The far Right are not just a problem in Charlottesville

The big news story of the weekend was the awful events in Charlottesville. The violence at a far right rally was not only rather scary, it was a wake up call to all of us to be aware that there are people with some very dangerous views in our world, who see nothing at all wrong with NAZI salutes, emblems and ideology. These are people who worship Adolf Hitler, a man who brought the world to the brink, exterminated nine million people in a systematic program of genocide, targeting Jews, Gypsies, the Disabled, Homosexuals and political opponents. Tens of millions were killed in the war he started. Europe was partitioned for decades as a result of the settlement at the end. When the concentration camps were opened, not only did we see systematic extermination of people, starvation and totrure. We saw awful evidence of inhuman experiments.
Some of us may see Charlottesville and think "oh well, that's the USA bible belt, it couldn't happen here". Think again. One of the candidates in the UKIP Leadership campaign, Anne Marie Waters, is a well known anti Islam campaigner. Sadly for many, Muslims are seen as a soft target for bigotry. There is a subtext that Muslims are somehow rather dangerous. This idea is planely rather stupid. There are a billion and  half Muslims in the world, with 2.7 million of them living in the UK. Whatever you may or may not think of the religion, it is patently obvious that the vast majority of the 2.7 million are not supporters of terrorism, rape of white teenagers or any other behaviours that the likes of Waters shriek about.

Just for a moment think about the logic the likes of Waters employ. By her logic all of us white Christians are KKK sympathisers, which we are clearly not. Why should Muslims who are decent people have to justify their behaviour any more than I have to? We must always be vigilant guarding against the forces of unreason. The biggest worry is that the USA has a President that hasn't called out  these vile racists for what they are. Let's not forget that the KKK are steeped in a history of murder of people who did nothing except be born black. The concept of lynching anyone is abhorrent but doing it to cow a section of society to accept inequality and slavery is vile. There is no excuse. What we need to ensure is that such fascist thought is not tolerated here. We seem to have fallen off the cliff of sanity into a very dangerous period. Burying our heads in the sand is the most dangerous thing in the world.