THE SHADOW OF SPAIN 1936
I watched a little of the recent debate on Libya in the House of Commons. It was for the most part a somewhat lacklustre affair. As an ex-activist in the Labour Party I felt a growing sense of weary disgust that all the most conservative and reactionary arguments came from the Labour ‘left,’ whilst some of the most articulate and passionate came from the Conservative benches. None of the speeches took a jingoistic or gung ho tone; indeed one of the most sensitive speech came from a Tory ex-army officer appalled at the revolting jingoistic tone of some of the tabloid press; the tiny minority that voted against intervention included the ever predictable usual suspects Jeremy Corbyn, Dennis Skinner, Caroline Lucas et al, with the likes of Ken Livingstone, George Galloway and Tony Benn cheering from the wings.
There is however a ghost hanging over the non-interventionists, one to which they themselves feel cannot be avoided, it is the ghost of Spain 1936. If you visit the stopwar.org.uk you can read their 10 points against intervention. The arguments here are well rehearsed for the most part spurios misrepresantations or the usaul diatribes about it all being part of a wicked anglo American machiavialan plot, that it is all about oil and the childish argument that if we do not intervene everywhere we should intervene nowhere. Amidst all of this the following extraordinary point is made:-
‘ This is not Spain in 1936, when non-intervention meant helping the fascist side which, if victorious in the conflict, would only encourage the instigators of a wider war – as it did. Here, the powers clamouring for military action are the ones already fighting a wider war across the Middle East and looking to preserve their power even as they lose their autocratic allies. Respecting Libya’s sovereignty is the cause of peace, not is enemy.’
This cobbled together farrago of nonsense, misrepresentation and historical illiteracy needs to be read more than once to take in the full scale of its dishonesty. The slight of hand that seeks to link the coalition with its UN Mandate with 20th Century fascist dictatorships is particularly disgusting, whilst the sheer monumental nonsense contained in the last sentence takes the breath away. Of course non intervention in Spain did lead to the victory of Franco and the facists, consequently by ‘respecting Libya’s sovereignty’ we would of course have given the people of Libya in general and in Benghazi in particular a certain kind of peace, the peace of the graveyard and of course non intervention in the current conflict would have meant assisting Ghadafi, for whom the epithet ‘fascist’ does not seem wholly inappropriate, to victory.
Also since when did the concept of national sovereignty become so central to persons proclaiming the importance of international solidarity, so once the legend on the proud banners of the left?
These people are of course not true internationalists, their primary agenda is informed by a virulant anti-Americanism and a hatred of western liberalism, they are fellow travellers of the Islamacist fanatics and they disgrace the legacy of the left whose mantle they so shamelessly claim.
There is however a ghost hanging over the non-interventionists, one to which they themselves feel cannot be avoided, it is the ghost of Spain 1936. If you visit the stopwar.org.uk you can read their 10 points against intervention. The arguments here are well rehearsed for the most part spurios misrepresantations or the usaul diatribes about it all being part of a wicked anglo American machiavialan plot, that it is all about oil and the childish argument that if we do not intervene everywhere we should intervene nowhere. Amidst all of this the following extraordinary point is made:-
‘ This is not Spain in 1936, when non-intervention meant helping the fascist side which, if victorious in the conflict, would only encourage the instigators of a wider war – as it did. Here, the powers clamouring for military action are the ones already fighting a wider war across the Middle East and looking to preserve their power even as they lose their autocratic allies. Respecting Libya’s sovereignty is the cause of peace, not is enemy.’
This cobbled together farrago of nonsense, misrepresentation and historical illiteracy needs to be read more than once to take in the full scale of its dishonesty. The slight of hand that seeks to link the coalition with its UN Mandate with 20th Century fascist dictatorships is particularly disgusting, whilst the sheer monumental nonsense contained in the last sentence takes the breath away. Of course non intervention in Spain did lead to the victory of Franco and the facists, consequently by ‘respecting Libya’s sovereignty’ we would of course have given the people of Libya in general and in Benghazi in particular a certain kind of peace, the peace of the graveyard and of course non intervention in the current conflict would have meant assisting Ghadafi, for whom the epithet ‘fascist’ does not seem wholly inappropriate, to victory.
Also since when did the concept of national sovereignty become so central to persons proclaiming the importance of international solidarity, so once the legend on the proud banners of the left?
These people are of course not true internationalists, their primary agenda is informed by a virulant anti-Americanism and a hatred of western liberalism, they are fellow travellers of the Islamacist fanatics and they disgrace the legacy of the left whose mantle they so shamelessly claim.
