Kristallnacht reloaded

Torch-bearing alt-right-ers in Charlottesville VA last week raised not a few memories for those, who either lived / witnessed / heard of the title event, or those who know history enough to set alarm bells ringing on today’s “land of milk & honey”. Let me relay how it touched me.

My Dad’s Dad and his best friend lived near and served the Jewish quarter of Pest (the newer flat side of Budapest on the Danube’s left bank). While the post-WWII Soviet occupation stuck in most people’s memories (esp. dancing on Communism’s grave), the pre-WWII Nazi occupation was as brief as it was violent. And while the former was an overt invasion, the latter was a covert one following the peaceful Anschluss in Austria (and peaceful it was, if not its consequence). And I won’t repeat how Hitler was elected then Nazism was the best thing for Germans in the Weimar - post-WWI period. Or that Hungary sided with Germany both during WWI and WWII, because they were the intelligentsia both socially and economically.

What I’m getting at from a very personal perspective, is that what appears monstrous in hindsight was appealing in foresight. I cannot overstate the danger we are facing on both sides of the Atlantic, nay worldwide if history is left to repeat itself. Let’s not be distracted by domestic politics of the day — that alt-right helps detract from Russian and Korean issues or domestic troubles in DC? — let’s remember that human decency is at stake here, both at home and abroad from an American perspective.

• What will its effect be domestically if the US faces internal dislocatioon?
• What will be its effect on upcoming German elections if their extreme right is emboldened?
• What about European Union negotiations, not only new ones with UK but also on-going ones with eastern and southern Europe never mind Turkey?
• And how will Russia, India and China treat the West if such moral dicrepitude is left prevail?

As Dumbledore said in The Halfblood Prince “Dark times lie ahead of us and there will be a time when we must choose between what is easy and what is right”… that time is now!

This post was inspired by Dave Pell’s The Looking Glass as well as Facebook post by David Swann. And if you follow me on Facebook, you might guess this was written in a caffeine-induced frenzy at London Victoria Station (I praised the availability of free coffee refills at eateries there and Liverpool Station).