MIDDLE CLASS WHITE MALE
Recently involved in a passionate debate on free speech it took about five to seven minutes before race and gender entered the debate, it being explained to me that I as a ‘middle class white male’ could not understand the implications of my argument for those genuinely repressed. Leaving aside the supermarket basketful of assumptions laying beneath this remark it is difficult to envisage race and gender being presented as an argument in its own right in any other context, that is that a black middle class man, or white working class woman could not grasp the implications of one argument or another on the basis of race and gender.
When I read his book ‘What’s Left’ by Nick Cohen and his description of a growing disenchantment with those describing themselves as of the left and the related decline of a left wing tradition within which I once located myself, I had finally to recognise the fact that, whether I had changed or not, and my core beliefs have remained the same, I no longer had anything in common with much of those asserting themselves as ‘the left.’
I left school at fifteen and soon became involved with something that I had no trouble in identifying as ‘class struggle,’ with trade unionism and the left of the Labour Party, that is in left wing politics. My guiding light was George Orwell. The historical event that shaped my political consciousness was The Spanish Civil War as described in Homage To Catalonia; I tended to see most contemporary politics, sometimes erroneously through that particular prism. I opposed Soviet communism and particularly the apologists for mass murder that characterised the pro-Soviet left and I despised the sillier outpourings of the ‘Trotskyites.’ However despite whatever ideological differences I had, I was clear whom I could call comrade and who was the enemy. All of this I have described in an earlier Blog, ‘Islamaphobia and the Left.’
It is often far more difficult to identify a tipping point than might be imagined. There were points along the way, times when I felt embarrassed by the arguments made by people with whom I was, at least theoretically, in solidarity. The ignorant and ill informed anti Americanism, the obsession with politically correct terminology, the growing intolerance of free discourse and debate whenever this clashed with the prevailing left orthodoxy and most worryingly of all the flirtation with anti democrats and religious demagogues in the developing world.
As the war in Yugoslavia unfolded it was clear to me that the strangulation of the multi ethnic Bosnian state was inevitable without outside intervention. It took the hideous massacre at Srebrenica to stun the Americans, in the guise of NATO, into action. And yet there were those on the left who characterised this intervention as some sort of American Imperialist conspiracy! At this point I began to part company with many erstwhile comrades.
Like everyone else 9/11 had its impact on me. However my initial reaction was still coloured by that other 9/11, Chile 1973 and the American sponsored coup against the democratically elected government; were not chicken’s coming home to roost? Watching the bodies drop from the twin towers soon woke me up and I felt ashamed.
Shortly after I saw my initial reaction being echoed in spades in the London Review of Books, a vicious and mean spirited series of articles that was best characterised by the phrase, “the playground bully has been given a bloody nose!”
I opposed the Iraq war, partly because I did not buy the argument about WMD, but also because I feared the consequences of destabilising the region. Itself an extremely reactionary position, let’s leave the fascist in place in favour of a more stable status quo. I am not now especially proud of this position, however it was sincere.
I marched with millions of others; I am not a natural marcher being particularly self conscious in such situations. But became increasingly uneasy about the agenda’s of some others on the march; these were not the democratic left that I knew, the Trot’s who carried pictures of Blair and Bush with Hitler moustaches, the Islamicist fanatics, and juvenile America haters, I knew that this was no longer home.
Once the Invasion happened I hoped for the emergence of a democratic and free Iraq, certainly the Kurds achieved this. Meanwhile I heard Tariq Ali compare Islamic Sunni fanatics blowing up Shia mosques with the French resistance, George Galloway lauding murderous Shia gangs as the democratic voice of the Iraqi people. Suddenly it was time, enough already.
Where do I stand now? Well I take my comrades where I find them, there are still plenty of voices that emerged from the old democratic and liberal left, but there are other voices too and labels no longer feel important. (Toward the end of the argument with which I began this Blog I was accused of being right wing! Well if the defence of free speech has become the preserve of the right I’m happy to be called right wing, though I’m no longer sure what this term means).
My core values have not changed, I still believe in equality, in redistribution of wealth and fundamentally in freedom of speech, discourse and assembly, but I no longer believe or trust in strong centralised government. But more important than all of this is the freedom of the individual, in individual conscience and in free speech, like Ayaan Hirsi Ali I will always put freedom first.
When I read his book ‘What’s Left’ by Nick Cohen and his description of a growing disenchantment with those describing themselves as of the left and the related decline of a left wing tradition within which I once located myself, I had finally to recognise the fact that, whether I had changed or not, and my core beliefs have remained the same, I no longer had anything in common with much of those asserting themselves as ‘the left.’
I left school at fifteen and soon became involved with something that I had no trouble in identifying as ‘class struggle,’ with trade unionism and the left of the Labour Party, that is in left wing politics. My guiding light was George Orwell. The historical event that shaped my political consciousness was The Spanish Civil War as described in Homage To Catalonia; I tended to see most contemporary politics, sometimes erroneously through that particular prism. I opposed Soviet communism and particularly the apologists for mass murder that characterised the pro-Soviet left and I despised the sillier outpourings of the ‘Trotskyites.’ However despite whatever ideological differences I had, I was clear whom I could call comrade and who was the enemy. All of this I have described in an earlier Blog, ‘Islamaphobia and the Left.’
It is often far more difficult to identify a tipping point than might be imagined. There were points along the way, times when I felt embarrassed by the arguments made by people with whom I was, at least theoretically, in solidarity. The ignorant and ill informed anti Americanism, the obsession with politically correct terminology, the growing intolerance of free discourse and debate whenever this clashed with the prevailing left orthodoxy and most worryingly of all the flirtation with anti democrats and religious demagogues in the developing world.
As the war in Yugoslavia unfolded it was clear to me that the strangulation of the multi ethnic Bosnian state was inevitable without outside intervention. It took the hideous massacre at Srebrenica to stun the Americans, in the guise of NATO, into action. And yet there were those on the left who characterised this intervention as some sort of American Imperialist conspiracy! At this point I began to part company with many erstwhile comrades.
Like everyone else 9/11 had its impact on me. However my initial reaction was still coloured by that other 9/11, Chile 1973 and the American sponsored coup against the democratically elected government; were not chicken’s coming home to roost? Watching the bodies drop from the twin towers soon woke me up and I felt ashamed.
Shortly after I saw my initial reaction being echoed in spades in the London Review of Books, a vicious and mean spirited series of articles that was best characterised by the phrase, “the playground bully has been given a bloody nose!”
I opposed the Iraq war, partly because I did not buy the argument about WMD, but also because I feared the consequences of destabilising the region. Itself an extremely reactionary position, let’s leave the fascist in place in favour of a more stable status quo. I am not now especially proud of this position, however it was sincere.
I marched with millions of others; I am not a natural marcher being particularly self conscious in such situations. But became increasingly uneasy about the agenda’s of some others on the march; these were not the democratic left that I knew, the Trot’s who carried pictures of Blair and Bush with Hitler moustaches, the Islamicist fanatics, and juvenile America haters, I knew that this was no longer home.
Once the Invasion happened I hoped for the emergence of a democratic and free Iraq, certainly the Kurds achieved this. Meanwhile I heard Tariq Ali compare Islamic Sunni fanatics blowing up Shia mosques with the French resistance, George Galloway lauding murderous Shia gangs as the democratic voice of the Iraqi people. Suddenly it was time, enough already.
Where do I stand now? Well I take my comrades where I find them, there are still plenty of voices that emerged from the old democratic and liberal left, but there are other voices too and labels no longer feel important. (Toward the end of the argument with which I began this Blog I was accused of being right wing! Well if the defence of free speech has become the preserve of the right I’m happy to be called right wing, though I’m no longer sure what this term means).
My core values have not changed, I still believe in equality, in redistribution of wealth and fundamentally in freedom of speech, discourse and assembly, but I no longer believe or trust in strong centralised government. But more important than all of this is the freedom of the individual, in individual conscience and in free speech, like Ayaan Hirsi Ali I will always put freedom first.
