magellan
Sat, 19 May 2001 00:27:13 -0700
It is quite interesting the article of "Challenge", a journal published
in Jaffa, Israel, sent to the list by A. Wosni, which is in the most part
reproduced ahead. The question of the "opportunistic alliances" is not
restricted only to this specific case of anti-Semitism ("Arabs too are
Semites"...) and holocaust denial on the part of otherwise progressive
Palestinian groups and even in the Arab newspaper edited by the
Communist Party of Israel --astonishing! It is met everywhere, as in the
case of anti-globalism on the part of right-wing groups in USA, the
_inverse racism_ of some depoliticized black caucus in USA and elsewhere,
or in the case of a doubtful anti-imperialist (_nacionalista_) trend on
the part of military groups in South America today (I stress _today_
because 35 years ago in Brazil this adjective was very often the catchword
for communist sympathizers within the Armed Forces). As "Challenge" says:
"In an age where careful distinctions are necessary, the
eclectic
opportunist is dangerous."
As to Ezra Pound I would like to point out that he cannot be reduced
just
to fascist rubbish. He was a very cultured man. Many times he was a
pedantic poet, but his essays on poetry are really better. He worked to
fascist Italy (he was put on trial after WW II for treason to the United
States) since he confounded his artistic fascination for this country with
Mussolini. His mind was very ideologically confused, but it results
clear from its work that he identified the Jews in general with the
bourgeois greed, in the same way that Shakespeare did with his Shylock
character. Among the selections from the _Cantos_ made by himself in
1966 "to indicate the main elements in the _Cantos_", as he wrote in the
Foreword, there is an interesting _Canto_ nº XLV, "With Usura hath no
man a house of good stone". A glimpse of it:
With Usura hath no man a house of good stone
................................
with usura
seeth no man Gonzaga his heirs and his concubines
no picture is made to endure nor to live with
but it is made to sell and sell quickly
with usura, sin against nature,
is thy bread ever more of stale rags
is thy bread dry as paper
with no mountain wheat, no strong flour,
................................
and no man can find site for his dwelling.
...............................
WITH USURA
wool comes not to market
sheep bringeth no gain with usura
...............................
They have brought whores for Eleusis
Corpses are set to banquet
at behest of usura.
This is the poetic vision of pure capitalism, though Ezra Pound did not
understand it. Not only the great Shakespeare identified the Jews in
general with the bourgeois greed, but Marx himself did so, though he
descended from a very old lineage of rabbis of his native Trier. I refer
to "Zur Judenfrage", which was published in the "Deutsch Französische
Jahrbücher" in February, 1844. There are passages that taken outside
from the context could be deemed crude anti-Semitism. In reality the
young Marx was fighting with his familiar demons, which wanted him to
follow a bureaucratic career. It is clear that in the Hegelian-like style
that he still used the "Jew" is the quintessence of the Christian
bourgeois: not surprisingly, this booklet deals with the bourgeois myths
of citizenship and of civil society (that in German is translated as
"bourgeois society", _bürgerliche Gesellschaft_, keep it in mind).
Nevertheless, in _Capital_ he also adhered _en passant_ to the popular
view of the Jews as one of the "true commercial peoples" --but in
Poland, then a land of very poor Jews... ("Eigentliche Handelsvölker
existieren nur in den Intermundien der alten Welt, wie Epikurs Götter
oder wie Juden in den Poren der polnischen Gesellschaft." Vol. I,
First Book, First Section Ware und Geld, 4. Der Fetischcharakter der Ware
und sein Geheimnis)
In the same line one could add Heidegger, whose book "Introduction to
Metaphysics" is worth reading for his dealing with onthology and for the
many references to the meaning of Greek words. Nevertheless, in this same
book there are repulsive and servile references to Hitler and Nazism,
however very brief ones. Furthermore, Heidegger opportunistically joined
the Nazi party, though he dated for many years a Jew ---noboby else than
Hannah Arendt herself, as once another Jew, Lou Salomé, flirted with
Nietzsche.
We can just strongly agree with this conclusion of "Challenge" as to the
theme of oppportunistic alliances:
> Fascism is not just the enemy of the Jews, but of all humanity – and
> especially of the organized working class. Under no condition should the
> oppressed seek fascist backing. The only way to fight such a trend is to
> warn against its consequences and to establish a socialist program. The
> vital prerequisite of such a program is to keep the real enemy in focus.
> The enemy is not an ethnic or religious group. It is the combined forces
> of American capitalism, Zionism and the reactionary Arab regimes.
In solidarity,
Roberto Magellan
Paix entre nous, guerre aux tyrans ......
Ouvriers, paysans, nous sommes
Le grand PARTI DES TRAVAILLEURS.
( L' Internationale )
#########################################
--Original message--
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (A.Wosni)
Subject: [L-I] Flirtations with Fascism (From Challenge # 67) (fwd)
List-Archive: <http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/leninist-international/>
Date: Tue, 15 May 2001
Ben Efrat/Langfur schrieb:
>
>
>
> This article has appeared in Challenge # 67. We hope it will invite
> reactions and a discussion. -- The Editor.
>
>
> Al Hayat Discovers Ezra Pound
>
> Flirtations with Fascism
>
> by Asma Agbarieh
............................................
> Parts of the Arab world have begun to show tolerance for bearers of
> fascist ideology. One hears clear indications of anti-Semitism*, in
> which Jews are singled out for hatred merely on account of their being
> Jews.
> Formerly, the Palestinian national movement took care to make
> distinctions, confining its criticisms to Zionists – for Zionism drags
> with it, inevitably, a racist attitude toward the Palestinian people.
> But now we hear expressions that arouse concern. The official PA daily,
> al-Hayat al-Jadida, publishes a denial of the holocaust by Hiri Manzour
> entitled, "Marketing Ashes". An Egyptian columnist writes: "Thank you,
> Hitler, that you did part of the work for us. What a pity you didn't
> finish the job!" (Ahmad Ragheb in the Egyptian government daily,
> al-Akhbar, April 29 – cited by the Israeli daily, Yediot Aharonot, on
> April 30.)
> Lately the tendency has shown up in the Arab world's most influential
> newspaper, Al Hayat, which is funded by the Saudis and published in
> London. On April 2, Al Hayat published on its front page an article by
> its literary editor, Abdo Wazzen, with the following lead:
>
> What a happy coincidence! It seems that the great American poet, Ezra
> Pound, had a son named Omar, who is a poet in his own right. Omar has
> written poems about the Palestinian intifada under the title, "The
> Sacred Earth".** Ezra Pound (1885-1972) was known for his "anti-Semitic"
> tendencies. These led him to oppose the Allies in World War II and
> migrate to Fascist Italy, escaping from Roosevelt and his Jewish
> "advisors" (the bankers, as he calls them). Omar Pound demonstrates his
> pro-Palestinian tendencies when he adopts the issue of the intifada,
> seeing it through the eyes of its fighters.
..........................................
> To call such a coincidence happy, to link the fascism of the father –
> via the son – to the fight against Zionism, is an insult to the
> Palestinian people. Its struggle appears here as a continuing chapter in
> the persecution of the Jews – and not as what it is and must remain: a
> struggle for liberation against a colonialist movement called Zionism,
> which seized the land and resources of the Palestinian people.
> A week after publishing the Pound piece, Wazzen came out with an article
> praising Pablo Neruda, the great Chilean poet and Nobel Prize laureate.
> Neruda, a Communist, was also a great political poet, committed to the
> interests of the working class and of oppressed peoples throughout the
> world. Where then does Al Hayat's literary editor stand? Is he a
> Nationalist? A fascist? A socialist? Or is he simply an opportunist,
> taking from anyone who will lend support, never mind the motives? In an
> age where careful distinctions are necessary, the eclectic opportunist
> is dangerous.
> As for Al Hayat, it is not merely the most influential Arab organ – it
> is also the one most frequently cited and emulated by local papers such
> as al-Ittihad (the journal of the Communist Party in Israel) and Fassel
> al-Makal (the paper of Azmi Bishara and his party, "Balad" – the
> National Democratic Alliance). When the highly respected Al Hayat
> glorifies a fascist anti-Semite – without a word of qualification –
> linking him via his son to the Intifada, it sends a confirming message
> of legitimacy to such anti-Semitic impulses as may lurk within Arab
> public opinion.
> On April 10, the local Communist paper al-Ittihad reprinted (with
> credit) the Al Hayat article on Neruda. On April 13, Fassel al-Makal,
> Bishara's paper – nationalist and anti-communist – re-printed the Al
> Hayat piece on the Pounds without a word of qualification. Bishara's
> paper neglected to credit the source and author, thus giving the
> impression that the item, with all its implicit views, was its own. Yet
> the same Azmi Bishara was one of fourteen Arab intellectuals who signed
> a petition asking the government of Lebanon to cancel a scheduled
> conference of Holocaust deniers. (See below.) In sending such
> contradictory messages, intellectuals like Bishara only increase the
> lack of clarity surrounding the question: Who is the enemy?
>
> Strange Alliance
>
> Beirut was scheduled to host a conference of "revisionist historians" –
> that is, Holocaust deniers – on March 30. It was no "happy coincidence"
> that an Arab capital was chosen: here the existing anti-Israel sentiment
> could easily be translated into anti-Jewish feeling. Under pressure from
> the West, Lebanon cancelled the conference. Protest followed, notably
> from groups opposing normalization with Israel. In this affair too, the
> Palestinian struggle lost some of its progressive, revolutionary
> content.
> One figure in these proceedings was Ibrahim Alloush, editor of a website
> called Free Arab Voice (www.fav.com) and a leading member of the
> Association against Zionism and Racism, located in Jordan. Here is the
> chain of events, summarized from Alloush's communications:
> Opposition to the conference came not only from the West and the Zionist
> movement, but also from fourteen Arab intellectuals, among them Edward
> Said, who petitioned the Lebanese government to cancel it. Alloush and
> his colleagues attacked the intellectuals, especially Said. How is it
> possible, they asked, that Arab intellectuals, knowing the severe limits
> on freedom of expression in the Arab states, would lend their voices to
> banning a conference? Under this pressure, Said withdrew his signature.
> Alloush and several other Jordanian intellectuals then took a
> counter-initiative, proposing to hold a conference in Amman on April 9
> on the topic: "What happened to the revisionist historians' conference
> in Beirut?" As an appendix to the invitation, Alloush included a piece
> of his own, called "Revisionist Historians for the Arabs: A Preview." In
> it he surveys the views of the Holocaust deniers at length. Here, for
> example, is an excerpt from the second point of his article:
>
> "Do revisionist historians deny that Jews died in WWII?
> "Revisionist historians do NOT deny that Jews died … They say, however,
> that hundreds of thousands of Jews died along with the forty-five
> million who perished in that war. The revisionist historians used hard
> sciences like physics and chemistry in proving that the so-called gas
> chambers were not used to exterminate Jews systematically, but to burn
> the corpses of people from different nationalities (after their deaths)
> to circumvent plagues."
>
............. Yet these opposition groups have
> never established red lines, nor formulated a political program. As a
> result, they have isolated themselves unnecessarily on many issues – for
> example, on the question, With whom is it acceptable to meet? Not, it
> turns out, with a Jew, even an anti-Zionist Jew. But with an Arab
> supporter of Oslo? Sometimes Yes, sometimes No.
> Two years ago I visited Jordan and interviewed several of these
> intellectuals, among them Fakhri Qa'awar, chairperson of the Writers'
> Union. I presented my view that the struggle should focus on those Oslo
> supporters, both Jewish and Arab, who are helping Israel to penetrate
> the Arab world in order to dominate it economically and culturally.
> Oslo, I said, must be the focus, because Israel and the US have used it
> to split the Arab world. We must not put all Jews in the same category:
> in doing so, we divert our struggle from its proper course. The struggle
> is class-based: it is between those whom Oslo benefits and those whom it
> does not. It must not be sidetracked into a narrow nationalism that
> would delude the Arab refugees and workers into thinking they are in the
> same boat with the bourgeoisie. Qa'awar answered that the number of Jews
> on the Left who oppose Oslo is so small that, practically speaking, he
> sees no reason to change the position against any relations with Jews.
> Given their lack of political clarity, the Jordanian opponents of
> normalization have adopted an anti-Semitic Arab chauvinism. The fact
> that Israel exploits the Holocaust in order to justify the Zionist
> project has led them to take a counter-position, downplaying the extent
> of German fascist crimes. It is as if they acknowledged that the
> Holocaust would justify the existence of Israel – and so they must show
> it didn't happen!
> Such logic does these Jordanian intellectuals discredit. Not only do
> they fall into the trap of connecting the Holocaust to the establishment
> of Israel, but they also link themselves to a bunch of quacks who are
> trying to rewrite the past in order to pave the way for a return of
> fascism.
> As for Zionism, it is a colonialist movement that arose decades before
> the Holocaust. It exploits the murder of six million Jews in order to
> justify a project that is itself inherently racist. The Palestinian case
> is strong enough – without the need for Holocaust deniers.
>
> Reactionary nationalism
>
> The escape into extreme nationalism is dangerous. In the Marxist view,
> nationalism is a vessel whose character alters depending on what you
> pour into it. Filled with socialism, it can be progressive – part of a
> liberation movement. If it exchanges this content for capitalism, it
> becomes reactionary. When the Palestinian and pan-Arab causes lost their
> progressive backer, the Soviet Union, the flirtation with capitalism
> began.
> The Arab leaders, and above all Yasser Arafat, promised their peoples
> economic prosperity, provided they submit to American domination and the
> capitalist ideology. Today they find themselves at a dead end. Not only
> has Oslo collapsed, but capitalism itself has entered a deep economic
> crisis. In the absence of progressive socialist support, Arab
> nationalism is in danger of falling into the waiting arms of fascism.
> The Arab world is not ready to confront the US and capitalism, because
> until now no true opposition has arisen. Given the vacuum, nothing is
> easier than to blame everything on the Jews while supporting fascist
> forces in the US and in Europe, looking to the latter to "purify" the
> Arab world of the Jewish "parasite".
> For the Arab regimes, above all the Saudi funders of Al Hayat,
> anti-Semitism is preferable to a confrontation with the real enemy:
> American capitalism and its agent, Israel. As long as the latter are
> strong, after all, they guarantee the survival of the dictators. These
> prefer to see the people going after Jews rather than attacking their
> own corrupt regimes.
>
> [drop]
> When holocaust deniers convene in Arab capitals, they are not adopting
> the Palestinian cause for its own sake, but rather exploiting it as
> fertile ground for their ideas. In this way they degrade the struggle –
> originally political, ideological, and conscious – to a more nefarious
> level. When Arab leaders join hands with them – as did the Mufti of
> Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, who sought support from Hitler – they
> betray their cause.
> Fascism is not just the enemy of the Jews, but of all humanity – and
> especially of the organized working class. Under no condition should the
> oppressed seek fascist backing. The only way to fight such a trend is to
> warn against its consequences and to establish a socialist program. The
> vital prerequisite of such a program is to keep the real enemy in focus.
> The enemy is not an ethnic or religious group. It is the combined forces
> of American capitalism, Zionism and the reactionary Arab regimes.
>
>
> *Editor's note: We are aware that the word "anti-Semitism" seems doubly
> problematic in this context: first, because Arabs too are Semites,
> although the usage applies only to Jews, and second, because Arab
> anti-Jewish feelings – as distinct from the European example – began
> with experiences of Zionist colonization. Whatever the causes, however,
> the distinction between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism must be
> maintained. We shall abide by ordinary usage, meaning by anti-Semitism
> the hatred of Jews as Jews.
>
> ** Translated from the Arabic of Al Hayat. We have not been able to find
> the precise English title of the collection.
>
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