As much as I try to avoid rancorous disputes on social media, not long ago I took exception to an Indian socialist group posting an article by Slavoj Zizek who on several occasions has expressed Islamophobic & xenophobic opposition to refugees in Europe. The admins of the page said his insights as a ‘dialectical logician & philosopher’ were invaluable to them & despite his hatred for refugees, they gave him ‘conditional support’, a term they were unable to define. One fellow called me a white liberal for criticizIng Zizek & actually defended the xenophobia. He said small European nations steeped in old European customs are very homogeneous & that an influx of refugees would be catastrophic & play into the politics of the far right.
Well we certainly wouldn’t want to interrupt old European folk dances or beer festivals, but there are hundreds of thousands of refugees who need asylum & their needs & rights come first. Any ‘dialectical logician’ who can talk his ass around the human rights of refugees is a bullshit artist, not a figure of theoretical respect. Don’t give me that white liberal crap because if you are defending white supremacy in Europe, you are in collusion with the far right.
Now another socialist tells me my objection to lesser evil politics, to voting for candidates like Sanders is because I’m a white person who can’t understand the impact of US elections on non-white people. This is the same fellow I unfriended for ridiculing the Women’s March of millions of women on every continent by calling it a ‘pussy parade’. I don’t know if this fellow has ever marched against India’s occupation of Kashmir but I have been organizing antiwar actions against US wars for nearly 54 years. In that time, the commanders-in-chief were both Democrats & Republicans. There was never a modicum of difference in the military policies pursued by the twin parties of US capitalism. How could a socialist so misunderstand the relationship of militarism & war to capitalism that he believes Bernie Sanders can make a difference? How can he campaign for a candidate who, like Zizek, opposes asylum for refugees & also supports Israel?
Racism & white supremacy are pernicious & prominent influences in world politics. To mock the problem by white-baiting people who disagree with you over dialectics or elections is theoretical bankruptcy, a willingness to cow people when you cannot cogently answer them. White-baiting is a common Stalinist ploy & quite frankly it’s pathetic. But mostly it demeans the urgent struggle against white supremacy which includes standing with refugees. If you don’t stand with refugees over those damn clog dances, you may be a redneck.