There are some CiF columns we comment on due to their anti-Zionist bias, others because they are informed by antisemitism, and still others because they merely turn truth, logic, and historical memory on their head.
Terry Eagleton’s latest CiF entry, “Occupy London are true followers of Jesus even if they despise religion“, Nov. 3, is worth responding to because of all the above.
But, to understand the broader context of Eagleton’s polemic, you must first know a bit about the political-religious background which informs it.
Eagleton is an advocate of Liberation theology - a Christian movement in political theology which interprets the teachings of Jesus Christ in terms of a liberation from unjust economic, political, or social conditions.
Liberation Theology is a movement popularized by secular Marxists in Latin America and South America who realized that Christianity in its current form couldn’t be defeated, and, by selective interpretation, could be used to their advantage.
Decidedly anti-religious Marxist revolutionaries such Fidel Castro and the Sandinistas in Nicaragua all leveraged Liberation Theology to advance their totalitarian aims, earning the movement its characterization as “Christianized Marxism”.
Castro once said:
”Nowonder imperialism, its governments, its spokesmen and its theoreticians have begun a bitter struggle against Liberation Theology… a theory that includes the best in the history of Christianity and which is in absolute contradiction to the values of imperialism. I would define Liberation Theology as an encounter of Christianity with its roots, and all Latin America’s left should consider this one of the most important events of modern times.”
Eagleton begins his essay in ‘Comment is Free’ by drawing an analogy between the Occupy London demonstrators and Christ.
“The fracas Jesus created in this holiest of places, driving out the money changers and overturning their tables, was probably enough to get him executed. To strike at the temple was to strike at the heart of Judaism. This itinerant upstart with a country-bumpkin background was issuing a direct challenge to the authority of the high priests….We are not told whether the riot police (temple guards) dragged him off, but they would surely have felt fully justified in doing so.”
Then, on Jesus:
“What did Jesus have against money changers?
Any Jew [such as Jesus] familiar with scripture would know that the things that are God’s include justice, compassion, welcoming the immigrant and protecting the poor from the violence of the rich.”
Finally:
“Jesus’s [views against money lenders at the Temple were] at one with a later Jewish prophet, Karl Marx, whose concept of alienation involves just such a break between the product and the producer. Under capitalist conditions, Marx thought, men and women cease to see themselves reflected in the work of their own hands.” [emphasis mine]
Yes, Karl Marx, who opposed all religion, and whose ideas on the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ gave rise to a communist regime which – in addition to amassing a death toll of up to 20 million - systematically denied Jews even the most basic religious liberties (Most of the 5,000 synagogues functioning prior to the Revolution were closed under Stalin) as a “Jewish prophet”.
Leaving the fruit of his ideological endeavor aside, Marx, though born Jewish, used antisemitism quite aggressively to promote his theories.
His first paper on “the Jewish question” described the Jew as a greedy manipulator of money, and his contempt and hatred for “Jews” and Judaism were quite constant. The “Jewish Problem”, according to Marx, arises because of the actions of Jews – such as their practice of usury and the Jews’ insistence on separating themselves from society.
”Contempt for theory, art, history, and for man as an end in himself…is contained in an abstract form in the Jewish religion “ he wrote in A World Without Jews, and, “The bill of exchange is the real god of the Jew. His god is only an illusory bill of exchange.”
But, of course, the good Marxist theorist that he is – his book, “Why Marx was right”, is available at the Guardian’s bookshop – surely knows all of this.
Finally, evidence that Eagleton is not in the least bothered by Marx’s Judeophobic commentary can be found in praise he gave to a certain notorious, and highly discredited book which argues: There is no such thing as a Jewish people; today’s Jews are descended from disparate groups of people who converted to Judaism and had no ties to the land of Israel; And, conversely, there was no exile of Jews from the land of Israel and that most Jews remained in the land, converted to Islam and were the progenitors of present-day Palestinians.
Terry Eagleton characterized Shlomo Sand’s “The Invention of the Jewish People” as “one of the bravest books of the year”.
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November 3, 2011 at 1:32 pm
John
Terry Eagleton characterized Shlomo Sand’s “The Invention of the Jewish People” as “one of the bravest books of the year”.
And William Deresiewicz wrote of After Theory, Eagleton’s book, as follows:
“[I]s it that hard to explain what Eagleton’s up to? The prolificness, the self-plagiarism, the snappy, highly consumable prose and, of course, the sales figures: Eagleton wishes for capitalism’s demise, but as long as it’s here, he plans to do as well as he can out of it. Someone who owns three homes shouldn’t be preaching self-sacrifice, and someone whose careerism at Oxbridge was legendary shouldn’t be telling interviewers of his longstanding regret at having turned down a job at the Open University.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Eagleton
Poor brave Eagleton, poor brave brace Sand.
November 3, 2011 at 2:44 pm
Adam Holland (@adamhollandblog)
In spite of its name, with its implications of progressivism, Liberation Theology actually enshrined in its doctrines certain retrogressive views concerning Jews which have since been abandoned by most mainline Protestant faiths. The belief that the Jews of the New Testament represent an oppressive oligarchy and that Jesus acted as a revolutionary against institutional Judaism — views explicitly endorsed by Eagleton in his column — are useful because to Liberation Theology because it provides a biblical allegory which is analogous to Marxist teachings. Essentially, these teachings state in leftist language the idea of Supercessionism, which is the belief that the advent of Christianity utterly replaced Judaism because Judaism had become evil, fallen out of favor with God, and had lost its legitimacy. Such teachings, which were still in favor during the 1960s when Liberation Theology arose, are by and large no longer considered acceptable within the mainstream Protestant denominations, but are retained as fundamental tenets of Liberation Theology. In this sense, the nominally most progressive Christians in fact promote aspects of the most reactionary and bigoted form of Christianity among their basic teachings.
The danger of this belief system, as is made unavoidably clear by advocates of Liberation Theology such as Naim Ateek and Jeremiah Wright, , is that Supercesionism can never be purely allegorical so long as there are Jews. Moreover, so long as Jews have a state, and so long as they have influence in other countries, Liberation Theology provides a framework by which the bible can be used to justify defining such power not only as evil and contrary to God’s will, but also as oppressive and against the interests of the people. In a sense, this represents the fundamentalism of Liberation Theology — taking literally what was originally intended as an allegory illustrating universal truths to provide a weapon against Jews and Zionism. Whenever Jews are described as “moneychangers” or Israel is described as “crucifying” Palestinians, we can see the hand of allegedly progressive Christians turning back the clock.
November 3, 2011 at 5:24 pm
pretzelberg
After a muddled start I found Eagleton’s effort interesting – until he crowbarred in that reference to “a later Jewish prophet, Karl Marx”.
And calling the protesters “followers of Jesus” (it’s in the last line and not just the headline) was similarly silly. Although he was at least right to challenge the conventional story about it just being about the money changers (which must have spawned god knows how many anti-Semitic charges).
November 4, 2011 at 4:54 am
Harry Underwood
@adamholland I wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case. Liberation Theology largely originated out of Catholic circles post-Vatican II, and it’s common knowledge that the RCC was only starting a long process of regulating its most awful behavior toward Jews (and those groups in the church who still see Jews and Judaism as illegitimate, such as traditionalists). So it’s not surprising that Liberation theology caught on with the largely-folk-Catholic lower classes in Latin America.
The worst aspect is that the anti-leftist politics of the Cold War meant that pro-liberation theology advocates were among the hundreds murdered by conservative militias in El Salvador, who were essentially mirror images of totalitarian left-wing militias often backed by the Soviets. That the US backed the conservative militias and governments with guns and money (and often boots on the ground) was a confirmation to many Latin Americans that the United States was the epitome of the Evil Empire, and it played into the cultural venting of frustration against socioeconomic conditions. Add Israel, Arabic-speaking Levantine (both Christian and Muslim) immigrants to Latin America, an ancient colonial/post-colonial upper class loathe to embrace land reform, and nativism to the mix, and you have the current status quo of rank religio-cultural bigotry and totalitarianism among the populist “left” in Latin America.
November 4, 2011 at 10:16 am
cormacmacairt
So I wrote:
There is little to no evidence of mass discontent with the temple system, as Eagleton implies.
On the contrary, millions of Jews throughout the empire paid their annual half-shekel to the temple without complaint.
In fact, Roman violation of the temple seems to have sparked the First Jewish Revolt; Roman refusal to allow its being rebuilt the Alexandrian Jewish Revolt; the rebuilding on its site of a Jew-free colony the Second Jewish Revolt.
If Eagleton is interested in instances of mass Jewish protest, he is looking in the wrong place.
But, of course, such protests and rebellion the actual historical Christian, largely gentile, Church, as opposed to the one in Eagleton’s imagination, saw as scarcely distinguishable from the rebellion against God that it saw as bringing upon the Jews an exile and colonial dispossession so (the Church thought) richly deserved.
Eagleton really ought to start reading some history, instead of concocting it to suit himself.
November 4, 2011 at 10:35 am
cormacmacairt
The actual Jesus of the gospels prophesies a Nakbah on the Jews, for their faith in their system, and rejection of him:
Lk 19, 41-44
41When He approached Jerusalem, He saw the city and wept over it, 42saying, “If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes. 43“For the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you, and surround you and hem you in on every side, 44and they will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.”
Lk 21, 20-24
20“But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then recognize that her desolation is near. 21“Then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains, and those who are in the midst of the city must leave, and those who are in the country must not enter the city; 22because these are days of vengeance, so that all things which are written will be fulfilled. 23“Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days; for there will be great distress upon the land and wrath to this people; 24and they will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations; and Jerusalem will be trampled under foot by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.
I doubt Eagleton would be so sanguine at the notion of imperial, colonial dispossession as a punishment for the rejection/execution of, say, a Palestinian Arab Muslim or Christian prophet, who had preached rejection of Islamist politics and anti-Jewish racism; acceptance of Jewish refugees and returnees; as well as British rule, to boot (the going with a British soldier of the extra mile).
November 4, 2011 at 1:14 pm
Thank God I'm An Infidel
The Jews worship the same incorporeal Father, King that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, King David, King Solomon (all of whom lived before Jesus) worshipped.
November 5, 2011 at 10:49 am
Juan Lewis
Adam says,
“Decidedly anti-religious Marxist revolutionaries such Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, the Shining Path terrorists in Peru and the Sandinistas in Nicaragua all leveraged Liberation Theology to advance their totalitarian aims, earning the movement its characterization as “Christianized Marxism”.
Che Guevara never advocated Liberation Theology for the simple reason that he died four years before the term was coined by Gustavo Gutierrez.
Comparing the Sandinistas to the Shining Path shows that you don’t know what you’re talking about. Liberation Theology was big in the Sandinista Movement because Nicaragua is one of the most Catholic countries of Latin America (not just “officially”, but practicing, I mean). The FSLN was not a Marxist organization, although there were Marxist elements in it (like the South African ANC, but without the Communist Party).
The Sandinistas were not totalitarians. They held elections regularly and when they lost, they stepped down despite having the army on their side. Political parties were not banned and the Communists sided with the opposition, known as UNO (Unión Nacional Opositora), which elected Violeta Chamorro, the first woman to become president in the Americas by the ballot box. They didn’t declare the state of emergency until 1982 (three years after they ousted Somoza). It was a response against the Contra, an armed guerrilla that launched a total war against the country.
The state of emergency led to many abuses (see e.g. the Misquito Indians), but it was lifted in 1988, two years before they held a second election that they lost. The curtailment of civil liberties was a blow to the revolution and part of the Sandinistas’ lost of support. But they never reached the levels they reached in any Latin American country in the 80s, let alone in the members of the Soviet Bloc.
There were authoritarian elements in the FSLN (like Tomás Borge, the Home Secretary), but calling the Sandinistas totalitarians is like calling Israel a Stalinist state because for some years the Arab citizens of Israel were under military rule and the ruling party had Marxist roots (Mapai).
Shining Path was a death cult full of psychopaths.
November 5, 2011 at 10:57 am
Juan Lewis
”Contempt for theory, art, history, and for man as an end in himself…is contained in an abstract form in the Jewish religion”
This was argued by many secular Jews in Central Europe. Not just by Marx. Read Cannetti’s Die gerettete Zunge and what he says about his mother’s attitude towards religious education and her contempt for traditionalists and religious types.
The other day on Cif, the first response to Harriet Sherwood’s daily anti-Israeli rant was by someone whose moniker is Balsamic Vinager (a pro-Israeli poster). He called orthodox religious Haredim Meshuggenah.
Emancipation from religion is perhaps the greatest Jewish contribution to European civilization.
November 5, 2011 at 1:12 pm
Adam Levick
Juan, that you would defend the Sandinistas in Nicaragua recalls debates I had in college in the late 80s, when some on the left still would defend Marxism in Latin and Central America as progressive movements.
The debate at the time was absurd enough but I find it truly remarkable that even today, 20 years after the glorious death of Soviet communism, there are still apologists for the movement.
Nicaragua under the Sandinistas was a communist dictatorship in every sense of the word. The government controlled every aspect of Nicaraguan life, including the media and labor unions, and criminalized political dissent. According to the Nicaraguan Commission of Jurists, and several human rights organizations, per Jamie Glazov,
“The Sandinistas carried out over 8,000 political executions within three years of the revolution. The number of “anti-revolutionary” Nicaraguans who had “disappeared” in Sanadinista hands or had died “trying to escape” were numbered in the thousands. By 1983, the number of political prisoners in the Sandinistas’ ruthless tyranny were estimated at 20,000. Torture was institutionalized.”
Finally, your shameful contextualization of Marx’s explicit antisemitism speaks for itself. That other Jews shared his bigoted views is really a sad defense. So, I guess the fact that some Jews wish Israel’s annihilation morally justifies calls for Israel’s destruction.
An apologist for both communism and antisemitism? Why am I not surprised?
November 5, 2011 at 2:49 pm
Juan Lewis
“An apologist for both communism and antisemitism?”
huh? For your concern, I’m Yanpol on Cif. You can go and see my profile. If there’s something I’m not is an anti-semite.
On the Sandinistas. How am I their apologist? I said that the emergency law led to many abuses. I referred to the Misquito massacre, an episode that doesn’t make the FSLN look good (around 800 people died, possibly more). I never denied the authoritarian tendencies within the revolution. All that doesn’t make Sandinista Nicaragua a totalitarian state like those you had in the Soviet bloc (part of which they were not).
Human rights abuses occurred, many. I didn’t deny them, but according to Amnesty International and HRW it is not true that “torture was institutionalised”. It occurred, but it was not government policy [that's a sad truth of Latin America. No government these days promotes torture, but the police does torture people].
The war waged against the revolution, however, gave clout to the authoritarian elements within the FSLN, and many abuses were committed, but by 1988, the government was backtracking on its more authoritarian policies, and repealed the emergency law.
The number of desaparecidos according to Contra sources is around 1,000… counting both sides (the Contra committed abuses too). A lot of them took place in the context of the civil war. http://www.envio.org.ni/articulo/1697
Extrajudicial executions occurred too, but as the OAS reported, “the government of Nicaragua clearly intended to respect the lives of all those defeated in the civil war, during the weeks immediately subsequent to the Revolutionary triumph, when the government was not in effective control, illegal executions took place which violated the right to life, and these acts have not been investigated and the persons responsible have not been punished.”
This is not good on the Sandinista record, but it’s not the same as what governments of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras did, in which disappearance and torture was government policy.
The idea that the Sandinistas controlled every aspect of life is unsupported. Independent unions were not banned (unlike in most countries of the Soviet Bloc), opposition parties were allowed to stand in free elections which they eventually won.
There were restrictions to free speech during the emergency law years, but there was still anti-government press. The newspaper La Prensa was never shut down – they weren’t treated well either, but they were allowed to run… a pipe dream in a Soviet state. Private radios were harrassed and some of them censored or even seized by the government, but there was still a lot of independent broadcasting.
In sum, was the Sandinista revolution authoritarian? yes, esp. during the civil war.
Was it totalitarian? No, and the trend was towards more openness and democracy. You can’t compare them to Shining Path…. who were a bunch of lunatics.
November 7, 2011 at 2:56 pm
Adam Levick
Juan, I do apologize now that I’ve had the chance to read your comments at CiF. However, I still don’t understand how Marx’s characterization of Jews as “greedy manipulators of money” is different than the classic antisemitic canard. Further, would you disagree that Marxist states were influenced by such tropes and that, further, that the antisemitic policies of Stalin and his successors were influenced by Marxist theory?
November 5, 2011 at 3:14 pm
Juan Lewis
“Finally, your shameful contextualization of Marx’s explicit antisemitism speaks for itself. That other Jews shared his bigoted views is really a sad defense.”
No, my point is that Marx was criticizing religion and liberal ideas of political emancipation. The central thesis of The Jewish Question is that Jews had to emancipate themselves from religion if they want to be truly free, but that that emancipation will come with the emancipation from capitalism, not just by political emancipation and the establishment of a secular capitalist state.
Marx was hostile to religion and saw religious Judaism with contempt. He thought it was backward, primitive, etc. That was a view shared by many Jews, who were hostile to religion too. Is that anti-semitic? I don’t think so. I’ll give you that there’s a lot in the essay that can be read as anti-semitic, but there’s a lot of scholarship that has shown that it’s not, and that actually Marx was criticizing Bauer and defending Jews.
wiki has good links and bibliography: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Jewish_Question#cite_note-30
In sum, my contention is with your characterization of a political movement and what I see as a misreading of Marx’s Jewish Question. Please spare me of the insults.
November 8, 2011 at 10:31 am
Adam Levick
No, actually I don’t think I misread Marx at all, nor Marxist-Leninism. While suggesting that you were defending Jew hatred was indeed over the top, the antisemitic record of the movement, in theory or practice, is simply not debatable. Nor, is it even remotely defensible to suggest that the West wasn’t fundamental morally superiority to communism. Communism was never anything resembling a truly progressive movement – a lesson which history has convincingly vindicated.
November 5, 2011 at 11:06 am
Juan Lewis
“There is no such thing as a Jewish people; today’s Jews are descended from disparate groups of people who converted to Judaism and had no ties to the land of Israel”
Genuine question: why are you so bothered by Shlomo Sands. The Jewish people exists because they see themselves and are seen by others as such.
The self-determination of a people is much more important than ancient histories or DNA. All nations are invented and formed by disparate groups of people. It’s unlikely that Jews are exceptional about this, because there were Jewish communities in very distant places. Although discrimination against them discouraged intermarriage and conversion, such practices may have existed. So what?
The state of Israel is the result of a given people exercising their right to self determination. Had they built their ties to the land in the 1930s, it wouldn’t have made any difference to the legality and legitimacy of Israel.
November 7, 2011 at 4:35 am
Daniel
“The Jewish Question” is an essay >>for<>for<< Jewish emancipation is anti-semitic is mind-boggling ignorance of the highest order.
March 5, 2012 at 2:05 pm
Young Russian Girls
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