I publish the following article with the kind permission of the author. It has been published originally in Turkish on serdika.org. It has been translated into English by the author himself, Max Zirngast, and Baki Güney Işıkara.

I publish it because I think it is an important contribution towards a non-culturalist, socialist interpretation of the events that have shocked us all during the last few weeks, namely the brutal assassination of members of the editorial staff of the French magazine Charlie Hebdo.

In the heat of such events we should not forget that – especially in our current media-created world – such events do not bear a meaning within themselves but are always-already – despite their cruel real core – appropriated by mighty forces which use them in their interest. This simple truth seems to be completely forgotten in recent leftist discussions on this topic and especially Islam in general. The left is therefore (more than) endangered to fall prey to a massive counter-emancipatory strategy: The event „Charlie Hebdo“ is immediately used to enforce new „security“ measurement in order to secure capitalist dominance and to spread hate among the repressed. A „Jewish-Christian civilization“ has to be defended against „Islamic barbarians“. ¹⁾As if the term „Jewish-Christian“ was not an insult after millenias of Christian anti-Judaism (Christianity is from the beginning a mixture of 44 % anti-Jewish resentment, 44 % barbarian resentment against Roman-Greek civilization, possibly 2 % authententic godly inspiration [under the assumption that s/he exists] and – possibly – 10 % true resistance in the name of deepest solidarity – this last bit has been repressed however from the beginning!) and the Holocaust. On the other hand, with the same right one could talk about an „Abrahamitic civilization“ that would include also Islam, or a „Jewish-Muslim civilization“ that should defend civilization against these blonde barbarians from the North who eat pork.

This implies an ideological blackmail: Who does not follow this easy, all too easy logic is denounced as a „barbarian“ him-/herself.

However: What „civilization“ is to defend? The „civilization“ of neoliberal capitalism? Kayseriologlu shows convincingly that we there is one third option: To defend civilization against both neoliberalism and Islamism (which are not opponents from this point of view but equal twins).

The dishonesty of this whole „civilization“-spectacle is clearly shown by an akward incident: Photographies have been published that clearly prove that photographies which suggested that leading politicians (including among others Hollande, Merkel, Netanjahu, and Abbas) were at the spearhead of a huge solidarity demonstration in solidarity with the victims of the assassinations were faked; the photographies were in fact taken within a small separated area offside the demonstration. They are afraid of the masses that they claim to represent. ²⁾Cf.: link. This cheekiness is only topped by an ultra-orthodox Jewish newspaper who removed all women – including Merkel – from the main shot. (Link) The left-liberal German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung does not hesistate to give the ideological justification for this whole laughingstock: link

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Charlie Hebdo: cui bono?

by Alp KAYSERILIOĞLU
First, let me put it very clearly to begin with: What has been done to Charlie Hebdo is inacceptable and we have to defend the legacy of those murdered like Wolinski, who has been a staunch supporter of socialist Cuba and Charb, who has always been writing against anticommunism. In the light of this massacre we have to bring all persons responsible to book.
Revolutionaries have to be able to respond and defend themselves vis à vis such actions, as revolutionaries and the Kurdish Liberation Movement (KLM) do facing repeated attacks by the Islamic State (IS) in Kobane and elsewhere – also, let us be clear about that, most of those who are now shouting and whining „down with islamofascism!“, „long live the republic“, „long live the civilized world“ did not do much more than to utter a couple of nice words regarding the war in Kobane.
However – and this should not be a matter of discussion –, if people like Wolinski and Charb would have defended a different ideology, they nonetheless would have had all the rights to freely express their opinion as they pleased within the framework of democratic rights. They had those rights not only in today’s societies, but they will also indisputably have those rights in the socialist societies yet to come.
But that’s not the point.
It is not enough to focus on these matters which are actually indisputable. If the Left does not focus on explaining how power relations in the Capitalist World System are structured, and thus fails to analyze the dominant ideologies and strategies in this system, as well as who turns the Charlie Hebdo massacre into their own profit and how, then the Left will dig its own grave and unintentionally instrumentalize itself for the benefit of other social forces.

(Weiterlesen)