When Fascism Wins
The Welsh band „Manic Street Preachers“ sing something very sensible: if we do not stand up against injustice now, even our children will suffer for it.
Fascism is a chameleon. It adapts skilfully to changing historical circumstances, milieus and mentalities. Most citizens believe themselves safe as long as their politicians do not look like Hitler or bellow like Mussolini. Meanwhile the totalitarian element creeps in through the back door, driven by protagonists who present themselves more smoothly, more polished, and thus all the more insidiously. Little by little, rights are dismantled, institutions are turned to serve the one desired doctrine, dissenters are marked and mercilessly persecuted. Citizens fail to notice it for a long time, for who wants to think of himself as a cowardly fellow traveller, and who wants to look at the evil without glossing it over, even when it is already standing on the doorstep?
Flo Osrainik, author of the bestseller „Lügen Lügen Lügen“, turns in his contribution to the band little known in this country, the „Manic Street Preachers“, „the Manics“ for short, who offer an example of successful political pop — to be enjoyed, but also to shudder at and to think along with. It becomes clear that we must fight the emerging new fascism, which will most certainly not call itself by that name, not only for our own sake — we do it also to protect those who come after us.
When fascism wins and freedom loses, it is too late. I certainly did not make it easy for myself in choosing a song. But I did decide after all – and, for now, that is still possible. Because of the new fascism and our children. Because of our trend-setting present and the so ugly, dominant intolerance. Also because of the tolerance towards the influential army of the intolerant totalitarians. Or is that rather indifference? Perhaps, after all, a disguised submission for the sake of dear peace – which in this case would be no peace at all, but only a semblance of it?
For the fascist as a rule remains what he is, namely a fascist. No matter whether painted green, yellow, black, red or rainbow-coloured. And then the title of the Welsh band „The Manics“ holds all the more true: „If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next“. That is: If you tolerate this, your children will be next.
Well then, and one thing at a time: the original, the Britpop song by the alternative rock band Manic Street Preachers, „the Manics“ for short, was released on 24 August 1998 by Epic Records. In its first week the song sold around 156,000 copies and climbed to number one in the British singles charts. But that also remained the band’s greatest success.
Five years later, in 2003, David Usher then released his version of the track. And I like Usher’s version a teeny-tiny bit better, precisely because it is less Britpoppy. But that, thankfully, remains a matter of taste – and one that had better stay individual and not be dictated or sanctioned from above either. Although, hold on and stop. Not entirely: here too the efforts of the Western-globalised regime of conviction, with its closed propaganda front that so utterly misleadingly calls itself „free press“ and yet only writes the same thing, have long been running at full throttle, as Rammstein or colour combinations in flag form rather disgustingly demonstrate (1, 2).
But back to the song and its theme. It too is about totalitarianism, that is, about fascists, but it reaches back to the Spanish Civil War. For the lyrics refer to the idealism of left-leaning Welsh volunteers who joined the fight of the International Brigades for the Spanish Republic and fought against the later dictator Francisco Franco and the fascist troops supporting him. What counted as left-leaning back then, however, would today almost certainly be defamed somewhere as right-wing extremist.
But let us set aside this business of sides here, because the left has always been where the thumb is on the right. Besides, labels above all are relative; the crystal-clear rejection of the rule of human beings over human beings is anyway far better suited for classification, for a rough determination of position in the multi-dimensional universe, and the term „extreme“ can after all be applied to anything and anyone. Especially to dogmatists.
Well then, admittedly, I too cultivate one last dogma. And this one, I promise here most solemnly, I will never ever give up: our fundamental and human rights must always apply everywhere to all people. Ç’est ça!
By the way, the Spanish fascists back then, that is, in the 1930s, were supported by Italian and German fascists, the National Socialists (3).
But since I am already at it, here after all is a brief detour into fascism from my book of the great „Lügen, Lügen, Lügen“. For about this form of rule, named after the Italian fascio, the league, I write:
Original
„Eigentlich bezeichnete der Faschismus die politische Bewegung der Partitio Nazionale Fascista, ein autoritäres Regierungssystem unter dem im Parlament an die Macht gekommenen Ministerpräsidenten Benito Mussolini, dem ‘Duce’ im Italien von vor hundert Jahren. Etwas verallgemeinert lässt sich auch die Herrschaft der nur wenige Jahre später gewählten deutschen Nationalsozialisten mit ihrem Reichskanzler und Reichspräsidenten Adolf Hitler in der Rolle des ‘mein Führer’ als Faschismus oder Neofaschismus bezeichnen.
Zwar kommt der Faschismus durchaus parlamentarisch-demokratisch daher, fordert dann aber unbedingten Gehorsam oder eben Folgsamkeit und stellt eine dogmatische Ideologie über alles andere. Vor allem über Grund- und Menschenrechte. Faschistoide Regime gehen mit allen Säulen der Gewalten vor: mit Verboten und Psychoterror, Ermächtigungs- und Gleichschaltungsgesetzen, Notstandsverordnungen und Gewalt bis hin zur massenweisen Bestrafung, Inhaftierung, Selektierung oder finalen Liquidierung von Kritikern und Gegnern, Minderheiten, Ungehorsamen und Freiheitskämpfern.
Ob dem (Welt-)Volk im Faschismus nur ein Führer, diverse Führungsparteien oder -koalitionen, ein Führungszirkel oder -organisationen, vorgesetzt werden, das ist egal. Im Faschismus ist man nicht allzu wählerisch, seine Strippenzieher, Profiteure und Hampelmänner sind da eher flexibel. Denn: Wichtig ist vor allem die radikale und bedingungslose Durchsetzung einer die Rechte anderer Menschen missachtenden Ideologie.“
Übersetzung
„Strictly speaking, fascism denoted the political movement of the Partitio Nazionale Fascista, an authoritarian system of government under Benito Mussolini, the ’Duce’, who came to power in parliament as prime minister of Italy a hundred years ago. Somewhat generalised, the rule of the German National Socialists elected only a few years later, with their Reich Chancellor and Reich President Adolf Hitler in the role of ’mein Führer’, can also be described as fascism or neo-fascism.
Fascism does indeed come along in parliamentary-democratic guise, but then demands unconditional obedience or compliance and places a dogmatic ideology above all else. Above all, above fundamental and human rights. Fascistoid regimes proceed with all the pillars of power: with bans and psychological terror, enabling and „Gleichschaltung“ laws, emergency decrees and violence, all the way to the mass punishment, imprisonment, selection or final liquidation of critics and opponents, minorities, the disobedient and freedom fighters.
Whether under fascism the (world’s) people are placed under a single leader, various leading parties or coalitions, an inner circle of leaders or leading organisations – that makes no difference. In fascism one is not too choosy; its puppet-masters, profiteers and marionettes are rather flexible in that regard. For: what matters above all is the radical and unconditional enforcement of an ideology that disregards the rights of other people.“
And this way of proceeding, with all its all-round propagandistic efforts to trivialise, glorify, twist or transfigure fascistoid measures, convictions and demands, is something we have all come to know over the past years – rigorous and unscrupulous.
Incidentally, the title of the song comes from an English-language propaganda poster from the 1930s, showing the photograph of a child killed by nationalist bombing, mouth open and hair in waves. The sky in the background is strewn with bombers, and along the bottom edge stands the title-giving warning in capital letters:
IF YOU TOLERATE THIS YOUR CHILDREN WILL BE NEXT.
Now the song begins as if someone had written it during one of those epochally human-rights-contemptuous Corona lockdowns and after intensive Gates, Schwab or WEF and WHO bombardment. At any rate, one could think so:
The future teaches you to be alone,
the present frightened and cold.
The lyrics are not exactly squeamish either, for
if I can shoot rabbits, then I can shoot fascists.
However, this line goes back to the remark of a man who, back then – that is, nearly a hundred years ago – joined the republican fighters. Indeed, several passages in the song refer to events from the Spanish Civil War. So: the song demands deeds, but certainly no forgetting.
Today bullets for your brain,
but we will forget it all again.
For, as the refrain goes:
if you tolerate this,
your children will be next.
At least for the good of one’s own children, because only egoists, opportunists and fellow travellers put on blinkers, deliberately switch off or shut down their brains, fall prey to delusion, or refuse a minimum of civil courage and an upright stance against the current of the fascists. Only: one still has to recognise him or her – the neo-fascists who like to disguise themselves as anti-fascists or democrats, who usually bellow loudest and not seldom first across the land.
Besides, the lyrics are timeless, as the especially repulsive treatment of our children in recent years has proven. In the Corona crisis fabricated by neo-fascists, they were quite especially harassed, tormented and mistreated. Because of the mask, vaccination and other criminal sham obligations and coercions. Also in the schools, in the kindergartens or on the playgrounds, which, incidentally, can never be excused. But also because of the agitation, defamation and exclusion (4).
Gravity keeps my head down
or is it maybe shameat being so young and so vain.
Never again shall indifference, distraction and ordinary propaganda turn the army of the masses into the silent accomplices and co-perpetrators of the neo-fascists. For that is how it was back then with the National Socialists, until yesterday with the vaccination fascists, and so it is today with the Western imperialists.
Today holes in your head,
but I am a pacifist,
I walked La Ramblas,
but without really wanting to.
George Orwell’s account „Homage to Catalonia“ is about his personal experiences and observations in the Spanish Civil War, when he fought for the militia of the republican army. His battles on the Ramblas presumably served as the model for this line. According to Orwell, the various factions did not really get anywhere in their fighting. Yes, of course, one can therefore also run to one’s ruin without really wanting to, and then at some point only memories of better times remain.
And tonight an old man plays in the street,
with newspaper clippings from his glory days.
But then it is too late. Too late for peace. Too late for freedom. Too late for tolerance, and perhaps too late as well for a critical song like this one, which so insistently incites to rebellion. Let us under no circumstances allow it to come to that.
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