Normally I wouldn’t pay much attention to the writings of one Yoshie Furuhashi, except that she is editor of MRZine, the internet arm of the venerable Marxist periodical The Monthly Review, and therefore must have credibility with some people.
In April Furuhashi wrote for MRZine that a planned Washington, DC, rally demanding action to stop the mass killing in Darfur was in fact a pro-war rally orgazined by a “rag-tag coalition of evangelicals and establishment Jews.” No mention of the mass murder, rape and destruction being committed in Darfur; no suggestion that Jews– given 20th-century European history– might have a special interest in stopping genocide against other people. Just a dismissive sneer at “[m]ilitaristic identity politics in America, in which each group clamors for its share of Washington’s war chest.” Or more simply, Jews just wannna have wars.
But there’s something even more interesting about the “Marxist” Furuhashi: she’s an unabashed admirer of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, lauding his “resource populism” (along with that of Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales and, yes, Vladimir Putin); urging Western leftists to help Ahmadinejad survive a “siege” for regime change; swooning over a photo of him kissing another guy and promising to send him flowers for his birthday.
But all is not peachy between Yoshie and Mahmoud. She is troubled by his Holocaust-denial talk, and that German neo-Nazis have made a video glorifying him. (Neo-nazis plan to demonstrate in support of Ahmadinejad in Leipzig on June 21 when Iran plays Angola in the World Cup.)
Furuhashi seems to believe that a good talking-to from fellow anti-imperialist Fidel Castro could straighten Ahmadinejad out and make him see the error of his Holocaust-denying ways.
Has Fidel not had the time to pull Ahmadinejad aside and tell him: “Yo, Mahmoud, only crackpots and dumbasses believe that shit. Here, read this [Marx’s Capital] instead”?
Furuhashi has even gone to the trouble of drafting a letter for Castro to send to comrade Ahmadinejad.
It’s almost touchingly naive, isn’t it– to believe Castro gives a damn about Holocaust denial or antisemitism in general? (Hint: he doesn’t.)
