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Tribalism, Racism and Projection – Part 2
by Gilad Atzmon
Wednesday, February 15th, 2012
Racism is a big word with some very bad connotations. Being accused of racism is one of the most hurtful and potentially damaging labels around. And yet, how many ‘racists’ really think in ‘biological determinist’ terms? How many ‘racists’ out there really think in terms of ‘genes,’ or even ‘skin colour’? I guess not that many.
While acknowledging that racism had a significant cultural, and politically lethal impact between the late 19th century and the middle of the last century, in today’s politics, the word ‘racism’ is often misused, mistakenly used, or in some cases, consciously used to mislead and even to silence.
Though discrimination against minority groups is unfortunately common and totally unacceptable, it is not necessarily always motivated by crude racism. Islamophobia, for instance, is commonly regarded as a contemporary manifestation of racism but I would challenge such an understanding. Islamophobia, I contend, is not driven by racism, but rather, it is actually a crude symptom of intolerance — xenophobia manifested as hatred, bigotry and discrimination. My English Muslim convert friends are often subjected to abuse by Jewish campaigners (both Zionist and ‘anti’ Zionists) and the English Defence League — but not because of their ‘genes’, ‘biology’ or the colour of their skin, but rather because they are ‘different’; because they challenge Western value system and because they oppose Israel and its lobbies. Clearly, they are perceived by some as a ‘public enemy’ but that reaction cannot always be understood solely as ‘racism’ per se.
Similarly, it is beyond doubt that it is not easy to be black in ‘multi cultural’ Britain. Being a jazz musician I see first hand how my black friends are often treated in this country and I see plenty of evidence of institutional anti-black bigotry. I read about black youngsters being stopped and searched by police between one to four times a day. This is unacceptable and clear evidence of discrimination.
But is this really always about racism? Is it driven solely by ‘biological determinism’? Is it really about ‘genes’, ‘blood’ or ‘skin colour’? This is indeed an open question and obviously I would not rule out the possibility of anti- black (biological) racism. However, I tend to believe that in contemporary multi ethnic societies, most cases of anti-black bigotry and discrimination are various manifestations of deep, thuggish xenophobic feelings mixed with some examples of deep, and sinister cultural intolerance. In other words, often enough, the contemporary bigot is not concerned at all with biological matters but rather with social constructs and culturally driven symbolism(1). This is surely a matter of serious concern, and in some case it is driven by murderous inclinations and it must be dealt with, but it isn’t necessarily (biological) racism per se.
But if it is not racism, what is it then? I reiterate, that these are better understood as different forms of deep cultural and political intolerance within the context of some severe and troubled ethnic interrelations.
So one might ask, why do we restrict our understanding of what fighting ‘racism’ means, when it is actually more likely to be forms of intolerance, ethnic tension and cultural discrimination which we should be protesting against?
I suggest that the confusion here between ‘deep intolerance’, ‘cultural discrimination’ and ‘racism’ is actually no coincidence – rather it is there to serve a clear Zionist political cause. Peculiarly enough, it is there to maintain a clear racial orientation and segregation at the heart of the multi-cultural discourse. In many cases, those who ‘oppose’ racism must be able to think in racial categories first, otherwise their opposition would be in vain.(2)
Paradoxically then, ‘anti racism’ which many of us identify with, may in some cases evolve into a racially driven discourse. Often, it can even jeopardise the process of natural integration and the shift towards harmonious social relationships (3). It may even dismantle true self-reflective and mirroring process amongst both the victim and the aggressor.
For within a public discourse controlled by ‘anti-racist’ ideology, the victim of any racist slur is immediately redeemed. He or she does not have to self-reflect on his or her actions, for there is not much he or she can do about their ‘biologically determined conditions’. Zionists and Hasbara campaigners(4), for instance, tend to dismiss any possible criticism of Jewish politics and Israeli actions as ‘anti-Semitism’. By so doing, they basically ‘switch off’. They are able to ignore their surrounding reality by referring to any possible criticism of their actions as just another example of blind, ‘racially’ driven hatred towards Jews. Instead of taking the criticisms on board and examining them by means of self-reflection, Jewish political discourse has evolved into an insular and window-less discourse.
In the following video Israeli veteran MK Shulamit Aloni admits that tossing ‘antisemitism’ is an old Zionist trick:
Equally, the so-called ‘racist’ or ‘aggressor’ can also dismiss the anti-racist call because his or her criticism is largely ignored. The ‘aggressor’ knows that in most cases, the issue is not actually about ‘race’ per-se but rather about some acute political, cultural and ideological issues, so this enables him or her to ignore the issue altogether. In spite of the fact that within the contemporary anti Zionist discourse no one criticises Jews for being Jews or employing any racially driven ideology or terminology, Israeli Hasbara and Zionists agents attempt to silence Israel’s political critics by tossing the anti-Semitic label in the air. This tactic obviously fails to silence Israel’s critics but it certainly maintains an abyss of mutual deafness between Zionists and their critics. So we are left with two parallel discourses that have lost all hope of any future exchange.
I believe that this fact alone emphasises how grave is the prospect of peace. Anti-racist politics is in constant danger of erecting walls of deafness that maintain intellectual, political and ethnic segregation at the heart of our public discourse. Rather than promoting hope, integration, tolerance, harmony, assimilation and dialogue – anti-racism could easily promote deafness and insularity exactly where attentiveness and exchange are most needed.
It took me some time to realise that in many cases it is Zionist and Jewish lobbies that maintain and promote the ‘anti-racism’ political discourse, and they do so for two main reasons:
- Being submerged in a racially driven discourse themselves, they are bound to think in terms of racial political categories.
- Racism/anti racism is convenient because it removes any responsibility from the victim. If Jews are hated just for ‘being Jews’, then the Jew is ethically flawless.
The implications of all this are grave – as long as Jewish identity politics and Zionism are shielded by categorical definitions of ’anti-racism’, Jews can avoid any form of self-reflection.
But Jews and Zionists are not alone here: the Left also is interested in an anti-racist discourse because it maintains the Left’s relevance as being in the vanguard of progressive ‘ethical insight’. The Left has set itself up as the defender of the weak, and this is indeed adorable. Through the years the Left has sided with the ‘blacks’, with the ‘Zionists’, with the ‘Jew’, with the ‘Iraqi,’ and even with the ‘Palestinian’. But for some reason, the Left has failed to side with the leading contemporary anti-imperialist force — the Muslim. The Left has also failed to recognise that in Europe, the Muslim is the real oppressed working class and the Left clearly failed to side with the democratically elected Hamas or the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. I suggest that the Left’s failure to side with the Muslim is symptomatic of a deep and inherent Western intolerance: the Left is not racist, but it is fundamentally soaked with cultural and ideological intolerance — possibly a state of mind related to the practicality and pragmatism of being ‘a progressive’ (5). I guess that some people may feel very ‘special’ just because they believe in equality
Naturally, the ’cause’ of ‘anti racism’ binds together some elements within the Left with the Zionists and the Hasbara campaign. Arguably, so-called ‘anti racist’ politics has become just another symptom of the Zionification of the Western political discourse with the supportive Left seen as a mere Zionist instrument. This may explain why the UK’s leading anti-racist campaign group Hope not Hate(6) is an offshoot of the Zionist Searchlight Magazine, it also explains why the same Zionist Hope not hate attempts to censor the freedom of speech of Muslim leaders in Britain. It explains why the alleged ‘anti’ racist Harry’s Place (closely affiliated with Hope not hate) won the UK section of the Islamic Human Rights Commission’s ’Annual Islamophobia Awards’ in 2006. In Germany the ‘anti’ racist Antideutsche –Anti Fa coalition is openly pro-Israel, pro-Zionist and also anti Islam. My guess is that these rabid Zionist and pro Zionist campaign groups planted themselves at the heart of the so-called Left just to make sure that from there they would be better able to fight Israel’s enemies. But it goes further. In the last UK Palestinian Solidarity Campaign’s AGM, two Jewish campaigners who openly operate within an exclusive ‘Jews only’ political cell (J-BIG) proposed a motion against racism. I guess that the absurdity of the situation is clear and doesn’t need further elucidation.
So, as we can now see, some of the leading supremacist and intolerant forces within our contemporary political discourse have managed to locate themselves directly at the very heart of the ‘anti-racist’ call. Furthermore, as it becomes clear that Israel and its lobbies are the driving force behind Islamophobia, it is pretty astonishing to find out that Zionist bodies also dominate the ‘anti-racist’ discourse. The meaning of it is pretty simple – racism and its opposition has gradually become an internal Jewish affair.
The conclusion is simple. It’s time for us to move on, to admit that racism and biological determinism have no significant role in today’s public and political discourse. We must re-think and redefine exactly what it is that leads towards social discrimination and cultural intolerance. Racism in its crude form largely belongs to the past. Our multi-ethnic universe is not inherently racist and therefore anti-racism cannot be a universal call. In many cases, ‘anti racist politics’ is actually there to divert the attention from some institutional discriminatory policies and ideologies.
It is increasingly obvious that the anti-racism campaign, in its current form, is there to serve some clear political interests, and is largely controlled by racially driven Zionists, Jewish lobbies and Jewish pressure groups. It is there to silence any criticism of the Israeli lobby, Israel, Jewish politics and Zionism.
I began this paper by asking why should any Jew feel guilty for crimes that are committed by other people whom he or she does not know and with whom he or she is not affiliated? The answer should by now be obvious: Rather than liberating the rest of humanity from racism, Zionists, Hasbara campaigners and Jewish ‘anti’ Zionists should first emancipate themselves from their own racially-driven ideologies – And stopping projecting their own tribalism onto their surrounding reality would certainly be a good place to start.
Notes
- I tend to believe that clashes between ethnic and political groups in Britain are fuelled by social tension and demography rather than by hatred towards skin colour.
- One cannot contemplate over the meaning of anti X without obtaining first a certain comprehension of X
- Minority groups engaged in varied discourses of victimhood (for instance), may miss some opportunities to integrate into wider social, ethnic and political structures.
- Hasbara-Israeli propaganda
- Which is in practice not different from Jewish secular sense of ‘choseness’.
- According to its official website HOPE not hate is “Searchlight’s campaign to counter racism and fascism.” http://www.hopenothate.org.uk/about-us/
Posted by Gilad Atzmon
on February 15, 2012. Filed under Jewish Matters.
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17 Responses to Tribalism, Racism and Projection – Part 2
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Jonathon Blakeley
February 15, 2012 at 11:09 pm
AS Robert Wyatt said in a great old song of his…
Gilad Atzmon
February 15, 2012 at 11:26 pm
Robert is the ultimate genius!!!
Simorgh
February 16, 2012 at 2:22 am
there are characteristics of groups that have nothing to do with genetics, skin color, national origin, but that are hateful. These characteristics seem to stem from commitment to a mythology-based ideology.
Is that anti-culturalism?
Zionism is a myth-based ideology. It borrows very heavily from- but is not the equivalent of Judaism. The existence of ‘Christian zionists’ does not argue in favor of zionism being separate from Judaism, insofar as Christian zionism is based on a (deliberately) zionized reading (actually, annotation) of the Old Testament, by Scofield, and now, a zionized annotation of the New Testament, by Amy Jill Levine. The latter, the Jewish Annotated New Testament, is published by Oxford University Press, just as Scofield bible was. The goal appears to make all Christians think that they are Jews and All Christians and Jews think that they are zionists.
Gilad Atzmon
February 16, 2012 at 8:45 am
Interesting!!
Groups are self-identified by sense of belonging. In most cases we deal with mythology based ideology.
Zionism, is basically a Godless Judaism. It is structured as a religion- it has a goal, it has some shrines, it offers personal meaning, it even offers redemption via collective barbarism.
I guess that you are correct here, the increase emphasis on OT is directly linked with the emergence of global Zionism and the Zionification of the west.
Emancipation must be next…
Jay Knott
February 16, 2012 at 4:44 am
Unfortunately, I didn’t see the Soft Machine ’til well after Robert Wyatt’s time. He is one of the greatest drummers of all time. He could sing too. I’m still turning kids on the Softs. “To have you on the horns of my dilemma”. Genius.
Gilad Atzmon
February 16, 2012 at 8:46 am
This is nice…
Pingback: Tribalism, Racism and Projection – Part 2 « Middle East atemporal
redscribe
February 16, 2012 at 9:33 am
Interesting article, and much thoughtful stuff as usual.
One thing I would say though is not all racism is justified by biological theories. That is one possibility, but is for instance, Israeli racism justified by theories of biological differences between ‘races’? I don’t think so, while there may be the odd individual somewhere who spouts this kind of stuff, for mainstream Zionism to promote it would be suicidal politically given the Nazis’ ‘reasons’ for the genocide of Jews.
But Israel is a racist state nonetheless, everything points to that, justified not by pseudo-biology but by notions derived from ‘the Bible as a title-deed’ and ‘chosen-ness’. That is the justification for obvious, blatant ‘racially-oriented’ politics, as Gilad correctly points out, not pseudo-biology.
Racism is a social construct, it has no basis in reality and I suspect even many of those who propagated pseudo-biology did not actually believe it was scientifically accurate. It was a convenient justification, for mass consumption, to justify the otherwise indefensible. There is more than one way to do this, and indeed reactionaries can be very inventive in using scraps of other ideas to piece together a practice that does, in reality, involve de-facto discrimination on grounds of some ‘otherness’ or supposed shared characteristic of a targeted group.
It has always been true, incidentally, that those from the dominant group who go over to and support the despised group are reviled as traitors and persecuted. This is also a reflection of racism, albeit one step removed. The – Muslim converts and the like – are being reviled for joining the ‘other’ and ‘betraying’ the dominant group.
The real problem with Zionist claims of continuing Jewish victimhood is that it exploits the past to justify the present, when the present is the polar opposite. Jews, once an oppressed people, albeit of a fairly unusual type, are now an oppressor people in the Middle East and mainstream Jewish organisations in the advanced Western countries are an extension of that, making the bulk of the Jewish communities complicit in that oppression, into an oppressor people by proxy.
But all kinds of real racism, not just the pseudo-biological kind, are at bottom ideologies that justify systematic oppression in the real world. It is not ideas that drive oppression, it is the needs of justifying that oppression that drive ideas, and while ideas may be modified to reflect changing ideological conditions, shifting the realities of oppression is much harder.
Will write more on this subject soon in a blog posting of my own.
Gilad Atzmon
February 16, 2012 at 10:17 am
Hello Red,
nice to see you here. I am short cos i am on my way out.. I believe that Jewish identity politics (Zionist, anti Zionist, Israeli etc’ ) is racially driven. It is supremacist to the bone. I believe that Jewish politics is racially driven and this applies also for the so called 3rd category J progressives. I therefore argue that they cling to racism because they project it onto others.
Thinking ‘politically’ in terms of ‘racial differences’ is for me racism per se…do i make sense?
peace and more later
G
redscribe
February 16, 2012 at 2:21 pm
I don’t agree about the anti-Zionist types. Tony G for instance agrees with you that ‘race’ is a fiction (so do I for that matter). We all agree that racism exists, but may differ about what it is and who it is directed at (in some cases).
The trouble is with some Jewish activists is that they have not completely understood that Jews are not an oppressed people any more, or even if they have, they have not thought through the full implications of that. This error could of course have implications in terms of acting unintentionally in a manner that could be said to be ‘racially oriented’, but that is rather different.
I think the stridency and hysteria of these people comes from their being unable to handle the contradictions of their position.
Gilad Atzmon
February 16, 2012 at 10:53 pm
R: I don’t agree about the anti-Zionist types. Tony G for instance agrees with you that ‘race’ is a fiction (so do I for that matter).
G: Indeed, and yet he operates within racially exclusive political cells such as J-Big and other Jews only organizations… The meaning of it is very simple, one can be a racist with grasping what race is all about…
R: The trouble is with some Jewish activists is that they have not completely understood that Jews are not an oppressed people any more, or even if they have, they have not thought through the full implications of that.
G: If we take Sand seriously and accept that Jewish people is a phantasmic notion,, it shouldn’t be that complicated to accept that Jews cling to their image as an oppressed group phantasmically…
R: This error could of course have implications in terms of acting unintentionally in a manner that could be said to be ‘racially oriented’, but that is rather different.
G: I agree with you here, the 12ve UK Jewish pro Pls activists stick together not because they are chased by antisemite pro-Palestinians or neo nazis skinheads but simply because they really love being together. This is the rtue meaning of tribalism!!! By the way, there is nothing wrong about it, The problem starts when they insist to dominate the discourse..
R: I think the stridency and hysteria of these people comes from their being unable to handle the contradictions of their position.
G: Totally agree, but they should worry about it too much,,, cos we spot their contradictions and talk about them openly ..:)
redscribe
February 17, 2012 at 3:37 pm
Just in response to one of Gilad’s points
“If we take Sand seriously and accept that Jewish people is a phantasmic notion,, it shouldn’t be that complicated to accept that Jews cling to their image as an oppressed group phantasmically…”
Sand argued that Jewish quasi-nationality was something invented, though this is actually true of many identities. What’s really problematic about that invention is that Jews had no territory, and posing yourself as a people-nation without a territory in an era of escalating competition and conflict between nations was always a dangerous thing to do. Hence Zionism.
Actually, I think that Sands’s study complements quite well Abram Leon’s study ‘The Jewish Question, a Marxist analysis’, in explaining why the Jewish communities did not simply disappear through assimilation in the Middle Ages. Leon is erroneous in that he believed in the myth of the exile after the destruction of the Second Temple, which Sands debunks decisively.
But Leon’s analysis of the Jews as a ‘people-class’ substantially confined to a pre-bourgeois financial role in medieval society does explain both the isolated longevity of the Jewish communities, and the one-sided culture of the Jews as a people, over concentrated in business and finance when capitalism became the dominant mode of production.
It also doubly underlines why the development of national myths was so dangerous – to build a national myth around such a one-sided cultural development could only invite a toxic mixture of national and class hostility in response. Add to that the reactionary fear of Jewish involvement in revolution (both bourgeois and later socialist) and you get an even more dangerous cocktail of hatred.
If that ‘national’ tradition had not been invented, the Jewish question would just been a matter of one religious group disproportionately involved in business (as opposed to say, horse-racing). An eccentricity or quirk in other words. Making it a matter of peoplehood or nationhood was a very bad move.
The oppression that resulted was not a phantasm though. Though the basis for it has now disappeared as the Jewish national project has manifestly failed and given birth to a reactionary monstrosity. While the old myths about Jews being revolutionary are so discredited that many contemporary neo-fascists, admiring Israel’s racism, think Hitler was mistaken and in effect murdered the wrong people.
Though I think that reflects their lack of a materialist understanding of history: without Hitler, the Zionist project would probably have fizzled out and never achieved statehood.
Gilad Atzmon
February 18, 2012 at 3:05 am
Hello Red, almost 3 am, just came home and i am very tired,,, touring at the moment.. However, I am not that excited about materialist explanations, they somehow don’t work on Jews, hence we add ad hoc theories and explanations… I think the Glenn Bowman’s reading of Judaism as an exilic identity provides us with all the answers. It explains AIPAC Zionism, Jewish ‘anti’ Zionism (AZZ), the progressiveness, the reactionary-ness, Finkelstein, Dershowitz, Aaronovitch, they somehow care for each other. Even when they fight Israel they do it from within J only little Israels (JBIG, IJAN, JFP etc’) … they may dropped God but they certainly maintain their racially exclusive choseness. Nothing to do with being a class… what we see is a unique exilic tribal identity…
Peace G
Jay Knott
February 18, 2012 at 5:01 am
“Racism is a social construct, it has no basis in reality” says ‘Redscribe’, defending the conventional wisdom. There is a contrary view. It could be that ethnic xenophobia arose during the Stone Age because altruism toward members of one’s own tribe, whose genes were more closely related to one’s own, and hostility to others, was adaptive.
That’s not ‘pseudo-biology’. Shlomo Sands may be right about ‘The Invention of the Jewish People’, but if any group favors intramarriage, its members are genetically closer than they would otherwise have been. That might be a better explanation than ‘ideology’.
Jay Knott
February 18, 2012 at 2:29 pm
Ethnic identity is genes tring to recognize copies of themselves. Sometimes they make mistakes. But even when they do, they correct them, because they promote intramarriage, and increase genetic proximity. This isn’t pseudo-science. Richard Lewontin’s ‘Not in our Genes’, etc., is.
Science helps explain why moralism is so ineffective against Jewish identity. Standing in front of an Israeli bulldozer, for example, is an attempt to blackmail the driver. I appreciate that my argument could be misinterpreted, distorted, and subject to the Jeffrey Goldberg approach. If so, I’m in good company.
Paul Eisen
February 18, 2012 at 6:37 pm
Well, I don’t completely understand your argument though on first reading is sounds very interesting.
I suspect that it requires a lot more space than in a comments section. why not write piece for posting?
Jay Knott
February 19, 2012 at 3:38 am
I’m flattered. This is such a great site. My research has led me far and wide. Steven Jay Gould, Richard Lewontin and others wrote books with titles like ‘Not in our Genes’, slandering scientists as ‘fascists’. Franz Boas’s anthropology falsely claimed lower rates of murder and ethnic hatred in primitive societies compared with Western civilization. The Frankfurt School applied psychoanalysis to conservatives, but not communists. Their pseudo science survives – Naomi Klein recently explained why white men don’t believe in global warming. There is a continuity in these expressions of resentment against European society.
What’s this got to do with Israel? All will be revealed.