I was listening to a British radio phone-in about al-Qaida last week. The rhetoric was embarrassingly clichéd. One gung-ho caller likened Bin Laden’s outfit to the Nazis, saying that they wished to destroy civilisation. The only solution, according to this particular hawk, was war to the end. Au contraire, retorted a left-leaning panellist, America with its “concentration camp” in Guantanamo, was the true heir to the Third Reich. Listening to this exchange, I couldn’t help but cringe.
Ever since 9-11 those for and against the war on terror have dredged up Second World War references to justify their own positions and attack those of their opponents. You all know the sort of thing I mean. Hawks see 9-11 as Pearl Harbor, Saddam as Hitler, peace protestors as appeasers. Doves compare Bush to Hitler, Guantanamo to Auschwitz, Iraqi insurgents to the French Resistance. This tendency to compare contemporary events to those of the 1940s is nothing new, Nasser was Hitler in the 1950s, Milosevic fulfilled the role in the 1990s etc. However since 2001 these comparisons seem to have increased exponentially.
Why are these Nazi comparisons so common? I believe it is partly due to our own historical ignorance. How many English people could tell you when the Hundred Years war was? Do many Dutch today know the story of William of Orange? We in the West have only one historical point of reference about which all of us know at least a little.
Such was its scale that the Second World War lives on in the public consciousness, even as the number who actually lived through it becomes less and less. Hitler, Stalin, Churchill, Pearl Harbor, the Blitz, the Holocaust, D-Day, Stalingrad – these are all terms which mean something to the man or woman on the street.
It’s not just the ubiquity of the war which explains its constant invocation. It is also the sheer barbarity of Hitler’s regime. The name of the Nazi leader serves as short-hand for cruelty anywhere in the world. Mao is Hitler, Stalin is Hitler, Sharon is Hitler, Bush is Hitler, Mugabe is Hitler and so on infinitum. Little thought is given to whether these men’s crimes are on the same scale as those of the stumpy Austrian. The Hitler jibe is the lowest form of political discourse. Don’t like someone’s actions? Call them Hitler. It’s no different to the little boy in the playground who finds himself losing an argument so calls his opponent a “poof”.
An annoyingly large number of people, unable to articulate a coherent point of view, resort instead to these dubious historical analogies. Let’s get one thing straight, Hitler’s regime was one of unmatched evil, marrying military power to insane megalomania. It is this combination of strength and evil which made the Nazis unique.
Other regimes since have had Hitler’s “ambition” without his influence. Pol Pot’s reign of terror in Cambodia comes to mind here. So yes, al-Qaida does, as the Nazis did, have plans for world domination. Thankfully though, it doesn’t have the means to impose its will on anyone. It is an organisation of a few thousand men, not a government ruling over millions. It can inflict great damage on its’ enemies but it can’t, in its current form, ever hope to defeat them.
Other regimes, such as America, have even greater power than the Nazis but they lack the Third Reich’s desire to exterminate other races. Yes, the US dominates the world and imposes its will on others, but this does not make it genocidal. Much as I dislike Bush, I don’t imagine he lies awake at night thinking of a Final Solution to the “Muslim problem”. Guantanamo Bay is an internment camp where men are held for years without trial. It is an affront to international law, a stain on America’s reputation, but Auschwitz it aint. Auschwitz was a concentration camp where a million people were KILLED. Not held without trial; killed. Let’s remember that
I’m not saying that it’s wrong to make historical comparisons, but I am saying that we should tread lightly. Bush lied about WMD to get public support for war with Iraq just as Hitler faked a Polish border attack to justify invasion in 1939. However that doesn’t mean Bush is Hitler. It just means that he’s a leader who tricked his people into going to war, like many other leaders, including Hitler, have done before.
When comparing contemporary events to those of the 1940s, we should always be aware that we are entering an emotional minefield. If we scream “Holocaust” every five minutes we end up trivialising the Holocaust itself. We cheapen the deaths in the Nazi death camps by likening them to contemporary events which, in terms of scale, simply don’t compare.
Some on the left cried “genocide” after the Israelis invaded Jenin in 2002. Dozens, not millions, died. Neocons Frum and Perle argue that America must choose between war and holocaust. Yet al-Qaida doesn’t have the wherewithal to threaten the existence of the West. In both cases, rather than discuss their views rationally, those concerned went for the emotional “nuclear” option.
Ironically, while all these WW2 analogies are flying around, the real heirs to the Nazis are on the rise across Europe. Holocaust deniers now sit on local councils across northern England. In 2002 a Vichy apologist came second in the French presidential election. Fascists won power in Austria a few years back. Rather than shout “Nazi” at every one you don’t like, why not save your ire for those who truly deserve it – the Nazis.