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Left wing(leftwing)In politics , left-wing, politicalleft, or simply the left, are terms which refer (with no particular precision) to thesegment of the political spectrum typically associated with anyof several strains of socialism , social democracy , or liberalism (especially in the United States sense of the word), or with opposition to right-wing politics . Communism (as well as the Marxist philosophy that it relies on) and anarchism are considered to be radical forms of left-wing politics. (See political spectrum and left-right politics for more on the merits/limitations of this kind of classification.) The terminologyof left-right politics was originally based on the seating-arrangement of parliamentary partisans, during the French Revolution . The more ardent proponents of radical revolutionarymeasures (including democracy and republicanism ) were commonly referred to as leftists because they sat on the left side of successivelegislative assemblies. As this original reference became obsolete, the meaning of the terms has changed as appropriate to thespectrum of ideas and stances being compared. The term is also often used to characterize the politics of the SovietUnion and other one-party " communist states ", although many(perhaps most) on the political left (including many Marxists) would not consider their own politics to have anything significantin common with any of these states.
Left wing issuesEquality, social justice, labor rights and trade unionism, concern for the poor, working class solidarity and internationalism are the values typically associated with the left wing ofthe political spectrum. The left is against hierarchy and authority, strict adherence to tradition, monoculturalism, privilegefor the wealthy, and other values commonly associated with the political right . Those on the left are sometimes called " progressive ", a term that arose from their self-identification as the side of (social) "progress". History of the termAlthough it may seem ironic in terms of present-day usage, the original "leftists" during the French Revolution were the largely bourgeois supporters of Laissez-fairecapitalism and free markets . As the electorate expanded beyond property-holders, these relatively wealthy elites found themselves clearly victoriousover the old aristocracy and the remnants of feudalism , but newly opposed by the growing and increasingly organized and politicized workers and wage-earners.The "left" of 1789 would, in some ways be part of the present-day "right", liberal with regard to the rights of property and intellect, but not embracing notions of distributive justice , rights for organized labor , etc. The European left has traditionally shown a smooth continuum between non-communist and communist parties (including suchhybrids as Eurocommunism ), which have sometimes allied with more moderateleftists to present a united front . In the United States , however, no avowedly socialist or communist party ever became a major player in nationalpolitics, although the Social DemocraticParty of Eugene V. Debs and its successor Socialist Party of America (in the late nineteenth andearly twentieth century) and the Communist Party of the UnitedStates of America (in the 1930s ) made some inroads. While many American "liberals"would be "social democrats" in European terms, very few of them openly embrace the term "left"; in America, the term is mainlyembraced by New Left activists, certain portions of the labor movement, and people who see their intellectual or political heritage as descending from19th-century socialist movements. The " New Left " has had varying degrees of unity since its rise in the 1960s, andcan be seen as a coalition of numerous distinct movements, including (but notlimited to) feminists , Greens , some Labor unions , some Atheists , some Gay rights activists, and some minority ethnic and racially oriented Civil Rights groups. Many Greens deny that green politics is "on the left"; nonetheless, their economic policies can generally be considered left-wing,and when they have formed political coalitions (most notably in Germany , but also inlocal governments elsewhere), it has almost always been with groups that would generally be classified as being on the left. Leftism and the Soviet UnionMuch as fascism is generally included in "the right", despite importantdifferences from other rightists, Soviet-style state communism isgenerally included in "the left", despite important differences from other leftists. Some argue that (in spite of its use ofsocialist rhetoric), Soviet-style communism should be viewed independently of the conventional left-right spectrum: this casehas, perhaps, been made most eloquently by Karl Popper , through hisdevelopment of the concept of totalitarianism . Critics of democratic socialism or of left-liberalism have often used theassociation of communism with Soviet-style politics to tar the political left with the perceived crimes of Stalinism , but these accusations are usually little more than rhetorical devices (similarto the ones used by some critics of conservativism or other right-wingideologies in associating the political right with fascism). In the days of the Soviet Union, leftist movements worldwide had different relationships with Moscow-line communist parties,ranging from enthusiastic support to outright opposition. Even today, some parts of the radical left extol all or some aspects ofSoviet-style communism or that of Maoist China ,while others loathe the perceived crimes of those regimes and denounce them at every turn. For example, most Trotskyists adhere to some variant of Leon Trotsky 's view of the post- Lenin Soviet Union as a " degenerated workers' state " and denounce Stalin as a traitor, while the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA takes the opposite view and continues to praise the Chinese Cultural Revolution . Some critics of the left claim that leftist movements lost their moorings – or their rationale – after thecollapse of the European communist states (beginning in 1989 and ending with the fall ofthe Soviet Union in 1991 ). However, large segments of the left never took inspiration fromthe Soviet model and actually rejoiced to see the USSR's system collapse -- as Michael Albert of Z Magazine put it, "one down,one to go" (referring to Stalinism and capitalism ). Leftism and postmodernismA few self-described leftists also subscribe to postmodernism ,including deconstructionism , a philosophical point of view thatclaims that every text "contains the allegory of its own deconstruction" and thereby questions the possibility of rationaldiscourse. (Most postmodernists see themselves as leftists, but most leftists are not postmodernists.) Critics on the right havegenerally seen this as an indication of the poorly thought-out, fashionable nature of academic leftism. However, there are manyon the left who say that postmodernism makes no sense and offers no useful political lessons. Some critics of the left also suggest that deconstructionism is not the only Nietzschean element in contemporary leftism, pointing to older, mistaken interpretations of Nietzscheas the font of moral relativism and the " God is dead " philosophy, both of which they see as characterizing the perceived nihilism of modern leftist politics. On the other hand, most leftists consider suchaccusations to be completely baseless and incorrect; this is especially true of religious leftists, many of whom hold the ideasof moral relativism and nihilism in less than low regard. Leftism and Neo-leftism in ChinaThe 1949 victory of the Chinese Revolution brought to power the then ultra-leftist Chinese Communist Party of Mao Zedong , who, over the next quarter of a century attempted the radical transformation of society through the Great Leap Forward and the Chinese Cultural Revolution . After Mao's death, itbecame the conventional wisdom among China's leadership that these attempts had been a disaster. Although it has retained itsname, the Chinese Communist Party today has abandoned Communism in its economic policies, pursuing instead an agenda of economic liberalization , beginning in the 1980s with the Four Modernizations of Deng Xiaoping . The Chinese government, however, has remained rigidly authoritarian ; socially and politically, it is still commonly viewed as repressive, though far less so thanin Mao's time. Most leading Chinese dissidents are political and social liberals. In contrast both to the government and the liberal dissidents, Chinese neo-leftism , embracing postmodernism and Chinese nationalism , and opposed both to democracy and to what theysee as a return of China to the capitalist world, arose as a political idea during the mid- 1990s . Neo-leftism is seen as being more appealing to students in China today than liberalism, as problems faced byChina during its modernisation such as inequality and the widening gapbetween the rich and the poor are becoming more serious. Leftism, Pacifism and " War on Terror "BackgroundAfter the September 11 terroristattacks which killed more than 3000 people in the United States , U.S.president George W. Bush declared a campaign against terrororganizations and terror supporters, which he called the " War onterrorism ". Although Bush has never formally articulated exactly which of his programs constitute that "war", it is clearthat the term embraces at least two major Bush administration initiatives: a set of changes to U.S. criminal law and immigration law (most notably through the USAPATRIOT Act ) and the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan and the 2003 invasion of Iraq . The term may also embrace such related matters as the creation of a Department of Homeland Security . The September 11 attacks were the first succesful attacks by foreign forces against the U.S. mainland since the War of 1812 . The nearest thing to a precedent in living memory was the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor , although in 1941 Hawaii was merely a U.S. Territory , not a U.S. state . Pearl Harbor was clearly an action of the Japanese government and military. In contrast, the September 11 attacks appear to have been carried out by a small group of individualswho formed part of the al-Qaida network: Islamists without formal backing from any state (though there were and are suspicions that Al-Qaida was aided andfunded by several Arab/Muslim countries). Immediate reaction to the attacksThe immediate, worldwide reaction to the attacks was widely described at the time as "shock". [1] , [2] [3] No national government claimedconnection to the attacks. Indeed, the governments most associated with Islamism sought to distance themselves from the attacks. Wakeel AhmedMutawakel , the foreign minister of Afghanistan 's then-ruling Taliban government, declared, "We denounce this terrorist attack, whoever is behind it." [4] Mohammad Khatami , the Iranian president, said he felt "deepregret and sympathy with the victims." [5] Shaykh Abdul Aziz al-Ashaikh , Grand Mufti of SaudiArabia and Chairman of the Senior Ulama, said, "Hijacking planes, terrorizing innocent people and shedding blood constitute aform of injustice that can not be tolerated by Islam, which views them as gross crimes and sinful acts." [6] Palestinian President Yasser Arafat said, "Wecompletely condemn this serious operation... We were completely shocked..." [7] Many, though, considered those reactionsas hypocrisy, since many Arab and Muslim states encourage anti-Americanism and many newspapers in the Arab world -- for example theIslamist opposition press in Egypt Egyptian press -- openlycelebrated the September 11 attacks. Moreover, states like Iran and Syria were known for long-year funding of terrorist networkssuch as Hezbollah , Hamas and Islamic Jihad . Also, Al-Qaida training camps were operating undisturbed in Afghanistan and the organization held bank accounts in Saudi Arabia . On the left, condemnation of the attacks was equally general, although often including (even in the days immediately after theattack) condemnation of ostensibly related aspects of U.S. policies. NoamChomsky 's statement in the immediate wake of the attacks begins by condemning this "major atrocit[y]" and "horrendous crime",but also by contextualizing it in terms of the Clinton -era U.S. attack onthe Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory and prefiguring what would be a widespread concern for the left worldwide: "...the crime is a gift to the hard jingoist right,those who hope to use force to control their domains." [8] Similarly,from Vijay Prashad , "Theattacks must be condemned without reservation. But we must be certain to recognize that these are probably the work of frustratedand alienated human beings hemmed in by forces that are anonymous and that could only be embodied by these structures." [9] Martin Woollacott , writing in The Guardian , called the attacks, "above all a stupendous crime,"but also wrote, "America's best defence against terrorism originating from abroad remains the existence of governments andsocieties more or less satisfied with American even-handedness on issues which are important to them. Plainly, this is furthestfrom the case in the Muslim world." [10] U.S. elected officials generally identified as being on the left also joined in strongly condemning the attacks, without evenchoosing to point out a context. For example, the day after the attack, Senator Edward Kennedy described the attack as "vicious and horrifying... acts of unspeakable cruelty... a massivetragedy for America," and commended President Bush for "his strongstatement... about finding and punishing the perpetrators of this atrocity." [11] Three days after the attacks,Congress passed a resolution authorizing President Bush to use force against "those responsible". The Senate voted 98-0, theHouse 420-1, with only Barbara Lee (D-California) dissenting. [12] In a lengthy interview explaining herdissent, Lee pointed to her professional training as a social worker and remarked, "Right now, we're dealing with recovery, andwe're dealing with mourning, and there's no way... [we should]... deal with decisions that could escalate violence and spiral outof control." [13] An anti-war movement formsWithin days of the September 11 events, it was widely (though not universally) agreed that the attacks werecarried out by al-Qaida . The dissenters from this view were and aremostly Muslims ; Al-Qaida responsibility for the attacks may be a minority view in majority-Muslim countries [14] , though not among Muslims in the U.S. [15] A small segment of the left also calls this belief into question . A muchlarger segment (though still a minority) of the left (both in the U.S. and elsewhere) concurred with the clear majority ofMuslims that a military attack on Afghanistan was not the correct answer to the September 11 events. This anti-war view was evenmore widespread among both leftists and Muslims with respect to the later attack on Iraq. The left was somewhat fragmented with respect to the invasion of Afghanistan. U.S. Representative Dennis Kucinich , who had opposed the Kosovo War and would soon oppose the invasion of Iraq, voted to authorize military action against Afghanistan,although he would later characterize it as a "disaster", a "nightmare", and "counterproductive". [16] U.S. Representative Cynthia McKinney , speaking on September 24 , acknowledged that "We must find and hold accountable all those who perpetrated those mostterrible crimes against our nation and its people," but denounced what she saw as impending "suspensions of fundamental civil liberties " and said that she was "greatly concerned that we are aboutto engage in an extremely hazardous military campaign of unknown duration, with unrealistic objectives and perhaps evenultimately harmful long-term consequences for our nation," adding, "Already there is growing disquiet in the Muslim world thatthe U.S. is poised to turn its terrorist campaign into a war against Islam." [17] Indian leftist writer Arundhati Roy , writing on September 29 , strongly condemned both the attackers who had "blown a hole in theworld as we knew it" and Bush for reacting by going to war against Afghanistan: "President Bush's ultimatum to the people of theworld - 'If you're not with us, you're against us' - is a piece of presumptuous arrogance. It's not a choice that people want to,need to, or should have to make." [18] Within a few weeks after September 11, it became clear that two major prongs of the Bush administration's "war on terrorism"were to be a set of changes to U.S. criminal law and immigration law and an invasion ofAfghanistan . An international anti-war movement began to arise; in the U.S. and other countries whose governments enactedlegislation analogous to the PATRIOT act, it was equally a movement in protest of what were perceived on the left to be assaultson civil liberties and immigrant rights. This movement constituted a loose coalition of groups united in their opposition to U.S.military campaigns in the Middle East. Most prominent in the ranks of the movement were leftists; pacifists and others with longtime associations with global peace movements ; and Arabs and Muslims, including, but by no means limited to, Islamicists. Most commentaryfocuses on the "anti-war movement" in the singular, although in many ways it could be argued that there is a plurality ofdifferent anti-war movements, who may not have anything in common with each other beyond their shared opposition to U.S. foreignpolicy. The movement (or movements) included an enormous variety of groups and individuals that could not be categorised as "left" inany conventional terms, who had a variety of reasons for opposition to the invasion of Afghanistan and later of Iraq. In additionto the many non-leftist Arabs and Muslims in the movement, there were also European nationalists uncomfortable with U.S. unilateralism (their numbers would greatly increase in the run-up tothe invasion of Iraq). There was also an uneasy relationship with explicitly antisemitic groups who charged that the war was being waged on behalf of Israel ; with the few, small right-wing anti-wargroups; and with certain political fringe groups, such as the followers of Lyndon LaRouche . These latter groups sometimes participated in the same demonstrations with other opponentsof the war, but seldom were actively involved in any of the same organized coalitions. Almost no one denied the connection between the Afghanistan's Taliban governmentand al-Qaida. However, various leftists opposed the Afghanistan invasion and the subsequent invasion of Iraq on the followinggrounds: pacifism; belief that the war was illegal under international law ; opposition to perceived U.S. imperialism ; disbelief (especially in the case of Iraq) in the sincerity of the U.S.'s stated war aims of counter-terrorism and the spread of political freedom ; belief that the wars were motivated by neocolonialism and petroleum politics ; and, in a few cases, denial of al-Qaida's responsibility for the September 11attacks. Another argument against the Afghanistan invasion was that war would bring unnecessary suffering on the people of Afghanistanand that it was not the most effective way to dislodge or isolate al-Qaida: that in fact it would inflate their importance andgain them recruits. Similarly, in the case of the later invasion of Iraq, many felt that Iraq was not a threat to the UnitedStates and that a preemptive attack was morally wrong. Manypeople condemned the latter war because they doubted U.S. and other claims about Saddam's relation to al-Qaida, about hispossession of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), and about the effectiveness of war as a means of containing WMDs, or because of the lack of United Nations support for war. Many Islamists and Arabs, and a few leftists, saw the military campaigns as battles in a religious war -- a crusade -- against Islam. This was the obverse of the ideas expressed, for example, by Samuel P. Huntington in The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of WorldOrder . Left anti-war organizations and ralliesThe anti-war movement has organized massive anti-war rallies , specifically against the war in Iraq . Some of the most prominent organizations began by opposing the 2001 invasion ofAfghanistan. Others formed only after the Afghanistan invasion and after Bush's January 29 , 2002 State of the Union Address was widely seen on the left as threatening confrontation with Iraq , Iran , and North Korea , which Bush referred to collectively as an " axisof evil ". Left and anti-war in the U.S.The most prominent U.S.-based movement groups are Act Now to Stop War and End Violence(ANSWER) , Not in Our Name (NION) , and United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ) . ANSWER was one of the first U.S. left groups to form after the September 11 attacks in order to express dissent from thenascent "War on Terror". With the U.S. left divided on the merits of military action against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan,the International Action Center (IAC), agroup founded in 1992 by former U.S. attorney general Ramsey Clark and perceived both on the left [19] and right [20] as closely tied to the Workers World Party . Drawing on that party's tight organization,ANSWER attracted an estimated 20,000 people to their first major action, an "Anti-War, Anti-Racist" rally and march in Washington, D.C. , primarily in protest of the then impending invasion ofAfghanistan. This rally occurred on September 29 , 2001, a mere 18 daysafter the September 11 attacks. Notwithstanding their organizational ability, Workers World's role in ANSWER and ANSWER's role in the movement were (and are)controversial, both on the left and elsewhere. In a typical example of a critique from within the left, Michael Albert and Stephen R. Shalom writing on October 24 , 2002 for Z , about a then-impending nationwide set of demonstrations (called by ANSWER), begin their discussion [21] with a scathing critiqueof the views of Workers World, IAC, and (by implication) ANSWER. Describing IAC as an "extremely energetic antiwar group" andlaying out its relationship to ANSWER, Clark, and Workers World (which they call "WWP"), they declare, "WWP holds many views thatwe find abhorrent. It considers North Korea 'socialist Korea'... a fantastic distortion of the reality of one of the most rigiddictatorships in the world. IAC expresses its solidarity with Slobodan Milosevic. ... [T]o champion Milosevic is grotesque. TheANSWER website provides an IAC backgrounder on Afghanistan that refers to the dictatorial government that took power in thatcountry in 1978 as 'socialist' and says of the Soviet invasion the next year: the 'USSR intervened militarily at the behest ofthe Afghani revolutionary government'... In none of IAC's considerable resources on the current Iraq crisis is there a singlenegative word about Saddam Hussein. There is no mention that he is a ruthless dictator. (This omission is not surprising, giventheir inability to detect any problem of dictatorship with the Soviet-backed regime in Afghanistan.)..." Albert and Shalom go on to discuss the quandry this presents for people like them opposed to the war: "If there were anotherlarge demonstration organized by forces more compatible with the kinds of politics espoused by other antiwar activists, includingourselves, then we would urge people to prefer that one. And there is no doubt we should be working to build alternativeorganizational structures for the antiwar movement that are not dominated by IAC. But at the moment the ANSWER demonstration isthe only show in town." Finally, they discuss how they expect these politics will and will not affect the demonstration: "IAC demonstrations... haveprograms skewed in the direction of IAC politics, but without excluding alternative voices. In general, the IAC speakers will notbe offensive so much for what they say, but for what they don't say. That is, they won't praise Saddam Hussein from the podium,but nor will they utter a critical word about him. However, as long as other speakers can and do express positions with adifferent point of view, the overall impact of the event will still be positive, particularly in the absence of other options.Most of the people at the demonstration will in fact be unaware of exactly who said what and whether any particular speakeromitted this or that point. What they will experience will be a powerful antiwar protest. And most of the public will see it thatway too." ANSWER attracted significant numbers to their rallies, but acquired few formal endorsements. In contrast, the list of earlyendorsers of NION's spring 2002 "Statementof Conscience" reads like a Who's Who of the U.S. left, ranging from celebrities such as Laurie Anderson , Deepak Chopra , and John Cusack , to intellectuals like Noam Chomsky , ToniMorison , and Howard Zinn . NION was founded a full six months after ANSWER, as it was becoming clear that the U.S.'s military response to September 11would not stop with Afghanistan. Despite its wide endorsements, NION's origins too gave pause to some on the left. Quoting againfrom the same article by Albert and Shalom, "Significant impetus behind NION comes from the Revolutionary Communist Party(RCP) . RCP identifies itself as followers of Marxism - Leninism - Maoism . Their website ( [22] , citation in theoriginal) expresses support for Shining Path in Peru , ... an organization with a gruesome record of violently targeting other progressive groups. For the RCP, freedomdoesn't include the right of a minority to dissent (this is a bourgeois formulation, they say, pushed by John Stuart Mill and Rosa Luxembourg )...'" Despite these origins, Albert and Shalom see NION in a rather different light than ANSWER -- and this goes far to explain thelist of endorsements by prominent members of the U.S. Left. Albert and Shalom acknowledge the broad endorsements of the "eloquentand forceful" pledge and write, "RCP does not push its specific positions on NION to the degree that IAC does on ANSWER,"pointing out the contrast between the contents of the respective organizations' web sites: "[T]he NION website and its publicpositions have no connection to the sometimes bizarre views of the RCP. The case for participating in NION events is strongerthan for ANSWER events. It still makes overwhelming sense to build better antiwar coalitions, but in the meantime supporting NIONactivities promotes an antiwar message that we support, with relatively little compromise of our views." The third major U.S. group, UFPJ, founded around the time Albert and Shalom were writing, has been generally exempt from suchaccusations of sectarianism. Motivated no doubt in part by some of the same issues raised by Albert and Shalom, UFPJ has been,from the start, a broad coalition of organizations; NION itself is a member of UFPJ, as are MoveOn , the National Council ofChurches , and Albert's own Z magazine. The groups have collaborated at times on events, although collaboration has not always been easy. In perhaps the most infamous incident , Rabbi Michael Lerner was banned from speaking at a February 16 , 2003 anti-war rally in San Francisco , lessthan a month before the U.S. invaded Iraq. It was generally believed that this was done at ANSWER's behest, because Lerner hadbeen critical of what he perceives as ANSWER's anti- Israel politics. Lerner, thoughirked that NION and UFPJ did not stand up for his inclusion as a speaker, continued to encourage people to attend the rally. [23] , [24] Left and anti-war in EuropePopular opposition to war onIraq in Europe led to a wave of anti-warrallies , which climaxed in an international sychronized anti-war demonstration around the world on February 15, 2003 . The largest of these rallies were in Rome , Barcelona , and in London where over one million marched at a rally organised by the Stop the War Coalition . All three of these cities are in countries that were part of the "coalitionof the willing" which took part in the war in Iraq. Strong anti-American sentiments were expressed at most of theseanti-war protests, and some rallies even turned into violent events, with attacks on police, shops and passers-by, such as the March 24, 2003rally in Hamburg , Germany . There werealso instances of hate speech such as at the March 20, 2003 rally in London , England , where demonstratorscarried signs with photos of George W Bush and Tony Blair with the caption "World's Biggest Terrorists". Unlike the USA, Europe has a growing Muslim minority . Therehas been an organised Muslim component in many anti-war rallies, reflecting widespread opposition to the American War on Terror campaign - often because of Arab/Muslim solidarity. In some groups,such as the British Stop the War Coalition , Muslimshave taken leading positions. However, the presence of extremists and alleged Islamists [25] means that these anti-war rallies havebeen seen by some commentators to have been "hijacked" by them to become anti-Israeli, anti-Zionist and anti-Western events. In France , Iraqi and Palestinian flags were common in Anti-war rallies, while Israeli flags were often set on fire. In one case, the inflammatory atmosphere led to a serious case ofviolence: two Jewish teenagers, members of Hashomer Hatzair , have been attacked in a demonstration in Paris against the war in Iraq . Aurélie Filipetti , aspokeswoman of the Green Party in Paris, was among the organizers of thedemonstration. In an interview she gave Maariv correspondent Sefi Handler [26] , she criticized some of her fellow Frenchleft-wingers for creating an anti-Israeli atmosphere which encourages antisemitism . She said:
Parallel to the controversy over the flags, Aurélie Filipetti published an article in the left-oriented French newspaper"Liberation" in which she warned against the antisemitism that seemed to plague their own camp. It was an attack on her fellowleftists for turning a blind eye at the clearly anti-leftist character of some parts of their rallies and demonstrations. Thearticle essentially accused certain members of the French left of being hypocrites (for allegedly tolerating the same kind ofracist behavior that they were protesting against), and, as such, it came as a major shock and sparked much controversy. (seetranslated article in Talk section ) Israeli left wing and Humanrights activist, professor Amnon Rubinstein wrote that theFrench Left seems to hold a double standard: opposing neo-Nazism when it comesfrom the Western right wing (and particularly from the French Far Right, suchas the Front Nationall ),but not when it comes from the "opressed world" of the Arabs . He called that "the bigtreason of the French Left, which came as a shock to the Jews who used to see the Left as their true friend". [27] These accusations have generated great controversy, particularly because they come from the Left itself. The European leftwing in general has always proclaimed its commitment to battling against all forms of racism and discrimination . Regarding the strange recentsituation, many argue that there is a clear distinction between criticising a country's government (such as the government of Israel ) and holding something against that country's people. Furthermore, they accusetheir critics of using the label of "antisemitism" to stifle any honest criticism of Israel, by calling any opponent of theIsraeli government an "anti-semite". Criticism of the anti-war movementSome opponents of the anti-war movement point to the prominence of groups such as ANSWER and NION and suggest that themovement has been "hijacked" by small radical parties. For example, a November 4, 2002 article [28] by Sherrie Gossett in theright-wing WorldNetDaily makesmany of the same criticisms of ANSWER, IAC, Workers World, NION, and the RCP as the Albert/Shalom article quoted above; most ofthe sources she cites for criticism of NION and ANSWER come from within the left. While Gosset gives more details, her generalpicture of the groups' politics is the same, but she presents the matter very differently: speaking of the Washington, D.C. rallythat occurred two days after the Albert/Shalom article, Gosset acknowledges the breadth of speakers at the rally, but -- despitethe then-recent founding of UFPJ, which she does not mention -- describes the anti-war movement as "increasingly dominated by theinternational A.N.S.W.E.R. coalition". Gosset asserts that libertarian Justin Raimondo of antiwar.com agrees with the "hijacking" thesis, but then quotes him: "The people who came to thesedemonstrations – 100,000 in Washington – don't share the politics of the organizers. Indeed, there aren't many peopleon earth – save in North Korea – who share the politics of the organizers. I won't go into a long tirade about thosepolitics – the 'International A.N.S.W.E.R.' 'coalition' is, in reality, a front for a group of particularly kooky leftists,the Workers World Party." Gosset blames ANSWER and the IAC for ignoring atrocities commited by various Arab regimes - mainly Saddam Hussein 's Iraq and the Palestinian Authority : "Not surprisingly, criticism of Saddam Hussein is not aired atIAC/A.N.S.W.E.R.-controlled protest events. No mention is made of Saddam's gassing of the Kurds, invasion of Kuwait, murder of anestimated 1 million of his own people, environmental terrorism, imprisonment, torture or execution of political prisoners... Thesuffering of the Iraqi people is blamed solely on the United States, just as the suffering of Palestinians is blamed solely onIsrael." She also re-affirms Lerner's accusation against ANSWER as being anti-Israeli and even antisemitic: "A.N.S.W.E.R'spro-Palestinian march in April was regarded by many, in fact, as little more than a thinly disguised public display ofanti-Semitism masquerading as a "pro-Palestinian" march." Some critics, such as exiled Iranian writer Amir Taheri , view portions of the anti-warmovement in Western Europe as "an alliance between the radical Left and hard-line Islamists." In an article published in asomewhat edited version on June 10 , 2004 in the Jerusalem Post [29] , much of which is a rehash of his November 18 , 2003 article in National Review [30] , Taheri writes "In this month's electionfor a new European Parliament, voters in several European Union countries, notably France and Britain, are offered common listsof Islamist and leftist candidates... Europe's moribund extreme Left has found a new lease on life thanks to hundreds of youngMuslim militants..." Without actually naming the U.K.-based Stop the War Coalition, he discusses the membership of its steeringcommittee: "18 come from various hard Left groups: communists, Trotskyites, Maoists, and Castroists. Three others belong to theradical wing of the Labor party . There are also eight radicalIslamists. The remaining four are leftist ecologists known as Watermelons ( Green outside, red inside)." He points to a similar alliance of the French Revolutionary Communist League(LCR) and Workers' Struggle (LO) with radical Islamists. "Are these not the new slaves?" he quotes Olivier Besanconneau (whohe describes as "leader of the French Trotskyites"), "Is it not natural that they should unite with the working class to destroythe capitalist system?" "The European Marxist-Islamist coalition," argues Taheri, "does not offer a coherent political platform. Its ideology is builtaround three themes: hatred of the United States, the dream of wiping Israel off the map, and the hoped-for collapse of theglobal economic system." Taheri also claims that the FrenchCommunist Party (PCF) "commissioned a study of the possibilities of electoral alliances with Muslim organizations." He doesnot say that these Muslim organizations were Islamists or that anything ever came of the study. Taheri clearly views this alliance with Islamists as compromising traditional humanist values of the left and all "leftist" values in general. He clearly implies that this coalition could goon to embrace terrorism, paraphrasing Ilich RamírezSánchez , the Venezuelan terrorist known as "Carlos the Jackal" to the effectthat "Islam is the only force capable of persuading large numbers of people to become 'volunteers' for suicide attacks againstthe US," and directly quoting him, "Only a coalition of Marxists and Islamists can destroy the US." While many leftists have happily worked with Arab or Muslim groups in opposition to perceived U.S. orIsraeli imperialism, alliances between leftists and Islamists are relatively unusual, and Taheri's sole example of aleftist actually praising Islamist terrorists is from Carlos the Jackal, a terrorist himself. As discussed above,leftists widely condemned the September 11 attacks, although some differed from those to their right by contextualizing theattacks in terms of what they see as comparable or worse acts of imperialist violence. More typical examples of leftists workingin anti-war coalitions with Muslims would be the membership of American Muslims for Jerusalem in UFPJ or of the Muslim StudentAssociation, American Muslims for Global Peace, and Atlanta Masjid of Al-Islam in ANSWER. These are Muslim groups, but they arenot Islamist groups. Political groups on the leftOne might normally characterize the following groups as on the political Left in their respective countries, though they mighthave relatively little in common with other Left-wing groups beyond their opposition to the Right. Naturally, in all cases "left" and "right" are relative. For example, the Democratic Leadership Council (in which Bill Clinton was active) is generally considered to form the right wing of the U.S. Democratic Party , but in terms of the wholecountry he was generally perceived as being on the moderate left. Australia
Canada
DenmarkFrance
GermanyIrelandThis section is about the Republic of Ireland , forleft-wing parties in Northern Ireland see the United Kingdomsection below.
Israel
Japan
LatviaLatin America
Netherlands
New Zealand
Norway
Portugal
United Kingdom
United States
See also
External links
Other meaningsLeft wing can also refer to a player's position in sports such as soccer and ice hockey . In video games and censorship, left wing can refer to the side of the video game or media controversy issue spectrum of those who oppose censorship. See also Video game proponent .
elft wing, war, left wng, anti, lef wing, communist, , political, lef twing, new, leftw ing, attacks, letf wing, movement, left iwng, many, eft wing, assembly, lfet wing, democratic, let wing, invasion, left ing, workers, left wnig, world, left wig, legislative, left win, nion, lft wing, social, leftwing, he, left wign, radical This article is completely or partly from Wikipedia - The Free Online Encyclopedia. Original Article. The text on this site is made available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation Licence. We take no responsibility for the content, accuracy and use of this article. Anoca.org Encyclopedia 0.03s |