Weekly Worker 437 Thursday June 20 2002
Letters
Two states
I’ve a lot of respect for Padraic Finn as a hard-working and genuine comrade, but I must point out that, although he begins his letter, “We in Brent Socialist Alliance …”, the branch has not discussed criticism of the CPGB, and the views Padraic goes on to express on the Middle East are not shared by all of us (Weekly Worker June 13).
“No one condones ‘suicide bombings’,” Padraic assumes. I wish he was right. But on the big Palestinian solidarity demonstration in London on May 18 some people paraded with mock explosives body belts. When Tirza Weisel, an Israeli socialist, said ‘suicide bombings’ killing innocent civilians did not advance the Palestinian people’s struggle, but actually helped Sharon, she was echoing the views of many Palestinians, as well as their leaders, but she was shouted down by a section of the crowd; and, worse, the chair, Carole Regan, a leftwing member of the NUT, dissociated herself from the speaker, rather than the mainly islamist hecklers.
The issue with ‘suicide bombers’ is not the misguided heroism of the ‘martyrs’, but the reactionary strategy they serve. We do not share the ‘morality’-masked technological snobbery of the bourgeois media, for whom a bomb delivered on foot is “terrorism”, whereas a bomber pilot who wipes out civilians then flies home for tea is a hero! Nor do we equate the violence of the oppressed with the daily violence of oppression.
But, for socialists, the democratic content of the national struggle can only be reinforced by methods which involve mass resistance, as we saw in the first intifada. Insofar as military means are necessary, they must be directed at military installations, and make clear to ordinary Israeli workers that they are not the target, and will not be considered the enemy if they oppose their government’s policy and strive to end the occupation. This way, the Palestinian struggle for freedom can win to its side the Israeli masses’ wish for peace, and the intifada can win.
Islamists like Hamas do not want this. They do not aim for a democratic state, let alone secular democracy. They are about gaining hegemony over their people rather than its victory. But they have gained support precisely because, contrary to what Padraic says, the British and US have not supported a two-states policy. The Palestinian state was due to have been declared five years ago, but Clinton forbade it. With imperialist connivance, Israel has done everything to undermine, humiliate and destroy representative Palestinian institutions.
Now unfortunately, some secular militants like the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Leila Khalid (who also spoke at the Trafalgar Square rally) seem to be riding with the islamist wagon rather than providing a socialist alternative. And some people on the left here also seem to think we can go forward with the fundamentalists, while keeping socialist aims. Pity they have not listened to the experience of the Iranian comrades.
We must also question the way some people are applying the boycott tactic to all Israelis (for instance a singer who, as it happens, is publicly known as an opponent of Sharon and the occupation, was targeted by protestors in London recently). One sometimes gets the feeling that Mossad agents provocateurs could not do better than some campaigners if they tried! And if people are deemed the enemy merely on account of their nationality and birth, that sounds like racialism to me.
Padraic talks about “partition”, but Palestine was partitioned over 50 years ago, and the Zionists succeeded in establishing a nation-state (thanks not only to US backing, but initially to Soviet bloc weapons, and to corrupt Arab regimes combining the flight of jews and the suppression of Palestinian nationhood). The Palestinian naqba (catastrophe) was the consequence. We need to remedy this, but to ignore reality or try and reverse it would only create a fresh human catastrophe. What we can demand is that the Israeli forces and settlers are withdrawn to the pre-1967 borders, and the Palestinian people allowed to set up their state in the remainder.
As socialists we would prefer one democratic state - a federation perhaps - covering the whole of Palestine. We would favour a united socialist states of the Middle East. But how can any of this be achieved, without unity of the working class, jewish and Arab, and Kurdish too, across the region? And how can you even begin to unite workers so long as one nationality oppresses another, or feels its very existence threatened?
At present there is one state in Palestine, the Israeli Zionist state, doing pretty well what it likes. It is unlikely to decide to voluntarily transform itself into a democratic secular state. But it can be forced to retreat, and the forces to bring about change exist, in the Palestinian freedom struggle, the Israeli peace movement, and the potential struggle of both nations’ working class. The advance towards two states would create the real basis for people joining as equals in one federated state.
To insist there can be no advance until we have the “secular democratic state” - achieved we know not how - takes nothing forward, and condemns the Palestinian masses to endless struggle without gain, while the imperialist-backed Israeli state continues to expand and create ‘facts’ on the ground.
It is time we in the SA exorcised the ghosts of Tony Cliff and other gurus, stop contenting ourselves with arguments as to which sect has correctly interpreted the ‘line’, and start taking responsibility for an international perspective for the working class to change the world.
On that, I expect Padraic will agree - even if we have yet to reach agreement on how.
Charlie Pottins
Jewish Socialists’ Group
Iraq blockade
On June 11, two young boys both named Hussein, both eight years old were killed. A Zionist soldier shot the first child in the occupied West Bank. The blockade killed the second in the Central Hospital for Children in Baghdad.
The ongoing struggle in Iraq and Palestine is of the same issue - the struggle against brutal powers trying to kill off Iraq and Palestine’s young generation - in other words, trying to kill the future.
We are doing our best to work, to raise our children, to develop Iraq, which is the cradle of civilisation - because here in Iraq the first letters in history were found, the first numbers and the first wheel.
These are salaams to and regards from Iraq to you. And from Iraq and you to Palestine, let us put our hands together to make peace with justice and dignity in the whole world.
Iraqi oppositionist
Baghdad
Green socialists
In his report of the Socialist Alliance executive, Marcus Ström writes: “There is also the Green Left Network” (Weekly Worker June 13). He is confusing two separate organisations: the Green Left and the Green Socialist Network.
The GSN, after a heated debate, resolved at its 2001 AGM to affiliate to the Socialist Alliance. It would have paid an appropriate fee and been open to requests for financial contributions to sustain the SA. However, after the December 1 conference this was not possible. Having had negative experiences in the old Communist Party, many GSN comrades were unhappy with the conduct of the conference and the slate system for electing the executive. There are two GSN members on the executive but neither is there as a representative of the GSN.
The last GSN committee meeting resolved to send an observer to the SA national council and to invite Liz Davies to address the next committee meeting. Between then and the AGM there will be ongoing debate about the relationship between the GSN and the SA. Meanwhile GSN members have stood as SA candidates. GSN is in merger talks with the Left Alliance and together with it and other groups has set up Green Left Liaison. GSN remains committed to socialist unity.
Green socialists feel there is a need for serious, science-informed debate both between greens and socialists and amongst socialists about the environmental crisis facing our planet. GSN’s contribution can be found in the updated edition of Towards green socialism.
Labour often uses red and yellow, which may say something about its cowardice in the face of the class enemy. We may use red or green and red. What is important is the politics and that all are standing on the same platform.
Terry Liddle
Greenwich
Election challenge
My report on the June meeting of the Socialist Alliance executive committee may have given the impression that the alliance had made a firm decision to stand a slate of SA candidates in the European and London elections in 2004 (Weekly Worker June 13). I would like to clear up any misunderstanding the report may have caused.
The executive made no firm decisions with regard to our candidates or campaigns in these elections. My understanding of the discussions at the executive is that we have set a goal of ensuring that a united socialist campaign is fielded in all EU parliamentary constituencies in England and that socialists contest every London seat and field a full London-wide list and most probably a mayoral candidate.
Obviously, the make-up of any such campaign depends upon negotiations with other socialist forces. I would hope it would be as united - politically and organisationally - as possible.
The SA has again recently written to the Socialist Labour Party seeking further discussions on electoral cooperation. And I trust there will be positive discussions arising from the recent letter from the Socialist Party in England and Wales to the SA executive. Obviously, I think that the best vehicle for socialist unity in these elections remains through the SA itself. However, the question of cooperation or joint campaigns with other socialist forces remains an open question.
Marcus Ström
SA executive committee
Awful vote
Another council by election, another awful vote for the Socialist Alliance. I am of course referring to the election in Luton, where the SA scored an incredibly low 18 votes. When I heard, I couldn’t believe it - surely the candidate must have known more than 18 friends or family who would have voted for him? Obviously not.
What kind of campaign did the SA run? There are two possibilities. Firstly they didn’t do anything at all apart from some half-hearted leafleting. Secondly, they did loads of campaigning, and they managed to put people off.
When will the SA learn that when socialists stand in elections you have to take it seriously, or otherwise you may as well not bother? Look at the Independent Working Class Association and the Socialist Party: in areas where they stand they take it seriously and get half decent votes - by canvassing, listening and working with the working class. Not by having the endorsement of some comedian from Islington or Edmonton Green.
It is necessary and indeed possible to build an alternative to Labour, but only with the necessary determination, strategy and orientation towards the class. The SA has once again proved that it fails to deliver on all three counts.
Peter Dennis
London
Swazi solidarity
The UK-based Swaziland Solidarity Campaign, launched this week, is blaming the western-imposed liberalisation policies for food shortages throughout southern Africa.
In Swaziland, a country of over one million people, the World Food Programme estimates that 210,000 people will face food shortages this year following an 18% fall in maize production in 2001. Domestic cereal supply of 77,000 tonnes is far short of the 188,000 tonnes requirement. The WFP estimates the country will need at least 15,200 tonnes of food aid in 2002 to avert starvation.
While lack of rainfall has undoubtedly contributed to the crisis, the underlying problems are related to the end of subsidies for fertilisers, a lack of capital investment, declining commodity prices and unfair trading practices by western states.
It is all very well dumping surplus European food produce on southern Africa during a famine, but what the continent needs is practical solutions. The neoliberal dogma of the west is hypocritical and has provoked this disaster, having been foisted upon the region through the IMF’s Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility.
The Swaziland Solidarity Campaign intends to promote democracy and development in Swaziland. It is linked to the pro-democracy and trade union movements.
The latest issue of the SSC’s newsletter Simunye - can be downloaded from our website at http://www.globalisation.org.uk.
Daniel Brett
SSC coordinator
Death fast
Our death fast is our resistance war against the imperialists’ policy of destruction and of using terrorism and massacres to make the peoples of the world surrender. The F-type prisons aim to turn prisoners into ‘living dead’, and the fulcrum of this policy is one of isolation. Our death fast resistance will go on until isolation is ended.
The frightened and intimidated have tried to act as though they do not even see our resistance, and they have shrunk from supporting it, while having no hang-ups about joining the chorus of support for the murderous state in various ways, both direct and indirect. We have continued our resistance war despite such people. Our strength has increased from our rightness, from our beliefs, from our love for each other and for our people, and from the values we have created, drawing on thousands of years of the people’s struggle through history.
At this stage, all groups apart from the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C) and the Communist Labour Party of Turkey-Leninist have dropped out of the resistance. The groups that dropped out did not believe the resistance would win. They continually withdrew demands and tried to bring it to an end. From the start, they did not adopt a determined attitude. Sections within these groups opposed the resistance and this had an effect on their organisations. They saw betrayals as legitimate and to an increasing extent they came out in support of these betrayals.
When these sections ended resistance, the media, in the service of the oligarchy, took great pleasure in putting out news that the death fast actions had ended. The state in the service of the media is using those events as a way of discounting our resistance and attempting to smother it, but our resistance is continuing and will continue. There is no force that can destroy this truth, and trying to discount it cannot prevent it either.
DHKP-C
Prisoners organisation
Satpal Ram free
At 7pm on Tuesday June 18, Satpal Ram, wrongly convicted of murder after defending himself from a racist attack, walked through the prison gate of HMP Blantyre House for the last time after 15 years in jail.
It was a fight to the bitter end. Threatened with legal action, that continued imprisonment of Satpal was unlawful, the treasury solicitor for the home office threw in the towel last Thursday and said they would release Satpal. All it needed was the counter-signature of a home office minister - usually the prison minister would counter-sign.
On October 27 2000 the parole board gave an unprecedented recommendation supporting the immediate release of Satpal Ram. However, the then home secretary, Jack Straw, refused to accept the recommendation and ordered that Satpal should remain in prison.
Dennis Stafford’s recent victory at the European Court of Human Rights forced Blunkett to reverse that decision. The ruling clearly stated that the continued detention by the home secretary, after the parole board’s recommendation to release someone, was illegal.
Satpal Ram’s lawyer, Daniel Guedalla, said: “It does not mean they accept he is innocent and he is still challenging his wrongful conviction. This is a victory but not complete vindication. He is still on a life licence until his conviction is quashed. He lost 18 months or more of his liberty because of Jack Straw interfering.”
Satpal’s conviction has not been quashed and, though he is now out on licence, he will continue to fight the conviction that kept him in prison since 1987.
Miscarriages of Justice
London
Housing bubble
As a former member of the Socialist Party and a new reader of the Weekly Worker, I would like to discuss the subject of house prices.
When I was a member of the SP, I tried in vain to get its paper, The Socialist, to discuss the house price bubble. Perhaps its refusal was partly because its general secretary, Peter Taaffe, lives in a house in Islington ‘worth’ over £250,000. It seems that the SP has the same analysis as the media - that house prices always go up, but never down.
I have done extensive research of many ‘socialist’ organisations but have found very little analysis of house prices. I believe that the house price bubble is just like other bubbles, such as the tulip bubble in 17th century Holland, and the Florida land bubble of the 1920s. After the speculative bubble bursts there is usually a collapse in values of about 80% from the peak.
I would be very interested to read in the Weekly Worker an analysis of house prices, especially in London and south-east England.
John Smithee
Cambridgeshire
