Letters

Something Better

I agree with the points Roy Hughes (Letters, July 28) raises about my original letter (July 21).
The aims and objectives of the Labour Representation Committee are to give “socialists within the Labour Party an organised, consistent and coherent voice”. Comrade Hughes asks what the “something” is that socialists and trade unionists should fight for. To me it is democratic socialist policies to take on the rightwing neoliberalism of New Labour. I won’t quote all the objectives of the LRC, but they include ending the illegal occupation of Iraq, fighting oppression, repealing the anti-trade union laws, opposing privatisation and so on.

Finally I do not want a rerun of the betrayals of Labourism and, as a current and past member of the Labour Party, I am only too aware of what can happen. For the LRC to be a success we need to be serious about building a genuine opposition to New Labour, which also appeals to all sections of society. I don’t want to see a flash in the pan, nor various groups trying to take it over. I too want “something a little better this time

Something Better
Something Better

Al-Qaradawi

Peter Tatchell says that he never called for Yusuf al-Qaradawi to be banned from Britain, but merely proposed that the muslim cleric should be “challenged” (Letters, July 22).

However, he goes on to say that it was a “grave mistake” to allow Dr al-Qaradawi a platform at London’s City Hall. So, while Peter wasn’t in favour of excluding him from the country, apparently he does believe that Dr al-Qaradawi should have been banned from the headquarters of the Greater London Authority. Although Peter’s fellow Greens on the London Assembly evidently agreed with him here, it is worth noting that their stance caused some conflict within the Green Party itself.

Hugo Charlton, the party’s home affairs spokesperson, made the following statement: “I regret the decision by some assembly members to attempt to deter the distinguished muslim scholar, Dr al-Qaradawi, from speaking at City Hall. Among those human rights issues which are championed there, freedom of speech does not seem to be one they are prepared to prioritise in this instance. Dr al-Qaradawi is widely respected in the muslim world and to decline him this venue can only send a negative message to both the domestic and international islamic community. I strenuously support all attempts to build bridges and increase understanding - this is best done through dialogue, an essential component of which is allowing other people to speak.”

Al-Qaradawi
Al-Qaradawi

In Limbo

For over two weeks, the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) has prevented around 3,000 Palestinian residents from returning to their homes in the occupied Gaza Strip. By closing the border with Egypt at Rafah, the IDF is forcing children, patients, pregnant women and the elderly to stay at the border with no shelter and little in the way of food or sustenance. They are holding them in limbo without any clear reason.

Holding these Gaza residents prisoners is collective punishment and is a blatant violation of the most basic human rights. In a mockery of the urgency of the situation, the Israeli high court gave the IDF 30 days to respond to a petition from Israeli and Palestinians human rights groups demanding that the crossing point be reopened immediately.

European Jews for a Just Peace expects that European citizens will share their outrage at these latest restrictions added to the plight of the Palestinians living under military repression and occupation. We require that European governments and the EU should demand that Israel reopens the border at Rafah without further delay.

In Limbo
In Limbo

Change record

For Ian Mahoney’s benefit I have never been a member of the Socialist Workers Party (Letters, July 29). However, I like to read all left newspapers. Every week I am saddened that the Weekly Worker spends so much time attacking the SWP instead of the Labour Party.

Ah well, I give you 10 out of 10 for consistency though. How many members?

Change record
Change record

Not Rejected

Stuart Richardson’s analysis of the publicity produced by Respect on the one hand and the campaigns of Steve Godward and Alison Brown on the other fails to spot two key differences (Letters, July 22).

Firstly, the latter two campaigns were local elections where many issues, although they may still be raised, are of little direct relevance. Demanding open borders and withdrawal of troops from Iraq in a local election is rather less important than in a Westminster or European election. The leadership of Respect seemingly fails to acknowledge the different approach required. A BBC survey showed that around 90% of people who voted in the Euro elections thought that the major issue was either “whether we stay in the EU” or “which direction the EU will develop in”, which may explain Respect’s poor performance across most of the country in these elections.

Secondly, although, as Stuart correctly points out, Steve’s and Alison’s campaign material did not contain mention of some key principles, these had not been explicitly rejected, as they were at the Respect conference. Moreover, leading members of Steve’s and Alison’s campaigns did not speak out against abortion and socialists in these campaigns were prepared to challenge reformist and reactionary ideas rather than holding their tongues for fear of offending career politicians or religious hard-liners.

Not Rejected
Not Rejected

Poverty

Just in case anyone thought things were getting better, here’s the Institute for Public Policy Research’s social injustice audit conclusions.

Britain is still far from being a fair and just society. Parental social class and ethnicity still heavily influence life-chances, whilst democratic participation is falling and political influence is polarising according to class and wealth. Women continue to be more likely to live in poverty, while between 1990 and 2000 the percentage of wealth held by the wealthiest 10% of the population has increased from 47% to 54% over the last 10 years.

Since 1997, the richest have continued to get richer. The richest one percent of the population has increased its share of national income from around six percent in 1980 to 13% in 1999. Inequality in disposable income (after taxes and benefits are accounted for) appears to have slightly increased since 1997 after significant increases in the 1980s. The Gini coefficient has increased from 33 in 1996-97 to 36 in 2001-02 (the higher the number, the greater the inequality). In 2001 23% of children in Britain were living in households earning below 60% of median income, compared to just five percent in Denmark, 10% in Sweden and 14% in Germany.

Although the gender pay gap has narrowed, only very slow progress has been made since 1994. In 1994 women in full-time work earned on average 79.5% of what men earned; by 2003 this had only increased to 82%. For part-time work the pay gap is even wider: in 1998 women earned only 59.1% of what men earned; by 2003 this had only slightly increased to 60.4%.

Intergenerational social mobility appears to have declined. One survey on social mobility found only a gradual increase between 1972 and 1992, before a decline in the period up to 1997. Sons born to fathers from the richest fifth of the population in 1958 earned, on average, 13% more than those from the bottom fifth of the population. In comparison, sons born to wealthy fathers in 1970 earned 37% more then their poorer contemporaries. People from a professional background remain over two times as likely to end up professionals as someone from a manual background.

The poorest continue to be more likely to suffer from crime and the fear of crime. Around 4.8% of individuals earning under £5,000 a year were burgled in 2003-04, compared with approximately 2.7% of those earning over £30,000. Deprived communities suffer the worse effects of environmental degradation. Industrial sites are disproportionately located in deprived areas: in 2003, there were five times as many sites in the wards containing the most deprived 10% of the population, and seven times as many emission sources, than in wards with the least deprived 10%.

Poverty
Poverty

Proposal

I would like to put forward a proposal with regards to the Weekly Worker online.
Obviously the CPGB wants to encourage people to buy the paper as a whole instead of downloading it or reading it on the website. While the paper in its entirety is available for free on the website, then this appeal may fall of deaf ears to some. Instead, I thought that it might be better if you allowed the first couple of paragraphs from each article to be viewed for free and if the reader wishes to read the rest then they can buy the paper or pay a small fee to download the whole thing (perhaps something in the region of 10p-50p: it may not seem a lot but it is more funds coming in).

Also, can I request that the letters section be posted on the Party website, along with some sort of mechanism that would allow readers to reply to the letters online and stimulate healthy discussion? (It may be best to limit the size of the letters and reply posts to 300 words, as sometimes they can be too lengthy and lose all relevance/interest of the reader).

Proposal
Proposal

Gary Plot

The Economic and Philosophic Science Review’s Royston Bull is perfectly entitled to critique the manner of gay activist groups’ participation (not counter-demo) in May’s Palestine Solidarity march (Letters, July 21). The PSC, Outrage and others passionately debated the issue in the Morning Star at the time. He’s also entitled to attack what he perceives as left “reformism” - radical currents, including Class War, Green Anarchist and the Spartacist League all make similar criticisms. He’s even entitled to praise the “brutal” nature of the forthcoming dictatorship of the proletariat (although few will share his admiration).

But Mr Bull cannot continue to use his newsletter to peddle his mangled 1940s pop-psychology view of homosexuals. In response to the Weekly Worker’s charge of homophobia, Bull dedicated nearly half of his July 20 issue to an unflattering portrayal of gay men (curiously lesbians and the transgendered appear not to figure in his equations). Credit where it’s due - Bull does allow that post-revolutionary sexual expression should be a matter of personal choice, but asserts overall that:

- homosexuals display “vicious” individualim;
- l homosexuals have stifled open debate on the nature of their “condition”;
- homosexuals have exaggerated their historical and social presence;

-professional homosexuals are operating an “old boys club” in the corridors of power;
-homosexuality itself is a ruling class degenerate state, linked to the decadence of late capitalism.
These are serious allegations - indeed they amount to the presence of a homosexual conspiracy, which is more than either the National Front or the BNP claim. Curiously though, scant evidence is offered by Mr Bull to back up his claims. The tale of a paedophile allegedly protected by a council’s gay equality policy, and insinuations from Private Eye magazine and outlandish TV programme Bo Selecta do not a watertight argument make. Indeed they point to utter desperation.

The Weekly Worker (pot-smoking, homosexual Zionists, according to the EPSR, so heaven alone knows what he makes of the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty!) should invite Bull to present his evidence for this interpretation of human sexuality. He has the chance to persuade the rest of the left that we were wrong to move away from what a previous correspondent described as the “pseudo-Freudian” explanations of gays (Letters, July 14).

Or maybe it’s just that the EPSR is now supreme in its isolation, at war with every other current of left thought, and destined to languish in obscurity, screaming deranged abuse to a non-existent readership.

Gary Plot
Gary Plot

Beenie Man

Virgin Records have issued a statement on behalf of Jamaican reggae star Beenie Man (real name: Anthony Davis) over his songs that incite the murder of lesbians and gay men. Outrage is orchestrating a US-wide and Europe-wide campaign to cancel Beenie Man’s concerts and get his records taken off the air.

Beenie Man’s so-called apology is so vague that it does not even mention what he is apologising for. It reads: “It has come to my attention that certain lyrics and recordings I have made in the past may have caused distress and outrage among people whose identities and lifestyles are different from my own. While my lyrics are very personal, I do not write them with the intent of purposefully hurting or maligning others, and I offer my sincerest apologies to those who might have been offended, threatened or hurt by my songs. As a human being, I renounce violence towards other human beings in every way, and pledge henceforth to uphold these values as I move forward in my career as an artist.”

This could be an apology for anything. It contains no explicit regret for his incitements to murder gay people, and no specific affirmation of his respect for homosexuals and for homosexual human rights. It is not a sincere expression of remorse. In fact within 24 hours, Clyde McKenzie, head of public relations for Beenie Man’s management company, Shocking Vibes, told Radio Jamaica that the statement was “not an apology”, that it was initiated by Virgin Records, not by Beenie Man, and that Beenie Man reserved his right to continue criticising “the homosexual lifestyle”, of which he did not approve. He insisted the statement was just a general condemnation of violence.

All Beenie Man’s ‘kill queers’ songs are still in circulation. He has not withdrawn them and he is refusing to buy up stocks of the offending CDs. He is still profiteering from his murder music. His apology rings hollow when he is still making money from his incitements to kill homosexuals.
Taking our cue from South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the first thing Beenie Man has to do is acknowledge the suffering he has caused and apologise to the people he has victimised. Then he needs to make a positive statement affirming his respect for gay people and his condemnation of homophobic violence. Finally, he must either come to an agreement with the record companies to withdraw his murder songs from circulation or, if this cannot be agreed, donate his royalties from these songs to a gay organisation campaigning against homophobic violence.
The release of ‘kill gays’ songs by Beenie Man and other Jamaican dancehall music artists has been followed by a wave of anti-gay assaults in Jamaica and Britain. Jamaican lesbians and gays have been shot and stabbed, macheted and stoned to death, doused with petrol and set ablaze, and chased into the sea and left to drown

Beenie Man
Beenie Man