\nImagine the preposterous case of somebody who read only the [rightwing] Reader’s Digest between 1950 and 1970, and somebody else who read only The [leftwing] Nation between 1950 and 1970. Who would be getting more truth about the nature of Communism? There’s no doubt it would have been the Reader’s Digest reader…
Now in light of the overwhelming evidence about the tens of millions of Chinese who died as a result of Mao Zedong’s catastrophic and murderous policies, let’s consider another case.
\nWho would be getting more truth about the nature of post-revolutionary China? Someone who only watched “The Simpsons”?
\n\nOr someone who only read the Socialist Unity blog (“[T]he Mao era was broadly successful in economic and social terms”, etc., etc.)?
\n]]>![\"\"](\"http://efrafandays.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/burmaprimeminister.jpg\")
In Mort, a Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett, the Grim Reaper’s apprentice dispatched the soul of the Grand Vizier of the Klatchian Empire. Nine Turning Mirrors had been a bad man, and was plotting to assassinate the Emperor in order to maintain control for himself.
\nHis bluff called, he ate a poisoned dish under threat of disembowelment and, when emerging as a shade, found himself surrounded by the shades of Emperors and courtiers and others whom he had had killed in the past. They all appeared very anxious to welcome Nine Turning Mirrors’ shade into the Netherworld.
\nAs the Grim Reaper’s apprentice was leaving, Nine Turning Mirrors’ shade began to scream.
\nBurmanet News carries an article by Aung Zaw, the editor of The Irrawaddy, an online newspaper concentrating on Burma. He suggests that Than Shwe, the quixotically titled Senior General amongst the Burmese military junta fears a similar fate as that seen by Nine Turning Mirrors.
\nWhere Than Shwe lacks Nine Turning Mirror’s verbal intelligence and quick wit, he makes up in loutish obsession with Buddhist superstition. Having recently returned from pilgrimage to the Bodh Gaya temple in India, where the Buddha attained enlightenment (and proudly clutching a gift of Matatma Gandhi’s bust), he now has acquired a white elephant from the jungles of Arakan.
\nSuch creatures are thought to demonstrate a monarch’s right to rule in South East Asia, and the self-convinced Crown Prince Shwebomin II has seized upon the opportunity.
\nYet, this has not dispelled his lingering fear of encountering the shades of those his regieme had had killed. In his Burmanet News article, Aung Zaw an increasingly obsessive fear of assassination attempts.
\nThis is not without cause, as in August the Karen National Union came within a gnat’s crotchet of assassinating the Chief of Ministry Affairs Security, General Ye Myint. In April, the Lunar New Year celebrations in Rangoon were marred by a series of murderous bombings by as-yet unidentified groups.
\nYet, Aung Zaw reports that Than Shwe fears snipers and suicide-bombers. Although sudden sniper attack against political foes are not without precedent in the region, rebel Thai General Seh Daeng was against the status quo. Likewise, unprecedented kamikazi-style attacks on Burmese Police stations aside, this aint Sri Lanka.
\nPerhaps, at the back of his mind, Than Shwe fears that the political change heralded by the emergence of a white elephant will not be to his benefit; and is repositioning himself politically, as his predecessor, Ne Win did prior to the aborted 1988 democratic elections.
\nMeanwhile, back in the real world, as a bunch of vacuous numpties suggest moving Tony Blair’s autobiography to the crime section, North Korean diplomats are burglarizing homes in Rangoon and ‘confiscating’ copies of a biography of Kim Jong-il by Hein Latt, a Burmese author. This comes shortly after restoration of diplomatic ties which were broken after a North Korean assassination attempt of the then Southern President during a State visit in 1983.
\n]]>Rereading it, here’s a passage that caught my interest:
\n\n]]>Isaac Deutscher, though sympathetic to the New Left and closer to the severely anti-Israel Trotskyists than to any other group, wrote that the Jews of Israel “have the feeling\u2014how well justified\u2014that the ‘civilized world,’ which in one way or another has the fate of European Jewry on its conscience, has no moral ground to stand on when it tries to sermonize or threaten Israel for any real or imaginary breaches of international commitments.” The editors of the “independent socialist magazine” Monthly Review, Paul Sweezy and Harvey Magdoff, who have the admiration of many young revolutionaries for their maintenance of a radical Marxist organ during the lean years of American radicalism, also felt it necessary in a recent issue (July-August 1970) to remind others on the left that whatever the history of Zionist relations with the Arabs, Israeli
\n\n. . . nationalism is nevertheless a reality, one that was deeply affected by the Nazi holocaust and is constantly refreshed and sustained by anti-Semitic thought and practices in various capitalist and socialist countries. Thus, the nature of the Jewish experience has generated a national consciousness in which the nightmare of forced emigration to a hostile, closed world and the dread of extinction by violence are ever present.
And though he has been ignored on this issue by many who identify with his writings on other matters, it should be recorded to the credit of the intellectual theorist of the New Left, Herbert Marcuse, that he, too, recognizes that anti-Semitism is not just another prejudice. Speaking in Germany to a New Left audience, Marcuse said:
\n\nI cannot forget that during centuries, Jews were persecuted and oppressed and that not so long ago six million of them were annihilated. This is an objective fact. The Jews finally found a land where they must no longer fear persecution and opposition and I identify myself with the aim reached by them. I am happy to be in agreement, in this case also, with Jean-Paul Sartre who said: “The only thing that we must prevent at any cost is a new war of extermination against Israel.”
And Marcuse concluded by saying that “the [1967] preventive war (for this was in fact the character of the war waged against Egypt, Jordan and Syria) can and must be understood and justified.”
\nWhat characterizes these radical leftists so concerned with anti-Semitism and Israel is that all of them, Deutscher, Sweezy, Magdoff, Marcuse, and Sartre, were adults, politically conscious and involved, during the era of Nazism and experienced the impact of the Holocaust. But they have signally failed to convey their experiences, their shock, the lessons they learned, to a new generation of revolutionary radicals. Hopefully, the latter will have less impact on the future of the Jews than earlier generations who required Auschwitz and Dachau to prove to them that anti-Semitism was more than a foolish prejudice.
Asked about the brutal government repression against the opposition in Iran, a demonstration organizer replied with a smirk, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
\n\n
A small group of anti-regime protesters confronted the march. Is that a flag of the Communist Party of Britain (at about 4:15) in a demonstration originated by, and in support of, the Islamic Republic of Iran?
\n\nConsidering what the Islamic Republic of Iran did to their Iranian comrades, they must be self-hating commies.
\n]]>\n]]>Nor do I believe any of that “Blair is a Liar” nonsense in relation to weapons of mass destruction (WMD). As it happens I was one of the 139 Labour MPs who voted against the Iraq enterprise, but I too believed that Saddam Hussein possessed WMD. So did just about everyone I know, whichever side of the argument they were on. Even the UN weapons inspector, Hans Blix, thought it likely. WMD was an intelligence screw-up. Long after the invasions, our intelligence services were still advising the Government that something would turn up. How do I know? Because that’s what they told me, too.
Dik\xf6tter explains in meticulous detail the policies that led to the deaths of over 45 million people during the period 1958-1962:
\n\nThanks to the often meticulous reports compiled by the [Chinese Communist Party] itself, we can infer that between 1958 and 1962 by a rough approximation 6 to 8 percent of the victims were tortured to death or summarily killed – amounting to at least 2.5 million people. Other victims were deliberately deprived of food and starved to death. \xa0Many more vanished because they were too old, weak or sick to work – and hence unable to earn their keep. People were killed selectively because they were rich, because they dragged their feet, because they spoke out or simply because they were not liked, for whatever reason, by the man who wielded the ladle in the canteen.
Local farmers knew that the agricultural methods that the Communist Party insisted upon were absurd, but as the Party is always correct, these were the methods that people were forced to follow. Huge percentages of grain and other produce grown were sold abroad, often below cost, and in some cases given away. Meanwhile, the population at home was starving. \xa0The logistics of transporting this grain had not been properly thought out. Dik\xf6tter concludes, “It would have been difficult to design a more wasteful system, one in which grain was left uncollected in dusty roads in the countryside as people foraged for roots or ate mud.”
\nTo add to the catastrophe, people were taken out of working on farms because Mao Zedong decided that he wanted substantially higher steel production in his Great Leap Forward. Yet, according to an official Chinese report, “in many provinces not even a third of the iron produced by backyard furnaces was usable.” Moreover, even ignoring the damage caused to the people and to the buildings that had their floorboards ripped out to provide fuel for the furnaces, the project was substantially loss making.
\nTo add further to the problem, Mao insisted upon paying back foreign loans years earlier than necessary. This meant an even higher amount of food produce was exported as opposed to retained for the Chinese population where it was desperately needed.
\nOne disaster after another; horror after horror; death after death; and terror. The blame should be properly placed with the Communist government for the policies that they insisted were carried out. At the top of the party was one man, Mao Zedong. Those beneath him, aware they could be purged if they tried to cross him, obediently enforced these policies and praised Mao for his leadership. \xa0This is a man who said, “When there is not enough to eat, people starve to death. It is better to let half of the people die so that the other half can eat their fill.”
\nIn China alone, tens of millions died trying to fulfil an impossible dream: that of a Communist utopia. There are still people in the world today who promote the idea of Communism. \xa0They can only look forward to a society that they dream of because they cannot look back at others who have attempted the same thing. For if they did, they would only see death, destruction, famine, torture and the Gulag.
\n\n
\n]]>
The Tory Party has certainly come a long way since the days of section 28, moral panics over sex education, and the promotion of s0-called traditional values.
\nAll I can say is: Well Done David Cameron!
\n]]>Gilligan has the news first, and the recent back story, here: where he accuses him of vote rigging. Ted Jeory weighs in here, where he sketches the future for Tower Hamlets.
\nWill Labour act against the infiltration of this Jamaat-e-Islami supporting group into Labour? I hope, somewhat tremulously, that it will. We will see.
\n]]>The Innovative Minds website has posted an article titled \u201cAl Quds Day \u2013 Is It For You?\u201d, which aims to \u201ccut through the hasbra (sic)\u201d which it claims \u201cZionists\u201d have been spreading to discourage people from attending. This includes an explanation of why, although Quds Day was created by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979, Quds Day is \u201cnot an Iranian event\u201d, but just to express support for the Palestinians; is not just for Muslims; and is certainly not an \u201can anti-Semitic \u2018kill the Jews\u2019 hate fest\u201d. They finish by asking: \u201cSo will you stand with us in support of Palestine, or will you by your absence give your support to the Zionists?\u201d
\nIt\xa0is true that participation in Quds Day is certainly not limited to Iranians and that the purpose of the day is not to express support\xa0for Iran, but the Iranian influence over the day is still strong, so\xa0it is worth knowing what the current Iranian regime think it is all about. Quds Day is held in Iran on the last Friday of Ramadan, which is today (the march in London is tomorrow), and Press TV already has reports of some of today\u2019s events. Here, for example, is a report of President Ahmadinejad\u2019s speech at Tehran\u2019s Quds Day rally earlier today, in which he is reported to have said that Israel \u201cis on the brink of collapse\u201d. However,\xa0the collapse of Israel alone\xa0is not enough for Brigadier General Masoud Jazayeri, the deputy head of Iran\u2019s Armed Forces Joint Chiefs of Staff, who said yesterday that Quds Day \u201cappears to pave the way for the collapse of Israel and its allies, namely the US and Britain\u201d. Iran\u2019s Association for Liberation of the Holy al-Quds, which organises the Quds Day events in Iran, promoted their rally with a statement claiming that there is an \u201cinternational resolve to annihilate Israel\u201d.
\nHere in the United Kingdom, the organisers of London\u2019s Quds Day march, the Islamic Human Rights Commission, have published a lengthy set of articles on their website to promote the day, and these, too, can be taken as a guide as to whether this is an event that is worthy of support.
\nThe first five links are to quotes and writings of Ayatollah Khomeini,\xa0in a further clue to\xa0the Iranian origins of Quds Day (most of these links take you to the website of the Iranian state broadcaster IRIB). They make for interesting reading. In short, he believed that Israel and Zionism were plotting to occupy the entire Muslim world and destroy Islam completely, and he was not averse to employing antisemitic tropes in making his argument. For example, on \u201cIsrael the enemy of Islam and the Muslims\u201d (all emphases added, as they are throughout this blogpost):
\n\n[...]\xa0For nearly twenty years now, I have been informing people of the danger of international Zionism. Today, I feel the danger for all the freedom-bestowing revolutions of the world, including the recent Islamic revolution in Iran, is no less than it was in the past, for at the present time these world-devouring bloodsuckers using various techniques to defeat the oppressed and weak of the earth have risen up and are active. Our nation and the free nations of the world should bravely and vigilantly resist these dangerous plots.
Imam\u2019s message, 11 February 1981 (22 Bahman 1359 AHS). Sahifa-yi Nur, Vol. 14, p. 63.
\n\nThe agents of imperialism are busy in every corner of the Islamic world drawing our youth away from us with their evil propaganda. They are not converting them into Jews and Christians, rather they are corrupting them, making them irreligious and indifferent, which is sufficient for their purposes. In our own city of Tehran now there are centres of evil propaganda run by the churches, the Zionists and the Baha\u2019is in order to lead our people astray and make them abandon the ordinances and teachings of Islam.
Islamic Government,p. 176.
\n\n[...] Brothers and sisters, both sects must be vigilant and realise that these sightless, stipend-receivers, in the name of Islam, the sacred Qur\u2019an and the customary practice (sunna) of the Prophet, want to pluck Islam, the Qur\u2019an and the sunna out of the midst of the Muslims, or at the very least to lead the Muslims astray. The brothers and sisters should realise that America and Israel bear malice towards the very basis of Islam, because Islam, its book and the sunna are a thorn in their side and an obstacle to their plundering and because it was by following this book and this sunna\xa0 that Iran rose up to confront them, embarked on a revolution and was victorious.
Imam\u2019s message on the occasion of the hajj pilgrimage and the auspicious `Id al-Qurban, 29 August 1983 (7 Shahrivar 1363 AHS). Sahifa-yi Nur, Vol. 19, p. 46.
\n(As an aside, it is striking that an organisation which claims to work for human rights should link to an article which accuses the Baha\u2019is of conducting \u201cevil propaganda\u201d in Iran, given the ongoing persecution of Baha\u2019is in that country).
\nOn \u201cIsrael\u2019s expansionism (the plan for a Greater Israel)\u201c:
\n\nThe heads of the Islamic countries should be aware that this germ of corruption which has been planted in the heart of the Islamic countries has not been put there merely to suppress the Arab nation, rather it is dangerous and harmful to the Middle East region as a whole. The plan is for the domination and supremacy of Zionism over the Islamic world and the further colonisation of the rich lands and abundant resources of the Islamic countries\u2026
Imam\u2019s message to the Muslim governments, 7 November 1973 (16 Aban 1352 AHS). Sahifa-yi Nur, Vol. 1, p. 201.
\n\nWith your union you should pluck this germ of corruption out from amongst you. If you do not, then this cancerous growth will spread to other places. For it will not be content merely with the Golan Heights, for they (the Zionists) are of the opinion that the Jews are superior to all other races and the land from the Euphrates to the Nile belongs to Israel and should be returned to it\u2026
Imam\u2019s speech dated 24 January 1982 (4 Bahman 1360 AHS). Sahifa-yi Nur, Vol. 16, p. 21.
\n\nWhat could be better\xa0 for all the governments of the region to muster all the power at their disposal to wipe Israel off the map? This maleficent Israel which has put the innocent Palestinians in the state they are now in, which has committed all these outrages against brave Lebanon, has encroached upon the countries of the region and has transgressed their borders. What could be better\xa0 for regional governments to take hold of one another\u2019s hands and free the region from the iniquity of Israel and its supporter America? As I have reminded you time and again, Israel considers the area from the Nile to the Euphrates to be its own and it sees you as usurpers of its lands [...]
Imam\u2019s message on the occasion of the great religio-politico gathering of hajj and the auspicious feast of `Id al-Qurban, dated 29 August 1984 (7 Shahrivar 1363 AHS). Sahifa-yi Nur, Vol. 19, p. 48.
\nAnd some general statements by Khomeini\xa0about Quds Day itself:
\n\n\u2022 The Quds Day is a day in which Islam is to be revived.
\n\u2022 The Quds Day is a day in which the destinies of the oppressed nations must to determine.
\n\u2022 The Quds Day is a universal day. It is not an exclusive day for Quds itself. It is a day for the oppressed to rise and stand up against the arrogant.
\n\u2022 The Quds Day is Islam\u201ds Live Day!
\n\u2022 The Quds Day is the Day of Islam.
\n\u2022 The Quds Day which fall on the last days of the God\u201ds Great Month (Ramadhan) is a proper day on which all Muslims be freed from the bondage of the Big Satan (Great Devil, USA) and other superpowers and join the Infinite Might of God.
\n\u2022 The Quds Day which is coincidental with the Night of Destiny (Laylatul-Qadr) must be revived among the Muslims and be the starting point of their awakening and awareness.
It is a sign of the successful growth of Iranian influence in anti-Israel campaigning, that an event which was described by its founder in such terms now attracts widespread support from\xa0secular (including\xa0Jewish)\xa0anti-Zionists.
\nThe IHRC website links to another article, titled \u201cZionism \u2013 the Greatest Danger\u201c, taken from the website of Tebyan, an Iranian organisation. The article describes Zionism in terms which come directly from the antisemitic view of Jews: there is no other way to describe it. It begins:
\n\nThe greatest evil facing the Muslim community (Ummah)and mankind today is not AIDS, Pollution, or Nuclear War. It is international Zionism. It is the Zionist greed for wealth, lust for perverted sex, greed for power, domination, and economic exploitation that is causing AIDS, POLLUTION as well as threatening NUCLEAR WAR.
\nZionist (sic) are behind every evil and conflict in the world today. Whether it is political, economical, social or moral.
\nThe Holy Quran, says:
\n\u201cAnd you will most certainly find them the greediest of mankind for life (greedier) and of those who are polytheists; every one of them loves that he should be granted a life of a thousand years, and his being granted a long life will in no way remove him further off from the chastisement, and Allah sees what they do.\u201d(2:96)
\n\u201cYou will find the most violent of people in enmity for those who believe (to be) the Jews and those who are polytheists\u2026\u201d(5:82)
\n\u201c\u2026 whenever there came to them an apostle with what that their souls didn\u2019t desire, some (of them) did they call liars and some they slew.(5:70)
\nThis same Yahud (i.e. Jews) tried to destroy the Holy Prophet (SAW) and his followers in Medina.
\nThe same Yahud that killed Prophet Yahya (AS), that defied Prophet Musa (AS), that crucified Prophet Isa (AS).
\nToday this Zionist are doing their utmost to destroy`Masjidu\u2019l-Aqsa\u2019 (Muslim\u2019s first Qibla). Their aim is to conquer all Muslim lands and grab the oil resources and destroy Islam completely. Because Islam is a challenge to their evil schemes and exposes them.
The rest is in a similar vein. The IHRC website includes the standard disclaimer that \u201cThe opinions expressed on this site do not necessarily reflect the views of IHRC\u201d; but then you have to ask, what is it about this article that the IHRC thought was worth bringing to their readers,\xa0to promote Quds Day?
\nThere is another question that springs to mind. This year, Quds Day takes place against a backdrop of renewed peace talks between Israeli and Palestinian leaders, hosted by America. Hamas have responded with a series of shootings in the West Bank, killing four Israelis (so far), and have announced a working alliance with twelve other violent organisations in Gaza to coordinate terrorist attacks against Israel. What, I wonder, will the speakers at today’s \u2019s Quds Day march have to say about these two contrasting\xa0developments?
\n\n\n]]>\u2018The Socialism of Fools\u2019
\nThe New Left calls it \u201cAnti-Zionism,\u201d but it\u2019s no different from the anti-Semitism of the Old Right.
\nBy Seymour Martin Lipset
\nNew York Times (magazine), January 3, 1971, p.6, 7,26,27,34.
\nTwenty-five years after the end of World War II and the collapse of the most anti-Semitic regime in history, anti-Semitism appears to be on the rise around the world. But unlike the situation before 1945, when anti-Jewish politics was largely identified with rightist elements, the current wave is linked to governments, parties, and groups which are conventionally described as leftist….
\nSome distinctions are in order. One may oppose Israeli policy, resist Zionism or criticize worldwide Jewish support of Israel without being anti-Semitic. But when one draws on the age-old hostility to Jews to strengthen a political position, when one gives credence to the charge of\xa0 a worldwide Jewish plot to rule, when one attacks those with whom one has political and economic difference, when one implies that Jews are guilty of some primal evil, then one is guilty of anti-Semitism, and one is engaged in the same racism that all decent men insist on eliminating….
\nThe most important expression of anti-Jewish sentiments in the West takes the form of attacks on \u201cZionists\u201d and the State of Israel by every section of the left, except the Democratic Socialists. As the war in Vietnam peters out, the various incarnations of the extreme left \u2013 new and old, anarchists, Maoists, Trotskyists, Black Panthers and Communists \u2013 … identify the heroes as the Arab terrorists and freedom fighters, and the villains as Israel and its American ally. In Germany, New Left students, in a sickening replay of the behaviour of their Nazi predecessors… chant as they parade: \u201cMach die Nahe Osten rot; schlag die Zionisten tot\u201d (\u201cMake the Near East Red; smash the Zionists dead)….
\nFrench New Left spokesmen have openly defended the need to speak in anti-Semitic terms when supporting the Arab cause. Jean Bauberot… currently editor of Hertem, a New Left journal, wrote in the May-July, 1969, issue to \u201cdemonstrate the intricacies of the Palestine problem\u201d leftists must \u201cuse expressions which, taken by themselves, appear to resemble certain lines from \u2018Mein Kampf.\u2019\u201d….
\nIn describing a tenants\u2019 action in Atlantic City against a landlord, an article in the June 13, 1970, Black Panther praises the tenants for \u201cgathering together to form a United Front against Zionist Pig Sobel…\u201d The article concludes with the exhortation: \u201cALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE \u2013 DEATH TO THE ZIONIST PIGS.\u201d….To make Jews (or \u201cZionists\u201d) as a group responsible for the actions of single individuals is anti-Semitism in its purest form….
\nThe white left, both new and old, while increasingly anti-Israeli, and occasionally anti-Semitic does not engage in the kind of virulent anti-Semitism which may be found among the black militant left and the white extreme right. But it is important to reiterate that the white left does not challenge black anti-Semitism. [Articles in the left wing press, including in the Militant (Trotskyist)] usually criticize the militants for their lack of emphasis on class, as distinct from race… Yet in all of this criticism, anti-Semitism is never mentioned. The white left acts as it were of no consequence, or as if no one on the left were capable of it…. the American left-wing press also ignores the fact that the Arab militants, as well as a number of Arab governments, have been ready to use whatever sources of anti-Semitic, anti-American, anti-capitalist or anti-Israeli feelings exist to foster their cause.
\nThe Arabs, of course, like other critics of the Jews on the far left and right, insist that they are only anti-Zionist. Yet there is clear evidence that anti-Semitism \u2013 not simply anti-Zionism \u2013 has deeply penetrated Arab groups and governments. Many official Egyptian books and pamphlets dealing with the Palestine problem, for example, have reprinted or cited …[the] \u201cProtocols of the Learned Elders of Zion.\u201d….
\nFor many on the left… the United States has become the epitome of international reaction, the stronghold of all that is evil. Hence, any government, any society, any movement which has the strong backing of the United States must be almost as wicked. And conversely, people opposed to the United States must be good or at least better….
\nThe fact that this time the predominant weight of the anti-Semitic thrust is on the left rather than the right will surprise only those who are unaware of the considerable literature on anti-Semitism in the socialist and other leftist movements…. Karl Marx himself accepted the stereotype which linked Jews with capitalism. Thus in his essay on \u201cThe Jewish Question,\u201d he wrote: \u201cWhat is the worldly cult of the Jew? Bargaining. What is his worldly God? Money….\u201d
\n