FASCIST ?

13 May 2006 I've heard I've been called a fascist today and I feel it necessary to write something about it here.

A couple days ago, an 18-year old kid got kicked from school, shaved part of his head, bought a gun and shot 3 people: a 2.5 year old little girl and 2 women (46 and 24). The 24 year old woman and the little girl died. He was then shot by a policeman and arrested.

[OK, How do you feel about this ? Do you think this is bad ? I do]

Now the plot thickens. One of the women wore a "headscarf"(spelling?) and the other was black.
During his interrogation the killer confessed that he wanted to kill "people of different origin" (as the newspapers put it).

[How do you feel now ? Do you think this is WORSE ? If so, you're discriminating. The death of people of color A is not worse than the death of people of color B.]

The media (as always) started digging in the killer's family and dug up an aunt of his who is a parliament member linked to the Vlaams Belang (rightist party in Belgium).
Now everybody and his dog is trying to put a connection between the killer and this rightist party, to put the blame somewhere. Of course, most political parties are not left out of the fun and there is a lot of fingerpointing about who is responsible.

Well then, let's look at the facts. According to about everyone who knows the kid, he was non-violent. In fact, he grew up in an anti-violent family (he didn't even get a toy-gun when he was a kid). He was not anti-social either. He sat in the student-council of his school and was very interested in making more of his life.

There is NO connection whatsoever between him and his aunt, besides that they are related.
So, if we can't blame his aunt, who can we blame ? His family who raised him to be non-violent ? The school where he was kicked out of because he was smoking in his room, which is against the well-known (by all students) policy ? The shopkeeper who sold him the gun, who followed the letter of the law (the kid was 18, signed all papers and paid for it) ?

Noone. That's right. We can't blame anyone else but the killer. Let that be very clear.

Now back to the whole witchhunt. For some reason, when people in Belgium hear "rascism", they associate it with extreme right and Vlaams Belang. Well, I can't blame them. I too was filled with the same propaganda and it took me a while to get an objective view on things.

Vlaams Belang has 2 sides. One is the side that was convicted of rascist acts in the past, the other is their role is the parliament. They are in the opposition and are not afraid to speak up and touch sensitive topics.

The latter part is the one I like in them. Yes, I like honesty. I like that our government is questioned and their actions investigated. Does that make me a member of Vlaams Belang ? Not at all. If there was any other party out there that would do the same thing, they'd have my sympathy (Like CD&V for example).
Does that make me a rascist ? Not at all, unless your head is so filled up with propaganda that you associate "Valid commentary" with "rascism". In which case I suggest you try to be openminded and read Dr. Pavlov's work on conditioned reflexes. Does that make me a fascist ? Well, I'll keep that question in your mind for a bit while I explore Belgian politics with you a bit further.

On top of the whole rascist-murder scene that has been filling the news lately, 4 or 5 political parties came together and started a juridical procedure to take away the government funding of Vlaams Belang. (This is not new news though, they were planning it a long time ago but it seems that the start of the procedure happened to coincide with the murder stuff). The parties claim that Vlaams Belang has violated a law that says they can not repeatedly involve themselves in rascist expressions and actions.

Does my opinion matter in all of this ? Should I mention again that this whole thing looks like a witch hunt ? Like the xenophobia not unlike the prosecution of "red commies" during the cold war ? I would hope this should be clear by now.
I have nothing against prosecution for rascism. In fact, I believe rascism is a plague that should be wiped out, not by eliminating those that preach it, but by eliminating the cause. And that cause is that, although everyone cheers happily about how they have african friends and how they understand the jewish community and what not, everyone still seems to see the little things that differentiate those groups from other groups. If you want to get rid of discrimination, then stop treating people differently (in positive or negative sense) because they look different. Everybody Belgian is equal under law. It's not because they don't speak flemish or don't believe in the flying spaghetti monster, that they should be treated differently. If I kill someone, I go to jail. If someone with black skin kills someone, he should go to jail. If someone who believes in Jehovah kills someone he should go to jail. Do you see a pattern yet ? EVERYBODY IS EQUAL UNDER LAW.

Allright, back to the charge. I'm being called a fascist.

Main Entry: fas�cism 
Pronunciation: 'fa-"shi-z&m also 'fa-"si-
Function: noun
Etymology: Italian fascismo, from fascio bundle, fasces, group, from Latin 
fascis bundle & fasces fasces
1 often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of 
the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that 
stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, 
severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition
2 : a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial 
control 
- fas�cist  /-shist also -sist/ noun or adjective, often capitalized
- fas�cis�tic  /fa-'shis-tik also -'sis-/ adjective, often capitalized
- fas�cis�ti�cal�ly  /-ti-k(&-)lE/ adverb, often capitalized

(Source: Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary)

I'll assume here that a fascist is one who adheres to fascism.
Let's analyze.

a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of 
the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual
...

I don't consider the nationality or race of an individual more important than the individual itself. In fact, let me go as far as saying that everyone who felt worse about the shooting of the girl and 2 women, after being informed that they were of some other race or religion, exalts race and religion above the individual. 2 people are dead. And it doesn't matter whether they were black,green or white, christian, moslim or jehova witness, young, old, male, female, greek, spanish, short, tall, fat, slim, rich, poor, alcoholic or whatever. No matter what their DNA says or what they believe in, they are human beings. All loss of human life is equally tragic.
If you believe otherwise, you should re-examine your beliefs and think hard whether YOU should be the one calling others names. It would help if you learned the definition of hypocrisy along the way.

 
...
and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a 
dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation,
...

As I've said before, I'm a strong believer of true democracy. A people should be allowed to govern itself.
Sadly, I've come to the conclusion that the average joe can be easily convinced to believe whatever, and could be called stupid because of this. I'm not sure how good a democracy would function if it was governed by average joes.
But that is all besides the point. No matter how bad things go, I believe in democracy. Everyone gets 1 vote and gets a say in the governing of the land they live in. Sounds pretty fair to me.

"headed by a dictatorial leader" ? Is that like a prime minister who orders the federal parliament not to discuss issues that could make his government fall (Separation of the Brussel-Halle-Vilvoorde voting area) ? A true democracy is not led by anyone. It's the opinion of the people that matters.
"severe economic and social regimentation" ? Does that stroke with the idea of a true democracy ? One of the building blocks of democracy is the right to free speech. Social regimentation would undermine that free speech and thus democracy. Therefore, I am not in favor of that.

...
and forcible suppression of opposition.

This is a good one. I'm not the one who believes one political party should be banned because they oppose the government. I'm not the one who would vote for a law that is specially crafted to tackle a political party.

In fact, it would be interesting to look at how a political party like Vlaams Belang is being picked on by the government, how schools "brainwash" kids with "superior moral" and try to bake in the idea that Vlaams Belang is equal to nazi Germany, how laws are crafted to give organisations the means to prosecute a rightist political party, how a concept like Cordon Sanitaire (a construction agreed on by all other political parties never to go in a coalition with Vlaams Belang) can exist.
And with that last concept, it would be interesting to see how the opinions of the voters of Vlaams Belang (nearly 25% of Flemish voters) are being disposed of as ideas of rascists and how, by doing this, the biggest part of the opposition is being suppressed by the majority of the government.

And now that I've analyzed the whole thing, let me bounce back the ball.
If you are supporting a government that is showing a lot of similarity with the definition of fascism in it's early stage, are you not by definition a fascist yourself ?

And before you answer that, think about it really really hard.
If you still believe I'm the fascist, then providing some evidence would also be nice.

I rest my case, screw you and good night.