JOHN BERGER BOYCOTT

Today, author, art-critic, some-time artist, and opinionated bloviant John Berger, who writes or blogs or diddly-scribbles in the Guardian, called for a boycott of Israel.


He writes:
"Today I am supporting a world-wide appeal to teachers, intellectuals and artists to join the cultural boycott of the state of Israel, as called for by over a hundred Palestinian academics and artists, and - very importantly - also by a number of Israeli public figures, who outspokenly oppose their country's illegal occupation of the Palestine territories of the West Bank and Gaza. Their call, printed in the Guardian today......etcetera."
[The rest of what he thought he had to say is here: http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/john_berger/2006/12/john_berger.html]


It struck me that some people do not know who the divvil this pillock is.
So here is a Wikipedia link to help you remember stuff you tried to read but could not wade through: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Berger


The boycott details are here: http://www.bricup.org.uk/


I shall not bother arguing against a boycott. Those of you who believe as I do that a boycott of Israel is unjustified already know why it is unjustified, those of you who mistakenly believe that such a boycott is the right thing to do are not really worth conversing with and probably need psychiatric attention for the trauma you have suffered befouling your own sheets every night.

[Bulgar the boycott, bulgar the soft-in-the-heads who support the boycott, and bulgar their mothers and the mangy camels they rode in on. Metaphorically speaking. I actually wish them a more violent fate.]


Instead, I am stealing a comment from underneath Mr. Berger's blog-posting, and pasting it below.

Please read it. Please comment. Please impress what the writer says upon your hearts, because this is what we've come to, and this is the state of the world today.


sarar
Comment No. 338446
December 15 12:09

I don't usually post here but feel that this time I have to make my feelings known. I am a non practising, non believing British Jewish woman, who was actually disowned 33 years ago for marrying out of faith. Nevertheless, I am suddenly starting to feel, maybe mistakenly, that I have to keep my remaining Jewish identity secret. I never tell anyone that my parents were refugees from the Holocaust, and I would not dare to say that I believe that the Jewish nation needed somewhere safe to live after Hitler's "final solution" and the general apathy (and, frankly, opposition) that was shown by other nations.

The reason? I am, for the first time in my life, scared of other's reactions. I am not an Israeli but anti Israel sentiments are becoming thinly veiled anti semitic sentiments and I am acutely aware of being held somehow responsible. You may think I am being paranoid but recently, during a conversation, someone started a tirade against Israel using the words "your people." I am English not an Israeli Zionist.

I consider myself to be on the Left, but recently, the Left has looked to gain alliances with people who are overtly anti semitic adding to my fear. It should not be necessary, in the year 2006 in Britain, that I should be thankful that my children are in no way identifiably Jewish and therefore present no easy target for people who, like them, oppose the actions of Israel under its present leadership.

Sure, there have been many UN resolutions against Israel but these at the time that the UK and the US have been involved in a totally illegal war. This island was never under attaack. No-one wants to wipe the UK off the face of the earth.... I also hear no protest against the many other odious regimes in the world practicing human rights violations, massacres and atrocities. Yep - we Jews sure are a chosen race.....

John Berger is mistaken.Surely as a Marxist (as he presumably thinks himself to be) Mr. Berger is aware that many intellectuals do not share the stance of the state that purports to support them.British, and indeed US intellectuals, are a case in point.

In any case, the only way to reach other intellectuals is through dialogue.His solution would merely serve to isolate those forces in Israel who are opposed to the right wing policies of the current Israeli leadership. Does he think that ALL teachers,intellectuals and artists in this country and the US support the Iraq war just because the British government supports it? By this token,should there not now be an international boycott of British and US teachers intellectuals and artists?

------------------

I consider myself fairly left-wing (liberal secular humanist at the very least), and therefore have some sympathy for many left-wing causes, tempered with what I flatter myself is a sense of realism.

When I was younger (I am now heading towards fifty) I often dealt with people who for ideological reasons spoke glowingly of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, Pol Pot's Kampuchea, Mengistu's Ethiopia, and several similar great revolutionary sacred cows. Even at that time, realists knew that things were not as publicized but far otherwise, and evidence was surfacing that these sacred cows were in fact unimaginable horrors. Much that the left-wing has espoused in the last three decades has been unalloyed tyranny and repression. Much that today gets the praise and support of the left-wing is still tyranny and repression. Reality is not strong on that side.


I consider myself, in a certain way, left-wing.
Evenso, I have never lost touch with reality.
I have not been on a different planet.


But I consider those who are usually considered left-wing to be mostly insane, and for a large part ignorant and willfully stupid.
Most of the left-wing are unmistakably mistaken, and most people who identify with left-wing causes do so merely because they enjoy the frisson, the delicious contrariness of irritating people who have found a better fit in society. Most of the left-wing are maladjusted.
Some are downright evil.

Author, art-critic, some-time artist, and opinionated bloviant John Berger is downright evil.