20.07.2005
Condoning opportunism
Last week we commented on the failure of the Socialist Workers Party to condemn the perpetrators of the July 7 London bombings (Weekly Worker July 14). However, we also noted a good deal of confusion over the SWP's position, caused by the fact that both the Stop the War Coalition and Respect did use the 'C' word in relation to 7/7. In fact the STWC's statement, put out by the SWP's Lindsey German, declares that the coalition "unequivocally condemns Thursday's terrorist attacks on the people of London" (July 8). Respect, whose leadership is, of course, dominated by the SWP, issued a statement in the name of George Galloway: ""¦ we condemn those who have killed or injured" so many "working people" (July 7). It is the Respect statement, not the SWP's, that at least some SWPers are using as the basis for motions in their union branches; and it was the Respect statement, not the SWP's, that Alex Callinicos posted on the European Social Forum email list. It was perhaps unsurprising then that, when I challenged the SWP leaders over their own failure to condemn the atrocities at Marxism on July 10, a good number of SWP members in the hall reacted with incredulity, evidently believing that the public positions of the STWC, Respect and the SWP are identical. Socialist Worker editor Chris Bambery did nothing to disabuse them of this notion. He responded by saying that he had "probably" not used the word 'condemn' when drafting the SWP statement. To say that "the majority of those killed and wounded will have opposed the war in Iraq", that the bombings had targeted "ordinary people travelling by bus and underground to work and study", and that they are "in no way a blow against imperialism or the G8 leaders" was, comrade Bambery strongly implied, the equivalent of condemnation. The contrast to the SWP's reaction to September 11 2001 is marked. In the aftermath of 9/11 it attempted to ensure that there was no condemnation of the terrorists from either the STWC or the Socialist Alliance. In the STWC the SWP at first tried to bulldoze its formulations through, curtailing debate and ruling amendments out of order. The SWP's 'suggested aims and objectives' at the September 25 2001 STWC launch meeting read: "We in no way condone the attacks on New York and we feel the greatest compassion for those who lost their life on September 11." Eventually, however, the SWP was forced by members of the STWC steering committee (ironically all proposed by the SWP and elected as a slate, without debate, on September 25 2001) to give way. By the October 28 founding conference, "We in no way condone" had been replaced by "We condemn the attacks in New York "¦" But the SWP itself stuck to the 'do not condone' formulation - even when its members were supposed to be representing the coalition (for example, when comrade German appeared on Newsnight on November 15 2001. The word 'condone' is actually a bizarre one to use. My dictionary defines its meaning as: "to forgive, to pass over without blame, to excuse, atone for". The notion that a serious working class organisation could ever have entertained the notion of 'forgiving' or 'passing over' these atrocities "without blame" is grotesque. For example, what would we think of a statement that started: 'While we in no way condone Auschwitz or the invasion of Poland, we have to understand that the west is reaping the bitter fruits of its policy towards Germany since the Treaty of Versailles "¦'? Then there was the fact that the SWP's proposed formulation only mentioned New York, where two hijacked planes were flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center. But a third civilian flight was flown into the Pentagon in Washington. So were we meant to infer that the SWP did condone the attack on this 'military' target, even though the 'missile' was a passenger airline packed with ordinary Americans? It is true that we might well, under some circumstances, adopt a different attitude in relation to an attack on US military headquarters. However, that would depend on the nature of the assailants. We only "condone" attacks on military targets when those launching them uphold a programme that has a progressive content of some sort. We judge the legitimacy of a given action first and foremost by the struggle that produces it, not the fact that the chosen target is no friend of the working class. The SWP's geo-political selectiveness was very instructive in 2001. The SWP, in stating its own position, informed readers of Socialist Worker that the comrades "abhor violence and oppose indiscriminate bombings of civilians" (September 15 2001). This weasel formulation sowed its own confusion, for in the same article we discover that in fact they "do not deny the working class and the oppressed the right to use violence against their oppressors". The latter statement was correct, but was, of course, totally negated by the former - adopted as a cover for the SWP's failure to condemn the terrorists. As far as I know, it was only within the Socialist Alliance that the SWP made some sort of attempt to explain its choice of words. Finding themselves outvoted on the SA executive, the two SWP EC members, John Rees and Rob Hoveman, issued their own minority statement after their 'do not condone' formulation was rejected by everybody else. The two SWP comrades declared that, while their organisation "supports the statement" agreed by the SA EC, it does "not believe that the use of the word 'condemn' is appropriate "¦" The comrades once again reassured us that they "do not support the attacks on working class people" and noted that "it should go without saying that we oppose the strategy of individual terrorism". However, "the language of condemnation is that which is always required of socialists and national liberation movements by the media and the ruling class. It would have been better to avoid it for this reason" (see Weekly Worker September 20 2001). Comrades Rees and Hoveman continued: "We should not allow either the really terrible events of September 11 in New York or the media campaign that has followed to drive us to use language that we may regret when the real balance of terror is revealed by the war the major powers are now planning." But why on earth should we "regret" such language? The fact that "the media and the ruling class" denounce the actions of their enemies and demand that we do the same is a consideration - but not one of primary importance. Clearly the public position we adopt must be determined by our own attitude to those actions, not that of imperialism. As the SWP itself made clear in relation to the London bombings, it was our people who were the targets. What is more, they were slaughtered by those following an ideology that is utterly alien, and antithetical to, the interests of the working class. The Rees-Hoveman statement concluded: "There are lines to draw here - we believe the Socialist Alliance should be part of an unstinting and principled opposition to US and western imperialism and the further mass murder Bush and Blair intend to unleash on the world." We entirely concur with the sentiment - but totally reject the conclusion the SWP arrives at: in order to demonstrate that we are on the right side of the "lines" we must automatically oppose whatever the ruling class supports and vice versa. 'My enemy's enemy is my friend' is the clear implication. But the world is not just made up of black and white - things are more complicated than that. Islamist groups like al Qa'eda are not principled anti-imperialists who are merely using faulty tactics. Yet the SWP in 2001 reduced the question merely to stating its opposition to acts of "individual terrorism" - as though supporters of Osama bin Laden should be viewed as 'comrades' who have gone astray. This line of criticism permeated the entire coverage of the post-9/11 Socialist Worker. Thus the 'What socialists think' column reprinted Leon Trotsky's views: "The most important psychological source of terrorism is always the feeling of revenge seeking an outlet" (September 15 2001). Trotsky was writing against a background where brave leftists attempted to assassinate tsars, their ministers and aristocratic accomplices. Sometimes they succeeded. Sometimes they did not. But none of their actions could bring down the system. However, the jihad of bin Laden is revenge not just on the ruling class, but on society as a whole. And inevitably most of its victims are workers - the very people who must be won to a global view that aims to positively supersede capitalism. And that is the point: Marxists oppose not just the act of individual terrorism, as Socialist Worker claimed, but, in the case of the 9/11 suicide bombers and those who murdered over 50 Londoners earlier this month, the political programme that lies behind the act as well. That programme is one of reactionary anti-imperialism, one that looks back to an imagined, pre-capitalist, golden age. SWP leader John Rees, speaking at the Marxism session I referred to earlier, stated that to condemn both imperialism and those like al Qa'eda was to "draw an equals sign" between them. That is rubbish - and presumably he is attempting to attack the CPGB, not Respect and the Stop the War Coalition, which also condemned the 7/7 bombs. For our part, we are clear who our main enemy is - but we will not be diverted from the necessity of building working class hegemony over the struggle to defeat imperialism by imagining that reactionary anti-imperialists - who uphold an openly anti-working class, anti-women programme and therefore number amongst our secondary enemies - are in fact our natural allies. Incredibly, comrade Rees declared at the Marxism session that to adopt such a stance would be to "rip away the flanks of the anti-war movement". Who exactly does he think we would be alienating - apart from those islamists who already bitterly opposed to any cooperation with non-muslims? Take the Muslim Association of Britain, which not only immediately condemned 9/11, but, on the day of the London bombings, expressed "its disgust with the contempt in which the perpetrators appear to hold human life", since for MAB, "shedding the blood of an innocent person is seen as a crime most heinous and repulsive" (statement, July 7). MAB also "issued a call to mosque imams and leaders throughout the country to dedicate [sermons] to condemning the attacks "¦" (www.mab online.info/english/). This time around, the SWP seems happy to keep its failure to condemn the 7/7 atrocities to itself - so much so that many of its own members have not fully grasped the implications of their leaders' position. But when the atrocities have been committed in London, rather than in New York or Bali, it is so much more difficult to come out openly with the view that the bombers were potential, if not actual, allies. However, this significant silence cannot disguise either the SWP's opportunism or its disastrous view of the way to fight imperialism l Peter Manson
Worker