Rerun or sequel? Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor on end times fascism
As relentless heat and drought lowered its water levels this summer, the Danube began to give up its secrets. Like monsters rising through the muck of time, sunken wreckage from the second world war has slowly materialised. In Serbia, the drying river revealed at least 20 Nazi ships, some still laden with unexploded ordnance. In Hungary, it exposed a Nazi military motorcycle, caked in hot mud, not far from the rusted-out medals and name tags of two German soldiers. In Slovakia, a passer-by noticed a massive 1,500lb bomb poking out from the disappearing river, planted by the Royal Air Force. Slovak authorities needed to carefully transport the weapon, which had been submerged for more than 80 years, and detonate it deep underground. For many observers, these ghostly and menacing visitations from Europe’s past have felt less like a historical curiosity than an overly literal metaphor — nature’s way of confirming William Faulkner’s adage that “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”