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Out Of Step , by Soth African liberal opposition politician Jack Bloom , consists of two sections -Life Story of a Politician outlines Jack Bloom's life and his career as an opposition politician opposing first the Apartheid National Party government and later the Marxist ANC government.
It gives quite a good account of liberal politics in South Africa from 1981 to today. He also deals with issues such as HIV/AIDS and morality , as well his frustration with the Marxist dogma force fed to Social Studies students at Wits University , by a coterie of mouldy , old-style , hard-line Communist professors and lecturers who still dominate the 'humanities' at that university , as with most universities around the world. He comments that he would rather have anyone in charge of government rather than the Social Studies Department at Wits University.
Outlining his student days at Wits University , he speaks of the 'dependancy theory' used as an explanation for Third world poverty , as well as the rantings about 'imperialism and colonialism'.
Bloom recalls : "My response was that there should be a free spirit of enquiry in all academic disciplines and it was not my fault that the subjects I chose were dominated by an intense political correctness. Instead of a well-rounded exposure in two years of Industrial Psychology , I recieved instead the equivalent of Marxism I and II"
Having myself attended courses in the Social Studies at Wits , I can vouch for the truth in what Bloom says.
There is indeed not a free enquiry at this university but an indoctrination in doctrinaire Marxist-Leninist dogma , that would be identical to that approved by the Soviet government prior to Gorbachev's refoprm process that began in 1985 , from the reverential quotes of Lenin to the worship of Stalinist icons like Antonio Gramsci.
The most fascinating part of the book is Part 2 'Politics and Religion in a World of War' , which tackles the new anti-Semitism in the form of hysterical and venomous anti-Zionism , Islamic intolerance and persecution of minorities-dhimmnitude , the war on terror and ultimately the clash of civilizations between the Judeo-Christian West and the Islamic-Marxist Axis.
The first chapter in this section deals with the Conference Against Racism in Durban , in the apt description of Professor Irwin Cotler " The conference against racism that became a racist conference".
At this hideous anti-Israel hate fest , the Left demonstrated their common cause with Radical Islam ,
by embracing hateful anti-Zionist propaganda , and feverishly supporting the genocidal Program against Israel.
This evil festival of terror and hate in Durban 2001 , was the lowest point in human history , since the Nazi holocaust , and may a stain of shame always stay by the names of those who organized and facilitated this event. It is shocking to read what actually transpired at this event where anti-Semitic literature like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion where sold , terrorism against Israeli women and children where glorified and the dictator Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and the regimes of Iran , Syria, North Korea , Zimbabwe , Cuba , Iran and Venezuela where lauded. Groups who are genuinely opressed such as the Tibetans , Kurds , Berbers and Nilotic Blacks of South Sudan were totally dismissed , and attacks on Jews and Israel were the central feature.
In an e mail sent to editor of the Sunday Independent , John Battersby , one of South Africa's numerous leftwing ideologue elite and an Israel-basher of note , Bloom in protesting the media's prejudice and unbalanced reporting wrote : 'It appears to me that Jews are fair game for anything these days . and what better than to use other Jews (most of whom are half-Jews , atheists , married out of the faith or otherwise estranged from the general community , hence the odd term of "Jewish descent".) as the battering ram. This is sadly an old syndrome. Tibet can be brutally occupied , millions can die in Sudan , the indigenopus Berbers are opressed in North Africa by Arab imperialists , thousands die in Kashmir and south Phillipines and so on , but only Jews are picked on.There are 22 Arab states with Islam as state religion , supressing all manner of indigenous nationalities and other religions , but it is only the Jewish state , which is ceaselessly criticised for defebding itself against enemies who openly deny her right to exist"
Like Alan Dershowitz , Bloom outlines how the Palestinian strategy of deliberately targeting Israeli women , children and the elderly cannot be compared to the Israeli policy of strictly targeting combatants , even though Arab civillians may sometimes be killed in the crossfire, often because they are deliberately used as human shields by the Palestinian terrorists. How spurious is the repetition of statistics that more Palestinians than Israelis have been killed in the recent war , when an analysis of the facts reveals that the majority of Arabs killed and injured have been armed combatants and the number of Israeli women and children killed and injured is well in excess of the number of Palestinian women and children killed and injured-as many as three times more according to one study.
He refers to the appaling media double standards , illustrated by never condemmning or even reporting the miriad of cases where Israeli women and children have been shot in cold-blood by Arab terrorists.
In 2004 a pregnant Jewish mother and her four terrified small daughters where shot dead at point blank range one by one , by the type of Arab terrorists that Kushner et al admire.
A ten-month-old Jewish baby, Shalhevet Pass, was shot in her father's arms by an Arab sniper in 2001.
That same year, two boys, four- and five-years old, where shot dead together with their mother as she read them a bedtime story, in a left-wing kibbutz, by Arab terrorists.
Bloom aptly quotes pro-Israel Christian Lebanese activist Brigitte Gabriel " Once upon a time there was a special place in the lower depths of hell for anyone who would intentionally murder a child. Now the intentional murder of Israeli children is legitimised as Palestinian 'armed struggle'. However , once such behaviour is legitimised against Israel , it is legitimnised everywhere in the world , constrained by nothing more than the subjective belief of people who would wrap themselves in dynamite and nails for the purpose of killing children in the name of God"
Bloom also highlights the peril of international terror and defends the strong stand taken by President Bush against terror , including the removal of Saddam Hussein which was greeted by such mindless hysteria across the world .Bloom outlines always the hypocrisy of the Islamic-Left Axis.
No aspect of the Middle East conflict , and the World War IV we are now experiencing , escapes Bloom';s analysis, including the shameful and hypocritical animus against Israel and the West , that is the dominant view in SA , in government ,the media , academia and civil society.
He takes on 'anti-Jewish Jews' who find their identity in hatred of Israel and her people and support for Arab terror.He speaks of the anti-Israel campagn of hate by hard-core Stalinist Cabinet Minister Ronnie Kasrils. Kasrils is clearly obsessed with a relentless hatred against Israel and her people
His positions attempt to delegitimize Israel's very existance , as well as being an apologist for Arab terror against Jews in Israel , lacking any compassion for Jewish women and children murdered by the Palestinian terrorists in Israel.
Out Of Step raises many questions. Why do Leftists wildly denounce the only democracy in the Middle East, simultaneously siding with some of the world's worst dictatorships? And why do Left-wing ideologues, if they are so opposed to imperialism, interpret the return of the Jewish people to their ancient homeland as an act of colonialism.?
Bloom compares the truly multi-cultural spread and vibrant democracy of Israel to the true Apartheid practised in Islamic States in Arab countries , which is known as dhimmnitude , outlining the shocking reality and history of dhimmnitude , how Islamic societies have persecuted Jews and Chrisitians and still do today.
This book has not been well received by South Africa's leftwing establishment but perhaps this says more about the hard Left's refusal to engage other views , or to confront it's own prejudices , rather than anything about the book itself.
