Friday 16 March 2012

Baltic Exchange

Denis MacShane is vexed at today’s annual wreath-laying in Riga. The party behind it is a member of the Group of European Conservatives and Reformists, set up by David Cameron. That is what ought to be vexing us.

The Latvian Fatherland and Freedom Party deserves British allies with deep roots in the former mining communities, in the women’s suffrage movement, in the 1945 General Election victory, and elsewhere. We are unsullied by the weird cult of Winston Churchill. Instead, we can and do condemn his carve-up of Europe with Stalin. Just as we condemn genocidal terrorism against Slavs and Balts no less than genocidal terrorism against Arabs, or the blowing up of British Jews going about their business as civil servants, or the photographed hanging of teenage British conscripts with barbed wire. Just as we condemn Ronald Reagan’s laying of a wreath at an SS cemetery in Germany, and the Clintons’ annual wreath-laying at Confederate memorials in Arkansas. Just as we condemn SS revivalism from Denmark and Flanders to Bosnia and Kosovo. And just as we condemn the neo-Nazi cesspit that was the 1980s Radical Right. Whatever happened to the 1980s Radical Right, Dave?

The Polish Law and Justice Party deserves better British allies. Like the Catholic and other Labour MPs, including John Smith, who fought tooth and nail against abortion and easier divorce. Like the Methodist and other Labour MPs, including John Smith, who fought tooth and nail against deregulated drinking and gambling. Like those, including John Smith, who successfully organised (especially through USDAW) against Thatcher’s and Major’s attempts to destroy the special character of Sunday and of Christmas Day, delivering the only Commons defeat of Thatcher’s Premiership. And like the trade unionists who battled to secure paternal authority in families and communities by securing its economic base in high-waged, high-skilled, high-status male employment, frequently marching behind banners that depicted Biblical scenes and characters.

The Czech Civic Democrats deserve British allies like the trade unionists who have spent decades defending the high-waged, high-skilled, high-status jobs of the working class. Not for us the restriction of travel to the rich, or the arresting of economic development in the poorer parts of the world.

And they all deserve British allies like the Labour MPs who mostly voted against Heath’s Treaty of Rome, who all voted against Thatcher’s Single European Act, and who voted against Major’s Maastricht Treaty in far greater numbers than the Tories, including the only resignation from either front bench in order to do so. Those parties need these British allies in order to call them away from neoliberal economics and neoconservative foreign policy, both of which have in any case collapsed. Nothing could be more destructive of national self-government, or traditional family values, or the historical consciousness of a people. Cameron is fully signed up to both.

2 comments:

  1. Stalin's Russia was just as bad as Hitler's Nazis, especially if you were one of the Baltic states raped over by the Soviets in 1940-41. Whether you fought for Hitler or Stalin you fought for Totalitarianism and Mass Murder.

    Somewhat understandably given the history Latvians consider the Soviets to be a greater evil than the Nazis. Obviously it would be better if they definitely excluded those implicated in both Nazi and Soviet atrocities, but it is certainly not as simple as Latvians commemorating Jew Killers. To view it that way and to ignore the rest of the history that is very important to the people on the ground is a patronising and condescending approach.

    Oh, and if it's being done purely for the party political process of smearing the conservatives by association. Taking this historically complicated and deeply emotional issue and distorting it just to smear one's British political opponents would be contemptible and disgraceful.

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  2. History is not Black and White. Good Versus evil. Right or Wrong. All the Baltic states suffered terribly from the hammer and the anvil. Nazi atrocities are well documented and rightly so. Communist/Socialist atrocities are less known, but are as equally odious. These heinous crimes committed by both these hideous dogmas needs to be keep in the public consciousness.

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