Letters

Royal ‘we’

It is a credit to the strength of stomach of the Weekly Worker editorial team that they so regularly feature the anti-democratic nonsense from Liz Hoskings on the question of abortion. Her latest is pretty typical and all its reactionary content has been effectively answered in your pages previously - not something that appears to have made an impact on any of Liz’s intensely repetitive arguments, of course.

One thing did strike me, however. Contemptuously referring to the ‘socialist feminists’ who support abortion, she dubs them a “self-proclaimed elite [that] has no right to speak as if they represent the interests of all women - they represent nobody but themselves”.

She then signs off her letter with the comment that “women are ethical beings just as men are - and we do not want the ‘right to choose’ to commit atrocities, thank you” (my emphasis).

So, when socialists and feminists stand up for the right of women to control their own fertility - a militant demand that has had a long and proud history - “they represent nobody but themselves”. But when Liz writes her semi-religious bilge that women who undergo abortions have chosen to “commit atrocities”, she speaks for the collective “we” - the female sex in general presumably.

Royal ‘we’

Forgive and forget

I am on the left of the Green Party. I don’t support the Liberal Democrats, but if I was a member I would vote for Simon Hughes as leader. Although he lacks the radical vision of the Greens, compared to the other Lib Dem leadership candidates, Simon has a better record on human rights, social justice and environmental issues.

The Liberals fought a very dirty campaign during the Bermondsey by-election in 1983. Some of their male canvassers went around the constituency wearing lapel stickers emblazoned with the words, ‘I’ve been kissed by Peter Tatchell’, in a blatant bid to win the homophobic vote. Simon’s election leaflets described him as “the straight choice”.

A party member involved in the Liberal campaign recently confessed to me that the Liberals were behind the anonymous and illegal campaign leaflet, ‘Which queen will you vote for?’, which ridiculed my sexuality and invited local voters to have a go at me by listing my home address and phone number. After that leaflet was distributed around the constituency, there were dozens of attacks on my home and I was deluged with hate mail, death threats and obscene, homophobic phone calls.

But that is in the past. I don’t hold grudges. I believe in redemption. Since his election, Simon has redeemed himself by voting for gay equality. That’s all that matters now. He should be judged on his policies, not his private life.

The Lib Dems are, unfortunately, not a radical party. They are mostly good on democracy and human rights issues, but they support the pro-business, neoliberal economic project of globalisation. Nevertheless, in Lib Dem terms, Simon is on the left of the party. Of all the leadership contenders, he is the most progressive. I hope he is elected leader. His election could help shift British politics a little further left-of-centre.

Forgive and forget
Forgive and forget

STWC appeal

March 18 2006 marks three years since the illegal invasion of Iraq. Since then over 100,000 lives have been lost and George Bush and Tony Blair are now threatening future wars in Iran and Syria.

March 18-19 have been designated international days of protest, and actions are planned in dozens of countries, including the USA, UK, Iraq, India, Mali, Japan and at least 15 European countries.

The UK’s national demonstration is on Saturday March 18 and peace groups all over the country are now organising to build support. All demonstrations cost money to organise. Hundreds of thousands of leaflets and tens of thousands of posters are needed to make sure that everyone hears about our demonstration. Meetings have to be organised, staging and PA are needed for the demonstration rally, expenses for the international speakers have to be paid, office administration has to be maintained, and much more.

We are making a financial appeal to all Stop the War supporters to help us fund this demonstration. All opinion polls show that the anti-war movement in Britain represents the majority view of the British people who opposed the war and want the occupation of Iraq to be ended. Please donate as generously as you can to ensure that the voice of peace continues to be heard.

Send a cheque made payable to ‘Stop the War Coalition’ to STWC, 27 Britannia Street, London WC1X 9JP or donate online at www.stopwar.org.uk/new/involved/joinonline.htm.

STWC appeal
STWC appeal

Iran bus strike

Hundreds of workers and members of their families were arrested on January 28 in Tehran.

As Tehran bus workers were preparing for a one-day strike in protest at the continued detention of their union leader, Mansour Ossanlou, the security forces unleashed a devastating attack on Vahed Company drivers and workers. At 4am military police attacked the houses of many labour activists from this company, taking them and their families to prison. The wife of one union leader, Davood Razavi, was severely beaten on the head with baton, before being pushed into a police car.

In Tehran’s 1st and 6th districts, the police used tear gas to disperse a crowd who were supporting the striking bus workers. Many were arrested. In 4th district alone 500 workers who had gathered in a peaceful picket of the bus depot were arrested after the security forces used tear gas to disperse the crowd.

The wives of two other Vahed Company labour activists, Saeed Torabian and Hayat Gheybi, have also been held by the authorities, presumably to act as hostages to force their husbands to call off the strike. Many activists are reporting attacks on their homes.

There are 15,000 Vahed workers in Tehran and its suburbs and in the last strike, on December 25 2005, over 8,000 workers took action, bringing traffic to a complete halt.

The pro-capitalist islamic regime in Iran cannot tolerate Vahed Bus workers because they are in the forefront of a growing workers’ movement demanding independent (non-islamic) trade unions, better working conditions and payment of their unpaid wages.

These workers are the genuine anti-imperialist forces in Iran, not the corrupt clerics who rule in the name of shia islam. Don’t allow people to be fooled by the anti-western rhetoric of Iran’s clerics. Remember, they are the main backers and supporters of the occupation government in Iraq. They are not anti-imperialist.

Tehran bus workers have spoken out. They are calling on the anti-capitalist and anti-war movement, on unions and political organisations of the left, to support them by putting pressure on the Iranian regime.

Iran bus strike
Iran bus strike

Like a shot

In the beginning I thought George Galloway was OK and I was looking forward to hearing what he had to say in the Big brother house. I realise that it is a game show, but surely a person like George with his experience should have been able to handle it.

This makes me wonder how on earth he would cope with being prime minister, as surely this a stressful job. Would he turn to bullying people to get what he wants? Or would he simply insult everyone? Preston and Chantelle are two young people (not kids) and George picked on them because he thinks he can bully the people who may not be as experienced as he is. There is no way that George is going to get very far now and if for some reason he did become PM then I would be out of this country like a shot.

If he had one good bone in his body then he would go on live TV and apologise to Preston and everyone for his behaviour and let the public know that he has learnt from the experience. I am sure that he won’t, as he seems to think he is the most perfect man in the world.

No, young people don’t hate all MPs - just the ones that are plain rude and nasty!

Like a shot

Posing

If Galloway, Tina Becker and the Socialist Workers Party spent any time actually reading the Communist manifesto instead of posing with it, as Galloway did on Big brother, we might (a big ‘might’) be nearer to building a mass revolutionary party instead of the 57 varieties of anti-communist gossip-mongering opportunist twats trying to throw a daft reformist ‘Stop the War’ net over the anti-imperialist struggle of the working class.

Posing

Farce

Your SW Kenning suggests: “The secret state knows the SWP from top to bottom. It runs agents in its ranks”.

Why on earth would it bother doing so? The SWP (like all of the so-called revolutionary left in the UK) is nothing but a farce; it is a club of ageing, bearded polytechnic lecturers playing at revolution, while boring everyone to tears.

Farce

Spot on

I thought the article ‘Victim of “democracy”’ was very informative, and a point of reference in relation to the SWP central committee and its form of democracy.

Clearly, John Rees and co have taught Matt Kidd some rather brutal facts about the reality of SWP ‘democracy’ and I believe, through experience as an ex-SWP member, that your points could not be more spot on.

Spot on
Spot on

Socialist bans

Terry Liddle’s arguments for the banning of alcohol are not merely perverse from the point of view of simple logic: they reveal an extremely disturbing trend towards the authoritarian in the comrade’s thinking.

First, he blithely equates the use of booze with its abuse, when he gives us a litany of personal disasters and social problems caused by “addicts”. “There is a problem,” he thunders “and it demands a solution.”

Of course, the vast majority of people who use this drug are not “addicts” and are therefore not contributors to the stinky tsunami of “piss, shit and puke” Terry sees looming threateningly over our society. It really is sanctimonious, anti-working class claptrap to imply anything different.

Yes, addiction to any drug is “a problem” - but Terry’s Taliban solutions would make the problem worse, not better. Essentially, the comrade advocates oppression, taking as his model the successes in driving alcohol underground in the “state of Utah … parts of India and, of course … the muslim countries”. This would be enforced by the “honest organs of security” we would be blessed with under socialism, which would merrily slash all about them with “the sharp sword of the revolution”, he tells us (I can only presume seriously …).

This is appallingly reactionary. There is no reason not to suppose that - for the foreseeable future, under whatever social system we had - many millions of people will continue to use recreational drugs. The vast majority will do so sensibly and with no terrible consequences either to their health or society’s cohesion. But Terry and his shiny “honest organs” would enforce a ban, essentially for reasons of smug, parson-style moralism.

The lesson of prohibition in the United States is not that it failed because it was “a corrupt society” (apart from Utah, presumably). It was that, once this (perfectly legitimate) demand for a particular drug was driven underground, its supply was gifted to criminals and, in its turn, this fact led to a significant increase in the general corruption of American public life.

Comrade Liddle is free to partake or abstain, as his conscience dictates. He should afford the rest of us the same democratic choice.

Socialist bans

Digging a hole

Nick Rogers really should stop digging himself into a hole over Venezuela. His differences with the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty over Chávez are now pretty clear - no doubt reality will decide who is right.

However, a couple of issues cannot be allowed to pass.

Firstly, for all his continual abuse of Trotsky, Rogers at least concedes that a Bonapartist regime did rule in Mexico for 70 years. However, Rogers completely downplays the repressive character of the ruling PRI after 1940, when it took a more civilian form. Strikes by oil workers, miners and metal workers, rail workers and teachers were viciously put down in the 1940s and 1950s. Students were massacred in Tlatelolco Square in 1968. Electrical workers, Ford workers and maquiladora workers all faced suppression even as the regime went into decline. These examples illustrate the Bonapartist character of the PRI regime, whatever its civilian veneer.

Rogers also fails to draw the substantial conclusion about the regime that socialists in Mexico did at the time: that the PRI blocked the emergence of independent working class politics. In the words of José Revueltas, it left “the proletariat without a head”. The PRI didn’t just repress - it also incorporated and coopted the labour movement, holding back the working class despite tremendous examples of militancy.

The present-day relevance of Mexican Bonapartism is clear. If Mexican Bonapartism is an analogy with Venezuela today - and I’ve argued in Solidarity and the Weekly Worker that it is - then socialists should draw conclusions from it about Chávez.

At the very least it means sharp ideological demarcation from Bolivarianismo, the fight for an independent workers’ party and to make the unions independent of the government. It means warning of the likelihood of cooption and of repression. These conclusions flow logically from the AWL’s analysis. For Rogers they are merely bolted on.

Secondly, Rogers makes a lot of some ambiguous phrases in the political declaration of the Party of Revolution and Socialism (PRS) in Venezuela. I also pointed to some of the party’s weaknesses in my articles in Solidarity.

However, the reason I think we should be positive about the PRS is that it is sharply critical of Chávez, is trying to build an independent workers’ party in Venezuela and fighting for class-struggle trade unionism.

I think it’s consistent with working class independence for the PRS to oppose US intervention and the existing bourgeois opposition, as well as the government. It is also quite right that the party should use the opportunities created by the Chávez regime, such as co-management, to advance its politics.

What is the job of Marxists in relation to this development? We should offer our support and solidarity to the PRS as a matter of principle. But international socialists can also offer ideological clarity, lessons of previous struggles and above all encouragement that their stand against Chávez justified.

That’s what the AWL is doing. By contrast, Rogers offers only confusion and softness on Chávez. This is no use whatsoever to the PRS or anyone else trying to fight for working class socialism in Venezuela.

Digging a hole
Digging a hole