to THE AUSTRALIAN
Intellectual probity demands a fairer public commentary on icons of the ‘hard right’. The usually reliable Jennifer Oriel defers regrettably to political correctness (‘Red October led us to genocide’, 9/10). No, it’s not admirable that ‘Nazi is a term of derision’ and that ‘Hitler is held up for scorn’ in our educational establishments. A subtler and more nuanced analysis would be more accurate and honest. And if our ‘young people’ learn about ‘the horrors of the Holocaust’, it’s unlikely that they also learn about the current horror of the persecution of Holocaust revisionists.
Nor should the government of General Franco in Spain be misrepresented as a ‘fascist dictatorship’ (Matthew Campbell, ‘Catalan separatists feed on a history of violence’). Franco was a Catholic Christian patriot and former army officer of exceptional courage and competence. His coup was designed to ensure that his native land would not fall victim to a Leninist-style tyranny such as Russians then languished under.
NJ, Belgrave, Vic