The Lawyer and the Sheikh: A Case Study in Mutual Self Delusion

There are a number of titles I could have given to this blog entry but for making a running commentary I found this documentary by Journeyman Productions to be the best video of attorney Lynne Stewart and her conviction for aiding and abetting clients who are members of al-Qaeda. The film starts with Lynne at home and then a Whitehouse press conference announcing her arrest. When asked about being called a terrorist she explains disingenuously (in my humble opinion) her actions by her use of mentioning “standards”. For the sake of balance the next scene is one in which a fellow lawyer admits that a a huge error in judgement on Stewart's part was made. Now if there ever was a way as to how NOT to promote one’s political stance it would be by allying oneself with jihadis bt does this even vaguely get mentioned in the film? No. Stewart goes on to openly admitting to not knowing anything about Islam even though she was a committed supporter of the Palestinian cause and had been for decades.



This blindspot of hers is shared by much of what constitutes the liberal Left on a global level with very few exceptions and even many of those exceptions are highly questionable. She admits that she took a “crash course” in Islam from her Muslim friends but one must ask her what was taught exactly and why is her "knowledge" of Islam so recent when she has professed support for the Palestinian cause for so long?

Her marriage to a veteran activist like herself is fine publicity enough but when she readily explains that her politics are framed in terms of being a part of a power struggle one can sense a rather irrational side being rationalized. She has represented violent leftist revolutionaries in the past and embraces the politics of her clients. She even continued to campaign for her defense after being granted bail for $500,000. What should have rung the alarm bells of those knowledgeable enough about leftist politics and seeing it from an anti-authoritarian anarchist view was her use of the word “vanguard” during the speech at the church. (If I had been there I might have cringed out loud and that would have been a problem.)But since I wasn't this particular quote comes to mind that should sum up my feelings

The concept of "the party to lead" has become a pillow for intellectual sloth, the actual stumbling block to a unification of theory and practice on new foundations.- Raya Dunayevskaya, A Restatement of Some Fundamentals of Marxism against ‘pseudo-Marxism’", 1943.

As a Sixties activist, she nevertheless identified with Sheikh Omar’s politics without really explaining how her worldview and that of her client may have diverged. How she able to “identify” with the Sheikh’s politics wasn’t recorded here but as I said earlier it might have been cultivated during her “crash course” in Islam courtesy of the Sheikh and his entourage. If there is evidence of this then another missive from the speech she gave should tell us something:

“And I tell you that in all my dealings with Sheikh Omar he was never was more than an Egyptian nationalist looking for a solution for his own country. His solution was religious but it was religious from within a political context”.

Did this woman have any idea that in Islam the political sphere is the same as the religious sphere? Could she not see that she and indeed her entire worldview are a result of a long chain of events that did not progress linearly nor smoothly but nonetheless is a direct result of questioning and criticizing religious dogma? If she did notice this then one must ask her (and others like her) the question: Why is it that the Left in the West (who view themselves all so often a inheritors and direct descendants of the Enlightenment) ally themselves with opponents of Enlightenment values and who are even more vociferous in their opposition to all things secular than those of earlier times?

It is a common refrain among those on the Left nowadays that opposing Islam and being leftwing in one’s politics would simply feed into what corporate media and ruling elites are saying and teaching the public about Islam. Justification for this position is seen as a simple matter that goes along the same lines as Chomsky and Herman’s propaganda model that sees all political currents being guided by the greed of corporate ruling elites and is professed as the most realistic way of viewing the phenomenon of jihad. Yet, seven years after the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks the peace movement has exhausted itself in many respects in furthering any explanatory project that can comprehensively explain Islam.

Researching the primary sources of Islam such as the Q’uran, ahadith and various biographies (sirat) of the Prophet Muhammad was seemingly done for them by the likes of Edward Said in the Seventies and continued by the likes of Tariq Ali, Mark LeVine, John Esposito, Karen Armstrong among others. They are only starting to feel the heat for this oversight of titanic proportions. If anything, this gap in knowledge is only starting to make itself feel felt as those on the Left who once believed in the candy-coated version of Islam realize that there is no way out. That they have been the victims of their own consumerist tendencies that reveals itself when such things as "all religions being the same" is no longer reassuring enough in light of the ensuing onslaught of Islamic atrocities on a global scale.

In this epic story of ignored implications it tells us that she has not grasped what that “solution” means nor the finality of it when it becomes dominant in any given neighborhood. I could have a conversation with this woman and in the course of that conversation claim that the current jihadi movements are simply manifestations of “another form of anti-imperialism” and be responded to warmly. All in the name of solidarity of course. It’s that sad because it is that delusional.

The most damning accusation against her is the suspicion that her action may have made possible the Luxor attack on tourists committed by the Muslim brotherhood. There aren’t enough words to convey how grotesque that attack was and the manner in that it occurred. If that had bee delved into further in this documentary it might have made for some interesting close-up shots of cognitive dissonance in action. Her explanation for conveying messages to outside Muslim Brotherhood members was explained away without much display of remorse at all. In my view, she claims a certain ignorance but would have been better off by claiming diminished responsibility since excuses for terror don’t work when claiming ignorance.

It goes without saying that she has a right to defend herself but to be as optimistic as she was when telling the camera that she is “confident that no jury would find that I had crossed any line whatsoever” was a bit over the top. In fact, that flotation device capsized when her deliberate act of distracting guards from listening in on the conversation was recorded. It is something to behold when thinking how a person of her background wouldn’t at least be actively wary of electronic eavesdropping measures. Was there a sense of adventure within her that the jihadis recognized and made use of? Indeed, is this a cardinal trait of leftists who openly support such heinous ideologues? Was there a yearning by some other supporters to possibly see this as something along the lines of Sacco and Vanzetti and thus “heroic” in a class struggle sort of way? If such was the case then they had better hope for this entire affair to most resemble the tawdry and amoral activities of attorneys for the Baader-Meinhof gang in the Seventies.

The ever sticky subject of human rights and the Patriot Act came to light and was discussed evenly enough but still too briefly. Elaine Cassells, who is an attorney herself is interviewed and criticizes the terrorist laws and sees them as a return to the McCarthy Era. No matter what form of rhetoric one uses to frame it this is a huge issue that most have underestimated and which the chances for abuse are too dangerous to ignore. However, there was a fine line that Lynne Stewart crossed that she knew full of and making the case that electronic eavesdropping will prevent a “real relationship between attorney and client” is weakened enormously when she says it.