[lbo-talk] new blog post: A Coda on Solidarity: Iran, the Left and Noble Savages | The Activist

[Bhaskar Sunkara]

Joe has thrown a disgraceful red-herring in the mix, which I don't
particularly mind, but it's telling that for some people the
Palestinian question trumps all others in the region.  "The enemies of
Zionism" deserve defense, above all other considerations.  Implicit
here is that the struggles of the Iranian people shouldn't be
supported, lest their pursuit of human dignity indirectly benefit the
apartheid state.  For the record, though it's hardly relevant, the
Islamic Republic is no friend of the Palestinian people and there are
only a few shades separating the DSA position (which I don't endorse,
but don't find quite so reprehensible) and Fatah's.  Not that this
issue bares any relevance to the question of the ANSWER coalition's
support for the Iranian regime, which should lead to serious political
questions on the broader left, ie--how to have a protest movement that
doesn't rely on the organizational leadership of people with shit
politics (UFPJ? a new formation?).  And your last solipsism genuinely
confuses me. I've never associated myself with any group that's
defined themselves as "revolutionary," much less stridently and
"anti-imperialism" has been pretty well sullied as a label.

On Mon, Jun 14, 2010 at 7:16 PM, Joseph Catron <jncatron at gmail.com> wrote:


> Nothing personal, Bhaskar, but when a political organization's line on
> Zionism is a confused mess of apologetic nonsense like that, I don't know
> how inclined most of us will be to sit up and pay careful attention when a
> member/officer of that organization seems to have a great deal to say about
> the enemies of Zionism.
>
> "It doesn’t take a tremendous appreciation of the dialectic to grasp this
> contradiction: some of the groups with the most stridently 'revolutionary'
> and 'anti-imperialist' politics are, in practice, reactionary and
> orientalist."
>
> Indeed, and how.