Letters
PLO homophobia
Are we witnessing a revival of old-style 1970s far left homophobia? It seems so. Diverse sections of the radical left - including individual members of the Socialist Workers Party, Respect and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign - are questioning the right of the queer activist group, Outrage, to fight back against the officially-sanctioned persecution of queers in the Palestinian-controlled areas of Gaza and the West Bank.
According to the PSC, Outrage is "attempting to defame" the Palestine solidarity movement and is "damaging the cause of solidarity with Palestinians". Members of Outrage joined the PSC demonstration in London on May 15, supporting an end to Israel's human rights abuses of the Palestinian people. Contrary to claims by the PSC, we did not stage a "counter-demonstration". We were there in solidarity with the Palestine liberation struggle. Our placards said, "Israel: stop persecuting Palestine". But we also called for an end to the torture and murder of lesbians and gays by the Palestine Liberation Organisation, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. Our placards additionally read, "Palestine: stop persecuting queers".
It was never our intention to disrupt the PSC rally or create a commotion. We had a small, low-key presence. Our aim was to raise awareness. We wanted to alert supporters of Palestine, in the hope they would help us pressure the Palestinian leadership to halt its oppression of queers. What turned a minor presence into a major incident was the aggressive response of the PSC organisers and stewards. They surrounded us, ordering us to the back of the demonstration. When we refused, they blocked out our placards with their own, obscuring our message. PSC officials also shouted us down, preventing us talking with journalists and other protesters who wanted to find out more about the suffering of queers in Palestine.
The PSC now denies this intimidation and censorship took place. But it was filmed by a Channel 4 documentary-maker, Darren Lewey, and photographed by four professionals, including the respected leftwing and pro-Palestine photographer, Paul Mattsson. They all corroborate Outrage's version of events. In a bid to deflect criticism, the PSC has issued a statement saying it opposes homophobia. Fine words. But what has it actually done to challenge the violent homophobia of the PLO, Hamas and Palestine Authority?
I wrote to the PSC nine years ago, asking them to urge the PLO to stop killing queers. The PSC did nothing. I emailed the PSC office four weeks ago requesting dialogue. They never replied. The PSC accuses Outrage of damaging solidarity with the Palestinians. You heard correct. The PSC blames the people who defend the victims, and lets the oppressors off the hook. In reality it is the PLO's and Palestine Authority's homophobia that is damaging solidarity, by dividing gays and straights - both here and in Palestine. While the PSC ignores the persecution of Palestinian queers and their pleas for help, Outrage does not. We heard their appeals for solidarity and acted.
Astonishingly, the PSC has said nothing about PLO and PA violence against lesbians and gays. It offers not a word of sympathy to the victims of Palestinian homophobia, and makes no offer to raise the issue with the Palestinian authorities. The PSC is in deep denial. Yet again we seem to have a so-called progressive movement implying that queer lives are expendable for the sake of the greater good of a revolutionary struggle. There is no doubt that Palestinian queers are the victims of barbaric homophobic violence. This is confirmed by the independent Israeli human rights groups, B'Tselem and the Association for Civil Rights, and by the Israeli gay organisations, Aguda and Open House.
Two senior PLO officials have admitted to me privately that the arrest and abuse of queers is sanctioned by the Palestinian leadership. Officially, the PLO refuses to discuss the matter. I have tried several times over the last 20 years to quietly and diplomatically raise this issue with PLO leaders. They have rejected all overtures and attempts at dialogue. That is why Outrage had to protest. To do nothing would be collusion with homophobic tyranny.
The PSC implies that Outrage has no right to campaign in solidarity with Palestinian queers, arguing that "Palestinian lesbians and gay men must be allowed to determine for themselves how they wage that struggle". We agree. That is why Outrage, unlike the PSC, is not ignoring their desperate pleas for help. They have asked for solidarity and we are showing it, which is more than can be said of the PSC.
I have supported the Palestinian struggle for national liberation for 30-plus years. Freedom for Palestine must be freedom for everyone - straight and gay. Unless we challenge the abuse of queer human rights now, homophobia will become entrenched in a new Palestinian state. If the PLO and PA get away with persecuting queers, perhaps they will be emboldened to trample on the rights of other Palestinians too. Pressuring them to respect queer rights will surely help create a stronger human rights culture and that will benefit all Palestinians.
Outrage values the work of the PSC. We will continue to support its efforts to help secure a free Palestine. We hope that in return the PSC will work with us to pressure the PLO, Hamas and the PA to abandon their homophobia and create a truly liberated nation based on human rights for all.
PLO homophobia
PLO homophobia
Aslef truth
As someone who was at the Aslef protest last week and counted the numbers, I am rather shocked that you seem to be making things up as you go along (Weekly Worker June 10). You will damage only your own credibility. Still I suppose that is your funeral!
Tell the truth and the support will follow!
Aslef truth
Aslef truth
True Aslef
I will not waste my time commenting on 'comrade' Dean Hooper's partisan articles regarding the serious problems in Aslef, but I would like to ask that the next time he mentions the non-official website, True Aslef, please be comradely enough to do it properly by typing the exact URL: ie, http://www.trueaslef.com.
After all, each time the website reports on your articles regarding Aslef problems, your party website address is duly quoted in full in order for people to have access and for Aslef punters to have a chance to read what you have to say. Believe it or not, a lot of Aslef members don't buy your half-baked censorship.
True Aslef
True Aslef
Korean utopia
I am not against communism. Far from it, I have always thought that that the principles you fight for could lead to building a utopia in which no one is exploited and everyone can lead a fulfilled life.
However, in the past few months I have been researching North Korea. This seems to be one of the last Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist states left in the world.
This example has, unfortunately, put me off communism. This government puts its citizens into concentration camps for trying to escape the regime. They are put into gas chambers, where chemical experiments are conducted on them.
The government teaches its children to hate the 'American imperialists' and it uses the diary of Anne Frank to further this message by twisting its meaning.
Its people are allowed no contact with the outside world. They are fed propaganda and murdered should they disagree. They remain starving and impoverished, living in unlit towns with nightly power cuts, whilst the little money and electricity the government has is wasted scrambling radio signals from abroad, so that the people cannot receive them.
Furthermore, another communist regime, China, intercepts those citizens lucky enough to have found a way out of the country and either shoots them dead or sends them back to North Korea to be put in a camp as described before, for 're-education'.
This is not the utopia that I always felt communism stood for. I eagerly await the Communist Party's response to the issues of North Korea and, to some extent, China.
Korean utopia
Korean utopia
Vote Labour
As a former Workers Power supporter, I was trying to find in Workers Power paper advice on how I should vote in the June 10 elections. However, I discovered that my former comrades hold different lines at the same time.
In May WP wrote: "In some areas there will be local socialist candidates standing opposed to Labour, Tory and Lib Dem control of local councils. Where these candidates have significant support and oppose the policies of privatisation, stock transfer of council housing, teacher redundancies or other attacks on local services, Workers Power will be working with them and supporting them ... In other areas there will be no such candidates and we will be giving critical support to Labour."
Most of these socialist candidates stood with the Respect coalition. In London's assembly elections Lindsey German, who advocated such policies, polled 87,533 votes (4.57%) and she narrowly missed by 6,126 votes becoming the first socialist GLA member. However, in the same paper WP carried an article that said: "No vote for Respect".
WP could make valid criticisms regarding Respect, Galloway and some muslim candidates. However, refusing to vote for it meant that it divorced itself from a significant movement which came first in Tower Hamlets (achieving 20.36%), and had very good results in other London boroughs like Newham (21.41%), Hackney (9.66%), Waltham Forest (9.54%), Haringey (7.66%), Redbridge (6.9%) and Camden (6.37%).
WP didn't specify one single socialist candidate for whom it advocated we should vote in the 166 council elections. On the one hand it advocated a vote for them and on the other hand it rejected any vote for the socialists standing as Respect. Their line was to vote for Labour in the local elections. However, in the next issue WP advocated the opposite line: "Let's use the Euro elections to bring down Blair. Don't vote Labour - write 'Troops out of Iraq' on your ballot paper" (Workers Power June).
This means that WP asked their supporters to go to vote on the very same day for Labour in the local elections but against Labour in the European elections. They advocated support for local socialist candidates, while at the same time rejecting any possible vote for socialists standing in the local, GLA or European elections for Respect. This confusing line did not help WP to earn an audience amongst either socialists, Respect or SA members, or Labour supporters.
They are continuing with the same confusing positions that they had in the past when they supported Blair's Labour against the Socialist Labour Party, while they had a fraction inside the SLP advocating voting for it; or when they first supported Blair's Labour against Sheridan and Nellist, but, when they realised that the former Militant candidates got 40% of the vote, decided to give them support in the next elections.
WP's main European section was in France. However, it collapsed precisely because of these strange and confusing lines. First, it supported Mitterand against the Trotskyist parties that achieved 5% to 10%. Then, it adapted to the reality of such a bloc. In the end many of its members decided to join other Trotskyist currents.
WP has so many contradictory lines that the only way to keep unity amongst them is through a non-democratic internal regime and a sectarian call for a Fifth International, which nobody on the entire planet supports. Its former New Zealand section (CWG-LCMRCI) was the first group in favour. However, they are prepared to work with other currents, while WP uses self-isolation to stop members going in different directions.
Vote Labour
Vote Labour
Vote socialist
I am writing to object to the blatant distortion of the positions of the Birmingham People's Justice Party contained in Jim Denham's letter in your last edition (Weekly Worker June 10).
He states: "The PJP's literature was virulently anti-gay/lesbian" and then continues: "There is no evidence that the PJP have changed their views on gay rights or that Respect has even attempted to discuss the issue within the PJP." If the PJP was "virulently anti-gay/lesbian", why did leading members of the PJP immediately demand a homophobic draft leaflet was withdrawn? In addition I have seen many of the leaflets from the different PJP local election candidates and none contain any homophobic comments.
Respect supporters including myself have discussed the issue with PJP members and I have found not a single PJP member who supported the homophobic leaflet. Respect supporters have had dialogue with the PJP on several issues and I have proposed a political discussion at a meeting with PJP members to discuss a socialist policy on education. School education is a key issue in inner-city Birmingham, with many of the PJP leaflets referring to inadequate education. Opposing the trend to more faith-based secondary education in my opinion is a key battleground for socialists in the educational arena in the next period.
Returning to the real world, it is important to note the contribution of the PJP comrades to the success of their local election campaigns, in which they narrowly lost to Labour in a number of wards (possibly due to electoral fraud). But also the success of Respect in two wards, Bordesley Green and Springfield, where Respect was top of the EU poll. In Bordesley Green Respect received 4,009; Labour 3,566. In Springfield Respect received 2,531; Liberal Democrats 2,309, Labour 1,934. But one could also ask the question, why has Jim Denham not been in dialogue with working class muslims over these issues?
The answer to the question is obvious, since Jim has been notorious in the Birmingham left for his hostility to working with working class muslims and refusing to build the anti-war movement. Prior to the Stop the War Coalition demonstration on September 27 2003 Jim called on comrades to refuse to support the event. He also publicly supports American and British occupation of Iraq and opposes calls for withdrawal of troops. Jim's views are merely a more honest and straightforward version of a recent editorial in Solidarity, which stated: "... the proclaimed programme of the US-UK in Iraq ... - the setting-up of a viable democratic Iraqi government, and ultimate US withdrawal - is relatively progressive"!
In previous letters I have reported on the election leaflets of the Socialist Alliance Democracy Platform. Your readers may be interested in those of Alison Brown, supporter of the Alliance for Workers' Liberty, standing as a Democratic Socialist Alliance candidate in Sheffield. AWL comrades played a prominent role at the meeting to found Respect on January 25, insisting that Respect could not be supported unless it embraced a policy of open borders for asylum-seekers and of candidates standing on a workers' wage.
Alison has a reasonable section entitled "Stop the BNP - defend asylum-seekers", which is almost identical to what you would read in a Respect leaflet. However, where was the call for open borders? Despite a fairly detailed section entitled "Fund council services - tax the rich!" there is no commitment by the candidate to accept a worker's wage. Some councillors receive over £40,000 a year, way beyond a worker's wage. So after acres of demagogic polemic on the question the comrades completely ignore their own propaganda.
In the National Union of Teachers leadership election Workers' Liberty supporters are correctly backing Ian Murch, who makes no mention of a worker's wage. His opponent, Martin Powell-Davis of the Socialist Party, makes a very clear commitment to serve as the NUT general secretary on a "class teacher's wage". I know of no proposal from AWL supporters to commit Ian Murch to the same. The contrast between the agitated propaganda by AWL supporters at the Respect founding meeting and the fact that they do not raise the same issues in their own political work shows me that Workers' Liberty practises factional hypocrisy with almost no limit.
Turning to the election campaign of independent socialist Steve Godward in Erdington ward, one can say that the result was reasonable with 619 votes (although the percentage declined from 6.4% to 4.2%). However, it was an extremely weak campaign politically. This is especially true on the issue of racism and asylum-seekers. An area adjacent to Erdington, Kingstanding, has been a base of National Front/British National Party organisation for decades. The NF had public offices in Erdington in the early 70s and stood in the general election in Erdington in 1974.
During election day on June 10, the local BNP drove around Erdington with a white van playing Rule Britannia. The side of the van was plastered with a slogan, 'Invasion of asylum-seekers'. What was the response of the 'principled socialist' campaign of Steve Godward? Did he raise the demand for open borders for economic migrants or asylum-seekers? No. Did he take up the position of 'Defend asylum-seekers', as Respect did? No. Actually the words 'asylum-seekers' appear nowhere in Steve's election leaflets. I am informed that a Workers Power member was asked to draft a leaflet on asylum-seekers, which was done, but the leaflet mysteriously did not appear.
I asked Steve why he did not call for the withdrawal of US/UK troops from Iraq in his leaflets. He replied because it was a "community campaign". "So it's not a socialist campaign then," I said. There was no reply. The vague, populist nature of much of Steve's propaganda was again illustrated by his statements on housing - a key issue in Birmingham because of the recent attempt of the Birmingham Labour council to privatise the city estates. He states: "Decent homes that are in a good state of repair and modernisation - proper consultation on any housing developments". I am sure almost any politician could repeat those words.
Again there is no class content to the statement. He gives no explanation how this can be achieved nor opposes current plans by the council to privatise council estates bit by bit.
Vote socialist
Vote socialist
Vote UKIP
Reading my Morning Star last week, it was difficult to tell whether or not I was being advised to vote for the Labour Party on June 10. The clearest message from Thursday's editorial column was the importance of stopping the British National Party, to which end we were urged "to vote for any democratic party, thus raising the percentage to qualify for a seat".
In my European constituency, East of England, the United Kingdom Independence Party came second after the Conservative Party, with 19.6% of the vote to the Tories' 30.8%. The Morning Star was strangely quiet on UKIP. Are they one of the democratic parties we could vote for to stop the fascist BNP? Or are they also part of the fascist menace - their policies are similar to those of the BNP on many questions.
Maybe the Morning Star should be pleased at the success of UKIP. After all, UKIP and the Communist Party of Britain are both Eurosceptic parties. The difference is, while the Morning Star objects when our jobs are taken abroad and given to foreigners, UKIP objects when the foreigners come from abroad and take our jobs.
Vote UKIP
Vote UKIP