The Possum Bistro

Who is the voyeur here: the satyr - or the viewer?

Temptations of another world beyond - that's what I'll be attempting to expound on with respect to the parallels of Palestinian culture and that espoused by an ideology that defined the post-war years of the European continent: Communism. Actually, I was inspired to write on this aspect by dr sanity's and sc&a's joint-authored post on the non-existent Palestinian middle class.

Even during the Second World War, mass migrations of people from Western Europe attempting to escape the terrifying persecutions and deportations by Hitler's Nazis was being matched rather perversely by Stalin, who authorised mass deportations of people as well from Eastern European states. Perhaps not unexpectedly, there were significant communities of peoples who moved in the direction of Nazi Germany to escape from Soviet rule: the indiscriminate brutality of Stalin, the purges of the NKVD and the gulags which rivalled the horrendous rumours coming out of concentration camps of the Third Reich - these men had seen for themselves that Stalin was way more indiscriminate than Hitler: the latter sought an agenda of ethnic cleansing and political purging, while the former turned on even fellow ideological sympathisers in true power-crazy paranoid fashion. Characteristics of the Soviet state system - secret police, extra-parliamentary purging of political foes, repression of thought and action - were replicated in the satellite states of Central and Eastern Europe.

Yet Communism as an ideology still gathered momentum and favour among intellectuals throughout Europe, even prominent ones in Western circles. Some sought to invoke history as the main argument: that the massacres of the present would be vindicated in the light of the successes of Soviet-esque Five Year Plans that stimulated investment and manufacturing capacity. But this is merely an exercise in rationalisation - and one that can never be accepted because that would legitimise the crimes of Stalin and encourage the continuation of the destruction of civil society in all satellite regimes (not that it wasn't already occuring). As Tony Judt in Post-war remarked, Communist apologists may have rationalised that backs would have to be broken for the sake of the 'natural' progress of history as mandated by Marx: from capitalism to Communism, but society can never be built upon the backs of broken men.

If you are wondering where I'm going with this, here's a thought: isn't the premise of jihad and the ideology of Islam a mirror reflection of Communist rationalisation, that indiscriminate murder of innocents is somehow justifiable and espoused for the sake of the betterment of life in a future global Caliphate spanning continents? That those living under the aegis of jihadist and Islamic rule are being convinced of the myth that embracing the cult of death and suicide is the only contribution they can possibly make to society - that sending their sons and daughters on suicide missions will eventually result in the triumph of Islam over the kuffar. On the individual level, the promise is made to men that by sacrificing themselves, "betterment" through 72 virgins would be rewarded to them in the afterlife.

In both ideologies, the promise of the betterment of life, of utopia is immistakeably resonant. With Khrushchev's anti-Stalinisation campaigns that denounced the crimes of the dictator, the former sought to cleave the Communist spectrum into two halves in an attempt to absolve the current regime from responsibility for the purges, show trials and persecutions of the Stalinist era. Peoples living in Communist societies actually began to feel hopeful again, that perhaps Communism still held out that promise of betterment of life. The 1956 Hungarian uprising and the subsequent repression that ensued extinguished such illusions; if that wasn't clear enough, the brutality with which the Soviet regime authorised and executed the invasion of Cezchoslovakia during the Prague Spring of 1968 condemned all hopes into the ideological garbage heap. Communism as a 'progressive' ideology was well and truly dead.

While peoples under Communist rule had more or less felt disenchanted after the sobering events in Prague and Hungary about the prospects of life, the ruling Party cadres throughout Eastern Europe were beginning to recognise the glaring disparities of economic performance when compared to that of Western European nations. Communist Party members, having been convinced themselves at the end of the Sixties that the economic models emulating that of the USSR were never going to lead to near the levels of prosperity and material success accomplished by Western European capitalist societies, decided to turn towards treating their subjects as consumers and provide material abundance today in place of socialist utopia tomorrow (Judt).

As dr. and sc&a also opined:

Worse (from the communist/socialist's perspective anyway), the typical person in the middle class believes that he or she can better themselves by using the many opportunities offered by a liberal, capitalistic democracy.

Even in Communist China, capitalistic pursuits and entrepreneurship have become the true "opiates" of the masses--in the sense that to the degree people are free to pursue their own happiness and work for their own interests--i.e., where they have economic freedom, even if they don't have political freedom-- they are relatively content, and are unlikely to fulfill the ardent communist/socialist's revolutionary fantasies.

Hamas members discovered dozens of recorded sexual encounters of leading figures, which were being used by the security forces as blackmail. According to Maariv, Fatah ordered the videotapes to be destroyed so they did not fall into the hands of Hamas. Hamas said the videotapes involve several Fatah ministers and prominent leaders. ... The paper added that some of the videotapes were recordings of Hamas leaders, one of whom was forced to collaborate with Fatah against Hamas. The tape showed him cheating on his wife.

People typically fear their primitive aggression and defend against their awareness of the intensity and depth of their aggression as well as against the expression of their aggression. Yet it is a truism that unconscious impulses always seek ways to find discharge. It is not uncommon to see parents who are committed pacifists, who commit themselves to having homes which display no evidence of aggressive toys, raise children who are themselves aggressive and problematic; via the magic of unconscious processes which include identification and projective identifications, fantasy formation, primitive parent-child introjection and incorporation, among many others, the child becomes the agent for expressing the parent's disowned and disavowed unconscious aggression.

Nations with a healthy middle class have some other things in common, something that makes both Hamas and Fatah as they vie with each other for power, tremble in a common fear: a successful middle class demands that government answer to them, and not the other way around. Democracies are not developed or sustained by the political extremes- they are the trust and legacy of a vibrant, functioning middle class.

Economic disparities.—Throughout the Moslem world, social conditions closely approximate medieval feudalism...In Saudi Arabia, where the purest desert “democracy” exists, the contrast between the living conditions of the peasant and the feudal land-holding classes is very great. That contrast is common throughout the whole Moslem world, where the lack of industrial development has made it easier than elsewhere to retain the feudal system of exploiting the land and the peasants. Social reform has been given only lip service, and the Moslem peasants have a growing conviction, stimulated by Soviet propaganda, that the landowners are their worst enemy. In northern Iran, the peasants have openly revolted under the instigation and protection of the Red Army, and such a revolt can happen anywhere in the Moslem world.

Hamas no less than Fatah will find young lions overthrowing the old, and soon Hamas senior fellows may find themselves tossed off buildings.

The reasoning goes: this is the moment to embrace Fatah, against the outwardly more radical party the Palestinians actually voted into office, to have a "peace partner" who is scared enough by what Hamas has just achieved in Gaza, to welcome our embrace. Moreover, those "moderate" Arab "states," starting with Egypt and Saudi Arabia, are themselves aware that Hamas is, like Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, now beholden to Iran, and that revolutionary Iran is quickly becoming a bigger worry for them than Israel could ever be. Surely, under these circumstances, hay can be made. Let's everybody who is frightened by Iran (and with cause) come to an arrangement that will subvert the ayatollahs.

[...] The long-term demonization of Israel, and the broader argument that the Arab/Muslim world is the way it is today, not from any fault of its own, but because of external oppression, have been employed so long and so effectively by each of the "moderate" despots, that it can never be abandoned. For any of them to actually make peace with Israel, as the late Anwar Sadat tried to do in the 1970s, would be for him to abandon his surfboard. It would be an act of suicide (as it was for Sadat) -- and on behalf of his whole clan. In other words, it won't happen.