Watership Down - A Marxist analysis

Possibly not the most critical question confronting the international working class movement in the age of Trump, but if anyone is interested in a Marxist analysis of  Richard Adams's Watership Down there is one in the latest Socialist Review, alongside much else....

Tim Sanders on Charlie Hebdo

The point of satire is to attack the powerful, to expose their hypocrisy and absurdity, and of course to be funny. If satire is directed downwards it is not satire, it’s bullying.
British socialist cartoonist Tim Sanders on satire on the latest Socialist Review

France: The Republic of Islamophobia

The persistent targeting of Muslims is preventing the effective management of diversity in French society. It is exacerbating tensions and obscuring the fundamental social and economic problems besetting France. It is encouraging the growth of the Front National. The only way to escape this vicious circle is to target and isolate the very real threat posed by the FN. The principal obstacle to this remains Islamophobia, in all its guises.
Jim Wolfreys, 'The Republic of Islamophobia', Critical Muslim, 13.

Edited to add: Tariq Ali on Charlie Hebdo, see also this and this - two good responses to an unconvincing attempt to defend the publication from the charge of racism.

Resist the racist offensive against Muslims

As well as Hassan Mahamdallie on levels of Islamophobia before the horrific Paris attacks (in this month's Socialist Review), see this week's  Socialist Worker for the anti-racist arguments more necessary now than ever to challenge the rising racist backlash underway - while there is also some useful commentary on Charlie Hebdo itself here, here and for some essential historical background see Robert Fisk - while on a related point Jim House and Neil MacMaster's work, Paris 1961: Algerians, State Terror and Memory recovers some of hidden history of another Paris massacre - one which saw 200 Algerian protesters killed by the police in Paris.

Conference: The Arab Uprisings Four Years On

The Arab Uprisings Four Years On
A conference organised by MENA Solidarity, Egypt Solidarity Initiative and BahrainWatch
6-9pm Friday 13 February – 10-5pm Saturday 14 February
School of African & Oriental Studies, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG 
£5 student or unwaged / £10 waged

Four years after uprisings swept the Middle East millions of people still struggle for freedom and social justice. In 2011 dictators fell and new movements emerged in countries from North Africa to the Gulf. Their demands won support worldwide and inspired a host of campaigns for radical change.

Challenged by the prospect of democracy, regimes have since attempted counter-revolution. Some have used extreme violence; some have encouraged sectarian division or attempted to co-opt and control organisations of the mass movement. Activists across the Middle East nonetheless continue to work for change.

This conference addresses achievements of the revolutions and the challenges that now confront them:

• what can we learn about struggles from below and the responses of the state?
• have attempts at counter-revolution been successful?
• how are activist networks sustained – and how can we support them?

The conference will draw on experiences in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Bahrain, Yemen, Libya and Morocco – and other countries in which activists have attempted to launch movements for change. It will consider the centrality of Palestine for movements across the region – and the impact of the uprisings within Palestine. Speakers will include activists from the front line, with assessments from academics, human rights experts and media analysts.

Speakers include: Ali Abdulemam – Gilbert Achcar – Anne Alexander – Miriyam Aouragh – Joseph Daher – Kamil Mahdi – Nadine Marroushi – Sameh Naguib – Ala’a Shehabi and others.

Sessions include:

• Revolution and counter-revolution: the people and the state
• Neo-liberalism and struggles for change
• Sectarianism
• Gender matters: women and the movements
• The workers’ movement and social justice
• Democratic agendas
• Solidarity and regional links
• Palestine and the struggle for liberation in the Arab world

UAF statement on the Woolwich murder

Unite Against Fascism sends its condolences to the family and friends of the soldier murdered yesterday in Woolwich. There can be no justification for such a terrible attack on an individual.

But we must recognise that fascist organisations such as the English Defence League and British National Party are trying to use the murder to whip up racism and direct hatred against all Muslims.

EDL thugs attempted to start a race riot in Woolwich last night. Mosques have been attacked by racist thugs. These fascists and racists should be condemned and opposed. We must not give a quarter to those who would judge an entire religion, race or nationality by the actions of a few.

We do not hold Norwegian Christians responsible for the actions of the fascist Anders Breivik, whose 2011 rampage left 77 dead. We do not hold white people collectively responsible for Timothy McVeigh, the US neo-Nazi whose 1995 Oklahoma City bomb killed 168 people, or for David Copeland, the former BNP member who planted bombs across London in 1999. Nor should anyone suggest that Britain’s Muslim are collectively responsible for yesterday’s attack.

The fascist organisations that are trying to stir up trouble and racist violence in the wake of the Woolwich killing do not care about the dead soldier, his family or the interests of any community. They want only to see Muslims attacked and a race war on our streets. UAF condemns them and opposes their attempts to call “demonstrations” to exploit these issues.

UAF also calls on the media and politicians to stop using inflammatory language that feeds the fascists and racists. We must challenge Islamophobia wherever it raises its head. We must reject those who want to divide our communities and set them against each other, and stand fast to the ideals of anti-racism, multiculturalism and respect for all.

Edited to add: Sign this unity petition

Edited to also add: London UAF counter demo on Monday 27 May, 3pm, Downing Street

Hoping to grow off of the back of the attack in Woolwich the EDL have called a demo at Downing Street on Monday 27 May at 3pm. UAF have called a counter demo, assembling at 2pm at Downing Street. Please bring trade union banners.

Maya Deren - The Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti

If you have an hour free and are interested in Haitian history and culture, this film is well worth a watch.  

Fascist terror and the Politics of Islamophobia

Some weekend reading - Tad Tietze and
Richard Seymour on the neo-Nazi terrorist Anders Breivik,   also Priyamvada Gopal on  whiteness  and  Deepa Kumar and John Molyneux on the Politics of Islamophobia. 

Edited to add: see here - Breivik's 'English friends' humilitated
in Walthamstowe - great stuff!   

Rally to defend multiculturalism

Don’t let Cameron divide us!
Weds 9 March
7pm, Friends Meeting House,
Euston Rd (near Euston St)
Hosted by Unite Against Fascism and One Society Many Cultures.
Speakers: Peter Hain MP, Billy Hayes (CWU general secretary), Mehdi Hassan (Journalist), Edie Friedman (Jewish Council for Racial Equality), George Galloway, Dilowar Khan (Executive Director of East London Muslim Centre), Zita Holbourne (TUC Race Relations Committee and BARAC), Jerry Dammers (ex-Specials/ musician), Weyman Bennett (UAF joint secretary), Martin Smith (Love Music Hate Racism), Kanja Sesay (NUS Black Students’ Officer), Sean Vernell (UCU London region), Mike Rosen (broadcaster/poet), Avaes Mohammad (spoken word poet). Chair: Sabby Dhalu (One Society Many Cultures/UAF joint secretary) and Hassan Mahamdallie (author)

Commercial break

Racists and reactionaries in Britain spend a lot of time this time of year bemoaning the way Christmas as a festival is somehow under threat, somehow in danger as a result of secularism and multiculturalism, as if amid all the Con-Dem cuts and economic austerity, the Xmas question is the critical issue facing our crisis-hit society. Yet you can hardly switch on the TV or walk through any urban environment without being hit by a barrage of corporate propaganda and advertising about Xmas - which has indeed for a while now come apparently officially sponsored by Coca-Cola. Given this, I guess it is good to see there are a number of 'socialist gifts' out there on the market - for example the mug above from Philosophy Football or an equally cool range of mugs and other gifts can be found on the Red Stuff Shop (including an incredibly popular 'Stuff the Wedding - Fight the Cuts' range and an equally respectful and tasteful 'Ding Dong Thatcher's Gone! Party Pack' - both which should come in handy in the months ahead...

Another random conversation

Back in 2007, I recorded a random conversation I had on my doorstep with some Mormons. This is a random conversation I had this morning in the street with an oddly smiley man in his 40s who approached me with leaflets early on my way to work.

[Man]: Good morning, would you like to take one of our leaflets?

[Me, glancing briefly at the oddly familiar leaflet - a landscape scene attempting to evoke nature's full richness, with children playing on green grass in front of a moose - yes, a moose - a pastoral idyll very far removed from the busy bustling urban modern city centre in which we were currently located]: Er... are you a Jehovah's Witness?

[Man]: Yes, that's right - have you heard about us?

[Me, wondering whether there is anyone who has not heard of Jehovah's Witnesses]: Yes.

[Man]: Would you like one of our leaflets then?

[Me, after a pause]: Well, I'm a Marxist, so I think I am unlikely to be converted by you, just as I'm unlikely to convert you...

[Man, moving off]: Well, at least we can have a laugh about it...

I think overall this counts as a score draw - I didn't take his leaflet but by admitting I was unlikely to 'convert' him, I guess I suggested I was somehow not altogether confident ideologically. In fact I am sure I could have taken him on in argument well enough, but it was early morning, I hadn't had a coffee, and frankly was unprepared to have a long argument - where as he was armed with leaflets and ready to go. The fact he thought this conversation counted as 'a laugh' was however rather sad in some ways. I would say he needs to 'get out more', but then, getting out and about is the one thing Jehovah's Witnesses are not exactly shy about doing...

Jim Wolfreys on Islamophobia and the failings of the French Left

From Socialist Worker

Islamophobic legislation acts as a substitute for measures which the government has been unable to implement and deflects attention from its own shortcomings. Why, then, is the rest of the left not exposing government racism? Where are the demonstrations in defence of France’s Muslim community? Why, in a country that has seen social movements on an unparalleled scale over the past decade and a half, has the left failed to oppose Islamophobia?

Part of the answer lies with the hold of the Republican tradition of secularism over the French left. In the late 19th century this took the form of anti-clericalism, a powerful tool against the influence of the monarchist Catholic church. But it was also, as the socialist Paul Lafargue argued, a way of getting workers “to eat priests rather than eat capitalists”.

This opened up a space for Republican nationalism to root itself in the Socialist and Communist traditions. In the 1980s, once the Socialist Party had abandoned its ambitious plans for social reform, it turned to Republican nationalism as a substitute. It invoked “Republican values” as an alternative to the rise of Le Pen. This in turn disarmed the left when Muslims were attacked during successive headscarf affairs from the late 1980s. Eventually the hijab was banned from schools in 2004.

Once a weapon against the wealth and privilege of the Catholic church, Republican secularism has become a means of scapegoating France’s oppressed Muslim minority. The ban on full-face veils is based on a series of myths – that Muslim extremism is a greater problem than Islamophobia, or that women have more freedom when the state tells them what they can wear. These myths can be challenged, but this requires a concerted and unequivocal campaign that identifies Islamophobia, and not Islam, as the enemy.

Michael Rosen on a visit to London's Jewish Museum

I'm the result of a few families out of the 150,000 people who came to Britain from Russia, Romania and "Russian Poland" around 130 years ago. Beginning with the Norman invasion and ending recently, other kinds of Jews are on display, too - Spanish, Portuguese, Indian - as well as converts: in the entrance foyer, a Chinese woman talks alongside a Hasidic rabbi and Jonathan Freedland. Jewish multiculturalism, even.
My parents grew into something else: Jewish internationalism. I see it on a trade-union banner. Across the top it reads: "The London Jewish Bakers Union". Across the bottom: "Workers of the World Unite". In the middle: "Buy bread with the union label". On the reverse, not visible when I visited, it says the same in Yiddish. So, these bakers seemed to think that they could speak their own language, bake Jewish bread, have a Jewish trade union and yet also say: "Labour is international."

Read the full article here

Racism in Britain Today

International Socialism journal seminar:

Richard Seymour on 'Racism in Britain Today'.

Richard Seymour, author of The Liberal Defence of Murder and the 'lenin's tomb' blog presents the latest in our series of seminars.

The electoral success of the fascist British National Party and the emergence of the English Defence League has forced activists in Britain to look again at the issue of racism. Cultural racism and Islamophobia seem to supplant traditional racist ideas based on biology—but what is behind this shift and just how novel is it? Richard Seymour argues that the rise in racism in Britain is driven to a considerable extent by government policies and media reaction, both liberal and conservative.

6.30pm, Friday 26 March, School of Oriental and African Studies, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, WC1H 0GX
(Room FG06, Russell Square Campus— Map: http://bit.ly/soasmap)

This seminar is free to attend and open to all. For more information email isj@swp.org.uk

Some of Richard's earlier articles on racism can be found at the 'lenin's tomb' blog, available online here

Those interested in fighting racism in Britain today should also try and get themselves to Bolton this Saturday (March 20) to counter yet another mobilisation by the racist thugs of the EDL.

Interview with Ilham Moussaid

The new issue of Socialist Review has a number of excellent articles one might highlight, including discussions of anti-fascist strategy and tactics necessary to tackle the racist thuggery of the EDL to Ambre Ivol remembering Howard Zinn, from Pat Stack on Michael Moore's new film Capitalism: A love story to Alex Callinicos on Hardt and Negri's Commonwealth (according to Fredric Jameson 'the last and richest of the Empire trilogy...a powerful and ambitious reappropriation of the whole tradition of political theory for the Left' but actually a work which, according to Callinicos, 'hugely underestimates the extent to which the logic of capital still rules the world - and therefore the effort of critical thinking and political organisation that will be required to break its hold').

However, perhaps most noteworthy for English readers is Jim Wolfreys interview with Ilham Moussaid a candidate of the New Anti-capitalist Party (NPA) in France - who - just because she herself happens to wear a headscarf - has seen her electoral campaign already (unsurprisingly) cause a hypocritical outburst of racism from the French establishment and (more positively) challenged many, not least many on the French Left, to begin to face up to the question of confronting Islamophobia.

'I've been politically active for four years now and the media reaction disturbs me because my political engagement can't be reduced to the headscarf. I'm part of an association that fights exclusion, racism and violence in the Avignon area. We offer support to young people in schools. We organise cultural and musical outings with them. We fight exclusion and discrimination in the quartiers populaires. I was also active in the collective networks against the war in Iraq, against apartheid in Palestine, and against the genocide in Rwanda and in Kosovo.

So I do all that in parallel. I was always coming across NPA activists in all these movements and a year ago I decided to join them. Now I'm treasurer of my NPA branch and things are going well. I'm active in fighting privatisation, for example, in the universities and the post office. We're active every day.

I got a very good welcome in the NPA. In the quartier populaires the NPA is something we have to make use of. It's our tool. For me it's our tool because we're building it. When the LCR became the NPA it was an opening out to the quartiers populaires. Olivier Besancenot said to us, "If you want to fight capitalism - welcome." He didn't say to us, "If you're Marxists or Leninists or Trotskyists." He just talked about capitalism because we're all against capitalism. It's the source of practically all our problems. I didn't join straight away but it's been a good experience. I already had my principles - for equality, for a better distribution of wealth - before joining the NPA, but I feel at home here. It's a political question - for me it's the best tool for our struggle.'

George Galloway on 'atheist buses'

The atheist buses touring London are quite revealing. "There’s probably no God," reads the hoarding. "Now stop worrying and enjoy your life." There you have it: what is stopping people enjoying life is apparently not war, famine, unemployment, murderous social inequality, or the insecurity and unfairness that arise from a system of global exploitation, but a misplaced belief in God. Some materialism, that!
George Galloway on these

Fellow Worker Sagittarians, Beware!

'People even of supposedly "normal" mind are prepared to accept systems of delusions for the simple reason that it is too difficult to distinguish such systems from the equally inexorable and equally opaque one under which they actually have to live their lives'
T Adorno, ‘The Stars Down to Earth: the Los Angeles Times Astrology Column’, in The Stars down to Earth and Other Essays in the Irrational in Culture, edited with and introduction by S Crook (London, 1994), quoted here

As a Marxist, unsurprisingly I don't take a great deal of notice of horoscopes, though a quick glance at today's 'Metroscope' in Metro did make me wonder a little more than I have done in the past about quite what their function in society exactly is. Take today's entry for me, a 'Sagittarius', which starts reasonably enough:

Not one of your best days at work, as your're finding it hard to concentrate and essentially you just want some time for fun.

Perceptive enough so far, I'm pissing about blogging about horoscopes when I have a list of 100 and 1 other things to be getting on with, which must say something. However the second half (at two sentences, these free newspaper horoscope things are not very long) seems to have a slight hidden ideological agenda to it...and not in a good way:

Understandable, but don't neglect your duties while the boss is around. Your're vulnerable just now.

Eh? I am not currently at 'work work', so there is no chance of 'the boss' catching me blogging when I should be doing something else. But more to the point, in what way are Sagittarians uniquely 'vulnerable just now' among the many people who are not having 'one of their best days at work'? Are Sagittarians at work today supposed to be like fucking grateful to the writer of 'Metroscope' for telling them to do their 'duty' rather than finding some time to avoid the worst aspects of alienated and exploited labour in what ever way possible? One can but conclude either that the 'Metroscope' astrologer, one 'Nikki Harper' (about whom a quick google search reveals 'qualified' at 'the world-renowned Mayo School of Astrology in Truro, Cornwall') inculcated so much capitalist propaganda that she likes telling her working class readers to work harder - or that she has genuinely had some kind of premonition after looking up at the stars and using all the skills she has learnt at the 'the world-renowned Mayo School of How to get Paid for writing Bullshit' that of all the millions of people facing the very real dangers of unemployment and economic insecurity just now that today, of all days, Sagittarian workers are most in danger and she felt compelled to warn us all out of the goodness of her heart... I have a kind of idea about which one of these options is most likely (and the fact that there is not even a pretence of astrological 'evidence' to back up her assertions, like 'the Moon still being in Virgo' or something, only confirms my worst suspicions in this case). However, in case I am completely and utterly wrong about this I am happy to pass on the warning to my fellow Sagittarian workers around the world...I hope you treat it in an appropriate manner.

Incidently in the same 'Metroscope', I 'learn' that Arians are 'desperate for some "me" time', Virgo's 'social life is picking up nicely' while Geminis are 'spending far too much time tilting at windmills and not enough time taking care of things you can influence'. Those born under the star of Leo today 'can look back at where you've been and ahead to where you are going but where you actually are is a little bit harder to spot'. As if that is not profound enough, Leos are told to 'see the bigger picture, yes, but what about the here and now?' Its a good point, and clearly the kind of thing that could not ever be said about those born under any other star sign at any other point in time. Still I suppose I should be grateful I am not an Aquarius, as it looks like they clearly failed to pay enough attention to an earlier 'Metroscope' and accordingly seem to be uniquely bearing the brunt amid the recession:

You have to get your spending under control today, Aquarius. And if you think you already have, that's indicative of an even bigger problem. Money is vanishing at an astonishing rate around you. Nip it in the bud.

Thank my lucky stars I am not an Aquarius...better get back to work now and keep on the good side of my boss. That is guaranteed to protect me in the credit crunch. Phew, thanks a lot, Metroscope.

Liberation Theology in the UK

'It is no use pretending that the financial world can maintain indefinitely the degree of exemption from scrutiny and regulation that it has got used to. This crisis exposes the basic level of unreality in the situation — the truth that almost unimaginable wealth has been generated by equally unimaginable levels of fiction, paper transactions with no concrete outcome beyond profit for traders. Marx long ago observed the way in which unbridled capitalism became a kind of mythology, ascribing reality, power and agency to things that had no life in themselves; he was right about that'
Dr Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury

'To a bystander like me, those who made £190m deliberately underselling the shares of HBOS in spite of a very strong capital base, and drove it into the arms of Lloyds TSB, are clearly bank robbers and asset strippers. We find ourselves in a market system which seems to have taken its rules of trade from Alice in Wonderland. Our country has built its financial strength historically on the manufacturing of goods, where money was the medium of exchange.In the last week, we have seen its systems come close to ruin because now money is no longer being the medium of exchange for goods, but rather is the very item that is being traded. One of the ironies about this financial crisis is that it makes action on poverty look utterly achievable. It would cost $5bn (£2.7bn) to save six million children's lives. World leaders could find 140 times that amount for the banking system in a week. How can they tell us that action for the poorest is too expensive?'
Dr John Sentamu, Archbishop of York.

The Archbishops are absolutely right - capitalism is a system based on robbery and Alice in Wonderland economics and Marx was among the first to explain why and what could be done about it.

How to fight both Islamophobia and anti-semitism

Excellent article that deserves reading by Simon Behrman

Edited to add: Anti-fascism and the Left - from Lenin's Tomb.

Feel the hate...

Are you white, male, over fifty and running a small colonial outpost of the American Empire?

Is your electorate tiring of The War Against Terror and your unflinching support for it?

Are you facing the prospect of an economic downturn or an election anytime in the next year or so?

Is your Government mired by allegations of sleaze and corruption and full of idiotic incompetents and mindless mediocrities?

Have you got anti-war protesters still marching against your Government year in year out?

Are you finding it hard to cover up the fact that your administration is running out of new ideas fast?

If the answer to any or all of these questions is 'Yes', then help may be at hand thanks to Humanitarian Anti Terror Equipment (H.A.T.E.). H.A.T.E. offers you and your Government a range of tried and tested 'Divide and Rule' products designed to help you in your time of need. Since 2001, our 'Islamophobia' range has been especially popular and includes:

1.The Three Minute HATE: We release a grainy video of someone doing a passable impression of Osama Bin Laden onto the internet. 'Bin Laden' is pointing out the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been disastrous defeats for the West and laughing in an evil manner at the fact he still eludes capture.
Benefits: Reminds people why The War Against Terror is still going on, even when it has now lasted longer than the Second World War. Takes the failings of your administration off the front pages for a day.
Costs: Reminds people that The War Against Terror has failed in its stated principle aim, to bring Bin Laden to justice, even though it has now lasted longer than the Second World War. Also please see Warning below.

2. The Three Day HATE: We help advise a minor junior minister in your Government, typically some eminently forgettable non-entity like Phil Woolas, to come up with some outrageous comment about the Muslim community in your country.
Benefits: Distracts attention away from the failings of your administration for several days at least while the papers discuss these comments.
Costs: When the allegations are digested and proved to be racist you may have to face down some calls to dispense with the services of the aforementioned minister. Also see Warning below.

3. The Three Week HATE : We can help orchestrate a 'Trial by Media' or 'Witch-hunt' of some leading public figure - for example, the Mayor of London or the Archbishop of Canterbury, for making any mild anti-racist or pro-Muslim comments.
Benefits: Distracts public attention away from the failings of your administration for three weeks while the media goes into hyperdrive demonising the aforementioned individual.
Costs: Remarkably few - but see Warning below.

Plus New for 2008:

The Three Month HATE: Currently being launched in the US, the Three Month HATE is a grand 'Show Trial' of prisoners of war who after years of torture have 'confessed' to committing acts of terrorism and face military tribunal followed by the Death Penalty.
Benefits: Enables you to declare another historic victory in The War Against Terrorism.
Costs: Some outcry from the 'civil liberties/human rights lobby'. Plus see Warning below.

HEALTH WARNING: The long term side-effects of public exposure to products from H.A.T.E. are unpredictable and potentially very highly dangerous. All H.A.T.E. products are poisonous, and so harmful to the political culture of your country. Repeated use has been shown to lead to a rise in racism, a rise in racist attacks, and a rise in support for racist and neo-fascist political parties. H.A.T.E. advises our products are only administered in limited doses and are used in moderation by responsible experienced politicians only. H.A.T.E. takes no responsibility for the misuse or abuse of any of our products.