Hitler was a communist, Gaza must be ‘cleansed’… Condemn the form, replicate the content. This could be a fundamental maxim of our political times. Perhaps the most fundamental. I don’t think I’m the only one who notices certain similarities between the first third of the 20th century and the first third of our century in terms of the political climate.rimer tercio del siglo XX y el primer tercio de nuestro siglo en lo relativo al clima político.
At the end of the First World War in 1918, the imbalances created by the war and the Treaty of Versailles paved the way for the development and consolidation of fascist movements in Europe, which received a final boost in the heat of the 1929 stock market crash. I will not go into detail here: the story is well known. The financial collapse of 2008, the climate crisis, the rise of feminism and, finally, the COVID-19 pandemic were some of the main vectors used to justify a kind of political reaction in our time that has grown and fed on the heat of social networks that have served as an echo chamber with few restrictions. The idea of what these two moments have in common is in fact very simple: faced with the discovery of the first major problems (1), attention is diverted to a fetish (2) that allows us to continue living in the same way, blaming a third party (the fetish) for all our problems.
The use of the fetish is very typical of fascist discourse. But if we stick to what we are often told… We will agree that fascism no longer exists, or does it?
A few weeks ago, in the middle of the pre-election campaign in Germany, the candidate of the AfD (Alternative for Germany) had no qualms about saying that Adolf Hitler was a communist. In doing so, the candidate sought to distance herself from the comparisons often made between Nazism and the political party she leads. The message was clear. On the one hand, historical Nazism is still an aberration. On the other hand, this aberration is linked to the other end of our political spectrum.
In terms of how aberrant Nazism still seems to us, we also recently had the controversy over whether or not Musk made the Nazi salute (Sieg Heil). In fact, the ADL’s (Anti-Defamation League, which tracks anti-Semitic behaviour) apology for the mistake seemed to calm the waters.
On the other hand, even more recently, Donald Trump raised the possibility of ‘cleaning up’ Gaza and turning it into a kind of holiday resort (or something else). Without the Palestinians, of course: the plan is to ‘move’ them somewhere else.
If we pay attention to these examples, and we could find many more, we will quickly realise something: form matters, and care is taken to ensure it.
Yes, I myself have sometimes said that we live in the political era of noise and incivility. But what I am arguing here does not contradict that at all. The form I am talking about is a conscious intention to distance ourselves from the forms and symbolism that take us back to the fascist movements of the past: Hitler is still abhorrent, Sieg Heil is reprehensible, ethnic cleansing is an aberration, etc.
However, these political discourses, which are so anxious not to be reminiscent of a terrible past, are permeated by constant and brutal, often dehumanising attacks on migrants, leftists, feminists, etc. Of course, each attack is always qualified: against irregular immigration, against the impoverishment of leftists, against anti-male radicals, etc.
But if you scratch the surface a little, you will see that these “buts” are nothing more than the justification that consolidates the fetish, a fetish that is not always the same, nor is it always expressed in the same way, but which continues to share the fascist matrix: the discrimination and subordination of the other, of the weakest, of the recalcitrant, of the dissenting, and in short, of any challenge to the ideal of an (almost) perfect society.
So, the form seems very problematic, but the content… The content seems to be disguised.
The thesis that is being upheld in this text can perhaps be clarified to the extent that we see the other side of it.
Rammstein are a German metal band. Since their beginnings, they have been very controversial for many reasons (isn’t that what many bands do to attract the public’s attention?). One of the main reasons, especially in their early days in the 90s, has to do with the use of aesthetics and codes of behaviour that recall some elements of Nazism: the Goose-step in some of their videos and concerts, or even the use of images from Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will for the video of Stripped (a version of the Depeche Mode classic). The controversy grew to such an extent that in 2001 they released the song Links 2 3 4 to further emphasise these aesthetic-militaristic elements of Third Reich Germany, to make it clear that they were left-wing. The very title of the song reflects this ambivalence: links is the German word for left, while 2 3 4 refers, of course, to the steps of the military march.
So, if we listen to what the band themselves tell us, the content of what they do is far removed from Nazi thought and, more generally, from any fascist narrative. However, in a provocative and controversial way, they have chosen to reproduce the forms of this aberrant historical movement.
The form is very easy to identify and therefore very easy to condemn. It is what is visible in all the discourses: the recognition of certain historical figures, certain behaviours and, in general, the symbolic and aesthetic elements that quickly take us back to that past. On the other hand, the content is not always so obvious: camouflaged under a certain form, the messages, even if they are messages of hate, may not be easy to identify. There will always be those who read them as obvious and not necessarily dangerous. Finally, there will always be those who are genuinely offended and believe that this fetish is really responsible for all the bad things that happen to them in life.
We must remember that if we condemn these forms today, it is because of the content to which they were attached: Sieg Heil, for example, is condemned today because of its association with the barbarity of Nazism. But barbarism can (and does) repeat itself in other forms. Forms that we may condemn in the future, when it is already too late. So let’s look at the content.
(1) Economic inequality, financial speculation, ecological unsustainability, lack of recognition of identity, work, etc.
(2) The immigrant, the ’empowered’ feminist, the environmentalist, the woke culture, etc.
