’s Traitor King aired on channel four, the former monarch advised Hitler; “the way to beat Britain is to keep bombing her and her people”. This was the former King of the United Kingdom advising the enemy to continue bombing and this was at the time of the “Blitz”! This man was the late Queen Elizabeth II “favourite uncle”, her words not mine, a fucking Nazi!

British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, himself holding some fascist views, wanted the former King tried for treason but the establishment overruled him!! All this and the British people, certainly the English, still love the Monarchy - it beggar’s belief. Had the Axis won the war Edward VIII was to be reinstalled as Hitler’s ‘puppet King’. Fortunately for all of us that did not happen. The same ‘traitor King’ once boasted; “I have not a drop of British blood in my veins, I am one-hundred per cent German!” He even reportedly told the Fuhrer where to bomb and passed on many strategic points of interest to the enemy!

After the war Colin Jordan and his henchman, John Tyndall, formed the British National Socialists Movement (NSM) in 1962. Prior to this Jordan was invited to join the short-lived British Peoples Party, a group led by Lord Tavistock, heir to the Duke of Bedford and consisted of former BUF members. This group, the NSM, openly wore the swastika and was opposed by anti-fascists consisting of Jewish groups, communists, socialists and even some liberals. Like most of the fascist leaders Jordan was not the sharpest knife in the draw failing the entrance exams for the Fleet Air Arm and the RAF. He finished up serving in the Army Educational Corps, which may tell us a lot about the level of education received by the troops?

In 1967 Arthur Kenneth Chesterton another former BUF member formed the National Front (NF), an overtly fascist organisation which was at one time during the 1970s led by Martin Webster. The NF were opposed by the Anti-Nazi League, an organisation formed and then disbanded by the Socialist Workers Party and was huge in numbers as opponents of the NF flocked to the ANL. 

The 1980s saw the rise of the British National Party, formed in 1982 by John Tyndall and taking its name from a group of the same name from the 60s which became defunct. Many former NF members followed Tyndall into the BNP. The BNP created its defence arm, Combat 18, named after the first and eighth letter of the alphabet, AH – Adolf Hitler – and this gang were and are armed. The BNP were opposed successfully by new organisations like Red Action and Anti-Fascist Action (AFA) who ambushed the BNP and their henchmen C18 on regular occasions meeting street violence with street violence. The BNP never knew when or where AFA would turn up, London, Manchester, Birmingham disrupting their meetings and kicking the shit out of them. Always having the art of surprise on their side AFA of the time were very effective against the fascists. Tyndall was succeeded by Nick Griffin as leader of the party and he tried democratic politics coupled with the street fighting of C18 with limited success. They did make inroads on many local councils but this success did not last long as soon as their mask as democrats slipped.

In Ireland while all this was happening in Britain, we too had our share of fascist organisations, not only the Blue Shirts of Eoin O’ Duffy, the perhaps best known of these groups and one of the component parts which formed Fine Gael, but also less well-known organisations. One of these organisations was Ailtin na hAiseirghe (Architects of the Resurrection) founded in 1942 by Gearoid O’ Cuinneagain who, in 1940 founded the short lived Clann na Saoirse, which was connected to the pro-Axis organisations ‘Irish Friends of Germany’. He endorsed ‘Plan Kathleen’, a military plan for the invasion of the six counties by Nazi Germany, sanctioned in 1940 by Stephen Hayes (acting IRA Chief of Staff). 

Did the idiot Hayes not realise what he was dealing with? There can be no doubt O’Cuinneagain did, no doubt at all, but a Nazi occupied Ireland would have put the Black and Tans well into the shadows, even de Valera could see that. 

Ailtin na hAiseirghe planned for a totalitarian Irish Christian Corporate state and fortunately failed to make any significant impact on main stream politics in the 26 counties. However, the party did last for sixteen years, dissolving in 1958 and in 1945 had upwards of 2,000 members. This was out of a population in the 26 counties of around 4.29 million. Per capita that was larger than the BNP which at its height had reportedly 12,000 members in a UK population of around 67.33 million. So, not all our green fields will not allow fascist seeds to grow and the weeds to expand like bindweed in a garden. So, perhaps the title question, ‘Could the Fascist Right in Britain Spread to Ireland?’ is the wrong question. Perhaps we should be asking how do we stop what may already be here? As we see regularly the presence of the far-right in Ireland opposing asylum seekers and refugees across the 26 counties. That presence, with the potential to grow, is already in our midst.

Today in Britain more sinister fascist and openly Nazi organisations are springing up. Organisations like Britain First led by former BNP councillor Paul Golding and an even more dangerous group styling themselves; National Action. This organisation was behind the murder of Labour MP, Jo Cox, in 2016 as she campaigned for a remain vote in the referendum on EU membership. Led by Chris Lythgoe, National Action are able street fighters and are physically fit. They practice martial arts and kick boxing and are a different league to any organisation in this regard of the past. The organisation, unlike its predecessors and contemporaries recruit in the universities. They want the most agile minds as well as physically fit members and as anti-communists are eager to court the middle-class. 

Many middle-class students are pissed off with the communist and socialist led Students Union and see National Action as a credible alternative. They, National Action, aim at igniting a race war and style themselves as “White Jihadists”. They hate the Muslims and the Jihadists, a tiny minority within the Muslim population. They style themselves, with totally opposite objectives on the Jihadists of the Muslim variety along similar lines with a view to ignite the ‘white-man’s war of revenge’. They hate Jewish people and claim “Hitler was too merciful” on the Jews. One of their ploys is to infiltrate Palestinian support groups, something the far right have been doing for years, not because they support the Palestinians but simply because they hate Jews! 

A brilliant dramatized documentary; The Walk-In is presently being aired on Virgin Media One every Wednesday and Thursday 9pm and it began with the murder of Jo Cox by a member of this neo-Nazi group. National Action are a proscribed organisation, the first far right group to be have been so since WWII. This does not mean they have disappeared, no fucking way unfortunately, they have just gone underground. They do not intend, as far as I can see, to become a mass party openly operating their intentions but are far more clandestine than anything in the past. 

The British Government think or pretend to think this banning order against National Action has put the group out of business. This is, of course, bollocks. Could this group move to Ireland? Yes, given their hatred of the IRA and Irish republicanism - in fact Irish independence at all - there is no reason why they could not move over here. Not openly, of course, that would defeat the object, but just stoke up any volatile situations and leave the rest to the Irish right. The Irish right, if ever a fascist takeover is completed, will be very much second to their British masters like National Action, possibly used like the Jewish policemen in the Warsaw Ghetto before they themselves were sent to the camps!! 

In the past the Irish in Britain, or a small minority of them, have been used by right-wing groups like the NF because of the inherent racism within these elements. I have witnessed such usage many years ago on the Walworth Road. An Irishman who had a pub and hated black people for no reason, courted the NF who, for the record hated the Irish, and the fascists used him to stoke up racial hatred pretending to be his mate. Once he had outlived his usefulness a gang wearing Union Jack T. shirts and wearing masks kicked the Irish racist half to death! This was once the plan on a wider scale of the far-right in Britain to use racist elements within the Irish community to do the dirty work after which when no longer useful???

For anybody who thinks I am exaggerating, as I have a tendency to do about the level of fascist threats, I suggest you watch The Walk-In. It is compelling viewing and should not be missed by any anti-fascist groups or individuals. This crowd are more organised, more sinister and evil and better on the streets than anything in the past including the BNP of the eighties who National Action describe as “the moderate right.” One member of the group dared to say that “women and children would get hurt. He was seriously reprimanded and told:

if you go out to kill vermin, the Jew, then you don’t worry if they are young vermin or old vermin, they have to be killed. Just like rats, the Jews are vermin.

The group are anti-immigration and want all black people either culled or deported. They also highlight the murder of off duty British Soldier, Lee Rigby who was brutally killed in the street of London in 2013 - ironically the same year National Action were formed - by two black youths. One of the youths were reportedly - reports quickly supressed - known to MI5 who were hoping to use him as a double agent against ISIS. The murder of Lee Rigby is used by National Action members to make out the entire black community are murderers which is of course utter rubbish. Were MI5 aware of what was going to happen to Lee Rigby but allowed it to go ahead in order that they could recruit and turn one of the assassins to a double agent? This threat as I see it is very serious indeed and could easily gain traction among the hitherto non-fascist (which are not the same as anti-fascist) population. I sincerely hope I am wrong.

Are today’s young anti-fascists up to the job? This new group, as I have said, are a league ahead of all the past organisations, smaller but well organised and proficient street fighters. Today’s anti-fascists must be able to match them both ideologically, not too difficult, but physically which may be more problematic! I can only emphasise on people to watch The Walk-In. It is not fiction but a dramatization of events beginning with the murder the of Labour MP, Jo Cox, in 2016.

Caoimhin O’Muraile is Independent Socialist Republican and Marxist.

Could The Fascist Right In Britain Spread to Ireland?

Caoimhin O’Muraile ☭ As most people will be aware in recent years, Ireland, we have seen the emergence of far-right neo fascist parties. 

Recently the residents of Dublin’s East Wall district have had their quite legitimate concerns about the 26 county government's lack of consultation over the housing of 380 asylum seekers in an old ESB building hijacked by the so-called Irish Freedom Party, I understand. We covered this last week so no need to go over it again, except to say many residents are making it known that these groups, neo-Nazi variant of fascism are not welcome. The same right-wing group, understood again to be from the fascist Irish Freedom Party led by Herman Kelly are trying the same methods down in Cork. Here the residents have been quick off the mark, perhaps learning from the experiences in East Wall, and anti-fascist placards have been visible on the streets. That is a very encouraging sign. To remind people of the net result, should these organisations ever come to power I shall quote a short ode by a German Pastor, Martin Niemoller, once a supporter of Hitler who fell foul of the Nazis finishing up in a camp, which he survived. The poem is very self-explanatory: 

First, they came for the communist, and I did not speak out.
Because I was not a communist.
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out.
Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out.
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out.
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me

This is the net result if these people ever get to power. They care nothing for the residents of East Wall or anywhere else for that matter, and their nameless faceless multi-millionaire backers care even less. These residents are just fodder to promote the fascists' campaigns. With the huge influx of refugees and asylum seekers coming into Ireland I am surprised it has taken them so long to react. The IFP is not the only neo-fascist party in Ireland. Just because they do not contain the word in their titles is merely a technicality. The Irish National Party led by Justin Barret recently had their Ard Fheis disrupted in county Fermanagh by anti-fascists reportedly carrying hammers. One way of dealing with these extremely violent, if they are allowed, people from spreading this Hitlerite garbage.

It is not the aim of this article to condemn or condone the use of violence when opposing racism and fascism, but just read your history books to see the most effective methods of the past. The reader can make their own mind up.

Ireland, like Britain, has had its fair share of small fascist organisations dating back to the 1930s and Eoin O’Duffy’s Blueshirts founded in 1932 and dissolved in 1935. In their ranks numbered the former Free State Minister for Finance, Ernest Blyth. When this gang was disbanded O’Duffy formed the National Corporate Party, 1935-37, a very tiny fascist party with the Greenshirts as their military wing. Both these groups were opposed on the streets by the IRA. Another perhaps less well-known openly fascist party was Ailtiri na hAiseirghe (Architects of the Resurrection) founded by Hitlerite Gearoid O’Cuinneagain. The organisation existed between 1942 and 1958. Like the Blueshirts this organisation was opposed by anti-fascists on the streets. O’Cuinneagain openly supported the Axis forces during the Emergency, or Second World War. In Britain back in 1936 Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists (BUF) were stopped by thousands of anti-fascists led primarily by Jewish and Irish groups and was made up of trade unionists, socialists, communists and even some liberals. Mosley and his gang were stopped at Cable Street in London’s East End.

Moving into the 1970s and the rise in Britain of the National Front led by openly pro-Nazi John Tyndall, a right-wing street thug who was Colin Jordan's right hand man in the 1950s (see BBC series Ridley Road for more on Jordan). As a counter to the NF the Socialist Workers Party initiated the Anti-Nazi League which grew to huge numbers. The ANL was successful in combating the NF, later to reform as the British National Party, and in 1981 the SWP decided to disband the league. This, I still believe, was not because the battle against fascism was won, but moreover because Tony Cliff and the SWP leadership could no longer control the ANL. The ANL formed at one point into “squads” which became known as “Squadism” which complemented the huge mobilisations which were not always necessary. Any response to fascism must be appropriate relative to the threat. For example, a small fascist demonstration or mobilisation would not require thousands of anti-fascists on the streets; a national mobilisation, when a “squad” could do the job more efficiently. On the other hand, a huge far-right mobilisation, such as in South London in the early eighties would require a huge anti-fascist counter attack, bringing in branches from all over Britain.

Once the ANL had been disbanded any SWP members who continued with the good work of the ANL faced expulsion from the party. Many SWP - the more aggressive elements - members were expelled and new anti-fascist left-wing groups like Red Action began for the first time to emerge and engage the Nazis on the streets. I by chance bought their paper one day in a left-wing bookshop which was called, like the organisation who printed it, Red Action. I found their reading and ideas very attractive and they advocated, what turned out to be a successful strategy at the time, confrontation on the streets and opposing fascism ideologically at any given opportunity. 

Red Action were instrumental in forming Anti-Fascist Action (AFA) which was made up of socialists of many differing hues solely to combat fascism. Former British Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, was affiliated to AFA. I just happened to be on a tube train on London’s underground and as I alighted on my tourist journey searching for ancient London landmarks, I witnessed a commotion and fighting, or chasing may have been an appropriate description. It was a Red Action initiative to clear the area of fascist paper sellers. I must admit, although I was a peaceful tourist this Red Action crowd were impressive. Their methods might be frowned upon, but they certainly had the desired effect. The SWP condemned these actions by AFA and Red Action in particular as being just “Squadists” an arm of the old ANL which they themselves organised! Ironic, because once the SWP had lost control of the ANL anybody or group using, perhaps updating a little these same tactics were condemned by the party leadership of the SWP as being the exact same “Squadists”, a strategy which less than a decade earlier they had endorsed!

According to papers which I have read and conversations I had with various anti-fascist groups the confronting fascism on the streets is a very useful and necessary action to take. It is not the only way though. Other means which compliment such aggression must also be used. Countering the fascist arguments in discussion with those who may be swayed by what appears, on the surface, to be logical arguments from the far-right when in fact they are Hitlerite policies dressed up in suits. For example, the myth that imported foreign labour forces down wages. What nonsense. Employers force down wages and use the migrant worker as a convenient excuse for doing so. The trade unions should be moving quicker to counter these red herrings by the bosses, pointing to the minimum wage in Ireland, due to be raised to 11.70 euro per hour from the New Year. The employers who pay staff below this rate, then scapegoat migrant labour as the cause, must be taken to court by the unions, highlighting them for what they are, exploiters not only of labour but also any given set of conditions. These employers should be reminded of their legal obligation to pay the minimum wage to indigenous and migrant workers. 

There are many ways and arguments to combat fascism, far too many for this blog, which street combatting is perhaps and unfortunately pivotal if history tells us anything. Such action must be accompanied by rational political counterarguments to justify the street activity. For those who do take the street violence and confrontational road, and I am neither advocating or denouncing such actions, pick you side. Red Action, I am led to understand, attacked the NF/BNP at their remembrance Sunday mobilisation. Not the main event, usually televised, as such folly would be seen as disrespectful to the fallen by the general public, but after, when the fascists held their own hypocritical scene. Remember, a lot of good men and women from across the globe stretching from China to the USSR to the USA, Britain, France, Belgium, India, Australia, New Zealand, parts of sub-Saharan Africa, Czechoslovakia and Ireland gave their lives fighting the very ideology the NF/BNP/British Movement. 

Today, Britain first, a fascist party with links to loyalist groups in the north are one of the major groups in Britain, admired by the former US President Donald Trump. What would President Franklyn D Roosevelt have made of that?

Caoimhin O’Muraile is Independent 
Socialist Republican and Marxist

Opposing Racism And Fascism Past And Present

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