Is SNN controversial?

Written by Tom Paine

Sunday, 05 April 2009 21:45

Does SNN's iconography offend everyone on the Left?
That's pretty much the message I got from an exchange of views of the great UK left wing anti-Jihadi blog Harrys Place.

It all started innocuoulsy enough, with a post by regular HP contributor Dave T entitled "How to Beat Both the BNP and the Islamists".

I think that what is needed is an antifascist campaign that combines fighting the neo Nazi far right with the Islamist far right. I’m convinced that this is the only way to defeat both. Part of the reason - not the only one - that the BNP has risen is that the cordon sanitaire that surrounded far Right thought has been fatally compromised by the accommodation between the far Left and the Islamist far Right. Organisations which say pretty outrageous and extreme things have got op eds in the Guardian and have cultivated links with Labour (and LibDem and occasionally Tory) MPs. This allows the BNP to say: “We’re the only ones who are standing up for *you*”. Both groups share a common racist hatred of Jews - including Holocaust denial - but yet the Islamists have been given a pass on this by large sections of the Left. That lowers the bar as to what constitute acceptable political discourse. As the BNP pursues its ‘thug in a suit’ rebranding strategy, it actually allows them to pose as the ‘less extreme’ of the two.

All very good, and very much in line with the way many of us on the Right think (except for our very own mirror-images of Vanessa's loonies, yes Ann Coulter I'm looking at you).

So I decided to weigh in with my very own tale of cross-political woe.

It’s just not that easy to fight a two-front political war, most people find it difficult to get their heads around anything so complex. People tend to drift lazily towards a simple “us correct/good, them wrong/evil” worldview, with “us” and “them” drawn clearly and simply. Some of you over here on what I suppose we can still term the Left are having an absolutely terrible time trying to get your heads around the idea that anyone with brown skin might not necessarily be a victim of western oppression and therefore politically blameless. Having said that, in my own political corner (the “Right” I suppose, as I’m keen on living my life with as little interference from the government as possible) there are indeed a few people driven so mad with rage by the Islamic Right that they are prepared to cooperate with political groups such as Belgium’s Vlaams Belang that simply don’t pass a basic smell test. It might surprise you the we’re having exactly the same internal shit-fight over cooperation with our crazies as you are with yours.
As far as I’m concerned, Nazis, Islamists and the few remaining Communists are simply different aspects of the same problem - people who know better than you how you should live your life and are fully prepared to murder hundreds of millions of people in order to bring about paradise on earth in which everyone will be forced to act and think the same way. Oh, and for some reason the Jews always seem to be in the way of such movements and need to be removed as an urgent priority, really you’d think that might be a clue for modern people who still seem confused about Islamism. I run a center-right satirical/news podcast and recently I’ve been trying to broaden its base (as this post suggests) by getting someone from the sensible Nick Cohen/Martin Bright Left to become a contributor. Can I get someone? Can I hell! No one wants to cross that political Rubicon and actually speak to what they still believe is “the enemy”. It’s pretty dispiriting - most left wing people and blogs I’ve approached, including Harrys Place, simply haven’t responded. Others have simply not been able to grasp the concept that the challenge we’re facing might require a more broadly based political response and that, as Ben Franklin once observed, we must hang together or we shall most assuredly hang separately.

At this point a commenter called "Mr BP" responded, not unsympathetically, with some advice on how to broaden SNN's appeal.

Tom Paine your web site, podcast and blog are very slick. The reason why you are not getting any response from “The decent Left” is not because of your centre right small government politics but because of the flag waiving Anglocentric nature of your website. The decent Left may have moved away from dogmatic multiculturalism and cultural relativism but pride in Anglo identity and culture will be forever a no no. The decent Left has no problem with open neocons like Douglas Murray or Oliver Kamm but us Brits from a Leftist back ground have been bought up in a society where flag waiving is intrinsically a sign of racism. Where the only people to hold up Winnie Churchill as a hero are arrogant aristocratic imperialistic dinosaurs and white working class racists. Your website makes the mistake of prominently displaying Western flags (American, Canadian, British etc) with a red St George Cross superimposed over them and the tagline “Defending the Anglosphere through satire”. hrow into the mix the Winston Churchill (A man who the Left fought because of his staunch imperialism) pictures and quotes and you have a website that is bound to get any Leftist running a mile. Especially Leftists like Nick Cohen who are under attack and being denounced as neocons. It would be the nail in the coffin, the far left would just have to direct people to your site and say Nick Cohen contributes to a flag waiving, imperialistic, racist website and he could expect to see his books slip from the bestseller list. I don’t think your site is racist. I don’t think waiving a Union Jack is racist. I don’t think having great respect for Winston Churchill is racist, it’s just all three of these things have been so inextricably related to the worst elements in British society for so long no British Leftists will touch your site with a bargepole. Perhaps a change of image might help you broaden your appeal.

Yeah, thanks for the helpful tips Mr BP, not going to happen though.

Here's what I responded with.

Well, if people react badly to the country’s flag, and a picture of one of it’s greatest leaders, I think that’s something of a judgment on them, not those symbols. What would they prefer? The bland EU circle of stars on a blue background, and a photo of Jade Goody? People don’t feel any sort of emotional pull, the “mystic chords of memory” towards anything the majority of the modern Left puts forward as an alternative. We NEED our iconography, our myths and legends, our organic link with history - why do you think Labour (sorry, according to my chums on the Daily Mail I have to use “ZANU-NuLabour”) is about as popular as rabies on a stick right now? We’ve been told to feel ashamed of ourselves, to beat ourselves up for our sins, both real and imaginary, and we just don’t enjoy feeling that way. And when people don’t like something, they eventually reject it. Look, I’m not suggesting everyone start standing up at the start of the movies while they play the national anthem over a clip of HM the Q at the Trooping of the Colour, which I still remember doing as a schoolboy at the Majestic Theater in Auckland. But the Left seems intent on chucking the baby out with the bathwater with this obsession over some sort of colonial guilt. When it came time for us to leave, we left, didn’t we? Voluntarily, with a nice handover ceremony involving a minor royal and flags being raised at midnight. We didn’t have to be carried out feet-first in a box like the French, who’ve never left ANYWHERE voluntarily, or the Portuguese who blew up all the ports, roads and power stations before climbing onto their ships and pissing off. We’re guilty of what we did wrong, no one is questioning that. But to pretend it’s all just one sorry litany of racist oppression is a foul injustice on what is a much more complex story.

To which Mr BP came back with...

Well I agree with you Tom Paine but that is the reason why you are scaring away the decent Left. It’s got nothing to do with your centre right politics. It’s all that iconography you’ve got going on. It’s not necessarily the decent Leftist view that it’s racist to fly the flag but whether we like it or not that is the mainstream view of British patriotism. At best they are seen as backward and insular little Englanders at worst they are branded as racist fuckwits. They are rarely the good guys unless England are playing football on the day. The default position is that anyone who goes in for British heroes, iconography and Anglo pride must be closely allied to Combat 18. That iconography has been besmirched by a campaign that was so successful that a politician would lose votes if he started talking about being patriotic whilst waving a flag and quoting Churchill. Our iconography, our myths and legends, our organic link with history has been severed. More than one generation has been bought up without those things and my generation was bought up to feel shameful about our history. As a white English kid growing up in North London in the 80’s I was bought up to celebrate other cultures and shun my own. Celebrating Jamaican culture or Hindu festivals was encouraged but a celebration of Britishness was without a doubt trespassing on the territory of the National Front. Leave all that national pride to the nazis. Churchill must be turning in his grave. I know that the majority of intelligent level headed people I know would view flag waving patriotism as a bad thing to be frowned on. The problem is they are the majority and they set the status quo, just as in the past there was nothing wrong with being gay but the status quo said it was a bad thing so homosexuality had to be hidden. Most of the people who have created the trends molded our modern culture and made anti racism mainstream have also made British history, culture and identity something to be ashamed of. Teachers, academics, directors, journalists, musicians and comedians for decades have chipped away at our iconography, our myths and legends, our organic link with history all in the name of equality and eradication of racism. They have done a bloody good job because we now have generations of confused British people who feel they have no identity other than Big Brother, The Sun and football. On the flipside we have a growing Muslim community which is increasingly radicalised and has nothing to integrate into apart from Big Brother, The Sun and football. Looking at it from their point of view the strong culture, the warrior code, the proud imperial history and the black flag of Islam looks a damn sight more appealing than a Britain which feels ashamed, apologetic and doesn’t have the courage to stand up for itself for fear of offence. Why integrate into that? The Left have already thrown the baby out with the bath water and you will struggle to get our iconography, our myths and legends to be a respectable thing for a liberal to be associated with. I wish it wasn’t so but that’s the truth of the matter. The damage is done.

So, what do SNN listeners think?

Are we fatally undermining ouir appeal to potential anti-Jihadis on the left by wrapping ourselves in the Union Flag and making them think we're some sort of slightly Jewish-accented branch of the BNP or the Tel Aviv branch of Combat 18?

Does our admiration for the man who led us to victory over the Nazis make us...er...Nazis?

Here's my take.

Of course what we have here on SNN is iconography. Of course we're indulging a certain set of myths, not in the sense of them being lies or untrue, but a group of stories we tell about ourselves explaining who we are and what we stand for.

Those stories, those attitudes, that flag, that man...all of them carry deep complexities as well as simple meanings, I don't think we're suggesting anyone should be blind to any faults or mistakes in our collective past.

But myths are needed, they're vital if we are to retain any sense of ourselves as ourselves, as peoples with a joint origin, experience and destiny.

I've never bought into the theory that "progressive" politics has some sort of inevitable pre-ordained victory built into it.

And I vehemently reject it's blanket rejection of the past as useless, and of our common values as a conspiracy to retain a class system which is based on systematic violence and opression, a system which has been used to conquer and exploit non-Western peoples who were powerless to resist our advanced weaponry and rapacious greed for resources which didn't belong to us.

Not that there's not more than a grain of truth to that view - there is, as even a cursory glance at history should be enough to convince you.

I guess I'm trying to restore some balance, and if that offends some people on the Left who are so blinkered by their politics that they see nothing salvageable in the Anglo-Protestant political/cultural system whatsoever, then so be it.

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