‘Civilized’: A Poem by Michael Vanyukov

Michael, such a sad commentary on being Jewish. The is deep anguish embedded in your poem that may not be evident to all. The left and right of the political spectrum is a horseshoe with the ends on the left and right far closer in their attitudes than they are to the moderate middle. I may show this in a future submission of my poem on the subject. There are so many hidden ways to kill those some regard as enemies other than gas chambers and firing squads as you have shown us in your exposé.

Michael, you cleverly depict the thinking of anti-semitic persons who consider themselves superior to “uncivilized” others. The poem explores a certain kind of mind you have undoubtedly observed. In the poem’s first half, the idea that Jews are “humanity’s enemies” lies in the past. However, even in the past, this hostility was “common knowledge,” which means it was an attitude shared by many, possibly in an unthinking manner. The speakers of the poem do not claim it, but do acknowledge it. In fact, they say “the world has changed little.”

From “changed little” in line 1 to “there will be no changes” in line 11, sounds startling. Back to the old ways of the world? In line 16, we hear the speakers themselves only want to make Jews “feel chased.” They will use psychological violence, but no physical violence, although they describe the more extreme violence done by others, and in line 19 say, “We support that.” And in the poem’s final line, they turn back again to being “civilized.”

Obviously, the confused thinking shown here is definitely dangerous to Jews. I think you hold it up for close examination in order to make your readers examine their own thinking–and to examine their responses to falsely “civilized” speech when we hear it. It is dangerous to authentic civilization.

Antisemitism was religiously based in the past; later on it became economic when Jews did very well in capitalist enterprises and provoked envy. In the nineteenth century antisemitism was linked with nationalism, which had become a dominant force in Europe, and which rejected any minority groups that did not totally conform to a national template of identity. The twentieth century saw it take a racial form, where Jews were hated for their unchangeable ethnic and genetic heritage. Sometimes all of these things were mixed.

Today, the hatred is primarily ideological. By this I mean that antisemitism is now rooted in violent anger and resentment over the fact that Israel does not fit an acceptable left-liberal narrative of how a “modern and progressive” society should operate. Religion is no longer an issue for many people, everyone is a capitalist, intense nationalism is passé, and genetics has settled down into just another empirical science. The hatred is now based on political opinion and bien-pensant conformism.

Are there exceptions? Sure. There are still some antisemites who reject the Jews on religious grounds, and other who are envious of Jewish prosperity, or who accuse them of double-loyalties, or who have a Nazi-like hatred of their genes. But they are not the main sources of the current wave on antisemitism that has swept the liberal-left in both Europe and the United States.

The issue today is ideology, pure and simple. Left-liberalism demands a fideistic totality to its social and cultural beliefs. You must believe and support whatever the left promotes as morally correct and politically required. Any deviation, any heresy, any questioning or criticism, is met with outraged shock and retaliation. The state of Israel, surrounded by a sea of fanatical enemies, is considered by the liberal left as an abomination because it rejects political notions and beliefs that would be suicidal for Israel as a nation.

What are those “political notions and beliefs” that Israel rejects? Here are the key ones:

No state is allowed to be rooted in an ethnic heritage or a specific religion.
No state may have a core elite and ruling class based on such heritage and religion.
No state may establish laws or codes or protocols that favor one class of citizens over any others.
No state may be closely allied to Western ideas, Western habits of thought, and Western standards of behavior and productivity.
AND MOST IMPORTANT: No nation may defend itself by killing and devastating those nonwhite populations that dare to attack or terrorize it.

Israel is a real nation, rooted in the blood and sacrifice of its soldiers, its long history in its territory, and its conquests in battle. A real nation like Israel does not worry about moralistic chickenshit like the five notions that are listed in the preceding paragraph. It defends itself in whatever way it sees fit. In other words, Israel refuses to commit suicide and become another Levantine sandpit of squalor, like its neighbors, and it does not concern itself with the Categorical Imperatives of left-liberal piety.

This is why antisemitism has been revivified. It is why even many Jews (in name only) are part of the massive pro-Hamas and pro-Palestinian protests, and why many stupid left-wing Israelis are in the streets attacking Netanyahu. These are people who cannot bear the idea that Israel is telling the high priests of left-liberalism to screw off. For these people left-liberalism is a religion, and violations of religious belief are sinful and damnable. Left-liberals today are as mindlessly fundamentalist as Southern Baptists.

Israel is a slap in the face to left-liberal ideology. Israel is showing the rest of the West how we are going to have to fight in the very near future. It is successfully crushing fanatical enemies who want to wipe it off the map, and is not apologizing to the chorus of NGOs and mass media outlets and corrupt U.N. agencies that are in a state of pearl-clutching rage about it.

I was in Manhattan on October 7, 2023. I was a witness to the mass celebrations and cheering crowds of students, faculty and other jackasses who were in the streets screaming their joy for the Hamas assault on Israel. And this was days before Israel made any military response to the atrocities. I couldn’t believe the level of ghoulish Schadenfreude that was displayed!

One of my Jewish colleagues was in a state of near shock. As we sat in the office, he broke his silence and said this to me “I used to be Jewish and left-liberal. Now I’m just Jewish.”

I knew then that Israel was the only hope for fighting off the barbarian hordes massed against the West.