Suffragette Fascists by Simon Webb

Author:Simon Webb [Webb, Simon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Feminism & Feminist Theory, Political Science, Political Ideologies, Fascism & Totalitarianism, History, Europe, Great Britain, 20th Century, Women's Studies, Women
ISBN: 9781526756893
Google: vbjpDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Pen and Sword History
Published: 2020-06-30T00:39:08+00:00

Chapter 5

1914: The Suffragettes Tackle the Enemy Within

We have looked at some of the features of true fascism, as opposed to vague modern ideas of its nature, and come now to something else which all fascist movements have in common, especially those in the years leading up to the Second World War. This is an aggressive nationalism, based upon an exaggerated patriotic regard for one’s own country. Both German and Italian fascists in the 1930s believed in an almost mystical way that their own countries were superior to others and that an empire founded by their nation would be a glorious thing. These imperial ambitions were expressed in various ways. The Germans, for example, talked not of empire-building but of acquiring lebensraum or ‘living space’. The Italians under Mussolini were more open about the nature of their desires. Even the symbol of the regime, the bundle of rods known as fasces from which we derive the word ‘fascism’, was taken from the glorious days of the Roman Republic, when Rome ruled much of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. In Ethiopia and Libya, fascist Italy began to stake its own claim to an empire which, it was hoped, might eventually rival that of any other great power. Britain, of course, already had an empire, the most extensive the world had ever seen. Fascism in Britain, when it appeared in the 1920s and 1930s, was based on the presumption of British superiority, both racial and cultural. It was to this same idea that Emmeline Pankhurst suddenly appealed in the year that the members of her WSPU were undertaking their most audacious terrorist attacks.

The transformation of Mrs Pankhurst from rebellious agitator to stalwart defender of British imperialism took place so swiftly that it is impossible to believe that it was really a change of heart at all. Almost certainly, the bellicose patriotism which she displayed from the summer of 1914 onward was no newly-acquired belief, but rather something which had always been dear to her. That so many of the important figures in the WSPU, as well as a lot of the rank and file, joined her in this new crusade requires a little explanation though. That they were so blindly prepared to follow the one whom they called the ‘Leader’ along a path which had for years led in precisely the opposite direction of the one which they all been following, is at first a little puzzling. Overnight, these women abandoned all interest in gaining the vote and instead devoted themselves to helping Britain fight a prolonged and bloody war. For over a decade, it had been asserted by the WSPU that once women obtained the franchise, they would put a stop to wars and all the other silly things of which men were seemingly so fond. Now, they threw themselves into supporting this men’s war and urging their fathers, brothers and husbands to go off to the killing fields of the Western Front. Such an abrupt volte-face is not initially easy to understand.

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