INTRODUCTION
"Let us assume that rebellion breaks out tomorrow in the French colony of Algeria under the banner of national independence and that the Italian government, motivated by its own imperialist interests, prepares to send weapons to the rebels. What should the attitude of the Italian workers be in this case? I have purposely taken an example of rebellion against a democratic imperialism with intervention on the side of the rebels from a fascist imperialism. Should the Italian workers prevent the shipping of arms to the Algerians? Let any ultra-leftists dare answer this question in the affirmative. Every revolutionist, together with the Italian workers and the rebellious Algerians, would spurn such an answer with indignation. Even if a general maritime strike broke out in fascist Italy at the same time, even in this case the strikers should make an exception in favor of those ships carrying aid to the colonial slaves in revolt; otherwise they would be no more than wretched trade unionists – not proletarian revolutionists."
~Leon Trotsky, Learn to Think
"In Brazil there now reigns a semifascist regime that every revolutionary can only view with hatred. Let us assume, however, that on the morrow England enters into a military conflict with Brazil. I ask you on whose side of the conflict will the working class be? I will answer for myself personally—in this case I will be on the side of “fascist” Brazil against “democratic” Great Britain. Why? Because in the conflict between them it will not be a question of democracy or fascism. If England should be victorious, she will put another fascist in Rio de Janeiro and will place double chains on Brazil. If Brazil on the contrary should be victorious, it will give a mighty impulse to national and democratic consciousness of the country and will lead to the overthrow of the Vargas dictatorship. The defeat of England will at the same time deliver a blow to British imperialism and will give an impulse to the revolutionary movement of the British proletariat. Truly, one must have an empty head to reduce world antagonisms and military conflicts to the struggle between fascism and democracy. Under all masks one must know how to distinguish exploiters, slave-owners, and robbers!"
~Leon Trotsky, Anti-Imperialist Struggle is Key to Liberation
(I have been criticized below, among other things, for my use of Trotsky quotes. Consider this my reply.)
The racist campaign against Arabs and Muslims has wrought much brutality and violence on the oppressed, but one of its most overlooked, yet most insidious and pervasive consequences, is that it has instilled an axiom in the minds of many in the imperialist countries: that as brutal and oppressive as imperialism as, as reactionary as its puppet regimes may be, Islam - or, at the very least, certain variants of it - is particularly reactionary, particularly oppressive towards women, particularly dangerous - and thus, when it comes to Islam, we must suspend our lofty ideals and fight it by different means.
When it comes to Marxist groups, this poses a particular problem: Marxism has a long and proud tradition of opposing imperialist war waged in the name of democracy and progress. How can one claim to be a Marxist and at the same time, support or equivocate on the question of opposing imperialist aggression undertaken under the pretense of fighting oppressive Islamic terrorism? Of course, by gutting Marxism completely and replacing its understandings of imperialism and the struggle against it with liberal platitudes.
There are countless examples of this method; today we will be discussing one given by a member of the League for the Revolutionary Party (LRP), a centrist group in the USA claiming to represent the authentic tradition of Leninism and Trotskyism, a claim that will soon be seen in its full comedic light.
Since the member did not make his comments public, I will not identify him by name, but refer to him simply as J. J has made various assertions about both my character and that of my former organization, the ISL, and my comrade Yossi Schwartz. I realize that my unwillingness to identify J is to my detriment, seeing as I will lack his ability to substitute personal attacks for political criticism, as well as his willingness to resort to lies and slander. Still, I believe I will come out on top. Such is the sorry state of centrism in our times that even with such advantages, it is incapable of conducting itself respectfully in debate, let alone successfully.
I do not intend to let slander go unanswered; but I will endeavor to address politics first and the personal later. Such are my preferences, and to each his own, I suppose. I will note, however, that J's slander against comrade Schwartz has already been answered elsewhere.
THE GRYNSZPAN ANALOGY
In my original post on Charile Hebdo, I made the comparison between the men who committed the attack and Jewish youth Herschel Grynszpan, who assassinated a Nazi diplomat in retaliation for the Nazi government's deportation of his family. This comparison, comrade J informs us, "is not only mistaken, but actually quite offensive":
"...Herschel Grynszpan was a lone individual while the terrorists who launched their attacks in Paris were trained members of reactionary jihadist groups... Grynszpan had no aim other than to strike a blow against oppression when he assassinated that Nazi official. Very much *unlike* Grynszpan, the terrorists who attacked in France did so with the aim of advancing a movement that is entirely devoted to oppressing people."
As readers may recall, I had anticipated this sophistry:
"As usual with analogies, it is easy to find differences and use them to discredit the analogy altogether. The first will probably be that while Grynszpan was a Jewish youth who wanted vengeance against those who forced his family into a miserable life as stateless refugees in Poland, the men who carried out the attack on Charlie Hebdo were terrorists. This distinction without a difference is again steeped in racism, as if there is any doubt that those who join Islamist groups are generally motivated by a desire to strike back against imperialist criminals in some way, without having a revolutionary organization that would appeal to them. The fact that so many French Muslims find themselves forced into the arms of a group like Al-Qaeda (which is the group that the attackers apparently associated with, not ISIS) is a crushing indictment of the French left, which has either equivocated or fully supported French imperialism's aggression, most recently in Mali and the Central African Republic."
It is truly sad how easy it is to anticipate the centrist response to events and to revolutionary criticism. Centrist political degeneration inevitably leads to a degeneration of thought as well, and this is expressed most clearly in J's comments here:
"...it is worth remembering that fascism takes people’s anger at the injustices of capitalism and misdirects it toward attacks on Jews as the supposed embodiment of finance capital. That’s why fascists, like Nazis for instance, consider themselves anti-capitalist “national socialists.” In the late 1920s and early 1930s, the experience of plummeting standards of living drove much of the German middle-class and sections of the working class to fascism. Genuine communists sympathized with the experience of rising poverty and hopelessness that was driving people toward fascism and sought to convince them that the alternative was socialism’s promise of freedom and justice for all. But genuine communists certainly did not hesitate to criticize those who embraced fascism. As Trotsky pointedly advised: “If you cannot convince a Fascist, acquaint his head with the pavement."
J has already managed to equate the attackers with the Nazis; Netanyahu would be proud. To sound progressive, he also compares their goals to those of Zionism:
"...the jihadists’ aimed with their attacks to provoke an anti-Muslim and racist backlash by the French state. It is in their interests to make life an even more intolerable hell for Muslims, Arabs and Africans in France. In particular, they need more volunteers to join them in Iraq and Syria and that is helped by conditions that make life intolerable for Muslims in France and all of Europe. Overall, they want to force upon the masses a choice of either them or the French state and thereby sabotage any possibility of working-class unity... [it is] absolutely right to compare the jihadists’ aims with their Paris attacks with the Zionists’ welcoming of fascist oppression as aiding their colonial project in Palestine."
What despicable comments, borne out of a complete lack of class perspective, concrete political analysis or historical understanding. Of course, comrade J pays lip service to working-class unity between oppressed Muslim workers and French workers - reminiscent of other ostensibly-Trotskyist groups, who blame Palestinian terrorism for disrupting Arab-Jewish unity - but he is compeltely incapable of putting his analysis of fascism in class terms or to retain any of the revolutionary analysis of fascism.
J believes that "the magnificent history and reputation of selfless Jewish resistance to oppression should be defended against the defamation of comparison to jihadists". Should J desire to attack those who would compare a Jewish youth driven by the oppression he faced and Muslim youth who were driven by similar oppression - the only comparison I made, it should be noted - I suggest he look for a job in the Israeli foreign ministry. I hear they're looking for progressive-sounding people.
THE CLASS NATURE OF ISLAMISM
In his comments comparing Islamism and fascism, J mentions the working-class and middle-class, but he does not explain how any of these or other classes relate to fascism. Indeed, he can't, because he knows that if he tries, his analysis would fall apart in a matter of seconds.
It is common for liberals to explain the rise of fascism in Europe along these lines: worsening economic conditions drove "people" into the arms of the fascists, who misdirected their anger into attacks on Jews, leftists, homosexuals and other groups deemed alien and dangerous. It's human nature, you see, to blame those who are different for your troubles; the solution is better education.
This position is very similar to the perspective put forward by J, but completely alien to Marxism and its analysis of fascism. Trotsky recognized that fascism is not simply a very reactionary movement appealing to "people", but a mass movement of the petty-bourgeoisie, which uses the basic class antagonism between its social basis and the working class to inspire the former to attack the latter, thus atomizing the labor movement and saving capitalism from revolution. Of course, once in power, fascism has no choice but to serve the capitalist class, and gradually degenerates into a "standard" bourgeois dictatorship, alienating its social basis, and making fascism an effective but also a dangerous and untenable solution for the capitalists. For this reason, fascism presupposes not only a capitalist class threatened by a workers' revolution, but also the active support of the ruling class.
That this in no way describes groups like al-Qaeda or ISIS is of no interest to J. What he cares about is not the class nature of movements, but their intentions. He writes on and on about the reactionary social vision of the radical Islamists, as if it is not obvious to everyone involved.
Yes, al-Qaeda and ISIS are reactionary movements. As pro-capitalist movements, they could not be otherwise. Revolutionaries realize that such movements, even if in conflict with a certain faction of world imperialism, can easily collaborate with other imperialists or, as we have seen in the case of the PLO, come to an accommodation with those whom they previously resisted. This does not change the fact that these movements ultimately rest on a social basis of people who want to fight against their oppression, who have not found an answer in the left - small wonder, considering what this left is like - and were driven into the arms of leaders hostile to their interests. The form is similar; however, the content is quite different from the imperialist reaction of 1930s fascism, as well as from Zionist colonialism, which always openly sought collaboration with imperialism. Such a distinction is a book sealed with seven seals to our centrists, as are the distinctions between program and class interests, between oppressor and oppressed:
"The terrorists’ attacked Charlie Hebdo for very different reasons than our reasons for supporting protest against them. As I’ve said, the jihadists were indeed outraged by the oppressiveness of the French state and the imperialists’ crimes in the Middle East, but they did not seek to target imperialism. In the attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices, the terrorists executed the editor and cartoonists (as well as regular workers) for blasphemy – not racism and anti-Muslim bigotry. They did so just as their fellow al Qaeda members executed Palestinians in Yarmouk camp in Syria for blasphemy... just the same as they bomb Shiite religious processions in Iraq for apostacy; just the same as they slaughter Kurds in Iraq and Syria."
This is astounding. The jihadists executed people for blasphemy, and thus, did not seek to target imperialism. Perhaps J also thinks that Palestinians who attack Israeli Jews for their occupation of Muslim land - actions which, by the way, it would be much more justified to condemn - are not doing so due to opposition to Zionism. What nonsense. As for the comparison between CH journalists and oppressed Palestinians and Shiites in Syria and Iraq, if J cannot tell the difference, then really, what else is to be said?
J asks:
"Compared with the anti-imperialist aims of the jihadists that he imagines, Yehuda declared that “Those differences are of a secondary nature at best” and “I know their motives are rotten to the core, but that's not important."... Seriously?"
Again, J is conveniently confusing the reactionary leadership with the social basis which obviously joins jihadist movements with the intention of fighting imperialism. But to answer the question: yes, dear J, seriously. Unlike you, I recognize that under any ideological veneer, the bourgeoisie remains the enemy of the working-class. When revolutionaries side with non-working-class forces against an imperialist attack, it is not done as a reward to the leaders of these, nor is it due to illusions in the progressive nature of these forces. It is done because we recognize that imperialism is always the number one enemy. Your revision of this simple fact is the true difference between the LRP and the ISL on Mali, and makes all the more amusing your lecturing to me on my supposed lack of a class perspective.
THE KOSHER MARKET AND CENTRIST RED-BAITING
J hilariously delves into metaphysics when he contrasts the "revolutionary energy" of Grynszpan with the "counterrevolutionary energy" of Couliably. Science would love to learn of these mysterious new entities, especially as J clearly has a method of measuring them not all the way from the US, but decades after Grynszpan's death. But that is a small matter compared to J's next slander, which has to do with the attack on the kosher market:
"The first and central idea of Yehuda’s blog statement on the Paris attacks is that he is opposed to condemning the attack on Charlie Hebdo but he does not mention this other attack... I wonder, does he condemn the killing of Jewish civilians in France? As for me, I am in favor of condemning such attacks on civilians whose only known “crime” was being Jewish. In fact, I am in favor of condemning such attacks in advance, and with bullets if necessary."
You see, by opposing but refusing to condemn an attack on active participants in a massive racist campaign against Muslims, I have put my willingness to oppose anti-Semitism into question, unlike the ever-noble comrade J, and have proven my "disregard for the fate of the masses". Congratulations, J - you sound exactly like my fine country's Prime Minister! That foreign ministry position is practically yours.
The basic flaw in this slander is that I indeed did not mention the kosher market attack, for a very simple reason: there was nothing to mention. The attack was a criminal anti-Semitic act that was condemned by practically everyone on the face of the planet. My intention was to write a short post, to be published as soon as possible so as to make my position clear when it still counts - a concept completely alien to the LRP, I know - and I saw no reason to specifically write about the most obvious part of the attacks. For the same reason, I don't see any need to write a post every time a rocket is fired at Israeli civilians or every time anyone tries to stab them on a bus. Of course Marxists oppose such attacks!
In Israel, leftists, especially anti-Zionists, are blamed constantly for strengthening "Palestinian terrorism" (which, in the eyes of the ruling class, includes any action against Zionist oppression) by calling out the government and military on their actions and expressing solidarity with the oppressed. That J uses similar language shows that he will not refrain from the most obvious and foul red-baiting in the face of revolutionary criticism.
AGAIN ON MALI
In our world, in the historical period that we are going through, it is not possible to stand for too long between oppressor and oppressed. At some point, one must make the choice. The similarity between J's language and that of the Zionists is not due to his keen support for Israel, but to the fact that the logic of his political position naturally leads him into the same camp. His comments are the concentrated expression of a fast-degenerating centrist tendency, moving to the right at an alarming pace.
This was not always the case. When I first came across the LRP, at that time, as a member of the ISL, it was a healthier organization. This history was mostly dealt with elsewhere. However, in light of comments by J, I find it necessary to address some issues. J wrote that we
"...refused to criticize ... oppression by the jihadists, even though they knew all about it. I provided them with documentation proving the jihadists’ participation in the slave trade in Mali. I had even provided them pictures of Malians that the jihadists had alleged were guilty of adultery and blasphemy, being buried up to their necks before being punished with stoning until they were dead, their heads looking like blooming bouquets of canned dog food... And while the jihadists had no base of popular support and were not fighting imperialism (which they explained in documents laying out their plan for how, when their actions triggered an imperialist invasion, they would escape to their mountain hideouts and leave the masses to face the consequences), Yehuda and the ISL declared their “support” for these reactionaries against imperialism, regardless of the consequences for the masses in Mali."
The first slander is that the ISL "refused" to condemn the oppressive acts J mentions. Of course, he cannot source this ridiculous claim. The ISL never refused to condemn these acts, but simply stated, in an initial statement released after weeks of cowardly equivocation by the LRP, that regardless of the internal situation in Mali, of which we did not have extensive knowledge, we stand against French imperialism and are for its demise at the hands of any who would oppose it. Later, the ISL backed the RCIT statement on Mali, which expressed opposition to all bourgeois forces in Mali - both Islamist and nationalist. This is the true difference between the ISL and the LRP on this question: while the LRP wanted to claim that the bourgeois nationalists were somehow progressive and could conduct a consistent anti-imperialist struggle in Mali, the ISL retained its class perspective, with no illusions in the alleged anti-imperialist motives of any non-working-class force.
Since J obviously read the ISL statement on Mali, he knows that it contains the following passage:
"...in a conflict between an imperialist force and an oppressed country led by bourgeois forces, we always take the side opposite to that of the imperialists. Nothing special needs to be known to follow this simple, common-sense line. At the same time, we do not for a moment give these organizations an ounce of political support: we do not call on workers to join them or to support them in elections or other such platforms."
"Let us assume that rebellion breaks out tomorrow in the French colony of Algeria under the banner of national independence and that the Italian government, motivated by its own imperialist interests, prepares to send weapons to the rebels. What should the attitude of the Italian workers be in this case? I have purposely taken an example of rebellion against a democratic imperialism with intervention on the side of the rebels from a fascist imperialism. Should the Italian workers prevent the shipping of arms to the Algerians? Let any ultra-leftists dare answer this question in the affirmative. Every revolutionist, together with the Italian workers and the rebellious Algerians, would spurn such an answer with indignation. Even if a general maritime strike broke out in fascist Italy at the same time, even in this case the strikers should make an exception in favor of those ships carrying aid to the colonial slaves in revolt; otherwise they would be no more than wretched trade unionists – not proletarian revolutionists."
~Leon Trotsky, Learn to Think
"In Brazil there now reigns a semifascist regime that every revolutionary can only view with hatred. Let us assume, however, that on the morrow England enters into a military conflict with Brazil. I ask you on whose side of the conflict will the working class be? I will answer for myself personally—in this case I will be on the side of “fascist” Brazil against “democratic” Great Britain. Why? Because in the conflict between them it will not be a question of democracy or fascism. If England should be victorious, she will put another fascist in Rio de Janeiro and will place double chains on Brazil. If Brazil on the contrary should be victorious, it will give a mighty impulse to national and democratic consciousness of the country and will lead to the overthrow of the Vargas dictatorship. The defeat of England will at the same time deliver a blow to British imperialism and will give an impulse to the revolutionary movement of the British proletariat. Truly, one must have an empty head to reduce world antagonisms and military conflicts to the struggle between fascism and democracy. Under all masks one must know how to distinguish exploiters, slave-owners, and robbers!"
~Leon Trotsky, Anti-Imperialist Struggle is Key to Liberation
(I have been criticized below, among other things, for my use of Trotsky quotes. Consider this my reply.)
The racist campaign against Arabs and Muslims has wrought much brutality and violence on the oppressed, but one of its most overlooked, yet most insidious and pervasive consequences, is that it has instilled an axiom in the minds of many in the imperialist countries: that as brutal and oppressive as imperialism as, as reactionary as its puppet regimes may be, Islam - or, at the very least, certain variants of it - is particularly reactionary, particularly oppressive towards women, particularly dangerous - and thus, when it comes to Islam, we must suspend our lofty ideals and fight it by different means.
When it comes to Marxist groups, this poses a particular problem: Marxism has a long and proud tradition of opposing imperialist war waged in the name of democracy and progress. How can one claim to be a Marxist and at the same time, support or equivocate on the question of opposing imperialist aggression undertaken under the pretense of fighting oppressive Islamic terrorism? Of course, by gutting Marxism completely and replacing its understandings of imperialism and the struggle against it with liberal platitudes.
There are countless examples of this method; today we will be discussing one given by a member of the League for the Revolutionary Party (LRP), a centrist group in the USA claiming to represent the authentic tradition of Leninism and Trotskyism, a claim that will soon be seen in its full comedic light.
Since the member did not make his comments public, I will not identify him by name, but refer to him simply as J. J has made various assertions about both my character and that of my former organization, the ISL, and my comrade Yossi Schwartz. I realize that my unwillingness to identify J is to my detriment, seeing as I will lack his ability to substitute personal attacks for political criticism, as well as his willingness to resort to lies and slander. Still, I believe I will come out on top. Such is the sorry state of centrism in our times that even with such advantages, it is incapable of conducting itself respectfully in debate, let alone successfully.
I do not intend to let slander go unanswered; but I will endeavor to address politics first and the personal later. Such are my preferences, and to each his own, I suppose. I will note, however, that J's slander against comrade Schwartz has already been answered elsewhere.
THE GRYNSZPAN ANALOGY
In my original post on Charile Hebdo, I made the comparison between the men who committed the attack and Jewish youth Herschel Grynszpan, who assassinated a Nazi diplomat in retaliation for the Nazi government's deportation of his family. This comparison, comrade J informs us, "is not only mistaken, but actually quite offensive":
"...Herschel Grynszpan was a lone individual while the terrorists who launched their attacks in Paris were trained members of reactionary jihadist groups... Grynszpan had no aim other than to strike a blow against oppression when he assassinated that Nazi official. Very much *unlike* Grynszpan, the terrorists who attacked in France did so with the aim of advancing a movement that is entirely devoted to oppressing people."
As readers may recall, I had anticipated this sophistry:
"As usual with analogies, it is easy to find differences and use them to discredit the analogy altogether. The first will probably be that while Grynszpan was a Jewish youth who wanted vengeance against those who forced his family into a miserable life as stateless refugees in Poland, the men who carried out the attack on Charlie Hebdo were terrorists. This distinction without a difference is again steeped in racism, as if there is any doubt that those who join Islamist groups are generally motivated by a desire to strike back against imperialist criminals in some way, without having a revolutionary organization that would appeal to them. The fact that so many French Muslims find themselves forced into the arms of a group like Al-Qaeda (which is the group that the attackers apparently associated with, not ISIS) is a crushing indictment of the French left, which has either equivocated or fully supported French imperialism's aggression, most recently in Mali and the Central African Republic."
It is truly sad how easy it is to anticipate the centrist response to events and to revolutionary criticism. Centrist political degeneration inevitably leads to a degeneration of thought as well, and this is expressed most clearly in J's comments here:
"...it is worth remembering that fascism takes people’s anger at the injustices of capitalism and misdirects it toward attacks on Jews as the supposed embodiment of finance capital. That’s why fascists, like Nazis for instance, consider themselves anti-capitalist “national socialists.” In the late 1920s and early 1930s, the experience of plummeting standards of living drove much of the German middle-class and sections of the working class to fascism. Genuine communists sympathized with the experience of rising poverty and hopelessness that was driving people toward fascism and sought to convince them that the alternative was socialism’s promise of freedom and justice for all. But genuine communists certainly did not hesitate to criticize those who embraced fascism. As Trotsky pointedly advised: “If you cannot convince a Fascist, acquaint his head with the pavement."
J has already managed to equate the attackers with the Nazis; Netanyahu would be proud. To sound progressive, he also compares their goals to those of Zionism:
"...the jihadists’ aimed with their attacks to provoke an anti-Muslim and racist backlash by the French state. It is in their interests to make life an even more intolerable hell for Muslims, Arabs and Africans in France. In particular, they need more volunteers to join them in Iraq and Syria and that is helped by conditions that make life intolerable for Muslims in France and all of Europe. Overall, they want to force upon the masses a choice of either them or the French state and thereby sabotage any possibility of working-class unity... [it is] absolutely right to compare the jihadists’ aims with their Paris attacks with the Zionists’ welcoming of fascist oppression as aiding their colonial project in Palestine."
What despicable comments, borne out of a complete lack of class perspective, concrete political analysis or historical understanding. Of course, comrade J pays lip service to working-class unity between oppressed Muslim workers and French workers - reminiscent of other ostensibly-Trotskyist groups, who blame Palestinian terrorism for disrupting Arab-Jewish unity - but he is compeltely incapable of putting his analysis of fascism in class terms or to retain any of the revolutionary analysis of fascism.
J believes that "the magnificent history and reputation of selfless Jewish resistance to oppression should be defended against the defamation of comparison to jihadists". Should J desire to attack those who would compare a Jewish youth driven by the oppression he faced and Muslim youth who were driven by similar oppression - the only comparison I made, it should be noted - I suggest he look for a job in the Israeli foreign ministry. I hear they're looking for progressive-sounding people.
THE CLASS NATURE OF ISLAMISM
In his comments comparing Islamism and fascism, J mentions the working-class and middle-class, but he does not explain how any of these or other classes relate to fascism. Indeed, he can't, because he knows that if he tries, his analysis would fall apart in a matter of seconds.
It is common for liberals to explain the rise of fascism in Europe along these lines: worsening economic conditions drove "people" into the arms of the fascists, who misdirected their anger into attacks on Jews, leftists, homosexuals and other groups deemed alien and dangerous. It's human nature, you see, to blame those who are different for your troubles; the solution is better education.
This position is very similar to the perspective put forward by J, but completely alien to Marxism and its analysis of fascism. Trotsky recognized that fascism is not simply a very reactionary movement appealing to "people", but a mass movement of the petty-bourgeoisie, which uses the basic class antagonism between its social basis and the working class to inspire the former to attack the latter, thus atomizing the labor movement and saving capitalism from revolution. Of course, once in power, fascism has no choice but to serve the capitalist class, and gradually degenerates into a "standard" bourgeois dictatorship, alienating its social basis, and making fascism an effective but also a dangerous and untenable solution for the capitalists. For this reason, fascism presupposes not only a capitalist class threatened by a workers' revolution, but also the active support of the ruling class.
That this in no way describes groups like al-Qaeda or ISIS is of no interest to J. What he cares about is not the class nature of movements, but their intentions. He writes on and on about the reactionary social vision of the radical Islamists, as if it is not obvious to everyone involved.
Yes, al-Qaeda and ISIS are reactionary movements. As pro-capitalist movements, they could not be otherwise. Revolutionaries realize that such movements, even if in conflict with a certain faction of world imperialism, can easily collaborate with other imperialists or, as we have seen in the case of the PLO, come to an accommodation with those whom they previously resisted. This does not change the fact that these movements ultimately rest on a social basis of people who want to fight against their oppression, who have not found an answer in the left - small wonder, considering what this left is like - and were driven into the arms of leaders hostile to their interests. The form is similar; however, the content is quite different from the imperialist reaction of 1930s fascism, as well as from Zionist colonialism, which always openly sought collaboration with imperialism. Such a distinction is a book sealed with seven seals to our centrists, as are the distinctions between program and class interests, between oppressor and oppressed:
"The terrorists’ attacked Charlie Hebdo for very different reasons than our reasons for supporting protest against them. As I’ve said, the jihadists were indeed outraged by the oppressiveness of the French state and the imperialists’ crimes in the Middle East, but they did not seek to target imperialism. In the attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices, the terrorists executed the editor and cartoonists (as well as regular workers) for blasphemy – not racism and anti-Muslim bigotry. They did so just as their fellow al Qaeda members executed Palestinians in Yarmouk camp in Syria for blasphemy... just the same as they bomb Shiite religious processions in Iraq for apostacy; just the same as they slaughter Kurds in Iraq and Syria."
This is astounding. The jihadists executed people for blasphemy, and thus, did not seek to target imperialism. Perhaps J also thinks that Palestinians who attack Israeli Jews for their occupation of Muslim land - actions which, by the way, it would be much more justified to condemn - are not doing so due to opposition to Zionism. What nonsense. As for the comparison between CH journalists and oppressed Palestinians and Shiites in Syria and Iraq, if J cannot tell the difference, then really, what else is to be said?
J asks:
"Compared with the anti-imperialist aims of the jihadists that he imagines, Yehuda declared that “Those differences are of a secondary nature at best” and “I know their motives are rotten to the core, but that's not important."... Seriously?"
Again, J is conveniently confusing the reactionary leadership with the social basis which obviously joins jihadist movements with the intention of fighting imperialism. But to answer the question: yes, dear J, seriously. Unlike you, I recognize that under any ideological veneer, the bourgeoisie remains the enemy of the working-class. When revolutionaries side with non-working-class forces against an imperialist attack, it is not done as a reward to the leaders of these, nor is it due to illusions in the progressive nature of these forces. It is done because we recognize that imperialism is always the number one enemy. Your revision of this simple fact is the true difference between the LRP and the ISL on Mali, and makes all the more amusing your lecturing to me on my supposed lack of a class perspective.
THE KOSHER MARKET AND CENTRIST RED-BAITING
J hilariously delves into metaphysics when he contrasts the "revolutionary energy" of Grynszpan with the "counterrevolutionary energy" of Couliably. Science would love to learn of these mysterious new entities, especially as J clearly has a method of measuring them not all the way from the US, but decades after Grynszpan's death. But that is a small matter compared to J's next slander, which has to do with the attack on the kosher market:
"The first and central idea of Yehuda’s blog statement on the Paris attacks is that he is opposed to condemning the attack on Charlie Hebdo but he does not mention this other attack... I wonder, does he condemn the killing of Jewish civilians in France? As for me, I am in favor of condemning such attacks on civilians whose only known “crime” was being Jewish. In fact, I am in favor of condemning such attacks in advance, and with bullets if necessary."
You see, by opposing but refusing to condemn an attack on active participants in a massive racist campaign against Muslims, I have put my willingness to oppose anti-Semitism into question, unlike the ever-noble comrade J, and have proven my "disregard for the fate of the masses". Congratulations, J - you sound exactly like my fine country's Prime Minister! That foreign ministry position is practically yours.
The basic flaw in this slander is that I indeed did not mention the kosher market attack, for a very simple reason: there was nothing to mention. The attack was a criminal anti-Semitic act that was condemned by practically everyone on the face of the planet. My intention was to write a short post, to be published as soon as possible so as to make my position clear when it still counts - a concept completely alien to the LRP, I know - and I saw no reason to specifically write about the most obvious part of the attacks. For the same reason, I don't see any need to write a post every time a rocket is fired at Israeli civilians or every time anyone tries to stab them on a bus. Of course Marxists oppose such attacks!
In Israel, leftists, especially anti-Zionists, are blamed constantly for strengthening "Palestinian terrorism" (which, in the eyes of the ruling class, includes any action against Zionist oppression) by calling out the government and military on their actions and expressing solidarity with the oppressed. That J uses similar language shows that he will not refrain from the most obvious and foul red-baiting in the face of revolutionary criticism.
AGAIN ON MALI
In our world, in the historical period that we are going through, it is not possible to stand for too long between oppressor and oppressed. At some point, one must make the choice. The similarity between J's language and that of the Zionists is not due to his keen support for Israel, but to the fact that the logic of his political position naturally leads him into the same camp. His comments are the concentrated expression of a fast-degenerating centrist tendency, moving to the right at an alarming pace.
This was not always the case. When I first came across the LRP, at that time, as a member of the ISL, it was a healthier organization. This history was mostly dealt with elsewhere. However, in light of comments by J, I find it necessary to address some issues. J wrote that we
"...refused to criticize ... oppression by the jihadists, even though they knew all about it. I provided them with documentation proving the jihadists’ participation in the slave trade in Mali. I had even provided them pictures of Malians that the jihadists had alleged were guilty of adultery and blasphemy, being buried up to their necks before being punished with stoning until they were dead, their heads looking like blooming bouquets of canned dog food... And while the jihadists had no base of popular support and were not fighting imperialism (which they explained in documents laying out their plan for how, when their actions triggered an imperialist invasion, they would escape to their mountain hideouts and leave the masses to face the consequences), Yehuda and the ISL declared their “support” for these reactionaries against imperialism, regardless of the consequences for the masses in Mali."
The first slander is that the ISL "refused" to condemn the oppressive acts J mentions. Of course, he cannot source this ridiculous claim. The ISL never refused to condemn these acts, but simply stated, in an initial statement released after weeks of cowardly equivocation by the LRP, that regardless of the internal situation in Mali, of which we did not have extensive knowledge, we stand against French imperialism and are for its demise at the hands of any who would oppose it. Later, the ISL backed the RCIT statement on Mali, which expressed opposition to all bourgeois forces in Mali - both Islamist and nationalist. This is the true difference between the ISL and the LRP on this question: while the LRP wanted to claim that the bourgeois nationalists were somehow progressive and could conduct a consistent anti-imperialist struggle in Mali, the ISL retained its class perspective, with no illusions in the alleged anti-imperialist motives of any non-working-class force.
Since J obviously read the ISL statement on Mali, he knows that it contains the following passage:
"...in a conflict between an imperialist force and an oppressed country led by bourgeois forces, we always take the side opposite to that of the imperialists. Nothing special needs to be known to follow this simple, common-sense line. At the same time, we do not for a moment give these organizations an ounce of political support: we do not call on workers to join them or to support them in elections or other such platforms."
J is completely aware of this traditional distinction between political support and support for a military victory against imperialism. There is no conclusion one can reach here except that J is consciously attempting to slander me and the ISL by mixing up these very different concepts and presenting our position on Mali as if we were enthusiastic supporters of the Islamists or had faith in their anti-imperialism or loyalty to the masses. With such hopeless people, the only course of action is to shake one's head and offer some traditional Trotskyist advice: learn to think!
ON A PERSONAL NOTE
J wrote:
"There is an unfortunate phenomenon on the Trotskyist-identified left of people who react to events in far-away lands not by studying them before forming conclusions, but by asking themselves: is there a quote from Trotsky that can be presented as an analysis? This approach certainly saves one a lot of hard work. It even frees one to make unnecessary, a-political, nasty comments like Yehuda’s above about whether the LRP will take 1 or 2 years to issue a statement on the Paris attacks."
That J disapproves of my nasty comments is immediately seen to be quite hypocritic in his attempt to describe my political character, with no sense of irony whatsoever. Of course, there is nothing a-political about the LRP's inability to release statements. The LRP, a centrist organization feeling the pressure of different classes from all sides, is incapable of taking a position on anything but the most rudimentary questions as events are unfolding. It took the LRP 2 years to release a statement on Syria, and it has yet to release one on the latest wave of Zionist aggression or on Charlie Hebdo.
Indeed, with such weighty issues that they still need to address, I did not expect anyone from the LRP to reply to my criticism within the next decade. But one of the benefits of the Mali debate is that it clarified something about the LRP's character: at the time, the LRP had many contacts who supported the Egyptian National Salvation Front, a popular front which included both socialist organizations as well as bourgeois politicians like Hamdeen Sabahi and Amr Moussa. How could one justify such a betrayal except by presenting Islamism as an especially dangerous threat, one that justifies giving support to the nationalist bourgeoisie? Of course, nothing was gained from this rotten capitulation. But the LRP is bound to keep trying.
What's depressing in all this is how generic J's response is. Back when the ISL and the LRP were polemicizing against members of the Israeli CWI, we were constantly blamed of being too small and insignificant, of fussing around with theory instead of really doing things. Now this is all J can say to try and give his liberal platitudes any credibility. Every revolutionary organization is revolutionary in its own way, but centrist degeneration is always the same. That's why those same Trotsky quotes keep coming up. To tell you the truth, at this point, I find it quite boring.
As for reverend J's proposal that I kiss his hand, confess my sins and rejoin his flock, I believe I have made my position clear. Should J have trouble deciding where to put such offers in the future, I can suggest some surprisingly close storage space. I have no intention of going back to the LRP any more than I intend to rejoin the IMT, or to become a Zionist again. What little practical involvement I have in actual struggles, I prefer to have on the side of the oppressed. Not all is lost, though; we may yet catch a glimpse of one another from opposite sides of the barricades.
APPENDIX: J'S ORIGINAL REPLY
This is the original post J wrote in response to my abridged comments on Charlie Hebdo. I have removed only the mentions in this text of the comrade to whom J was addressing his replies: they were not addressed to me, since centrist liars and slanderers unsurprisingly also happen to be cowards. At any rate, any omission would only be to my adversary's advantage.
...your pointing out that Herschel Grynszpan was a lone individual while the terrorists who launched their attacks in Paris were trained members of reactionary jihadist groups points to why I think comparing the two is in fact utterly mistaken, and why my and Yehuda’s comments actually express opposed perspectives.
Grynszpan had no aim other than to strike a blow against oppression when he assassinated that Nazi official. Very much *unlike* Grynszpan, the terrorists who attacked in France did so with the aim of advancing a movement that is entirely devoted to oppressing people.
The al Qaeda and Islamic State jihadists’ vision promises those they label apostates with death in the case of men and enslavement (literally) in the case of women, and promises the Sunni masses absolute dictatorship in a Caliphate ruled by Wahhabi theocrats. Jihadists like al Qaeda and the Islamic State are not so much anti-imperialist as they are insistent that the exclusive right to murder, enslave, colonize and exploit people in the Middle East belong to them.
Our recognition of what drives people to take any particular political action does not preclude judgement of their politics and of their actions. Along these lines, it is worth remembering that fascism takes people’s anger at the injustices of capitalism and misdirects it toward attacks on Jews as the supposed embodiment of finance capital. That’s why fascists, like Nazis for instance, consider themselves anti-capitalist “national socialists.” In the late 1920s and early 1930s, the experience of plummeting standards of living drove much of the German middle-class and sections of the working class to fascism. Genuine communists sympathized with the experience of rising poverty and hopelessness that was driving people toward fascism and sought to convince them that the alternative was socialism’s promise of freedom and justice for all. But genuine communists certainly did not hesitate to criticize those who embraced fascism. As Trotsky pointedly advised: “If you cannot convince a Fascist, acquaint his head with the pavement.”
All this explains why I think Yehuda's comparison of reactionary jihadists with Herschel Grynszpan is not only mistaken, but actually quite offensive – it dirties Grynszpan’s good name. Yehuda’s comment that he alone thought to compare the jihadists with Grynszpan is true, but I think it should be pretty obvious that the reason for this is not the one Yehuda imagined. Take a look again at the quote from Trotsky about Grynszpan that Yehuda thinks is relevant: Trotsky describes Grynszpan’s actions as expressing “revolutionary energy” that had he “walked in the milieu of the Fourth International he would have discovered a different and more effective outlet for.” It should be clear that the jihadists in Paris exercised *counterrevolutionary energy* and had they walked in the milieu of the Fourth International, they would have killed us. In any case, I think the magnificent history and reputation of selfless Jewish resistance to oppression should be defended against the defamation of comparison to jihadists just as much as it must be defended against the Zionists’ hypocritical claims.
There is an unfortunate phenomenon on the Trotskyist-identified left of people who react to events in far-away lands not by studying them before forming conclusions, but by asking themselves: is there a quote from Trotsky that can be presented as an analysis? This approach certainly saves one a lot of hard work. It even frees one to make unnecessary, a-political, nasty comments like Yehuda’s above about whether the LRP will take 1 or 2 years to issue a statement on the Paris attacks.
In my experience, the people who engage in this approach to politics generally have the least practical involvement in actual struggles against oppression and their radicalism is generally confined to postings on the internet. They don’t realize that without the accountability of facing their readers’ questions and criticisms in the context of on-going collaboration in struggles, it is so much easier for them to fall into the trap of convincing themselves of some very mistaken ideas. I think Yehuda would do himself, and everyone else, a favor by thinking about this. It would help him avoid debacles like his comparison of the selfless Herschel Grynszpan to despicable al Qaeda and Islamic State-supporting terrorists.
As I said in my post, the jihadists’ aimed with their attacks to provoke an anti-Muslim and racist backlash by the French state. It is in their interests to make life an even more intolerable hell for Muslims, Arabs and Africans in France. In particular, they need more volunteers to join them in Iraq and Syria and that is helped by conditions that make life intolerable for Muslims in France and all of Europe. Overall, they want to force upon the masses a choice of either them or the French state and thereby sabotage any possibility of working-class unity.
Along these lines, ... you were absolutely right to compare the jihadists’ aims with their Paris attacks with the Zionists’ welcoming of fascist oppression as aiding their colonial project in Palestine. Bravo!
Now, let’s look a little closer at the attacks in France, because I want to explain why I don’t think they targeted imperialism and why they demand condemnation.
Let’s begin with Islamic State (IS) supporter Amedy Coulibaly. Nothing could make the IS’s reactionary character clearer than the fact that it’s principal tool for recruiting foreign jihadists to join them in Iraq and Syria now are videos showing their members, after conquering Kurdish and Shiite towns and killing all their male inhabitants, choosing sex slaves from among the female survivors and talking at length about how these spoils of war can be yours too if you are a Sunni male willing to join them in their fight. “Revolutionary energy,” I’m sure we agree, this is not.
It should be noted that Coulibaly is from Mali and therefore can be expected to have been particularly familiar with the jihadists’ role there. The jihadists who briefly ruled the north of that country implemented precisely this nightmarish social vision before French imperialism invaded not to free the oppressed but to rescue the neo-colonial Malian state that they rely on to protect their interests.
One of the differences I and the LRP had with Yehuda and his comrades in the ISL at the time was that while we both stood for the defeat of French imperialism, he and they refused to criticize this oppression by the jihadists, even though they knew all about it. I provided them with documentation proving the jihadists’ participation in the slave trade in Mali. I had even provided them pictures of Malians that the jihadists had alleged were guilty of adultery and blasphemy, being buried up to their necks before being punished with stoning until they were dead, their heads looking like blooming bouquets of canned dog food. And Yehuda and the ISL pointedly refused to criticize these crimes. And while the jihadists had no base of popular support and were not fighting imperialism (which they explained in documents laying out their plan for how, when their actions triggered an imperialist invasion, they would escape to their mountain hideouts and leave the masses to face the consequences), Yehuda and the ISL declared their “support” for these reactionaries against imperialism, regardless of the consequences for the masses in Mali.
Now, when Coulibaly launched his attack in Paris, did he attack imperialism? No. His main target was a kosher market where he aimed to kill Jews, not imperialists. Before opening fire and killing four people he yelled: ‘You are a Jew, you will die!’ That is not anti-imperialism, of course. That is murderous anti-Jewish bigotry.
The first and central idea of Yehuda’s blog statement on the Paris attacks is that he is opposed to condemning the attack on Charlie Hebdo but he does not mention this other attack. That’s curious, no? I wonder, does he condemn the killing of Jewish civilians in France?
As for me, I am in favor of condemning such attacks on civilians whose only known “crime” was being Jewish. In fact, I am in favor of condemning such attacks in advance, and with bullets if necessary.
These views are mine and not necessarily those of the LRP which hasn’t had a chance to discuss this aspect of the question, but anyone can certainly feel free to quote me. I am very proud of this view.
Furthermore, I am in favor of hailing as a hero the Malian Muslim immigrant worker in that kosher market, Lassana Bathily, who risked his life by hiding shoppers from the terrorist Coulibaly
Now, what of the attack on Charlie Hebdo?
Charlie Hebdo promoted racist, anti-Muslim bigotry. For these crimes, it should have been shut down – not by the state, but by mass protest. Genuine revolutionary communists recognize the capitalist state as our greatest enemy and do not want to empower it to censor anyone. At the same time we do not believe in free speech for racists and favor mass action against them. We also defend the right to blaspheme even while we condemn those who unnecessarily insult people’s religious beliefs and especially those who target the religious beliefs of the oppressed.
The terrorists’ attacked Charlie Hebdo for very different reasons than our reasons for supporting protest against them. As I’ve said, the jihadists were indeed outraged by the oppressiveness of the French state and the imperialists’ crimes in the Middle East, but they did not seek to target imperialism. In the attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices, the terrorists executed the editor and cartoonists (as well as regular workers) for blasphemy – not racism and anti-Muslim bigotry. They did so just as their fellow al Qaeda members executed Palestinians in Yarmouk camp in Syria for blasphemy (https://www.facebook.com/Matt.../posts/704468532985390); just the same as they bomb Shiite religious processions in Iraq for apostacy; just the same as they slaughter Kurds in Iraq and Syria.
As I’ve said before, genuine revolutionaries will have nothing to do with the hypocritical condemnations of these attacks coming from the mass murdering criminals of France’s imperialist ruling class and its allies. But that does not mean that we renounce their right to condemn acts which attack the rights of the oppressed and set back real struggles against oppression and exploitation. To renounce that right is to renounce leadership and thus capitulate to reactionary forces among the oppressed.
Renunciation of the independent perspective of the workers’ and oppressed is the real meaning of Yehuda’s opposition to condemning the attacks in Paris. It was the real meaning of his and the ISL’s refusal to condemn the jihadists in Mali. It was the real meaning of the ISL’s first statement on the Syrian revolution after breaking with the LRP, the fraudulently plagiarized article of Yossi Schwartz’s (http://www.the-isleague.com/syria-15-3-2013/). That article declared that “Revolutionary Marxists are on the same side as the Islamists in the conflict against Assad’s tyranny,” ignoring the fact that Assad had released al Qaeda jihadists from prison when the revolution broke out precisely to help his counterrevolution, and ignoring the fact that these jihadists had been attacking democratic revolutionaries ever since.
In this regard, I think we should all take note of Yehuda’s last comment in this thread where he responds to your points about the difference between racist cartoonists and Nazi officials, and the difference between a lone Jewish opponent of the Nazis versus jihadists with oppressive goals who, with their attacks in Paris, aimed to trigger a backlash of racism, anti-Muslim bigotry and repression.
Compared with the anti-imperialist aims of the jihadists that he imagines, Yehuda declared that “Those differences are of a secondary nature at best” and “I know their motives are rotten to the core, but that's not important.”
Seriously?
I’d suggest that Yehuda’s disregard for the fate of the masses compared to his imagined anti-imperialist aims of the terrorists is a measure of just how far he has drifted from genuine Marxism – the theory and practical commitment that grows out of the interests and struggles of the workers’ and oppressed people against the nightmare of life under imperialism capitalism. The ethical and practical heart of Marxism is its primary and constant fidelity to the interests of the workers and oppressed.
Renunciation of that moral compass opens the door to all sorts of mistakes, political and otherwise.
It’s never too late for people to correct the error of their ways. I’ll always be ready to welcome such people – so long as they begin by honestly recognizing their mistakes.
