'Nazi' references: BBC sportscaster's tweet revives debate
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For Holocaust and anti-Nazi scholars and organizations, two recent references to Nazis were understandable -- but concerning. Invoking Hitler and Nazi Germany, they warn, often serves to revive a familiar and unwelcome line of argument.
The references seem endless, and they can come from anywhere. In recent days, Pope Francis compared Nicaragua's repression of Catholics to Hitler's rule in Germany. In Britain, a BBC sportscaster likened the nation's asylum policy to 1930s Germany, resulting in his brief suspension and a national uproar.
For Holocaust and anti-Nazi scholars and organizations, the two sentiments were understandable -- but concerning. Invoking Hitler and Nazi Germany, they warn, often serves to revive a familiar and unwelcome line of argument.
"We have to be aware of, and confront, contemporary instances of discrimination, hate speech and human rights abuses across the world," says Rafal Pankowski, a Polish sociologist who heads the anti-Nazi NEVER AGAIN Association. But he added: "Of course, the historical analogies must not be overused and devalued. The label 'Nazi' should not be trivialized and reduced to a term of abuse against anybody we don't like."
Last week, Pope Francis was quoted as criticizing the government in Nicaragua, where religious leaders have been arrested or fled, for acting as "if it were a communist dictatorship in 1917 or a Hitlerian one in 1935." Nicaragua responded by proposing to suspend Vatican ties.
Around the same time, the BBC's Gary Lineker tweeted that a plan announced by Britain's Conservative government was "immeasurably cruel" and included language "not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s."
The bill, intended to stop tens of thousands of migrants a year from reaching the country in small boats across the English Channel, would bar asylum claims by anyone who reaches the United Kingdom by unauthorized means and compel the government to detain and deport them "to their home country or a safe third country."
At first, the broadcaster suspended Lineker, its highest paid TV commentator. But it reversed itself on Monday and praised Lineker as a "valued part of the BBC."
