Brit Rant:The Other Harry

[Barb Roberts]

>
Annemehr

> Don't people regularly go to costume parties dressed as monsters?  I'm
> partly of Slovak descent; if I saw someone dressed up as Stalin, I'd
> think Stalin deserved to be made fun of that way.

Annemehr

Don't people regularly go to costume parties dressed as monsters?  I'm
partly of Slovak descent; if I saw someone dressed up as Stalin, I'd
think Stalin deserved to be made fun of that way.

Well, my brother dressed as a Nazi for a Halloween party in college 
many years, and he too got into a lot of trouble.  A Jewish person was 
greatly offended.  Yet, for my brother, it was a just a cheap monster 
costume.  (My father had come home from WWII with a few trinkets, 
including a Hitler youth helmet.)  He was shocked at the reaction.

Judging from the reruns I see on PBS, British TV has made fun of the 
fun of Nazis over the years with all sorts of parodies, etc.  However, 
in Germany, I believe that it's still illegal to own/display/sell 
certain things, items with swastikas and the like.  This law caused a 
legal problem for the US EBay a few years back.  It seems that when 
Americans, sold Nazi paraphernalia over the Internet, they also were 
making it available to people in Germany. It caused quite a flap.  I'm 
a little vague about the details, but I do remember the flap.  The 
trouble is that Prince Harry and the Royal family is larger than 
Britain.  The Royal family is also still living down the problem that 
head with a few family members who were sympathetic to the Nazis in the 
early days of the Nazi regime. You and I *may* not cause a much of a 
fuss with a Nazi uniform.  We may even seem tame compared with the 
Draculas and Frankensteins at a party.  But Germany still has neo-Nazis 
and former Nazis to deal with, and its still a concern to many.

Closer to home, another email list, The Opera-L. had a problem with the 
contributions from a known neo-Nazi that writes a classical music 
column for a N-N newspaper in Austria. His contributions tested the 
limits of free speech.   The N-N stayed “on cannon”, and were sometimes 
OK, but did seem to stray into the degenerate nature of certain 
(Jewish) composers.  I didn’t really catch it.  His posts were hard 
enough to read, but others were to familiar with the buzz words he used 
were outraged.  The guy wouldn’t shut up either.  Thankfully Harry 
Potter lists have not attracted Nazis yet.

Barbara Roberts

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