This page is devoted to records of discussions, statements of position, papers, class notes and so on, which I find relevant to the underlying principles of Invitation to Learn. Yes, I am taking a me-centred approach, but this website, and indeed Invitation to Learn itself, reflects my concerns and interests. That is their raison d’etre.
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I begin with the Class Handouts for the first five sessions of People and Power course. These contain the thinking which will underlie my discussion in the remainder of the course. Below that you will find my reflections on stepping down from the committee of the Brighton and Hove branch of Palestine Solidarity Campaign (BHPSC). There are three parts to this: (1) Some reflection back in 2002 after Jenin, (2) My reflections very shortly before the BHPSC AGM on 7th June 2008 and (3) Further reflection four weeks on from the AGM in 2008. As is the normal practise these are ordered in reverse chronological order, i.e. with my most recent thoughts first.
Francis Clark-Lowes
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Class Handouts for the First Five Sessions of the People & Power Series (2008/2009)
Class 1 (2nd & 3rd Sept): What is Power?
Think about the use of the word ‘powerful’. We may apply this adjective to a person, a machine, an argument, a state, a religious organisation, a commercial organisation, God, a reputation, a writer, an orator, a conductor, a musician, a parent, a parental figure, a social class, a current, a thinker, a role model and so on. This means that we think they have power. But what is power?
Before we try to answer that, let’s try to think what the opposite of ‘powerful’ is? How about ‘powerless’? Or should it be ‘weak’? If you think of power as being relative, then the word ‘powerless’ seems unsatisfactory. It suggests an absolute. It would be a bit strange to refer to any of the above examples as powerless, but quite normal to refer to them as weak, that is to say, lacking in power according to some continuum reaching between the theoretical extremes of absolute power and powerlessness.
So, what is power? We use this term all the time, but rarely define it. To try to galvanise you into thinking about this, I would like you to consider the following questions. There are no right answers, and you don’t have to answer what you think I want you to say. But nor do I want you to cover up your own instinctive reaction with ‘politically correct’ thoughts. I suspect that the answers you give will move us towards thinking about what power is.
· Does a young child consider its parents powerful or weak?
· What does a child feel when it learns to walk, and then to talk?
· What do you feel when you learn to do something new?
· What do you feel when you meet a well-known personality?
· What do you think Tony Blair felt when he met George Bush at the White House?
· What do you feel when you see a Boeing 747 taking off?
· What do you feel when you see a military parade?
· What do you feel when listening to a Churchill speech – or to Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream …’ speech?
· What do you feel when you talk to your bank manager about a loan?
· What do you feel when you are stopped by the police?
· What do you feel when you hear an inspiring piece of music?
· What do you feel when you achieve something difficult?
· What do you feel when you are sent on an all-expenses paid trip?
· What do you feel when you are bit tipsy?
· What do you imagine it feels like to be a billionaire?
· What do you feel when you fail to achieve something?
· What might you feel, or have you felt, if you are told you are suffering from a serious disease?
· What do you feel when your friend or relation buys something you would like to have, but could never afford?
· What do religious people feel when praying?
· What do you feel when you are hungry and face a delicious looking meal?
· What does someone feel when s/he is hungry and faces a hard crust?
· How do you feel when someone you love tells you s/he loves you?
· How do you feel when you are enraged or overcome by desire?
If you have begun to make the connections I want you to make – e.g. not just saying that you are jealous of your rich friend/relation, but looking at what lies behind jealousy – then I think you will be well on the way to understanding the concept of power.
I want at this stage to avoid going down the road which argues against power. We all know how Jesus said that ‘it easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God’, the implication being that power is an illusion and a hindrance to real understanding. We will come to this undoubted truth later.
For the moment I want to concentrate on the inevitability of our relationship to power. If we were to say that power is an undesirable aspect of the human condition, we would effectively be saying that children should not attempt to learn to walk and talk, for those achievements are immensely empowering.
In her fascinatingly amoral and no-nonsense book, Power: Creating It; Using It, Helga Drummond writes: ‘Power concerns:
· getting what you want;
· doing better than you otherwise might.
A basic theme of this book is that desires are often readily attainable. Power is the key to achievement, yet if you wait for someone to give you power, you will wait forever. Nor is it correct to assume that power must be formally conferred, signed and delivered for it to be real.’
The author is writing largely about power within organisations, but what she says applies to power generally. In particular we should remember throughout this course that power is not confined to officially recognised and incorporated organisations like states. It is equally valid to speak about the power of unincorporated (or at least arguably so) groups like public opinion, Christians, Muslims, Jews, the Masons etc.
I like Drummond’s definition of power, but it fails to mention freedom specifically, and this is such an important concept in the contemporary world. The West (another unincorporated centre of great power, by the way) claims, after all, to be the guardian of ‘freedom’ and others are said to care less about it. And so I propose the following definition:
Power is freedom of action
I could even have left out ‘of action’, for freedom is always about potential action. Think about all the examples of situations we looked at. Is not the key question in each case: How much, or how little constraint is there, or at least is there perceived to be, on the freedom of action of the person concerned? And following on from that, how secure or insecure does the person concerned feel. Let’s take another look.
The child views its parents as having huge power – it has not yet learnt how circumscribed their power is. A child is likely to have feelings of omnipotence when it learns to walk – we express this by saying how proud it looks when it takes its first steps. When you learn to ride a bicycle or swim or drive a car, you feel a major constraint to your movement has been conquered. When you meet a well-known personality you are likely to feel, even if you suppress it, a feeling of awe at the opportunities open to him/her compared with you. And so on.
Which brings me to one last point. Throughout this course I want you to try to be honest about what you actually feel, rather than expressing what you think you ought to feel. You may already feel that the pursuit of power can be dangerous for the world and even, paradoxically, disempowering for the pursuer. But we won’t get to understanding power if we start from that position. We need first of all to understand the centrality of power in our lives.
Class 2: The Power of Groups (9th & 10th Sept)
Last time we considered what power is. I suggested (a) that we define it as ‘freedom of action’ (or just ‘freedom’) and (b) that we should try to adopt a neutral attitude to power, not seeing it as good or bad in itself. Some of us found this neutral stance difficult to sustain, since we are accustomed to link power with abuse. On the other hand, empowerment was seen in a positive light, and was sharply distinguished from ‘striving for power’. Can I urge you again to question whether this distinction is philosophically reasonable, even if it reflects common usage.
Implicit in most of what I said last time was that power is the reaction to vulnerability. Human beings are arguably unique in the animal world in being able to contemplate, and they are therefore bound to be aware of their own vulnerability to an extent which other animals are not. The ‘will to power’, as Nietzsche called the striving for power (in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 1883), is an inevitable part of life:
The concept [is not] limited to only those intellectual beings that can actually experience the feeling of power; it applies to all life. … [Later the same year Nietzsche wrote that the ‘will to power’] is an ‘unexhausted procreative will of life.’ There is will to power where there is life and even the strongest living things will risk their lives for more power. (Edited from Wikipedia)
This last observation by Nietzsche suggests to me that the search for power ultimately becomes the search for immortality – that is people who have already achieved a considerable degree of power may seek to eradicate vulnerability, and that can only be achieved through immortality. Strangely, I suspect that many of those who seek this kind of ultimate power would deny that they believe in immortality, yet their actions betray them.
And so we come to groups. Human beings are social animals – that is we cannot live without cooperating with one another. This is true at the most basic level. As with the young of very many species, children who are not cared for by at least one parental figure, die. But our dependence on others is true at a much wider level. If you are not affiliated to any group you will not benefit from the advantages of belonging such as language, protection, division of labour, availability of sexual partners and so on. In other words, you are unlikely to survive.
By group we mean any gathering of people. I would even include a couple, and the whole of humanity is also a group. Groups may be hierarchical, parallel and overlapping. For example, you can be a Brightonian and a citizen of the UK and Northern Ireland because being British is (usually) included in the concept of being a Brightonian. Or I could be a supporter of both Brighton & Hove Albion and of Sussex Country Cricket Club, i.e. two roughly equivalent parallel groups. Of I might be a member of Palestine Solidarity Campaign and of Deir Yassin Remembered, that is two organisations which support the same cause in different ways – i.e. overlapping groups.
Groups are about empowerment. But to be effective they need structure. People in them need to know who does what, an in particular who is the leader. Some groups claim that they have no leadership, that the group as a whole makes decisions on an equal basis. I’m a bit sceptical about this. But even if it is true, it is rare. Most groups have an officially recognised leader, or at least a small group of leaders.
But how do you become a leader? We could also ask how groups are formed? I’m going to simplify matters a bit here in order to suggest a way of looking at leadership and groups. A leader offers to lead the members of the group in such a way that their needs are met. In return he expects to be given the power to do things which other members of the group are not permitted to do, like negotiating with people beyond the group.
Groups develop cultures, that is to say ways of looking at the world and dealing with it, rules about who does what, about what is permitted and what not, what the sanctions are for those who transgress the rules, what is admired and what abhorred etc. Where a group is a sub-group of a larger group, the culture may be largely derivative from the parent group, but with a few idiosyncracies. To use the example above, Brightonian culture is not very different from British culture, but it distinguishes itself by the particularities of Brighton – seaside resort, place for dirty weekends, Brighton Rock, the Prince Regent etc. Leaders will normally promise to perserve, and perhaps enrich, the culture of the group.
I said that ‘a leader offers to lead the members of the group in such a way that their needs are met.’ Again for simplicity’s sake, I want to focus on what I believe is the central ‘need’ of people, and that is security. We expect that group which we call the state to protect us from foreign invasion, we expect those grouping which we roughly lump under the term local government to protect us against crime, we expect (if we are children) parents to protect us against anything dangerous from outside the family.
But now let us consider again a person who aspires to be a leader. If security is what the people want, then exaggerating their insecurity, on the one hand, and your capacity as leader to protect, on the other is an attractive proposition. In a complex group like a state this may be achieved by ensuring that the media tells things the way you want them to. In this way the culture of your ‘society’ (that is group) is ‘programmed’ with an ideology which gives you power. The security which you are offering may include economic security, of course.
Indeed in our society this is what we hear most about, despite the ‘war on terror’. Most government time is taken up with managing the economy in such a way that there is a steady rise in the standard of living so that people feel things can only get better. One of the main accusations against the ‘terrorists’ is that they want to ‘destroy our way of life’, which to a considerable degree means our economic security. For if the economy were to collapse in the way that Marxists predict our survival would truly be at great risk.
Roughly speaking, the larger the group, the more powerful it becomes – which is to say, the more powerful its leaders become. Other factors of course play their part, such as the power of the ideology underpinning the group, the weakness of opposition to the ruling elite both from within and without the group, the efficacy of the sub-groups ensuring security (armred forces, police, economic policy), strategic alliances with other groups, the availability of resources, the efficiency of communications systems like road, railways, telephones, and so on.
From what has been said, it can be seen that groups are likely to be in conflict with one another. If it is in the interests of leaders to slag off those without the group and to develop exclusive ideologies, then it will be difficult to avoid clashes. This is true whether we are talking about states or about the Jones’s and the Robinson’s argument about a fruit tree which grows on the boundary between their two properties.
Mr Jones tells his family that the Robinsons have unscrupulously stollen the Jones’s fruit from the branches of their tree which overhangs the Robinson’s garden. Mr Robinson tells his family that the Joneses have refused to keep the tree pruned, with the result that it is blocking their light. Both Mr Jones and Mr Robinson feel that they must prove their leadership of their respective families by overcoming the other. They become locked into their distorted narratives about the real situation which could, with good will, be resolved peacefully.
Of course the above scenario is not a necessary outcome of group cultures, but it is a likely one. And, of course, this is an abuse of power. What I don’t think is helpful is to conclude that we could do without leadership. It is the quality of the leadership which matters.
Class 3 (16/17 Sept): The Power of Language
Summary so far: We have defined power as ‘freedom of action’ (or just ‘freedom’) and we are trying to adopt a neutral attitude to it. The desire for power, in the human sphere, appears to be a reaction to the fear of vulnerability, and those who would offer us security – leaders – do so by creating and maintaining groups. I suggested that to become a leader you need to offer to lead the group in such a way that its members’ needs are met, and chief among their needs is security. We saw that exaggerating people’s insecurity, on the one hand, and the leader’s capacity to protect, on the other is an attractive proposition.
Language is, then, at the very heart of the bid for power. We know this in our own lives, don’t we. Faced with someone who opposes our wishes we can give in, or we can use language to empower ourselves. Of couse, we could use violence as well, but in an ordered society this is likely to lead to subsquent disempowerment – prison, for example. Assertiveness training is largely about getting your needs met without the use of violence or abuse. It is partly about using the right lanague, but notice also that it is about not getting hooked into the argument (narratives) of your opponent.
Let’s take a typical marital example. Jane feels that John no longer cares enough about her. She therefore feels powerless. One day she flies off the handle because John hasn’t done the washing up. This has become a symbol of his lack of caring, and is being used as a weapon to punish him. If John is not careful he will get tangled up in an argument about who does more washing up, which then will become a more general listing of his deficiencies by Jane and an ever more desperate listing of defences by John. Jane has thereby gained power by putting John on the defensive. But then the whole cycle starts again, for now it is John who feels uncared for. And so on.
Let’s consider how John might have acted more effectively. He could have said: ‘I can see you’re really upset, and I’m sure it’s not really about the washing up.’ He probably has an inkling of what the problem is anyway, in which case he might at this stage say: ‘I realise I’ve been a bit tied up with my own concerns recently. I guess you’ve felt a bit neglected.’ But if he is simply at a loss, he could just say: ‘Tell me what the problem is, love.’
I give this example not as an exact microcosm of what happens at the macro level of the state and international relations (though I think there are parallel kinds of situation), but to show how tricky language can be.
Last year we looked at over forty speeches in which the orators used their art to persuade people to do what they wanted. We were primarily concerned with their technique rather than with the virtue or otherwise of what they wanted their listeners to do.
Helga Drummond on the power of language: “Others will perceive you [the speaker] as decisive if you use decisive-sounding language. Moreover, conveying an impression of control deflects potential criticism. Winston Churchill was a master of the art. Here are excerpts from one of his war speeches:
I must, however, try to bring home to the House the extraordinary difficulties of our strategic position arising from Hitler’s mastery of the European coast. The difficulties far exceed anything that was experienced in the last war. In fact, … at the beginning of 1940 … most of the high naval and air experts would have said that the problem of supplying Britain would have become insoluble and hopeless.
“Not only is Churchill’s language used to reassure, but it pre-empts censure by creating the impression that national difficulties are entirely due to forces outside the government’s control:
Bound together as we are by a common purpose, the men who have joined hands in this affair put up with a lot, and I hope they will put up with a lot more. It is the duty of the Prime Minister to use the power which Parliament and the Nation have given him to drive others, and in war like this that power has to be used irrespective of anyone’s feelings. If we win, nobody will care. If we lose, there will be nobody left to care.
“This speech is virtually an assumption of carte blanche. The reference ‘put up with a lot’ diverts attention away from analysis of the mistakes while the reference to power implies the Prime Minister can and should override other counsels.
“As for results, this example stands for many:
There might be ups and downs, there might be disappointments, there would certainly be the ebb and flow of battle, …. Mistakes are made. Sometimes right things turn out wrong, and quite often wrong things turn out right.
“Here language is used to pre-empt criticism, by structuring the audience’s expectations. Not only are they invited to believe that disasters are inevitable, but that they are attributable to the fortunes of war. Nowhere does Churchill mention his own fallibility.
“Lest readers [largely a management readership] feel that their opportunities to practise eloquence are limited, this address requires only minor amendments to make it suitable for a management situation:
There might be ups and downs, there might be disappointments, there would certainly be the ebb and flow of competition and economic climate, …. Mistakes are made. Sometimes right things turn out wrong, and quite often wrong things turn out right.
“Churchill also knew the value of language in explaining away mistakes. His words on the sinking of the battleships Prince of Wales and Repulse were:
Admiral Philips was undertaking a thoroughly sound, well-considered offensive operation, not indeed free from risk, but no different in principle from many similar operations we have repeatedly carried out …. There is reason to believe that the loss of life has been less heavy that was at first feared.
“Who says it was a sound operation? We believe it only because we are told it was. This speech too is readily convertible for use by management. The format can be utilized to explain virtually any failure:
1. Emphasize that the plan was soundly conceived and based on precedent.
2. Point out the element of risk.
3. Reduce the tension by concluding with more optimistic figures than those first released.
“Day-to-day issues too provide excellent opportunity to exploit the power of language. For instance:
1. ‘You require a decision on …’
2. ‘I must give a ruling upon …’
3. ‘Clearly then the decision rests between …’
4. ‘The options are …’
5. ‘The risks I must choose between are …’
“Expressions like these can be used to make others feel that serious issues are being decided. Everyone likes to feel part of momentous events, and it is good management to engender excitement by hyping things up a little. Besides, making others feel powerful enhances your own stature.” [Drummund, Helga, Power: Creating It; Using It, London, Kogan Page, 1991, pp 86-88.]
Narratives/Ideologies: A very important aspect of the use of language as a tool to achieve power is the creation of narratives or ideologies. These are typically complicated systems of thought, sometimes acknowledged and sometimes not, which reduce our thinking to a particular path. Examples are religions, communism, nationalism, liberalism, democracy, free-market economics, fascism and so on. Such systems are often so constructed that once in them there are ways of making you stay there. For example, if you are a communist you will be disinclined to question the system because to do so will earn you the label of bourgeois. If you are a dissident Freudian you’ll be accused of repressing something. Without language narratives and ideologies could not exist. But by using language skillfully, they manipulate people into position they might not otherwise have chosen. On the other hand, narratives and ideologies may give us great insights into the reality of existence. Once again, it is all a question of the motive of the creator/maintainer of such constructions.
Class 4 (23rd & 24th Sept) The Power of the Individual Mind
Summary so far: Power is ‘freedom of action’ and is neutral. The desire for power is a reaction to anxiety. Leaders offer security by creating and maintaining groups. Groups need cultures, normally expressed in language. But language can easily be entangling, and ideologies (cultures) may use this to their advantage. Their fixed ways of viewing the world may give us a sense of security, but limit our freedom of thought,.
An example of entangling language. I came to realise the way in which language entangles through my involvement with a very powerful Jewish narrative. It runs as follows. Key concepts have been italicised.
The Jews are the chosen people some of whom, when facing the Roman expulsion, committed mass suicide at Massada. They then travelled all over the world (the diaspora), but never mixed with other peoples (no intermarriage), or converted them to Judaism (no conversion). All through their history they suffered from a unique form of prejudice and discrimination called antisemitism which had no cause. Jews are a gifted people who have contributed disproprortionately to Western civilisation but, despite this, suffered the culmination of antisemitism in The Holocaust, that is the systematic murder of six million Jews in gas chambers by the Nazis. No other nation suffered so much under the Nazis (exceptional victimhood), and to protect themselves they created a nation-state of their own in the country which had remained empty since they departed 2000 years earlier (a land without a people). Being a peaceful people they wished to live in harmony with the Arab population they found there (these had come from neighbouring countries to benefit from the Jewish economy being established there – non-existence of Palestinians), but they turned out to be antisemitic as well. The only democracy in the Middle East struggled to survive surrounded by fanatical antisemitic Muslim states who wished to push Israel into the sea. It was no fault of the Jews that 700,000 Palestinians left Palestine because their leadership called on them to do so (voluntary exodus of Palestinians in 1948). In 1967 the Arabs again attacked Israel (Arabs start 1967 war), and Israel was obliged to settle more land in the disputed territories for security purposes (settlements are security outposts). This was a reaction to increasing terrorist attacks on Israel by extremist Muslims. At last in 2001 Israel made an offer to the Arabs of unimaginable generosity, and Yassir Arafat turned it down (generosity of Barak offer). What greater proof could there be of the Arabs’ deep-seated antisemitism? (Moral baseness of Palestinians)
Of course not all Jews believe all of this narrative, but most believe a substantial part of it. So does a large part of the non-Jewish West. Yet I suggest to you that almost every one of the italicised items is questionable – perhaps only the chosen people concept is not, since it is a theological idea.
Built-in protection of narratives: To dispute almost any aspect of the above narrative is to open yourself to the accusation of antisemitism, the ultimate preserver of the narrative. As I indicated last time, other idologies have similar defences of their orthodoxy. Marxists accuse their opponents of being bourgeois reactionaries. Freudians / psychoanlysts accuse their opponents of repression. Multiculturalists accuse their opponents of prejudice. But it not only sanctions which keep us withing the fold of believers. Having beliefs pre-digested for us relieves us of anxiety by making our world seem more predictable.
Freedom to choose our own beliefs: Of course no one can force us to think something. If we do so, it either because we are convinced, or because we want to be convinced. Wanting to be convinced is a temptation which I would encourage free thinkers to avoid. It may give temporary relief from anxiety, but it increases a deeper foreboding that things ain’t what they seeem. We all have minds. Let’s use them.
What are beliefs? A belief is an expectation based on perception. Human beings, like other animals, receive information both from within and from without. The external information comes to us from our senses and also from other people. Our internal information comes from our emotions and our memory. Thinking involves linking these bits of information into knowledge. For example, we link the visual information of a plate of food with the memory of pleasure when eating such a plate of food in the past. These leads us to the action of eating the food in the expectation of getting a similar pleasure. Or we might get some information from a friend (i.e. it is not our direct experience) about how to find his/her house. We link this with our pleasurable feeling when with the friend, and this results in the action of driving to the house in the expectation of the same feeling. Notice that emotion is in no way excluded from this thinking, but I think it would be wrong to describe it, because of this, as being irrational. Of course in both of these cases the pleasurable feeling may not be repeated, in which case the beliefs relating to the perception of the plate of food and the friend will change. We might say: ‘I seem to have gone off that food’, or ‘So-and-so turned out to be rather different from what I thought.’
What is reason? And what is irrational? Reason, it seems to me, is making connections in the right order. In the examples above a rational connection was made between outside perception and inner desires. But the mind doesn’t always work in this way. Sometimes the inner desire – for example, the wish to be loved, to be secure or to feel that one’s beliefs are in harmony – influences what we perceive. So, for example, someone may fantasize about a loved person regardless of the lack of encouragement from that source. Or one might believe in a leader who offers security regardless of the evidence that s/he offers nothing of the sort. And one might reject a really important idea because it conflicts with ideas already held. These are examples of what I would call irrational thinking.
Irrational self-image: Our thoughts about ourselves are particularly important in terms of power. A particularly pernicious form of irrational thinking is what might be called negative self-image. Here a belief by the person concerned that they are of no value interprets all perceptions in a negative light. Offers of affection are seen as threatening, success is seen as coindidence, failure is seen as confirmation and so on. We can say of such people that they are disempowered by their own beliefs.
The opposite of this negative form of thinking is summed up in the phrase: ‘The power of positive thinking.’ Whether this is also irrational is a moot point. Such a person believes that the sky is the limit. S/her succeeds because s/he believes in him/herself, and success breeds further success. This can easily lead to another form of pernicious thinking, the idea of omnipotence, which certainly is irrational. Faced with the evidence of their own vulnerability such successful people may seek ever greater success in order to block out a feeling that they are deceiving themselves (which indeed they are). But insofar as they continue to succeed, such people have empowered themselves.
Disentangling ‘rational’ and ‘irrational’ thought: ‘Rational’ thought requires (a) self-criticism and honesty, (b) not confusing categories of perception – perception from within (emotion, including the desire to avoid cognitive dissonance), perception from without (objective reality), other people’s perceptions which are accepted second-hand, as it were. These are, of course, also drawn from without and within. And (c) always questioning what we have not ourselves perceived.
The ability to hide our thoughts: A very important aspect of the power of thought is our ability to hide from others what we think. For example, if we want to allow ourselves a particular freedom that society wants to deny us, we can hide this from the world. We may, in such circumstances, even believe that society is right, but choose to make an exception for ourselves. This is the essential quality of cheating.
If we dislike someone who is useful to us, we may also hide our real feelings to our advantage. We may also do this because we love the person concerned, but know that they could not deal with our feelings.
The Power of Intution: It is possible to use the power of the mind to intuit what is happening at a social level. Such intution may arise from past experience, stored in memory, and digested over a period of time.
Spiritual understanding: Many people reject the notion of ‘spiritual’. Yet there is an area of ‘understanding’ which is different from others and requires a label. This is understanding relating to the condition of humankind. Properly understood, as it seems to me, the human condition is intrinsically vulnerable, because it involves knowledge which other animals do not have to face. In Genesis it talks of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This may be seen as a symbol for recognising our powerlessness. We cannot live well without this recognition, and yet we are tempted to reject this knowledge.
Class 5 (30th Sept / 1st Oct): Obsessive Power
Summary so far: Power is ‘freedom of action’ and is neutral. The desire for power is a reaction to anxiety. Leaders offer security by creating and maintaining groups. Groups have cultures, normally expressed in language which can easily be entangling, particularly when used to express ideologies. These may offer a sense of security, but limit our freedom of thought. If we want to live well we need to think beyond ideologies, experience our freedom, use our reasoning powers correctly and recognise the spiritual dimension.
Power disease: We have been adopting a neutral attitude towards power. Clearly we need power in life; that’s why we speak about empowerment in a positive way. But the commonly held negative attitude to power is understandable.
I want here to pose a question. Why does a billionaire seek further riches? S/he has within his/her grasp every pleasure imaginable, and can avoid almost every pain. What purpose can be served by further enrichment? We come back here to the idea I mentioned in the first class, that the drive for power becomes ultimately the search for immortality. For the one pain which overshadows all others is that of death. It is not just that we fear dying painfully, but also that by dying we lose all our power. No wonder some people believe they can control that ultimate reality. Religion is the most obvious ‘solution’ to this dilemma, but a search for ultimate power is another.
In choosing how to live, we could say that there is a continuum of possibilities on the scale of power.
· We can choose to surrender to our own vulnerability – abjectness or suicide.
· We can choose to act the victim and use this as power.
· We can choose to aim for a balance between empowerment and vulnerability.
· We can choose to refuse all acceptance of our vulnerability.
It seems to me that this last option is a kind of ‘power disease’ or to give it a name, ‘obsessive power’ (I called it ‘obsessional power’ in the programme). If you think about it, the person who is most prone to this kind of condition is the one who is most anxious, that is the person who cannot quell feelings of vulnerabily. So you have the curious phenomenon that the most powerful people are often also the most anxious.
Tools of the obsessively powerful: Those who seek social power must persuade their fellows to accept them as their leaders. Techniques used for this purpose may be:
· Emphasise their insecurity by talking about enemies without & within. Obviously exaggeration will help. But so will massaging the natural and inevitable insecurity which is inseparable from life itself.
· Emphasise your (the leader’s) capacity to overcome this insecurity. You may present yourself as superhuman – charismatic – in this respect.
· Aim for the positions in society which are most respected, and then insist on exaggerated respect for you.
· Cast your regime in a visionary light – part of a great movement of history which will empower your subjects, should they join you.
· Undermine anyone who might threaten your position with all the power that you already possess. This includes not only direct challenges to your power, but those who seek to undermine your legitimacy such as the media or those following another ideology. You must fight back with the same weapon.
· Promote sycophants, including those who have the ability to present your regime in the most glowing terms.
· Be unscrupulous. That is, do not allow compassion to get in the way of your goal, which is ominipotence. Wage war regardless of the human cost, so long as it serves your interests.
Have you been in positions of power? Do you recognise these tools? If you are now in a position of power, or have been in the past, think about what it is like to be powerful. Are/were you protective of your position? Do/did you use these tools? Are/were you happy to give up your position to someone else? Do/did you dream of becoming more powerful? Incidentally, if your first thought is that you have never been in a position of power, think again carefully. I believe even the most powerless person has his/her moments of glory – which I interpret as power.
Can leaders be free of this power disease? Yes, theoretically. In practise I suspect almost all leaders at times use the tools indicated above. And since we need leaders, perhaps it is as well that they do so. Machiavelli would have said so. The question is probably not whether leaders act obsessionally, but how often and to what degree, and how much does this behaviour endanger their subjects/employees etc.
Like power, leadership is neutral in itself: I suggest that just as social life is inconceivable without power relations, so it is also inconceivable without leadership. Of course there are those who maintain that this is not the case. Anarchists believe that hierarchy is avoidable, and many alternative communities are based on the idea that action can be entirely communal. I see little evidence that this is the case. So the question about leaders is not whether they are perfect, but whether they have tolerable imperfections. Their striving for power can be a force for good, and it is therefore reasonable to allow the powerful some degree of respect.
Controlling obsessive power: (a) The most effective control of obsessive power comes from the individual concerned. For it only requires him/her to see that absolute power is an illusion to discover the ‘power’ to give up seaching for it. This is a different kind of power, an inner strength which may do battle with the more superficial obsessive search for power. (b) Societies have always devised ways of controlling power. Parents are not free to do what they like with their children, rulers are always dependent, over the longer term, on the agreement of the people. What has made the control of power more difficult in modern times is the failure to recognise that financial power is usually greater than overt political power.
The present financial crisis: We are witnessing at the moment a gargantuan power struggle between free market ideology, politicians, financiers and the people. Free market ideology says unregulated markets are the only way to ensure prosperity, and this is the normal position of the rich and the middle class. Politicians can only remain in power so long as they deliver security – in this case financial security – to the people, and they are therefore intervening to protect ‘the system’. Financiers who would normally resist all regulation are now begging governments to intervene, though of course they want this to be done with a minimum of interference. The people say: ‘Hang on a moment. Why should be bail out the very people who got us into this mess?’ or ‘Ok, use my money if you judge it necessary, but I want a say in how it is used.’
* * * * *
Further Reflections on Campaigning for Palestine (2 July 2008)
I did not restand for the BHPSC committee at the AGM at the beginning of June 2008, though I remain a member of BHPSC itself. I will still receive the newsletter and other mailings, and will support BHPSC activities as far as I can consistent with pursuing my other interests. I believe PSC has a vital role to play both in reaching out to the undecided and as a resource on the Palestine issue. But I have also come to believe that changing grass roots public opinion is insufficient, in itself, to bring about substantial change on the ground. We need a change of culture, and this means that a vital part of the struggle must centre around ideas.
The issues which seem to me most pressing are as follows:
.
1. The development of a comprehensive existential theory of group psychology, language, identity and power.
2. The creation of an ethics of power.
3. An analysis of modern mainstream Jewish identity and its relation to Zionism, if, indeed, the two are separable.
4. The deconstruction (including history) of the concept of antisemitism.
5. The deconstruction of ‘Holocaust’ mythology.
6. Validation of the neutral concept of Jewish power (this should follow from 1 above).
7. An assessment, in terms of 2 above, of the current situation of Jewish power in relation to other forms of power.
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Put very briefly, I believe that the last would indicate an imbalance in favour of Jewish power in the contemporary world, and a consequent need for redress. This does not mean that Jews, as a collective, should not have power. It does mean that they - and this applies to any other collective - should not have specially privileged and protected power. Much of this (1,3,4 and 5 above) I was saying ten years ago. All these years I continued to hope that PSC would embrace the task of tackling these issues. Now at last I have come to realise that the very nature of PSC - a campaigning organisation which seeks to attract support from as wide a range of people as possible - makes this impossible. Opposition to the current policies of the Israeli government is PSC’s uncomplicated common denominator - and that’s fine for what PSC seeks to do. But the battle of ideas will have to take place elsewhere.
Reflections on Twelve Years of Campaigning for Palestine (29 May 2008)
Although I had joined the Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding (CAABU) in 1973 and Palestine Solidarity (PSC) in 1991 it was not until the national PSC AGM in 1996 that I became actively involved in campaigning for Palestinian rights. At that meeting I was elected onto the executive committee. My feeling that I must do something arose out of my awareness not only of the plight of the Palestinians (I had lived in the Middle East for ten years), but also of the extraordinarily powerful narrative deployed by Israel’s supporters.
In 1993 I started my doctoral studies at the University of Sussex on a psychoanalyst called Wilhelm Stekel. My supervisor, Prof Edward Timms, was at that time in the process of setting up a Centre for German Jewish studies at the university. Since Stekel was himself Jewish it was assumed that my research would come under the umbrella of this Centre. I soon became uncomfortably aware of the incompatibility between Palestinian interests and the kind of Jewish narratives which the Centre almost inevitably came to represent. In an appendix to my thesis (presented in 1999), which was never commented on either by my supervisor or my readers, I attempted to express the conflict which I had experienced:
‘The injustice which would be done to Stekel himself by limiting a study of him to his supposed “German-Jewish” background is relatively insignificant when compared with the wider danger of contributing to the cycle of atrocity [in Palestine] of which [Mark] Ellis [a Jewish theologian] speaks. For by lending support to the notion of “Semitism”, we buttress Zionist ideology and this leads on to the continuing Zionist-American oppression of the Palestinian people. The problem does not stop there, for in attempting to justify the unjustifiable, the West finds itself taking a quite distorted view of the whole Middle-Eastern region, which comes to be seen almost entirely through Israeli eyes. This can only be extremely dangerous for the future of all of us.’ [Clark-Lowes, F, ‘Wilhelm Stekel and the Early History of Psychoanalysis’, University of Sussex, 1999, p. 349].
PSC very nearly collapsed in 1998. The background to this, as I understand it, was that the executive of PSC had decided to take a wait-and-see attitude to the Oslo accords, with the result that many members - especially Jewish and Arab members - had resigned from the organisation, or at least had become inactive. As the extent of the deception of Oslo became ever more apparent, even those who had elected to stick with PSC lost heart. The result was that correspondence was not attended to, the rent for the office was not paid and many subscription cheques ran out of date before being paid in. At this point Jo Beech, who had been involved in helping Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, and John Hart, who as running a computer education project in Gaza, managed to get the key to the office and discovered the dire situation which had arisen. They did a valiant job putting PSC back on its feet, and the organisation owes them a debt of gratitude which I have not often heard expressed. At the time I was in the last stages of completing my doctoral dissertation and so my involvement was limited to being supportive, but at the next AGM I became Chair, with Jo as Treasurer and John Hart as Co-ordinator.
My two stints as Chair added up to two years in office over three years, ending in January 2001. I am proud that I played a part in resussitating PSC. I have to say, however, that I found much of this time depressing and demotivating. Already, all those years ago, I encountered the same unwillingness to discuss important elements of the Israel-Palestine conflict which I still confront today. When I raised what I consider to be serious issues which might well affect our tactics (e.g. the way in which the concept of ‘antisemitism’ is contructed to defy all criticism), I was met with the remark: ‘We’re a campaigning organisation, not an academic institution.’ When I returned from my second trip to Palestine, in the spring of 2000, a proposed talk about it at SOAS was vetoed on the grounds that I didn’t have ‘the right ideas’. Looking back, I wonder why I have spent another eight years of my life expecting PSC to change in this respect.
My last act as Chair was to play my part in getting Betty Hunter appointed as Secretary (later General Secretary) of PSC. She has done an amazing job bringing energetic people into the campaign and putting PSC back on the map. Of course the time was right with the outbreak of the second intifada in September 2000, and the use of massive Israeli fire power over the following years to crush all resistance. But this does not diminish her contribution. I felt that I had left PSC in good hands.
But I must backtrack here to talk about my involvement with the Brighton and Hove branch of PSC. When the old regime was still in situ at national PSC, the objective of setting up Palestine societies at universities was regarded as a priority. As I was still at Sussex at the time, I ran a stall at the freshers’ fair in 1997 and attempted to re-establish the society which had lapsed before the end of the previous academic year. We got some support, but insufficient to benefit from union funding. As someone who had originally been a student during the revolutionary sixties, I was shocked at the apathy and even antipathy and suspicion shown towards the Palestinian cause by a considerable number of students. I therefore started to hold meetings which were designed both for students and members of the public beyond the university; that is how Brighton and Hove PSC was re-established. I say re-established, because back in the very early days of national PSC (it was established in 1982) the term ‘Brighton branch’ was being used.
I was Chair for a number of years, Mike Shankland was our Secretary, followed by Zoe Mars who until then was our first Treasurer. Grace Blindell took over from Zoe as Treasurer, and well into her eighties she was to be seen walking up the aisle collecting fares on a coach to London! We did lots of good things - Palestinian party evenings, the stall, talks, discussions, demonstrations, marches and so on. One of our earliest visitors was Jo Beech - in the days before her rescue of national PSC. I was particularly keen to establish links with the Jewish community, but my approaches were met with silence. I did, however, take an active part in promoting films sympathetic to the Palestinian cause at Brighton Jewish Film Festival. While the director, Judy Ironside, was open to my suggestions, and included a couple of ‘controversial’ films, the reaction of the local Jewish community, judging from those attending ‘The Jahalin’ (directed by the Israeli Talya Ezrahi, who was present), was hysterical.
But still the kind of discussion which I felt these experiences should have led to didn’t happen. Everyone seemed so scared that we might be branded as antisemitic, and that this would be a disaster. But there was one person who did not think this way. I had met Paul Eisen, the UK Director of Deir Yassin Remembered, in the late nineties. His attitude to his own Jewish roots and his confronting of much wider issues such as ‘the Holocaust’, questioning the shibboleths about the Nazi period in Germany, looking again at Jewish history and the hatred of Jews, and embracing the concept of Jewish power - all of these gave me permission, as it were, to explore these areas for myself. Having been married to a Viennese woman for seventeen years, the re-evaluation of recent German history was a subject close to my heart.
Paul has become a good friend. I trust his integrity, and I am strongly opposed to the kind of vilification which certain self-appointed guardians of correct thinking feel it their role to heap upon him and upon his friends such as Gilad Atzmon and Israel Shamir. The power behind such attacks is drawn from the very same source that oppresses the Palestinians. Sadly even anti-Zionists, and particulary anti-Zionist Jews, tap into this source when it suits them, without acknowleding that it exists.
I recently found a paper I wrote in 2002 (see below) which summarised my thinking at that time about the Palestine solidarity movement. Shortly after I wrote it I showed it to Ghada Karmi (Palestinian author of ‘In Search of Fatima’ and ‘Married to Another Man’) and she liked it so much that she convened a short-lived discussion group, other participants being Elfi Pallis (Journalist and author), John Rose (author of ‘The Myths of Zionism’), Tim Llewellyn (ex BBC Middle East correspondent) and Mortaza Sahibzada (who set up www.onestate.org and who was one of the cast in ‘Jeremy Hardy Versus the Israeli Army’ the following year). It is not entirely clear why the group broke up, but two factors were probably (a) that I was at that time very preoccupied with looking after my ailing mother, and (b) that I was ill, and therefore not entirely on the ball, at our last meeting. In retrospect, however, I wonder whether misgivings about my views on Jewish identity, which were an essential element in the discussions, also played a decisive part.
Reading through my paper I am struck by the degree to which it still represents my position. What has changed since? I have become much more aware of the opposition among anti-Zionists, and particularly among anti-Zionist Jews and the ideological left, to any discussion of Jewish identity. I have tried to get the subject onto the agenda of the local Palestine solidarity movement but have been strongly opposed in this. At a debate convened by Brighton & Hove PSC in January 2007, for example, the matter was thrashed out in some depth but in the absence of a clear majority for my position, there was no change in our approach to campaigning. Perhaps it was naive of me to have thought that such a change could happen at the local level without there first being a radical change of thinking at national level.
In 2002 I was still flirting with the far left - I was, for example, a member of the Alliance Party for one year around that time. I have now become convinced that the attempt to see the world entirely in terms of economic power relations is a great mistake. Certainly economic power is extremely important, and often it is predominant, but there are other forms of power. A recent Al-Jazeera documentary called Balfour to Blair (see http://tinyurl.com/4jrpsh) makes it clear that Christian sympathy with Zionism has been a potent factor in the success of the Zionist enterprise. It seems reasonable, therefore, to speak of Christian power in this context, even if many individual Christians did not agree with the policies of, say, Arthur Balfour, Lloyd George, Mark Sykes or, more recently, Tony Blair. Equally, when talking about the pressure exerted by Jews in favour of the Zionist enterprise, and more widely in favour of a particular way of seeing the world and their position in it, it seems to me perfectly reasonable to talk of Jewish power, even if many Jews do not accept the policies this pressure is designed to promote. The fact that I am considered an antisemite for saying this is an indication of the problem we face. We are, in effect, being told that free speech is all very well, but this kind of free speech is forbidden.
Perhaps I should make it clear what I mean by saying that there is a need to talk about Jewish identity. I see Zionism as the product of a national view of Jewish identity. At a time (the nineteenth century) when Jewish identity was in decline through emancipation, assimilation, intermarriage and loss of religious faith, emphasising the ancient idea of ‘the Jewish people’ and conflating that with the German conception of the nation and nationalism offered the hope of cultural survival. That in itself need not have been problematical, but the way in which Zionists achieved their objectives, against all the norms of international behaviour, by presenting Jews as victims rather than oppressors, and their opponents as antisemites, has, in my view made it necessary to deconstruct the whole ideological apparatus of Zionism. And central to this is a particular conception of Jewish identity. Of course, any questioning of this or other Jewish narratives is likely to be regarded as ‘antisemitic’, and since ‘antisemitism’ is perceived as an unanalysable disease of gentiles, and now even of some Jews, the debate is supposed to end here. It takes a lot of courage to argue on.
I will shortly be standing down from the committee of the local branch of Palestine Solidarity Campaign. This marks a further stage in my withdrawal from active involvement in PSC, but not the end. I will remain a member, and will support local and national PSC events from time to time. Raising consciousness of the issues in the old time-honoured ways, will hopefully, over time, have a drip-drip effect on politicians and their policies. It will not alone be decisive, however. There is here a parallel with the effect of the anti-apartheid movement where the campaign prepared the ground for the time when the Soviet Union collapsed and F.W. de Klerk saw a window of oppportunity to wipe the apartheid system off the map. The increasing pariah status of South Africa was a motive for change, but so long as the Soviet Union existed and the cold war continued, an insufficiently powerful one.
But in the case of Israel-Palestine the geopolitical shift in power which is required is not simply the decline of US power. I believe Zionism could survive this. It is the decline to Jewish power to a reasonable level. Every group needs power - indeed the raison d’etre of a group is that it can exercise power. The problem with Jewish power at present is that it has made itself immune from criticism and control by using the accusation of antisemitism to crush anyone who attempts to criticise it or control it.
I ask myself a simple question: ‘Do I believe a resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict is possible without radical change in the way Jewishness is understood and privileged?’ I answer with a definitive no. The brilliant Zionist narrative, and its supporting Jewish narratives about Jewish identity, Jewish history and antisemitism, if unchallenged, will continue to provide a cast-iron case for Israeli behaviour. That is why Jewish power needs to be challenged.
Palesine Solidarity Campaign largely draws its support from people on the left who are unaccustomed to think in terms of what might be called cultural power. They may recognise that at the personal level there are issues of power between individuals - between husbands and wives, children and adults, students and teachers, for example. But when it comes to larger groupings, they tend to be unimaginative in their analysis. On the one hand they recognise direct political power, wielded by governments - without necessarily asking where this power derives from. On the other hand they recognise the power of money, i.e. of the rich. The kind of leftish rhetoric which dominates PSC seems to preclude the possibility that other large groupings, such as Christians, Muslims and Jews, might also exercise considerable power. Combine this with an almost pathological fear of being accused of antisemitism, and you have a blanket embargo on discussion of Jewish power. The argument is put forward: ‘If you go down this road you are doing exactly what the Zionists want.’ I disagree. Once they realise that you are serious and will not bow to pressure it will be the last thing they want. They will see that their game has been rumbled.
Let me do one last thing before going on to my 2002 paper. Suppose I were sitting face to face with an ordinary Jew, who has accepted what s/he has been told over the years, saying what I have written here. It is, of course, easier to write such ideas because there is no interruption. We can imagine that this Jew would not sit quietly listening to what I have to said; s/he would have a great deal to protest about. I won’t rehearse the arguments because if you’ve read this far you will certainly know them. The question is, what would I say in reply. I don’t dislike this person - s/he is quite likely a friend of mine. I don’t like hurting people’s feelings. The temptation to moderate what I am saying is strong.
In the same appendix to my thesis (p. 346) I imagined a British Mr Brown meeting a German Nazi Herr Braun in the 1930s and challenging his ideas. In the end he caves in to Herr Braun’s arguments because he likes the man himself and is insufficiently clear about his own position. I don’t intend to cave in now like Mr Brown. I want to say: ‘What is being done in your name as a Jew, and what you are trying to protect by protesting, is not only monstrously inhumane; it is also a very grave risk to world peace and therefore to the future of all of us. None of this would be possible if it were not backed up with a narrative which persuades most Jews, and indeed most Westerners, that your survival can only be ensured (a) by the existence of the exclusivist state of Israel, and (b) by a ruthless control of discussion of anything remotely related to Jews, unless it is couched in positive terms. I understand that you will find what I have said very hard to accept, but I hope that after you have pondered the matter you will recognise its truth and make it clear that you are not a fellow traveller. If enough Jews did this, the whole enterprise would collapse.’
So, here follows my 2002 paper:
Campaigning for Palestine Post-Jenin: A Personal View
by Francis Clark-Lowes (29th April 2002)
Introduction
The recent invasion of West Bank towns by the Israeli army, and the wanton killing and destruction by which it was accompanied, make nonsense of any idea that the Israeli government intends eventually to hand over power in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem to an independent Palestinian administration. The intention was not merely to ‘root out nests of terrorism’ but to discredit and destroy the civil adminstration which was gradually being established by the Palestine Authority. Indeed the terrorist attacks which provided the rationale for the invasions appear to have been deliberately and cynically provoked by targeted assassinations of Palestinian leaders.
Even if one takes the view that the PA was responsible for the suicide bombings and was therefore morally culpable (positions I do not share), an alternative Palestinian adminstration would have needed the infrastructure which has now been destroyed. Many of us in the Palestine solidarity movement have long recognised Israel’s determination that there should be no credible Palestinian adminstration. What has changed is the blatant evidence of the last month that such is indeed their policy. This should immeasurably strengthen our campaign for robust intervention from outside to produce a just resolution of the conflict.
Yet despite all the evidence of Israeli bad faith, Western leaders have proved spectacularly unwilling to rein in their rogue progeny. They continue to champion the two-state solution knowing perfectly well that no Israeli government is remotely willing to hand over real sovereignty. Their refusal to put all but the mildest pressure on Israel suggests at best naivity, at worst collusion. If ever there was a case of the tail wagging the dog, this is it. A review of the history of Zionism indicates that it was ever thus – Zionists have all along outwitted world leaders to get what they wanted. In the present situation that means the West Bank and Gaza Strip. They already have East Jerusalem (and a big chunk of adjoining West Bank as well).
If someone can tell me how a viable Palestinian state alongside Israel is now going to come about, I would like to hear it. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I would be interested to hear it. For the realisation that the two-state solution is dead has for me been like the lifting of a cloud. The one consoling thought that recurred in my mind during the Israeli actions of the last month was: ‘Now at last we can start to think about a real resolution. Israel has played into our hands.’ I know most disagree. They see the only course as a return to the negotiating table, perhaps on the basis of the Taba 2 talks, and the hammering out of a compromise which will allow limited Palestinian sovereignty (no one was ever talking about full sovereignty, that is with armed forces). But is it really credible (a) that the US will bring real pressure to bear on Israel and (b) that Israel will make an acceptable offer?
The mistake we have made in the Palestine solidarity movement has been to fail to meet Israeli ruthlessness with a rhetoric which is equally strident in the opposite direction. Most people, and this is especially true of politicians, have neither the inclination nor the time and energy to think through their position on issues such as the Israel-Palestine conflict. Not wishing to appear ignorant, however, they seek the apparent middle ground between what they perceive as the credible polarities of view. In the Israel-Palestine case they see on the one hand an unapologetic democratic fascism which believes that might is right, that Arabs are scum, and that the West Bank and Gaza belong to Israel. On the other hand they see a relatively weak movement composed of liberals who assert the human rights of Palestinians while apologising for their undemocratic methods, their scruffy and devious leader, their unwillingness to love Israelis and the Israeli state, and especially their suicide bombers. Where does this leave the discourse’s centre of gravity? Probably about where UK policy in this area now positions itself: Israel is our friend, but it really should improve its table manners.
I will argue in this paper that the Israel-Palestine conflict has passed a point of no return. The two-state idea, if it ever had any credibility, is now a dead duck. We therefore need a radical shift in our campaigning position. Learning from the success of the anti-apartheid movement, we need to become an anti-Zionist campaign. My thesis will be that only by destroying Zionism, which means challenging the concept of Jewish identity on which it is built, will a just resolution become possible. The question of what kind of political arrangements will follow is not my concern here, but the options which might be considered are the old PLO position of a secular democratic state, a bi-national state, that is one state with two nationalities, and some kind of regional federation.
It will certainly be said that I have no right sticking my nose into other people’s business. I am not from a Jewish background and therefore have no authority to pontificate on Jewish identity. I am not a Palestinian and should not therefore presume to think out their position for them. I engage in this debate with four thoughts in mind. Firstly I am a human being who, like all others, faces the enigma of identity. Secondly as an outsider I may be able to see things that the insider misses. This has been my experience working as a counsellor. Thirdly the Israel-Palestine conflict is located along the fault-line which divides The West and what we could call The Rest and if it spirals out of control it is likely to embroil us all. And fourthly as a Westerner, and therefore as a member of the mega-culture with arguably the greatest leverage in this conflict, I believe I have something to say about changing perceptions in the West.
It may also be said that the kind of solution which I am proposing is wildly unrealistic. It is, in terms of present reality. So what I am proposing is that we change that reality, that is we change the parameters of the debate. It has been said of another wildly unrealistic project called Zionism that it was a dream which became a reality in the creation of the state of Israel. We need to have an equally powerful, but infinitely more beautiful, vision. And like Theodor Herzl, we must have absolute confidence that it can become a reality.
Arguments for the two-state solution
As I have said, I do not believe the two-state solution is any longer a runner. But in case I am wrong, let us now take a critical look at the pragmatic arguments advanced in its favour.
Firstly it is maintained that Jewish-Israelis and Palestinians will never accept integration. There is therefore a choice between separation and military conquest by one side. Separation is the more humane of these possibilities.
But is the premise true? In reality there are many instances in world history of integration between peoples who appeared to be totally irreconcilable before the resolution of a conflict. Perhaps the most relevant, though still fragile, example is South Africa. England following the Civil War is another. It should never be forgotten that a substantial part of the Jewish population (a half?) came from Arab-speaking backgrounds, where they were relatively well integrated with the Muslim and Christian societies around them. Though most of these now speak Hebrew (a close Semitic relation of Arabic), they retain strong elements of their Arabic culture and have recently begun to celebrate these openly (especially music).
It would be interesting to do a world-wide survey of conflict resolution and consider whether imposed partitions have proved effective. India-Pakistan, Ireland and Lebanon, not to mention Israel-Palestine, suggest that this solution creates more problems than it solves.
Secondly it is argued that although far from perfect, the two-state solution offers a way forward which could later be developed into something more just – for example a federation or an economic union. Many anti-Zionists take this position because they believe a direct confrontation with Zionism would prove ineffective. Let Zionism wither away as demographic and economic reality seeps in. This was until quite recently my own view.
For reasons which I will explore in more detail below, however, I have come to the conclusion that not attacking Zionism now simply stores up trouble for the future. The imbalance of power between Israel and a Palestinian state would ensure that ‘further developments’ would always be to Israel’s advantage and to Palestine’s disadvantage. In the context of the essentially racist nature of Zionism, I cannot conceive that a two-state resolution would be a win-win situation.
Thirdly, it is pointed out that Israel has the military power to do what it likes. In these circumstances the Palestinians should take what they can get and be thankful for small mercies.
Even if we wanted them to do so, the Palestinians themselves show no inclination to capitulate in this way. Despite their military weakness, they are in a much stronger moral position now than they would be after signing an unjust treaty which was essentially an endorsement of Zionism. Military power is not the only form of power. Recent developments have greatly strengthened their hand. It is often asserted that morality has nothing to do with realpolitik. The reality is, however, that moral arguments have usually played a strong part in diplomacy. Israel has been a champion at this game. I believe its self-justifications are false, but there is no question that they are cast in moral terms. If the Palestinians could mobilise effectively in the West against the Zionist arguments their position would be transformed, but this means taking the gloves off and fighting Zionism itself. Israel’s survival depends on Western approval; if it loses that, the world would be rid of a dangerous scourge.
Fourthly great credence is given, even among many who are on the Palestinian side, to the Zionist argument that Jewish identity needs protecting in the form of a relatively exclusive nation state.
We should stand up and expose this for the nonsense which it is. Exclusive identity is an illusion, and even if it were not, is it not paradoxical to maintain that you are protecting Jewish identity by creating a state which overrides the rights of millions of others? What this does in reality is to create a new siege identity, Israeliness, which is characterised, among other things, by chauvinism, sentimentality, toughness, rudeness, racism, paranoia, single-mindedness, efficiency and militarism. Is this what the early Zionists had in mind?
Fifthly it is argued that creating a Palestinian state will divert Palestinian aggression into state building.
This is, of course, an essentially racist argument. There is no question that Palestinians are angry, but with good reason, not simply because it is in their genes or their religion. And in any case, it seems to me that the frustrations of attempting, against the odds, to create a viable state are more likely to have the opposite effect in the long run. But if others still assert the essentially aggressive nature of Palestinians, perhaps we should go looking for Donald Rumsfeld’s Palestinian ancestors. After all Madeleine Albright’s love of peace no doubt derived from the Jewish ancestry she was so delighted to discover.
Plan b, not Plan D
If I am right that there is now no prospect of a viable Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, then we urgently need a new plan. But even if I am wrong, surely we at least need a ‘plan b,’ a fall-back position which will show Israel that the struggle will continue if it decides to annex the West Bank and Gaza – indeed that it will widen the conflict to the whole of mandate Palestine, including Israel’s own one million Palestinian citizens.
The phrase ‘plan b’ recalls the infamous Plan D which was among other things the blueprint for the ethnic cleansing of 1948. Let us then be quite clear about the difference between our plan and that of the Zionists at that time. There are certainly those who wish to eliminate the Jewish population living at present in Israel-Palestine. We are NOT with them. We will take the view that the ordinary Jewish population of Israel-Palestine are in large measure as much victims, albeit more comfortable ones, as the Palestinians. They have been led into an explosive situation by means of a misguided idelology, propounded and maintained by a relatively small Zionist élite. Any attempt to return to the status quo ante would involve further injustice on a massive scale. We are against this, but we are also against any arrangement which privileges Jews over non-Jews.
Once we have seriously considered ‘plan b’ I guess we will realise that we should have been following it (like a brave and consistent few) from the beginning. The following discussion will indicate why.
Further discussion of the defects of the two-state solution
A two-state solution would be very unlikely to put a stop to Zionist political and economic expansionism. This is because (a) Zionists fear, with justification, those they have wronged, (b) Israel has the military strength to enforce its will, (c) Israel needs to attract attention away from the abuse of the rights of its own Palestinian citizens, and (d) the paranoid obsession to protect a pure and exclusive Jewish identity would determine a policy of extending power and control outwards from the centre.
Economic non-viability and Israeli and the US interference would ensure that Palestinian independence was negligible. Mossad and the CIA would be covertly, perhaps even overtly, involved in guaranteeing subservience to Israeli and US interests. Perhaps the EU would also be involved in ensuring economic dependency. Palestinian bargaining power in such a situation would be virtually nil unless backed up with the threat of violence. This is why any treaty to set up a Palestinian state would insist that it was demilitarised, thus denying the Palestinians the opportunity of exercising even a minimal degree of deterrence against Israeli ‘incursions.’ The emphasis of a state-making treaty would all be the other way around – of deterring Palestinian attacks against Israel. In the case of a crisis the Palestinian state would no doubt begin by appealing to the international community. If, as is likely, this proved ineffective, the threat of guerilla action would be Palestine’s only weapon and we would be back to square one.
The position of the Palestinian Israelis would become extremely insecure if the two-state solution were adopted. It would be maintained by the Israelis that their home was the Palestinian state, and the moment that they started to complain about discrimination they would be told they had a simple choice. Shut up or leave. If they then resorted to more forceful means of protest they would likely be deported, at first in ones and twos, eventually in large numbers, to the Palestinian state. Perhaps it will be maintained that the security of the non-Jewish population of Israel could be guaranteed by treaty. Anyone who knows anything about Israel’s attitude (indeed the West’s attitude) to international law would recognise the hollowness of such a guarantee.
The two-state solution would put the stamp of approval on what is essentially an apartheid solution, both internally and externally. Any intervention by the Palestinian state on behalf of non-Jews in Israel would be regarded as unwarranted interference in its internal affairs – and therefore as a potential cassus belli. With its huge military supremacy Israel would have little difficulty (though it would of course portray it as quite the opposite) in overrunning the Palestinian state.
In the light of the present demography of Israel-Palestine, only drastic demographic engineering, for example further mass Russian immigration, could in the longer term ensure a continuing Jewish majority in Israel itself. This would further aggravate the position of Palestinian Israelis and would send them a very clear message (as does the refusal to allow the return of the refugees): ‘You are not wanted.’ The two-state solution would also make an equitable solution of the refugee problem impossible. Instead of returning to the part of Palestine from which they came, the refugees would be told that they had to go to the already crowded West Bank and Gaza Strip. As Salman Abu Sitta has clearly shown, there is plenty of space for the refugees in what is now Israel.
Endorsing the exclusivism which is the essential charateristic of Zionism is an endorsement of such policies everywhere in the world. We can expect it to lead to further gains on the far right as others make the same case as Israel does. The search for an exclusive identity expressed through an exclusive national state must be recognised for the evil that it is (it was, after all, the essential characteristic of Nazism) and must be opposed with all our resources.
I do not believe that Palestinians, as a whole, will ever accept the injustice of a two-state solution. In this Israeli fears are justified. The best that could be hoped for would be that they would see it as a stepping stone to a really just solution. The two-state solution would not, therefore, end the conflict.
Campaigning against Zionism
Zionism, as incorporated in Israel, cannot at present be defeated militarily. At best it can be weakened by guerilla actions and forced into a caricature of itself. Israel probably has the power to pacify the whole of Palestine to an acceptable level, that is a level where the security of the state is not threatened, but where ordinary Israelis are kept loyal by their perception of danger from without. It is, as I have argued, in the interests of Israeli governments to keep the pot gently simmering for anxiety is an essential ingredient in the Zionist broth. Palestinians should bear this in mind when considering acts of violent resistance.
The real liberation battle must be fought in people’s minds. We are involved in a struggle against a propaganda machine which is infinitely superior to that run by Goebbels and which operates world-wide. We must fight the idea of Zionism root and branch. This will mean deconstructing a series of interlinked narratives (listed below), at the heart of which is so-called ‘anti-Semitism.’ It is the fear of being accused of ‘anti-Semitism’ (or of Jewish self-hatred if you are Jewish) which deters even those who would otherwise have thought profoundly about the issues of the Israel-Palestine conflict. In order to overcome this obstacle we will need, as I have said, to deconstruct its narrative, and this will mean having the courage to risk alienation from friends and colleagues, perhaps even material disadvantage.
We should make it quite clear (though we need not repeat it ad nauseam, thereby suggesting that we have a guilty conscience) that we have no quarrel with the Jewish religion (or at any rate no more quarrel than with any other religion) or with people from a Jewish background per se. We will point out that there are many anti-Zionist Jews. But we will assert the right to discuss the Zionist notion of Jewish identity and to challenge the conclusions drawn from it. We will also need to review the prohibition on discussing conspiracy theories which might involve Jews. Of course the Protocols of the Elders of Zion were nonsense, but it is not irrational or anti-Jewish to talk about the way in which Zionism has mobilised world-wide to obtain its objectives. Indeed it is very necessary. In other words, we must stop allowing Zionists to set the boundaries of our discussion.
Deconstructing the narratives of Zionism
Language plays an absolutely crucial part in the success of Zionism. Its interlocking narratives use words and phrases, many of which are never challenged, but which seriously distort discussion of the issues involved. We therefore need to deconstruct the language of Zionism. The phrase anti-Semitism, for example, carries with it the whole narrative about a pure ‘Semitic’ Jewish race (or ethnic group as we prefer to say since Hitler). It also ignores the reality that Arabs are Semites. Or take another example. It is generally accepted that the Israel-Palestine conflict is one between Jews and Arabs, or between Israelis and Palestinians. It is hardly ever pointed out that half of the Jews of Israel come from Arab backgrounds, or that one million Israelis are Palestinians. This last truth is disguised by calling the Israeli Palestinians Israeli Arabs or Arab Israelis. Indeed Israel has an altogether curious idea about who the Palestinians are, or rather about who they are not. Whereas all Jews are Jews, whatever their background, Palestinians are not Israeli Arabs, they are not Christians, they are not Druze, they are not bedouin, they are not people of non-Arab descent (e.g. Armenians) and above all they are not Jews. ‘There, that’s nice, we’ve got them down to manageable proportions. That leaves us free to demonise the ones we really don’t like!’ Israel has also been remarkably successful in getting less critical parts of the media to refer to the occupied territories as if they were part of the Jewish state.
1. Jewish history before 1933. The Zionist version of Jewish history goes something like this. The Jews are a gifted and peace-loving people who were thrown out of their country by the Romans and then moved all over the world. They established themselves in Jewish communities where there was little or no mixing with gentiles. Conversion of gentiles was rare. Jews, wherever they lived, experienced waves of anti-Semitism, a phenomenon which is unanalysable, that it to say it is inexplicable in terms of motivation.
All aspects of this narrative need to be unwrapped and shown up for the travesty that they are.
2. The Holocaust and Israel’s fight for survival. Written with a capital ‘h,’ the Holocaust is defined as the murder of six million Jews by the Nazis. This massacre was the culmination of the gentile disease of anti-Semitism. The establishment of the state of Israel was its natural outcome and the short history of this benevolent state has been a further campaign against mindless and genocidal anti-Semitism.
While no one denies that many other civilians (countless millions of non-Jewish Russians, two-and-a-half million Roma etc.) were the victims of Nazi atrocities, the figure of six million Jews is firmly fixed in Western consciousness. Apparently the others do not count; they certainly do not help the Zionist case. The assertion that the Israel-Palestine conflict results from anti-Jewish prejudice needs ongoing vigorous contradiction.
3. Nationalism. Arising out of the German romantic movement of the 18th & 19th centuries, nationalism was based on the idea that the peoples of the world could be neatly divided up into nations, and that these nations required real estate for the full flowering of their own unique identities. Nationalism implied exclusion, since non-nationals clearly had no place in a nation-state which was not their own. Hence the idea of transfer – Jewish Arabs in, non-Jewish Arabs out – which dominated Zionist thinking, and which crystallised into a firm policy around 1938.
The essentially nationalist, chauvinist and xenophobic nature of Israel, and its incompatibility with the progressive notion of multiculturalism has been far too little exposed.
4. Orientalism, Islamophobia and imperialism. To justify its policies towards the non-Jewish population of Israel-Palestine, Israel has resorted to ever greater demonisation of Orientals and Muslims. They think differently from us, they are violent, they send their children to be killed, their religion is cruel. The West is, on the whole, well-disposed to believe this demonisation since it is itself involved on a global scale in a power struggle where it also wishes to ignore the real injustice of its policies. In other words there is, as we all know, a strong link between US imperialism and Zionism. To attack one, we will need to attack the other. They are inseparable.
We need to stop apologising
As I indicated at the beginning of this paper, we weaken our position by being apologetic. I am not saying that we should stop criticising Arafat and the PA. What I am saying is that we should not allow ourselves, when engaged in debate with the other side, to be pushed onto the defensive. Indeed it should be our aim to push them on the defensive, though Zionists are much more skilled than we are at avoiding this. Our problem is our liberal conscience, their advantage is their absolute faith in Zionism. Curious though it may seem, I believe we must emulate them. Whatever doubts we may have about Arafat, it will weaken our position to make such remarks as: ‘Of course, I would prefer another leader.’ And when it comes to the burning issue of suicide bombers, we should avoid the tendency, Robert Fisklike, to rush into condemnation. I believe we should remember the words of Bertrand Russell on the anti-apartheid movement.
It is presumptuous of those of us not faced with conditions such as those which obtain in South Africa to determine the form of the struggle. I believe our efforts in Britain should be concentrated on making known the nature of the regime and on mobilising public opinion so that the British Government can be indueced to apply pressure. I do not believe anti-apartheid organisations should dissociate themselves from nationalalist movements advocating violence.
Suicide bombings are terrible. They are understandable. Unless we are pacifists we are not in a position to make judgements about them. Doing so weakens our position.
An effective anti-Zionist movement needs a psychological understanding of power
I want here to summarise very briefly ideas which I have been formulating over the past few years. I believe that they provide a firm basis for the understanding of power in general, and the abuse of power by the Zionist movement in particular. In certain respects these ideas resemble Marxism, but whereas Marx approached the question of power from a sociological-economic point of view, I do so from a philosophical-psychological angle.
The world can be divided into leaders and the led. Leaders seek the illusion of absolute power, the led seek the illusion of absolute security. Both do this in order to assuage the sense of existential anxiety which is part of the human condition. In other words, the problem arises because humans know too much about the reality of their existence for their own comfort.
Leaders are usually also part of the led, that is there is a hierarchy of power. Leaders gain power by promising to protect the led against dangers, hence the need to demonise others. They have an interest in exaggerating the ‘others’ villainy and extolling the virtues of the group culture, however that group is defined. Subjects are encouraged to develop a sense of group identity which overrides all other affiliations. I strongly believe that world peace depends on understaning and trying to avoid such irrational behaviour, or at least on ameliorating its effects.
In the context of the Israel-Palestine conflict the degree of illusion on the Israeli-Jewish side, based as it is on a notion of Jewish identity which is far-fetched, is particularly pronounced. Palestinians may love their cultural heritage, but there is nothing like the exclusive nationalism among them which is the hallmark of Zionism. Pan-Islamism, on the other hand, is not dissimilar to Zionism, and we need to face this growing danger firmly and sensibly. The power-dynamics of today, however, make Zionism much the more pressing danger. Indeed it is Zionism and other Western form of imperialism which are stoking the fires of pan-Islamism. There is a need to try to carry the debate into Israel itself. Our Jewish supporters there often complain that they feel unsupported by those outside Israel. It is time for us to listen to their plea.
Changing perceptions is never easy, and it can appear hopeless. People seem stuck in entrenched positions. If, however, a different view of the world which offers a more hopeful future can be put on the agenda, I would be surprised if it did not eventually win a majority of converts. We need to move the boundaries of the debate which were fixed by those who wanted to maintain the status quo. We need to hold up a vision of a world in which people from different cultures live together in peace and harmony, a world where pure identities are no longer regarded as obtainable or desirable, a world in which the culture of the other is exciting and not a threat, a world in which we have learnt to live with, and even cherish, a degree of unavoidable anxiety, that is a world which aspires to live without illusion.
End of 2002 article.
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