 Chomsky and Hizbullah: The Western secular left has flatlined
Geplaatst doorabby op Saturday 20 May @ 05:04:18 GMT+1
_CONTRIBUTEDBY abby
Daily Star, Lebanon
The Western secular left has flatlined
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=5&article_id=24520
By Michael Young
Daily Star staff
Thursday, May 18, 2006
The snapshot of Noam Chomsky communing with Hizbullah's secretary general,
Hassan Nasrallah, was a powerful symbol of the poverty of the secular Western
left when it comes to Middle Eastern affairs. With dour attention being
directed at the American right because of the Bush administration's
tribulations in Iraq, it has become less obvious how morally destitute are
those on the other side of the political aisle
Alighting in Beirut, Chomsky admitted he didn't know much about Lebanon,
broadcasting that he would discover it from the back of a taxi. That didn't
prevent him from taking a muscular position in support of Hizbullah's
retaining its arms, unaware of, or indifferent to, how little sympathy his
assertions garnered in a country where a majority regards those arms as,
variously, a perilous Iranian deterrent, a domestic threat, or further
confirmation that Hizbullah sits atop a state within a state.
What Chomsky also did was show how many on the political left openly embrace
political forces in the Middle East that are their natural enemies, chiefly
because of their antipathy for the policies of the United States. They
indolently assume that criticizing the Bush administration is enough to make
themselves relevant. This criticism, however, has hardly made the left's
message distinctive, having also been leveled, sometimes as often on Iraq, by
those ideologically well-disposed to the administration, including
neoconservatives. Indeed, one would be hard-pressed to find distinguishing
features defining a "leftist" approach to the region - or more accurately
features outlining clear-cut, persuasive alternatives to what the
interventionists and neocons have already prescribed.
Start with the most persistent strophe in the left's lexicon, namely the
ritualistic denunciation of American "neocolonialism," as an extension of
European colonialism past. This approach only obscures what is taking place in
the Middle East today. That the U.S is an empire cannot be doubted, but it is
also the world's sole superpower. Any void it creates may be deeply
destabilizing for international equilibrium. America may be a gigantic pain in
the neck to some, but imagine for a moment an international order where
America refuses to fulfill its responsibilities.
The problem is that the left has understood this even while reciting the
neocolonialism mantra. Inherent in the anti-colonial rhetoric is a belief that
enlightened self-determination is better than external control. In theory, it
is, but let's take Iraq. Would an American withdrawal today benefit Iraqis? It
would make them masters in their house and surely terminate the alleged U.S.
neocolonial project for the country. But it would also likely open the doors
to carnage and allow regional powers to pick at the carrion of the Iraqi
state. In other words, enlightened self-determination is not a serious option
(and no, Iraq's divisions were not created by the U.S., after all they were
what Saddam Hussein manipulated to stay in power); nor is it any more possible
in a region brimming with states pursuing narrow projects of domination in
Iraq.
So what has the left done? It has now begun to admit, grudgingly, that only
the U.S. can avert an Iraqi civil war. To make the admission more digestible,
the left's polemicists have tacked on sour conditions, demanding that the U.S.
commit to an eventual full departure, that it deal with the parties it once
refused to deal with, that it take blame for turning Iraq into a
slaughterhouse; but, in the end, they do admit the U.S. must stick around for
awhile, because nobody can be sure that atavistic Iraqi behavior will mean the
greater good for all. As for those on the left who demand an immediate
American withdrawal and expect everything to be well, what they gain in
coherence they lose in perceptiveness.
A second mainstay of the left's approach to the Middle East - though it is
hardly limited to the left - is a devotion to secularism, and frequently to
secular Arab nationalism. Many on the left now do accept that Arab
nationalists, or the nationalists in individual Arab states, have either
failed or are under pressure from political Islam. But what they're really
drawn to is a militancy, whether against the U.S. or Israel, that offers the
left much-needed verve. That's why it has so willingly ditched some of the
dead weight of discredited nationalisms to applaud the far more spirited
Islamists, most notably Hamas and Hizbullah.
But the left has also gone halfway in doing so, partly to remain true to its
former leanings, somehow reinterpreting the Islamists as nationalists with
turbans. That's not necessarily a mistaken assessment in the case of, let's
say, Hamas or Moqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army, but it does lead to a naive
downplaying of Islam in the discourse and behavior of such groups. By the same
token, Chomsky, in idealizing Hizbullah as a valuable vanguard in the
anti-Israel struggle, apparently ignored how hostile the party was to Lebanese
secular leftist parties in the past, and how incompatible its worldview is
with the one to which Chomsky claims to adhere.
The left also has nothing to say anymore on the role of the Middle Eastern
state as an economic actor capable of redistributing wealth evenly among its
people. Defeat was conceded long ago, with the left usually and specifically
ignoring the kleptocratic streak in states opposed to the U.S. For example,
has it lately focused on the debilitating corruption in Syria? Has it really
inquired whether Iran's apparent nuclear arms program is necessary in a
country where the money would be better spent on the poor (a protest routinely
raised to oppose arms build-ups in the West)? In this the left is no more
hypocritical than the right, of course, but economic redistribution is a
cornerstone of the progressive approach it favors, and it was at the very
heart of the "Arab socialist" endeavors undertaken during the 1950s and 1960s.
That this critique has been all but abandoned shows how far the left has
strayed from the single issue that once best defined it.
Finally, what has the left had to say about human rights and democracy in the
Middle East, other than to spout the truisms heard across the ideological
board? What it does have to say is, yet again, influenced by its hang-up with
American policy. But in this case the wrongdoers in the Bush administration
have actually said more interesting things, even if the U.S. has been guilty
of double standards, as all states are. Rather than exploit an American
administration's avowed concern for humanistic values the left considers its
own, publicists on the left have obsessed over these double standards, refused
to collaborate on the issue with like-minded partners on the right, leading
them to commonly overlook human rights abuses by U.S. foes, notably in Syria,
Sudan, and Iran.
Iraq has been falsely depicted as spawning a new ideological battle in the
West over the Middle East. Watching Chomsky cuddle autocratic Islamists who
once persecuted the left shows how nonsensical this is. The reality is that
neither side of the broad ideological left-right divide has presented
meaningful alternatives to the policies being pursued today. It is surely easy
to list the blunders of the Bush administration, but there are no guarantees
that the left can inherit the aftermath. The right is tarnished but, with the
exception of a few atypical examples, the left has flatlined.
Michael Young is opinion editor of THE DAILY STAR.
|
|
| |
 |
Score Artikel |
 |
|
Gemiddelde score: 0
Stemmen: 0
|
|
|
 |
|
