The Times reports on a rally organised by United Against Fascism (UAF) at BBC Headquarters tonight to protest Nick Griffin’s appearance on Question Time.
Speakers at the rally will include Ken Livingstone and Peter Hain. Mr Livingstone is to be applauded for employing his stentorian voice to rouse the 1,000 protestors expected. The UAF website interview with Mr Livingstone contained this nugget from Ken:
The BBC should withdraw its invitation to Nick Griffin to appear on Question Time. A court ruled this week that the fascist BNP’s membership rules illegally discriminate on grounds of race. This is only part of the picture. When the BNP is given a major media platform for its message of bigotry, race and religious hatred, hate attacks by thugs on the streets increase.
The public do not pay license fees to have them abused by the BBC to help people spread hatred and intolerance. If the BBC continues with this policy it will share responsibility for the crimes against minorities which will follow.
Griffin: Signs of "bigotry, race and religious hatred"
The correctness of Ken’s sentiments in refusing to give platform to the BNP is laudable. In fact, very few have Livingstone’s public credentials in the fight against neo-Nazi politics in Britain in the late 20th Century. But the same cannot he said of his sincerity in opposing “bigotry, race and religious hatred” of any political group of any stripe.
Last month Livingstone had no qualms with providing platform to Khaled Meshaal, whom he interviewed for another media platform, this time the New Statesman. Meshaal is the leader of Hamas, an organisation which is classed by the European Organisation as a terrorist group (pdf). It seems Livinstone has no qualms with Hamas’ message of “bigotry, race and religious hatred”.
Meshaal and friend: No signs of "bigotry, race and religious hatred"
How do the New Statesman and Mr Livingstone get away with indulging the leader of a terrorist entity? The answer, by using the pretext that Hamas are a democratically elected party with mandate to operate in Gaza. It is a get-out clause that is often used by Hamas apologists who are comfortable with Meshaal’s “bigotry, race and religious hatred”, or are at least ready to ignore it.
It must be wonderful to live like Ken Livinstone. You can be a moralising, sanctimonious demagogue who badmouths and censures the BBC for defending its policy to allow the BNP on prime-time TV, in spite of the BBC’s function as a national media outlet which serves us, the British public, by giving access to elected members of political parties to present their case on a public access programme, such as Question Time. But you are free to break your own moral code for political expediency whenever you like.
You will have the privelege to forget to ask Khaled Meshaal any uncomfortable questions about the Hamas, that would not sit right in a fawning puff-piece published in a “well-respected” journal like the New Statesman. But no such privilege can be granted to any of Nick Griffin’s co-panelists on the BBC should they fail to give him a hard time on Question Time tonight. As Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens notes:
On Question Time [tonight], Griffin, like Meshaal before him, will try to present a moderate and sensible side of the BNP. It is the responsibility of his co-panelists to prevent him from doing so and therefore succeed in exposing his fascist ideology. Were he not an apologist for Islamic fascism, Ken would have done the same with Meshaal. Rather than accusing the BBC of “sharing the responsibility” for the crimes that will follow what he sees as an endorsement of the BNP, he should look at the role he has played in helping Hamas deceive the west while they impose strict religious codes on their citizens, kill political opponents and murder Israeli civilians.
Many people have the right to criticise the BBC’s decision to allow Nick Griffin on Question Time tonight, but not everyone. The question you must ask yourself is:
“Would I protest the BBC’s decision were it to have Khaled Meshaal on the panel of Question Time?”
If you answer “no” to the question, then you forego that right, as I suspect Ken Livingstone and his band of pro-Hamas hacks at the New Statesman would.
27 Comments
That’s exactly the point, isn’t it?
A very good article. It clearly shows the double-standards that are at work on the left. It’s hard not to think that Ken Livingstone and friends really believe that ‘Muslims’ and ‘White’ (to emulate their Muslims/Whites worldview) should be held to different standards. This is surely the very opposite of the equality that they claim to believe in.
I just checked it out myself. Most of the website is full of bullcrap about meetings with the Minster of Mining and deputy-manager of the local goat-dropping processing plant.
It’s gonna take more than this pile of horseshit to trick Captain Gonzo into visiting Soo-dan.
Ken carries the same post colonial gulit ridden complex that the head honchos at the Guardian have. In their eyes Fascism is a uniquely white phenomenon and brown fascists are just misunderstood. They are the type of people who would go to a third rate Indian restaurant, be served crap food and still insist it is great because its foreign and exotic and so must be good or misunderstood.
Tell ya the truth boys: Only way I’d go into the goddam soo-dan is with an M-16 in my old right hand, a whole bunch of ammo in my left – and with US Marine Corps’ finest right behind me.
Then I’d be plenty happy to go talk to this two-bit President and his goddam terrorist-supporting donkey-factories.
God darn it. I jez gone and posted all my thoughts on the wrong goddam webpage!! Now I gotta post it all up again on the right page.
Shucks. Sometime, I am so damn stupid, I wonder how I did even get myself born.
What do you mean ‘sometimes’?
What the heck do *you* mean ‘sometimes’? Damn it boys, people these days can’t even make one simple mistake without folks heckling them and casting aspersions.
Supporters of a terrorist state and army founded by terrorists like Begin and Shamir condemn Palestinians defending their land as “terrorists”
Well I never
And the same hypocrites rightly attack Griffin for wanting to create a white supremacist stae in the UK whilst supporting a Jewish supremacist state where non-Jews are systematically discriminated against in the middle east
“terrorism” is a joke word
When other countries invade Muslim lands who have never threatened them , killing hundreds of thousands that isnt terrorism
When Muslims fight against armies invading their land -that is terrorism
Unless those invaders arent pro-US, like the Russians in Afghanistan, in which case the people fighting them are freedom fighters not terrorists !
When other countries invade Muslim lands who have never threatened them , killing hundreds of thousands that isnt terrorism
When Muslims fight against armies invading their land -that is terrorism
Spoken like a true groupie of the British far-Left/Islamist alliance. No-one can ever be an imperialist other than whitey or the Joooooz, can they?
“invade Muslim lands who have never threatened them”?
Don’t be an ahistorical numty, numbnuts. Explain that to the Kurds, Darfuris, Bengalis, Kuwaiti victims of Saddam’s bombs, Southern Israelis, the Allawiyya of Turkey, Azerbaijanis of Iran and so on and so forth.
In other words, fuck off.
Firstly, the state of Israel was not founded by Begin and Shamir. In fact, for the greater part of the history of Israel, the Israeli public (Jewish and non-Jewish alike) have in the main rejected the politics associated with revisionist Zionism (and its spin-offs). For much of the early and mid-term history of Israel, Israel had Labour-led governments, not ones associated with the political legacy of Begin or Shamir.
Support for the existence of Israel neither means blanket support for the transient policies of the governments of that state, nor does it render ineffectual or hypocritical any condemnation of others elsewhere who may be involved in wrongful deeds.
Non-Jews are not systematically discriminated against in the Middle East. That would be surprising, given that the vast majority of people in the Middle East are non-Jews and their states are led by non-Jews. Nor are non-Jews systematically discriminated against inside Israel, nor even the Occupied Territories.
Nor is Israel a Jewish supremacist state. It is a state for Jews, a realisation of that people’s right to self-determination. However, there is no evidence that legally or quasi-constitutionally the state discriminates against non-Jews. Yes, there are fascists and supremacists in Israel – there are quite a few in many Muslim-majority Arab states too, incidentally. If any ethnic or religious group is systematically discriminated against in the Middle East it is, in fact, the Jews.
So I take it you were joking when you described Israel as:
Or are words such as “terror” and “terrorism” only applicable in your bizarre dialect of English when they are pointing at words such as “Zionist”, “Israel” and (ultimately) “Jew”?
You are a deluded idiot. Go away.
I wish I had written that.
See: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/877090.html
If our purpose is to call a bigot a bigot, or a racist a racist, then let’s not stop at the BNP or the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran or the leaders of Hamas. Let’s not just get at Ken Livingstone for his inconsistencies. Complete the circle.
How about the current government in Israel, which was elected after pulverisizing the Gaza strip and inflicting fatalities at a ratio of 100 to 1, or the Israeli state which banned Muslim Israelis and Arab Israeli parties from contesting the election itself? How about Bengali secularists and Muslim conservatives alike who have quietly squeeezed that country’s religious and ethnic minorites by ommission and commission over the last four decades? How about the Vietnamese communists who continue to persecute and marginalize their montagnard populations? How about the ridiculous self-image of the US as a nation of immigrants rather than as a nation of genocidal settlers? How about the UK’s arms industry, which continues to engage in massively corrupt–and covered up–contracts that empower a xenophobic Saudi slave state? And so on and on.
In confronting bigotry and racism, and arguments that apologize for these traits, we cannot afford to self-select certain transgressors over others, without confronting the systemic sources that prime the ground for more bigotry to emerge wherever it does.
It’s my not entirely original view that capitalist accumulation, underwritten by colonial and neo-colonial military force and often legitimised through a gentle moralizing vernacular, fragments societies and disrupts patterns of cultural formation. This is happening within Europe, giving rise to ultra-nationalistic tendencies in Austria, the Netherlands, the UK, France and elsewhere. Enforced capitalist relations–the main purpose of western neo-imperialism and the credo that has come closest to achieving totalitarian status in recent times–is therefore breeding an atavistic backlash everywhere.
To the symptoms then: Hamas is the mirror of New Labour. Ahmedinejad is the mirror of Netanyahu. Ghaddafi is the mirror of Obama, etc. Are we suggesting that on the one side we have bigots and racists, and on the other side we have the forces of reason and inclusivity?
A balanced and fair treatment of extremist and prejudicial behaviour would require all to be taken to task. But don’t stop there, I say. Address the causes and not just the symptoms. You might disagree with me on what those causes might be, but just sticking it to Red Ken, Muslim nut cases, and the vile views of Nick Griffin, and you’re missing the point. Worse, you’re beginning to sound like Christopher Hitchens.
What about whataboutery?
Your argument is against the electorate who did NOT vote in Bibi and his gang? They are a minority government held together by a rag-tag band of minor political players who certainly do not reflect the will or interests or even views of the vast majority of Israeli.
The decision to try to ban Arab political parties was overturned – they then chose not to involve themselves in the elections, if memory serves me aright.
I am sorry? You think that JI and its fellow-travellers come so quickly with their baggage of direct involvement in the Bangladeshi genocide should be granted places at the table of government in Bangladesh? Since when have the JI supported the claims of ethnic or religious minorities in Bangladesh? They spent the early ’70s cheefully murdering them or ethnically cleansing them.
More whataboutery. What about that absolute swine down my local shop who short-changed me the other day? Unless you address this abuse of my human rights I simply refuse to take anything else you write seriously!
What, all of them?!?!? I am sure that this will certainly be accepted by those descendants of Black slaves, Irish immigrants fleeing famine, East Europeans fleeing pogroms… in fact all of those ancestors who make up the vast majority of Americans today who had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the extermination of Native American societies.
You are into collective guilt and presumably punishment – and a rather bizarre line in history, to boot.
Of course, The Spittoon regularly proves on its pages that it is enthralled – nay, enraptured – by the every move of the Saudi state.
Blah, blah blah… Cont. p. 94
Oh hello, it’s SWP Super Spart.
No. Are you?
No-one, of course, would ever even dream of accusing you of making a balanced or fair treatment of such issues.
Dear Abu Faris, Clarification would be easier face to face so I won’t try to provide a comprensive reply here. I do hope you will accept, however, that when I refer to such things as the sanitized American myth of itself as a nation of immigrants, I am referring to an officially sanctioned narrative. While this does not make mention of genocidal history, it doesn’t reflect subaltern histories either. So far from suggesting that a national myth gives cause for collective guilt, I was trying to suggest that that its lack of completeness vis-a-vis the historical record was a problem, and that this liberal self image has airbrushed genocide from official text. Those people who subscribe to this sanitized narrative can be said to be party to the continuation of this myth. It does not make them guilty of those crimes, but simply unmindful of the hidden truth behind what is supposed to be an uplifting and reverential self portrayal. I hope this helps.
The nature of unmoderated exchange allows for quite a lot if digression and the above is just that, in the context of my larger point. I regret if that point did not come across clearly to you. It is simply this: if we are going to charge bigots for their bigotry and call illiberal views out when we hear them, let’s not stop with the obvious targets. Prejudice and intolerance does not need adjectives to signify it’s existence. Muslims, Christians, secularists, leftists and conservatives are all cabable of shutting down contrary views and interests. Ultimately, a rather banal point but one that needs to be made when we are in the presence of liberal intolerance. Kind regards,
Hannan
Thanks for the clarifications, Hannan. However I do think I grasped your meaning the first time around. I simply did not agree with you.
I am not sure exactly what you have in mind here. Certainly, as far as I can tell, the editors of The Spittoon are not in the business of suppressing the calling out of any sort of bigotry. Yet, from my experience on this site, I would say that this site’s primary target is the insidious and anti-democratic character of Islamism as a brand of deeply reactionary ideology. I would further venture, there is a focus on a questioning of the Left’s strange present identification with its very antithesis – clerical fascism in the form of Islamism.
Some (though not all) of the commentors and editors here are themselves Muslims (me included). For these progressive and democratically-minded Muslims there is a deep imperative to reclaim the Faith out of the hands of the extremists and their fellow-travellers whose darkly innovative and wrong-headed belief in a highly politicised, authoritarian and totalitarian Islamism threatens the well-being of the Believers here and elsewhere. In this task, it is vital to call to account those people who would equate Islam in toto with Islamism.
However, it is everywhere exemplified in particular forms. To come over all dialectical: essence is manifest in phenomena.
Agreed, anyone is capable of shutting down debate. However, if you are suggesting that a critique of Islamism is an example of “liberal intolerance”, then I think we are owed some sort of explanation as to what you actually mean by such an expression. If you mean an intolerance of intolerance, then I am certainly guilty of the same.
More broadly, if you require that at every point of criticism of X that every other type of activity for which one might have some criticism is also mentioned, then I am afraid I must strongly disagree – both in terms of practicality and common sense. I am also afraid that this smacks very much of the sort of “whataboutery” for which Islamism has become rather notorious. The suggestion that one should not criticise, condemn or reject an item A without also mentioning everything else to which one objects is not only dubious reasoning; but, due in part to the paralysis of action that thereby sets in, is – frankly – morally objectionable.
Dear Abu Faris,
Thanks for the constructive thoughts, and for explaining the purpose of this forum. I am not a regular visitor so appreciate the read out of its primary function. For a forum that concentrates on Muslim extremism, mentioning other types extreme ideas might seem diversionary. That was not my intention. Organized, coherent and sober efforts to build common ground that can counter Muslim extremism within the UK and elsewhere are welcome and necessary. That was not my point.
The problems become clear when we consider how the treatment of extremism in all of its forms is addressed, globally. There are outcome documents from United Nations conferences that attest to common cause against all forms of extremism, but I don’t think I would be mistaken if I say that the weight of the international apparatus tends to be directed towards Muslim religious extremism. Responses understate other forms of extremism. The UK is a leading actor in tipping the scales from a universalist pursuit of extremism in all its forms to one that focuses primarly on its preferred bugbears.
So, for instance, there is a special committee at the UN that serves as a venue for dialogue and coordinated action against Al Qaeda. Very good. But there is no such mechanism to address, or curtail, the excesses of market fundamentalism that has thrown hundreds of millions of people into poverty in the last 12 months alone. The UK has flatly opposed any attempt for a competent multilateral approach to curtailing market fundamentalism. The actual manifestations of this extremist and untramelled approach to economic governance is children with stunted cognitive development, decades of effort to build societies being reversed and, yes, the advent of reactionary political forces across low and middle income countries, not to mention within Europe and other so-called advanced nations. Economic depression, historical grievance, and hyperinflation were enough to turn Europe’s most educated, technically advanced, and racially integrated society into one that gave rise to national socialism in the 1930s. Most countries today do not have nearly the same mettle to withstand the rise of religious extremism resulting from economic collapse today.
My point, therefore, is a simple one. If we are to confront Muslim extremism, this cannot be done without addressing far more decisive forces that help give rise to extremism in the first place. This is not to let Muslim extremists off the hook; on the contrary, what you perhaps slightly flippantly refer to as “whataboutery” is an attempt to widen the discussion into one that can allow for an overall progressive strategy to combat extremism, of which Muslim extremism might be an immediate preoccuption to readers of this forum. And for such a response to go beyond the discursive (and therefore sometimes frustrating conjecture about this or that type of excess), it would require real and sustained political pressure to ensure that there are credible institutional responses to contain the sources from which extremism emerges.
So, in sum, go for the causes as well as the symptoms. Don’t mistake the wood for the trees. Allow for a strategy that considers extremism in all of its forms and address as many of its manifestations as possible. Prioritize Muslim extremism per se, for sure, but not at the expense of other forms of nuttiness.
As far as the original post is concerned, I think it goes in the wrong direction by singling out the behaviour of one person, in this case Ken Livingstone. Instead of fetishizing the behaviour of individuals, the thrust of collective efforts against extremism need to take a systemic, if not dispassionate, approach. Best regards,
Hannan
Ah, now I think I see where you want to go!
Nor should there be. such a mechanism. The “experiments” of market control have all ultimately failed. Such top-down macro-economic and regimented approaches to the relationships between social and economic need and the market have all historically and spectacularly failed. The solution to the dialectics of economics, politics and social need is not the planned economy. In fact, this is a recipe for utter disaster.
I reject this paradigm as flawed. It is overly simplistic. For example, the causes of the rise of extremism in Europe between the two World Wars were a considerable amount more complex and subtle than the ones you ascribe. Not only economic factors were at play – nor would I accept an economic determinist model for these other political and social factors. Consequently, I do not accept this model as an explanation for the rise of religious extremism in the world today (or political authoritarianism then). We need a more sophisticated paradigm than simply your attempt (to be blunt) to smuggle in a Third Worldist anti-imperialist paradigm. One of the chief problems in the Arab world (where I live incidentally) is the culture of blaming everyone except ourselves for the problems of contemporary Arab society, for example.
Again, I cannot accept your attempts to “widen” the spectrum of critique – this is simply an attempt to widen the debate into a largely theoretical debate about the evils of capitalism, imperialism or whatever other buzz-word happens to be seizing the Left at the present. I think I would not be remiss in suggesting that the attempt to attach the debates on this site to any one particular political orientation (however subtly done) would be met with a certain resistance from fellow commentors.
From a socialist perspective, it is certainly the case that an imperative task is to separate the Left from its present dangerous addiction to flirtation with clerical fascism in the form of Islamism – that is if any renaissance in the fortunes of the Left are to be achieved.
My moral and practical objections to your line remain, as well.
I’m sorry, I’m rather distracted by work at present. I shall write more later if you wish.
As an addendum, I remarked that the Left were *presently* addicted to flirtation with clerical fascism.
In fact, of course, a simlar line of “my enemy’s enemy is my friend” can be traced back to the very beginnings of the “Hard Left” tendency in international socialist thinking. See, for example, Stalin’s absurd and deeply disturbing views on the Emir of Afghanistan (as exemplified in the footnotes of his [largely ghostwritten] “Problems of Leninism”) , where Stalin is keen to play down the Emir’s undoubtedly revolting and reactionary views on women, ethnic minorities, religious minorities, etc., on the grounds that the Emir’s jihad somehow “weakened” or destabilised British imperialism.
One might also think of Lenin’s (a little earlier) equipping of the army of Kemal Ataturk for similar reasons – despite the evidence that this army was at the very same time committing genocide against the Armenian and Greek-speaking minorities of Turkey.
Earlier yet, one might raise an eyebrow at Marx and Engels over the Hungarian Revolt of 1848-9, where they welcomed the Austrian repression of the same as “saving” Europe from the alleged spread of the reaction of the Russian Tsar.
Lenin, of course, encapsulated this with his pithy (yet ultimately morally repellent and finally practically disasterous) definition of “proletarian internationalism” that the particular interests of the revolutionary proletariat must subordinate the general interests of democracy.
Today, the “Hard” Left’s preoccupations with alliance with Islamist clerical fascism is pretexted on similar grounds. It appears that moral worth, the rights of women, homosexuals, religious minorities, ethnic minorities and a rise of – in particular – anti-Semitism – are to be regarded as “necessary” collateral damage of the thrust of modern so-called anti-imperialism.
Might I say: Not in my name.
I hope I am not digressing too much.
Damn – writing to fast:
This:
Should read
Whoops.
What a mangled car-crash of a comment that is, Hannan. I think Abu Faris has dealth with your sixth-form “whataboutery” better than I ever could, but to bring it back to the thread, let me bring it your point about “balanced and fair treatment of extremist and prejudicial behaviour”:
A balanced and fair treatment of extremist and prejudicial behaviour would require all to be taken to task. But don’t stop there, I say. Address the causes and not just the symptoms. You might disagree with me on what those causes might be, but just sticking it to Red Ken, Muslim nut cases, and the vile views of Nick Griffin, and you’re missing the point.
Is it your partisan predilection for the British Liberal-Left’s soft spot for Islamism which prevents you from making the same charge you have made here to Ken Livingstone himself?
If Ken is correct in leading the UAF protests against the BBC for allowing Nick Griffin to sit on the panel of ‘Question Time’, why is he also correct for giving a platform to Khaled Meshaal of the Hamas in the New Statesman?
Can you explain to us how “Ken is always right” works for your moral compass?
Dear Faisal, When you are a single issue activist or street corner preacher, it is easy to caste things in black an white. When you have experienced how politics works first hand, perhaps you can reflect further on the difficulties of maintaining moral clarity. More specifically, perhaps you will be able to muse on the distinction between a person’s political beliefs, and the tactics that have to be brought into play to move things along. At face value and at any given time these might appear contradictory. Every day brings compromises that will be unpalatable to the purist. Or the Puritan. Best regards, Hannan
Hannan – not quite sure what your complaining about but i hope your not defending the soft racism and pro-brown fascist leanings of the British far-left.
Hannan
I take it your last comment means that you find nothing morally disturbing about the “Hard” Left’s adhesion to the strategy of “my enemy’s enemy is my friend”?
Further, that you cannot find anything in the course of the deployment of this strategy that strikes you as suggesting that, bluntly, the “Hard” Left has got this arse about backwards for at least a century or more – it being a strategy that has bought only political disaster to both the Left and continued misery to the peoples (usually of the developing world) who have been left to suffer the effects of this line.
I enjoyed, especially, that classic Leftist counter that those that disagree are being “impractical”, or “single-issue” obsessed. I haven’t seen that one for a while. Thanks for reviving it for at least my entertainment. Of course, being “practical” and “seeing the big picture” involves snuggling up to clerical fascism in the form of Islamism. What a hoot!
Oh nice one Hannan, when you’re asked a straight question about Livingstone’s selective criticism of “bigotry, race and religious hatred”, we get from you the usual bucketful of convoluted and evasive tropes.
It’s funny how sincere “anti-imperialists” like you demand “rights”, moral exactitudes, invocation of international humanitarian law and other ‘absolutes’ but when made to face up to their own glaring ambiguities, including advocacy of some of the most loathsome and murderous religio-political systems (Jamaat, Hamas etc), we’re confronted with a slew of redundant shibboleths and appeals to be less “purist”, on the grounds that political expediency, for the likes of Ken Livingstone at least, trumps the need be morally right.
But that’s exactly the kind of dishonest hubris which has pushed ordinary people away from the “ideals” of leftist jackasses like Red Ken, or your own personal favourite, George Galloway. Both figureheads of the left in Britain, but both of whom have never looked so deceitful, decrepit and stripped of their moral high ground than they do now.
But look on the bright side, a position on the editorial board of the SWP awaits you, should you ever consider returning to these shores.*
* (to those who might be wondering, Hannan and I go back a long way)
Friends,
This is unlikely to be resolved here categorically, but I believe any disagreement arising here as one of nuance and not of deeply held values or a shared concern about the rise of religious extremism and apologia. I’d be happy to continue exchanging thoughts on related items so long as we can remain civil about it. Thanks especially to Abu Faris for some thoughtful engagement in this regard. Faisal, on the other hand, tsk tsk…
Hannan
what a shame, Hannan.