On "anti-Americanism"
Good short animation on the charges of anti-Americanism and anti-semitism often levelled at critics of government policies. Go here and click "watch this movie".
Sunday, August 27, 2006
About Me
- Name: David Wearing
- Location: London, United Kingdom
I'm studying for an MSc in International Public Policy at University College London. Since February 2005 I've been writing about national and international politics here at the Democrat's Diary. My articles have also been published by Le Monde Diplomatique, ZNet in the US, and ZNet's British arm UK Watch. See the 'about' section for more.
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- Iraq and "the lowered expectation of President Bus...
- The War on Terror in pictures
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- When is a ceasefire not a ceasefire?
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5 Comments:
the link with totalitarianism seems pretty incidental to me.
a key point of democracy is that the people are responsible for their government's actions.
as supposed democracies, it is natural that the governing bodies of these states would 'equate' themselves with 'their people'. (the deviation of reality from the idea of these structures as democracies is another matter entirely...)
there's a better maxim that fits this situation much better.
'hate the sin not the sinner.'
now i can even disagree with the jews, and not be anti-semitic. And I can even love them at the same time. Bingo. Simple.
it sounds more holier-than-thou than your disassociation of governing-body from nation-of-people: but at the end of the day these problems are human problems, and merely dodging the issue and saying, 'it's not you I don't like it's your government' is ignoring the large groups who do identify themselves with their government, and ignoring the idea that true diplomacy lies in dealing with people, not avoiding dealing with them.
ps, am enjoying following your column. very interesting. Cheers to Gemma :)
Crispin - thanks for your comments. Glad you're enjoying the site.
I think what you say about hating the sin but loving the sinner is rather the point. Criticising the policies of the government of Israel doesn't mean you hate all Israelis, much less all jews; criticising what policies the White House pursues doesn't mean you're anti-american i.e. reflexively against things simply because they're american; and criticising the policies of 10 Downing Street doesn't mean you hate yourself. This is the point that's being made.
I entirely agree with your point that we should hold a population responsible for a democratically elected government's actions - including those who voted against the ruling party or didn't vote at all. You'll see that theme coming up frequently in my writing. So in that sense of course you equate the choices of a state with the choices of the electorate. But what you don't do is equate objective critcism of the actions of the state with irrational, racist hatred of the very essence of the people and the culture.
indeed!
The problem is that none of us live in democracies - at best we live in partial democracies. So in Britain most people were against the Iraq war, and yet here we are. Our government is largely unaccountable and fairly contemptuous of democracy (e.g. the changes that they have made to local democracy such that it is almost impossible to find anything about the decision making processes in your local council).
Israel is not particularly democratic and is a country where the military is very powerful, but on the other hand most Israelis seem to hold very racist views towards Arabs/Palestinians (so most "peaceniks" reasons for wanting peace seem to be largely selfish). Where do you draw the line, who do you hold accountable?
in a rush so will have to make this quick. Cian - although I don't think saying Britain is or is not democratic is nuanced enough to cover it, I basically agree with your view of British democracy. See the about section. I go into more detail there. What I do think is that, however compromised our democracy is, we still have a large degree of political freedom and ability to affect how the government behaves. The very fact that we have those freedoms in the first place proves that - think how they were won. So in the end we still share responsibility for British foreign policy, and our political choices should be made on that basis
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