Tony Benn is a former British cabinet member.
Dear Tony Benn
You have put your name to a petition on behalf of Saddam Hussein’s deputy Tariq Aziz. You have by now probably seen the newspaper reports that Tariq Aziz will give evidence against his old boss at Saddam Hussein’s trial — evidence that, among other things, Saddam Hussein gave orders for mass murder.
Tariq Aziz had to be there, that is, complicit in Saddam Hussein’s crimes against the peoples of Iraq, in order to be able to testify to such things. We will see what happens at the trial. But no-one has to wait for the trial to know who and what Tariq Aziz is. Yet you put your name to Galloway’s petition.
You, Tony Benn, unlike your co-signatories such as George Galloway have in the last 25 years been a man of the serious, class struggle left. Not infrequently we have disagreed with you on important questions.
But, comrade Benn, you are seriously out of place amidst the other signatories on Galloway’s petition on behalf of his friend Tariq Aziz. We say that not forgetting that on the eve of the US-British attack on Iraq you went to Baghdad and interviews Saddam Hussein in such a soft and accommodating way that the result, broadcast on British TV, was a “party political broadcast” for Saddam Hussein.
We could not help recalling a similar visit which the old left wing pacifist and one-time leader of the Labour Party, George Lansbury, made shortly before World War Two to Adolf Hitler. It was a hopeless and probably misguided mission in search of “peace”. But Lansbury did not fawn on Hitler. He confronted him on such matters as his treatment of German Jews. You, alas did not so much as mention Saddam’s treatment of, for example, Iraqi Kurds.
We respected you as a fighter after 1979 against the Labour establishment. It is with that in mind that we address this open letter to you and call your attention to the vile company in which you find yourself as a result of signing this vile petition. We ask you to stand back and look, at the company you are keeping.
TARIQ Aziz was part of the chain of command for the Anfal campaign (100,000 Kurds killed), had a nasty habit of personally shooting his political opponents, and was one of the few people in the Baath regime that Saddam Hussein could always count on.
Tariq Aziz offered a two million dollar bribe to the UN Weapons Inspector Rolf Ekeus in exchange for a favourable inspection rating. He explained to another Weapons Inspector why Iraq had developed biological weapons — for use against “Persians, Jews and other insects.”
The campaign for the release of Tariq Aziz was launched by Gilles Munier (of the French-Iraqi Friendship Society) back in May 2003.
Of its signatories we will start with George Galloway. In an interview with Al-Jazeera in Qatar last March Galloway discusses the petition and described Tariq Aziz as someone “viewed with high esteem worldwide by figures like the Pope in the Vatican and other international figures… an eminent diplomatic and intellectual person...
“We have assembled former presidents, prime ministers and ministers, eminent parliamentarians from the UK, Italy, Spain and other personalities from all walks of life” [for the campaign].
A press release issued the same day put Galloway centre-stage:
“George Galloway MP has launched this petition today for the release of Tariq Aziz and all political prisoners in Iraq. The petition will be widely circulated in order to have the greatest number of prestigious and influential signatories. By the end of this year, the petition will be sent to the United Nations, the British Government, and the American Congress.”
Are you aware of the kind of things Galloway was saying on his speaking tour of the States last month?
He’s reported as having described Israel as “that little Hitler state on the Mediterranean.” He talked about a “Neo-Con, Zionist, Christian-Fundamentalist axis” that drives US foreign policy.
Holocaust revisionist David Irving was so impressed by what Galloway had to say that he posted reports of his speeches and interviews under the heading “George Galloway Does It Again – Blasts Israel” on his website
Galloway even bought into the line that Iraq was attacked for Israel’s benefit.
“Israel works for America. Israel works for imperialism. It’s not that there’s a Zionist lobby acting as the tail that wags the dog. The dog always wags the tail. … Israel is an indispensable, nuclear-armed, military super-power acting on behalf of imperialism in the Arab world… Israel’s overwhelming military superiority has to be maintained. And so one of the reasons for attacking Iraq was for Israel, but not because imperialism is working for Israel. It’s the other way around.”
Galloway called Tariq Aziz his “dear, dear friend” at a mass rally in Baghdad in November 1999 (one of the many organised by the Iraqi security services when Galloway visited Iraq) and spent Christmas Day with him the same year — going to church with him, having dinner in his house, and according to Galloway himself, then partying away the night with him.
Of course Galloway is loyal to Tariq Aziz. He is a man of “impeccable manners” and “an owlish intellectualism” — as Galloway described him in his autobiography. Back in 2002 Galloway was proud to boast that he had danced with his friend Tariq on the “crowded dance floor” of a North African nightclub. (So unless Tariq Aziz gets released soon... Well, for Galloway, it will be, you know how the song goes... “lonely this Christmas, lonely and cold...”)
THE 182 “renowned international figures” who have put their names to the petition which you, comrade Benn, have signed, have the character of “birds of a feather” flocking together around this Tariq Aziz.
Not all 182 are exactly “renowned international figures”. Like, for example, Michel Thibault (the French librarian). Or Yannick Sauveur (the French headmaster). Or Jean Beaudrillard (the retired French engineer). Or Beatriz Morales (the Spanish translator). Or Narmi Micheda (the Polish bio-chemist). Or Alain Basse (the British petroleum engineer). Or Susana Heikal (the Spanish language teacher). Or Manuela Rousset (the retired French social worker). Or Barbara Permuy and Paloma Velverdre (the Spanish civil servants).
But maybe these, and lots of the other 182 signatories, simply fall under the heading of “personalities from all walks of life”? Or maybe they’re just too modest to say who they really are?
That French headmaster, for example. Is that the same Yannick Sauveur who used to be a follower of Jean Thiriart, the Belgian who collaborated with the Nazis and then went on to become the chief ideologist of the neo-fascist “Young Europe” organisation?
On the other hand, there are certainly quite a few names besides yours in that list that we do recognise.
There’s Gilles Munier, who launched the petition, a man who cut his political teeth as a writer for The European Nation, published by the “Young Europe” organisation. Here’s an example of his journalistic talents: “The Zionists are past masters in the art of intoxicating the mind. For 20 years the ‘six million dead’ have served as an alibi for committing the worst atrocities in Israel.”
(And note the inverted commas around the phrase six million dead.)
In more recent times Gilles Munier found new fields in which to exercise his talents. He discovered the Iraqi Revolution! When a radio interviewer had the temerity to suggest to Munier that Saddam Hussein had established an inhuman dictatorship, the latter replied:
“You cannot respond with our Western criteria. Iraq has never known democracy. … You cannot judge in the same way a foreign people emerging from colonisation. The Ba’th regime of Saddam Hussein is revolutionary. That implies sacrifices. … Saddam symbolises the Iraqi resistance. If the embargo had been lifted, democracy would have had a real chance in Iraq.”
But at least Munier has never denied that the French-Iraqi Friendship Society which he set up received money from the Iraqi government: “He said he and his organisation introduced numerous businesses, oil and otherwise, to contacts in Iraq but that it was all perfectly legal. For each successful introduction he received a commission.”
Not all your co-signatories are as frank on such matters.
Like your friend Galloway, Gilles Munier seems to be spending quite a bit of time in Syria nowadays. Galloway told the Syrians how lucky they are to be ruled by a Baathist dictator: “I was very impressed by the President’s sharpness, by his flexible mind. Syria is lucky to have Bashar al-Assad as her President.” You feel comfortable with that, Comrade Benn?
Mondher Sfar! Now there’s a well-known name! The petition modestly describes him as a “writer”? And what has he written?
Well, there’s the “Judeo-Nazi Manifesto of Ariel Sharon”. Have you read it? It’s a latter-day version of the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, a make-believe “manifesto” of Ariel Sharon which “exposes” the supposed Nazi nature of Zionist ideology. And then there’s Sfar’s contributions to the “Review of Revisionist History”, a Holocaust-denial publication launched by a French neo-fascist in 1990. Mondher Sfar is a Holocaust denier!
TO borrow a phrase from Galloway, he’s not the only one. There are other Holocaust deniers and revisionists who’ve put their name to that petition.
Jean-Claude Valla, for example, coyly is described by the petition as a “journalist”. Sure enough, for the past thirty years he’s been a journalist and editor – for various publications of the French far Right: Lettre de Magazine-Hebdo, Elements and Minute. He "came out" as a Holocaust denier as long ago as 1991: “Speaking personally, I became certain a long time ago that the historical revisionists were correct.”
Or take Claude Karnoouh (“researcher with the National Centre for Scientific Research”), as another example. He describes himself as “a radical anti-Zionist”. He’s written for publications of the French far Right, Krisis and Elements. Back in 1981, when Faurisson stood trial in Paris for Holocaust-denial, Karnoouh was a witness for the defence: “In fact, I do not believe that the gas chambers existed. A certain number of the truths of official history have ended up being revised. Only in totalitarian states is a historical truth eternal.”
But let’s move on from the Holocaust deniers and revisionists to their defenders.
Remember Roger Garaudy? Used to be a French Stalinist. (He never called himself a Stalinist — that would have been making a rod for others to beat him with.) Then he threw a wobbly and became an anti-Zionist anti-imperialist. (That sounds a bit familiar, doesn’t it?) And then he went the whole hog: he converted to Islam. He became a Holocaust denier.
Have you heard of his book, The Founding Myths of Israeli Politics? In writing it, he used material from Faurisson and from Kulaszka’s Did Six Million Really Die?. Luckily for Garaudy, when he was put on trial for Holocaust denial, the Iranian government was kind enough to pay most of his fine for him.
The good news is that Garaudy is not a signatory to the petition. The bad news is that Michel Lelong and Isabelle Coutant-Peyre are signatories.
When Garaudy stood trial, Lelong (“priest, France”) was quick to rally to his defence: “I confirm that it seems to me quite unjust to accuse him of anti-semitism. [For God’s sake – all Garaudy had done was to deny the Holocaust!] I request that he should participate in the necessary debate on the great spiritual and international questions of our times". [Did the Holocaust take place? A great spiritual question of our time!]
And Garaudy isn’t the only accused person who has benefited from the support of the Lelong “priest, France”. When Maurice Papon stood trial in 1997 for complicity in crimes against humanity (collaborating with the Nazis to send Jews to the concentration camps), Lelong testified in court: “The Church is right to forgive. It has the duty to call on French people to forgive each other and to conciliate with one another.”
He’s a man of parts, Lelong. An admirer of Al Manar, the Hizbollah TV station. Likes Tariq Ramadan. Iranian TV puffed his last book launch: “In the heart of Paris a small Gallic enclave resists the Zionist invasion.”
And then there’s Isabelle Coutant-Peyre. She was Garaudy’s solicitor. By all accounts, she defended him with a certain degree of, let’s say, empathy. And she’s defended other famous people as well. Like VI Ramirez Sanchez (aka Carlos the Jackal). She certainly empathised with him: she ended up getting married to him!
Of course, just because you choose to marry someone who believes that the Taliban are “defending the world revolution”, that Osama bin Laden is “one of the Pure”, and that the enemies of humanity are “the Yankee monster and the Zionists”, doesn’t necessarily mean you share his views.
But Missus Carlos the Jackal is a member of the editorial board of A Contre-Nuit. It’s a magazine launched by her ex-client Garaudy. The magazine describes itself as “a publication inspired by Roger Garaudy.” He’s a regular contributor. Coutant-Peyre writes for it as well. Now, what kind of articles do you think are published in a magazine inspired by a Holocaust denier?
Read Coutant-Peyre’s article The Rape of Jerusalem?
There’s quite a lot of other French names on that petition who are, to use the most charitable term possible, “dodgy”. Here’s a few more examples of the petition’s “renowned international figures” and “personalities from all walks of life”:
Jean-Paul Cruse: One-time Maoist who ended up as a journalist and full-timer for the CGT trade union federation. Sacked after advocating an alliance between the French Communist Party and the fascist National Front. Here’s a quote from another statement graced with his signature:
“In Tel Aviv as in the corridors of the White House it is the racist and colonial far Right who are in power. … Let us organise a mass movement of support for the Iraqi resistance in all it forms. Political, moral and material support for these fighters for freedom. … Let us organise a siege, legal and peaceful, of the headquarters of the Party of War: the Israeli Embassy in Paris. …. The spokesmen and representatives of the Israeli fascist far Right must be harassed and besieged wherever they show themselves.”
Charles Saint-Prot: Author of a grovelling oeuvre entitled Saddam Hussein: An Arab de Gaulle? (It’s so grovelling that you can just imagine its author borrowing the words of your more eloquent friend Galloway, to salute Saddam’s courage, strength and indefatigability). He used to argue that Israel had been “created by the USA to be the instrument of American imperialism in the Middle East.” But now he argues that “the Zionist state manipulates the US more than the latter manipulates Israel.”
Jean-Pierre Lussan: An everyday retired monarchist lawyer who used to be a member of the National Front but then split with Bruno Megret's National Republican Movement. Belongs to the latter’s National Committee, as well as being one of its regional councillors. By coincidence, his wife used to run the “SOS-Children Iraq” charity. (It was a bit like Galloway’s Mariam Appeal.) She was named by “Al-Mada” back in January of last year as a recipient of Iraqi oil revenues. Yes, Tony Benn another of your co-signatories on the petition.
DO you know who your co-signatory Alain de Benoist is? He’s only the ideologist-in-chief of the French New Right! Used to be a member of various out-and-out fascist organisations. Then he opted for a more cerebral form of fascism and ended up as the intellectual guru of the French New Right.
He argues that “right” and “left” don’t mean anything anymore. Instead, there is the “centre” (the dominant ideology, neo-liberalism, US imperialism — call it what you will) and the “periphery” (consisting of all political forces — whether of the traditional “right” or the traditional “left” — who are opposed to the centre).
But de Benoist is not just a thinker. He’s a bit of a doer as well. Ever heard of the “Red-Brown Scandal” in France, Tony?
It dates from the early 1990s, when leading members of the French Communist Party (PCF) invited de Benoist to speak at meetings they had organised, while PCF members spoke at New Right meetings. Publications run by PCF members carried articles by the New Right, and New Right publications carried articles by PCF members.
That was when Jean-Paul Cruse wrote that article that cost him his job. Here’s a quote from it: “An authoritarian politics of renewal for the country … (is needed) to rally people of spirit against people of things, civilisation against merchandise — and the greatness of nations against the Balkanisation of the world … under the order of Wall Street, international Zionism, the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, and the gnomes of Tokyo.”
Can you think of any other, and more recent, red-brown scandals? Incidents (or campaigns, or petitions), when people who claim to be somewhere on the “left” have jumped into bed with the far right?
There’s a lot of non-French names on that petition as well. One name worth picking out is Elias Firzli: “Local consultant, politician and political writer, France.”
The petition forgets to mention that he’s a Baath Party member. And a very loyal one. “Now in his sixties, Mr Firzli is known as a committed Baathist and a friend of Mr Aziz since the 1960s. At that time, Mr Aziz was in exile in Lebanon.” And Mr Firzli doesn’t live in France anymore. He now resides in the Beka’a valley in his native Lebanon. That’s probably because of the international warrant out for his arrest.
Mr Firzli left France “precipitamment” in September of 2004, just when he was due to be questioned about kickbacks in the “Oil for Food” scam. Turns out that he had eight million Swiss francs and four million US dollars in his Swiss bank account! He’s accused of having received kickbacks (30 million French francs) from the Total oil company, and of having acted — at great profit — as a middleman between various French politicians and Baathist leaders such as… Tariq Aziz!
And then there are the names on the petition your friend George Galloway could tell you about. He probably knows a lot more about them then we do.
Fawaz Zureikat is the obvious example. Once shared a prison cell in Syria with Tariq Aziz. Had George Galloway as best man at his wedding. Donated a modest £350,000 to Galloway’s “Mariam Appeal”. And the happy bridegroom certainly seems to have fond memories of the charity (sorry: political campaign). He’s signed the petition: “Chairman of the Mariam Appeal, Jordan.”
Other names are Moustafa Bakri (editor of the Egyptian magazine “Al Osboa”, a publication renowned for its denunciations of homosexuality and human rights activists), Maher Makhlouf, Ahmed Ben Bella, Ashraf el-Bayoumi, Hans von Sponeck, and Hamdeen Sabahi
They were all at the first “Cairo conference”, back in December of 2002. Remember that? Paid for by Egyptian businessmen who were official trading partners with the Iraqi government. Attended by an official Iraqi government delegation. When a member of the delegation defended the Baath regime’s record on human rights, only one person is recorded as having walked out in protest. And it wasn’t George Galloway, or his pal and yours, John Rees of the SWP. Or any of the signatories to the petition.
OF course, we don’t want to give the impression that all the signatories to the petition are just a bunch of Jew-baiters and Jew-haters, cheer-leaders and apologists for Saddam Hussein or Bashar Assad, ideologists of the New Right and their collaborators, geriatric politicians, residents of the Beka’a valley, and miscellaneous nuts and non-entities.
There’s a number of signatories to the petition who belong to the left. Or, more precisely, a certain strand on the “left”. A kind of Stalinist or neo-Stalinist-fellow-travelling “left”. Examples:
Georges Labica (French Communist Party (PCF)), Patricia Latour (PCF), Arnaud Spire (journalist for the PCF newspaper), Jean-Loup Izambert (journalist close to PCF), Paul Balta (journalist specialising in ‘Third World’ issues), Bruno Drweski (editorial board member of a PCF magazine), and Andrée Michel (PCF).
A petition calling for freedom for Saddam Hussein’s right-hand man. Signed by professional anti-Zionists, Holocaust deniers, and representatives of the French New Right — and some people who think they represent the left. That’s what Galloway is sending later this year to “the UN, the British Government, and the American Congress.”
But doesn’t that petition sum up the rot of a whole layer of what now passes for “the left”? A layer that no longer bases itself on class politics (insofar as it ever did). A layer so warped by “anti-imperialism” and “anti-Zionism” that it ends up fellow-travelling with fascism and the far right.
Have you ever seen a copy of the French magazine La Cause des Peuples? It carries the well-used picture of Che Guevara’s head on its front page. Its slogan is “For an intercontinental united front against imperialism and exploitation.” It carries headlines like “50 Years of the Cuban Revolution — Cuba, Yes! Yankees No!”, “Palestine! Iraq! The Resistance Continues!”, “Baghdad in Flames Under the Terrorist Bombs — New Yankee War Crimes!”
It’s a French neo-fascist magazine. But such is the state of whole layers of ‘the left’ that its headlines and slogans would scarcely be out of place in their publications.
You say you want to rebuild the left? By your association with Galloway and this petition you are helping to asphyxiate it in a swamp fake “anti-imperialism”, and tawdry demagogy.
As far as honest socialists and anti-imperialists are concerned, the best we wish for Tariq Aziz — and his friends — is that they should rot in hell.
Sober up, comrade Benn!
Yours, Alliance for Workers Liberty
Comments
Benn drinks tea not Beer
Comrade Benn is a very bad man nearly as bad as 'Comrade Galloway'. 'Comrade Galloway' is a very very bad man and the major problem in the whole wide world. The AWL is very good and is ensuring a politically pure socialist future for humankind.
Just one question as a honest socialist - Where the hell is hell? - and who are Tariq Aziz's friends (awaiting the evil one)? Over to you ..... maybe Janine can enlighten us. Burning to hear the answer.
I'd love to enlighten you
... but what are you on about?
... but what are you on about
... but what are you on about? (As you say)
Well to be honest I'm someone who reads your site and just thought I'd post something that really bugs me about it, namely it's ability to get pleasure out of attacking 'the left' with a missionary zeal then claiming to be the force for unity.
Now you're going on about Comrade Benn - he is and always has been a reformist - he's said, signed and done loads of things you could attack (as he stated himself he's a 'former cabinet minister'). If he don't remove his name is he then no longer 'Comrade Benn' just plain old 'traitor Benn'.
Getting things in perspective
There are over 5,000 articles on this website, a small fraction of which are critical of other parts of the left.
Do you read the other stuff? Or comment on it? Cos if not, then it looks like you are the one who is fixated on intra-left arguments.
Having said that, if the left didn't make such horrible political mistakes, then we would not have to publish the criticisms that we do.
Crisis
That someone with a respectworthy past (eg the miners' strike) like Benn sees no problem in signing up to a campaign for the unconditional release (not just for a 'fair trial') of one of the top figures in a brutal dictatorship, imagining this follows from being opposed to the war, suggests a very very deep political and ideological crisis on the left.
It's not divisive to shout about this. If my friend had an enormous gaping sore on his face and I insisted on making him go to the doctor, it wouldn't be 'sectarian' of me (or whatever the word is which follows through the metaphor), but simply responsible.
This petition is an utter, utter disgrace. I don't know where hell is. I only hope it's just hot enough for Aziz and the rest of those bastards to actually suffer.
Constitutional
I think the anon post was trying to satrical but failing badly at it.... On the issue at hand. I've read the petition and think you've made many great points about the nature of Aziz and the crowd of his supporters who have signed. However I think you fail to recognise that Tony Benn is, and always has been, a socialist commited to a constitutional path and which (on law on order issues) means allowing even the most grotesque, evil and guily man a fair trial (along the lines of Hitler being allowed to walk into a courtroom and declare himself "not guitly"). This has not been allowed to the the political prisoners in Iraq, hence Mr Benn signing.
On a personal note I would rather Saddam and his cronies were just shot out of hand.
perhaps we can line them up a
perhaps we can line them up against a wall in Hell, set fire to them - then shoot them.
French Fash on Petition.
This, which appears to be written by someone with a deep and thorough knowledge of French politics, indicates an extremely disturbing development. If true it is one of the worst acts that could be imagined.
As someone very interested in this subject I began to shudder as I recognised the list of names on this appeal, the words 'Minute' (a vile t weekly) and then, Elements and Alain De Benoist (Nouvelle Droite), the rest of the worst of the French far right. It made me want to ask how someone like Labica (once a respected Marxist philosopher) could be associated with them.
It does not surprise me that Galloway and John Rees (who at least ought to know who the above, and as you cite, worse, examples, are) should link up with the far-right.
But Benn?
It is utterly utterly wrong of him. I have no more to say.
Andrew Coates
Fair trial
I totally agree with Andrew about Alain De Benoist etc, and in general the seemingly very weird (and, to me, more than a little disturbing) make-up of the list of signatories. The SWP in particular should know better than to associate with the likes of De Benoist.
However, in and of itself it doesn't alter the fact that even monsters like Tariq Aziz should have the right to a fair trial, and if arrested should be properly charged. After all, if we as socialists can't even adhere to basic standards of bourgeois justice, then how can we expect people to trust us to offer a better politics for the future?
Re: "fair trial"
The petition does not call for Tariq Aziz to have a fair trial. It calls for him to be released.
another signatory:
izabella kiraly: former hungarian mp and now president of the small "hungarian interest party" (mep), called fascist skinheads in a parliamentary debate in january 1993 after an attack of a jewish women "good sons of the hungarian nation", called 1996 for the deportation of all roma from hungary
Sacha Ismail
We shouldn't damn Benn as just as bad as Galloway, but nor should we let him off the hook.
a) For Benn. Someone wrote.
"Tony Benn also met Saddam twice. He described Mao Zedong as 'the greatest man of the 20th century' and supported Milosovich as a 'socialist'. Why do the contributors think he's more principled than Galloway?"
Because, despite his crap politics on international issues, Benn is or at least has been a man of the class struggle at home. He led a serious left-wing revolt against the Labour Party establishment in the early 1980s and has consistently supported working-class and progressive struggles in Britain since then. In recent years, he has taken a lead in opposing the Blair government's various attacks on the working class, for instance on issues like NHS privatisation and tuition.
Galloway, by contrast, is a venal and self-serving opportunist. And something else flows from this difference: though they share terrible politics on many international questions, Benn has never sold himself to foreign despotisms as Galloway has.
b) Anti-Benn. One of the contributors to this debate basically says that Benn is a reformist, and his politics are as bad as other reformists, no better or worse.
But this misses the point. What defines someone as a reformist is that they believe in a parliamentary, gradual road to socialism - or at least aren't willing to loudly advocate and fight for the revolutionary alternative. Reformist social democrats have all kinds of different politics on the sort of issues we are discussing. John McDonnell doesn't have perfectly clear and sharp politics on these questions, but he's a hell of a lot better than Benn.
We criticise Benn's reformism (as we did in the 80s), of course - but this criticism is something of a different order. By signing this statement to defend Tariq Aziz, Benn is discrediting his reformist (totally inadequate but respect-worthy up to a point) political principles.
Reply to Ismail
Ismail wrote that Benn "has consistently supported working-class and progressive struggles in Britain."
So has Galloway. Find me one example where Galloway has sided with the bosses in any industrial dispute.
What about Benn's anti-abortionism, promotion of nuclear power, anti-eu little Englandism (including outright political blocs with Enoch Powell), support for Serbia and it's murderous war drive or hailing of the 20th century's worst mass murderer?
And why do you think Benn describes Galloway as one of 'the finest socialists, democrats and internationists of his generation'? Birds of a feather?
Galloway
This post is a bit confused to say the least.
One lot of "bosses" that Galloway sided with of course were the (thankfully former) regime in Iraq.Whatever else the Gate Gourmet's of the world are guilty of its not mass murder.
mondegreen?
Galloway did not describe Israel as a "Hitler state", but as a settler state. See this link. You can "be reported" by anyone as having said just about anything.
"Hitler State"
Yes, I understans that Galloway was misreported on this, and that he did, apparently, say "settler state" with regard to Israel. The AWL was not deliberately misrepresenting Galloway, but reorting what the mainstream media had said. Nevertheless, given what the president of Iran has now said about israel )ie: it as no right to exist), would Mr Galloway like to comment upon Israel's right to exist? His remarks up to now have been evasive. Let him now be clear: does he think Israel has the right to exist or not? Answer, Mr Galloway, please!
U AWL types really are the pondscum of the left
O holy comrade Sacha gets out the holy Marxist measuring stick!
"despite his crap politics on international issues" - Benn
"Galloway, by contrast, is a venal and self-serving opportunist. And something else flows from this difference: though they share terrible politics on many international questions, Benn has never sold himself to foreign despotisms as Galloway has."
hmm... obviously what you say about galloway is factually wrong, a quick reality check will see to that, maybe you should stop reading the telegraph and listen to what galloway has to say perhaps, maybe?? Please try, with supporting evidence to subsstantiate that he "sold himself to foreign despotisms" and no wheeling out that old indefatigable quote wont do will it? Please find something of substance which pins Galloway as a fervent admirer of Huessein. It is infact true that Galloway is and has been one of the most consistent enemies of Saddam's despotism as can be found. As he has said himself he protested arms sales to Iraq in the 80's by some of the people who now line up and assault him for "supporting despotism".
Why!?! Why put this kinda shit up on the web. Its like stripping off and doin ur dirty laundry in your front garden! By all means debate and discuss the rights and wrongs of x,y and z through lengthier articles talking theory or the existing structures and space within the movement but why the fuck make ur short punchy letters to him/her/the SWP/evil reformist scum the main focus of ur proganda?
You serve up secterian bullshit and pretend its an open theoretical discussion within the left. It is quite clear that the only purpose of this website is to maintain the cadre that your organisation already has and to snipe at dissaffected fresh SWP recruits. hmmm... Isn't their something about a marxist party about a dialectical relationship between party and class the, interactions between organised socialists and the movement. How can u self-proffessed marxists justify jumping on the reactionary Galloway bashing bandwagon when cleary Galloway (through actions like at the senate) represents the politics of the movement in a concrete sense.
The job of socialists is to deal with the actual human material that is presented to us by capitalism and not imaginary or pre-prepared human material. So this is why Galloway has been addressing mass meetings of hundreds upon hundreds throughout the length and bredth of the country and you fuckers have continued to talk to your favourite audience: yourselves.
I dont know what u think being a socialist is about, waving the purest possible red flag and insulating urself from reactionary elements and just waiting for the inevitable bull of revolutionary glory to charge towards your revolutionay purity. Marxist theory and a marxist party is only steeled in practise. How a genuine workers paper can be left out of ur equation is perplexing.
Cliff wrote some good stuff on Lenin's writing and use of pravda
"It is far more difficult to write in Marxist terms for the masses than it is to write for Party cadres. For the latter the argument can be developed as a theoretical Marxist analysis. For the former it has to be based on the workers’ own experience without using arguments that demand a knowledge of Marxism. Lenin excelled in writing for both kinds of audience... Lenin wrote numerous articles specially directed to the cadres of the Party – long articles of 2,000-3,000 words each."
whilst Lenin was obviously able to distinguish between how you communicate with your cadre and further debate and how u communicate with the party's periphary u seem to not understand the difference at all.
This could be, shock horror, because ur an insignifigant group of PURE HOLY SOCIALISTS that are so far in advance of the working class its not even worth facillitating a dialouge between ur organisation and the wider movement. The paper as an "organiser" should not throw new readers into a secterian sabre rattling against one party by another. Quite clearly the paper is much broader than that. We use a paper to build a periphery and to radicalise the politics in the movements in which we are engaged. The workers paper is the paper of the movement and not the Hello magazine of the left (though arguably the weekly worker win this title).
The one thing the SWP have got spot on is Lenin's concept of the revolutionary party, u ppl should stop looking to objective forces to explain your relative inferiority and start to realise that you dont have the first idea that a vanguard is nothing without its rearguard.
Things like Respect aren't purely invented in John Rees' head or whatever. Respect is an expression of a historically specific balance of class forces and represents the actual development of consciousness in the actually existing human material that socialists must work with. The role of a socialist organistation is to help develop the strentgh of the self-activity of the working class according to the actual development of radicalisation and to deepen and further the process of radicalisation by the strength and clarity of marxist ideas. Having a paper that gossips endlessly about how evil or "wrong" the SWP or Galloway or Benn or whoever are and how superbly endlessly beautifully correct the AWL is is not part of our tradition.
The SWP communicates in an un-demanding way marxist ideas to its periphery whilst also maintaining a deeper analysis in a review and a lengthy theoretical discussion in its ISJ. Here are the structures that keep my party talking to the movement and also keep SWP members debating theory, strategy, tactics.. helping the party sharpen its effectiveness.
How on earth does the useless prattling on this website substitute for this process??
depressing
this is a thoroughly depressing but sadly predicable contribution.
Arguing about politics is not doing 'dirty laundry' in public. For Marxists, politics, history, philosophy etc is an ongoing argument. You can't be a marxist unless you disagree with whole sections of the rest of the marxist left. To hide those difference from some unspecified supposedly uneducated working class is dishonest and pointless. Obviously that doesn't mean that we should spend our whole lives arguing with each other but...to take up your points
Personally I think that socialist worker is a pretty weak publication because it lacks substance or any in-depth articles, it is well presented and well-written, but then so are the sun and the mirror. Our publication has a range of very long and very short articles some of which are challenging for experienced marxists -but that is the whole point -our publication is to argue for and about our ideas.
It's entirely appropriate that we use our website and our paper to argue for our ideas and write the facts as we see them. It's unbelievable for another marxists to suggest that we shouldn't do so or that we shouldn't criticise people we see as wrong.
Back to the point of the main article.
The article argues that Benn should not have signed the petition for Tariq Aziz's condition release.
1) because he(aziz) is a murderous dictator and the left has absolutely no reason to defend him. Aziz is (literally) the mortal enemy of the working class. Obviously he should treated like any other accused murderer and receive a free trial.
2) The petition is largely organised by the the french (new style)extreme right. The left do not have anything in common with them, even if we agreed with the sentiment of the petition we would not sign a petition organised by our class enemies. They have their own reasons for wanting the unconditional release of Aziz which have nothing to do with the search for justice or a fair trial
3) Galloway is a very close personal friend of the murderer Aziz (he said so on his newsnight and channel 4 interviews last week) so it's no surprise that he would endorse a petition to get him released, even though he is keeping unsavoury company. But what Galloway does; does not define the left. Part of our point is to break the idea that the left must slavishly follow galloway. We have fundamental disagreements with Galloway, it's our right and our duty to argue those out.
Galloway has played a disgusting role in the anti-war movement as a cheerleader for Saddam. Defrauded Iraqi money backrolled Galloways polical campaigns and his personal office. While Galloway was campaigning for the lifting of sanctions iraqi money which could have been used to alleviate the very real hardship caused by sanctions was instead being siphoned off into the Mariam appeal back to Galloway to use for campaigning. No part of this is now dispited by Galloway himself.
Tony Benn brings the whole of the left down to Galloways sordid level by putting his name to the petition and we are right to criticse him for this.
yeh u tool but Galloway's cam
yeh u tool but Galloway's campaigning wasn't for his own personal betterment. The fact that Galloway used money from the Miriam appeal to campaign against is highly uncontreversial due to the fact it was one of the specified aims of the appeal. Also its strange to see the an AWLer advocating charity as opposed to activism?!?!?
"iraqi money which could have been used to alleviate the very real hardship caused by sanctions was instead being siphoned off into the Mariam appeal back to Galloway to use for campaigning"
The Miriam appeal wasn't a fucking charity it was a just campaign to cut off the sanctions programme (as galloway sed himself) root and branch. As if campaigning about a specific ill of the capitalist system and one of the most blatant examples of suffering at the hand of American Imperialism's interests isn't helping to alleviate "very real hardship!!!
By this logic every leftist in the world shud cease funding political organisations because the money would be better going to "very real hardship" in the fashion of charitable donations. Fuck it im convinced from now on my SWP subs are diverted to Oxfam.
About the petition u people yourself do state that the petition didnt purely call for the release of Aziz but for the release of all "Political Prisoners in iraq" what can be the objection to this?
Seems like this petition highlights the lack of freedom in the new "democratic" iraq where elections mean nothing and a miserable 2% support continued occupation.
to quote the aims of the petition:
"We the Undersigned call for the release from custody of the Chairman of the Baghdad Conference - which coordinated the international campaign against sanctions and war on Iraq - Mr Tariq Aziz whom we believe to be held by the American Occupation Forces at the airport in Baghdad. He is being subject to endless interrogation. There is no legitimate legal basis for his continuing detention. As UN Secretary General Kofi Annan stated in September 2004, the attack upon Iraq was illegal and it follows that the arrest and subsequent imprisonment of Tariq Aziz was equally illegal.
Consequently, we demand the release of Tariq Aziz and the thousands of political prisoners being held without trial or charge by the British and American Occupation forces."
The petition is about the illegal treatment of a high profile individual AND the thousands of illegally detained political prisoners.
I would suggest in a situation where Aziz and Saddam been overthrown by a revolution in which Iraqi's took control of their own lives and truly liberated themselves from saddam's oppression then the left should support democratic tribunals to ascertain whether an individual needs to face some kind of justice for crimes against the ordinary people of iraq, in this situation it would be terrible to call for the release of a such a man as aziz.
However the actual situation we are dealing with is an aggressor force representing only the interests of American capital which is hypocritically detaining Aziz for crimes that pale in the slaughter unleashed in the name of neo-liberalism is smashing up an already disfugered society and reorgonising it into its own twisted conception of a "free" society. The only freedom of the bourgois order is free trade everything else is suppordinate to it. Therefore we should expose the fig leaf that they are fighting for democracy and freedom with full vigour. For instance if their are substantial political prisoners (some high profile) whom are detained illegally and tortured and held in barbaric conditions maybe we should speak out, like say signing a petition?
Galloway is cheerleader of Saddam? how???
Political prisoner?
Most people understand the term 'political prisoner' to mean someone imprisoned because of their politics. You might stretch this to include people who have committed 'crimes' in pursuit of political aims.
How far would you have to stretch the definition for it to include Tariq Aziz? Can 'political prisoner' really include 'big cheese in a mass-murdering regime'?
Is David Copeland (the Nazi nail-bomber) a 'political prisoner'? Would you sign a petition for his release in order to expose the idea that the British ruling class cares about democracy? How about General Pinochet? Political prisoner or not?
And do you honestly think that, say, the Halabja massacre 'pales' beside the actions of the occupation (bad though they are)?! I don't.
YES
Course the crimes of the occupiers are worse than those who gassed Halabja because it was an american petrochemical plant and western arms companies (the very people profitting from the current disastorous occupation) that provided Saddam with the capability to commit that attrocity.
Lets look at the toll of western intervention shall we? How about the fact that Saddam Hussein first came to prominence when the CIA hired Saddam and five other men to assassinate the Iraqi PM. Saddam fucked up fired too soon, wounded a friend and killed his driver. The CIA got Saddam out of Iraq to Beirut, where it provided Saddam with an apartment and a training course. Then wen the ba'ath party do get in power they massacre the Iraqi communist party with after the American's helpfully handed over lists of "suspected Communists" who where rounded up and executed". Continuing down this path the Ba'ath party an Saddam Hussein were the willing tools of American Foreign policy in the middle-east. The Iran-Iraq war, the gassing of the Kurds (Saddam probs got that idea from Churchill btw), and the bloody toll of internal repression where all done under the watchfull un-concern of the current self proffessed liberators. For all these crimes of Saddam Hussein and his deputies the US elite has blood on its hands. According to Colonel Walter P. Lang, senior defense intelligence officer at the time, "The use of gas on the battlefield by the Iraqis was not a matter of deep strategic concern." Sounds like their guilty as hell to me.
At this point we haven't even started to look the First Gulf War, Sanctions regime 10 years of bombing, cluster bombs, affects of depleted uranium etc. and the bloody war and occupation of Iraq in 2003 and onwards. Even conservative estimates are way passed the Million Mark.
Hundreds of thousands were massacred in Gulf War One and according to the Lancet report 100,000 have been killed in the current war and occupation. Then there is sanctions and the systematic killing of Iraq's population by starvation, denial of medical supplies and humanitarian supplies etc.
Former UN Assistant Secretary General Denis Haliday referred to their "genocidal impact" and House Democratic Whip David Bonior called the economic sanctions against Iraq "infanticide masquerading as policy". The toll of sanctions alone is estimated at around half a million children and a total death toll of well over a million.
I think the biggest centres of capital accumulation are bound to inflict the most physical damage, especially when they preside over a practical hegemony of influence around large spaces of the world. The US' position relies further and further on its overwhelming military dominance and it seems that rival centres of accumulation such as europe and china (and arguably still Russia) ,whislt not having equal military muscle, are quite serious competitors in terms of extraction of surplus value and share of the world market.
American Capitalisms dominance of subordinate, less efficient areas and client states is based on a rule repression and mass murder on a scale that Saddam couldn't achieve in his fucking wet dreams. The way it is brutally reforging the middle-east and wider eurasian land mass is fucking terrifying.
This is why attempts by types such as the AWL to smash the practical unity of Stop the War, by smearing Galloway and "political islam" in general, are fucking counterrevolutionary bollox. The one point where we have the ability to break the government and realign the british left is over the issue of the war, the attempts to weaken this movement with sectarian sniping should be called for what they are: Baseless and reactionary.
Apologist Bollox
If anyone is responsible for bollox here it is the author of the above nonsense. Of course the US, Britain, France, the USSR etc. are complicit in the crimes of Saddam. Yes all of them played big power politics with Iraq as they have done with many other countries, yes they allo looked to maintain thier own interests in one way or another, but what does any of that have to do with the crimes and butchery carried out by Saddam - how does it excuse what he did or lessen its significance. It doesn't.
Your argument is like saying the real villain is not the serial killer who through sheer blood lust murders a dozen people in cold blood, but the worker who produced the gun that the serial killer used.
Yes the US and other powerful capitaloist states are involved in many kind of activities that we as socialists oppose - they are our enemies. But our friends are not chosen by simply cosying up to those that oppose capitalism, because many of them are even worse than capitalism itself - as is the case with the thoroughly reactionary political Islam that you and Galloway support. As socialists we have the intelligence to plot our own course, choose our friends on the basis of those with whom we have shared interest, rather than having all those things decided for us by simply putting a minus sign everywhere the capitalists put a plus sign.
It appears that such intelligence is lacking on your part completely.
Arthur Bough
nice try matey
sounds like shit to me though!
"Your argument is like saying the real villain is not the serial killer who through sheer blood lust murders a dozen people in cold blood, but the worker who produced the gun that the serial killer used."
This stuff is hilarious! You seriously think thats what I said?
How does an analogy between the involuntary production of a weapon through the wage-labour stystem and the use of that weapon in serial murder compare with the actual situation at all?
The REAL situation is not of a worker producing a weapon and therefore being guilty, workers production of weaponry is involuntarily like any other wage labour, Jerry Hicks said himself during his dispute that him and the other engineers at their site would much rather put their skills to better use. Im sure we agree that workers involved in the arms industry can't be blamed for the ultimate use of the products of their labour because, of course, no structures are in place for these workers to be involved in any decision making process or whatever.
So lets deal with the real issue then. How is the global dominant imperialist power of the United States an unwilling contributer to a murdurous Iraqi state. Even more so how is pointing out wider structures of power that reveal Saddam to be a small player in the world of international mass murder being an apologist? Surely it wasnt as an apologist lenin said the following: “the given war or revolt [must be] assessed on the strength of its real social content (the struggle of an oppressed nation for its liberation from the oppressor nation)… If we do not want to betray socialism we must support every revolt against our chief enemy, the bourgeoisie of the big states, provided it is not the revolt of a reactionary class” well, well, well in the struggle of an oppressed nation fighting for its liberation from the oppressor nation we should identify the "chief enemy", the bourgeoisie of the big states is undoubtadly (in a modern context)the US and its lackeys. The revolt lenin was talking about was the revolt of the Irish against British imperialism, but today we deal with the subject of whos worse the US or Saddam in the context of the revolt of ordinary Iraqi's against the occupation. THe AWL in abandoning any theories of imperialism wholesale and claiming that we have to surrender between horrible choices to the "least worst" option (namely the continued occupation of an oppressed nation).
Whilst the USA reforges the middle-east to maintain its global supremecy you offer no support to the resistance and attempt to ridicule my outline of how wider forces shape the nature of Saddam's brutal dictatorship. In the Ireland scenario no one shud hesitate to support Connely and his confused movement against protestant supremacy and british imperialism. As we understand that the murderous rule of the Protestan Elite in Ireland was merely a tool of more powerful forces and our chief enemy, the bourgoisie of the big states, similarily today Saddam's murderous rule was a tool of larger imperialist forces and when he moved away from the US sphere of influence he was deposed in a bloody war and occupation which the big bourgeoisie of the USA and Britain are using to create a "stable" client elite who can operate in their influence with some careful "guidance" and friendly "support" (in the form of numerous large and permenant US military bases).
Its simple, Saddam was the child of western imperialism and the new iraqi regime is an attempt to place more friendly ruling class in place who can cooperate with americas wish to bring "freedom" to the wider eurasian landmass. To be consistent we must equally denounce Saddam and the Occupation but insist that the only actors who can realise both opposition to Saddam and the Current occupation is a movement of national liberation tied with an international movement with radical anti-imperialist politics at its heart. To try and "understand" the brutality of Saddam's rule in terms of the culpabilty of international capitalism is not to apologise.
Given that the middle-east and particularily Iraq is such a key faultline in international politics your rejection of any serious understanding of imperialism in the middle-east and the practical unity of struggle against our chief enemies has a considerable damage on your politics. TO THE EXTENT THAT YOU CALL FOR A VOTE FOR PRO-WAR BLAIRITE OONA KING OVER GALLOWAY!
u crazy bastards!
In any case even indirectly through sanctions and actual interventions western leaders have more blood on their hands, let alon including the crimes saddam committed in the interests of US global power.
Benn still drinks tea not Beer
I wrote the original reply to this 'open letter' about how I read this site and how it bugs me that you appear to be always appealing for left unity but always seem to be attacking the left. Let me make this absolutely clear I am not and never have been a member of Respect or the SWP (or the reformist/Stalinist ideas of Galloway) and usually find myself closer to the AWL analysis than the SWP. But you appear to be losing it big time! You're certainly losing me with your crazy anti SWP/Respect/Galloway/Benn rants.
Martin, you say,
"Galloway has played a disgusting role in the anti-war movement as a cheerleader for Saddam" .... You what??
You may not like Galloway (and of course you should and must criticise his politics if you don't like them) but he has played a brave role against the war. Ironically one that has placed him in danger from the state and Islamic extremists.
The open letter ends,
"As far as honest socialists and anti-imperialists are concerned, the best we wish for Tariq Aziz — and his friends — is that they should rot in hell"
By his friends you mean Galloway (and by implication Galloways friends and fellow travellers) and by rot in hell you really mean something a little less alive ie. dead.
Honest Socialists and anti-imperialists would never call for a leader or member of the AWL to "rot in hell" in an open letter - you wouldn't like it would you. I hope it's just a childish mistake.
Parts (I said PARTS NOT ALL) of your web site are starting to sound like a rallying cry for attacks on the left, especially SWP/Respect when it should be aiming clearly at the neo-cons and their friends.
The US and the West invaded Iraq not Galloway. The US and the West backed Saddam not Galloway. Truth is concrete.
Sober up AWL. The real road to hell is paved with sectarianism.
Tariq's friends
I read the open letter to mean, by Aziz's friends, the other Ba'thist leaders whose release the petition calls for. It never occurred to me that it meant Galloway - although, of course, Galloway does say he's proud to call Aziz his friend. The point, I thought, is that since the petition is not, actually, just a call for Aziz's release - it only focuses on him (as 'chairman of the Baghdad conference', rather than as one of the tops in the dictatorship), presumably because he is more cuddly than Saddam or Chemical Ali - it was important to be clear that the whole lot of them should rot in hell, not just Gorgeous' Christmas host.
I don't think the AWL wants Galloway dead. That seems a rather silly interpretation.
As to whether this is hysterical: I think if you read the Open Letter, the reason for getting a bit hysterical - angry, hot under the collar, and what have you - is quite clear. It describes something really terrible, ie, that the left can't tell a neo-fascist when it sees one any more. Galloway, as a very vocal leader of that 'left', darling even of American anti-Republicans now, therefore needs special debunking,
Done already
I think it's more a question of this having been done already, in scores of articles. I wouldn't like Solidarity to become so unbalanced in terms of article volume that it gets a name as "The We-all-hate-the-SWP-and-Galloway Newspaper".
More tea, less beer
I think this discussion is revealing about where different factions on the left, including AWL, still have work to do. This "open letter" was useful to me to help understand what kind of people were getting behind the petition. Remember that alot of us need simple information to find our bearings in left politics. If I enjoyed listening to Galloway with my dad on Talk Radio then hearing about this petition might make me think that Assiz can't be such a bad chap after all. I like Tony Benn too, even though I have always found some aspects of his anti-imperialism weird. Thanks to this article I am clearer about the issue and I can easily spot what seems to have missed the Anonymous cdes attention when s/he quotes Lenin: "we must support every revolt against our chief enemy, the bourgeoisie of the big states, provided it is not the revolt of a reactionary class”. Obviously Assiz, however pleasant his company may be on a personal level, represents a reactionary class in Iraq. He deserves a fair trial, no more no less.
But just as obviously I'm afraid there is a kind of aggressive glee regularly on display on this site in attacking the faults of Galloway, SWP etc. And personally, I have no desire for Assiz or anyone else to "rot in hell", and I find all such language gratuitous and ultimately counter-revolutionary. It's the tone and the language which keep me at a distance. And from the responses it seems endemic on the revolutionary left. I think you call it "polemic". I call it an oppressive mental atmosphere in which it is not apparently safe to think aloud and make mistakes, not ok to have political illusions, and not actually - for all the talk of traditions of factions and open discussion - acceptable to have genuinely arrived at a different conclusion to the AWLs current position. I'm not excusing all the swearing and taunting that comes at you from other cdes everytime you raise a difficult but necessary subject,by the way. It's the courage, independence and clarity of your ideas which is so appealing.
But surely Cdes who discuss here, wherever they've ended up organisationally, are all people who have taken a huge step in breaking with the capitalist domination of our minds and grasping the historic role of the working class. We are all, or most, genuine class-fighters. From that standpoint I want us to discuss as far as possible respectfully and rationally, not impatiently and sceptically. The working class needs us to raise the level of revolutionary culture and build real cadres. And people who have been oppressed out of having confidence in their ability to think independently and well need nurturing and encouragement by revolutionaries. The atmosphere and tone of these threads does not always seem to be in keeping with that. I'd like to know what people think about this...
Eichmann?
Theo,
As far as I'm concerned Tariq Aziz was a chief henchman (the second-in-command, really) of a regime that different from Nazism only in scale. Would you denounce similar language (e.g. "rot in hell") used towards, say, Adolf Eichmann as "gratuitious"?
Building a broadly libertarian culture of open debate, argument, critical thinking and dissent on the left (which I agree is entirely necessary) does not mean being polite and even-handed about fascist murderers or giving their supporters on the so-called "left" an easy ride. There are some bottom lines.
And let's be clear - Tony Benn and George Galloway are hardly green activists who've fallen into soft-support for the likes of Aziz because they've swum along with the general current on the left. They're experienced politicians with serious ideological influence on the left and in the labour movement. You might argue that we'd be better off addressing ourselves to the former category but as long as we're polemicising against Galloway or Benn (the latter of whom one could argue might once have been expected to know better) I think a bit of sharpness is necessary.
-
Daniel Randall
PS: I might also point out that the most vituperative quotes in the above debate - "you are pondscum", "you are crazy bastards" etc. - were not written by AWL members. Whatever you think about our overly-polemical style or the "gratuitous" nature of our language, I don't think we are in the habit of calling the SWP, the SP or whoever else "pondscum".
"Gratuitous" because not necessary or useful
Daniel - I don't think you should give anyone an easy ride politically - I admire AWL cdes because you don't, and you try to look at every issue in a rational revolutionary way rather than resorting to a knee-jerk easy "left" position, which is generally contradictory and hopelessly out of touch with most people's reality. I also accept that it's mainly the critics on this site who let their feelings take over from their thinking and get abusive first. That's usually cos they can't better your arguement. Of course I would have expected Benn to know better but he obviously didn't, and I still respect him as a socialist fighter who has the ear of many people. One of the reasons for that I think is his patient and reasonable tone which presents socialist ideas themselves as reasonable and non-sectarian. I'm not suggesting anyone else should try and imitate him - a large part of his way of explaining things comes from his owning-class training, and as your article showed, it doesn't actually mean that his thinking necessarily makes sense!
I can't blame anyone for feeling that Assiz, Eichmann, and all the rest should "rot in hell" - anymore than I would "denounce" a bereaved mother who wanted her child's killer to rot in a mythical hell. It's completely understandable. But it's not a basis for justice or analysis. Those mass-murdering henchman positions arose because of class-society. Someone was going to fill the vacancy. There are thousands of sick deluded brutalised a-social corrupt and greedy people out there, and in police states they rise to the top. But just as there is no "hell" for "honest socialists" like me to wish on them, so there are also no "evil" people either. Remove class exploitation and in my opinion the best human behaviour will come to rule. If not, why bother.
And if that's what we want then we need to develop left-leadership that appeals to everything that's progressive and inclusive in the working class and shows that in the way it argues. I didn't mean to say that AWL cdes don't often do this already, but I do think that what you call "a bit of sharpness" is necessary in regards to this. You know, Lenin's "too rude" comment.
Fair enough
Theo,
I really don't think the article intended to imply the existence of an literal hell or the profoundly anti-materialist concept of "evil". The "rot in hell" was a rhetorical flourish. Clearly you don't like it. Fair enough. I don't have a particular brief for it so let's just agree to differ on what is an incidental question of style (it's not as if we routinely go around expressing our desire for people to "rot in hell". This was a bit of a special case).
Incidentally on the issue of Tony Benn, I think twenty-five years ago was a respectworthy figure, no doubt. However what he's chosen to do with himself politically since then makes him somewhat less worthy of respect. I think his interview with Saddam shortly before the 2nd Gulf War and his support for Aziz are logical expressions of what he's become politically rather than aberrations. That might gall people who remember him/identify with him from his better days, but there you go. Better people than him have fallen a lot further (Max Shachtman?) and I don't think you should pull your punches because someone used to be good. "Tell the truth, no matter how bitter it may be" and all of that. Plus I think it's all a bit crudely reductionist to say "people are products of their class conditioning, blame the system not the individual." Of course that's true in a general sense but it doesn't leave you with much except abstract anti-capitalism...
-
Daniel Randall