Two years since Unite Against Terror
It's just over two years since the internet campaign, "Unite Against Terror", was launched. The site seems pretty moribund now, although I think they have renewed the URL for another year.On the face of it the campaign sounded a good idea. Britain had just experienced its worst terrorist outrage, killing 52 people from London and elsewhere. Unfortunately, the aims of the project were never clearly stated, and for reasons that are still unknown, some of the leading figures to sign the petition got the impression it was a campaign against "the left".
Nick Cohen called the left morons, failed to condemn the bombings, and added, "What we have witnessed is a sinister attempt by liberal opinion to deny legitimacy to the very liberals, feminists and socialists who have a right to expect support. The authentic Muslim has become the blood-crazed fanatic rather than the reformer. The authentic liberator has become the fascist rather than the democrat. This is a betrayal on an epic scale which casts doubt on whether it is now possible to have a decent left."
Stephen Pollard raved that the "The Guardianista fellow-travellers of terror, who stress its supposed causes, are the useful idiots of the Islamofascists" and in language that I can scarcely believe even two years on, declared that there was an 'enemy within', which "it is imperative that those of us who believe in democracy and liberty stand up and fight. Not just against the obvious enemy, but also against the enemy within - those who claim to be on the Left, but whose views have nothing in common with the decency for which the Left ought proudly to stand."
Peter Tatchell, bizarrely, declared that the left should not pretend to be upset by the bombs, and "We are witnessing one of the greatest betrayals by the left since so-called left-wingers backed the Hitler-Stalin pact and opposed the war against Nazi fascism. Today, the pseudo-left reveals its shameless hypocrisy and its wholesale abandonment of humanitarian values."
To quote the last is a little unfair of me, as Tatchell subsequently apologised for the language, proving, perhaps, that there can be a decent Decent left.
Labels: campaigns, Decent Left, Iraq, Nick Cohen
posted by Matthew @ 8/06/2007 08:46:00 AM
Comments: 10
