Evil is evil, no matter the title we give it
February 11th 2008 23:32
:
Evil is evil, no matter the title we give it
When I reread the Introduction of Anne Applebaum s standard work on the Soviet concentration camps - Title: Gulag - I came across the following paragraph, dealing with Westerners buying Soviet paraphernalia in Prague:
- The sight struck me as odd. Most of the people buying the Soviet paraphernalia were Americans and West Europeans. All would be sickened by the thought of wearing a swastika. None objected, however, to wearing the hammer and sickle on a T-shirt or a hat. It was a minor observation, but sometimes it is through just such minor observations that a cultural mood is best observed. For here, the lesson could not have been clearer: while the symbol of one mass murder fills us with horror, the symbol of another mass murder makes us laugh. -
I was struck by these lines as I have many times noticed similar things. Around the corner from my place in Sydney is pizza place decorated with Mao-posters and down the road in Surrey Hills is a shop with Chinese knickknacks called Mao & Co. Of course the portrait of The Great Leader is all around, no matter the 60 million deaths (at least) of his brutal regime. I come across Mao and USSR t-shirts regularly, usually worn by some young, hip, alternative person. The idea that someone would walk around with a Hitler t-shirt is unimaginable.
Many still have the idea that Communism is not as bad as Nazism, this in spite of the fact that many historians have acknowledged again and again that Communism was the biggest mass murderer of the 20th Century. But of course, Humankind cannot bear very much reality, as T.S. Eliot said in Four Quartets. Mankind in general has the tendency to twist reality to his liking and to remain completely blind for the facts that do not fit into the picture.
In spite of its many millions of victims, for many Communism has not lost any of its appeal. Mao and Stalin have only drifted from the right path. Especially in so called - intellectual - circles there is still a lot of praise for this twisted ideology that has brought nothing but misery. Of course it is good that there is some counterbalance for unlimited Capitalism, but that should not make people blind to all the wrongs that Communism has done and keeps on doing to this very day and far into the future I am afraid.
The Clog from Oz
- The sight struck me as odd. Most of the people buying the Soviet paraphernalia were Americans and West Europeans. All would be sickened by the thought of wearing a swastika. None objected, however, to wearing the hammer and sickle on a T-shirt or a hat. It was a minor observation, but sometimes it is through just such minor observations that a cultural mood is best observed. For here, the lesson could not have been clearer: while the symbol of one mass murder fills us with horror, the symbol of another mass murder makes us laugh. -
I was struck by these lines as I have many times noticed similar things. Around the corner from my place in Sydney is pizza place decorated with Mao-posters and down the road in Surrey Hills is a shop with Chinese knickknacks called Mao & Co. Of course the portrait of The Great Leader is all around, no matter the 60 million deaths (at least) of his brutal regime. I come across Mao and USSR t-shirts regularly, usually worn by some young, hip, alternative person. The idea that someone would walk around with a Hitler t-shirt is unimaginable.
Many still have the idea that Communism is not as bad as Nazism, this in spite of the fact that many historians have acknowledged again and again that Communism was the biggest mass murderer of the 20th Century. But of course, Humankind cannot bear very much reality, as T.S. Eliot said in Four Quartets. Mankind in general has the tendency to twist reality to his liking and to remain completely blind for the facts that do not fit into the picture.
In spite of its many millions of victims, for many Communism has not lost any of its appeal. Mao and Stalin have only drifted from the right path. Especially in so called - intellectual - circles there is still a lot of praise for this twisted ideology that has brought nothing but misery. Of course it is good that there is some counterbalance for unlimited Capitalism, but that should not make people blind to all the wrongs that Communism has done and keeps on doing to this very day and far into the future I am afraid.
The Clog from Oz
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