I would've expected him to be in favour of it. Skinheads are usually up for responding when British soil gets attacked. I didn't pick up any reason for his opposition.
I was thinking that he might see the Argentines as White and the war as one between White brothers, but then the neo-Nazis in Britain always supported the Northern Irish Loyalists against the Republicans, and both sides are definitely White.
Nazis don't like Catholics.
shareHe felt it was a pointless war.
shareWouldn't that make him in favour of it?
The Nazi Party started in Bavaria, which is a Catholic area. Some of them were not religious at all, but Nazism must've been more Catholic than Protestant owing to its roots. Also the Ustashe in Croatia were Catholic.
honestly he explains his reasons early on when hes introduced on why he hates the falklands war, its even on youtube....
shareI couldn't find the clip but I've found the script http://www.scribd.com/doc/45012176/Spoken-Text-This-is-England-Script
He doesn't say much except for that we were lied to and we were fighting for shepherds.
I was born in 1985 so this was before my time. It seems odd to think that Combo the Skinhead would've wanted Britain to have surrendered the Falklands and let Argentina conquer one of our overseas territories.
I typed "falklands war bnp" into Google and found this http://www.bnp.org.uk/news/british-army-must-only-be-used-just-wars Nick Griffin said, "The Falklands was the last war that was right and just to fight." (For those outside the UK, Nick Griffin is the best-known racist politician here. He used to be an open neo-Nazi, but now claims that he's just a mere nationalist.)
The actor displays great emotion and passion when speaking, which you can't really get from a script. A lot of people believed it was pointless to have the falklands because it didn't really have much for us. Also not ALL skinheads would have the same opinion as each other, everyone will think different things.
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It doesn't matter where it started. Nazis and skinheads are well known for their disdain of Catholics.
shareThe biggest, most racist Nazis of all time were Roman Catholic. In fact, apart from Joachim von Ribbentrop, all of the top Nazis were Roman Catholics.
shareThat's actualy not true. In the 1930-1933 elections the nazis drew the bulk of their support from protestant northern germany and captured a much smaller percentage of the catholic vote. Which isn't to say there weren't catholic nazis. There were. But in general catholics didn't jump on the national socialist bandwagon to the extent their countrymen did.
shareThat's not exactly a rebuttal of my point. You're going on about the electorate, I'm saying that the top Nazis themselves were almost all Roman Catholics.
shareWhile they may have been Catholics, the Nazi party had many biases against the Catholic Church. Now, in general skinheads have extreme problems with Catholics.
shareThat was because the southern part of Germany, which happens to be Catholic, was also more conservative, prosperous and rural. National socialism was a "progressive" ideology that emphasized the importance of the working class/common man, welfare state and central planning. Rich bourgeois in the South didn't obviously like it. Communism, Italy's fascism and German national Socialism were all heavily Utopian/modernist movements. All the old values (like traditional religion) and traditions (nobility, monarchy and strong family ties) were to be wiped out for the New Man was destined to be born. Although the Nazis took inspiration from the past, they set out to create new style of National art, and National architecture. All culture was to be reinvented to serve the modern unified state.
Author Ernst Jünger (from Heidelberg, Roman Catholic), for example, who has been accused of being a fascist was really highly critical of the whole Nazi regime. While he was a militarist and a fervent patriot, he was also a monarchist, anti-socialist and opposed to racism. He spent the Second World War in occupied Paris doing drugs and drinking, disappointed with his country.
Of course, as Lutheranism/Protestantism was somewhat more liberal and vague than the strict Catholic dogma it might have been a factor in the acceptance of national socialism in the North. But the main reason is simply that the people in the North were more modern, less traditional and in need of socialist savior.
God damn you're a *beep* troll. You literally just crashed this entire thread off course from the OP with this comment. Go kill yourself.
shareWhy would you expect him to. The character was not following orders on how to think from above. He was doing his own thinking.
He actually explains this all in the movie - he says that men fought and died in the falklands war for shepherds... what more do you need in terms of an explanation??
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In response to the original question: the National Front were not allied with the Thatcher government. The Thatcher government above all supported economic freedom - freedom to thrive or freedom to starve. They argued that all British people, regardless of race, should have the right to make money. This, of course, was thinly veiled racism because it gave the upper hand to those already in power who were, of course, the white British population (obviously, the richer white population). However, the Thatcher government's values, however conservative and militaristic they were, were also criticised by the neo-Nazi National Front movement, which was mostly comprised of members of the white working class. They argued that the concept of "economic freedom" allowed immigrants to "steal" jobs that had traditionally been theirs. Thus, for them, the Thatcher government willingly worsened what they viewed to be an increasing problem in British culture, one where a growing number of immigrants were putting the indigenous white population out of work.
We usually consider those who oppose wars like the Falklands War to have left-wing views, and certainly if I myself had been old enough at the time to have any opinion on the Falklands War, I would have fallen into that camp. However, there was another group of people opposed to Margaret Thatcher and her government's policies for entirely different reasons, and Combo is meant to be one of those people.
Ultimately, I think that linking a criticism of the Falklands War to the racist views of the National Front is meant to essentially argue that Thatcherism fuelled the development of the National Front: it draws a connection between the Thatcher government's complete disregard for matters of race and for government systems that might help those in need to get back on their feet, and the growing unemployment rate and racial violence that occurred as a result.
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The same thing occurred to me. The whole skin ethos as embodied by Combo in this movie was pride in being English and all that entails - including unquestioning loyalty to Queen and country. As the Falklands War was nothing if not an Imperial venture I'd have thought Combo would have been all for it.
"That, - Captain Bligh, - that is the thing; - I am in hell, sir - I am in hell."
What's interesting is that Combo seems to have vague, inconsistent ideas about the war. Remember how later on when he attacks the shop keeper, he says that Shaun's father died for his country before he accuses the shopkeeper of stealing jobs. I don't think Combo's the intellectual type who looks up articles in academic journals before formulating informed, reasoned opinions as to why he would be for or against a war.
Now in terms of opinions and ideas he may have heard about the war at a National Front rally or meeting, I think that while militarism and expansionism are often related to racism and xenophobia, isolationism may also be compatible with racism and xenophobia. While an anti-immigrant party could say that they don't want foreigners in their country, they could also say that they don't want dealings with foreign countries such as trade, aid, foreign investment and involvement in armed conflict all of which are argued to drain the country of its resources.
Furthermore, while far right political parties would certainly not be anti-authoritarian, they seem to have an anti-establishment streak that can ask people down at heel questions such as: why are you living in poverty and squalor while the government wastes money on a war that doesn't benefit you? The radical right (such as the National Front, Nazis, Fascists, you name them) seem to want to channel social discontent so they can use the atmosphere for plans such as the Munich Beer Hall Putsch or the March on Rome, whereas the conservative right (such as Thatcher's Conservatives) seem to want law and order as their agenda is served through parliamentary politics.
He would have done ANYTHING to protect Britain. Guys like that think they're patriotic but they're actually *beep*
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