Auld Lang Syne Afore 1968
Guest post from Robin Carmody. A full version can be read here.
It was reading Yvonne Ridley’s tweets on this matter which finally got me to write this.
The one thing that matters about Scotland, the one thing from which everything else comes and to which everything else returns, , is this: 1968 never really happened there, and therefore neither did its principal legacy in the rest of Europe (but especially England), the separation of economic Leftism from social and cultural conservatism, the rendering incompatible of these two once-allied forces. This is why England can’t be Scotland. and why Scotland can’t be England, for those souixante-huitards and Black Atlanticists who would find Scotland unsettlingly folksy and homogeneous. In the end, that is all it is, and whether or not an English Leftist supports and sympathises with Scotland’s claims to nationhood depends entirely on what sort of Leftist he or she is, which criteria (1945 or 1968, basically) he or she considers most important. Maybe that’s all I need to write.
But it isn’t quite, of course; I have to write something more because I am in equal parts both kinds of Leftist; my basic inability to take sides (in itself a very English thing rather than a Celtic thing, as detailed further below) has me taking in equal parts from the 1945 and 1968 traditions, and thus from traditions with fundamentally oppositional views of the merits and worth of Scottish independence. Yvonne Ridley is, of course, is the ultimate anti-68-er (on a scale of one to ten, with the most hardline souixante-huitards rating ten, she’d be way, way down minus one). Not only has she allied herself with forces of extreme social and religious conservatism (as much of the international Left has admittedly done), she has actually joined up with such forces herself, and become not merely an ally of convenience but an actual believer (which the great majority of the Western Left has not) and moved to Scotland because within it her sense of the Left – the most extreme form of a world where 1968 never happened – seems to her to be protected and preserved. And there is nothing more unpleasant and extreme than the zeal of the convert, with which she is infected on two subtly-related fronts. Her take on Scottish independence seems defensive and negative There are others rooted in far more humanistic values, an approach to the world far closer to mine, which may be critical of the Israeli state but does not share her aggressive paranoia.. I can easily forget it when reading Ridley’s religious self-assurance, but there are plenty of visions of Scottish independence which evoke a world in which I could happily live.
The most traditionalist parts of both Right and Left in England share a conspiratorial mindset, a belief that the entire modern world represents a conspiracy against them and their approach to life. When I see the Traditional Britain Group, which represents a quasi-fascist, Third Positionist undercurrent which in my worst nightmares exploits the instability of England after Scottish secession to create a totalitarian state from which Puerto Rico status seems like a positive relief and national saviour, I could not help thinking of elements of the old Left in England, lost and homeless and yearning for what their Scottish counterparts can cling to in hope of escape, the belief that everything has been permanently corrupted and the only way out is a total retaking and restaffing of all institutions. John Pilger’s sense of the entire media saturation of the present age as a grand-scale lie, an organised delusion from a deeper truth, has more than a little crossover with this part of the Right. There is a shared hatred for both economic and social liberalism. Both yearn for a moment in history when everything was perfect, uncorrupted: it’s just that for one that moment was a notional pre-capitalist mediaeval state of being, and for the other it was 1945; one calls the world that is out to get them “cultural Marxism”, the other calls it “neoliberalism”. But both share an elemental romanticism which has been a far stronger political undercurrent among both mainland Europeans and Celts than among the English. (Searchlight notes with some accuracy that the European intellectualism of the Traditional Britain Group may very easily turn off many of the sort of people in England they are aiming to turn on).
And both, in their own ways, are trying to find answers to the question which Scottish independence, or not, asks for their neighbours, and inwardly screaming (it can only be inward: they are, after all, English) that no comparable question can give them in turn something to live for. Living alongside something so seismic is so hard to take in isolation that it can only be that very English distrust of elemental romanticism which stops both old Left and old Right from being far stronger forces in England than they are.
In the Scottish referendum every argument from either side can reasonably be counterbalanced by the other: the Yes campaign can say with total justification that, if you can’t block out whatever is channel 865 on Sky then you can’t block out BBC1, and the inference by some in Westminster that you could is, like so many other stances taken from that end, stupid and counter-productive. The No campaign can respond, equally reasonably, that if you can’t control the global spread of media and you don’t even attempt to, then the point of secession is negated and undermined. The Yes campaign can say, quite reasonably, that Scotland’s role in Europe is being held back by people and institutions far more sceptical of the EU and its purpose than the general Scottish population; the No campaign can respond, also with a good deal of truth behind it, that Hollywood and rock’n’roll have been as important, as foundational, to proportionately as many Scots as English people. Certainly there is a tendency on the part of some Yes supporters either to deny this or almost to infer that a Yes vote could eliminate it, wipe it from the folk memory, and in the process to divert too far from the far more universally applicable economic reasons for independence; if there is a narrow No vote, this would probably be the biggest reason, just as the unfounded scaremongering, which might well partially be driven by a desire to eliminate politically inconvenient socialist tendencies from the Anglosphere, would be the main cause of a narrow Yes. People in my position frequently, with some justification, accuse the Yes campaign of selfishness (and also of hypocrisy, since they see themselves as above and separate from the drift in such a direction in post-1979 England) – of being concerned purely for their own social democratic idyll and of being indifferent to the fate of the rest of us. The Yes campaign can respond, perfectly reasonably, that we are the selfish ones for wanting to use others to give us what we cannot give ourselves.
Or maybe it is a matter of tone, a fundamental psychological difference between the English and the Celts. Over and over again I find myself agreeing with the basic meat of what Scottish independence supporters have to say, but being turned off by what often comes over to me as a rather arrogant, combative, dismissive tone to it. It was once said that, to understand Enoch Powell, you had to be conscious of his Welsh ancestry because it was the source of his “un-English, but Celtic, passion for going all the way”.
Does this mean that, underneath it all, I’m a Tory as well (at least in the gentle, diffident shire sense that Powell, the proto-Thatcherite child of a great industrial city, very definitely wasn’t, part of)? Some people would say yes, no doubt, and yes I can hear all the jokes about moderation to excess starting already. But I prefer to think of myself as a liberal humanist – in TPL terms, in the tradition which runs from On the Threshold of a Dream to ELO’s Time, and the pieces about them, not the vast, unedifying swathes of proto-Cameronite muck to come. I do cherish the English liberal humanist tradition which has been so eroded and threatened in recent times, and I don’t want it to be weakened still further, turned more than ever into a defensive, bull-headed nationalism, defined far more by what it is against rather than what it is for, which bears disturbing resemblances to Serbian nationalism as it developed in the early 1990s. Scotland has its own traditions, and they can no doubt thrive better apart. What worries me is the survival, or not, of the liberal traditions I myself was raised for, which I fear need the help of others to thrive now because those theoretically raised for them increasingly don’t really understand them.
The frustration caused by the gulf between my identification and sympathy with some aspects of Scottish independence aspirations – my basic belief that it represents a positive, progressive social model for those who can be part of it – and the way I must live, the way I am confined to live, is a cause of almost unbearable pain. In the end – for the purely emotional side of me, for the 1945 side of me – “I want the one I can’t have”. That Morrissey – precisely the sort of English Leftist who could only have thrived and really been understood if England had been Scotland – could be a wise chap, when he wanted to be.
Gove’s out! Another SWP slogan bears fruit!
Comrade Ruth Cashman (via Facebook) comments on one aspect of the reshuffle:
Hmmm… May be able to tell the strategic political and industrial sense of the slogan “Gove out!” now. I wonder if he’ll be replaced by someone committed to a well funded, public education system…
Time for a secularist challenge to all faith education
By Andrew Coates (reblogged from Tendance Coatesy):
Humanists Show the Way Forward.
Faith Schools Undercover: No Clapping in Class (Monday 14th July at 8pm on Channel 4) revealed:
- Exclusively that even before the so-called anonymous ‘Trojan Horse’ letter came to light the Prime Minister’s office had been warned of what was going on
- Claims by current and former members of staff at Park View – one of the schools implemented in the ‘Trojan Horse’ allegations – that male pupils were given worksheets saying women couldn’t say no to sex with their husbands and also girls at the school were sent home from a sports event because only a male coach was present
- The ultra-Orthodox Haredi Jewish schools in the London Borough of Hackney ‘operating illegally and without the most basic health, safety and child welfare checks’. Channel 4 Dispatches has shocking evidence that Hackney Council, the Department for Education and Ofsted have all known about the schools for years
The programme began with concerns at Oldknow Academy Birmingham. A parent had complained at Christmas not being celebrated and got short shrift. He wrote to the PM.
The most important item was on Park View school,
A former teacher said, on camera, but anonymously that,
“about 60 male pupils were given a worksheet saying women couldn’t say no to sex with their husbands.
She says: “The work sheet categorically said that you know the wife has to obey the man. Well I think it makes the boys feel that they have got that power over girls. The east Birmingham area has one of the highest rates of domestic violence in the country.”
This was flately, and not very convincingly, denied, by the school.
Local MP Khalid Mahmood says: “I am not talking about here extremism in schools although ultimately it could lead to it, and that’s my fear, is that when you are grooming young people into that sort of a mind-set then its very easy once they leave school is to go that extra additional step.”
He also dismissed suggestions the controversy smacks of Islamophobia.
“Over 200 people complaining to the local authority about what’s gone on and you can’t really claim that it’s a witch-hunt,” said Mahmood, whose own actions have shown him sensitive to the difficulties raised by racist attacks on Birmingham Muslims.
There was a report on Olive Primary School in Blackburn.
During this there was evidence that music in school was discouraged, that clapping was not encouraged, and that other “un-Islamic,” practices were frowned on.
Olive Primary is run by the Tauheedul Education Trust, with two other secondaries in Blackburn.
The Lancashire Telegraph draws attention to one feature of the Trust’s activities,
The programme revealed trust schools hosted lectures by three extremist preachers, including Mufti Ismail Menk banned from six UK universities for preaching same-sex acts were ‘filthy’.
It showed him saying of gay people: “With all due respect to the animals, they are worse than animals.”
In Hackney illegal Jewish religious schools (for the ultra-orthodox) exist,
Channel 4 Dispatches discovered that more than 1,000 boys aged 13 to 16 have disappeared from registered schools in the London borough of Hackney.
Instead they are being sent by their parents to be educated in yeshivas – fee-paying schools where the curriculum is solely religious.
We have identified more than ten unregistered, illegal, schools.
And what’s really shocking is that Hackney Council, the Department for Education and Ofsted have all known about these schools for years.
We’ve seen internal government briefing documents that reveal as early as 2008 the Department for Education was aware of the issue. One document states the Department knows a number of schools are ‘operating illegally and without the most basic health, safety and child welfare checks’.
In 2012 the Department acknowledged those running the schools were breaking the law, but said they preferred to work cooperatively with the community.
There were shots of a school, including a room where Hasidic instruction and disputation was taking place. Students went in an out till late in the day.
The conclusion of this section was very unsettling.
Dispatches contacted the schools featured but have received no response.
Hackney Council, Ofsted and the Department for Education told Dispatches their concerns date back many years and they are aware of all the schools on our list.
They say they’ve been working to get them registered.
The Department for Education, who Ofsted and Hackney say have the power to take action against the schools, told Dispatches that ‘where applications for registration are still not forthcoming we will press for a prosecution as it is a criminal offence to operate an unregistered illegal schools.’
The programme seemed to suggest that the Council, out of concern for religious and cultural feeling, was unwilling to act.
Andrew Gilligam reports,
Government documents obtained by Channel 4’s Dispatches and the Jewish Chronicle newspaper say that many of the schools are “operating illegally and without the most basic health, safety and child welfare checks”.
Many boys in the Orthodox Jewish community in Stamford Hill, London, “will stop secular studies at the age of 13 or 14 and start attending ‘yeshivas’ where the curriculum is solely religious,” the documents say.
Between 800 and 1000 boys aged between 13 and 16 are “missing” from the school system in the borough of Hackney alone, the papers add.
Undercover filming by Dispatches in and around the schools shows the boys packed more than 50 to a classroom in dirty, run-down buildings, some converted houses. More than a hundred boys were filmed going in to an illegal school in Lynmouth Road, Stamford Hill, arriving from 7.30 in the morning and leaving late at night. The establishment is believed to be one of twelve illegal schools in the neighbourhood.
In 2011, about one third of the 20,000 state funded schools in England were faith schools, approximately 7,000 in total, of which 68% were Church of England schools and 30% were Roman Catholic . There were 42 Jewish, 12 Muslim, 3 Sikh and 1 Hindu faith schools.
The British Humanist Association says,
“Around a third of all state-funded schools are schools ‘with a religious character’ – the legal term for ‘faith’ schools. This number has grown in recent years as successive governments have increased the influence of religious groups in the state-funded education system.”
That is, with the introduction of Academies and Free Schools, this percentage is believed to have risen.
Faith Schools Undercover noted their role in encouraging ethnic and cultural segregation.
The idea that parents have the right to run, publicly funded, education that promotes their religion, is fundamentally wrong.
Some liberals seem unable to respond to the issues raised (Harry’s Place for example).
There are those who claim to be on the left who find excuses for these arrangements.
They claim that criticisms of, notably, the Birmingham schools, are an ‘Islamophobic’ conspiracy.
This completely fails to look at the problems religiously-run schools create – as indicated by the Channel Four Dispatches documentary.
It indicated that concerns had a solid basis.
The National Secular Society sets out a much better position that those wishing to sweep the subject of Faith education under the carpet.,
Rather than facilitating the segregation of pupils along religious lines, we would like to see steps taken to ensure children of all faiths and none are educated together in a respectful but religiously neutral environment.
As long as faith schools are publicly funded, we campaign for an end to exemptions from equality legislation that allow them to select pupils on the basis of the religion, or religious activities, of the child’s parents.
We are concerned that the Government’s desire for greater proportion of academies and free schools, which are independent and self-governing, will see more and more control of state funded education handed to religious organisations.
Dispatches showed more than enough reasons to back this stand.
The author of many of the pro-religious education policies, Michael Gove, is now Chief Whip.
He has been replaced by even more faith-influenced minister, Nicky Morgan, a Tory MP who voted against same-sex marriage, as education secretary. She “continues as minister for women and equalities”.
Just remind me again: where was Alex Callinicos educated?
Thanks to Owen Jones, in today’s Graun, for drawing my attention to a nasty little piece in the present edition of Socialist Worker. SW was once essential (and - believe it or not – entertaining) reading on the left, even for those of us who had little time for the SWP’s politics. But I haven’t bought a copy since September 2001 and so very rarely get to read it.
Above: Prof Callinicos, privately educated scion of the ruling class
For those of you who can’t be arsed to follow the link above, the article is entitled ‘Eton by Bear? The inquest begins,’ a supposedly ‘humorous’ take on the death of Horatio Chapple, mauled to death by a polar bear while on a trip to the Svalbard archipelago of Norway.
What makes the death of Chapple suitable material for SWP chortling is, it seems, the fact that he was a posh boy who went to Eton.
There was a time when I might have joined in with the sniggering, but I well remember being admonished over this by a senior comrade (himself of unimpeachable working class credentials) who told me, “socialism is about doing away with the idea that people’s worth should be judged by an accident of birth – and that applies just as much to workerism on the left as it does to mainstream society’s fawning before the aristocracy.” He was surely right, and I’ve never forgotten it – or the shame I felt at having to have such an elementary point explained to me.
Socialist Worker’s unpleasant sniggering over the death of this young man is all the more bizarre and distasteful when you consider the upper class, public school backgrounds of so many of their leading comrades, past and present - not least head honcho Callinicos, who (according to Wikipedia) “was educated at St George’s College, Salisbury (now Harare) … [and] … first became involved in revolutionary politics as a student at Balliol College, Oxford, from which he received his BA.”
Even more importantly, SW‘s gloating over this horrible death tells us a lot about the kind of “socialism” that this degenerate organisation now represents. Jones usefully reminds us of the words of Peter Fryer, the Daily Worker (forerunner of the Morning Star) journalist who resigned from the Communist Party of Britain after they suppressed his sympathetic coverage of the 1956 Hungarian revolution. Fryer was describing the Stalinist CP, but his words equally well apply to the nominally “Trotskyist” SWP of today:
“Stalinism is Marxism with the heart cut out, de-humanised, dried, frozen, petrified, rigid, barren.”
A frightening new era of Jewish-Arab hatred within Israel
From the +972 website:
Attacks by Jewish hooligans on Arabs, unprecedented incitement by right-wing politicians and clashes between Israeli Police and Arab youth. We’ve been here before, but never like this.
By Ron Gerlitz
This article is written at the height of an extensive, violent escalation in the Jewish-Arab conflict, both within Israel and between Israel and the Palestinians in the territories and the Gaza Strip.
Regarding the events inside Israel, it is important to note the dramatic difference between the events of October 2000 and those of the past week. In October 2000, it was Arab citizens of Israel confronting the police. In contrast, during the past week, Jewish and Arab civilians have faced off and attacked each other. The majority of these incidents involved assault and manifestations of racism by Jewish Israelis against Arab Israelis.
Unfortunately, such attacks are not a new phenomenon, but their scope over the last week is unprecedented. This is not just an escalation – it is an entirely new reality. We have never been in a situation in which attacks against Arab civilians occurred daily and all over Israel. The following is a collection of statements I heard from a firsthand source in the last few days: “Death to Arabs” marches in the streets of Nazareth Illit night after night, gangs of Jewish hooligans roaming the Jerusalem streets and beating Arabs, violent attacks against Arabs on buses, and, in Pardes Hanna, dozens of young people entered a mall screaming “Death to Arabs.” Furthermore, there have been innumerable incidents of profanity against Arabs.
No one comes out unscathed
I didn’t comprehend the scope of this phenomenon from the media, but rather from the fact that every single Arab citizen I have met recently (and I meet many) has told me about an incident that happened to him or to his family. One tells me that someone cursed at his daughter on the bus: “Filthy Arab, get out of here, all of you.” Another one tells me that she went to a clothing store and heard from an Arab worker that all the Arab employees had been fired that day. A friend tells me that his daughter went to the mall where some people (who didn’t realize she was Arab) told her, “All Arabs are dogs.” A colleague who lives near a main thoroughfare in a Jewish town says that a bag of sand was thrown at her house; since then, she has not let her children go out to the yard. Everyone has a story from the last week, and I haven’t yet mentioned the shock waves created by the brutal murder of 16-year-old Muhammad Abu Khdeir.
The result is that Israel’s Arab citizens sense a tremendous fear on a daily basis. Many of them avoid public areas; some have stopped showing up for work at shopping malls or riding public transportation, or they have prohibited their children from doing so. For many Arab citizens, the past week represents a turning point. Fear for their lives and their children’s lives have become a tangible, daily experience. This fear, in turn, gets linked to the insult and anger at the horrendous conditions in which they find themselves. The combination of increasing fear, anger, and sense of indignity is bad news for all residents of this country.
At the same time—and this is also important to point out—there have been attacks by Arabs on Jews: stones thrown at buses on the roads, Molotov cocktails thrown at passing cars, and, in the case that could well become symbolic—checking “who is a Jew” at the entrance to Qalanswa, taking Jewish drivers out of their cars, beating them, and setting their cars on fire. Even though these incidents are much smaller in scope than the attacks against Arabs, they are still a form of violence that is dangerous and morally repugnant. It is only by chance that these events have not yet resulted in casualties, and they have certainly increased the sense of fear and hatred among Jews.
On a personal note: I have worked on the issue of Jewish-Arab relations for a long time. I deal with issues of discrimination and racism, which evoke all kinds of feelings in me, such as anger, exasperation, frustration and a motivation to take action. We now find ourselves in a situation in which Arab citizens are genuinely afraid to walk in the streets, and rightfully so: when they do go out, they may well be verbally abused, or, in the worst case, be physically attacked. This causes me great shame.
And now for the bad news
I usually refrain from drawing pessimistic pictures of the future, but even according to the most cautious approach, it seems that the Jewish-Arab conflict in Israel might have entered a new and dangerous stage. Systematic discrimination by the establishment and popular racism have been some of the fundamental elements of the conflict to date. It seems that another element will now be added: violent conflicts between Jewish and Arab citizens. This is a nightmarish scenario that, unfortunately, no longer seems so imaginary. This is how civil wars in other regions of the world began. All those who value life must do everything in their power to stop this.
Where is the police?
As things stand now, the police have failed utterly to protect Israel’s Arab citizens. It is true that the police have prevented the lynching of Arabs wherever they have been on the scene, but the police do not work systematically to protect Arab lives. Many of the Arabs have been abandoned to the screaming, cursing and beating, and they are lucky that non-racist Jewish Israelis have saved them from the racists.
But it is also worth examining the protests in the Arab towns that included violent attacks on the police and sometimes on Jews as well. The difference between these events and those of October 2000 is clear. The police should now be roundly criticized: for the profusion of arrests, for the consistent and systematically discriminatory treatment of Arab protesters, and the suppression of demonstrations.
At the same time, it should be noted that the violent demonstrations transpired without any shots fired by the police or any casualties. Someone must have given the order to do everything to avoid shooting at the Arab protesters—and the order was carried out. Even though the police endured stones being thrown at them and the roads were closed, they managed to get through all the events without any casualties. In this sense, the police internalized and implemented the lessons of the October 2000 events. This is a positive development in the relationship between the state and its Arab citizens, and an example of how some of the recommendations made by the Or Commission were actually put in place. The police do not deserve a prize, but Noam Sheizaf was apparently right when he said they deserve a good word [Hebrew]. I would add: if only the Border Police and IDF acted this way toward the Palestinians in the occupied territories, many deaths could have been prevented.
There is leadership, and then there is leadership
The local Arab municipal leadership also deserves a good word. In almost all the localities where demonstrations took place, the heads of the local authorities intervened to prevent deterioration into even greater violence. Many of them went into the streets at night to try and prevent an escalation, and there is no doubt that they helped restore calm. At the time of writing, criticism of the heads of these local authorities is being voiced in Arab society. I do not share this criticism. Without their involvement, protestors or police officers may have been killed, and the situation would quickly have escalated from there.
Such an escalation would harm the Arab struggle to attain equality and break Jewish hegemony. At best, it would, strengthen, preserve and reinforce existing patterns of discrimination; at worst, it would contribute significantly to an additional infringement upon the rights of Arab citizens. All this is, of course, in the best-case scenario, in which the escalation does not lead to a civil war or an ongoing bloodbath.
Over the next few days, demonstrations are expected to take place in Arab localities. Both sides—the protesters and the police—will come with much more hatred and anger. One side sees its people subjected to nonstop bombings in Gaza, with more than 100 casualties and counting. The other side has to cope with protesters who, they believe, support the enemy even as their own families take cover in bomb shelters. This is a very dangerous scenario. The next few nights will be a litmus test for both the police and the Arab leadership.
In contrast to the local Arab leadership and the police – who have managed to cool down the flames – is the Israeli government. Not only is the government taking no action to reduce the escalation inside Israel, the past week has seen ministers fomenting provocation against Arab citizens. Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman and Economy Minister Naftali Bennett have let fly harsh, racist statements directed at Arab citizens. Liberman, as usual, suggested that Arabs should be denied their citizenship.
After a weekend of violence between Arab citizens and the police and between Jews and Arabs, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself chose to address Arab citizens. He reminded them that they receive payments from the National Insurance Institute and made all kinds of demands of them in return. It is hard to conceive of a more wretched, divisive, and dangerous response by a prime minister in these times.
But it is easy to think of a much better response. No need to think hard, just read the words of President-elect Reuven Rivlin:
We must understand that we have no option other than living together. The bloodshed will only come to an end when we all realize that we are not doomed to live together, but destined to live together. Any vacillation or compromise on this issue will result in deteriorated relations that could result in tragedy, not only for shared life, but for life itself.
So what now?
I have not given up hope. I still believe that there can be a better future for the relationship between Arab and Jewish citizens of Israel. At times like these, I once again hold fast to the awareness (which I have also written about here) that ethnic conflicts far more intransigent and violent than this one have been resolved, while conflicts that seemed mild have declined into bloodshed. All options are on the table.
This is not the first time that I am ending an article with the words of the Arab citizen of Israel, Raef Zreik, which now seem more important than ever:
My optimism does not stem from the belief that one can decipher history’s hidden plan or hasten its evolution. My optimism is more modest: it is the result not of clear analytical thinking but of historical experience. Experience teaches us that sometimes—but only sometimes—there are also historical tales with a happy end. History also teaches us that this end is not happenstance; rather, there were those who toiled to bring it about. And it is worth remembering: Just as we have no assurance of success, neither is there any certainty of failure.
Read this post in Hebrew on Local Call.
Ron Gerlitz is Co-Executive Director of Sikkuy: The Association for the Advancement of Civic Equality in Israel.
Related:
Why this isn’t a ‘new’ intifada
There is no war of images, only occupation
Kidnappings leave a wake of ‘revenge,’ racist violence
Ukraine: return of Putin’s useful idiots
Boris Kagarlitsky je ruski marksistički teoretičar i sociolog, politički disident u Sovjetskom savezu i post-sovjetskoj Rusiji. Zbog svog aktivizma, Boris je dvaput bio hapšen, 1982. i 1993. godine. Koordinator je projekta „Globalna kriza“ pri Transnacionalnom institutu i direktor Instituta za globalizaciju i društvene pokrete (IGSO) u Moskvi. Od 1994. do 2002. bio je viši istraživač-saradnik na Institutu za uporedne političke nauke Ruske akademije nauka (ISPRAN). Doktorat je stekao 1995. godine, sa tezom „Kolektivne akcije i politike rada u Rusiji tokom 1990-ih godina“. Autor je nekoliko knjiga među kojima su i Empire of the Periphery: Russia and the World System, Russia under Yeltsin and Putin: Neo-liberal Autocracy i The Mirage of Modernisation.
Sa Borisom smo razgovarali o sovjetskom socijalizmu, aktuelnoj političkoj situaciji u Rusiji, ali i o perspektivama levice u Evropi.
- See more at: http://pe.org.rs/osvrti/boris-kagarlitsky-od-krize-socijalizma-do-krize-savremene-levice-intervju/#sthash.ds4nfESE.dpuf
Boris Kagarlitsky je ruski marksistički teoretičar i sociolog, politički disident u Sovjetskom savezu i post-sovjetskoj Rusiji. Zbog svog aktivizma, Boris je dvaput bio hapšen, 1982. i 1993. godine. Koordinator je projekta „Globalna kriza“ pri Transnacionalnom institutu i direktor Instituta za globalizaciju i društvene pokrete (IGSO) u Moskvi. Od 1994. do 2002. bio je viši istraživač-saradnik na Institutu za uporedne političke nauke Ruske akademije nauka (ISPRAN). Doktorat je stekao 1995. godine, sa tezom „Kolektivne akcije i politike rada u Rusiji tokom 1990-ih godina“. Autor je nekoliko knjiga među kojima su i Empire of the Periphery: Russia and the World System, Russia under Yeltsin and Putin: Neo-liberal Autocracy i The Mirage of Modernisation.
Sa Borisom smo razgovarali o sovjetskom socijalizmu, aktuelnoj političkoj situaciji u Rusiji, ali i o perspektivama levice u Evropi.
- See more at: http://pe.org.rs/osvrti/boris-kagarlitsky-od-krize-socijalizma-do-krize-savremene-levice-intervju/#sthash.ds4nfESE
Guest post by Dale Street
An “international conference” entitled “The World Crisis and the Confrontation in Ukraine” was held in Yalta (Crimea – formerly Ukraine, now Russia) on 6th/7th July.
The background to the conference was provided in an article published on the website of the Russian academic magazine, “Politicheskoye Obrazovaniye” (1). An identical report of the conference’s proceedings was subsequently published on the website of “Rabkor” (2) and “Russian Spring” (3).
(The former is a left-wing website, edited by Boris Kagarlitsky. The latter is a right-wing website which is one of the electronic media mouthpieces of the Donetsk/Lugansk ‘People’s Republics’.)
According to its organisers, who included the “Centre of Co-ordination and Support for Novaya Rus’ (Novorossiya)” (4), the purpose of the conference was threefold:
“To create an international network of support for the movement for the creation of Novorossiya. … To provide additional arguments and emotional materials for western activists and intellectuals who support us.” (1)
“By inviting a number of western experts to Crimea, to demonstrate to the domestic (i.e. Russian) public the existence in western public opinion of a strong current hostile to the current anti-Russian campaign.” (1)
“Publications by conference participants in the western press and in the English-language section of the web (which) must facilitate the dissemination of information which is positive for Russia about the processes now underway.” (1)
The organizers also stressed the importance of the fact that the conference was being held in Crimea:
“The mere fact of the arrival in Crimea of an entire delegation of western intellectuals in and of itself is already a form of support for the changes which have taken place (i.e. the annexation of Crimea) and a blow to the various initiatives for a boycott of Russia.” (1)
The conference agreed that the overthrow of Yanukovich and the uprising in the south-east of Ukraine were both the product of the European social-economic crisis. As one of the participants put it:
“The struggle against the new Kiev authorities is really a struggle against the European Union, only not just in the form of a rejection of the politics of the destruction of the family and heterosexual relationships but in the form of a rejection of the entire anti-social neo-liberal policies of the western elites.” (2, 3)
“Banderite fascism,” the same speaker continued, was “needed by Washington and Brussels as an instrument to beat down social opposition.” (2, 3)
‘Representatives’ of the Donetsk and Lugansk so-called ‘People’s Republics’ informed the conference:
“A fifth column in Donetsk dreamed of surrendering the city to the punitive expeditionaries (the name used by the separatists to describe Ukrainian troops). They blocked initiatives to organize the rear and the defence of the city. But now order is being imposed.” (2, 3)
“We will not be raising the white flag, as desired by the oligarchs and the Banderite politicians and their American chiefs. We are very much in need of international support. We want people in Europe and beyond to know: we are fighting against the new fascism, we are fighting for freedom, we are fighting for our land.” (2, 3)
Described as “the co-ordinator of the campaign in defence of Novorossiya”, Richard Brenner (presumably Richard Brenner of “Workers’ Power”) is quoted as saying:
“For us it is very important to know what is happening in Donetsk and Lugansk, what is happening in the entire territory controlled by the junta. We perfectly understand that we are not helping some faraway incomprehensible rebels but are making common cause with the workers of Novorossiya.” (2, 3)
Other speakers stressed:
“The struggle of the people against fascism in former Ukraine has an international character. The Banderite-liberal-fascist regime in Kiev does not accord us any rights. And this is the doctrine of the USA and the EU, who are running the show on our land. The liberation struggle of Novorossiya not only has a Russian character but also a Eurasian one.” (2, 3)
An unnamed “European expert” present at the conference described the socio-economic havoc currently being wreaked by the “Euro-bureaucrats” and concluded:
“That is why we are in solidarity with you! Because we recognise that the enemy of Novorossiya is our common enemy – those neo-liberal forces who deprive us of our future.” (2, 3)
The conference concluded with agreement on an appeal to be published in English and Russian. Doubtless its politics will be on the same grotesque level as those of the conference itself.
Apart from Richard Brenner, attendees at the conferences included Boris Kagarlitsky, the American economist Jeff Sommers, Vasily Koltashov (doubtless not the only participant to have a problem with gay rights), and Roger Ennis (“co-ordinator of the Canadian Campaign in Support of the Donetsk people’s Republic”).
1) http://www.lawinrussia.ru/node/299677
2) http://rabkor.ru/report/2014/07/09/yalta
3) http://rusvesna.su/news/1405106243
4) This organization defines its role as: “The struggle against the fascist junta which has seized power in Kiev. The struggle for the freedom of the citizens of Novorossiya. The struggle of the Russian World for the right to live according to its own laws, free of Neanderthal Galician nationalism and oligarchic fascism of the Latin-American variety.” See: http://centerkor-ua.org/o-tsentre/pomoshch-soprotivleniyu.html
Kathy Stobart – jazzwoman
Kathy Stobart and her band in the early 1950s
Jazz can be proud of its anti-racist traditions and of how, from the early twentieth century, black and white musicians defied racism in order to work together to make great music. Jazz played a major role in the US civil rights movement and – long before the Brooklyn Dodgers signed Jackie Robinson for the 1946 season – helped convince white America that black people were at least their equals, and had an awful lot to contribute to the American Way Of Life, if only given the chance.
Jazz’s record on sexism and women’s rights is less honourable. Until quite recently, women were scarcely tolerated in jazz, and even then only as fans, hangers-on and singers. The few female instrumentalists that there were in the 1930s, 40s and 50s on the US scene tended to be treated with condescension or (as with pianist Mary Lou Williams, whose talent could not be denied), as novelties if not downright freaks.
The situation for British women jazz musicians was just as bad until very recently, which makes it only right and proper that we now remember the tenor sax player Kathy Stobart, who died on 6 July aged 89. Kathy was a pioneer, having started professionally in the 1940s when she ran her own band and worked for top bandleaders like Vic Lewis and Ted Heath. It 1957 she caused a minor sensation when she stepped in for Jimmy Skidmore (who was ill) with the Humphrey Lyttelton Band and recorded a highly-regarded album, Kath Meets Humph.
Humph held Kathy in high regard, describing her sax playing as having “a huge booming sound, imbued with total originality and a commanding presence.” Kathy joined Humph’s band as a regular member between 1969 and 1978, and then re-joined for 12 years from 1992. She set a precedent: after Kathy left, Humph hired two other female sax players, Karen Sharpe and Jo Fooks, both of whom have spoken of Kathy as a major inspiration and role model.
Kathy’s second husband, the trumpeter Bert Courtley, died in 1969, leaving Kathy a single parent, and she took up music teaching to supplement her income. By all accounts she was a “natural” and in 2000 she tutored Judi Dench in the rudiments of sax playing for her role in Alan Plater’s TV play The Last of the Blonde Bombshells.
Kathy, like a lot of the best female jazz players, would frequently be described by critics and fans, as playing “like a man”. The description didn’t please Kathy, who once commented: “It’s supposed to be the ultimate compliment, but I wouldn’t apply it to myself. I’ve got a good pair of lungs on me and I’ve got well matured emotions. I play like me.”
Guardian obit here
Make 10 July the start of the fightback!
Adapted from a Workers Liberty leaflet:
Up to two million workers will strike on 10 July. Members of unions in local government will strike to oppose a 1% pay offer, and are demanding an increase of at least £1 per hour or to the “Living Wage”, £7.65, or £8.80 in London. Other unions involved in the action have their own pay demands.
According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the cost of maintaining a decent standard of living in the UK has risen by 46% since 2008, while wages have increased by just 9%. It’s the harshest squeeze on real wages in the UK since records began. According to TUC figures, around five million workers in Britain (20% of the total workforce) are paid less than the living wage.
The 10 July strike can be the start of a working class counter-offensive challenging the capitalist logic that demands workers pay for the financial crisis.
We need a plan, not just a day at a time
One-off strike days, each followed by a long wait until union leaders report back or call further action, aren’t nough.
The remedy is not just to convert one-day protest strikes into two-day protest strikes, but to plan continuing action, discussed and decided in advance by union members. This could include limited, selective action as well as all-out strikes and be directed by local strike committees.
Local strike committees should continue meeting after 10 July, and the executives of all the striking unions should meet together.
After 10th July?
Unison’s leaders have already talked about further strikes on 9 and 10 September. Unions should liaise with each other in order to pin down the most effective date, and other actions should be planned between now and then – even small, local events like lunchtime rallies, demos and street stalls.
NHS workers should be brought into the dispute. Unison should act on its 2014 Health sector conference decision to ballot for strikes over pay. Strike funds should be levied at both local and national level to ensure the lowest-paid workers are supported in taking sustained and escalating action.
On strike days every workplace should be picketed, with pickets approaching non-striking workers and attempting to persuade them not to cross. In 2011 some activists held members’ meetings with discussion and voting – not just set-piece rallies.’ We should organise such meetings this time, as well.
All Out July 10th!
Unison leaflets here
If you can’t get to the London demo, here are the local picket lines and demos:
LONDON & EASTERN
The Woolwich Centre, Wellington Street, Woolwich
Luton Town Centre
5.15 am Morson Road, Depot, Enfield
10.00 am Walthamstow Market Square
(10.45 move to Oxford Circus and assemble outside
Broadcasting House, Great Portland Street for 11.30 am)
Barking & Dagenham
Civic Centre Dagenham
Frizlands Lane Depot
Barking Town Hall
Creek Road Depot
Thurrock
Civic Office, New Road, Grays
Oliver Close Depot, West Thurrock
Curzon Drive Depot, Grays
Redbridge
Ley Street Depot
Town Hall Ilford
Newham
Building 1000, Becton
Town Hall, Barking Road,
Folkstone Road Depot, East Ham
Peterborough
Picket lines:
6.30 am Amey Depot
7.00 am Bayard Place (throughout the day)
EAST MIDLANDS
Northampton
11.30 am Beckers Park, Northampton
12.30 pm Rally at All Saints Plaza
Derby
Picket lines:
5.00 am Stores Road Depot
7.00 am The Council House
7.45 am Middleton House
11.00 am Rally at The Market Square
Chesterfield
11.00 am Rally at Rykneld Square
Leicester
Picket lines:
07.00 am Sulgrave Square
07.00 am Layton Road
07.00 am Blackbird Road
11.30 am Rally at King Street
Lincoln
11.30 am Rally at Brayford Wharf North
12.30 Rally at City Square
Nottingham
Picket lines:
Loxley House
Eastcroft Depot
Eastwood Depot
Nottingham City Homes
10.30 am Rally at Forest Recreation Ground
WEST MIDLANDS
Walsall
Picket lines:
7.30 am Town Hall, WS1 1TW
7.30 am Civic Centre staff entrance & environmental depot
200 Pelsall Road, Brownhills WS8 7EN
10.30 am Sandwell mbc organising a mass demo outside
the council house, oldbury with free transport to the TUC
demo in Birmingham
Stoke
Picket lines
07.30 am. Civic Centre, Swann House
Hanley town hall
Cromer Road depot
Kingsway Stoke, outside the civic centre – rally
NORTH EAST, YORKSHIRE & HUMBERSIDE
11.00 am Northumberland Road (next to City Hall), Newcastle
Northumberland County Council, Stakeford Depot
Durham County Council, Meadowfield Depot
Redcar & Cleveland Council Depot
Middlesbrough Council, Town Hall
SOUTH EAST
Southampton
Marlands
Civic (front & back)
City Depot
Shirley
Southampton Common
Woolston School Base
Portsmouth
Picket lines:
07.30 Green & Clean Depot, Port Royal Street
07.30 Civic Offices, Guildhall Square
08.00 City Museum, Museum Road
10.00 Portsmouth International Port
12.00 pm Rally at Guildhall Square
Ukraine public meeting, London, Weds 9th July
We’ve been asked by Ukrainian Socialist Solidarity, to publicise this meeting to be held at the House of Commons tomorrow; we’re happy to oblige, especially in view of the appalling, thoroughly one-sided campaign of misinformation/disinformation and pro-Putin propaganda being spread on the British left by the likes of the Morning Star and the so-called ‘Stop The War Coalition.’ Apologies for the short notice:
Ukraine is suffering from war and a deep social crisis that has implications for all of Europe. Many are asking what has happened in Ukraine. What is the role of Russia and the West? How should we respond? This forum is a unique opportunity to hear an alternative, first-hand analysis from leading socialists and trade unionists from Ukraine and Russia.
Speakers
Nina Potarskaya of the Left-Opposition, director of the Centre for Social and Labour Research, socialist candidate in the Kyiv elections
Kirill Buketov of the Praxis centre Moscow, and the Global Labour Institute
Hosted by John McDonnell MP.
Wednesday 9th July 7pm
Committee Room CR10, House of Commons, London
Via the main St Stephens entrance
