Nadim: "Theoretical laziness"

on: The left-wing/right-wing alliance of Assad apologists: Disenchantment with the West?

"A lot of truth in this. But there is a real problem with the tendency to see all this in terms of ‘turning away from western values’ – as if fascism wasn’t a western value – as if justice was the sole possession of the West – as if movements for democracy were all about a desire to be western. In so many ways this whole discourse is part of the problem – people who have never expanded their universalism beyond a constricted eurocentric post-war vision. I do think we’re confronted by discursively similar discourses in this respect – both flowing out of an amazing theoretical laziness and ennui." (John Gamey)

Indeed, is Germany's complicity with Israel in crimes a Western value or not? The decades long of Western states dictatorships in the Middle East, North Africa and elsewhere a Western value or not? Is the state of Europe today, including the consequences of neoliberal capitalism, the rise of the far-right, corruption, relentless privatisation, curtailing unions and attacks on labour rights, Brexit, Trump, drones, deportation, indifference to refugees, commodification of our bodies and private data, etc, etc, Western values or not? Is the hypocrisy of the Western states, especially the U.S., in overthrowing Saddam Hussein, but not Bashar al-Assad, for its own geopolitical interests, a Western value or not? Is the epidemic of identity politics propagated by the liberals and neoliberals intended to deflect people from fundamental issues, thus contributing to the rise of Islamophobia, xenophobia and neo-fascism, a Western value or not?