Letters

Anti-gay abuse

There was a wave of anti-gay chants by Spurs fans at the Tottenham-Portsmouth match on September 28, which included: “We don’t give a fuck if you’re hanging from a tree, you Judas cunt with HIV”; and “He’s big, he’s black, he takes it up his crack - Sol Campbell, Sol Campbell.” These homophobic jibes go way beyond legitimate ribbing and mockery.

Given the large number of supporters who homophobically abused Campbell, and the difficulty in identifying them, a one-match ban on all Spurs fans might be justified. Although I don’t want to penalise the innocent, it could usefully prompt a bit of peer pressure on the terraces to halt anti-gay abuse. Empty stands would also send a clear, strong message of zero tolerance towards prejudice.

Punishing offenders is not the ideal or only action required. Persuading them to ditch their bigotry is a better long-term solution. The FA should organise the mass distribution of anti-homophobia leaflets to Spurs fans at the club’s next few matches, and make a PA announcement at the start of the next Spurs kick-off, warning that homophobic, racist and anti-semitic insults of any kind are unacceptable and that offending clubs and fans will be penalised.

The FA could insist that there are anti-homophobia messages printed on tickets, in match programmes and displayed on the giant screens inside stadiums. All clubs should agree to introduce a five-year ban on players and fans who indulge in racist or homophobic insults.

For seven years, Tottenham FC and the FA have allowed Campbell to be abused. They let fans get away with their homophobia. The FA would not have sat on its hands if the abuse had been of a racist nature. Thanks to the pioneering Kick It Out anti-racist campaign, which is backed by the FA, individual clubs and the FA now take a much tougher stance against racial abuse. Why isn’t there the same robust response when it comes to homophobic taunts?

As the Gay Football Supporters Network has pointed out, Tottenham’s management has done very little to inform its fans about the ground regulations prohibiting homophobic chants. It has not devised a policy on how to deal with anti-gay abuse and has not held any meeting to discuss the recent intolerable insults against Campbell.

Homophobic abuse on the terraces is one of the main reasons why there are no openly gay professional footballers. They fear the abuse that Campbell has suffered and know that the clubs and the FA will do little to protect and support them.

Anti-gay abuse
Anti-gay abuse

October theses

Labour Party. I have been a member of the Labour Party all my adult life. Since May 1 1997, however, continued membership of this party has unfortunately meant printing my own membership card. Any card which omits reference to the party constitution - in particular, clause four, paragraph four - is invalid. My own card restores this feature. Anyone in need of a replica should immediately print one and sign it.

New Labour. No member of the Labour Party should be expected to pay their membership subscription to an alien party. New Labour is such a party, committed ideologically to Thatcherism and guilty of embroiling our armed forces in an illegal war.

Electoral fraud. On May 1 1997, New Labour assumed office by means of electoral fraud. At no point in that election (or in any subsequent one) has New Labour dared place its own name on the ballot paper. Only ‘the Labour Party’ has ever appeared. By masquerading as Labour, Tony Blair secured electoral victory for New Labour and correspondingly for the capitalist class. We won the election but they took the power.

Treason. No soldier, sailor or airman should be expected to lay down his life for an illegal war. Any order which violates international law constitutes an act of treason against the crown. Any politician, commissioned officer or other person suspected of high treason is to be placed under immediate house arrest.

Human rights act. The human rights act applies to all humans. This includes service personnel. All such personnel have the right to join a trade union affiliated to the Trades Union Congress. Any order from a commissioned officer which violates your human rights is invalid and may be judged a treasonable offence.

Labour government. In view of the fact that it assumed power by electoral fraud, New Labour lacks constitutional legitimacy. The current New Labour government is not only incompetent: it is also criminal and illegal. Gordon Brown, Peter Mandelson and Alistair Darling in particular should be placed under immediate arrest. Where the police fail to act, it is legitimate to make a citizen’s arrest.

New Labour’s greatest crime is its treatment of our brave soldiers fighting an unwinnable war in Afghanistan. Why should the working class be expected to provide sons and daughters to die in a hopeless cause?

Al Qa’eda and the Taliban. Instead of waging an effective war against Al Qa’eda and the Taliban, George Bush, Tony Blair and now Gordon Brown have done everything conceivable to alienate the people of Afghanistan and consequently to lose the war. The puppet government installed in Kabul is a government of warlords, drug-dealers and gangsters. It uses bribery, torture and rape as routine instruments of policy. Without backing from the United States military, the regime would not survive a day. Indiscriminate bombing of the countryside is no way to run a country or win a war. What is needed is an internationally coordinated people’s war against Al Qa’eda and the Taliban. That way, we can win.

As I write these words, Britain’s top commander in Afghanistan, brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, is announcing to his troops: “We’re not going to win this war.” His recommendation is that we now sue for peace: “If the Taliban were prepared to sit on the other side of the table and talk about a political settlement,” according to our brave brigadier, “then that’s precisely the sort of progress that concludes insurgencies like this.” Is he saying that there is no alternative to the defeatist policy of opening ‘negotiations’ with the likes of Osama bin Laden? To the troops who have fought so courageously in this disgusting imperialist war - and who have seen so many of their comrades mutilated or killed - such talk will have about it the whiff of treason.

Instead of opening negotiations with global terrorism, our task is to defeat it. Break with American imperialism! Break with finance capitalism! Stop invading other people’s countries! Stop stealing their oil! Respect international law! Stop supplying arms to warlords, drug-dealers and butchers in league with the enemy! Arm the working class! Defend women’s rights! No violence! All weapons to be placed under the control of women’s anti-rape militias! That way we can win - not just in Afghanistan but across the globe.

History teaches us that defeat in a major war constitutes the gravest possible threat to the stability and constitutional legitimacy of the regime or regimes held responsible. Among other consequences, the criminally defeatist words of brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith may already be testing the loyalty of our troops. Was it for this pitiful outcome that they were asked to fight for their country and die? If Queen Elizabeth feels unable to sack the criminal politicians who got us into this mess, perhaps she should make way for her flaky and eccentric son. Or - since he is so flaky and eccentric - maybe she should hand over directly to Charles’s eldest son?

All this is their problem: I don’t really care. For all I know, the next king could turn out to be my crazy brother, Kevin Plantagenet, or my Druid lord and master, the anti-roads protester Arthur Pendragon. Whoever is our let’s-pretend sovereign, what matters is that the populace is in charge. To our current lords and masters, we say: end this collusion with the enemy - or make way for those who will!

Capitalism. Global capitalism has collapsed. It’s dead, gone and should be spoken of in the past tense. Or, to put it another way, ‘’E’s passed on! This parrot is no more! He has ceased to be! ’E’s expired and gone to meet ’is maker! ’E’s a stiff! Bereft of life, ’e rests in peace! If you hadn’t nailed ’im to the perch ’e’d be pushing up the daisies! ’Is metabolic processes are now ’istory! ’E’s off the twig! ’E’s kicked the bucket, ’e’s shuffled off ’is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisible! This is an ex-parrot!’

I end with an important announcement. The mother of all Halloween parties will take place on the evening of October 31, 5pm to midnight, outside Lehman Brothers at 25 Bank Street, London E14 (see www.graveyard.at). We will be ‘Dancing on the Grave of Capitalism’. Don’t miss the revolution. Be there.

October theses
October theses

Worker buyouts

With regard to the articles, ‘The poverty of greed’ and ‘Anti-big business does not equal pro-socialism’ (October 2), and especially given recent ‘occupied factory’ movements and the bailout fiascos, shouldn’t worker buyouts be put forward as a minimum demand (instead of the current CPGB programmatic demand on nationalisations)?

The mechanism for this would be similar to forced buyouts of homes for ‘development’, in that businesses closing down in part or in full would have to sell to the government, which would in turn ‘bail out’ workers by transferring the purchased assets to them, should they choose to receive the transfer and start operating cooperatives.

Worker buyouts
Worker buyouts

Big Brother

I was curious about Peter Burton’s question: “What is the CPGB’s position on the life and ideas of George Orwell?” (Letters, October 2). Why does the comrade think that any political party would adopt a ‘position’ on the entire output of a particular writer?

I’m sure there’s a place in the Weekly Worker for the occasional article on Orwell, as much as any other influential thinker or literary figure. Indeed, there was one by Philip Bounds marking the centenary of Orwell’s birth a few years ago (‘Ironic unpredictability’, June 26 2003). But surely such pieces will only reflect the views of their authors - just like virtually every other article in the paper.

My experience of the CPGB has been that members are encouraged to think for themselves. We certainly wouldn’t expect to be told what ‘position’ to take on an author’s work. That really would be ‘Orwellian’.

Big Brother
Big Brother

No Nepal

I’ve been disappointed by the Weekly Worker’s lack of coverage of recent developments in Nepalese politics.

It’s not every day that a revolutionary communist party wins a national election and has its leader elected as prime minister, as happened in Nepal over the summer, when Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) leader Prachanda (Pushpa Kamal Dahal) became that country’s premier following the overthrow of the absolutist monarchical regime of King Gyanendra.

It would be interesting to read a CPGB analysis of these events, as they provide many potential insights into the theoretical and practical dilemmas that a Marxist party would likely face if it gained mass support.

No Nepal
No Nepal

Role model

Many times I have read articles written by Israelis claiming that when Israel was established the Jews came to a land (Palestine) where there weren’t many people, or there were just a few uncivilised and nomadic groups like the Bedouins, and that it was the Jewish state that brought civilisation and prosperity to Palestine.

I feel outraged every time I read such ridiculous comments. That’s why I want to highlight the Palestinian intellectuals who created the nation with the highest percentage of educated people in the Middle East before ‘Israel’ was even born. One of these was Kulthum Odeh, the first woman in the Arab world to hold the title of professor. She was a role model for many determined Palestinian women seeking progress and change against the odds.

Kulthum Odeh was born in 1892 to a well-known family in the Roman neighbourhood of Nazareth. She wrote about her life: “My arrival to this world was met with tears, for everyone knows how Arabs like ourselves feel when we are told about the birth of a female, especially if this unfortunate girl happens to be the fifth of her sisters, and the family has not been blessed by a boy.”

Kulthum finished her primary school education in Nazareth and moved to the Russian college in the city of Beit Jala. She was 16 when she finished her schooling and upon her return to Nazareth found work as a teacher at the Russian Association.

She started writing articles for magazines based in Haifa, Cairo and Beirut during a period when the Palestinian press started to bloom. Kulthum married a Russian doctor, whom she later accompanied back to Russia. After the October revolution and the outbreak of the civil war in Soviet Russia, her husband was a volunteer with the Red Army but he fell ill and died in 1919, leaving his wife and their three young daughters struggling on their own. Kulthum worked the land to provide for her daughters and continued her academic education, becoming a lecturer in Arabic.

When the Soviet Union acknowledged the state of Israel in 1948, Kulthum sent a strong letter of condemnation to Stalin. The feedback came instantly via an order of imprisonment. But her Russian academic friends, headed by the famous Orientalist Kraczkowski, stood by her and secured her release. According to her family members, she was arrested and detained at least twice during Stalin’s reign.

The life and struggle of Kulthum is like that of many Palestinians. Her family in Palestine was forced into exile. Her cousins headed towards Damascus, while the rest of her family wanted to emigrate to America. That meant they could have no contact with her, as that would have killed their chances of being allowed to enter the USA. Such circumstances froze her relationship with her family even further.

During her work in Russia she could not go back home to Palestine, but Palestine came to visit her. She was visited by many renowned Arab and Palestinian figures, especially socialist writers, like the poet and writer of Nazareth Tawfeeq Ziyad, the Palestinian writer and journalist Emile Habibi and the historian, politician and writer Dr Emil Touma, one of the most prominent Arab intellectuals of the 20th century. He held leadership roles in the Communist Party in Palestine.

Palestine was never a primitive, empty place, as the Zionists try to portray it. As a matter of fact, one of Kulthum’s cousins, Abu Saleem, was a theatrical artist. He performed 24 plays at the Alnahda theatre in Nazareth until 1948, when it was closed by the new Zionist state.

Role model
Role model

Dual strategy

Cardiff Radical Socialist Forum last week hosted a discussion entitled ‘Iran - hands off!’ Torab Saleth from Hands Off the People of Iran was the guest speaker at the meeting, which provoked an interesting debate on a wide range of themes on the question of Iran, the threats against it and the continuing conflict in the Gulf generally.

Given the financial meltdown in the global banking system, the timing of the event could not have been more appropriate, something that comrade Torab was keen to emphasise. Indeed, as well as highlighting how any threat of war against Iran is likely to increase rather than decrease, as the USA attempts to manoeuvre its weakening economic and military forces and tensions between imperialist countries throughout the world are heightened, the comrade also stressed the need for a clear strategy for all those committed to democratic and socialist change - not only in American and Europe, but also throughout the Middle East.

Drawing on his own personal experience and the history of Iran’s human rights abuses, comrade Torab highlighted the need not to downplay the reactionary role of the theocracy. Imperialism is the main enemy, he pointed out, but the Iranian government and the country’s mullahs also represent a reactionary and dangerous enemy that must be dealt with if the student, trade union, women’s and democratic movements within the country are to secure any significant long-term gains. A “dual political strategy” was thus imperative.

Discussion from the meeting was wide-ranging, with Torab replying to a number of points raised from the floor concerning Israel, nuclear arms in the Middle East, the political nature of the mullahs, the Iranian trade union movement and the effects of US sanctions

Dual strategy
Dual strategy