31.05.2006
Off the rails
The launch of the Euston Manifesto on May 25 in London's Union Chapel showed that this 'initiative' - which has attracted a large amount of media attention - is totally bereft of vision, repeats all the standard CIA tropes about terrorism and, more than that, fears open debate
The chosen panel of four speakers, Norman Geras, Shalom Lappin, Eve Garrard and Alan Johnson, with journalist Nick Cohen in the chair, faced an audience of around 200 that was disproportionately heavy with suited, middle-aged men. Cohen made it clear from the start that he wanted the meeting to be about the top table. He told us that any audience participation should be limited to questions to the platform, "not 10-minute contributions" outlining the political platform of some obscure sect.
Thus, any chance for an interesting meeting disappeared from the beginning and the meeting's 'discourse' was monopolised almost exclusively by the platform speakers. They actually used up the vast bulk of the 45 minutes allocated to contributions from the floor by insisting on answering each question - interminably, in some cases - immediately after it had been asked.
So what is the Euston group? Strangely, the founders of this rightwing sect appear to think of themselves as being on the left. In reality they are either leftists rapidly collapsing to the right or simply scared, muddle-headed liberals.
Its moving spirits appear to be professor Norman Geras, professional Marxologist and legal owner of the copyright of the Euston Manifesto, Damian Counsell, Alan Johnson, editor of Democratiya and Shalom Lappin, a professor of computational linguistics. Other 'luminaries' include Gary Kent, director of Labour Friends of Iraq, and Julie Burchill and Adrian Cohen of Unite Against Terror. Most other supporters listed by the Euston group are obscure academics.
However, one novel feature is its collection of 75 supporting websites - the only one of note being the pro-war Harry's Place.
Indeed it is correct to characterise the whole pointless Euston exercise as a public manifestation of pro-imperialism staged by people who, for one reason or another, want to characterise their scabby politics as being on the left.
Lawrence Parker takes a closer look at the Euston Manifesto
No one can deny that the anti-war movement has had an impact on British politics. True, the movement has run into difficulties with declining attendances on marches and the popular frontist cul-de-sac of Respect, but its presence is still there.
However, this is a movement that has taken on a decidedly unhealthy tinge. Consider, for example, that a vile slander such as 'islamophobe', which in saner periods would have been defined as a person who actively seeks to propagate hatred or fear of islam, is now chucked about like confetti in an attempt to demonise anyone who has the notion of merely criticising islamists. Laughably enough, we are told that this is the price of keeping the anti-war movement 'broad'; actually, now that the first flush of enthusiasm for 'grand old duke of York' enterprises in central London has partially evaporated, it is becoming a method that makes the mainstream anti-war movement more narrow.
Which is where the Euston Manifesto comes in. An alliance of academics, journalists and former 'socialists' has come together in response to the failures of this anti-war movement to maintain any consistent democratic principles. This is clear from the group's public pronouncements and a close reading of its manifesto (http://eustonmanifesto.org)
However, there is an attempt to partially hide such an origin in the manifesto's preamble: "The present initiative has its roots in and has found a constituency through the internet, especially the 'blogosphere'. It is our perception, however, that this constituency is under-represented elsewhere - in much of the media and the other forums of contemporary political life." Perhaps the authors think it is trendy to mention the internet and blogging (a bit like your embarrassing, 45-year-old uncle, who has just discovered Radiohead) but the reality is that the roots of this initiative are in an opposition to the anti-war movement as currently constituted.
To understand the method of the Euston Manifesto group we have to get to grips with that of its alter ego, the mainstream anti-war movement. This seeks (in the name of maintaining broadness, remember) to impose a simplistic and neatly ordered world view on a variegated and complex set of events. Therefore, if my main enemy is imperialism, whoever opposes imperialism must be my friend, and even if, in private, we might know that this is tosh, (a) we need to keep things simple for the proles and (b) we don't want to confront reactionary politics in the anti-war movement; much better to be friends so that the media can see what a nice big movement we are and then we can ride the wave.
On the surface, the Euston Manifesto appears to be more advanced: "We decline to make excuses for, to indulgently 'understand', reactionary regimes and movements for which democracy is a hated enemy - regimes that oppress their own peoples and movements that aspire to do so. We draw a firm line between ourselves and those left-liberal voices today quick to offer an apologetic explanation for such political forces." It is sound to kick back at the idea that we cannot criticise reactionary regimes that are fighting imperialism and to dispel the ridiculous notion that we cannot argue against other cultures or movements on the grounds of 'tolerance' and 'cultural relativism' (showing tolerance of those muslims who are intolerant actually breeds more intolerance).
But, unfortunately, the authors of the Euston Manifesto want a nicely ordered world view too and so appear to be elaborating their own discourse of denial in relation to the very idea of imperialism and its crimes. In a horrid reversal of the mainstream anti-war movement's logic, the implication appears to be that if reactionary regimes are our enemy, then imperialism might just be all right (the manifesto tells us that the "founding supporters of this statement took different views on the military intervention in Iraq, both for and against").
The Euston group, like the mainstream anti-war movement, appears incapable of grasping the world in its many-sided complexity. Why is it impermissible for us to formulate the central importance of fighting imperialism, coupling this with an accurate critique of the reactionary nature of the political leadership of countries such as Iraq or Iran?
Going back to the passage quoted above, it is a cretinous and reactionary idea that we should decline to 'understand' the emergence of backward ideas and actions on the basis that this somehow automatically leads us into apologetics. The tedious Norman Geras, one of main players in the Euston group, said: "For example, it is quite regular to read about terrorism that 'Yes, putting bombs on buses is bad, but you need to understand it'. The word 'understand' has two meanings. It means to explain and to condone - and that 'but' often tends to condone the act" (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4973584.stm).
But this is a bit of a disaster if we have ditch the 'explanation' type of 'understanding' just because a silly Socialist Worker Party member might come along and condone some horrific act. Surely understanding something gives us the best basis from which to condemn it. Even if this 'understanding' is done on the basis of condoning something, a more critical mind might come along and use it to better inform their critique. It is dangerous to try and short-circuit this process - presumably the Euston group does not want to end up alongside the 'string 'em up' merchants of the popular press.
Again, this appears to be a rhetorical attempt by the Euston Manifesto group to construct itself as a pure opposite of the anti-war movement, which does indeed conflate 'understanding' with apologetics, and this leads it onto the terrain of implying poisonous ideas. How this denial of understanding helps bring about the group's pursuit of "the values of free enquiry, open dialogue and creative doubt, [and] of care in judgement" is something the manifesto unfortunately does not elaborate on.
As we have observed above, the Euston Manifesto is somewhat coy as to its origins as a reaction against the mainstream anti-war movement. Because of this rightism it fails to analyse the cause of this movement's descent: its displacement of any class analysis or perspective in the pursuit of alliances with forces fundamentally hostile to working class emancipation. It is from this starting point that the likes of the SWP slide into the tailing of, and pandering to, reactionary regimes and movements. Of course, the Euston group does not want to dwell on this because it has exactly the same method. Therefore we read that the group supports "radical reform of the major institutions of global economic governance (World Trade Organisation, International Monetary Fund, World Bank) - and we support fair trade, more aid, debt cancellation and the campaign to Make Poverty History".
So radical, it makes me want to cry, comrades. Are the likes of the WTO and IMF some kind of classless "institutions of global economic governance" (how lovely, darlings!) or are they in fact weapons in the hands of the bourgeoisie? Can capital behave in a "fair" way? In the absence of any working class revolutionary project we are presumably reliant on these radical, blogging intellectuals to broker us a good deal, steer us away from temptation and deliver us from evil. (As an aside, the manifesto's observation that "democratic trade unions are the bedrock organisations for the defence of workers' interests and are one of the most important forces for human rights, democracy-promotion and egalitarian internationalism" does not resolve this issue of class, as it neglects to state that trade unions are in one sense bourgeois institutions in that they bargain over the price of the commodity, labour-power, and in and of themselves they cannot transcend capitalism.)
We have heard this reformist waffle on countless occasions, just as we have seen many times before the conscious courting of forces to the right of the socialist movement ("We reach out, rather, beyond the socialist left towards egalitarian liberals and others of unambiguous democratic commitment"). And we have a graphic illustration in the likes of Respect of what happens to the elaboration of principles in such lash-ups. The Euston Manifesto group wants us to make the same sort of pact with a different devil.
In case one might feel that this is too rhetorical, we can see it unfolding in the Euston Manifesto itself. We have already noted the denial and absence of the concept of imperialism in the group's pronouncements. If you remember, its members were divided over the "intervention" (using this word is surely a case of sliding an 'understanding' into apologetics, comrade Geras; presumably you don't want me to fetch the rope now) in Iraq by the jolly old US-UK armies. The manifesto asserts: "We are also united in the view that, since the day on which this [the invasion of Iraq] occurred, the proper concern of genuine liberals and members of the left should have been the battle to put in place in Iraq a democratic political order and to rebuild the country's infrastructure, to create after decades of the most brutal oppression a life for Iraqis which those living in democratic countries take for granted - rather than picking through the rubble of the arguments over intervention."
If you have the stomach, it goes on: "This opposes us not only to those on the left who have actively spoken in support of the gangs of jihadist and Ba'athist thugs of the Iraqi so-called resistance, but also to others who manage to find a way of situating themselves between such forces and those trying to bring a new democratic life to the country." While much moralising sport can be had pointing out the nonsense of leftists lauding jihadists, it is significant that the manifesto does not tell us clearly whether or not it believes the US and UK armies are among those "trying to bring a new democratic life to the country". In fact the silence tells us everything we need to know.
This unwillingness to name imperialism as an enemy is a cover for what is the social imperialism of the Euston Manifesto group. Imperialism is not the problem and certainly a 'progressive' imperialism is seen as the answer. The armed forces of imperialism - a 'liberation' from above - is the elephant in the room.
After reading this turgid prose of the Euston Manifesto it is impossible to take its outraged moralism as to the ideological crimes of the left at all seriously. Did the Euston group sit down and write their manifesto and say, 'Listen, anti-war boys and girls, we'll show you how to really sell out on principles'?
The internet is notorious for producing extreme proclamations. Perhaps that is what happened: the cynical bloggers of the Euston Manifesto group came home from the wine bar a bit pissed and got carried away with how crap the Stop the War Coalition is. Or, on the other hand, perhaps this group, in its formal logic and shallow opportunism, is merely another symptom of a nasty virus that is currently infecting the left