Silence in the face of bigotry is complicity

February 18th 2019 was a truly extraordinary day in British politics. Not only did a bunch of self-serving Labour right-wingers split away from the Labour Party in a lest desperate effort to keep Tory austerity dogma alive, the British mainstream media twice demonstrated their screaming hypocrisy when it comes to bigotry.

Just hours after citing racism as one of her reasons for quitting the Labour Party, the right-wing pro-privatisation MP Angela Smith uttered an extraordinary racial slur on live TV, accusing British Asians of having a "funny tinge".

Even more extraordinary than this display of casual racism on live TV was the reaction of the mainstream media and Westminster establishment stooges on the panel. They just sat there in silence leaving the left-wing British Asian Ash Sarkar as the only one to immediately express disbelief at what had been said.

FFS. This ludicrous woman has just quit Labour citing "racism" and now she's describing British Asians as having "funny tinged" skin on national television!

Brilliant when the racist rubbish takes itself out isn't it?pic.twitter.com/nwde0RLnnL

— Another Angry Voice (@Angry_Voice) February 18, 2019

Interestingly the pseudo-political party that Angela Smith has joined (actually registered as a private company to evade declaring who is bankrolling them) has absolutely no disciplinary procedures in place to deal with racist comments from their MPs, so she was just allowed to get away with claiming that she wasn't serious and it only happened because she was "very tired".

Imagine if a left-winger or Corbyn-supporter had uttered a racial slur then tried to defend it on the grounds that they were just "very tired", do you honestly think the mainstream media would be fastidiously trying to bury the story?

Then on a different political panel show the right-wing anti-Corbyn polemicist Tom Bower (him of the extraordinary Corbyn is a 'dangerous hero' because he likes baked beans nonsense in the Daily Mail) used a vile anti-Semitic trope to bully and abuse a left-wing Jewish journalist called Michael Segalov.

Unbelievably the rest of the panel just sat there in silence as if racially bullying people is perfectly fine as long as the target is left-wing, leaving Segalov to defend himself against the abuse. No condemnation of the abuse, no solidarity with the victim, nothing!

The disgustingly anti-Semitic "self-hating Jew" trope used against a Jewish person on live TV, but the rest of the panel say nothing & the media say nothing.

As far as they're concerned anti-Semitism is perfectly fine when wielded against left-wingers.pic.twitter.com/FUqDOqmSfv

— Another Angry Voice (@Angry_Voice) February 19, 2019

The fact that this silent reaction to bigoted abuse happened twice on the same day illustrates the fact that this wilful blindness to bigotry from within the establishment ranks is an endemic problem.

It's quite extraordinary that people who would have howled themselves hoarse about the scandal if some leftist had used anti-Semetic bigotry to bully a Jewish person right in front of them on live TV, will just sit there in absolute silence when it's members of their in-group spouting the most absurdly bigoted things, actually leaving the targets of this bigoted abuse to defend themselves.

Let's make no mistake about it here. Bigotry is wrong whether it manifests on the left, the centre, or the right. Anyone proven to be a bigot needs to be lobbed out of whichever political party they belong to, no exceptions for the fact that you prefer one party or another.

Anyone who only opposes bigotry when it involves their political opponents, yet sits there and says absolutely nothing when it's coming from their political allies is an outrageous hypocrite, who is clearly only using the subject of bigotry to score cheap political points.

Whether you think Jeremy Corbyn has done enough to oppose anti-Semitism in Labour is one thing, but you'd be outright lying if you said he'd done nothing. At least he's trying, unlike those who just sit there and say nothing at all while their fellow establishment insiders spew casual racism and the most hateful anti-Semitic abuse.

Sitting there in silence as if nothing of importance has happened while your ideological brethren spew outright bigotry is bad enough in its own right because silence in the face of bigotry is complicity, but from people who are so keen to weaponise accusations of bigotry against their political foes, well it's just absolutely vile isn't it?

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Why this extraordinary disparity when it comes to anti-Semitic abuse?

On the 18th of February 2019 an outrageous anti-Semitic slur was broadcast on British television, yet virtually nobody raised the slightest exception to it.

The slur was the propaganda trope of the "self-hating Jew", which implies that there are 'good and proper Jews' who do as they're expected by wider society, and 'bad degenerate Jews' who defy social expectation of Jewish behaviour to such an extent that their actions can only be explained by the fact that they must be 'Jewish anti-Semites' who hate their own Jewishness.

To make matters worse this anti-Semitic slur wasn't just thrown out there as an anti-Semitic slur against left-wing Jews in general in the manner of Tory Home Secretary Sajid Javid, it was specifically targeted at a Jewish individual (Michael Segalov - well worth a follow if you do Twitter) on national television, which conjured the spectacle of a non-Jewish person publicly bullying a Jewish person by smearing him as 'not a proper Jew'.

The unbelievable reaction of the rest of the Good Morning Britain panel was to just ignore the slur as if nothing happened and leave Segalov to defend himself (in much the same way Angela Smith's bizarre "funny tinge" racism has been glossed over by the mainstream media and political neoliberals as if it somehow didn't matter, or didn't even happen).

it's quite extraordinary to see Segalov left to defend himself against this anti-Semitic slur as the rest of the panel just completely let it slide. No condemnation of the abuse, no solidarity with the victim, nothing!

the absolute apathy and passivity of the rest of the panel in the face of such overt racism was actually even more shocking than the racism itself. Just watch it for yourself

The disgustingly anti-Semitic "self-hating Jew" trope used against a Jewish person on live TV, but the rest of the panel say nothing & the media say nothing.

As far as they're concerned anti-Semitism is perfectly fine when wielded against left-wingers.pic.twitter.com/FUqDOqmSfv

— Another Angry Voice (@Angry_Voice) February 19, 2019

The person making the "self-hating Jew" accusation was the right-wing polemicist Tom Bower who has been desperately hawking his lame hatchet job on Jeremy Corbyn to anyone who will listen (the bizarre gibberish that Jeremy Corbyn is a depraved "dangerous hero" because he likes baked beans and no frills camping holidays in the British countryside!).

In fact Bower has had his anti-Corbyn polemic serialised in the notoriously anti-Semetic Daily Mail propaganda rag that glorified Hitler, propagandised for the British Union of Fascists, and demanded Britain turn away Jewish refugee children from Nazi Germany.

So here we have a right-wing Corbyn critic publicly using an anti-Semitic trope to personally attack a Jewish person on live television, and virtually nobody in the mainstream media even batted an eyelid about it.

Just imagine if it had been a Corbyn ally publicly lambasting a Jewish person as 'the wrong kind of Jew' on national television. How do you think the mainstream media would have reacted to that?

Mass indifference, or wall-to-wall vitriolic condemnation?

So why does this extraordinary disparity exist when it comes to anti-Semitic abuse?

If literally anyone out of the 500,000+ members of the Labour Party says anything vaguely anti-Semitic and Jeremy Corbyn is held personally responsible by the Westminster establishment class and mainstream media hacks alike.

But a right-wing anti-Corbyn polemicist outright abuses a Jewish person on national television, and none of them even give the slightest shit!

The glaringly obvious conclusion is that anti-Semitism is just a disposable tool to people who are enveloped in the anti-Corbyn cult mentality.

If someone on the left says anything that can be interpreted as anti-Semitism then the defenders of the neoliberal orthodoxy will use the issue to attack Corbyn personally. But if someone who belongs to their anti-Corbyn in-group uses an anti-Semitic trope to bully and abuse a Jewish person on live TV, they immediately forget about the issue of anti-Jewish bigotry altogether.

And this disparity is vitally important because anyone who condemns anti-Semitism amongst their political foes, but ignores or condones it amongst their political allies is guilty of cheapening and debasing the fight against anti-Jewish bigotry.

This isn't just disgustingly hypocritical behaviour, it's also dangerous, because it risks creating the public perception that anti-Semitism isn't actually a real issue with appalling real life consequences, but just some kind of abstract political weapon to be used selectively in order to discredit people on the left.

Anyone who has actual legitimate concerns about anti-Jewish bigotry must surely be left wondering how on earth nobody on the panel thought to call out this display of bigoted anti-Jewish bullying in the moment, and with even bigger questions about how the mainstream media just ignored the fuck out of an extraordinary display of anti-Semitism on live TV simply because highlighting an anti-Corbyn polemicist spewing anti-Semitism would completely contradict the objectives of their underlying anti-Corbyn/protect the neoliberal status quo agenda.

 Another Angry Voice  is a "Pay As You Feel" website. You can have access to all of my work for free, or you can choose to make a small donation to help me keep writing. The choice is entirely yours.

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