Allow me to share a story that’s been copy and pasted countless times:
The Parable of the Nazi Bar
I was at a shitty crustpunk bar once getting an after-work beer. One of those shitholes where the bartenders clearly hate you. So the bartender and I were ignoring one another when someone sits next to me and he immediately says, “no. get out.”
And the dude next to me says, “hey i’m not doing anything, i’m a paying customer.” and the bartender reaches under the counter for a bat or something and says, “out. now.” and the dude leaves, kind of yelling. And he was dressed in a punk uniform, I noticed
Anyway, I asked what that was about and the bartender was like, “you didn’t see his vest but it was all nazi shit. Iron crosses and stuff. You get to recognize them.”
And i was like, ohok and he continues.
"you have to nip it in the bud immediately. These guys come in and it’s always a nice, polite one. And you serve them because you don’t want to cause a scene. And then they become a regular and after awhile they bring a friend. And that dude is cool too.
And then THEY bring friends and the friends bring friends and they stop being cool and then you realize, oh shit, this is a Nazi bar now. And it’s too late because they’re entrenched and if you try to kick them out, they cause a PROBLEM. So you have to shut them down.
And i was like, ‘oh damn.’ and he said “yeah, you have to ignore their reasonable arguments because their end goal is to be terrible, awful people.”
And then he went back to ignoring me. But I haven’t forgotten that at all.
This happened to my Minecraft server :(
While that’s an important parable, it’s not really relevant to this article. The parable is about not letting the intolerant (whether neonazis or whoever) into your space because they’ll ruin it, the article is about a (seemingly!) normal pub that has lots of bits and bobs including a Nazi armband. There’s no mention of actual neonazis gathering there, and the only ones who seem to be going in that direction are whichever “libertarian” knobs wrote the original post (who I’ll bet have never set foot there either!)
Seems like a classic internet overreaction from everyone involved to me. There’s a big difference between your collection being that one from Father Ted (alternate link) and just having a piece of history on display which (seemingly!) nobody is trying to glorify. I would naively hope that people old enough to be drinking in a pub are mature enough to understand the difference.
The landlord, who has been behind the bar at the Hole in the Wall for 20 years and has employed more than 100 staff, said the Nazi armband, about four inches by one inch in size, had been in a glass cabinet on top of a pillar in a dimly lit part of the pub among all sorts of curios for decades and had been brought back from the front by a returning serviceman of the Duke of Cornwall’s Regiment.
So it’s been brought back by soldiers who fought Nazi’s as a prize and kept there for 80 years, and nobody has given a shit all this time until now. And then he took it down after a single complaint. Seems pretty ridiculous to lose the award over this. Maybe all it needed was a little plaque under it explaining why it’s there and that it was brought by returning British soldiers from the war.
The wider issue is that owning or displaying anything related to the Nazis is increasingly problematic especially with the resurgence of the far right recently.
The specific issue is that it violates CAMRA’s rules, so they have to take action.
Adding context might help with the former, but there is little wiggle room with the latter.
Yeah, the plaque was crucial, especially with today’s political climate. You can’t just assume why people do what they do.
