RE: [Marxism] The British Nazi Obsession

[Paddy Apling <e.c.apling@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 14:01 12/05/2005, "Jack Cade" <jack.cade@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
 wrote:


> "Don't mention the war!" --Basil Fawlty
>
>         To me Matthias Matussek seems to be discussing current
> European conflicts under the guise of supposedly considering
> 'British' attitudes to the Victory in Europe. The UK has a direct
> interest in the US new world order. Its armed forces are
> integrated with the Americans and its overseas commitments, which
> far exceed any other European power, could not be sustained
> without US support. If it ever opposed the US it would be also
> far more vulnerable than any other European state. The UK was
> brought into the EU in the early 70s with the support of the USA.
> Ever since WWII Britain has sought to retain its pre-eminence by
> being a junior partner of the USA, the so-called 'special
> relationship'. The Germans and French naturally have problems
> with this and that is what his article is really about in my
> estimation.

<snip>
and listed a number of other matters that Germans should also consider.
However:
Matussek certainly had a point when he wrote:

"Meanwhile the British have no shortage of good subjects for debate. I 
suggested to the
panel that my British friends should occupy themselves with the problems of 
Britain's past,
with the massacres of the Boer war, with the infamous Opium Wars, with the 
concentration
camps of Kenya in the 1950s."

The Boer war and the Opium Wars are way behind current memory, but the 
bloody fights to slow the disintegration of the Empire after WW2 are not - 
the bloody division of India into two countries; the bloody wars in Malaya 
and Kenya - and the even more recent events in Northern Rhodesia, later to 
become Zimbabwe (and still an English bête noire).

In combination with the bloody intervention of the French in Algeria in 
1946 these are considered in major articles in this month's Le Monde 
Diplomatique:

Britain: imperial nostalgia by Seumas Milne

     Britain not only conveniently still forgets the crimes of its
     imperial past, but it has also again begun to romanticise its
     colonial achievements and declare them a proper source of
     pride.
                                          Original text in English
     <http://MondeDiplo.com/2005/05/02empire>

and

Massacre in Algeria by Mohammed Harbi
     As France celebrated victory in Europe on 8 May 1945, its
     army was massacring thousands of civilians in Sétif and
     Guelma - events that were the real beginning of Algeria's war
     of independence.
                                      Translated by Barbara Wilson
     <http://MondeDiplo.com/2005/05/14algeria>

The governments - and school history books - of Britain and France try to 
forget these events - and Britain now acts as poodle to the US neo-cons 
aiming to instal a new imperial domination.

We should not complain when an anti-nazi German reminds us.

Paddy
http://apling.freeservers.com



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