Bernard-Henri Levy was on Charlie Rose today (rebroadcast from last night), introduced as a philosopher and as Rose's friend. He struck me as a comic character, full of easy piety and drama, vain, and taking a swipe at a man who can think circles around him, Noam Chomsky.
Levy's theme, and of his book too I imagine, is that the left has excused the crimes of the Islamists, as they excused the crimes of the Communists in Stalin's day. The left is too quick to blame the U.S. for everything. Of course, China is bad, too, and he called for sanctions; though he didn't mention Tibet, just Darfur, China's support of Sudan.
I had much the same reaction to Levy as I do to his friend Paul Berman, who wrote a long exhausting piece in the New Republic a couple years ago about the left embracing Tariq Ramadan. Berman was obviously right about the left having a double standard, and Levy is right, too. The lack of freedom in Islamic authoritarian countries shouldn't be ignored. It's real. I agree. I've been to four Arab societies, and as I've said before, the women don't seem to have a place in public culture, and free speech is at a low level. The bookstore in Aleppo, Syria–deeply demoralizing. I think I saw one kid reading a book in Syria.
The problem is, and the reason BHL seems empty, What are we supposed to do about it? As James North has pointed out on this blog, the time for action in Sudan, if there ever was one, was years ago, including when the government was putting down a rebellion in the south. Even then, it might have been a mess. The invasion of Iraq, which Berman pushed for, was a horrible mistake. I'm for sanctions against China because of its thuggish occupation of Tibet.
Meantime, Levy, and Berman too (in his book Terror and Liberalism), say nothing about the occupation in Palestine. Levy adores Israel; as always, I wonder how much this drives his views on "Islamofascism," as they seem to drive Berman's. Here, for instance, the philosophe holds the hand of Israel's defense minister during the horrifying Lebanon war. I talk about the occupation constantly on this blog because this is something the West can do to free the Arab world. It can demonstrate that we don't have a double standard when it comes to human rights. That when our close friends are abusing people's rights, we go after them. By pressuring Israel, or cutting off the endless encouragement of its militant behavior, we could strike a real blow for freedom across the Arab world.
"By pressuring Israel, or cutting off the endless encouragement of its militant behavior, we could strike a real blow for freedom across the Arab world."
Absolutely. I, for one, in my zeal to indict Israel for its brutality, am often guilty of overlooking the problems within many of the Arab societies. I think any real change will have to come from within, for I agree with Mencken when he says "I believe in only one thing: liberty; but I do not believe in liberty enough to want to force it upon anyone."
Real societal change, as with real individual change, can only come from within. As an American, I don't want my tax dollars or my good name going to support brutal Israeli aggression or authoritarian Arab regimes. We should do as much as possible to extricate ourselves from the Middle East, certainly militarily, and to a lesser extent politically as well. We will remain willing trading partners, and honest mediators if our services are requested.
Phil, you're a fucking hillbilly! Not only is BHL the real thing, but if you want to see him reduce Chomsky to tears you need only what the France2 debate where he did just that. Chomsky, at his absolute best, is a humorless lughead. Levy is a philosopher.
"Two French journalists—Nicolas Beau of Le Canard Enchainé and Olivier Toscer of Le Nouvel Observateur—have just published in Paris Une Imposture Francaise (A French Imposter), an inquest into how BHL has built his success. They write:
'A philosopher who’s never taught the subject in any university, a journalist who creates a cocktail mingling the true, the possible, and the totally false, a patch-work filmmaker, a writer without a real literary oeuvre, he is the icon of a media-driven society in which simple appearance weighs more than the substance of things. BHL is thus first and foremost a great communicator, the PR man of the only product he really knows how to sell: himself.'
"The flaws in BHL’s work have been evident from the beginning. His third book, the 1979 Le Testament de Dieu, was shot down in flames by Hellenist historian Pierre Vidal-Naquet (a moral leader of the French left) in a famous Nouvel Observateur article that detailed BHL’s numerous errors. To take just two, BHL cited texts he claimed were from the decline of the Roman Empire (fourth century) which were actually from the first century B.C., and cited Heinrich Himmler’s 'deposition' at the Nuremburg trials, which opened six months after the SS leader’s suicide. Interviewed 20 years later by Jade Lindgaard and Xavier de la Porte, the authors of Le B.A. BA du BHL (The ABCs of BHL), Vidal-Naquet said sadly, 'We have passed from the Republic of Letters into the non-Republic of Media. I thought I had "killed" BHL. I hadn’t. I consider that a defeat.'"
. . .
"Born with a silver cuillère in his mouth, BHL inherited the family’s huge lumber business, Becob. He played a major role in running the company, until it was sold in the early ’90s. The company specialized in rare woods from Africa and—as Une Imposture Francaise reveals—while BHL was running the company, numerous international bodies and a report from the Canadian government denounced it for keeping its African workers in penurious semi-slavery, which rather contradicts BHL’s pretensions to be an international humanitarian activist.
"The book also describes BHL’s shady stock market speculations, his being questioned by the authorities about insider trading and the secret shell companies he owns in France, Switzerland, England and America, and his troubles with the taxman over undeclared revenue that led to a recommended indictment. Before it could be executed, the indictment was quashed by one of BHL’s new-found conservative friends, the then-Minister of Finances, Nicolas Sarkozy, the rising star of the right. Sarkozy is only one of the many politicians BHL has cultivated, by praising him in print while also commissioning Sarkozy to write a book for Grasset—a favorite BHL ploy for seducing everyone from TV hosts to literary critics."
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2516/
That book was written, and refuted, three or four years ago, but thanks for the update!
Isn't B-H Levy a zionist. What else need be said.
'Chomsky, at his absolute best, is a humorless lughead. Levy is a philosopher.'
Style over substance, eh Paul? What are you, prez of the US chapter of the BHL fan club?
There is something deeply uncivilised about people who are happy to complain about the state of the neighbour's garden while ignoring the cankers, the deadly nightshade in their own.
This neocon idea that we on the left ought to spend more time publicly denouncing Islamism in tones more strident than we have hitherto been able to muster is more than the usual standard-issue bullying. It is an attempt, successful in the stagnant waters of US politics and journalism, to deflect attention from our implicit support of Israeli occupation and oppression.
Charlie Rose is a coward. If he had balls, guts or a spine, he’d call BHL on the double standard. It is I suppose possible that Rose genuinely doesn’t see the hypocrisy. That ignorance would be even more damning than the silent, complicit knavery.
Paul:
I haven't read the Beau-Toscer book; but I have read Pierre Vidal-Naquet's critique of BHL's earlier work (see link to pierre-vidal-naquet.net
which seems pretty devastating. Vidal-Naquet himself was a great scholar as well as a great campaigner for truth (he was active in opposing Holocaust denial, for example). His exposure of BHL's sloppy and inadequate writing is all the more telling when set beside BHL's disingenuous response, which that site also quotes.
It's a twofer.
Not only are anti-Zionists liberals –> leftists –> communists –> STALINISTS!!!
They're also Holy Coast(tm) deniers –> anti-semites –> fascists –> NAZIS!!!
That leaves only the main-stream lovers of freedom like Henri-Levy and his coterie. Neither right nor left. The Proud! The Few!
Brownie: Commie!
Pinkie: Nazi!
Brownie: Islamofascist!
Pinkie: Racist!
Brownie: Anti-Semite!
Pinkie: I support Israel!
Brownie: But not the war on anti-Semitic Islamofascism!
Pinkie: Well, uh, I…
Brownie: Nazi!
——
Until mainstream, establishment left-liberals are willing to condemn Israel as Zio-fascism, they will be forever fighting with one arm tied behind their back. But they can’t because so many big-money, establishment left-liberals are Jewish Zionists, and they won’t because left-liberals put materialism over morality.
I'm sure the Neocons get a big laugh over it all. The "egalitarian" left trapped by its own dialectical materialism.
The defeat of Zio-fascism, Neoconservatism and neo-Fascism will be Christian-based, or it will never happen.
"hillbilly" is a bigoted term, directed at pretty much the last demographic in the US it's still okay to ridicule publicly: poor whites.
As a poor white I find it personally offensive.