wotiwrote

As a result of Thursday's local elections here in the UK the BNP has doubled the number of council seats it holds. This was thanks primarily to the people of Barking (Essex) who seemed to think that the best way to register a protest vote against the increasingly awry Labour government was to succumb to the pernicious lies of fascist thugs and give them representation on the borough council. Smart move. In itself it means little: the BNP have acquired no real power and their total of seats is too low to register when taken across the nation as a whole. The danger, of course, is that they become seen as a safe protest vote. "There's no way they can win" can suddenly become "How did they win?".

I've just finished the Laurence Rees book 'Auschwitz'. which obviously has a certain relevance as far as the rise of fascist politics is concerned. Here's the closing sentences: "By their crime the Nazis brought into the world an awareness of what educated, technologically advanced human beings can do, as long as they possess a cold heart. Once allowed into the world, knowledge of what they did must not be unlearnt. It lies there - ugly, inert, waiting to be rediscovered by each new generation. A warning for us, and for those who will come after."

Of course, the problem is that the majority of people are subjected to an education system that does not stand in the way of this knowledge being unlearnt. At the same time, much of the popular press is unapologetically right wing and pumps out story after story about scrounging immigrants, about the crimes committed by immigrants, and about the destruction of core British values by immigrants. Much of this abuse is aimed at immigrants with a skin colour that can be said to be atypically British. The Nazis made the same noises about the Jews. That didn't stop the deportation to the concentration camps and death camps of communists, socialists, homosexuals, Jehova's Witnesses, the mentally ill, the physically weak, and the Roma. The problem with prejudice is that it tends always to increase in scope. There's always an excuse to include more victims. Ignorance eats the light. Hate always extinguishes and spreads the darkness.

Should I worry for my children? I was born in Nigeria and moved from Scotland to England. My children were all born in Singapore. If they have children outside the UK their children are not entitled to UK residency. That's the geographical reality. What of the emotional reality? Where will they be entitled to live? What happens when ID cards are issued here? Will they have a different colour strip along the top that means every time they travel abroad some British customs officer will check whether the girls are pregnant?

Melodramatic? I hope so. But intolerance has a habit of growing like weeds in poorly tended garden. (I know because I've spent part of this afternoon in my poorly tended garden.) Tony Blair has not only betrayed all those who swept him into power in 1997 but he has also made the conditions perfect for the rise of fascism. Thanks for that, Tony.