contested terrain

9 Comments

1. on May 25, 2009 darren redstar wrote:

   the difficulty in responding to this sort of post is ; whose anarchism? whose left?
   there are many of us who have rejected the viscal, Islamist, trailing ‘anti imperialism’ which has become the central political thrust of leninist practice since the fall of the berlin wall and the ‘lefts’ abandonment of any faith in the working class as the agency in changing the world. We also have rejected the ‘victim worship’ of the lifestyle anarchists which tails the cynical mujahidenism of the Islamotrots.
   rejecting the idiotic anti zionism of both Lifestylism and Leninism, which replicates and apologises for classical anti semitic tropes does not of course mean becoming cheerleaders for the Israeli state. A principled Left critique rejects all states and para-states, and does not see a solution to the crimes of a state ruling class by becoming propagandists for an alternative ruling class.
   Personally I recognise that the flawed democracy of Israel is a far more attractive place to live and for socialists to organise in than the God- Mafia fiefdoms of the West bank and Gaza, and that whilst believing in the necessity and desirability of the end of all states and borders this cannot be imposed on any nation from without or through military defeat. Only when the workers of that nation so desire it should Israel or any other country be abolished.

   “All the arguments of the left revolve around one state/two state. All happily accept the artificial divisions created in the twentieth century by the very imperialists that they claim to oppose, and all ignore the actual people – Palestinian, Israeli, Lebanese, Druse, Syrian, Egyptian, Jordanian, Bedouin – who live there. Re-jigging the lines on a map will create new oppressions, new grievances and new horrors, and we as revolutionaries should have no part in assisting that.

   We should stand shoulder to shoulder with those struggling against the oppressors of the Israeli state and the Palestinian bantustan. We fight against our ‘own’ rulers who attempt to use this slaughter to their own ends and use measly words ‘condemning the violence’ whilst writing out the receipts for the latest arms contract.Any state solution is a continuation of the same bullshit.
   No Borders No States No Gods No War but the Class War”

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2. on May 25, 2009 contestedterrain wrote:

   hi darren,
   I don’t necessarily disagree with your comment, but am not sure how it relates to this particular post. You wrote, “the difficulty in responding to this sort of post is ; whose anarchism? whose left?.”
   The post’s title is admittedly too broad for the actual content of the post, which is focused on anarchists’ or Leftists’ relationship to the Shoah. I tried to point that out in my comment when I wrote: “The story illuminates … the conflict in the Left´s relationship to the Shoah, and the inability to fit it into a historical narrative that relates intelligibly to the present.”
   On that note, I think abstract understandings or even direct opposition to antisemitism, racism, sexism, etc. often fall short of what’s needed. “What’s needed” being a relationship to the particular way in which these “isms” exist in the real world. I don’t think the two are necessarily at odds with one another, but there seems to be a gap between them. I assume that Jna’s former comrades detest antisemitism, national socialism, and the Shoah. But it doesn’t mean they knew/know how to address it on the political or historical level (in addition to the emotional one). And that was the gap that I was trying to point out, which appears to have shocked Jna first on the visceral level, and over time, on the conceptual and relational ones.

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3. on May 25, 2009 darren redstar wrote:

   I think that if my post failed to answer the point you were seeking to make in the post that might be because the point itself is rather opaque.
   The title of the post Anarchism and Jewish History: An Unbridgeable Chasm? is rather an broad generalisation especially given the long interlinked history of anarchism as a specifically Jewish working class radicalism. that the post itself concentrated on an individuals experience within her own political milieu rather justifies my question” whose Left? whose anarchism? and the necessity of asserting that different interpretations and applications of autonomous/ left communist/ anarchist politics exist which stand in direct opposition to the binary black/white politics of those who embrace anti imperialism/ anti zionism as the kernel of their politics.
   The failure of Jna’s comrades to understand the nature of her personal reaction to the physical artifacts of the Holocaust is a part of the belittling of the Shoah in orthodox left politics, the depiction within the left of Israel as a criminal state which misuses the Holocaust to justify its existance encourages the minimisation of the real horror of the Nazi’s crimes, and allows anti semitic tropes to become accepted and commonplace. Under these circumstances I think that I am Justified in pointing out that this anti imperialist left isn’t the only one. And anarchism shouldn’t be written off so glibly.
   what you write in the final paragraph of the post in absolutely correct; we agree on a great deal, however, I am convinced that there is a principled alternative which is starting to gain ground amongst anarchists which rejects the kneejerk anti imperialism which dominates the orthodox trotskyists and leninites

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4. on May 25, 2009 contestedterrain wrote:

   hi again darren,
   true, my point was rather opaque. i guess that´s the benefit of a blog, to put something out there, and to develop the thought further through additional comments, and collaboration with people who challenge the claim or push the person who posted it. so, thanks for pushing.
   i share your opposition to black and white anti-imperialism and anti-zionism, yet I am focusing on something else. i don’t think that what you call the “belittling of the Shoah” is necessarily a result of holding an anti-imperialist worldview though the two often come together. But I think simply that the Shoah has for the most part not been integrated into how many U.S. Leftists think about the twentieth century, and the current one, and this effects also how they (don’t) understand contemporary antisemitism or Jewish concerns. And when the point of ‘belittling’ is raised, the response is often that a more somber tone is taken. (This is also observable when the ‘belittling of antisemitism’ is raised, as observed in “communard’s” responses to my criticism.) It’s a PC approach that doesn’t address the issue.
   I think the way much of the U.S. Left approaches antisemitism — but not just antisemitism (as mentioned in my previous comment) — is from a general or abstract principle, or even a Webster’s Dictionary definition. And then is the attempt to apply it to social life they encounter. I don’t object to having abstract concepts about social forms, but the latter (the social forms) can’t be understood outside of their social-historical development. I draw here in Cornelius Castoriadis’ discussion about the “social-historical.”
   A short quote:

   “Inherited thought has necessarily been led to reduce the social-historical to the types of being that it knew or thought it knew – having constructed them and thus determined them – from somewhere else, making the social-historical a variant, a combination or a synthesis of the corresponding beings: thing, subject, idea or concept. … However, if we decide to consider the social-historical for itself; if we understand that it is to be questioned and reflected upon on the basis of itself alone … then we observe that it shatters our inherited logic and ontology. For we see that it does not fall under any traditional categories – except in a nominal and empty way – but instead it makes us recognize the narrow limit of their validity, permits us to glimpse a new and different logic and, above all, radically to alter the meaning of: being.” (Source)

   Ok, I don’t mean to get into a discussion about “being,” but I think this quote helps to get at what I am focusing on. I think antisemitism can’t be understood without thinking about 19th and 20th century European society where it developed it’s modern character. But the simple way of addressing it is to rely on a generic analysis of hierarchy, or racism, and to apply it to Jews. This just simply falls flat. Here’s an example: An Indymedia* commenter wrote this about the attempted attack on the Bronx Synagogues: “It would have been just as bad as if these clowns had planned to kill Shriners or Amish. End of story, have a nice paranoid fantasy.” (Let’s, for the moment, disregard the accusation in this statement that Jews only care about their own kind, and therefore are expressing some kind of ‘racism’ by speaking about antisemitism.) What the comment completely fails to think through is why the group targeted Jews, and not Shriners, Amish, or any other group. To ask this question is to try and work through the content of antisemitism as a worldview, and not a Webster’s Dictionary definition prejudice. What is the content that — in the mind of the antisemite — connects the Afghanistan war to the Bronx Jewish community? I don’t think this can be derived from a vulgarization of an anti-imperialist position. I think only by addressing antisemitism as a worldview, can we make their acts “intelligible” (as Hannah Arendt would argue), and then also effectively oppose it.

   OK, but that is enough from me.

   From the time I’ve wasted blogging I’ve also come to think that there is an emergent Left alternative to anti-imperialism and anti-zionism. thank the lord!

   PS – As for “writing off anarchism,” it might be helpful to let you know that I am an anarchist myself (of the communist or marxist variety, if that makes any sense).

   *yes, I know, I rely too heavily on Indymedia – but they make things so crystal clear!

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5. on May 25, 2009 darren redstar wrote:

   I have had little experience with American anarchists, or US leftists of any stripe really, and can’t really comment further than note that this type of abstract formalism is generally a consequence of the isolation of the left milieu from real life.

   reading Indymedia scares the shit out of me!
   I am becoming less and less marxist the more I learn about the subjects which I had previously applied marxist analysis to. There is an article in the new Black flag that describes Bakunin as the first ‘post marxist’ using the analysis where it was useful and moving beyond it where it was a limitation.
   finding much to commend on here
   http://classagainstclass.com/

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6. on May 26, 2009 contestedterrain wrote:

   darren wrote: “this type of abstract formalism is generally a consequence of the isolation of the left milieu from real life.”

   I think it has more to do with the attempt to fit social phenomenon into already produced categories, whether that be the anti-imperialist conception of Israel’s foundation which divorces it from the situation of (particularly Eastern) European Jewry in late 19th and early 20th century. But also the attempt to fit Jews into a US anti-racism framework, which focuses on a white/black binary, and then on white skin privilege, and on class. None of these are really able to address the “political” content which links anti-war anger to anti-jewish violence. a reductionistic class analysis can also be a barrier to thinking about antisemitism, even a justification for it.

   thanks for the article suggestion. i will try to check it out.

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7. on May 26, 2009 darren redstar wrote:

   “I think it has more to do with the attempt to fit social phenomenon into already produced categories”

   quite right. the problem that I have found in Left circles is this dependence on, not theory over facts , but in actuality the replacement of theory with dogma; the belief that simply saying that Marx said A in 1867 or Bakunin said B in 1856 is all the evidence that someone needs to win an argument. in these circumstances, separated from the consequences of their political policies because of their irrelevance that the left falls into the hyperbole which leads them into justifying the most brutal of acts.

   where the facts do not fit with their theory then it is reality that must be at fault.

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8. on May 27, 2009 Young, Jewish and Left – a documentary film « Greens Engage wrote:

   [...] Contested Terrain who [...]

9. on June 1, 2009 contestedterrain wrote:

   there´s a link to this post on the Greens Engage site, with a comment from Simply Jews, who wrote:

   I see this as mostly about being resistant to the AntiZionist narrative which is growing with the self fueling energy of a perpetual motion device. It’s about the vulnerability of these young Jewish “radicals” to see through this narrative to a point where it’s more compelling to their innate (genetic?) Left/Liberal values to adopt this distorted narrative than to be confined to the simpler no-big-plan, haphazardly chaotic facts of Jewish history.

   As always, the AntiZionist narrative grounds to a halt on the shallow and exposed reefs of personal and family narrative. There’s really nothing like the awakening slap of simple, within-living-memory facts for deconstructing an elaborately woven script.

   I posted a short reply:

   If only that were the case, that “the personal” was somehow outside of “the political”. That the former is a corrector to the latter, a sort of block against ideology.

   Unfortunately it is not the case. Enter evidence #1: Norman Finkelstein.

   Not sure if the conversation will continue. Thought it was relevant to this site, so I have added it here in case anyone is inspired to discuss it.

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