Letter to the Editor - Youth Against War and Fascism

Dear Editor:

How good to see our youth taking an active interest in world affairs. Their activities could be usefully directed towards engaging youth in discussions about the nature of war and fascism and their expression in the events unfolding before us in real time on the global stage. The rhetoric accompanying the announcement, referring to the US war machine, fabricated wars, illegal bombings and genocide, does not bode well for calm and balanced discussion, but I live in hope.

Few would disagree with war and fascism being intrinsically bad things and best avoided, but neither fascism nor war are, on closer examination, easily categorised. Consulting Wikipedia on Fascism will sentence you to at least an hours-worth of scholarly reading from which you will not emerge with an agreed, short version of what it means. More simply, reference could perhaps be made to the most notorious of fascism’s practitioners , such as in Nazi Germany in World War II, for what we find most repellent about the ideology. A good topic for debate would be whether we find these models, or elements of them, in any nation today.

Are there wars and wars? Another great topic to explore. Some, such as wars of aggression, domination, territorial acquisition, economic advantage or religious belief are easy to be against. Fighting against them or arming in anticipation of them (defensive wars, preventative wars) takes us into the more difficult territory where we encounter AUKUS and military action against Iran and its proxies.

My own views on these matters are coloured by having lived my earliest years in northern England during WW2, where every night and day there were reminders of the existential threat hovering over the nation. Nazi Germany had conquered most of Europe and had its eyes on the grand prize of England. We didn’t know much about the Holocaust then (another model reference point — for genocide) but post-war a pop-up in my town’s High Street had an exhibition of photographs of liberated concentration camps as a silent reminder of what we were fighting against and had just missed.

Another useful topic would be to discuss the best way to deal with threats and sabre rattlings such as those from Germany against Europe, and from Japan against the United States, the Indo-Pacific nations, South East Asia and Australia. Churchill, Roosevelt, Truman and Stalin recognised that they shared no common ground with enemies openly bent on world domination and the only way to defeat them was in the language they understood: brute force.

So I wish our Youth Against War and Fascism well in their quest for a peaceful world. Criticise the actions and motives of players in the front line if you will, but from a standpoint of having thought the issues through. Enjoy the music and the dancing but never forget that you live in a society where you are free to do so, with your exposed hair of the length and colour of your choice, and where being gay is not a capital crime. You might consider including in your cause the millions of youth in the world who do not share your privileges.

Gerard MacGill
North Fremantle
(Address supplied)