I’ve been trying to avoid commenting on Nick Cohen’s “What’s Left: How Liberals Lost Their Way”. Mainly because I have a disdain for people like Cohen - “watchtower intellectuals” as I call them. That’s because all they do is whinge and moan from up on high, but are prepared to do nothing about it to change it. The Euston Manifesto lot are of a similar ilk.
But, I feel somewhat forced to step into the debate because Tom Miller of NewerLabour has written a fairly interesting article which you can read here.
The first thing is that we should be reluctant to allow Watchtower Intellectuals like Cohen to define who we are, just as we should be opposed to allowing demagoges like George Galloway to define who the opposition to imperialism are. Cohen’s main argument is that, sections of the Left are so blinded by their hatred of America that they get into political bed with Islamists. There might be some truth to that. But Cohen is so blinded by his hatred of ‘Islamists’ that he ends up getting into bed with US Imperialism.
Neither are, in my view, progressive forces.
The Sadr Army has a nasty habit of running fake job ads in Shia newspapers, gathering up the workers onto a bus, and then blowing it up. The Modtqa Army (I’m not sure that’s the right spelling) also has a nasty habit of shooting university students because men and women mingle together at them.
Equally, the US occupying forces have tried everything they could to prevent trade union organisation from developing. The statutes introduced by Paul Brenner’s Coalition Provisional Authority outlawing effective trade unionism are still on the books. Trade unionists - who are just as opposed to the Islamists as they are to the occupation - are still rounded up.
This is why I am, personally, for ‘troops out now’. The US occupation is currently the catalyst for the current bloodshed in Iraq, just as much as the Islamist ‘resistance’. But I do not think that an immediate troop withdrawal will be the end of it.
There is an emerging third camp of workers, Worker-communists, women and the unemployed. It’s still in it’s embryonic stages, but all embryos grow, in the right circumstances.
My support for a ‘troops out now’ position is based upon that - the outright victory of the third camp.
Of course, for people like Cohen, we all have to be on-side with the most liberal and democratic people. This means getting into bed with people like George Bush, and the US state, who’s activities at Gitmo aren’t exactly ‘democratic’, especially given that every single other bourgeois democracy on earth - save the United Kingdom - has denounced it. And that’s just externally; I still remember Flordia 2000, even if Cohen doesn’t.
Because the concept of political independence is lost on Cohen. Miller (if I’ve read him correctly) makes the point that Cohen is essentially the mirror image of the SWP. While Cohen screams and rants and raves about how the SWP and their fellow travellers in groups like the ISG and Workers’ Power nail their mast firmly to the side of the Islamists - having no real critique of the Islamists (Workers’ Power did once have a fairly critical leaflet about the Iraqi resistance and the need for working class organisation. Co-incidentially, it was the only leaflet for Workers’ Power which I wrote).
Like I said before; principled socialism? Yes please, I’ll have some of that. Even if the SWP and their mirror don’t.
Yes, I read El Tom’s blog to and am glad he posted it, but unfortunately, for me at least, other than El Tom himself, not much discussion came out of it. The whole point about sliding into supporting US imperialism semed to have gotten lost. I am so pleased that you brought up the Worker Communists as they are one group in Iraq (and Iran too) that look promising. Of course we should support them and the Iraqi Labour Movement as well. That would be real internationalism rather than sucking up to either the Islamists or the equally repugnant USA. As the Worker Communists put it, take a third position betwen the two gangs, one that streeses reason, liberty and solidarity.
I don’t think one should be all that particular who one gets into bed with, unless one is getting shagged on a regular basis.
Well I think you misunderstand Isaac Deutscher’s powerful ‘retreat to the watchtower’ imagery (unless I get you wrong and you’re really more interested in the eschatology of ‘All Along the Watchtower’). Cohen isn’t keeping aloof from the sturggle because things are so bad nothing can be done - What’s Left is down and dirty fighting, gouging and punching below the belt, for a position best summed as Decent Pro-War Leftism.
I really wanted to ask if you have definite sources for what you say about the Sadr and Moqta armies (and not just a generalised ‘they’re bad guys’ response).
Plus you talk about the third camp position being embryonic, i.e. grwoing, got a future, tc: but haven’t they been there for a while and aren’t they more marginalised than ever? Which is a shame.
What’s Left is down and dirty fighting, gouging and punching below the belt, for a position best summed as Decent Pro-War Leftism.
True, but the reason I labelled Cohen a watchtower intellectual (I stole it from Tony Cliff’s description of Deutcher, as it goes) is because he’s a paid contrarian, who just sits and thinks, and actually does f all to change anything. If there were any justice, then Cohen wouldn’t be important at all.
I really wanted to ask if you have definite sources for what you say about the Sadr and Moqta armies (and not just a generalised ‘they’re bad guys’ response).
There were reports of it floating around on the UK Left Network or one of such email lists that I’m subscribed to. I’ll have a look, but I’ve also heard other lefty types talk about it too. Which doesn’t mean it’s nessicarily true, but I’m pritty inclined to believe the people I heard talk about.
They are bad guys, of course, but I’m not in the business of talking bollocks. (Not saying you are or being sarky in any way)
Plus you talk about the third camp position being embryonic, i.e. grwoing, got a future, tc: but haven’t they been there for a while and aren’t they more marginalised than ever? Which is a shame.
The thing about embryos is that they need two things to develop time and the right environment.
These are I feel more significant elements of the third camp, who emerged some time ago-
http://threescoreyearsandten.blogspot.com/2006/10/iraq-third-big-issue.html
totally. they are all speaking bollocks.
I’d be cautious as to the size of the particular “third camp” of which you speak, Kit.
It seems to me that the WCPI (for all their bravery) talk up their size and influence in Iraq quite a lot, whereas I’ve not personally seen that much convincing evidence to back up their claims. Also, other Iraqi womens’ activists don’t seem to be part of their organisations.
Cheers for the read, sorry, it was all typed in a fit of rage.
You read right.
We need to break the mirrors and paint our own images.