Letters

Too liberal

OK, so we know that Heather Downs does not approve of images of women. Whether it is a scantily dressed prostitute or someone covered from head to toe in a niqab, both - and presumably anything in between - might just provoke sexual arousal in men and must therefore be condemned as colluding in the dehumanisation of “all women” (Letters, September 2).

This reminds me of the local authorities that try to stop parents from taking photographs of their children in public playgrounds - in case some of the adults turn out to be paedophiles who get a thrill from staring at snapshots of kids swinging on a climbing frame. It is also not so far removed from the mindset of Saudi dictators and Muslim ‘community leaders’, who declare that no display of female flesh can be tolerated lest it stimulate lustful desire. Little do they realise that even a pair of eyes peering through a shapeless veil might do the same - they are too liberal for comrade Downs.

As for the Weekly Worker, it does not seem to occur to her that we select images that illustrate our articles in a way that complements the text. So we might consider a picture of an isolated woman in a dark street appropriate for an article dealing with the increased risks faced by sex workers through the criminalisation of prostitution. That pair of enticing eyes which so infuriates comrade Downs could just as easily be interpreted as symbolising the rebellion of women who insist that they retain their sexuality despite being forced to wear a burqa by an oppressive, patriarchal establishment.

No doubt my remarks will produce another round of sneering sarcasm. But it occurs to me that this merely substitutes for the absence of serious content that characterises her letters. For example, since this whole debate was provoked by the French burqa ban, why doesn’t comrade Downs tell us, clearly and unambiguously, what she thinks of this?

On the one hand, comrade Downs says she does not support “any social or political organisation which creates or tolerates the economic, social or sexual control of women by religious authority, the state or male domination”. On the other hand, she informs us: “The distinction between public and private spheres ... is hugely unhelpful to women. Religion, and its enforcement through the male-dominated family (both thought to properly belong in the private sphere), is therefore insulated from the influence of the republican ideals of the French state, leaving women in a particularly vulnerable position which a liberal/libertarian focus on personal choice does little to mitigate.”

While the first quotation seems to imply opposition to the French state ban, the second appears to support it. It speaks disapprovingly of a “focus on personal choice” and contrasts this unfavourably with the “republican ideals of the French state” - as pursued by a rightwing establishment which seeks to deprive women of such choice. The poor things do not know what is good for them and must in no circumstances be allowed to decide for themselves how they should dress.

In reality the right to “personal choice” is also a collective right - and not necessarily the preserve of the alienated individual. The collective is, after all, made up of individuals - individuals whom communists strive to unite on the basis of voluntary, democratic “personal choice”. For communists there is no huge gulf between “public and private spheres” - the personal is also political and to uphold individual rights is neither “liberal” nor “libertarian” (in the sense of promoting the rights of the individual above those of the collective).

The close connection between the personal and the political is clearly seen in the case of the burqa ban. The French state seeks to strengthen its hand and weaken that of the working class on the basis of reactionary chauvinism. By targeting the tiny minority of Muslim women who wear the burqa or niqab as individuals, it aims to scapegoat all Muslims. It tries to justify this by claiming to champion the emancipation of individual women, while simultaneously condemning the same individual women for failing to integrate. Some republicanism!

For us, the collective assertion of the right of women to dress as they wish - in defiance of religious authority, the patriarchal community, the “republican state” and feminist or leftwing autocrats - is both highly political and highly progressive.

Too liberal
Too liberal

Insulting

In response to ‘Aurora’ (Letters, September 2) - whoever that might be, though we all might hazard a guess - the world is truly full of people who disagree with me on a whole host of subjects, and I have been happy to debate with all of them all of my life - even screamingly mad petty bourgeois, working class bloke-hating feminists. But accusing me of suggesting that a murderous attack on an ex-partner was in certain circumstances “warranted” when I said the absolute and clear opposite is not simply disagreeing with me: it is slandering me. Anyone who can twist a clear statement of condemnation into a justification is not rational by any standard.

What has “a comment left on Raoul Moat fan page on Facebook” got to do with me or anything that I have said? What has “men who think it is permissible, even estimable, to attack women” got to do with me or anything I have ever said or done in my life? You can’t, with any rationality, associate any of that with what I actually said, which readers can check quite easily.

I do indeed “get” what violence against women is about. I have been a supporter of working class socialist feminism all my life. I stayed married to one for 25 years and fathered one too. I have engaged with this subject in my union and community all of my life, as anyone who knows me will testify.

The support and sympathy which Moat attracted in the north was due overwhelmingly to community hatred of police and enforcement agencies, who, as a result of decades of bitter, real-life experience, are considered to be enemies of the people. It had nothing to do, by and large, with any bent or lunatic support for his violence against his partner. Stating that fact does not then, in turn, make me party to the loonies who write on his Facebook page. You can’t with any rationality tar me with that brush.

That is not legitimate debate or disagreement. It’s just wilful and calculated insult, and, as I said, clearly the work of a twisted mind.

Insulting
Insulting

Demarchatic

Regarding the second part of Mike Macnair’s response (‘Transition and abundance’, September 2), I’d like to bring up Kojin Karatani’s Transcritique: on Kant and Marx.

There is one crucial thing we can learn from Athenian democracy. It was established by overthrowing tyranny and equipped itself with a meticulous device for preventing tyranny from reviving. The salient characteristic of Athenian democracy is not a direct participation of everyone in the assembly, as always claimed, but a systematic control of the administrative power. The crux was the system of lottery: to elect public servants by lottery and to surveil the deeds of public servants by means of a group of jurors who were also elected by lottery

Lottery functions to introduce contingency into the magnetic power centre. The point is to shake up the positions where power tends to be concentrated; entrenchment of power in administrative positions can be avoided by a sudden attack of contingency. It is only the lottery that actualises the separation of the three powers. If universal suffrage by secret ballot - namely, parliamentary democracy - is the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, the introduction of a lottery should be deemed the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Granted, other measures are needed, like sovereign socio-economic governments directly representative of ordinary people (a step above ‘economic parliaments’ and French governmental cohabitation), recallability from multiple avenues, full freedom of class-strugglist assembly and association for the working class, etc. But here, already, Karatani places demarchy (random sortition) as a feature of the minimum programme and not the maximum programme, like Macnair does.

Now, I should commend Macnair for remembering what Boris Kagarlitsky and the market socialist, David Schweickart, noted about bourgeois capitalism: there are consumer goods and services markets, labour markets and capital markets. However, he is wrong to say that Paul Cockshott, Allin Cottrell, Heinz Dieterich, Dave Zachariah et al are calling for immediate implementation. My reading of the 2004 Czech preface yields a gradual transition of about 20-30 years - the same time frame anticipated by the Meidner’s plan in Sweden.

Macnair has also misread their programmatic documents for Venezuela and the European Union, which deal more or less with the most immediate phase of the transitional period. ‘Stage two’ of a monetary planned economy isn’t discussed much for now, but it might be, once the dividing lines are drawn between the increasingly cooperative and/or industry-based road advocated by Paul and my inclination towards a mix of expropriations (from Trotsky to Schweickart to Kautsky to Meidner), cooperative production, litigation, and one big mass strike (and the related syndicalist strategy) in the dictatorship of the proletariat itself.

The declaration that the USSR was ‘socialist’ is in line with ‘official communist’ thinking, but that thinking was actually correct, rather unwittingly, in distinguishing between its preferred commodity mode of production as ‘socialist’ and all phases of the ‘communist mode of production’. Everyone else conflated monetary socialism carried over from the early 1900s with the lower phase of the communist mode of production.

Finally, returning to the ‘socialism in one country’ question: the advocacy of socialist transformation on an EU level and criticisms of the KKE’s programme in Greece is hardly advocacy for ‘socialism in one country’, but there is a difference between tiny Albania and the old Comecon, the latter of which commanded sufficient resources and manpower, had there been more post-war integration among the bureaucracies.

Demarchatic
Demarchatic

Wrong button

I notice that the CPGB is selling buttons that say “Tax the rich”. I thought that buttons were worn to educate people we meet in order to engage them in discussion. But “Tax the rich” as a slogan is, at best, inoffensive, as there are at least a few rich people who accept the fact that they will have to pay more taxes to save the system. For example, George Soros has advocated increased taxation on the rich, even though he is a billionaire.

I don’t believe that “Tax the rich” educates anyone. How about, instead, ‘Tax the speculators 100%’ or ‘Expropriate the billionaires’? I think we should be careful not to fall into ‘sub-minimum’ slogans, which lead to blurring the difference between social democrats and communists.

Wrong button
Wrong button

No blacklisting

After months of being involved in the tribunal process, blacklisted trade unionist Brian Higgins, with other Ucatt and Unite members, has now reached the stage where he is waiting for a preliminary hearing which will decide whether he has a case that will be heard at a full hearing.

The wheels of industrial ‘justice’, which are very heavily weighted in favour of the employers anyway, turn ever so slowly, and usually fall off, both for blacklisted trade unionists and for workers in general. Most particularly, when employers want this to be the case and they are clearly slowing things down in the matter of the named blacklisted construction workers versus the CACD and named building employers. Coupled with the fact that industrial tribunals were never meant to deal with something as serious, sinister and political as blacklisting and the attack on and denial of civil, trade union and human rights. No-one holds out much hope for any sort of justice via this route. But you have to fail before a British court before you can take your case to the European Court of Human Rights. These cases should be dealt with in a criminal court, but of course it is not a criminal offence to blacklist trade unionists in the UK. This is an absolute disgrace.

It’s also worth remembering that building employers get away with murder with the killing week in, week out, of building workers in so-called site accidents. So again, it’s really no surprise they get away with blacklisting.

The only chance of getting any sort of justice for all blacklisted building trade unionists is by going to the European Court of Human Rights, This means going to the European parliament to campaign for a law to outlaw blacklisting EU-wide, and have the UK subject to European law in this regard. Knowing this, Brian got in contact with Glenis Willmot MEP. With the help of Steve Murphy, Ucatt Midlands regional secretary, Glenis got back to Brian and they now correspond. She has also put a written question on blacklisting to the European commission, with the hope of using a favourable response to campaign for a law against blacklisting in the European parliament.

Blacklisting is a crime against humanity and any kind of justice, freedom and democracy. It should have no place whatsoever in a modern society, which professes to espouse these values and principles. Surely this cries out for the UK and European parliaments to make blacklisting a criminal offence and one which sees the perpetrators of this horrific practice punished severely enough to put a stop to this industrial evil once and for all.

The Aberdeen branch of the Oil Industry Liaison Committee has passed a motion against blacklisting and in support of Brian Higgins. It notes: “Blacklisting has always been a curse in both the oil and construction industries.

It calls for the OILC leadership “to work for the existing, toothless law on blacklisting to be massively toughened to deter and punish ruthless, callous employers resorting to this vile and sinister practice.”

No blacklisting
No blacklisting