Alvin Rosenfeld’s troubling monograph (discussed in this post) led me to Andrei S. Markovits essay in the Winter 2005 issue of Dissent, entitled “The European and American Left Since 1945.” The essay is based on a paper Markovits presented at the 2004 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, and reviewed the evolution of the Left in four periods since World War II.
Markovits describes “a conjuncture of social, economic, generational, and cultural shifts that changed the very identity of the left over the last twenty-five years.” With the collapse of Soviet communism and various “progressive” movements in Europe, the Left “lost the overall coherence of modernist universalism that defined it for more than a hundred years” and became fragmented. But two “isms” have become the new unifying force in the intellectual and political vacuum of the Left:
A new European (and American) commonality for all lefts — a new litmus test of progressive politics — seems to have developed: anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism (though not anti-Semitism, or at least not yet).
I cannot think of two more potent wedge issues that define inclusion and exclusion on the left today. In a hierarchy of key items defining what it means to be left in contemporary Europe and the United States — pro-choice, abolition of the death penalty, equality in marital arrangements and official recognition of gay and lesbian couples by the state; progressive income tax; economic and social justice; support for third world claims against the rich first world; multilateralism as opposed to unilateralism; legalization of marijuana; and on and on — opposition to Israel and America figure at the very top.
If one is not at least a serious doubter of the legitimacy of the state of Israel (never mind the policies of its government) and if one does not dismiss everything American as a priori vile and reactionary, one runs the risk of being excluded from the entity called "the left."
There has not been a common issue since the Spanish Civil War that has united the left so clearly as has anti-Zionism and its twin, anti-Americanism. The left divided, and divides, over Serbia, over Chechnya, over Darfur, even over the war in Iraq. There are virtually no divisions over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and over the essence of the United States.
Markovits has an extraordinary background — Professor of Comparative Politics and German Studies at the University of Michigan, and author of a forthcoming new book entitled “Uncouth Nation: Why Europe Dislikes America” (Princeton University Press, December 2006) (an expanded and amended version of Amerika-Dich Hasst Sich’s Besser: Antiamerikanismus und Antisemitismus in Europa — “America, It is Easier to Hate You: Anti-Americanism and Anti-Semitism in Europe” — published in Germany in 2004). Since his essay was published in Dissent (the premier intellectual journal of the Left), his conclusions cannot be dismissed as a mere neocon fantasy.
His new book has glowing blurbs from Joschka Fischer (former Foreign Minister of Germany), Josef Joffe (Publisher and Editor of "Die Zeit), Michael Walzer (Institute for Advanced Study), and this one from Jeffrey Herf, author of "The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda During World War II and the Holocaust":
While many think or hope that the hostility of recent years is primarily a short-term reaction to the policies of George W. Bush, Markovits makes a compelling case that longer-term currents are at work. Uncouth Nation should be read by policymakers, scholars, and citizens who seek a deeper understanding of recent tensions and prospects for trans-Atlantic relations and for Europe ‘s future.
Although its publication date is listed as December, Uncouth Nation is not yet out. But it is a book to watch for. While waiting, try America Alone.