zondag 5 juli 2020

William Townsend • 5 juli 1937

William Townsend (1909-1973) was een (sociaal bewogen) Britse kunstenaar. Uit: The Townsend Journals

BLACKSHIRTS IN KENT

5 July 1937
Canterbury had its dose of fascism today. [Oswald] Mosley at the Forrester's Hall. The Keables and all our Peacemaker group except David, with a few reinforcements from Wye College and from Sandwich, went down as an opposition body; but three quarters of the audience was [in] opposition. This led to a few scuffles with the gangster stewards, grimacing at every interrupter as if they were all dictators already, to a couple of ejections and a blow on the head from a baton for one young fellow.
Mosley's speech was a very clever one indeed; in fact, beautifully twisted, but when he had got his agricultural policy put across he was clearly out to provoke bad feeling and make excuses for abuse and shouting and whipping up his own followers' enthusiasm. He never hesitated to call an interrupter a bone-head, a village idiot, a puppet who was preventing 'this large and intelligent audience' from listening to him. Two-thirds must have been bone-heads, as they clearly did not like him.
Trickiness is Mosley's greatest virtue; he is not a magnetic personality - even striding down Canterbury's peaceful high street with his bodyguards.

Geen opmerkingen:

Een reactie posten