Gorgeous George, how are ya, part 2

Missing link?

I assume you mean this:

http://www.memritv.com/Transcript.asp?P1=788

And yes, whatever that rant is, it is not on the same continent as anti-war.

soru

Galloway was always a wanker – a (well paid) toadie to dictators. Very occassionally he was the most amusing bastard in a heavy shower of them, but he was still a bastard.
I can’t see RESPECT getting rid of him. His speeches aren’t going to piss the MAB off, and the SWP have burned their lifeboats, their only choice is to grin and keep baling.

Daniel’s point is well-taken. However, I think the tagline of the blog linked to is a bit unfortunate, in light of Daniel’s position.

Liberty, if it means anything, is the right to tell people what they don’t want to hear.

I don’t really blame GG for this;

I do.

it would be pointless to do so, like getting angry with Ravishing Rick Rude for pulling out a pair of brass knuckles while Hulk Hogan’s arguing with the referee. The pantomime has to play itself out and that’s an end to it.

What in the world does this mean?

Is it because GG is down on Jews (erm Israelis) and Americans that it’s a pantomime for you? Or because you’ve decided that GG is just an opportunist who doesn’t really mean what he’s saying.

what a complete and utter asshole. I’m pretty attached to the Brandenburg v. Ohio test though.

But always with the caveat that you’re not allowed to directly incite violent or socially destructive behaviour…. [W]hen you start wheeling out the metaphors and stirring up the crowd, then you’ve crossed a line my friend; the line between trying to convince people by argument and trying to force them into your view of the world by things that are not arguments.

We studied that very line in elementary school, and why some brave British subjects decided to cross it; there was even a speech we had to memorize. I hope you’re wrong that Mr. Galloway has left safe legal ground in his own country, but as a strongly Zionist American Jew and a card-carrying ACLU member, I would chip in to pay for his legal defense if he came here and this speech or one like it were ever prosecuted under American law.

But surely this old “responsible speech” shibboleth is as contemptibly transparent in Britain today as it is in the free colonies?

you mind your language or you start undercutting the basis of your right to free speech

And the clocks were striking thirteen.

But it seems to me that it is much worse than, for example, anything that Hizb’ut Tahrir have said recently.

Turning 645 backs on him when next he appears in Commons seems to me like a proportionate and politically safe response. But of course as an American I have no business telling your MPs how to keep up the tone.

sorry if i appear to be diverting the thread, but i am not well-enough informed about british politics, mr galloway or his rhetoric to offer any enlightening comments relevant to the topic.

Well, on a day I have decided that the sole, complete, and conscious purpose of the DLC/Democrat Party is the suppression of any possible progressivism inimical to business and coporate interests I visit CT and find the “liberals” again pointing their artillery to their left, with ridicule and righteous outrage. Hmmm.

I care not for George Galloway. I do care about leftish Britains providing scapegoats for future bombings and beginning to provide a justification of Alien and Sedition Laws.

And thus I no longer see the relevance or use of a Millsian liberalism although I must be careful in my speech or Daniel’s allies in the Greater War on Extremism will come knocking at my door.

pointing their artillery to their left

Well, I listened to it–and I cannot make out what Galloway is saying in English.

Anyone care to submit a transcript? I don’t want to bother listening.

From what people are saying here, it sounds bad. I’m not real clear on the moral distinction between inciting and advocating violence, though maybe there’s a legal one. Advocacy of violence against civilians (suitably dressed up as something noble,of course) is pretty mainstream in American politics.

Assuming Galloway is a creep, it just goes to show how desperate we are in America for some politician to tell the truth for a change–I’d be thrilled to have a decent honorable man in politics who refers to Bush and Blair and Sharon (American politicians aren’t supposed to be honest about Israel’s crimes either) as war criminals, but we’ve had to settle for Galloway tearing Coleman into little pieces.

as the U.S. Supreme Court defines it, to be incitement it must be:
–directed towards provoke imminent lawless action
–actually likely to lead to such action

Genghis himself would probably have told him ‘calm down a bit mate, no need to get so bloodthirsty’.

Hey soru, care to tell us what part of the Galloway transcript you’re referring to? Cause I’m not seeing the bloodthirsty bits.

it would be pointless to do so, like getting angry with Ravishing Rick Rude for pulling out a pair of brass knuckles while Hulk Hogan’s arguing with the referee. The pantomime has to play itself out and that’s an end to it.

What in the world does this mean?

I can see this being interpreted two ways: first, you know what Galloway’s going to do – he’s a loon and he’s done it a million times before – so why get upset over this instance? Second, the guy’s taking orders/money from someone else, and shooting the messenger (even if it makes us feel better) won’t do any good.

The specific passage I objected to was

Two of your beautiful daughters are in the hands of foreigners – Jerusalem and Baghdad. The foreigners are doing to your daughters as they will. The daughters are crying for help, and the Arab world is silent. And some of them are collaborating with the rape of these two beautiful Arab daughters. Why? Because they are too weak and too corrupt to do anything about it

I specifically do not want to censor (as in, I disagree with it but I would defend at personal inconvenience the right of people like Galloway to say things like this whether or not they are stupid and disgusting)

These poor Iraqis – ragged people, with their sandals, with their Kalashnikovs, with the lightest and most basic of weapons – are writing the names of their cities and towns in the stars, with 145 military operations every day, which has made the country ungovernable by the people who occupy it. We don’t know who they are, we don’t know their names, we never saw their faces, they don’t put up photographs of their martyrs, we don’t know the names of their leaders. I’m sure, for all the times I spent in Iraq, that I never met any of them before. They are not the comfortable in the former regime, they are not the leaders, with maybe one exception: Izzat Ibrahim Al-Durri. They are the base of this society. They are the young men and the young women who decided, whatever their feelings about the former regime – some are with, some are against. But they decided, when the foreign invaders came, to defend their country, to defend their honor, to defend their families, their religion, their way of life from a military superpower, which landed amongst them. And they are winning the war.

which is clearly apologetics for terrorism and confirms for yet another year that me and GG are never going to be mates, but which does not IMO constitute incitement and so it is the sort of thing that shouldn’t be shut out of the public forum (btw yes I would say the same if GG were saying it about bombers who might affect me).

Well, clearly the guy feels that great injustice is being done to the Iraqis and Palestinians and he wants to express solidarity and encourage them to fight. This is fine, not an uncommon sentiment.

Now, the way he’s chosen to express it in the first passage is indeed weird: it’s like he’s running for Egyptian parliament seat on a nationalist platform or something. But perhaps this is a natural way for a politician to identify with his audience.

And I would disagree about the second quote being clearly ‘apologetics for terrorism’. As you know, there is no universally accepted definition of ‘terrorism’ yet. It’s clear that people living under foreign domination have a right to fight; whatever form this struggle takes is not too important. He is not being an apologist for terrorism any more than Reagan praising Afghan mujahedeen in the 1980s.

It sounds to me as though Galloway’s model may be Charles Sumner’s speech “The Crime Against Kansas” in the US Senate. Sumner, through his choice of metaphor, was understood as accusing Southerners of widespead rape of their female slaves. Guided by this precedent, it would seem wisest to treat Galloway an an embarrassing irritation rather than generate sympathy for him by following Preston Brooks’s example.

Dave, the Afghan mujahideen killed plenty of ‘their own’ people (whatever it means). Including the puppet Afghan president Mohammad Najibullah. Afghanistan had it’s own puppet government, police, army; all that, you know, just like Iraq. Only better: I suspect Marxism provided a better, more popular ideological basis for the Soviet invasion than ‘the war on terror’ and ‘WMD’ crap.

Now, you seem to indicate that you care more about lives of innocent civilians and less about their right to self-determination and freedom from foreign domination – that’s fine, it’s a defensible position – but then, again, why don’t you blame the US/UK for killing many more innocent civilians than the insurgents (and “insurgents” too), not to mention being responsible for the insurgency in the first place?

Same is true about Israeli wingnuts who not only managed to kill tens of thousands of innocent civilians over the years, but also to turn a bunch of most peaceful olive growers into raving militants. Same thing.

I don’t like people of any ideological stripe romanticizing insurgents or guerillas of any sort, in part because you rarely find insurgents who confine their attacks to military targets and more generally because it’s stupid to romanticize war even if it happens to be just. It’s really gotten tiresome the way leftwingers and rightwingers take turns making heroes of major human rights violators.

That said, dsquared, there are some reports (no links handy, but I’ve read them) that say that many in the homegrown Iraqi insurgency are disgusted by the attacks on civilians, which are supposedly carried out by the small groups of foreign jihadis. I doubt the distinction between the groups can be drawn in this clean a manner. For one thing, there’s a continuum involved–attacks on foreign troops, attacks on Iraqi government troops, attacks on police, attacks on unarmed police, executions of police prisoners, attacks on civilian “collaborators” and over at the extreme terrorist end, blowing up children. You cross the line into war crimes territory with attacks on unarmed people and the execution of prisoners and I’m sure the Iraqi insurgents are doing that and some are probably involved in killing Shiite civilians. But still, some say they oppose such things and there was even a report of fighting between the two groups a few weeks ago.

But anyway, Galloway might claim he’s only defending the legitimate aspects of the resistance. I still find that an offensive and also stupid way to oppose a war. A British politician shouldn’t cheer for the killing of British (or American) troops. Someone who is pro-peace ought to be able to figure this out.

Anybody know of that honest decent politician I was wishing for earlier, the kind that calls Bush/Blair and other Western leaders war criminals when they deserve it, without sinking into Galloway’s moral quagmire?

A British politician shouldn’t cheer for the killing of British (or American) troops. Someone who is pro-peace ought to be able to figure this out.

I don’t see him cheering for the killing of British or American troops. You seem to be arguing pretty much along the line of anti-war=treason.

Assuming that Galloway views the Iraq war as similar to, say, German invasion of Poland in 1939 – what would be an example of correct rhetoric for a decent German in, say, 1944 in respect to Polish resistance?

George Bush – “There are some who, uh, feel like that, you know, the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is: Bring ’em on. We got the force necessary to deal with the security situation.” – George W. Bush, July 2, 2003.

Bring ‘Em On – that looks like “wheeling out the metaphors and stirring up the crowd”. Is Daniel on the cusp of calling for jailtime for the President?

But when you start wheeling out the metaphors and stirring up the crowd, then you’ve crossed a line my friend . . .

Well it’s sort of nice to hear that someone still believes poetry can be dangerous and subversive . . .

You seem to be arguing pretty much along the line of anti-war=treason.

Under what possible meaning of the words involved can Galloway’s passionate criticism of arab states for not fighting (again) to avenge the ‘rape’ of jerusalem be described as anti-war?

soru

I fail to see the “untruth.” Its nice to see we have a working definition of liberalism now. Millian liberalism=the right to do whatever you want so long as it there is no chance it will change anything.

I should have added that one reason this was of concern was a widespread attempt to blur the distinction between regarding the coalitions occupation of Iraq as an injustice and support for suicide bombings in London (particularly if one is a Muslim or associated with Muslims).

Within this argument however there is a gathering kind of aparthied which concentrates not on the content of arguments but who is allowed to make them and where. So a Muslim bookshop in Leeds had books by John Pilger and Noam Chomsky convisgated on the basis that ‘they might stir people up’. This implies that whilst stirred up non-muslims are to be regreted stirred up muslims are something else entirely (and inevitably risks suicide bombings etc).

Invoking John Stuart Mill to defend arguments which a) suggest differential rights for different citizens on the basis of religous affiliation and which b) are associated with a dubious theory about why the bombings happened (lack of integration with British values) which does not stigmatise just those who carried out the bombings but all those seen not to be fully integrated into British values (cf rising attacks on women wearing Hijab’s etc) seems to me unsound.

This argument seems to be being extended to the whole middle east, the idea being that people there are incapable of serious reflection, and that whilst we may be anti-war the people suffering the consequences of that war cannot be allowed to hear the propaganda that we can hear.

I’m unsure how the Geneva conventions relate to resistance to occupation but I understand that the UN does give provision to armed resistance to occupation. In any case the US believes the Geneva convention is out of date. In the Arab world the occupation of Iraq and the inability of either ordinary people in the Middle East or the regimes that claim to represent them, to do anything at all about this injustice, (or even most of them even dare condemn it forthrightly despite the opinions of their population) is held to be of a piece with the fact that it is largely western powers involved in brokering possible resolutions of the Israeli-Palestine conflict (one of them actually) with regimes in the region, save one, having no say about what happens in there at all (compare for example, the widespread perception that allowing ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia and failing to act was a reflection of a European crisis, was a European responsibility etc).

The idea that it takes Galloway to point out something so obvious, which has in fact been central to popular perceptions for decades, is somewhat comical. And yes that injustice does motivate many people to be anti-war.

“”What a lot of posters here seem to not realize or purposely forget is that regardless of how much you sympathize with the Iraqi insurgency, it is illegal””

muppet!

resisting an illegal war of occupation is not illegal but a duty – you may not like there methods but then you ain’t fighting the most powerful army in the world…if the insurgents win, and the US lose – we all win in that US led imperialism will be massively undermined and there will be a ray of hope in the middle east

as Bush would say….

bring it on

Galloway most likely nods his head in smug approval of al zawhri’s recent tape threatening London with more of the same.

Indeed, Mr. al-Zawahri seems to be saying something quite similar:

“Our message is clear: you will not be safe until you withdraw from our land, stop stealing our oil and wealth and stop supporting the corrupt rulers”

If he is being sincere here, it’s nice to know that at least one side in this stupid conflict has a sound, rational and realistic objective. Maybe all is not lost after all.

a ray of hope in the middle east.

The role of hallucinogenic drugs in american fantasy-leftist politics has perhaps been underestimated.

soru

“And I would disagree about the second quote being clearly ‘apologetics for terrorism’. As you know, there is no universally accepted definition of ‘terrorism’ yet.”

This is a classic fallacy that many who buy into post-modernism (but don’t understand it because it isn’t actually a facet of post-modern textual analysis) fall into. The fact that there is a problem precisely defining a line doesn’t mean that aren’t things that are clearly on one side or the other of it. Galloway is clearly offering apologetics for terrorism even if some people think the dividing line between terrorist and non-terrorist acts is unclear in some instances.

If imams on the streets of London openly endorsing terrorism can’t be muzzled, how on earth can al qaidah be stopped from striking London?

By police work, one would hope. This is a non-argument.

On a more serious note, JohnG

I should have added that one reason this was of concern was a widespread attempt to blur the distinction between regarding the coalitions occupation of Iraq as an injustice and support for suicide bombings in London (particularly if one is a Muslim or associated with Muslims).

I quite agree and have rather vigorously insisted on the distinction. Although in this case it doesn’t make a difference; I would regard both “regarding the coalitions occupation of Iraq as an injustice” and “support for suicide bombings in London” as protected speech unless the second one crossed over the (admittedly blurred and subjective) line into incitement. Saying “London had it coming and well done the suicide bombers for giving Tony a wake-up call” would be IMO a nasty and stupid argument but not one that ought to get you put in jail (or even lose you your job at a newspaper if you had one). Someone upthread said “it’s sort of nice to hear that someone still believes poetry can be dangerous and subversive” and this is a fair representation of my views; how you say something matters more than what you say in determining whether something is incitement or not and if this means that the law becomes grey and subjective then tough luck.

Invoking John Stuart Mill to defend arguments which a) suggest differential rights for different citizens on the basis of religous affiliation and which b) are associated with a dubious theory about why the bombings happened (lack of integration with British values) which does not stigmatise just those who carried out the bombings but all those seen not to be fully integrated into British values (cf rising attacks on women wearing Hijab’s etc) seems to me unsound.

I don’t hold any of these views and think I’ve said enough about a) the Iraq War b) racial profiling of Muslims, c) multiculturalism and d) free speech to deserve the benefit of the doubt.

This argument seems to be being extended to the whole middle east, the idea being that people there are incapable of serious reflection, and that whilst we may be anti-war the people suffering the consequences of that war cannot be allowed to hear the propaganda that we can hear.

On the other hand, I do believe something very like the following paragraph. A large proportion of the population of that region are more or less incapable of serious reflection, in much the same way in which the population of Germany in the 1930s was inaccessible to reason and largely for the same sociological and mass-psychological reasons. If I was an Arab Muslim, looking out at a nation and religion that had been torn apart by decades of war and economic disaster, I daresay I would be absolutely livid and it would be a bad idea for anyone to incite me.

The idea that it takes Galloway to point out something so obvious

No. The bits of the speech where Galloway is “pointing out something obvious” are OK. But saying “your beautiful daughters are being raped by foreigners and your rulers will do nothing about it”, is not pointing anything out. It’s rabble-rousing pure and simple, it’s silly and dangerous and he should stop it. I am still unsure whether state violence could legitimately be used to stop him, but this is definitely the territory we are in.

I think that Jet is porobably right, and that the attempts of “resistance” to overthrow an elected soverign government may be seen as illegal–at least on some readings of international law. Perhaps that’s why Galloway won’t go back to Iraq: for fear of arrest, for acting as a propaganda mouthpiece for former regime elements.

Abb1, I don’t think the German behavior in 1944 is quite the same as the American invasion of Iraq. The American invasion of Iraq was a major war crime, IMO, and so are many of our actions there since, but comparisons to Nazi Germany in this case are over the top. It’s not that I care about Godwin’s law either–I’m happy to compare some specific actions of Americans to Nazi war crimes and my biggest problem with Nazi comparisons is that it shows a deplorable lack of American pride to constantly use German analogies when we’ve got plenty of crimes against humanity in our own past we can invoke. Stop outsourcing your war crimes analogies.

Anyway, the majority of American and British soldiers aren’t committing war crimes and so I think it’s a little sickening for an American or British politician to cheer for their deaths. Galloway should be making speeches calling for withdrawal. If someone really oppose wars and jingoism and so forth, then he or she shouldn’t go around romanticizing warfare.

Though I don’t really think it’s appropriate to single out Galloway for special abuse. Politicians are always making speeches in support of some massive human rights violation–it’s a little unusual seeing one pander to the jingoistic instincts of the other side, but pandering of this sort is otherwise pretty routine.

resisting an illegal war of occupation is not illegal but a duty – you may not like there methods but then you ain’t fighting the most powerful army in the world…if the insurgents win, and the US lose – we all win in that US led imperialism will be massively undermined and there will be a ray of hope in the middle east

Its depressing to read all the people here supporting fighters in Iraq as resistance. They are a minority who tried to boycott elections because they would surely have lost. Instead they have sought to kill police, journalists, trade unionists Shia etc.

Destabilising the country is just making the US and UK stay longer. It’s bleeding obvious that they would love to get their troops out. Would it really be a ray of light if a violent minority took over the country? Wouldn’t it be better if they did have a democracy? Wouldn’t that be nice for them despite it being a triumph for the evil imperialist US? Shouldn’t a resistance movement actually have to represent the majority of their own countrymen rather than just be the armed wing of the academic left?

It’s the famous terrorist/freedom fighter conundrum

Why is that a conundrum? ‘Freedom fighters’ are an adolescent version of the tooth fairy, a fantasy noone over the age of 18 has any business in believing in.

Even (most of) the Republicans have grown out of it, isn’t it about time you did?

soru

Essentially labeling an entire area’s population as irrational animals incapable of making serious decisions that deserve to be recognized as such (whether you like those decision or not) is just about the textbook definition of racism as far as I’m concerned.

Essentially labeling an entire area’s population as irrational animals incapable of making serious decisions that deserve to be recognized as such (whether you agree with them or not) is just about the textbook definition of racism as far as I’m concerned. I apologize for the strong language if I’ve misinterpreted

Dsquared,

Have to admit I have not read your stuff before. But I did have serious objections to what you actually said, not to the spirit in which you said it (which may be well-intentioned, not malign etc).

I know quite a lot of people from the Middle East and quite a lot of them would be very insulted by the idea that they are ‘incapable of serious reflection’, whatever the reasons you give for holding that view, or, importantly that the hostility which does exist to, for example, Israel or the US, is not a hostility which is in some sense historically grounded as opposed to being the result of simply propaganda (a view which fails to accord sufficiant respect for the rationality of your fellow human beings).

I think what is also deeply disturbing is an implicit (again not neccessarily malign: I agree with Dummets remarks in his moving two prefaces to his book on Frege and the Philosophy of Language, that Europe is almost completely deranged when it comes to the subject of race, and that this is something which inevitably effects those who live in such societies) assumption that ‘anger’ in the middle east must lead to ‘terrorism’.

In other words that responsible people must prevent these people, who are deranged by their suffering being angry as otherwise they will commit appalling acts of violence (not being capable of anything else, of thinking, of protesting, of reacting in any other way: rather like a starving animal in a zoo its best not to poke it). Its possible a) that anger is entirely justified and that it would be immoral to ask people to be less angry (if we treat them as having the same rationality as ourselves and the same expectations) and b) that it is simply peculiar to think that the only expression such anger can take is violence and therefore c) any talk (entirely accurate and legitimate as far as I can see) about the failure of Arab regimes to combat injustice commited by occupiers and invaders is ‘incitement to violence’. It might be incitement to regime change.

I think there are all kinds of nested assumptions here about the middle east, muslims, history etc which are at best somewhat naive and at worst gell (as I said perhaps entirely unwittingly and not nefariously) with the politics of regime change by great powers abroad and censorship and victimisation of minorities at home. I think people had deluded themselves that racism and bigotry were no longer central problems in British society. I would refer you to those two prefaces by Dummet. The ice is breaking up. Things are much, much worse then even the pessimists amongst us imagined. In such situations it behoves Liberals to be very, very careful about the kind of language they use.

The madmen and caged zoo animals are at home.

Right on JohnG.

“it’s just that Mr. Galloway and others see exactly the opposite there of what you do.”

The fact that Galloway chooses not to recognize terrorism and in fact chooses to justify it, does nothing to prove that ‘terrorism’ is not a useful term. It merely proves that Galloway chooses to obscure it.

To use a recent example from elsewhere on this site, just because some Kansas school board wants to use the term “science” to describe an “Intentional Design” argument does not make ID part of scientific thought, NOR does it call into question the usefulness of the term “science”.

(I cite as evidence for my thesis above the fact that I have *never*, ever, seen a debate about Middle Eastern politics which did not degenerate into an incredibly nasty flamewar).

Methods used in the struggle do not tell us much about its essence.

Isn’t ‘the ends always justify the means’ the more usual phrasing of that point?

soru

“Methods used in the struggle do not tell us much about its essence.”

Really? What was your thought on the US using torture again?

I need some clarification: Is it your position that violent movements which enjoy significant popular support are inevitably the result of stress induced “breaks” or is the break phenomenon particular to movements that maybe you think take on a fundamentalist, messianic etc. character; i.e. are you particularly comparing movements in the Middle East today to the Nazi dynamic in post WWI Germany. Can the October Revolution (which, as established in Rabinowitch’s new book, was driven at least initially by large scale popular support for the Bolshevik program) be explained as a “break” in war torn, economically depressed Russia. The ‘Ra in Ireland (in the teens if you prefer), Sendero in Peru, the PLA in Nepal today? How about the ’48 uprisings and the Paris Commune? Are all these the result of emotional, irrational fits–of people’s inability to seriously and deliberately consider the facts and the consequences of their actions-or is there something peculiar about the Middle East.

and “movements in the middle east today” to the appeal of/support for violent movements in the middle east today to the appeal of/support for Nazism in post WWI-Germany

On the point about flame wars. Its true. But I do not think this has anything to do with the fact that people who get engaged in such debates are more ‘irrational’ then the next person (at least in the sense I think meant by dsquared). I think it has to do with precisely the kind of attitudes (unwittingly I do believe) displayed by dsquared, which imply that grievances of people in the middle east are rooted in ‘rhetoric’, love of poetic phrases etc, how can I put this strongly enough, the completely unwitting double standards of the whole discussion. One side is simply silenced and never allowed to speak for itself (think of the incredible, almost mind blowing implication of the idea that one has to keep ‘calm’ when speaking to Arabs and the way in which dsquared clearly, genuinely, and in completely good faith, cannot understand how this would drive anybody on the other side of the debate much more demented then any self consiously inflamatory rhetoric).

Interestingly in the flame wars, its only one side that accuses the other of irrationality (this is why talk of the conflict as irrational is deeply disengenuous).

Let me cash out my claims about the madmen at home. Apparently it is utterly implausible that anyone could justify planting bombs on trains and buses killing innocent people on the basis of their anger about the Iraq war and the wider pattern they see in it. It is however perfectly sensible to believe that a contributing factor to people commiting such an atrocious crime is that people go to faith schools, or that their parents do not speak English.

A society which can believe these two things at once is, by any normal definition, utterly insane. Now imagine what it is like, today, to be a Muslim, and live in a society so deranged, where such deep irrationality is, increasingly, having a real impact on your life. Might such irrationality breed irrationality?

My point is this: Your position seems to be that we have a situation as follows: There are violent movements/people in the ME. There is also a population that is largely irrational and incapable (at this moment if you’d like) of making informed decisions. Rhetoric and speech is dangerous now because it may lead those childlike, irrational people to support movements and actions that, if they were only thinking correctly, they wouldn’t support. Under normal circumstances I’d consider that position to be based on racist assumptions about Muslims, Turks, Arabs whoever. But if your position is that whenever people anywhere support violent movements it’s because they’ve fallen victim to this break I’d retract that and just say I disagree with you. I don’t agree with your analogy with Germany, or your explanation of Nazism and–if you’re not willing to make the phenomenon you’re discussing universal (without a better explanation of why) I’d tend to say it’s an alarmist throwaway; a sort of somebody’s-discussing-the-Nazis-better-just-nod-my-head-and-agree-mental-stop-sign acting as cover, again, for questionable assumptions.

Cheap shot, soru. John G made a very obvious point–we’re not supposed to think that terrorism is motivated in any way by Western violence and injustice. Rather, we’re supposed to think it’s entirely the fault of their own culture. Rational people would probably take both into account.

I think it’s fair to say that there’s an enormous amount of irrationality on both sides and that this is, as dsquared says in connection with the Mideast, a feature of human nature under stressful circumstances. In the West people react viscerally to any suggestion that Western policies might help cause terrorism, or worse, that some Western policies are a form of terrorism. If they admit that anything we do is wrong, it’s just some aberration, not part of a larger pattern that repeats itself over and over again.

As for what the “decent” prowar left thinks, who cares?

And Stephen: I believe Noel has chosen to paraphrase a rather famous Trotskyism:

“The coercive imperialistic capitalism of advanced nations is able to exist only because backward nations, oppressed nationalities, colonial and semicolonial countries, remain on our planet. The struggle of the oppressed peoples for national unification and national independence is doubly progressive because, on the one side, this prepares more favorable conditions for their own development, while, on the other side, this deals blows to imperialism. That, in particular, is the reason why, in the struggle between a civilized, imperialist, democratic republic and a backward, barbaric monarchy in a colonial country, the socialists are completely on the side of the oppressed country notwithstanding its monarchy and against the oppressor country notwithstanding its ‘democracy.'”

Islamist terrorists (as I imagine you consider them) are now an “armed wing of the academic left”? Thanks for letting us know.

I’m not endorsing that position by the way.

jon
And of course neither am I. The point is clearly that they shouldn’t be viewed that way! I think you know that. Do you have any objections to the points I actually made?

Insanity born of hubris in powerful societies has caused historically far greater atrocities than the ‘insanity’ of weak and exploited societies.

The continued excision from the debate of the politically powerless is central to the reason that we have reached this point. The Iraq debacle is a function of a Western ‘conversation’ moving inevitably to a war crime. More particularly a majority of Americans – and belatedly Brits – insanely agreed to this war crime. So who should exclude us from the conversation?

That excision of the powerless precisely issues from Western preconceptions of their irrationality, their lack of intelligence – cultural and intellectual – and their bad motives. I see this as a recipe for continuing the same unrolling disaster that exists in practically all areas of US and British foreign policy.

If anything, Galloway I think gives Muslims the sense that there is someone or group in the West listening to them, not the sense that they have a sort of permission to go blow up another London bus.

It is Blair whose actions and his subsequent patronising words on Muslim society who, along with Bush, has caused this. Galloway’s words may be over the top, but for the screamers to point to him but remain silent on Blair’s and their own inflammatory rhetoric (Harry’s Place types) is truly so brain dead that perhaps THEY should be frozen out of the argument. Would that be alright?

Or would it be aright for DSquared to be frozen out for his insane suggestion? Who else can we freeze out because they don’t meet our ‘sanity’ test?

And to think you used to take the piss out of me for liking Diane Abbott.

Oh, and I had a phase when I thought Anne Widdecombe wasn’t as bad as everyone made out, didn’t I?

we’re not supposed to think that terrorism is motivated in any way by Western violence and injustice. Rather, we’re supposed to think it’s entirely the fault of their own culture

I think that counts as such an extreme straw man postion that not even Bush could be plausibly said to believe it.

In the West people react viscerally to any suggestion that Western policies might help cause terrorism, or worse, that some Western policies are a form of terrorism

What west are you talking about? In the one I live in, that is absolutely the mainstream view (~70% at the polls). It only occasionally provokes a reaction when it is stretched too far beyond the grounds of plausibility or taste.

soru

I would also add that, if you believe that more than a “wing-nut minority” support “Islamo facism,” the ideals and goals of the leaders of violent resistance movements and the ideals and goals of the rank and file members of resistance movements don’t necessarily match up. For example, the IRA found out over and over again that its members(particularly from Belfast in the case of the PIRA) were more interested in protecting their homes and civil rights than achieving the vaunted 32-county socialist republic. Similarly, simply because a young ME joins up with an Islamic organization does not mean he fully endorses its goals. He may simply be joining the only team in town that has any legitimacy; i.e. that has a structural history of opposing Western imperialism and has the money and organizational capacity necessary to finance and conduct a resistance movement. (I’m referring much more to Hamas and Hizballah in case you woudl consider them to be of a kind w/ the big AQ). I would chock up much of the support for AQ and its ilk to a decision in favor of violent resistance rather than a decision in favor of reestablishing the caliphate.

The fact that some persons in the ME are acting irrationally might justify your position Soru-I might disagree with your position but whatever. What it does not justify, in any way is the claim that:

A large proportion of the population of that region are more or less incapable of serious reflection.

well, as a supporter of the practicality of democracy in Iraq, I’d hardly agree with that.

soru

As a supporter of the practicality of democracy in Iraq, I’d hardly agree with that…

Not quite sure what you’re getting at. I’d say that the position that people in the ME turn into a bunch of incompetents in the face of serious crises is more inconsistent with “being a supporter of the practicality of democracy in Iraq” than anything I’ve said

How about “a large proportion of the population of that region more or less do not engage in serious reflection”?

How much time do you actually spend among the population? Do you speak their language? Have you done some kind of study? Can you post your data?

Or are you just blowing wind?

It’s in the uk, e.g. http://pollingreport.co.uk/blog/index.php?p=426

I guess I have some sympathy for those people so surrounded by loony rightwingers that they can’t do anything other than react against whatever inanity passes for Republican doctrine is this week.

But in the long run, I don’t think anyone is served by letting them dictate the terms of the debate that way.

soru

Ah Soru, but I am different from the others!

However that there is a pattern of talking about Arab irrationality as an explanation of their political views which contrasts sharply with the kinds of factors brought out in discussions of the views of Israeli commentators (even when they are disagreed with) seems to me self-evident.

But I’m also interested even in Jon’s worries about George Galloway’s concessions to Arab Nationalist politics. One odd thing about this is that I do not recall similar concerns about, say, Pan-Africanism etc, when this was all the rage (despite the fact that I think they are symmetrical phenomenan, with the same roots, and equally associated with a host of unlovely regimes).

Is it your position that whenever such a crisis situation presents itself the affected population is rendered essentially incompetent or childlike (your stress induced break) such that they can be lead astray, so to speak, by extremists

No but it sometimes happens. Not everyone who is bitten by a tsetse fly gets ill, but that’s how sleeping sickness spreads.

What is your justification for assuming that they will act irrationally where other populations before them, facing similar situations, acted rationally?

It’s my subjective assessment of those bits of contemporary culture in the Islamic (not just the Arabic) world that I pick up (which might obviously be a biased sample, but it’s the only sample I have). In terms of believing things which are wildly at variance with the evidence, the Muslim world is way out in front of the Russians, Irish, etc. I don’t believe that there is any causal chain from conspiracy theories to fascism, but susceptibility to conspiracy theory is, IMO, prima facie evidence of a certain mental state which is receptive to fascism. This mental state exists all over the world (I for one would be very scared if a credible fascist movement ever got going among American blacks) but there’s a tipping point kind of effect; at some point, the paranoid style (I think that what I’m talking about is quite probably something similar to what Hofstadter was talking about) takes over. You can see this in the McCarthy era in the USA, where fascism happened to take a nonviolent form, but the psychological content of the state of that time was the same sort of thing you can see in the Middle East right now.

You can rest assured that when I write something at length about the Middle East that will be the focus but at present I am in the position of someone who really wants to find out how the petrol got spilt but whose current priority was to stop some fucking idiot lighting a cigarette.

By the way, the UK is clearly *not* a broken country in the relevant sense, there is no great community of British Muslims who are open to any passing fascist (or at least, no larger than the ordinary community of twisted individuals who exist at all times in all places who are twisted for reasons unrelated to the world) so over here we can afford to set the bar a lot higher and Mr Blair’s current proposed toytown authoritarianism is a god-damned disgrace. (I’ve written more about this in comments here)

From Galloway’s rhetoric to fascism, wtf? Just admit that you’re wrong in this case, dsquared, that’s all. Happens from time to time to everyone, even you.

Cheers.

Sorry Jon, I am just puzzled by the animus about Arab Nationalism. Not the actual unlovely regimes you understand but the very idea. Not on your part but more generally. Pan-Arab Nationalism is seen is particularly threatening by many people. I have to admit not being one of those people who find Galloways remarks offensive (actually I think its about time someone gave a little real solidarity to those on the recieving end of our violence). My point is that Pan-Africanism is not, and never has been talked about, in the same way that Pan-Arab Nationalism is. And I suspect this is because Pan-Africanism never threatened western interests.

This subject of rationality still fascinates me. The idea that there is a fight between rationality and irrationality for instance. In this case which position represents ‘rationality’ (inside the Middle East itself, unless of course they’re all completely deranged). The other idea linked to this raises tough questions about what is called ‘terrorism’. On the ‘irrationality’ analyses there is an equivilance between the ‘irrationality’ of the man who just murdered a number of people on a bus influenced by the ka’hanist ideology, and the irrationality of a man who blows up a bus influenced by the ideology of Hamas. Its a two tribes kind of thing with, thankfully, there being less irrationality on one side then the other.

I don’t buy this really. The guy who shoots people in a bus already has a state of which he has full citizenship and if he chose to could live a life with all the benifits anyone living in a capitalist democracy can expect. The guy carrying out a suicide bombing has no state and suffers resulting diminishment of life whatever choices he makes. There is no equivilance in terms of irrationality here.

Speaking of ‘irrationality’ is always and everywhere a way of removing reasons from the scene.

Well, to be fair, some forms of speech certainly are so despicable and dangerous that there’s is a good reason for them to be banned; things like standard blood libel, for example, or direct advocacy for vigilante violence, lynching, things like that. So, the question is not really ‘to silence or not to silence’, but ‘where’s the sensible threshold’.

Well, to be fair, some forms of speech certainly are so despicable and dangerous that there’s is a good reason for them to be banned; things like standard blood libel, for example, or direct advocacy for vigilante violence, lynching, things like that.

What about direct advocacy for a war based on deliberately misleading (if not deliberately mendacious) claims about the threat posed by WMDs? I’m worried about your use of “certainly” and “despicable” and about what tests you’d apply to determine who should be silenced and who should be allowed to speak. If you look at the blood libel, it was peddled by Christians who were certain that they were right and that their “despicable” opponents should be silenced. If Jews had tried to defend themselves and argue against the libel or against Christianity in general, they would have been prevented. IOW, the problem was power and too little speech, not too much. The problem with the Iraq war was calculated censorship of intelligence by the powerful, not Galloway’s grandstanding, and that censorship is no doubt continuing.

“A large proportion of the population of that region are more or less incapable of serious reflection …”

Well, dsquared, a large proportion of the population of *all* regions are more or less incapable of serious reflection – the last election result clearly showed that that applies in spades to the US. So clearly let’s just stop anyone anywhere stirring up the great unwashed shall we? Or is that not quite what you had in mind?

Look, Galloway is an irresponsible powerseeker who I hope is never part of any government anywhere. But he pales against some irresponsible powerseekers who *are* in government in places that matter, and who are literally war criminals. And as it happens he has in fact pointed this latter out to some of those incapable of serious reflection. Why then don’t you direct your fire onto the more dangerous enemy?