I think that nice Laurie Penny over at the New Statesman must actually be a conservative mole dedicated to undermining leftism from within. How else to explain this sort of stuff:
The difference between Tahrir Square and Parliament Square is one of scale, but not of substance. Across the world, ordinary people are being denied a voice, shut out of work and education, having their dignity trashed. While armchair liberals express sympathy with protesters in the Middle East, workers and students in Britain have begun to express something far more powerful: solidarity.
Solidarity, the watchword of this movement, hashtagged and chanted across the world, is not about pretending that there’s no difference between a flashmob in London and a riot in Tripoli.
Emphasis added. Heaven knows where this self-dramatisation will lead. The notion that there’s any meaningful connection between the protest movements in Egypt or Libya and British students miffed by a rise in tuition fees would be entertaining if it weren’t also mildly obscene. But that is the price of such rampant solipsism.Solidarity is the shared conviction that while the disposessed lead vastly different lives across the world, those lives may yet lead them to the same place of greater freedom. It’s not just a word; it’s a weapon.
Verily, the Camerlegg Ministry has led some on the left to lose their minds completely. Who knew that considering the British left deluded ensures you must also, by implication, be on Gaddafi’s side in Libya? Madness.
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