Anti-German Translation

Hero of the week: Stephan Kuhn

10Jul09

A German Green, fined for playing loud klezmer music to drown out neo-Nazis.

Filed under: Antifa, Fascism and antisemitism, atutonomous culture, germany | Leave a Comment
Tags: fascism, germany, Green Party, Dresden, anti-fascism, Stephan Kuhn, Green, klezmer

English National Resistance

09Jul09

Edmund Standing at HP: British neo-Nazis launch National Illiteracy Strategy. Extract: “An oddball group, to put it mildly, the ENR tries to borrow the ‘anti-Zionism’ and revolutionary pretensions of the far-Left and mix this with hatred for ‘race mixing’ and style tips seemingly borrowed from the grime scene.”

Previous: New product, same trash; Autonomous fascists.

Filed under: Fascism and antisemitism, Fascists in the anti-globalization movement, Left-right convergence, the anti-Zionism of idiots | Leave a Comment
Tags: anti-zionism, Antifa, autonomous nationalists, English National Resistance, fascism, national anarchism, national anarchists, UK

Iran [in more than one language]

04Jul09

Bob from Brockley: Iran and the left 1 & 2.

From entdinglichung:

Zum leidigen Thema Pseudo-Antiimps (die echten Antiimps der 1980er unterstützten den Kampf der OIPFG oder der Komalah gegen das Mullah-Regime)

* Nationalbolschewistische Kontrarevolutions(alp)träume (Cosmoproletarian Solidarity)
* Jörn Schulz: Bei sonnigem Wetter ist das Leben in Teheran recht angenehm (jungle world)
* Grün, grün, grün ist alles, was ich habe. Fabian Frenzel, Bernhard Schmid, Gaston Kirsche, Ute Weinmann und Federica Matteoni: Linke Debatten in Europa über die Entwicklungen im Iran (jungle world)
* Bernhard Schmid: Reaktionen aus der französischen Linken auf die Revolte im Iran

“In Frankreich verfolgt die linke Presse die Protestbewegung im Iran überwiegend mit Aufmerksamkeit und Solidarität. In den letzten Tagen fanden auch eine Reihe von Solidaritätsaktionen statt, an denen zwar meist mehrheitlich Iraner/innen teilnehmen, zu denen aber auch französische Organisationen mobilisierten.”

The Green Brief: Information from Iran

In German: http://kyrah.net/gr88/gb16.html
In Greek: http://tinyurl.com/nwke32
In Hebrew: http://tinyurl.com/mqooe8

Update: More from Ent.:

Zur Kritik der Pseudo-Antiimps:

* BobFromBrockley: Ahmadinejad’s British stooges
* »Mussawi ist sicher keine Alternative« (Interview mit Morad Shirin (IRMT/IWSN) im ND)
* Reese Erlich: Iran and Leftist Confusion:

Filed under: the poverty of anti-imperialism | Leave a Comment
Tags: iran

Naomi Klein and handling complexity

02Jul09

Naomi Klein, who is no fool, appears to be involved in a selective boycott of Israel. She calls for an economic and cultural boycott of the country, but is there now, presumably spending some money, for the Israeli launch of her book The Shock Doctrine. This requires a certain amount of tightrope walking, the sort that would impress a Talmud scholar. For example, she is not taking the royalties from the book, published by Andalus Publishing, which specialises in Arabic literature.

She says:

“First of all, I deal in communications. It’s my profession and my passion and I naturally rebel against any kind of cutting off of channels of dialogue. I think that one of the most powerful tools of those who oppose the boycott is the argument that it is a boycott of Israelis. It’s true that some academics won’t agree to accept an article by an Israeli for publication in a journal. There aren’t many of them, and they make stupid decisions. This is not what the boycott committee has called for. The decision isn’t to boycott Israel but rather to oppose official relationships with Israeli institutions.”

“I try to be consistent in the way I act in conflict areas I don’t want to act in a normal way in a place that seems very abnormal to me. When I was in Sri Lanka after the tsunami, I didn’t go to cocktail parties and also in Iraq no cocktail parties. The State of Israel is trying to show that everything is fine in its territory, that it’s possible to spend a nice vacation here or to be part of Western culture, very Western culture. I don’t want to be a part of that. I am waiting impatiently for the time when I will be able to come for a vacation or a normal book launch in Tel Aviv. But this is a privilege that should be reserved for all the inhabitants.”

To me, this is disingenous. Most boycotters are for the boycott of Israel full stop: they call for divestment from Israeli companies, boycotting of products made in Israel. For example, when a London cafe said “We do not sell Israeli products”, they did not mean “We do not sell Israeli government products.” When American anti-Israel activists picketed Trader Joe’s, it was for selling Israeli-made couscous, not official Israeli government couscous. When French anti-Zionists marched into Carrefour taking things off the shelves, they were looking for “Made in Israel” stickers, not “Made by the Israeli state” stickers. In general, most boycotters have not prioritised boycotting cocktail parties.

“ I naturally rebel against any kind of cutting off of channels of dialogue.” Yes, me too. That’s why I am against a cultural boycott, and am glad Klein is defying the cultural boycott to be published in Israel, even if she says she isn’t.

The most offensive thing Klein says in her Ha’aretz interview,by the way, is this: “[Some Jews] even think we get one get-away-with-genocide-free card.”

[I'm not even going to get on to her defence of the idiocy that surrounded Durban II. See The Moderate Voice, pithily, or David Schraub, in more detail.]

While writing this, I notice the breaking news:

Klein and her husband Avi Lewis, a documentary film director and a presenter on Al-Jazeera TV, were detained Monday while leaving Gaza for Israel. Yael Lerer, founder of the Andalus publishing house, said the two had been held for three and a half hours while she waited for them outside the crossing. Lewis said they were detained because their names sounded Jewish and Israeli to the soldiers; people with Israeli passports are forbidden from entering Gaza. They said Shin Bet security agents questioned Lewis while Klein stood by.

Klein, author of “No Logo” (published in Israel by Babel), is visiting here to promote her book “The Shock Doctrine,” which Andalus is publishing in Hebrew. She arrived last Thursday night and took part in a demonstration against the separation fence near the West Bank village of Bil’in. She also had meetings at the American Colony Hotel in East Jerusalem, and spent two days in Gaza. Klein had called for a world-wide boycott of Israel during Operation Cast Lead last winter as a strategy to end the occupation. Last night she had a meeting at the Almidan Theater in Haifa. The Shin Beit confirmed that Klein was quetioned for 10 minutes, but that it was not responsible for detaining her.

Bizarre, and unfortunate.

[For news item, h/t B]

UPDATE: An unsavoury footnote, from Schalom Libertad.

Filed under: the anti-Zionism of idiots | 1 Comment
Tags: boycotts, Israel, Naomi Klein, Palestine

We drink beer and wine

01Jul09

SlackBastard anatomizes anti-fascism, anti-Germanism and antisemitism. Extract:

Anti-German

While drawing on various (and overwhelmingly Marxian) ideological antecedents, the ‘Anti-German’ camp really only established itself in Germany after re-unification, and as one of many responses to a more general ideological crisis on Teh Left that the outpouring of nationalist sentiment this world-historical event provoked. One of the best Anti-German sauces I’ve tasted is ‘Anti-German Translation’: it’s regularly updated, and contains links to many other writings on the Anti-German tradition. Two overviews of the subject are available via ‘Letter from Berlin: The anti-anti-Zionists’ (Benjamin Weinthal, Haaretz, August 8, 2007) and ‘Antinationalist Nationalism: The Anti-German Critique and Its All-Too-German Adherents’ (Rolling Thunder, No.3, Summer 2006).

Choice Anti-German quote: ‘Do they ever have any fun? “We don’t have much fun,” Dahlmann concedes. “But we are not ascetics. We drink beer and wine”.’ (Meet the Anti-Germans, Luke Harding, The Guardian, August 28, 2006.)

Post also (critically) draws attention to Jean Barrot/Gilles Dauvé’s ‘Fascism/Anti-Fascism’, one of the most pernicious texts of the ultra-left tradition. Intersting comment thread too.

More SlackBastard:
Nahr al-Bared Camp: A Sip of Coffee (including Israeli anarchism in the Bonus section)

Filed under: Anti-Deutsche, Antifa | Leave a Comment
Tags: anti-germans, Gilles Dauve, Jean Barrot, Nahr al-Bared

Bush = Hitler

30Jun09

… and Guantánamo = Auschwitz.

Or so the progressives at Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung would have you believe.

Jews – Pigs – Murderers

29Jun09

Abravanel, a Greek Jewish blog, reports on the antisemitic rantings of left-wing “anti-racist” Greek radio anti-hero Tzimis Panousis. [via Land & Autonomy]

ADDED LINKS 30 JUNE: Two from The Deliverators

Previous Greece: Terminal 119 against antisemitism; Confusion about Greek violence.
Previous “controversial” comedians: Dieudonné 1 & 2.