He's part of our history
The obvious problem with any such laws is where to draw the line. Do you just ban symbols, or do you also ban such offences as “Holocaust denial”? And although almost everybody may agree that Nazism was a unique evil, a ban on Nazi symbols would undoubtedly lead to a call for other similar bans. Why not a ban on the Soviet hammer-and-sickle? Or one on fascist insignia in Spain or Italy?
The issue is particularly perplexing in Mr Frattini's native Italy. Brussels-based journalists who visited the country during the Italian presidency of the EU in 2003 were startled to find Mussolini's photograph still affixed to the wall of the Palazzo Chigi, the official residence of the Italian prime minister, alongside photos of Italy's innumerable other prime ministers—and with no suggestion that there was anything remarkable about it. An official who was asked why a fascist dictator was still accorded this honour shrugged that “he's part of our history.”
Some Germans seem to relish the unusual opportunity to take the moral high ground over Nazism. Matthias Matussek, the London correspondent for Der Spiegel (and brother of Germany's ambassador to Britain), informed his readers that, while the British were still unhealthily obsessed by the war, they had been “focusing too much on their own triumph and too little on the history of the victims. It now appears that the British have a greater problem with the past than the Germans.” You can almost taste the wishful thinking.
http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3576453
The issue is particularly perplexing in Mr Frattini's native Italy. Brussels-based journalists who visited the country during the Italian presidency of the EU in 2003 were startled to find Mussolini's photograph still affixed to the wall of the Palazzo Chigi, the official residence of the Italian prime minister, alongside photos of Italy's innumerable other prime ministers—and with no suggestion that there was anything remarkable about it. An official who was asked why a fascist dictator was still accorded this honour shrugged that “he's part of our history.”
Some Germans seem to relish the unusual opportunity to take the moral high ground over Nazism. Matthias Matussek, the London correspondent for Der Spiegel (and brother of Germany's ambassador to Britain), informed his readers that, while the British were still unhealthily obsessed by the war, they had been “focusing too much on their own triumph and too little on the history of the victims. It now appears that the British have a greater problem with the past than the Germans.” You can almost taste the wishful thinking.
http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3576453
posted by bryan at 1:11 PM
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