Anyone recognize this anecdote about Western leftists going to the ME?
March 14, 2024 3:49 PM Subscribe
Does anyone recognize this anecdote about Western activists coming to the Middle East and wanting to argue about theory?
Based on these details (any of which might be somewhat off), does anyone recognize this anecdote?
1. Some Western leftists came to the Middle East (I think Palestine or Egypt) to meet with Palestinians and help with liberation. The Westerners (Americans? Europeans?) wanted to argue about theory (books? Leninism vs. Trotskyism? etc.) rather than do the work, and the Palestinians eventually got fed up with them and said they were useless.
2. I think it was from a book.
3. I saw it a couple of years ago, but I think it's old, like from the 80s or 90s.
Does this ring a bell to anyone?
Based on these details (any of which might be somewhat off), does anyone recognize this anecdote?
1. Some Western leftists came to the Middle East (I think Palestine or Egypt) to meet with Palestinians and help with liberation. The Westerners (Americans? Europeans?) wanted to argue about theory (books? Leninism vs. Trotskyism? etc.) rather than do the work, and the Palestinians eventually got fed up with them and said they were useless.
2. I think it was from a book.
3. I saw it a couple of years ago, but I think it's old, like from the 80s or 90s.
Does this ring a bell to anyone?
Response by poster: This is the story that I was looking for:
The training schedule was exacting, but occasionally left us time for a little fun. We were 'entertaining' a group of foreign students and trying to lead a Bedouin kind of life in order to politicize our Bedouin population. The students had been attending an international solidarity meeting in Amman held under the auspices of the General union of Palestinian Students. Most were graduates of the 1968 university upheavals in the West. We found it very amusing that they honestly believed they were making a 'revolution' if they undressed in public, seized a university building, or shouted an obscenity at bureaucrats. I was initially opposed and refused to talk to them, even though some believed in violent revolution, because I didn’t want to be another experimental 'guinea-pig' to Westerners.
I finally relented and I am glad I did. I hadn’t met Western 'revolutionaries' before. It turned out they represented an unfamiliar cultural rather than a political phenomenon. Some seemed to have read the history political literature of the left, but most regarded the Marxist-Leninist leaders disdainfully, with the exception of the 'Young Marx,' who held some sort of fascination for revolution. Some Americans were quite serious and believed in the historic mission of the working class and were making plants to integrate themselves with the masses.
What astonished us most about this group was that they were opposed to nationalism, a doctrine we hold dearly as a colonized and dissipated people. Some believed in violence for 'the hell of it' and in students as revolutionary agents of history. But the majority were inclined towards guerrilla theatre as a means of 'making revolution.' They performed a little for us.
As they were departing I was rather struck by a French anarchist student who proclaimed 'Let chaos reign' and by a German who echoed the same sentiment. I exclaimed that the Palestinian people were an example of a society in chaos without authority and leadership, which as a result, was left at the mercy of the Zionist oppressor. I asked them what could they prescribe for us in order to overcome our kind of alienation'--beards, long hair, and toy guns? They merely paused, they smiled, they reflected, they inhaled and passed their joints on in universal wonder.
posted by davidstandaford at 3:03 PM on March 21
The training schedule was exacting, but occasionally left us time for a little fun. We were 'entertaining' a group of foreign students and trying to lead a Bedouin kind of life in order to politicize our Bedouin population. The students had been attending an international solidarity meeting in Amman held under the auspices of the General union of Palestinian Students. Most were graduates of the 1968 university upheavals in the West. We found it very amusing that they honestly believed they were making a 'revolution' if they undressed in public, seized a university building, or shouted an obscenity at bureaucrats. I was initially opposed and refused to talk to them, even though some believed in violent revolution, because I didn’t want to be another experimental 'guinea-pig' to Westerners.
I finally relented and I am glad I did. I hadn’t met Western 'revolutionaries' before. It turned out they represented an unfamiliar cultural rather than a political phenomenon. Some seemed to have read the history political literature of the left, but most regarded the Marxist-Leninist leaders disdainfully, with the exception of the 'Young Marx,' who held some sort of fascination for revolution. Some Americans were quite serious and believed in the historic mission of the working class and were making plants to integrate themselves with the masses.
What astonished us most about this group was that they were opposed to nationalism, a doctrine we hold dearly as a colonized and dissipated people. Some believed in violence for 'the hell of it' and in students as revolutionary agents of history. But the majority were inclined towards guerrilla theatre as a means of 'making revolution.' They performed a little for us.
As they were departing I was rather struck by a French anarchist student who proclaimed 'Let chaos reign' and by a German who echoed the same sentiment. I exclaimed that the Palestinian people were an example of a society in chaos without authority and leadership, which as a result, was left at the mercy of the Zionist oppressor. I asked them what could they prescribe for us in order to overcome our kind of alienation'--beards, long hair, and toy guns? They merely paused, they smiled, they reflected, they inhaled and passed their joints on in universal wonder.
posted by davidstandaford at 3:03 PM on March 21
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The links from those should spread out into other places where it could have occurred, but there definitely is a scene in the film. IIRC their Palestinian hosts are deeply offended by them, especially the women, sunbathing naked.
posted by ambrosen at 5:58 AM on March 15