Fifth Estate 310, Fall 1982 Add to the Bookbuilder

Escape from death in a gas chamber or a Pogrom, or incarceration in a concentration camp, may give a thoughtful and capable writer, Solzhenitsyn for example, profound insights into many of the central elements of contemporary existence, but such an experience does not, in itself, make Solzhenitsyn a thinker, a writer, or even a critic of concentration camps; it does not, in itself, confer any special powers. In another person the experience might lie dormant as a potentiality, or remain forever meaningless, or it might contribute to making the person an ogre. In short, the experience is an indelible part of the individual’s past but it does not determine his future; the individual is free to choose his future; he is even free to choose to abolish his freedom, in which case he chooses in bad faith and is a Salaud (J.P. Sartre’s precise philosophical term for a person who makes such a choice). [1]

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Various technical and resource problems delayed publication of this issue of the FE (see article elsewhere). Hence, the sweep of events in the Middle East has already rendered some of the focus and information in this article a bit out of date. Atrocity has followed atrocity, and the situation has become even more dangerous and volatile. With the introduction of Reagan’s “peace initiative,” a scheme which would essentially leave the Palestinians at the mercy of their old nemesis King Hussein of Jordan, Begin and his supporters have proved themselves utterly intransigent by launching plans for further settlement of the West Bank by Zionist settlers. Begin, his face red with excitement, declared before Israeli parliament in a Hitler-like tirade, “The world will witness whose dedication will win...If someone tried to take Judea and Samaria [the West Bank) from us, we will tell him: Judea and Samaria for the Jewish people for all generations.”

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This article is an excerpt from Our Roots Are Still Alive: The Story of the Palestinian People, by The Peoples Press Palestine Book Project, published by the leftist newspaper The Guardian and is available through the FE Book Service.

[In 1947] The United Nations Special Commission on Palestine (UNSCOP), which had no African or Arab members, recommended by a narrow margin that Palestine be divided into a Jewish and an Arab state. The partition plan granted 55 percent of Palestine to the Jews, who were 30 percent of the population and owned only 6 percent of the land. Some 407,000 Arabs, a number nearly equal to the number of Jews, were to live in the area assigned to the Jewish state. The Arab state was to include ten thousand Jews and 725,000 Arabs in the remaining 45 percent of Palestine.

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The Fifth Estate is a co-operative project, published by a group of friends who are in general, but not necessarily complete agreement with the articles herein. Each segment of the paper represents the collective effort of writing, editing, typesetting, lay-out, camera work, headlines and proofreading.

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When the founder of organized zionism, Theodore Herzl, proposed to create a European Jewish state in the Middle East as “an outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism,” he was acting within a western tradition. It is possible that this tradition has its roots in the rise of the ancient middle eastern civilizations, but it certainly becomes predominant with the rise of capitalism and its expansion first into the heaths of Europe (where “heathens” lived who had to be conquered, christianized and civilized by the developing state powers across the continent) and later to all the continents of the world where these civilized men—explorers, missionaries, marauders, and colonizers—spread their empire.

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“Seen from a lower point of view, the Constitution, with all its faults, is very good; the law and the courts are very respectable; even this State and this American government are, in many respects, very admirable, and rare things, to be thankful for, such as a great many have described them; but seen from a point of view a little higher, they are what I have described them; seen from a point higher still, and the highest, who shall say what they are, or that they are worth looking at or thinking of at all?”

—Henry David Thoreau, “Civil Disobedience”

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Thanks again for running my article on Poland, and for E.B. Maple’s reply. (See FE #309, June 19, 1982, “The Collapse in Poland”) Maple seems a little over-anxious for a dispute on the questions raised, in some cases going out of his way to misinterpret what I say, and to ignore parts of the article in which I clearly distinguish the revolutionary movement from the organizations which speak for it, and from the capitalist state which cannot be reformed or seized. Still, there are several points on which we genuinely disagree.

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It might seem self-indulgent, in the face of mounting worldwide horror, to call what has occurred around the FE the past several months a “crisis,” but a more precise word fails to come to mind. In August we were told by our landlord that we had one month in which to vacate the FE office, in order to allow construction workers to tear out the ceiling and undertake renovation of the building.

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It’s said that the mark of good actors and actresses is their ability to portray characters that are completely unlike themselves. Taking that into consideration, it seems to me that Jane Fonda is the perfect example of a good actress, even though many people may carry with them the popular view that she’s really quite a stinker. Recently, I saw this crusader of social causes in a very interesting film that depicted the senseless horrors and personal tragedies of war. The film was “Coming Home,” and not only did it show the shattered lives of the Vietnamese and Americans who found themselves killing each other in the fields of Vietnam, but the racist war propaganda and empty morals of corporate America.

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Dear FE:

With only 12 shopping days left ‘til nuclear war, I thought I’d better get some bucks off to you to renew the old sub. Thanks a million, or should I say thanks $4 bucks? Whatever, the FE is always welcome on my doorstep.

I like the new big format. Makes me feel like I’m really reading something and it holds more kitty litter. No, seriously, the paper is greatly appreciated for its sane thoughts in a world long gone mad. Keep up the excellent work.

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Dear Fifth Estate,

Thank you for your criticisms of the Freeze campaign [FE #309, June 19, 1982]. I agree wholeheartedly that the Freeze is not enough. The Freeze is just a first step, it is a talking point. Whatever its limitations, it has engaged the interest of millions of people in the subject of nuclear terror, and it has helped people start to think about the issue.

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Atanas Porezoff was, as were so many revolutionaries of his generation, host to many names: Atanas Vidloff, Tony Bulgar, even affectionately “The Old Man.” But to those of us who knew him only in his later years, he was just Tony.

Once towards the end of his life, when we visited him in the hospital, he smiled at the nurse and, said, “See, I don’t need medicine, these people are my medicine.” And he would remind us at the end of each visit to remember the message contained in the works of his “great teachers, Bakunin, Kropotkin and Tolstoy.” His customary call of “Viva la anarchia” as we left after visiting will stay with us always. Tony lived a long and full life, yet we cannot mask our sadness for a departed friend and comrade.

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In response to “Readers dispute FE on Nuclear Freeze issue,” FE #310, Fall, 1982 (this issue).

On one point we all seem to be in agreement: the campaign for a nuclear freeze is not enough. So, I find it perplexing that rather than considering its inadequacies as a basis for investigating ways of moving rapidly beyond it (since we also apparently agree that time is very limited), our critics reiterate all of its conventional arguments. None of the specifics of our analysis are discussed. Instead, the Freeze is presented as the embodiment of the movement against nuclear weapons and war, rather than a single tactical approach among many possible ways to create an opposition.

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Issue No. 14 of Open Road is now out. This issue was made possible thanks to the generous response to the OR’s financial appeal. They welcome additional support, of course. The OR now costs $1.00 per issue. The current issue includes an interesting article by John P. Clark, “Anarchism and the World Crisis,” articles on pornography, the democracy movement in China, punk rock, the Amsterdam riots, and more.

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a review of

Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States, Harper & Row, New York, 1980, 600 pages plus index.

Howard Zinn is a “radical revolutionary,” whose People’s History is aptly named given its kinship with the various “Peoples Republics.” In fact, this “wild” book was conceived as a means of slaking Zinn’s “thirst for notoriety in the pecking order of the radical left,” as well as for the enrichment of himself and Harper & Row. So saith the reviewer for Barron’s [1] the financiers’ weekly.

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1) List the title of the book, quantity wanted, and the price of each;

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Discussed in this article

The Poetry of Postwar Japan, edited by Kijima Hajime. University of Iowa Press, 1975.

Modern Japanese Poetry, translated by James Kirkup and edited by A.R. Davis. University of Queensland Press, 1978.

War poetry is significantly characteristic of this century. Because the poet’s voice is inherently a human voice, poets throughout the world have felt a weighted responsibility to react to that which threatens to destroy humankind and to protest against the inhuman force of modern warfare—from the ruthless use of asphyxiating gas during World War I to the massive unleashing of bombs during World War II.

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