Letters

Kat and Cath

In respect of the article on the ‘Assembly for a charter of principles for another Europe’ in Florence, you wrote that “... the British contingent was rather small ... [it included] Kat Fletcher, former president of the National Union of Students, who currently lives in Italy” (November 17).

Was Kat Fletcher there? I don’t know: perhaps she was. Cath Fletcher of the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty, not an ex-NUS president, was there and she currently lives in Italy. Did you mean her?

Kat and Cath

Islam and rights

Clare McQueenie oversimplifies our relation with religion. It is untrue that islam - or for that matter christianity, buddhism, or any other religion - is “not compatible with socialism”. Muslims, etc constantly find their way into our ranks because we offer real solutions to their problems. How god is transmogrified into a socialist is entirely the business of believers, but we need to give them the space to adjust their dogmas to reality. This takes time, patience and tact.

I do not believe that women should have to dress modestly, or that not dressing modestly gives society the right to condemn them. However, I am also sure that muslim parents who dress their young daughters in the hijab are motivated by love and a desire to do what is best, not by a hatred of socialism.

Older children should have the right to choose - not only what they wear, but also what they believe - and we must support them. But young children are normally dressed according to the whims of their parents, and if you take this right away from parents who do you invest it in?

If you chose the British state, with its doctrine of liberal multiculturalism, the process of change will be halted in the interests of pacifying community leaders.

Islam and rights
Islam and rights

Rightwing SWP

It is always fun to read about the implosion of Respect and the Socialist Workers Party (‘Respect after George Galloway’s celebrity bid’, February 16).

But I have a question for the SWP: does its support a ban on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo? This magazine, which emerged in the wake of 1968, also carried the Danish cartoons and added its own, more virulent, ones featuring a variety of gods and religious figures (including a front page of the prophet stating: “C’est dur d’être aimé par les cons” - “It’s hard to be loved by prats”).

The magazine was last banned by the Gaullists following a front page satirising de Gaulle’s death.

Given just how rightwing the SWP is now, it would not perhaps be surprising if it backed a ban on a left-libertarian satirical weekly.

Rightwing SWP

Not racist?

I agree with Peter Manson that the furore over the Danish cartoons is about both islamophobia and free speech (‘Islamophobia: no! Free speech: yes!’, February 16). It is quite clear that those demonstrating in countries such as Pakistan comprise some of the most reactionary and backward elements.

However, I do not understand Peter pouring scorn on the idea that a cartoon representing Mohammed with a turban in the shape of a bomb is not racist. As Manson himself states, “They [muslim opponents of the cartoons] say, quite straightforwardly, that this image was ... a vicious case of stereotyping all muslims as terrorists.” Precisely. I cannot think of a better example of anti-muslim racism than suggesting all adherents of islam are bombers and terrorists.

Would a cartoon of Jehovah dripping with gentile blood not be considered a vile form of anti-semitism? Why the difference?

Not racist?
Not racist?

Ludicrous

Peter Manson suggests that the muslims protesting in London over the Danish cartoons carrying placards calling for people to be butchered, beheaded and so on, should not be prosecuted, as the threats were simply rhetoric with no real intention behind them.

In the light of the savage murder of 15 innocent Nigerians and the recent butchering of Theo Van Gogh, as well as the continued threats to Aayan Hirsi Ali and others, this is a ludicrous position to take, especially given the people who were behind this ‘protest’.

Ludicrous

Fundamental

In regard to the Danish cartoons, I actually thought the “Stop, we have run out of virgins” example was quite funny, in a Monty Python way. My wife is a muslim so I do not need any lectures in what is islamophobic or not. That cartoon is funny, although the others are a tad dubious.

I think that the cartoons were a godsend to the rightwing islamists who want to denigrate the west, and also to the neocons that want to prove that islam is a barbaric religion and should be defeated. Both ways of thinking are, of course, false.

What is missing in your analysis is imperialism and how it shapes anti-imperialist forces. Being anti-‘anti-muslim’ is not anti-imperialist. The Taliban came to an arrangement with the USA about an oil pipeline, after all.

Religion is being used as a fig leaf to hide behind. It glosses over class divisions. SWP comrades fresh from college may not appreciate such divisions and how fundamental they are.

Fundamental

Dizzy

Jack Conrad’s lengthy argument in support of the two-nations theory ('Self-determination and the British Irish', February 16 2006) comes down in the end, despite the illustrations, to regarding ‘loyalism’ - a political conclusion - as ‘a nation’: the people in that nation are those who believe in loyalism; the people outside that nation do not. These loyalists must be supported in the demand for ‘self-determination’: ie, against republicanism.

This is surely true because, despite the occasional references to history, we notice not a single mention of the republican Ulster protestants. These were the founders of the modern Irish republican movement and the authors of the United Irishmen. To which nation did they say they belonged? Ireland, of course - they were Ulstermen, protestants and Irishmen. So where do the republican protestants fit into this call for ‘self-determination’ for the one county and four half-counties of Ulster?

After the defeat of British imperialism, and the demand for self-determination for the Irish people is put forward, together with the right to ‘self-determination’ for the Ulster protestants alongside that, do we put the proviso of ‘self-determination’ for the republican protestant minority within the loyalist majority of the one-county, four-half-county protestant Ulster? I am getting dizzy.

Dizzy
Dizzy

Venezuela

Paul Hampton pompously declares himself the winner in his debate with Nick Rogers. But surely this must be a matter for others to decide. From my angle comrade Hampton has not won anything. But he has engaged in a combination of gross misrepresentation and constantly changing the subject.

The simple fact of the matter is that Rogers is no uncritical Chávez fan. He never was. Indeed the comrade warned in his first article that the working class faces dangers in Venezuela. However, what he rightly emphasised was that at present the political space is rapidly increasing. Such subtleties are not to the liking of comrade Hampton. He appears to see things only in black and white.

As for his ‘analysis’, it consists of little other than the drawing of crude parallels with the past. There is no concrete analysis of a concrete situation. His politics are wooden and lifeless.

And, of course, that doctrinaire approach only encourages his rather childish delusions of profundity and self-importance. I almost feel sorry for him.

Venezuela

What’s so crucial?

Paul Hampton’s argument that Hugo Chávez is a Bonapartist has one simple weakness to it - namely, that he hasn’t as yet stepped outside the customary boundaries of bourgeois democracy. I accept, however, that he is in a position to do so and that the masses should be forewarned.

Yet if you proceed from the view that the working class should organise independently for a revolutionary programme and a Communist Party, what, actually, is so crucial as to whether Chávez is or is not a Bonapartist?

What’s so crucial?

Social language

‘Noam Chomsky and the human revolution’ was an excellent article (Weekly Worker November 3 2005)! It brings light on many issues and I’ll recommend it to my students.

That language is and has always been socially motivated sounds so logical. What a shame such a brilliant scientist as Chomsky refuses to revise some basic issues.

Social language

Small wonder

Loved the ‘Floundering towards Eurocommunism’ piece (February 16) - Mike Macnair criticises Alex Callinicos’s criticism of Antoine Artous’ criticism of Thomas Coutrot and Cédric Durand.

Small levers on (slightly less) small levers. Give us more.

Small wonder

Dumped

Sir Iqbal Sacranie was pressured into withdrawal from addressing the trade union-sponsored Unite Against Fascism conference in London on February 18 after protests against his British National Party-style homophobia from leftwingers, trade unionists and gay rights campaigners.

Sir Iqbal, leader of the anti-gay Muslim Council of Britain and someone who has campaigned to keep laws such as section 28, was to have been a keynote speaker. This climbdown was a victory for humanitarian values over homophobic prejudice. We want muslim leaders such as Sir Iqbal to be part of the anti-BNP alliance, but only if they respect the human rights of gay people and other minorities.

The conference organisers claim Sir Iqbal withdrew because he had another engagement. But we dispute this interpretation - it is not a credible explanation. We believe the organisers realised they could not secure the acceptance of a homophobe at an anti-fascist conference, so they dumped him.

However, Sir Iqbal should have never been invited in the first place.

Dumped
Dumped

Facts of life

The letters page of the Weekly Worker is extremely important for the development of our political and social theories. However, I would like to draw attention to the way the argument is sometimes conducted. Writers should get their facts right, although factual mistakes do not necessarily invalidate an argument.

I would take up a couple of examples in the February 16 issue. Emily Bransom poses, in my opinion, quite a correct letter in reply to Liz Hoskings. However, she makes mistakes both in logic and implicitly in fact. For instance, she talks about abortion the day before a baby is due. Quite clearly, you do not have an abortion the day before a baby is born - you normally have a Caesarean operation.

Emily then goes on to state that it is ridiculous to call this infanticide. As a matter of fact, infanticide is a different crime from murder in English law when conducted by the mother. I personally am in favour of infanticide when it is rational: for example, when the baby would be born hopelessly damaged. It is also acceptable in both medical practice and in law to kill the baby if the mother’s life is endangered.

As far as I am concerned, that is quite right and, by and large, the law as it stands on this point is correct. Moreover, any woman wanting to destroy the baby one day before it was born for no rational reason would probably have the balance of her mind disturbed, in which case she would not be in a position to consent. This is a medical question, not primarily a legal one.

Undoubtedly, Emily is correct about Liz Hoskings’ irrationality. However, even in her irrationality she still has some kernel of truth insofar as there are not proper conditions or medical services available for dealing with young women in this condition. Simple things such as the availability of the morning-after pill are an example of this. This does not mean to say that Hoskings is correct in her general position.

On the very letter that follows we have the same sort of problem. In the debate between Terry Liddle and Jim Dymond there is an issue of fact. All medical evidence and epidemiology of northern and western Europe indicates that the taking of alcohol in small amounts actually extends both longevity and general health.

This may be partly due to the fact that people of this origin have an enzyme that can deal with alcohol, whereas people of Chinese and North American Indian descent have this enzyme in a lower frequency. However, this is again a medical question and one certainly not improved by legislation. The abuse of alcohol is primarily a social problem.

Historically, beer drinking was much safer than the drinking of water, but the beer (small beer) had a low alcohol content. Moreover, the use of beer was an effective method of storing grain and it is only with the development of modern capitalism and the urbanisation of society that alcohol and alcoholism became a general social problem.

Jim is probably right in his general position but the problem with Terry’s analysis is the simple logic of his stance. For instance, if we abolished all drinking it is doubtful whether it would save as many lives as if we abolished private transport.

Drink might be a problem in society, but it is nowhere near as damaging as gambling. Neither of these facts in themselves would justify a ban on the playing of cribbage for pennies in a local pub and certainly they do not justify a greater problem that occurs by the use of police powers to suppress either of these faults.

I would urge comrades to check their facts a little more.

Facts of life
Facts of life