Chomsky: Undermining Gaza
Sameer Dossani Foreign Policy In Focus
January 16, 2009
Noam Chomsky is a noted linguist, author, and foreign policy expert. Sameer Dossani interviewed him about the conflict between Israel and Gaza.
DOSSANI: The Israeli government and many Israeli and U.S. officials claim that the current assault on Gaza is to put an end to the flow of Qassam rockets from Gaza into Israel. But many observers claim that if that were really the case, Israel would have made much more of an effort to renew the ceasefire agreement that expired in December, which had all but stopped the rocket fire. In your opinion, what are the real motivations behind the current Israeli action?
CHOMSKY: There’s a theme that goes way back to the origins of Zionism. And it’s a very rational theme: “Let’s delay negotiations and diplomacy as long as possible, and meanwhile we’ll ‘build facts on the ground.'” So Israel will create the basis for what some eventual agreement will ratify, but the more they create, the more they construct, the better the agreement will be for their purposes. Those purposes are essentially to take over everything of value in the former Palestine and to undermine what’s left of the indigenous population.
I think one of the reasons for popular support for this in the United States is that it resonates very well with American history. How did the United States get established? The themes are similar.
There are many examples of this theme being played out throughout Israel’s history, and the current situation is another case. They have a very clear program. Rational hawks like Ariel Sharon realized that it’s crazy to keep 8,000 settlers using one-third of the land and much of the scarce supplies in Gaza, protected by a large part of the Israeli army while the rest of the society around them is just rotting. So it’s best to take them out and send them to the West Bank. That’s the place that they really care about and want.
What was called a “disengagement” in September 2005 was actually a transfer. They were perfectly frank and open about it. In fact, they extended settlement building programs in the West Bank at the very same time that they were withdrawing a few thousand people from Gaza. So Gaza should be turned into a cage, a prison basically, with Israel attacking it at will, and meanwhile in the West Bank we’ll take what we want. There was nothing secret about it.
Ehud Olmert was in the United States in May 2006 a couple of months after the withdrawal. He simply announced to a joint session of Congress and to rousing applause, that the historic right of Jews to the entire land of Israel is beyond question. He announced what he called his convergence program, which is just a version of the traditional program; it goes back to the Allon plan of 1967. Israel would essentially annex valuable land and resources near the green line (the 1967 border). That land is now behind the wall that Israel built in the West Bank, which is an annexation wall. That means the arable land, the main water resources, the pleasant suburbs around Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and the hills and so on. They’ll take over the Jordan valley, which is about a third of the West Bank, where they’ve been settling since the late 60s. Then they’ll drive a couple of super highways through the whole territory — there’s one to the east of Jerusalem to the town of Ma’aleh Adumim which was built mostly in the 1990s, during the Oslo years. It was built essentially to bisect the West Bank and are two others up north that includes Ariel and Kedumim and other towns which pretty much bisect what’s left. They’ll set up check points and all sorts of means of harassment in the other areas and the population that’s left will be essentially cantonized and unable to live a decent life and if they want to leave, great. Or else they will be picturesque figures for tourists — you know somebody leading a goat up a hill in the distance — and meanwhile Israelis, including settlers, will drive around on “Israeli only” super highways. Palestinians can make do with some little road somewhere where you’re falling into a ditch if it’s raining. That’s the goal. And it’s explicit. You can’t accuse them of deception because it’s explicit. And it’s cheered here.
Comments on James L. Gelvin’s ‘‘Al-Qaeda and Anarchism: A Historian’s Reply to Terrorology’’
George Esenwein Terrorism and Political Violence, Vol.20, No.4, 2008 (597–600)
Because they have long been associated with bombing outrages and spectacular acts of violence, it is tempting to draw parallels between the anarchists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and contemporary terrorists. However, as such recent studies on jihadist terrorism have shown, constructing a comparative model for such an analysis is fraught with difficulties. As Professor Gelvin intimates in his thought-provoking article, the ways in which Al Qaeda appears to overlap with anarchism, a comparative study demands a careful examination of both the beliefs and practices underlying distinct historical phenomena.1 But though he should be commended for bringing greater focus to a discussion that is too often couched in distorting generalities, Professor Gelvin never manages to defend satisfactorily his claim that the political and ideological strands of anarchism and radical jihadism are fundamentally compatible. This is true above all because Dr. Gelvin’s argument is predicated on a number of mistaken notions about both anarchists and the ideological content of their revolutionary doctrine.
Al-Qaeda and Anarchism: A Historian’s Reply to Terrorology: Response to Commentaries
James L. Gelvin Terrorism and Political Violence, Vol.20, No.4, 2008 (606–611)
I would like to thank the editors of Terrorism and Political Violence for opening up the pages of their journal for this exchange, particularly because it enables me to engage with those I would not normally have an opportunity to engage with and to reach an audience I rarely get a chance to reach. I would particularly like to thank David C. Rapoport for his interest in and continued support for this project, despite the many differences that separate our analytical approaches.
I shall direct my remarks primarily to three of the four respondents. While I value the scholarship and observations of the fourth—John Kelsay—he and I agree on just about everything, with one reservation on his part. I have little to add to his comments, and shall speak to his reservation in the course of my remarks below.
George Esenwein and Richard Bach Jensen raise many of the same issues, so I shall address their concerns together. Both, it seems, have made the study of specific aspects of nineteenth-century anarchism their life’s work, so I am not surprised that both treat my outsider’s view of anarchism with skepticism. Fair enough. But sometimes an outsider’s view can be refreshing, particularly since, when it comes to presenting the story of those you study to a wider public, it is a well-known tendency for scholars to switch from being judges to being advocates. In a review of an earlier version of this article, for example, Walter Laqueur differentiates nineteenth-century anarchists from al-Qaedists on the basis of the fact that the former purportedly held to some ‘‘code of honor’’1—this, in spite of the acts of violence recounted by both Esenwein and Jensen in their responses against people most of us would consider ‘‘innocents.’’ So, to set the record straight and allay the fears of those who would uphold the reputation of anarchists past: I agree that al-Qaedists are a nasty, violent bunch; I also agree that only some—not all—nineteenth-century European anarchists were nasty and violent. But just as one cannot understand nineteenth-century anarchism merely by looking at acts of violence perpetrated by (some of) its adherents, one cannot understand al-Qaeda either merely by looking at acts of violence perpetrated by its adherents. The purpose of my article is to make sense of al-Qaeda—to typologize it—by locating it within one or another category familiar to social scientists. The location I found most appropriate is anarchism.
…Pencil-necked geek and anarchist Jeff ‘The Snowman’ Monson…
In the US, quick-thinking authorities have won another skirmish in the War on Terror. This time, by arresting a man for spray-painting the peace sign, the anarchy symbol, and the phrases “No war” and “No poverty” on multiple columns of a Gub’mint building.
Former UFC heavyweight contender and professed anarchist Jeff Monson is now a wanted man in Washington state, but he doesn’t regret the spray-painted message he left on the state Capitol building denouncing the war in Iraq. The Olympia native has been charged with first-degree malicious mischief, a felony carrying a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $20,000 fine, according to The Olympian, which reported the story first on Wednesday. A warrant for Monson’s arrest was issued on Wednesday after the state spent $19,000 to remove the graffiti, said The Olympian. Monson, 37, told Sherdog.com on Thursday that he’d spray-painted the peace sign, the anarchy symbol, and the phrases “No war” and “No poverty” on multiple columns of the building on Nov. 26…
The Communist Alliance has lodged an application with the Australian Electoral Commission for federal registration. If approved, it will be the first time a communist party has been registered in Australia since July 1990, when the then national congress was deregistered due to declining membership. “The most common response we get is ‘Oh, you still exist’,” Victorian state branch secretary Andrew Irving told The Age yesterday.
Oddly enough, this is precisely the same reaction received when the Communist Alliance last launched itself upon the world stage. Assessing the outcome of the 2001 Federal election — a contest in which the CPA ran candidates — the editorial in the November 14, edition of The Guardian reads: The comment, “I thought you had gone out of existence”, is still all too frequently heard; more hopefully: The discovery that that is not the case is often followed by the comment that the Party’s continued existence is a good thing.
In the NSW Senate contest in 2001, there was a ding-dong battle between the CPA and the Socialist Alliance for electoral supremacy. Sadly for the CPA, they lost by over 100, gaining 1241 to the SA’s 1364 votes (from an overall total of 4,021,724). (By 2008, SA had gained 3,351 votes.)
*Note that following the Socialist Party of Australia’s adoption of the name Communist, the Militant Socialist Organisation adopted the name Socialist Party. The MSO/SP is a member of the Committee for a Workers International (CWI), originally formed in 1974.
Oh yeah. Previously…
Communists’ website a hit with youth
Karen Heinrich The Age
April 29, 2001
Perched at their Internet-connected computers, an army of apparatchiks-in-waiting has flocked to the Communist Party of Australia’s website, bombarding it with more than 95,000 hits in the past two months.
CPA general secretary Peter Symon, 78, says it’s the strongest wave of youth interest he has seen in his 60 years as a card-carrying communist and almost three decades as general secretary.
And at its ninth National Congress recently, the CPA voted unanimously to convene in September a foundation congress of the Communist Youth of Australia for those aged 14-29. Waiting in the wings is a small but dedicated number of wannabe reds, who have been meeting as a loose network since October.
Mr Symon said that most of the hits came from young Australians curious about the party that former prime minister Robert Menzies tried unsuccessfully to declare unconstitutional in the early 1950s.
Youth interest in the CPA is not new. The Eureka Youth League – formed in 1941 from the remnants of the Young Communist League, deemed illegal early in World War II – was one of the main rallying points for protests against the Vietnam War in Sydney and Melbourne.
By 1972, however, many young firebrands of the left had broken ties with the Eureka Youth League, outraged by the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia four years earlier.
Ray Berbling, CPA Victorian state president, said that youth interest in the party was “a cyclical thing” and interest was high now because “young people are suffering more under the governments that have been running Australia for the past 20 years”.
Organiser and youth spokesman Jules Andrews, 26, said the stimulus for forming a youth branch of the CPA was a trip to Melbourne last September for the S11 protests outside Crown Casino, which he hailed as “a triumph of left parties working together”. Mr Andrews said aspiring members of the Communist Youth of Australia met at party headquarters in Sydney once a fortnight for a formal meeting. Another activity – such as meeting at a protest rally, or a party function where they can set up a
youth table – is also held once every two weeks.
Raised in Townsville, Mr Andrews did not go to university (“it’s too expensive”) and does not come from a long line of communists (“my older sister, two younger brothers and I had a conservative, Christian upbringing”). He said his siblings had adopted his ideas.
To Mr Symon, such support is “indicative of a certain sort of milieu that’s developing in a society that is discontented and disillusioned” with the major political parties.
“They (young people) want to make life better, which is very commendable and understandable, and that need is being facilitated by the Internet. And in the 60 years I have been involved with the CPA, I can say without fear of contradiction that the ideas that we stand for have never let us down,” Mr Symon said.
But Sander Hicks refuses to turn a blind eye. As an active Green Party member he works tirelessly to put his 9/11 truth book, The Big Wedding, into action. He is also owner of Vox Pop Coffee Shop, a fair-trade establishment that places unions and democracy higher on the menu than sales and revenues. He works steadily towards living his visions to show that seeds, though small, can be a very potent enemy when their potential for destruction is ignored.
When I hear the words ‘Catholic Anarchy’, I reach for my copy of Ken’s Guide to the Bible.
The War Against Preterrorism: The ‘Tarnac Nine’ and The Coming Insurrection
Alberto Toscano
I. The Case
On 11 November 2008, twenty French youths are arrested simultaneously in Paris, Rouen, and in the small village of Tarnac (located in the district of Corrèze, in France’s relatively impoverished Massif Central region). The Tarnac operation involves helicopters, one hundred and fifty balaclava-clad anti-terrorist policemen and studiously prearranged media coverage. The youths are accused of having participated in a number of sabotage attacks against the high-speed TGV train routes, involving the obstruction of the train’s power cables with horseshoe-shaped iron bars, causing material damage and a series of delays affecting some 160 trains. Eleven of the suspects are promptly freed. Those who remain in custody are soon termed the ‘Tarnac Nine’, after the village where a number of them had purchased a small farmhouse, reorganised the local grocery store as a cooperative, and taken up a number of civic activities from the running of a film club to the delivery of food to the elderly. In their parents’ words, ‘they planted carrots without bosses or leaders. They think that life, intelligence and decisions are more joyous when they are collective’.[1]
Almost immediately, the Minister of the Interior, Michèle Alliot-Marie, brushing aside Republican legal niceties, intervenes to strongly underline the presumption of guilt and to classify the whole affair under the rubric of terrorism, linking it to the supposed rise of an insurrectionist ‘ultra-left’ (ultra-gauche), or ‘anarcho-autonomist tendency’ (mouvance anarcho-autonome), filling in the vacuum left by the collapse of the institutional Left (the PCF). Invoking anti-terrorist legislation, the nine are interrogated and detained for 96 hours; four are subsequently released. The official accusation is that of ‘association of wrongdoers in relation to a terrorist undertaking’, a charge that can carry up to 20 years in jail; what’s more, the accused might be detained for as long as two years before their case goes to trial. On December 2, three more of the Tarnac Nine are released under judiciary control, leaving two in jail, at the time of writing (early January 2009): Julien Coupat and Yldune Lévy.
Giorgio Agamben and Luc Boltanski, among others, write editorials decrying the disproportion and hysteria of this repressive operation.[2] A petition is circulated by Eric Hazan, radical publisher and friend of Coupat, signed by Badiou, Bensaïd, Butler, Rancière, Žižek and several others.[3] In the city of Tarnac (a village proud of its role in the Resistance, and represented by a communist mayor for four decades) a combative committee of support is set up, conveying a virtually unanimous show of solidarity of the villagers with the arrested; other committees and protests emerge in Bruxelles, New York, Moscow, and elsewhere.
*A slightly abridged version of this text will appear in Radical Philosophy 154.
Note that, according to some accounts in the French-language press, the remaining two prisoners, Julien Coupat and Yldune Lévy, have been subjected to sensory deprivation.
For almost five months, the Student Housing Action Cooperative (SHAC) squatted several properties in Farady Street, Carlton belonging to the University of Melbourne. When the squat was established in August 2008, the properties had been vacant for three years, having previously housed offices providing students with counselling. On January 14, 2009, after having issued numerous demands to vacate, the University finally arranged for the eviction of the squatters, conducted by a small group of about 25-30 police, accompanied by a handful of University employees.
There is little dispute regarding the general housing crisis in Melbourne. The University’s own housing service states: “The current shortage of housing in Melbourne’s private rental market has increased the demand on student housing providers located in the city and close to the University’s Parkville campus”. It further notes that “With a population of over three million people, Melbourne is a cosmopolitan and multicultural city. The University’s main campus is located in Parkville, a suburb that is approximately two kilometres from the city centre. The inner-city suburbs surrounding the University are diverse. Some are quiet, some are surrounded by parkland, some are surrounded by bars and cafes. The city itself offers a vibrant lifestyle.”
The principal requirement to gain access to the city’s vibrant lifestyle is of course money. This fact hardly needs reiterating, but its existence is both determinative and regarded as being as natural as breathing; as such, it provides the framework for almost all of the discussion which SHAC generated.
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not money, I am become as a sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not money, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not money, it profiteth me nothing. Money suffereth long, and is kind; money envieth not; money vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. . . . And now abideth faith, hope, money, these three; but the greatest of these is money.
I Corinthians xiii (adapted)
Over a century ago, a Frenchman called Paul (1841-1911) made the following observations on property.
Individual property can only exist in a primitive stage of human life, because of its two attributes, it is the product of the owner’s labour, and it is used by him.
These two qualities, regarded as indispensable to and inseparable from individual property, have left so strong an impression upon the human mind that the defenders of capitalism idiotically state that property is the reward of toil. Nevertheless, capitalist production can only exist when individual property is stripped of the two attributes which alone justify it.
Personal wealth is still, indeed, the result of labour, but it no longer belongs to the workers who produce it; the means of production (land, machinery, mines, &c.) are not owned by the wage-workers who use them, but by the capitalist who has not made them, and who does not work them. Capitalist property does not, consequently, possess the two attributes of individual property.
The economists, the moralists, the philosophers, and the politicians puzzle their brains to discover some attributes which can give it the appearance of being justifiable. Not being able to give the capitalist the character of a producer, they give him that of a thrifty man; his wealth is the result of his saving, they say. But, as he does not work, he must, then, save on the labour of others – in other words, he robs the workers of a part of the fruits of their labour, in order to make himself rich. The “thrift” argument having been recognised as being as silly as it is inconvenient, the leading politicians have generously endowed the capitalist with the qualities of organiser of labour and captain of industry, which by a genial co-operation with the labour of the wage-workers, beget his millions. But, reply the Socialists, as these qualities are not possessed by the capitalist, but by his managers and foremen, they cannot justify his ownership of wealth.
Then, arriving at the end of their inventive genius, they transform the transcendent virtues of the capitalist into a metaphysical entity. It is chance, it is blind fortune which makes him owner of property.
The existence of joint-stock companies demolishes these arguments, so laboriously maintained, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary. The capitalist who possesses shares in them has not the least contact with production; he may be ignorant of the place where it is carried on, as of its nature; he receives his dividends, and that is all he cares about. The joint-stock company breaks the last bonds which unite the proprietor to his property; it has depersonalised property.
The shares of a joint-stock company can belong to Peter, Paul or Nicodemus, they can change hands every day at the Stock Exchange, and sometimes several times in one day; but the factories still go on producing as if the property had not changed hands. The joint-stock companies which create a kind of collectivist property possessed by shareholders, demonstrate the absolute uselessness of capitalist production and clearly show the parasitical nature of the capitalist class. It is not the possessors but the non-possessors who are useful in the field of the capitalist production; but the Social Revolution will sweep away these parasites.
~ Paul Lafargue, Capitalist Property (June 1903), from Justice, 13 June 1903, p.3 (Originally published in Droit du Peuple)
Student Grant
On March 13, 2008, former student politician and President of the Australian Union of Students The Hon Julia Gillard MP gave a nice speech titled ‘A Higher Education Revolution: Creating a Productive, Prosperous, Modern Australia’ (note that the AUS declared Higher education in crisis in 1983; the same year that Gillard became President). In her speech, Gillard announced a Review, the Bradley Review, into higher education. The Expert Panel’s final report was released on December 17, 2008, and is meant to be available online (although I cannot download a copy for some reason). In response to the release, the man ultimately responsible for evicting students from University property:
The acting vice-chancellor of Melbourne University, Professor Peter McPhee, told The Age yesterday urgent action was required to stop Australia subsidising research from teaching budgets. “What I think needs to be stressed is this affects every element of university life,” Professor McPhee said. “The impact of not having research fully funded is larger classes … and university classes are simply too large” (Unis lobby for fully funded research, Katharine Murphy, December 31, 2008).
Whether or not Peter gets what he wants, it seems likely that students will be getting less, especially as far as ‘income support’ is concerned. Thus:
MORE than a third of university students receiving the main form of government financial assistance live in households with incomes of at least $100,000, according to government figures. Nearly half live with families on incomes of $80,000 or above, prompting critics of the Youth Allowance to say it is being rorted and not going to the students who need the aid… Centrelink data given to the review shows 148,000 students received some form of aid in 2007, a decline of 12,000 students since 2000. About 69,000 of those received the Youth Allowance. ~ Widespread rorting of uni student allowance, Stephanie Peatling, Sydney Morning Herald, January 13, 2009
The Youth Allowance, of course, is peanuts. For a single with no children, 18 years and over and not living at home, the maximum payment is $371.40 per fortnight ($185.70 per week) plus a maximum payment of $73.47 per fortnight ($36.74 per week) in Rent Assistance. That’s a maximum income of $222.44 per week; as of July 2008, the standard Federal Minimum Wage (FMW) weekly rate was $543.78. “A recent report by the Welfare Rights Network indicates that both Youth Allowance and Austudy (including rent assistance) payments are almost 40 per cent below the Henderson Poverty Line” (Wanted: A place to call home, Chris Povey, The Age, January 12, 2009).
Outside of the media, SHAC also sparked conversation in the blogosphere. John Surname, who frequently contributes to Grods, pulls no punches in his post on Diddly-Squatters (January 14, 2009). Of the squatters, John reckons “they’re fuckwits who think they deserve to live in someone’s else property for free because it’s their right to live in the inner city.” A less tired and emotional Andrew Norton simply dismisses the idea that Universities should have any other obligation to consumers (students) than to provide a commodity called Education, aka “some residual notion of the university as a community with obligations beyond the strictly educational” (Why do squatters get to stay so long in university property?, January 12, 2009).
On 3AW, ‘Spoilt brats’ staying put, January 6, 2009. “Do you think that Max and his mates are doing the right thing by making a political point about the affordability of rental accommodation? Or are they just a pack of spoilt brats?” Student squatters spark housing debate, Architecture & Design, January 14, 2009, discusses the wonderful architectural possibilities provided by empty shipping containers.
The resentment on display in much of the popular commentary is noteworthy, and revealing in terms of the extent to which Mr.Block and his legions still dominate popular thinking on matters of Property, and the howls of outrage which accompany any challenge, however slight, to the subordination of the citizenry to its prerogatives. The argument goes something like this:
Spoilt brats attend unimelb; the squatters are spolit brats. Instead of renting, or otherwise obtaining some other form of lawful accommodation — as other citizens, including students, are forced to — this small group is utilising their mis-guided sense of privilege — and the liberal attitude of the authorities at unimelb — to break the law and to obtain a commodity to which they are not entitled. Worse, the ‘students’ in question — and their status as students, rather than as trouble-making anarchists, has been questioned — are seeking accommodation in the heart of the inner-city. (“One protester wore a t-shirt backing radical group Arterial Bloc, which has been blamed for much of the mayhem during the anti-G20 riots in Melbourne. [Q.] ‘Do you [think] it’s appropriate to wear an Arterial Bloc t-shirt to a protest like this?’ But while an official spokesperson for the Student Housing Action Cooperative denied suggestions they were anarchists, and not homeless at all, others weren’t so sure. [Q.] ‘Are you an anarchist?’ [A.] (Laughs) ‘What a hilarious question… I guess there are anarchists living here, as well as people of all different political persuasions’.” ~ Melbourne University denies students squatters’ claims it’s stingy, Matthew Schulz, Herald Sun, January 7, 2009.)
John Surname:
Let’s be honest here. A lot of students are in dire need of housing, and making ends meet as a student is never easy. But if being a student has lead to homelessness, it’s probably time to assess about whether it’s a good idea to continue studying, or whether you should go and get a full time job and come back when you’re in a better position to be able to afford to study.
If you’re on AusStudy [sic], there is no reason why you should be homeless. Squatting on AusStudy [sic] is a lifestyle choice, not a choice made out of desperation.
There are a number of obvious rejoinders that could be made to this argument, but I’ll leave that up to the reader.
As for the socio-economic status of the squatters, to some extent an accurate assessment depends upon their conforming to the profile of an average student. In terms of its student population, at unimelb in 1999, 7.3% of domestic students were from a low socio-economic background, as opposed to 14.7% of domestic students across all higher education institutions (Socioeconomic background and higher education: an analysis of school students’ aspirations and expectations [EIP 02/05]). A newspaper report from 2004 notes that by 2002 there had been an increase of 0.6% in low SES students at unimelb. Another report states that in the three years to 2005, the ‘Participation share for students from low socio-economic status backgrounds (all ages) for selected universities, 2005 (%)’ at unimelb had risen 0.1% to 8.0%.
The report’s author, Richard James, further notes that:
Like most leading universities, the University of Melbourne is in a difficult position. The University has an informal, unwritten social contract because of its history and place in the institutional hierarchy. The consequences of tinkering with this implicit contract are evident in the press coverage around the Melbourne Model this year. Awkwardly, the community expects the University to stand for academic excellence and to stand for equality of opportunity in equal measure. The tensions between these two values are profound in a society in which senior school completion rates and achievement levels are so strongly correlated with socio-economic status. The bind for the University is that it is open to criticism of either elitism or declining standards if any changes are made to its policies for student selection, access and equity.
The strong correlation between school achievement and socio-economic status is starkly evident in the University of Melbourne case, as with many of the Group of Eight universities. It is now so very difficult for the University of Melbourne to recruit students from low socio-economic backgrounds who have suitable levels of academic attainment, at least as measured by the ranking provided by ENTER. This dilemma has been experienced most keenly in the highly competitive fields of study, such as Law. The University of Melbourne has the challenge of assessing the genuine academic potential of students to be successful in a higher education environment, for which there is obviously no suitable measurement tool at the present time.
In other words, unimelb is an elite institution whose student population is overwhelmingly drawn from the middle and upper classes, the majority of whom attended a fairly small range of private or ‘selective’ public schools. unimelb is typically understood as being a middle or upper-middle class institution. (In 2005, for example, only 8% of students were categorised as coming from a background of low socio-economic status.)
Of course, even if all of the squatters were from privileged backgrounds, this would not render SHAC worthless. Certainly, the abuse directed at the squatters is in accord with that heaped upon other malcontents. It may have been pretty safe to say in 1966 that the student is the most universally despised creature in France, but in Australia in 2008, the student is merely a figure of contempt.
Oh Mr. Block,
you were born by mistake,
You take the cake,
you make me ache.
Tie a rock on your block
and then jump in the lake,
Kindly do that for Liberty’s sake.
Nineteenth Century Anarchist Terrorism: How Comparable to the Terrorism of al-Qaeda?
Richard Bach Jensen Terrorism and Political Violence, Vol.20, No.4, 2008 (589–596)
In a speech given last November and in an article, Professor James L. Gelvin argues most forcefully for the existence of close similarities between nineteenth century anarchist terrorism and contemporary terrorism.1 In his talk Gelvin specifies six main areas of resemblance. These include the fact that both anarchists and al-Qaeda: number one, prefer action over ideology, number two, focus single-mindedly on resistance to an intrusive alien order, three: lack programmatic goals, four: pursue violence for its own sake, five: attack the state and the entire world system of nation states and, finally, operate through decentralized, semi-autonomous cells. Gelvin goes further than noting similarities, since he actually contends that al-Qaeda–style jihadism is a kind of anarchism, an Islamic anarchism, and indicative of the reemergence of anarchism as a force in world history after an approximately sixty year absence. Understandably, Gelvin concentrates on al-Qaeda, a subject that forms part of his general area of expertise, and spends little time explaining how the anarchist terrorists fit into his paradigm.
This points to a problem for commentators trying to compare these two terrorist phenomena, since usually those authors who know something about the Middle East and Islamic terrorism know little about nineteenth century anarchists, and those who know something about anarchist terrorism know much less about al-Qaeda. I have to place myself in the latter category, since my field of expertise is not contemporary, but rather nineteenth century terrorism, and more specifically, the diplomatic and police efforts to repress nineteenth and early twentieth century anarchist terrorism. Nonetheless, in this essay I will go out on a limb and analyze the ways in which the phenomenon of nineteenth century anarchist terrorism prefigures the phenomenon of contemporary terrorism, adding my amendments and additions to Gelvin’s intriguing hypothesis.
Two Greek anarchists are making molotov cocktails. One says to the other: "So who will we throw these at then?" The other replies: "What are you, some kind of fucking intellectual?"
