Strange Alliances
Harry’s Place is always very good value, you know. Each item posted is one you want to know more about. This one is certainly interesting.
At last week’s NUS conference, the AWL reports that the SWP joined the islamist Federation of Student Islamic Societies (FOSIS) – a Muslim Association of Britain front – in a walkout when guest speaker Houzan Mahmoud addressed the Conference.
Why would the SWP join FOSIS in a walkout?…Her key error appears to have been that she is the UK head of the anti-occupation Organisation of Women’s Freedom in Iraq which is a vocal opponent of Islamism. The fact that she has campaigned to bring human rights abuses by US and UK troops to public attention wasn’t sufficient to save her from the walkout; she evidently blotted her copybook by condemning the Baathist and Islamist terrorists for which the SWP cheerlead.
How repulsive. I wish Trotsky could come back and slap them upside the head. If you want to cheer yourselves up, take a look at the Organisation of Women’s Freedom in Iraq.
” I wish Trotsky could come back and slap them upside the head”.
It is more than a little inconsistent to attack the last Pope for being responsible for AIDS deaths in Africa and then to invoke as a would-be ally one of the nastiest mass murderers in history.
If this were about protestants, and OB was to write “I wish Cromwell could come back and slap them upside the head”, I’m sure it would have gone without a whisper.
Likewise, if this were about Tories, and OB would write “I wish Churchill could come back and slap them upside the head.”
I’m not sure how long your list of the nastiest mass murderers in history is – but I doubt that, when all is said and done, Trotsky’s place would be that high – regardless of Kronstadt and other nasty stuff during the Russian civil war.
As to the post – I disagree with Harry’s Place always being very good value, but they’re definitely spot-on about this issue.
Gramsci. He should smoke their white asses.
The problem with NUS conference is its full of arseholes, of every political persuasion. Ignore all that they do while you can, a significant proportion will end up as politicians and we won’t be able to ignore them then.
Yeah – what Merlijn said. Who knows; if Trotsky had had the chance maybe he would have ended up high on the list of mass murderers, but as it is now – he’s a piker.
Furthermore it’s not all that inconsistent, because the pope’s edict is in force right now, causing horrible lingering deaths right this minute, which is hardly true of Trotsky. Part of my heat about the pope is because Vatican influence needs to be resisted in the present, now, this hour.
Plus there’s quite a lot less worshipful slush about Trotsky on the front pages of mass newspapers than there was about the pope last week. Really considerably less.
“if Trotsky had had the chance maybe he would have ended up high on the list of mass murderers, but as it is now – he’s a piker”
I do not know what a piker is but he was a henchman of Lenin and head of the Read Army during its murderous rampages in the Civil War period. Slaughtering non-combatants was not a problem for him because in the “class war” there were no civilians. At one stage Lenin sent him a telegram saying that he wasn’t killing enough priests. That’s the sort of nice people we are talking about.
Without going into details on the Russian Civil War (putting it mildly, massacres were hardly a monopoly of the Red side in that war and as such have nothing to do with “class war”), this does not change my point. In Finland, the slaughter went largely the other way – particularly at the end of the war in the spring of 1918. However, I cannot imagine _any_ Finn, regardless of whether their family has a “red” or a “white” background (and in Finland, many people know), who would be offended if OB were to quip “Mannerheim should come and thwap them upside the head” when dealing with some inconsistent Finnish conservatives.
Political leaders, particuarly in wartime, tend to have blood on their hands. That does not mean you can’t make jokes about them. Incidentally, the longer they’ve been dead, the easier it is to make jokes about them. Genghis Khan and Attila the Hun are almost funny to think about. Caligula’s a hoot.
Caligula is hilarious. ‘If only they all had one neck.’ What a guy!
I resent that. Cal was more than just a cheeky chappy. He was also an impassioned animal rights activist. By making his racehorse a senator he exposes PETA for the timid little pikers they are. Incitatus in ’06!
And he was such a good kind brother, too. Well, for a time, anyway.
‘I cannot imagine _any_ Finn, regardless of whether their family has a “red” or a “white” background (and in Finland, many people know), who would be offended if OB were to quip “Mannerheim should come and thwap them upside the head”‘
So, no objection to replacing “Mannerheim” by “Hitler” ?
Wouldn’t make sense in this context. I can think of contexts where it would – sure. Of course, as I would place myself on the left end of the political spectrum – in as far as left and right have any meaning – I am a lot more concerned when a left-wing group makes common cause with religious reactionaries than I would be with what the radical right is up to. Also, I happen to like the Old Man a _lot_ more than Hitler.
The Old Man had one hell of a lot more good points than Hitler did. To put it mildly.