Free speech, humanitarianism or authoritarianism
JVL Introduction
David Rosenberg succinctly addresses a wide range issues relevant to the reaction to Gary Lineker’s tweet. Issues of humanitarianism (to say nothing of International Law), of free speech, of the slide to authoritarianism in the UK and internationally are key. It has been heartening to see the support for Lineker in standing firm on what he correctly stated.
David reminds us of Holocaust survivor Joan Salter’s polite but firm confrontation with Suella Braverman and that she and Lineker were clear about what they were criticising, the language and actions of the early days of Nazi control. As David highlights… “right wing commentators take any reference to Nazi Germany to mean gas chambers at Auschwitz between 1942-44… Both Salter and Lineker were clearly referring to the increasingly vicious and repressive policies and processes that were enacted within Germany in the 1930s, against a targeted minority that other Germans were encouraged to shun and to hate….”
Much has also been said about who is disciplined in this way; no one was disciplined (including Lineker) for anti Corbyn tweets nor have there been any attempts to silence those on the right , let alone to balance out the many Conservative supporters at the very top of the BBC. But this part of a drive towards authoritarianism that we must resist. Let us hope this attempt to silence Lineker has raised the alarm more widely.
This article was originally published by Rebel Notes on Fri 10 Mar 2023. Read the original here.
A manufactured refugee “crisis” with more than one goal
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Id love to see this passed on to Gary Lineker. It might give him the sort of detailed support for his stance that he might find useful.
Useless hoping that the BBC will use it. Although an interview with John Barnes today(Sunday 13.09) was excellent!!!
Thank you for the precision with which you place our government’s shameful, vengeful and cynical use of refugees and asylum seekers in its historical context and in the implications – if this is not stopped -for the future. Thank you Gary Lineker for daring to tweet and for not caving in. We are exhorted at countless Holocaust Memorial Day events ‘not to stand by’ in order to ensure that such a thing could ‘never happen again’. Gary Lineker and Dave Rosenberg are not standing by..
Brilliant piece David. There was an excellent interview on Sky yesterday Sunday at around 12.30 lunchtime by a former football manager and friend of Lineker’s which you might retrieve on You Tube. Worth a watch. I am sickened by Suella Braverman’s attempt to ‘own’ the Holocaust in order to beat up Gary Lineker. Well Braverman is now losing and on the out-of-touchline. Starmer and Yvette Cooper were appallingly late in grasping what was going to happen with the Lineker suspension and equivocated and waffled like Thornberry. They are so keen to win over the Red Wall Brexiters who read the Daily Mail to tell them what to think., that the Labour Shadow Cabinet have taken a pledge to go soft against Tory Policy on small boats. They don’t attack it on moral grounds. They don’t attack it at all in strong terms. They simply say refugee policy has failed. I think Lineker is a very well informed and very bright man who is a keen supporter of Refugees At Home, but this additional information could be sent by David to Gary Lineker, perhaps via Ian Wright. It might get to him then.
The vast majority of these ‘refugees’ are young, male, economic migrants, not fleeing war, but we need more imported compliant labour to do the jobs that the ‘lazy’ British workers are demanding more pay to do. 1st rule economics ‘supply and demand’, this applies as much to labour as it does to goods. German eonomists know this too as economic growth is dependant on ‘cheap labour’ to maintain the low paid gig economy without the need for major investment. No need to educate nor train our youngters as there is more money to be made by our universities via overseas students. Apprentiships used to be the responsibility of employers, but now, even our footballers aren’t from Britain, providing a blueprint for the NHS.
“Ad hominem” tactics…attacking the person not the opinion.
An excellent and informative post. Thank you David.
I support free speech but people who enjoy it should take an intelligent stance on its practice. From what I have read most people commenting take the stance of their views on the topic rather than what Lineker actually wrote, And, as a celebrity, his tweet is of a different order from someone who wrote from experience.
The actual tweet was, ” “This is just an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s, and I’m out of order?”
As the article points out this is prior to the extermination camps; but it is not prior to much of the Nazi rhetoric and actions; nor their installation of a fascist state. So there is not only Lineker’s choice of example but the context of that. Fascism is a mode of control taken by the ruling class when bourgeois democracy fails to deliver. That was the case in 1930s Germany, it is not yet the case in 20202 Britain.
It is also worth making the point that fascism is the state of control exercised in occupied colonies, through oppression and suppression.
A more apt comparison would be to place the current racist language and practices in the long history of British racism and racialism. This operated right through the nineteenth century. especially against migrants from Britain’s continuing colony in the north of Ireland. It operated in pre-WWI against Eastern European migrants: in the 1930s against Jewish residents and migrants: in 1940s and 1950s against Afro-Caribbean residents and migrants: in the 1960s against Asian residents and migrants: and, infamously, in the 1980s against both European migrants and those migrants from among the oppressed peoples and nations.
The intelligent manner for criticism of the language and practice of the current government is to place it in this long history; a history which has flowed from Conservative Governments: coalition governments; and Labour Governments.
The main problem with this tweet is that it garners more notice than intelligent and substantiated criticism by other people who have carefully considered both the rhetoric and the language.
“This is just an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s, and I’m out of order?”
keith1942: To me ‘the main problem’ is not with the tweet, which can’t be faulted in my opinion, but as you say, with the reaction to it in comparison to that produced by ‘intelligent and substantiated criticism by other people who have carefully considered both the rhetoric and the language.’ That the tweet caused what may turn out to be extremely influential in shaking up the BBC by ridding it of some of its blatantly installed active Tories, seems to be all that can be hoped for given the grip the right has on just about everything.