Tag Archives: Euston Manifesto

Arabic translation of Euston Manifesto now available

We are pleased to publish an Arabic translation of the Euston Manifesto. The translation was co-ordinated by Ammar Abdulhamid, director of The Tharwa Foundation, and affiliated to the Brookings Institution in Washington. We are particularly keen to hear responses from our Arabic readers.

Slate: How to give away a million dollars

“If I had a million dollars, which I don’t, I would give it to a little cluster of political and intellectual projects in Britain whose purpose is to renovate the liberal left with new ideas,” writes Paul Berman in Slate Magazine

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The New Republic Online: American Liberalism And The Euston Manifesto

This past March, a group of intellectuals, scholars, and journalists in London posted a statement on the Internet calling for a “new political alignment” among those ranging from the democratic left to “egalitarian liberals.” A month ago a group of us wrote “American Liberalism and the Euston Manifesto” and were able to post it on the Euston Manifesto website. Today we are pleased to announce the launch of a new website, NewAmericanLiberalism.Org that continues this effort.

"The Euston Manifesto", named for the London underground station near the café where its key points were discussed and debated can be read at the group’s website. The statement was a defense of liberal democracy and human rights as well as a rejection of anti-Americanism, anti-Semitism, and terrorism. Its authors supported a two-state solution in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We regard the Euston Manifesto was an important turning point in contemporary intellectual and political debates. As of today, 2,574 people, mostly in Britain but also in this country and many others around the world, have signed the statement.

In late summer, the Euston Manifesto group in London helped to put the American signers of the statement in touch with one another via e-mail. I wrote a draft of an American liberal’s response. Following several weeks of discussion with Russell Berman (Stanford), Thomas Cushman (Wellesley), Richard Just (The New Republic), Andrei Markovits (University of Michigan), Robert Lieber (Georgetown), and Fred Siegel (Cooper Union), we agreed on the revised text of “American Liberalism and the Euston Manifesto.” We then sought support from prominent intellectuals and scholars. The Euston Manifesto group agreed to post it on its website. The statement and the list of signers was posted on September 12, 2006, and is available here) or by clicking on the "International" icon at the Euston Manifesto website).

link to full text online

Boston Globe: A Manifesto For Those Who Reject The Extremes

TODAY’S POLITICAL scene is not a friendly place for people who don’t see the world in stark black-and-white categories—people who, for instance, strongly condemn human rights abuses toward detained terror suspects in United States custody, but just as strongly reject the mentality that views the United States as the chief perpetrator of human rights abuses in the world today. Now, some of the politically homeless are building a home of their own, known as the Euston Manifesto.

The manifesto, which can be found at eustonmanifesto.org, was authored last March by a group of British academics, journalists, and activists headed by Norman Geras, emeritus professor of politics at Manchester University. In September, a group of American supporters of the manifesto issued their own statement, “American Liberalism and the Euston Manifesto.”

The signatories are truly a varied group. A few, such as American Enterprise Institute scholar Michael Ledeen, could be described as conservative. Some, notably Martin Peretz, editor-in-chief of The New Republic, are noted “liberal hawks” with the reputation of right-wing Democrats. Many others are liberals: emeritus Harvard professor sociologist Daniel Bell; Progressive Policy Institute president Will Marshall, the founder of the Democratic Leadership Council; noted psychiatrist Walter Reich; feminist legal scholar and City University of New York professor Cynthia Fuchs Epstein.

The signatories of the Euston Manifesto, American and international, stress that there is no consensus among them on some key policy issues, including the military intervention in Iraq. What brings them together is a commitment to liberal values in the broadest sense of the word—and an understanding that these values must be defended from the grave threat of radical Islamist terrorism.

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American Liberalism and the Euston Manifesto

We are signers or supporters in the United States of the Euston Manifesto and its reassertion of liberal values.
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Tristan Stubbs responds to Shalom Lappin

Shalom Lappin’s ex ante dismissal of the Third Way risks alienating many potential Eustonians, argues Tristan Stubbs
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Excelsior: Regenerar a la izquierda: Manifiesto de Euston

[Spanish language article from Mexican national daily newspaper]

El fin se ha empezado a oír la voz de gente de la izquierda política -es decir que está en favor de la igualdad, la democracia, y el respeto a los derechos humanos- intentando combatir la enfermedad que aqueja a grandes sectores internacionales de quienes se definen también como de “izquierda”, pero que en los hechos han dejado de serlo. Se trata de un agrupación surgida en Inglaterra la cual ha elegido el internet como medio de contacto y comunicación para tratar de formar un frente de verdadera izquierda. Este grupo, ha producido un documento base, el Manifiesto de Euston, en el que se detallan los principios básicos de su postura, la cual ha comenzado a recibir miles de adhesiones de personas que se identifican plenamente con dichas ideas.

El mencionado Manifiesto, con traducciones a varios idiomas -el español, entre ellos- puede leerse íntegro en euromanifesto.org y constituye un documento inspirador en la medida en que señala con claridad hasta qué grado una gran parte de quienes se ubican dentro de la izquierda internacional han desviado su camino para caer en posturas que le hacen el juego a las corrientes más reaccionarias y retrógradas del escenario mundial. Entre sus principios destacan los siguientes: oposición a justificar o manifestar “comprensión” hacia los regímenes autoritarios enemigos de la democracia y opresores de sus propios pueblos; condena a las violaciones de derechos humanos con independencia de quiénes sean responsables y cuál sea su contexto cultural, sin tolerancia hacia las nociones de relativismo cultural sobre las que se apoya la idea de que el respeto a los derechos humanos no es aplicable en determinadas naciones o pueblos; igualdad social y económica, igualdad entre sexos, etnias, religiones y orientaciones sexuales.

Otros puntos destacables tienen que ver con el desarrollo económico dentro del marco de la globalización, por lo que se proponen reformas radicales a instituciones como la OIC, el FMI y el Banco Mundial, con objeto de impulsar una justa distribución de los beneficios del desarrollo.

Es importante también en el Manifiesto la oposición al antiamericanismo a ultranza que infecta una parte importante del pensamiento de izquierda y, también, del conservador, lo cual ha generado un prejuicio generalizado contra Estados Unidos y su pueblo, sin matices y sin atenuantes. En el mismo tenor, se condena el racismo de todo tipo, ya sea antiinmigrantes, interétnico, tribal y el surgido contra poblaciones musulmanas, dentro del contexto de lucha contra el terrorismo. Igualmente, hay un pronunciamiento contra el antisemitismo tan virulento hoy en las izquierdas que, explotando los legítimos agravios del pueblo palestino, han dado rienda suelta a una postura “antisionista” que enmascara a un viejo antisemitismo, al cuestionar el derecho a la existencia del Estado de Israel, haciéndole el juego a regímenes totalitarios que gravitan sin tapujos alrededor de ideas de esa índole.

Sin duda, otro punto importante reside en la defensa de las democracias pluralistas y liberales contra quienes ignoran las diferencias entre ellas y los totalitarismos y regímenes tiránicos. Se establece, por ende, que sólo los Estados que protegen mínimamente la vida de sus gentes (porque no torturan, asesinan o masacran a sus propios civiles y cubren responsablemente sus necesidades básicas) merecen que su soberanía sea respetada. Al mismo tiempo se alude a la desastrosa experiencia de las justificaciones de los crímenes del estalinismo y el maoísmo avaladas por la izquierda, para hacer un paralelismo con las justificaciones también inaceptables del terrorismo suicida. En síntesis, el Manifiesto de Euston es un documento clave para definir los contornos de una izquierda digna y coherente a la que valga la pena pertenecer.

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Macleans: Saving the anti-war left from itself

Have you heard the latest out of England? A commitment to the institutions of democracy. No excuses or apologies for tyranny. A two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. An affirmation that the United States is a great country and nation.

These notions may seem common sense, bordering on banal. Yet they have caused quite the ruckus within the British and North American left. They are key tenets of the “Euston Manifesto,” a statement of broadly left-liberal principles cooked up last spring by a collection of London-based journalists, activists and academics. First published in the New Statesman in early April, the manifesto was officially launched on May 25 (and is available online at eustonmanifesto.org).

The purpose of the Euston Manifesto is, essentially, to save the left from itself. It is an attempt to draw a clear line between the social-democratic liberal left and the anti-war left, the latter of which has, since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, made common cause with tyrants, excused terrorists, and—in some cases—sold out the rights of women to reactionary theologians, all in the service of a single-minded opposition to the United States. Enough, write the authors of the Euston Manifesto: “We must define ourselves against those for whom the entire progressive-democratic agenda has been subordinated to a blanket and simplistic ‘anti-imperialism’ and/or hostility to the current US administration.”

full text

The Ottowa Citizen: Will the real left please stand up?

For many decades, and more noticeably in the aftermath of 9/11 and the launching of the “war on terror,” there has been a vacuum on the political spectrum. It has been harder for the so-called democratic or non-communist left, (or American Democrats in the Kennedy, Humphrey and Johnson tradition) to find an intellectual and political home.
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Euston Meeting at Labour Party conference

Talk politics with founder signatories of the Euston Manifesto: 27Sep06, Manchester.

Join us for a drink and a chat at Beluga, 2 Mount Street, Manchester on Wednesday 27 September from 7:00pm onwards. In the bar will be Nick Cohen, Gisela Stuart, Greg Pope, Lord Soley, Norman Geras, Eve Garrard, Alan Johnson, and Jane Ashworth.