So, I've been hearing on the radio all day that it's the 80th anniversary of VE Day, and there's been a big parade in London (and presumably elsewhere too) and it all really strikes me as a sad and hollow exercise in view of the present day spread of fascism all around the world. In the long-view, the defeat of the Nazis in 1945 is starting to look like it was just a set-back for them, rather than something final. At some level this shouldn't be a surprise: fascism is a radical-right response to the failures of liberal capitalist democracy, and capitalism is once again in crisis - something that liberals are living in denial about. Consequently, they're unable to devise workable solutions to the social, economic and political problems we're now facing, and given that the Left is still failing to do any effective organising, all the initiative and momentum has been ceded to the fash. This has been the situation for decades.
I remember about 15 years ago doing anti-fascist leafleting on a council estate in Sunderland and getting into a conversation with some lads who understood "nazi" to be nothing more than a synonym for "German". I can't really blame them for this as the way the Second World War is generally understood in popular culture in Britain is weirdly apolitical: there's little understanding of the ideologies and underlying issues, and instead it's all just reduced to a moral "good vs evil" sort of narrative. Of course, this suits liberals, as any honest and proper explanation of fascism has to take into account the aforementioned failures of capitalism and the historic (and present-day) complicity of liberals in empowering fascists. The fact that all this results in a remembrance event characterised by flag-waving and militarism is just bitterly ironic. People are expected to remember but not think or reflect.
For my part, I've always considered that the best way to honour the memories of those who died fighting fascism is to take up that same struggle and do whatever is necessary to prevent fascism from rearing its ugly mush again. In the short term that means disrupting and breaking their organisations and in the longer-term, clearing away the shit in which fascism thrives by dismantling capitalism and building a socialist society. At the end of the day, the only cure for fascism is socialism.