Discussions about social issues often die because of the urge to disqualify each other with labels, says Job van Amerongen. He calls for extreme restraint in the use of expletives.
It was April 30, 1980. I was young, very left-wing and fought against the (alleged) injustice in the world. The day of ‘no home, no coronation’. I was walking in places I shouldn’t be at all and came into contact with the long bar of the mobile unit.
At the evening meal I noted that I had been beaten “by the fascists of the riot police”. My father, a member of the resistance from the very beginning, looked up from his plate of food and said only: “You better not use that term too lightly, boy”. Words don’t have to be raised with a voice to make an impression.
Inflation
Forty-three years later, the concept of fascist – just like the concepts of ‘brown shirt’, ‘Nazi’, ‘NSB member’ and the like – is still subject to inflation. In the meantime, the outrage about the haphazard scattering of qualifications related to dark times is diminishing. ‘It must be possible to say’ seems to be the norm. Instead of ‘Think before you say, write or post on Twitter’.
There are at least three good reasons for exercising the utmost restraint in labeling fascist. First, the defilement of history. Being able to freely call someone a fascist just because you don’t like her or his opinion is risk-free. The real victims of fascism knew no freedom at all and often had to pay for opposition to a horrific regime with severe punishment, often with death. Are those who, for example Telegraph columnist Wierd Duk as a fascist, aware of the hurtful and historically completely incorrect characterization? For Wierd Duk and for the victims of fascism? If so it’s ‘bad’, if not it’s ‘stupid’. A combination is of course also possible.
Qualifications with fascism, or related to fascism, also place someone outside the social debate. He’s a brown shirt. A despicable person. The clash of opinions must be avoided. There is no need to argue; it must be ‘fought’. Essentially anti-democratic.
Violence
A third risk lies in the risk of (serious) violence. The danger of influencing the unstable spirits of ‘the modern resistance’, who believe that ‘bad people’ can be fought with violence, is always lurking. For the record: using the term ‘NSB whore’ for Mrs Kaag of D66 is morally just as reprehensible and just as reprehensible and dangerous as using the term ‘the Goebbels of the Low Countries’ in relation to Mr. Bosma of the PVV. Unfortunately, people in the ‘left’ corner use expletives more often.
Restraint
Reserve terms like “Brown Shirt,” “Fascist,” “Nazi,” and the like for the people who actually deserve them. In practice, this is a call for extreme restraint. Given the degree of polarization in the debate, this is probably a futile appeal. The belief in the qualification seems stronger than the strength of the argument.’
Job van Amerongen is a political scientist and publicist