Letters

Baghdad raid

On September 7 and 8, US occupying troops raided the head office of the Iraq Freedom Congress in Baghdad. The raid came after a number of IFC public activities against the occupation.

The troops were outraged when they saw the anti-occupation banners and posters showing international solidarity with the Iraqi people hanging on the walls. They reacted aggressively and ruined all internal doors, destroyed furniture and confiscated most of the office property.

Fearful of the growing influence of the IFC, the US administration in Iraq are resorting to violence and force to silence our voice. Since its inception in March 2005, the IFC has been the main advocate of an end to the occupation and the promoter of a non-religious, non-ethnic, progressive, secular Iraq.

It has support from all sections of Iraqi society, including the labour, women, youth and secularist movements, and the US administration find themselves unable to deal with this growing force.

We, the executive committee abroad, condemn these brutal acts, and call upon all concerned people and supporters of the Iraq Freedom Congress and the Iraqi people to show their solidarity and express their disgust at the US action against the IFC.

l Ask members of parliament to write a statement against these actions and publicise it.

l Publicise the news of the raid in your local paper.

l Write letters of protest to the US embassy.

l Write to the IFC in Iraq to show your support and solidarity with their struggle.

Please do send us a copy of your letters.

Baghdad raid
Baghdad raid

Shame face

Thirteen alleged lesbians were outed by the Ugandan newspaper Red Pepper on September 8.

Under the headline, ‘Kampala’s notorious lesbians unearthed’, the tabloid published a photo of two very beautiful, unnamed women embracing at a party. The article urged readers to phone the newspaper with details of any lesbians they know: “To rid our motherland of the deadly vice [lesbianism], we are committed to exposing all the lesbos in the city. Send more names us [sic] the name and occupation of the lesbin [sic] in your neighbourhood and we shall shame her.”

One Ugandan lesbian activist said: “I know that some women are definitely going to lose what they have: jobs, homes, families and friends. It is time that gays and lesbians in Uganda stand together to fight the negative reporting of the press.”

Ugandan campaigners are relieved that only 13 alleged lesbians were named. They had feared that 20 to 40 women were going to be outed. Some activists suspect that Red Pepper may have scaled back its outing campaign following international protests after it outed 45 alleged gay and bisexual men in August.

There have been a series of government-backed attacks on the Ugandan lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) community in the last year, including an illegal police raid on the home of the lesbian leader of Uganda’s LGBTI movement, Victor Juliet Mukasa, in July 2005. Gay sex is punishable in Uganda by life imprisonment, under laws originally introduced by the British colonial administration in the 19th century.

Ugandan LGBTI activists regard the outings as an open invitation to the police and queer-bashers to ‘have a go’. They fear increased persecution from the state and vigilantes. Outrage is urging its friends and supporters to email polite, courteous protests to one of Red Pepper’s senior editors, Arinaitwe Rugyendo at rugyendo@mail.redpepper.co.ug.

Shame face
Shame face

Respect rat

I am fed up with Respect. It is an on-off Socialist Workers Party front with an unaccountable ‘Big brother’ MP and councillors who also seem intent on doing their own thing. There are no serious democratic structures and no information from centre about what is going on.

I am not the only one. In my area of London most of the non-SWPers have either resigned or stopped attending meetings in protest. I have complained to prominent non-SWP people in Respect such as Victoria Brittain and Ken Loach. They tell me they are fed up too. No one likes being used as SWP dupes.

Perhaps the SWP will come to its senses and drop its control-freakery. But maybe I am being incredibly naive. Things are screaming out in this country for a real alternative to New Labour, its Iraq war, its racism and its rotten neoliberalism. Once I thought Respect was it. No longer.

I have talked to Alan Thornett and his people. I certainly wish them well at the October Respect conference with their motion on accountability and putting into place proper structures. Why, for example, has Respect not got a weekly paper?

However, if last year’s fiasco is any-thing to go by, the SWP and its block vote will keep things as they are … Respect is doomed and to my shame I am getting ready to desert the sinking ship.

Respect rat

Good job

It has been estimated that there are six million women working as prostitutes in China, while in Britain there are 80,000. In London there are said to be 5,000 prostitutes servicing 80,000 men a week. Prostitution is a component part of capitalist society.

I do not go along with the reactionary view put forward by members of the left-reformist Socialist Party that all prostitution is bad and should therefore be opposed. Prostitutes do a good job in helping disabled men find sexual fulfilment. They can also help older men get over divorce or bereavement.

Prostitutes who advertise over the internet and in local newspapers earn a good living, are independent, and pay taxes to HM Revenue and Customs. I gather that the going rate for such women is the same as that earned by a female solicitor - currently between £100 and £150 an hour, depending on location across Britain. Feminists, including members of the Socialist Party, argue that prostitutes are exploited. Prostitutes are no more exploited than is the mechanic who is paid to fix someone’s car.

If an MP, MSP or councillor is found by a newspaper to have seen a prostitute - so what? The politician should either admit it or state that it is no-one else’s business.

Good job
Good job

Split one’s side

In relation to your coverage of the recent split in the Scottish Socialist Party, are two militant socialist parties enough? Given the number of platforms and factions, surely there is room for a few more?

The SSP and Solidarity split will simply let more Liberal Democrats in. I bet the Lib Dems love all this.

Perhaps they should all join Labour instead and stop splitting the left vote?

Split one’s side

CPI(M) scepticism

Having just read your article on the various Indian communist websites, I agree that your scepticism is well placed (‘Around the web’, May 27 2004).

The Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Front government in Bengal has accorded a red carpet welcome to the Salim group of Indonesia, infamous for its bonhomie with the Suharto regime. Today the CPI(M) says capitalism is necessary to go to socialism.

I left it in 2002 due to its factionalism.

CPI(M) scepticism

Nationalist twist

John Riddell has written an interesting article in Socialist Worker on the Bolshevik policy of self-determination prior to the rise of Stalinism (September 9). As I’m sure he would agree, his presentation concentrates on how the policy was meant to work. In practice, though, the actuality was full of faults. But this is of no matter because he is arguing about principles.

The headline, ‘National freedom’, creates the impression that the SWP sees nationalism as a route to socialism and the rest of the article seems to confirm this. In contrast the Bolsheviks used the policy to increase the influence of the working class by building trust within the minorities that they would not use the tsarist methods of military and cultural dominance to exploit and crush them. They supported the oppressed masses not only against Russian chauvinism, but also from their internal oppressors.

Comrade Riddell concentrates on the oppression of muslims, but the policy of self-determination applied to all oppressed minorities, including the Poles and the Cossacks, Latvians, Estonians, etc. The aim being to create conditions where the oppressed peoples would have the confidence to voluntarily remain in the Soviet Union. It was an anti-nationalist policy.

He says quite correctly that “in traditionally muslim territories” sharia law was “an integral part of the Soviet legal structure”. However, it was in a subordinate position. Muslims had the right to choose to go before a secular court if they wished. Women could challenge divorce settlements this way, for instance, and practices like stoning to death for adultery were banned absolutely. A constant battle was carried out for women’s rights and against superstition.

The Bolsheviks tried to split the oppressed masses away from their indigenous oppressors, whether they were priests, atmen or feudal overlords. All legal systems are forms of class oppression, but working class Soviet-style laws were often more advantageous to muslims than sharia and this was part of the Bolshevik armoury in winning them to socialism.

As Riddell says, “Thousands of people [were] convinced there was no contradiction between being a Bolshevik and a muslim ...” But there is a contradiction between Marxism and religion, between idealism and scientific materialism and the Bolsheviks did not pretend otherwise. They carried out propaganda for a scientific world outlook and atheism.

Nationalist twist
Nationalist twist

Kiwi strike

The latest issue of The Spark, paper of the Revolutionary Workers League in New Zealand, contains substantial coverage of the most important industrial dispute in recent years, as the huge retail food company, Progressive (owned by Woolworth’s Australia), locked out its distribution workers in Auckland, Palmerston North and Christchurch in August, when the workers staged an initial two-day strike.

The dispute has become a major test of strength between the union movement and the bosses. As well as fantastic support from other workers in New Zealand, the locked-out workers are beginning to get international support.

We in the RWL, the main component of the wider Workers Party organisation, are in the thick of this dispute, especially as some of our comrades are organisers and delegates in the National Distribution Union (one of the two main unions whose members have been locked out; the other is the engineers, where several of our comrades are also organisers and delegates). Nationally, our small organisation has mobilised for the picket lines for the past fortnight, and is also involved in support work among other unions and workplaces where we are active and also in helping establish public support groups. One of our comrades, who is an NDU organiser and one of the key Auckland picket organisers, has been arrested, as have about a dozen picketers nationally.

Given that the governing Labour Party’s anti-union legislation makes it illegal for one group of workers to take industrial action in support of another group (eg, solidarity strikes and industrial action are illegal, as are ‘political strikes’), this dispute has the potential to challenge these laws and the capitalist Labour Party and its remaining influence in the union movement (only three or four unions here are still affiliated to Labour).

The RWL was formed by the 2004 fusion of the pro-Mao original Workers Party group and the pro-Trotsky Revolution group. These two small groups had already, in 2002, initiated the Anti-Capitalist Alliance (ACA), along with a layer of independent leftists. Most of the independent ACAers joined in the fusion.

At the start of 2006 the wider ACA changed its name to Workers Party, with the RWL now being the core cadre of the new WP. The RWL-WP is now the largest far-left current in New Zealand, and The Spark the largest-circulation far-left paper in the country. You can check out the Workers Party website at www.workersparty.org.nz and the NDU website at www.ndu-union.org.nz.

Kiwi strike
Kiwi strike

Value others

Why do so many ‘Marxists’ continue to write and espouse such flawed views and theories as Jack Conrad in his article, ‘No future in the past’ (Weekly Worker June 29)? God knows, with the downfall of the USSR and all the self-examination and rethinking concerning Marx and Marxism that entailed, one would think lessons have been learned.

Seeing you are in the UK, and probably have no contact with first nation (FN) peoples, other than from an intellectual perspective, some of your views might be understandable, but as a ‘Marxist’ your article is unforgivable, in light of its very unMarxist conclusions. It’s not about going back to the past: it’s about learning from and beginning to value others. Death to Eurocentric mindsets ...

As a Canadian and socialist with much contact with FN peoples, their issues and reality, I see a very natural alliance between FN peoples, nations and socialism/Marxism. In my experience Eurocentrism has been a huge factor in the misunderstanding between FN peoples and socialism/Marxism that continues today. A misunderstanding that must be put right, if ever the revolution here in Canada (indeed North America and South America) is to have a chance of success. A new understanding and theory concerning first nations, Marxism, etc is long overdue.

I have taken the liberty (in the name of friendly discourse) of referring you to articles concerning indigenous peoples and Marxism - I hope you will check them out. For Marx and the Iroquois see http://melbourne.indyme-dia.org/news/2006/08/119386.php. An invaluable book is Marxism and native Americans by Ward Churchill, as is anything by Vine Deloria.

Value others
Value others