WELCOME TO TRADITIONAL ISLAMISM

Some might think I was harsh (i.e. Martin Bright) when I labelled Martin Bright, the political editor of the New Statesman, a ‘war monger’. He was, after all, in principle against the Iraq war. Was I harsh? How can he be called a ‘war monger’? Well, it is more than positions, it is about the perpetuation of a narrative, and further his belief that war criminals and supporters of military aggression are worthy of support or even coalitions, when combating what Martin Bright terms ‘clerical fascism’. Let me quote the man:

While this situation remains, there is no shame for those on the left opposed to the rise of radical Islam to build alliances with conservatives prepared to call fascism by its real name.

Now I would think that war criminals, and their supporters (liberals or on the right of the political spectrum), that advocated for a war that resulted in the deaths and injury of millions and the displacement of over four million Iraqis are not even worthy of a handshake, let alone an alliance. But that is not what Martin thinks, because as I stated before about ‘Ed’, writers from the liberal literati cannot get a basic fact through their heads — their is NO moral superiority for imperialist nations, they are evil personified, wicked and the devil’s handyman on this planet. All this and Martin seems fixated, instead, with ‘Islamists’ or what he terms as ‘clerical fascists’. Individuals who may hold a variety of opinions, across different shades, are to Martin worse than real and active war criminals. Now I find it outstanding that a man can devote endless screeds about local community figures such as Iqbal Sacarenie and Inayat Bungwala(!), yet is not similarly fired up or disdained about the war criminals, and their supporters, that rule Britain itself. What is Martin’s attitude on Blair? Well he identified the problem, especially when Blair stated:

And of course, the new anxiety is the global struggle against terrorism without mercy or limit. This is a struggle that will last a generation and more. But this I believe passionately: we will not win until we shake ourselves free of the wretched capitulation to the propaganda of the enemy, that somehow we are the ones responsible. This terrorism isn’t our fault. We didn’t cause it. It’s not the consequence of foreign policy. It’s an attack on our way of life. It’s global. It has an ideology. It killed nearly 3,000 people including over 60 British on the streets of New York before war in Afghanistan or Iraq was even thought of. It has been decades growing.

Let us take it further, we will now turn to the state of ‘Israel’. In an article on ‘Israel’ (despite its wanton murder of men, women and children and continuous slow genocide of Palestinians in Gaza), Martin has this to say:

The week ended with a distinctly shaky performance from David Cameron in Israel where he had felt it necessary to assure Foreign Office officials that he would try not to “screw up”. Yet by sticking to the script provided by the pro-Arab mandarins he provoked the disdain of the Israeli government by suggesting that it is standing in the way of peace by continuing to build settlements in the West Bank.

Note two phrases — ‘pro-Arab mandarins’ and the mistake of ‘even daring to suggest that it [Israel] is standing in the way of peace by continuing to build settlements in the West Bank.’. Those are strange words to describe ‘Israel’s’ active racist demographics politics, ethnic cleansing and apartheid!

For Martin, it seems, ‘Israel’s’ activities are not the issue. Throughout his writings, I would assume that he does not view the activities of Bush et al. as the problem, rather the issue is a given threat to ‘our way of life’ i.e. people ‘attacking western governments’, as Sir Edward Husain would say. Now I ask, hasn’t Martin bought into the neocon worldview? Is he any different than any war monger, except him believing that aggressive wars are not particularly efficacious or in his own words don’t ‘help matters’?

Here is my point, and we need to emphasise it, it is not a single position on a war that would define a person as a war monger or an apologist for war. Oppression and oppressive structures are recycled through attitudes, attitudes that sedate people into silence and consent. Attitudes, that are often due to blinkered prejudice (possibly ethnocenterism), of the ‘west versus the rest’. Imperialist nations have a deep seeded history in the oppression and genocide of populations, but for the liberal literati (let alone those to the right) they are in fact moral, liberal democracies. Western European and American politicians may make mistakes, but they intend well and are not like the ‘other’. Niall Ferguson, apologist for the British empire, puts this as:

Political globalisation is a fancy word for imperialism, imposing your values and institutions on others. However you may dress it up, whatever rhetoric you may use, it is not very different in practice to what Great Britain did in the 18th and 19th centuries. We already have precedents: the new imperialism is already in operation in Bosnia, Kosovo, East Timor. Essentially it is the imperialism that evolved in the 1920’s when League of Nations mandates were the polite word for what were the post-Versailles treaty colonies. — Welcome the new imperialism, Niall Ferguson, October 31, 2001.

This type of attitude runs throughout the more recent writings of Martin, who sees no problem in defending Blair or imperium’s surrogate child ‘Israel’. In fact, in the struggle against a loose terrorist network, that threaten ‘our way of life’, they are moral agents (that may and do err), unlike those ‘Islamists’, who are beyond the pale. I would have no problem if Martin decided to criticise the attitudes that many Islamists carry, but I have a deep issue when he can’t even note his own hypocrisy and double standards, when being an apologist and ally for some of the most wicked institutions and political movements that walk this planet.

These are the allies of ‘Ed’. No wonder why ‘Ed’ seemed very touchy feely about ‘Israel’s’ right to exist, in his foundation’s launch document.