Issue 268 of SOCIALIST REVIEW Published November 2002 Copyright © Socialist Review
The lie detectorYour 'Alternative Dossier', (October SR) was a welcome demolition of the half-truths, fabrications and downright lies being used to justify slaughter in Iraq. It is essential we expose the hypocrisy of the warmongers at every opportunity. A key plank of the allegations is that Iraq is 'within six months' of the ability to build and deliver nuclear weapons. It is surreal how Iraq has supposedly been 'within six months' of delivering a nuclear bomb--for at least the last ten years! This accusation is even more bizarre when you consider an event that Blair and Bush would be happy for us to forget. During the 1970s Iraq built a nuclear power station (despite having plentiful supplies of oil). In the wake of the 1979 Iranian Revolution its military significance was hard to ignore. Saddam Hussein's bid to become the new regional military power was backed by the west but not by Israel, who jealously guarded their own claim to the role. In a daring and outrageous military attack Israeli planes bombed Iraq's nuclear power station in 1981. I suspect Tony Blair as a youthful supporter of CND was suitably outraged by this blatantly aggressive act.
How times change. Saddam was the west's protege, but now he is weak and a suitable target for western imperialism. Bush and Blair try to disguise their lust for war and the blood of Arab innocents with a bottomless pit of hypocrisy and lies. We will not be fooled. With regard to the UN sanctions against Iraq mentioned in 'The Alternative Dossier' (October SR), under Resolution 661 imports such as food and medicine were specifically exempt from the embargo. But Britain and the US who dominate the Sanctions Committee have banned or delayed such items as baby food, X-ray machines, heart and cancer drugs, chlorine, and a wide range of contracts related to food, water, health, sanitation, education and agriculture. Which leads me to war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, Article 8, 2b (xxv) defines a war crime as 'intentionally using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare by depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival, including wilfully impeding relief supplies as provided for under the Geneva Conventions'. Article 7, 2b defines a crime against humanity and states that ' "extermination" includes the intentional infliction of conditions of life, inter alia the deprivation of access to food and medicine, calculated to bring about the destruction of part of a population'. In article 6 genocide is defined as: (a) killing members of a group; (b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.
Saddam Hussein is a vicious dictator, but in their obsessive efforts to defeat him Britain and the US have inflicted massive harm on the innocent Iraqi population. It is understandable why Muslim peoples hate Britain and the west. The hypocrisy and double standards practised by Blair and his imperialist crew are vile and vicious. If there was such a machine as a bullshit detector, then the needle would have gone off the dial. There's a 1960s poem with the constant refrain of 'Tell me lies about Vietnam'. Without the irony, New Labour politicians are queuing up to 'tell us lies about Iraq'. The generalised antipathy towards all politicians means that there's an almost automatic distrust of whatever they say, but that rejection can also reflect a desire to seek out alternative explanations to the official version of events. We cannot underestimate the impact that John Pilger's Daily Mirror articles have had. He has been able to put hard-hitting anti-imperialist arguments to a working class audience of millions. The 'Alternative Dossier' (October SR) was good and has gone down a storm. I've heard many anti-war activists praise it.
It is an indespensable tool for the anti-war movement, equipping activists and newcomers alike with the information New Labour wants to hide. Politicians just hate the fact that we know they're talking bollocks. |
We welcome letters and contributions on all issues raised in Socialist Review. Please keep your contributions as short as possible, typed, double spaced if you can, and on one side of paper only. Send to: Socialist Review, PO Box 82, London E3 3LH Fax: 020 7538 0018 Phone: 020 7538 3308 E-mail: sr@swp.org.uk |
As an active SWP member who also loves football, recent articles and letters apparently having a pop at the beautiful game have really wound me up. Happily, Pat Stack's wise and sympathetic article (September SR) calmed me down again--especially as he 'came out' as a footie fan, so making me feel less like a heretic!
Alas, it couldn't end there. Ann Rose (Letters, October SR) writes to urge Pat Stack to recant and condemn football, citing the usual charge sheet of racism, violence and commercialism.
So here's my twopenceworth. Yes, football suffers from the evils of commercialisation and commodification. But hang on--which popular activity doesn't? Yes, football is exploited to promote nationalism and racism--but which sport isn't? And yes, football as an industry is institutionally sexist--but which industry isn't? The point I want to make is why pick on football?
For many of us, football is joyful, inspiring and uplifting. It speaks of passion and struggle in a way which is lacking in day to day life under capitalism. No amount of tutting or rational argument will squash those feelings.
Surely, socialist football fans shouldn't be shamefacedly hiding our enthusiasm, but rather engaging in the struggle for the soul of the game.
Football is a battleground, now more than ever. Most fans are angry about profit-driven exploitation and fed up of racism and bigotry. We can and should make the argument for taking football back from fat cats and fascists, for transforming it into what it has always promised to be, and could yet be--the People's Game.
Ben Drake
York
I agree with Chris Harman that Eric Hobsbawm's autobiography shows both the best and worst sides of him (October SR)--on the one hand, the defender of Marxist history, with whom readers of Socialist Review could differ only in matters of detail; on the other hand, the theoretician of Marxism Today, which genuine socialists have nothing in common with.
However, Harman fails to spot the clue that Hobsbawm gives us as to the connection between these two apparently opposed positions. Hobsbawm reveals that he never bothered with the work of ordinary Communist Party members, organising branches, selling papers and so on. He says this was not for him. Hardly surprising, therefore, that when he delivered the lecture that became the notorious 'forward march of labour halted', Hobsbawm notes that he entirely failed to realise what a furore it would cause in the labour movement, because he was not aware of what was going on in that movement. A rather odd position for a Marxist historian, it tells us a lot about how rotten the post-1956 Communist Party had become.
Keith Flett
London
I read Lee Billingham's article 'Revolutions Per Minute' (October SR) with interest. Unfortunately, Lee's idea of ticking off the ideological good and bad points of current pop acts didn't make for an inspirng read. Readers of Socialist Review already know that sexism and homophobia are bad and that anti-capitalism is good, so do we really need a survey to tell us which chart fodder we can buy that is politically okay? As I thought we'd been reminded by anti-capitalism, cultural commodification is part of our oppression.
After performing at the Anti Nazi League (ANL) carnival in Manchester, the politics of Ms Dynamite certainly deserve further examination. Unfortunately, Lee doesn't seem to have got the measure of what Ms Dynamite--ANL appearance aside--really signifies as a media phenomenon. The Independent on Sunday had a glossy supplement courtesy of Nokia phones and Orange recently. Ms Dynamite was one of ten celebrities telling us to buy their new photo messaging mobiles. No politics, no protest, no intelligence--just 'isn't success and the technology you can buy wonderful!'
I'm aware that pop music is contradictory under capitalism, but is the only option to be grateful when the Ms Dynamites and George Michaels have hiccups in their careers and throw a few ideological crumbs our way? The idea that music is only real when it's part of a global corporate sales pitch is an aspect of our alienation which Socialist Review should criticise, not endorse. Let's have some committed music writing in Socialist Review, writing that focuses on composers, musicians and bands whose work we can learn from (improvisation, I've heard, is the mother of dialectics). Who cares if they're famous? Subservience to the corporate spectacle of 'music' in a supposedly revolutionary magazine is wretched.
Ben Watson
London
Lee Billingham (October SR) addresses the evolution of politics within the world of music, but apart from a fleeting reference to System of a Down, almost entirely ignores the rock and metal genre. While the music industry continues to reap huge profits from musicians and those who buy music, it is invigorating to know that a number of bands have, and continue to, challenge the system. Rage Against the Machine, for example, have a long history of politics under their belt--from the defence of the rights of Native Americans, to the struggle to free Mumia Abu Jamal. And with songs like 'Refuse/Resist' and '[What for] Territory', Sepultura (and Soulfly, fronted by ex-Sepultura frontman, Max Cavalera) have become a virtual voice for the oppressed in the Third World, whether it's in attacking the brutality of dictatorships, imperialism or the untrammelled spread of biotechnology in their native homeland of Brazil. Similarly, El Niño, with a debut album entitled Revolution/Revolucion combine traditional metal with tribal music and a thirst for politics.
In Britain, multicultural One Minute Silence have never wavered from their long attack on capitalism and stand 'For Want of a Better World'. British punk act King Prawn and reggae/metal group Skindred have been at the forefront of denouncing police brutality and racism. Bands like these, who combine heavy riffs and eye-opening politics, may still be the exception rather than the rule, but it would be wrong to ignore them completely. It is about time that more 'popular' forms of music caught up.
Muhammad Salleh
London