Friday 20 February 2015

Men With Guns

"Moonlight glimmered on the guns of the men who stood there waiting for him."
-Poul Anderson, The Star Fox (London, 1968), p. 154.

An armed reception committee! Gunnar Heim has gone to meet some Basque-speaking New European partisans - like World War II revisited - but how does he know that these armed men are not the enemy waiting in ambush? Because, in this case, the enemy are not men but Aleriona.

Human beings have not yet fought members of another rational species, and I hope we never will, but there are times when our own physical differences begin to matter. Fighting the Japanese must have felt different from fighting the Germans - an immediately identifiable enemy even out of uniform.

Some of us traveled by coach to another city to take part in an anti-racist mobilization. The (Nazi) National Front were due to march with police protection so we planned to counter-demonstrate, hopefully in much larger numbers to demoralize our opponents. We had to walk in small groups from a coach disembarkation point to a counter-demonstration assembly point. We did not want to meet any groups of Nazis, especially not larger groups, moving in the same direction but there seemed to be a group of youths standing on every street corner...

I soon learned an important lesson. If even one youth in a group was black, then every member of that group was my friend whereas I had to be provisionally cautious about any group whose every member had the same skin color as myself! An unpleasant but fortunately infrequent experience.

It is unsettling suddenly to find yourself in a racial minority, like in a Manchester drinking club or in the shop on our street, but it soon becomes the norm unless someone makes an issue of it. Two white youths on our street who made a habit of racially taunting an Asian schoolgirl were fortunate that the girl's father was unable to break down their front door. They left the following day. But that was decades ago. Unlike some other cities, we have enjoyed peace since then.

Poul Anderson shows anti-Naqsan sentiment in his Star Fox future and James Blish's Chronology of Cities in Flight lists an anti-Earth pogrom in the Malar Cluster.

7 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Hi, Paul!

Is this "National Front" the same as the English Defense League? And is the membership of the NF composed of actual fans of Adolf Hitler, reading and quoting from his writings? Does the NF also preach hatred of Jews?

Sean

Paul Shackley said...

Sean,
The NF is no longer around. It was a predecessor of the more recent BNP. Yes, John Tyndall, a founder of the NF said, "Mein Kampf is my doctrine." When we counter-demonstrated, I shouted across at a guy on the other side (with a line of police between) to suggest that he seek common cause with fellow workers irrespective of race or nationality. His reply was, "Been reading your Jew papers, have you?" Unpleasant anti-Semitism.
Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Hi, Paul!

Thanks! Disgusting, indeed, this sickening hatred of Jews. I'm reminded of how the recent surge in anti Semitism we've been seeing is causing many Jews to emigrate to Israel. I think we are seeing some elements of National Socialism merging with Muslim fanaticism. Bah!!!

Sean

Jim Baerg said...

Aside from physical differences, people will use linguistic differences to determine who is the enemy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibboleth
See particularly the part about the use of 'lollapalooza' in the US-Japan part of WWII

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Jim!

That does not bother me, soldiers testing possible enemy infiltrators by asking to say certain words Japanese speakers find difficult to say. It is also an offense under the international laws of war for soldiers to wear the uniform of the opposing army.

Ad astra! Sean

Jim Baerg said...

As I understand it, that use of a shibboleth was at night when the uniforms or east Asian faces would not have been visible anyway. I don't think the Japanese military would have bothered with using fake uniforms since it would not be effective under those circumstances.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Jim!

Probably it was enough to test these possible enemy soldiers with certain words difficult for Japanese speakers to say.

Ad astra! Sean