The problem of left unity

By Richard Seymour
August 28, 2012

... The latest rumble has been over Julian Assange, Wikileaks, US imperialism and the rape allegations, which has produced more mutual distrust and resentment on the left than I have seen for at least weeks. The disagreement seems to be between those who think the rape accusations against Assange have been politicised in order to facilitate his forward extradition to the US, and those who think Assange’s supporters have greatly exaggerated this risk in order to justify his refusal to go and face these allegations in Sweden ...

There is, however, a potentially comforting straw in the wind. After all, the Greek left is itself bitterly divided. Although unity has often been achieved in concrete struggles among networks of activists, the political forces are far from unified. This is a real handicap, but it has not prevented the emergence of Europe’s most promising radical left for more than three decades. Part of the reason that Syriza, despite its limited social basis, has been able to project such strong support electorally is its ecumenical approach to the left. Although it has never succeeded in winning over the support of rivals such as the Greek Communist Party, it has sought to position itself as a "canopy" for those forces to the left of social democracy. And in the elections, it proposed a united government of the left, with a resulting poll leap that astonished its leadership ...

I think we have three related issues. First, regardless of protestations to the contrary, we sometimes do treat difference as betrayal. Second, we occasionally forget to subordinate divisions among ourselves to those in the wider society. Third, for all that we are practical types, we often forget that our arguments should be oriented toward political action in some way ...

The least interesting interventions have simply reproduced the polarising tendencies that are amplified through social media like Twitter, where snark and self-righteous sentiment-mongering is the currency of interaction. (Imagine being stuck in a room with a bunch of intelligent people who nonetheless constantly trademark their mundane thoughts with a hash tag, or over-value expressions such as "roflcopter", "lmfao", "wtaf", "zomg" and "step away from the internet". Then imagine they won’t shut up, ever. Then imagine you’re one of those people.) ...

http://links.org.au/node/3003