Whats in a name

This weekend in my quite, little market town of Grantham we had a group of Nazis march through causing mayhem, fights broke out, smoke grenades were thrown, shopkeeps locked their doors and arrests were made. The Police did a fantastic job.

The thing is these aren’t Nazi’s, they aren’t the English Defence League, they’re not the National front, all of these groups are one and the same thing. Football hooligans. At least that’s what they were in the 1980’s then through a lot of work both by football clubs and the police these gangs were disbanded. But these angry men, these men that are just looking for a fight needed some where to go and these right-wing groups hoovered them up, so now they wander the land spouting there ridiculous political bile so they can march under the pretence of being some political party in the hope Antifa or some other anti-fascist groups will turn up and they can have a good scrap.

So how do you deal with these people? Some German towns are using humour (not normally something we associate with Germany) and mocking the parades, turning them into fundraising events for anti-fascist movements. I love the idea of when one of the groups turn up there is a flash mob of dancers, cosplayers, drag queens and the general public ignoring the so-called Nazis and using t as an excuse to have some fun instead, I mean who can take a shaven-headed swastika branded forty year old seriously when there is a 6ft 3 drag queen doing the can-can behind him.

Or maybe we should tackle the underlying issue, that these men just want to fight. They want to hit people. In Russia groups of men gather in fields and set down a few (very few) rules and fight. It’s a bit like fight club, but colder and more Russian. Maybe they should also take out private health insurance as well.

Anyway, I started this article by saying these men aren’t really Nazi’s and I have a reason for that statement. At no point in the Nazi regime did anyone (from my limited knowledge) where masks, even though the Nazis of the 1940’s ideology was evil they weren’t ashamed of their beliefs, they didn’t hide from the world. But these people do. They put masks on and they hide their faces. Now this is either firstly out of shame, and they know their political ideas are absolute tosh and they don’t want friends and family to identify them. Secondly, they don’t actually believe in their ideas or thirdly and I think probably the real reason is that they don’t want to be identified by the police. Just like the football hooligans of the eighties the are turning up armed with the tools of their trade, just like a thief in the night.  Scarves and balaclavas to cover their faces because they know they are turning up to some sleepy little market town to cause trouble, their politics is just a smoke screen to legitimise their behaviour.

But the key her is the EDL, NF, Neo-Nazis, BNP or whatever they want to call themselves are not Nazis. The term Nazi, is the name of one of the most evil, horrific, movements in any century. It is a powerful name, one that conjures up images of concentration camps; murder and gas chambers. By using this term, we empower these hooligans, we make them feel they have some connection to this dark history, and they don’t. So why not call them what they are……Hooligans.

As a Social Worker I have learned to reflect on my practice and you can’t help but drag this into your daily life. When I started advertising my company and made it public I was anxious of what my peers would think, what the public would think, but I decided to put my name to it, it was mine and I needed to take ownership of it.  Reflecting on the past weekend of violence in my town I realise we can all do this on the internet, cast our opinions, our ideas but hide behind a fake twitter name or a fake Facebook account but it devalues the message; if you don’t believe in what you are saying then don’t hide, if you feel the need to hide then reflect on your ideas because your instinct is trying to tell you something.