Democratiya 16 | Spring/Summer 2009 Democratiya 16 | Spring/Summer 2009
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Democratiya 16 | Spring/Summer 2009 Democratiya 16 | Spring/Summer 2009 Michael Walzer, John Strawson, Ghada Karmi & others Symposium: Two States After Gaza Gina Khan Reading Ayaan Hirsi Ali in Birmingham Michael J. Thompson Theorising Social Democracy Joschka Fischer Europe and America After Bush Matthew Omolesky Milton and the Mark Steyn Affair Lawrence J. Haas Letter from Washington: Obama’s Four Tests Kevin Higgins Poem: Comrades Susan Green Archive: Stalinism and World War Three Reza Aslan Interview / How to Win a Cosmic War Also Choudhury, Higgins, Ezra, Ali, Cottee & more | 1 | Founder & Editor Sunder Katwala Alan Johnson Irfan Khawaja John Lloyd Editorial Assistant Denis MacShane MP Peter Stanley Branka Magaš Kanan Makiya Advisory Editors: Chibli Mallat Gerard Alexander Brendan O’Leary Michael Allen Jon Pike Paul Anderson Barry Rubin Jane Ashworth Khalid Salih Harry Barnes Martin Shaw Paul Berman John Vail Jean Bethke Elshtain Bert Ward John Bew Francis Wheen Brian Brivati Barry Winter Joshua Cohen Sami Zubaida Nick Cohen Marc Cooper Address Thomas Cushman Democratiya c/o Foundation for the Jonathan Derbyshire Study of Independent Social Ideas, Robert Fine 310 Riverside Drive, suite 2008, Eve Garrard New York, NY 10025. Norman Geras Linda Grant Email Johann Hari [email protected] David Hirsh Christopher Hitchens Website Marko Attila Hoare www.democratiya.com Quintin Hoare Micheline R. Ishay Design Faleh A. Jabar www.smallfury.com Oliver Kamm Democratiya was founded in 2005 as a free quarterly online journal of social democratic and antitotalitarian politics and culture. 16 issues were published before Democratiya merged with the American democratic left magazine Dissent in Autumn 2009. To access the Democratiya archive please visit the Dissent website. | 2 | 2005 Founding Statement Democratiya aims to contribute to a renewal of the politics of democratic radicalism by providing a forum for serious analysis and debate. We will strive to be non-sectarian and ecumenical, and our pages are open to a wide range of political views, a commitment to pluralism reflected in our advisory editorial board Democratiya believes that in a radically changed world parts of the left have backed themselves into an incoherent and negativist ‘anti-imperialist’ corner, losing touch with long-held democratic, egalitarian and humane values. In some quarters, the complexity of the post-cold-war world, and of US foreign policy as it has developed since 9/11, has been reduced to another ‘Great Contest’: ‘The Resistance’ (or ‘Multitude’) against ‘Imperialism’ (or ‘Empire’). This world-view has ushered back in some of the worst habits of mind that dominated parts of the left in the Stalinist period: manicheanism, reductionism, apologia, denial, cynicism. Grossly simplifying tendencies of thought, not least the disastrous belief that ‘my enemy’s enemy is my friend’ are once again leading to the abandonment of democrats, workers, women and gays who get on the wrong side of ‘anti-imperialists’ (who are considered ‘progressive’ simply because they’re anti-American). We democrats will fare better if we are guided by a positive animating ethic and seek modes of realization through serious discussion and practical reform efforts. Democratiya will stand for the human rights of victims of Genocide and Crimes against Humanity. We will be, everywhere, pro-democracy, pro-labour rights, pro-women’s rights, pro-gay rights, pro-liberty, pro-reason and pro-social justice. Against anti-modernism, irrationalism, fear of freedom, loathing of the woman, and the cult of master-slave human relations we stand for the great rallying calls of the democratic revolutions of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Democracy, even for the ‘poorest he’. Liberte, egalite, fraternite. The rights of man. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Those precious ideas were rendered the inheritance of all by the social democratic, feminist and egalitarian revolutions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. No one left behind. No one. We are partisans and artisans of this fighting faith and we pit it against what Paul Berman has called ‘the paranoid and apocalyptic nature of the totalitarian mindset’. © Democratiya | 3 | DEMOCRATIYA 16 Spring/Summer 2009 Contents Alan Johnson | Editor’s Page 7 A Symposium: Two States After Gaza Michael Walzer, John Strawson, Ghada Karmi, Donna Robinson Divine, Martin Shaw, Alex Stein, Menachem Kellner, Fred Siegel & Sol Stern 9 Gina Khan | Reading Ayaan Hirsi Ali in Birmingham 35 Rashad Ali | Islam, Sharia, and the Far-Right 45 Samuel Helfont | The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State 53 Simon Cottee | A Murder in Amsterdam 64 Will Marshall | Obama’s Central Drama 81 Joschka Fischer | Europe and America After Bush 84 Tim Stevens | Counterterrorism and Liberal Democracy 91 Michael J. Thompson | Theorising Social Democracy 94 Ethan Porter | Panic: Modern Financial Insanity 102 | 4 | Paul Thompson | On Nick Cohen on the Left 108 Matthew Omolesky | Milton and the Mark Steyn Affair 114 Gary Kent | Sinn Fein’s Gunsmoke and Mirrors 150 Michael Ezra | Malcolm Caldwell: Pol Pot’s Apologist 155 Eric B. Litwack | Historical Responsibility for Africa 179 Dick Wilson | On Yegor Gaidar 183 Lawrence J. Haas | Letter from Washington / Obama’s Four Tests 195 Eric Lee | Global Labour Notes / Jews, Gaza and the Unions 204 Chandrahas Choudhury | On Ghandi’s Autobiography 210 Kevin Higgins | Poem: Comrades 215 Tom Hale | In Praise of First of the Year 217 Susan Green | Archive: Debating World War Three 225 | 5 | Reza Aslan | Interview / How to Win a Cosmic War 249 Letters Page | Richard Greeman on Victor Serge 277 | 6 | Editor’s Page Alan Johnson Does the two-state solution remain viable after the conflict in Gaza, and if so what are the obstacles to its realisation? We posed these questions to a range of writers. Michael Walzer argues that two states is in bad shape, but remains the only viable solution and can be advanced by a combination of ‘internal unilateralism’ on both sides, and greater support by the US and EU. John Strawson argues the time has come for the international community to consider compelling the two parties to reach a compromise. Ghada Karmi makes the case for the one-state solution as realistic not utopian, while Donna Robinson Divine calls for both sides to go beyond those constitutive narratives around which identities have hardened and which have blocked progress. Martin Shaw calls for 1948 to be revisited as well as 1967 and for the idealism of the one-state solution to inform the two-state solution, while Alex Stein argues none of the existing ‘solutions’ remain viable and what’s really needed is imagination and radical new ideas. Menchem Kellner and Fred Seigel and Sol Stern warn of the dangers of moving towards two states without a radical change of attitude towards Israel by the Palestinian leaderships, while Eric Lee surveys the trade unions reaction to the conflict in Gaza. We continue our examination of the nature of a progressive response to Islamism and violent extremism with pieces from Gina Khan, who has been reading Ayaan Hirsi Ali in Birmingham, and Rashad Ali who demolishes a series of Islamist myths about ‘Sharia’ from a scholarly Islamic perspective. Simon Cottee writes in praise of Ian Buruma’s book Murder in Amsterdam, and Samuel Helfont offers a thoughtful critique of Noah Feldman’s recent book on the ‘Islamic State.’ Reza Aslan, author of No god But God and How to Win a Cosmic War, explores the struggle for the soul of Islam, and the need for us to get beyond the ‘war on terror,’ in a fascinating extended interview. Tim Stevens explores the tensions between counterterrorism and liberal democracy. Will Marshall sets out the ‘central drama’ of the Obama presidency, while Lawrence J. Haas carefully explores the four challenges facing the new administration and the policy options open to the new President. Joschka Fischer, the former German Foreign Minister, draws up a ‘to do’ list for Europeans who wish to preserve the Atlantic Alliance and take forward the European project. | 7 | Democratiya 16 | Spring/Summer 2009 Michael J. Thompson is provocative and engaged in a way few writers are these days about the future of social democracy. On that note, Ethan Porter charts the lunacy of the financial system and the opening it has provided for a social democratic agenda, while Paul Thompson, who edited the social democratic journal Renewal for fourteen years, offers an appreciation, and a critique, of a new book by Democratiya advisory editor Nick Cohen. Matthew Omolesky explores the contemporary meaning of Miltonic freedom in a comprehensive account of the recent controversy concerning Mark Steyn’s encounter with the Canadian courts. Gary Kent reviews Henry MacDonald’s recent book which seeks to debunk Sinn Fein’s account of the Northern Ireland Peace Process, while Michael Ezra has gone back to the archives to tell the story of an early post-Leftist, Malcolm Caldwell, whom he indicts as an ‘apologist for Pol Pot.’ Eric Litwack carefully thinks through the arguments for and against reparations for Africa, while Dick Wilson, former Director of East European Affairs at the Free Trade Union Institute of the AFL-CIO, writes a fascinating memoir-cum-analysis of the controversial reform programme of Yegor Gaidar in the Yeltsin era. The Arts section contains a beautiful essay from Chahandras Choudoury on Gandhi’s Autobiography, a plangent poem from Kevin Higgins, and a hymn of praise to the eclectic US ‘newspaper of the imagination,’ First of the Month, from Tom Hale (which promoted a brief exchange between its editor Benj Demott and Hale) Our Archive section publishes two documents by the US socialist Susan Green, taken from the 1949 dispute on the US left about the attitude socialists should adopt towards military conflicts between democratic and totalitarian forces when they are clear-sighted and honest enough to admit that there is no possibility of a ‘third camp’ alternative in any relevant time-frame.