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All
you had to do was trot out a few keywords like "oppression,"
"colonialism" and "minority" (or anything
that ended in "ism") and you'd be swarmed by people
carrying placards and petitions.
Everyone
knew who was bad and who was good. But then along came Israel's
increased visibility. Now there were two underdogs: perennial
favorites the Jews in one corner versus displaced Palestinians
in the other.
Suddenly the left (and I know that although I refer to it here
as a monolithic whole, it isn't) was split. The results haven't
been very pretty.
Let's
take a look at some of the fallout. A popular Canadian magazine
named Adbusters has lots of very cool-looking text about memes
and culture jamming. They want to reclaim everything for someone
else. People write serious and irritating articles about how corporations
and globalization are ruining the world.
Naturally,
the magazine is based in the granola capital of the country, Vancouver.
I
used to have a subscription — I'd read it in cafes drinking
herbal teas and nodding gravely. It's that kind of magazine.
But
it got old, fast. I haven't picked it up for about two years.
It would have stayed that way, except a friend of mine happened
to be glancing through it the other day and found something he
didn't like very much. When I saw it, I didn't like it either.
It
was an editorial written by art director Kalle Lasn. Beginning
innocuously enough with a discussion of U.S.-Israeli relations,
the text then turned to an ethnic analysis of Bush's advisors,
the dreaded 'neocons.'
Although
admitting that "Drawing attention to the Jewishness of the
neocons is a tricky game [because people who do] can count on
automatically being smeared as an anti-Semite," Lasn then
goes on to share the editors' list of the fifty most influential
neocons in the US.
He
ends with this nicely scaremongering comment: "And half of
them are Jewish." The article is accompanied by the full
list of fifty with little dots penciled in by the names of those
who are Jewish. It looks remarkably like a hit list.
I'll
be honest. At first I thought this was a joke, albeit in incredibly
bad taste. This was the kind of thing that I was used to hearing
from the far right.
But
then I realized this was keeping quite in character with comments
that I've been hearing over the past couple years. It is particularly
prevalent in any discussion that involves the Palestinian conflict.
Lots of lefties, with their usual knee-jerk need to support the
underdog and their eternal love for revolution, have flocked to
the Palestinian cause.
But
the arguments I hear bandied about are no longer couched in political
terms, but ethno-religious. They don't target the actions of Israel,
but Jews. Comments are also getting increasingly vitriolic.
All
that Adbusters has really done here is live up to its tag line:
the "Journal of the Mental Environment." What it's reflecting
is a very disturbing trend in mainstream leftist politics —
anti-Semitism. (Actually, to be honest, I don't know if it's increasing
or not. Maybe it's something that has always been there, but is
becoming more visible. Hell, maybe I'm just starting to crawl
out my shell and pay attention.)
This
growing visible resentment towards Jews in power as typified by
Adbusters is strangely familiar, though. The most superficial
tour through a Jewish history book abounds with Christians deciding
that the Jews were getting a little too big for their britches
and had to be dealt with.
Now,
I am I suggesting that here in North America we're on the cusp
of a pogrom?
No.
What I am suggesting is that for some reason, we're re-entering
a stage where it has become once more socially acceptable to vilify
a people based on the decisions made by a government over which
they have no control.
Moreover,
it's being done increasingly by people who should know a helluva
lot better-educated lefties. For some, it has again become a matter
of blaming the Jews. Palestinians still refugees? Blame the Jews.
American foreign policy unilateral and war-hungry? Blame the Jews.
Can't talk about how all these political problems are the fault
of the Jews? Blame the Jews.
Let's
all be honest now — how many times have you heard a friend
make a completely offensive joke and pass it off as "ironic?"
Let a conservative voter or someone who lives in a trailer make
the same joke and they're pulled to pieces as ignorant swine.
There
has always been a dark side to the non-pacifist left. Because
their actions are taken in rebellion at something evil, they imbue
themselves with a sense of noble justice. But this easily degenerate
into violence of word and action. To me, they can often look like
uncontrollable thugs, bitter that someone has something they want.
Even
the ones who are too old to take to the streets give themselves
the luxury of this double-standard. So what — having a degree
and voting for socialists gives you a licence to be a jerk? Here's
a fact. The second someone starts a sentence with the phrase,
"I'm not racist/sexist/whatever …," they're about
to say something offensive.
It's
a cultural code for the educated privileged — when you're
about to be naughty, give it a bit of a pre-emptive whitewash.
So
please, prove me wrong here, people. Show me that the left isn't
taking the intolerance they've always accused the right of for
their own. Keep on sticking with the underdogs.
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