09.06.2004

Libel wars and spin

Alan Fox reports on the latest developments in the conflicts between Respect and George Galloway with the capitalist press.

Respect - the unity coalition has condemned The Observer for what it calls the “racist smears” contained in an editorial and an opinion piece written by columnist Nick Cohen in the June 6 issue. The paper is accused of making a series of “false and defamatory allegations”.

            George Galloway, Respect MP, also accuses Nick Cohen of repeating a story about him that is nothing but a “gross slander”. In the current issue of the New Statesman, Cohen claims that comrade Galloway supported the military coup in Pakistan and quotes him as saying: “In poor third world countries like Pakistan, politics is too important to be left to petty squabbling politicians.”

            In fact, says Galloway, “I condemned the coup and have refused to visit the country or speak on the same platform as representatives of the [Pakistan] government.” Galloway says that this type of journalism is akin to BNP propaganda and that Cohen “invented” the ‘quote’.

            However, it is the specific characterisation of Respect in the Observer editorial as “an unholy alliance of the far left and reactionary islamist fundamentalists” that Respect considers particularly defamatory. Galloway and Euro candidates Salma Yaqoob and Anas Altikriti are purportedly seeking legal advice with a view to serving libel writs on the paper. Respect is also referring The Observer to the Commission for Racial Equality.

            Salma Yaqoob, Respect West Midlands European candidate, flatly denied that there are any fundamentalists involved in Respect. “This is the sort of nasty racist smear which fuels islamophobia and attacks on muslims, which I’ve experienced first hand,” she said. Respect is a “mainstream party” she maintains, and is not “linked to extremism, religious or political”.

            Anas Altikriti, who stepped down as president of the Muslim Association of Britain in order to stand as a Respect Euro candidate for Yorkshire and Humberside, commented: “ I suppose this only goes to prove what we know on the ground - that the Labour vote is crumbling away, and their supporters and spinmeisters, like The Observer, are prepared to use every dirty trick in an attempt to stop people voting Respect.”

            In reality it is Respect which was resorting to spin and dirty tricks. Getting into high dudgeon, talk of writs and accusations of racism were all part of a desperate attempt to generate drops of publicity in the closing days of the election campaign. Every mention Respect got in the mainstream media, even the briefest, would receive an instant, usually indignant rebuttal, along with morbid protests about politically correct hurt feelings.

            And both John Haylett’s Morning Star and Socialist Worker loyally reproduced the feigned outrage, with the latter throwing in for good measure attacks on David Aaronovitch - supposedly The Guardian’s “red-baiting heavyweight” - who sniped against people attending a Respect meeting rather than “engage with any arguments” - and Johann Hari of The Independent, who said that a vote for Respect is “a vote for totalitarians in an unconvincing leftwing costume” (June 10).

            Both these pro-Iraq war columnists are accused of launching “hysterical” attacks on Respect - in itself a rather hysterical assessment.

            The Observer leader that so offended Respect was devoted to giving advice to readers about how to vote on June 10. The main recommendation was that the Labour Party was “the best choice”, because it is “finally getting into its stride as a moderately social democratic government” and delivering improved services as well as social justice. In London it called for a vote for Ken Livingstone: he had made the job of mayor “count”.

            But what of those traditional Labour voters whose opposition to the invasion and occupation of Iraq eclipses “any other consideration”? Here, says The Observer, those wishing to register a “protest vote”, have a problem. The Liberal Democrats opposed the war “only until it began”. Then comes the single sentence dealing with Respect. In full it reads: “Respect, the George Galloway party, is an unholy alliance of the far left and reactionary islamist fundamentalists.” That is it. And The Observer goes on to tell its readers in the next sentence that the “best place” to register an anti-war vote is with the Greens.

            Respect’s statement, issued on June 6, complains that The Observer has deserted its splendid liberal past with this “libellous” editorial. Strange, given the advice to vote Labour because of its “moderately social democratic government” or Green because of the war. As to the idea that The Observer consigns “anyone to the fringe” who is “marginally to the left of Tony Blair”, this is evidently untrue. It is a Respect invention.

            George Galloway is, of course, neither of the far left, nor a reactionary islamist fundamentalist. His politics are an odd amalgam of leftwing social democracy, nostalgic Stalinism and third worldism. True, he has exploited his prominent public position, along with all manner of privately made threats, in order to steer the whole Respect project into quite idiosyncratic waters - eg, opposition to abortion (which in Britain nowadays might be described as fringe politics or even beyond the fringe).

            Galloway used an interview with the Independent on Sunday, not only to restate his moral objection to abortion, but to emphasise that he was teetotal and a committed believer (April 4). Respect’s executive kept quiet and declined to make known its collective views on abortion. Keeping Galloway on board and the attempt to win what was thought of as an almost monolithic muslim vote was all that counted.

            Yet, though Galloway can hardly be accused of being either far left or an islamist, the simple fact of the matter is that Respect is not only “linked to”, but mainly organised by, the Socialist Workers Party. It provided most of the cadres, most of the money and most of the printing. Indeed there is talk doing the rounds that the SWP faces a crippling financial crisis because of the Respect election campaign.

            By any normal reckoning the SWP is “far left” - in other words it espouses “extremist” politics just like the rest of us Marxists. After all, it insists that the system “cannot be patched up or reformed”, but has to be “overthrown”; and not through parliament, but by way of a workers’ revolution (Socialist Worker ‘Where we stand’).

            What of “reactionary islamist fundamentalists”? This might refer to all individual muslims supporting Respect or it might simply refer to members of the Muslim Association of Britain. Either way, life is far more complex.

            Undoubtedly muslims, just like any religious believers, have reactionary ideas - eg, belief, however residual, in a god. But that is not, and cannot be, the end of the story. Take MAB specifically. There is a reactionary side - it adheres to the ‘fundamentals’ of islam, which include a denial of women’s equality and gay rights. But there is a growing progressive side as well. After all, MAB urged muslim voters to back a list of leftish candidates on June 10 - Ken Livingstone, Greens, Liberal Democrats and Respect.

            MAB can hardly be tarred with the same brush as al Qa’eda. And, as Salma Yaqoob, points out, this time quite rightly, there are a number of jihadist groups who rant and rail against MAB for going soft on communism and betraying the one true faith. Not surprisingly these jihadists did not align themselves with Respect or call for a Respect vote. Rather, being committed opponents of democracy, they demanded an islamic boycott.

            There are those who manage to brand MAB as irredeemably reactionary … but that is possible only by way of a crude, and thoroughly dishonest, guilt-by-association method. Eg, MAB is “a British wing” of the Muslim Brotherhood, which has many international affiliates and each group “adapts” to the political conditions of its country. In Sudan the Muslim Brotherhood backs a government which in the south is killing thousands and driving the whole population into starvation. Ergo the MAB is just as dangerous and reactionary (Solidarity May 27).

            The same rotten method could equally be applied to christians in Britain … and, that way, they could be linked with the inquisition, the medieval persecution of the Jews and apartheid South Africa. Or any ethnic group, political sect or class party. But, serving only to create a completely distorted picture of the world and engraining prejudice, such a method helps not a jot in the class struggle.

            On the contrary, this approach is a positive hindrance in achieving anything serious.

            For Marxism - authentic Marxism, that is - it is truth that counts and truth is always concrete. MAB has adapted to life in Britain. Fact. And in Britain muslims constitute only a tiny fraction of the population. They will not and cannot come to state power and introduce a new caliphate in the British Isles. On the contrary, they are a persecuted, oppressed and commonly despised minority. Muslims are under sustained attack from the government and the police and a whole festering body of post-9/11 hatred, which the BNP in particular tries both to stoke and feed off.

            As a result of both its experiences as part of an oppressed minority and joint work alongside revolutionaries and socialists - first within the anti-war movement and now in Respect - MAB has adopted a raft of progressive positions. Certainly its candidates standing for Respect are committed to a manifesto which, despite its severe limitations, quite clearly comes from the SWP - being to all intents and purposes identical to the Socialist Alliance’s priority pledges in the 2001 general election. Hence ideologically MAB is half a reactionary lament for a mythical past and half a left populist protest against existing conditions.

            Through it remains attached to the Koran, the sayings of the prophet and the fundamentalist doctrines of islam, MAB finds itself in practice pulled to the left of British politics. And that is what should matter for Marxists. The fact that muslims, not least those in MAB, are moving in this direction is something to be welcomed. Not stupidly treated as part of a dastardly plan to conquer the world, hatched in Cairo or Khartoum.

            Having said that, we do not suspend our criticisms either of MAB, Respect or the SWP - any suggestion that this is not the case is either profoundly dishonest or profoundly stupid. We do not believe that abandoning principles in order to win allies and votes is the way to strength. On the contrary, only by maintaining our principles and popularising them do we become strong. Unfortunately the SWP refuses to learn that particular lesson.

            As for Nick Cohen’s piece in The Observer, it was in fact squarely directed against the British National Party, which he basically accuses of being a “criminal conspiracy”, albeit one overrated by the media. Cohen does not believe that the BNP was set for an electoral breakthrough.

            Nevertheless he does not discount them as thugs and hooligans. He lists the convictions of leading BNP members, not least those of Tony Lecomber, a BNP national spokesperson, who has been found guilty on 12 counts, including on charges of possessing home-made hand-grenades and electronic timing devices and wounding a school teacher.

            And, far from resorting to “racist smears”, he rounded on the Labour Party and the rest of the political establishment for playing the crime and immigration cards. In their attempt to appease ‘Angry Young Working-class Man’ the Blair government has made as much as it can of cracking down on crime and migrants - just like the “previous bunch of scoundrels”.

            Instead Cohen suggests that working class anger might be better defused by “extending trade union rights or promoting job security”.

            Respect is only given a passing mention at the end of his piece. Cohen dismisses those who demonstrated against the Iraq war and occupation in 2003 as being “gormless, if well-intentioned”. He then questions developments on the left which have seen some - presumably Respect and the SWP - being prepared to “make excuses for the islamists and remnants of Saddam’s fascistic forces as they fight the Americans, and to reach a pact with religious bigotry”.

            Cohen approvingly cites the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty: “a small group of honest Marxists”. He concludes by saying that the left has “always emphasised the need to break down the barriers of race and religion to achieve working class solidarity. In recent years it has added the causes of freeing women and gays from religious and political prohibitions to its shopping list. But all of that is old hat, apparently.”

            Cohen heroically ignores Respect’s founding declaration, to which all its candidates - including those who are members of MAB - are committed. It proclaims: “Opposition to all forms of discrimination based on race, gender, ethnicity, religious beliefs (or lack of them), sexual orientation … The right to self-determination of every individual in relation to their religious (or non-religious) beliefs, as well as sexual choices.” In other words, irrespective of what individual Respect candidates may privately believe, they are standing on a platform which clearly includes “freeing women and gays from religious and political prohibitions”.

            Quite clearly Cohen is a strange political animal and someone who has totally lost his bearings. Despite coming from a leftwing background, albeit soft and eclectic, he supported the US-British invasion of Iraq in 2003. Cohen’s pro-war stance leads him to blind hatred of the anti-war movement and now a literary vendetta against Respect. Every half-baked nonsense is used - Galloway’s “salute” remarks to Saddam Hussein, the PJP’s withdrawn anti-gay leaflet in Birmingham, the Pakistan coup, etc.

            There will be many reasons for Cohen’s peculiar conclusions - not racism though surely. Key is his dogmatic insistence that not only the Saddam Hussein regime, but all manifestations of islamic fundamentalism, even the MAB, somehow equate with fascism. The puny Saddam Hussein thereby grows in his mind to Hitlerian proportions. This and - yes - drawing on his Jewish roots leads him to islamophobia and seeing everything upside-down. The left become allies of fascism and reaction; George Bush becomes a democrat and the liberator of the oppressed; those who dare resist the US-UK occupation become the main enemy.

            No wonder he has such a fond liking for those “honest Marxists” in the AWL. After all they too welcome the smashing of the Saddam Hussein regime by the US-UK and now steadfastly oppose all calls for the immediate withdrawal of US and British troops from Iraq.