Weekly Worker 512 Thursday January 22 2004

Letters

Headscarves

Having heard of Lutte Ouvrière’s position on the wearing of the islamic scarf by schoolgirls, I was not entirely surprised by the facts described in Peter Manson’s article - though I’m grateful to him for bringing out the details of the Lévy sisters’ case, and the nasty implications of supporting Chirac’s legislation (Weekly Worker January 8).

For the French imperialist state to lay down the law on what pupils can wear, and teachers should enforce, and this to be greeted as a step to “freedom”, is surely Orwellian! If Lutte Ouvrière members in the teaching profession are really welcoming and implementing such bans, then calling them Chirac’s “policemen” is no more than fair comment.

But what’s this? Lutte Ouvrière says it has been misrepresented, that the article’s “tone” is “insulting”, and that it is full of “factual mistakes” (Letters, January 15). Well, not taking everything I read in the Weekly Worker as holy writ (!), I’d have been grateful for them putting the record straight. But apparently they ‘have not got time’, because they are preparing for elections. (I hope they will find time to answer questions from voters in the banlieus, or will they leave it to their left partners?) What’s more - it seems their UK franchise, Workers Fight, has not got time either. Rather than take the opportunity to discuss what attitude socialists should take on this issue, Anna Hunt says we should not concern ourselves with events abroad, when the Socialist Workers Party is trying to pursue ties with “political islam”. This is the old discredited game of avoiding a serious issue by pointing at something else.

The issue of what attitude socialists should take to religion and the state is a bit bigger, and rightly interests far more people, than what this or that leftwing group is up to. It concerns us in Britain or Ireland as much as in Israel, France or Iraq. And, believe it or not, we are quite capable of opposing islamic, or any other variety of reaction, without trusting ‘liberation’ to the bourgeois state, or abandoning the defence of minorities and against state repression and racism.

It is ridiculous for the SWP to tail behind the Muslim Association of Britain, even reputedly urging its own members to don the headscarf; but it would be a shame if the defence of minority rights and youngsters like the Lévy sisters was left to religious leaders, who want to use the issue to defend not freedom, but their own authority. For ‘revolutionaries’ to accept, let alone uphold, repressive bans can only hand young muslims (and other communities affected) back to religious leaders - and it also raises suspicions about the left’s own accommodation to prejudices. I imagine a young woman looking in anguish from religious tyranny to state oppression, and asking, ‘Is that all there is?’ Surely socialism must be able to offer an alternative - one of truly human freedom.

We should oppose the French government’s ban and the adoption of sharia law in Iraq. There’s no contradiction there: only consistency. Some women comrades have recalled a past and still valid slogan, ‘Not the church and not the state! Women must decide their fate!’

Charlie Pottins
email

Authoritarian

In his fire-and-brimstone article supporting Jacques Chirac’s proposed ban on the wearing of “ostentatious” religious symbols, comrade Terry Liddle manifests a disquietingly authoritarian irreligiosity (‘Secular support for ban’ Weekly Worker January 15).

According to Terry, by proposing a state crackdown on what school students are allowed to wear, the current citizen number one, Chirac, is placing himself “in the French republican tradition” - even if, regrettably, he is “no Robespierre”. Inspired by France, it seems, comrade Liddle fervently looks forward to the day when “the hijab, the skullcap and the cross, and all symbols of religious oppression, are consigned to the flames” and all the great religious texts and scriptures are “consigned to the attentions of worms and mice”.

This is not the right approach. Leaving aside the lurking philistinism and reductionist atheology of such comments, comrade Liddle displays a woeful misunderstanding of secularism. Yet from the standpoint of Marxism this is a relatively straightforward issue - at least from the general theoretical-philosophical point of view.

Secularism, for democrats, means the strict separation of church and state - that is, the state and its institutions must not be permitted to promote, privilege or favour any religious faith or doctrine - thus, obviously, any form of religious worship or instruction is prohibited, and school and college buildings are not allowed to display religious symbols, “ostentatious” or otherwise (though it goes without saying that the overall question of religion - its historical origins, cultural significance, etc - will, and indeed must be, rigorously examined and discussed, without fear of censure, pedagogical disapproval or offending ‘multicultural’ sensibilities). However, what the individuals who attend these institutions choose to wear, for whatever reason, is entirely up to them - or should be.

For me this is just ‘classical’ or ‘orthodox’ Marxism - hardly rocket science. But for comrade Liddle, and presumably the comrades from Lutte Ouvrière (and the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire?), it is “spurious libertarianism” and must be combated.

So what is Terry’s non-spurious approach? Well, like any vigilant state bureaucrat, or high priest, Terry knows what is best for you - and what is really, really bad. Hence the hijab, skullcap and cross (sikh turban? buddhist robe?) are “symbols of oppression” - pure and simple. No namby-pamby stuff from Terry about the complexities of human nature, with all its conflicting and overlapping cultural identities and mediations. Comrade Liddle will force you to be free. Therefore, “Anything which weakens the influence of religion in society and the power of the clergy over their flocks is to be welcomed” (my emphasis).

Given Terry’s opening remarks, we have to assume that “anything” includes the banning of the hijab, etc, by a rightwing and corrupt monarchical French president, which would turn all French teachers into part-time gendarmes whose function is to police the classroom and decide which pupil is wearing “ostentatious” religious clothing/artefacts and which is not - and what happens to those who have the cheek to actually voice “ostentatious” religious beliefs and values? Watch this space.

In this context, it is informative that comrade Liddle singles out the Society (or League) of Militant Godless, founded in April 1925 in the Soviet Union, for special praise - on the grounds, as Terry puts it, that it “sought to free the minds of the Soviet masses from the feudal ideological grip of orthodox christianity”. Oh yes? In his comprehensive study of the League of Militant Godless (or Atheists), Daniel Peris notes that the League ultimately became little more than an ancillary weapon in the broader battle for enforced collectivisation and industrialisation, a bureaucratic channel for the Stalinite dictatorship, with the result that “by the mid-1930s there was, in effect, little that was atheistic in Soviet anti-religion” (D Peris Storming the heavens: the Soviet League of the Militant Godless New York 1998, p115).

Is Terry really serious in looking towards the League of Militant Godless, maybe even the Soviet Union itself, as a ‘secular’ role model for socialists and communists in the 21st century? Or perhaps he would prefer an Enver Hoxha-style atheocracy - which saw the Albanian masses ‘officially’ liberated from the influence of religion. Luckily, comrade Liddle can still avail himself of the opportunity to visit North Korea, where I am sure that there is not a hijab, skullcap or cross in sight and all superstition is surely banished - so the masses there must be happy and free, if we are to follow Terry’s idealised logic.

In his polemics against Bakunin on the peasantry, Marx warned against treating “atheism as dogma”. Unfortunately, comrade Liddle has not heeded this advice - you get the impression that he is a materialist because he is an atheist, not an atheist because he is a materialist.

Means determine ends and ends determine means, as Marx consistently stressed throughout his political life. It can never be said too often: socialism is the winning of the battle for democracy, not how many ‘atheist drives’ you can launch or the passing of anti-democratic pseudo-secular laws.

Eddie Ford
Cornwall

John the martyr

Manny Neira makes a compelling case for the democratic aspects of democratic centralism (Weekly Worker January 15). But he does not apply his valid points to the expulsion of John Pearson from the CPGB. The political context was the development of the ‘peace and justice’/Respect unity coalition by the Socialist Workers Party and the CPGB attitude towards it.

What should have happened according to Manny’s stress on the democratic pole is this. The CPGB Provisional Central Committee meets to discuss the new political turn by the SWP. It’s a new, significant development which has no previous membership mandate, so the PCC, as the political leadership, discusses/debates the issues and publishes its political deliberations or minutes to the membership. It makes a recommendation or shows a political lead by asking for approval of a course of action. The membership is then able to look at the leaders’ views and their differences of shading and emphasis.

Now, since the membership of the CPGB is small and mainly based in London, it can be easily called together for an aggregate of the full membership. The aggregate can agree or vote for an alternative position, or go for an amended line. The minor differences between the leaders can be noted and a view taken on those so the leaders are not blindly trusted but accountable to the members. We would then have a majority collective view after full or maximum opportunity for debate and dissent.

Any fresh, significant development would bring the same democratic centralist response. Minutes of the PCC and the aggregate would clearly record the reasons for majority decisions and the argument of any minority or dissenter. Members would be able to reassess the politics after been kept fully informed.

But what actually happened was that there were no aggregates called for some weeks as the initiative unfolded. Nor was there any record or minutes of the political discussion among the trusted leaders of the PCC, according to Manny. It was all top-down centralism. There was no consistent attitude from the leaders and it was difficult to know who represented the collective view of the PCC, let alone the membership.

John Pearson was expelled in an aggregate called to retrospectively authorise the CPGB leaders’ course of action by a membership which was not actively involved in the SA or a dialogue with the leaders in an open and transparent process. The motion for expulsion was put by Jack Conrad, the leader who wanted John expelled. There was no right of appeal to this decision.

When John and I were voided by Scargill in the Socialist Labour Party without the right to appeal, the CPGB described this as undemocratic. Democratic centralism should require a disciplinary committee composed of comrades not on the PCC and the right of appeal should be built into the rules.

Barry Biddulph
Chair, Stockport SA

Repeated

John Pearson has used this forum (Letters, January 15) to take issue with my defence of the CPGB’s decision to expel him from the party (Letters, December 18). He accuses me of “inventing previous form” when I described his “repeated refusal” to accept the legitimacy of party decisions and said that he had “repeatedly let down his comrades”.

The Collins concise dictionary defines the word ‘repeat’ as: “to do or experience (something) again, once or several times”. As comrade Pearson broke party discipline by voting against our agreed line on three separate occasions at the inaugural conference of the Democracy Platform of the Socialist Alliance, it seems to me that my use of this term is accurate.

Moreover, during the month between these incidents and the party aggregate on December 8, John was asked many times by various comrades if he would undertake to abide by the rules of the party. During numerous email exchanges he refused to give such an undertaking, a stance he repeated verbally at the aggregate itself, much to the disappointment of all who were present.

If the comrade does not have access to a dictionary at home, I suggest he tries using one of the many excellent online reference resources.

Steve Cooke
Stockton-on-Tees

Not selective

Comrade Roger Harper suggests that the expulsion of John Pearson exposes the CPGB’s discipline as “selective” (Letters, January 15).

As evidence, he cites the decision of a Party aggregate in early 2003 to send a letter to members who did not attend the massive February 15 anti-war demo in London. He asserts that this was never done. Therefore, comrades who failed to show on this “biggest class action for over 20 years” were never confronted.

This is incorrect. Subsequent to this aggregate decision, comrades who did not get themselves to such key mass actions were written to and asked for an explanation. This resulted in us eventually parting ways with four comrades, with varying degrees of amicability. Roger was not a member during this period, so his take on these events is a little imprecise. I can assure him, however, that both the aggregate and the leadership of the Party regarded it an extremely serious matter that a mass upsurge could propel the likes of Kylie Minogue onto the streets, but not comrades who classified themselves as members.

Roger’s last point concerning the expulsion of comrade Pearson himself does not make sense. He calls the expulsion “a mistake”. But then he suggests that “more in line” with the nature of comrade Pearson’s ‘crime’ would have been “a return to candidate membership or supporter status”. Yet John Pearson made it plain throughout the aggregate that he had no intention of voluntarily relinquishing Party membership and becoming a supporter.

An aggregate can hardly impose supporter status on a comrade who does not want it. It can only deprive a comrade of membership - it is up to that individual to decide their future relationship with the organisation. Comrade Pearson has made it clear in practice since he left our ranks that he has no intention of being regarded as a supporter of the Communist Party.

So, effectively, Roger supports the expulsion. Good. In this, he is fully in line with the vast majority of CPGB comrades.

Ian Mahoney
London

Questioning

At the January 20 ‘British politics at the crossroads’ meeting in Cardiff, I had the pleasure of questioning John Rees.

I asked him why the chairperson had failed to introduce him as a member of the SWP. Furthermore, all reference to the revolutionary politics the working class needs in order to transform society was absent from his opening remarks. I was disturbed by his response. Quite openly, he informed the audience that he had withheld this information because he wanted people to join Respect and not be put off.

There are a number of concerns here. Not only are his remarks both patronising and fundamentally dishonest, but they reveal little understanding of the role parties play in engaging with the new coalition. Presumably, comrade Rees plans to introduce revolutionary politics little by little to the wider movement and hopes to see the SWP grow as a result. However, is it not the case, comrade Rees, that in order to change society the prevailing ideas must be challenged?

All transformation starts with a pole of opposition. If it does not, then you will find that you have not changed society, but it has changed you.

Ethan Grech
Cardiff

Respect

I attended the first launch meeting of the Respect unity coalition in Liverpool - more out of interest than any genuine enthusiasm for the project. As custom dictates, a veritable feast of lefty paper-sellers flanked the entrance to the meeting - held at the Gladstone Hotel.

Michael Lavalette, the country’s sole Socialist Alliance councillor, oversaw proceedings. Journalist Yvonne Ridley and director Alex Cox (of Sid and Nancy fame and supporter of the woollier-than-thou Green Party) were the first to lend their support to the coalition.

However, John Rees, to his credit, mentioned the working class at least four or five times in his speech. Unfortunately most of his audience was middle class - and there’s nothing worse than middle class do-gooders telling the working class what’s best for them. Comrade Rees regurgitated the same abstract ideas that the Socialist Alliance failed to win over the class with, but he did get the middle class radicals in the hall quite excited.

The star attraction was the Great Leader Galloway, his oratory as stirring as ever. Galloway’s motivations behind Respect were clear. He informed us that he didn’t want his 40 years of political activism to have been in vain. In other words, now he could no longer make a name for himself in the Labour Party, he would make do with his budding new band of acolytes.

The RUC represents no great improvement on previous efforts. Maybe the Independent Working Class Association is the way forward, as other readers have suggested. Maybe we need a Convention of the Working Class, free from dogma and delusions of grandeur. Either way, I’ve swallowed as much of this stuff as I can take.

Joe Brunton
email

No association

I was intrigued by comrade Harris’s assertion (January 15) that the letter from Mick O’Conaill (January 8), in which he announces his intention to join the IWCA, shows that the CPGB “is now losing even its close supporters”.

Who is Mick O’Conaill? As far as I am aware, this person has had no association with the CPGB whatsoever.

Mark Fischer
London

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