The death of Quentin Deranque is strangely under-reported here. He was a 23-year-old beaten up in Lyon on 12 February by supporters of the main party of the left, Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s France Insoumise (FI). He had been part of a group escorting what the BBC website calls ‘far-right feminists’, helping them protest against the visit to a university by a far-left politician. There was a fracas in the street with masked opponents connected with the Young Guard, a leftist FI-related group declared illegal last year. Deranque died of his injuries two days later. One of those arrested is a special adviser to an FI deputy. I noticed on the news footage that Deranque was attacked beside a wall on which were written the words ‘Je hurle Mao Mao’ – a line from the 1960s song ‘Mao Mao’, which attacks America, declares that Mao’s Little Red Book is what ‘causes everything finally to move’, and quotes approvingly Mao’s dictum that ‘True power grows out of the barrel of a gun’. To understand the political repercussions in France, imagine if Seumas Milne, say, or Andrew Murray, Jeremy Corbyn’s sidekicks, had been part of a gang besetting a young supporter of, say, Rupert Lowe’s Restore. Deranque certainly had a far-right background, but had recently converted to the Catholic church and was a supporter of the traditional Latin Mass. He seems to have no reported violent past. The grim comparison that occurs to me is the story of Horst Wessel. Wessel, a young Nazi, was violent and much more extreme than Deranque, but his murder was a deliberate act by communists who broke into his rented room and shot him about three years before the Nazis came to power. Goebbels seized on his ‘martyrdom’. Words that Wessel had himself composed became the famed Horst Wessel song. The political effect was to play on people’s natural craving for order. Far-left extremism helped create very favourable conditions for Hitler’s rise. In modern France, such extremism, allied with anti-Semitic Islamism, has hollowed out the traditional left and undermined the old Socialist party. There is evidence that something similar is happening to Labour in Britain.
Deranque’s Christianity will be a factor in the coming struggles. Over here, on Monday, Reform unveiled policies which favoured protections for Christianity and promised to prevent redundant churches from being converted into mosques. Believers should be wary of radicalised political Christianity, but it will be hard to avoid if we go on giving a free pass to much more radicalised Islam.
It has been accurately observed that the word ‘Zionist’ is now a hostile usage meaning ‘Jew’ among people who do not like Jews. A recent tweet by Yasmin Alibhai-Brown complains at the prospect that ‘uber Zionist’ Margaret Hodge may replace ‘uber Zionist’ Michael Grade as chairman of Ofcom. I strongly suspect she does not know how Zionistical either person is, but simply knows they are Jewish and therefore, in her world view, unsuitable to have any power in the media. The added implication of the current usage is that Zionist views are unacceptable. Surely the meaning of the word is, in itself, value-neutral. Zionism arose in the 19th century and could be regarded as a Jewish version of 19th-century liberal nationalism. The word ‘Zionist’ should be used as a description, not an insult, rather as one uses the phrase ‘Irish nationalist’ or, indeed, ‘Arab nationalist’. For similar reasons, the word should not be a racial descriptive. A Gentile can be a Zionist, even an uber Zionist; not all Jews are Zionists.
It makes me ask myself whether I, a Gentile who supports Israel, am a Zionist. In the full meaning, I probably am not, being uneasy about all nationalism (as opposed to patriotism). I do not believe that distant history conferred on the Jews an absolute right to live in Israel. On the other hand, I believe it was absolutely necessary to secure a homeland for the Jewish people and that unless the West can help Israel defend that homeland against all who would destroy it, we will sacrifice our own claim to civilisation. What does that make me? A fellow-traveller with Zionism? A philo-Zio? Happy to be either, or both.
Writers venting against the British monarchy frequently use the phrase ‘unthinking deference’ just now. Can there not be such as thinking deference? One defers to something or someone not usually out of blind obedience, but because it seems wise. This often relates to the longevity of the role, institution or even individual deferred to. The test of time is a real thing, and one respects the few who pass it. Unthinking contempt is much, much stupider, and increasingly common.
Round us in Sussex, as everywhere, potholes have recently got even worse. It has become genuinely alarming just to drive the mile and a half to the next village: new holes frequently appear or old ones suddenly worsen. This is partly to do with the endless rain. But in 30 local authorities, including ours, I cannot help suspecting it relates to the fact that our local elections were cancelled by central government fiat. Sitting councillors must have breathed a sigh of relief. Now that the High Court has decreed that the elections must happen after all, they must be re-inhaling. Potholes will sway lots of undecided voters, including me. Few issues arouse more heated emotions. By the way, neglected local roads are the responsibility of local councils. A-roads and motorways are the responsibility of the National Highways Agency, over which local electors have no power. Its website says, under ‘Roads we manage’, that ‘Our road network is essential to the growth, wellbeing and balance of the nation’s economy’. That is true, so I wonder why, if ex-Prince Andrew can be pursued for misconduct in public office, the same cannot apply to the NHA.
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