Having your cake... the fantasy opportunism of Jack Conrad on the Muslim Association
In a lengthy and convoluted article in this week's Weekly Worker, Jack Conrad appears to pin the CPGB's colours to the mast on the Muslim Association of Britain - though, since the article is signed, who can be sure? - namely, that the CPGB is in favour of the Stop the War Coalition's collaboration with the British wing of the Muslim Brethren.
This plainly is a different Jack Conrad to the one who argued (at a CPGB meeting shortly after 9/11, at which I spoke) that in principle 'these reactionaries' (meaning Islamists) should be driven off demonstrations. What's happened since? Not much except that the left has lined up on the question, and as is their wont, the CPGB will confine their disagreements with the SWP to the small print of turgid articles, while for all practical purposes they agree - and heaven forbid they be identified with the ranting lunatics of the AWL.
"Communists must avoid these twin mistakes," Conrad warns us, sternly. "Sectarianism isolates us and lessens the mass forces that can be mobilised against our main enemy and influenced by us. On the other hand opportunism waters down or simply suppresses all that is critical, all that is distinct about the programme of revolutionary socialism." Well, I'm glad that's clear.
The basic argument is as follows:
1) Collaborating with MAB brings lots of Muslims on demonstrations, which is a great opportunity for the left 'if we do our job' properly;
2) to suggest it might boost the MAB reveals an 'inferiority complex' - on the contrary, the Left can win over whoever they mobilise;
3) in any case, however reactionary they might be in Egypt or Sudan, there's no danger of them taking power in Britain, so they're not that dangerous anyway ("The main enemy is at home, not in Cairo, Tehran, Gaza or Istanbul");
4) and the most important thing is to mobilise a huge movement in Britain against the war - as opposed to a 'spurious solidarity' with the secular, democratic, socialist and working class opponents of Islamism in the Muslim world.
This is all backed up with learned arguments on the need of the working class for alliances - Lenin and the peasantry is invoked - rather than (this is what he means by 'sectarianism'): "To propose to go into battle with just the advanced guard - eg, those 'within or close to the labour movement' - is folly. To argue that the vanguard must be sealed off and supposedly kept uncontaminated by contact with reactionaries such as MAB is criminal." Exactly why the mass labour movement is 'the advanced guard' is not clear. And who is proposing 'sealing off' the left or the labour movement is anyone's guess. The argument, which has apparently gone over Conrad's head, is about whether the anti-war movement should jointly sponsor demonstrations with MAB, not about whether to issue ear plugs and blindfolds.
Point 3 is a breathtaking argument, which taken to its logical conclusion would sanction collaboration with any old foreign fascist who's not likely to seize power in Britain. But then, we don't want 'spurious solidarity' and empty gestures. "Sagely telling about how the left completely underestimated the Khomeiniist movement, issuing dire warnings about the complete absence of democracy in Saudi Arabia and universalising the danger of islamic reaction is to stray into territory normally associated with the ultra-right and the conspiracy-mongering of the type that produced the Protocols of the elders of Zion." Who is "universalising the danger of Islamic reaction" is not clear either. And note the single sentence linking anti-semitic forgeries to explaining the lessons of the Iranian revolution...
But what of 'spurious solidarity'?
The opponents of Islamism within 'Muslim communities' are not confined to far-off countries. Even if they were, those people are, in a not-so broad sense, our comrades. Our 'job' is to find ways to build solidarity with them, to build an international movement with them. For instance, in Indonesia, with the largest Muslim population on earth, the independent trade union movement see the Islamist groups as fascistic strike-breakers. Building solidarity with the trade union and socialist movement is a vital, central task for socialists. To ally with, in effect, their enemies is a terrible, shameful, dereliction of duty.
In the SWP's case, this lurch into popular frontism has been extended into quietly attending a conference addressed by representatives of Saddam's regime, becoming joint secretary of the 'movement' issued by it, and publicising its reactionary programme; the CPGB has yet, as far as I know, to make clear its view on this.
What are we if we can't even stand by those comrades fighting both imperialism and Islamism - in and from Iran, Pakistan, and elsewhere? What is the point of us? Either our fundamental goal is to build a working class socialist movement, which means are allies are those people, not the Muslim Brotherhood, or we are nothing, a waste of space.
Jack Conrad declares the CPGB to be a waste of space.
It is astonishing how the Left's argument on the MAB has shifted since they got all wide-eyed and impressed at the size of the latter's Palestine demonstration last year. First, they insisted the MAB were not "fundamentalist' ('not a political organisation", as Mike Marqusee, then press secretary for the StWC, put it in Hackney SA). Then, when the MAB were shown to be the Muslim Brotherhood - when they openly declared it themselves! - it no longer mattered whether they were fundamentalist or not, as long as they could get people on demos.
Jack Conrad still talks as if they are somehow merely 'representative' of British Muslims. "Just as misplaced is the suggestion that MAB is led by clever, sophisticated, worldly-wise politicians and that therefore on the February 15 demonstration and other such protests against Gulf War II it will gain far more than the working class and the left. This is to turn reality on its head..." Hello? The Muslim Brotherhood are indeed sophisticated politicians. They have held power in one country - Sudan - and it is widely believed are in a position to do so in their historic centre, Egypt. The MAB represents, self-evidently, a decision by the Brotherhood to undertake political work in Britain. In a short space of time they have managed to establish themselves as an important political presence - organising one big Palestine demonstration, and persuading a Left at first naïve and then stupid to let them jointly sponsor the anti-war movement.
Does Jack imagine this is a good thing? That it is a good thing for those in the Muslim community who oppose the Brotherhood, for instance - like socialists, for example? The oldest and perhaps most powerful Islamist movement in the world decides to build a base in Britain, and the Left kindly offers it a helping hand. It is beyond belief. The SWP at least has the justification that its opportunism probably does have material results: for every twenty people they point in the direction of the MAB, they perhaps get the ear of a couple, whom they can opportunistically recruit. Conrad's posturing about 'doing our job' and winning the base of the MAB away from it is just fantasy opportunism, since all the CPGB can do is cheer on the SWP. But then, for practical purposes, that is all the CPGB do anyway.
The notion that this has got anything whatever to do with an alliance with the peasantry in Russia is too laughable even to refute. Nor has it got anything to do with 'united fronts'. The Muslim Brotherhood is not a working class organisation - it is a quasi-fascist reactionary movement. A united front, as advocated by Trotsky in Germany, for example, is aimed at smashing people like the MAB, not allying with them. At least, even if the analogy is not quite exact, as the Brotherhood are not exactly Nazis, it has more truth in it than the opposite.
The whole thing shows what the CPGB is. As on Israel/Palestine, where they formally adopt a position which would put them at loggerheads with the SWP but in fact spend more time denouncing the AWL, and proving how house-trained and sycophantic they are, so too here. Note also the little swipe about the Protocols of the Elders of Zion - a clear suggestion that they are prepared to chime in with the chorus of idiots who say that to oppose is Islamism is, effectively, racism.
The Left has to wake up. Islamism is not our ally, either in the Middle East or on the streets of London. The inevitable consequence of pretending otherwise is to prettify the Islamists, play down the fact that we are mortal enemies. Conrad wants to avoid opportunism; but the CPGB has already revealed just how opportunist it's prepared to be (first it denied the MAB were Islamists, then said it didn't matter anyway...). Of course this doesn't mean we refuse to join the demonstration or anything so stupid. It means we need to be clear about the basic politics of it, about where we stand, and whose side we're on.
