Citing the Nazis

 Citing the Nazis

It is a fact universally acknowledged that if one invokes the Nazis in an argument, that argument is lost. Everyone knows that, don’t they? Bring up Hitler in an online thread and that thread comes to an end. Compare someone to a Nazi and you are the one who ends up looking ridiculous and extreme. Putting something modern day alongside the Nazis is considered the ultimate in overreactions.

And in the vast majority of cases, that’s true. But at the same time, there is a tremendous risk in dismissing all such comparisons with such instant contempt. Because if we aren’t careful, we might end up forgetting one of the most important lessons that history can ever teach us – how people with extremist, dangerous views can work their way into power.

For anyone who has it available to them, I would strongly recommend watching the first series of the BBC documentary series Rise of the Nazis because while it is a hard and sobering watch, it is also a lesson in the dangers of how a group of people can rise in credibility by wearing a polite face right up until they don’t have to. It tells the story of a nation with economic difficulties and a weary population, tired of their government, looking for an alternative and voting in an outsider party previously regarded as extreme but now making themselves more respectable, who were promising to fix all the problems other politicians had caused and restore their nation to its previous glory. Is that sounding worryingly familiar to anyone else keeping an eye across the world stage right now?

And the great problem with democracy is, once you are in, you’re in, and whatever one decides to do with that power, short of revolution, there’s not much the rest of us can do about it. And maybe the promises will be kept and they will govern in exactly the way they have promised. Or maybe they will show their hidden face and people’s lives will be indelibly changed – maybe they will find ways to keep themselves in power beyond their term and restrict the freedom of those who oppose them to say so, as others have done before them, becoming entrenched and quietly abolishing democracy altogether. And that’s the trouble – how does one tell before the event if citing the Nazis is an overreaction or a valid concern?

And the simple truth is – we can’t. But it would be deeply foolish of us to dismiss the possibility of it happening again. All over the world, extremism is rising and working its polite face into politics. And it is we, the voters, who need to remember the lessons of history and not get fooled again. We need to think long and hard about who and what it is we are voting for and not just fling a vote to a group bordering on the fringe of dangerous just because we are sick of everyone else. People need to think before they vote.

So here I am, citing the Nazis. But I really hope I don’t lose the argument.

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