First Performed at the 3 July Introductory Plenary Session of the 9ICCE2019 Conference (International Conference on Critical Education), Universita Federico II, Napoli, Italia and then at the Labour Left Alliance meeting in Brighton, UK, 19 December 2019.
If it looks like a rotten stinking fish,
if it smells like a rotten stinking fish,
if it acts like a rotten stinking fish,
if it stinks like a rotten fish.
Then it is a rotten stinking fish.
If it looks like a fascist,
If it sounds like a fascist
if it acts like a fascist,
if it smells like a fascist,
Then it is a fascist.
Even if the label on the box
says democratic
and it dresses in a pin-striped suit.
Bolsonaro, Orban, Trump, Erdogan, Salvini, Modi
the Law and Justice Party in Poland
all say they are democrats.
They stir hatred.
They stir violence.
They stir suppression of critical thought.
in universities, schools, in minds.
They intimidate those of us who protest.
They threaten.
They enact.
They destroy civility.
They peddle fear,
and hatred
They normalise dehumanisation
they desensitise cruelty
-they kill
Marielle Franco, Pavlos Fyssas, Jo Cox, Heather Hayer….
There is a road,
travelled in the past,
and being travelled now,
through the beatings and the killings
Of the subhuman,
“The Other”
the Outsider,
the immigrant,
the minority,
the LGBT,
the feminist
the homeless,
the impoverished,
the `alien ideology’,
the internationalist,
the trade unionist,
the communist
It is that road we,
we here,
we elsewhere,
we everywhere,
must work to block,
must work instead,
in opposition,
to build the road
to social justice,
to economic justice,
to equality
It is not easy.
Many of us have the scars.
We have to do it.
We must do it!
Like in the 1930s, the 1940s, the 1970s,
In different places, in different times,
like in past and recent history
We have to do it
With our words, our hearts,
our minds, our bodies,
our political and social organisations and parties,
our solidarity, our compassion-
our humanity!
our hard political analysis and understanding
Our leadership of experiences and analysis and action
Our leaderships, not ossified, but open
Fascists, neo-Fascists, pre-Fascists, post- Fascists,
proto-Fascists, quasi-Fascists… Fascists!
No Pasaran
Like stinking fish,
they belong
in the dustbin of history.
Throw them there
Dave Hill is a Marxist (member of Anti*Capitalist Resistance) anti-Fascist political and trade union activist, a working-class professor based in the UK.
Email: dave.hill35@btopenworld.com
There is a wiki at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Hill_(professor)