In view of the (largely Western) propensity to toss around, willy-nilly, such terms as fascist and nazi these days, it comes as no great surprise, admittedly. Nevertheless it must've seemed in extremely bad taste - obviously to her compatriots, whether politically supportive or otherwise, but especially to her personally - for Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel to be mocked and derided by Greek protestors as a Nazi tyrant, during her recent visit to Greece; for her admittedly extremely controversial determination to impose an economic straightjacket upon all peoples of the European Union.But surely shouldn't some things simply remain 'forever' off-limits as unacceptable and offensive in any context? Especially since Germany is hardly ever gonna really, easily 'live down' what transpired so awfully and tragically those six-and-a-half to eight decades ago now; and from all accounts has gone to the nth degree to attempt to 'make right' what can obvoiusly never really be made right, only properly assimilated and learnt from in order to ensure it never happens again. Tragically, in all too many places and instances - if in a wholly different series of contexts - 'it has': Stalin's Reign of Terror, Mao-Tse-Tung's Cultural Revolution, Pol Pot's Killing Fields, Idi Amin's bloody barbarism, Rwanda's internecine bloodbath, Milosevic's genocide in Kosovo and the Balkans, Saddam Hussein's million-some Victims. (And though I carry absolutely no brief for the man, I won't here set George W - the former U.S. President - alongside these others, although the very idea of 'collateral damage' is an utterly repugnant one.)
Heightened tensions tend to give rise to such expressions of vitriol and intemperance, as can clearly be seen all around our world at present in all manner of conflicts and other situations, but that's hardly the point. Much as innocent Jews are once again being targeted throughout Europe and especially in France, and - on another level altogether, but still - as has occurred on our very street over recent days, where five individual and large swastikas have been bedaubed upon lampposts and sidewalks. A symbol ever evoking the worst sentiments in humanity and eliciting the fiercest gut level reaction. But such, as they say, is the price of freedom.
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