What Does Joey think?
Joey Kurtzman insists I am wrong about Nick Griffin. He says that Griffin is a Nazi, and that I am needlessly hairsplitting between the British National Party and a hardline neo-Nazi one whose logo Jewcy used to represent Griffin, even though it’s the wrong group and one shouldn’t do that period and we both know that but whatever, that wasn’t the main point even though it was implied but fine, there is no contest on that so, no, I guess you really didn’t need to go into it.
Anyway.
I have to say that I was starting to feel a little unsettled that I was attempting to mitigate the disreputation of a man considered a Nazi by everyone at Jewcy. Three different Jewcy writers conflated Nick Griffin’s with those of neo-nazis.
But one does not. Mr. John Derbyshire, a top notch columnist who writes for Jewcy, wrote two years ago (though not on Jewcy) that,
Nick Griffin, the BNP head, has been conducting a purge of Stalinesque ruthlessness against the old anti-Semitic National Front types. FrontPageMag’s Robert Locke tells the story here. All the BNP’s xenophobic propaganda is now concentrated against Muslims. Jews are O.K., on the principle that my enemy’s enemy is my friend.
I think I may know where our disconnect may be – looking to a prominent non-Jewish conservative columnist is helpful. Let’s look at Derbyshire’s analysis a little further…
The Far Right may not be your cup of tea; but they’re out there, and with intelligent leadership, a tailwind of economic disgruntlement, and the dawning realization among white people in the West that they have, by foolish policies, made themselves into a minority in their own countries,
Derbyshire, a paleoconservative, shares a concern over immigration with the far-right, even though he himself is not far-right. That concern is exacerbated when the mass immigrant population in question is deemed not only as different from, but hostile to the host country’s majority population and culture. Hence, Derbyshire will view resistance to Muslim immigration itself as no longer a strictly far-right issue, even if the organization pushing immigration restriction itself remains far-right. Derbyshire never the less perceived a shift towards legitimacy.
I am guessing that Joey does not necessarily see a need to differentiate between taking a hard-line on such racial and cultural sentiments over immigration and focusing on “the Jewish Question,” and therefore sees no reason to alter his perception of Griffin’s BNP, despite his shift of focus away from “the Jewish Question.”
If this is the case, what Jewcy and I are arguing about is not really Griffin at all, but our disparate views about aspects of immigration itself. But if that’s the case, Jewcy needs to bring back Mr. Derbyshire, and debate him themselves on immigration, and ask him the tougher questions they think they have, and offer more nuanced defenses than that poor HIAS director—properly bound and reasonably gagged by organizational mandate so as not to risk a casualty of any significant value — whom they offered up as a sacrifice to their own nagging doubts.
6 comments
Nice. Good post.
Of course, the problem remains the same. As Jews, should we really be supportive of somebody who has a problem with minorities?
TM,
I wasn’t arguing for supporting Griffin. I was suggesting that we shouldn’t consider him a primary concern, and shouldn’t be allying with Muslim groups against him. Let them fight their own battles on this one.
But in terms of your question generally outside of the far-right…I think it depends. Depends on the problem, depends on the policies being advocated.
I think sometimes the answer may be yes, though.
Look at France and elsewhere in Europe — there are Jews that are indeed working with groups that have problems with minorities. Not with the far-right, but with the moderate-right. It isn’t a comfortable place to operate, to be sure, but either are the realities we face.
I do not hold it against French Jews who join forces with those that take a hard-line towards ending immigration from populations that seem to make trouble for France and for them personally.
Do you?
Ending immigration is not the issue. Every country has the right to limit or restrict immigration according to parameters its population deems fit.
The issue is how one handles existing immigrants, many of whom are there legally. One of the key problems for Jews in this regard is that many of us came to new countries wearing unusual garb and with unusual customs. It’s easy to make people like that a target. In the case of Muslim minorities, while there is an extremist segment that is serious cause for concern especially when it is powerful, they are part of a much larger Muslim population many of whom are good, hard-working regular folks. We have to be careful not to sweep up those folks in vendettas or aggressive actions and as Jews, we ought to be twice as careful before becoming involved in any way.
“Ending immigration is not the issue. Every country has the right to limit or restrict immigration according to parameters its population deems fit.”
That isn’t an issue for you and I, but that is absolutely THE issue for the growth of these groups, and for underlying much of the discontent in our own country. A discontent fueled largely by economic concerns, but framed by the corporate controlled media outlets as only one of racism.
“We have to be careful not to sweep up those folks in vendettas or aggressive actions and as Jews, we ought to be twice as careful before becoming involved in any way.”
It depends. Judging by what happened to the Jews in France, and our refusal to consistently identify the problem and specific population responsible, but often only identifying “the French” generally as the problem, I would say we have been careful to the point of not sufficiently fighting communal destruction. Now the largest European Jewish diaspora has receded substantially.
To be honest, that is a primary concern for me. And I fear growing influence of Islam in Europe generally. This is also a serious concern.
I would note that when Rudy was mayor, there were also such concerns about how he dealt with minority populations, and they had some validity. Never the less, even moderately liberal Jews voted for him in shockingly high numbers.
Realpolitik while under duress necessitates making tough choices, and possibly empowering (to some degree) some of those we would not have considered appropriate for leadership during more tranquil times.
David,
I didn’t at all accuse you of hairsplitting. There is nothing pilpul-ish about exploring the differences between Griffin and Irving. And if someone strongly value and identifies with white European civilization and for that reason wants to see immigration reduced, I do think it’s “risible” if, on those grounds alone, one conflates their views with Nazi’ism. But I disagree with you that it is risible to call Griffin a Nazi, and I said that he seemed to “fit the bill” based on his discussion of the “Holohoax,” his having accused Irving of being a sell-out, and other things he’s done / statements he’s made.
Likewise, I might say that because Noam Chomsky as a young man strongly identified with the cultural Zionism of Achad Ha’am and believed that European Jews had every right to resettle in Palestine and build a new Jewish society there, and because of his periodic statements that he has never departed from those views, I might say that Noam Chomsky “fits the bill” as a Zionist. But this does not mean I think it’s hairsplitting to identify differences between the views of Noam Chomsky and, say, Zev Jabotinsky.
My underlying point being that it’s not hairsplitting to discuss the internal diversity within a given category (Nazi, Zionist, liberal, conservative, black, white) while saying that it’s reasonable to place two people within that category.
As for why we had John Derbyshire debate HIAS rather than engaging him ourselves: well, we’re a small staff and can’t do everything in-house, and in any case part of what we do is get people of different but well-informed perspectives to mix it up on our site.
As for my own views on immigration, I’m not really capable of approaching immigration as a political issue. My family got here when there were no immigration laws beyond not having jaundice, and the whole coming-to-America narrative is too sentimental for me. So given that it *is* a legitimate political issue, and that immigration can’t be totally unchecked otherwise half the planet would move here, I don’t think that on this issue I really have anything of value to say.
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