Calling for a re-evaluation of what we label fascism, a recent book argued that, by using the word as a synonym for anything that is undesirable, we are blinded to the examples around us of real fascism from both Left and Right wing governments.
During a recent, highly-reputable radio discussion about the book, the old "Hitler was a vegetarian", "Hitler was a fascist", "so aren't vegetarians fascists if they try to stop others eating meat?" non sequitur briefly reared its ugly head.
A rather different view on this point was expressed with terrible clarity by Isaac Bashevis Singer, a Noble Laureate in literature: "In relation to them (animals), all people are Nazis; for the animals it is an eternal Treblinka."
Due to my own complacency and, let's be honest, due too, I guess, to my then underdeveloped compassion muscles, it took me another 10 years to react fully, but I felt something similar when we ("we" being just a cross-section of outraged local citizens, many of whom had never before protested in public) blocked the streets during the "battle of Brightlingsea" to try and stop the export of live sheep and veal calves through the little port.
Looking at the faces of the animals through the lorries' barred sides recalled painful images from nearly 70 years ago, and we all know who the fascists were then.
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