World-Cup Fever Grips Leninist-Shariah Alliance?

I've just read that the absurd far-left Islam alliance party, Respect, is going to urge its supporters to support Iran in the upcoming soccer World Cup. This may well be a joke on someone's part, but given Respect's contempt for England, and its "respect" for those who despise us, I have no doubt that the Leninist-Shariah alliance will be shouting for any team as long as it is not England (or the USA, of course), but most especially if it is Iran (Islamic Republic of).

The looney left, and feeble-minded not to say often poorly-educated and misinformed liberals, believe that to say there is a problem between the West and the Islamic World, in terms of the understanding of concepts such as democracy, tolerance and freedom, is "racist"; the absurdity of this charge is obvious to anyone with even just a scintilla of reasonableness. Because the Shariah-apologists of the liberal-left are unable to apply their spurious charges of racism against critics of Islam who originate from the Muslim world, people like Ayaan Hirsi Ali or Wafa Sultan (see interview below), they are forced to resort to hysterical mud-slinging and elemental hatred when discussing them, blind to the racist irony of their actions. Witness the gloating and indecency exhibited by many far-left blogs over Hirsi Ali's recent problems in the Netherlands.

Anyway, I recently came across the following interview aired on Al-Jazeera TV on February 21, 2006, with Arab-American psychologist, Wafa Sultan; another former Muslim, she has some interesting and insightful things to say about the Islamic question.

Wafa Sultan: The clash we are witnessing around the world is not a clash of religions, or a clash of civilizations. It is a clash between two opposites, between two eras. It is a clash between a mentality that belongs to the Middle Ages and another mentality that belongs to the 21st century. It is a clash between civilization and backwardness, between the civilized and the primitive, between barbarity and rationality. It is a clash between freedom and oppression, between democracy and dictatorship. It is a clash between human rights, on the one hand, and the violation of these rights, on other hand. It is a clash between those who treat women like beasts, and those who treat them like human beings. What we see today is not a clash of civilizations. Civilizations do not clash, but compete.
[...]
Host: I understand from your words that what is happening today is a clash between the culture of the West, and the backwardness and ignorance of the Muslims?

Wafa Sultan: Yes, that is what I mean.
[...]

Host: Who came up with the concept of a clash of civilizations? Was it not Samuel Huntington? It was not Bin Laden. I would like to discuss this issue, if you don't mind...

Wafa Sultan: The Muslims are the ones who began using this expression. The Muslims are the ones who began the clash of civilizations. The Prophet of Islam said: "I was ordered to fight the people until they believe in Allah and His Messenger." When the Muslims divided the people into Muslims and non-Muslims, and called to fight the others until they believe in what they themselves believe, they started this clash, and began this war. In order to start this war, they must reexamine their Islamic books and curricula, which are full of calls for takfir and fighting the infidels.

My colleague has said that he never offends other people's beliefs. What civilization on the face of this earth allows him to call other people by names that they did not choose for themselves? Once, he calls them Ahl Al-Dhimma, another time he calls them the "People of the Book," and yet another time he compares them to apes and pigs, or he calls the Christians "those who incur Allah's wrath." Who told you that they are "People of the Book"? They are not the People of the Book, they are people of many books. All the useful scientific books that you have today are theirs, the fruit of their free and creative thinking. What gives you the right to call them "those who incur Allah's wrath," or "those who have gone astray," and then come here and say that your religion commands you to refrain from offending the beliefs of others?

I am not a Christian, a Muslim, or a Jew. I am a secular human being. I do not believe in the supernatural, but I respect others' right to believe in it.

Dr. Ibrahim Al-Khouli: Are you a heretic?

Wafa Sultan: You can say whatever you like. I am a secular human being who does not believe in the supernatural...

Dr. Ibrahim Al-Khouli: If you are a heretic, there is no point in rebuking you, since you have blasphemed against Islam, the Prophet, and the Koran...

Wafa Sultan: These are personal matters that do not concern you.
[...]

Wafa Sultan: Brother, you can believe in stones, as long as you don't throw them at me. You are free to worship whoever you want, but other people's beliefs are not your concern, whether they believe that the Messiah is God, son of Mary, or that Satan is God, son of Mary. Let people have their beliefs.
[...]

Wafa Sultan: The Jews have came from the tragedy (of the Holocaust), and forced the world to respect them, with their knowledge, not with their terror, with their work, not their crying and yelling. Humanity owes most of the discoveries and science of the 19th and 20th centuries to Jewish scientists. 15 million people, scattered throughout the world, united and won their rights through work and knowledge. We have not seen a single Jew blow himself up in a German restaurant. We have not seen a single Jew destroy a church. We have not seen a single Jew protest by killing people. The Muslims have turned three Buddha statues into rubble. We have not seen a single Buddhist burn down a Mosque, kill a Muslim, or burn down an embassy. Only the Muslims defend their beliefs by burning down churches, killing people, and destroying embassies. This path will not yield any results. The Muslims must ask themselves what they can do for humankind, before they demand that humankind respect them.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali: A Woman of Courage and Dignity

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a woman of courage and dignity. She is also someone with a prodigious number of talents. The multilingual Somali-born former member of the Dutch lower-house of parliament is an author, a film-maker, an academic, a leading feminist and insightful critic of Islam. Hirsi Ali, a former Muslim who has renounced Islam, declared herself to be an atheist after being inspired by the Lieden philosopher, Herman Philipse. In 2003, she famously commented on the founder of the Islamic faith saying "Muhammad is, seen by our Western standards, a perverse man". Hirsi Ali was referring primarily to the marriage between Muhammad (then in his fifties) to Aisha, a young girl of only nine years of age (according to the Muslim Hadith). Hirsi Ali is also an outspoken critic of female circumcision, practiced in many parts of the Muslim world and justified by a saying attributed to Muhammad.

Hirsi Ali also wrote the script for a film, directed by Theo Van Gogh, criticizing the treatment of women in Islamic society. The director, Van Gogh, was subsequently murdered by the Islamist, Mohammed Bouyeri, in an Amsterdam street in November, 2004. A death threat, primarily directed to Hirsi Ali, was pinned onto Van Gogh's body. As a consequence of this and other threats by Islamists, Ali Hirsi has been forced to spend large periods of time in hiding. In November 2005, Hirsi Ali reported being threatened by Scheich Fawaz, an Iman in a mosque in the Hague, who said that she would be "blown away by the wind of changing times" and could also anticipate "the curse of Allah".

In January 2006, Hirsi Ali was awarded Reader's Digest "European of the Year". In her acceptance speech, she urged action to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Commenting on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's outrageous remarks denying the Jewish Holocaust, she noted: "Before I came to Europe, I'd never heard of the Holocaust. That is the case with millions of people in the Middle East." She urged the formation of conference on the Holocaust saying that it "should be able to convince many people away from their denial of the genocide against the Jews."

Hirsi Ali also said in her acceptance speech: "So-called Western values of freedom and justice are universal; that Europe has done far better than most areas of the world at providing justice, because it has guaranteed the freedom of thought and debate that are required for critical self-examination; and that communities cannot reform themselves unless scrupulous investigation of every former and current doctrine is possible."

In March 2006, she co-signed the MANIFESTO: "Together facing the new totalitarianism" with eleven other individuals, including Salman Rushdie. This manifesto was published in response to the violent over-reation in the Islamic world following the publication in Jyllands-Posten of cartoons depicting Muhammed.

This courageous and intelligent woman, who has stood up and spoke out against Islamic totalitarianism and has put her life on the line in the process, is, however, about to be scapegoated by cowardly and weak-minded Dutch politicians. Following a recent television program in the Netherlands that presented facts that were already widely known, but which were presented as revelations, about how she actually came to originally claim refugee status in the Netherlands, Hirsi Ali has been declared an illegal alien. In other words, she has been effectively stripped of her Dutch citizenship, and now faces an uncertain and possibly dangerous future. Of course, the reality is that Hirsi Ali is being fed to the Islamist crocodiles by Dutch appeasers who hope such an offering will delay their eventual consumption. Or as respected author Melanie Phillips puts it, "Drive out Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and they will drive out (or so they think) the threat of the jihad. Thus the authentic voice of appeasement; thus courage is punished and resistance abandoned; thus the murdered Theo van Gogh is doubly betrayed. A shocked friend of Ms Hirsi Ali says that the mood in the Netherlands today reflects a thirst for a public hanging. But this public anger is being funnelled not at the clerical fascism that has caused Dutch public figures to be guarded day and night against the threat of murder, but at one of those very figures. Thus the victim of violence is turned into its cause, and her institutionalised lynching will purge the terror from the people."

Is the future of the West in relation to uncompromising Islamic threats and terror, is this to be the response to their intolerance and rejectionism? Step by appeasing step, some of them noticable, some of them imperceptible, we eventually surrender all our hard-won freedoms, our rationality, our enlightenment, and, finally, our soul.

Lenin's Tomb: My Final Word

[This is another example of a so-called 'racist' post that was removed from 'Lenin's Tomb'. I will not submit any further posts to that blog].

Communism leads inevitably to the Enver Hoxha Tractor Combine, the Trabant and other ersatz immitations of free-market endeavour.

Moreover, a significant part of the politicaly-inspired mass-murder and mayhem of the 20th Century was caused by communist regimes of one shade or another.

Marx was a decent man, troubled by the social conditions of his time, but his ideas have little or no practical application to today's world. And if you read the testimonies of many people who were involved in radical socialist movements in the 60s and 70s, they now realize that they were wrong and that their actions and beliefs made existing problems worse rather than actually solve them.

It is ironic that alchemy was mentioned in relation to capital somewhere else in this post because I think Marxism is a form of politically alchemy: an attempt to create a golden era out of the leaden reality of human nature and human aspirations. It is always bound to fail because it goes against the laws of nature.

Take for example, Sir Isaac Newton: a brilliant man, possibly the most brilliant who ever lived, but he wasted a significant amount of his life messing about with alchemy. How ironic that someone who played the most significant part in uncovering the real laws of nature was attempting something that was bound to fail because it violated those laws. Perhaps there is a lesson to be learned from this.

Newton also wasted his time trying to decipher the biblical bronze-age nonsense that is the prophecies of Daniel, but he also represents a perfect example of rationality and reason. He is the posterboy of the Age of the Enlightenment, a development that lead to the ultimate ascendancy of Western Civilization.

Now, the greatest challenge facing Western Civilation, and indeed all of mankind (at least outside of the environmental sphere) comes from those who wish to turn the clock back, and who wish to compell all of mankind to be subject to irrational, ignorant and intolerant religious beliefs and customs. Militant Islam (i.e. pure Islam, practiced and executed as Mohammed intended it to be, and not the PC 'religion of peace' poppycock we are told to swallow on an almost daily basis) is the prime example of this. It is now spreading through the entire world like a tumour that will surely kill its host if not excised.

Given that Communism (and National Socialism) was the bugbear of the 20th Century, and that Militant Islam (i.e. Islamofascism) is shaping up to fulfill that role in the 21st, it is perhaps fitting that the far-left finds so much in common with the Jihadi Islamists. After all, they find common cause in their shared hatred of America. The jihadis loathe America and Western cultural values in general, whilst the far-left and soppy-minded liberals engage in a form of cultural self-loathing and push their unjustified historical guilt-complex to more ridiculous and absurd extremes.

The far-left basically sympathises with suicide bombers in London, Tel-Aviv, Madrid and Bali. They 'understand' the frustrations of the people who carried out the WTC attacks. In their minds, it is not the Islamists who are the problem, it is America and the West. As a trivial example, look at the postings here in 'Lenin's tomb' where left-wing ire is reserved for the Metropolitan police and not for the sods who either carried out mass murder or attempted it. There is symapthy for Palestinian suicide bombers (often accompanied by something like 'I don't agree with the bombings but compared to what the Israelis have blah blah blah done..'; for me, this is a bit like when someone says 'I'm not a racist but...'), but no sympathy for innocent Israelis (referred to collectively as 'Zionists' in their hypocritcal and blantantly racist lexicon). I could go on.

To conclude, the far-left (and signficant strands of liberal opinion in the West) believe that it is not Islamists who are the problem, it is America and the West. They believe that Bin Laden, though misguided, is basically right. A signicant portion of the Islamic world believes that Bin Laden is, in fact, not at all misguided: he is just right. (Where I currently live, it is very common to see youths wearing Bin Laden T-shirts. He is their hero because he is standing up to America). Everything is the fault of George Bush and Tony Blair. I must, of course, also include the Israelis in this culpability club.

But sooner, or later, left-wing and liberal opinion is going to see that the Islamists war on the West is not because of the American invasion of Iraq, is not because of sympathy with the Palestinians or the Afghans, or because of opposition to the denial of schoolgirl headscalves in France or because of anodyne cartoons in Denmark; these are symptons and not causes. It is all about the Islamit's desire to impose their dreadful belief system on the rest of the world by force, terror and blackmail.

The Bali bombers chose to kill westerners and non-Muslim Indonesians (i.e. Balinese Hindus) precisely because they were westerners and Hindus. Moreover, they were decadent and immoral alcohol-drinking westerners and Hindus. For the Islamists, it all about war on the 'other', the infidel, the Dar al-Harb (House of War). A few spurious, and sometimes believable, political reasons for their actions can also be thrown in now and then so that 'useful fools' can be foolishly used until it is time to turn on them as well.

Accusations of Racism: A Case of the Pot Calling the Kettle Black

I’ve been banned from the far-left blog: ‘Lenin’s tomb’ for implying that Islam has encumbered the economic, civil and political development of countries like Pakistan and Morocco, and for giving a-tongue-in-cheek suggestion that Haiti would be better-off if administered as part of Canada. Apparently, in the stultifying politically-correct world of the left-wingers who inhabit that blog, this is considered to be “racism”, and it offends their delicate socialist sensitivities. Meanwhile, real racists, such as those who openly advocate the annihilation of Jews in Israel, who label all of Northern Ireland’s Protestants as ‘flawed people,’ or who gloat over the deaths of allied troops in Iraq and implicitly support global jihadis in their war on the West are quite welcome there. It is very much a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

Here is the post that I was prevented from making at http://leninology.blogspot.com/2006/05/capitals-decivilising-mission.html:

Dylan, the problem with people like you is that you play the racist card just a little too much. You use it to intimidate and obfuscate, especially when you've lost the argument or can't come up with an alternative one. And in case you haven't realised, Muslims aren't a race, they're a religion. Commenting on the merits of a religion (which I, and many others, also see a political movement) isn't racism. Most of my friends, including my partner, are non-Caucasian, and I could list a whole load of other credentials that would pass your PC checklist to ensure that I am not a racist, but I just can't be bothered. Incidentally, Lenin (the blogger) describes Protestants as basically decent but flawed people; is that racist?

As for my "nonsense" about Singapore, apparently me having lived in that country counts for nothing, does it? You spoke to one gay friend about Singapore, and this gives you greater insight into the place than me. Your friend might also tell you that gays in Singapore are never arrested, but are openly tolerated. The military-gay issue is true of any country in the world, and not just Singapore. How about being gay in the Cuban or Iranian army?

Singapore has gay festivals, gay magazines, and gay pubs. They even have one pub exclusively staffed by ladyboys. Now let's compare Singapore with say neighbouring Islamic Malaysia, where homosexuality is illegal and the punishment for homosexuality is life imprisonment. Fact or "racist shit". Ask your Sinagpore friend.

[Relevant previous posting:]

Ant, there are absolutely NO slums in Singapore. The government provides excellent public housing for all its citizens, and there is no way anything can be hidden from view; it only takes forty-five minutes to drive from one side of the country to the other. Singapore is not some Orwellian state, rather more like a tropical Switzerland only slightly more interesting. I think you are confusing it with Pyongyang. I have a friend who has been to Pyongyang, which is essentially a Potemkin city (false shop fronts, foreigners not allowed to leave their hotel without two minders etc.). Singapore isn't even remotely like that.

And I don't know where you got that poppycock about unmarried people in Singapore not being allowed together in the same room. That is absolutely and hopelessly untrue. The Singapore government couldn't care less about such things. They even have topless table dancing there for Christ's sake. Singapore is not a prudish state, it is a pragmatic secular state. Even prostitution is legalized.

I think you are mixing up Singapore and Malaysia. Malaysia has Islamic laws that prevent unmarried people (who are Muslims and of the opposite sex) from being close to each other; this is called "khalwat" or "close proximity". This is strictly enforced in Malaysia. Moreover, Muslims are not allowed to drink alcohol and cannot be an apostate. These laws do not apply to non-Muslims (mostly Chinese, Tamils and Europeans), but complications arise when a non-Muslim is with a Muslim. In fact, there are many complications for non-Muslims (about 50% of the population) in Islamic Malaysia. Perhaps this would be what Britain would be like if governed by "Respect"?

Sooner or later you guys are going to realise that Islam poses many challenging questions to western liberalism that cannot be just answered by unquestioning respect (the concept, not the party) alone.

[Relevant previous posting:]

Ant,
Furthermore, I think you have got your malevolence and benevolence mixed up. NO ONE is ever killed or arrested in Singapore for speaking out against the government. Castro, on the other hand kills or imprisons his opponents. Singapore has elections with opposition parties, Cuba does not. Singaporeans are free to travel, Cubans are not. I could go on. Singapore is a successful capitalist state, where the lives of its citizens have dramatically improved in the last 30 years to the point that the standard of living is probably higher now than Britain.

Cuba is a malevolent communist state, whilst Singapore is a successful, relatively benevolent capitalist state, and that's why socialist idealogues hate it. Come on, tell me again it's all America's fault, just like the Palestinian authority's present parlous fiscal predicament is America's fault.

If only the whole world was socialist, then we'd all be equals in poverty and misery just like North Koreans. And there woudln't be any exploitative rich bastards to carp on about.

dp: Yes, I do agree with you that Jordan, Egypt, Haiti, Pakistan, Tunisia, Morocco (and many others, the list is just too long) share the same issue. And I don't just have a thing about socialist states, but I still reckon North Korea is worse than all of them.

I don't know what should be done with Haiti. But I think imperialism is sometimes a good thing, and that perhaps Haiti should be annexed by Canada for example. Haiti is a country that has never ever got off the ground in its two-hundred year history. It is the archetypal failed state. The ordinary people who live there deserve a better life.

With the exception of Haiti, the states in your list are also encumbered by Islam, which squats on them like Philip Larkin's toad, hindering their civil, economical and political development. (I feel a "but they are all allies of America" marching towards this argument).

[Relevant previous posting:]

The Palestinians democratically elected Hamas as their representatives. Fair enough, that's their choice; a very bad one, but it's their choice. The Palestinians, however, shouldn't expect the West to bale them out financially because they fancy being governed by a bunch of terrorist scumbags.

If I was a hard man, I would say: "They have made their Hamas bed, and now they can lie in it." But I don't like the prospect of sick people and innocent children suffering as a result. I think aid should be given to the Palestinian people, without passing through the bloodied hands of Hamas. Why don't other Muslim countries help, such as that
slave-state, the United Arab Emirates? They've got pots of money that could be used to help.

The Palestinians also have the solution in their own hands; or rather, Hamas does: Renounce violence; and recognise Israel.

Incidentally, I think this "we've got to respect their democratic decision" argument is a little bit overdone. The German people, after all, democratically elected the National Socialist party in the 1930s. And coincidentally, the palestinian Grand Mufti of Jerusalem at the time, Amin al-Husseini, was an enthusiatic supporter of Adolf Hitler.

At the Nuremberg Trials, Eichmann's deputy Dieter Wisliceny (eventually executed as a war criminal) gave the following testimony about Amin al-Husseini:

"The Mufti was one of the initiators of the systematic extermination of European Jewry and had been a collaborator and adviser of Eichmann and Himmler in the execution of this plan. ... He was one of Eichmann's best friends and had constantly incited him to accelerate the extermination measures. I heard him say, accompanied by Eichmann, he had visited incognito the gas chamber of Auschwitz".

P.S. In the interests of balance, it would have been fair if a picture of the carnage caused in Israel by the latest Palestinian suicide bomber had also been included in this piece.

[Relevant previous posting:]

Heather: I am not a troll, a robo-troll, or even a half-troll; but despite what you say, I think you now realise that. Incidentally, I was fifteen years of age in 1976 (I am now slightly younger than "Laura in Brooklyn" who is 46). It was also about that time that I sent off for information on how to join the Anti-Nazi League, listened regularly to Radio Tirana on short wave radio and was inspired by watching Citizen Smith on television to affix a poster of Che Guevera to my bedroom wall.

Kevser, do you really believe that it is remotely in the interests of the British soldiers to kill women and children? If you do, then I really don’t know what else there is I can say to you.

JonoB, you may well have predicted that things would turn ugly after the invasion of Iraq, but why is that people like you on the left always define yourselves more in terms of what you are opposed to than what you actually stand for? You were against the invasion of Iraq, but then how would you have solved the problem of Saddam? By lifting the sanctions and thus allowing him to gas a few more Kurds, invade a few more neighbours, not to mention becoming a viper’s nest of terrorists? I know, of course, that some left-wingers (e.g. Galloway) admire(d) Saddam, especially his “indefatigability”. The same thing is happening with Iran; not a whimper from the left about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s obscene pronouncements about wiping Israel of the face of the map, or his offensive holocaust-denial, but as soon as America voices concern about this Islamofascist state’s desire to obtain nuclear weapons, the left label’s America once again as the bad guy, the real warmonger. I could also mention North Korea: One hundred thousand political prisoners languish in this communist state’s vast network of gulags, but the left tolerates this and in stead takes up the case of the few Islamist terrorists being held in humane conditions in Guantanomo Bay. And what about Casto’s Cuba, why can’t you communicate via the internet with your comrades on that “island of freedom”? So, how about some demos outside the Cuban and North Korean embassies for a change?

Laura in Brooklyn: thank you for posting a summary of your life history. I note that you are of Brazilian descent, but don’t quite understand your middle-eastern academic background reference. I have had quite a few cross-cultural experiences myself, including being once married to an Asian. I also speak one Asian language fluently, and have a passable knowledge of another. I would like to be more specific, but wish to preserve my identity. Notwithstanding the insight you have into the Shiah-Sunni question, via your Iraqi friends in Canada, I can’t bring myself to agree with the assessment you make that the allies have somehow caused this problem. On the contrary, they have created the conditions for this pre-existing problem to be resolved and for both parties to bring their thinking into the 21st Century. Anyway, it is always a pleasure to communicate with an American, and I should like to take this opportunity to say how much I admire your country and its people. The USA is the most generous, benign and magnanimous super power the world has ever seen. I just hope that your country continues to have the strength and will to continue to be the most significant force for good, and for the betterment of humanity, in this troubled world. Despite what its ignorant and spiteful detractors say, the USA is, as Roger Scruton says, “the world’s most successful country, the place where almost all its critics want to live and whose generosity all its enemies are determined to enjoy, America occupies a large place in the envy and aspiration of the world’s people”. I also hope that Britain and America remain friends eternally. Incidentally, I too have good working-class credentials (grand-parents coal miners, labourers etc); I won’t bore you with all the details, except to say I once lived in the Byker Wall (a bit like the Berlin Wall, except it’s got windows).

Ant, me old proletarian mucker, nice of you to imagine that I look like L. Ron Hubbard; but don’t get your dianetics mixed up with your dialectics, will you?

[I apparently also conjure up pictures of the actor Donald Sinden, shown below (colours inverted to create an air of menace) ].

Chris, thank you for you comments, I think you are also “a scream”, but only in the sense of Edvard Munch’s painting.

Meaders, perhaps one man’s prejudices are another’s convictions or deeply-held beliefs. But I also try hard to back up my “prejudices” with facts, experience and insight.

Tony, you are right about the contents of my weblog, but by the time I’ve typed all this lot I don’t have time to write about anything else. Anyway, I look forward to your reading your weblog: I enjoy honest and robust debate, even though I know I am right most of the time.

An Infantile Disorder

This blog was orginally posted at: http://leninology.blogspot.com/2006/05/basra-superior-british-occupiers-again.html

It’s obvious to me that many of the people who contribute to this “Lenin’s Tomb” Blog live in a kind of Marxist fantasy world, unencumbered by reality or reason. The whole thing might be funny in a sort of Wolfie-Smith Tooting-Liberation-front sort of way if it wasn’t for the sneering contemptuousness and malevolence of some of the posts. But what can we really expect from bone-headed anarchist-socialists/fascists who prefer the Mahdi Army to the British army, with people who side with religious bigots and fanatics?

I suspect many of the posters here, at Lenin’s tomb, are aged less than thirty years. And as we all know, most insufferable young left-wingers believe that only they understand the true state of the world and the rest of the population is just too stupid to see it. They believe that most people have their consent or opinions manufactured by the BBC, Sky News or the popular media in general. Ordinary people (i.e. less sophisticated) people are not able to think for themselves (that is why they fall for the pronouncements of Margaret Hodge and vote BNP), but the young left-winger does; he is able to see through all the lies and propaganda and grasp the truth. Moreover, armed with a pseudo-scientific analysis of human history, a self-loathing cultural perspective (not to mention a newly-found and perverse affinity with Islamofascism), an unrealistic and naïve assessment of human nature together with some long-discredited and unworkable Marxist economic prescriptions, he understands the real problem and knows how to put it right.

For example, let us take Eastman 20.

He states: “I don't think there was ever a serious religious divide before the invasion”.

Oh, really? So, it was all manufactured by the Americans and their lackeys, was it? But then I know that you lot think Saddam was better for Iraq than free elections, that Bin-Laden is better than Bush and that bovine logic has a rightful place in justification. And as we know, America and western imperialism is the cause of everything that is wrong in the world.

Eastman20 also writes: “You'd think that from all the medias [sic] ranting that there would be a civil war by now. More like an anti-imperialist war.” Yes, that’s right, what you are witnessing now is surely an anti-imperialist war. The fact that the Sunnis are currently fighting the Shias (and vice-versa) is a sort of Hegelian dialectical thesis anti-thesis thing from which an anti-imperialist synthesis will undoubtedly emerge in time. The People’s Democratic Socialist Republic of Iraq will surely be the end result, once the American imperialists and their British running-dogs are driven out.

I end, however, on a note of optimism: Many youthful left-wingers grow out of the ‘infantile disorder’ of left-wing socialism (and silly anti-Americanism) to join the more serious, democratic and constructive strands of mainstream politics. Take for example David Aaronovitch (ex-communist president of the NUS), Christopher Hitchens and other notable figures. Of course, there are always exceptions, such as the unreconstructed pro-Soviet socialist, suicide-bomb-loving, tyrant-groveller, George Galloway, undoubtedly the most treasonous (not to say repellant) Briton since Lord Haw-Haw.

Internal Contradictions

This blog was originally posted at http://leninology.blogspot.com/2006/05/footnote.html

Lenin, apologies for this-out-of -context post. You wrote elsewhere words to the effect that if I really believed that NATO intervened in Kosovo to save its ethnic Albanians then I was outside the realms of rational debate. Really? How extraordinarily arrogant and silly of you. What then did you think was the purpose of the intervention? And more importantly, were you against the action taken by NATO? If so, you must then have been in favour of the genocide of the Muslim Albanians. What would the green part of your red-green alliance think of such extreme Islamophobic views? I suspect you were against the intervention because it brought down the last remaining nominally Leninist regime in Europe. You are probably also rather partial to Milosevic's wicked Marxist witch of a wife.

Incidentally, I visited the Federal Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia many times in the 1980s, and was quite shocked at the racist, anti-Albanian views of many well-educated Serbs. They had a visceral hatred of the "Shqiptars" that was quite distressing to hear. On one occassion when I was there (circa 1982) there was a news report that an entire Albanian family had crossed over from the People's Socialist Republic of Albania (aka Hoxha's hell-hole) and had sought political asylum in Yugoslavia. My Yugoslav hosts said they would have no qualms in sending them back (this would have meant certain death) because they already had enough Shqiptars in Yugoslavia and they "bred like rabbits annyway". I also encoutered the same anti-Albanian attitude in Greece, where Albanians were described as "peasant types". (I had a fascinating encounter with one Albanian fugitive from Hoxha's socialist utopia in Athens who spoke the most impeccable English learnt by listening to the Voice of America on radio, but I'll keep that story for another time, provided you don't ban me for being a "reactionary twat" beforehand.) Perhaps the writing was on the wall then for the approaching Balkan tragedy.

Finally, I am disappointed you agree that a member of the SWP was correct in telling me to "F*** Off" in the street when I said I supported the NATO action in Kosovo. Abusive and aggressive behaviour like that is puerile and not clever.

Some Dialectical Tension

This is my response to comments directed to me at the http://leninology.blogspot.com/2006/04/paras-in-iraq.html

Nathaniel: thank you for your comments. The main reason why I post here is to raise the issue of the common cause being made by left-wing socialism and political Islam; this is essentially what Respect stands for. In general, it is apparent that left-wing and liberal thinking is sympathetic to militant Islam mainly because of its oppostion to the United States. Islam and liberal ideas are, however, ultimately incompatible and irreconcilable. Bertrand Russell noted some similarities between Islam and Bolshevism, but history has shown that left-wing socialism and Islam cannot co-exist. Look what happened to most communist parties in the Islamic world (e.g. the Communist Party of Iran). Recently, I saw a documentary on TV about the Suez crisis where it was pointed out that although Nasser welcomed Soviet military aid he actually despised them simply because he believed in God and they were atheists. The Soviet occupation of Afghanistan is another example of the clash between these two diametrically-opposed ideologies. As I see it, the left is playing on the anti-Americanism of militant Islam to push its own agenda. But this mésalliance will eventually breakdown when the strident demands and extreme violence of the Islamists becomes too much even for liberals and America-hating left-wingers to stomach.

Heather B said that I am a troll and not even as intelligent as Tim. Well, I wouldn't like to claim to be as intelligent as Tim (whoever he is), but reject the charge I am a troll. My opinions are sincerely held, and anyway, I would have thought that some dialectical tension would have been welcome here.

Rosa Lichtenstein told me to naff off to Newbiggin. Thank you very much, but I rather stay here in balmy third-world Southeast Asia and steal its wealth than chance an encounter on public transport with members of the Newbiggin lumpenproletariat. Ms. Lichtenstein, may I suggest that you vamoose to Vaduz?

Almostinfamous, thank you for introducing me to such a picturesque expression as 'blog-whore'.

dp: You say that discussion with me is a waste of time. I wasn't even aware that we had had a discussion.