Groucho Marxism

Sacha Baron-Cohen is facing growing outrage over his new Ali G film, with some alleging that the pro-Israel actor and ‘comedian’ has built his career on racist mockery of Muslims and other marginalized groups. Many have taken to social media to accuse Ali G, who in the trailer is seen wearing dreadlocks and a Rastafarian hat, of being an outdated and racist caricature. Anti-racism activists have apparently sent over 37,000 emails to cinemas urging them not to screen the film. Much of the outrage has focussed on concern over a white comedian engaging in a modern form of ‘blackface’: dark makeup worn to mimic and caricature black people, historically used by white entertainers to promote racist stereotypes.

It is not the first time that a prominent British pro-Israel celebrity has engaged in such behaviour. Back in the 1990s, ‘comedian’ David Baddiel infamously wore blackface to mock Black footballer Jason Lee in the television show Fantasy Football League. Baddiel and his sidekick Frank Skinner rrepeatedly targeted the Nottingham Forest striker across several episodes of the show, with Baddiel often wearing a pineapple on his head to mimic Lee’s dreadlocks. Lee later stated that the racist caricature made him feel violated and added a severe layer of trauma to the abuse he already faced. Some 25 years after the show aired, Baddiel met Lee in person to make a long overdue apology, admitting that the sketches constituted a targeted bullying campaign.

Whilst Baddiel’s apology was a positive step, the suspicion among many was that he had only made it in order to help sell his book Jews Don’t Count, which was released around the same time. The book’s core thesis is that progressive anti-racists frequently overlook, downplay, or ignore judaeophobia, treating it as a second-class racism. (I use the term ‘judaeophobia’ rather than the more commonly used ‘antisemitism’ to refer to bigotry against Jews, for reasons outlined in a previous blog post.) In order to put forward this thesis, Baddiel had to position himself as a kind of authority on racism; but it is difficult to do that when you have a history racist bullying. This, I think, is the real reason behind Baddiel’s attempt to clear the air with Lee.

As disturbing as Baddiel’s racism may have been, it almost pales into insignificance when compared to the bigotry of Baron-Cohen, whose ‘comedy’ invariably involves a privileged, Cambridge-educated man performing caricatures of marginalized groups. First there was Ali G, a caricature of Black street culture. Then came Borat, a fictional and grotesquely exaggerated television reporter from Muslim-majority Kazakhstan. After that came Brüno, a gay fashion designer through which Baron-Cohen demonstrated that he is equally happy mocking LGBTQ+ people. Then finally came the film The Dictator, which stars Baron-Cohen as Admiral General Aladeen, the absurdly brutal ruler of the fictional North African state of Wadiya.

Baron-Cohen claims to oppose racism, but this makes little sense his entire shtick involves giving mainstream audiences permission to laugh at characters constructed from the very stereotypes he supposedly opposes. Thankfully it seems that Baron-Cohen is finally facing some push-back – not just because everyone has realized that Ali G is just him doing blackface, but also because of his support for Israel. The trailer for the Ali G film even features an Israeli government talking point, which is that the only state actor currently standing up to Israel – namely, Iran – is ‘dangerous’. (Dangerous to whom?) Baron-Cohen has apparently failed to noticed that the zeitgeist has moved on since Ali G first aired and nobody finds it funny any more. Many are wondering how we ever found it funny in the first place.

It is notable that both Baron-Cohen and Baddiel are graduates of Habronim Dror, the Zionist youth movement. (Israeli politician Mark Regev is another graduate.) It seems that Zionism and racism invariably go hand-in-hand. Further evidence for this can be seen in the actions of American pro-Israel ‘academic’ Nathan Cofnas, the self-described race realist who was instrumental in the character assassination of the British academic Jason Arday which ultimately led to Arday’s tragic death just a few weeks ago. It is beginning to emerge that, far from being an isolated actor, Cofnas is in fact part of a network of race scientists and eugenicists that has infiltrated top-tier universities. Cambridge University apparently knew about this network as far back as 2021.

We ought to be extremely concerned about this. Universities play a key role in educating our young people, and it seems they are increasingly becoming centres of racist pseudo-science and propaganda. Or perhaps it has always been this way and we are only just noticing. It is remarkable that in the wake of Arday’s untimely death, many academics have appeared to side with Cofnas, with hundreds signing an open letter defending Cofnas’s ‘academic freedom’ following his suspension by Ghent University. The letter was co-authored by prominent Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker, who claims not to be a Zionist but has defended several Zionist talking points, such as the claim that those who accuse Israel of genocide are committing a blood libel.

It is no surprise that Zionism and racism go hand-in-hand, as Zionism is a racist, supremacist ideology. I don’t see how it is possible to be a Zionist and not be racist. Of course I am not in any way suggesting that Zionism is the source of all racism in society. Racism has been around a lot longer than Zionism has. But it is certainly a significant source of racism which gets amplified through the words and deeds of a number of prominent pro-Israel public figures. This demonstrates that we will never fully rid ourselves of racism until we defeat Zionism for good.