[spectre] TRACING UNDERCURRENTS: Sonic Routes Between

[Simon Biggs]

I am not going to respond to the full text that Sascha Brossman wrote. Most
of it was a wilfull misinterpretation of what I have previouly written and
does not deserve a reply.

However, I will take issue with being called an anti-semite. Whenever
somebody attacks the right of Israel to exist this is the stock reply of
those wishing to defend it. It is possible to be anti-Zionist and be
indifferent to a persons religious or ethnic background. Zionism is
specifically concerned with the right of Israel to exist. To question that
is not to criticise Jews but to criticise Zionists. Whilst these two groups
can overlap they are not the same.

As an atheist I treat all religious beliefs equally. I agree with Marx that
religion is a negative force in our history and culture. I am not a
Stalinist, in the sense that I do not think the solution is to force people
to give up their beliefs (although if it did work it might be worth
considering ;). I am possibly closer to the position of Richard Dawkins, who
argues for all religion to be separate from the state, not funded with
public money and not taught in state run schools or supported by any other
apparatus of the state. Eventually it will be through education that any
effective reforms will be made (although that begs the question why in the
US, which has a reasonably decent educational system, there are so many
religious nuts).

So, I am not an anti-semite...although I am anti-religious and anti-Zionist.

I am happy that Harold Pinter has won the Nobel. He is an anti-Zionist, an
active and vocal atheist who fights against the dark and dangerous ignorance
that is religion, a debunker of dogma and belief. He is Jewish. He has also
been acused of being an anti-semite.

I also find it surprising that elsewhere on Spectre people are celebrating
the "passing of the high-water mark of political correctness". Maybe that
one passed me by? So far as I am aware there is still a dynamic and active
left, at least in Europe, and the arguments that were won by them over the
past decades, to gain the rights we now enjoy, are still recognised and
valid...and we also recognise that complacency is dangerous and that these
rights always need to be proactively defended. I had assumed that Spectre
was a place where this happened.

Best

Simon


On 14.10.05 09:16, "spectre-request at mikrolisten.de"
<spectre-request at mikrolisten.de> wrote:

> Message: 3
> Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2005 22:10:23 +0200
> From: sascha brossmann <news at brsma.in-berlin.de>
> Subject: Re: [spectre] TRACING UNDERCURRENTS: Sonic Routes Between
> To: spectre at mikrolisten.de
> Message-ID: <20051013201022.GA31113 at brsma.in-berlin.de>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
> 
> like left-wing antisemitism?




Simon Biggs
simon at littlepig.org.uk
http://www.littlepig.org.uk/

Professor, Art and Design Research Centre
Sheffield Hallam University, UK
http://www.shu.ac.uk/schools/cs/cri/adrc/research2/