Weekly Worker 526 Thursday April 29 2004

Letters

George and abortion

Interesting to note your paper’s coverage of George Galloway as a catholic, defender of the Cuban revolution and fervent anti-abortionist (April 22).

A few things spring to mind about this. Catholics (as I was raised as a child) were required to not delve too much into the history of their church. I am heartened to see that a fellow catholic (in the Irish sense) maintains a loyal ignorance to the history of Rome.

There has always been debate among the luminaries of the church on the matter of abortion. For instance St Thomas Aquinas (c1225-1274) did not believe life started at conception. Rather he stated that the foetus is first endowed with a “vegetative soul”, then an “animal soul”, and then - when its body is developed - a rational soul: this was termed hominisation. For much of the history of the church, hominisation occurred relatively close to birth. This was a common thread of catholic theology and one which had been grudgingly laid down by the founding theologian of the modern church, St Augustus of Hippo (354-430), who asked: “But who is not rather disposed to think that unformed foetuses perish like seeds which have not fructified?”

Even more revealing: the penitential ascribed by Albers to The Venerable Bede (c672-735), the idea of delayed hominisation is again supported, and women’s circumstances acknowledged: “A mother who kills her child before the 40th day shall do penance for one year. If it is after the child has become alive [she shall do penance] as a murderess. But it makes a great difference whether a poor woman does it on account of the difficulty of supporting [the child] or a harlot for the sake of concealing her wickedness.”

It is important to recall that it was the second Vatican council in 1965 that declared ‘protection’ from the moment of conception. Up until that time it was not completely recognised church policy. Indeed, it should be understood that excommunications for abortions only came in 1869.

So, simply put, Galloway’s position is in concert with Rome on the matter of the active subjugation of the right of women for the control of their destinies and bodies. A far cry from the reasonably ‘enlightened’ views of church thinkers from 300 to 1965. Verily, he is a modern man who has cast aside the shibboleths of old.

For the Great Defender of the Cuban revolution I would like to add the following quote from Dr Miguel Sosa Marín, obstetrician-gynaecologist and president of the Cuban Society of Family Development: “The right to quality abortion services and to choose abortion based on the ‘right of women and couples to decide on reproduction’ is something Cuban women achieved in the early 60s, as part of their struggle for full gender equality. The legalisation of abortion in Cuba was also based on the need to reduce highly risky complications from the extensive and indiscriminate practice of illegal abortions, which was accepted and tolerated in the country, and which had resulted in elevated maternal mortality and a high incidence of mutilations.”

And, no, I don’t think either Dr Marín or I are part of a “claque of eastern European anti-communist émigrés”.

Anthony McLaughlin
Sydney

Respect equality

I have just read Joe Wills’s clarification of the South West Respect meeting and am not impressed in the slightest by what he has to say (Letters, April 22).

The fact that Majid Khan made comments in favour of gender segregation even in a “personal capacity” on the Respect platform is still worrying. Joe Wills also doesn’t answer the question about whether anyone challenged him on these issues and if so, why was that? Something to do with the fact they were being said in a “personal capacity”?

C’mon, comrade, you can do better than that! The CPGB were happy to challenge Respect about voting against a republic at the founding conference, but still couldn’t criticise Majid Khan’s comments about gender segregation. This goes against the ‘e’ in Respect for equality, doesn’t it? I mean, even comrade Wills eloquently quotes the Respect line on fighting discrimination later on in his letter.

Majid Khan used the Respect platform to air his ‘personal views’, but that still gives people the right to criticise. Comrade Wills then informs us that the CPGB would be “out like a shot” if Respect ditched lesbian, gay and women’s rights. Don’t you believe that they are being ditched already? Again, I would like to pose the question, which in my previous letter was chopped, about how many more concessions are the Socialist Workers Party et al willing to make in accommodating reactionary ideas?

And now we have Marcus Ström prepared to work with ‘flawed people’ (‘Votes of conscience and women’s rights’, April 22). I am pro-choice and defend a woman’s right to choose and unlike Marcus Ström I am unwilling to work with people like Galloway and Majid Khan who wish to attack women’s rights.

Yes, by all means work with diverse groups when it comes to single-issue campaigns, such as campaigning against war in Iraq, but, when it comes to having an electoral coalition with such groups, then I say, no way! I have sympathy with the sentiments made by Graham Bash (‘Find answers in Labour, not Respect’, April 22) and I believe that talents have been squandered and a real viable democratic socialist alternative to Labour has been lost to a ragbag of socialists and reactionaries. That’s the real shame!

Louise Whittle
email

Respect democracy

There has been no reply from the Respect executive to letters asking for details of ‘the deal’ done by the Respect EC and the Socialist Party concerning Coventry (see Weekly Worker April 8). This deal apparently means that the Respect EC have decreed that there will be no Respect candidates in the June local elections in the city, giving the SP a free run, in return for the SP not standing in the European elections.

The local SP denies any knowledge of a deal and says it must be a national matter. The local Socialist Workers Party claims that the deal was done between Dave Nellist and George Galloway at a private meeting at Coventry railway station before George spoke at the first Coventry Respect meeting. It is not clear what happened because bureaucratic decisions have been made by both the SP and Respect national bodies without reference to their members on the ground. And apparently we are still not to be told on what basis and for what reason the decisions were made, let alone have a say in the matter.

Meanwhile letters have been sent to socialists in Coventry by both the local Socialist Party and by Respect appealing for election funds and giving details of canvassing and leafleting activities. Respect even invites us to a dinner with George Galloway in Birmingham at £30 a head. If only they could get Posh and Becks! There is surely an elementary bourgeois democratic principle here - no taxation without representation. Who decides on the candidates? Who decides what goes in the leaflets? Who decides on the programme of activities? No say in the running of the organisation must mean no money and no support. In the case of Respect we have been told by the SWP that there are no plans to set up a Coventry branch, so what is the point?

I think that the CPGB should take up the question of democracy within Respect and of course within the SWP as the key issue for building a workers’ party, rather than items of policy. Marcus Ström mentions the experience with Arthur Scargill and the Socialist Labour Party in 1997. He is right: there is a parallel. Arthur Scargill tried to kick-start the SLP using the 1997 general election campaign. George Galloway and the SWP are doing the same with the European elections and the GLA. Actually Scargill had bigger meetings and generated more enthusiasm than Respect. His downfall was his bureaucratic methods. I was at the SLP conference in 1998, as were CPGB members, when we discovered Arthur had 3,000 votes in his back pocket. There was spontaneous anger and a deep feeling of betrayal from the floor of the conference and that was the end of the SLP. Arthur seemed to have no understanding or sympathy for democratic processes.

For me George Galloway and the SWP are the same. I think that many radicals will not touch Respect with a bargepole for that reason: bureaucratic methods and lack of respect for the membership. When I have spoken to comrades in Coventry about ‘the deal’, they say, ‘Why are you so surprised? You’re talking about the SP and the SWP. That’s the way they behave.’ Like Peter Tatchell (Letters, April 8) they will be voting Green in the European elections. In the local elections they may be voting for two independent socialist candidates who have decided to stand in spite of ‘the deal’ - Paul Smith in Earlsdon Ward, a founder member of Coventry SWP who stood in the ward for the Socialist Alliance last year, and Christine Oddy in Lower Stoke Ward, a former Labour MEP who stood as an independent in the last European elections and got more votes in Coventry than any other party.

Dave Spencer
Coventry

Outstanding

I thought Ian Donovan’s recent articles on the situation in Iraq to be simply outstanding. They contain a careful and sensitive analysis of the balance between the need to support the inherent right of ordinary Iraqi people to hit back and struggle against the vicious and murderous occupation of their country and the need to develop alternative political leaderships, which are much more about genuine liberation and for fundamental social emancipation.

I have to say, however, that your support for Respect is a complete and utter blind alley and really would suggest you have lost your bearings! The basic politics of the Socialist Workers Party, as expressed in their ‘Where we stand’ statement and current articles are really not too bad - if only they chose to fight for these openly, rather than via reformist and diversionary fronts like the Socialist Alliance and Respect.

Nonetheless, I support what is good about your contribution.

Andrew Northall
Northants

Pit amnesia

I read with interest the article ‘Forgive and forget?’ (Weekly Worker April 8). On face value a decent, well-balanced narrative, even if it does draw heavily on the author’s own experiences of the miners’ strike.

However, it is the last column I take issue with. I have always had a lot of respect for Dave Douglass, even if he does ‘gan his own gait’ at times. When he stoops to underhand slagging of his own union and figures within it, he detracts from the article as a whole. No union can say it got things 100% right. Indeed, as the oft repeated slogan on union banners states, ‘Let us not forget the lessons of the past’.

Dave is also getting to the age where selective amnesia is affecting his sage-like scribblings. For instance, he writes: “Suddenly, the new delegate was identified as a scab.” He’d been one since early 1984, but Dave must have forgotten! The man got elected on a pie-in-the-sky ‘pension at 50’ promise for miners made redundant at Selby. No individual union man could achieve that - it’s a question for both trustees and government. This is something David used to know about!

He writes that “this man was removed as a delegate and replaced”. Again what he neglects to report or has forgotten about is actually that this man transferred to another colliery! Again, it’s a terrible thing to have selective amnesia.

When a lad at one south Yorkshire pit refused to sign for flexible working, in the first instance he was made redundant. On appeal, he was allowed to transfer to a Union of Democratic Mineworkers pit over the border, but was then refused because as an NUM member the employer could not guarantee his safety (this followed alleged remarks made in the 1990s!). The point to this example is that the lad was asked to resign his position as a delegate because he had left.
There is further mileage in this debate, but the point has been made and the record set straight. A final point. Despite the vagaries of the union rule book that Dave so dislikes, there is no mention anywhere that a “scab” cannot stand for office and subsequently be elected.

Chris Skidmore
Yorkshire NUM

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