Reading the blogs and the op-ed pages of the newspaper, with the defenders of Israel on one side and the dupes of/supporters of Hamas on the other, it is hard to avoid wondering what the political situation in the Middle East and in the discourse and street politics in the West would look like if there was actually something resembling an active and principled left-wing still in existence.   

By that I mean, a left which is social-democratic, liberal, humanist, anti-fascist, secular, internationalist and having some real links with an effective labour movement. I am talking about an idealised left, of course, untainted by Leninism or nationalism and which would find the current alliance between Trotskyist-Stalinist
groups and Islamists to be unthinkable.   

This is, sadly, a fantasy, but one which hopefully illustrates some of the elements that are sorely missing in these depressing times.

If there was a left in Palestine:

1.    It would, of course, support the key national demands of the Palestinians – for Israel to return to the borders of 1967, for a two state solution, a negotiated agreement on Jerusalem etc – for the creation of an independent Palestinian state.
2.    In doing so it would oppose the deliberate targeting of civilians by terrorist groups and instead seek support with those it share common ground with in Israel and the rest of the world.
3.    It would have been agitating for the authorities in the Palestinian territories to develop the local economy and essential social services such as schools and hospitals.
4.    It would be campaigning for labour rights in the Palestinian territories and strongly protesting the union busting harassment of Hamas.
5.    It would seek to work together with Israeli trade unions to build positive links between workers in both states.
6.    It would insist on the labour movement being part of any negotiations about the future of the region.
7.    It would oppose any attempts to turn Gaza or any other part of the future Palestinian state into an Islamist entity, promote a secular political system and promote and defend basic liberties.
8.    It would seek the support of the international labour movement for its goals – work with international bodies such as the European Union to promote investment in the region and support for the infrastructures of a nascent state.
9.    It would draw on the concrete experience of national democratic movements, in South Africa, Spain, Ireland and so on, who have managed to put behind bitter hatreds and built functioning democratic
societies, making peace with their erstwhile enemies.
10.    Through its political activity it would create a generation of leaders capable of becoming future statesman of a new, free and independent Palestine.

If there was a left in Israel:

1.    It would also support the key national demands of the Palestinians.
2.    It would stridently oppose terrorism and defend Israel's right to peaceful existence in the 1967 borders.
3.    It would promote means to support the development of economic prosperity in both Israel and Palestine.
4.    It would offer solidarity to the Palestinian labour movement as well as fight for the rights of Israeli labor.
5.    It would make clear that it is in the interests, material and otherwise, of ordinary Israelis for there to be a successful Palestinian democracy as neighbour.
6.    It would insist on trade union rights being part of any settlement
for Palestine.
7.    It would promote the full integration and full rights of Arabs in Israel.
8.    It would be a full part of the international labour movement, promoting engagement of trade unions and labour parties with the peace process.
9.    It would oppose all manifestations of chauvinism, religious sectarianism and racism.
10.  Through this process it would create a generation of left-wing politicians, capable of entering into genuine peace negotiations and recreating the original democratic socialist spirit of Israel.

If there was a left in the rest of the world.

1.    It would use all its power to support those in Palestine and Israel who seek a peaceful, two-state solution.
2.    It would give solidarity to both the left in Palestine and the left in Israel and the trade union movement in both states.
3.    It would diplomatically and politically use its power to oppose the attempts of ultra-nationalists and religious fanatics, operating in the west, to undermine any peace plan.
4.    It would make clear the democratic left's opposition to military solutions and to terrorist actions and in favour of peaceful political solutions.
5.    It would make the case for a 'Marshall Plan' style mass investment in both Palestine and Israel to boost the economic and social structures needed for a sustainable peace and reject boycotts and
calls for isolating either state.
6.    It would use its influence in bodies such as the European Union and United Nations to support such a plan and the main demands of its comrades in the Middle East.
7.    It would make clear that racism of any kind, is always inexcusable and to be opposed.
8.    If the peace process came to a halt or was derailed, it would take to the streets to urge support for those working for peace and to oppose those resuming or seeking to resume hostilities.
9.    It would use its influence, where in government, to support those states in the region playing a part in the peace process and to isolate rejectionists.
10.    Through economic and social initiatives it would seek to break down barriers between Israel and other countries in the Middle East.

This is pipe-dreaming of course; idealistic, I know; but isn't that the tragedy of the state of both the Middle East conflict and the left in the world, that such a list of, what would once have been considered standard positions, seems nothing more than wishful thinking?

Instead we have a world of Hamas and Likud and of an international left which marches with anti-semites, glorifies terrorism and declares its solidarity with Islamism – the main obstacle to peace.

One of the most depressing aspects of the current conflict between Israel and Hamas, along with of course to the tragic and horrific loss of innocent Palestinian life, is the very limited chances of Israel emerging from the violence with a clear, beneficial, long-term result. But fighting battles with Islamism that don’t bring obvious, instant results, is something we in the West are going to have to get used to.

The only positive aspect of the operation so far has been the welcome destruction of Hamas operatives, munitions and structures and this, it should be stressed, is no minor matter. Despite the bluster in this Hamas statement , the Islamist terrorist group have received some real blows – the elimination of key personnel, the loss of many weapon stations and arms. It remains to be seen whether their ability to launch rocket attacks at Israel will have been completely eliminated by the end of the hostilities but it is hard to imagine how the IDF will be able to declare victory on that front. One rocket fired, maybe a few days after a ceasefire, would be enough for Hamas to crow that they are still in business and for the rest of the world to declare Israel’s efforts, and the loss of life, to have been futile.

Even removing Hamas from power would not stop them from operating, in their usual, thuggish. bandit style, under a new Palestinian authority in Gaza or even under a fresh occupation. Hamas are going to be around for some time yet.

The tragedy of Israel is that, it is going to face violent opposition to it’s existence for many, many years to come for the simple fact that a Jewish state surrounded by Jew-hating Muslim Arabs has little chance of living in peace. The phrase ‘two state solution’ is redundant. Don’t get me wrong -- two states are necessary, just and right and Israel should act to make them happen, but they are not a solution to Israel’s security problem, merely a possible start. Gaza has already given us an indication what kind of ’solution’ an Islamist Palestinian state would be.

The only hope Israel has of ever being secure, ever being confident that it can just get on with life without facing suicide bombers and rocket attacks on kindergartens, is if Islamists depart from the political scene in the region and any objective observation of the politics in that region indicates that is not likely to be happening in the near future.

Islamism is clearly going to be around for sometime -- so it is worth studying the ideology, the history and the structures. We better had do because there seems to be no sign that it is going to be definitively defeated in our lifetimes. It took over 70 years for the menace of Bolshevism to be totally finished off in Europe and while there are no iron rules in these matters, it is worth remembering that the first Islamist revolution came just 30 years ago.

Many on the ‘Eustonian’ left, myself included, held out a hope that a liberal, democratic, secular, alternative would emerge in the Middle East in opposition both to Arab dictatorships and Islamism. The first sign that we might have over-estimated the strength of democratic forces came in Iraq, a country with a strong secular tradition. The overthrow of Saddam resulted in a bitter and violent battle involving varying degrees of Islamist organisations, ranging from relatively moderate types willing to govern under occupation to the Mahdi Army through to the extreme of Al-Quada. There were few signs of liberal democrats enjoying real support and the socialist left, which had some history in the country, also turned out to enjoy only a pitiful level of support outside of the stronghold of Iraqi Kurdistan.

Throughout the region it is clear that the main opposition to dictatorships – in Egypt and Syria for example, comes not from enlightened liberals but from even worse Islamists. In the Palestinian territories, the Arab-nationalists of Fatah were defeated not by progressives but by genocide-seeking Islamist terrorists.

Inside the Muslim communities in Europe, the horrors of Islamist terrorism in previously unimaginable locations such as Madrid and London, have not resulted in an awakening of a new, progressive voice among Muslims to challenge the extremists but have instead seen the continued rise of Islamist groups linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. Those honourable attempts to challenge the extreme-right, whether it be from ex-Islamists or from ex-Muslims turned secularists, welcome though they are, are tiny and insignificant compared to the street-mobilising ability of the MB affiliates.

Disgusting and treacherous though the far-left’s alliance with Islamism is, the ex-Marxists are at least right in their belief that Islamism is a growing movement which, like them, is opposed to western democracy. Those who dismissed the blast of Islamist noise after September 11 as something that could be dealt with by a combination of good police and intelligence work and some gentle political appeasing, have been proven to be woefully optimistic.

All the indications, in Europe, Asia and the Middle East, suggest that Islamism, in both terrorist and less violent agitational form, is in the early stages of a rise in fortunes. The question then, is what can be done about it?

The depressing conclusion I have reached is that, western governments are going to have to start thinking of strategies to deal with Islamists in power given that there is no sign that radical Islam is going to fade away. This is going to have to involve a degree of pragmatism in the short term and some smart subversion in the longer term.

There is clearly a temporary, tactical need for western governments to continue giving limited support to strategically important non-democratic governments, such as Egypt’s, so as to avoid the nightmare scenario of a pro-Hamas state on Israel’s border at a time like this, for example. Likewise, unsavoury elements in Pakistan’s and Afghanistan’s current governments are preferable to Taliban-AQ elements taking control of such a sensitive region. In short, the cold-war ‘our son of a bitch’ approach, is, on occasions, a short-term necessity. The neo-conservative, liberal internationalist hope of a democratic revolution in the Middle East and wider Muslim world, remains a hope, but nothing more.

Longer term though, how can the position and strength of Islamist forces be weakened in Muslim majority countries? Support for liberals and reformists is important but it should be clear by now that it is not enough given their weakness. There clearly needs to be a massive change in the cultures in those countries to weaken the appeal of political Islam – that is going to take several generations and some intelligence from the west as we contaminate their cultures with some of the fruits of freedom, the temptations offered by liberty, which the Islamists, enemies of modernity, fear so much. There needs to be some imaginative thinking on this front.

Perhaps the only cause for optimism is the case of Iran where, 30 years after the revolution, many young people in Tehran are clearly bored with and sick of the Islamist state. It took such a short space of time for a generation to emerge which prefers freedom to the slavery of political Islam but it remains to be seen how long it takes for them to carry out a democratic transition in that country. Perhaps that is going to be the model, if there is to be one, of change in the Muslim-populated world – the Islamists come to power, prove to be brutal and repressive but ultimately useless in delivering to the needs of the population who gradually lose faith in them. The key will be to effectively deter the Islamist states from expansionist or nihilistic violence while fostering and nurturing the internal opposition. Which sounds, I have to admit, a rather similar strategy to the cold war.

The best case scenario would obviously be for these societies to leap the Islamist stage and go straight from dictatorship to democracy but there are few indication that is likely to happen.

Israel’s struggle, whatever you think of the tactical rights or wrongs of this particular battle, is our struggle because we cannot allow Islamists to defeat a liberal-democracy. Even if there are limitations on what we can do to defeat Islamists within non-democratic Muslim societies, we have to draw a clear line when they try to take our side on. There is also, clearly, an anti-fascist responsibility to stand by Jews when they face murderous Jew-haters.

But while Israel is fated to face the brunt of Islamist hatred for years to come, it won’t only be Israel that has to learn, in the absence of choice, to reluctantly to live with, deter and cleverly try to subvert Islamism until that wretched, inhuman creed follows its totalitarian cousins fascism and communism into the historical dustbin.

A lengthy and fascinating interview with Joshua Muravchik is in the latest edition of Democratiya. Muravchik talks about his personal journey from the socialist left to neo-conservatism and then goes on to look at Iraq and Islamist terror and the neo-con responses.

I've been contemplating socialism and the left in some of my posts here and so this passage from Muravchik was interesting:

I kept wrestling with the central mystery of socialism. How could something that desired to make things better have instead made things so much worse? Was it that socialists were bad people? From my own experience I am still convinced that most people who embraced the idea of socialism did so from a humane feeling - they wanted the world to be kinder and gentler. Yet socialism's most important results were quite the opposite. Of course, social democrats did things to humanise society when they were in government, but the overall record of socialism, when you add up both sides of the ledger, is quite appalling. 

I concluded that the central problem is asking politics to do something it can't do - to provide the 'leap' that Marx wrote about. This ambition departs entirely from the realities of human existence, which is imperfect and tragic. Life may not be nasty and brutish but it is short and it will always have its share of sadness and disappointment. Religion offers answers to both the shortness of life and the disappointments it contains - whether or not you accept the truth of any particular religion or religion per se. Politics can't do that. If you understand that, you feel a certain constraint on what you seek to achieve in politics, which at the most can offer amelioration. But the socialist thinks that through politics you can transform human life itself. Michael Harrington - a leader of mine back then whom I admired - once wrote that socialism would create 'an utterly new society in which some of the fundamental limitations of human existence have been transcended.' [5] But no political system can do that. Worse, once you say it can you have a logically sound utilitarian argument for killing some people in order to get there. If those people are standing in the way of the new, higher, happier level of human existence, well...

By the way, if you are not familiar with Democratiya - a free-to-read, online journal of what could loosely be called 'Eustonite Internationalists' then take a look through their latest edition - including a speech from Tony Blair - and also their archive which is full of interesting and serious material.

One of the most common characteristics of the authoritarian personalities who end up becoming dictators is their refusal to see themselves as fallible human beings, capable of mistakes or misjudgements. Hugo Chavez is not yet a dictator but he is behaviour has created justifiable concern that he may be heading in that direction. His acceptance of defeat in the referendum indicates he is willing to play by some of the rules of democracy but his reaction to that loss is yet more evidence of his disturbed personal and political personality. 

Because, in his search for blame, Chavez points the finger at almost everyone except himself. Unable to accept that maybe, just maybe, people felt that term limits are a sensible part of the checks and balances of a democracy, unwilling to consider that his demagogic rhetoric about no-voting "traitors", "fascists" and "mental retards" who were "voting for Bush" smacked of both desperation and lack of respect for the Venezuelan people, Il Presidente is now pointing the finger closer to home.

"Chavez, who met government advisors and military commanders outside Caracas to wait for the results, said congress hindered the plan's passage by splitting it into two blocks, the Caracas- based daily reported, citing the unidentified witnesses. Chavez also said his Venezuelan Unified Socialist Party lacked leadership, Nacional reported.

So congress and the party to blame - hmm, when a generalissimo starts to attack his own party and a congress it controls, you sense that there may be trouble on the horizon.

And of course, it is not just his closest political allies who are to blame: "Maybe the nation needs to mature more before we construct socialism," he said.

In both cases, Chavez, who has followed the classic authoritarian-demagogic approach of creating an external foreign threat, a fantastical fear of invasion, is indicating that only he is capable of carrying the country on the path towards ‘socialism'. The party and congress can't be trusted and the people are immature - no wonder he finds it so important to centralise power in his own hands and keep it until "until the last bone of my skeleton dries up."

The danger in all of this is, of course, that after a period of licking his wounds, Chavez comes back determined to press on with his authoritarian agenda (he has already said the proposals are halted only "for now") but also with little or no respect for his allies who he now views with suspicion, especially as some key figures switched to the No vote during the campaign. 

Chavez certainly believes he represents ‘the people" (in the crude communist sense of the term) and it is only a short step from his current rhetoric to start to view any political obstacles as "anti-people".

Add to the mix an opposition emboldened by their triumph and increasingly led by the radical and active student movement (as opposed to compromised old-school politicians) and there is potential for some very hot days indeed in Venezuela. 

Those who view Chavez's reluctant acceptance of the ‘No' as proof that he is a democrat and not a dictator are only half right - he is still not yet a dictator.

(Footnote: One wonders what contortions the Cuban media had to go through in reporting the Chavez defeat. After all, the line from US sympathisers "Look, he is a democrat!" doesn't quite work as well in Cuba does it? "It was a 'veni, vidi, vinci' of dignity and ethics," said Castro. Well Fidel, when are you going to offer the Cuban people a vote on, well, anything?)

Why we need a left

In my first two posts of this series, I tried to defend opponents of violent jihadism and supporters of the Iraq war from the charge that they had abandoned the values of the left and indeed attempted to make a case that tackling Islamofascism and tyranny are on the contrary, authentic leftist positions to take.

I promised that my next post would look at the broader issue of why a left is still necessary. Clearly this is a topic more suited for a lengthy polemical book than a blog post (Yes, I am open to offers….) so what follows is a brief and simplified attempt to make the case that in the modern world, the values of the left remain absolutely essential if the combination of chaos and dynamism that prevails is to meet with a progressive response.

The first thing that has to be said in any attempt to state the case for the left in 2007 is – forget the far left. Leninism is dead, Trotskyism is dead, Stalinism is dead, Maoism is dead, the concept of ‘socialist revolution’ is dead and the idea of a planned socialist economy is dead. And to that one should add a long overdue – thankfully.

Millions of people were murdered, perished or were incarcerated as a result of ‘socialist experiments’ in the last century. Millions more had their lives and their family’s lives wrecked by communist dictatorships and in countries now described as ‘formerly communist states’ the impact of over four decades of totalitarianism are still felt.

That tiny minority of oddballs who continue to believe in the ‘dictatorship of the proleteriat’ and other euphemisms for state terror should be as unacceptable to democrats as far right-wing opponents of liberal democracy – what is amazing is that they are still regarded as acceptable leaders for ‘peace movements’ and labour movement organisations.

But, of course, while Marxist inspired revolutionary socialism was a horrendous catastrophe, social democracy (or democratic socialism if you prefer) came out of the last century with a pretty good balance sheet. Western European welfare states were inspired by and largely created by the social-democratic parties of the labour movement. The health care systems, the universal education systems, the progressive housing solutions, the victories in terms of wages and work conditions for millions of European workers are a credit to the social democratic project. It was never plain-sailing of course and there were times when the tide turned against social democracy (the era of Kohl-Reagan-Thatcher) and there were times when one wondered if anything would remain of the core aims of social-democracy (the era of the third-way).

But on the whole, social-democrats can be justly proud of the achievements of their parties in the past century. In countries where social democracy took root, real acute poverty is a thing of the past even though great inequalities of wealth remain. Likewise the values of social liberalism also can look back on great progress – great steps forward have been made in gender equality, gay rights, racial equality and religious freedom.

Together social-democracy and social-liberalism have improved the lot of millions of people and won real and lasting victories – if one steps away from the disasters of revolutionary socialism, reject it utterly, then the left has actually enjoyed enormous success – successes which of course need to be defended, expanded and improved upon. But while social democracy in Europe has been able to make headway in the main goal of taking the benefits of a capitalist economy and using the state to more broadly distribute the resources available and has, through regulation and intervention, been able to force capitalists to pay better wages and offer better working conditions, on a global scale poverty remains at an intolerable level with millions living in starvation conditions.

And while liberal democracy reigns across the continent of Europe – no longer restricted only to the western half – large parts of the world remain in the grip of tyrannies or face threats from violent totalitarian movements. It is no coincidence that many of those parts of the world where poverty remains acute are also countries where democracy has yet to be able to take root. And there, surely, lays the answer to what the purpose of a modern left should surely be – defending and expanding on the gains of the victories of social democracy in the west, tackling the scar of global poverty and pushing for the expansion of democracy internationally. In an era of rapid globalisation, the moment seems perfect for the western left to make a real effort to globalise its values.

Yet at the same time, when one reads the debates over the past decade, a lack of confidence in the core values of both liberalism and social democracy emerges which hinders the ability of the democratic left to take on the tasks facing it. Cynicism about the value of democracy as opposed to an enthusiasm to spread it globally and cultural relativism rather than international solidarity risk making the left into a club of parochial critics. An unwillingness to tackle economic questions and a Luddite anti-globalisation stance rather than a concerted effort to create a social-democratic world, leave the left looking like a snooty western elite who wash their hands with some charity rather than address the need to shift globalisation in a progressive direction aimed at eliminating poverty.

The democratic left has much to be proud of (including its opposition to the anti-democratic left) but it must leave behind the cynicism and nihilism that has infected it in the past decade or so and confidently take on a new role as champions of a progressive globalisation and the internationalisation of democracy. In my final part of this series I will sketch out some rough ideas for how that might start to take shape.