Anthony McIntyre's Blog, page 1180

Just Another League Of Ireland Season

Nigel Hegarty writes on:
Match Fixing, Crazy Chairmen Statements, Financial Irregularities, Six Team Relegation Battle – Just Another League of Ireland Season.


The run in, the league season, the unwanted fate. Controversy aplenty, financial help little. Match fixing, refereeing decisions questioned, the joy of the title win. Just another league season in Ireland really.
The question on everyone's lips at the start of the season was simply "Can they do four in a row?". Dundalk had just come off the back of an historic season, both for the club, and for the League of Ireland in general.
League of Ireland clubs have found themselves battling with European 'giants' in the past, Athlone Town with AC Milan, Waterford with Manchester United, Cork City with Bayern Munich, just to name a few, but none had ever gone into a modern European group stage and actually claimed any points. Shamrock Rovers were the pace-setters so to speak, becoming the first Irish club side to reach the Europa League group stage, although they failed to register a single point in 2011-12 European season.

Dundalk made a bit of history on two counts on last seasons European adventure. Coming within a whisker of Champions League group stage qualification only to be defeated by Polish side Legia Warsaw in front of 36,000 people in Lansdowne Road, they entered the Europa League group stage, and almost qualified out of it too. They beat Maccabi Tel Aviv in Dublin and drew with AZ Alkmaar in Holland. They gained a reported €6.3million in profit out of their adventures. To put that into perspective, they'd have to win the SSE Airtricity League Premier Division 525 times to make that much money with the winners of the domestic league taking home a paltry €120,000 for their efforts over 9 months.

So, to say they were expected to walk to another league title this year would be putting it lightly. They were dealt a hammer blow with the loss of three key players, namely Daryl Horgan & Andy Browne to Preston North End and Ronan Finn to Shamrock Rovers. They suffered a poor start to the season and were on the back foot from there on.

Cork City, on the other hand, went quietly about their business in the off season and hammered their way out of the starting blocks in February, going on a run of 24 wins and one draw before Sligo Rovers halted their stroll to the league title in August. The loss of Seani Maguire and Kevin O'Connor (both also to Preston North End) rather coincidentally preceded their dip in form. Maguire bagged himself 20 league goals before departing to the English Championship in July and O'Connor was lauded as one of the top wing backs in the league.

In the midst however of Cork's incredible start and Dundalk's poor run of form, the first big controversy of the season arrived in typical League of Ireland fashion. The highly ambitious owners at Bray Wanderers decided to go with the "if you build it they will come" mantra, so they went out and spent huge money to attract former league winning players like Conor Kenna, Aaron Greene and Gary McCabe as well as handing a handsome contract out to Dylan Connolly to fend off interest from several bigger clubs. This sort of reckless spending was to bite them in the rear end once the inevitable fall out over lack of crowds and clashes with the financial backers over value for money reared it's head. An average attendance of only 1,013 people, largely propped up by free tickets and two bumper attendances, for a club a quick run on the Dart from Dublin City centre, is very poor indeed and was highlighted by then Chairman Denis O'Connor in a scathing press release issued at half time in a match back in June when he asked "what's the point of continuing?".

This wasn't to be the end of controversy for the seaside club, nor for the league however. In May, allegation of match-fixing were made against midlands club Athlone Town, in the midst of an ongoing battle between board members and disillusioned supporters of the club going on for a number of seasons. Several eyebrows were raised when Athlone brought in unknown foreign management this season in the form of Ricardo Monsanto and his team of Portuguese coaches, signing players from Romania, Latvia and Uruguay, seemingly moving to Ireland to play for expenses in the First Division in front of an average attendance of less than 200 people.

Latvian goalkeeper Igor Labuts, who has a history of being associated with match fixing, was filmed conceding a rather comical goal against Longford Town which arose suspicion when the footage went viral in May. A subsequent UEFA and FAI investigation saw Labuts and his team mate Dragos Srifjan banned from all football activities by the FAI for 12 months, with club mate Jason Lyons handed down a rather lenient 7 game ban for betting on games he was involved in, although not banned for match-fixing.

Before we thought we had seen the last of it, and back to Bray Wanderers, the FAI and An Garda Siochana are currently investigating five matches involving the Seagulls for potential match fixing allegations. What a season!

So, what of the up's and downs of the actual league season? Relegation favourites at the outset, Drogheda United and Finn Harps have had contrasting fortunes through the season. With a hugely controversial plan to relegate three teams and only promote one from the First Division enacted upon by the FAI, clubs were going to breathe hard for the season at the bottom end of the table, battling a difficult battle from the very first kick off in February. Drogheda are consigned to playing First Division football already, confirmed at the weekend with a loss to Derry City while Finn Harps cling on for dear life yet, embroiled in a fascinating battle for the drop with Limerick, St Patricks Athletic, Sligo Rovers and Galway United all in danger. With four games left to play, the Harps currently sit second from bottom in 11th place with 30 points, but only a mere 5 points away from Limerick in 7th place. A win over Dundalk on Saturday afternoon could see the Ballybofey club rise to 9th place above Galway and Sligo Rovers and with Drogheda United and Bohemians their final two games of the season, there's a small sense of optimism on the banks of the Finn.

One more win should realistically see Limerick safe for 2018, while St Patricks Athetic will surely be the favourites of the remaining sides to see themselves in safety. After that, it's anyone's guess, with Shane Keegan at Galway and Gerard Lyttle at Sligo both seeing a slight upturn in form in their respective sides of recent.

Further up the table, Cork City's fortunes have waned but still look certain to clinch the title, while Dundalk have second place wrapped up. Whoever gets the final guaranteed European place is anyone's guess though. Shamrock Rovers currently occupy 3rd place, but only one point ahead of Derry City in fourth with Bray Wanderers lurking behind in 5th, albeit 5 points off Rovers. Bohemians in 6th aren't mathematically out of the running, but with 7 points to catch up in four games, It's a tall ask for Keith Longs side who have had a magnificent season on a tight budget.

Of course, if one of Dundalk or Cork win the FAI Cup, the fourth place is also good enough for Europe, so Shamrock Rovers could potentially rest a little easier having a cup semi-final replay to come against Dundalk.

The First Division this season was seen as somewhat of a foregone conclusion before the league started. Big spending Waterford FC, backed by Swindon Town owner Lee Power, gathered together an almost Premier Division standard team, bringing in Estonian international Sander Puri from Sligo, Patrick McClean from Derry, David McDaid from Cliftonville, Mark O'Sullivan and Kenny Browne from Cork, and later in the season Paul Keegan returning from English league football, they were set to be challenged only by Longford Town. Things didn't quite go to plan so smoothly.

Longford Town suffered a horrendous season and currently occupy 6th place of 8 in the First Division with only Wexford FC and Athlone Town below them. Cobh Ramblers sprung the greatest surprise and have run Waterford FC all the way up to September before eventually succumbing to a loss at an ever-improving Cabinteely to hand the title to Waterford with only two games to play. Following last weeks win at home to Longford, Waterford were handed their trophy in a packed RSC as they celebrate a return to the Premier Division for the first time since 2007 when relegated by Finn Harps via play-off. Cobh will have to settle for second place under the management of Stephen Henderson at St Colman's Park ahead of UCD, Cabinteely and Shelbourne.

A season of madness again shows no signs of slowing down, even with only four games to play in the Premier Division. The run in is set to be a fascinating watch for the neutral, and one of gut-wrenching horror and pure unbridled joy in equal measures for those battling against the drop. Who goes down now though, is anyone's guess.

➽Nigel Hegarty is a writer from Letterkenny in County Donegal, with an unhealthy obsession for anything related to Finn Harps FC and has a dream to one day see them lift a league title in Finn Park. Darts and music comes a close second in terms of obsessions outside the home.

Crusaders And Zionists

The Uri Avnery Column compares the Crusaders to Zionists.



Caesarea was built by King Herod some 2000 years ago and named after his Roman master, Augustus Caesar. It once again became an important town under the Crusaders, who fortified it. These fortifications are what now makes the place a tourist attraction.

For some years in my life I was obsessed with the Crusaders. It started during the 1948 "War of Independence", when I chanced to read a book about the crusaders and found that they had occupied the same locations opposite the Gaza strip which my battalion was occupying. It took the crusaders several decades to conquer the strip, which at the time extended to Ashkelon. Today it is still there in Muslim hands.

After the war, I read everything I could about these Crusaders. The more I read, the more fascinated I became. So much so, that I did something I have never done before or after: I wrote a letter to the author of the most authoritative book about the period, the British historian Steven Runciman.

To my surprise, I received a hand-written reply by return of post, inviting me to come and see him when I happened to be in London. I happened to be in London a few weeks later and called him up. He insisted I come over immediately.

Like almost everyone who fought against the British in Palestine, I was an anglophile. Runciman, a typical British aristocrat with all the quaint idiosyncracies that go with it, was very likeable.

We talked for hours, and continued the conversation when my wife and I visited him later in an ancient Scottish fortress on the border with England. Rachel, who was even more anglophile than I, almost fell in love with him.

What We talked about was a subject I brought up at the very start of our first meeting: "When you were writing your book, did you ever think about the similarities between the Crusaders and the modern Zionists?"

Runciman answered: "Actually, I hardly thought about anything else. I wanted to subtitle the book A Guidebook For the Zionist About How Not To Do It." And after a short laugh: "But my Jewish friends advised me to abstain from doing so."

Indeed, it is almost taboo in Israel to talk about the crusades. We do have some experts, but on the whole, the subject is avoided. I don't remember ever having heard about the Crusades during the few years I spent at school.

Thus is not as astonishing as it may sound. Jewish history is ethnocentric, not geographical. It starts with our (legendary) forefather, Abraham, and his chats with God, and continues until the defeat of the Bar Kochba rebellion against the Romans in 136 AD.

From then on our history takes leave from Palestine and dances around the world, concentrating on Jewish events, until the year 1882, when the first pre-Zionists set up some settlements in Ottoman Palestine. During all the time in between, Palestine was empty, nothing happened there.

That is what Israeli children learn today, too.

Actually Lots of things did happen during those 1746 years, more than in most other countries. The Roman, Byzantine, Arab, Ottoman and British empires followed each other until 1948. The crusaders' kingdoms were an important chapter by themselves.

Most Israelis would be surprised to learn that the Crusaders resided in Palestine for almost 200 years – much longer than Zionist history until now. It was not a short, passing episode.

The similarity between the Crusaders and the Zionists strikes one at first glance. Both movements moved a large number of people from Europe to the Holy Land. (During the first half century of its existence, Zionism brought almost only European Jews to Palestine.) Since both of them came from the west, they were perceived by the local Muslim population as Western invaders.

Neither the Crusaders nor the Zionists had one day of peace during their entire existence. The perpetual sense of military danger shaped their entire history, their culture and their character.

The crusaders had some temporary armistices, especially with Syria, but we, too, now have two "peace agreements" in place – with Egypt and Jordan. Without any real feelings of peace and friendship with these peoples, our agreements do also resemble armistices rather than peace.

Then as now, the Crusaders' lot was made easier by the fact that the Arabs were constantly quarreling among themselves. Until the great Salah-a-Din ("Saladin"), a Kurd, appeared on the scene, united the Arabs and vanquished the Crusaders in the battle at the Horns of Hattin, near Tiberias. After that, the Crusaders regrouped and hung on in Palestine for another four generations.

Both the Crusaders and the Zionists saw themselves, quite consciously, as "bridgeheads" of the West in a foreign and hostile region. The Crusaders, of course, came here as the army of the West, to regain the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, wrote in his book Der Judenstaat, the bible of Zionism, that in Palestine we shall serve as the outpost of (Western) culture against (Muslim) barbarism.

The Holy City, by the way, remains the focus of a daily battle. Just this week, two extreme-right Members of the Knesset were allowed by the Israeli authorities to enter the Temple Mount area, fortunately without inciting Jewish-Muslim riots as on previous such occasions.

Also last week, our Minister of Justice, (whom I have called "the devil in the guise of a beautiful woman"), accused the Israeli Supreme Court of putting human rights above the "values of Zionism" (whatever these are). She has already introduced a bill which makes it clear that those "Zionist values" are legally superior to "democratic values" and come first.

The  Similarity is most apparent when it comes to peace.

For the crusaders, of course, peace was unthinkable. Their whole enterprise was based on the aim of liberating Jerusalem and the entire Holy Land ("God Wills It!") from Islam, the deadly enemy. This excludes a priori any peace with God's enemies.

Zionists talk endlessly about peace. No week passes without Binyamin Netanyahu releasing some touching declaration about his craving for peace. But by now it is absolutely clear that he does not dream of giving up one inch of land west of the Jordan. Just a few days ago he again publicly confirmed that he will not "uproot" one single Jewish settlement in the West Bank. Under international law every one of these settlements is illegal.

There Are, of course, huge differences between the two historical movements, as huge as the differences between the 11th and 21st centuries.

Can one imagine the Templar knights with atom bombs? Saladin with tanks? The journey of Hospitalers from Clermont to Jaffa by airplane?

At the time of the crusades, the idea of the modern "nation" was not yet born. The knights were French, English or German, but foremost they were Christian. Zionism was born of the will to turn the Jews of the world into a nation in the modern sense of the term.

Who were these Jews? In 19th century Europe, a continent of new nations, they were an unnatural exception, and therefore hated and feared. But they were really an unreformed relic of the Byzantine Empire, where the very identity of all communities was based on religion. Ethnic-religious communities were autonomous and legally under the jurisdiction of their religious leaders.

A Jewish man in Alexandria could marry a Jewish girl Antioch, but not the Christian woman next door. A Latin woman in Damascus could marry a Latin man in Constantinople, but not the Greek-orthodox man across the street. This legal structure still exists in many ex-Byzantine countries, including – you'll never guess – Israel.

But given all the differences of time, the comparison is still valid, and provides much food for thought – especially if you sit on the shore of Caesaria, the imposing Crusaders' wall just behind you, a few kilometers from the port of Atlit, where the last Crusaders were literally thrown into the sea when it all came to an end, just 726 years ago.

To paraphrase Runciman, I hope we learn not to be like them in time.



Uri Avnery is a veteran Israeli peace activist. He writes @ Gush Shalom.

All Ireland Unionist Party

Launch an Irish Unionist Party and contest Dail seats which could result in a situation that it is Unionists, not Sinn Fein, who end up as minority partners in the next Leinster House coalition government with either Fine Gael or Fianna Fail. That’s the strategy recommended by controversial commentator, Dr John Coulter, in his latest Fearless Flying Column. 

Unionism needs to box clever and not fall into the same pitfalls as republicans set for Unionism through the parades controversies, many of which were fronted by hardline nationalist residents groups.

Republicanism along with Unionism’s enemies within the London Establishment have always hoped that every time a potentially compromising initiative is spawned in London or Dublin, Unionists will react in their traditional defence poise by politically screaming – ‘Not an Inch!’

But if there is one glimmer of hope for Unionism, it is the pragmatic tactic shown by the DUP and its ‘pact’ with British Prime Minister Theresa May’s very shaky and rift-ridden minority Tory Government.

Westminster is a good place for the DUP to do business and Sinn Fein don’t take its Commons seats, freeing up the 10 DUP MPs to cut deals for Unionism left, right and centre. So why can’t this successful tactic be exported south of the border? Anything Sinn Fein can do, Unionism can do better!

What’s certain is that a Dail General Election is coming before Brexit. What’s equally certain is that neither Fianna Fail or Fine Gael will be able to muster enough TDs to form a government under their own steam – both parties will need coalition partners, and not Sinn Fein if it can be avoided at all costs.

In spite of Southern Sinn Fein spinning itself as the champions of the republic’s anti-austerity movement and burying any trace of Marxism in an unmarked political grave, the republican movement still has a number of embarrassing historical centenaries to face in the next couple of years.

Firstly, there’s the centenary of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, which all republicans should have accepted as a stepping stone to an all-island republic. But republicans resorted to form – they split and began a bloody feud, which became known as the Irish Civil War.

That war saw republican butcher republican in ways which made the notorious Black and Tans of the earlier War of Independence era seem like pussy cats. Had Free State commander Michael Collins not been shot dead by his fellow republicans, he could have mounted a terror campaign against the Unionist North, which could have brought Carson and Craig to the negotiating table for a 1921 version of the 2006 St Andrews Agreement (between the DUP and Sinn Fein).

Even if the polls are correct and Sinn Fein under president Gerry Adams pushes well into the 20-plus seat mark in the next Dail, that’s no reason for either Fianna Fail or Fine Gael to be jumping at the bit to do business with republicans. So who is left?

Both Fianna Fail and Fine Gael could do so well in the next Dail showdown that either would only maybe require a handful of TDs from other parties or Independent TDs to form a stable coalition government to ride out the storm of Brexit.

So why can’t the growing Protestant population of the Republic field Irish Unionist candidates? You need only look at the ever increasing popularity of the annual Rossnowlagh parade on the Saturday before each 12 July to see the strength of the Orange Order in the border counties.

Could the Orange, Protestant and Masonic supporters muster enough voters to send around half a dozen Irish Unionist Party TDs back to Leinster House and spike the Shinners’ cannons?

At one time, I had high hopes for the liberal Unionist experiment known as NI21. Okay, I’m no liberal Unionist, but NI21 had the potential to launch a Southern version, SI21, which could have become a significant pro-Union force in the republic. It would also have nicely served the Hard Right’s agenda in Northern Ireland to see a political civil war among the centrist parties, such as Alliance and the Greens.

If ex-UUP MLAs Basil McCrea’s and John McCallister’s NI21 movement had succeeded, it would have wiped out the Greens and reduced Alliance to a handful of seats.

So Unionism must get its act in gear and formally launch an Irish Unionist Party south of the border. It could be a joint venture between the DUP and Ulster Unionists and could also pave the way for a formal merger in Northern Ireland between the DUP and UUP to form a single entity simply called The Unionist Party.

The Irish Unionist Party has the potential, if vote management and turnout are carefully and methodically organised, to win eight seats. This would break down as two in Donegal, and one in Dublin, one in Cork, one in Limerick, one in Cavan, one in Monaghan, and one in Leitrim. Perhaps this is a conservative estimate, but certainly with the support and organisation from the Order Order’s County Grand Lodges in Donegal, Cavan, Monaghan and Leitrim, the ‘border five’ are totally realistic victories.

Likewise, an Irish Unionist Party could also attract voters from the Catholic community as well as the growing number of people attached to Christian denominations, such as Elim and the Baptists.

Just because Southern Ireland voted for same-sex marriage does not mean rank and file conservative Catholics have abandoned their faith. It means they have no real voice in Leinster House.

While I have long advocated the creation of an Irish Christian Party to restore traditional Biblical teaching back into society and politics, perhaps practically it would be easier to launch an Irish Unionist Party which would give Unionism an all-island identity similar to the one it enjoyed during the Glorious Revolution, the Protestant Ascendancy and in the great days of the British Empire when Ireland as a single political entity was a founder member of the Empire Parliamentary Association in 1911.

Even if all the Southern electorate eligible to vote who attend the Rossnowlagh demonstration came out on polling day, there would be enough votes to get three or four TDs elected from the border counties – and that could be the three or four which either Fianna Fail or Fine Gael need to form the next Dail, and not a Shinner in sight!

Imagine that; Sinn Fein beaten at its own all-island game – and all it takes is for Right-wing Unionists to think, plan and implement outside the box. 
John Coulter is a unionist political commentator and former Blanket columnist. Follow John Coulter on Twitter  @JohnAHCoulter

Blood On Snow

Anthony McIntyre reviews a novella from Norwegian writer, Jo Nesbo.




This work of Scandicrime by Jo Nesbo comes minus the presence of the inimitable Detective Harry Hole, which might disappoint some regulars. It further differs in that is reasonably short and is told in the first person. Nor does it come with the complexity that invariably accompanies Hole.

This is the second standalone Nesbo book I have read, the first being Headhunters, and neither have disappointed. Nesbo here appears to be in playful or experimental mode, not expending as much intellectual energy in the plot as he would when constructing a work around Harry Hole. While some reviewers have been unkind to it, perhaps for this reason, as a novella it works. It is different not deficient. 
Olav Johansen is the narrator and main character. He is also a hit man - or fixer as he prefers it - for a major Norwegian gangster, Daniel Hoffmann. He stalks the snow-covered streets of Oslo in pursuit of his prey. In the opening pages Johansen stands over a target he has just gunned down. As the victim lies prone, the fixer dispassionately reflects on the impact of blood on snow.

If the plot lacks a complex dimension Johansen compensates by pulling in tandem the callousness of the professional hit man with compassion. When not killing, he likes to read. Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables being his favourite literature, despite recalling his father telling him he “was studying to become an idiot!” His discerning observation of a character as “someone who deceives the people she needs to deceive without a guilty conscience in order to follow the money and the power” is applicable right across the societal board.

Meanwhile, the power that Olav Johansen loves is the power of murder. He also loves Corina, his boss's wife whom he is contracted by Hoffmann to fix. Thus, the dilemma begins.

Like the great Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow this work has snow drifting into every groove of it. Atmospherically, it is snow saturation. While Smilla was an expert in snow, had a passion for it, Johansen merely deals with it as most do the weather: its multi-layered molecular of no interest to him.

Some of the characters he has to deal with along the way are best not met at all.  He cites George Elliot in relation to one adversary: "he will never be hurt, he’s made to hurt other people." A lot of people get hurt in Blood On Snow.  

Ultimately, Nesbo was in no need of this book to demonstrate that he was not a one trick pony relying exclusively on a prize pony called Harry Hole.  He had accomplished that much with Headhunter .

The end, when it comes, inspires - against the intellect - empathy with Johansen. It is a denouement so well constructed that when all else is forgotten about this novella, there will remain that sense of snow.

Jo Nesbo, 2016. Blood On Snow. Publisher; Vintage Crime/Black Lizard. ISBN-13: 978-0804172554


Anthony McIntyre blogs @ The Pensive Quill.

Follow Anthony McIntyre on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre        

U.S. House Excludes Atheists From Offering Invocations

Lena M draws attention to discrimination against atheists in the US being facilitated by the courts. Photo Credits: dcchs.com/Portraits and Wikimedia
Last year, the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) sued U.S. House Chaplain Patrick Conroy, a Roman Catholic priest, for barring FFRF Co-President Dan Barker from delivering a secular guest invocation to the House because he does not believe in God. Barker and the FFRF sued Conroy, members of his staff and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan for discrimination against nonbelievers, who constitute one-fourth of the U.S. population.

The case began when U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., who represents Barker's district in Madison, Wis., requested that Barker give the opening invocation before the House. Barker met the requirements for being a guest chaplain — even though those requirements, the lawsuit said, were “inherently discriminatory against the non-religious and minority religions.” He was rejected from delivering an invocation to Congress because he didn’t follow one of the religions acceptable to the U.S. House.

Barker even submitted a draft of his speech, but he was still rejected: Not only did Barker provide all the required documentation but he also submitted a draft of his remarks after being told he must address a “higher power.” Barker’s proposed remarks stated that there is no power higher than “We, the People of these United States.” Conroy, after delaying for months, officially rejected the request in January of 2016, noting in a letter that Barker had "announced his atheism publicly" and therefore was not a true "minister of the gospel" eligible for the honor of appearing in front of Congress.

U.S. District Judge Rosemary M. Collyer dismissed his lawsuit on October 11: “To decide that Mr. Barker was discriminated against and should be permitted to address the House would be to disregard the Supreme Court precedent that permits legislative prayer,” U.S. District Judge Rosemary M. Collyer wrote. She ruled that none of the defendants was ultimately responsible for that injury.

According to FFRF, the judge claimed that the chaplain was powerless to allow Barker to give the invocation due to House rules, yet also dismissed Barker's claim against the House itself. The decision fails to identify who, if not the House chaplain and the House itself, could be sued for implementing a rule excluding non-believers from participation.

“We’re deeply dismayed that atheists and other non-believers are being openly treated as second-class citizens,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “Our government is not a theocracy, and it needs to stop acting like one.”

FFRF didn’t say if they would appeal this decision but it’s obviously one form of discrimination against atheists and courts still don’t have proper way to stop it.

Lena M is a regular poster @ Atheist Republic

A Marxist Critiques Identity Politics

Kelton Sears in a Q&A interview with Asad Haider, founding editor of Viewpoint Magazine, on an ideology fracturing the left.


Illustration by Robyn Jordan




In the days following September 11, Asad Haider’s identity was of great concern. A first-generation Pakistani-American, he recalls being harassed and detained at the airport due to his ethnicity. Today, his identity is also of considerable interest to opponents of his political writing as the founding editor of Marxist “militant research collective” Viewpoint Magazine. Except now, many of his critics online accuse him of being white—out of touch with the world of identity politics.

“It completely erases my own experiences of racism and it distorts the views I’ve formed to understand those experiences,” he says during a lengthy conversation with Seattle Weekly. Haider has emerged alongside fellow Viewpoint editor Salar Mohandesi; R.L. Stephens II of Orchestrated Pulse; Jacobin editor Bhaskar Sunkara; University of Pennsylvania Prof. Adolph Reed Jr.; and Princeton Prof. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor as one of many Marxists of color vocally critiquing the conventions and effectiveness of contemporary liberal identity politics. He will be speaking in Seattle on a number of topics at the month-long radical leftist event series Red May. We chatted about why Haider believes identity politics is a “dead end,” in advance of his Seattle appearance. Since we’re talking about identity politics, for clarity, I am European-American.

Could you begin by explaining how you define “identity politics?” It’s such a nebulous term to begin with—but I think for a lot of people, it’s shorthand for anti-racism or the ongoing fight for basic civil rights.

I think you have to draw a clear distinction between movements in the past that targeted a structure defined by racial oppression—the Civil Rights movement and the Black Power movement are the most obvious examples, but they stretch all the way back to the roots of American capitalism, really—from a much more recent development in which politics is not about a social structure, but the recognition of an individual or a particular group’s identity. And talking about politics in terms of the pair of “race and gender,” as if they were both different forms of the same substance, is a newer phenomenon. I would argue it arises from what is essentially the neutralization of truly revolutionary movements against an entire social structure defined by racism and capitalism.

One thing that happened was that a governmental system which was once defined by the exclusion of people of color on the basis of legal forms of white supremacy, now suddenly was altered by the successes of the Civil Rights movement. It became possible to have a ruling class that incorporated people of color. In that context, taking away the structural challenge that was posed by the Civil Rights movement and Black Power movement, suppressing that in favor of a kind of politics that is entirely about the recognition of individuals abstracted from their class positions, that became a very convenient position for members of the ruling class to take.

You and Salar wrote in one of your post-election pieces that “We will have to rethink an anti-racist strategy that has served mostly to diversify the professional-managerial class.” But isn’t it important to have diverse representation in positions of power?

These problems of representation are extremely important, and are one of the major victories of revolutionary movements against racism. This shouldn’t be dismissed. If anyone wants to build a real left movement, you can’t proceed by dismissing issues of representation. But it doesn’t mean that the left should be more willing to adopt the language of identity politics—that is also a mistake. What’s needed is a different kind of language which takes the issues of race and racism very seriously, and understands the role they’ve played historically both in revolutionary movements and in the maintenance of the capitalist system in the United States.

In Salar’s Viewpoint piece “Identity Crisis,” he noted that the idea of “identity politics” was first created by the black feminist lesbian Combahee River Collective in 1974. What role did “identity politics” initially play when it was created?

This was a moment in the late ’60s and throughout the ’70s when there were a number of organizations in the United States which really thought there was a revolution around the corner. So in that context, in which socialist politics had a concrete, practical, organizational expression, where those anti-capitalist positions were part of the central discourse of the left, in that context, the idea that particular identities had to be recognized for their differences and the differences of their demands was a very progressive step. It showed that if you center an anti-capitalist politics entirely on some kind of imaginary figure of the white male worker, you leave out an enormous portion of the working class, and you leave out a good bit of what emancipation really means.

So I think the Combahee River Collective kind of proposed something experimental, saying that the most radical politics comes out of your individual identity—as a challenge to colorblind, genderblind socialist politics. This was really important. I think, however, it wasn’t quite adequate, because what we’ve seen as time has gone on is that people’s identity can be the source of very reactionary politics. That’s the new problem we have to deal with.

It is interesting how Richard Spencer adopted the language of identity politics in the name of white nationalism, calling himself an “identitarian” and saying he wants the U.S. to be a “safe space for people of European descent.”

And that’s part of why I think that despite the fact that its origins are a really productive, constructive attempt to deepen socialist politics, the category of identity is one that’s ultimately a dead end. It can’t be the starting point for an emancipatory politics.

When do you think identity politics became an impediment to emancipatory politics, then?

It’s a very complex question because you can identify precursors to identity politics—for example, in cultural nationalism, which is something that was opposed by the Black Panther Party and by the Communist Party as early as the ’20s in its earlier iterations. That was an ideology which said the African identity would be the source of black liberation, and the Black Panthers said that that’s really not adequate—that in order to attack white supremacy in the United States, you would have to attack capitalism. In fact, if an entire politics was built around African identity, that would mean covering up the very real class contradictions that were present both in the black community and on a global scale. So that kind of problem has existed for a long time.

But this new language of identity politics, I think it’s something we can really see come about in the ’80s, with this wave of revolutionary movements that came out of the New Left and also came out of various ethnic community groups, which started from various kinds of nationalist ideologies and later moved towards a revolutionary anti-capitalism. There are many examples—you have the Young Lords, various Chinatown groups in New York and San Francisco and so on. These groups began with nationalist demands and developed into anti-capitalist organizations. But they were riding a movement that came out of the ’60s, and they were sort of definitively defeated not only by the restructuring of capitalism in response to the crises of the 1970s that led to neoliberalism, but also by the political strategy of the right and Ronald Reagan. I think that is a moment that completely scrambled everybody’s political language. You could say in a way that identity politics is the Reaganite version of cultural nationalism.

You also have been critical of identity politics’ role in the 2016 election, especially with Hillary Clinton. Could you speak to what you saw as the contradictions or failures of this ideology in that context?

It’s clear that both political parties confronted various challenges from within that broke with the dominant paradigm of American politics from the ’80s. In the Republican party, this challenge was successful. In the Democratic party, the party elite tried to suppress the challenge represented by Bernie Sanders by any means possible, and part of this was adapting to the language of identity politics, by suggesting that anything that went outside of the scope that American liberalism allows, anything that went in a remotely socialist direction, even the most modest policies, was completely impermissible.

And this was in the context of a weird situation, where you just had a movement erupt in the United States around racial oppression—the Black Lives Matter movement—which had altered the political terrain. There’s no sense in which the BLM movement should be seen as identity politics. It is a movement of a great portion of the poorest people in the United States resisting the violence of the capitalist state. That’s entirely consistent with any kind of movement for structural change. But the movement had many contradictions.

One of them came about in the somewhat indiscriminate attack on various politicians, including Bernie Sanders, which was taken up very quickly by the Democratic elite as a way to totally discredit him by saying that he ignored race—that any kind of politics that breaks from the Hillary Clinton brand is necessarily racist and sexist. So then you get this bizarre phenomenon where Hillary Clinton is tweeting about intersectionality, and it’s very easy to get a lot of fans on social media and at universities by using that word. That was kind of an amazing moment which showed just how non-threatening this discourse is to the American ruling class.

One of the prevailing dialogues right now emergent from identity politics is that of “white privilege.” Do you think that concept is useful for understanding social structures?

I’ve written a little about the history of the term. It comes out of some groups that split off from the Communist Party in the ’50s, and really came to prominence in the’ 60s. Its primary architects were Theodore Allen and Noel Ignatiev, and they called it “white skin privilege.” The idea of white skin privilege was that white workers had been bribed. The American ruling class, especially the Southern planter class dating all the way back to the 17th century, had bribed white workers with greater social status and privileges so they would not unite with black workers—from enslaved workers in the 17th century to super-exploited black wage workers in the ‘50s, ‘60s, and ‘70s—and pose a challenge to the ruling class.

The idea was that white skin privilege was actually harmful to white people, because despite the fact that they were granted some advantages over black people, they ended up even more entrenched in their condition of exploitation precisely by accepting these advantages. As a result, they did not build a movement across racial boundaries to fight their common oppression. The fact that the idea of white privilege is used today to show why we can’t possibly unify—that’s a reversal of the core idea.

That’s quite an amazing phenomenon, that it’s turned into essentially its opposite. Now in an organizing meeting, any discussion that takes place between a white person and a person of color will be tense and guarded, because at any time the white person may be accused of white privilege, and thus denounced for bringing irreconcilable political interests into the group. That is a very different kind of politics, and not one that tends to result in open strategic discussions, building trust between activists, or effectively broadening towards a mass movement. But socialists have to understand that this also cuts in the other direction! If accusations of white privilege are made, it’s usually a sign that something is missing in that organizing.

The left has to provide a superior answer to the questions that people of color have and their very real grievances. Speaking as a person of color, I know that they are real. But a better answer has to be provided.

A lot of the grievances that come with calls to “Check your privilege” are certainly real—as a white man, I’ve definitely seen other white men take up a lot of the air in the room.

Absolutely, but the problem is that just responding by saying “Check your privilege” doesn’t actually change the situation—you’re still centering the whole discussion on them, instead of increasing participation. We have a tendency to overestimate the importance of people’s spontaneous ideas, at the expense of the material practices which really produce those ideas.

When you have a movement which is too dominated by white men who talk too much, who aren’t sensitive to issues of race and so on, you’re not going to change it by telling people to check their privilege—you’re going to change it by transforming the composition of the group, reaching people in neighborhoods and communities outside of your own social circle, and building alliances with other organizations. That has a much more powerful effect in changing people’s attitudes and behaviors than simply making some kind of snide comment. I think that while underneath the statement “Check your privilege” there may be a very real grievance, it’s a completely ineffective statement because it’s not one that actually lays out a program to change the political situation.

In “White Purity,” you wrote about how this idea of atoning for one’s white privilege has turned into a liberal “Who’s the best white ally” game—proving you know the right terminology and have read the right thinkpieces. Seattle has, debatably, produced the poster child of that: Macklemore.

I think it’s best to have a movement without Macklemore in it.

[laughs]

However, we have another problem, and this is part of what I was getting at when I was writing about white purity. There are a great deal of white people in this country who are just as excluded from left movements, and we should take that seriously. We have a poor white population that is dying of opioid addiction and is struggling under the crushing weight of economic inequality, and those people also have to be incorporated into our movements. If we have movements that are entirely based around English majors and web designers, we’re not reaching the majority of the American population no matter what their skin color is. So I think that’s a problem that has to be really carefully considered alongside the racial composition of left groups.

When people ask “Why are there no POC in this meeting?”, they’re pointing to a real and important problem, but they’re mischaracterizing it by framing it in terms of race and white privilege. It’s actually a very different kind of problem—which is of building organizations that go outside of the particular kind of petty-bourgeois demographic that is usually drawn to left politics and really incorporates masses of people in all their particularities—poor whites and poor black people and everyone that represents the population of this country. I think we limit ourselves by putting this in racial terms when it’s really a problem of organization and strategy.

Well, how do you do that without becoming class-reductionist—a criticism I’ve seen of Bernie Sanders and these revitalized American socialist movements? How do you build a Marxist anti-racism?

I don’t subscribe to any class reductionism, because I think that puts things entirely the wrong way. When we’re trying to understand very concrete problems of the role of race in a movement or in American society, and someone says “Well, is race or class more important here?”, that’s a completely obfuscatory way to use Marxist language. That would be going from the concrete to the abstract, whereas the materialist method Marx proposed was to go from the abstract to the concrete. OK, what would that mean? We have to take this abstraction in our heads—race—and add in the complexity of all the things that determine it, and bring it to the concrete particularity of material life. That means we can’t settle some kind of question like “Is race or class more important?” as an abstract theological debate.

We have to look at our real material situation and our real political conjuncture. When we do that, that’s when we can get a politics that deals with the variety of forms of oppression. I think that when people make the argument that class is more fundamental than race because it has to do with the fundamental human needs of food and shelter and so on, it’s simply a nonsense statement. It’s an idealist kind of statement, because obviously if someone is shot by a policeman, it doesn’t matter if the policeman was thinking “I’m shooting you because of your race” or “I’m shooting you because you’re poor and don’t belong in this neighborhood.” What matters is the bullet in your back and the institution that put it there. It’s a material phenomenon that has to be explained and understood in terms of the real history of the social structure—not in terms of moral pieties, but also not in terms of totally abstract schemas that make some kind of appeal to human nature or social psychology.

What Marxism really means is that you believe that people should have the power to govern themselves, and that in order to achieve that goal you have to have a scientific understanding of the social structure that prevents us from achieving it. History frankly doesn’t care about our debates about which abstraction is more important. It ruthlessly sets up hierarchies of relations and institutions, and I believe Marx definitively demonstrated that in a capitalist society, emancipation cannot be achieved unless it takes the form of class struggle, which is a form of struggle that incorporates people of every identity.

You’ve also written about how, as a POC, when your critiques of identity politics or liberalism don’t fit the liberal script—the script of POC as this monolithic abstract entity—both white liberals and people of color will call you white. Many of the recent liberal critiques of this new socialist energy, which I see politicos often label as the “alt-left” as if it were somehow related to the alt-right or some brand-new ideology, centers on this idea that these politics and ideals are prevailingly white.

It drives me completely crazy because I became aware of politics through my experience of racism and learning about movements in the U.S. that fought against racism. When I was very young [and] first starting to read about politics, I read a lot about the Black Power movement. What became apparent to me as I read this stuff is that all of these people came in some way to challenge capitalism—they became anti-capitalists. Then, in some way, they all became Marxists. If we dig further, we’ll find that the Marxism they were holding up was one that, throughout the 20th century, had been developed all throughout Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The first Marxism I came to know was this one—an entirely international Marxism that had been developed by POC.

This global Marxism came back to the United States through black revolutionary movements, which have always been a guiding inspiration for me. Obviously it offends me if someone includes me in a list of white socialists who don’t care about race or something like that. These people who accuse me of being white, I want to know where they were when I was detained at the airport or harassed after 9/11. It would’ve been nice to have them there to say “Oh, don’t worry about him, he’s a Marxist so we consider him white.” But that didn’t happen. Despite the fact that identity politics is supposed to be about everyone’s experiences, it completely erases my own experiences of racism and it distorts the views I’ve formed to understand those experiences.

But what I really think is offensive is the erasure of all these figures from history—people of color—who took up Marxism and were engaged in a struggle for the freedom of every person. It’s just unacceptable to wipe them out of history the way white supremacy did and the way the mainstream political discourse tries to do. You know, a lot of people perpetuating identity politics are wearing sweatshirts about Assata Shakur and invoking the Black Panthers—but all of these people were communists. To now wear a shirt that says “Assata Taught Me” and then talk about how all socialists are white—it would be funny if it weren’t so sad.

Karlton Sears writes @ the Seattle Weekly.

ksears@seattleweekly.com

Say No To Political Extradition To Britain

From Portlaoise Prison Ciaran Maguire with:

An Open Letter To The Irish People 


We were arrested in 2015 and released without charge. T then two years later we were taken away from our families in the early hours of the morning and told that the six county state was demanding our extradition. I have already lost my job as a result of these allegations. And if extradited I face the stark reality of forced strip searches, controlled movement, beatings and intimidation from Loyalist sectarian screws. Dozens of these brutal strip searches will occur during my trial.

As a result of Brexit Britain is expected to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Court of Justice. Consequently, the legal safeguards which are guaranteed to European citizens under human rights legislation will no longer protect me.

It must also be borne in mind that I am a Dublin man, who will be thrown into a Gaol which is staffed by notoriously sectarian loyalist screws, controlled by the shadowy and unacceptable MI5 organisation. This is a recipe for human rights violations.

Furthermore, it is not only myself who will be expected to endure a hate and intimidation filled environment. Harassment and sectarian abuse is also a common experience of friends and family members who visit prisoners in Maghaberry gaol.

I want to appeal directly to you who is reading this: if you believe in the basic entitlement of everyone to human rights then I call on you to support the Anti-Extradition Campaign.
Stop the extradition of Irish Political Prisoners now!

Kaya, The Royal Dog

The Uri Avnery Column ridicules Benjamin Netanyahu.

Strange? But there is method in this madness. It may soon come before Israel's highest court.

The present leaders of the party, Binyamin Netanyahu and his fellows, are afraid that the people who are now seeking to register as Likud members are really settlers in the occupied territories, who want to take over the Likud, while in practice remaining loyal to their own parties, which are even more extremist.

One of the present Likud members of the Knesset has submitted a bill that may well be unique in the world. It arises from the fear that these new Likud members will not vote for the Likud in the general elections. To counter this possibility, the bill says that when a new member registers in the Likud party, their name will be struck from the general election voter registry, and they will be recorded as having voted for the Likud.

This is manifestly unconstitutional, since it negates the secrecy of the ballot. The legal advisor of the Knesset will probably block it. If not, it will go to the Supreme Court.

This all shows that the Likud is really a curious kind of bird. And not from today.

Years Ago, a leading French journalist came to me during an Israeli election campaign. I directed him to an election rally of Menachem Begin's.

When he came back he was bewildered. "I don't understand it," he exclaimed. "When he was talking about the Arabs, he sounded like a rabid fascist. When he was talking about social affairs, he sounded like a moderate liberal. How can this fit together?"

"Begin is not a great thinker," I explained to him. "All the ideology of the Likud goes back to Vladimir Jabotinsky."

Vladimir (or Ze'ev) Jabotinsky was the founder of the "revisionist" party, the parent of the Herut Party, which was the parent of the present-day Likud. He was born in 1880 in Odessa in the Ukraine. When he was young man he was sent as a journalist to Italy, a country that had attained its freedom not so long before.

The Italian liberation movement was an unusual mixture of extreme patriotism and liberal social ideas. This fixed the young Jabotinsky's political outlook for life.

He was a very captivating person, extremely gifted in several fields. He wrote a novel (about the Biblical hero Samson), translated Edgar Allen Poe's poems into Hebrew, was a brilliant orator and gifted journalist, wrote songs and much more. In World War I he helped form Jewish battalions in the British army and was a junior officer in the conquest of Palestine.

A few years later the British partitioned Palestine and set up the separate Arab emirate of Transjordan. Jabotinsky objected and founded the ultra-Zionist "Revisionist Party", which demanded the "revision" of this decision.

Jabotinsky loathed the dour, socialist "pioneers" who dominated the Zionist community in Palestine and who hated him. I suspect that he was not too unhappy when the British kicked him out of the country. David Ben-Gurion called him "fascist" – though, as an Italy-lover, Jabotinsky loathed Benito Mussolini.

During those years Jabotinsky was a globe-trotting agitator, who wrote a weekly article which I read piously. I admired his clear, logical style. His movement grew in several countries, especially Poland.

In Palestine, Jabotinsky's Revisionist movement remained a small and isolated minority. However, when violent Jewish-Arab clashes broke out, his movement established the Irgun, an armed underground organization. Jabotinsky was its nominal commander-in-chief. Largely because of him, I joined when I was hardly 15 years old.

In early 1939, Jabotinsky's followers around the world assembled in Warsaw. The clouds of war were already gathering, but Jabotinsky proclaimed that war was impossible – modern arms were much too murderous. When one of his Polish followers, a youngster called Menachem Begin, dared to contradict him, the leader acidly responded: "Sir, if I had your convictions, I would jump into the Vistula!"

However, World War II did indeed break out. Jabotinsky fled to the US, were he died aged 59 of a heart attack. Begin, who had not jumped into the river, eventually reached Palestine and was appointed commander of the Irgun, which became one of the most successful terrorist organizations in the world.

When The State of Israel was born, Begin became the leader of the opposition and a stickler for democracy. He discarded the "revisionist" party and created his own Herut ("Freedom") party, at the head of which he lost eight consecutive election campaigns.

When he reached power at last, in 1977, he surprised the world by making peace with Egypt, the most powerful Arab country. I was not surprised at all.

Begin was not a brilliant personality like Jabotinsky. He followed his master religiously. Jabotinsky's ideology was geographical: "Eretz Israel on both sides of the Jordan". The map did not include the Sinai peninsula, so Begin had no qualms about giving it back to Egypt. (It also did not include the Golan heights, which Begin would have returned to Syria without hesitation.)

With time, Begin and his followers forgot about the land beyond the Jordan river. They still sang the song written by Jabotinsky ("The Jordan has two banks – the one belongs to us and so does the other"), but realpolitik is stronger than songs. The Kingdom of Jordan is now one of Israel's most important allies, and Israel has saved it from extinction several times.

However, the claim that Jordan, like the West Bank, must be part of the Jewish State appears prominently in the Likud party program. Everybody had forgotten this long ago, until this week.

Binyamin Netanyahu's assistants, who are fighting to prevent the "new applicants" from becoming members of their party, demand that they declare their full acceptance of all parts of the official Likud program – including the demand that Jordan become a part of Israel.

As A personality, Netanyahu is far below Begin, much as Begin was far below Jabotinsky. There never was a whiff of personal misbehavior about Begin, who was famous for his modest standard life-style, after risking his life every minute for years. Netanyahu is surrounded by a strong smell of corruption. Several investigations against him and his wife Sarah are in progress, each of which could well land him in prison.

Jabotinsky would have looked upon him with disgust.

However…

A Jewish joke tells about the death of the rich man in the ghetto. According to custom, somebody had to eulogize him, presenting him positively. Nobody could be found to fulfill this duty. At long last, one man volunteered.

"We all know that Rabbi Moshe was a loathsome person," he said, "stinking rich, mean and cruel. But compared to his son, he was an angel!"

Something like this is happening in Israel now. The spotlight is on Ya'ir, Netanyahu's 26-year old elder son.

"Bibi" has already been in power for 12 nonconsecutive years and behaves like a king. "Sarah'le", his wife, behaves like a queen, in the style of Marie-Antoinette. In popular parlance, Ya'ir is the "crown-prince".

A very unruly prince. He lives with his parents in the official residence and behaves like a spoiled brat. He is trailed everywhere by bodyguards provided by the state. He has no visible job. And during the last few days, he has become notorious.

Like Donald the Trump, Ya'ir spews abusive comments in all directions on the internet. For example, he calls "The New Israel Fund", a foundation that supports leftist groups, "The New Fund for the Destruction of Israel".

The latest episode concerns the by-law that orders dog owners to pick up the excrement of their animals in public places. Ya'ir was walking the royal dog, the now famous Kaya, without picking up her excrement in the street. When a lady stopped him and demanded that he follow the law, he made a lewd gesture – which the lady duly photographed.

Jabotinsky, Begin, Bibi, Ya'ir - quelle difference!


Uri Avnery is a veteran Israeli peace activist. He writes @ Gush Shalom.

The Gates of Janus: Serial Killing and its Analysis - Ian Brady

Christopher Owens reviews a controversial book authored by a serial child killer.





We're all too accustomed to staring into the supposed "abyss." Dostoevsky did it. Selby Jr did it. McNamee did it. And, because of this, we have classic after classic to read and absorb.

But what happens when the author is a convicted child murderer?

In 2001, American underground publishers Feral House caused no end of controversy when they announced the publication of The Gates of Janus which was described as "partly a philosophical analysis of the human condition and crime in general, and partly an attempt to profile specific criminals, in the manner of the FBI."

Eventually emerging in November 2001, The Gates of Janus was not what was expected. It wasn't an autobiography, nor was it an apology/explanation. It was, at it's heart, Moors Murderer Ian Brady nailing his philosophy to the page as well as offering his interpretations of other serial killers, some of whom he had spoken to (such as Peter Sutcliffe) and others he had studied from afar (like Dean Corll).

When the reader begins, it's easy to imagine the angle they approach the book from: a disgust at his actions, but also an abject curiosity at what motivates such a person to carry out such heinous crimes.

Long time Brady "supporter", Dr. Colin Wilson, provides an introduction, where he depicts a Brady who is remorseful for his actions, but will not allow society the opportunity to see him so weak in the face of their hypocrisy. Although the revelation that Brady's favourite book was A Christmas Carol (because the idea of turning back time and becoming a different person appealed to him) is surprisingly moving, Dr. Wilson's words set off alarm bells, as the reader questions what tricks/games Brady will he be playing in the main text.

As the main book begins, we are introduced to Brady's philosophy on life. Basically, this can be summed up in two sentences:

➽Criminals/killers can see beyond the hypocrisy of modern society, which regularly execute people under the flag of legality.

➽You don't have to be a serial killer to be a psychopath, but you can find them in high positions of government and business.

Of course, this is all very true and this is a common thread throughout. But, all too often, his hectoring tone betrays an almost sneering contempt for the reader. Consider the following passage, for example:

Conformists who observe, deduce and vaguely bemoan the immorality of their superiors are largely too afraid of penalty, or are too lazy to run the risk of acting upon their conclusions. People are not so remorseful or ashamed of their criminal thoughts; they are more afraid of criminal thoughts being ascribed to them by others. To compensate, they rationalise their timidity or indolence as an indication of moral character, and their vociferous clamour for harsher punishment of criminals is mob retribution against a will to power they covertly envy. This envy is exacerbated by the media’s colourful, exciting stories about criminals riotously enjoying every forbidden pleasure the ‘decent citizens’ can only dream about.

Admit it, you read that and saw a flicker of yourself in there, didn't you? But you were kept at a distance by the tone, so you could easily divorce yourself from the crux of what Brady is saying. This is a recurring theme throughout the first half.

However, when the book moves forward to discussing other serial killers, the essence of the book hits home when, discussing his conversations with Peter Sutcliffe, Brady states that;

Whether or not he has responded to treatment since his capture is now of no earthly consequence. He will never be released. Politicians serve the mob, not the individual.

Anybody's first reaction should be to scoff at Brady, asserting (quite rightly) that Sutcliffe deliberately went out of his way to murder innocent women. But then, the eye lingers over the last line about politicians. Then the reaction is to half heartedly agree, but still asserting that Sutcliffe should be locked up for life.

Then you ask yourself, how is Sutcliffe different from someone like (say) Robert Taylor, who walked free on a technicality? Or even Robert Thompson, one of the youngest convicted murderers of the 20th century? All three of these people committed horrendous and unprovoked murders. Yet they walked free for years, or continue to walk free in the case of Thompson.

It is at that moment when the reader realises the implications of Brady's line: people use each other. Using denies the object person their humanity. These characters hold an opinion of themselves that denies this basic relationship and identifies it as something else.

So, in the case of Brady, his murders allowed him to fulfil his pseudo Nietzschean 'will to power' fantasies, and denied his victims the right to live. Police officials use Brady as an example of the chaos that awaits society if the 'thin blue line' is not maintained. Psychologists use Brady as a window into a supposed nihilistic domain, using him as a way to back up their own fantasies masquerading as theories. Journalists use Brady, the police and psychologists to sensationalise the truth, sell more papers and whip up public opinion.

And it happens in the real world all the time. As Jello Biafra once sang: "Kiss ass while you bitch so you can get rich. But your boss gets richer off you."

When the reader pieces all of this together, it sends a chill down the spine. It makes you think about the oft quoted line that one bad day can change your life forever. By recognising that you share a view with an individual who has abused and killed children, you think "could that be me one day?"

And then, you throw up.

The book closes with an afterward from the highly controversial writer Peter Sotos. Formerly a member of the influential extreme noise/power electronics act Whitehouse, Sotos has been a bête noire for true crime writers, his writings often stretching the boundaries of decency and taste, making the point that the mass media are often even more exploitative when it comes to selling murder to bored housewives and frustrated office workers.

In this afterward, he takes the readers to task for reading the words of Brady, by reprinting part of the infamous transcript of Lesley Ann Downey's torture and giving brief descriptions of some of the photographs Brady and Hindley took of Downey in that time period. After all this, his line about "how desperate are you for perfect context" brings some uncomfortable truths home.

By quoting not only Brady, Wilson but also the mass media outlets and other books covering the Moors Murders, Sotos takes the point about people using other people to it's logical conclusion. He closes his section with the outraged line that " This, then, is child pornography", which seriously unsettles the reader, even more so than before.

Not a book to be approached lightly. But if you want an insight into an area of humanity that most wish to suppress, then approach with caution.


Ian Brady, 2001, The Gates of Janus. Feral House Publishing ISBN-13 978-0922915736

Christopher Owens reviews for Metal Ireland and finds time to study the history and inherent contradictions of Ireland.

Follow Christopher Owens on Twitter @MrOwens212    

Charlottesville Redux

Stanley Cohen writes in Al Jazeera about Charlottesville.

On occasion, the echo of my voice has not at all ended with consensus but rather bruises, be they to my self-esteem, face or liberty. But that's OK. Public heresy can and does at times carry an exacting price ... it's a cost of freedom.

The exchange of ideas is not intended to be soft, kind or even welcome. To the contrary, left to its own devices, it serves as an often controversial funnel for an informed body politic to draw its own conclusions about relevance and truth based, not upon official state dogma, but information and personal opinion no matter how popular or not it may otherwise be.

For weeks now I've watched the roar grow over recent events at Charlottesville, supplemented since by demonstrations in Boston, Berkeley and elsewhere. For those who seek to control the narrative or have failed to learn or forgotten the hard taught and fought lessons of history these demonstrations of faith have proved to be controversial beyond any uniform voice. That's just fine. Those who see the uniformity of tone as a healthy guide-post of liberty are damned to a perpetual and narrow field of vision.I welcome neo-Nazis, the Klan and other white supremacists to the debate; they have an absolute right to march in lockstep and to air their ignorant and vile screed as they seek to inflame more with their powerless blank chant and stare, writes Cohen [John Penley]

When it comes to speech, I'm a purist many would say an absolutist. It's true. I want a choice on what to hear or see and with that the unimpeded opportunity to turn the page, change the channel or get up and leave the room. To do that, however, demands of opportunity the widest diversity of uninhibited ideas ... the good, the bad, the ugly from which to choose.

I welcome neo-Nazis, the Klan and other white supremacists to the debate; they have an absolute right to march in lockstep and to air their ignorant and vile screed as they seek to inflame more with their powerless blank chant and stare. Ultimately the marketplace of un-tempered ideas will put to rest the bluster and hatred that is their scurrilous empty oath.

On the other hand, it is well settled under First Amendment jurisprudence no one is guaranteed an unchecked or easy parade when their words swell to become action or incitement. Lest there be any doubt or debate over when the safety net of speech transcends the bounds of "legitimate" or protected expression and falls into the hinterland of unshielded action, that question was resolved long ago.

Thus, in Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568 (1942) and later in Brandenberg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969) the Supreme Court recognised the "fighting words" and "call to action" exceptions to the First Amendment.

In Chaplinsky a riot broke out on a city street after citizens complained to police that Walter Chaplinsky, a Jehovah's Witness, was handing out religious literature and "denouncing all religion as a 'racket". Once the riot began, he screamed at a responding officer that he was "a God damned racketeer" and "a damned Fascist and the whole government of Rochester are Fascists or agents of Fascists". Having been convicted of disturbing the peace, Chaplinsky's First Amendment defense was rejected by the Supreme Court on the ground that his speech amounted to "fighting words" and was thus unworthy of constitutional protection.

As noted by the Court, "fighting words" are words "which by their very utterance inflict injury and tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace". Such words are "so valueless and so harmful that government may prohibit them entirely without abridging the constitution".

Later in Brandenburg v. Ohio, the Supreme Court revisited the extent of constitutional protection when it comes to free speech and an unencumbered press. In what today remains very much controlling case law, the Court prohibited a State from forbidding or proscribing advocacy of the use of force or of violation of law except where such advocacy is directed to inciting imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.

In its unanimous decision, the Brandenburg Court set aside a Ku Klux Klan leader's criminal conviction on the ground that his remarks were protected by the First Amendment. The leader had staged a rally for several television reporters where he made derogatory remarks against "Blacks" and Jews suggesting that the government should return Blacks to Africa and Jews to Israel.

Importantly for First Amendment purposes, the speaker stated that if Blacks and Jews did not leave, the Klan would take matters into their own hands to force their removal. Nevertheless, the Court ruled that the mere advocacy of violence did not forfeit First Amendment protection. Instead, it stated that speech lost such shelter only if and when it incited imminent lawless activity and was likely to produce it.

In need of a working definition of the "call to action exception" to First Amendment protection: fast forward to Charlottesville the summer of 2017.Let's be clear ... there is simply no comparative bearing between those who seek to perpetrate genocide and those who fight back against it by any means necessary, writes Cohen [John Penley]
Little need be said here that is not already widely known about the weekend of hate and violence in Charlottesville where hundreds, perhaps many more, white supremacists converged upon a university town to exercise their fundamental free speech rights about race and religion. What began with an ominous torchlight parade of odium reminiscent of Nazi Germany in the 1930's filled with chants of "blood and soil" quickly moved well beyond mere words or empty threats.

Indeed, not long after the demonstration began dozens of "militia" members suddenly appeared dressed in camouflage and heavily armed with semi-automatic rifles and pistols. Against this backdrop chants of "Jews will not replace us," and screams of "go the f**k back to Africa", "f**k you ni***r" and "Dylann Roof was a hero" circulated throughout the crowd. Roof was the white supremacist that murdered nine African Americans in a church in Charleston, SC, in 2015.

Not long thereafter the horde of hate unleashed much more than a spew of offensive, even painful words, as racists clubbed African American bystanders and aimed weapons with at least one discharged at counter-demonstrators. Ultimately one neo-Nazi drove his automobile into a group of protestors killing one and injuring many others.

Against this light, there can be little debate that this rally of supremacist hatred and violence almost immediately lost constitutional protection such as that enjoyed by the Klan long before in the expansive but well-supported reach of Brandenburg with its appreciation for mere words. Here, with predictable imminence, words soon gave way to the precise kind of lawless incitement that proved to be exactly what the First Amendment does not protect.

This is not to suggest that the neo-Nazis and the Klan did not have an absolute right to begin their stalk in the first stead, but rather recognition that protected speech is often but the starting point in a constitutional analysis that, like a demonstration, can prove to be fluid and certainly not without its bounds.
A long history of supremacist hate

Let's be clear ... there is simply no comparative bearing between those who seek to perpetrate genocide and those who fight back against it by any means necessary.

The notion of a relative ring between the chant of those who target people of colour, women, immigrants, refugees, the LGBTQ community, political dissidents and Muslims and Jews for extermination and those who confront it through militancy is but an all too convenient and removed call for self-righteous inaction.

Indeed, the excuse that a determined resistance will be manipulated to serve as a pretext for state repression is not just a palpable blinder to a dark historical reality, but very much furthers an empty contemporary misspeak.

In the United States, race, religion and class directed hatred and violence is not a historical anomaly. Tragically, for many, it is who and what we are. From our earliest days, our Republican ideal has been stained by genocide, built through slavery and extended by notions of supremacist greed and power. These noxious bell tones are not the texture of dishonest statues alone, but have weaved their way into an unbroken experience that has fed and continues to feed upon the most vulnerable among us.

After all, "de jure" slavery may be long gone but its badges and incidents continue on today just recast in an ever-present stark reality of economic, political and prison servitude. And while "give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free" may still shine brightly high above the harbor of New York City, from coast to coast can be heard a very different and growing dark refrain which seeks to indict the next generation of now unwelcome immigrants for the sins of many of our earlier.
Recent US history speaks volumes about just how unhinged and dangerous far right supremacists among us have become in their pursuit of a land that is not theirs to claim or a collective destiny, not theirs to direct, writes Cohen [John Penley]
One need not walk too far down the pathway of history to see the disfigured body of 14-year-old African American Emmett Till murdered for the temerity of "flirting" with a white woman. His was an execution different only in means from almost 5,000 other documented lynchings that occurred in the US from 1882-1968 and which targeted mostly black women and men, although many whites suffered the same fate for helping African Americans or being anti-lynching.

Not to be undone by more recent historical events, in the old West Native Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans were routinely victimised by the same extrajudicial tree of justice.

Among the most dangerous and active of all hate groups are those committed to violent right-wing terrorism motivated by various ideologies and affiliations such as those recently on display at Charlottesville.

This was not the hallmark of merely a passing unsophisticated time and place but rather evidence of a dodgy culture that has exalted the reflection of its own narrow mirror image against the diversity that many have long struggled to become and maintain. Nor is its reach by any means relegated solely to earlier, simpler times when mob rule typically overpowered an uncertain and as yet evolving people and political class.

To the contrary, while the US today sits as the worlds most powerful and "developed" sovereign, many in its nativist chorus still find great value, indeed, perverse comfort through hatred and violence that no longer even bothers to seek safety through the cover of a sheet or the shadow of a darkened tree line.

It remains very much a question as to what motivated Sunday's mass murder in Las Vegas where a madman mowed down hundreds of strangers - innocent victims guilty of no wrongdoing other than the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Yet, it says much of a country where mindless hatred has been overwhelmed by the deadly tenor and tone of a time where racial and religious odium has been exploited by political and supremacist rhetoric alike.

To be sure, recent US history speaks volumes about just how unhinged and dangerous far right supremacists among us have become in their pursuit of a land that is not theirs to claim or a collective destiny, not theirs to direct.

In that light, the list of hate-motivated mayhem seems to run almost as predictable and steady as each passing month.

Thus, in April of 2014, Frazier Glenn Cross, a former Ku Klux Klan leader, opened fire on two Jewish sites in a Kansas City suburb on Passover eve, killing a doctor and his 14-year-old grandson and a woman. He shouted "Heil Hitler" as he was taken into custody.

Two months later Jerad and Amanda Miller, a couple who shared their extreme anti-government positions through videos posted online, shot and killed two Las Vegas police officers, and later a civilian. They spent time on Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy's property during his standoff with the federal government.

In November of 2014, Larry Steve McQuilliams fired more than 100 rounds at government buildings in downtown Austin, including a police station, a Mexican consulate, a federal courthouse, and a bank. He tried to set the consulate on fire before he was shot dead by police. Recovered later from his van were homemade bombs, a map containing 34 targets, and a white supremacist book called "Vigilantes of Christendom".

In July of 2015, John Russell Houser opened fire at a movie theatre killing two women, ages 21 and 33, and injured nine others before committing suicide. Houser espoused extremist right-wing views and was an ardent anti-feminist.

Several months later, four men wearing ski masks attacked Black Lives Matter protesters during a demonstration, wounding five. The four reportedly met online in forums frequented by those with racist and anti-government views and exchanged text messages which discussed shooting black people and photos of one man that showed him posing with confederate symbols.

Not long thereafter Robert Louis Dear, a 57-year-old attacked a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs. Armed with four assault rifles and other weapons, he killed three people and injured nine others. Later he told investigators he hoped he would be met in heaven "by aborted fetuses thanking him for saving unborn babies". Dear also described members of the "Army of God," a group of anti-abortion extremists behind other attacks on abortion clinics, as "heroes".

In October of 2016, three men belonging to a group called "The Crusaders," an anti-immigrant, anti-government militia, were charged with conspiring to bomb a Somali immigrant building complex in Kansas. The men, who stockpiled firearms and explosives, repeatedly referred to the Somalis as "cockroaches".

These are but a few of the more glaring recent instances of crimes carried out against persons or institutions motivated by hate. Under the Hate Crime Statistics Act, such crimes are those "that manifest evidence of prejudice based on race, gender and gender identity, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity."

According to a recent Department of Justice study (pdf), more than 250,000 Americans over the age of 12 are victimised every year by hate crimes. Of significance, the study found that in recent years only about one in three hate crimes are ever reported to law enforcement.
Comprised largely of young women and men of all races, religions and politics Antifa has confronted racial and religious supremacists who seek to intimidate the marketplace of ideas and resort to deadly violence whenever that effort fails or where it proves to be more convenient, writes Cohen [Spencer Platt/AFP ]
While many of these offenses are carried out by individuals, according to the Southern Poverty Law center, an Alabama based group well-known for its tracking of hate crimes, the number of hate groups in the US rose to 917 in 2016. The most dramatic increase was in the number of anti-Muslim hate groups, which jumped some three hundred percent to 101 from 34 in 2015.

Among the most dangerous and active of all hate groups are those committed to violent right-wing terrorism motivated by various ideologies and affiliations such as those recently on display at Charlottesville. They include anti-communists, neo-fascists, neo-Nazis, the Klan and those opposed to abortion.

Since 2001, the number of violent attacks by such groups in the US has surged to an average of more than 300 a year, according to a study by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point.
Enter Donald Trump

Above all else, the campaign of Donald Trump was one that sought to exploit and stoke the supremacist and nationalist flames of right-wing "populists" who rarely before had felt at ease with a public display of odium that has stretched across the country from rural hamlets to major urban settings.

However, with Trump and his appeal to an ethnocentric supremacist base, we saw the introduction of extremist ideology into the mainstream of our political process. Predictably, his platform, rhetoric and policies have created a political climate in which hate crimes have flourished.

Indeed, campaign attacks month after month on Muslims, immigrants, inner-city residents, refugees, the media and race-based protectionist policies along with a demand for a wall to protect us from "rapists" created a political climate that has served as an incubator for an aggressive public display of nationalist supremacy not before seen in contemporary politics.

Beginning with an upsurge that started with the presidential campaign and has continued unabated to date, hate crimes, including attacks against African Americans, American Muslims and Jews have soared especially in major US cities long viewed by fascist forces in and out of government as the home of a "cosmopolitan elite" and fake news. Sound familiar?

Since Trump's election, news outlets and social media accounts have swelled with reports of swastikas at schools, racist taunts, public bullying and other hate-fueled attacks and acts of intimidation. These supremacist fueled attacks have been borne out by the Council on American Islamic Relations, which has documented 63 publicly reported incidents from January to July 2017, where mosques were targets of threats, vandalism or arson. In addition, Southern Poverty Law Center has documented well over a thousand reported incidents of race religious or political motivated harassment or intimidation in the immediate period following the presidential election.

As recent events in Charlottesville have shown the unleashing of supremacist violence has now become very much the norm in a time where and when the President sees the exploitation of fear and ignorance among his nationalist base as a necessary step to safeguard not just his political agenda but his very presidency.

Led by an explosive misfit who sees truth as detriment and care as a cause for concern, today throughout this country disaffected, disenfranchised indeed lost women and men find hope if not temporary reprieve in the pain of others. It speaks volumes not just about who we have become as a people but the need now more than ever for a determined resistance to stand up to race, religious and class-based violence.

One need only look to the early 30's to wonder how much different the world might have been today if a militant fierce resistance stood up then against the winds of fascism that blew across Nazi Germany with a very certain and public gale.

Enter Antifa

Much has been written over the last several weeks about Antifa, a loose-knit collective of anti-fascists that with increasing fervor have challenged neo-Nazis, the Klan and other white supremacist hate groups, at times matching them blow for blow.

Comprised largely of young women and men of all races, religions and politics Antifa has confronted racial and religious supremacists who seek to intimidate the marketplace of ideas and resort to deadly violence whenever that effort fails or where it proves to be more convenient.

Not surprisingly, some neo-liberal commentators and progressive academics have seemed to fall all over one another in a race to see who can indict Antifa first for "strategic blunders" or so-called missteps of "principle". Can dissertations be far off?

Meanwhile, politicians for sale and law enforcement agencies long since sold, hold court daily on how to criminalise Antifa relying upon long out-dated and unconstitutional practices which not only seek to silence protected dissent but hush the many, for the acts of the few, and do so with arbitrary abandon.

On this score, I'll defer to classic constitutional scholars to ultimately pick apart and put to rest the notion that government can lawfully cherry pick particular domestic movements to criminalise in a race to purify speech while it labels others committed to overt acts of terrorism as generally within the reach of legitimate dissent.

Before however moving on I wonder whether to fall within the scope of this new collective criminal designation one must carry a formal identification card in an organisation without existence or membership. Must the card say Antifa or does anti-fascist suffice? Must one go through a formal initiation rite as so much a rush for a political frat before criminal accountability can ensue? Perhaps culpability will be determined not on the basis of formal membership but rather a particular chant or a colour mask, a style of shield or the length of one's hair?

The possibilities of a constitutional misstep are endless as fence sitters and apologists alike, sprint to curry favour with a public that generally likes its debate prim and proper and, at all times, limited to mainstream politics and redress.

Ultimately, at this time, I'm less concerned with dissecting constitutional infirmity than I am with selective historical memory.

On this point, one need only look to the early 30's to wonder how much different the world might have been today if a militant fierce resistance stood up then against the winds of fascism that blew across Nazi Germany with a very certain and public gale.

Imagine life today in the US, if Harriet Tubman had not tossed caution to the wind or if John Brown had not moved with speed to Kansas just after that territory had been opened for the possible expansion of slavery or had not made his later fateful march to Harpers Ferry.

And what of the uncontested political slaughter that was endemic to Latin America in the 60's as petty despots ... often bedfellows to US counterparts ... brought us the desaparecidos still mourned by mothers who meet and march years after their children vanished not for deeds, but mere thoughts and words.

I fear not at all a determined, at times, even militant response to a dark violent time-worn supremacist message which left free to fester will quickly and surely convert ugly words to deadly force leaving principled liberals stunned in its lethal wake.

Commissions galore have found ample cause for hate; historically, however, they have done little to stop its march resting instead on volumes of excuse filled with petty footnotes. Politicians, theologians and studied experts always seem to know the answer to the wrong questions no matter how popular or certain the discourse which flows.

To balance hate as an expression of aim with love as a statement of purpose has a nice collegial ring to it but must be left to the debate of classrooms, not the streets where their marriage is just not possible.
To academics and historians fascism may make for an interesting analytical read but for those who wear its target through their colour, creed or political candor it is very real and it is here and it is now.

This is not a call to arms or a preach that the only answer to violence is to meet it with violence but rather a recognition that there are crossroads in history when a drive to alter a violent public path has required a diversity of strategy and tactics that may or may not be limited to protest and pen alone.

On the other hand, those that choose to walk down a pathway of militant resistance must do so with not just resolve and principle but a willingness to pay the personal price often demanded of those that have crossed the line from speech to action.

For those of us who are closer to the end of the journey than its start, it seems far too easy almost predictable to try to dictate the march of those yet to follow. Armed with experience and dogged opinion, ours has been a travel for us and us alone.

I have great faith in the ability of those who will soon inherit the world to determine the course of the world that will be theirs and theirs alone to claim. Today in streets throughout the US, indeed the world, young women and men of great principle and fierce purpose have learned to dare to struggle, to dare to win.

Although our view of the future may very well differ with theirs ... perhaps at times even clash ... we've had our run and it is now they who must and will decide how to confront and reshape a world built far too long of excuse fueled by supremacist hatred and violence.

➽The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.


Stanley L Cohen is a lawyer and human rights activist who has done extensive work in the Middle East and Africa.
Follow Stanley Cohen on Twitter @StanleyCohenLaw