As we were saying

Submitted by martin on 18 June, 2003 - 6:42

What Solidarity has said recently about George Galloway is not new, and not a case of us "moving under pressure of the bourgeois press". We said more or less everything we now say about George Galloway nine years ago, in the editorial from Socialist Organiser reprinted in part here. We said it again in Solidarity two months ago, in an article which began by solidarising with George Galloway where he had called on British soldiers not to obey "illegal orders" and then went on to argue that Galloway had no place in the anti-war movement.

The "George-Galloway-loves-Saddam-Hussein" affair gave the Tories a brief respite from their own scandals and sensational revelations last week.

It brought no respite to socialists concerned at the continuing decay of the old left. It was the latest putrescent manifestation of that decay...

"Where's your nose been, Galloway? …stuck up Saddam's junta, that's where!" grimly chortled the dingy Star. The Express was less vulgar but not less stark in its judgement on Galloway's speech in the presence of the Iraqi dictator: "Treachery". The Mirror called Galloway, "the mother of all idiots".

There is a reckless hypocrisy here, of course. George Galloway offered Saddam Hussein only dollops of gooey flattery and a pennant when he met him; the Tories who rushed to denounce Galloway had given him a secret supply of arms in the build-up to the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Where were the front-page tabloid denunciations then, or later?

Two things need to be said here. The first is that George Galloway is right to call for an end to the sanctions against Iraq. Saddam Hussein has survived sanctions. Thousands - perhaps many thousands - of Iraqis have not. Vast numbers of poor Iraqis are today suffering privation and hardship because of those sanctions.

The second thing that needs to be said is that the outcry, disgustingly hypocritical though it was, for once was justified.

Saddam Hussein has misruled Iraq for a quarter of a century. The independent Iraqi labour movement was long ago crushed, its militants killed and jailed.

Saddam Hussein is an Iraqi-scale cross between Hitler and Stalin. His regime is one of the most murderous in a world in which savagely repressive regimes are no rarity.

Now, despite Saddam Hussein, it was necessary to oppose the US-led onslaught on Iraq three years ago - as Socialist Organiser opposed it. It is necessary now to oppose sanctions. But that does not require of socialists that they support Saddam Hussein, fawn like power-worshipping courtiers before a mass murderer, or make tight-throated, awe-struck speeches in his presence, in praise of his "strength", "courage" and "indefatigability".

Indeed, to link the demand that UN sanctions be lifted with praise for Saddam Hussein is to discredit the anti-sanctions cause with many who do not want to go on punishing the Iraqi people with sanctions but would like to see Saddam Hussein in hell.

The facts seem to be these.
George Galloway, MP for Dundee East, was one of a delegation of European MPs who presented Saddam Hussein with a pennant from Palestinian youth in the Israeli occupied territories. His Scottish voice grave with sincerity, Galloway stood within smelling distance of the Iraqi dictator and addressed him directly:

"Sir …we salute your courage, your strength and your indefatigability".

He then went on to assure Saddam Hussein that Palestinians he had just visited were naming their children after him. He ended his speech with the words "we are with you", and then some words in Arabic which the BBC translated as: "Until victory! Until Jerusalem!"

At first Galloway tried to weasel it out, denying that he had been addressing Saddam Hussein. He had, he said in face of the evidence of cameras and microphones, merely been saluting the Iraqi people, not Saddam Hussein. He later admitted under pressure that the words, which began with "sir", were addressed directly to the indefatigable and, unfortunately, strong dictator.

A salute to the people of Iraq would be spectacularly ill addressed were it to be delivered to a dictator who oppresses and slaughters Shi'as and Kurds, who make up the majority of the people in the Iraqi state.
Sicker still was Galloway's last salutation in Arabic to the man who rained rockets on Israel three years ago: "Until Jerusalem!" What can that mean if not blatant warmongering: until "we" have conquered Israel?

The sight of Galloway standing respectfully before that mass murderer and oppressor of his own people, and presuming to speak in the name of the left of the British labour movement when he told him how "brave" and "strong" and "indefatigable" he is, and that "we" are "with" him "until victory" and "until Jerusalem" - that is the latest terrible measure of the moral, political and intellectual decay of the official left.

The basis for Galloway's reputation as a "left" MP has always been something of a mystery. Yet he is still accepted as one of their own by the Morning Star left and by the left wing of the PLP.
The advocacy [by the late Bernie Grant, the Caribbean-born MP for Tottenham] of the repatriation of Britain's black citizens should not be tolerated in the labour movement.

Neither should fawning before mass murderer Saddam Hussein and what looks - and curiously the press scarcely commented on this - very like advocacy of a new Islamic war against Israel.
Galloway should be thrown out by his local party. Bernie Grant should be asked by his party not to advocate "repatriation". He should be dismissed as Tottenham's Labour candidate if he refuses to agree. We, of course, would advocate that both be replaced by a left-wing alternative.

Both these measures are necessary for the health not only of the left, but of the broader labour movement. Yet such an approach is not likely to meet with widespread approval on the left.

It is possible for the honest left to get into such a state that nothing creates an impression. There is evidence that the left is in such a state.

Afternote: What did Socialist Worker, now Galloway's keenest backer, say in 1994? It confined itself to the first point we made: Tory hypocrisy. "The pres had a field day... But what the media failed to mention..." etc. (SW, 29 January 1994). It pointedly did not defend Galloway. It said many Tories were just as bad - a polite way of saying that Galloway was no better than the Tories. What's their evidence that he has improved since then?

This website uses cookies, you can find out more and set your preferences here.
By continuing to use this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.