[lbo-talk] David Graeber on the Kurdish struggle

[Marv Gandall]

I can well forgive Graeber for not commenting on Kobani or the Kurdish national movement before the battle and the movement were abruptly thrust to the forefront of news coverage around the world. I applauded his timely intervention, not least because he is one of a very few prominent left-wing figures who have felt the urgent need to speak out. His article was aimed primarily at broad liberal opinion through the medium of the Guardian. Whatever reference there was to the radical left was more in the nature of a call to arms rather than a “shrieking denunciation” - not literally, of course, but to urgently write and, where the opportunity presents itself, to demonstrate to avert an impending catastrophe.

I thought Graeber’s parallel to Spain in the 30’s was very apt. The only difference (only!!!) was that Spain brought out hundreds of thousands in major Western cities to demonstrate against their governments’ arms boycott of the republic and spurious non-intervention policy. They were motivated by their own trade union and anti-fascist struggles and were ably organized by Communist and Socialist parties with mass followings. How times have changed. Not only is there no longer an organized left of any consequence able to act in solidarity with movements led by its compatriots abroad, the very fact of doing so is being called into question on the evidence of this thread. 

Pathetic, as Michael Yates notes.

On Oct 9, 2014, at 5:01 PM, JOANNA A. <123hop at comcast.net> wrote:


> ISIS was around two years ago? 
> 
> Joanna 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> On Thu, Oct 9, 2014 at 8:27 PM, JOANNA A. <123hop at comcast.net> wrote: 
> 
> Is it bad faith for intellectuals to write about historical events without 
>> taking up a gun? 
> 
> 
> No, but they might avoid shrieking denunciations of everyone else for not 
> doing things they were perfectly capable of doing themselves. 
> 
> "How can something like this happen and still be almost entirely ignored by 
> the international community, even, largely, by the International left?" 
> Graeber pontificates. "Is the world – and this time most scandalously of 
> all, the international left – really going to be complicit in letting 
> history repeat itself?" 
> 
> If Graber had wanted to write about this a month or two years ago, would he 
> not have had as ready a platform and as broad an audience as any of us, or 
> most others who can be called part of "the international left"? Or does he 
> have some sterling record of Kurdish solidarity work of which I'm unaware? 
> 
> -- 
> "Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen 
> lytlað." 
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