TOM EATON: Fascist frat boys and the warm bath of fake history
'The past is open to renegotiation. No war is ever lost. No belief is ever outgrown. No blame is accepted'
Twenty years ago, before Trump and golf-shirted Nazis marching by tiki-torchlight, I was in Charlottesville, listening to a man bathing in history. He was telling me about his ancestors, proud residents of the great state of Virginia, when he said something that I didn't understand at all: "My great-great-granddaddy died in the war."I hastily did the maths and was confused. Had his great-great-grandfather blown out the 100 candles on his birthday cake and then hobbled up the anti-aircraft gun on the roof the Pearl Harbour Retirement Home? A moment later, he explained. "He was young when he died," said the man. "Like most of those boys on both sides, north and south." I tried not to look as startled as I felt. To me, "the war" is the big one in the 1940s. It doesn't need a qualification because it remains the biggest one we've had and its effects are still clearly visible every time I open a newspaper. But to my companion "the war" - still so much a part of his everyday life that it ...
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