Far-right groups are belittling Nazi actions, and Mattie McGrath is following their playbook

Anti-semitism is below the surface in Irish society, but any Irish Jew will tell you they know exactly where to look

Sat, 17 Jul, 2021 - 17:57

Harry McEvansonya

If you are Jewish, and like me, you decide not to wear a kippah or payot or similar, people won’t immediately see who you are. Not knowing a Jewish person is listening, they will tell you what they really think.

You will hear the co-worker expounding on the Rothschilds conspiracy theory, the man in the shop likening social distancing to Auschwitz, the self-declared philo-semite ranting about Jewish exceptionalism, or any of the other stereotypes, insults or casual belittlement you hear all too often in conversation or in passing.

You might challenge some of these, but by and large you let them go. It’s not worth incurring the usual response which is one you learn through bitter experience will be furious self-exculpation, anger directed at you.

You learn to let it go, to preserve your sanity. You become inured to the ignorance and hatred, resigned to the fact that this is an inevitable background noise in what it means to be Jewish.

This is not a healthy state to exist in. As with all matters of racism, our public representatives have a duty to fight against it and not to make comments that might amplify others' racist views by engaging in careless discourse.

This week, Independent TD Mr McGrath made his latest in a series of comparisons between Covid restrictions and the Nazis, saying of the Covid certificate: “Is that where we've come to now, back to 1933 in Germany, we'll be all tagged in yellow with the mark of the beast on us, is that where we're going?”

Mr McGrath is equating the experience of Jewish people and other groups, though with his remark on “tagged in yellow”, he was specifically referencing the Jewish experience — under the Nazis to his own experience in Ireland.

No matter how strongly Mr McGrath may feel about the Government’s handling of the pandemic (and there is much to criticise about it) it is utterly benign when stood beside the Aryan Certificates or the Nuremberg Laws, let alone the horror of genocide.

He instrumentalised the suffering of Jews to make his point. Those who suffered under the Nazis only exist in his arguments as rhetorical devices.

Everything was about Mattie McGrath; those wiped out in genocide only existed to demonstrate how much he and his constituents suffer today. He has demonstrated indifference to the negative impact of his words on Jewish people.

His words undermined the seriousness of Nazi racism and cast one of the greatest crimes in history as small.

Defending himself, Mr McGrath claimed he was not talking about the Holocaust, but “the early Nazi era”.

This is hard to believe.

Notwithstanding that the year he chose, 1933, was the year Dachau was founded, “tagged in yellow with the mark of the beast” is a clear reference to the yellow badges that only became widespread in 1941.

And even if you take him at face value, and he did not intend to invoke the “final solution” but did so out of ignorance, he has still invoked a time where repression, violence, social ruination and forced labour was visited upon Jews, and trivialised it.

This isn’t mere theory. Jews are facing a rise in racially motivated attacks in Europe, where these ideas are more openly said. Ireland hasn’t seen the same, fortunately, but it’s under the surface if you know where to look.

Mr McGrath’s comments may have been flippant, but around the world, this language is being used very deliberately.

The gates of the Auschwitz concentration camp. File Picture

It has been used by anti-semites on the far-right since long before this pandemic, though it has become more visible since. Look at any American protest on the issue of vaccines and you will see homemade yellow badges.

These far-right groups are trying to normalise a narrative that the actions of the Nazis have been exaggerated, to belittle and diminish the Holocaust, and cast the oppression and slaughter of Jews as a trivial matter.

It is worrying that McGrath has. unknowingly or otherwise, contributed to this.

It was heartening to see pushback on this from Micheál Martin and other Oireachtas members, but it illustrated something I mentioned at the start of this piece, about how demoralising trying to challenge these comments can be.

Mr McGrath’s response to the Taoiseach was furious — shouting him down and insisting that he was the one owed an apology.

If this is how a highly public figure behaves when given a deliberately measured rebuke in a controlled environment, what chance do the rest of us have to confront this in wider society?