Seumas Milne is right that there is a lot of mendacious propaganda
flying about in an age when 'public diplomacy' consists of 'framing
devices' put forth by the political class. The aim of Blair's speech was
to shape perceptions about both his policy towards the Middle East and
the course of foreign policy.
It could not have gone amiss that
Blair gave the speech at Bloomberg's London HQ. For those fearful that
the future could involve Britain being involved in endless conflicts and
interventions, with the looming threat of terror hanging over its
cities and town, this speech was a propaganda template for that.
So
Blair's speech is important because a significant part of the political
and media class In London value Blair's ability to stake out a position
that can be used by politicians in need of an alarmist way in which to
connect Britain's foreign policy with the need for domestic protection.
So
it is odd that Milne opines that the reason why Blair's views are taken
so seriously 'isn't immediately obvious'.On the contrary, it is
immediately evident that Blair did not set out any real policy but was
concerned with drawing up the correct battle lines, the propaganda
framework for some cosmic struggle.
The substance of Blair's
speech was less signification than the way language was used. When Blair
referred to 'extremist Islamism' he meant the sort that threatens
Britain's interests and so conflated the Muslim Briotherhood In Egypt
with malign and openly terroristic forces such as Al Qaida.
However, Milne, himself no stranger to propaganda riffs, then claims,
'..he
( Blair ) also demanded military intervention against Syria – backed by
Russia – along with more "active measures" to help the armed
opposition, which is dominated by Islamists and jihadists. It's a crazy
combination with an openly anti-democratic core'.
The
'Opposition' ( Blair's term for the anti-Assad insurgents ) may be
dominated by Islamists and jihadists but the official line of the
Coalition government until late 2013 was that the 'rebels' in the Free
Syrian Army were mostly democrats fighting against Assad's tyranny and
that he 'must go'.
However, if it is clear that the many of the
insurgents in Syria are not democrats but many affiliated to Al Nustra
and Al Qaida, it raises the question of whether Milne agrees with Blair
that the Muslim Brotherhood should be supported or not ( or, at least,
in word if not deed ).
After all, it's deeply contradictory of
Milne to complain that Blair is demanding 'active support' be given to
'Islamists and jihadists' in Syria while supporting their being crushed
in Egypt, unless the supposed purpose of that foreign policy is made
plain.
After all, it could be argued that the opponents of the
interventionist foreign policy in Britain such as Milne often use
doublethink in lauding Islamists when they are being oppressed and
condemning them as tools of imperialism when the same Muslim Brotherhood
members are against a government Britain dislikes.
British
foreign policy does have blatant double standards and has demonstrated a
weird Orwellian schizophrenia, supporting the anti-Assad insurgents
when it was clear they were dominated by bloodthirsty fanatics who
elsewhere would have been portrayed as the existential enemy at home and
abroad.
However, it is curious that 'anti-war' activists often
demonstrate the same double standards without the even the excuse of
being in government. They have the luxury of having things both ways,
that when Britain accepts Egypt's coup against Islamists it's evil and
when it supports them in Syria it's evil too.
Evidently, the best
foreign policy would be one where Britain would not interfere or meddle
in the internal affairs of Middle Eastern states, in which case the
policy of realpolitik would be preferable (but that's condemned as well
). It which case no attempt should be made to have a foreign policy at
all.
When it comes down to it, Western states are embroiled in
the affairs of the Middle East because of geopolitical concerns and the
fact it contains huge supplies of oil and gas. Until energy independence
is aimed at, the region is going to be the site of intense geopolitical
and Great Power rivalries.
There are certain 'anti-war'
journalists, such as Milne, who prefer the Cold War period and who praise the Soviet
Union in retrospect as a check on Western power in the Middle East and
its support for the secular dictator Assad. But its not clear why they
have the pretence of being concerned with democracy.
The "Islamist Plot" in Britain-The Domestic Impact of Foreign Policy.
It's possible fanatical ideologues such as Education secretary
Michael Gove have tried to exploit the existence of a plan to push
school academies towards 'Islamisation' for political gain and to try to
steal votes from Ukip and co-opt support for an interventionist British
foreign policy against 'extreme Islamism'.
But it does not follow that Milne is corrrect in this,
'In
Britain, the campaign against Islamist "extremism" is once again in
full flow. In fact, it is open season on the Muslim community. For the
past few weeks reports have multiplied about an alleged "Islamic plot",
code-named Operation Trojan Horse, to take control of 25 state schools
in Birmingham and run them on strict religious principles'.
Even
if the the Operation Trojan Horse statement comes from a shadowy
anonymous source, the evidence of the DfE Report does seem to prove
there is a serious basis to the allegations that cannot be routinely
dismissed as part of an 'Islamphobic' propaganda campaign.
Andrew Gilligan in
the Telegraph writes,
'A
separate report, by inspectors from the DfE, has substantiated many of
the allegations. The report, disclosed in The Telegraph on Friday,
accused Park View, Nansen and Golden Hillock of illegally segregating
pupils, discriminating against non-Muslim students and “restricting” the
GCSE syllabus to “comply with conservative Islamic teaching”.The report
said girls at Park View and Golden Hillock were made to sit at the back
of the class; some Christian pupils at Golden Hillock were left to
“teach themselves” and at Park View a supporter of al-Qaeda was invited
to speak at assembly. Aspects of the GCSE curriculum were ignored as
un-Islamic, even though needed by pupils for exams..'
More
than that radical Islamists such as Salma Yaqoob , formerly of George
Galloway's Respect Party, has tried to use the language of the Iraq War
in calling the Operation Trojan Horse statement a 'dodgy dossier' and
part of a campaign of 'McCarthyism”
So it is not only Gove that
is trying to score political propaganda points by linking plan to
'Islamise' schools to foreign policy and a global threat. Yaqoob is
simply doing the same but spinning the narrative the other way; that
this is part of a plot to 'demonise' Muslims and so justify interfering
in Muslim lands.
That claim is handy is if the political agenda
is to compare the Ofsted inspectors 'interference' with Brimingham
schools with an interventionist foreign policy and so put forth
propaganda about a plan to order Muslims about and so create a siege
mentality and swell supporters for Islamist organisations.
The
claims in the Ofsted Report are either true or they are not true and
trying to put a spin on them one way or another cannot change that,
unless it is supposed that the report itself was part of a 'political
witch-hunt' and ordered to find out what they wanted to to back up the
allegations of an Islamist plot.
The danger with this foolish
shadow boxing between politicians in government and Islamists is that it
could indeed polarise British society. In that sense ideologues such as
Milne, who backs any movement or force so long as its anti-Western, and
Yaqoob are part of the problem no less than Gove.
After all, Gove in his appalling
Celsius 7/7
writes of Islamism as 'one seamless totalitarian threat', one that extends
from Afghanistan and the Middle East into Europe and Britain, a vast planetary struggle between Good and Evil that actually sounds quite as
paranoid as the ideology of radical Islamists.
