Still, lets have an interesting debate...
I thought that I would start things off my copying the New Stateman article on Nick Cohen's new book "What's Left?: How Liberals Lost Their Way". Its out today. I have just ordered the book from Amazon for £7.79. I will post a review when I have read it.
How the left went wrong
Nick Cohen
Published 05 February 2007
In early 2003, the largest co-ordinated protests in history took place against the Iraq war. This, argues Nick Cohen, was a failure of solidarity with the Iraqi people.
No one who looked at the liberal left from the outside could pretend that it provided anything other than token opposition to the "insurgents" from the Ba'ath Party and al-Qaeda. The British Liberal Democrats, the Continental social-democratic parties, the African National Congress and virtually every leftish newspaper and journal on the planet were unable to accept that the struggles of Arabs and Kurds had anything to do with them. Mainstream Muslim organisations were as indifferent to the murder of Muslims by Muslims in Iraq as they were to those in Darfur. For most world opinion, Tony Blair's hopes of "giving people oppressed, almost enslaved, the prospect of democracy and liberty" counted for nothing. The worst of the lot were the organisers of the UK anti-war demonstrations who turned out to be not so much against war, but on the wrong side.
Their leader, George Galloway, was a bombastic Scottish Labour MP who combined blood-curdling rhetoric with a whining sentimentality, like many a thug before him......
For the rest of this article click on New Statesman
"What's Left? How liberals lost their way" is published by Fourth Estate (£12.99).
4 comments:
Hi John
this book is definitely well worth a read. here's a review I put on Amazon
cheers
Tom P
I suspect how people react to this book will depend quite a bit on where they stand politically. I have noticed on blogs and messageboards that it has enraged the Trots and Trot-lite fellow travellers in the anti-war movement. It's also had enthusisatic approval from those you might expect it from - Christoper Hitchens, John Lloyd etc. Whereas I imagine some on the Right will (wilfuly?) misread the book as "all Lefties are soft on terrorists". (Although having said that Peter Oborne wrote a very fair-minded review)
Speaking personally as a fairly moderate but anti-war Labour supporter I found myself nodding in agreement with much of his analysis of elements of the Left but a bit annoyed by some of the extrapolations he makes.
It is definitely true that much of the Left these days seems to watch what America does and then look for the reason why US policy is wrong. The same could be said about their view of Blair. It is also true that there is often an undue focus on the "causes" of terrorism, rather than simply facing up to the fact that this is an extremist movement that has no problem with killing opponents. (No-one on the Left was bothered about the "causes" of the far-Right bomber who set off bombds in Brick Lane, Soho etc).
It is also true that the tendency to side with the underdog leads many lefties to turn a blind eye to some rabid anti-semitism on the part of those they support. And the treatment of some Iraqi trade unionists who opposed pulling the US & UK troops out of their country by members of the anti-war movement is simply shameful.
However these are often failings of subgroups within the Left (often those trying to fit the current maelstrom in Iraq into a crude imperialist/anti-imperialist framework) rather than the Left as a whole. And the book seems to veer between awareness of these subdivisions and lumping everyone in together. In addition he does often read like a recent convert to his position, advocating it without nuance, and failing to spot the nuances in others' arguments. A good example of this is where he misreads (in my view) a quote from Amnesty's secretary general (p324-325). I think the context to this quote is Amnesty's interest in economic human rights, and as such I don't think it means what Nick Cohen thinks its means (that human rights don't matter to poor people).
Overall I think it is worth anyone on the Left reading this book with an open mind. It is well-written, even if it does feel a bit like a pamphlet that's been strung out for a couple of hundred pages. And it should at least make those who can be a bit objective question some of their on views and ways of thinking (so that probably leaves out the membership of Respect, SWP etc).
He's no George Orwell though!
Hi John
This book is definitely well worth a read. Here's a review I put on Amazon.
cheers
Tom P
I suspect how people react to this book will depend quite a bit on where they stand politically. I have noticed on blogs and messageboards that it has enraged the Trots and Trot-lite fellow travellers in the anti-war movement. It's also had enthusisatic approval from those you might expect it from - Christoper Hitchens, John Lloyd etc. Whereas I imagine some on the Right will (wilfuly?) misread the book as "all Lefties are soft on terrorists". (Although having said that Peter Oborne wrote a very fair-minded review)
Speaking personally as a fairly moderate but anti-war Labour supporter I found myself nodding in agreement with much of his analysis of elements of the Left but a bit annoyed by some of the extrapolations he makes.
It is definitely true that much of the Left these days seems to watch what America does and then look for the reason why US policy is wrong. The same could be said about their view of Blair. It is also true that there is often an undue focus on the "causes" of terrorism, rather than simply facing up to the fact that this is an extremist movement that has no problem with killing opponents. (No-one on the Left was bothered about the "causes" of the far-Right bomber who set off bombds in Brick Lane, Soho etc).
It is also true that the tendency to side with the underdog leads many lefties to turn a blind eye to some rabid anti-semitism on the part of those they support. And the treatment of some Iraqi trade unionists who opposed pulling the US & UK troops out of their country by members of the anti-war movement is simply shameful.
However these are often failings of subgroups within the Left (often those trying to fit the current maelstrom in Iraq into a crude imperialist/anti-imperialist framework) rather than the Left as a whole. And the book seems to veer between awareness of these subdivisions and lumping everyone in together. In addition he does often read like a recent convert to his position, advocating it without nuance, and failing to spot the nuances in others' arguments. A good example of this is where he misreads (in my view) a quote from Amnesty's secretary general (p324-325). I think the context to this quote is Amnesty's interest in economic human rights, and as such I don't think it means what Nick Cohen thinks its means (that human rights don't matter to poor people).
Overall I think it is worth anyone on the Left reading this book with an open mind. It is well-written, even if it does feel a bit like a pamphlet that's been strung out for a couple of hundred pages. And it should at least make those who can be a bit objective question some of their on views and ways of thinking (so that probably leaves out the membership of Respect, SWP etc).
He's no George Orwell though!
"there is a lack of blogs written by centre left trade unionists who are Labour Party supporter"
NOw really JG what would you call mine then :)
United Left?
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