Religion of Peace?
David Aaronovitch writing in The Times draws an interesting parallel between Russia under President Putin, which has some of the trappings of democracy but operates increasingly as an authoritarian state, and the rise of fascism under Benito Mussolini in Italy in the 1920s.
I hadn't heard the news about the murder of the blogger Avjit Roy which doesn't seem to have been reported elsewhere in the media, but an angry crowd of 100,000 clamouring for the death of another human being is not exactly my idea of a religion of peace.
A different era but the same fascist tactics
By David Aaronovitch - The Times
Notebook: a modern Mussolini, thought crimes and the worst of times
This has been a depressing week and I have no funny dog stories for you. It ended with the shooting of the Russian opposition leader, Boris Nemtsov, on a bridge within screaming range of the Kremlin’s windows. As of now, no one knows who murdered Nemtsov, who was about to lead a protest match against Vladimir Putin’s de facto invasion of east Ukraine.
Within minutes of the murder, the pro-Putin operation and its pliant media were running theories that implicated almost anyone but the Russian president. Mr Putin deplored the death of Nemtsov and pledged to do everything to apprehend his murderers.
For some time now the parallels between Putin’s Russia and Italy’s first decade under Mussolini have been suggesting themselves ever more strongly.
We tend to think that the Italian fascist leader seized power with his March on Rome in 1922 and that was that. In fact there was a period in the 1920s when the appearance of democracy and the existence of independent institutions continued. During that time the opposition was gradually intimidated, newspapers were cowed and the population seduced by Mussolini’s nationalist rhetoric. Semi-official gangs of fascists attacked opponents but their actions were disowned.
In 1924 elections were held amid widespread claims of violence and rigging, and Mussolini won handsomely. But the socialist leader, Giacomo Matteotti, refused to accept what had happened and made speeches denouncing the financial corruption, cronyism and violence at the heart of fascism.
On June 10 a group led by a former gangster and current associate of Mussolini’s, Amerigo Dumini, kidnapped Matteotti near his house in Rome, killed him and buried his body in the countryside. The fascists at first spread the rumour that Matteotti had fled abroad but an awkward witness to the kidnapping scuppered that story.
The chief of the Italian police was personally put in charge of the investigation. Dumini was arrested, was found to have acted alone, and sentenced to prison, from which two years later — Mussolini being totally secure — he was released.
No one challenged Mussolini after that. The intimidation worked, as it usually does.
Thought crime
My second depressing murder took place a day earlier on a different continent. On the streets of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, Avjit Roy, a secularist blogger, was hacked to death by an Islamist gang. Roy had recently returned to Bangladesh from America to attend a book fair and was walking towards a tea stall with his wife when he was attacked.
Two years ago as many as 100,000 people had attended a demonstration in Dhaka calling for atheist bloggers like Mr Roy to be hanged for blasphemy. A list of 80 atheists deserving of death had been drawn up and was displayed. I should note that, as far as I know, none of these atheists had depicted the Prophet. Merely denying his relationship with a non-existent deity was enough. Like Mr Nemtsov, Roy’s crime was simply in what he said and thought.
Fairly regularly a religious leader in the West, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, will speak out about the threat from “extreme secularism” and atheist intolerance. When an atheist mob, incited by the words of Richard Dawkins, hacks a bishop to death on the streets of a major city, I may begin to take them seriously.
Worst of times
On Wednesday last I spoke on a panel about cartoonists and politics at the JW3 Jewish centre in north London. The organisers, as a security measure, sent a car to drive me the shortish distance from my house and back. Armed police were in the nearby streets and everyone was vetted going in.
Unnecessary? The murderous, entitled, spoilt boy who became a jihadi executioner went to school just down the road from the centre and incubated his hatreds a few yards away. Such times we live in.
Notebook: a modern Mussolini, thought crimes and the worst of times
This has been a depressing week and I have no funny dog stories for you. It ended with the shooting of the Russian opposition leader, Boris Nemtsov, on a bridge within screaming range of the Kremlin’s windows. As of now, no one knows who murdered Nemtsov, who was about to lead a protest match against Vladimir Putin’s de facto invasion of east Ukraine.
Within minutes of the murder, the pro-Putin operation and its pliant media were running theories that implicated almost anyone but the Russian president. Mr Putin deplored the death of Nemtsov and pledged to do everything to apprehend his murderers.
For some time now the parallels between Putin’s Russia and Italy’s first decade under Mussolini have been suggesting themselves ever more strongly.
We tend to think that the Italian fascist leader seized power with his March on Rome in 1922 and that was that. In fact there was a period in the 1920s when the appearance of democracy and the existence of independent institutions continued. During that time the opposition was gradually intimidated, newspapers were cowed and the population seduced by Mussolini’s nationalist rhetoric. Semi-official gangs of fascists attacked opponents but their actions were disowned.
In 1924 elections were held amid widespread claims of violence and rigging, and Mussolini won handsomely. But the socialist leader, Giacomo Matteotti, refused to accept what had happened and made speeches denouncing the financial corruption, cronyism and violence at the heart of fascism.
On June 10 a group led by a former gangster and current associate of Mussolini’s, Amerigo Dumini, kidnapped Matteotti near his house in Rome, killed him and buried his body in the countryside. The fascists at first spread the rumour that Matteotti had fled abroad but an awkward witness to the kidnapping scuppered that story.
The chief of the Italian police was personally put in charge of the investigation. Dumini was arrested, was found to have acted alone, and sentenced to prison, from which two years later — Mussolini being totally secure — he was released.
No one challenged Mussolini after that. The intimidation worked, as it usually does.
Thought crime
My second depressing murder took place a day earlier on a different continent. On the streets of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, Avjit Roy, a secularist blogger, was hacked to death by an Islamist gang. Roy had recently returned to Bangladesh from America to attend a book fair and was walking towards a tea stall with his wife when he was attacked.
Two years ago as many as 100,000 people had attended a demonstration in Dhaka calling for atheist bloggers like Mr Roy to be hanged for blasphemy. A list of 80 atheists deserving of death had been drawn up and was displayed. I should note that, as far as I know, none of these atheists had depicted the Prophet. Merely denying his relationship with a non-existent deity was enough. Like Mr Nemtsov, Roy’s crime was simply in what he said and thought.
Fairly regularly a religious leader in the West, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, will speak out about the threat from “extreme secularism” and atheist intolerance. When an atheist mob, incited by the words of Richard Dawkins, hacks a bishop to death on the streets of a major city, I may begin to take them seriously.
Worst of times
On Wednesday last I spoke on a panel about cartoonists and politics at the JW3 Jewish centre in north London. The organisers, as a security measure, sent a car to drive me the shortish distance from my house and back. Armed police were in the nearby streets and everyone was vetted going in.
Unnecessary? The murderous, entitled, spoilt boy who became a jihadi executioner went to school just down the road from the centre and incubated his hatreds a few yards away. Such times we live in.
