Hate figures and bogeymen are convenient for everyone. Up to a point, they can be harmless. I’m not averse to a bit of knockabout with the Tories or the Lib Dems: that’s the rough and tumble of tribal politics. But, in some less-travelled corners of party and movement, we have developed some hate figures over the years which we don’t need: at worst, they become pathological.
The most obvious example of this is the European left’s mixed feelings about the United States. At lowest common denominator level, we can perceive that the centre of gravity in America is politically to the right of us, and that puts us off. We might confuse the American President and American politicians with the American people: or talk about “the Americans” as if they were a race of identical people, at one with their politicians. But some of us feel uneasy about America; and a few of us actively despise it.
An example argument starts like this: we dislike the American state and their works. So anyone who dislikes the American state, and can give them a poke in the eye on our behalf, is our friend, no matter how unpleasant. And, in small numbers, this thinking seduces activists in key positions in left politics; our unions; our community organisations. Hence the denial of Junaid Ahmed’s terrorist links by the board of London Citizens. Or the TUC’s support for the nasty regime of Hugo Chávez. Or Ken Livingstone’s, George Galloway’s and Jeremy Corbyn’s support for Iran through presenting on its mouthpiece PressTV. The same PressTV which was recently sanctioned by Ofcom for its shocking transmission of an interview sympathetic to the Iranian regime, given under duress by a Newsweek journalist after being threatened with summary execution: and later calmly broadcast without mentioning the fact, as if it were just another interview.
Perhaps some of these activists are entryists; perhaps merely naïve. But these stances all derive, ultimately, from the same twisted argument of my enemy’s enemy. We are not allowed simply to say that some things America does are good and some of them not so good. We must choose either to be America’s lickspittle, or fully against it and its friends: it’s all or nothing. No grey areas are allowed, like, for example, exist in the Israeli-Palestine conflict: a conflict with a complexity and history far too involved for a single article. And in the last ten years, we might note that there have been reported rises on both Islamophobic and anti-Semitic attacks within the EU. Both are equally worrying: we do not need, of course, to take sides.
Unions are particularly susceptible to these kinds of strange stances, because they are not politically agile; the big ships take a lot of steering to change course. A poorly thought-out conference motion, proposed by a few fanatics, may haunt policy for years once passed, damaging the union and the wider movement. And so we come to UCU, the academics’ union.
UCU declared on Monday that the widely-accepted working defininition of anti-semitism, contained in the former European Monitoring Centre on Racism (EUMC) standard, is wrong, and have disowned it in all their work in tribunals, education or internal complaints:
“Congress believes that the EUMC definition confuses criticism of Israeli government policy and actions with genuine antisemitism, and is being used to silence debate about Israel and Palestine on campus”
Oh. So they don’t have any dispute with EUMC on other forms of racism, such as Islamophobia. Just anti-Semitism. But it sounds anodyne, doesn’t it?
It isn’t. Think about the following:
1. Why exactly would you want to unilaterally redefine anti-Semitism, if not to single out Jews? Why would you want to disassociate yourself from the standard position held by the Community Security Trust (monitors anti-Semitism in the UK); the National Union of Students and the Union of Jewish Students; the EU’s Fundamental Rights Agency; the All-Party Parliamentary Enquiry into Anti-Semitism and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe?
2. How exactly would you then defend a Jewish member in a racial discrimination tribunal? Making up your own definition?
3. Finally, why is “debate about Israel and Palestine on campus” so important anyway, compared to the fundamental concerns of their members about racism? Could it just be that they want to free their hands to openly campaign for Hamas?
So, if you don’t like conforming to the definition of racism, just change the definition. Simples. And the subtext is crystal clear: anti-Semitism is often not genuine and raised merely to win arguments as matter of bad faith. The motion has already resulted in a number of Jewish members quietly leaving the union, as well as prompting some fine and reasoned articles from concerned academics (Eve Garrard at normblog, for one, points out the inanity of the Twister logic). As well as the depressing report of the Pythonesque debate from the UCU Congress, the arguments are laid out in, among other places,this excellent piece by UCU member Ben Gidley, which I highly recommend for its rationality and calmness, painstakingly detailing all the arguments in the case, as well as highlighting other troubling activity within the union.
In short, UCU, supposedly representing the cream of our intelligent people has, in its ignorance, rather shown itself deserving of our condemnation.
We must always be aware of the dangers of race-paranoia. But the reverse is also true: we are sometimes not aware of racism that really exists – like, for example, when institutional racism in the Met was highlighted by the MacPherson report – and that not everyone quite is as enlightened as we think.
UCU is just an example of a worrying wider trend. We spend a lot of time rightly criticising the white racists of the BNP and the EDL. But it’s high time we confronted those who condone those other kinds of racism around us. Before they really start to hurt the credibility, and the ethos, of the whole Labour movement.
And before the entryists really start moving in.
This article first published at LabourList
Good post. Personally I am not anti-US (but I don't support "the war on terror" nor Britain being a street walker for Washington. Israel? Yes had this conversation before. Graffiti on wall in Germany 1938 Jews go to Palestine. 2008 Jews out of Palestine. At an Amnesty AGM they wanted to "boycott Israel" which is nearly "boycott Jewish shops". We have been here before. Yours Aye Ciaran Rehill a.k.a "Fat Yid Poof" (Copyright BNP).
I think it's not so much that they are consciously aware that the outcome of their actions is anti-Semitic, they just simply want to be freed up to support Hamas on campus, whom they see as freedom fighters.
And that's a problem, because Hamas endorses little things like The Protocols of the Elders of Zion which are, unfortunately, wholly racist.
I have just had a bizarre, Kafkaesque conversation on Twitter with a UCU apologist, who started asking all sorts of odd questions about Jews and Israel before I realised he was a university union activist and stopped the conversation. Some freaky people out there.
I support a 2 state solution. Yes Hamas has a cachet now that PIRA are defunct! There will always be Arabs who hate the "Bani Yehudi", Twitter needs to be cleaned up.
I believe in a two state solution too, as I think do most normal people. It's not so much the Arabs I mind, it's the intellectual left thinking that it's important to take sides. And, to add insult to injury, not even with reasonable Arabs who want to negotiate a peace, but with mad, terrorist Arabs.
Dichotomy between mad Arab terrorists and nice (westernised, tame) Ayrabs? Lots of soi-disant intellectuals (some self hating Jews) need an underdog. Historically this was the Jewish community, now its the Pallys. In 24 hrs I went from "stooge of Zionism" to "supporter of Al Fatr". Mid East is tricky to blog on. C Rehill (Fat Yid Poof) copyright BNP.
Actually those are very good points: that the hard left needs an underdog, and that underdog could as easily be Jewish as Muslim. It's being the underdog that counts. Choose your side, take your position, then manipulate the arguments around it to fit your opinion. Simples.