From a comment by sff9 on A French style of anarchic left-wing social commentary:
It’s really not that complicated, CH’s staff are left-libertarians who enjoy over-the-top childish humor and practice hipster racism/sexism a lot. They fought racism by reproducing racist tropes with the intent of mocking them. All the sympathy that I had for Charb, Cabu, Tignous, and Wolinski, whose cartoons and comics I read or have read for years, does not change the fact that in a lot of ways CH’s spirit was akin to 4chan’s.
So while saying that the artists were racists is probably excessive, pointing out that a lot of CH’s cartoons are racist/sexist/islamophobic etc., or at least are problematic in this regard, and thus should not be thoughtlessly reproduced everywhere because their authors are now martyrs of the freedom of speach, does not seem so contemptible to me.
That makes sense to me, and it jibes with the sense I’ve gotten from the little I’ve seen of CH over the past few years. I don’t like the cartoons as cartoons, because I think the style is (deliberately) ugly and coarse. Saying it’s comparable to 4chan is a useful simile.
For a cartoon whose style I love, have a bit of Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis.
Sigh.
Not sure how much of this I agree with, but leaning towards at least most. Worth a read, anyway.
http://junkee.com/the-problem-with-jesuischarlie/48456
Thanks for that, Lee Harrison. Somewhat better than the other pieces I’ve seen. Unfortunately, it’s yet another that doesn’t bother to investigate really anything about the views, motives, attitudes of the people at CH (ironic, given the last sentence). But it tries more than most.
I disagree with both the idea that the criterion for solidarity has to be something as narrow as being of exactly the same mindset (which, again, the author doesn’t really examine; and…the same mindset about what, exactly? everything?) and the idea that the use of “racist imagery” for any political purpose, including satirizing racists, is always abhorrent. But it’s better than most I’ve read (which of course isn’t saying much).
That makes sense to me…
Kinda lost me at “left-libertarian”…
[OT]
Pierce, left-wing libertarianism.
@4, Pierce R. Butler
Any rigorous non-tribal definitions for “left” and “right” will fail in these kinds of ways. They just aren’t that good of descriptors.
It seems to me that those critical of “Je suis Charlie” are just being overly literalist.
I assume no one who used the phrase – myself included, on my home page – imply that they actualle are Charlie Hebdo! I mean, it’s a magazine, not a person, and nobody in their right mind claims to be a magazine. (Side note: How did they pick that name? I wonder.) So given that noone takes it that literally, why should they take it as implying that we identify completely with the magazine in all respects?
To me, the phrase means something very simple. It acknowledges that the victim of this atrocity could have been me. Not because I am an important or high profile person – the exact opposite is the case – but because I, too, harbour opinions that may be abhorrent to the kind of people who commited this crime, and that perhaps I, too, deserve to die in their eyes. (The reason this does not make me the least bit afraid is my low profile. In real life, I am a rather timid person.) It means that I once read some words beginning “First they came for …” and have taken them to heart. It means I am determined to speak up, even though I wasn’t the target this time around. And that is all it means, nothing more.
So why not pick a phrase that is less likely to cause confusion? Because it is more powerful the way it’s phrased. By claiming identity – an obviously false claim – it makes the case in the strongest possible way. I couldn’t have picked a better phrase if I had a million years to think about it (← hyperbole – so sue me.).
Oh, no, here we go with our liberal miniaturisation. Let’s be more precise, shall we? Look at things more closely? Do these people really have the right to be so coarse? To be like channel 4? Do they have the right to seem “Islamophobic”? Or even to be Islamophobic? (Remember that, at most “Islamophobic” means fear of Islam, not of Muslims, and perhaps it is right that we fear it.) Shouldn’t they have at least predicted what the consequences of their actions would be, given Muslim sensibilities? Let’s look more closely still, zoom in on what we are doing, because, after all, someone may — it’s possible anyway — take exception to what we are saying, be offended, go on a killing rampage. After all,
Since they are “at least problematic in this regard,” so that they make editors cringe in fear lest men with Kalaschnikovs descend upon their offices, that lets them all off the hook. Read Nick Cohen’s piece in the Guardian. By forcing us to wonder whether something is “at least problematic in this regard” the Islamists have won, hands down. All we need to do now is wait around until the Islamist minority (which is present in every Muslim population, because it’s part and parcel of the religion itself) have taken over, and they will do the wondering for us. About time we defended our freedoms while we still have them. Time to say there’s something about Islam that makes this kind of violence an ethical demand. It’s always going to be a minority pursuit, but it’s always going to be part of Islam until Islam reforms itself — if it can. And let’s forget what ‘left-libertarian’ might mean. Whatever it means, people were massacred for publishing “offensive” cartoons. That’s all we need to know, and it doesn’t need to be more precise than this.
Eric, how nice to see you here. I have been missing your voice.
Now watching the demonstrations in Paris live on TV. A million people is a sight to behold. Of course, there is no way they can capture the whole million in a single picture, unless they take a camera up in a helicopter. Which it seems they did not do.
And here’s a link to Nick Cohen’s piece in the Guardian that Eric referenced above, just in case you’re too lazy to do the search yourself. It is indeed worth a read.
Eric McDonald@8
I’m not saying we should police our publications for fear of what extremists might think and do. Moreover, Charlie has been attacked for having drawn the prophet, not for having used racist imagery.
French feminists/anti-racists/LGBTQ/… didn’t wait for the attacks to think that these cartoons are problematic, even if they were made with a positive intent. This has nothing to do with the attacks, or even the blasphemous content.
By making it about Islam, you take the risk of marginalizing non-extremist Muslims, which is exactly what the Islamists want, as Nick Cohen’s paper says:
On islamophobia – a phobia is by definition an irrational fear. I think it is rational to fear some aspects of islam, but if that fear is blown out of proportion, I suppose it is fair to say you are islamophobic. However, the thing commonly called islamophobia is really an irrational fear of muslims, n’est pas? I don’t know why they don’t call it muslimophobia instead. It’s not any harder to say – same number of syllables and all.
sff9…. You picked the weakest point in Nick Cohen’s article. It is not clear that this is what Islamist militants are trying to do — and how would we know? They really believe, I think, though I do not know, that they are working towards a world caliphate, and in the process making it more uncomfortable to be Muslim in “Western” society. (But it is important to remember that there are more anti-Jewish offences than anti-Muslim offences in almost every Western society.) And by denying that their sort of violence is intrinsic to Islam is to fly in the face of the evidence.
There are some Muslim moderates, like Ed Hussain or Terek Fatah or Irshad Manji or Bassam Tibi, and some of them dutifully quote all the expected verses from the Qur’an. I think Ayaan Hirsi Ali is right here. The problem is Islam itself. The truth is that in classical Islam a Muslim was and still is duty bound to fight unbelievers. It is evident wherever you look, and it is simply not true that there is a special European or American or Oceanic idea of Islam which denies this violent heritage. It is written into the Qur’an and the Haddith and the Sira, the Sunnah (or way of life) of the Prophet (as the model for every Muslim), who was himself a warlord, the leader of a protection racket, and as lascivious as John Smith, arrogating to himself a larger share of women captives for his own right hand to possess.
Irshad Manji may quote the Qur’an to the effect that there is no compulsion in religion (as she did recently in the Spectator, in an article which seemed to me and exercise in self-delusion — hopeful self-delusion, but delusion nonetheless), but the history of Islam does not support her. This does not mean that amongst Muslims there is not a diversity of opinion, but it is clear that the verse abour compulsion was abrogated by later revelations commanding the death of unbelievers, or, amongst people of the Book (Christians and Jews), that they be allowed to live, so long as they paid the jizya tax in due submission, and felt themselves inferior. Unless the majority of Muslims are prepared to face up to the historical reality of Islam’s classical tradition, there will be no end to jihadi violence. And since that is so, it is unclear when the fear of Islam can be said to be irrational.
By the way, Harald, it is not clear that this is the way the word ‘Islamophobia’ is being used. If drawing a picture of the prophet is Islamophobic, then anyone with any doubts whatsoever about the goodness of Islam is Islamophobic. The word is useless. It was deliberately created to condemn any criticism of Islam or its quite disgusting prophet. Of a religion which is still endeavouring through its many voices at the UN to get criticism of Islam or offence to Muslims made a crime in international law, one cannot be irrationally afraid of this disturbingly intolerant and violent religion.
Eric MacDonald @13
It isn’t per se. Anyway, there’s nothing in your post convincing me that Islam is intrinsically more violent than the other Abrahamic religions. Keep fearing it if you want, I’ll keep fearing the fascist leaders who want me to fear Islam and for whom the Paris attacks are very convenient.
sff9… so far as fascism goes, the militant Muslims are surely the most fascistic. That’s not that I think we should be xenophobic like Marine le Pin, or like Geert Wilders, but it does mean that Islam does pose some of the dangers that both these people think it poses, and will continue to do so until it has gone through a radical reform. I do not think this reform is likely, so Islam will pose a threat for some time to come. Whether it will be able to become somehow indigenous to the freedoms of the West is a question still unanswered. I do not think it highly likely, but I may be wrong.
In the meantime, we will have more of these outrages to deal with. When will people’s patience simply snap, and mass movements to oust Muslims from Western socieities begin? I don’t know, but the signs are not favourable. Indeed there are signs throughout Europe (except perhaps Sweden, which has already committed cultural suicide, and criticism of Islam is illegal) that patience is wearing thin. And when that happens we call them fascists. Is Farage a fascist? A bit strange, perhaps, but not a fascist. He sees his world disappearing, and he doesn’t like that. Neither would the Saudi Arabians, only the Saudis would put you in jail or sentence you to death or flogging. Whose the fascist here?
The West does have a culture that it should treasure, and it does not (treasure it, that is). Instead it spends most of its time beating itself up with guilt because of colonialism (read Pascal Bruckner’s book, The Tyranny of Guilt: An Essay on Western Masochism, if you really want to understand our Western lack of self-confidence), despite the fact that Islam was a colonial power long before European powers were, and it was trading slaves from Africa and Europe (the slav(e)) states) before Europeans had even seen the promise of wealth beyond their shores. When Islam conquered Egypt and the Middle East, which was Christian and Jewish, at the time, they were careful until they could impose their power, then they killed thousands and perhaps hundreds of thousands, enslaving even more. The did the same in Spain and Sicily and the Balkans. They repeated this in the conquest of Zoroastrian Persia, and destroyed the fire temples. The did the same in India, where they were never in a majority. So when Muslims joined with Hindus demanding home rule, I used to wonder how the British differed. They were not unlike the Mughals, though not nearly so barbarous. The Muslim invasion of India razed temples to the ground, marginlised Hindus, enslaved some, killed many others. Wherever Islam has gone, mass killing has been the rule, not the exception. But the British, if not entirely beneficent, were not quite so brutal. And the Indian civil service was almost incorruptable. Surely, India was just as much British as it was Muslim. The Muslims may actually have recognised this, because it was they who insisted on partition.
But there are some in Europe, and that group is no doubt less less well educated, and has less power, who see what they think of as their culture being given up for a really mongrel culture that they see in the making, where they don’t belong, and where people like the Islamists in France commit atrocities, and rabble rousers like Anjem Choudary go around telling everyone that Islam and democracy won’t mix, and the Islamic flag will be flying over Buckingham Palace (or the White House) before you know you can say Jack Robinson. If you think Christianity or Judaism are more dangerous that Islam, you haven’t be paying attention. And if Islamist political dogma isn’t fascism, then I’m not quite sure what you mean by the word.
Sorry, should have been “Who’s the fascist here?”
I don’t buy this kind of rhetoric. If France (I cannot speak for the other countries) felt so guilty about colonialism, the situation would not be the same for the citizens of African descent. Crying over the “guilt” or “French suicide” is a convenient way to push a reactionary agenda.
How is that relevant? The colonialism that makes people suffer today is the European one. And Islam was not the first colonial power either, so I fail to see your point.
Islamists don’t get 25% of the votes in national elections in France. The FN does.
Eric, I don’t quite recognize your description of Sweden. In particular, that criticism of Islam is illegal there? That’s news to me, and Sweden is is right next door to where I live. Do you have a reference for that claim?
Can’t say exactly Harald, but it was on something written (I think) by Daniel Pipes on the Middle East Forum. It seemed reliable.
Well, sff9, doubt it if you will, and think it is an excuse for the reactionary if you will, but it seems to be true nonetheless. This has got nothing to do with people of African descent in France, except insofar as they are a constant reminder of the failure of French colonialism, since they do not comprise a integral part of the French people and do not accept its fundamental values of liberté, egalité, fraternité.
The reason for pointing out that Islam was a colonial power before Europe got into the game is simply to make the point that all the Muslim wailing over colonialism is just a sham. And most of the Muslim world was not colonised. After the First World War Arab lands came under British and French protectorate jurisdiction, but Iraq and Egypt were never British colonies in the way that India or Australia were, and were largely self-governing. Britain had oil interests in Persia and Iraq which were vital to the war effort 1939-45, but the British did not rule in either jurisdiction. In any case, what would you have expected after Turkey joined Germany and Austria in the First World War? There would have to have been some sorts of control there. Good thing too, or we would be living under a truly fascist government.
Not talking about France and who gets the votes. I’m talking about Islam and in particular Islamism (if they differ). This is what is fascistic, and the governments so far founded on Islam are mostly fascist governments.
It’s more the failure of integration than that of colonialism. And the failure is not that they supposedly don’t accept the fundamental values (citation needed for this btw), but that they are mostly ghettoized, unemployed, underrepresented in democratic instances, and overrepresented in prisons. This is in a great part a consequence of colonialism; if France was really so guilty over it, the situation could not be like this.
I answered this already. Those who suffer because of colonialism today are suffering because of Western imperialism. That’s why Muslims “wail” about it. Wait, maybe you think they should feel guilty because of the ancient Muslim colonialism, while westerners should not feel too guilty of their recent and continuing imperialism?
Be it true or not, it does not change anything: fascists who get 25% of the votes in my country are far more frightening and powerful than fascists in faraway countries. And making me fear Islam is exactly what they want and how they become powerful.
Okay, so I looked a bit more into the Swedish question. I don’t want to make a big issue out of this, for it is rather tangential to the main thrust of Eric’s argument, but as far as I can tell, all it is about is a recent broadening of libel law to apply not only to print media, but also to online material. Now there is no doubt that the very existence of libel laws is a restriction on the freedom of speech, as is any restriction on so-called hate speech. But I have found no indication that the amended law in any way prohibits or restricts criticism of Islam. So I think that statement is quite overblown. As to whether Sweden has committed cultural suicide, or is in the process of doing so, that is a different question, which I am not addressing here.
Yes, Harald, I was wrong about what Daniel Pipes said. He was speaking about the agreement between the two largest parties (who support unlimited immigration) to power share until 2022, effectively ruling out discussion on the immigration issue for another seven years. And, by any reasonable measure, unchecked immigration from Muslim countries has caused a number of social problems for Sweden’s fairly small population.
Well, sff9, the way I see it, the failure of Muslims to integrate in French society (and this is really the main issue with respect to non-European immigration) is largely a failure of French colonialism. While there are growing problems in Britain, many immigrants to Britain from the former Empire, have been well-integrated. The growing problems are mainly due, I think, to increased immigration from places that were not (or are not now) parts of the Empire where a memory of British rule remains. This is fairly fly by night analysis, I know, but I don’t know of any sources at the moment that will back up my intuition.
Islam’s colonialism is not ancient, at least not much more ancient (and longer lasting) than Britain’s. It occupied, and still occupies, colonial territory, and considers it part of the Muslim waqf. The liberation of the Balkans and Greece occurred roughly in the last quarter of the 19th century for the Balkans, and the first half of the century for Greece, though other parts of the Ottoman Empire (such as Hungary) obtained their freedom earlier. Not clearly ancient history.
Western Imperialism. What do you mean by this? It is not altogether clear that there is any substance to claims of Western imperialism. The UN protected South Korea, which is now a prosperous independent nation. A coalition of troops from Western countries liberated Kuwait from Saddam Hussein, but it is entirely in control of its government. Various countries have defended their interests in parts of the world, but since the disintegration of the British Empire in the years after the Second World War, aside from the Suez episode of 1956 (?) the British have not exercised imperial control anywhere in the world, except in places like Bermuda or the Falklands which have benefited from their status as Crown colonies, and have been reluctant to cut their ties to Britain. If ‘Western Imperialism’ is just a periphrasis for the dominance of Western finance, then ‘imperialism’ is scarcely the right word to use. I do not think there is continuing Western imperialism, though of course Western governments still have global interests which they will protect.
As to right wing movements in France, the Netherlands, and Britain, where they continue to gain support as immigration raises more questions than it answers, it is not clear that the word ‘fascist’ properly applies. I disapprove of those who try to make us fear Muslims, for Muslims constitute a large, diverse group, and clearly only a small minority constitutes a danger. However Islam is another question altogether, and it is not clear to me that the West is clear as to the possible dangers of increased immigration of Muslims. The radicals may be in a minority, but there will always be radicals, who will take Islam at its word. And that word is clearly that it is the duty of every Muslim (although it has always been a minority) to fight against the infidel until the world belongs to Allah alone. This is not a peripheral doctrine, so, despite the moderation of most Muslims, Islam itself continues to be a danger. Whether Islam is capable of reforming itself is still an unanswered question.
Harald Hanche-Olsen @22, you mean Eric MacDonald’s rhetoric is not based on actual facts? Color me surprised!
Eric MacDonald @23
It’s not their failure. They don’t have to integrate. If France wants them integrated and they are not, it’s France’s failure only. And no, it’s not a failure of colonialism either: it would imply that colonialism can succeed. I think it cannot, by definition.
As for the imperialism of westerners, it was a sloppy reference to a mix of neocolonialism, cultural imperialism, 60 years of US involvement in overthrowing foreign regimes, and Israel’s colonialism.
About your last paragraph, OK, I get it now, European fascists are not real fascists, they are merely trying to answer the questions raised by immigration! Whereas Islam is actually very dangerous and we’re not even sure how dangerous it really is because it is really, really dangerous.
sff9 slow down a bit, will you? I caught one mistake in a minor side remark. I don’t think the main part of Eric’s argument is so easily dismissed. At least, I have to study this a bit more before I know what to think. It will take time, for I am seriously snowed under (metaphorically speaking) for the time being.
Sff9. Oh dear — Israeli colonialism! That is something you will have to explain to me. So far I see the Israeli’s defending themselves against outstanding odds. The 1967 war was supposed to drive the Israelis into the sea, a Holocaust by another other name. Having occupied enemy territory, Israel offered to return it in return for peace. After the failure of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the Egyptians very wisely agreed to exchange recognition of Israel and peace for the Sinai. But other tentative offers were not accepted. The Israeli withdrawal from Gaza did not bring peace, but increased hatred and war. Indeed, there is no sign that the Palestinians will ever exchange anything for peace with Israel and a recognition of its right to exist. What would you have it do? Of course, Israel will never willingly give up the strategic Golan Heights, nor can you blame it.
As to integration. It’s the best way to establish good relations with your neighbours. Of course, you don’t have to, but if your values are inimical to the values of the host society, you can scarcely expect to be accepted without qualification.
As to the success of colonialism. I think colonialism can be successful. Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United States, practically every South and Central American country are examples of this, though the situation of indigenous populations is still something of a thorny issue in many places. I think colonialism was a qualified success in India, for example, which, 68 years on is still a prospering democracy, with largely British institutions (at least in origin). Besides, many of the changes that British rule imposed on the country, like the union of its multitude of small states and fiefdoms, the establishment of an incredibly complex railway system, the reduction of official languages to a relatively small number: all these were good things for which India has much to be grateful. Pakistan, unfortunately, decided to establish an Islamic state, which has borrowed some of the worst features of Islam from the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia, and so has never had a working democracy of any long duration. And that is the chief difference between India and Pakistan, which were one country until Jinnah and his party insisted on partition.
Regarding my last paragraph, which you have deliberately read in as silly a way as possible. All I was saying is that classical Islam is a danger to any society in which it is strongly represented. The terroristic acts attempted, foiled and successful in the West are a clear indication of that. How serious it will get is still a bit of a conundrum. If people like Terek Fatah influence the outcome, then perhaps things won’t be so serious as they are shaping up to be. But surely 9/11. 7/7, the Spanish bombings, the attack on Bombay (Mumbai), the Balie bombing, the Ottawa shooting, the Cherlie Hebdo massacre are enough to show that there is a serious danger here. You can try to make me look as foolish as you like, but it shows that you are a shallow reader, not an attentive one.
As to your silly remarks about fascism. What is it that makes Geert Wilders fascist? That he thinks that Muslim immigration will disastrously alter the shape of what had been, until then, a particularly tolerant society? Certainly not that he wishes to establish a totalitarian government in the style of Mussolini and Hitler. So what is fascist about those parties who are fearful of the loss of cultural values that they rightly cherish?
Thank you Harald. Our post crossed.
Oh, I forgot imperialism. Has it not occurred to you Sff9 that great powers will act in their own interests. Britain, for centuries, defended its doctrine of a balance of powers in Europe, which was why it opposed Napoleon, the Kaiser and Hitler. America, as the residuary legatee of the British Empire, had interests around the world which it needed to defend, and fears that it needed to allay. Sometimes its interventions (as in Chile and Iran) were ham-fisted, but this was mainly because they did not act as an imperial power, but as puppeteers, trying to manage things without being imperial. As an example of the American’s most foolish exercise recently (other than the Iraq war, which had neither legitimacy nor sense), was to hold an Afghan election in the midst of a hot war. This was stupid. America should have played the imperial power, established a military government (with cooperation from the Afgans), and a timetabled transition to indigenous power, when things had cooled off. This would have been imperialism, and of a very reasonable sort. Unfortunately, the Americans have a blind spot where imperialism is concerned, and cannot think of things in this way, though they seemed to have no trouble in post ww ii Germany. But as for cultural and economic imperialism, those are just catch-phrases used by the hollowed out Left in the West.
They were very successful for the invaders. The plight of indigenous populations is more than simply a thorny issue, surely? Those populations are often disenfranchised and amongst the most disadvantaged in society.
The situations in Australia and New Zealand are very different with respect to the outcomes for indigenous populations, but even where the outcome was relatively much better for Māori people it is not an untroubled recent history that has led to this point, and they are still massively disadvantaged. The tourism industry does very well out of the indigenous societies that barely profit from it.
Bernard, while it is true that the position of the indigenous peoples are a thorny issue (and perhaps more than one), this does not mean that colonialism has been unsuccessful. The creation of “reservations” (as in Canada) has not been particularly successful, though the inhabitants still benefit by the fulfilment of treaties signed with their forefathers. Some native Canadians have successfully integrated with the wider society, but they are often disadvantaged, exploited and despised. The disappearance of native women in Canada is a problem that the government seems unwilling to address. One of the problems is that, as the country has grown, the opportunities for the native people to live in the context of their native cultures are severely limited. Animal rights activists have decimated the fur trade, and other outlets for people’s creativity and activity are few. They tend to live in isolated communities in the North, and therefore do not benefit from the employment available in larger centres. And when they go to those larger centres they are often ostracised. I grant the problems, which are great, but this does not mean that colonialism did not work. It was, in fact, too successful and seemed unable (for various reasons) to assimilate the indigenous population, which is a sign of the risks of multicultural societies, which have yet to be adequately addressed.
If you’re defining success as displaced and suppressed the indigenous populations and decimated the indigenous cultures, then yes, success.
Can you really not imagine a more benign mechanism for exporting/sharing technology and infrastructure? Is it only conquest and violent subjugation that can deliver modernity (from which the privileged can benefit)?
If you want an example of successful colonisation which wasn’t at the expense of an indigenous population, then perhaps Iceland?
Eric MacDonald@26,28
Well I disagree with pretty much everything.
* You think that Israel has every right to act as they do, of course, silly me, Palestinians didn’t understand they just had to be reasonable, ya know.
* You think colonialism is overall a good thing: after all, it brings civilization to the savages!
* Your attempt to explain further the last paragraph of your #23 still reads the same to me, only with more reactionary rhetoric.
* And in your #28 you explain that imperialism is actually OK because great powers must protect their interests—while dismissing that cultural imperialism and neocolonialism exist.
You manifestly hold a “clash of civilizations”-oriented worldview. It is a very convenient and simple framework which is also utter bullshit. I would like to think that you are misguided rather than dishonest, but the fact that you never acknowledged that your #8 was a gigantic strawman (you took one bit of my answer to take the discussion in another direction, ignoring the rest) does not help in this regard. So I think I’ll withdraw from the debate; I hope you’ll excuse me.
Since, Sff9, you have so comprehensively misunderstood literally everything I said, of course you should withdraw. Nothing that you say resonates with me in the slightest regarding what I was trying to say. As I said, not a close reader, nor one with particularly great comprehension either. But, just to make things clear.
I did not say that Israel can do anything, but I am saying that they are in an almost impossible situation regarding defence. I don’t know what I would do in a similar situation where everyone surrounding me threatened my destruction, but I don’t think that I would simply lie down and allow others simply to drive me into the sea. Israel has not always played the most ethical game, but then their alternatives are not very great either. I do think Israel should have prevented the widescale development of settlements on the West Bank. However, since they vacated Gaza, leaving some valuable infrastructure behind which the Gazans might have used to good purpose, the fact that all Israel received in return for the return of the land was violence, it is hard to see that they had much option regarding settlements on the West Bank. It’s really something of a stale mate, but since on the Arab side the threats of annihilation continue, what else is Israel to do?
I didn’t say that overall colonialism was a good thing, though, from the standpoint of the Americans, it was surely the basis for the first major experiment in democratic governance. As for other results of colonialism, they are not all bad, although it is not something that would make sense in the world as it has come to be. At the time, all nations advanced by expansion and plunder. Islam is a good example of the principle in practice. We cannot judge the past by the standards of the present, though we can attempt to make the future better.
I am not sure what you consider reactionary rhetoric, since you do not really say. And since you read that paragraph so poorly, it is hard to say whether you are simply uncomprehending or deliberately perverse in the way that you have read it.
Imperialism is the use of power by great nations. By the responsible use of such power, much good can be done, and much evil avoided. I think the Americans, precisely because they have a bias against imperialism, have not functioned well as an imperial power, which, simply by virtue of their strength, they are.
I do not hold a clash of civilisations world view, although, as the globe has shrunk, it has brought civilisations, that were once far away, very close, so that the impact of different values and different aims are cashed in in an almost immediate response. It seems that as the West declines, we are going to see a very different configuation of power in the world, with China, perhaps being the great imperial power of the future. It has already begun to express its own interests by alliances which work at cross purposes with the West. How things will unfold from here will undoubtedly be very interesting, but I doubt very much that I will be around to witness them.
I am sorry that our discussion did not produce anything of value. Being a little less petulant would have helped, I think, to let you see that we are not so very very far apart.