Confronting the nostalgists for totalitarianism
So what sight greeted us as our family arrived in Wakefield, Quebec for the Canada day parade? This:
The Soviet flag was flying from the mast of a barge docked at the main intersection. It was the first thing visible as anyone entered town. I was aghast.
I'm normally a somewhat reserved person. I intensely dislike confrontation. But I knew I would be angry with myself if I didn't go to have words with the historically illiterate morons that raised this banner. I told my wife to wait, pushed the front of my hat down, and strode over to the dock.
There were three men in the boat. I asked when they were planning to take that flag. They said they weren't. I asked them why they were flying the flag of a regime that had killed millions of people. They replied lamely that the Soviets were our allies in World War Two. Though it was less visible, they also were flying a Cuban flag, suggesting that the USSR's aid in defeating Nazi Germany was not what they were celebrating. I started getting angry. I reminded them of the mass starvations in the Ukraine and the gulags, and asked how anyone could proudly display a symbol of an empire that engaged in that kind of inhuman repression. They shrugged and said I was the first person to complain.
And I most certainly was. I looked around and saw the bemused looks on the faces of the passersby. I was playing the role of the crazed right-winger, while they were the cool, beret-wearing hipsters. I replied that even though I was the only person willing to speak up, I was still right, and that they should be ashamed of themselves. And then I left.
What is amazing is that the three men on that barge own a local business, Kaffé 1870. They seem to have no problem with the fact that if they lived under the regimes they are so nostalgic for, they would have been shut down long ago.
But perhaps there is some hope for them. I noticed that within a half hour they had taken down the Soviet flag and replaced it with a vertical red banner. I'd like to think I made them feel a little bit of shame, even if just for a moment.
Comments
I'd email them, but no address at their pathetic website.
I'd like to tell them about my great aunt Anne, who, at the age of two, got a chop on the head with an axe from a Bolshevik and survived. She was found crawling among the decapitated bodies of her family. And this isn't an uncommon story under that Soviet flag; it *is* the story.
Imagine the reaction of people if they flew a swastika. Imagine the reaction of 100 million dead people like my aunt's family if they knew that the flag they were murdered under is simply an avant-garde fashion badge. Imagine the reaction of Marx and Lenin, seeing their proud banner used to advertise brand caché by a few of the world's most repugnant reluctant capitalists.
What's more amazing is that even Canadians who aren't necessarily ignorant of what the Soviet Union did still don't feel disgust at that flag.
Posted by: Smug Canadian | July 2, 2007 10:08 PM
I love Wakefield (and am a big fan of The Fiftymen). I'm really surprised to read that this went on there.
Posted by: Reg | July 3, 2007 08:03 PM
It is amazing. More than half of Canadians think Bush is imposing totalitarianism on the world, but have no idea what the real thing looks like.
I have a mind to print up little cards detailing some of the crimes of Ché ('some' because it's just a little card) to hand to the bozos I constantly see wearing those stupid shirts.
Posted by: Bruce Gottfred![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.autonomoussource.com/nav-commenters.gif)
|
July 3, 2007 09:16 PM
I grew up in the motherland, I grew up thinking I was in the best country in the world and it was for what it was.
The past is the past, you are ignorant to shrug off the many crimes, beloved Britain, France, USA and Germany have committed to HUNDREDS of millions of people those empires have crossed paths with.
You are the illiterate, at least Bolsheviks killed in excuse for political affiliation and not race, unlike UK with natives in Canada, India, China, Africa.... USA with its slaves, France with its slaves.... Nazi Germans killing non-Aryans... at least the ones killed by the Bolsheviks had a choice, communist or die.
Read Russian history with Russian books not with this western anti-russo propaganda.
Posted by: Vladamir | March 26, 2008 08:42 PM
YO THATS NOT UR FUCKING PROBLEM IF THEY PUT THE SOVIET FLAG OR NOT! IF U HATE RUSSIANS THEN GO FUCK URSELF FUCKING AMERICAN PIG!! U BETTER NOT FUCK WITH RUSSIANS U GOT THAT??? STUPID OLD FUCKING COW!!! GO FUCK URSELF BITCHH SOVIETS OWN UR CANADIAN ASS!!! VIVA COMMUNISME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FUCKK UR COUNTRY AND UR CAPITALISMMM!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by: LENIN | June 11, 2008 09:39 PM