Der Fliegender Proto Nazi Russki

[Stillhomewardbound]

There's ignorance and there's ignorance but you really would have to drop your jaw at the idea of a RUSSIAN, and no callow youth at that, festooning himself with tatoo'd images of the Nazi past.

No wonder Bayreuth took the point of view that this was one Flying Dutchman they couldn't give runway clearance to.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/opera/9418792/Russian-opera-singer-withdraws-from-Bayreuth-festival-over-Swastika-tattoo.html

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Well, he was a "callow youth" when he had the tatoos done.

Nonetheless, at best a particularly stupid individual, if his reported words are accurate, who has a large swastika on the right side of his chest and on the left a "life rune", a symbol used by the SS Lebensborn project, which supported "racially pure" Aryan women.: "It was not clear to me that the symbols that I have tattooed on my chest could have any connotations or even by used by Nazis and neo-Nazis"; "The symbols have absolutely no political significance for me, but a spiritual one." This last statement sounds particularly sinister.

[Serial_Apologist]

Well, he was a "callow youth" when he had the tatoos done.

Nonetheless, at best a particularly stupid individual, if his reported words are accurate, who has a large swastika on the right side of his chest and on the left a "life rune", a symbol used by the SS Lebensborn project, which supported "racially pure" Aryan women.: "It was not clear to me that the symbols that I have tattooed on my chest could have any connotations or even by used by Nazis and neo-Nazis"; "The symbols have absolutely no political significance for me, but a spiritual one." This last statement sounds particularly sinister.

Indeed - given, apparently, that he has not qualified by adding, "... denoting my disreputable past, which I now disown".

[Flosshilde]

I'm not completely convinced that playing in a heavy metal band counts as 'disreputable', & many, if not most, young people do things, including get tattood, that they come to regret (even more so if they've posted pictures of them on Facebook). But for a singer who wants to specialise in Wagner to say that "I was not aware of the extent of the irritation and offence these signs and symbols would cause, particularly in Bayreuth given the context of the festival's history," (Guardian) seems remarkably stupid.

[scottycelt]

I did some really stupid things in my youth and long after, come to think of it, but I've never quite understood why some are quite so stupid as to paint their bodies with ugly insignia knowing it will be permanent. I find tattoos on women and girls particularly repugnant. I believe the 70-year old Lady Steele recently acquired one which proves the elderly can sometimes be even more stupid than the young, though admittedly at her age she has a lot less to lose.

I don't find it at all strange there are Fascists in Russia, the UK or anywhere else. In fact Eastern Europe seems to have a particular problem with these extremists at present, including Poland, which I find rather more remarkable..

We all have to count the cost of previous stupidity, Nazi-tattooed opera singers included, I'm afraid ...

[kernelbogey]

I suppose he's now doomed to roam the world, looking for a sympathetic opera house....

[Flosshilde]

[Northender]

STRONGLY RECOMMENDED!
Last Sunday, BBC NEWS Channel broadcast a report by Katya Adler on current German attitudes to the country's far-right activists. It's available on the iPlayer until July 29th (click on 'Our World').

[Resurrection Man]

Why do people get so fixated about the extreme right but don't get excited about the extreme left? Each is equally as bad as each other, IMO.

[Flosshilde]

What extreme left?

[mercia]

a shame the swastika was hijacked since it should mean something good, if you get it the right way round

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika

it's even in Roman mosaics

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Ancient_Roman_Mosaics_Villa_Romana_La_Olmeda_007_Pedrosa_De_La_Vega_-_Salda%C3%B1a_%28Palencia%29.JPG

[scottycelt]

Why do people get so fixated about the extreme right but don't get excited about the extreme left? Each is equally as bad as each other, IMO.

Yes, I agree ... it's just that the subject here is Nazism, though that really was a rival branch of the extreme left to communism, hence the 'socialist' tag! A 'right-winger' to me is the extreme gun-owning anti-tax laissez-faire capitalist one might encounter, say, in the USA.

'Fascism' is also a misused word to denote right-wing views, and I now plead guilty to misusing it here!

[Northender]

a shame the swastika was hijacked since it should mean something good, if you get it the right way round

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika

it's even in Roman mosaics
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...alencia%29.JPG

Don't forget the 'Swastika Stone' up on Ilkley Moor (a nice easy walk from you-know-who's Tea Room. You don't have to wear a hat, but bear in mind the variability of the weather in those parts).

[Resurrection Man]

What extreme left?

Ones who think that the State should run everything? Or those who think that there is a bottomless pit of money to give out benefit to all and sundry ?

Or here ...... Joseph Stalin's mass killing of the affluent middle-class peasant Kulaks who were identified as "class enemies" by the Soviet Union. Similar classicide has been was committed by China during the Great Leap Forward, by North Vietnam as part of Land reform and by the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia.

[gurnemanz]

Why do people get so fixated about the extreme right but don't get excited about the extreme left? Each is equally as bad as each other, IMO.

I don't think Mein Kampf and Das Kapital can be said to be "equally as bad as each other". (NB This statement is made on the dodgy ground of not having read either of them.)

I've always thought that one difference is that left-wing dictators actually want you to believe in their ideology whereas a right-wing ones just want you to conform and do as you're told.