#Charlottesville: When hate collides with hate

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that." - Martin Luther King Jr.

Neo-Nazis and Neo-Communists clash in Charlottesville, Virgina

Neo-Nazis, white supremacists organized a series of events in Charlottesville, Virginia this weekend to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee there that had sparked a debate in the community. Sadly these groups sought to use the existing controversy to advance their racist, hate filled agenda and attract national media attention.

Marching with Communist and Nazi flags in Charlottesville, Virginia on Saturday

Giving Nazi salutes and waving the flag of the Nazi Third Reich they marched by torch light and the next day gathered in protest. During the torchlight march a group of counter-protesters peacefully gathered around the Robert E. Lee statue with a banner that read Virginia Students against White Supremacy" and shouted out against the racist and anti-Semitic nature of the march. At the same time communist red guards filled the ranks of counter-protestors with calls for violence and intimidation to be directed at the Neo-Nazis, and white supremacists. The stage was set for a collision between two hateful ideologies feeding off each other along with the glare of media attention. According to a Boone Rising Facebook post reproduced on an anarchist website: 

"The antifa strategically incited enough violence before noon to make the police to declare it illegal to gather in Emancipation Park. Through this strategic violence they effectively made a previously legally permitted Nazi rally, illegal."

Some necessary historical context
More than 400,000 Americans were killed by the Axis Powers, led by Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. The Nazi swastika flag, in addition to its racist and anti-Semitic history, represents a regime that laid waste to Europe and killed tens of millions. An estimated 11 million non-combatants, of which six million were Jewish were murdered by the Nazis.

"Make racists afraid again..."

Meanwhile the counter-protesters carried red flags and signs with the Soviet hammer and sickle, a symbol of international communism. Over a 100,000 Americans were killed fighting communist regimes in Korea and Vietnam. Communism has killed over a 100 million people over the past century.

Protesters and counter-protesters clash in Charlottesville, Virginia

More victims of Nazism
These neo-communists also carried signs that read "Make racists afraid again." Violent clashes occurred, Heather Heyer, age 32, (a local counter protester) was killed run down by James Field, age 20, (a white supremacist from Ohio) who with a car drove into a crowd of counter protesters. Nineteen others were injured. Field has been charged with second degree murder.

The fact that in 2017 some would still wave either loathsome flag should give us all pause to reflect on what is going on and where we are headed. What is forgotten is that both share a common history. Both Fascism and Leninism emerged out of a crisis of Marxism. Marxist historians would prefer to forget that Benito Mussolini before starting fascism was a Marxist.

Nazi Foreign Minister Von Ribbentrop, Joseph Stalin, & Soviet foreign minister Molotov

Furthermore despite their anti-racist rhetoric in the United States during the Obama Presidency the communist regime of North Korea engaged in a racist screed against President Obama in May of 2014 that drew an official critcism from the White House.

Ten days from today marks the 38th anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact when Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and Nazi foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, signed a treaty between the Nazi Third Reich and the Soviet Union that became an alliance to conquer and divide Poland and the Baltic states between the two totalitarian dictatorships. It was responsible for the start of World War II.

German and Soviet Union soldiers greet one another in Poland (1939)

The Czech writer Milan Kundera observed that "the struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting." This observation is especially relevant today when both the swastika and hammer and sickle are raised by young Americans  and this dark chapter of history must not be forgotten.

Day of Remembrance for Victims of Communism and Nazism 2017

Racism, slavery and white supremacy are historic problems in the American experience but throwing Nazism or Communism into the mix will not help. The events this last week in Charlottesville, Virginia demonstrate that. They are not opposites but mirror reflections of each other with a combined body count of over a 160 million dead.