Draw the parallels: How today's nationalists follow Hitler & Mussolini's playbook
Draw the parallels: How today's nationalists follow Hitler & Mussolini's playbook
9 April 2017, 16:53 IST

Draw the parallels: How today's nationalists follow Hitler & Mussolini's playbook

As hyper nationalism begins to reach a fever pitch in many corners of the world, a look back at where such notions have led can be more than just an eye opening experience.

A series of tweets on Twitter from the handle of 'Mustapha Mond', named after a character in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, gives us a glance into a past hyper nationalistic world where compliance, duty and absolute cooperation with the state was a must.

For those pushing such nationalist agendas, the primary tool of choice to disseminate the message to trigger the masses has always been propaganda. And never was propaganda as insidious as it was during the two Worlds Wars. 

Mond's tweets underline how fascist and totalitarian regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs and other paraphernalia to drive patriotic frenzy.

In a world which looks to be teetering to the right, one where walls are going up instead of being broken down - the rise of the Hindutva brigade in Narendra Modi's India, Donald Trump's victory in the US, Reccep Tayyip Erdogan's strangling of democracy in Turkey, Rodrigo Duterte's trigger happy rule in the Philippines, and even Brexit are such examples - these tweets come at a pertinent time.

And as 'Mond' says himself, "feel free to draw parallels".

Read More