[Marxism] The Left and Support For Islamic Resistance

[Dbachmozart@xxxxxxx]

This excellent speech deals with an issue of utmost importance to  the future 
of the left - the effects of Islamophobia and fear of being labeled  
"terrorists" that have prevented us from linking up with and establishing  
unbreakable 
ties of solidarity to the Arab and Muslim communities. I hope that  comrades 
will read the entire article and take its suggestions to heart.
 
Dennis Brasky
 
 
The Left and Support For Islamic Resistance
 
 
By Nadine Rosa-Rosso - Brussels
 
 
clips --
 
 
(Editor's Note: The following is the text of a speech delivered by Nadine  
Rosa-Rosso at the Beirut International Forum for Resistance, Anti-Imperialism,  
Solidarity between Peoples and Alternatives, held from January 16 to 18,  
2009.) 
The key question in this forum is how to support resistance against  
imperialism across the world. As an independent Belgian communist activist I  
would 
like to focus on the position of the European Left vis-Ã-vis this  issue.

The massive demonstrations in European capitals and major  cities in support 
of the people of Gaza highlighted once again the core problem:  the vast 
majority of the Left, including communists, agrees in supporting the  people of 
Gaza against Israeli aggression, but refuses to support its political  
expressions such as Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah in Lebanon.  
The Left not only refuses to support them, but also denounces them and fights 
 against them. Support for the people of Gaza exists only at a humanitarian 
level  but not at the political level.  
Concerning Hamas and Hezbollah; the Left is mainly concerned with the support 
 these groups have amongst the Arab masses, but are hardly interested in the 
fact  that Israelâs clear and aggressive intention is to destroy these 
resistance  movements. From a political point of view we can say without 
exaggeration 
that  the Left's wish (more or less openly admitted)  follows the same line 
as  the Israeli government's: to liquidate popular support for Hamas and 
Hezbollah. 
-----------------------------------------
 
 
 
I will return to the quotation of Res Publica, because it summarizes quite  
well the general attitude of the Left not only in relation to the Palestinian  
resistance, but also in regard to the Arab and Muslim presence in Europe. The  
most interesting thing in this article is the comment in parentheses: âthe 
Left  and far Left (who only turned out in small numbers)â. One might expect 
following  such a confession some self-critical analysis regarding the lack of 
mobilization  in the midst of the slaughter of the Palestinian people. But no, 
all charges  directed against the demonstrators (90% of the whole protests) are 
accused of  conducting a "war of civilizations."  
At all the demonstrations I participated in Brussels, I asked some  
demonstrators to translate the slogans that were chanted in Arabic, and they 
did  so 
with pleasure every time. I heard a lot of support for the Palestinian  
resistance and denunciation of Arab governments (in particular the Egyptian  
President 
Mubarak), Israel's crimes, and the deafening silence of the  international 
community or the complicity of the European Union. In my opinion,  these were 
all political slogans quite appropriate to the situation. But surely  some 
people only hear Allah-u-akbar and form their opinion on this basis. The  very 
fact 
that slogans are shouted in Arabic is sometimes enough to irritate the  Left. 
For example, the organizing committee of the meeting of 11 January was  
concerned about which languages would be used. But could we not have simply  
distributed the translations of these slogans? This might be the first step  
towards 
mutual understanding. When we demonstrated in 1973 against the  pro-American 
military takeover by Pinochet in Chile, no one would have dared to  tell the 
Latin American demonstrators "Please, chant in French!â In order to  lead 
this 
fight, we all learnt slogans in Spanish and no one was offended.  
----------------------------------- 
The problem is really in the parentheses: why do the Left and far Left  
mobilize such small numbers? And to be clear, are the Left and far Left still  
able 
to mobilize on these issues? The problem was already obvious when Israel  
invaded Lebanon in the summer of 2006. I would like to quote here an  
anti-Zionist Israeli who took refuge in London, jazz musician Gilad Atzmon, who 
 already 
said, six months before the invasion: "For quite a long time, it has  been 
very clear that the ideology of the Left is desperately struggling to find  its 
way in the midst of the emerging battle between the West and the Middle  East. 
The parameters of the so-called "clash of civilizations" are so clearly  
established that any ârationalâ and âatheistâ leftist activist is 
clearly  
condemned to stand closer to Donald Rumsfeld than to a Muslim.â  
One would find it difficult to state the problem more clearly. 
---------------------------------------- 
I would like to briefly address two issues which literally paralyze the Left  
in its support to the Palestinian, Lebanese, and more generally to the Arab 
and  Muslim resistance: religion and terrorism. 
The Left and Religion 
I have always been and remain an atheist, but the rise of religious feelings  
is hardly surprising. In todayâs world most politicians, including those on 
the  Left, do little more then display their weakness on this issue: they do 
nothing  against the military power of the US, they do nothing or almost 
nothing 
against  financial speculation and the logic of profit that plunges billions 
of people on  this Earth into poverty, hunger and death. All this is due we 
are told to âthe  invisible handâ or âdivine interventionâ:  where is 
the 
difference between  this and religion? The only difference is that the theory 
of 
the âinvisible  handâ denies people the right to struggle for social and 
economical justice  against this âdivine interventionâ that helps to 
maintain the 
status quo. Like  it or not, we cannot look down on billions of people who may 
harbour religious  feelings while wanting to ally with them.  
The Left does exactly the same thing as what it accuses the Islamists of: it  
analyses the situation only in religious terms. It refuses to disclose the  
religious expressions as a âprotest against miseryâ, as a protest against  
Imperialism, colonialism, and neo-colonialism. It cuts itself off from a huge  
part of the masses. Gilad Atzmon expresses it best when he states: âRather 
than  
imposing our beliefs upon others, we better learn to understand what others  
believe inâ. If we continue to refuse to learn, we will continue to lament 
the 
 religious feelings of the masses instead of struggling with them for peace,  
independence and social and economic justice.  
But there is more. The fate of Islam is very different from that of  
Christianity. I have never known the Left to hesitate when showing solidarity  
with 
the Latin American bishops, followers of liberation theology and the  struggle 
against Yankee Imperialism in the 70s, or the Irish Catholic resistance  to 
British Imperialism. Nor have I known the left to criticize Martin Luther  King 
for his references to the Gospel, which was a powerful lever for the  
mobilisation of the Black American masses that did not have political, economic 
 or 
social rights in the U.S in the sixties. This discriminatory treatment by the  
Left, this systematic mistrust of Muslims who are all without any distinction  
suspected of wanting to impose sharia law on us, can only be explained by  
colonialism that has profoundly marked our consciousness. 
-------------------------------------- 
If we would agree to stop staring blindly and with prejudice at the religious 
 beliefs of people, we would perhaps "learn to understand" why the Arab and  
Muslim masses, who today demonstrate for Palestine, are screaming âDown with  
Mubarakâ, an Arab and Muslim leader, and why they jubilantly shout the name 
of 
 Chavez, a Christian-Latin American leader. Doesnât this make it obvious that 
the  Arab and Muslim masses frame their references not primarily through 
religion but  by the relation of leaders to US and Zionist Imperialism?  
And if the Left would formulate the issue in these terms, would they not  
partly regain the support of the people that formerly gave the Left its  
strength? 
The Fear of Being Associated With Terrorism 
On the 11th of January 2009, the president of the German Chamber of  
Representatives, Walter Momper, the head of the parliamentarian group of âDie 
 GrÃneâ 
(the German Greens), Franziska EichstÃdt-Bohlig, a leader of âDie Linkeâ,  
Klaus Lederer, and others held a demonstration in Berlin with 3000 participants 
 to support Israel under the slogan âstop the terror of Hamasâ. One must 
keep in  mind that Die Linke are considered by many in Europe as the new and 
credible  alternative Left, and an example to follow.   
The entire history of colonisation and decolonisation is the history of land  
that has been stolen by military force and has been reclaimed by force. From  
Algeria to Vietnam, from Cuba to South-Africa, from Congo to Palestine: no  
colonial power ever renounced to its domination by means of negotiation or  
political dialogue alone.  
For Gilad Atzmon it is this context that constitutes the real significance of 
 the barrage of rockets by Hamas and the other Palestinian resistance  
organizations: âThis week we all learned more about the ballistic capability 
of  
Hamas. Evidently, Hamas was rather restrained with Israel for a long  while.  
It 
refrained from escalating the conflict to the whole of southern  Israel. It 
occurred to me that the barrages of Qassams that have been landing  
sporadically 
on Sderot and Ashkelon were actually nothing but a message from the  
imprisoned Palestinians. First it was a message regarding stolen land, homes,  
fields 
and orchards: âOur beloved soil, we didnât forget, we are still here  
fighting for you, sooner rather than later, we will come back, we will start  
again 
where we had stoppedâ.  But it was also a clear message to the  Israelis. 
âYou 
out there, in Sderot, Beer Sheva, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Tel Aviv and  Haifa, 
whether you realise it or not, you are actually living on our stolen  land. You 
better start to pack because your time is running out, you have  exhausted our 
patience. We, the Palestinian people, have nothing to lose  anymoreâ. (Gilad 
Atzmon - Living on Borrowed Time in a Stolen Land) 
full article --     
<_http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=14818_ 
(http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=14818) > 


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