Date: Sun, 7 Sep 1997 14:00:06 -0400 From: malecki-AT-algonet.se (Robert Malecki) Subject: M-I: Reply To james H.. James Heartfield wrote: I agree with quite a lot of what Robert writes. It is true that the contemporary trend towards fixating on the holocaust (in English speaking countries at least) was motivated by a hostility to an imperial rival - and particularly aimed at German reunification (evidence of the infamous Thatcher cabinet discussion on the 'German character' around that time is well documented). I also agree that a lot of holocaust scholarship in the US is motivated by support for Israel (well documented by Norman Finkelstein in NLR). For both of these the 'uniqueness of the holocaust' has indeed been an ideological tool for abstracting Nazi atrocities from imperialism. Jim starts off fine only to in the next part get completely boggled and because of this draw a lot of wrong conclusions. However, much as you make light of historical specificity, I do think it is especially pertinent in dealing with the 'final solution'. Unlike other massacres undertaken by imperialists, this one was exposed and reviled throughout the Western world. For the first time the 'white solidarity' between the big powers fell apart. It is pointed that the league of nations refused Japan's proposed anti-racist clause in its charter, but that anti-racism was a central plank of the UN Charter after the Second World War. Now, of course Robert could protest at this point: fat lot of good that did! And he would be right that a single clause did not stop the massacres in the Congo, Namibia, Vietnam, Malaysia or anywhere else. Of course, the basic structure of inequality between the imperial powers and the rest of the world was intact. Yes exactly, it did not stop the massacres then or today or tomorrow. In fact taking the end of the war the Nazi attrocities and Nuremburg as a starting point does not show a deviding line which changes things dramatically. In fact it only confirmed the hypocracy of the victorious powers who for example were putting Nazi's on trial while in India for example the British desperately trying to hold onto its colonies took the path which involved the extermination of millions. However, there had been a profound ideological set-back for white supremacy. Offical anti-racism starts with the holocaust: the executive orders desegregating the US military for example. Also civil rights activists deployed the language of offical anti-racism to further their claims - such as WEB Dubois bringing a case against America to the UN under its own Charter. In the colonies the discrediting of the white supremacy ideology emboldened opponents of Britsh and French rule. Many of the anti-colonists had served in the British army in a 'war against Fascism' and turned Britain's anti-fascist propaganda against her. Ho Chi Minh had developed his guerilla skills while an American ally in the war against Axis powers. If you read JF Kennedy's speeches from the fifties you will find a fierce denunciation of French and British imperialism in Indo-China. Sure and pigs fly. In fact imperialism was weakened despite its victory over "fascism" and you completely neglect the fact of the degenerated workers state of Russia and its expansion plus the Chinese revolution which imperialism had to face as a fact of life. No wonder they wanted to tactically use this kind of rhetoric in order to gain time to consolidate its power. Half of the world was up for grabs you know. But just like the post war "welfare" reforms and all the rhetoric about which you would like to defend your ideas of a great anti rascist barriere being crossed we appear to be heading back to square one again and the pre war rascism once again although this time is is not the Jews but immigrants and displaced peoples of the third world. And painting up the anti "imperialism" of the late 60ties and 70ties without taking up the great events taking place in the form of the demise of the ex Soviet Union and the Gulf war is ridiculous. At best Jim if and I doubt it we crossed some "Rubicon" as you claim well that Rubicon has been recrossed and we are now heading in the opposite direction and unfortunately from a much weaker position then we had in the thirties in the form of the Soviet Union and the gains of October despite the Stalinists. Another point is that attrocities quite as large as the Nazi holicaust appear to be repeating themselves time and again on the African continent. Although it is not cyclon B that is being used but the IMF... Rhetorically, of course, I can see why it is useful to denounce imperialist domination as a continuation of the same policies of race superiority that existed befre the war. But in the study of history it doesn't make sense to deny that a rubicon had been crossed. Why does it have emotional force to characterise Western foreign policy as racist? If you had said the same thing in the thirties people would have looked around quizzically and asked 'what's wrong with that?', without any sense of embarrassment. Well, Today we can see in Europe we have exactly the same position although not directed at Jews but blacks and minority groups of the third world. And in the united States we have rascism and state repression to the core of minorities. Although not on the level of Cyclon B we certainly that the minorities are the ones who fill the jails and starve to death. But in a period of war and revolutions where lets say the Bolsheviks were to take power in South Africa we could possiby quickly see some pretty extrodinary things happen in the United States with a core population who have everything to gain and nothing to lose quickly being marched off to death camps.. Quite apart from the historical meaning of the holocaust, Fascism is distinct from mainstream reactionary politics in two important ways: First, it engaged in mass mobilisation amongst the middle classes, drawing them into direct action against the left; second, it deployed direct repression to supress working class opposition at home, in a way that until then had been reserved for colonial subjects. (Beleiving those to be fascism's unique elements, you can see why I was so adamant in opposing the Goldhagen thesis of pan-German guilt.) In fact fascism is precisely a *departure* from conventional racism, in that it rested not on a consensus between the the ruling class and the working class leaders, as Britian's imperial policy did, but in direct repression at home. OK I could almost buy the above. But this is in fact you are leaving out some other quite clear examples which came previous to Germany. Spain and Italy for example. However being that the Jews in this particular point of history played the historical role that it did had more to do with Germany being in the center of Europe and both Jewish capitalism and displaced persons from earlyier pograms in Eastern Europe and the former Czarist empire. But the mobilisation of the middle class and the lumpen strata came first in Spaion and later on in Italy before Germany to supres the working class. However they are linked in that first the defeat of the Spanish revolution and then the victory of Italian fascism and then the victory of the Fascist in Germany was certainlt a mighty blow on this continent. Al of these events are connected and lead to the gas chambers. Not in the least the complete bankruptcy of the Third International under Stalin.. I must take issue with your promiscuous use of terms like 'racism', 'nationalism', 'holocaust' to artificially elide quite distinct conflicts. In no sense is Irish nationalism equivalent to Unionism. The one is motivated by a desire to liberate Northern Ireland from military occupation, the other by the desire to continue that occupation. This is the final outcome of formalistic thinking: the violence of the oppressed is seen as identical to the violence of the oppressor. The above could only be true if one believes that Green Nationalism is more progressive then Orange Nationalism which I don't. I think that both sides if they were to get the military and political power would be quite capable of some very nasty things. Which leads to the question of What the IRA or its predessessors were doing cozying up with the Nazis during the war? for example. Alive as Robert is to the ideological deployment of the uniqueness of the holocaust in support of Anglo American and Zionist policies, I think he has missed out the more contemporary twist in imperial ideology. Nowaday's the Western powers have tended to discover 'holocausts' all over the place. In Rwanda and Burundi, in Bosnia and in Cambodia, the West is eager to shout 'holocaust'. Why? Because it is the modern version of the bougeois state trying to bring "civilization" to the third world on the back of NATO troops and American gunships. It is just the modern version of christianity sending missionaries to Africa for example. Not really new just take a look at the Italians in somalia and etreia or the British in South Africa during the Boer wars.. That just the German Nazi Holicaust is used as and example was determined by the victorious imperialist allies with the help of Joe stalin.But it does not change the fact that earlier and later crimes imposed on poor and working class people in different historical periods was any better or worse just another way to destroy people in order to defend the system.. In the first instance, it is because under the UN charter, the discovery of 'genocide' provides the legal justification for military intervention. That is why western agents have been eager to portray the civil wars in Rwanda and Bosnia as 'genocidal'. If they can show evidence of genocide then military intervention becomes acceptable under the UN charter and in the eyes of the world. Second the demonisation of opponents in the former Soviet bloc and the third world as 'Hitlers' prepares public opinion for military intervention. Thirdly, the relocation of 'genocide' from the West to the third world retrospectively minimises the responsibility of the Western ruling classes for the real holocaust, by portraying genocide as a failing that only Africans and Slavs would succumb to today. Exactly and that is why Communists defend unconditionally against imperialist intervention. At best Andy's version of this shit is pointing the finger at the Germans while the modern rascists are using the Holicaust to for example use their smart bombs intead of cyclon B in Irak during the Gilf war.Actually the last in a nutshell is and extension of exactly what Andy and his crowd are saying only extending it not only to the Germans but the africans, Slavs and perhaps in the future the former Soviet Union under the guise of defending bougeois democracy. In reality it is rascism and fascism in clothed in the deguise of bougeois democracy. As the crisis deepens we will perhaps see the American, German and Japanese variant of this kind of activity as they try to find allies in the coming confrontation between the major imperialist powers. thus already we see a distinct deferentaion in the former Yugoslavia where the Germans have hopped on the croatian horse, the Americans on the Bosian Muslim horse and the Russians half heartedly on the serb horse. It will be the fundemental imperialist contracdictions that will decide the future and who and what are considered the enemy.Whether we use pre war linguified retoric or post war "Holicaust" rhetoric the actors and their motivations are basically the same. Otherwise we have completely wrong in our analisis and we are in a new age of super imperialism and just cleaning up the leftovers of the previous era..However I doubt it.. In the final analisis imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism means just either the prospect of war and revolutions in going forward or backwards in the long run. One side or the other must be victorious or the real possibility of this system not only generating some new form of holicaust but in fact extinguishing all organic life on this planet.. Warm regards Bob Malecki ------------------------------------------------------- Check Out My HomePage where you can, Read or download the book! Ha Ha Ha McNamara, Vietnam-My Bellybutton is my Crystalball! And Now the International Communist League Page! Just push on the "Spartacist" Button. Or Get The Latest Issue of, COCKROACH, a zine for poor and working-class people. NEW! "RADIO TIME" In cooperation with Stratfacts, Bob Malecki will be giving occasional reports to Stratfacts Radio audiences in the United States. 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