There should be an award for "Most Stupid Marxist Sect" and this year it should be given to "Fight Back." Of course, it is always difficult to know which Trotskyist group deserves the Most Stupid award but I do think that, this year, Fight Back gets the trophy. [On another note, there should also be an award for "Most Egotistical and Self-Congratulatory Anarchist Group" but that, perhaps, deserves its own post.]
The reason I would like to nominate Fight Back for this award is because of an article called "Against the Blanket Boycott of Israel: A Working Class Solution." Here, demonstrating that they are behind the left by at least a century - and that, despite calling themselves "Leninists" have probably never read Lenin's work on the National Question or the debates surrounding this issue (and that actually dealt with the Question of Palestine) in the 3rd International - they condemn the BDS movement against Israel because it is not truly "working class."
Now I agree that there might be, perhaps, a petit bourgeois sentiment in the BDS movement and a 1st world arrogance. I can also agree, to some degree, with Fight Back's analysis of the South African situation (yes, apartheid was not defeated by the international movement but by an internal and revolutionary movement within South Africa). And yet these are other, and properly left, complaints. Fight Back's stupidity lies in its proposed "solution" to Palestinian oppression: Palestinian peasants need to get behind the Israeli working class because the latter possesses a more mature revolutionary conscience. In other words, the colonized should follow the lead of the colonizing working class because, all of history to the contrary, the colonial working class in Israel really has the best interests of the people it has usurped and helps oppress in mind.
According to this logic, the oppressed masses of the world should stop fighting against imperialism and follow the lead of us "more advanced" folks in the centre of capitalism. I guess that's typical Trotskyism but, to be fair to the other Trot missionaries out there, Fight Back makes Trotskyist theory seem even stupider than it already is.
It's like they skipped over an entire history of anticolonial theory, slapped the face of Lenin (along with a few quotes) upon their website, and then decided to pick up a vulgar marxism that was not only pre-Lenin but probably more in line with the type of marxism spewed by Kautsky when he went crazy revisionist.
It is probably not all too surprising that they ignored the history of revolutionary theory from regions outside of the European and Euroamerican context. Really, they never even read how Israeli radicals in the 1960s made sense of their colonial position/privilege. In fact, they're not interested in reading anything except for their own thoughts and some good-old euro-chauvinist marxists. Maybe they should spend a year reading Fanon - that might be an antidote to their stupidity.
What really irks me is that they now have the gall to print supposedly pro-Palestinian articles like this and this. In fact, I had forgotten about their idiocy until I discovered, by accident, these pieces. The hypocritical ignorance is astounding! So is the fact that they show up at pro-Palestinian marches claiming they're radical. I guess they like their Palestinians as victims that can be saved and led around by the white colonizer but not as agents.
On a side note, I sent them an angry letter back in January. I have yet to hear a reply. My friend thinks that, since I'm probably the only person who has ever written them, they are spending months crafting a sophistic response. I'm still waiting.
The reason I would like to nominate Fight Back for this award is because of an article called "Against the Blanket Boycott of Israel: A Working Class Solution." Here, demonstrating that they are behind the left by at least a century - and that, despite calling themselves "Leninists" have probably never read Lenin's work on the National Question or the debates surrounding this issue (and that actually dealt with the Question of Palestine) in the 3rd International - they condemn the BDS movement against Israel because it is not truly "working class."
Now I agree that there might be, perhaps, a petit bourgeois sentiment in the BDS movement and a 1st world arrogance. I can also agree, to some degree, with Fight Back's analysis of the South African situation (yes, apartheid was not defeated by the international movement but by an internal and revolutionary movement within South Africa). And yet these are other, and properly left, complaints. Fight Back's stupidity lies in its proposed "solution" to Palestinian oppression: Palestinian peasants need to get behind the Israeli working class because the latter possesses a more mature revolutionary conscience. In other words, the colonized should follow the lead of the colonizing working class because, all of history to the contrary, the colonial working class in Israel really has the best interests of the people it has usurped and helps oppress in mind.
According to this logic, the oppressed masses of the world should stop fighting against imperialism and follow the lead of us "more advanced" folks in the centre of capitalism. I guess that's typical Trotskyism but, to be fair to the other Trot missionaries out there, Fight Back makes Trotskyist theory seem even stupider than it already is.
It's like they skipped over an entire history of anticolonial theory, slapped the face of Lenin (along with a few quotes) upon their website, and then decided to pick up a vulgar marxism that was not only pre-Lenin but probably more in line with the type of marxism spewed by Kautsky when he went crazy revisionist.
It is probably not all too surprising that they ignored the history of revolutionary theory from regions outside of the European and Euroamerican context. Really, they never even read how Israeli radicals in the 1960s made sense of their colonial position/privilege. In fact, they're not interested in reading anything except for their own thoughts and some good-old euro-chauvinist marxists. Maybe they should spend a year reading Fanon - that might be an antidote to their stupidity.
What really irks me is that they now have the gall to print supposedly pro-Palestinian articles like this and this. In fact, I had forgotten about their idiocy until I discovered, by accident, these pieces. The hypocritical ignorance is astounding! So is the fact that they show up at pro-Palestinian marches claiming they're radical. I guess they like their Palestinians as victims that can be saved and led around by the white colonizer but not as agents.
On a side note, I sent them an angry letter back in January. I have yet to hear a reply. My friend thinks that, since I'm probably the only person who has ever written them, they are spending months crafting a sophistic response. I'm still waiting.
A friend pointed out that Kautsky's take on the national question, even in his most revisionist moments, was still better than Fight Back's position. Perhaps I should have used Bernstein as my negative example instead.
ReplyDeleteMore proof that Fight Back deserves this award:
ReplyDelete1) in an argument about this issue with one of its members I was told to "fuck off" when he couldn't respond to any criticism.
2) members of Fight Back have recently released very offensive documents about the G20 and some of their members are advocating that we turn activists into the police... Wow, a leftist organization that wants to help the police - how progressive.
Al-Jaza'iri is the writer of all three articles you linked, or co-writer in the case of the "against the blanket..." article. I wouldn't say it's correct to denounce "Fightback" as a whole on this basis.
ReplyDeleteI find it odd how little political/economic analysis of current events I find on this blog compared to screeds against other leftists. Hopefully I'm just browsing wrong and there is a section here somewhere where you do something other than call others "idiots"...
And Fightback is also an opportunist group that calls militants the same as the police: really I have no tolerance for them, and I especially lacked tolerance for them during anti-Zionist work in Toronto. As for your second sentence, you apparently haven't read most of my blog because the majority of it, though ranty, is about philosophical and political analysis of events and theory. Where I do attack specific groups it is: a) opportunist groups (i.e. the IMT, the IS); b) dogmatic groups (i.e. the Sparts, the RCP-USA). I also attack leftist academics, which means I attack myself, so I suppose there's enough to around even for myself. Otherwise, the vast majority of what I put up here is closer to throwaway academic papers: clearly you haven't done very much browsing.
ReplyDelete