This may be nothing or it may be something. I sort of want to stash it as a bookmark, in case it is something. I say “sort of” because it could so easily be nothing.
I still don’t quite understand how Maugham can say so confidently that BashBack’s “direct action” is non-violent. What is balaclava man with raised hammer supposed to suggest if not violence? A plumbing job on a chilly day? I don’t think so. Plumbers don’t hold their hammers with both hands and raised above their shoulders.
Plus they’re literally called Bash Back! Violence — the opposite of non-violence — is right there in the name.
The name is doubly terrible, becuase it implies justified violence: these people seem to be operating under the delusion that they have each been individually, personally “bashed”, and that they are merely returning the blows in a fight that they didn’t start.
Or else that someone, somewhere out there has been bashed for being trans, and the injury has been psychically transferred to these men, conferring on them a duty to commit violence in return.
Of course, really they’re just angry, violent, misogynist goons making up excuses to act on their rage.
I assume they’re relying on the fact that “bash” is very much used metaphorically as well as literally, at least in the UK. It’s not a US idiom, but BashBack ain’t in the US. But if they are relying on that, the imagery might be a tad reckless.
I figured it’s derived from “gay bashing”, as trans is so often conflated with gay.
Ah right, that makes sense.
As an American, somehow I knew about “gay bashing” in the 1980s. To check, I just searched and I found this article in the LA Times from 1986. Of course, this was before “LGBTQ” was a thing.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-01-26-mn-160-story.html
Ya that’s bashing in the physical sense. I meant that bashing as disparaging etc (see also: trashing) isn’t so much a US idiom. I could be wrong though!
What is balaclava man with raised hammer supposed to suggest if not violence? A plumbing job on a chilly day? I don’t think so. Plumbers don’t hold their hammers with both hands and raised above their shoulders.
Everybody knows the most appropriate mascot for a revenge-seeking vigilante group with a Maugham connection, that calls itself “Bash Back,” would be a fox in a silk kimono, wielding a cricket bat.
Of course, Jolyon wouldn’t be so much following such a group as hiding from them.
Ah, I hadn’t thought of “bashing” in the “trashing” sense, though of course you’re right, that sense is quite commonplace in the UK. And I think it’s pretty common here in Canada, too. Come to think of it, I’m rather surprised it’s not as common in the US. But it does have a very British ring to it. I can’t explain exactly why, but “bashing” evokes UK tabloid headlines more than, say, US ones, doesn’t it…
When I was growing up in the 1980s and 1990s, men who wore balaclavas were popularly regarded as terrorists. You would see news reports from Northern Ireland with the IRA or UVF making announcements, and all the members would be wearing balaclavas and carrying automatic rifles.
Maugham’s about a decade older than I am. He would be aware of this context. Aware enough not to post a drawing of a hammer-wielding balaclava wearing man as if it depicted some kind of Gandhian non-violent activist.
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