FW: The anti-imperialism of fools

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Tue Jun 18 12:14:34 PDT 2002


At 01:57 PM 6/18/2002 -0400, Doug wrote:
>Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
>
>>Is not the "struggle for Palestinian liberation" (which includes, inter
>>alia, blowing up school buses) overwhelmingly supported by the members of
>>this list?
>
>For a social scientist, you assume a lot of things without any evidence. I
>support the "struggle for Palestainian liberation," but I think blowing up
>school buses is repulsive. As is bulldozing houses, of course.

Unfortunately, the folks who do the struggle also blow up the buses or support those who blow them - so I have a real problem separating the two. What is more, I cannot in clear conscience support nationalism or religious ideology in any form. I think we are pretty much in agreement on this principle, so I wonder how come you do not support a nationalist movement that bulldozes houses and grabs land in the name of religious ideology, but do support a movement that blows buses and demands land in the name of ethnic identity/religious ideology. I support neither.

Another point - I think that much of the support for the "Palestinian cause" in this country is a knee-jerk reaction to support the perceived "underdog" against the perceived "evil empire" without real understanding of the situation. We had the same phenomenon with the Dalai Lama and China - in both cases the notion of evil empire coincides with popular prejudices (anticommunism, antisemitism, anti-government sentiments).

wojtek



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