The Politics of Eugenics

My sis was visiting me this week and we went to Tate Gallery and saw an exhibition, Photographic Typologies, by a German photographer called August Sander (1876-1964). Most of the pictures were from the 20-ies and 30-ies and a stalk reminder of the chilling obsession to typology people in to different categories that were so common during that era. I got a bad taste in my mouth as I looked at the different types of people, like 'unemployed' and 'idiots'. Sander’s son was a socialist and as a result he were imprisoned during Nazi Germany. I viewed Sander's photos as a political criticism of the Nazis.

The exhibition reminded me that we still haven't moved away from the stereotyping Nazi Germany was built on, the political eugenics.
In Sweden for example, the ruling party, Moderaterna, is talking about decreasing, Folkhälsotalet, the amount of people on sick benefit. The terminology Fredrik Reinfeldt uses brings my thoughts to the eugenics of the Nazi Germany.
People are forced to rely on sick benefits to survive because of ill health or unemployment, not because they have moral defects!
Fredrik Reinfeldt is making drastic cuts in the welfare state and building an unfair society similar to the poverty stricken societies Charles Dickens portrays in his books. Reinfeldt's politics is regressive and will bring Sweden back to 19th century.

The political climate in Tory’s England is also talking about the poor, sick and unemployed as being less worthy than the rich and respectable people. Cameron's solution to this problem is to get rid of the poor by excluding them from any assistance from the state welfare system. I guess he hopes the poor people will just drop dead and disappear so he can live in a new, and better, society cleaned up from trash and riff-raff. A society that only includes well educated, healthy and rich people. I guess the next stage is to put the poor in a pauper house or poor house so that they don’t walk around freely in the society and makes it ugly by their appearances. Cameron, like Fredrik, wants to bring UK back to 19th century.

I get so tired when I think about the global political climate. How quick people forget the history. Democracy and the welfare state grew from a hard political struggle. How can you give it up so easy?