Harry’s Place

Well, that certainly shines a new light on the thing.

to be honest though it was most probably an honest mistake. just a rushed job leaflet, without being checked thats all

obviously, just coincidental that the SWP has spent the last few years hosting anti-Jewish racists (Atzmon, Tamimi, etc)?

Hmm.

They wouldn’t want to upset their newfound friends in Iran, would they. As that sensible chap ‘Jason’ says, it’s the sort of slip any one could make. NOT.

“an honest mistake”

ROFL.

Mind you, a pink elephant just flew past my window.

Honest mistake?

Do pass me that joint …

What a truly pathetic effort by David. I’d be disappointed if a 7 year old came out with something this bad.

If you scroll down, you’ll see AWL conflating Mossad with Shin Bet (in the item about Sarkozy).

Oh, dear …

Not sure who David is, but Jason’s apologetics are mega-pathetic (and super-illiterate).

With all my contempt for the SWP, I can’t believe they made a deliberate decision to leave Jews off the list of Holocaust victims. More likely is the fact that Jews simply don’t figure in the SWP’s pantheon of victims or “oppressed peoples” any more. So Jews (outside of “Zionist” bad guys) simply aren’t on their radar screen.

The combination of the lack of Jews and the word “thousands” instead of the more accurate “millions” makes this sound like anything but an honest error. If an error, it’s actually two errors. Coincidence? I think not.

So which is worse, Gene: a deliberate decision, or being oblivious to the 6 million murdered Jews?

Well, they are contemptible scum either way.

It is possible the author was implicitly emphasizing the victims allegedly ‘forgotten’ because of the pushy Zionists. But, as TheIrie implies, it is not a great deal to go on. Just betrays some silly idiot who makes leaflets for SWP.

With all my contempt for the SWP, I can’t believe they made a deliberate decision to leave Jews off the list of Holocaust victims. More likely is the fact that Jews simply don’t figure in the SWP’s pantheon of victims or “oppressed peoples” any more.

They are either extraordinarily stupid, or they are sending a coy signal. I choose “B”.

Gene,

I think that’s closer, it is more likely and I am being very very charitable here, that the SWP don’t know the history of WW2 or the Holocaust and just wrote what they thought would appeal to their audience?

and their pandering to anti-Jewish racism over the past 5+ years is just coincidental?

having read the leaflet, it is extraordinary. But what evidence is there that it is official SWP, if there is such a thing?

Maybe they’re just thick and to be pitied?

And Gene: People who spend an inordinate amount of time immersed in Israel/Palestine polemics don’t “forget” these little details.

Engage is covering it too:

http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/

Zk, cos it says SWP at the very bottom of the leaflet?

“that the SWP don’t know the history of WW2 or the Holocaust”

But could they really not know that the death toll ran to millions? And Hitler studies are meant to be the history course of choice for da yoof

the bottom of the leaflet:

Love Music Hate Racism, PO Box 2566, London, N4 1WJ
Petition initiated by Socialist Worker http://www.socialistwork.co.uk

see http://drinksoakedtrotsforwar.com/2008/08/19/dont-mention-the-jews-comrade/

strange, that the SWP got their web address correct, but could mention the true nature of the Holocaust?

“the SWP don’t know the history of WW2″

Yeah, right …

They appear to not like Gypsies very much either.

That’s because very few Gypsies have mobilised under the We Are All Hezbollah banner, I assume.

Ha very good.

I rather suspect some design-functionary was waiting for the central comittee to tell them who was in favour this week (and therefore should be included) and they ended up leaving off the most important bits (but I may be getting charitable in my old age.)

Having said that I can just imagine the SWP’s reaction were the Labour party to produce a leaflet which failed to mention that Africans were the main victims of transatlantic slavery.

So go ahead and take the bastards apart.

I thought “holocaust” “six million” and “Jews” were as well known as “1066″ and “William the Conqueror” and “Battle of Hastings” or “Henry VIII” and “six wives” - the most basic historical knowledge that anyone who had got past primary school would know. This holocaust industry that we hear so much about - it’s evidently gone into recession.

I don’t think you can take any basic historical knowledge for granted nowadays. Or, any sort of knowledge.

I’m surprised they mentioned the LGB victims of Nazism, though. I thought gay rights were not be treated as some form of shibboleth, according to that hag German.

Still, I can’t say I’m surprised to see the SWP play the Holocaust denial game.

Ther has to be an SWP Cluedo/Holocaust game to be marketed to the activists here.
Who wasn’t in the death camps with the lead piping?

“What a truly pathetic effort by David. I’d be disappointed if a 7 year old came out with something this bad.”

Was the name of the guy who drafted this leaflet David? I agree, it is very disappointing, such total historical illiteracy for a political movement. You don’t mean David Irving, do you?

Yes indeed, KB. And maybe the Joos don’t really control the world from their lair at Mossad HQ.
Oops, what am I saying here … better wash out my mouth with carbolic.

Political movement???? Illiterate, nasty adolescents wanking off is now a political movement??!!

I find it hard to imagine that that they simply forgot to mention Jews when talking about the Holocaust. I think it’s a fair complaint when people point out that other minorities get forgotten in Holocaust discourse, although repugnant when it’s suggested that the Jews are somehow monopolising it.

When you consider that the SWP’s current narrative places blame for the Holocaust primarily on Zionists, and that they consider most antisemitism to be a political tool for Zionism, it shouldn’t seem that surprising that they might actually choose to “redress the balance” or perhaps educate their constituency by deliberately sidelining the Jewish experience of the Holocaust.

Even if every time you mention the Holocaust your main point is that it wasn’t a solely Jewish experience, you still have to reference Jews to make the point. Even among anti-Zionists and Holocaust deniers, the Jewish narrative is at the forefront, even if it is to be denied or used as a stick to beat Jews. Who knows what twisted thinking leads one to miss out Jews on a list of the victims of the Holocaust? but carelessness doesn’t strike me as a plausible explanation.

To try and give them the benefit of the doubt, perhaps what the pamphlet in question was trying to imply was that in addition to the millions of Jews slaughtered during the Holocaust thousands of LGB were also murdered, as well as political dissenters and “slavs” and other inferior “races”.

i.e the slaughter of Jews is a given, and they were highlighting the “other” victims of NAZIism.

the benefit of the doubt? and I thought I was being very very charitable?

I agree with Joe. I suspect the attitude was to inform people about the other victims, because we hear so much about… yawn… antisemitism. I just wouldn’t characterise it as the “benefit of the doubt”: on the contrary, it’s exactly what you would expect from an anti-racist, antisemitic organisation.

I just wouldn’t characterise it as the “benefit of the doubt”: on the contrary, it’s exactly what you would expect from an anti-racist, antisemitic organisation.

Then they should have written more clearly what the intended to say. It is their omission that reqires me to give them teh “benefit of the doubt”

Tim,

it is as likely to some in the SWP that Jews and Roma are irrelevant to them, and thus not worthy of comment

I don’t buy it, Joe. The language is very categorical.

And Tim, an antisemitic organisation is by definition not anti-racist …

This is what it is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freudian_slip

Modernity, that’s also possible. The main thing is that it is highly unlikely someone simply forgot. Whatever the particular meaning, I expect this does reflect the party line.

Nearly Oxfordian, you’re wrong. The SWP is vehemently anti-racist: just not against all racism. I know it’s confusing, but these are paradoxical times in which we’re living.

Nearly Oxfordian

“They Deny the holocaust where thousands of LGBT people, trade unionist and disabled people were slaughtered…” is what they wrote. Given that they are talking about “holocaust denial” I doubt that they by the Irving defence of some people were killed , but not he millions mentioned. The fact that they talk about thousands rather than millions suggests to me that they meant to imply millions died, thousands of whom were not Jews.

(By the way they use the small “h” for holocaust. Perhaps they mean something other than “The Holocaust/Shoah”.)

We’ll have to disagree, Tim (and please don’t tell me I am ‘wrong’ just because you hold a different opinion: it doesn’t make you ‘right’ and me ‘wrong’). Sure, they POSE as ‘anti-racists’, but that does NOT make them anti-racists. By their actions shalt thou know them, and their actions are kneejerk pro-Black and pro-Arab (which I regard as fundamentally racist), at best apologetic vis-a-vis whites where they are not anti (racist also), and shrilly antisemitic.

What is baffling is that they should surely be trying to make the BNP look as bad as possible.

So why not mention the fact that the BNP deny millions of people were killed?

Why ‘downsize’ the scale of BNP denial?

Curious.

Joe,
If the BNP deny the Holocaust - do they?? - then they deny that 6 million Jews died. If SWP are anti-BNP, then they oppose the denial of 6 million Jews.
So … ingenious, but I still don’t buy it. Sorry.

Small h … hmmm … yeeees …

Mark,
Curious indeed, but imo that supports my thesis. They refuse to be seen as sympathetic to the Jews, since that would go very much against the grain and their Jew hatred trumps their hatred of the BNP.

That should be
… at best apologetic vis-a-vis whites where they are not anti [white] (which is racist also) …

Sorry about the poor syntax.

Nearly Oxfordian,

That is what I meant by “benefit of the doubt”, i.e. I have to engage in a certain amount of mental gymnastics (with all the gravity defying tumbles) in order to think that they did not intentionally omit a reference to the “millions of Jews” slaughtered by the NAZIs and their allies.

Does anyone have a link to a copy of this petition if it is online. I would like to see a copy for research purposes.

This is a tacit form of Holocaust denial from the SWP.

Thousands of people died in the holocaust and none of them were Jews?

Maybe they’re competing with GG for Iranian money now.

Does anyone have a link to a copy of this petition if it is online. I would like to see a copy for research purposes.

http://www.workersliberty.org/system/files/attachment-0001.jpeg

Another possibility: they assumed that the recipients of the leaflet were more likely to know (or be) LGBT, trade unionists or disabled people than they were likely to know or be Jews or Roma– i.e., an extremely clumsy and offensive effort to “relate” to the locals.

That may be the case, Gene.

But surely it would have been easy to convey the same sentiment, in a sentence like

“They deny the holocaust where millions of Jews, and thousands of LGBT people, trade unionist and disabled people, were slaughtered”.

I mean, the aim must be to damn the BNP, and that means making them look as bad as possible. So why state the BNP deny the holocaust of thousands of people, when in fact they deny the holocaust of millions?

“SWP make 6 million Jews disappear”? No, I think that was Hitler, lol.

Its also possible that who-ever wrote this considers it a tautology to mention the Jews that were slaughtered, since this is what everyone immediately associates with the Holocaust. Either way, its a single sloppy sentence, and trying to read anything into it is silly if not down right cynical (and I’m plumping for the latter, since again the headline of this piece is just slanderous propaganda).

Yup, trust you to come up with dumb crap like this. You never fail.

With all my contempt for the SWP, I can’t believe they made a deliberate decision to leave Jews off the list of Holocaust victims. More likely is the fact that Jews simply don’t figure in the SWP’s pantheon of victims or “oppressed peoples” any more. So Jews (outside of “Zionist” bad guys) simply aren’t on their radar screen.

I honestly don’t believe that. In general I am inclined to give people the benefit of the doubt - but in this context: no, absolutely not.this is just a case of the SWP repeating the standard Soviet narrative of who the main victims of WWII were, without even having the excuse of having had their country turned into a bloody battlefront and having had more people killed than any other state

(well, OK, I grant this is a post-modern gay-friendly post-disability discrimination act but no less twisted rewrite: I can just see PC PR SWP command shouting replace “Soviet Citizens of Belarusian Nationality”, etc, with ” LGBT people, trade unionists, and disabled people*”
(*obviously not excluding that some of these LGBT people, trade unions and disabled people may been Jewish too, but it would be, well, a bit crass to point that out, wouldn’t it?).

Still, I’m sure the SWP are at the forefront of fighting fascism, and “fighting for peace”, so I’m sure it’s alright and that the omision doesn’t imply any malevolence on their part (heavy irony)

Or they might just be cunts.

I really can’t think which is more likely

Almost certainly they intended to mention the Jewish victims and had a slip of the tongue / pen / mouse / mind / other.

Though whenever a swuppie mentions the other holocaust victims they always seem to be implying that none of the others turned round and started agitating for their own country afterwards.

“Its also possible that who-ever wrote this considers it a tautology to mention the Jews that were slaughtered, since this is what everyone immediately associates with the Holocaust.”

Your rationalizations are becoming ever more pathetic. Stop now before you embarrass yourself even further.

P.

Its also possible that who-ever wrote this considers it a tautology to mention the Jews that were slaughtered

With people like you around, that would be an extremely unwise position to adopt.

Given how similar what The Irie wrote was to my original post, it is safe to assume that I was wrong.

Its also possible that who-ever wrote this considers it a tautology to mention the Jews that were slaughtered, since this is what everyone immediately associates with the Holocaust.

Fuck, I thought you (and the SWP and their We Are All Hezbollah Now mates) associated it with the Palestinians, what with the Israelis being sick murderous bastards and all that.

Also, I have it on the authority of Russian nationalist websites that the Georgians were conducting a holocaust in South Ossetia just last week. (The Russian Foreign Minister would only commit himself to “genocide”, but hey, you have to start somewhere)

As I am sure you know, Jon D, even in this scenario the Jews did not suddenly start ‘agitating for their own country’ AFTER the Holocaust …

Venichka: yes, absolutely. This is classic Soviet group photo retouching, as parodied by Orwell.

What do you mean by that Morgoth?

Irie, it’s been voted upon and decided that you should sod off to

http://www.shibumi.org/eoti.htm

You can’t say it outloud can you Morgoth - heavy implication is OK, but to be explicit you know will just make you look like the idiot that you are. Good night, nasty man.

“Submitted by Jason on 19 August, 2008 - 06:34.

perhaps it just says that it was rushed. I can’t see much point making political points out of this- it was obviously a mishap, omission. ”

You mean like 6 million jews can go missing, and it was just an accounting error?What? A decimal point or something?

“The only real point would be to take more care and not rush things- quite possibly the checks you hypothesise didn’t take place.”

Trans- Quite possibly we just got cooking the numbers. Don’t ask any awkward questions untill we are finished.

“If any wider point can be convincingly made then it’s that the left- and this isn’t just the SWP but to a greater or lesser extent all of us- need to make sure that when we wirte leaflets, petitons, contact sheets or the rest of it that it goes through some kind of democratic process.”

Well comrade, you just got wirted on your own petiton.

” But this was one was obvioulsy hastily scrappily put together contact sheet- a silly slip but it really seems incredulous to allege this is or even may be anything more than that.”

obvioulsy jason…

TheIrie wrote:

“Its also possible that who-ever wrote this considers it a tautology to mention the Jews that were slaughtered, since this is what everyone immediately associates with the Holocaust. Either way, its a single sloppy sentence, and trying to read anything into it is silly if not down right cynical (and I’m plumping for the latter, since again the headline of this piece is just slanderous propaganda).”

How typical of TheIrie, from excusing racists in the Middle East to equating Anglophobia with antisemitism, TheIrie is always willing and able to excuse anti-Jewish racism or to apologise when Jews are attacked.

Could it be that the SWP after years and years of pouring out “anti-Zionism” can’t see where that ends, and anti-Jewish racism begins?

That is likely, I suspect it was a subconscious slip, but a major slip.

Most leaflets are proof read by a few people, including, normally, the local organizer so to put this down as a mere slip is a bit like a scientist forgetting what the value of pi is, or a carpenter forgetting what a nail does, it is all very basic to WW2 history.

To explain or even try to explain the Holocaust without mentioning the Jews is almost impossible, even that foul David Irving couldn’t manage that.

but TheIrie, why do you always try to put a charitable spin on those that attack Jews?

It doesn’t enter your mind that the SWP may be largely indifferent to the fate of Jews?

if you doubt this check their coverage of racist attacks against Jews in the United Kingdom and what you will find is that they downplay them, even if they get a mention.

The SWP made a habit of inviting a renowned anti-Jewish racist, Gilad Atzmon, to their premier event for years, despite all the warnings, despite pickets by Jewish Socialists, the SWP thought they knew better.

The SWP and its members are constantly making excuses for racism that emanates from the Middle East or from their favourite speaker, Dr. Tamimi.

So you’ll be surprised if people don’t put such a charitable spin on the SWP’s actions, as you do.

TheIrie, could you ask your mates on Lenin’s Tomb what they think, if you have the guts?

“The SWP largely indifferent to the fate of Jews”? Really? Can this be the organisation that produced a well-researched pamphlet on Holocaust Denial with sponsors such as the late Hugo Gryn? The organisation that ferried Leon Greenman and Esther Brunstein around to talks and meetings for as long as both could manage? Who ran a eulogy of an obit for Leon and indeed for my father, in which they quote quite clearly my father being told by his grandfather why it was pointless and wrong attacking fellow Jews for their religion? ( http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=15688#startcontent) Who asked members to attend demonstrations against Jewish cemetery daubing in East London? Don’t the SWP attack the BNP precisely in terms linking them with fascist movements of the past which targeted Jews?

When I wrote an article for SW suggesting that Holocaust Memorial Day was outdated and, I suggested, led to a hierarchy of suffering, and that it would be better to have a genocide memorial day, the SWP suggested I was wrong because of the uniqueness of the Holocaust and indeed because it gives, they believe, the right kind of warning about where racism can lead.

I have no idea why or how this leaflet came to be printed in the way that it was. There is no way it conforms to how the SWP write about the Holocaust.

You may well loathe the SWP for all kinds of reasons, and indeed loathe their anti-zionism, but to say that it is ‘largely indifferent to the fate of Jews’ is untrue.

Mike,

how many sessions has the SWP had at Marxism xxxx, in 30 years, on anti-Jewish racism?

zero

btw, did you get any response to your letter to SW about anti-Jewish racism??

This post by David T happily assures me all is well at the British Left.

Faced with the BNP, fascism, racism and the red, white and blue festival what do we get from HP? Do we get stirring calls for unity against Britain’s biggest fascist party (now challenging the Greens as the UK’s fourth party) certainly historically the strongest they have been for many years? Do we get calls for action? Do we get, at the very least, some sort of criticism or analysis of the BNP and the broader polity?

Oh no. It’s just another chance to have sectarian dust ups. Yet another pointless attack (no. 243,657) on a tiny lefty sect that doesn’t even stand in elections.

In fact, I have seen virtually no campaigning against the BNP by HP recently - a recent post by Brett actually poured cold water on the idea of demonstrating against them at all.

But its okay, any other behaviour would lead to me believe that there was something wrong with the Left - it really must keep up the glorious traditions sticking the knife into the mortal enemy - not the BNP (pah! - who are they?) - but those evil doers the SWP! Bury the hatchet? Only in your back!

Keep it up chaps - as I say, its a great tradition. Next up: handbags at dawn between the AWL and the SWP.

By the way, as regards the story itself. It’s certainly odd that Jews are not mentioned when describing the holocaust - but there is a certain irony here of course, if you chaps do irony.

In popular discourse Jews are always mentioned in relation to the holocaust, and quite right too. But sometimes its the those others that are missed out in discussions; the Nazis slaughtered as many again from other groups. We should not forget them too.

Good old Michael Rosen, always there reinzumachen with his little mop; it seems, though, he (literally) hasn’t got the memo: darling precedent be damned, but Die Jueden are now the Oppressors and thus always were; as with Leon (one of their cursed number), they must be airbrushed out of any historical picture where their new Class Bogeyman status longer fits the frame. I suspect Comrade Rosen’s “inherent” false consciousness will soon be dealt with. Like a good Zaida Tom, he almost got their in his admitted attempts to purge the Holocaust of its specific Jewish significance thusfar; the Central Committee will help him to his final enlightenment.

I have no idea why or how this leaflet came to be printed in the way that it was. There is no way it conforms to how the SWP write about the Holocaust.

So you:

a) Accept that the leaflet, as printed, is flawed if not deliberately racist in nature?

b) Deny that the leaflet could be official SWP approved propoganda because it’s message is flawed, if not racist in nature?

Hmm… so where does TheIrie go from here? Michael Rosen himself has agreed that the leaflet is so abhorrent it doesn’t conform with his experience of the SWP’s tactics and attitudes towards the Jewish people.

You may well loathe the SWP for all kinds of reasons, and indeed loathe their anti-zionism, but to say that it is ‘largely indifferent to the fate of Jews’ is untrue.

Then you’d better track down the origin of that leaflet hadn’t you?

Or maybe you could remember that the SWP still invites racists to their events despite your objections.

Well, to add to the occasion I suppose the Decents could hold a counter demo against the SWP’s leadership or involvement in these affairs… Or perhaps an alternative demo against the BNP. There has to be some use for the Euston Group, surely?

I find it difficult to label the SWP as generally antisemitic, racist or fascist frankly, which seems to be the opinion of some here.

It’s a bit like the Chinese Communist Party; one can dislike them for all sorts of reasons, but fascism is not one of them.

Whatever else this maybe, it’s not a simple mistake. I can just about picture some poor fool saying to himself “Must remember to mention x, y, and z because no-one ever does” and then forgetting to name the Jews. Sheer ignorance accounts for some of the list’s arbitrariness: LBGT is stated, though it was apparently specifically gay men, not lesbians, who were targeted, while Roma, Poles, Slavs, Freemasons and Jehovah’s Witnesses are not. But the second fact that everyone knows about the Holocaust, aside from its Jewish victims, is the number 6 million. Those with a little more education may also know 11 million, the number usually given as the grand total, though whoever wrote this leaflet apparently doesn’t. Nonetheless, he made a conscious effort to come up with what he thought was a plausible number for the particular victims on his list (and was off by two orders of magnitude) — in other words, Jews, if not the rest, were taken out of the reckoning intentionally.

Benjamin said:

In popular discourse Jews are always mentioned in relation to the holocaust, and quite right too. But sometimes its the those others that are missed out in discussions; the Nazis slaughtered as many again from other groups. We should not forget them too.

No one’s suggesting they should be forgotten. In fact there are countless memorials to pretty much everyone who died as a result of WWII. But what the Nazis did to (and planned to do to) the Jews is uniquely horrific. Wouldn’t you agree, Benjamin?

Yes, I agree, Boogski, but I come at it from a different angle.

In humanitarian terms, I don’t privilege Jews above anyone else. Seeing it human terms, a good starting point, what happened to Jews is of equal horror to what happened to other groups that were targeted, and I do feel that those groups are not always mentioned (with Jews) as much as perhaps they should.

This is not purely a numbers game. Jews are not unique victims, even if what the Nazis conceived for them was unique. In terms of victimhood and suffering, they have brothers and sisters beside them.

.. . .Who asked members to attend demonstrations against Jewish cemetery daubing in East London? . . .

But not demonstrations against attacks against Jews who are actually alive and living in say Golders Green, Finchley or Hendon.