Shout the truth louder
A week of weird comparisons
Source of the photo: Yahoo Finance
“You don’t like the truth, do you?” asked MEP Syed Kamall, leader of the ECR group in the European Parliament, after associating Nazism with modern social democrats. In fact, he was referring to social policy when he addressed the leader of the S&D, Udo Bullmann, the following way: “It’s a left-wing ideology, they wanted the same things as you, let’s be clear.” But it left a very bad taste in the mouth.
Well, I don’t think that most of us have any doubts which MEP is the one who doesn’t like the truth. No matter how ironic Kamall’s remark about the truth is, I just don’t want to make the mistake most of anti-populist actors make: entering into long explanations why the distorted reality of these politicians is wrong. I don’t even want to be as harsh as some EP members, who immediately shouted “rubbish”. There isn’t any need to over-interpret Kamall’s speech.
Still, it is worth to address the root causes. Right after this incident, I asked myself what he must have had in mind when he opened his mouth? At first place, I would have replied that Kamall wanted to please his voters, bruise his political enemies and come up with a catchy line, as many politicians do during heated debates. But his reactions convinced me that he really meant what he said.
Kamall stated how much he was annoyed by the people misunderstanding Nazism as a right-wing ideology. Then, feeling the outrage from the plenary and beyond, he half-heartedly apologized on Twitter, saying that he didn’t mean to be personally offending and he respects those who fought against Nazis, Communists and other extremists. The expression of “nothing personal” is certainly the cherry on the top of the cake. But he still gives the impression that he truly believes the S&D wants the same things as the Nazis. Regarding social policy, of course. But he only mentioned this in the beginning. The overall message is a weird comparison. And this is what makes him and his entire type extremely dangerous.
He and a great bunch of his comrades in the Tory party indeed believed that Great Britain’s EU membership was harmful for the country and they needed to regain power, which they echoed over and over again. The voice of experts, who lengthily explained the idea of regaining national sovereignty was nonsense, projected that the UK would have to continue obeying the same rules of the EU and paying nearly the same membership fee without having a say after Brexit, couldn’t be heard because of those oversimplified messages. And what will quite possibly happen in March 2019? Exactly what the experts said.
Something very similar is taking place in Hungary as well. This week, the country celebrated the anniversary of the 1956 revolution against the Soviet rule, which gave a wonderful opportunity for leading figures of the governing party Fidesz to voice their similarly stubborn and dangerous comparisons. “Hungarian sovereignty was threatened by Russian boots back then and Brussels-style stilted speech and elegant suits by now”, stated Ministerial Commissionaire István Grezsa. MP Lajos Kósa compared the Hungarian government to the heroes of 1956. “They needed to face Soviet tanks, while we need to face reports from the European Parliament.”