Yoshie:
Were leftists supposed to oppose accepting Vietnamese immigrants, just because they were leaving a socialist country rather than a capitalist one, or to just shut up and pretend not to have noticed them?
But these people were about more than this. The Vietnamese "boat people" were used as a cudgel against Vietnam in the same way as Cuban boat people were used against Cuba. The ex-Maoists who got involved with this project were also focused on Pol Pot. It was basically a Cold War propaganda offensive. I think that Sartre was fairly addled at this point in his life, but the others were pretty shrewd operators who knew what they were doing. You can connect the dotted lines between Kouchner's involvement at this time with his later forays into Yugoslavia and elsewhere. With respect to Foucault, there is nothing "radical" about him at this point. His hatred for Marxism had led him to give lectures on Hayek and Mises who he saw as kindred spirits in the battle against Marxism. There was still enough of a contrarian in him to become a partisan of Khomeini, the cleric who presided over the slaughter of Iranian Marxism. He had his cake and could eat it too. By attaching himself to the Shia cause, he could 'epater le bourgeoisie' while at the same time relish in the destruction of his sworn ideological enemies. For people who want to read what he had to say, go to: http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/007863.html It contains the observation: "One thing must be clear. By 'Islamic government,' nobody in Iran means a political regime in which the clerics would have a role of supervision or control." I guess his background in the French CP made him proficient in bullshit apologetics...
