And they had the best uniforms

I remarked a few weeks ago on the fact that to many people in Asia, Hitler is simply another figure from history, with little of the bogeyman baggage that he brings in the West; he’s just one more Dead White Male, neither better nor worse than Churchill or Shakespeare or George Washington. Many Indians, it appears, would see nothing odd about the notion of a Bollywood movie called Dear Friend Hitler, dealing with the pragmatic alliance between the Nazis and the controversial Indian nationalist Subhas Chandra Bose, although the actor who was meant to play the Führer seems to have woken up to the fact that there’s something a bit iffy about the whole notion. But Mein Kampf has been selling well in India for years; and when a Mumbai scholar says something along the lines of

I didn’t find the book inspiring at all. It was interesting to read how he coped with his days of struggle, but his ideology of racial purity smacked of racism.

we want him to be more angry, more disgusted. Simple disapproval falls short. I bet Hitler would be mightily miffed to learn that his life’s work only smacked of racism.

But is it possible to be too angry about the Nazis? Forget the bloody football for a moment, and a hundred headlines dredged from the Stan Boardman songbook. Consider instead the people complaining about River Island selling a badge that resembles the Iron Cross; so full of loathing for fascist iconography that they forget that the decoration was first awarded in 1813, when Prussia was engaged in the Napoleonic Wars, when they were on our side. Which surely makes them the good guys, doesn’t it?

News in briefs

One stereotype I’ve never understood is the idea that feminists are dour and humourless. Most of the feminists I’ve known (and by that I mean women who actively characterise themselves as such, as distinct from women who believe in equality and empowerment and reproductive rights and so on, but don’t actually use the word, for whatever reason) have been very funny people. Especially the lesbians, they’re hilarious, and foul-mouthed too.

Granted, it’s usually a somewhat dark, gallowsy brand of funny, with a deep seam of absurdism, all the better to prick the pretensions of the patriarchy. And maybe that’s the problem; the people who find them humourless are probably the same people who characterise Morrissey or Harold Pinter as depressing. Arseholes, in other words.

Anyway, there’s a splendid manifestation of funny feminism going on in India at the moment. A group has formed to protest against the actions of a particularly repellent religious group called Sri Rama Sen, members of which were caught on camera beating up women who’d committed the outrageous sin of going to a bar for a drink. But instead of staging a grumpy demo, or writing angry letters to the press, the ladies, bless ’em, have formed a Facebook group called the Consortium of Pub-going, Loose and Forward Women, and plan to give pink underwear to Sri Rama Sen members this coming Valentine’s day. The underwear thing is an allusion to the characterisation of extreme Hindu bigots as "chaddi wallahs", or shorts wearers. (Wodehouse fans will, I trust, immediately note parallels with the asinine wannabe Führer Roderick Spode and his black-shorted minions/morons.)

Sorry, there’s no punchline to this one, except that it brings a smile to my face to think that on Saturday, hundreds of reactionary bigots are going to have to explain to their wives why these pink thongs have started popping through the letterbox. In the meantime, if you can, do join the Facebook group to express your support, because, let’s face it, sexist violence isn’t funny, but pants bloody well are.

PS: More info here. You know, if this turns out to be some kind of marketing wheeze by, I dunno, Agent Provocateur or something, I’m going to be bloody angry.