Well busy, busy, busy...this morning off to Headcorn primary school to see Cllr Penny Kemp give the school its own worm bin, Penny is fighting a two horse race against the Conservatives to win a borough council seat, this was in her parish capacity.
Saturday made neetle soup with my three sons, planted the carrots and did a bit of weeding, found lots of manure plus about 50 plant pots that were being thrown out. Dr who of course...
Off to Zen in a minute.
Lots more electioneering to come.
Nandor is running for co-leader of New Zealand Greens, sadly the MCB may have committed U turn and returned to homophobic policies, although I am not sure how reliable the comments in the sunday papers were.
Well tomorrow lots of economics teaching as usual!
Whole host of meetings coming up, debating with Adam Buick of the Socialist Party GB at Kingston Green fair, monday late May bank holiday and speaking to Climate Change conference, Brighton and Norwich Green Parties.
Heard good and interesting things about tonights Green Party political...Alex Cos who did Repo Man always puts together a good PPB...will probably be staring at a wall when it goes out!
yours for ecosocialismo Derek!
Derek!
24 Apr 2006
22 Apr 2006
Growing the Red/Green Paradigm/book I like by John Rees
For the reader who wants an introduction to the history of dialectical thought in the socialist movement, and especially the thorny issue of the Nature and Human interelationship, the only work that is both readable and not over-simplified is The Algebra of Revolution: The Dialectic and the Classical Marxist Tradition by John Rees (Routledge, 1998).
Well shock horror Dr Wall makes/quotes positive comment about John Rees...what next Sara Parkin round for tea? The quote is from my dear late friend Walt Sheasby
I will try and post some classics from Walt Sheasby...really the greatest ecosocialist after Morris, a friend, a practioner of Zen, he stayed with me here in Berkshire, UK and visited Brighton Green Party...he died of Nile Virus spread up the west coast of the USA by global warming...lots of his stuff on the web...a prophet, I miss him very deeply. Any way here is the first, an outline of books published in the 2000s on ecosocialism
Despite my general frustration with the Socialist Workers Party which seems to go for rather manipulative and unimaginative politics generally aimed at jumping on band wagons, I like Walt who was briefly in the SWP when he taught in Britain in the 1980s(?), found the John Rees book on dialectics good and informative. A holistic dialectic philosophy of nature spans Marx, William Blake and the Greens.....another criticism of the SWP is their lukewarm approach to Cuba and Venezuela....and their to my mind rather uncritical approach to Islam....I must say when I think of the SWP and most far left parties the Green Party of England and Wales is an oasis of harmony and democracy. Any way enough of me lets get on to Walt's article.
Synthesis/Regeneration 22 (Spring 2000)
Growing the Red/Green Paradigm:
Ecological Socialism in Root and Branch
by Walt Contreras Sheasby, Green Party, Los Angeles County
Profound turning points in social theory have always been in response to wrenching crises in society, and the growing threat of global ecological disaster is sweeping together and coalescing critical viewpoints. These are exciting times for the growing number of students and activists who are bringing together "red" and "green." Several new books are making the eco-socialist paradigm a serious contender against the sterile flatlands of capitalist culture and ideology. For the most part this new theory remains unseen by the sated and drowsy academic intellectuals who have feasted, or so they thought, on the end of history.
Yet this new theory deals with an issue at the root of critical thinking, the perennial contradiction that reappears throughout history: Humanity is part of Nature::Humanity is not part of Nature. It is a very old dilemma, but with a new urgency, and all of the books reviewed here confront it by means of dialectics rather than formal logical absolutes.
Several new books are making the eco-socialist paradigm a serious contender against the sterile flatlands of capitalist culture and ideology.
This year we have the publication of at least two eagerly awaited books: John Bellamy Foster's book, Marx's Ecology: Materialism and Nature, due out in March from Monthly Review Press, will be a powerful and radical intervention into environmental sociology, as well as bringing Marx's ecological roots to the forefront of socialist theory. The University of Oregon sociologist is co-editor of Organization and Environment, a journal from Sage Press, as well a regular contributor to Monthly Review.
Foster has already highlighted "Marx's Theory of Metabololic Rift: Classical Foundations for Environmental Sociology," in the American Journal of Sociology (Vol. 105, No. 2, Sept. 1999: 366-405), and his new book promises to be the most probing analysis yet of the metabolic basis of sustainability, described as "a rising conceptual star" in the International Handbook of Environmental Sociology (Edward Elgar, 1997). Until recently, little attention was paid to Marx's use of the concept, adapted from the cell theorist Theodor Schwann and the organic chemist Justus Liebig.
Another book due out later this year is Joel Kovel's manifesto of political ecology, The Enemy of Nature, which attacks the system of capitalism in a way that goes far beyond progressive critiques of corporate excesses. Kovel lays out a consistent call for a radical reconstruction of society and restoration of the environment. For Kovel, the liberation of nature is inseparable from the emancipation of labor, or what Marx called the free association of producers. In ecological labor, or praxis, concrete labor is differentiated from its object, but not split apart from it, unlike the abstract labor of commodity production.
As Kovel said in an April 1997 Workshop on Ecological Socialism organized by the journal Capitalism, Nature, Socialism, "The unboundedness of a dialectical (=socialist = ecological) process is one of organic flow; the unboundedness of capital is like the spasmodic and uncontrollable growth of a cancer." Kovel developed this Hegelian dialectic of differentiation-in-action in contrast with splitting-in-action in his book, History and Spirit: An Inquiry into the Philosophy of Liberation (Glad Day Books, 1999), one of the few Marxian texts since Ernst Bloch and Erich Fromm to deal seriously with the concept of Spirit.
For those interested in the latest branching out of Critical Theory in both its Psychoanalytic and Hegel-Marx dimensions into the new Political Ecology, his forthcoming Enemy of Nature, which brings together new and previously published chapters, many available on the internet, promises to be a major contribution to red/green philosophy.
One of the influences on his recent work is the former student of Georg Lukacs, Istvan Meszaros, whom Kovel thinks has surpassed his mentor. A hefty and difficult magnum opus by Meszaros, Beyond Capital: Towards a Theory of Transition (MR Press, 1995), has had a major influence on ecological socialism without attracting any attention in the bookstores, although his earlier work from 1970, Marx's Theory of Alienation (Prometheus, 1986), was very widely read and is still available as a reprint. Meszaros, a philosopher emeritus at the University of Sussex, has brought his unrivaled dialectical analysis to bear on the most vexing political and economic issues of contemporary global capitalism.
...it will depend on the eco-socialist currents to link the...discordant voices of protest against environmental degradation into a coherent force of solidarity.
For the reader who wants an introduction to the history of dialectical thought in the socialist movement, and especially the thorny issue of the Nature and Human interelationship, the only work that is both readable and not over-simplified is The Algebra of Revolution: The Dialectic and the Classical Marxist Tradition by John Rees (Routledge, 1998).
But for a work that focuses specifically on the relation of Human and Nature in Marx's thought, especially in his mature economic writings, there is nothing that comes close to Marx and Nature: A Red and Green Perspective (1999) by Paul Burkett, a young economist at Indiana State University. In reconstructing Marx's theory (particularly from recently published economic notebooks), Burket challenges any number of left critics of Marx, including Rudolf Bahro, Ted Benton, Geoffrey Carpenter, Jean-Paul Deleage, Andre Gorz, Enrique Leff and others. Burkett's tour de force, as Foster calls it, completely shifts the terrain of discourse on Marx and the meaning of the Nature-Human metabolism, and brings the issue of the use-value of the commodity form to the center of the ecological crisis.
The latter is a theme explored in many ramifications in James O'Connor's watermark anthology, Natural Causes: Essays in Ecological Marxism (Guilford, 1998). One of the great deans emeritus of Marxian economics, he is at the University of California at Santa Cruz, and is the founder of Capitalism, Nature, Socialism: A Journal of Socialist Ecology published since 1990.
He and Burkett have disagreed on whether there are two distinct types of contradiction in capitalism, an ecological crisis of the conditions of production and consumption, as well as an economic crisis of accumulation of capital, or whether these are two sides of the complex, contradictory way that capitalism relates use values and exchange values.
This is an issue which goes to the heart of the red/green project. In a letter, James O'Connor says, "We now agree that the distinguishing mark of ecosocialism compared with plain socialism is that ecosocialism pays as much attention to the use value side of things as to the exchange value side (or, seen one way, to the qualitative as to the quantitative)...." He also notes that, "Traditional socialism didn't problematize capitalist technology, while the new left did, then the greens generalized the work of the new left." But the really novel aspect of Natural Causes is the consideration of "Uneven and Combined Development" in relation to spatial and temporal crises affecting the flow of limited use-values from tap to sink, from resource extraction to disposal of pollutant and waste. O'Connor suggests a new way of looking at the unsustainability of global capitalism that links rigorous ecological analysis with the rationale of resistance struggles in both the center and periphery of the empire.
Ultimately, it will depend on the eco-socialist currents to nourish a movement that is able to link the varied and often discordant voices of protest against environmental degradation into a coherent force of transnational and pancultural solidarity.
Burkett, Paul (1999), Marx and Nature: A Red and Green Perspective, New York: St. Martin's Press, $45.00.
Foster, John Bellamy (1999), Marx's Ecology: Materialism and Nature, New York: Monthly Review Press, $18.00.
Kovel, Joel (1999), History and Spirit: An Inquiry into the Philosophy of Liberation, Warner, NH: Glad Day Books, $21.95.
Kovel, Joel (2000), The Enemy of Nature [forthcoming].
Meszaros, Istvan (1986), Marx's Theory of Alienation, New York: Prometheus.
Meszaros, Istvan (1995), Beyond Capital: Towards a Theory of Transition, MR Press.
O'Connor, James (1998), Natural Causes: Essays in Ecological Marxism, New York: Guilford Books, $19.95.
Rees, John (1998), The Algebra of Revolution: The Dialectic and the Classical Marxist Tradition, London and New York: Routledge, $24.99.
Note: Order your books from friendly outlets like
Eco Books, 192 Fifth Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11217
(718) 623-2698. email: info@ecobooks.com
Well shock horror Dr Wall makes/quotes positive comment about John Rees...what next Sara Parkin round for tea? The quote is from my dear late friend Walt Sheasby
I will try and post some classics from Walt Sheasby...really the greatest ecosocialist after Morris, a friend, a practioner of Zen, he stayed with me here in Berkshire, UK and visited Brighton Green Party...he died of Nile Virus spread up the west coast of the USA by global warming...lots of his stuff on the web...a prophet, I miss him very deeply. Any way here is the first, an outline of books published in the 2000s on ecosocialism
Despite my general frustration with the Socialist Workers Party which seems to go for rather manipulative and unimaginative politics generally aimed at jumping on band wagons, I like Walt who was briefly in the SWP when he taught in Britain in the 1980s(?), found the John Rees book on dialectics good and informative. A holistic dialectic philosophy of nature spans Marx, William Blake and the Greens.....another criticism of the SWP is their lukewarm approach to Cuba and Venezuela....and their to my mind rather uncritical approach to Islam....I must say when I think of the SWP and most far left parties the Green Party of England and Wales is an oasis of harmony and democracy. Any way enough of me lets get on to Walt's article.
Synthesis/Regeneration 22 (Spring 2000)
Growing the Red/Green Paradigm:
Ecological Socialism in Root and Branch
by Walt Contreras Sheasby, Green Party, Los Angeles County
Profound turning points in social theory have always been in response to wrenching crises in society, and the growing threat of global ecological disaster is sweeping together and coalescing critical viewpoints. These are exciting times for the growing number of students and activists who are bringing together "red" and "green." Several new books are making the eco-socialist paradigm a serious contender against the sterile flatlands of capitalist culture and ideology. For the most part this new theory remains unseen by the sated and drowsy academic intellectuals who have feasted, or so they thought, on the end of history.
Yet this new theory deals with an issue at the root of critical thinking, the perennial contradiction that reappears throughout history: Humanity is part of Nature::Humanity is not part of Nature. It is a very old dilemma, but with a new urgency, and all of the books reviewed here confront it by means of dialectics rather than formal logical absolutes.
Several new books are making the eco-socialist paradigm a serious contender against the sterile flatlands of capitalist culture and ideology.
This year we have the publication of at least two eagerly awaited books: John Bellamy Foster's book, Marx's Ecology: Materialism and Nature, due out in March from Monthly Review Press, will be a powerful and radical intervention into environmental sociology, as well as bringing Marx's ecological roots to the forefront of socialist theory. The University of Oregon sociologist is co-editor of Organization and Environment, a journal from Sage Press, as well a regular contributor to Monthly Review.
Foster has already highlighted "Marx's Theory of Metabololic Rift: Classical Foundations for Environmental Sociology," in the American Journal of Sociology (Vol. 105, No. 2, Sept. 1999: 366-405), and his new book promises to be the most probing analysis yet of the metabolic basis of sustainability, described as "a rising conceptual star" in the International Handbook of Environmental Sociology (Edward Elgar, 1997). Until recently, little attention was paid to Marx's use of the concept, adapted from the cell theorist Theodor Schwann and the organic chemist Justus Liebig.
Another book due out later this year is Joel Kovel's manifesto of political ecology, The Enemy of Nature, which attacks the system of capitalism in a way that goes far beyond progressive critiques of corporate excesses. Kovel lays out a consistent call for a radical reconstruction of society and restoration of the environment. For Kovel, the liberation of nature is inseparable from the emancipation of labor, or what Marx called the free association of producers. In ecological labor, or praxis, concrete labor is differentiated from its object, but not split apart from it, unlike the abstract labor of commodity production.
As Kovel said in an April 1997 Workshop on Ecological Socialism organized by the journal Capitalism, Nature, Socialism, "The unboundedness of a dialectical (=socialist = ecological) process is one of organic flow; the unboundedness of capital is like the spasmodic and uncontrollable growth of a cancer." Kovel developed this Hegelian dialectic of differentiation-in-action in contrast with splitting-in-action in his book, History and Spirit: An Inquiry into the Philosophy of Liberation (Glad Day Books, 1999), one of the few Marxian texts since Ernst Bloch and Erich Fromm to deal seriously with the concept of Spirit.
For those interested in the latest branching out of Critical Theory in both its Psychoanalytic and Hegel-Marx dimensions into the new Political Ecology, his forthcoming Enemy of Nature, which brings together new and previously published chapters, many available on the internet, promises to be a major contribution to red/green philosophy.
One of the influences on his recent work is the former student of Georg Lukacs, Istvan Meszaros, whom Kovel thinks has surpassed his mentor. A hefty and difficult magnum opus by Meszaros, Beyond Capital: Towards a Theory of Transition (MR Press, 1995), has had a major influence on ecological socialism without attracting any attention in the bookstores, although his earlier work from 1970, Marx's Theory of Alienation (Prometheus, 1986), was very widely read and is still available as a reprint. Meszaros, a philosopher emeritus at the University of Sussex, has brought his unrivaled dialectical analysis to bear on the most vexing political and economic issues of contemporary global capitalism.
...it will depend on the eco-socialist currents to link the...discordant voices of protest against environmental degradation into a coherent force of solidarity.
For the reader who wants an introduction to the history of dialectical thought in the socialist movement, and especially the thorny issue of the Nature and Human interelationship, the only work that is both readable and not over-simplified is The Algebra of Revolution: The Dialectic and the Classical Marxist Tradition by John Rees (Routledge, 1998).
But for a work that focuses specifically on the relation of Human and Nature in Marx's thought, especially in his mature economic writings, there is nothing that comes close to Marx and Nature: A Red and Green Perspective (1999) by Paul Burkett, a young economist at Indiana State University. In reconstructing Marx's theory (particularly from recently published economic notebooks), Burket challenges any number of left critics of Marx, including Rudolf Bahro, Ted Benton, Geoffrey Carpenter, Jean-Paul Deleage, Andre Gorz, Enrique Leff and others. Burkett's tour de force, as Foster calls it, completely shifts the terrain of discourse on Marx and the meaning of the Nature-Human metabolism, and brings the issue of the use-value of the commodity form to the center of the ecological crisis.
The latter is a theme explored in many ramifications in James O'Connor's watermark anthology, Natural Causes: Essays in Ecological Marxism (Guilford, 1998). One of the great deans emeritus of Marxian economics, he is at the University of California at Santa Cruz, and is the founder of Capitalism, Nature, Socialism: A Journal of Socialist Ecology published since 1990.
He and Burkett have disagreed on whether there are two distinct types of contradiction in capitalism, an ecological crisis of the conditions of production and consumption, as well as an economic crisis of accumulation of capital, or whether these are two sides of the complex, contradictory way that capitalism relates use values and exchange values.
This is an issue which goes to the heart of the red/green project. In a letter, James O'Connor says, "We now agree that the distinguishing mark of ecosocialism compared with plain socialism is that ecosocialism pays as much attention to the use value side of things as to the exchange value side (or, seen one way, to the qualitative as to the quantitative)...." He also notes that, "Traditional socialism didn't problematize capitalist technology, while the new left did, then the greens generalized the work of the new left." But the really novel aspect of Natural Causes is the consideration of "Uneven and Combined Development" in relation to spatial and temporal crises affecting the flow of limited use-values from tap to sink, from resource extraction to disposal of pollutant and waste. O'Connor suggests a new way of looking at the unsustainability of global capitalism that links rigorous ecological analysis with the rationale of resistance struggles in both the center and periphery of the empire.
Ultimately, it will depend on the eco-socialist currents to nourish a movement that is able to link the varied and often discordant voices of protest against environmental degradation into a coherent force of transnational and pancultural solidarity.
Burkett, Paul (1999), Marx and Nature: A Red and Green Perspective, New York: St. Martin's Press, $45.00.
Foster, John Bellamy (1999), Marx's Ecology: Materialism and Nature, New York: Monthly Review Press, $18.00.
Kovel, Joel (1999), History and Spirit: An Inquiry into the Philosophy of Liberation, Warner, NH: Glad Day Books, $21.95.
Kovel, Joel (2000), The Enemy of Nature [forthcoming].
Meszaros, Istvan (1986), Marx's Theory of Alienation, New York: Prometheus.
Meszaros, Istvan (1995), Beyond Capital: Towards a Theory of Transition, MR Press.
O'Connor, James (1998), Natural Causes: Essays in Ecological Marxism, New York: Guilford Books, $19.95.
Rees, John (1998), The Algebra of Revolution: The Dialectic and the Classical Marxist Tradition, London and New York: Routledge, $24.99.
Note: Order your books from friendly outlets like
Eco Books, 192 Fifth Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11217
(718) 623-2698. email: info@ecobooks.com
Green Death: Dr Who and ecological politics.
Science fiction under commercial pressure is morphying into a vehicle for playstation two games, witness the Star Wars trilogy, however at its best it provides an arena for flagging up all sorts of moral, political and philosophical problems. Mary Shelley's Frakenstein as I guess most of us know was about the ethics of science, of genetic modification. Godzilla anti-nuclear tale....
Popular culture shapes ideas and practices and is shaped by them, Greens often forget culture...another green world demands a culture shift around lots of practices from compost toilets to scepticism about cash to localisation.....the battle for ideological hegemony, the struggle between different ideas and practices is profoundly political...the kind of success Greens get electorally rests not just on fighting good campaigns, on political circumstances (Labour's move to the right, may be far right...Conservative legtimation of environmentalism) but upon a mountain of cultural change, everything from Greenpeace adds, to free festivals, to youth cultures from punk to hippie, to green strainst in religion (Rastafarianism, Matthew Fox, Zen).....science fiction is one avenue of popular culture, so with 8 million watching last weeks opening episode Dr Who has to have an influence.
The new Dr Who is consistently political and has some good sexual politics, no surprise as it is put together by the man who wrote 'Queer as Folk', never much explicit sexually reference in Dr Who 1963-1990, now we have much gender bending and sexual ambiguity and celebration of sex. It also deals with the big ethical issues, last weeks episode saw a return to Frankenstein's real theme, the big theme of animal liberation in medicince....is it ethical to use humans or others instrumentaly what ever the benefits. As we all know the scripts are good, the acting solid, special effects which are beautiful rather than just a come on to buy more electronic violence stimulators....there is plenty of right wing sf think Heinlein (social credit and Ayn Rand, aargh!) Zizek argues that Rand, incidentally, is a parody which is so right wing it erodes the free market....
Dr Who though has a pretty proud political history much of it dealing with green issues, non violence and justice. The Daleks were a parody of the Nazis, the Dr's assistant Ace comment that they disliked racial impurity, the cyberman were invented by Dr Kit Pedler whose quest for Gaia book is a green tome, episodes like the Green Death (yes the one with the giant maggots) were inspired according to Barry Letts by The Ecologist magazine. The Mutants dealt with anti-colonialism and anti-imperialism, the Sun Makers borrowed from Marx to show how capitalism run by the Usurians was exploitative.
Well, I suppose the popular culture Marxist classic is Spartacus, Marx noted he was his favourite hero....but Dr Who has its moments, well are we going to have a republican look at Queen Victoria or a deep ecology take on werewolfs (already had that in genesis of the Daleks, were are hero is reluctant to kill a species even a constructed one which is the ultimate evil) in tonights episode, probably not but you never know.
Any way all good fun, anti-gulf war stuff was strong in the last series and the Christmas special saw the Dr bring down a new labour prime minister with six little words.
More on Brecht and Bakhtin another day....
here are some plot details from Vincent Wall (12)
Tooth and fang
Last night doctor who was on. The episode was called tooth and fang. It was about a manor house in Victorian Scotland.. The house is called torch wood and has a strange story about a man who can change into wolf and monks who worship him. The story begins with the people who live in the house {apart from the lord} being put in the cellar by the monks. In the cellar there a strange man in a cage that they find very scary. Then we see the doctor and rose in the tardis talking about 1979 because they are going to have a short stay there
Popular culture shapes ideas and practices and is shaped by them, Greens often forget culture...another green world demands a culture shift around lots of practices from compost toilets to scepticism about cash to localisation.....the battle for ideological hegemony, the struggle between different ideas and practices is profoundly political...the kind of success Greens get electorally rests not just on fighting good campaigns, on political circumstances (Labour's move to the right, may be far right...Conservative legtimation of environmentalism) but upon a mountain of cultural change, everything from Greenpeace adds, to free festivals, to youth cultures from punk to hippie, to green strainst in religion (Rastafarianism, Matthew Fox, Zen).....science fiction is one avenue of popular culture, so with 8 million watching last weeks opening episode Dr Who has to have an influence.
The new Dr Who is consistently political and has some good sexual politics, no surprise as it is put together by the man who wrote 'Queer as Folk', never much explicit sexually reference in Dr Who 1963-1990, now we have much gender bending and sexual ambiguity and celebration of sex. It also deals with the big ethical issues, last weeks episode saw a return to Frankenstein's real theme, the big theme of animal liberation in medicince....is it ethical to use humans or others instrumentaly what ever the benefits. As we all know the scripts are good, the acting solid, special effects which are beautiful rather than just a come on to buy more electronic violence stimulators....there is plenty of right wing sf think Heinlein (social credit and Ayn Rand, aargh!) Zizek argues that Rand, incidentally, is a parody which is so right wing it erodes the free market....
Dr Who though has a pretty proud political history much of it dealing with green issues, non violence and justice. The Daleks were a parody of the Nazis, the Dr's assistant Ace comment that they disliked racial impurity, the cyberman were invented by Dr Kit Pedler whose quest for Gaia book is a green tome, episodes like the Green Death (yes the one with the giant maggots) were inspired according to Barry Letts by The Ecologist magazine. The Mutants dealt with anti-colonialism and anti-imperialism, the Sun Makers borrowed from Marx to show how capitalism run by the Usurians was exploitative.
Well, I suppose the popular culture Marxist classic is Spartacus, Marx noted he was his favourite hero....but Dr Who has its moments, well are we going to have a republican look at Queen Victoria or a deep ecology take on werewolfs (already had that in genesis of the Daleks, were are hero is reluctant to kill a species even a constructed one which is the ultimate evil) in tonights episode, probably not but you never know.
Any way all good fun, anti-gulf war stuff was strong in the last series and the Christmas special saw the Dr bring down a new labour prime minister with six little words.
More on Brecht and Bakhtin another day....
here are some plot details from Vincent Wall (12)
Tooth and fang
Last night doctor who was on. The episode was called tooth and fang. It was about a manor house in Victorian Scotland.. The house is called torch wood and has a strange story about a man who can change into wolf and monks who worship him. The story begins with the people who live in the house {apart from the lord} being put in the cellar by the monks. In the cellar there a strange man in a cage that they find very scary. Then we see the doctor and rose in the tardis talking about 1979 because they are going to have a short stay there
21 Apr 2006
Blair, Berlusconi and the BNP
Has the labour Party been talking up the BNP vote to frighten voters back to the labour fold? The BNP only have 300 candidates in the election, so only a small percentage of voters will have the opportunity to vote for them. There are two pretty obvious issues here. 1) concerns the growth of Fascism, it is propelled by neo-liberalism which out sources jobs and leads to heavy costs for the working class, with a race to the bottom world wide strugle to push down social wages (council housing, good public services, welfare state) and money wage. Fascism is perhaps always the socialism of fools looking not at capitalism but race and debt/evil bankers! The retreat of Labour from even social democratic politics means that working class voters are desperate for any alternative from Lib dems to ICWA to the far right...the very policies New labour promotes erode their support base.
2) Given the fascist nature of the recent Berlusconi government with Mussolini's successor party MSI, which has been a Blair ally...it seems a bit rich being warned of the albeit real and nasty dangers of the BNP picking up local councillors, where Blair has been cuddly with a real life far right government.
So we must resist BNP but look at some of the causes of the fascist advance and to see fascism as a wider authoritarianism on the march from Washington to 10 Downing Street.
2) Given the fascist nature of the recent Berlusconi government with Mussolini's successor party MSI, which has been a Blair ally...it seems a bit rich being warned of the albeit real and nasty dangers of the BNP picking up local councillors, where Blair has been cuddly with a real life far right government.
So we must resist BNP but look at some of the causes of the fascist advance and to see fascism as a wider authoritarianism on the march from Washington to 10 Downing Street.
20 Apr 2006
Iraq motion from Green Party of England and Wales
Canvassing with seven others in winnable ward Kentish Town as part of my election tour, very encouraging...posting this sound Iraq motion, hopefully the Euro Greens will accept it and it will be useful for pushing the new Italian government which includes Verdi to get out of Iraq.
Dear colleagues on International Committee,
This is the motion which we agreed to put to the EGP conference in Helsinki. There were various suggestions about what should appear in the preamble and I did put forward one suggestion but others said that they would include other points. Now that the new Italian government is commited to withdrawing its troops from Iraq by late this year, I feel that there is more chance that the motion will succeed.
Introduction:
When even former US supporters of the war, such as Francis Fukuyama, admit that the war and occupation have been a disaster, it is time to leave the destiny of Iraq to be decided by its own people. The alternative is to continue a long and bloody conflict, which will only lead to the death of many more Iraqis and Europeans. While hopeful that the work of NGOs, peace makers and others will continue in Iraq and that the economic reconstruction of Iraq can begin in earnest, this cannot take place as long as the coalition forces which began the war remain in occupation of the country. The withdrawal of the European element of 'The Coalition of the Willing' is essential in order to restore good relations between the European states and the Arab world and to bring about peace in Iraq.
MOTION:
We call for the immediate withdrawal of UK and other European forces from Iraq. This is because of the abject failure of the coalition of forces which invaded Iraq illegally three years ago to provide firm and fair governance and security and the mounting evidence that their continuing presence in Iraq is leading to civil war and mounting casualties.
Proposer: Green Party of England & Wales plus other national parties
Joseph Healy
Dear colleagues on International Committee,
This is the motion which we agreed to put to the EGP conference in Helsinki. There were various suggestions about what should appear in the preamble and I did put forward one suggestion but others said that they would include other points. Now that the new Italian government is commited to withdrawing its troops from Iraq by late this year, I feel that there is more chance that the motion will succeed.
Introduction:
When even former US supporters of the war, such as Francis Fukuyama, admit that the war and occupation have been a disaster, it is time to leave the destiny of Iraq to be decided by its own people. The alternative is to continue a long and bloody conflict, which will only lead to the death of many more Iraqis and Europeans. While hopeful that the work of NGOs, peace makers and others will continue in Iraq and that the economic reconstruction of Iraq can begin in earnest, this cannot take place as long as the coalition forces which began the war remain in occupation of the country. The withdrawal of the European element of 'The Coalition of the Willing' is essential in order to restore good relations between the European states and the Arab world and to bring about peace in Iraq.
MOTION:
We call for the immediate withdrawal of UK and other European forces from Iraq. This is because of the abject failure of the coalition of forces which invaded Iraq illegally three years ago to provide firm and fair governance and security and the mounting evidence that their continuing presence in Iraq is leading to civil war and mounting casualties.
Proposer: Green Party of England & Wales plus other national parties
Joseph Healy
19 Apr 2006
Canvassing for Darren
Went out in the rain for two hours around Lewisham Way canvassing for cllr Darren Johnson and would be councillors Romayne Phoenix and Dean Walton. Great response, first person I talked to was very Jamaica, he talked to me about socialism, living on the land and his support for the Party. Great....Darren is at present the only Green councillor in London, 500 plus are standing in the city....if you want to help ring him on 020 8694 9524.
Off to Kentish Town later to do some more...canvassing gets Greens elected and spreads the word..very important action given environmental crisis and Labour's move to the right!
Off to Kentish Town later to do some more...canvassing gets Greens elected and spreads the word..very important action given environmental crisis and Labour's move to the right!
18 Apr 2006
Tariq Ali 'neither Geras nor Galloway'
http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/article.php3?id_article=1012
Can't say I agree with every word of this but that isn't the point, a fine interview with Tariq Ali, spelling out that neither Islamphobia nor uncritical support for regressive strains of Islam are the only options available.
Unlike Tariq I suppose I am more interested in the Sufi strain, what is good and not so good about it and how not only we should work with Muslims but should look at what the religion has to say in terms of the environment, justice and economics, etc.
Any way this is generally very thoughtful and practical....so neither 'Washington nor Moscow' or whatever....
A very good motion from the Green Party of England and Wales is going to the other Euro Green Parties, will post on this later.
The Anti-Imperialist Left Confronted with Islam
Tariq Ali
The following interview with Tariq Ali was conducted by Alex De Jong and Paul Mepschen of the SAP (Dutch section of the Fourth International) at the Ernest Mandel symposium held in Brussels in November 2005. It was published in the March-April 2006 issue of the SAP’s journal, Grenzeloos.
Grenzeloos: It is of course the assassination of the film-maker Theo van Gogh and the threats made against the liberal member of parliament Ayaan Hirsi Ali which have particularly drawn attention to Islam in the Netherlands. Like her, you are an unbeliever who comes from the Muslim world. Have you already felt threatened?
Tariq Ali: No, never. I travel a lot both in the Muslim world and in the rest of the world, but I have never yet felt threatened. Why is that? It is no doubt because people who don’t agree with me about religion know that I am an enemy of imperialism. I unceasingly criticize imperialism and all its works, more than the believers do. Whereas Hirsi Ali and people like her in the United States and in Europe make a profession out of attacking Islam. There are other important questions in the world.
Why do these people concentrate endlessly on Islam? In the way that they attack Islam, they go along with existing prejudices. And for that they are hated. There is no excuse or justification for acts of violence against these people. It is necessary to discuss with them. But these acts are a sign of despair: people are so much at the end of their tether that they have recourse to violence.
Don’t you think that the violence and threats against these people also represent a threat to all those of Muslim origin who do not correspond to the norm? To the unbelievers, the feminists, the homosexuals?
Certainly. But you have to understand that the Muslim community is very diversified. People are very uninformed about the Muslim world. The image that they have of it comes to a large extent through the immigrant communities in Europe, who are, besides, very different from each other. Life in the Muslim world is not monolithic: there are believers, unbelievers, atheists.
Whether the unbelievers can freely express themselves is obviously another question. Often they can’t, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t exist. As is the case here, religion is not the central element in the life of Muslims. People work, eat, make love, build families. Some go to the mosque, others don’t. Exactly like in other parts of the world. The difference lies only in the fact that in some countries it is forbidden to criticize Islam. But that is not the case for example in Turkey. In other countries where it was also possible it has become more difficult today.
Religion is taking on much more importance. For young Muslims in the West, Islam is to a large extent a question of identity.
I think so too.It is a product of different factors, but above all of the vacuum of present day capitalism. There is no real alternative. Many people feel this and turn towards religion, not only Muslims. For the last 20 or 30 years, people who wouldn’t have considered themselves to be particularly religious have been turning towards Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, etc. Why? Because capitalism flattens everything like a steamroller and human beings want to find a refuge for themselves. Because many of them no longer see any socio-economic alternative, they go back to religion. That is why in the immigrant communities there are people who consider their identity from a purely religious point of view, and I don’t expect anything good to come from that. But I also think that all that will change with the coming generation. Today people are not all religious with the same degree of intensity, we can see different variations. I don’t think that the return to religion is universal.
One aspect of the orientalist representation of Muslims that is dominant today is that they are portrayed as people who can only behave in an uncritical and dogmatic way in relation to the Koran, whereas other believers, above all Christians, are reputed to be capable of producing a modern interpretation of their holy book.
This is in fact a mistaken representation, although it is very widespread. That is why I insist on the diversity of the Muslim world. In Poland the Church played at one time a significant role in the struggle against the Stalinist regime. In the West its role was greeted with enthusiasm. Why do we have this double standard?
Many people in the Muslim world consider an attack against Islam as unacceptable. Many of them, without being at all religious - I know some of them - say: “Yes I am a Muslim”. That is a result of the fact that the US has made it from a certain point of view unacceptable to be a Muslim. You are living in a country (the Netherlands) in which religion occupied a dominant position in an extreme way.
Protestant fundamentalism is one of the worst forms of fundamentalism. Protestant fundamentalism, of English or Dutch origin, was responsible for a genocide in North America; it wiped out the indigenous population in the name of progress - something that Muslims have not yet done.
Wherever we see this religious revival of which you speak - among Muslims in the West, among Christians in the United States... - we can see that conservative representations of sexuality play a big role.
That has always been the case. I don’t think capitalism absolutely wants human beings to have conservative representations of sexuality, but capitalism does want them to be brought up in nuclear families, isolated from each other.
When religion occupies a central place in a person’s identity, then that person seeks to distinguish him or herself from those around them; he or she defends morality and takes a position against homosexuality, at the same time affirming that women have an inferior value.
In the formation of the identity of each person, the question of sexuality plays a big role. Human beings are constantly looking for differences and they find them most easily in religion.
Is there a future for the feminist movement in the Muslim world and in the Muslim societies here in the west?
Of course. There was for example a very effective movement in Pakistan against the Islamic legislation that was introduced during the dictatorship, in 1977. All over the country women organized, demonstrated, and criticized the sharia. Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria and Tunisia have seen feminist movements.
The state authorities reacted to this challenge either by themselves creating fundamentalist movements, as in Pakistan, or by collaborating with them, as in Egypt. In exchange for a policy that was conservative and hostile to women on the part of the authorities, the fundamentalists undertook to no longer attack the state.
In the West, in the future, feminist movements will have to develop which are at the same time explicitly anti-imperialist. Then it would be possible to win young Muslim women to feminism. Unfortunately in the West feminism has little existence as a political current.
In the framework of your insistence on the differences, you speak in the “Clash of Fundamentalisms” of an official multiculturalism.
Yes, there lies the cause of the search for differences. When you look at Britain, you can see that religion has been supported there - by the government and above all by Blair. Even after September 11, the foundation of religious institutions, for example religious schools, was encouraged. Within official multiculturalism the differences between people are seen as a good thing.
In part that is really the case - people are different. But as a socialist I also know how difficult it is to forge unity. I think that among young people there are more points of convergence than there are differences. I am an optimist: the importance of religious dividing lines will not last long in Europe, perhaps 30 or 40 years.
Why?
To put it cynically: because capitalism is blind as far as sex, skin colour or religion are concerned. Insofar as it expands and extends it sets aside all the particularities of human beings. That is what has always happened.
Is the Left capable of showing that there is an alternative?
A: The Left is at present very weak. As far as the radical Left is concerned I am not optimistic. In Britain I am not a member of Respect. I disagree with them on some points. The way things are happening in Respect is pure opportunism. Obviously I am in favour of working with Muslim groups, but socialists the goal must be to win followers of religion to our own point of view, not to leave them in their entrenched positions.
So we should work together in a less uncritical way?
Of course. The way Respect is doing it won’t lead to anything. We have to find a neutral terrain which can offer a space for discussion. We must not conceal our own point of view by hiding it under the table. Many of the (Muslim) groups with which Respect has developed collaboration have very conservative and reactionary roots. In the countries from which they come, like for example Egypt or Indonesia, they have always been the enemies of the Left.
This is one of the problems that anti-racists and socialists come up against. On the one hand we want to develop solidarity with minorities who suffer discrimination, while on the other hand we have to maintain a critical position in relation to the conservative ways of thinking that are partly dominant among these minorities.
Muslim women in Mumbai demonstrate against the war
For socialists the task is clear: the Muslim communities must be defended against being made scapegoats, against repression, against the very widespread representation that terrorism is proper to Islam. All that must be energetically fought. But at the same time we must not close our eyes to the social conservatism which reigns in these communities, nor hide it. We have to try to win this people to our own ideas.
I would like to give an example: the last chapter of my book is an open letter to a young Muslim. After having written this letter, nearly a year later, I received a reply from some young Muslims. They thought that my letter was talking about them because they found in it remarks that they had made themselves. They were surprised to be taken so seriously and they had also discussed a lot among themselves. The result was that two of them joined the Scottish Socialist Party.
Our aim must be to reinforce the position of the youngest ones, who are turning in the direction of a progressive and secular perspective. That is very important. There are a lot of progressive people who can be found in the Muslim communities, but because of the atmosphere that reigns there, they can obviously not assert themselves openly. It is these people who can build secular forces and it is them that we must support. And it is above all among the young women that we will find such resources.
We can win over many of them if we don’t ignore them, which the far Left in France tends to do. The French far Left is the mirror image of British opportunism. It has practically no contact with the Muslim community and doesn’t consider that as a priority. Both attitudes are mistaken - we have to find a middle way.
Tariq Ali is a socialist writer and broadcaster who has been particularly active in anti-imperialist campaigns, from Vietnam to Iraq. Born and brought up in Pakistan, he now lives in London.
Can't say I agree with every word of this but that isn't the point, a fine interview with Tariq Ali, spelling out that neither Islamphobia nor uncritical support for regressive strains of Islam are the only options available.
Unlike Tariq I suppose I am more interested in the Sufi strain, what is good and not so good about it and how not only we should work with Muslims but should look at what the religion has to say in terms of the environment, justice and economics, etc.
Any way this is generally very thoughtful and practical....so neither 'Washington nor Moscow' or whatever....
A very good motion from the Green Party of England and Wales is going to the other Euro Green Parties, will post on this later.
The Anti-Imperialist Left Confronted with Islam
Tariq Ali
The following interview with Tariq Ali was conducted by Alex De Jong and Paul Mepschen of the SAP (Dutch section of the Fourth International) at the Ernest Mandel symposium held in Brussels in November 2005. It was published in the March-April 2006 issue of the SAP’s journal, Grenzeloos.
Grenzeloos: It is of course the assassination of the film-maker Theo van Gogh and the threats made against the liberal member of parliament Ayaan Hirsi Ali which have particularly drawn attention to Islam in the Netherlands. Like her, you are an unbeliever who comes from the Muslim world. Have you already felt threatened?
Tariq Ali: No, never. I travel a lot both in the Muslim world and in the rest of the world, but I have never yet felt threatened. Why is that? It is no doubt because people who don’t agree with me about religion know that I am an enemy of imperialism. I unceasingly criticize imperialism and all its works, more than the believers do. Whereas Hirsi Ali and people like her in the United States and in Europe make a profession out of attacking Islam. There are other important questions in the world.
Why do these people concentrate endlessly on Islam? In the way that they attack Islam, they go along with existing prejudices. And for that they are hated. There is no excuse or justification for acts of violence against these people. It is necessary to discuss with them. But these acts are a sign of despair: people are so much at the end of their tether that they have recourse to violence.
Don’t you think that the violence and threats against these people also represent a threat to all those of Muslim origin who do not correspond to the norm? To the unbelievers, the feminists, the homosexuals?
Certainly. But you have to understand that the Muslim community is very diversified. People are very uninformed about the Muslim world. The image that they have of it comes to a large extent through the immigrant communities in Europe, who are, besides, very different from each other. Life in the Muslim world is not monolithic: there are believers, unbelievers, atheists.
Whether the unbelievers can freely express themselves is obviously another question. Often they can’t, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t exist. As is the case here, religion is not the central element in the life of Muslims. People work, eat, make love, build families. Some go to the mosque, others don’t. Exactly like in other parts of the world. The difference lies only in the fact that in some countries it is forbidden to criticize Islam. But that is not the case for example in Turkey. In other countries where it was also possible it has become more difficult today.
Religion is taking on much more importance. For young Muslims in the West, Islam is to a large extent a question of identity.
I think so too.It is a product of different factors, but above all of the vacuum of present day capitalism. There is no real alternative. Many people feel this and turn towards religion, not only Muslims. For the last 20 or 30 years, people who wouldn’t have considered themselves to be particularly religious have been turning towards Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, etc. Why? Because capitalism flattens everything like a steamroller and human beings want to find a refuge for themselves. Because many of them no longer see any socio-economic alternative, they go back to religion. That is why in the immigrant communities there are people who consider their identity from a purely religious point of view, and I don’t expect anything good to come from that. But I also think that all that will change with the coming generation. Today people are not all religious with the same degree of intensity, we can see different variations. I don’t think that the return to religion is universal.
One aspect of the orientalist representation of Muslims that is dominant today is that they are portrayed as people who can only behave in an uncritical and dogmatic way in relation to the Koran, whereas other believers, above all Christians, are reputed to be capable of producing a modern interpretation of their holy book.
This is in fact a mistaken representation, although it is very widespread. That is why I insist on the diversity of the Muslim world. In Poland the Church played at one time a significant role in the struggle against the Stalinist regime. In the West its role was greeted with enthusiasm. Why do we have this double standard?
Many people in the Muslim world consider an attack against Islam as unacceptable. Many of them, without being at all religious - I know some of them - say: “Yes I am a Muslim”. That is a result of the fact that the US has made it from a certain point of view unacceptable to be a Muslim. You are living in a country (the Netherlands) in which religion occupied a dominant position in an extreme way.
Protestant fundamentalism is one of the worst forms of fundamentalism. Protestant fundamentalism, of English or Dutch origin, was responsible for a genocide in North America; it wiped out the indigenous population in the name of progress - something that Muslims have not yet done.
Wherever we see this religious revival of which you speak - among Muslims in the West, among Christians in the United States... - we can see that conservative representations of sexuality play a big role.
That has always been the case. I don’t think capitalism absolutely wants human beings to have conservative representations of sexuality, but capitalism does want them to be brought up in nuclear families, isolated from each other.
When religion occupies a central place in a person’s identity, then that person seeks to distinguish him or herself from those around them; he or she defends morality and takes a position against homosexuality, at the same time affirming that women have an inferior value.
In the formation of the identity of each person, the question of sexuality plays a big role. Human beings are constantly looking for differences and they find them most easily in religion.
Is there a future for the feminist movement in the Muslim world and in the Muslim societies here in the west?
Of course. There was for example a very effective movement in Pakistan against the Islamic legislation that was introduced during the dictatorship, in 1977. All over the country women organized, demonstrated, and criticized the sharia. Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria and Tunisia have seen feminist movements.
The state authorities reacted to this challenge either by themselves creating fundamentalist movements, as in Pakistan, or by collaborating with them, as in Egypt. In exchange for a policy that was conservative and hostile to women on the part of the authorities, the fundamentalists undertook to no longer attack the state.
In the West, in the future, feminist movements will have to develop which are at the same time explicitly anti-imperialist. Then it would be possible to win young Muslim women to feminism. Unfortunately in the West feminism has little existence as a political current.
In the framework of your insistence on the differences, you speak in the “Clash of Fundamentalisms” of an official multiculturalism.
Yes, there lies the cause of the search for differences. When you look at Britain, you can see that religion has been supported there - by the government and above all by Blair. Even after September 11, the foundation of religious institutions, for example religious schools, was encouraged. Within official multiculturalism the differences between people are seen as a good thing.
In part that is really the case - people are different. But as a socialist I also know how difficult it is to forge unity. I think that among young people there are more points of convergence than there are differences. I am an optimist: the importance of religious dividing lines will not last long in Europe, perhaps 30 or 40 years.
Why?
To put it cynically: because capitalism is blind as far as sex, skin colour or religion are concerned. Insofar as it expands and extends it sets aside all the particularities of human beings. That is what has always happened.
Is the Left capable of showing that there is an alternative?
A: The Left is at present very weak. As far as the radical Left is concerned I am not optimistic. In Britain I am not a member of Respect. I disagree with them on some points. The way things are happening in Respect is pure opportunism. Obviously I am in favour of working with Muslim groups, but socialists the goal must be to win followers of religion to our own point of view, not to leave them in their entrenched positions.
So we should work together in a less uncritical way?
Of course. The way Respect is doing it won’t lead to anything. We have to find a neutral terrain which can offer a space for discussion. We must not conceal our own point of view by hiding it under the table. Many of the (Muslim) groups with which Respect has developed collaboration have very conservative and reactionary roots. In the countries from which they come, like for example Egypt or Indonesia, they have always been the enemies of the Left.
This is one of the problems that anti-racists and socialists come up against. On the one hand we want to develop solidarity with minorities who suffer discrimination, while on the other hand we have to maintain a critical position in relation to the conservative ways of thinking that are partly dominant among these minorities.
Muslim women in Mumbai demonstrate against the war
For socialists the task is clear: the Muslim communities must be defended against being made scapegoats, against repression, against the very widespread representation that terrorism is proper to Islam. All that must be energetically fought. But at the same time we must not close our eyes to the social conservatism which reigns in these communities, nor hide it. We have to try to win this people to our own ideas.
I would like to give an example: the last chapter of my book is an open letter to a young Muslim. After having written this letter, nearly a year later, I received a reply from some young Muslims. They thought that my letter was talking about them because they found in it remarks that they had made themselves. They were surprised to be taken so seriously and they had also discussed a lot among themselves. The result was that two of them joined the Scottish Socialist Party.
Our aim must be to reinforce the position of the youngest ones, who are turning in the direction of a progressive and secular perspective. That is very important. There are a lot of progressive people who can be found in the Muslim communities, but because of the atmosphere that reigns there, they can obviously not assert themselves openly. It is these people who can build secular forces and it is them that we must support. And it is above all among the young women that we will find such resources.
We can win over many of them if we don’t ignore them, which the far Left in France tends to do. The French far Left is the mirror image of British opportunism. It has practically no contact with the Muslim community and doesn’t consider that as a priority. Both attitudes are mistaken - we have to find a middle way.
Tariq Ali is a socialist writer and broadcaster who has been particularly active in anti-imperialist campaigns, from Vietnam to Iraq. Born and brought up in Pakistan, he now lives in London.
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