If you tolerate this your children will be next - Manic Street Preachers

 

Madrid. The ‘Military’ Practice of the Rebels. If you tolerate this your children will be next. The dead body of a young girl, with numbered labels for identification, against the background of a clouded sky across which aeroplanes fly in formation. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1122

The Manic Street Preachers released If  You  Tolerate  This Your Children Will Be Next from their massive selling fifth album ‘This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours’ on this day in 1998 which  managed to reach No 1.The Song is a beautiful and meaningful one  about the Spanish Civil War and the Welshmen who joined the International Brigades to Spain in the 1930s to fight against General Francisco Franco's fascist forces: roughly 200  welshmen went to join the fight, with 33 losing their lives.
All four members of the original band were born and raised in Blackwood, a Rhymney Valley community in South Wales. The 1984-5 miners’ strike had marked their childhood. The cover design for the CD featured a group photograph of the Welsh fighters, members of the ‘volunteers for liberty’, taken before the battle of Ebro in July 1938.

 Welsh Volunteers of the XV International Brigade before the Ebro offensive, 1938 – photo from the South Wales Coalfield Collection at Swansea University

The song lyrics include not only a repeat of the words on the poster in the chorus but also quote the remark allegedly made by one of the Welsh volunteers Tom Thomas from, Bedllinog when asked if he wanted to fight in Spain: ‘If I can shoot rabbits then I can shoot Fascists.’( as quoted in Miners Against Fascism by Hywel Francis, )  and refers to the young idealists who swapped shooting rabbits in  the country side for shooting fascists in the battlefields of Spain.
Another line "I've walked Las Ramblas but not with real intent" brings to mind the account of Georgee Orwell's  first hand account of the war "Homage to Catalonia! and of fighting on the Ramnblas.
The response in Wales was largely provided by the South Wales Miners' Federation and the Communist Party and eventually supported by a broad coalition including the Labour Party, Liberals, some Welsh writers, academics and teachers.
One of the first to recognise the growing threat of fascism was Labour MP Aneurin Bevan who, as early as 1933, formed an anti-fascist workers militia - the Tredegar Workers' Freedom Group.
The 200-or-so Welsh men who volunteered to fight in Spain represented the largest regional industrial grouping within the British Battalion of the International Brigades; only one Welshman fought for the fascist forces led by General Franco.
They were Communist or Labour in sympathy, largely from the central valleys of the Rhondda, Cynon and Taff although there were also volunteers from the north Wales coalfield, the coastal towns of the south and rural areas.
Some became famous in later life as trade union leaders, notably Will Paynter and Tom Jones, known subsequently as Twm Sbaen throughout the labour movement.
The title of the song comes from a harrowing  recruiting poster created and released by the newly formed Propaganda Ministry of the Spanish Republican government in November 1936 that showed images of carnage caused by Francos's Nationalists..Possibly the most famous poster from the Spanish Civil War in Britain, the broader European threat is once more a salient theme in Madrid: The ‘Military’ Practice of the Rebels. Circulated in Britain and France, this poster also directly confronts the audience with the dangers of European fascism and total warfare. The subtitle, ‘If you tolerate this your children will be next’, as used as title for the Manic's song  addresses the viewer with a call to arms, this threat to the children of Britain reinforced by the death of a Spanish girl. The bombers in the background fly in formation to the top left of the poster, or to the northwest of Spain, towards British shores. The planes are, however, not the central focus of this poster. The image of child ‘4–21: 35’, once more taken from ¡Asesinos!, may at first look not to be dead; she is ‘facing’ the camera, almost looking out. On closer examination, the reality of the image and its implications with regards to this new form of warfare are realised by the viewer. This photograph provides the ‘ce n’est pas ça’ of that which has been lost and is now absent, through the inability of the dead girl to return the look of the viewer. The text, though, reiterates ‘reality’ or ‘thereness’ – the ‘ça’ of the situation cannot be ignored, this is happening – and adds the secondary messages of propaganda of agitation: a call to arms in order to protect the basic needs of the people, in this instance, security.
For many it was not just a war to defeat the fascists it was the beginning of a new society. A revolution in fact, unfortunately revolutions do not succeed when the people are divided. There are many lessons to be learnt from this struggle, a struggle that continues to do this day. What the world did or refrained from doing had terrible consequences. Britain and France helped Franco indirectly and Germany and Italy directly. Later came Russia. No country (Except for Mexico perhpas) took side with the legitime government. What happened next was WWII and we all know how that went. So if you tolerate this your children will be next (And in fact they were).
Lets not forget all those who were killed serving with the International Brigades who nobly fought bravely in a spirit of solidarity, and political and moral awareness to try and save us from fascism's threat that still sadly lingers and haunts us  today.The dark shadow cast by the Spanish Civil war, still matters, and the wound inflicted on Spain still within living memory for many has yet to close.
Thia powerful song serves to remind  us that we must continue to resist oppressive forces, with our shout of no pasaran and remember to stand for something , otherwise you will fall for anything.

 If you tolerate this your children will be next. - Manic Street Preachers

The future teaches you to be alone
The present to be afraid and cold
"So if I can shoot rabbits then I can shoot fascists"

Bullets for your brain today
But we'll forget it all again
Monuments put from pen to paper
Turns me into a gutless wonder

And if you tolerate this then your children will be next
And if you tolerate this then your children will be next
Will be next, will be next, will be next

Gravity keeps my head down
Or is it maybe shame
At being so young and being so vain

Holes in your head today
But I'm a pacifist
I've walked La Ramblas but not with real intent

And if you tolerate this then your children will be next
And if you tolerate this then your children will be next
Will be next, will be next, will be next, yeah will be next

And on the street tonight
An old man plays with newspaper cuttings of his glory days

And if you tolerate this then your children will be next
And if you tolerate this then your children will be next
Will be next, will be next, will be next