The Stark Ignorance in Applauding a Nazi Soldier Transcends Time: John Robson’s Perspective

Commentary

If you were to compile a short list of basic political do’s and don’ts, “Don’t applaud a Nazi” would be pretty high up, right? Che Guevara T-shirts are cool. But swastikas? Don’t go there. So how did our entire House of Commons get it wrong?

Well, my own list of political maxims, more strategic than tactical, would include “Study history.” Or nowadays “Study history, don’t erase it.” And it’s pretty clear that none of them realized if someone fought the Russians during World War II he wasn’t on our side. Unless he was Finnish or Polish before 1941, an aside on which I would not want to quiz these Solons.

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What an insult to the Winnipeg Grenadiers and Royal Rifles of Canada… if he’d heard of the Battle of Hong Kong. Or knew we fought Japan in World War II. Instead he just regurgitated saccharine clichés from a bureaucracy as ignorant as it is massive.

His subsequent “Statement” trying to defuse the matter, and exonerate the prime minister, said that “no one, including fellow parliamentarians … was aware of my intention or of my remarks before I delivered them.” But he certainly sounded like someone cold-reading unfamiliar words.

Worse, the “Statement” ended, “I accept full responsibility for my actions.” But only in the modern sense of accepting no consequences. Move along. Nothing to see here folks. Not that we see much anyway.

Actually, the point isn’t to pin partisan blame in as moronically nasty a way as possible, another of my “don’ts.” It’s that every MP present gave Yaroslav Hunka a standing ovation, so none of them even had Speaker Rota’s flicker of unease.