Mick Hartley

The Autumn 2008 Democratiya is now online,

From Michael Walzer's The Democratiya Project – his introduction to "Global Politics After 9/11: The Democratiya Interviews":

The focus is on internationalism. What does it mean for leftists today? And what does it require of us? The answers aren't easy – as they were when most people on the left thought that the workers of the world had no country, no local loyalties, so that proletarian internationalism was a kind of collective reflex, and the only problem was 'false consciousness.'  Nor is internationalism as easy as it was when many leftists thought that the oppressed peoples of the Third World (as we called it) are actually represented by the authoritarian parties, maximal leaders, terrorist organizations, vanguard militants, and religious zealots who claim to speak in their name. Indeed, some leftists still believe this or act as if they do, but the belief doesn't make, has never made, for anything that resembles a democratic politics.

The most recent shortcut to internationalist virtue is anti-Americanism. All we have to do to be good internationalists, on this view, is to support the opponents of American power. Since these opponents include Serbian and Iraqi dictators and radical Muslim jihadists, this is internationalism with gritted teeth. But anti-Americanism is nonetheless a popular politics on the European left, and if it doesn't reach to full support for every enemy of the Americans, it still reaches pretty far. It takes the form of apology and excuse or of a simple refusal to oppose America's opponents, however awful their politics is. And in the case of Israel, it goes much further. English leftists marching in London in 2006 with banners saying, 'We are all Hezbollah,' probably thought that they were practising a left internationalist politics. That Hezbollah is in no sense a leftist movement made no difference to them so long as it was hostile to Israel and America.

It does make a difference to Democratiya, and so it should….