Hopi: Cross-Europe cooperation

Despite the fact that a number of members could not make it to the Hands Off the People of Iran steering committee on March 29, it was a very productive meeting, with the stepping up of cooperation with Iran solidarity groups across Europe agreed.

The meeting began, however, with a discussion of the approach by the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty to hold a debate with Hopi in May. This offer was probably meant to distract us from the fact that Education Not for Sale (the AWL’s student front organisation) chickened out of such a debate at this week’s National Union of Students conference.

The ENS had asked Hopi to participate in a “joint fringe meeting” on the imprisoned Iranian students and workers. Hopi welcomed the invitation - but only on condition that the meeting would be organised, and advertised, as a debate. We suggested that it should rather focus on what kind of solidarity we should give Iranian workers, students and women and the question of imperialism in the Middle East - ie, could it play a progressive role, as the AWL implies?

However, Sacha Ismail refused this on behalf of ENS/AWL, claiming that most students at NUS conference would not understand the need for such a debate. Instead, the meeting should simply focus on the need to provide solidarity with Iranian students.

That would have been the wrong emphasis, in our view. Most people on the left - ie, those at conference who would attend such a meeting - will have a basic understanding of the situation in the Middle East. And apart from the worst hacks in the SWP and the AWL they will also understand - and in many cases share - our campaigning priorities: our opposition to war goes hand in hand with active solidarity with those struggling against the Iranian regime. In fact, at NUS conference we find exactly the kind of audience that knows about the differences on the left and could be attracted to a debate.

Last but not least, most members of the Hopi executive simply refused to agree to a “joint meeting” with an organisation that is as soft on imperialism as the AWL. Advertising the meeting as a debate would show that there are real differences. After all, the AWL refused to join Hopi on the grounds that it disagrees with a number of points of our founding statement - in particular, Hopi’s opposition to Israeli expansionism and our principled demand for troops out of Iraq now (see Weekly Worker February 28).

In the end the ENS/AWL decided to ditch the question of Iran altogether for its fringe meeting. Instead, it opted for a rather less ‘problematic’ (although unfocussed) sounding meeting with the title ‘Reclaim the campus! Fighting the rule of profit in education and society’. So Hopi went ahead and booked its own fringe meeting at NUS conference. We invited AWL member David Broder (a supporter of Hopi) to speak on the platform - but he was banned by the AWL leadership. In other words, the convenor of the AWL’s newly set up campaign, Middle East Workers’ Solidarity, was not allowed to participate in the only fringe meeting at NUS conference that did discuss the question of Iran and the Middle East. Pathetic.

This formed the background to the March 29 decision of the Hopi steering committee to reject this latest approach by the AWL. Most participants thought that a debate between the AWL and Hopi would not be useful for two reasons.

First, despite the truly lame attempts by the AWL to present Hopi as a CPGB “front”, it is comprised of a number of groups with different takes on the question of imperialism, etc. Also, some on the steering committee simply refuse to have Hopi seen to be associating too closely with the social-imperialist AWL. It was therefore suggested that a straight debate between the AWL and the CPGB would be more appropriate and our organisation will be considering this in due course.

The meeting went on to confirm June 14-15 for our weekend school. We want this event to serve a number of purposes.

Firstly, it must continue some of the debates that were flagged up at the Hopi launch conference (for example, the issue of workers’ sanctions, the role of imperialism in the Middle East and the question of nuclear power and nuclear energy).

Secondly, it should provide Hopi activists with a deeper and more rounded understanding of the situation in Iran and the Middle East.

Thirdly, it will be a useful opportunity to bring together activists from all over Europe who are working in anti-war campaigns with a similar focus to Hopi’s.

This is the thematic agenda we are looking to feature at this important event (some of the topics are only tentative and may be replaced with others, or included in a different session):

• War, human rights and ‘humanitarian interventions’
• Iran, Israel and the Middle East: the nuclear question
• Sanctions and Iran (including discussion on workers’ sanctions)
• Can imperialism liberate women in the Middle East? (touching on cultural relativism and islamic feminism?)
• National and religious minorities
• The working class movements and their response to the economic crisis in Iran
• The 1979 revolution and its aftermath

Comrade Yassamine Mather reported from a well-organised online meeting of a new European-wide initiative to coordinate all those anti-war campaigns focussing on Iran. There were about 90 participants from Sweden, Holland, France, Germany and Denmark. While it has not been possible to form a single organisation in all countries (there are two competing groups in both Sweden and France), all participants agree on the four following political points:

• Against imperialism
• Against war
• Against the theocracy
• For solidarity with the workers’, women’s and students’ movements in Iran

The online meeting discussed the possibility of a united European demonstration at some point in the future and will continue to meet online in the meantime. There is also the possibility of joint actions/statements in the event of any attacks on Iran. The Hopi steering committee welcomed the initiative and agreed that we should invite the participants to the June 14-15 Hopi weekend school.

For a more extensive report and details of the full range of Hopi activities visit www.hopoi.org