British left

Why are some People of Colour Activists apologists for White Activists?

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Several years ago, it occurred to me how pitiful the state of anti-imperialist activity in England had become. A certain character (i.e. “political activist”) parading under the name of Daniel Renwick delivered a speech on an anti-imperialist platform just after the Nato-Jihadi operation to unseat the government of Libya was completed with the public lynching of the Colonel Muammar al-Ghadhaffi which the British media welcomed by gloating and celebrating his martyrdom.

On this platform, Renwick declared that Britain had become, culturally speaking, an anti-imperialist country. He supported this falsely ridiculous assertion by correctly informing the attendees at the meeting that British people have grown an appetite for foreign food and also because Manchester City Football Club (MCFC) employs a culturally diverse selection of football players from around the world. Hence, MCFC were “global” and therefore anti-imperialist, whereas a football club such as Liverpool, which at that time presumably did not employ a diverse squad, was not. What I eventually found most disturbing Continue reading →

Is Great Britain now an Anti-Imperialist country?

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By all honest accounts the British establishment has visited war, carnage, slavery, genocide, terrorism, imperialism, colonialism, impoverishment, starvation and concentration camps on mankind over the last four hundred years. In most cases, especially in the earlier period, such grisly adventurism was executed under the pretext of civilising the native, that is, the aboriginal peoples of the earth. This unsolicited global carnage made England and Great Britain a rich country. The wondrous booty of the establishment’s maritime entrepreneurialism trickled down to the cheering populace and they tugged their forelocks in appreciation and in reciprocation the multitude conferred legitimacy on their wise leaders. The populace migrated to the establishment’s new foreign possessions which in itself eased economic tensions on the home front – by many migrating abroad, there were less challenges to the order of things on the home front.

It is difficult to imagine Albion would have reached such stupendous levels of effortless affluence without resort to such single-minded blood-lust inflicted on the aboriginal peoples of the earth, which herein was the very foundation of its Empire. As Winston Churchill argued in a cabinet meeting in January 1914:

“we are not a young people with an innocent record and a Continue reading →

Owen Jones: Just another social Imperialist?

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“The greatest peril of Imperialism lies in the state of mind of a nation which has become habituated to…deception and which has rendered itself incapable of self-criticism.”[1] J.A. Hobson, “Imperialism: A Study.”

Immediately following his successful appearance on BBC’s ‘Question Time’ programme, the author and journalist Owen Jones dedicated his weekly column in the ‘Independent’ to lambast the current UK political spectrum. He rightly noted the almost complete banality of consensus of the three main parties on the major issues of the day. From financial regulation, austerity to foreign policy, it is literally a case of tweedledum and tweedledee when it comes to their respective political positions. Yet, there was something all very déjà vu about the article. It simply read as though it was based on a reading of Peter Oborne’s book, ‘The Triumph of the Political Class’ published several years ago on the conformity of the ruling class. Oborne, who clearly belongs to the moderate (culturally, at least) side of the Conservative Party, bemoaned the decline of traditional British oppositional politics and its supplantation by a technocratic, careerist ‘modernising’ class who rarely substantially disagree or venture outside the Westminster bubble. Owen has every right to partly rehash this argument even if it is executed with a good dose of left-wing spice.

In contrast to this contemporary dreary state of affairs Owen conjures up the Labour politicians Continue reading →

The Empire’s Balfour Declaration and the Suez Canal

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For the average British pro-Palestinian human rights activist, the Balfour Declaration, published ninety- five years ago on the 2nd November 1917, is only mentioned in passing in their publications or agitations. For them, the declaration seems to have drafted in, one autumn day most likely alongside the brown and crimson leaves for then to triumphantly and jubilantly land on Lord Balfour’s, the British foreign secretary, desk. For them, it is more convenient to strongly imply that the Palestinian predicament began when the young United Nations partitioned Palestine on the 29th November 1947 or when the British Empire’s Palestine mandate officially ended on 15th May 1948. For them, the fact that up to 400,000 Palestinians under the Empire’s watch were ethnically cleansed between these latter two dates literally doesn’t warrant a footnote.[1]

This is certainly the impression given by reading the literature of “revolutionary socialists” as well as other supposedly pro-Palestinians. In his book “Imperialism and Resistance”, “revolutionary socialist” John Rees argues Continue reading →