Difficult times breed extreme views. One just has to look at what happened to the Weimar republic with its plethora of economic problems. In this case the extreme right wing view prevailed and the Nazi jackboot commenced its reign of terror firmly based on the Teutonic master race stamping its ugly image into the faces of freedom-living people. Another reign of terror prevailed in France after the 1789 revolution but this one was based on ‘liberté, egalité et fraternité’, a resolutely left-wing view. More recently the Russian revolution of 1917 was founded upon the victory of the proletariat and the smashing of imperialism but led instead to a totalitarian regime that went as far as telling composers like Shostakovich what style of music to write.

(Ian MacCormick – AKA MacDonald – was my contemporary at Dulwich)

Both extreme right wing and extreme left wing groups have espoused violence, torture and even created famine and disease as part of their process of domination. That is the key word, domination, and writers like George Orwell knew well that there was a disgusting similarity in the tactics, if not the ideology, used by both the extreme left and the extreme right.   

Today difficult times have come to a climax with an overabundance of evils among which the most prominent are global pandemic, global warming and….globalization.  These issues divide us like nothing before. Gone are the days when in the UK a voter’s straightforward choice for a particular party was respected and, together with subjects like religion and sex, not even considered worth prying into or arguing about.

In much of the world now Christian believers are equally appreciated whether they be Protestants or Roman Catholics as they once were not. Marriages are respected between persons not only of the opposite but of the same sex and vegetarians are welcome into restaurants and homes. My own friends include believers and non-believers, gays and non-gays, vegetarians and non-vegetarians. So many things that used to divide people are now luckily accepted. (I draw a line regarding fox-hunting, however.)

What continues to strongly divide our social life like never before are Brexit and Covid-19. Indeed, we either split off from those with contrary views on these matters or we agree to disagree and not talk about the subject we differ on. Yet both Covid-19 and Brexit are cataclysmic issues and opinions on them are often, unfortunately, closely allied to aspects of extreme views including conspiracy theories.

I am regularly sent the most eccentric views on Covid-19 suggesting that it is a purpose-built pandemic instituted by dark vaccination forces aimed at decimating the world population and rendering them sterile. What these dark forces are and what is the evidence or aim for decimation is never satisfactorily clarified. A typical message sent to me in this key is the following “United States senate today announced: ‘corona is a lie’! The media is covering up the truth”. Etc. etc.

Similarly Brexiticianists continue to tell me how wonderful it is to be freed of Brussels bureaucracy and being able as an independent nation, which has somehow regained its ‘lost sovrentee’, to make its own choice about policies despite the facts that there is now a hell of a lot more bureaucracy in the UK since the start of this year (and also that the UK could still make its own decisions prior to that date). A typical message coming from this side is the following: “Surely you remember how varied the world is and what a blessing that was…Europe is better off without being controlled by something called Brussels and those boring self-seeking overpaid bureaucrats (French word) whose lack of imagination depletes us all. D. Hope you are ok. X”

When the conspiracy extremists on both left and right sides present ex-president Trump as the scorned Messiah who sacredly upholds core moral values and who, unlike other US presidents, has never gone to war with anyone (except his nation, perhaps?)  then I uncongestedly smell a rat. Aren’t extreme right and extreme left wing views closer to each other than they might seem at first? Is the political world to be no longer viewed as a spectrum but, rather, as a horseshoe, according to some theorists, where the opposite sides curve inwards and become ever closer to each other the more dangerously their views evolve?

(Carlotta can easily smell a rat)

The similarity between extreme left and extreme right wing views is in the wish to impose an overriding dogma on all humanity for they are both against any centrist, neo-liberal and capitalist status quo. It’s a bit like the Spanish conquistadores invading the Inca and saying to the inhabitants “either you become Christians or we kill you.” Going further back in time if one didn’t perform sacrifices in honour of the Roman emperor then one was thrown to the lions (as another form of sacrifice…)

In the recent demonstrations in London, for example, a totally weird yoking together of far right groups espousing anti-immigration, English nationalism and Muslim ejection found bed-fellows with extreme left wing groups like extinction rebellion and HS2 rail protestors. Whether flat-earthers were also involved I do not know.

For me the real difference in political viewpoints today lies between ‘liberal democracy’ and ‘populist extremism’ – not so much between right wing and left wing. After all, Mussolini was a socialist before he became a fascist and Hitler and Stalin were allies against the UK, both invading Poland prior to Operation Barbarossa in 1941.  What is really dangerous is when a form of extremism infiltrates a liberal democratic government or political party. Thus, the Labour party has been accused of anti-Semitism despite that view being associated with fascist ideology and the Tories have been accused of conspiracy theory with their opinions on ‘herd immunity’ in the context of the pandemic.

(Stalin meets Ribbentrop in 1939)

Actually both extreme right and left wing views merge and produce virus-like variants all the time. The Chinese Communist party marries capitalist doctrines to its one-party rule and is flagrantly anti-Muslim in its treatment of its Uighur minority. Italy is always in the midst of a coalition party confusion with pacts and agreements made between opposing right and left wing faction in varying degrees of alarming views.  The situation in the UK is equally a distressing since the current government has been infiltrated by extreme right-wing views with increasingly patriotic flag-waving (for example, more public buildings are now encouraged to fly the Union Jack)  and fomenting anti-foreigner prejudice  (hence, for instance, the shortage of lorry drivers, NHS staff and fruit pickers from the EU).

On Sunday we shall have the (UEFA) Union of European Football Associations championship final between one EU member and one ex-EU member. (Among other non-EU UEFA members are Israel, Kazakhstan and North Macedonia). I want to treat this occasion as one where we can thoroughly enjoy a football match of the highest quality and where the best side will clearly deserve to win. Yet here again we can see the ghastly spectres of those two words ‘Covid’ and ‘Brexit’ entering the arena. If England wins let not Doris claim part of the victory as part of her resolve to ‘get Brexit done’. (I somehow feel the other side will win!) And, regarding Covid, let’s not indulge in vain speculations about ‘herd immunity’. The only herd immunity I recognize is that prevalent among ignorant or conned humans who follow an extreme ideology whether it be on the right curve of the horseshoe or on the left.

Let’s hope that this horseshoe may at least bring a little bit of luck.

(Our garden horseshoe)