vimothy
yurp
But I was describing and echoing you! It had nothing to do with Chomsky (in whom I have no interest and for whom I have no respect).
If you don't get the joke there's little else I can say.
Boycotting Zionism
- Thread starter hundredmillionlifetimes
- Start date
But I was describing and echoing you! It had nothing to do with Chomsky (in whom I have no interest and for whom I have no respect).
If you don't get the joke there's little else I can say.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
I think we should be quite clear about one thing here: if you're serious about boycotting countries on the basis of flagrant human rights violations tolerated or actively committed by their governments, a pretty good place to start would be most Islamic countries. (OK, so to be totally fair, an even better place to start would be 'most countries', but it's Islam that much of the outside world seems to be either vilifying or championing at the moment.) No doubt in some people's eyes this makes me a horrific racist imperialist Islamophobe - but isn't that just the same straw-man argument whereby the Israel-boycotters accuse anyone not in favour of punitive measures against the country a "pro-Zionist" who thinks they (the boycotters) must be raving anti-Semites? In fact, isn't that a second-order straw man? *head asplode*
HMLT's posts, in this thread and elsewhere, merely confirm that for a certain segment of the modern Left (or 'Left'), Arabs and Muslims in general are now somehow beyond criticism. This seems to be because some Muslims - in Palestine, Iraq, Guantanamo - are suffering at the hands of the either The Great Satan, TGS's most loyal lapdog or New York's funny little Hebrew-speaking outpost in the Levant; this is obviously a Bad Thing, yet the huge number of Muslims being killed or mistreated by their fellow Muslims elsewhere somehow seems to fall beneath the radar. So it's OK if they do it to each other, is it? What about if they do it to black Africans? Some on the pro-Muslim left have gone as far as to say that calls for UN intervention in Darfour are due to "anti-Arab bias", since it's Arabs that are dispossessing literally hundreds of thousands of black Sudanese, many of whom are in imminent danger of starvation or disease, or have already died. This humanitarian crisis, by any stretch, dwarfs* what's happening in Palestine, so why are the Palestinians a cause celebre while the Sudanese die in their thousands while the world sits on its hands?
I should say at this point that I think the level of criticism Israel draws from left-wing groups around the world is not, in my opinion, fuelled by anti-Semetism. I think it's a by-proxy form of anti-Americanism.
Edit: with regards to this particular proposed boycott, I will say that if a serious analysis of the situation (by someone with a far greater knowledge of it than me) can realistically say it has a good chance of forcing positive Israeli action towards the Palestinians - not merely an infantile "what's bad for Israel must be good for Palestine" knee-jerk, which is obviously untrue - then I would support it.
*200,000 - 400,000 dead since 2003, 2,500,000 made refugess, according to the Wiki article.
HMLT's posts, in this thread and elsewhere, merely confirm that for a certain segment of the modern Left (or 'Left'), Arabs and Muslims in general are now somehow beyond criticism. This seems to be because some Muslims - in Palestine, Iraq, Guantanamo - are suffering at the hands of the either The Great Satan, TGS's most loyal lapdog or New York's funny little Hebrew-speaking outpost in the Levant; this is obviously a Bad Thing, yet the huge number of Muslims being killed or mistreated by their fellow Muslims elsewhere somehow seems to fall beneath the radar. So it's OK if they do it to each other, is it? What about if they do it to black Africans? Some on the pro-Muslim left have gone as far as to say that calls for UN intervention in Darfour are due to "anti-Arab bias", since it's Arabs that are dispossessing literally hundreds of thousands of black Sudanese, many of whom are in imminent danger of starvation or disease, or have already died. This humanitarian crisis, by any stretch, dwarfs* what's happening in Palestine, so why are the Palestinians a cause celebre while the Sudanese die in their thousands while the world sits on its hands?
I should say at this point that I think the level of criticism Israel draws from left-wing groups around the world is not, in my opinion, fuelled by anti-Semetism. I think it's a by-proxy form of anti-Americanism.
Edit: with regards to this particular proposed boycott, I will say that if a serious analysis of the situation (by someone with a far greater knowledge of it than me) can realistically say it has a good chance of forcing positive Israeli action towards the Palestinians - not merely an infantile "what's bad for Israel must be good for Palestine" knee-jerk, which is obviously untrue - then I would support it.
*200,000 - 400,000 dead since 2003, 2,500,000 made refugess, according to the Wiki article.
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Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
*jumps up and down*
Ooh, me too! Me too!
I once proclaimed the existence of an empirically-accessible objective physical reality, which is apparently on a par with attempting to liquidate European Jewry and take over the world.
*smugs*
I'm going for a cup of you-know-what and a nice cake now, so play nice while I'm away, y'all...
vimothy
yurp
It's not rocket science Mr Tea. The fact that Salafi jihadists believe in an "objective physical reality" has little to do with it. We're not talking about ultra-conservatives or even religious revivalists but jihadist terrorists.
I think that this is shades of HMLT's "muslims are evil" thing. Where an Islamic religious-political movement exists, which seeks to take over the world and enslave its inhabitants (which, in fact, it does) it is on a par with other totalitarian movements, such as the Fascists, the Nazis, the Communists, the Falangists, etc.
Gavin
booty bass intellectual
There's a weird logic going on here, that you must not take action against oppression unless you take action against all oppression, which as you've continually implied is pretty much impossible. So in the name of being FAIR and REASONABLE we should all do jack shit, except perhaps make smug messageboard posts.
(Incidentally I've bolded your own recourse to strawmanism - you blew your own head up with this one).
Um, I think the burden of explanation falls squarely on your shoulders. Do you think you can explain "islamofascism" (for me "fascism" implies a particular kind of class conflict) without a lot of extraneous dick-pumping over "4GW" jargon?
Gavin
booty bass intellectual
And capitalists as well. Are you claiming Communists are fascists as well? I'm confused.
vimothy
yurp
There are minor differences in economic policies, different pictures in the town halls and different badges on the lapels, but they are pretty much the same.
I'm confused about your mention of capitalism though. What does that have to do with totalitarianism?
vimothy
yurp
Eh? 4GW? Dick-pumping?
Anyway, this will probably have to wait until after the weekend. I do find it hard to believe that people can't see the fascist nature of Islamism (the utopianism, the mythology of a people oppressed by the forces of darkeness, the illiberalism, the anti-semticism, the love of violence, the chauvinism, etc, etc). I think that its a simple lack of interest.
I'll try and write a bigger post soon.
Gavin
booty bass intellectual
I'll nibble at your bait, while pointing out that you didn't answer my questions (a nifty trick I've seen you pull before).
Capitalism has done this far better than... well, anything I can think of.
vimothy
yurp
Leave it out - I'm at work, about to finish. I said:
You could also try it (rather than just posting a picture).
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Nononono, you've got me wrong - I'm saying we VERY MUCH SHOULD do something about it! Wherever 'it' is happening, and whoever the victims and aggressors are, as far as is reasonably possible. If you look back to the Euston Manifesto thread, I'm the interventionist, while several others were saying, basically, "any intervention by developed Western nations is bound to create more problems than it solves".
I'm in favour of positive intervention to help the Palestinians, for example, but I'm just far from convinced a boycott of Israeli universities is going to do this. Of course, a rather better tactic would be for the US to say "Give back the illegally-occupied Palestinian territory you seized after the Six Day War, or no more funding for you", but I'm sure there's a greater chance of pigs (or some kosher/halal equivalent) becoming airborne.
OK, I'll be explicit here: by "some people" I meant "hmlt".
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Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Heheh, I was only joking! I happen to agree with you that the desire to forcible impose a global Islamic theocracy is an essentially fascistic impulse.
Anyway, rocket science isn't exactly rocket science, you know. Or perhaps I should say, it isn't exactly orbifold co-homology.
Gavin
booty bass intellectual
Sorry, not British, didn't check the Euston Manifesto thread... From what I understand it's a pro-war "center-left" kiss-off to the left? I doubt I would endorse it. I certainly agree that Western military intervention would inevitably be a violent extension of current imperial policies -- has a "humanitarian intervention" ever NOT been a pretense for this? Look at 19th Century colonialism, all predicated on saving the darker peoples of the world while robbing and murdering them.
Anyway, I don't think boycotting Israeli universities will SINGLE-HANDEDLY end the occupation of Palestine, but that's not really the point. The point isn't to forcibly remove oppression but empower those already there to do it for themselves. Withdrawing support for oppressive regimes can aid this, and doesn't it make sense for a union of academics to boycott the ill-gotten fruits within their own industry?
Gavin
booty bass intellectual
Essential? Ontological? Is there a nougaty Islamofascist core to these people?Or is radical Islamic militancy is an articulation of anti-imperialism through locally applicable lenses (the left having been liquidated in these countries under the auspices of the West, leaving the clerical class the only opposition to the state), and largely a boogeyman since the people taking up arms in Afghanistan and Iraq are NOT militantly religious, but nationalist (often working across religious lines) in their opposition to foreign occupation.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Well hang on a moment - didn't intervention by NATO in the former Yugoslavia prevent, or at least mitigate, the genocide of Bosnian Muslims by Serbian soldiers? If that's just the only example in history, and there are bound to be many more, then the word "
ever" isn't justified, is it? Think how many people could have been saved if France hadn't vetoed action to stop the Rwandan massacre. How can *any* intervention be worse than the deaths of up to a million people, and the mutilation, rape and dispossession of many more?
Edit: from the Wiki page on the genocide - "France, which felt the US and UK would use the massacres to try to expand their influence in that Francophone part of Africa, also worked to prevent a foreign intervention."
So there you go: an 'imperialist' reason for not intervening in a foreign conflict!
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hundredmillionlifetimes
Banned
Does this mean Gavin will need to post a bigger picture to match your 'bigger' post?
Gavin
booty bass intellectual
I think there is a good bit of controversy about whether this was genocide (the ICTY ruled it was not, although it was certainly an atrocity). This article is worth a look: http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=8244
It does not logically follow that therefore intervention is not imperialist. Incidentally, there was plenty of meddling by the West in Rwanda, but not through landing an armed foreign force: http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/reports/congo.htm
(Also interesting, look at the amount of military aid and training the US supplies to Sudan! Surely for humanitarian purposes)
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Hey, come on - I'm not going to sit here and argue about how many unarmed people have to be killed in order for a massacre to qualify as a genocide. I'm also not so naive as to think all Bosnians and all Croats were merely innocent victims of Serbian aggression. However, it remains the case that the mass killing of Bosnian prisoners by Serbian troops is one of the most egregious instances of inhumanity in that particular war, or series of wars - ZNet certainly doesn't deny it took place - and I'm asking "how much worse could the death toll have been if an external force (in this case NATO) hadn't intervened?"
I'm certainly not saying "therefore intervention is not imperialistic". I'm saying it need not be imperialistic. Otherwise, you just end up in this hand-wringing situation where people say "Yes, there's this terrible war/massacre/genocide going on, but we mustn't intervene, because Intervention Is Imperialistic". People being forced from their homes, raped, tortured or killed probably care more about whether some troops from another country are going to turn up and stop it fucking happening than whether such action would qualify as 'imperialistic' to a group of right-on political theorists thousands of miles away.
I'm certainly not saying "therefore intervention is not imperialistic". I'm saying it need not be imperialistic. Otherwise, you just end up in this hand-wringing situation where people say "Yes, there's this terrible war/massacre/genocide going on, but we mustn't intervene, because Intervention Is Imperialistic". People being forced from their homes, raped, tortured or killed probably care more about whether some troops from another country are going to turn up and stop it fucking happening than whether such action would qualify as 'imperialistic' to a group of right-on political theorists thousands of miles away.