tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10131050.post401330626348538447..comments2024-03-01T08:19:54.547+00:00Comments on BobFromBrockley: EDL in Cambridgebobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15439386754907203808noreply@blogger.comBlogger75125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10131050.post-48235566938426305572011-07-26T15:33:38.786+01:002011-07-26T15:33:38.786+01:00Mob full of nonces. You're just a mob full of...Mob full of nonces. You're just a mob full of nonces.Waterloo Sunsethttp://everybodyhatesatourist.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10131050.post-36584985128599589472011-07-25T18:50:14.034+01:002011-07-25T18:50:14.034+01:00EDL!!EDL!!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10131050.post-75546779009923961112011-07-10T11:25:37.088+01:002011-07-10T11:25:37.088+01:00Found this on a left-wing site:
"... the fir...Found this on a left-wing site:<br /><br />"... the first comment - to which this (moderator) responds - sports a hilarious jungian slip: it says 'ethic' instead of ethnic origin ... and claims the squid made it to bloodsucker status in russia long before jews. May well be (given that jews are a relatively young ... ehh .. phenomenon, something like last in e- first in devolution"<br /><br />http://indexterity.blogspot.com/Mattnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10131050.post-20027348710429676072011-07-01T14:54:59.373+01:002011-07-01T14:54:59.373+01:00I'm bringing this to an end now. Which I shoul...I'm bringing this to an end now. Which I should have done some time ago. Apologies to anyone who has got this far and still cares.bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15439386754907203808noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10131050.post-86056271005511766742011-07-01T13:16:05.364+01:002011-07-01T13:16:05.364+01:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.levi9909https://www.blogger.com/profile/10553481056544494411noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10131050.post-37059370349676232532011-07-01T12:44:21.469+01:002011-07-01T12:44:21.469+01:00Been browsing a little bit of Mandel. Found these ...Been browsing a little bit of Mandel. Found these two fascinating early essays on the "Jewish question" - from <a href="http://www.ernestmandel.org/en/works/txt/1946/jewish_question_since_world_war.htm" rel="nofollow">1946</a> and <a href="http://www.marxists.org/archive/mandel/1947/01/jewish.htm" rel="nofollow">1948</a>. On fascism itself, the SWP's Dave Renton summed Mandel up <a href="http://www.dkrenton.co.uk/old/old3.html" rel="nofollow">well</a> in 1997: "Some writers, including Ted Grant and Ernest Mandel, have maintained that the only compelling Marxist theory of fascism is Trotsky's." <a href="http://www.solidarity-us.org/node/1449" rel="nofollow">This review</a>, by Kit Adam Wainer, summarises the critiques of Mandel by two of my favourite Marxists, Norman Geras and Michel Lowy. (Wainer is a little too ortho-Marxist for me.) <a href="http://www.newleftreview.org/?view=1911" rel="nofollow">Here </a>is a closely related Geras text to the one Wainer is summarising, which I think is superb. Enzo Traverso, politically very close to Lowy and also an excellent writer, has a similar line of critique to Geras and Lowy. <a href="http://internationalist-perspective.org/IP/ip-archive/ip_49_holocaust.html" rel="nofollow">Here </a>is a left communist take by "Mac Intosh" which summarises Traverso and Geras, and critiques the latter, but shows the inadequacy of Mandel's orttho-Marxism well. Callinicos of the SWP is also an advance over Mandel, but only slightly. <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/14246438/Callinicos-Alex-Plumbing-the-Depths-Marxism-and-the-Holocaust" rel="nofollow">His response to Geras</a> in 2001 is, in my view, extremely limited. He states a Trotskyist understanding of fascism very well, but fails to go beyond its limits and to adequately deal with Geras' critique. It is interesting to think of the gap between Renton in '97 and Callinicos in '01 and how the SWP's anti-Zionist politics and orientation from 2001 towards a kind of Islamo-populism begin to cloud Callicos' intellectual judgement.bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15439386754907203808noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10131050.post-56305631355286998692011-07-01T12:27:26.154+01:002011-07-01T12:27:26.154+01:00Sigh. OK, rephrasing: The idea that Morris is not ...Sigh. OK, rephrasing: The idea that Morris is not under fire because he is an "intellectual" is wrong, given that we don't know how many "intellectuals" were in Maxim when it was bombed in 2003 or in the various buses in Jerusalem. That's the context he was talking in in that notorious interview, not some abstract demographic threat. Maybe "existential" (which I scare-quoted anyway) is not the right word for it, but "under fire" almost certainly is.bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15439386754907203808noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10131050.post-62992046334501349652011-07-01T12:05:00.294+01:002011-07-01T12:05:00.294+01:00"Morris's racism has been overt since 200..."Morris's racism has been overt since 2004."<br /><br />Does that mean that his racism was "covert" when he wrote the first "new history" book you and your ilk applauded so for many years? And then he decided that it was safe to proclaim it? <br /><br />Isn't there something thoroughly disturbing about levi's use of "Zionist" as if it were some evil? Something that goes far beyond what could be construed (with a great deal of effort and good will) as his concern for Palestinians? He often reminds me of my favourite Arab blogger for whom lying and slandering when it comes to Israel are virtues -- the more you do it, the more moral you are. <br /><br />levi is a true believer. He does not even need excuses or evidence or even reading comprehension. He knows.The Contentious Centristhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07370528817706233156noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10131050.post-80694687345638908152011-07-01T02:21:53.650+01:002011-07-01T02:21:53.650+01:00Bob - "Once again with the "I'm hone...Bob - "Once again with the "I'm honest, all of you lots are liars" meme from Levi"<br /><br />It was you who accused me of being disingenuous and you didn't substantiate what you said.<br /><br />Morris's racism has been overt since 2004. If anything his position has become more robust since 2004 backdating justification for Israel's ethnic cleansing by reference to islamism.<br /><br />What I meant by back-peddling (though I may be spelling it wrong) is that Sarah noticed his racism in his most recent talk and I pointed out that it has been his position for the past seven years but you have both decided that it doesn't really count as racism because he has been shocked by the awful behaviour of the Palestinians. I assume that you are both now defending him because Noga let on that he is a very important player in the zionist project.<br /><br />I had hoped that there would be some common ground over this but you clearly believe that zionist racism (of which Morris's, and Noga's, is typical) is the fault of its most numerous victims, the Palestinians.<br /><br />Yes I did mean Ernest Mandel. I gather he is a disciple of Trotsky but I still don't know that much about Trotsky.<br /><br />The piece I find very useful is this about WWII:<br /><br />http://www.marxists.org/archive/mandel/1976/xx/trots-ww2.htm<br /><br />Noga, if you want to pretend you don't know what I mean you shouldn't then let on that you do know what I mean. Was Bob and Sarah's defence of Morris enough or do you think they should sink even lower?<br /><br />Here have a Leon Rosselson song.<br />http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhclheutGjolevi9909https://www.blogger.com/profile/10553481056544494411noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10131050.post-88696526453537061702011-06-30T20:53:31.709+01:002011-06-30T20:53:31.709+01:00Levi - I probably find your instinct to oppose rac...Levi - I probably find your instinct to oppose racism rather than Islamism more congenial than the the opposite instinct. But it's also a problem, I think, partly because that attitude actually drives some who feel their (fair) concerns are being overlooked to the EDL - partly because to some degree it's the same group (Muslims) who suffer most from both types of extremist. I feel so frustrated sometimes that there is this sharp line down the middle of the blogosphere, of politics, which is separating, I feel, natural near allies from each other. Although I sometimes feel that Sunny Hundal, say, has got things quite wrong, there's also a sense in which I feel Pickled Politics plays Rocky Island to Harry's Place's Craggy Island - the two rival groups of priests in Father Ted who mirror each other uncannily.I noticed on Pickled Politics (though I'm in a sulk with them so I didn't comment) that they have posts on whether Salah should have been banned from Britain and on whether Andrew Gilligan is over reacting to a 'homophobic' session at the ELM. This is exactly the kind of issue I think it should be possible to have a genuine discussion about - I think it's important not to allow a legitimate concern about homophobic hate preachers to lead to scrutinising mosques more intently than churches WRT teaching about homosexuality and I also feel much clearer about being appalled that Labour MPs were prepared to share a platform with him than about whether or not he should have been allowed in the country - I'm not losing sleep over him being banned but these exclusions can seem arbitrary.Sarah ABhttp://hurryupharry.org/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10131050.post-74470129051252336172011-06-30T13:20:22.816+01:002011-06-30T13:20:22.816+01:00Levi, are you sure you mean Mandel (Ernest)? I'...Levi, are you sure you mean Mandel (Ernest)? I'm that not familiar with his work on fascism/anti-fascism, but had the sense he is the most orthodox of ortho-Marxists on this, not departing at all from Trotsky's position, and most extremely arguing the economic determination line.bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15439386754907203808noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10131050.post-63563597296730872122011-06-30T13:11:32.585+01:002011-06-30T13:11:32.585+01:00Once again with the "I'm honest, all of y...Once again with the "I'm honest, all of you lots are liars" meme from Levi, obsessed always with uncovering the deeper truth and unmasking the dishonest. I have no idea what back-"peddling" Sarah or me are supposed to have done (both from the start disturbed by borderline racist elements in Morris' expression, both from the start not seeing him as evil incarnate, neither really changing that position while learning more about him) but I am not going to continue this discussion. Further comments of the you-said-I-said variety will be deleted. Constructive discussion of EDL and Islamism or of Morris as historian more than welcome.bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15439386754907203808noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10131050.post-9825539435088398202011-06-30T12:09:38.545+01:002011-06-30T12:09:38.545+01:00Levy says: "I'm only skimming here becaus...Levy says: "I'm only skimming here because I do not do disingenuous or dishonest."<br /><br />And goes on to state:<br /> <br />"Noga has hollered that Morris is a very important zionist ideologue and he is. She actually says that he can't be racist because Arabs really are inferior."<br /><br />I'd like to see where I claimed that "Morris is a very important zionist ideologue". <br /><br />And where exactly did I say that "he can't be racist because Arabs really are inferior."<br /><br />I can guess which of my comments induced this interpretation by levi who suffers from the chronic <br />disability of dealing with recorded realities, as are reflected, for example, in this interview with Al-Jazeera Editor-in-Chief Ahmed Sheikh:<br /><br />"You sound bitter.<br /><br />Yes, I am.<br /><br />At whom are you angry?<br /><br />It's not only the lack of democracy in the region that makes me worried. I don't understand why we don't develop as quickly and dynamically as the rest of the world. We have to face the challenge and say: enough is enough! When a President can stay in power for 25 years, like in Egypt, and he is not in a position to implement reforms, we have a problem. Either the man has to change or he has to be replaced. But the society is not dynamic enough to bring about such a change in a peaceful and constructive fashion.<br /><br />Why not?<br /><br />In many Arab states, the middle class is disappearing. The rich get richer and the poor get still poorer. Look at the schools in Jordan, Egypt or Morocco: You have up to 70 youngsters crammed together in a single classroom. How can a teacher do his job in such circumstances? The public hospitals are also in a hopeless condition. These are just examples. They show how hopeless the situation is for us in the Middle East.<br /><br />Who is responsible for the situation?<br /><br />The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the most important reasons why these crises and problems continue to simmer...<br /><br />Do you mean to say that if Israel did not exist, there would suddenly be democracy in Egypt, that the schools in Morocco would be better, that the public clinics in Jordan would function better?<br /><br />I think so."<br /><br />http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/395/an-interview-with-al-jazeera-editor-in-chief-ahmed-sheikh<br /><br />The difference between me and the Editor-in-Chief Ahmed Sheikh is in the solution to the state of Arab stagnation, poverty and ignorance. He thinks the disappearance of Israel will solve those problems. I suspect that levi would agree with this solution. Not because he agrees with Sheikh about the condition of Arabs (that would be racist wouldn't it?) but because Israel's disappearance is a perfect absolute good that does not need to be excused by anything. It is a free-standing benefit to all.The Contentious Centristhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07370528817706233156noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10131050.post-6225057099439620302011-06-30T11:13:50.091+01:002011-06-30T11:13:50.091+01:00I'm only skimming here because I do not do dis...I'm only skimming here because I do not do disingenuous or dishonest. You do it all the time Bob and Sarah does it too though not quite as much as you do.<br /><br />What has happened here is that Sarah spotted Morris's racism from a very recent talk he gave. I merely pointed out that he has form going back to 2004. Even an anonymously posted review here, praising his research, criticised his dishonesty and his racism (clash of civilisations and all that). And Jonathan Freedland was appalled at the explicitness of his racism being expressed far more recently than 2004.<br /><br />Noga has hollered that Morris is a very important zionist ideologue and he is. She actually says that he can't be racist because Arabs really are inferior.<br /><br />So Bob and Sarah dust off their tandem and back-peddle for all they're worth. They would excuse Palestian expressions of racism but apparently so far they're just too bad to excuse and what they have suffered so far isn't enough to excuse them anything. <br /><br />Waterloo Sunset - I really don't know much about Trotsky's analysis of fascism or how to oppose it. Someone posted a link to Ernst Mandel (I think it was here recently) and I thought that was a useful position. I am highly suspicious of people who want to focus on islamism at the the expense of domestic fascism and zionism particularly when you consider the twists and turns you see going on over Benny Morris in this thread.<br /><br />My concern is that you start by condemning islamism and you then move to understanding white racism. I am not saying that you are saying this but you have seen how Harry's Place and now Bob deal with these things. I know it puts me in a cleft stick when it comes to dealing with fascist variants that don't treat me as a constituent but as long as a war is being waged against muslims and Arabs in various places, that position is where I find myself. I'll oppose white racism and largely ignore the rest unless someone can convince me to re-prioritise.levi9909https://www.blogger.com/profile/10553481056544494411noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10131050.post-69687836914230018042011-06-29T18:21:31.449+01:002011-06-29T18:21:31.449+01:00@ Levi
I think you have to look at what begat fas...@ Levi<br /><br /><i>I think you have to look at what begat fascism and what begat militant islamism. The former arises out of a crisis of capitalism and is a defence of capitalism. Islamism has arisen in modern times as a wrong-headed paradise lost movement against imperialism and in the west as a response to racism.</i><br /><br />The former is obviously pretty standard Trotskyist analysis. While there's some stuff from Trotsky on fascism I think is valuable (ironically, it's the stuff that's largely ignored by modern Trotskyists), but I think his analysis is heavily flawed on this and has been extremely damaging. By seeing fascism merely as a radical defense of capitalism, it means we don't analyse fascist ideology and movements as the independent factors they actually are. Fascism is more than just a capitalist variant. It is truer to say that no fascist movement has come to power without the support of the capitalist class (the times it's been tried, like with Codreanu's Iron Guard in Romania, it's invariably been crushed), but that isn't the same thing. Hence the existence of fascists when capitalism has been strong.<br /><br />And I think you make the same mistake with Islamism. While understanding the context it arises in is useful, it's not as important as analysing it on its own terms as far as its ideology and practise is concerned.<br /><br /><i>But having said that, I would no more challenge someone I was inviting to oppose the EDL on where they stand on zionism than I would challenge them on where they stand on islamism. That doesn't mean I support either. I don't.</i><br /><br />Sure. Apart from anything else, I think that doing so would undoubtably lead to people targeting Muslims as Muslims for their challenges. But whether we also publically stand against Islamism is a different issue.Waterloo Sunsethttp://everybodyhatesatourist.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10131050.post-21167688097165730832011-06-29T17:16:20.145+01:002011-06-29T17:16:20.145+01:00Just to clarify - I described some HP commenters a...Just to clarify - I described some HP commenters as 'Roma-sceptic' - intentionally sarcastic understatement WRT some. I think I then said that I was not myself Roma-sceptic but neither was I at the opposite extreme - I was thinking of the fact that someone had invoked a gushy, mushy piece romanticising everything to do with Roma culture in a rather relativist way which I agreed I also didn't like. I resented being picked up on this by stalkers from my left who had never commented on anything else I had written about the Roma. <br /><br />WRT the Indians - I do in fact find Morris's peculiar reference to their 'annihilation' pretty disturbing, in the middle of a discussion of the rather different (though still nasty) issue of ethnic cleansing. It is too easy to think of other circumstances in which not dissimilar statements might have been articulated. And yet although you could interpret all this in some horribly sinister way - I suspect in fact BM hadn't thought carefully enough about what he was saying. But what he says about Islam being a kind of fifth column in the West - that was awful too. <br /><br />"And in your view these new barbarians are truly threatening the Rome of our time?<br /><br />Yes. The West is stronger but it’s not clear whether it knows how to repulse this wave of hatred. The phenomenon of the mass Muslim penetration into the West and their settlement there is creating a dangerous internal threat"<br /><br />Again, as with so much of the interview, I feel there is the germ of a fair point here about Islamism - but expressed with a complete lack of nuance or sensitivity towards a diverse group (Muslim immigrants).Sarah ABhttp://hurryupharry.org/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10131050.post-27556966497775030182011-06-29T13:39:50.467+01:002011-06-29T13:39:50.467+01:00On the EDL, if they were demonstrating in my area ...On the EDL, if they were demonstrating in my area "most weeks", I'd not be spending my blogging time arguing about Israeli historians and European working definitions. <br /><br />Most "Muslim gatherings" in the UK are not Islamist gatherings, and we wouldn't expect to see any intimidation at them. But Islamists are intimidating people in the UK, and denying it because the EDL are ugly is not a sensible strategy. It's not either/or. <br /><br />I agree that Islamism in the UK (or other non-Muslim majority countries) and Islamism in Muslim-majority countries have different material and ideological explanations. <br /><br /><i>I don't think there is any state that could be said to be insulated from imperialism.</i><br /><br />Well, maybe not, but if it's everywhere then it's kind of nowhere too, as an explanatory factor. I don't see how the power of Wahhabi Islam in Saudi Arabia can be blamed on "imperialism"; how (American-born) Anwar al-Awlaki or his foreigners in Yemen have anything to do with "imperialism", how the rise of the FIS in secular postcolonial Algeria is caused by "imperialism", etc.bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15439386754907203808noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10131050.post-5483623226291545582011-06-29T13:27:54.114+01:002011-06-29T13:27:54.114+01:00I don't think either Bob or Sarah would be wil...<em>I don't think either Bob or Sarah would be willing to cut any slack to an Arab or Muslim who spoke of Jews the way Morris speaks of Arabs and Muslims.</em> Well, we'll have to see. I don't think that in the six or so years I've been blogging here I've devoted any time or space to attacking individual Palestinians for making comments de-humanising Jews/Israelis or for calling for solutions as radical as the transfer solution Morris advocates. I don't see it as my place to criticise prevalent Palestinian low-level racism against Jews/Israelis. (Although if I were an Israeli, I might feel differently.) <br /><br />My concern is more with the people over here, mainly white and privileged, who express racist views against Jews in the name of the righteous Arab victims.<br /><br /><em>When Sarah spotted Morris's more recent expression of racism she seemed not to realise that Morris would have such vociferous defenders so she wants to back-peddle from her previous observation. I saw this over the Roma on Harry's Place. She condemned anti-Roma feeling and behaviours only to call herself Roma-sceptic when the full blown Romaphobes came to call.</em><br /><br />As I've said, I rarely follow HP threads so have no idea what you're talking about, but I do know that Sarah has many times used her HP posting rights to raise awareness of anti-Roma racism.<br /><br />On this issue, it seems to me it is not the vociferous defenders of Morris who have made Sarah "back-peddle" but rather the vociferous attackers of Morris whose company she'd rather disassociate herself from. I don't think she has in any way expressed a change of view on the racism of the Morris interview; she's simply pointed out the gap between a straightforward criticism of some racist expression and an attack dog savaging of Morris as some kind of deep, essential racist that we need to completely disassociate ourselves from to remain pure. <br /><br />Finally, to repeat myself, altho it doesn't seem to sink in, I see no profit whatsoever in deciding whether Morris is or isn't "a racist", whatever that might mean. The issue, instead, should be his racist expression and the effect of that.bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15439386754907203808noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10131050.post-67940807610420555882011-06-29T13:17:55.028+01:002011-06-29T13:17:55.028+01:00The idea that Morris is not under fire because he ...The idea that Morris is not under fire because he is an "intellectual" is a bit disingenuous, given that we don't know how many "intellectuals" were in Maxim when it was bombed in 2003 or in the various buses in Jerusalem. That's the context he was talking in in that notorious interview, not some abstract demographic threat. Maybe "existential" (which I scare-quoted anyway) is not the right word for it, but "under fire" almost certainly is.bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15439386754907203808noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10131050.post-73524151630550298612011-06-29T12:27:27.828+01:002011-06-29T12:27:27.828+01:00Benny Morris is an intellectual. He is not under f...Benny Morris is an intellectual. He is not under fire and he knows that the "existential" threat to Israel was/is purely demographic. Morris cannot be compared with ordinary Israelis or Palestinians precisely because he is an intellectual. And I do not have to scour sources to find examples of Morris's racism or his dishonesty. Even the Shlaim review exposes both and that is praising his work, ie where he findings don't tally with his conclusions. And Sarah noticed his racism from what he said after the LSE business.<br /><br />"are the interviews windows into his deeply racist soul, or performances in which he tries to throw us off the scent and hide his true deep racism?"<br /><br />Jonathan Freedland's interview shows examples of both. He claims he is not being racist because he is not mentioning genetic issues. Does anyone described as racist these days ever get into genetic issues?<br /><br />Similarly, he claims that it is the hostility of the Arabs under proposed Jewish rule that is the problem, when given that the Arabs were a majority, it was their not being Jewish that was at issue. They needed to be purged into a more manageable minority. Morris now laments that this more manageable minority should have been purged or should be in future with no regard for how their treatment has led to what he perceives as their attitude or behaviour. In fact glosses over what led to the breakdown of talks between Arafat and Barak. Avnery parks the issue entirely at Barak's door. For Morris the whole thing is used as another example of the inherent hostility of Arabs/Muslims to Jews. There is no excuse for that.<br /><br />The problem with Morris vis a vis Israeli state and society is that his move to the right has mirrored that of the state and society so his racism isn't simply the opinion of one man but a real possibility given that it has all happened before. Though of course there are many in denial about that.<br /><br />I don't think either Bob or Sarah would be willing to cut any slack to an Arab or Muslim who spoke of Jews the way Morris speaks of Arabs and Muslims. When Sarah spotted Morris's more recent expression of racism she seemed not to realise that Morris would have such vociferous defenders so she wants to back-peddle from her previous observation. I saw this over the Roma on Harry's Place. She condemned anti-Roma feeling and behaviours only to call herself Roma-sceptic when the full blown Romaphobes came to call.<br /><br />I don't think it's a good idea trying to meet racists half-way.<br /><br />Which brings us to the EDL and islamism.<br /><br />I don't think there is any state that could be said to be insulated from imperialism. But even if we accept that there are, the issue of islamists in the UK is not the same as islamists in predominantly muslim countries but I'll have to give more thought to the issue of islamists in the UK vis a vis the EDL. <br /><br />In my area I see the EDL picketing a former English butchers earmarked for a mosque on most days and they march most weeks with no opposition. All a bit upsetting. However, whenever I am anywhere near a gathering outside a mosque say in Whitechapel/Aldgate, I have no idea whether it's a run of the mill religious meeting or a political show going on. What I don't sense is the triumphalism or intimidation at Muslim gatherings.levi9909https://www.blogger.com/profile/10553481056544494411noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10131050.post-38300902137024153832011-06-29T11:14:12.852+01:002011-06-29T11:14:12.852+01:00I mean "dissembles".I mean "dissembles".bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15439386754907203808noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10131050.post-54009096576401741662011-06-29T11:13:49.665+01:002011-06-29T11:13:49.665+01:00I am also struck once again by the anti-Zionist ob...I am also struck once again by the anti-Zionist obsession with uncovering the hidden truth of the Zionist soul, as in Ash's "diagnosis" or Levi's scouring of the sources for evidence of Morris' essential racism. Levi says Morris often "disembles" in his interviews. But the same interviews are the sources of our evidence of his racism! Which is it: are the interviews windows into his deeply racist soul, or performances in which he tries to throw us off the scent and hide his true deep racism?bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15439386754907203808noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10131050.post-68403918059306624222011-06-29T11:11:36.645+01:002011-06-29T11:11:36.645+01:00On Benny Morris: I have read and looked at bits of...On Benny Morris: I have read and looked at bits of a few of the interviews now. Just a few, so these comments are quite tentative. It seems to me that Morris has made comments that can be interpreted as de-humanising Arabs and Muslims, makes them into an abstract, faceless "them". He has also engaged in his interviews in something close to what-aboutery, but which I have a great deal of sympathy for (he is clear that Israel committed war crimes in 1948, but he contextualises them in comparison with the far greater war crimes committed by others but which do not receive the same public condemnation) but the problem is that he does it very coldly. This coldness is perhaps a professional deformation of the historian, who has to step back from the morality and look at a bigger picture; it might be a strength in a historian, but it might be a flaw in a political commentator. <br /><br />His attackers, on the other hand, distort and exaggerate these flaws, by taking them out of context, by hiding the nuances. For example, there is no sense in which he "praises" the annihilation of the native American Indians. He clearly sees it as a harsh and cruel act, but wonders if the overall, final good justifies this cruelty. Nor, as Sarah says, does he in any sense relish the sorts of expulsions and cleansing he says might be justified: he sees them as unavoidable in certain circumstances or as lesser evils compared to genocide of his own people. I disagree with him on both these points, but I don't see his views on them as beyond the pale, unless you twist them out of context.<br /><br />I think that Morris' views also need to be seen in the context of the "existential" threat against Israel - much as Palestinian antisemtism needs to be seen in the context of the oppression and violence they face. If we heard what British people in the bomb shelters of 1941 said about Germans, I expect we'd get de-humanising and abstraction of Germans. The war - the Second Intifada - at the end of 2003/start of 2004 when the interview took place had been going through its most violent period. I think 2002 was the worst year for deaths in suicide attacks and the interview came shortly after the Maxim restaurant bombing and several bus attacks, and I think at a time when the Qassam rockets were starting to fall more frequently. This does not excuse racism, but it excuses a certain amount of de-humanising, and it excuses thinking about whether expulsion might be a lesser evil. Again, I utterly disagree with Morris, but think this should be taken into account in condemning him as some kind of vicious racist. If he has a "sickness is of the mental-political kind" (as Ash puts it), so probably do all Israelis and Palestines.bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15439386754907203808noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10131050.post-18719324108468409652011-06-29T10:45:20.099+01:002011-06-29T10:45:20.099+01:00On getting banned from campuses: myself, I'd b...On getting banned from campuses: myself, I'd be against most campus bans, unless there's a very strong case. For example, I'd be completely against a campus ban on Rance and Greenstein for their views (possibly they were banned for intimidating behaviour, which would be totally different, but I don't want a debate here about their behaviour). I wouldn't want Nir Rosen getting a job at the LSE, but I wouldn't want him banned from speaking on campus. I don't think free speech trumps hate speech, but I think hate speech has to be pretty heavy to lead to campus bans.<br /><br />There's a related issue, which is the constant claim from the anti-Zionist movement that criticism of Israel is suppressed or people are afraid to speak out about it because of the way the Zionists cry antisemitism. But the only instances I have come across in the last few years of people being stopped from speaking in British campuses on these sorts of issues are Benny Morris and Matthias Küntzel, so the anti-Zionist claim seems thin to me. (Maybe there are other instances that refute my position - I'd be interested to hear if they are.)bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15439386754907203808noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10131050.post-22015254873164338122011-06-29T10:38:06.257+01:002011-06-29T10:38:06.257+01:00On the EDL:
I think you have to look at what bega...On the EDL:<br /><br /><i>I think you have to look at what begat fascism and what begat militant islamism. The former arises out of a crisis of capitalism and is a defence of capitalism. Islamism has arisen in modern times as a wrong-headed paradise lost movement against imperialism and in the west as a response to racism. It is simply wrong to equate them.</i><br />No-one here has said that Islamism and the EDL are equal or the same. What some of us have said is that they resemble each other in certain, important ways. You don’t have to be begat the same way to resemble someone else. My friend Mark and my friend Trevor have a striking resemblance: the way they talk, the way they dress, their faces and physiques. But they were very definitely not begat by the same parents. Islamism is a far right ideology, closely related to fascism. The EDL is a far right movement, closely related to fascism. That’s a very clear resemblance. <br /><br />I also find the thumbnail explanations here extremely simplistic, perhaps inevitably in concise summaries. Islamism is indeed a modern phenomenon and a wrong-headed paradise lost movement, and fascism indeed has a relationship to capitalism’s periodic crises, but i think there is much more to it than that. Both of them are simultaneously creatures of western modernity and anti-occidental anti-modern movements. It is wrong to over-emphasise the material context and under-emphasise the ideological. <br /><br />In particular, the importance of “imperialism” is often over-emphasised. Islamism has arisen, for example, in postcolonial states like Algeria that are relatively de-linked from the capitalist world-system, in failed states like Somalia and Sudan where imperialism is largely irrelevant, in wealthy countries that are imperialist rather than subaltern like Saudi Arabia, and it thrives in the UK which is an imperial metropolis. <br /><br />Similarly, the relationship between fascism and capitalist crisis is far from straightforward. Just taking British fascism, it is true that the golden age of classic fascism was the Great Depression and the NF’s high tide was in the 1970s economic crisis, but the emergence of the proto-fascist anti-alien movement occurred in an economic upturn, the post-war resurgence of fascism was at a time of affluence, and the high tide period of the BNP exactly coincided with a sustained period of economic growth (while it has failed to capitalise on the financial crisis of the last couple of years). I see no evidence, especially in the UK, that it is a “defence” of capitalism; only small fractions of industrial capital backed it in the Mosley period and 1970s, while today it is utter anathema to the bourgeoisie. <br /><br />Finally, just as it is simplistic to call Islamism “Islamo-fascism” or “clerical fascism” (terms I’ve sloppily used myself), I think it is simplistic to call the EDL fascist. Although there are fascists in its leadership, I think it is less ideologically coherent and departs from generic fascism in a number of ways; it is, I think, better called “proto-fascist”, along the lines of the British Brothers and other early anti-alien groups.<br /><br />The EDL feeds off the spectacular Islamism of Islam4UK etc, and anyone who attacks the former while giving the latter a free pass lacks credibility. Islam4UK etc also feed off the EDL. Anti-fascists, in orienting to those under attack from the EDL. need to drive a wedge between militant members of Muslim communities under attack and the far right Islamists that attempt to lead their militancy, and doing so requires a very clear, strong and smart critique of Islamism.bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15439386754907203808noreply@blogger.com