Lev Rubinstein
May 12, 2015
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Criminal prosecution for “rehabilitation of Nazism,” you say?
Well, it’s a respectable cause. Especially in a normal country, where the main features and properties of Nazism itself have been clearly defined, articulated and, more importantly, grasped by public opinion.
In a country where, on the contrary, the president of another country is referred to as a “black monkey” quite openly and with impunity, in a country where state TV facilely reports that the people of a neighboring country are a historical misunderstanding, and their language a parody, in a country where a classified newspaper ad that reads, “Apartment available for rent to Slavs,” is considered quite normal and natural, this talk about “rehabilitation” is rather strange, because there is nothing in particular to rehabilitate. And if anyone is going to be tried for such a crime, there aren’t enough judges for the job.
The point, of course, is something else.
Victoria Lomasko, In the Neighborhood. View at the exhibition Post-Soviet Cassandras, Berlin, April 2015
The fact is that their “Nazism” is not Nazism in the conventional sense of the word, but what they themselves define as such or have already defined.
“Everyone” knows that a Nazi regime is now blossoming, for example, in Ukraine. And denying or even questioning this “indisputable fact” amounts, apparently, to rehabilitating Nazism.
Or doubting the divine origins of the main antifascist of all time can easily be identified as Nazism.
And who knows what else. Why give them suggestions? Let them figure it out for themselves.
It’s a shit issue, as certain rude people would say.
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