Larssen wrote:
It was a time in history where overt racism was the norm. People spoke in strong generalisation about one another based on ethnicity and nationality. Hating jews was pretty common for example, so too among the allies. Most jewish families that died in concentration camps were ratted out by neighbours.
While the focus in recent years in our coming-to-terms with history has been in emphasising the average germans while creating moral distance from nazism, perhaps another better/ more accurate way would be to show the time for what it was: horribly racist and exclusionary, among all parties. That this extreme structural ethnonationalism and racism then led to unprecedented violence is something many have trouble coming to terms with. 'Wir haben es nicht gewußt', as they said at KZ Buchenwald..
I still think many of the former allies are having even greater problems with this history than Germany. They buried their own crimes, disregarded their own ethnonationalist excesses and the aftermath of WW2 was simply one big victory lap. It ushered in this extreme cognitive dissonance in maintaining colonial empires and ideas like British/American exceptionalism vs condemning all nationalist and racialist elements abroad. I also don't think it's a coincidence that in the 21st century it's in these countries who were the 'big winners' of the war that we see the strongest resurgence of racism and nationalist narcissism.
Overt racism has been the norm since the dawn of history, its why we are all where we are, its not likely to change any more than its likely dogs will evolve to stop sniffing each others butts.
Putting other, more racist, races ahead of ourselves doesn't do us any favours, and its only the white anglo-saxons who are so bound up in self-recrimination to even consider it.
The current situation is we have multiple civilisations nearing four millenia which are more belligerent and racist than ever. Are we supposed to pull back, play the white man, and let them have free reign in the hope they'll just spontaneously develop compassion and understanding?
Last edited by Dilbert_X (2020-12-13 23:29:16)