They are usually a niche demographic, but present in any country.
The difference is that in the Baltics and Ukraine this is not a niche demographic anymore. Pro-Nazi views are either the norm or they appear to be because the state has been legitimizing and endorsing pro-Nazi views while suppressing the opposite viewpoint.
You see, most other countries do not officially celebrate SS regiments with parades, they don’t name their streets after or erect monuments to Nazi collaborators who participated in the Holocaust and brutally butchered hundreds of thousands of people, and they don’t teach children in schools to hate people of a certain ethnicity while teaching that Nazi collaborators were actually national heroes and freedom fighters, all while monuments and graves of the real liberators and anti-fascist fighters are destroyed.
If you feel nazis are your main baddie, it might be better to understand what makes them tick.
Are you implying that Nazis are not “baddies”?
What makes Nazis tick is hate and sadism. There is nothing deeper to understand there. And as long as that hate continues to be taught and endorsed by a country’s institutions, from the state to the educational system to media and NGOs, as is happening in Ukraine and the Baltics, the problem will only get worse.
Please don’t get me wrong, I do not know the political climate to such extent in those countries and I do believe fascist memorials should be placed in a dedicated statue park (if not pulled apart in the heat of an event).
Are you implying that Nazis are not “baddies”?
Main baddies. I feel it debases us as it does them, this 2 dimensional thinking. White power. Nazis evil. If that’s the deepest you wanna go, be my guest. Of course we have to stand up against them, I really hope no one is getting that from my writing that nazism OK.
If I can use a very clunky IT support metaphor, we definitely need incident management (firefighting) now, but we should always look at root cause analysis to avoid the problem in the future. This is not an unfamiliar problem we are facing (historically speaking).
The difference is that in the Baltics and Ukraine this is not a niche demographic anymore. Pro-Nazi views are either the norm or they appear to be because the state has been legitimizing and endorsing pro-Nazi views while suppressing the opposite viewpoint.
You see, most other countries do not officially celebrate SS regiments with parades, they don’t name their streets after or erect monuments to Nazi collaborators who participated in the Holocaust and brutally butchered hundreds of thousands of people, and they don’t teach children in schools to hate people of a certain ethnicity while teaching that Nazi collaborators were actually national heroes and freedom fighters, all while monuments and graves of the real liberators and anti-fascist fighters are destroyed.
Are you implying that Nazis are not “baddies”?
What makes Nazis tick is hate and sadism. There is nothing deeper to understand there. And as long as that hate continues to be taught and endorsed by a country’s institutions, from the state to the educational system to media and NGOs, as is happening in Ukraine and the Baltics, the problem will only get worse.
Please don’t get me wrong, I do not know the political climate to such extent in those countries and I do believe fascist memorials should be placed in a dedicated statue park (if not pulled apart in the heat of an event).
Main baddies. I feel it debases us as it does them, this 2 dimensional thinking. White power. Nazis evil. If that’s the deepest you wanna go, be my guest. Of course we have to stand up against them, I really hope no one is getting that from my writing that nazism OK.
If I can use a very clunky IT support metaphor, we definitely need incident management (firefighting) now, but we should always look at root cause analysis to avoid the problem in the future. This is not an unfamiliar problem we are facing (historically speaking).