Halbbackene Progressivität

Da es vielen Menschen schwerfällt, einen Unterschied zwischen Links auf halber Backe und dessen Haltegriff am doch kritisierten Dissozialen sowie stringentem Eintreten für paritätische Gesellschaft zu erkennen, möchte ich hier ein plakatives Beispiel anführen, in dem als radikal galt, was sich gegen Radikalität auflehnte.

Da inzwischen auch halbbackenes Links weiß, was in der Sache tatsächlich extrem war, kann damalige Handhabung dazu dienlich sein, Nachdenken zu Analogien im Hier & Heute anzuregen.

Ausschnitte eines Artikels von Gustavus Stadler zu dem schwarzen Künstler und Multitalent Paul Robeson und zu rassistischen Ausschreitungen auf dessen Konzert von 1949:

||Robeson, like others drifting past the left-most reaches of the Democratic party, noted similarities between European fascist ideology and American capitalism. State-sponsored racism was one of the main points of alignment. As genocidal energy accelerated in Germany, the Black left, in particular, saw parallels not only in the enforcement of Southern Jim Crow policies but also in police brutality in Northern cities.

After the war, President Harry Truman and much of America assumed a warlike stance toward the nation's recent allies, the Soviets. But Robeson and others on the left continued to praise the communist nation as an experiment in social and economic equality. The "Popular Front" alliance of liberals and radicals split, with liberal groups - including major civil rights groups such as the NAACP - taking up the anti-Red line and distancing themselves from groups and individuals who had not denounced communism.

In this political environment, Robeson's radical politics made him unpopular with a wide swath of Americans. And, to be sure, the combination of his Blackness with his accomplishments, confidence, intelligence, grace and many talents - his status as what cultural critic Shana Redmond calls an "everything man" - meant he drew extra resentment and derision from many white Americans.

However, one remark was the most immediate trigger for the anger and hate that erupted into violence. In the spring of 1949, Robeson was touring Europe. By this time, war with the Soviets had begun to look inevitable. Speaking before the Paris Peace Congress, he questioned whether Black Americans would be willing to risk their lives in what would amount to a third world war, insisting that it was "unthinkable that American Negroes would go to war on behalf of those who have oppressed us for generations against a country which, in one generation has raised our people to the full dignity of mankind". The right was predictably outraged. The New York Times editorialised that he should stick to singing. Leaders of major civil rights organisations declared their loyalty to the US.

... According to a grand jury convened in October, "Communism ... and communism alone" lay behind the events; racism and anti-Semitism were not mentioned. Even A Philip Randolph, the civil rights leader who in 1963 would organise the March on Washington, blamed Robeson for exploiting the incident and called it "not racial".||