Leninology on Postel
[yo Lenin, don’t forget us! esp since it started here]
liberals.html> Thursday, February 15, 2007
On bad leftists and nice liberals. posted by lenin Danny Postel is one of Anthony Barnett’s employees at Open Democracy, = a friend of Doug Ireland, and author of a book entitled Reading = Legitimation Crisis in Tehran. He has interviewed Ramin Jahanbegloo = before he was imprisoned by the Iranian government for four months = last year and campaigned for his release. These days, he is a = supporter of a new Iranian Revolution. Fine by me. What is a little bit irritating is that liberals like him feel = entitled to blather and blather incoherently about the failure of the = Left to be more like him, as he does in this interview conducted by a = sympathetic Scott McLemee. Oh, it’s the usual. The Left doesn’t = support the Iranian dissidents, displays “unseemly reticence”, is = only interested in opposing regimes supported by US imperialism. “Due = to intellectual laziness, a preference for moral simplicity, = existential bad faith, or some combination thereof, lots of leftists = have opted out of even expressing moral support, let alone standing = in active solidarity with, Iranian dissidents, often on the specious = grounds that the latter are on the CIA=92s payroll or are cozy with the = neocons.” Further, if some on the Iranian left have migrated to the = neocons, it is because the European Left and American Left have = abandoned them. Therefore, “Antiwar activists and progressive = intellectuals in the west should know, and be prepared to say = extemporaneously in public debate, what the likes of Shirin Ebadi, = Akbar Ganji, Emadeddin Baghi, Abdollah Momeni, and Ramin Jahanbegloo = think =97 most pressingly, what they think of a US military attack on = Iran, but also what they think about the human rights situation in = Iran, the nature of the Islamic Republic, and what members of global = civil society can do to support them.” As usual, there is an element of biography in the charges, such as = when Postel relates that while he opposed the Stalinist regime in = Russia and Eastern Europe, somehow “the prospect of standing in = solidarity with those resisting it from inside just didn=92t stir = me … Realizing that I got it wrong on that front is partly why Iran = is important to me. Though I don=92t discuss it much in the book, the = parallels between Eastern Europe and Iran are manifold =97 many of the = philosophers and political thinkers who inspired Eastern European = dissidents loom large for Iranian dissidents today (Arendt, Popper, = Berlin).” (Some of those dissidents could at various times have = claimed the Left Opposition as a legitimate predecessor, but Postel = does not appear to be that interested in the Modzelewskis, Kurons and = Michniks in their radical years). Having spent so much time = supporting dissidents in Central America, Danny Boy at long last = hears the pipes of liberty calling in the East: alas, too late for = 1989 and all that, but certainly in time for what he imagines is = going to be a similarly earth-shaking event in Iran. I fail to see why anyone else should be impressed by Postel’s report = against himself, but apparently it has something to do with the = ubiquitous failure of the Left and Leftists in general to form = alliances with Iranian intellectuals and to publicise their cause and = have big meetings advertising their slogans. There is a snide, = moralising, red-baiting tone that pervades the whole thing. As Sean = Andrews points out on LBO Talk, this is not an anomaly. It is not, as = it happens, hard to find American or European left intellectuals and = groups prepared to support Iranian dissidents. Some of us have long = cooperated with Iranian dissidents and argued against allowing the = movement from below to be manipulated or coopted by imperialists. = Postel knows that among those supporting Jahanbegloo’s release from = prison were people like Chomsky, Zinn, Wallerstein, Laclau, Mouffe, = Zizek, Juan Cole etc etc. It is by no means unreasonable to suggest = that the organised left, such as it is, could be of some service and = could do itself some good by associating more with currents in the = Iranian opposition. However, to successfully pitch such an argument, = it is rather important not to begin from a position of supercilious = hostility to the Left. One could, for instance, equally upbraid the = American and European left for not having forged significant links = with opposition to the Mubarak regime. How many left intellectuals = have forged links with the Moro insurgents in the Philippines? Or = Kashmiri groups? Or indeed those resisting the tyranny in a state = directly contiguous with Iran? Actually, how good has the US left = been at opposing Bush? Really? How far have they got? I’m not being = nasty, but if one is not sufficiently empowered, for whatever = reasons, to stop Bush from bombing, torturing, assassinating, running = death squads and international kidnapping rings, then what the hell = has one to offer the Iranian dissidents? Similarly, if the issue is a = strategic one (and not this preposterous fairy tale about the left’s = alleged moral failings, the sort that Cohen started to go on about = when he was being flattered by the PUK), then one has to be in a = position to point to an agency in Iran that is capable of doing = something with that support, which means broadening the perspective = beyond the intellectuals. Some of us still look to the organised = working class, but this is entirely absent from Postel’s purview. Anyway, having raised some of this, I was forwarded a gently = condescending reply from Postel indicating once more that the Left is = inadequately involved in the campaign that he champions, and that the = liberal websites don’t talk about it enough, and that at any rate, = the only ones who really know anything about the Iranian dissident = intelligentsia usually turn out to be liberals or at least non- = Marxists: thus proving the failure of the left, or some parts of it, = on the question of Iran. And so on. All of these denunciations of the = left, all of this rhetorical energy expended on proving that the left = is bankrupt, irrelevant, all of the shrill moralising - it is hard to = take seriously the idea that it is fundamentally about supporting = Iranian dissidents. We have, after all, been here several times = before. Kanan Makiya got a rapturous reception from American = commentators and European liberals when he started to denounce the = left for being insufficiently appreciative of the legacy of Mill and = Locke, declared the left’s stock analytical apparatus moribund, = denounced the alleged ’silence’ of Arab intellectuals in the Middle = East and so on. For this, he was branded a “Vaclav Havel” of the Arab = world by the absurd George Packer, whose book The Assassins Gate is a = prolonged apologia for and love-letter to Makiya and American pro-war = liberals. Postel is not a warmonger, but he is positioning himself as = one of those tiresome liberal finger-wagging idiots, his pet cause = merely providing ample opportunity for him to pursue this course. There are too many of these creatures around, these characters who = have recently developed an attachment to liberal rights-based = discourse, as if it was some kind of advance on the historical = materialist problematisation of that discourse. As if, in fact, the = entire body of socialist critique has been somehow discredited, = revealed as a narrow and dogmatic deviation from the venerable = tradition of liberalism, and that on account of one’s own imperfect = radical past! Makiya does this all the time: he cites his own = apparently banal and vulgar conception of revolutionary socialist = attitudes from his Trotskyist years (in which America and Israel are = the source of all evil and the Palestinians are hallowed saints), and = contrasts this with a heroic idealisation of liberalism. Cohen’s the = same: his own boring political past is constantly invoked as a = condemnation of his contemporaries. The same with Marko Hoare, = condescending to and upbraiding his former radical self. The ex- = communists used to do much the same in the Fifties, and the = antitotalitarians of the Seventies could be scathing about their = former selves, even while hubristically and narcissistically = fortifying their present comportment.