Avi Lewis and the Decline of Socialist Thought
By Aaron Goldstein (07/26/07)
My interest was piqued when I read an e-mail sent by Matthew Brooks, Executive Director of the Republican Jewish Coalition (of which I am a member). His e-mail contained a little blurb on Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the former Dutch parliamentarian who is now a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. The blurb contained a video link to an interview she did on a CBC Newsworld (the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s 24 hour news channel) program while she visited Toronto called On The Map with Avi Lewis in June 2007.(1) Brooks said Hirsi Ali "demonstrated her trademark bluntness in response to condescending and anti-American jibes from the interviewer."
In introducing Hirsi Ali, Lewis described her as a “born again America booster.” Indeed, when Hirsi Ali praised America as the “best democracy”, “the best place to be” and a place where someone can come without a penny and become wealthy, Lewis asked incredulously, “Is there a school where they teach you these American clichés? Is it part of your application process?....I can’t believe you just said that.” Hirsi Ali, in her reposeful manner, replied, “I don’t find myself in the same luxury as you. You can grow up in freedom and you can spit on freedom because you don’t know what it is not to have freedom. I haven’t.” Lewis abruptly concluded the interview.
While I am delighted to see Hirsi Ali defend the virtues of the United States the exchange with Lewis made me profoundly sad in some ways. Perhaps unbeknownst to Matthew Brooks, Avi Lewis isn’t your run of the mill interviewer. He is part of Canada’s first family of socialism. His grandfather, David, was the leader of Canada’s New Democratic Party from 1971 to 1975. During those years, Lewis and the NDP propped up Pierre Trudeau’s Liberals which had been reduced to a minority in parliament following the 1972 federal election. Lewis agreed to keep Trudeau in power in exchange for the introduction of progressive social legislation. Years before, David Lewis had been the National Secretary of the NDP’s forerunner – the CCF (Cooperative Commonwealth Federation). That job was roughly equivalent to being the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee but at a fraction of the pay.
Avi Lewis’ father, Stephen, followed in David’s footsteps. Although there are those who say it was the other way around. A year before David Lewis took over the helm of the Federal NDP, Stephen Lewis was chosen to be the leader of the Ontario NDP. Lewis was Ontario NDP leader from 1970 to 1978. In 1975, the Ontario NDP came within an eyelash of unseating the Progressive Conservatives who at the time had been in power for 33 years. Despite his socialist inclinations, Stephen Lewis won many admirers including Brian Mulroney. Shortly after Mulroney became Prime Minister after the Progressive Conservative landslide of 1984 he appointed Lewis as Canada’s Ambassador to the United Nations, a position he held until 1988. Avi Lewis’ mother, Michelle Landesberg, was a journalist who was best known for her columns for both the Toronto Star and the Toronto Globe & Mail.
Avi Lewis’ uncle, Michael, served as Secretary of the Ontario NDP in the 1980s and later became a widely respected figure with the United Steelworkers of America. I must disclose here that Michael Lewis was very kind to me in the 1990s when I was active with the Ontario NDP at Provincial Council and the party’s biannual conventions. Indeed, Lewis persuaded the Steelworkers to give the Ontario NDP’s youth wing some money so that I could write a booklet about the history of the CCF-NDP youth wing that became known as The Ugly Duckling’s Waffle. In fact, it was Michael Lewis who suggested over lunch one afternoon in Ottawa that I contact noted Canadian historian Desmond Morton to write an introduction for the booklet, which he did. Needless to say, Lewis was included in my list of acknowledgements at the beginning of the booklet. To this day, despite my change in political alignment and inclination, I am still grateful for Michael Lewis’ kindness and generosity.
But wait there’s more. Avi Lewis’ aunt, Janet Solberg served as President of the Ontario NDP (responsible for chairing all Provincial Councils and biannual conventions) for a time. One of his uncles is Daniel Libeskind, the architect who is best known for winning the bid to design the new World Trade Center. Oh yes, Avi Lewis is also married to Naomi Klein, who writes for The Nation and authored the book No Logo, a notable critique of globalization.
As for Avi Lewis, he has taken the path of his mother into journalism as opposed to the political ventures of his father and grandfather. But unlike his mother who was largely a print journalist, Avi Lewis has spent most of the past decade in broadcast journalism. His early days in journalism focused on music as Lewis was at one time an aspiring musician. In the mid 1990’s, Lewis hosted a show called The New Music which appeared on Toronto’s City TV and Much Music (which is Canada’s equivalent of MTV). In 1998, Lewis made the move to CBC Newsworld to host a show a more politically oriented show called Counterspin which he hosted until 2001. After taking time off to make a documentary with his wife in Argentina, Lewis returned to CBC Newsworld in late 2006 with The Big Picture with Avi Lewis. In June of this year, On The Map with Avi Lewis debuted on CBC Newsworld. Of course, this was the show where Lewis had his confrontation with Hirsi Ali.
Shortly after Hirsi Ali scolded Lewis and told him “you can spit on freedom because you don’t know what it is not to have freedom” two things occurred to me. First, her message was completely lost on Avi Lewis. Second, her message however would have meant something to his grandfather, David. While Avi Lewis has never known what it is not to have freedom the same cannot be said for David Lewis.
To be precise, David Lewis was born in Russia in 1909 and spent his early years in a shtetl called Svisloch (which is now part of Belarus). At that time Svisloch was located along the Russian-Polish border and part of the Pale of Settlement created by Catherine the Great in the late 18th Century where Jews were allowed to live. His father, Moishe, worked in a tannery that was the main source of employment in Svisloch. Moishe was also the Chairman of the local Jewish Labor Bund which was essentially a socialist workers organization that supported the overthrow of the Czar. Yet life did not get better for Moishe and the people of Svisloch after the Russian Revolution. When the Bolsheviks seized power, they arrested Moishe and accused him of being associated with their Menshevik rivals. The Bolsheviks had threatened to kill Moishe but they would eventually release him. Despite Moishe coming out of the situation alive and the family eventually moving to Canada, the incident marked David Lewis for life. In his memoirs titled The Good Fight: Political Memoirs 1909-1958, published shortly before his death in 1981, Lewis wrote he had “a lasting animosity toward all communists.”
Lewis spent much of his political career in the CCF and NDP fighting communist infiltration in the party. This fight was complicated by the Liberal Party who formed a common front with the Communists in the 1940s known as the Labor-Progressive Party in order to take votes away from the CCF which had emerged as a threat to the Liberals hold on power. In 1943, Lewis lost a bitter by-election in a Montreal constituency called Cartier to Fred Rose, the only Communist ever elected to the House of Commons. Nearly three decades later, when Lewis won the NDP leadership in 1971 he faced a significant challenge from James Laxer, who was the leader of a New Left faction in the NDP called “The Waffle”. The Waffle not only did not possess Lewis’ anti-communist inclinations they were, if anything, actively sympathetic towards communism particularly with the North Vietnamese government led by Ho Chi Minh and were overtly hostile to the United States. While Lewis was critical of the Vietnam War, he supported institutions like NATO while the Waffle wanted Canada to withdraw from it. David Lewis’ anti-communism is not only well documented in his own political memoirs but in Cameron Smith’s 1989 book Unfinished Journey: The Lewis Family. In fact, I would argue that David Lewis, despite his stature as a socialist, was as much of an anti-communist as Ronald Reagan.
My point here is that David Lewis understood what totalitarianism for what it is and hated it in whatever its form. It is, of course, impossible to speculate how David Lewis would have viewed contemporary events if he were alive today. Yet it is certainly plausible that he would have opposed the War in Iraq in the same way he opposed the Vietnam War. With that said, it is also certainly plausible to believe that he would have hated Islamic fundamentalism and Sharia law every bit as much as he hated communism. Avi Lewis not only does not understand what totalitarianism is, he would not know it if it were to bite him on the behind.
When one watches Avi Lewis’ interview with Hirsi Ali, he reacts to her critique of Islam by arguing that “they shoot abortion doctors” in the United States. Hirsi Ali gently reminded Lewis that people who shoot abortion doctors are arrested, tried, convicted and imprisoned and are “subject to the rule of law.” I’ll go a step further. When Paul Hill killed an abortion doctor and his bodyguard in Florida in 1994, Hill was sentenced to death. In September 2003, Hill was executed by lethal injection for his crime. His death warrant was signed by then Governor Jeb Bush. (I will presume that Avi Lewis opposes the death penalty even for people who kill abortion doctors.) Avi Lewis can thumb his nose at America and the Bush family all he wants. Jeb Bush might be against abortion but Jeb Bush is also against the killing of abortion doctors. In fact, when top Florida state officials were sent rifle bullets in the mail in the weeks leading up to Hill’s execution date, Bush said he would not be “bullied” and refused to commute Hill’s sentence. The United States not only does not sanction the murder of abortion doctors it is prepared to execute the people who murder abortion doctors. Sharia law, conversely, sanctions killing people for committing adultery and practicing homosexuality. It also deems the word of a woman to be half that of a man. Sadly, Avi Lewis does not understand the difference between a democratic society and a totalitarian one.
Like so many on the Left, Avi Lewis’ socialism is defined by his hatred of the United States and, by extension, Israel. If the United States is bad, Islamic fundamentalism is therefore good and those who criticize Islamic fundamentalism and praise America while they are at it are therefore bad. This circular logic which informed Avi Lewis’ exchange with Ayaan Hirsi Ali epitomizes the decline of socialist thought. David Lewis’ socialism was defined by the desire for a better world though not a perfect one. For David Lewis, the means were as important as the ends. His politics might have been radical and he might have referred to big business as “corporate welfare bums” but he deeply respected parliamentary traditions and valued individual rights as much as collective ones. David Lewis was not prepared to impose socialism on a population that did not want it. But David Lewis was prepared to persuade that them that they did want socialism with his mighty intellect. While Avi Lewis laments about stolen elections in the United States, David Lewis did not cry foul when he failed to become Prime Minister of Canada. Whatever his personal disappointment, especially after losing his seat in the House of Commons in the 1974 federal election, David Lewis respected the wishes of the voters. Whether he won or lost, David Lewis never spit on his freedom.
1) http://www.cbc.ca/onthemap/fullpage.php?id=87
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