Letters

Nice cup of tea

The answer to Don Franks’s question, “How much do you guys drink over there?”, can be found in an Irish proverb: one is too many, a thousand never enough. The result can be found in the growing toll of deaths from liver problems among the young.

Independent Labour Party member Dr Alfred Salter, who fought hard to improve the health of the Bermondsey poor, said it well: “If we are going to create a new social order in which dwelleth righteousness, we can only create such a state through the agency of righteous men and women.”

When righteous socialism has triumphed over capitalism, with its profit from the human misery it has created, we can celebrate in the traditional working class way with a nice cup of tea, or, more healthily, with a glass of organic fruit juice.

Nice cup of tea
Nice cup of tea

Child abuse

I wish to make a response to ‘Secularism, what it is and why we fight for it’ (Weekly Worker May 19 2005).

Religion has become hereditary. That is the major problem in the world. It goes against the charter of children’s rights. As soon as a child is born, parents automatically pass on their religion to the child. This is child abuse.

Let the children grow and be free to choose whether they want religion in their life or not. Children should not be treated as the property of their parents. How to bring about this change is the major problem for secularism.

Child abuse

Can’t let go

Tom May equates a doctor refusing to perform an unethical operation with a firefighter refusing to save ethnic minorities - what a bizarre comparison (Letters, March 9).

Still, I am sure that Louise Whittle will be happy to know that I have ceased to call myself a feminist - the focus of this movement on abortion being the main, although not the only, factor. This does not mean I do not support advancements for women, but that I reject the ones on offer by the feminist movement - these days that means little else but foeticide and a dash of neo-puritanism.

Social reform for a child-friendly society is what we need. Feminism has been complicit and even partly responsible for an anti-natalist culture. Women and leftists such as myself are sick and tired of being treated by feminists and their left supporters as if we do not exist - the consensus around ‘pro-choice’ is false and creates division, not unity.

I wish for the current time limit in Britain to be dropped and I am willing to fight for the right of unborn children to exist beyond the first trimester and eventually from the moment of implantation. The minority view on this issue will not be silenced, as some would wish. It will have its voice and the day will come when not only one side of the argument will be deemed a valid leftwing position.

Like animal rights and welfare, this is an issue that transcends left and right. I will not let it go until it becomes an acceptable, even if not a mainstream, position.

Can’t let go

Quite absurd

There has been much talk about my participation (and that of others) in the March for Free Expression that was held on March 25 in Trafalgar Square, London.

Although much of this debate has been quite absurd, some comment is necessary. It is quite astounding that I am criticised for being in alliance with the extreme right just because some loathsome rightwing organisations also had speakers at the event. The march was not organised by the extreme right, had a very sensible statement of purpose and many other good speakers.

This unfortunate stance of criticising me only helps maintain the left’s irrelevance by giving it the excuse it needs to turn its back on the power struggles taking place on crucial issues over the fate of society. They would rather scurry off and leave the scene to be dominated by the right - even when no such hegemony exists.

My dear friends, the strike-breaking, reactionary right wing is incapable of defending free speech and expression, as those freedoms cannot be defended in a vacuum. Rather than stepping in to unequivocally defend these freedoms, you vacate the scene, call on others to do so as well and label all who speak or attend as allies of the right.

I on the other hand believe it is my duty to fight at the forefront of the political scene and confront other tendencies and perspectives where I can.

Quite absurd

Scaremongering

Contrary to the lies and scaremongering of the far left and their rightwing islamist allies, there was no neo-Nazi British National Party presence at the March for Free Expression. Speaker after speaker condemned the BNP and expressed solidarity with the muslim community. There were no union jack flags and no placards attacking muslims or promoting fascist ideas. The BNP did not gain from this rally. They were isolated and rejected by it.

Free speech is a fundamental human right for every person on this planet. It is a right for all, not for some. The only instances where free speech can be legitimately restricted are when people incite violence and libel or defame others. Threats and untruths diminish free speech and open debate.

Freedom of expression is not a western value; it is a universal humanitarian value that is the right of all people. By demanding the right to free speech, we are not seeking to impose western ideas on non-western people and cultures. We are saying that everyone, everywhere, has a right to freedom of expression.

The march was about more than defending the right of newspapers to publish the ‘Danish cartoons’. It was about opposition to all attacks on free speech, including attacks on freedom of expression by our own government. When it comes to free speech, I am for equal opportunities. Free speech is the right of others to mock and ridicule me. I may not like it. It might be unfair. But that’s democracy.

In January, I challenged Sir Iqbal Sacranie of the Muslim Council of Britain when he denounced homosexuality as immoral, harmful and diseased. But I did not seek to ban him, nor did I support calls for his prosecution. I defended Sir Iqbal’s right to free speech.

Sadly, Sir Iqbal did not reciprocate my tolerance. He wants the freedom to be offensive to gay people but doesn’t believe any one should have the right to be offensive about islam.

Scaremongering
Scaremongering

Parallel scandals

Many commentators have drawn parallels between the 1972 Watergate cover-up and New Labour’s ‘loans for peerages’ scandal.

I recently purchased a newly released DVD of the 1976 film, All the president’s men. The film stars Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford as the Washington Post staff reporters, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, who revealed the Watergate cover-up.

During the film, ‘Deep Throat’, the reporters’ source in the executive, tells Woodward to “follow the money”. Marxists too would be well advised to “follow the money” in understanding the unfolding story of New Labour’s current scandal. While New Labour has yet to bug Conservative Party headquarters, the Watergate break-in triggered revelations that drove president Richard Nixon from office.

Also included on the DVD is a discussion by reporters in the US about the problems investigative reporters would have in reporting a similar scandal today. One reporter acknowledges that if the Watergate cover-up happened now, Bernstein and Woodward would be pressurised by the US government to reveal the identity of ‘Deep Throat’. This would result in them both going to jail for refusing to name their source.

Parallel scandals
Parallel scandals

No evidence

Just in case anyone missed it, Slobodan Milosevic democratically passed away after five and a half years in prison, awaiting the end of trial, after being denied proper medical attention.

Therefore, the reason which prevented Bush and Blair from turning the world into a nice place has definitely gone. The Serbia which terrified the international community is also, to all intents and purposes, history. The menace has passed. Now we can enjoy all that Bush, Blair and company have prepared for us, but could not deliver due to Milosevic and Serbia.

The evidence of the genocide charge against Milosevic is of the same kind as the evidence of the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. In all the media reports on the trial the common point was the absence of reference to a single piece of evidence that corroborated the charge.

No evidence

Open borders

At the annual delegate meeting of the National Union of Journalists last weekend, there were several motions on asylum-seekers. On Sunday there was a very positive debate and outcome on the issue - a substantive motion was passed instructing the NUJ national executive council “to campaign for a policy of opposing all immigration controls and to promote the right to free movement, together with equal rights for all residents of whatever nationality”.

Open borders
Open borders

Pacifist

For some time I have been enthusiastically reading the Weekly Worker online and have been considering joining the CPGB. However, something I have read in your Draft programme has prevented me from joining: “As the circumstances allow, the working class must equip itself with the most advanced, most destructive weaponry available … The people have the right to bear arms and defend themselves.”

To me this sounds like a horror scenario - an invitation to a bloodbath. I am of course well aware of the destructive weaponry available to the ruling class, but I really cannot bring myself to condone the arming of the working class. I certainly don’t want to kill. Should it come to that, I am sure the loss of life would be greater among the working class. I really believe that change must come from educating and organising in a non-violent way. Not resorting to bloodshed.

Am I a hopelessly sentimental pacifist and idealist? Or have I completely misunderstood this part of the Draft programme? I would genuinely welcome any comments and light you might be able to shed on this.

Pacifist

Worn down

Alex Callinicos makes some interesting points about how the left should orient towards trade union activists, in the Socialist Worker. Amongst them this: “Any leftwing strategy that starts from existing union militants runs big risks. One of the greatest of these is settling for the narrowed horizons of activists worn down by holding basic organisation together in an era of defeat. This helps to explain why forces on the far left, including Mark Serwotka and the Socialist Party, accepted a two-tier deal on pensions that means new civil service recruits will have to work till they are 65.”

In other words, the working class was sold out. But he was wise to put it more gently, because the two Socialist Workers Party members of the Public and Commercial Services Union executive, Martin John and Sue Bond, voted with the SP majority, only to have their actions repudiated afterwards by the SWP. Obviously his own members have also been “worn down” by everyday experience.

The trouble is that SWP comrades in the unions tend to replicate the approach they have learnt to apply in their party’s ‘united fronts’: namely, conceal your real views in order to intersect with the movement. And eventually, of course, your real views start to change.

Naturally an organisation that is true to itself is more real than an organisation that always has to be not quite itself. Its revolutionary principles become ridiculous in the eyes of its own members and, like comrades John and Bond, they end by sticking up two fingers to revolutionary principles in order to remain close to the vast non-revolutionary majority that they have been taught to revere above everything.

Worn down
Worn down

Balancing act

“The communists do not form a separate party opposed to other working class parties … The communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.” So said Marx and Engels in the Manifesto of the Communist Party.

So what would have Marx made of the debate at the recent conference to launch a Campaign for a New Workers’ Party? On the one hand the CPGB argued for a Marxist party and on the other the Socialist Party argued for a left-reformist programme.

The history of the First International is littered with Marx’s skirmishes with those advocating reformist programmes, although he advanced plenty of reformist and democratic demands himself.

Marx was very optimistic when he wrote these things back in 1848. Although he understood that communist ideas would not take hold in the working class spontaneously, he nevertheless had no doubt that the bright light of reason, truth and science shone by the communists in the working class movement would soon win over the majority of the class.

I don’t think that he could have imagined the huge weight that reformism would have on the movement throughout the next 150 years. The success of the reformist current for decade after decade, and finally the degeneration of the Second International, led the likes of Lenin to break from Marx’s dictum and advocate the building of a Communist Party, a revolutionary party, a Marxist party - call it what you like.

Would Marx have drawn the same conclusions and joined up? Well, I suspect that he might have preferred Luxemburg’s vision of a party over Lenin’s, but, either way, I believe that he would have thrown his lot in with the Third (or Communist) International.

The case for a revolutionary party seemed to be spectacularly vindicated with the advent of the Russian Revolution. However, the case became diminished by the degeneration of the Soviet Union, the ossification of the Third International and the failure of the Fourth International to make any progress. I am afraid that I do not expect anything different from the Fifth.

So what then? Entryism was a tactic used by communists in the second half of the 20th century. The problem was that by this time the social democratic parties had become so wedded to the bourgeois state in all its viciousness that openly struggling for Marxist ideas inside such parties inevitably led to a witch-hunt and expulsion. Either you went down that road, or you ‘concealed your views and aims’ to a greater or lesser extent, to become a left-reformist ginger group.

Over the last few years a new situation has opened up, presenting a great opportunity, alongside challenges and pitfalls. The social democratic parties have abandoned reformism. In Britain this is particularly marked, with the Labour Party finding itself to the right of the Tories on occasion. The only reforms Blair talks about are rightwing reforms - nothing to do with ‘reformism’ as we understand it. The working class no longer has a party that even pretends to represent it.

There is also a haemorrhage of workers from the Labour Party, which could lead either to atomised demoralisation or to them finding a home in a new workers’ party. It is this party, not the Labour Party, which, if it comes to fruition, is the party that “communists do not form a separate party opposed to”, but in which “they openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions”. It is the potential for such a party that drove the old Socialist Alliance, Respect, the United Socialist Party and now this initiative.

So we are looking for a party that has a set of principles - a platform or skeletal programme - which will not exclude left-reformists (those who want to get rid of capitalism and replace it with socialism, but believe that this can be done without a revolutionary overthrow) and revolutionaries (Marxists, communists) - on the understanding that a debate on the way forward, the development of the programme and so forth, must of necessity continue.

Balancing act