Limited Edition T-shirts
“I note that the Socialist Unity blog has just carried a piece denouncing Britain’s “blood soaked” role in Syria. Strangely enough, the article did not use a similar adjective to describe the Russian role. I pointed out this double standard in a comment which is currently “awaiting moderation”. It will be interesting to see whether it is printed.”
From commenter Paul Fauvet
In the unlikely event that such a neoliberal piece of pro-imperialist pleading is allowed on Socialist Unity, Paul should purchase this T-shirt:-
Porn: hard cases make bad law
The kneejerk reaction to violent crime often seems to be a call for illiberal restrictions on freedoms. Arguing against such responses can be difficult, particularly when the crime is the sickening murder of a small child. But the message in the Guardian editorial (31.05.13 in print edition) does, I think, need to be firmly resisted.
“Internet pornography is usually abusive and often violent. Mark Bridger, convicted yesterday of the murder of April Jones, had compiled a store of it. Pornography is easily and freely accessible, and at most requires only a credit card.”
The editorial goes on to describe the apparent link between pornography and violence. There are correlations between all kinds of activities and negative outcomes, but that doesn’t mean a ban is always the answer. Pornography comes in many different forms. Either the content or the production may be exploitative, certainly. It would be good to tackle the factors which drive people to seek work which exploits them – which is not to say that all who are involved in the industry are exploited (or exploiting). To claim that pornography, all pornography, is an ‘incitement to hate’ seems over the top. (Otherwise surely there’d be a lot more hate around the place.)
Taking measures to prevent children accessing pornography is fine, and obviously child pornography should be clamped down on ruthlessly. But measures such as those suggested in the Guardian’s editorial – such as preventing UK credit cards being used to view pornography on line – seem like a massive over-reaction.
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NB: since the print version of the Guardian editorial appeared, it has been amended online, and the following addendum has been posted:
• This article was amended on 31 May 2013 to clarify that the intention of the editorial was to propose restrictions on violent and abusive pornography, as opposed to pornography in general. The original also incorrectly stated that it was Dutch members of the Pirate party who brought down attempts to insert a proposed ban on pornography into European equal rights legislation.
Message from Hope Not Hate
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| Jim, . The HOPE Not Hate community — you guys — are incredible. Yesterday, more than 36,000 people signed the pro-hope, anti-EDL letter published in today’s Daily Mirror. THANK YOU. (That number includes your name, Jim.) But today is the day that counts. Today, there will be racist marches across Britain. We must, must make our voices louder than the ignorant hatemongers out on the streets. Their intolerant Britain is not our Britain. We are the many. There are four things you can do right now to stand in solidarity with us. I’ve done them myself, and they take all of a few minutes. They matter. Will you do as many as you can? 1. Speak out on on Twitter The EDL are marching today, but they don’t speak for Britain — or for me. Unite with us against hate: http://bit.ly/17aTVpX #WeAreTheMany 2. Speak out on Facebook
3. Stand in solidarity: change your Facebook or Twitter profile picture First, right click the image below and choose “save as”.
4. Finally: please forward this email to as many people as possible! You reached the end and did them all! You’re amazing — thank you. |
Tatchell: oppose ALL fascism
This statement from Peter Tatchell first appeared at Harry’s Place, a site we don’t usually have much in common with. But in this case, it’s impossible to disagree:
The BNP & EDL claim to oppose Islamist extremist bigotry but in reality they generalise and abuse all Muslims. Many of their protests are menacing, even violent.
Islam is not the main problem. Islamist fundamentalism and violent jihad are what we should focus on opposing. It is important to make a clear distinction between Muslims and Islamist extremists. Don’t confuse the two. Unite to isolate the main threats: the Islamist far right and its BNP and EDL equivalents.
I support today’s Unite Against Fascism (UAF) counter-protest against the BNP. But UAF is not consistent. UAF commendably opposes the BNP and EDL but it is silent about Islamist fascists who promote anti-Semitism, homophobia, sexism and sectarian attacks on non-extremist Muslims.
This silence and inaction by the UAF is a shocking betrayal of Muslim people – abandoning them to the Islamist far right.
Islamist fascists want to overthrow democracy, establish a clerical dictatorship, suppress human rights and kill Muslims who don’t conform to their hard-line interpretation of Islam.
It is time the UAF campaigned against the Islamist far right, as well as against the EDL and BNP far right.
Remembering Eddie Barns: fighter for justice
I don’t think I ever met Eddie Barns, who died in late April, but he was clearly a fine comrade and exceptional human being. A comrade who’d just heard the news today emailed:
“I didn’t know that Eddie had died. I’m shocked and very sad. He was a top guy. He was one of the Labour councillors in Hackney in the 1980s who voted against cuts when the rest of them caved in; he continued to be active on the left; he was friendly and supportive to us; and for the last few years had thrown himself into defending immigrants both through campaigning and through legal support. The last time I met him was in my kitchen, discussing defending a cleaner who was threatened with deportation.”
‘Stop The War’ rump backs Assad
By Mark Osborn (Solidarity paper and AWL website)
Above: Assad stooge and Stop The War favourite Issa Chaer on Press TV
The latest campaign by the Stop the War campaign, the remnant of the group which ten years ago organised big marches against the invasion of Iraq, is to prevent Western intervention in Syria.
An attempt at a major public meeting on the issue, held in London on 21 May, attracted only 50 people. This was a meeting organised by leftists (Counterfire and Socialist Action) to oppose Western intervention in Syria at which no platform speaker was willing to criticise the disgusting Syrian regime. They say: “our duty is to build a movement against Western intervention.” But, even if such an initiative made sense as an immediate priority, what makes combining opposition to intervention with championing freedom and democracy problematic?
Only that Counterfire has made a political choice not to criticise Assad’s filthy regime. Why? Because in this war Counterfire and Socialist Action are effectively siding with the regime.
Stop the War’s organisers are seriously politically disorientated. And that leaves them sharing platforms with a ridiculous Stalinist, Kamal Majid, and a Syrian academic, Issa Chaer, who when interviewed by the Iranian state’s propaganda outlet, Press TV, said, “I see President Assad as the person who is now uniting the country from all its backgrounds, all factions and all political backgrounds… anybody who calls for President Assad to step down at this stage; would be causing Syria an irreversible destruction.”
Majid’s reasons to oppose Western intervention in Syria are, from a genuinely left wing perspective, senseless.
He says: the US wants to overthrow the regime of Bashar Assad. Don’t we all? Apparently not. Majid thinks this would be a bad thing.
The American dilemma is rational: they want Assad to go, and replaced by some sort of stability, but don’t know how to get it. They are worried that intervention might embroil them in an expensive, bloody war — like in Iraq or Afghanistan — and end with Syria falling to pieces in sectarian slaughter. They are alarmed by the rising Islamists. So they try to negotiate a new government. But that too is problematic because Assad hangs on, and the Russians and Iranians continue to back Assad.
Majid says: the US and Europe want to intervene to grab Syrian oil and gas. Yes, the EU was the biggest customer for Syrian oil before the civil war and sanctions. But if the US and EU simply wanted Syrian oil they could use the normal capitalist mechanism of buying the stuff with cash. Assad would be delighted to hand over oil for dollars.
Another argument is: US wants to get rid of Hezbollah in Lebanon? Invading Syria would not remove Hezbollah, the reactionary, militarised, Shia party from Lebanon. If the US wanted to remove Hezbollah from Lebanon it would have to invade Lebanon, not Syria! However, Lebanon is one of quite a few countries on the US’s list of “places we do not intend to invade anytime soon”.
Of course Hezbollah’s recent turn towards very significant fighting for Assad in the town of Qusair is very alarming. This might be the point at which the civil war spills over the border. An anti-war campaign worthy of the name would oppose Hezbollah, not seek to protect them. Counterfire won’t do that because Hezbollah oppose the US and Israel and so are to be considered “on our side”.
The final argument is: US wants to remove Assad because it intends to invade Iran. The cartoon used by Stop the War shows Uncle Sam vaulting from Libya to Syria to Iran, bringing democracy. Whatever else is wrong with US policy it is not that it wants democracy in Libya, Syria and Iran. Stop the War presents itself as the group which opposes democracy.
There are foreign troops in Syria already — Iranian troops. A genuinely anti-imperialist movement would also oppose Russian policy and demand the withdrawal of Hezbollah’s fighters and Iranian troops from Syria. For STW it is quite a come-down from a million people on the streets against the Iraq war to a couple of dozen cranky Stalinists and fragments from the SWP in the basement of a London college. The reason is that the premise of the meeting — that the US is about to invade or bomb Syria, and that the main issue for us in Syria is stopping the West — is nonsense.
Indeed, if the US is eagerly looking to use its troops and planes, it has a funny way of going about it. It is now over two years since the uprising in Syria began and — despite plenty of regime outrages that could act as a justification, and pressure from some on the American right — Obama has shown no appetite for a major intervention. He has applied diplomatic pressure favouring the opposition, but has also prevented advanced weaponry getting to the Syrian rebels.
In April US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told the Senate Armed Services Committee, “Military intervention at this point could … embroil the US in a significant, lengthy and uncertain military commitment.”
US policy has shifted a little recently towards efforts to engage the regime and find a diplomatic process which can end the war. The US is working with the Russians to organise a peace conference in Geneva in June.
Western advocates for lifting the EU arms embargo on weapons for the Syrian opposition see their efforts as strengthening the opposition during negotiations, rather than helping the rebels overrun the state. The BBC comments, British Foreign Minister William Hague, “has argued that partially lifting the EU arms embargo… would complement, rather than work against, the peace process because it would strengthen the opposition’s hand in negotiations with President Assad.”
Unions should stop funding STW’s nasty little rump of a campaign
Woolwich: motion for union branches
Model motion for union and Labour Party branches, drawn up by the AWL:
Unite against the EDL and Islamism: defend civil liberties
This ****** condemns:
1. The murder of off-duty soldier Lee Rigby in Woolwich on 22 May.
2. The reactionary politics of Islamism, in this case extreme, ultra-violent Islamism, which seems to have inspired the killing.
3. The ramping up of racist hostility towards Muslims, from abuse and harassment in the street to the firebombing of a mosque in Grimsby to demonstrations by the English Defence League and British National Party. According to the interfaith group Faith Matters, on 30 May there have been 201 anti-Muslim incidents since the murder, a 15-fold increase.
4. Possible attacks on civil liberties, including reviving the Communications Data Bill, which would allow police and security services access to all electronic communications.
Believes:
1. That the main threat posed by Islamism is directed against working-class organisations, women, LGBT people, atheists and secularists, dissidents and critical-minded people in Muslim countries and some communities in the UK.
2. That acknowledging that British foreign policy has created conditions which help Islamists to grow should not mean failing to condemn Islamist politics.
3. That opposing the racist backlash and attacks on civil liberties must be top priorities for the labour movement.
4. That this is a wake up call – if the left and labour movement cannot build a force in working-class communities capable of appealing to the angry and dispossessed, then reactionary ideas like Islamism and nationalist racism will continue to spread.
Resolves:
1. To issue a statement based on this motion.
2. To support and publicise protests against the racist and fascist threat, and oppose attacks on civil liberties.
3. To contact local Muslim organisations and mosques to offer support in defence against racists and the far right.
100 years of The Rite of Spring
Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring (‘Le Sacre du Printemps’) opened 100 years ago in Paris, to derisive laughter that quickly developed into a riot. The orchestra was bombarded with vegetables and other missiles, but kept playing. Nijinsky’s choreography, featuring dancers dressed as pagans, caused as much outrage as Stravinsky’s polyrhythmic and dissonant score.
The critics (and some fellow-composers) were savage:
“The work of madman …sheer cacophony” - Giacomo Puccini
“A laborious and puerile barbarity” Henri Quittard, Le Figaro
“If that’s a bassoon, then I’m a baboon!” – Camille Saint-Saëns
It was “a revolutionary work for a revolutionary time” as George Benjamin writes in today’s Graun.
‘Riot of Spring’: Norman Lebrecht in Standpoint, here.
Above: Stephen Malinowski’s animation of Part 1 ‘The Adoration of the Earth’ (from NPR)
Statement from the family of Michael Adebolajo
Sometimes no further comment is necessary or appropriate:
“Nothing we say can undo the events of last week.
“However, as a family, we wish to share with others our horror at the senseless killing of Lee Rigby and express our profound shame and distress that this has brought on our family.
“We send our heartfelt condolence to Lee Rigby’s family and loved ones.
“We wish so state openly that we believe that there is no place for violence in the name of religion or politics. We believe all right thinking members of society share this view wherever they were born and whatever their religion and political beliefs.
“We wholeheartedly condemn all those who engage in acts of terror and fully reject any suggestion by them that religion or politics can justify this kind of violence.
“We unreservedly put out faith in the rule of law and with others fully expect that all the perpetrators will be brought to justice under the law of the land.
“And we pray for Lee Rigby’s soul to rest in peace, for the Lord to comfort his parents and loved ones and provide all of us affected the strength and fortitude to cope with this tragedy.
“In all the circumstances and in respect to on-going police investigations, this is the only statement we wish to give. We ask that we are not contacted for further comments.”
After Woolwich, humanity in all its variety, reasserts itself…
Two items in today’s Graun in the aftermath of Woolwich. I’m not attaching too much significance to either – and in particular, I’m not trying to suggest that tea and custard creams are usually the way to deal with racists (see #2 below); but I found both these items intriguing and, in their different ways, strangely encouraging:
1/ Interview with Ingrid Loyau-Kennett
She’s the woman who jumped off her bus, initially with the intention of giving first aid to Lee Rigby, but who then found herself engaging in debate with the killers in order to prevent further mayhem. “It’s only you and there are many of us” she (now) famously told one of them.
The Graun interview shows her to be complex (Catholic, single parent) and in many ways admirable (many sensible opinions) …and a Tory:
Loyau-Kennett says she is “naturally rightwing”. She adds: “I don’t agree with the socialist thing where they praise everything rather than praising hard work. I’m proud that we are now represented by David Cameron rather than Gordon Brown. I voted for him.”
The killers should now face “severe punishment”, she says. “I will not waste any of my energy in hating, or even thinking further about these men. Yes, they deserve to be in jail because they killed a man who did a lot for society and who could have done a lot more in his life, and been an excellent father. The trouble with jail is that we have to pay for their keep. Will they stay in jail for ever? I don’t think so, because of the judicial system these days.”
Before her bus had arrived, one of the men had talked into an onlooker’s cameraphone, quoting “an eye for an eye” in an attempt to justify his actions. Loyau-Kennett believes the killers should face the same retribution.
“If it were possible, then, yes, they should die a painful death,” she says. “But we can’t do that, unfortunately. They wanted to behead someone, so they should face the same. If they want to do something like this, they should have gone to where the action is [in Afghanistan, etc]. That is cowardice. They were egotistical. They are like the men who drive round thinking they are king of the road. It’s just me, me, me. It’s that thing where young men are bored. They should be jailed for murder, just as I think people who drive when drunk and kill someone should be jailed for ever for murder. No television in jail. Nothing. They must pay for what they did. But will that happen in this era of so-called human rights?”
2/ Mosque offers tea to would-be protesters
All too predictably, the far-right have been cashing in, targeting individual Asians and Mosques. The EDL has been given a new lease of life, and members of the BNP and UKIP have mobilised to stir up hatred and racism. In Grimsby, petrol bombs were thrown into a Mosque and those inside, including children, were lucky to escape with their lives.
A Mosque in York was targeted…
(NB: the following is in today’s print edition of the Graun, but not the on-line version)
Around half a dozen people arrived for the protest. A St George’s flag was nailed to the wooden fence in front of the mosque. However, other members of the group accepted an invitation into the mosque, tensions were rapidly defused over tea and plates of custard creams, followed by an impromptu game of football.
Leanne Staven, who had come for the protest, said that she had not come to cause trouble but because “we need a voice”. “I think white British who have any concerns feel we can’t speak freely,” she said.
Mohammed el-Gomati, a York University lecturer, said: “There is the possibility of having a dialogue. Even the EDL who were having a shouting match started talking and we found out that we share and are prepared to agree that violent extremism is wrong. We have to start there.”
