Sunday 23 November 2008

The enemy of your enemy still hates your guts

The reassuring thing about rabid xenophobes is that they have difficulty forming long-term international alliances.

Take for example Identity, Tradition, Sovereignty (ITS), an EU coalition of right-wing parties, which fell apart when an Italian MEP (Mussolini's granddaughter) called Romanians "habitual law-breakers". The Romanian members were shocked to discover that other people viewed them the way they viewed the Roma population, and went off in an indignant huff. I've a prediction that Metapedia, online reference point for people who consider Conservapedia to be a little too left-wing, will have similar problems if its supporters ever learn a foreign language.

A little back story: this week's flea market trip has convinced me that what I really want from Santa Claus is Raubstaat England ("England the Robber State"). It's a very large album for cigarette cards published in 1941, featuring all the least flattering parts of England's history and confidently predicting our imminent downfall. For a few examples of the pictures see this site. The copy I found was more than a little over my budget so I've been hunting down incomplete copies over the internet. This brought me to the entry for "England" on the German language version of Metapedia:

England ist ein Land (kein Staat) in Europa, das durch Willkür das Vereinigte Königreich Großbritannien und Nordirland erschaffen hat. England ist somit das größte und am dichtesten besiedelte Landesteil dieser Konstruktion. Oft wird England fälschlicherweise auch als Synonym für den Staat des Vereinigten Königreichs oder für die gesamte Insel Großbritannien gebraucht. Der Name England stammt vom westgermanischen Volk der Angeln (altengl. Englas) ab.

Translation: England is a country (not a state) in Europe, which arbitrarily created the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. England is consequently the largest and most densely populated area of this construction. England is often also used wrongly as a synonym for the state of the United Kingdom or for the whole island of Great Britain. The name England comes from the West German people the Angles (old English: Englas).

... And that's it. Compare and contrast this paltry offering with the reams of patriotic information on the English language page, and you can almost feel sorry for two contributors in the discussion section, who have such a very long way to go before their "Projekt" will be complete. Apparently the only literature they have to go on is an official document holding England solely responsible for the bombing of civilians during World War 2, and their trusty copy of Raubstaat England. Maybe they could ask the English contributors for some help.

Picture "knights 4" from stock.xchng.

Update: More information and extracts from Raubstaat England on my other big blogging project, Tatty Jackets. It's good. Take a look. Now.