LEFT WING VIOLENCE

Left wing breeds violence
Wonder what's going through Osama bin Laden's mind?
Read Canada's leading left-wing magazine
by Terry O'Neill

THE cover of the bimonthly Canadian Dimension proclaims the magazine is "for people who want to change the world." That bravura declaration is the first of the magazine's many regular deceits and conceits.

The truth is, CD's editors have very consciously put together a journal for only a chosen few of the many groups of people who actually want to change the world. The publication is not for libertarian free marketeers, nor for Christian missionaries nor even for radical greens. Instead, its apparent target readers are dyed-in-the-wood socialists, unreformed communists and others of their ilk who are united in their hatred of capitalism and liberal democratic governments. If the magazine's editors were honest, their little banner would read, "For radical left-wingers looking for pseudo-intellectual succour."

The magazine's anti-capitalist animus is worth considering at this point in history because its July/August edition, which was still on newsstands in mid-September, has a rather remarkable cover story on "Violence and social change." It is remarkable, not only because it reveals something of the darkness at the heart of Canada's holier-than-thou Left, but also because it provides an insight into the sort of end-justifies-the-means, anti-capitalist, anti-U.S. reasoning likely employed by the terrorists who attacked New York and Washington last month. Read on, and you will see why.

Generally, the Canadian Left has been of one voice in decrying the terrorist attacks, but left-wingers have also been quick to advance positions of "moral equivalence" and "root causes." They argue, in effect, that the suicidal assassins' actions are understandable in the face of unrelenting, oppressive American capitalistic imperialism. In other words, it's the Yanks' own fault they got hit. They were asking for it.

Most rigid in this interpretation are the old-school Canadian Communists, who declared in their official statement that the terrorists' tactics "are a direct product of growing anger and resentment around the world." The Communists' Marxist-Leninist comrades were equally damning of our neighbours to the south. "Blame U.S. imperialism for what is taking place," the party declared. In the same vein, Vancouver Province letter-writer Paul Morton said bluntly, "The fact is, Americans have had it coming for a long time."

Less direct, but no less clear in pointing a finger at the West for the attack, was University of Victoria eco-researcher Michael M'Gonigle, who wrote in the Globe and Mail, "We must address the many contexts that feed anger, hatred and terror. To do so, we must be willing - and able - to look inward." Address the contexts. Look inward. In other words, shift the blame. That it might be the terrorists themselves who should do the changing and the looking inward is a possibility that apparently never crossed Mr. M'Gonigle's mind.

A common thread in all this is a downplaying of the horrific violence unleashed by the terrorists. That is understandable, given the roots of the Left's argument. Once you have suggested that the bad guys could not have helped themselves, then it does not serve your purpose to dwell on the awful consequences of their actions.

And that brings us back to Canadian Dimension. In a story headlined "Reflections on violence," Ken Kalturnyk writes that members of the far Left such as he "look upon violence as a tactical question for the movement." Note the words, "a tactical question." Not a moral consideration. Not something that might lead to blood being shed, bones being shattered, lives being lost and orphans being made, but a tactical question.

"We are not dismissing violence as a legitimate form of political struggle," he continues, adding that violence should be employed only at the proper time and for just the right, anti-capitalist reasons. "Determining when conditions exist for the use of violence is an extremely complex and difficult decision," he writes.

He goes on to say, "Whether an individual responds to state violence passively or violently is an individual decision." Situational ethics, in other words. One wonders whether Osama bin Laden, or whoever was responsible for the hijackings and crashes, went through a similar thought process before deciding to unleash his death squads.

To give him credit, Mr. Kalturnyk does make it clear he opposes terrorism. Again, however, he does not do so for any moral reason, but only because of the bad publicity terrorist acts inevitably generate - publicity that will "adversely affect the entire movement." But this also means that, if a "movement" decides it has more to gain from a terrorist act than it has to lose, then terrorism should be viewed as nothing more or less than a useful tool. How easy it is, then, to shrug off the massacre of 6,000 innocent lives.

Although it was written and published before the events of September 11, what is ironic about Mr. Kalturnyk's piece is that it provides an unexpected answer to his fellow left-wingers who say the West has only itself to blame for the terrorism. But where socialists and communists point their fingers at capitalism, Mr. Kalturnyk has provided evidence that a more likely source of terrorism is a world view that puts political ends above common decency and tactical advantage above human suffering.

And that, sad to say, is a position shared both by the monsters who attacked the U.S. and our homegrown left-wing ideologues who so pompously and deceptively call themselves "progressives."