I recently realized that one of my favorite Borges books was written at one of humanity’s darkest times, at the height of hatred the world has ever seen, when Europeans were killing each other.

I’ve often wondered why Borges was never awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Was it eurocentrism? We’ll probably never know.

Still, I find comfort in knowing that while some were spreading immense suffering and despair, someone, somewhere in a quiet corner of the world, was busy creating beauty.

#Art #Borges #Literature #nazism #Europe #LatinAmerica #Holocaust

I sometimes wonder where the myth of German efficiency originated.

It’s striking to think that the same drive for order once led to the persecution of minorities. There are countless films, museums, exhibitions, books, and countless other reminders of that history.

But is today's German society efficient enough to confront and reduce the prejudice against foreigners that we learned about in those museums and history books?

Only time will tell.

#Germany #nazism #farright #History #myth

@theintercept This is one gigantic reason anyone who may be targeted by government thugs must de-Google your devices and your life. That also goes for all centralised social media platforms like Facebook or even BlueSky. Much like the Ford Car Company and Kodak during Hitler's reign, companies are more than willing to aid the fascists. So don't give the US companies any data about you that they can hand over. Keep yourself and your comrades safe. #privacy #activism #fascism #Nazism

"People are astonished, people are indignant. People say: "How strange! But, bah! It's Nazism, it'll pass! And people wait, and hope; and people hide the truth to themselves – that it's barbarism, but the supreme barbarism, the one that crowns, the one that sums up the everyday barbarities; that it's Nazism, yes, but that before being its victims, people were its accomplices; that people put up with this Nazism before suffering it, people absolved it, people turned a blind eye to it, people legitimised it, because until then it had only been applied to non-European peoples; that people nurtured this Nazism, people are responsible for it, and that it bubbles, that it pierces, that it drips, before engulfing people in its reddened waters, from all the cracks in the Western and Christian civilisation."

Aimé Césaire in "Discours sur le colonialisme", 1950

#moderates #complicity #civilisation#Césaire#AiméCésaire#Hitler #nazism #fascism #history #centrism #Germany #quotes #quotes #coloniality #genocide #racism

"People are astonished, people are indignant. People say: "How strange! But, bah! It's Nazism, it'll pass! And people wait, and hope; and people hide the truth to themselves – that it's barbarism, but the supreme barbarism, the one that crowns, the one that sums up the everyday barbarities; that it's Nazism, yes, but that before being its victims, people were its accomplices; that people put up with this Nazism before suffering it, people absolved it, people turned a blind eye to it, people legitimised it, because until then it had only been applied to non-European peoples; that people nurtured this Nazism, people are responsible for it, and that it bubbles, that it pierces, that it drips, before engulfing people in its reddened waters, from all the cracks in the Western and Christian civilisation."

Aimé Césaire in "Discours sur le colonialisme", 1950

#moderates #complicity #civilisation#Césaire#AiméCésaire#Hitler #nazism #fascism #history #centrism #Germany #quotes #quotes #coloniality #genocide #racism