One might imagine that by this stage liberal humanitarianism was entirely discredited, at least on the left. But you would be wrong. There are still those who have learnt no lessons at all \u2013 like the Guardian\u2019s<\/em> Owen Jones. In his column today<\/a> he picks up and runs with the latest pretext for global warmongering by the right: the Uighurs, a Muslim minority that has long been oppressed by China.<\/p>\n Those of us who oppose Western militarism and atrocities committed by Western allies must also stand in solidarity with China’s Uighur Muslims.https:\/\/t.co\/DarOxemAHN<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Owen Jones After acknowledging the bad faith arguments and general unreliability of the right, Jones sallies forth to argue \u2013 as if Iraq, Libya and Syria never happened \u2013 that the left must not avoid good causes just because bad people support them. We must not, he writes:<\/p>\n sacrifice oppressed Muslims on the altar of geopolitics: and indeed, it is possible to walk and to chew gum; to oppose western militarism and to stand with victims of state violence. It would be perverse to cede a defence of China\u2019s Muslims \u2013 however disingenuous \u2013 to reactionaries and warmongers.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n But this is to entirely miss the point of the anti-war and anti-imperialist politics that are the bedrock of any progressive left wing movement.<\/p>\n Jones does at least note, even if very cursorily, the bad-faith reasoning of the right when it accuses the left of being all too ready to protest outside a US or Israeli embassy but not a Chinese or Russian one:<\/p>\n Citizens [in the west] have at least some potential leverage over their own governments: whether it be to stop participation in foreign action, or encourage them to confront human rights abusing allies.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n But he then ignores this important observation about power and responsibility and repurposes it as a stick to beat the left with:<\/p>\n But that doesn\u2019t mean abandoning a commitment to defending the oppressed, whoever their oppressor might be. To speak out against Islamophobia in western societies but to remain silent about the Uighurs is to declare that the security of Muslims only matters in some countries. We need genuine universalists.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n That is not only a facile argument, it\u2019s a deeply dangerous one. There are two important additional reasons why the left needs to avoid cheerleading the right\u2019s favoured warmongering causes, based on both its anti-imperialist and anti-war priorities.<\/p>\n Virtue-signalling<\/strong><\/p>\n Jones misunderstands the goal of the left\u2019s anti-imperialist politics. It is not, as the right so often claims, about left wing \u201cvirtue-signalling\u201d. It is the very opposite of that. It is about carefully selecting our political priorities \u2013 priorities necessarily antithetical to the dominant narratives promoted by the west\u2019s warmongering political and media establishments. Our primary goal is to undermine imperialist causes that have led to such great violence and suffering around the world.<\/p>\n Jones forgets that the purpose of the anti-war left is not to back the west\u2019s warmongering establishment for picking a \u2018humanitarian\u2019 cause for its wars. It is to discredit the establishment, expose its warmongering and stop its wars.<\/p>\n The best measure \u2013 practical and ethical \u2013 for the western left to use to determine which causes to expend its limited resources and energies on are those that can help others to wake up to the continuing destructive behaviours of the west\u2019s political establishment, even when that warmongering establishment presents itself in two guises: whether the Republicans and the Democrats in the United States, or the Conservatives and the (non-Corbyn) Labour party in the UK.<\/p>\n We on the left cannot influence China or Russia. But we can try to influence debates in our own societies that discredit the western elite headquartered in the US \u2013 the world\u2019s sole military superpower.<\/p>\n Our job is not just to weigh the scales of injustice \u2013 in any case, the thumb of the west\u2019s power-elite is far heavier than any of its rivals. It is to highlight the bad faith nature of western foreign policy, and underscore to the wider public that the real aim of the west\u2019s foreign policy elite is either to attack or to intimidate those who refuse to submit to its power or hand over their resources.<\/p>\n Do no harm<\/strong><\/p>\n That is what modern imperialism looks like. To ignore the bad faith of a Pompeo, a Blair, an Obama, a Bush or a Trump simply because they briefly adopt a good cause for ignoble reasons is to betray anti-imperialist politics. To use a medical analogy, it is to fixate on one symptom of global injustice while refusing to diagnose the actual disease so that it can be treated.<\/p>\n Requiring, as Jones does, that we prioritise the Uighurs \u2013 especially when they are the momentary pet project of the west\u2019s warmongering, anti-China right \u2013 does not advance our anti-imperialist goals, it actively harms them. Because the left offers its own credibility, its own stamp of approval, to the right\u2019s warmongering.<\/p>\n When the left is weak \u2013 when, unlike the right, it has no corporate media to dominate the airwaves with its political concerns and priorities, when it has almost no politicians articulating its worldview \u2013 it cannot control how its support for humanitarian causes is presented to the general public. Instead it always finds itself coopted into the drumbeat for war.<\/p>\n That is a lesson Jones should have learnt personally \u2013 in fact, a lesson he promised<\/a> he had<\/em> learnt \u2013 after his cooption by the corporate Guardian<\/em> to damage the political fortunes of Jeremy Corbyn, the only anti-war, anti-imperialist politician Britain has ever had who was in sight of power.<\/p>\n Anti-imperialist politics is not about good intentions; it\u2019s about beneficial outcomes. To employ another medical analogy, our credo must to be to do no harm \u2013 or, if that is not possible, at least to minimise harm.<\/p>\n The \u2018defence\u2019 industry<\/strong><\/p>\n Which is why the flaw in Jones\u2019 argument runs deeper still.<\/p>\n The anti-war left is not just against acts of wars, though of course it is against those too. It is against the global war economy<\/a>: the weapons manufacturers that fund our politicians; the arms trade lobbies that now sit in our governments; our leaders, of the right and so-called left, who divide the world into a Manichean struggle between the good guys and bad guys to justify their warmongering and weapons purchases; the arms traders that profit from human violence and suffering; the stock-piling of nuclear weapons that threaten our future as a species.<\/p>\n The War Industry has proved very lucrative for the UK. Two-thirds of all armies line up to train on British soil each year, including armies the UK itself lists as human rights abusers. Here I explain how war still lies at the heart of the western mission https:\/\/t.co\/SL2MA1jhUJ<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) January 18, 2021<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The anti-war left is against the globe\u2019s dominant, western war economy, one that deceives us into believing it is really a \u201cdefence industry\u201d. That \u201cdefence industry\u201d needs villains, like China and Russia, that it must extravagantly arm itself against. And that means fixating on the crimes of China and Russia, while largely ignoring our own crimes, so that those \u201cdefence industries\u201d can prosper.<\/p>\n Yes, Russia and China have armies too. But no one in the west can credibly believe Moscow or Beijing are going to disarm when the far superior military might of the west \u2013 of NATO \u2013 flexes its muscles daily in their faces, when it surrounds them with military bases that encroach ever nearer their territory, when it points its missiles menacingly in their direction.<\/p>\n REVEALED \u2014 The UK military\u2019s overseas base network involves 145 sites in 42 countries.<\/p>\n The results of a months-long investigation by @pmillerinfo<\/a> https:\/\/t.co\/oaffNnJlZc<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Declassified UK (@declassifiedUK) November 24, 2020<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n
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(@OwenJones84) January 21, 2021<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n
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