The increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph is not only desperate with much of what passes nowadays for its news coverage, it is desperate when it comes to selecting the pundits who are permitted to contribute opinion pieces for the paper. So desperate, in fact, that the paper had no problem giving a platform to one individual which it had, only last month, called out for using the kind of language used by the Nazis.
Jaak Madison ...
Why Jaak Madison should use that kind of language was because he is an actual Nazi, someone who has downplayed the Holocaust and effectively shrugged that “well, there might have been camps and all that, but unemployment in late 1930s Germany was low, so what’s your problem?” Any reputable newspaper should go nowhere near that kind of “opinion”, but the Tel did. And now the paper is in deep trouble.
Madison’s article, “By keeping the UK hostage, the EU is becoming the architect of its own downfall”, has this morning been pulled from the Tel’s website and the Tweet advertising it delated. But the very fact that a supposedly reputable media outlet was willing to give house room to someone who used terms like “Final Solution” is worrying.
As Far Right Watch has pointed out, Madison has in the past said that “In my eyes, fascism is an ideology that consists of quite a few positive and necessary nuances to preserve the nation state”. Jackboots, brownshirts, racist violence - mere nuances.
... and someone he likes to praise
He said “that the Holocaust had 'positive aspects' 'freeing up jobs for real Germans' and called for a similair 'Policy of National Purification' to take place in Estonia". The phrase he used was “the final solution is required”. Subtle, eh?
He has made this assertion: “It is true that there were concentration camps … games with gas chambers were being played [!], but at the time such a ‘strict’ order brought Germany … out of a thorough shithole, because development … brought the country only within a couple of years to one of the most powerful in Europe”.
Indeed, only last month the Tel told its readers “An Estonian MEP has demanded a ‘final solution’ for Syrian refugees who break the law in Europe, in an apparent echoing of the language used by the Nazi regime during the Holocaust. Jaak Madison, an MEP for Estonia’s right-wing Conservative People’s Party, made the comments in a Facebook post. Estonian politicians condemned his remarks, which were subsequently deleted”.
A paper with significant far-right previous
There was more. “In a message to the Telegraph, Mr Madison said his remarks had ‘nothing to do with Nazi ideology’ and said he was merely expressing the political view that ‘this kind of mess in Europe with migration has to stop. Asked why he used a German expression, he said ‘I can speak German’”. So that’s all right, then.
This is not the first example of far-right flirtation for the Telegraph: there was, of course, the infamous “Soros” front page splash which the paper’s management went out of its way to stress was definitely not anti-Semitic. Except it blatantly was anti-Semitic.
That article may have been deleted. But what possessed the Tel to commission it in the first place? Small wonder the far-right is emboldened - when the press eggs them on.
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6 comments:
Thank you for drawing our attention to this.
I was really interested to watch the BBC miniseries 'Rise of the Nazis' which concluded earlier this week with 'Night of the Long Knives'.
It is interesting to consider what the first director general of the BBC, Lord Reith, had to say at the time:
"I really admire the way Hitler has cleaned up what looked like an incipient revolt. I really admire the drastic actions taken, which were obviously badly needed."
Reith later praised Hitler for invading Czechoslovakia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Reith,_1st_Baron_Reith#CITEREFPaulu1981
The torygraph doesn't indulge in occasional "flirtation" with the far right.
The torygraph IS far right. Like the corrupt party for which it is the in-house newsletter. Which is why its circulation numbers are going South like a flock of geese in winter.
Occasionally the mask slips...as it did this time. In reality, a thoroughly ugly sociopathic rag without scruples or principles. Always has been, always will be.
I'm about to watch the concluding episode.
While watching the second episode, it seemed to have many similarities to the current circumstances.
The new national museum of Estonia in Tartu is something of an eye-opener. Lots and lots of medieval artefacts, a sizeable chunk about the independent Estonia between the wars, then a lot about occupation by the Soviet Union and finally its return to democracy and independence.
Nothing about what happened to its Jewish population between 1941 and 1945 with the active collaboration of a sizeable part of the Estonian population. It’s a worrying blind spot in a new country that has so much to be proud of.
In my comment posted on 19 September 2019 at 13:05, I was referring to the BBC miniseries 'Rise of the Nazis,' (before there is any confusion.)
In my eyes, fascism is an ideology that consists of quite a few positive and necessary nuances to preserve the nation state”.
I don't claim to be a WW2 expert, but I don't think that Hitler was a great respecter of the nation state.
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