MARGINAL COMMENTS
By ROSE MACAULAY AX embarrassing air of cliquish, small-town, parish. pump smugness is apt to hover over the meetings (or rallies, if this name is preferred) of any political or religious party. Perhaps it is their unanimity, their common and violently held beliefs and antipathies, their obliviousness to other points of view, that gives this adolescent, provincial colour to factional assemblies. Inevitably they lack breadth, liberality, humane culture, complexity of vision. This cannot be helped ; and of course (one supposes, with sonic regret) parties must meet (or rally) to encourage one another, to disapprove of their opponents, to hatch their plans. But the peculiar atmosphere of arrested development, of chubby, chirping, yet passionate imbecility, which broods over any assembly of British Blaekshirts cannot, I think, be equalled by any other party gathering in the world (though I have attended some that run it pretty close).
These ingenuous, black-clad youths----with what a reverential thrill in their voices will they mention " the Leader " (yes, that is Sir Oswald) ; with what passion they will hand out their inspired versions of recent history, affirming that Italian airplanes have never bombed a lied Cross, and that reports to this effect are dirty lies concocted by the British. the Ethiopians and the Swedes in conspiracy, assisted by the ubiquitous Jews (they see Jews everywhere, as drunkards see snakes ; one gathers that practically the whole British Cabinet are of this ancient race, as well as the owners of nearly all British journals but the Blackshirt and Action). They will tell you how the Leader is loved and acclaimed fitr and wide over the country, though Jews try to create prejudice wherever he goes ; they will tell you how Liberty is not the same as Licence (a doctrine which I have heard before, but which has never *until now conveyed any precise meaning to me ; now I know that Licence is freedom to express anti-Fascist or pro- Semite views, while Liberty is freedom to speak and act as all good Fascists wish to speak and act). They will triumph in the brilliant and victorious advance of the armed and bomb-dropping forces of Italy upon a primitive people, telling us in their Press how these " white forces of civilisation " are " carrying the reign of peace to warring tribes and bringing to these backward and barbaric races the science of the West." They will work themselves up, with impassioned frenzy, into storms of vulgar and vicious Judcophobia.
This all sounds, when reported, sinister and horrid. But actually the Blaekshirts assembled together are funny. They should he regarded as an entertainment. Those who try to cramp their style at their " rallies " are not only behaving unfairly but foolishly. If anti- Fascists would (or could) restrain themselves from mustering outside or inside the Albert Hall on Sunday week to make what is politely called a counter-demonstra- tion, more vulgarly a row, but would instead take their seats in the Hall in the same spirit as that in which they would take seats for the Marx brothers, it would be both juster and more appropriate. Give the Blackshirts a chance to do their stuff without inter- ruption, and you get a whole nation laughing at them. Give them a fight, and you not only give them what they want, but behave as unfairly as they behave them- selves. How far better and more diplomatic to let people enfool themselves to the top of their bent, and deride them with a smile.
Besides, the Blackshirts are an entertainment, and I think they should be kept, as we keep chimpanzees in the Zoo.
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