Comments on: Dialectic of identity

By: des von bladet

des von bladet — Tue, 06 Jul 2004 18:20:42 +0000

Other people’s assumptions turned me into a penguin.

By: Jack

Jack — Tue, 06 Jul 2004 14:55:31 +0000

I thought this was a fine and perceptive article. I think Mr. Aaronovitch had a fair dose of the intoxication that affects radicals and subversives when they find themselves on the same side as the establishment. I read this article as honest reflection leading to an epiphany. It makes a point beyond the “i’m right so they must be wrong” ones that characterise comment on the police searches and might allow some people to talk without being at cross purposes. Best thing I’ve read by him since he took his kids to the British Museum. flavour of lots of debate about these issues.

By: Conrad barwa

Conrad barwa — Tue, 06 Jul 2004 13:19:30 +0000

I don’t know about the gist of Aaronovitch’s argument; there seems to be more than a whiff of self-justification linked to his positions in the war and I am unclear as to what exactly he means by “other people’s assumptions were turning me into a Jew” I didn’t read exhaustively his articles on the ME and regional politics but many of his supposed criticisms of anti-war arguments and some Left positions struck me as tilting against strawmen. As for his arguments re: Asian youth; well perhaps, though I am not exactly convinced. I think he must have had a slightly rosy picture of what race relations were like even before recent events to think that alienation was already quite bad and while a 300% rise in S&S can’t help I wonder whether it will make all that much difference. My own experience is that it is an inconvenience and at worst an irritation but the police are fairly polite and efficient – of course I could just be setting low expectations to be fulfilled here. If repeated substantially it can get very burdensome but most people I know have a very pragmatic attitude towards this kind of thing and have accepted it as inevitable given the current climate.