At the beginning I wasn't exactly
listening. The lecturer was
rather a mean-looking little chap, but
a good speaker. White face,
very mobile mouth, and the rather
grating voice that they get from
constant speaking. Of course he was
pitching into Hitler and the
Nazis. I wasn't particularly keen to
hear what he was saying--get
the same stuff in the News Chronicle
every morning--but his voice
came across to me as a kind of
burr-burr-burr, with now and again a
phrase that struck out and caught my
attention.
'Bestial atrocities. . . . Hideous
outbursts of sadism. . . .
Rubber truncheons. . . . Concentration
camps. . . . Iniquitous
persecution of the Jews. . . . Back to
the Dark Ages. . . .
European civilization. . . . Act
before it is too late. . . .
Indignation of all decent peoples. . .
. Alliance of the
democratic nations. . . . Firm stand.
. . . Defence of
democracy. . . . Democracy. . . .
Fascism. . . . Democracy. . . .
Fascism. . . . Democracy. . . .'
You know the line of talk. These chaps
can churn it out by the
hour. Just like a gramophone. Turn
the handle, press the button,
and it starts. Democracy, Fascism,
Democracy. But somehow it
interested me to watch him. A rather
mean little man, with a white
face and a bald head, standing on a
platform, shooting out slogans.
What's he doing? Quite deliberately,
and quite openly, he's
stirring up hatred. Doing his
damnedest to make you hate certain
foreigners called Fascists. It's a
queer thing, I thought, to be
known as 'Mr So-and-so, the well-known
anti-Fascist'. A queer
trade, anti-Fascism. This fellow, I
suppose, makes his living by
writing books against Hitler. But what
did he do before Hitler
came along? And what'll he do if
Hitler ever disappears? Same
question applies to doctors,
detectives, rat-catchers, and so
forth, of course. But the grating
voice went on and on, and
another thought struck me. He MEANS
it. Not faking at all--feels
every word he's saying. He's trying to
work up hatred in the
audience, but that's nothing to the
hatred he feels himself. Every
slogan's gospel truth to him. If you
cut him open all you'd find
inside would be
Democracy-Fascism-Democracy. Interesting to know a
chap like that in private life. But
does he have a private life?
Or does he only go round from platform
to platform, working up
hatred? Perhaps even his dreams are
slogans.
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