Following fascists
- A Journey to the Far Right (BBC2)
- La Haine (BBC2)
I never met a black man until I was nineteen years old and a raw
``mick'' off the boat in London Town digging for dollars and eating
hairy rashers on the building sites.
Black men on Irish dominated building sites can sometimes be subject
to isolation and abuse and being left with the most distasteful jobs
i.e. ten hours on the jack hammer.
Unfortunately our ``Ceád Míle Fáilte'' baloney has been exposed as just
that, with the shoddy treatment of refugees by the Free State
government, media coverage, bordering on racist at times and an
increasing number of attacks on black people in Dublin.
Nick Fraser recently undertook a year long journey throughout Europe,
following the fascists and exposing their philosophies on BBC2's ``A
Journey to the Far Right''. Some were cliched, some comical and all
disturbing.
Did you know of the existence of the Lego Nord in Italy who canvass
for the separation of North and South ``dark skinned Southern Italians
are not like us, they should be sent home''. We were taken to a ``new
fascist'' rally in Venice with lots of silly men in green shirts and
hankies waving flags with what looked like a cannabis leaf as their
symbol, chanting and singing Padonia's national anthem which sounded
like a Cadbury's advertisement.
Fraser reminds us of his distaste for small country nationalism
``people from the past - who try to cut themselves off from others''.
The unionists immediately sprang to mind but the British media
unfortunately have a blind spot when Ireland is mentioned.
We were taken further down the Italian coast to the birthplace of
Mussolini, where a rabid priest - ``I want to take him closer to
Heaven'' was celebrating mass in IL Duce's honour with a troupe of
frail pensioners saluting the ``fascist glory''. Mussolini put into
practice what I have at times been tempted to concur with, ``elections
and democracy are pretty useless and Mussolini did not believe in
them'', especially if they're all voting for Mary Harney or Pádraig
Flynn.
We were taken to the former East Germany were we met pimply teenagers
and heavy metal fans, victims of high unemployment, aiming their
venom at ``Turks and Blacks'' - ``there are six million without jobs and
seven million immigrants - we don't want our kids to look like black
Africans''.
We met the English historian David Irving who describes the holocaust
as ``the most interesting thing to happen to Jews in 3,000 years'', and
had a twirl at the anti-semitic monopoly where one buys concentration
camps in place of hotels and the object is to dispose of the maximum
number of Jews, and were introduced to the Austrian Freedom Party
whose leader resembles a 1970's porno star dividing his time between
toning up his muscles and using coded racist language which has
garnered him 27% of the vote.
Fraser reserves his own venom for Jean Marie Le Pen's National Front,
who loves to lolly in a riot - ``it makes me feel younger'', his
bullying tactics and racist language is quite similar to our own Dr
Ian.
Unfortunately for Toulon, the city is controlled by the National
Front, where the Chief of Police offers his views on crime - ``it's
due to immigration, it's in their interests for them to go away, take
away their citizenship and force them to go home''.
The characters featured in the award winning ``La Haine'' are Le Pen's
intended targets, passing their time doodling about high rise flat
complexes, avoiding the police and robbing the odd car or two.
They don't join the Socialist Party or go to college and their
futures are pretty predictable in this excellent but quite depressing
movie.
Unfortunately the hatreds that made fascism and sectarianism still
exists and is present in state structures be it the London
Metropolitan or the RUC, and we are reminded ``not to shrink from
confrontation or allow them the last word!
Fight the fash!
By Sean O Donaile
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