Letters
Open goal
For 45 minutes, the BBC’s Question time panel made a half-decent effort at exposing BNP leader Nick Griffin’s racist views - that is, until an audience member asked if Labour’s “misguided immigration policies” had contributed to the recent rise of the fascists.
It was then that they gave Griffin an open goal to aim at (one which, thankfully, he missed). Conservative shadow minister Baroness Warsi made a sugar-coated speech, laced with poison, about how immigration had altered the “pace of change” in communities to such an extent that they felt effectively swamped. Chris Huhne played to the gallery, lambasting the government for its policy on east European migration. Meanwhile, David Dimbleby even quoted maverick Powellite and Labour MP Frank Field in saying that a successful fight against the BNP could only be fought in conjunction with a drive to keep population numbers below 65 million.
“Why are we letting immigrants into the country when unemployment is rising?” demanded one audience member, to rapturous applause. Thus, before the eyes of the nation, the deeply reactionary interpretative framework utilised so effectively by the BNP was legitimised yet again by ruling class politicians and commentators - only in a moderate, ‘non-extremist’ way.
It’s more important than ever that socialists make the case for no borders and the free movement of people, but as the Question time debacle makes abundantly clear, it’s an unpopular position. A reminder, perhaps, that united working class action across ‘races’, cultures, nations and borders has never been more necessary.
David Bates
Middlesbrough
Faith left
I was interested in Chris Brandler’s comments that groups like the English Defence League can only really be defeated by a new Marxist party of the left confronting the way society and the state is organised (‘Rhetoric, stunts and divisions’, October 15).
Well, quite. But how likely is that? And how come no genuine left party ever managed this in the UK during the last century? Lots of these groups finished after the National Front in elections in, for instance, the 1970s.
Are most left parties even able to discuss the concerns of working people? Surely that fault prevents a ballot box breakthrough? The word ‘Marxist’ hangs like an albatross around the neck of left parties. Come, come - has nobody realised that?
Most far-right groups lose momentum when the economy improves, or another party steals their clothes (eg, Thatcher in 1979) or they splinter (NF after 1979). Would the EDL be having such ‘success’ without the credit crunch? Will it not just fade away when things improve?
It’s even debatable whether street demonstrations actually achieve anything. The football hooligan element really loves a fight. The EDL gets lots of publicity. More join. These far-right idiots love seeing themselves in Searchlight. The decline of the NF in the 1980s had little to do with Anti-Nazi League demonstrations.
The truth is that both the left and the far right are marginal in today’s society. Many like it that way. I’ve lost faith that the left can make a difference.
Graeme Kemp
email
Damn it
Eddie Ford is correct that most of the left are afraid of debating the BNP, calling for a ‘no platform’-style ban on Nick Griffin and his friends (‘Who’s afraid of Griffin?’, October 22).
This smacks of lack of confidence, probably because in the back of their minds they know that most British voters would not be convinced by the ultra-left policy of ‘no immigration controls’, which, as a slogan, is a gift to the rightwing parties.
But a debating ban is generally counterproductive, and simple moral arguments alone (‘fascism is bad’) are not enough, when housing, jobs, insecurity, widespread poverty and fear of losing one’s identity need to be addressed by the left. How, for example, would a socialist government provide enough jobs and housing, and deal with the massive debts of most working class families, the break-up of the UK and the problem of belonging and identity?
We must wrestle the ‘mantle of the nation’ away from the neo-fascists, but the liberal-hearted mantra of ‘multiculturalism’ is no longer an antidote to the virus of fascism. It is not enough to shout and sloganise. The BNP got a million votes, damn it. Thus, the demonstrators outside the BBC played into the neo-fascists’ hands by trying to ban and shut down debate, as many will have felt sympathetic towards Griffin, ‘the buffoon’.
Finally, but crucially, the Labour Party’s European parliament election campaign was half-hearted, and the far left’s response was pathetic. The real scandal is not that Griffin appeared on TV, but that the infantile disorder of the left failed to get their own act together to beat the BNP and win some MEPs last summer.
The demonstrators outside the BBC should, instead, join the Labour Movement for Europe and campaign to remove the BNP’s MEPs - by the ballot box - at the next European elections. That is the real political challenge for the British left - if it can overcome its own sectarian posturing and Europhobia.
Palmiro Mansi
London
Decolonisable
Peter Manson’s article on the recent London Communist Forum debate reports me as saying, in reference to Israel/Palestine: “But neither could there be ‘decolonisation’” (‘Mapping a viable future’, October 15).
This way of putting it is so condensed as to be misleading. Or perhaps I did not put it clearly enough in the debate. So let me explain. What I said was that in the case of Israel/Palestine decolonisation (that is, deZionisation) presents an exceptional, and exceptionally difficult, task.
To see this, compare the two types of colonisation. First, look at the exploitative model: where the settlers relied on exploiting the labour-power of the indigenous people. In all cases of this type, decolonisation was not only possible, but has actually taken place within the present capitalist world system. South Africa and Algeria are examples of this. Of course, in all these countries the heritage of colonialism is still very much in evidence; they are still exploited within the unequal imperialist world order. But the settlers have either departed or, where they stayed behind, had to give up their institutionalised political rule over the indigenous peoples. And the latter have reclaimed their formal independence and political self-determination.
Now look at the other type: where the settlers excluded the indigenous people - applying ‘ethnic cleansing’ by physical extermination or expulsion. Palestine aside, in all these cases the task of decolonisation in the sense defined above hardly arises. This is because the indigenous peoples have been pulverised or overwhelmed by the settlers, who have formed themselves into new settler nations. Native Americans cannot hope to reclaim possession of North America, nor can Australian Aboriginal people reclaim their old continent. In such countries a struggle for national liberation in the usual sense is not on the agenda. The indigenous people do struggle for equality and for the right to preserve and foster their old cultures and languages. But the dominant language and culture remain those of the settlers - and irreversibly so.
The case of Palestine is thus an exception: despite all their efforts, the Zionist settlers have not managed to totally overwhelm the indigenous people. For reasons that I have explained elsewhere, a Palestinian-Arab national identity has been forged under the hammer blows of Zionist colonisation. Exceptionally (for this type of colonisation), the Palestinian Arabs are struggling for national liberation and self-determination.
However, the odds are still stacked against them: within the ‘box’ of Palestine, and in the present regional constellation, the balance of power is still preponderantly adverse to liberation. I therefore argued at the meeting that decolonisation (deZionisation) and Palestinian national liberation would only be possible as part of a social revolution and unification of the Arab east, led by the working class.
Moshé Machover
email
Root cause
A few comments in respect of Peter Manson’s report of the debate between Jack Conrad, Moshé Machover and myself over whether the call for a single state was a principled demand or a cul-de-sac.
Firstly, it was refreshing to have a debate that wasn’t marred by bile, vitriol and animosity. It was well attended and comrades made some very good and meaningful contributions from the floor. Hopefully, the debate will be put on the web and perhaps written up. It was a marked contrast from the previous debate between Machover and the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty, where the AWL believed that abuse and shouting loudly would be a good substitute for politics.
Of course, the debate mainly sharpened and focused attention on our disagreements. It didn’t resolve them. I will continue to disagree with both Machover and Conrad on the belief that Zionist colonisation was responsible for the formation of two ‘mutually hostile’ nations - Israel and Palestine. I don’t believe that this is a satisfactory analysis of the consequences of settler-colonialism. The root cause of the conflict in Israel/Palestine is settler-colonialism and the racism and expansion brought in its wake, not nationalism.
No-one doubts the need for a revolutionary upsurge in the Arab east and, in particular, a working class revolution. However, to put everything on hold until such a revolution is not practical politics and will in practice make socialist politics seem irrelevant. We need to have a clue as to what it is that we seek to achieve in the here and now.
My reasons for arguing that the Israeli Jews are not a nation do not just relate to the fact that it is still an active and expansionist movement. Of course, if Israeli settler-colonialism had a finite limit, like its American counterpart, then the argument for having achieved nationhood would be stronger, although, like the USA, it would be equally irrelevant. I challenge the idea of a simple Israeli nation because what is it that holds such a nation together if not permanent antagonism to the Palestinians, not least those residing in Israel itself?
What constitutes a nation has always been problematic. A nation is a categorisation of a particular group of people, politically and economically. It describes groups whose origins were very different and whose make-up is still different. Even the American nation raises a number of questions, given the hostility and antagonism of, for example, white Americans towards Hispanic and black people.
And, yes, it would be ridiculous to say to the Hebrews or Israeli Jews, after Zionism was overthrown, that they were an oppressor nation. But, after the overthrow of Zionism, why would they want to form a separate, Jewish state? Revolutions can travel backwards or forwards and this seems a recipe for the former.
I also disagreed with Peter Manson’s idea that France under Nazi occupation proved how an oppressor nation could quickly become the oppressed. As I explained at the meeting, this unique situation meant that for those in French colonies, the French still were the oppressor. For those living under the Nazi yoke, they were oppressed.
Yes, I do envisage that possibly up to half Israel’s Jews would prefer to emigrate rather than live under conditions of equality with Palestinians. That is what happened in South Africa and it is doubtful that those who came from a sense of messianic fervour are going to want to live equally with those they came to oppress. But this is something that will be decided by those who wish to emigrate. Certainly, I agree that every effort should be made to persuade them to stay.
What I don’t accept is that the privileged and oppressor will ever hand over power unless forced to do so. Is that not a central point in the Marxist understanding of capitalism and the state?
Tony Greenstein
Brighton
Commie cowards
Surely, in a communist world, people such as lance corporal Joe Glenton would find themselves in similarly hot water, if not worse (‘First of many’, August 6).
I don’t recall conscripts of the Soviet army being treated with any great care or sympathy by their government. I also imagine that in North Korea or the People’s Republic of China the ‘objectors’ would not get away with less than a firing squad.
At the end of the day, Joe Glenton is a cowardly deserter who, quite apart from deserting his country, has also deserted his comrades. And he is not even a combat soldier; he is a logistician!
Sua Tela Tonanti
email
National socialism
My argument that Trotskyists fail to see the difference between strategy and tactics in the struggle for international socialism (hence their attacks on socialism in one country) has led Arthur Bough to claim that this policy was employed as a strategy (Letters, October 8).
Bough claims that it was never part of Lenin’s vision that socialism could be built in one country; rather he argued against it vociferously, and that even as late as 1924 Stalin himself dismissed the idea as utopian and reactionary.
But what is the truth about these matters, which have divided the left for so long and are always ignored by Trotskyist historiography?
In January 1923, Lenin argued in the article ‘On cooperation’, that the alliance between the proletariat and the peasantry on the basis of the cooperatives and the implementation of a cultural revolution “would now suffice to make our country a completely socialist country” (CW Vol 33, p475).
This contrasted with Stalin’s original position in 1924, where he argued: “For the final victory of socialism, for the organisation of socialist production, the efforts of one country, particularly of such a peasant country as Russia, are insufficient” (Lenin and Leninism p40).
Later, when Stalin changed his position, he stated: “After consolidating its power and leading the peasantry in its wake, the proletariat of the victorious country can and must build a socialist society” (Works Vol 6, p110).
Trotskyists like to remind people that Stalin changed his position, as if this was a crime, but they fail to see that the change was made to be more in line with Lenin’s position, quoted above.
Bough also argues the common misconception that socialism in one country led to subordinating the interest of the international revolution to the Soviet state. This was certainly not the case in the Stalin period. Those who support this interpretation usually point to defeats in Britain - ie, the 1926 General Strike, China, Germany and Spain - as proving their point. The problem here is that none of these events proves that Stalin was only interested in national socialism, and therefore converted Lenin’s tactic of socialism in one country into a strategy, which led to defeats.
Tony Clark
London
Open source
In the last issue, Robbie Rix mentioned that he was working on a computer that “grinds to a halt when downloading updates” (‘Serious hardware’, October 22).
This got me wondering what kind of software do the Weekly Worker office computers actually use? Windows is notorious for its consumption of hardware resources, which only gets worse over time due to some inherent architectural problems of the operating system.
I would suggest, if this isn’t already the case, that all desktops in the office switch to a Linux operating system, such as Ubuntu, which is known for its emphasis on making things ‘just work’.
Emil Jacobs
email
Needled
I recall a conversation with Peter Manson on a May Day march some 14 years ago. The CPGB had joined the Socialist Labour Party and had decided not to march under its own banners. I thought it would be some time until those tattered banners would be used again.
Call me impatient, but don’t you think it’s time to get those banners down from the attic and stand some CPGB candidates in the general election? I really can’t stand the thought of months and months reading about you lot shitting through the eye of a needle deciding who to critically support.
For god’s sake, do something!
Vivian Bolus
The Rotten Elements
