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Fascism of the left

I found a disturbing article about how anti-war protesters in London deliberately excluded Iraqi protesters who came to support the military action w/ handmade signs and asked for a minute to speak, just a minute. They were rebuffed and most of their signs and such were confiscated. So in a protest on the Iraq issue, not one Iraqi was allowed to express his or her opinion. Not one. So much for caring about the Iraqi people. Here's an excerpt:

We managed to reach some of the stars of the show, including Reverend Jesse Jackson, the self-styled champion of American civil rights. One of our group, Salima Kazim, an Iraqi grandmother, managed to attract the reverend's attention and told him how Saddam Hussein had murdered her three sons because they had been dissidents in the Baath Party; and how one of her grandsons had died in the war Saddam had launched against Kuwait in 1990.

"Could I have the microphone for one minute to tell the people about my life?" 78-year-old Salima demanded.

The reverend was not pleased.

"Today is not about Saddam Hussein," he snapped. "Today is about Bush and Blair and the massacre they plan in Iraq." Salima had to beat a retreat, with all of us following, as the reverend's gorillas closed in to protect his holiness.

We next spotted former film star Glenda Jackson, apparently manning a stand where "antiwar" characters could sign up to become "human shields" to protect Saddam's military installations against American air attacks.

"These people are mad," said Awad Nasser, one of Iraq's most famous modernist poets. "They are actually signing up to sacrifice their lives to protect a tyrant's death machine."

The former film star, now a Labor party member of parliament, had no time for "side issues" such as the 1.2 million Iraqis, Iranians, and Kuwaitis who have died as a result of Saddam's various wars.

And here, fundamentally, is my problem w/ protests or "direct action" as a means of political discourse. It's necessarily reduced to simplicities, not complexities. In a debate over the moral dilemma of death in war (and I share this moral qualm) there's no room for other "side issues" -- such as that Hussein is a brutal tyrant who's even now killing his own citizens.

I'm a democrat (lowercase "d"). I believe anyone -- regardless of wealth, education, status, age, or other background -- can engage in political discourse. But mass protests by their very nature aren't democratic. They reduce political discourse to a handful of leaders who speak and a faceless mob that chants in unison while bearing mass-produced placards. Democrats don't silence opponents, use mobs to intimidate, or engage in vandalism (as some protesters do). Such tactics belong to fascism -- even if the mob isn't wearing jackboots.

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On a related note, here are two links: A John Howard op-ed arguing that containment can't work on Hussein and VodkaPundit posts historical analogies between Iraq, Egypt, Cuba, and Lybia as cases of containment.

Posted by Miguel at 01:09 PM

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