tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6844367946876032905.post4645080578947363460..comments2023-10-03T23:58:17.279+11:00Comments on Middle East Reality Check: He Just Doesn't Get ItMERChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14500573372528287733noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6844367946876032905.post-50015562442976785262009-09-20T17:43:52.301+10:002009-09-20T17:43:52.301+10:00yes, re the abu-nimah interview. when adams pointe...yes, re the abu-nimah interview. when adams pointed out that a one state solution would be unacceptable to jewish israeli's because they would then be a minority, and that therefore there was a legitimate concern about there being 'too many' palestinians, abu-nimah shot back with: what if people were to say there is a problem of there being too many jews in australia? what we call it? adams then quickly backtracked. the point is not that he backtracked on this ocassion. the point is that UNLESS he is challenged with the obvious analogy, he DOESN'T backtrack.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6844367946876032905.post-34864106971649993782009-09-20T15:39:45.506+10:002009-09-20T15:39:45.506+10:00Spot on. Unfortunately, we're no longer able t...Spot on. Unfortunately, we're no longer able to access his earlier 2008 interview with Ali Abu-Nimah, but I seem to remember Adams raising the same racist objection of Jewish 'demographic suicide' re Abu-Nimah's advocacy of the one state solution back then. This is quite a blind spot for someone who'd have no truck with it if it were raised in this country by, say, Pauline Hanson in relation to Asian immigration.MERCnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6844367946876032905.post-56134086109209730702009-09-20T14:33:42.567+10:002009-09-20T14:33:42.567+10:00interesting about the 1998 article. good digging, ...interesting about the 1998 article. good digging, merc. now adams makes more sense to me. let's alter his words just a little to make them sickeningly crystal-clear:<br /><br />"During that time [in the Communist Party], I fell hopelessly in love with the Boers. No, not with Dutch Calvinism. With Boers. It was a consequence of realising that a remarkable number of people I most liked and admired were secular Boers. And I met a great many in the Communist Party... By now I was writing for The Bulletin... And I began to realise that without the Boers the South African Symphony Orchestra and the Johannesburg Theatre Company would have found it hard to survive. For the Boers were central to Johannesburg's culture - to its music, its literature, its theatre. The tiny community of Boers made a disproportionate contribution to the arts, literature, science, and philanthropy. At the age of 16 I found myself wishing I'd been born a Boer." <br /><br />if one doesn't like that, one can substitute in "White English" or whatever racio-ethnic group one likes and his words are immediately decoded: it's 'positive' racism.<br /><br />some people on the old left - despite their formal ideology of anti-racism - were able to be utter, open racists. adams was on the tail end of this phenomenon - the rise of the new left and the dying of the old. the former frowned on the latter's backward moral conservatism. adams had obviously been weened on the natural acceptability of racism, but had learned that it was not something that one could openly spout anymore. thus, it was driven underground - into the subconscious.<br /><br />it also helps to expain his embarrassing mothering, hand-wringing paternalism about aboriginal australians and the east timorese. seen aright, it is the 'complimentary racism' of the well-intentioned colonialist: we successful, sophisticated, powerful whites must - just must - give these poor, backward, pathetic, impotent dark people the rights WE think they should have.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com