Reading this in China, it's hard not to see the similarities with the cultural revolution, but there seems to be a big difference with how the trauma lasted among those who survived. At least in China, the primary shared memory is that everyone was a common victim, that the cultural revolution was this brutal madness and frenzied state that was exacted on everybody, even if you were also a participant and threw some tomatoes at a struggle session here or there. But in Germany, it's more of a feeling of mass cowardice and shame. That so many people "let" the events unfold, because they had an opportunity to stop it or prevent it from snowballing. I have a gut feeling that in 20 years, Americans will feel like latter.
But I also question that because out of the last 30 or so historical examples we have of fascism's rise, there's never been one instance of deposing it non-violently once it's been given power. Germany, France, Italy, Portugal's Estado Novo, Spain's Franco. I think the lone exception might be Finland's Lapua movement. So maybe there is nothing that could've actually been done. I don't know, these days I look around and I feel like it's inevitable.
Wasn't the end of Estado novo famously low-violence? It's called the Carnation Revolution because there were a lot more flowers than bullets.
The overall statistics are undeniable, though. I take some comfort in the fact that no two macropolitical situations are ever really identical, and in my naïve belief that overall, humanity still learns a tiny little sliver from the past.
But I also question that because out of the last 30 or so historical examples we have of fascism's rise, there's never been one instance of deposing it non-violently once it's been given power. Germany, France, Italy, Portugal's Estado Novo, Spain's Franco. I think the lone exception might be Finland's Lapua movement. So maybe there is nothing that could've actually been done. I don't know, these days I look around and I feel like it's inevitable.