Letters

Victory parade

Russian gays have won an important moral and political victory. Yuri Luzhkov said a gay pride parade would never happen while he was mayor of Moscow. But Moscow Pride did happen, on May 27, despite the mayor’s ban, police arrests and violence from neo-fascists, rightwing nationalists and orthodox christian fundamentalists.

The mayor’s ban on Moscow Pride contradicts Russia’s obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights. It comes just a week after Russia assumed the presidency of the Council of Europe, the human rights watchdog that guarantees freedom of expression and assembly. Is Russia fit to hold the presidency, or even be a member of the Council of Europe, if it only violates fundamental freedoms such as the right to peaceful protest? President Putin’s silence is damning.

Mayor Luzhkov’s overt and unapologetic homophobia has given a tacit green light to the homo-hatred of the political and religious far right. The bigoted atmosphere he helped create fuelled the homophobic violence on the streets of Moscow last weekend. The mayor went to extraordinary lengths to suppress the parade. To prevent it from taking place, he mobilised a quarter of the central Moscow police - more than 1,000 officers.

Nevertheless, small groups of lesbian and gay Russians - and their international friends and supporters - did parade, as planned, in Manezhnaya Square, by the Kremlin, on Moscow’s main shopping thoroughfare, Tverskaya Street, and at the Yuri Dolgoruky monument, opposite the mayor’s office, City Hall. The vicious homophobic abuse and violence I witnessed on the streets of the Russian capital last Saturday shows why Moscow Pride is necessary.

Those on the parade were defending the democratic freedoms of all Russians, gay and straight.

Victory parade

Demo shots

What is wrong with just printing the narrative of the ‘argy bargy’ at the ESF demonstration? We know who Chris Nineham, Chris Harman and Alex Callinicos are - those on the left at least; we do not need photographs of these people.

The photographs did not really explain anything. If you do not know these self-aggrandisers, then the photos merely show people standing around. They are similar to the rough sketches of law court hearings. If you insist on photographs, shots could have been taken with emotion on the faces of the three, or an action shot or a more artistic shot. Unfortunately, what you have published is the result of plain amateur photography. Perhaps with the development of technology in the future, video footage would provide a better explanation of what happened.

In addition, the title, ‘SWP attempts to hijack demonstration in Athens’, perhaps should have been ‘IST attempts to …’.

Of course, open, honest debate and criticism should be par for the course, and the Weekly Worker is refreshing compared to the continual upbeat reportage of papers such as Socialist Worker. Keep up the good work.

Demo shots

Fresh air

Your report of the Greece European Social Forum and the juvenile antics of the SWP reminded me of the demonstrations and pickets that I attended in the 1970s and 1980s (‘Attempt to hijack Euro demo’, May 11). As ‘anarchists’ we used to crowd at the front of big demos and set off early, or break away during the march, rushing for Whitehall in the hope of provoking a clash with the police. We resented the discipline of the marshals and made it a point of principle to disrupt the well-ordered plans of those who wanted a nice day out with no trouble.

While our working class sits on its fat backside consuming kebabs in front of Sky Sports, we are indulging in formulaic petty squabbling at the front of largely unreported, obscure demonstrations that change nothing.

I am one of the 20,000 to 25,000 weekly hits on your website. I look not just for news of the depressing shambles of the left, but also for an intelligent analysis of issues and ways forward. I have read your draft programme and your reading of Lenin has helped make a ‘Leninist’ out of me, and I guess others too.

So why are we not sending you money? Why are we not joining? Why are you not one of the biggest left parties in the UK? Surely a reasonable proportion of your online membership would be impressed enough to make the leap. Your grown-up Marxism is a breath of fresh air.

You are gradually broadening the range of your articles. Why not go further? Why not produce more analysis of workers’ struggles? Now is the time to move on from being observers of the left to leaders of the left. Then you can start to exercise real influence in our class and give it the confidence to win back control of its destiny.

Good luck with the Summer Offensive 2006.

Fresh air

Royal welcome

I really liked the article, ‘Manufacturing royal consent’, particularly the fact that Wilhelm Reich was mentioned.

Royal welcome

Raw deal

Aldous Huxley in his book Brave new world explained how the establishment kept the masses quiet by giving them ‘somas’. These involved the masses taking part in organised brainwashing.

Over the last 10 years the establishment in Britain has used get-rich-quick schemes to keep the masses quiet. These have included the national lottery and TV programmes such as Who wants to be a millionaire? The latest addition to this organised brainwashing is Channel 4’s Deal or no deal, hosted by the dreadful Noel Edmonds.

Rab C Nesbitt once said that “having to watch daytime TV is one reason why the unemployed and the retired should be put out of their misery”. Having recently watched Deal or no deal on weekday afternoons, I can now fully understand what Rab was getting at.

Raw deal
Raw deal

Last straw

I would like to express my surprise and concern over the fact that the recent large-scale protest demonstrations of ethnic Azerbaijanis in Iran go largely unnoticed by the western media.

Azerbaijanis are the country’s second-largest ethnic group and live predominantly in north-western Iran in the area known as Iranian (or South) Azerbaijan. For a long time they have been facing discrimination and often violent repression by Iranian governments determined to destroy their cultural and ethnic identity.

One of Iran’s official newspapers has recently published cartoons insulting and humiliating Azerbaijanis, explicitly comparing them to cockroaches and discussing ways to eliminate them. That was the last straw in the constant discrimination toward Azerbaijanis. A series of mass protests have been taking place in the largest cities of Iranian Azerbaijan (Tabriz, Zanjan, Urmia, Ardebil, Maraga and so on), as well as in Tehran. Reportedly, more than 20 Azerbaijanis have been killed by the police in violent clashes and many are being held under arrest.

Last straw

Shell shock

I am still feeling a bit shell-shocked after Sunday’s Scottish Socialist Party emergency national council.

Whatever the merits of the various motions before the NC, the behaviour of Tommy Sheridan and some of his supporters was out of order. Sheridan distributed an open letter to the meeting in which he attacked three women MSPs. In a vitriolic speech he attacked Catriona Grant, SSP women’s officer, by name. After this I noticed two women comrades in tears in the corridor outside - Jo Harvie, Scottish Socialist Voice editor, and Barbara Scott, minutes secretary. Catriona Grant and Carolyn Leckie MSP, who I don’t think are that easily upset, also seemed close to tears. There was a lot of foot-stamping and jeering of women comrades.

Steve Arnott, Highland regional organiser, who is reputed to run his region like a personal fiefdom, disrupted the meeting by frequently raising points of order and the like in a macho fashion, and Morag Balfour, who was only chairing her second national council, did well to keep as much order as she did. This behaviour is not acceptable, comrades.

To be fair, we did have some sensible contributions against the executive motion from, for example, John Dennis of the Dumfries branch and Gill Hubbard of the Socialist Worker platform.

Finally, the Weekly Worker recently printed a motion from the Cardonald SSP branch (since withdrawn) that has exposed the comrades involved to the possibility of legal action. It was very foolish of the Cardonald branch to pass this motion, but it was also very foolish of the Weekly Worker to print it. I realise the Weekly Worker tends to publish a lot of material on the internal workings of left groups, but could you please, at the very least, refrain from publishing material that could expose people to the possibility of legal or political repression?

Shell shock

Do I know you?

I don’t know whether Davie L McKay is perhaps a Weekly Worker pseudonym, but he is not known to SSP comrades in Glasgow. From the tone of his letter he is deeply hostile to the SSP.

He attacks my letter of the previous week talking up the chances of defeating Labour in next year’s election. I could, of course, be accused of bad timing since I didn’t know all the legal wranglings were coming to a head.

However, now that the national council has taken the sensible decision to back Tommy Sheridan in his libel case against the vile News of the World, I am confident he will win his case and help restore the SSP’s fortunes in time for next year’s election.

This clearly will not please Davie L McKay, whoever he is or isn’t, since he would rather see the SSP defeated to keep his unionist politics intact.

Do I know you?

Sheridan’s war

The SSP’s ultra-nats have gone nuts over Tommy Sheridan’s open declaration of war. People like Eddie Truman and Kevin Williamson no longer like Sheridan, they no longer trust Sheridan. Indeed they loathe Sheridan and everything about him.

Truman says Sheridan is a hypocrite and a liar. As for Williamson, he thinks the whole thing is an MI5 plot - he might well be right - and emolliently calls for a feminised, altogether nicer SSP. And to show just what he means by that he blanks and pointedly refuses to even debate with the ‘Brit’ left in the SSP.

You’ll no doubt be delighted to learn that he keeps in reserve a special venom for the Weekly Worker. He calls you “red, white and blue ultra-Brits”. In other words you are the most principled internationalists.

Using his reputation as ‘first citizen’ of the SSP, Sheridan is making a Bonapartist bid to snatch power away from the besieged Alan McCombes wing of the party. Of course, in this bid Sheridan is supported, to use Truman-Williamson natspeak, by the ‘Brit’ organisations.

Those who pull the strings of the Socialist Worker platform down in London doubtless calculate on slowly, slowly catching a needy and incredibly vain Sheridan and then gently steering him in the direction of Respect. As for the Committee for a Workers’ International, Phil Stott probably has the Campaign for a New Workers’ Party somewhere in the back of his mind when he generously gives Sheridan the CWI’s bloc of votes.

Between the two of them these ‘Brit’ organisations have been able to tilt the balance against McCombes and the executive committee and towards Sheridan.

No wonder the ultra-nats fear an imminent ‘Brit’ takeover. But they are in no fighting mood. Nowadays poor old Williamson is a half shut knife. After his ‘Rebel Ink’ column was spiked in Scottish Socialist Voice by Jo Harvie, our Kev says he’s sick and tired of the “fucking mess” and has headed off on hols to France. Days here, days there.

Given the involvement of the CPGB with the Republican Communist Network, albeit in another age, your readers might be keen on knowing what the RCN (Scotland) is doing.

The little lambs are jumping at sixes and sevens. Some favour Sheridan. Some favour McCombes. By the way, according to these parochial nationalists, the SSP is “the most democratic and comradely organisation to have been seen on the left” (Frontline No16). Away in dreamland!

The non-factional membership are meanwhile utterly in the dark, bitterly divided and becoming increasingly wary of leaders of any kind.

The whole thing stinks of decay. But that’s where opportunism gets you.

Sheridan’s war
Sheridan’s war

Peter the rave

Yet again, an article posing as an analysis of the May 4 council elections rapidly descends into a rampant bitch about the Socialist Workers Party and Respect, with the disclaimer at the beginning of the piece that the fact Respect beat Labour was just a little bit positive (‘SWP failure within Respect success’, May 11).

It never ceases to amaze me how so much time and effort can be spent on criticising what you claim is a ‘marginal sect’ with extremely limited shelf-life and no substantial base in electoral or working class politics, while failing entirely to even attempt to capitalise on the failure of New Labour in these council elections. You also refuse to wallow with your fellow comrades in the birth of a new left consciousness (even if it is not entirely your cup of tea). If Respect really is just the face of islamic and trade union populism then allow it to die in its own time and in peace, or at least acknowledge that as a radical socialist organisation you have bigger fish to fry at this moment in time.

The subversive and undeniably venomous attitude with which your organisation treats and views Respect can have no effect other than to disillusion the more politically advanced sections of the working class. These factional disputes only serve to divide the generally progressive and enlightening current electoral situation.

Tell me this, Peter Manson: do you really believe that now you have published your rave, the left is stronger? Do you believe that, having ignored the solid opposition to neoliberalism, war and privatisation shown by the election of Respect candidates, you have placed the left in a position of greater strength?

Having participated within Respect to a great degree myself, I can safely say that, yes, there are flaws. And that, yes, I believe a more solidly leftwing stance is required in future elections to truly appeal to core working class voters whom we aim to represent. But Respect as an organisation is working. I know first-hand of 12 members who have joined Respect and, through the combination of regular caucuses and meetings, mixed with real direct action, have come not only to associate with the anti-war and imperialist arguments, but also with anti-capitalism, internationalism and, yes, revolutionary socialism.

This is not simply an attitude held by a small number of Respect members who have been convinced by the arguments of the more radical sections of the party. Salma Yaqoob is a high-profile member of the organisation who, although not an official member of the SWP, is currently a regular subscriber to the paper and an adherent of revolutionary socialist principles.

At the latest SWP cadre university, the party signed up 12 new members, mainly from participation within Respect and after being exposed to the SWP’s core philosophy of Marxism, Leninism, Trotskyism and international socialism. Respect is now one of the SWP’s major grounds for recruitment and, as a movement built in everyday struggle, provides an extremely beneficial and revitalising layer of fresh activists willing to fight it out to the end with our leftwing scruples.

By all means criticise, but when your criticism becomes an obsessional and weekly lambasting of every other leftist organisation then it not only weakens your rivals, but also the left movement as a whole and, as a result, yourselves. For once, I ask you, see Respect’s victory in Tower Hamlets for what it is - a stand against privatisation, war and imperialism. It is this positive note on which your article should have finished.

Peter the rave