We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.

Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]

Samizdata quote of the day

Before solving a problem, it is necessary to identify it. Few political leaders or journalists or other public figures are willing to state the obvious fact that the main source of anti-Semitism in Europe today is not among the usual suspects on the far right but the red-green alliance, where the primeval Jew hatred of Muslim immigrants is excused away by the anti-Zionist cosmopolitanism of the secular left.

– From a piece by James Kirchick, in the Tablet, entitled What the EU Survey Reveals about European Anti-Semitism.

With thanks to the relentlessly anti-anti-Semitic Mick Hartley.

Although, “cosmopolitanism” is hardly the right word to describe the left these days.

8 comments to Samizdata quote of the day

  • Although, “cosmopolitanism” is hardly the right word to describe the left these days.

    That is putting it mildly.

  • Mr Ed

    Although, “cosmopolitanism” is hardly the right word to describe the left these days.

    Wasn’t ‘rootless cosmopolitan‘ a Stalinist dysphemism for ‘Red Sea Pedestrian‘, (the latter term striking me as mildly affectionate)?

  • More than two years ago, the sinister dishonesty of the PC chattering class on this subject was so obvious that my attempt at an Erdogan poetry competition entry insisted on turning into a poem about it. It has only grown worse since then.

  • Wasn’t ‘rootless cosmopolitan‘ a Stalinist dysphemism for ‘Red Sea Pedestrian‘ (Mr Ed, December 24, 2018 at 6:10 pm)

    Yes, it meant “the long-nosed lot” as one soviet official put it. Stalin went anti-semitic after WWII. The early-50s “Doctors’ Plot” focussed on Jews and was planned as the first stage of a major pogrom. As usual, the planned Communist propaganda cover was far more elaborate than the Nazis’. The plan was that revelation of the (predominantly Jewish) Doctors’ Plot would be followed by “spontaneous” anti-semitic riots across the Soviet Union, after which prominent Soviet Jews would “spontaneously” issue a letter (signatures for it were being extorted from them in early 1953) saying that they understood the problem Jews caused in the Soviet Union and so “requested” transport to the Crimea, which was to become a Jewish slave colony under the NKVD – the Soviet version of the Nazi’s Madagascar project. Fortunately, Stalin died in early March 1953 and the politburo was too busy fighting to decide who would succeed him to pursue it (and perhaps some – Khrushchev, for example – did not much want to).

    From high-hung Haman to finally-dying Stalin, Jewish history contains a number of planned-but-averted mass-murders, as well as the ones that are better known because they were not averted. To paraphrase the OP quote, it is difficult to avert a threat you dare not even define, let alone talk about.

    ‘Red Sea Pedestrian‘, (the latter term striking me as mildly affectionate)?

    It certainly implies respect for their abilities – particularly, the ability to escape would-be enslavers and executioners. 🙂 (Pedantically, I note that IIUC it should in fact be ‘Reed Sea pedestrians’.)

  • Tedd

    I was curious about the missing third of the distribution of motivations, so I looked it up:

    The most frequently mentioned categories of perpetrators of the most serious incident of antisemitic harassment experienced by the respondents include someone they did not know (31%); someone with an extremist Muslim view (30%); someone with a left-wing political view (21%); a colleague from work or school/college (16%); an acquaintance or friend (15%); and someone with a right-wing political view (13%).

    So there are some caveats to the statistics. We don’t know the make-up of the 31 percent of cases where the perpetrator’s motive was unknown. I guess it wouldn’t be completely unreasonable to assume it’s the same as the “known” distribution, but we can’t be sure. And these stats apply to the “most serious incident” of anti-semitism that the interviewee has experienced. So it doesn’t (necessarily) tell us anything about the distribution of motiviations for more mundane anti-semitic incidents.

  • Mr Ed

    Tedd

    and someone with a right-wing political view (13%).

    Is this a snide way of saying ‘other‘, by ‘reasoning’: anyone who is not in the aforementioned categories is ‘right-wing’, so anyone opposed to Leftism is ‘right-wing’ and ergo ‘anti-semitic’, rather than, say, a demented conspiracy theorist?

    Or have I drunk too much red from Trás-os-Montes at this point?

  • Tedd

    Mr Ed:

    The study says that the category was selected by the interviewee, presumably from a predetermined list. Your guess is as good as mine as to how the interviewees decided which category to choose. But the 13 percent figure is for perpetrators who were known to the interviewee, so presumably the interviewee had a reasonably good idea what stance the person was coming from.

  • Paul Marks

    Basic conclusion – the overwhelming majority of people who hate-Jews-because-they-are-Jews are Islamic, and this is a theological (not a “primitive” or “tribal” thing). Islam teaches that even the trees and rocks will call out “Muslim there is a Jew hiding behind me – come and kill him” and Muhammed (without the help of trees and rocks) broke his promises of peace and friendship, by launching surprise attacks against Jewish communities (to kill and to enslave). After all Jews, along with Christians, are “the worst of creatures” – the tolerant Mecca versus of the Koran being superseded by the Medina verses (after Muhammed got his own army).

    As for the left – “what is the religion of the Jew? Hucksterism. What is the God of the Jew? Money!” – that was Karl Marx (himself from a Jewish family). And the radical “liberal” Hobson (who would fit very well into the modern Liberal Democrat Party in Britain) believed much the same.

    “Capitalist Jews” who “exploit” and “oppress” people are a basic trope of leftist thought – including of leftists from Jewish families.

    Are 13% of Jew haters from “the right” – yes that may be so, but that means that 87% are not. And much of this 13% of Jew haters will be National Socialists, very committed to “Social Justice” (i.e. using much the same arguments as Karl Marx – in relation to “Money Jews”).