25.07.2007

Bleeding obvious

What exactly is the AWL frightened of? Mark Fischer wonders

Preparation of the timetable for our annual school, Communist University, is always instructive in much the same way as our fundraising drive, the Summer Offensive, is. It tells us who is drawing nearer to our organisation, who is drawing away and who is drawing into themselves. For example, the fact that certain Labour Party members will not talk to us at present tells us much about the abysmal state of the left in Brown's party.

Also interesting has been the response of the Alliance for Workers' Liberty to our invitation to one of its members to debate us the ticklish issue of 'troops out of Iraq'. Approached at this year's Marxism event - the annual school of the Socialist Workers Party - the AWL's David Broder readily agreed to speak on the first day of Communist University on this pivotal question (August 11, 2pm session - 'Troops out - but when?'). Regular Weekly Worker readers will be aware that comrade Broder, along with Daniel Randall, are the leading spokespeople of the flaccid opposition to the AWL majority's scabby, pro-imperialist line of objectively supporting the imperialist occupation of Iraq (see Weekly Worker June 14, June 28 and July 5). Broder represents the harder edge of this opposition, as he actually stands for troops out now; he is a signatory to the founding statement of Hands Off the People of Iran, with its demands for "The immediate and unconditional withdrawal of US-UK troops from the Gulf region" and "Opposition to Israeli expansionism and aggression" (see www.hopoi.org/main.html for full statement).

So the debate we proposed to the comrade was an opportunity not simply to present an overview of the weakness of the anti-imperialist politics of the left - including the AWL - but hopefully to spark a more general discussion about how the principled politics represented by the likes of Hopi could be properly disseminated in the wider movement.

As one of the scheduled speakers, I can assure comrades that my contribution would also have included some harsh words about David Broder himself. It seems that as a price for his bloc with comrade Randall, he is silent on the unconditional nature of the demand in the internal AWL struggle - the two comrades presented an amendment to the majority Iraq motion at the May conference of the organisation that attempted to simply insert the inadequate and essentially opportunist demand for "troops out" - at some indeterminate point in the future. The pro-imperialist majority rejected even this milksop stance, however. Instead, the AWL adopted a treacherous position that explicitly advocates that the working class - in Iraq, in the UK, in the US and, presumably, globally - passively abstain from this arena of political struggle: "The question, 'When should the US-UK troops get out?', is in reality a question between the ruling class and reactionary factions," reads the adopted position (for all conference documents and the results of all votes see www.workersliberty.org/node/8524).

We were disappointed, therefore, when comrade Broder withdrew from the debate. He wrote to us on July 11: "I'm afraid [leading AWL functionary] Mark Osborn's reply to my request for permission was that if you want someone from the AWL to come to CU, you should go through the AWL office. Sorry about that - but why not invite someone from the majority to debate?"

Of course, we have repeatedly addressed the political positions of the majority in the pages of this paper. Given that the bloc's position (a) seems incapable of being articulated in anything other that near-apolitical assessments of the current military balance between imperialism and islamist groups and (b) now appears to have been reduced to advocating to the workers' movement silence as a viable political stance on this question, there was clearly nothing much to be gained from debating with it. So we were keen this year to engage with other viewpoints in the AWL that - with all their inadequacies and opportunist concessions - at least have the merit of recognising that something is wrong with the majority line and that something has to be said about the US-UK occupation.

So we did as requested and approached the group's central office. In total, four emails were sent both requesting an AWL speaker and expressing our strong preference for comrade David Broder to be that speaker. And a strange tale ensued "¦

In keeping with the line it advocates on the occupation of Iraq, the AWL stayed silent. Our emails were not responded to, not even to acknowledge receipt and to advise us when a decision would be made. Eventually, on July 19, I spoke to Mark Osborn in the AWL office and asked him what was going on. The comrade claimed not to have seen any of our emails. Indeed, AWLers should perhaps be a tad concerned about the general efficiency of the central apparatus, in view of the explanation the comrade gave for this during our initial conversation and a subsequent one on July 24. To summarise, it ran along these lines - leading AWL comrade Martin Thomas deals with the office correspondence; the comrade is out of the country at present; he has not passed on any of the CPGB's emails during this period, so no-one is aware of them; indeed, as he is on a break, he may be simply "lying on a beach" rather than assiduously accessing AWL email accounts, so - presumably - even he may not even be aware they exist.

All crap, of course. For the real explanation we need to simply look under the heading of 'Bleeding obvious'.

The pro-imperialist majority of the AWL is in real pain over the imperialist occupation of Iraq. Given a choice, it would scandalously prefer to say nothing at all on a question that not only provides an acid test for the workers' movement, but also cleaves the establishment on both sides of the Atlantic. Instead, it advocates a mundane, low-level 'solidarity' that consists of no more than the collection of pitiful amounts of money for trade union, women's and a few other democratic organisations in that country - work that can safely be conducted under the wing of a TUC, which, in its turn, effectively operates under the auspices of the British state itself, of course. Despite the organisation's claims to an open, democratic culture, it senses this issue goes to the heart of its increasingly first-campist politics and has therefore sought to duck the debate, to limit the ability of its minority to publicly criticise the organisation (and certainly not on a platform provided by the CPGB, it seems).

Thus, there has been hardly any public discussion of this question in the organisation's newspaper; there has been marginally more tucked away on the AWL's website - but not actually involving the main AWL protagonists in the debate (see www.workersliberty.org/node/8764); perhaps most incredibly of all, the issue of Iraq did not even feature as a debate of any sort at the group's June 29-July 1 annual school, Ideas for Freedom.

During our exchange over this year's Communist University, comrade Osborn underlined his group's sensitivity on this question when he pointedly referred to the CPGB "petitioning some [AWL] members" to join the CU platform. Now, "petitioning" is rather a big word for a verbal invite at the end of a long chat about a variety of political questions, as I'm sure comrade Broder will agree. However, let's get to the meat. Is there in principle a problem with directly approaching a member of a political group who holds a minority position - which has been openly expressed, however inadequately - with an offer of a platform?

Well, there is a precedent here, comrades; it's called Sean Matgamna.

We invited the leading AWL comrade to address the 2004 CU to defend his self-definition as a "Zionist" - a position that is definitely in a minority in the AWL and causes many of the comrades some embarrassment, as they feel it leaves them vulnerable to attack from other sections of the left. He accepted and was (mildly) criticised by members of his own group in the debate that followed his presentation. Similarly, the AWL has invited CPGB comrade Mike Macnair to debate them on the nature of contemporary imperialism, a discussion that led to a series of articles and exchanges with AWL comrades in our press (Weekly Worker July 29 2004). AWLers are well aware that Mike has a difference with our comrade Jack Conrad on this question and - if push came to shove - may well be in a minority (an artistic judgement, this one - we have not had a formal vote on the nature of contemporary imperialism).

Indeed, AWL comrades should perhaps examine previous years' timetables of our Communist University (available on our website at www.cpgb.org.uk/cu/index.html). You will find that - in contrast to their own organisation's practice - we consistently attempt to feature controversial debates that divide comrades not simply in the broader movement, but also within our own organisation. This is not done for the sake of some sort of political masochism or the unalloyed joy of spilling each other's blood in public. It is in the interests of the political hygiene both of our own small group and - more importantly - the broader movement we are in business to serve.

Apparently, an AWL internal meeting on July 27 will take the decision as to which comrade will be offered to us for our opening CU debate; we would urge the comrades to stay true to their stated commitment to democracy and transparency in our movement by sending along David Broder, a comrade of the minority.

After all, we already know he's available "¦