Stop looking for the ‘Gotcha!’ moment in public debate | Kenan Malik

A Tory MP finds herself at the centre of an antisemitism row after using the term ‘cultural Marxism’

It’s not often you have a public row about the meaning of “cultural Marxism”, but in the heated cauldron of contemporary politics, almost anything can become a controversy.

Last week, Tory MP and leading Brexiter Suella Braverman spoke of “this ongoing creep of cultural Marxism which has come from Jeremy Corbyn”. Critics seized on the phrase as being antisemitic. The Board of Deputies of British Jews observed that the phrase originated with the Nazis, who used the term Kulturbolschewismus (cultural Bolshevism) to accuse Jewish intellectuals of moral degeneracy. The deputies urged Braverman not to use the phrase in future. She insisted she was simply referring to Corbyn’s “authoritarian tendencies”.

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2HO8A39
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