Variousness 33

16Feb11

First, for my one regular reader, Who Cares?, some coverage of the revolution in Egypt, extracted from BobFromBrockley:

Islamism: Alan A reports on the secular, liberal nature of the movement for freedom in Egypt so far, with a cautiously optimistic assessment of the chances of the Muslim Brotherhood gaining the upper hand from the chaos. He quotes Martin Bright, who takes the opportunity to show that Islamism’s fellow travellers in the West (including those linked to aristocratic Foreign Office Arabism, such as Frances Guy and the Conflicts Forum crew: “One of the most wonderful of many wonderful aspects of the anti-totalitarian uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt is that they have nailed the myth that Islamism represents the “authentic” voice of the Arab street. This was always a pernicious nonsense and the diversity of those demonstrating across the Maghreb and Egypt has been one of the most noticeable features of the revolt.” Other optimistic views comefrom Ghaffar Hussain, Seph Brown, and Maajid Nawaz. Paul Stott, on the other hand, has a rather more pessimistic view.

Anti-Zionism and Marxism: One of the most depressing aspects of both events in North Africa, especially Egypt, and the leftist commentary on it, is the power of the anti-Zionist narrative. Take as an example this well-written Marxist analysis at 19^th Brumaire. Here’s one sentence: “Ahmed Ezz, the personification of the unity of personal corruption, neoliberalism and abasement to Zionsim has resigned.” What does “abasement to Zionism” mean? Why “abasement” and not, say, “accommodation with”, given the Egyptian ruling class and the Israeli state clearly have interests in common? Why talk about “Zionism” and not about, say, the Israeli state? There is something about the demonic Z-word that takes this phrase out of normal political discourse into another space. The demonic Z-word is a blunting of materialist analysis. (For more on insane anti-Zionism, see Snoopy. One of the things that is clear is that anti-Zionist antisemitism also pervades the pro-Mubarak camp, which makes the leftist anti-Zionist nonsense even more pernicious.)

At Contested Terrain: Ziocentrism And Antisemitic Incidents In Britain. On the Community Security Trust and various incidents in the UK.

Left-right convergence: Gene on Ron Paulism at the Conservative Political Action Conference; Paul Stott on Truthism and Bilderbergism at the Birmingham Central Mosque; Modernity on Chomsky’s dalliances with denialism.

Antisemitism and the Greens: Modernity reports.

Two new magazine issues. First, Interface. Includes:

• Towards a critique of anti-German “communism” (P) Raphael Schlembach (pp. 199-219) PDF (EN)
• The Bil’in model of wall resistance. Iyad Burnat (pp. 235-240) PDF (EN)
• Interviews on international labour communication: Eric Lee of LabourStart (pp. 270-272) PDF (EN)

From Shift no.11:

“No Messy Politics Please, We’re Anarchists!”

As participants from the No Borders network who took part in the First World People’s Conference on Climate Change in Bolivia, ALICE and YAZ reply to an article that criticised the conference in a previous issue.

Werner Bonefeld: ‘What is the alternative?’

a talk to the anarchist bookfair, London, October 2010

From the Defence of the Present to the Control of the Future

BERTIE RUSSELL and KEIR MILBURN argue that an anti-cuts platform has to incorporate visions of a future society as well as a defence of the status quo

Also in Shift:

• The Manchester protest against Aaron Porter was not anti-Semitic!
• Immigration Rights and No Border Struggles in Europe
• Neither National nor International: Notes against Europe

From Andy’s Antifa notes:

BANANAs

As previously noted, on May Day in San Francisco last year there was an altercation involving members of the bizarro White supremacist groupuscule BANANA and a handful of antifascists. The bunch of BANANAs had joined a small counter-protest organised by the anti-immigrant group the Minutemen–not to be confused with the 1980s punk rawk groupor the 1960s right-wing loons–in order to whinge in public about all-them-Mexicans-flooding-across-the-Arizona-border. As a result of the clash, the BANANAs’ Kameraden in the SFPD laid felony charges against two individuals, Dee and Kelsey. In June, the felony charges were dropped: “Judge Cynthia Ming-Mei Lee dropped charges against Donnell Allen for assault with a deadly weapon for using a ballista battering ram baselardbroadsword battle axe ball-on-a-chain bardiche bill bayonet bisento bazooka battery (as in an Energizer) and robbing a backpack from BANANA leader Andrew White (aka Andrew Yeoman). Allen’s assault charge against White was reduced to a misdemeanor” (Felony Charges Reduced to Misdemeanors for Alleged Attackers of White Separatists, Lauren Smiley, SF Weekly, June 7, 2010).

Last week, the pair’s legal troubles ended. There was no trial. On Tuesday, Dee agreed to do 15 hours of community service (after which his case will be dismissed) and Kelsey agreed to plea no contest to a single violation of California Penal Code Section 415, commonly referred to as “disturbing the peace”. (Dee was facing one count and Kelsey four misdemeanor counts of “assault with force likely to produce great bodily injury” (245(a)(1)), each with a potential 1 year jail term.)

The BANANAs last came to prominence in September, when Yeoman/White popped a film critic hat onto his pointy little head and proceeded to briefly protest a local screening of Mexploitation flick Machete. Moar recently, a couple of BANANAs have expressed butthurt following the cancellation/’smashing’ of A Convocation of Bigots: the 2011 American Renaissance conference.

American Renaissance conference smashed again

The weekend of February 4th-6th 2011, the white nationalists of American Renaissance tried to resurrect their destroyed conference of 2010, this time trying Charlotte NC instead of their usual metro DC conference. NEFAC joined on to a coalition spearheaded by One People’s Project and the Southern Anti-Racism Network to make sure that the AmRen conference didn’t happen smoothly. And it didn’t. AmRen 2011 was cancelled. And in its place, Charlotte had a forum on combatting white supremacy…

Froot Loops

In an interview with Michael Orion Powell (Even In The Bay Area, Nationalism Takes Root, little green footballs, October 26, 2010), chief BANANA Yeoman/White credits Sydney businessman Welf Herfurth for introducing him to ‘national anarchism’. Herfurth himself has moved on from ‘national anarchism’ and returned to organising with the openly neo-Nazi ‘Volksfront Australia’, the Australian franchise of the neo-Nazi network formed by a small group of boneheads in an Oregon jail in 1994. Last month, the network’s leader, Randal Krager, was exposed by Rose City Antifa as ‘President of Neo-Nazi Organization Contracted to Work in the Middle East’. (Note that when Krager helped form the gang, he was doing time “for nearly beating to death an African American father of four—leaving him paralyzed—in a racially motivated attack”.)

Having abandoned ‘national anarchism’ for Volksfront, apart from Yeoman/White, Herfurth has left behind a mere handful of former followers. According to neo-Nazi blog Whitelaw Towers, one is Nicholas Cole, a student in Perth, WA. Otherwise, an odd couple in Tasmania also continue to be silly online, while Geelong-based Scott Harrison has become a self-proclaimed Reverend in a tinpot White supremacist kvlt. By throwing in his lot with ‘Creativity’ and Blood & Honour, Harrison has betrayed his former leader Herfurth, but the rivalry between Volksfront and B&H/SCHS in Australia, unlike elsewhere in the world, is fairly tepid, and clashes confined to leaking infos on one another to local anti-racists.

Dresden

This week in Dresden, Germany, antifascists will be attempting to block the annual march by neo-Nazis through the city. Last year, despite massive police reinforcements, the neo-Nazis had heap ‘em big trouble trying to drag their sorry arses into town. The victory enabled troubadours to write a neat little toon to commemorate the fact that the boofheads lost another little battle. As for 2011…

Finally, note the change of name for the blog. I might change it again. I might re-launch. Who knows? Who cares?

 

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Tags: antisemitic incidents, antisemitism, Bay Area National Anarchists, Community Security Trust, Egypt, Green Party, Muslim Brotherhood, Noam Chomsky, Werner, Ziocentrism, Zionism