Weekly Worker 598 Thursday October 27 2005

Letters

British-Irish

Jack Conrad writes: “We stand for a united Ireland, within which a one-county, four-half-county British-Irish province exercises self-determination. Such a programmatic clause would help reassure backward and medium-developed British-Irish workers that they have nothing to fear from the rule of the working class. We have no interest in forced or involuntary unity and reversing the poles of oppression. Our aim is achieving the maximum unity of the working class objective circumstances permit” (Weekly Worker September 29).

He does not identify any social group or political force that advocates such self-determination nor does he demonstrate how it would benefit any class. This is a peculiar ideology of a British-Irish ‘nation’ without a national consciousness - the distinctive ‘psychological make-up’ of the protestant community in the north does not include self-awareness of being a nation. The unionists do not and did not speak in terms of nationalism or self-determination. Helsinga notes that “they rarely speak of themselves as a nation” (see M Helsinga The Irish border as a cultural divide Assen 1962, pp55-62). On the contrary, the Ulster unionist ideology sought identity with the British empire rather than self-determination. Ulster unionism must have been a very peculiar ‘nationalist’ movement, for initially they did not want even the minimum of devolved self-government which the United Kingdom parliament thrust on them.

Opposition to a nationalist movement by a section of the population does not mean that that section constitutes a separate nationality (see James Anderson, ‘Regions and religions in Ireland’ Antipode summer 1980). Even if for the sake of argument the Ulster protestants had been a nation, Marxists would not have supported it, for it is to ensure permanent unionist ascendancy. Today Ulster protestant ‘self-determination’ means maintaining sectarian divisions and the state of Northern Ireland, whether in the UK or independently.

It is a fear of losing sectarian privileges that the border underpins. It is stretching language too far to call the removal of sectarian privilege ‘reversing the poles of oppression’. A “one-county, four-half-county British-Irish province exercising self-determination” would represent an entrenchment of the differences based on religion and delay any movements towards socialism, rather than reassure “backward and medium-developed British-Irish workers”.

The objective of socialists is to create an all-Ireland workers’ republic as a first stage on the path towards worldwide socialism, which serves better the wider interests of the working class than adapting to the protestant working class’s opposition to participating in the national struggle.

Jack Conrad also upholds the general principle, ‘One state, one party’: “Communists do not organise according to the principle of nationality. They organise and unite with other communists in order to overthrow the specific capitalist state they happen to live under … In conditions of the Good Friday agreement communists in Northern Ireland will doubtless consider this general principle with the utmost seriousness. So will communists in the south. With direct rule workers in Northern Ireland and Great Britain unmistakably face the same government, the same state and share many of the same tasks.”

If I understand this correctly, this implies that socialists in Ireland should have a ‘partitionist’ approach to organisation. Those in the north should be part of a broader British organisation, and those in the south limit themselves to the 26 counties. This in fact had already happened in the past. At one stage there was a ‘Communist Party of Northern Ireland’ and in the south an ‘Irish Workers Group’. In practice this would mean political suicide for the small forces of Irish socialism. It would decrease rather than increase their development and chances of growing and would not advance the cause of socialism in Ireland.

It would make more sense for communists in Ireland to form a 32-county Irish section of a Communist Party of the European Union than divide into a British organisation and a 26-county one.

Liam O Ruairc
Belfast

Playboy left

I found the remarks of Tom Simpson to be the most outrageous I have ever come across from your paper (Letters, October 20). To smear me with being a “Spartoid” is cheap rhetoric that does not help in the slightest.

The group I referred to in Bournemouth does not “entrap” young women nor “force them to go through with unwanted pregnancies”. Maybe he would like to reread my letter. I stated that the home was for young girls who wished to continue with their pregnancies. And what about the case I mentioned of the fathers who had kicked their daughters out of their homes for refusing to have abortions? No criticism of these vile men - men who, I am sure, share his support for the British Pregnancy Advisory Service and their ilk.

Instead he directs his venom at the only people who are there to help those poor girls. Rather it is the likes of ‘Abortion Rights’ and the BPAS that entrap vulnerable people. They claim abortion is harmless, despite evidence to the contrary. They make misleading statements, while at the same time make money out of what they do. And neither do they give a damn about the emotional effects on women after an abortion - rather it is left to pro-life groups to pick up the pieces. Only they perform post-abortion counselling, and could tell you a few stories that would make your heart wrench about your so-called “democratic right”. The BPAS is a private practice. I know of no other circumstance when so called ‘socialists’ actually defend private medicine and subcontracting out the NHS, save when the procedure in question is abortion.

If, as Simpson claims, the Weekly Worker is so concerned with provisions for mothers then maybe they should write more articles about them, rather than harping on about the illusory ‘right to choose’, especially when it comes to the horror of late abortions.

Lastly, abortion is not a sign of “women controlling their fertility”. It is a sign of the opposite. Fertility control involves the responsible use of contraception, not the removal by surgeons of foetuses. Unwanted pregnancies occur due to unprotected sex or people not using contraception properly. It may be anathema for our leftist playboys to hear, but abstinence is a form of birth control too. Abortion is the ultimate exploitation and degradation of women, be it ‘voluntary’ or not.

It is inconsistent of the left to continue to support a practice that involves the destruction of life and enables men to use women as sexual objects for reproductive-free intercourse, conveniently forgetting the biological consequences of their actions and putting the burden onto women by claiming abortion is a ‘woman’s decision’. It is a pity that the left and feminism have bought into this playboy-friendly, consumerist mentality that has no respect for the dignity and equity of women - or life itself for that matter.

Liz Hoskings
London

Consensus?

I am very interested in the debate on abortion, as it is one of those foggy and unclear aspects of both religious and political life.

My question is about the ‘woman’s right to choose’ issue: what is the consensus if a woman wants to keep her baby but her husband wants the pregnancy aborted? I’m asking in terms of islam (and sharia?), christianity and British politics.

Munjlee Naseem
London

Child’s right

Your article, ‘Wasted opportunity’, was a vitriolic piece: “Nevertheless, despite Galloway’s vile views on such questions …” (Weekly Worker April 7). Don’t you understand that the pro-life issue is about the child’s right to life? You seem to confuse this with adult choice, which is where contraception comes in.

David Sparrow
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Islamic Relief

I have to say that I was horrified by the human insensitivity of your article about charity (‘Like sending money to George Bush’, October 20).

Yes charities do have to keep a neutral political stance in every place where they work in order to help the people who are suffering there. People in Pakistan are dying, in an area that cannot be reached other than by helicopter. Would Tina Becker like to be responsible for many more deaths if people in trusting ignorance withhold their kind donations from reaching any person that can only be reached with permission to fly through Pakistani air space? I hope not. That means basically everyone in need of our help in Pakistan right now.

As for the charity, Islamic Relief, first of all, every donor chooses what their donation is to be spent on and, secondly, the admin charges vary from 5% to 12%, depending on the project that you choose to donate to - please get your facts right next time.

Finally since you are apparently utterly ignorant of the religion of islam, since you consider it too bourgeois, I would like to inform you that an endowment is in fact a long-term donation, such as money given towards the physical building of a school rather than a short-term project. Once again this is a choice of the donor as to which long-term project they wish to donate to.

Shani Inan
email

Tina Becker replies: Islamic Relief’s very extensive accounts, to which I referred in my article, are publicly accessible on the website of the charity commission at www.charity-com-mission.gov.uk/registeredcharities/Acc-ountListing.asp?charitynumber=328158.

My article also featured contact details and requests for donations from three democratic and working class organisations in Pakistan that are involved in the relief effort.

Combat or not?

Phil Kent himself asks the highly problematic and question-begging rhetorical question: “Why vote rightwing at a leftwing conference unless you want to move the organisation to the right? If that’s your agenda why not say so and explain why you think it is necessary, rather than making absurd claims as to our motives, which are self-evidently to move Respect to the left” (letters, October 20).

The problem is that it is not “self-evident” that the CPGB wants to move Respect “to the left”. Islamophobia is a left-right issue, and the CPGB is on the islamophobic, rightwing side of that divide, along with the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty (which can also pose ‘left’ on some questions - while kissing the warmongers’ posteriors) and others to their right.

One crucial example of this is the question of the Iraqi resistance. The CPGB claims that Respect is a ‘popular front’: that is, an alliance of working class organisations with a wing of the ruling class. Supposedly the ‘muslim activist’ elements Respect is demonstrably drawing to the left are the same as a wing of British imperialism - the bourgeois component of a cross-class coalition. Yet Respect, unlike any ‘popular front’ in the whole of political history, supports armed resistance by a colonised people against its own government - effectively standing for its defeat, as George Galloway has publicly said many times.

This is Respect policy - a policy that the CPGB opposes for reasons of islamophobia. So who is to the left on this question - Respect, which supports armed resistance to its own ruling class (see policy motions at 2004 conference), or the CPGB which does not support such resistance? It is obvious that on this key, strategic question, central to world politics today, the CPGB is attacking Respect from the right.

This is once again shown by Phil Kent’s ludicrous use of a Lenin quote, taken from one of the resolutions of the Second Congress of the Comintern, to justify this policy. This resolution speaks of the “need to combat pan-islamism and similar trends, which strive to combine the liberation movement against European and American imperialism with an attempt to strengthen the positions of the khans, landowners, mullahs, etc”. This is the only snippet of a quote Phil can dredge up to justify his policy of refusing to take sides with those resisting imperialism today.

But he tries to ‘prove’ too much. Lenin is talking about opposing the influence of landowners and other pre-capitalist holdovers on the ‘liberation movement’ against imperialism. Whether islamist tendencies as exist today are comparable to the ‘pan-islamists’ Lenin is referring to is extremely doubtful. But even if, just for argument’s sake we were to accept that they are comparable, ‘combating’ the influence of a particular trend or trends within the ‘liberation movement’ is hardly the same thing as denying that an armed struggle against direct colonial rule represents a liberation movement at all, and withholding the duty that is incumbent on communists to publicly and in front of the class solidarise with an anti-colonial struggle.

The idea that the Communist International ever refused to take sides, as do the CPGB, when an armed struggle by a colonised people against colonial rule erupted anywhere in the world is simply preposterous, as the CPGB well knows. The only way Phil can reconcile its previous support for the Provisional IRA’s armed struggle against British imperialism with its refusal to support the Iraqi resistance is to give this petty bourgeois nationalist formation, which was not above shooting leftists and workers itself, something of a communist coloration.

In fact, the political character of a national liberation movement, its greater or lesser openness to socialist ideas, certainly affect tactics of how to engage with such a movement. But they do not determine whether or not to take sides with that movement against imperialism. The existence of a democratic question determines that, and the occupation of Iraq is an even more clear-cut democratic question than the more complex and problematic question of the six-county Northern Ireland statelet, with its (gerrymandered and exaggerated, but real) pro-British majority.

On this question of principle, as well as on the related question of their refusal to support a number of Respect candidates in elections, basically because they are ‘muslim activists’ who have nevertheless signed up to a broadly socialist and working class platform, the CPGB is attacking Respect from the right. The sole exception being the question of immigration controls, as I explained in my letter last week, where there is a genuine concrete difference between old Labour reformism and a consistently internationalist ‘open borders’ position which offers the only coherent answer to a key concrete question facing Respect in dealing with the Blair government’s anti-immigrant measures.

I note that the CPGB have messed up the submission of a number of their motions, but nevertheless something that looks very much like their motion on immigration controls is on the order paper anyway. I will vote for that motion. I will not, however, be supporting motions that are coded attacks on those aspects of Respect that have a fundamentally progressive motivation, and which are motivated by islamophobia and a demonisation of muslims.

Ian Donovan
email

Dream

Comrades it is time to withdraw from the opportunist and communalist Respect coalition that is basically the George Galloway ‘cult of the personality’ party. Instead we need to be serious about forming a workers’ party and this requires us to join the Socialist Party, to be active in it, and to form a serious communist tendency within it.

Trotsky’s dream was of a united revolutionary party: let us try and realise that dream.

Phil Sharpe
email

Unequal

There are always ‘communist’ arguments for passivity and Mike Pearn has come up with another one in relation to the Welsh language (Letters, October 20).

I shall present him with a few more. The operation of the world market means that UK jobs will be shifted out to the low wage countries. So they have got to go. The capitalist class is stronger than the working class. So the working class must give way. US/UK imperialism is stronger than the Iraqi resistance. So, stop resisting, you Arabs.

Finally, The Sun’s circulation somewhat exceeds that of the Weekly Worker. What does Mike Pearn (who he?) make of that?

Ivor Kenna
London

Keep the ban

I would like to voice what I hope will be some constructive criticisms of the article titled ‘Legalise all drugs’ (Weekly Worker October 20). I think the article as a whole was in error in advocating the complete, free and unhindered use of all drugs.

The logic of the argument, “To criminalise drugs is to criminalise people”, seems to be some form of abstract moral statement to defend humanity in general, because all criminals are people. We could even extend this argument to say, ‘To criminalise rape and murder is to criminalise people’, because rapists and murders are, of course, people too!

Drug use under capitalism is a direct offshoot of alienation - the general alienation of the working class from their ‘species life’ or conscious life. When life and labour is considered something alien, something forced, then it’s understandable that people will look for some alternative. However, we will get nowhere in simply advocating that the capitalist state legalise all drugs and then, somehow, come up with the money to not only create mainstream distribution networks, but also simultaneously provide rehab facilities for the sake of the people who buy the drugs from them. It’s about as logical as shooting somebody and then driving them to the hospital for treatment.

Drugs are harmful, including alcohol and nicotine, but these two are legal simply on account of the relatively slow rate of damage they inflict on the human body (thus not overtly affecting the productivity of the worker until later in life, when they have probably retired anyway) and also the massive profits gleaned from the sale of them.

Those who may say, ‘It’s up to me what I put into my own body’ might have a point if humans existed as atomised and isolated individuals who could in no way affect one another, but the simple truth is that this is not the case. Drugs fundamentally change human behaviour to that of disruption, offence and often violence, and so therefore the argument, ‘It’s up to me’, should be countered with ‘It would be up to you, but when it affects your actions towards the rest of us, we should be able to do something about it.’

The article also seems to be arguing that if drugs are legalised then some of the risks involved, such as harmful substances being mixed in with them, etc, will vanish because with the loss if its illegal status drug-dealers will be free of pressures in the marketing and sale of their commodity, therefore leading to an increase in quality. To follow this along its own logical lines we could also form the argument that to remove all restrictions on trade therefore leads to an average increase in the quality of all commodities being manufactured in the new conditions, which we know is totally unrealistic!

The profit motive applies to all industries in capitalism, even the illegal ones, and illegal drugs are not the only commodity in history to have been made up of other, second-rate materials, a case that springs to mind here being the plight of the journeyman bakers that Marx speaks of in Capital: working crippling hours to produce bread that was often barley made up of the proper ingredients, but cheaper alternatives that were often harmful to the humans consuming them. In short, there is no palpable link between the legal status of a commodity and its overall quality.

The issue of class needs to be examined here: drug dealers are often petty bourgeois themselves, with some of them being incredibly rich and living off the spoils gained directly from the selling of drugs. Why should we do these people any favours? They are our class enemies, and the fact that their commodity is often illegal means little, in the same way as any other harmful commodity (such as weapons) means little to their respective capitals when it comes to conducting business. To quote the main character from a recent film Layer cake, “I’m just a businessman, whose commodity happens to be cocaine”. In other words, they feel morally justified by the current social norms of capitalist society in doing what they do, and any other side effects from the consumption of their commodity is considered secondary.

The article goes on to argue that humans have always done drugs. Well, this is, of course, true, but it does little good to apply such a blanket statement to Marxist politics. Humans have also always committed acts of violence against each other, but to say ‘We have always done it’ is no argument at all without examining the reasons behind the actions. Humans have taken drugs throughout history for varying reasons. Drugs used to be taken in observance of certain religious rights, an example being the ‘vision quests’ of certain native American tribes, where hallucinogenic substances were consumed as part of a wider ritual.

This is hardly the same as the purpose for which drugs are taken under modern capitalism: the former is a direct result of man’s alienation from nature and subsequent confusion in the mire of religion; the latter is a direct result of alienation imposed from the social relations inherent in capitalism. Whereas the use of drugs and the effects of them in primitive society were steeped in mystification, we have the technology to know beyond doubt that they are harmful, and their illegal status (or what should be illegal status in some cases) is totally justifiable in the interests of the community.

Anyone who’s life has been touched by drug abuse, illegal or otherwise, will have little sympathy for the supposed communist demand, ‘Legalise all drugs’. It is a transitional demand of the worst sort, completely unrealisable, since the welfare state has trouble enough with its rehab programmes without extending them to even greater swathes of the population, and is utterly out of touch with the genuine struggles of the working class. Communists should be struggling all the more for a time when alienation and powerlessness does not cause people to turn to drug abuse and to fight against the encroachments of petty bourgeois elements who try to flood our communities with poison for the sake of profit.

Turning ‘Legalise all drugs’ into a slogan will do nothing but attract lumpen elements to the party, who will reject the bulk of communist theory, and cause the proletariat itself to simply look on in confusion.

Dan Read
email

Welsh equality

I’m pleased to see that a couple of comrades have responded to my article (‘Minority languages and communists’, October 6). I wish to respond, firstly, to Enso White. I disagree with the comrade’s remarks about my proposal for all Welsh-speaking jurors (Letters, October 13). As I said in my original article, “wherever possible” and in areas in Wales where Welsh is spoken predominantly over English, I think it is reasonable for a Welsh language speaker to request a Welsh language-speaking jury. To argue that that demand panders to chauvinism and nationalism is, at best, a red herring and, at worse, an embellished and inflated interpretation of the point being made.

Mike Pearn’s response needs answering too (Letters, October 20). I’m not quite sure what the comrade is actually saying when he speaks of “modern Welsh appearing rather later than English”. What on earth is “modern Welsh”? Yes, all languages evolve depending “on the specific societies” from which they arise and, yes, the ruling class of that society will use that language to achieve ease of communication. But Mike sets Welsh aside and implies that it is different because it “developed from the tongue of a social group”. A rather clumsy and contradictory interpretation of the development of the Welsh language, I feel.

I also wish to highlight that, in my opinion, no-one can be sure about the long term future prospects of the Welsh language. The inevitability of its death is not certain. Indeed, without state sponsorship the future of the language on one level appears quite fragile, but, given that more young people speak it now than those over the age of 65, then it is likely that it will continue to experience some improved status over the next few generations. Furthermore, when I speak of the equality of Welsh with English, I speak of the equality of rights for its speakers. I repeat, people have the right to choose which language they should be educated in, receive official documents in, face a judge in, etc … That is what I mean by equality of English and Welsh. I am not arguing, as Mike seems to think, that Welsh needs to be lifted to some similar equality to English on an international scale. Indeed, as Mike himself states, at best, Welsh “will be no more than a second language”. I agree.

Finally, on the question of “the socialisation of the economy”. I do not think that a political programme to provide decent housing and jobs to Welsh-speaking communities will halt young people moving away to other areas. Natural migratory trends will ensure that. My point is that people should not be forced from their home and community because of economic hardship. If people choose to move and a language diminishes because of that choice, then so be it. The disappearance of a language because of forced migration is a different social question altogether.

Bob Davies
Swansea

Abolish prison

“By any rational, humane and social standard, prison does not work. Self-evidently, the UK criminal justice system is itself criminal,” writes Eddie Ford (Weekly Worker October 20).

However, he then shies away from the logical (and communist) conclusion - that prison should be abolished. Instead, we are treated to a list of demands that even the most liberal of prison reformers would support. The fact that the UK prison population now stands at a shocking 90,598 - the highest in Europe - isn’t mentioned. Nor are the many alternatives to prison.

Prison is simply one of the capitalist state’s measures of repression against our class. Along with occasional political prisoners, the UK’s prisons are full of the poor, the desperate and socially inadequate. It is incumbent on communists to seek their abolition as part and parcel of the abolition of the social conditions that create most prisoners in the first place.

These issues will be discussed at a meeting in London on January 28 - see www.alternatives2prison.ik.com for more details.

Ricky Campbell
email

Marxism Online

I would like to invite readers of the Weekly Worker to visit the newly founded website, www.MarxismOnline.Com.

MarxismOnline.Com was established in August 2005 by a handful of socialists from various parts of the world with the aim of producing and reproducing various socialist news stories and theoretical articles. As the internet is a very important and significant communication tool in today’s society, it is inevitable that the bourgeoisie will use it, like anything else, to slander and distort the views and opinions of socialists. They will do this in order to discredit the ideas of the revolutionary conscious sections of the working classes, which represent a colossal threat to capitalism and imperialism.

As socialists we feel these attacks must be countered through websites like MarxismOnline.Com, which can offer an alternative to the mainstream media. There are two sides to every story and we felt it important that our side be heard.

MarxismOnline.Com is not an organisation or party. Though we stand together against imperialism, our writers and contributors come in many different categories, from Trotskyists to Marxist-Leninists to Juche socialists and even social democrats, which certainly keeps things very interesting in the discussion forum.

If you, like us, are a progressive-minded person who is sick of the injustice and barbarism we face in this age of imperialism, then join us and share your opinions and views with like-minded (and perhaps not so like-minded) comrades. Nobody is going to force any kind of party line down your throat and we are not going to send you 500 papers to sell every month!

Remember, internet activism is no substitute for the real thing. The activism of socialists in trade unions, local communities and campaigns is of primary importance to the movement as a whole. But, of course, using the internet as a medium for exchanging political information and opinions is a great way of advancing your knowledge and the knowledge of others. That is the purpose of MarxismOnline.Com, and we hope you will join and use this website to its full potential as another weapon in the long hard struggle for the socialist transformation of society.

By signing up to MarxismOnline.Com you can:

l discuss with socialists from all around the world;

l share news stories in our news section;

l write articles to be published on the website;

l contribute your favourite leftist links to the web links section, from other discussion forums, to personal websites and blogs;

l post your favourite leftist images in the image gallery, from Che Guevara to the Russian revolution;

l advertise meetings and demonstrations on the forums.

Matthew McLean
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