Re: Left wing conspiracy and About that elephant

Stephen Kotze | Dec 07, 2016

We’re back to ‘outing lefties’ are we? I guess, not surprisingly, it didn’t take long for the new fascism to rear its ugly head in our corner of the world, since it’s always been here, lurking under the surface, reserved for private conversations. But it has now been given a bold new face. The only good thing about this is that it gives us an opportunity to have the conversation. To out everyone’s opinion.

The useful thing about fascism is that it enables us to lay the blame for our problems on others, instead of taking responsibility ourselves. As history has shown, this is particularly useful when times are tough, when people are hurting. But fascism is intolerant of the range of opinion, beliefs, and attitudes that are a reality in any healthy community. It breeds dissent and animosity and tears communities apart. And this new fascism is no different from the fascism of the Islamic State, or communist Russia, or China. It all represents an intolerance for difference, robbing us of free thought, as we bow to the dogma of the day. Fascism is the violent imposition of a narrow world view, feeding on hatred and intimidation. Who needs it?!

I get that we face many problems in today’s world, but we’re not going to solve them by scapegoating the vulnerable and putting our trust and salvation in this new, or not so new, fascist ideology. But by working with our neighbours, in our communities, even though we may have ideological differences, we may get somewhere.