An Insight Into The Left Wing By A Left Winger

Terry Glavin: A leftwing intellectual appalled at the reactionary left

Posted: July 13, 2009, 1:00 PM by NP Editor

For a properly rigorous assessment of the pathetically reactionary currents that have caused such stupefaction across the western liberal-left spectrum in recent years, with particular reference to solidarity with the Iranian uprising, here's Saeed Rahnema.

The upshot: "The left has historically been rooted in solidarity with progressive movements, women's rights and rights for unions and its voice has been first and foremost a call for freedom. The voices that we hear today from part of the Left are tragically reactionary. Siding with religious fundamentalists with the wrong assumptions that they are anti-imperialists and anti-capitalists, is aligning with the most reactionary forces of history. This is a reactionary left, different from the progressive left which has always been on the side of the forces of progress."

It's like I've been saying. Here, and here, and here.

Rahnema is of a tragically rare species. He's an unapologetically left-wing sort of intellectual who conducts his work in the rigorous academic tradition that demands evidence of analysis and eschews fashionably transgressive revisionism. Even when he wades into unfamiliar territory and gets his history skewed, as he does in this debate with former NATO ambassador Gordon Smith, Rahnema's conclusions are dead right:

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