Nightmare on Rye

I find that the Picture of the Day is a consistently interesting feature of Wikipedia’s front page that often draws my eye. Recently it featured a picture of a starving, emaciated group of prisoners from Buchenwald Concentration Camp (see it here). The picture was taken shortly after the liberation of the camp by the American army in April 1945 I’ve recently been giving some thought to The Holocaust. Not as a strictly historical event but more in a psycho-social what-if scenario.

What-if the situation were to arise that we, the people of the modern, rich, freedom loving western world were to find ourselves in such a situation. I admit it’s not a pleasant idea but what if you or I were in the situation that was forced on over six million people?

Take this proposition:

In 2007 in a parallel world an ultra-hard-line government takes control of Russia in a wave of unprecedented nationalist fervour. The new Russian government almost immediately begins to advocates a resource hungry expansionist philosophy that leads to a massive military build-up. NATO and the UN alarmed by the increasingly hawkish and rhetoric try to defuse the powder keg situation. Several smaller nations on Russia’s borders nervously deploy military forces in anticipation of an all out attack. The American and Chinese governments repeatedly shy away from a political confrontation with the Russians fearful of provoking an already volatile state of affairs.

The situation deteriorates rapidly and diplomatic channels disintegrate into militant posturing and brinkmanship on both sides. The world hangs on a knife edge for a moment until the Russian’s call NATO’s bluff. The massed Russian armies surge across the border into many of the former Soviet Republics. as the Russian sweep relentlessly into central Europe, then Germany and Austria before finally annexing France and the Low Countries. The UK ever eager to remind the world of her past imperial glories jumps into the fray with both feet Thousands of British soldiers are killed or wounded and an all out invasion of the British Isles seems a certainty. A concentrated diplomatic effort finally brings America into the war on the side of an ailing Britain. The USA pours men, money and material into Britain transforming the entire island into a fortress. The UK in a last desperate gamble threatens to use her nuclear deterrent if the Soviets land on British soil. The Soviet Union recognises that a nuclear exchange even on a limited scale will cause vast destruction to their industrial heartland. The Russian government agrees to an armistice to give them time to consolidate their considerable gains. The War ends as quickly as it began as the two vast superpowers of Russian and America carve out an uneasy peace between themselves. Britain is forced to concede a great deal in the negotiations including agreeing to vastly inflated “war reparations” to the Russians.

The scene is set with a vision of Great Britain forced into a pariah like existence on the edge of a Russian dominated Europe. Law and order rapidly begin to break down forcing the government to declare martial law. The pound has dropped to an unheard of low. The physical currency is debased to such a level that people are buying a loaf of bred with a wheelbarrow full of paper money. The population of Britain become increasingly desperate and morose as food and other basic amenities are rationed to the hilt. With elections, political parties and many civil liberties effectively suspended for the duration of the “emergency” the populace become more and more unruly. Wide-scale political protests break out across the country and are put down with increasingly violent means. Thousands of tiny local interest parties, unions and groups spring up through the land as people band together for support.

One small party emerges from amongst on of the poorest areas of London. We shall call this Hypothetical party the English National Socialist Party and for arguments sake its’ leader can be a man named Alfred Hiller. Hiller is a veteran of the War and a shrewdly ambitious man. He has a sharp eye for spotting trends and a superior orator. He has an unprecedented talent for whipping crowds of people into an ecstatic frenzy. He declares that England can be great again. England has been held back by the lazy spongers of the other three Home Nations and by the leeching of immigrant workers.

The ENSP starts as a minority, grass roots party with a half dozen members at most.  Through carefully staged rallies, pamphleteering and media manipulation they quickly establish themselves as a legitimate political party. The hardcore membership is surrounded by a wider cadre of others who don’t really believe the core values but. The ENSP grows rapidly in size an influence as it promises the earth to its loyal followers. Hiller’s delivery is electric and the ENSP slickly market themselves as the party of the ordinary working English man and woman. Ordinary people who would normally consider Hiller a dangerous right-wing lunatic are caught up in the whirlwind.

The ENSP organise youth groups to curb youth crime and direct their energies. They form vigilante “Civil Protection” groups that rapidly curb crime and promote wholesome English values. Ordinary people watch as their government flounders and the ENSP deliver peace and security. These otherwise rational logical people start to listen to the ENSP’s message. Deep down in their hearts they don’t really believe that the Scots, Irish and Welsh are responsible for Britain’s problems. Never the less they go to the rallies; they attend the meetings and they read the pamphlets.

Hiller’s political opponents go to the ENSP rallies to decry him but end up mesmerised by the carefully engineered propaganda machine. They try to shout down his energetically delivered rhetoric but instead find themselves surrounded by thousands of others who seem to believe. Those who prove too troublesome tend to disappear quickly. Nobody seems to notice in the growing fervour surrounding the bright new party that’s going to restore Britain. The ENSP quickly gain acceptance on the political stage, their membership swells as they are seen to be the only force capable of taking action in a paralysed Britain.

The government is pressurised to life martial law and restore proper political representation. The government resists until several famous political are swayed by fair means or foul to join the ENSP. Wide spread ENSP lead “pro-democracy” protests are met by heavy handed police and army tactics. The government loses all legitimacy in the eyes of the public and is forced to hold a snap general election.

The election is a foregone conclusion as the ENSP is swept into power by the greatest landslide in political history. Hiller is installed as Prime Minister. The public are ecstatic. They have the man who can get things done in charge. Nobody seems to mind as more and more basic rights and freedoms are taken away “for the good of the country”.

The machinery of oppression begins to turn, slowly at first but with increasing speed. The Scots, Irish and Welsh are restricted to their respective parts of the UK. Then they are stripped of their right to travel, their right to own or buy property. Finally the government begins to concentrate them in a series of large “internment camps”. The vast majority of the land in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales are given over to government backed entrepreneurs.

Shipments of food and supplies for the detainees dwindle away to nothing and thousands begin to starve to death as the ENSP government watches. The conditions within the camps are kept a secret from the public for fear that support of the ESNP will waver. Internees are selected to work as forced labour in government owned factories or farms in return for food and shelter. Those who refuse are returned to the camps where the conditions are rapidly reducing the population to less than animals.

Finally the ESNP begin to implement a program to remove the internees forever. They begin by moving the internees throughout the network of camps at random till the move between areas is seen as part of the daily routine. They then introduce decontamination in large communal showers at the end of each journey. This is followed by the first real hot meal that many have had in months. Quickly the internees become used to the cycle of loading and unloading onto the trains. They begin to look forward to the showers and hot meals and as a result they slowly come to terms with their constant movement throughout the camp network.

The ESNP meanwhile build specialist camps in remote locations far from prying eyes. They equip these camps with gas chambers that are perfect facsimiles of the decontamination showers at the other camps. Trainloads of unsuspecting internees arrive eager for their hot food and shower. Instead they are quickly and efficiently murdered using a powerful nerve gas. Their bodies are then incinerated and their ashes spread on fields as fertiliser.

Months pass and the general public remain unaware of the horror taking place in some of Britain’s most remote areas. They turn a blind eye to the latest reports of political agitators or opponents of the ESNP who have disappeared and the wild reports of mass murder being perpetrated by the regime.

Finally on the anniversary of his election as Prime Minister Alfred Hiller announces to an ecstatic rally of the public faithful that the re-education of the Scots, Irish and Welsh has been a complete success. They have seen the error of their ways and been reintegrated into British society. Britain is on track again, Britain is great again.

Alfred Hiller is long dead and buried, remembered as a hero of Great Britain before word emerges of the atrocities he presided over.

Frightening isn’t it?

The Nazi’s put six million Jews, Slavs, Homosexuals, Gypsies and others to death in a manner not unlike that which I have described. To put that number into some kind of context its worth noting that the current estimate population of Scotland is only five and a half million people. Â The Nazi regime brutalised and dehumanised these people out of a deadly mixture of ingrained bigotry and calculated malice. In the process the Nazi’s successfully transformed the Jews et al. from ordinary people into a politically convenient scapegoat and turned an entire nation against them.

The strange part in all of this, the part I cannot fathom is how this could be allowed to happen in such a well respected nation. It’s true that Germany had suffered heavily from economic depression. The German people were desperate and bitter at the heavy noose the Allied Nations had tied round their neck after the Great War. What I can’t understand is how easily it all happened, how the otherwise famously belligerent and strong willed German nation allowed this to happen. I can’t understand how six million people were put to death so easily. I hope within my own heart that should the nightmare situation I described above been real I would have stood and fought. That I would have seen it coming and stood up and be counted.

If there is a lesson in any of the things I have said it is simply an echo of a famous quote attributed to the influential politician Edmund Burke: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

I closing I will say only that I firmly believe we are approaching a crossroads in history. The world is heading for a point where we will have a choice: Let history repeat itself and bring the world crashing down or grow up a little and send the little bigoted bullies back to where they came from.