Who Has
Fanned the Flames of Fascism? Our Politicians
and Newspapers
Blame those marching in Charlottesville, but
look to the real perpetrators
By Owen Jones
August 16,
2017 "Information
Clearing House"
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They
pour the petrol and then wonder why it burns.
Fascism is on the rise in the west, and it is
emboldened, legitimised and fuelled by
“mainstream” politicians and newspapers. When we
mourn
a hero like Bernard Kenny
– who courageously tried to stop a fascist
terrorist murdering Jo Cox – we have to ask
ourselves: who are those with power and
influence who helped create the conditions in
which racists and fascists breed?
“Cannot believe we’re seeing Nazi salutes in
21st century America,”
tweets Nigel Farage about Charlottesville,
dragging a can of petrol behind him. Perhaps
next the chief executive of a fast-food company
will express disbelief at levels of obesity; or
a tobacco company will issue a press release
spluttering about lung cancer deaths. Farage:
the man who stood, arms outstretched,
in front of a poster featuring dark-skinned
refugees and the words “Breaking Point”.
Farage: the man who
expressed his “concern” at having Romanians move
in next door,
and made apocalyptic warnings of Romanians and
Bulgarians flooding Britain. Farage: the man who
cheered on
the ascendancy of Donald Trump,
a US president whose most fervent supporters are
now triumphantly chanting “Heil
Trump!” as they
menace minorities and progressives.
But Farage is the easy target. Across the
western world a media and political elite
scapegoats migrants for the crimes of the
powerful, portrays Muslims as a homogeneous
violent fifth column, and demonises opponents as
unpatriotic saboteurs and internal enemies.
Trump’s
initial refusal to attribute blame to racists
and fascists
after a far-right terrorist attack – his
subsequent coerced denunciation is worthless,
and was
followed by his retweet
of a leading “alt-rightist” – underlines why
those marching in Charlottesville see him as
their leader.
But Trump’s campaign of bigotry, taken as a
licence to hate by every racist and fascist, was
no grubby disruption of a tolerant American
consensus. “Obama answers to the Qur’an before
the constitution,”
declared Fox News contributors.
The US constitution would be replaced with the
Qur’an,
they announced.
Muslims would be banned from serving in high
office,
declared Herman Cain,
a Republican candidate for the presidential
nomination, a few years ago. “Sharia is a mortal
threat to the survival of freedom in the United
States,” was
the pronouncement
of Newt Gingrich, the Republican ex-speaker of
the House of Representatives. Muslims were the
only group Barack Obama offered “undying,
unfailing support for”,
declared fellow Republican Mike Huckabee.
Those goose-stepping
marchers in Charlottesville,
those racists and fascists, merely represent the
undiluted hatred that festers in the US elite.
And it’s the same in the UK. “What will we do
about The Muslim Problem?”
scrawls Trevor Kavanagh
this week in Britain’s biggest selling
newspaper, the Sun. Here is an instructive
lesson for those who deny the striking parallels
between Islamophobia and the antisemitism of the
1920s and 1930s. “Muslims tell British: Go to
hell”
screeches the Daily Express.
Mail Online continues to provide a platform for
the far-right hate preacher Katie Hopkins, who
once called migrants “cockroaches” and
fantasised about using gunboats against them.
Using this platform, she falsely smeared a
Muslim family as extremists with al-Qaida.
Newspapers openly promote an anti-Muslim hatred
that directly parallels the flagrant and
acceptable antisemitism of the 1920s and 1930s.
No
Advertising
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Government
Grants
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This
Is
Independent
Media
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The courageous former Daily Star reporter
Richard Peppiatt
resigned over “anti-Muslim hate-mongering”. “The
lies of a newspaper in London can get a bloke’s
head caved in down an alley in Bradford,”
he warned, and
he’s right. On a daily basis, the British
population is asked to blame every problem they
have on foreigners, rather than those with power
and wealth. “Migrants:
How many more can we take?”,
“Immigrants
bring more crime”,
“Britain must ban migrants”, “True
toll of mass migration on UK life”,
“The
‘swarm’ on our streets”:
just the hateful headlines, let alone the
bile-filled articles themselves, could fill
endless volumes.
And then the media report on the frothing racist
and fascists of Charlottesville – and Britain,
for that matter – like David Attenborough in a
nature programme. Where did they come from? The
truth is their hatred and bile are legitimised
and echoed by media moguls and mainstream
politicians alike. In this country, the
rightwing Brexiteers portrayed immigrants as a
morass of potential criminals, terrorists,
rapists and murderers; in the aftermath of their
repellent campaign, they portray critics and
progressives
as enemies of the people
and
saboteurs who need to be crushed.
Yes,
racists and fascists are enabled and empowered
by elites on both sides of the Atlantic; and
yes, not just by their hatred, but by an
economic order that generates needless misery
and insecurity, which the bigoted can exploit.
They
are the guilty men – the hatred, the chaos and
the violence is on them. And as the racists and
the fascists continue to march and unleash
violent chaos, their enablers must be held
accountable.
This article was first published by
The Guardian
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The
views expressed in this article are solely those
of the author and do not necessarily reflect the
opinions of Information Clearing House.