OPINION:THE BRITISH, the English in particular, have always well understood the threat of fascism in Europe. And the best of the English in this regard have been mainly on the left.
The British left has a proud tradition, rooted in both ideology and non-conformism, that is peppered with great moments such as the Cable Street riots in London’s East End in October 1936, when a motley bunch of socialists, communists, anarchists, Jews and various immigrants, including Irish, took on Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists, whose legal march was being protected by the police.
That’s not to ignore heroes of the left on the Continent: people like the Parisian communards of 1871, Rosa Luxemburg of Berlin, and La Passionara – the inspiring Dolores Ibarruri of the Spanish Civil War – and her hopeless but wonderful “They shall not pass” defiance during the battle for Madrid. The phrase was used first by the French at Verdun, but quickly became a breastplate for many, mainly on the left. Franco delivered his riposte, of course – Hemos pasado (“We have passed”) – as he trotted victorious into the Spanish capital . . . and plunged Spain into decades of stagnation and repression.
The weekend marked the 65th anniversary of the Normandy landings – one of the greatest moments of European history. On June 6th, 1944, led by the British and Americans, people of decency began to wrest back from fascists a continent they had plunged into barbarity. If you doubt the significance of the landings, take your family, most especially your children, to an unusual museum just above the tiny Normandy seaside village of Arromanche.
This is where the British had built the floating Mulberry Harbour to facilitate supplies for troops landing on nearby beaches. What happened is remembered today in the circular Arromanche 360 museum where, every 30 minutes or so, an 18-minute documentary, The Price of Freedom – no dialogue, just Normandy pictures, then and now – leaves you in no doubt as to why you were right to bring the family.
The European elections are in many ways a living monument to what was achieved by the Normandy landings . . . and what the victors did with the peace. America rebuilt the place, Nato kept the peace and the EU fashioned structures to ensure it never happens again.
Noisy segments of the Irish left have always had problems with Europe and with its defence, largely, I believe, because of the distorting effect of a particular brand of republicanism – that of Sinn Féin, Republican Sinn Féin, the IRSP, Éirígí and elements of the Greens, former and current. They’ll get over it eventually because most of the electorate is tired of what is essentially a negative, selfish view that doesn’t deal with the world as it is.
Some on the right, the hard right, don’t like the EU for other reasons that are less readily identifiable but often connected to hyper-nationalistic views and a fear of other: other people, other races, other creeds, other gender or sexual orientation. The clever ones use a charismatic appeal and cloak their supposedly commonsense credos in reasonableness. We are pro-Europe, we just want to make it democratic, they say, suggesting by implication that Brussels, far from being a free association of democrats, is somehow a dictatorship. But their guard slips when, in the teeth of a recession, they identify foreigners as part of our problem and suggest we should brand them with coloured cards. The mask is pulled back totally when one examines the company they keep – company like the League of Polish Families, as nasty a bunch of nationalist bigots you will meet anywhere.
Today, we know what the people of Europe think of them and their fellow travellers, 65 years after the beginning of the end for fascism.