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Subscriptions to Fightback are available for $16.50 a year, this covers the costs Contents of printing and postage. At present the writing, proof reading, layout, and 3 Editorial distribution is all done on a volun- 3 In brief teer basis. To make this publication sustainable long term we are asking for 4 Union movement gathers for people to consider becoming ‘Sustain- ‘Fairness at Work’ ing subscribers’ by pledging a monthly 6 Bid for recognition of first official amount to Fightback (suggested $10). climate change refugee Sustaining subscribers will be send a free copy of each of our pamphlets to 7 Pacific migration: Climate thank them for their extra support. The change and the reserve army of name of the magazine will change to labour Fightback, but current subscriptions 8 A discourse on brocialism will remain unaltered. To start your sustaining subscription 15 Education and Capitalism: set up an automatic payment to 38- Behind the Massey-McDonald’s 9002-0817250-00 with your name in partnership the particulars and ‘Sustain’ in the code 17 National youth wellbeing and email your name and address to research highlights the impacts [email protected] of increasing poverty 18 Palestine: Queer Liberation vs Pinkwashing Get Fightback each month 21 Love and Marriage: Queers, Capitalism and Equality Within NZ: $20 for one year (11 issues) or $40 for two years (22 issues) Rest of the World: $40 for one year or $80 for two years Send details and payments to: Fightback, PO Box 10282 Dominion Rd, Auckland or Bank transfer: 38-9002-0817250-01 Donations and bequeathments Fightback is non-profit and relies on financial support from progressive people, supporters and members for all its activities including producing this magazine. To financially support us please deposit to 38-9002-0817250-01 with your initials and surname (or anony- mous.) Large and small, regular and one-off donations are all appreciated and listed in Fightback from time to time. Fightback magazine is now in its 20th year as we continue the long-term fight for socialism. Readers and supporters may consider re- membering us in their will with assets or money that will help the struggle in the long-term. If this is you please put in your will ‘Fight- back, PO Box 10-282, Dominion Road, Auckland’ as well as what you would like to leave to us.

2 Fightback November 2013 Editorial

Welcome to the November 2013 Aotearoa/NZ also entered the About issue of Fightback. spotlight for slavery at sea, with In mid-October, the Walk Free foreign ships (contracted to local Fightback Foundation released the first companies) using slavery and Global Slavery Report. Draw- forced labour. This approach Under our current system, democracy ing data from UNICEF and the by employers ultimately works consists of a vote every 3 years. Most US State Department, the report undermines conditions for all of our lives are lived under dictator- estimated that around 30 million workers, and can only be over- ship, the dictatorship of bosses and people are enslaved world-wide. come by demanding full rights for all workers; including local and WINZ case managers. Fightback No report is unbiased, and it migrant workers. stands for a system in which our is worth noting that the Walk workplaces, our schools, our universi- With 30 million enslaved world- Free Foundation was founded ties are run democratically, for social wide by the Walk Free Founda- by Andrew Forest, an Australian need rather than private profit. mining magnate who has made tion’s definition, and the majority Fightback participates in the MANA billions through exploitation and of the world’s population enslaved Movement, whose stated mission is ecological degradation. The report by a revolutionary socialist defini- to bring “rangatiratanga to the poor, defines slavery as “the condition tion, the global situation looks Editorial the powerless and the dispossessed.” of treating another person as if pretty dark. It’s worth noting the Capitalism was imposed in Aotearoa they were property — something irony of one glimmer of light in through colonisation, and the fight to be bought, sold, traded or even late October, celebrity Russell for indigenous self-determination is destroyed,” and also includes Brand calling for revolution on a intimately connected with the fight forced labour defined as “work widely circulated Jeremy Paxman for an egalitarian society. We also taken without consent, by threats interview (available on YouTube). maintain an independent Marxist or coercion.” Arguably the threat Critics have noted Brand’s record organisation outside of parliament, to of poverty and starvation works as of sexist behaviour, (discussed offer a vision of a world beyond the a coercive measure even in cases further on P8-14) and sexism parliamentary capitalist system. of legal wage labour, as practiced must be opposed along with all by Forest in the mining industry. forms of oppression. However the Fightback stands against all forms of oppression. We believe working-class However, just as no source is significance of Brand’s challenge power, the struggle of the majority unbiased, it’s important to draw is more in its resonance with for self-determination, is the basis from a range of sources. The thousands of people; over 10,500 for ending all forms of oppression. report is illuminating from a people liked the Facebook page However, we also recognise that daily socialist perspective. “I Support Russell Brand’s Call for Revolution” within a couple inequities such as sexism must be The highest-ranked nations were of days. addressed here and now, not just after majority-world nations, exploited the revolution. by the minority world. India, A Facebook page is not a revo- Fightback is embedded in a range of China, and Pakistan are the lution, but it captures a social struggles on the ground; including highest-ranked in absolute terms. moment. Capitalism sows the building a fighting trade union move- Contrary to narratives of abolition seeds of its own destruction, and ment, movements for gender and and progress, the United States Fightback aims to play a part in sexual liberation, and anti-racism. has as many as 67,000 slaves. that creative destruction. Fightback also publishes a monthly magazine, and a website, to offer Coordinating Editors Layout: a socialist perspective on ongoing Byron Clark, Ian Joel Cosgrove struggles. Anderson Assisting Editors Monthly magazine published Fightback stands for struggle, soli- Proofing/Content Mike Kyriazopoulos, by: Fightback darity and socialism. Jared Phillips Kelly Pope, Daphne Fightback November 2013, Vol.1, No 9, Issue No 9 Lawless, Grant Brookes.

Fightback November 2013 3 Unions

Union movement gathers for ‘Fairness at Work’

Adapted from an article for Kai Tiaki speech to the Conference by Green (especially in the private sector) are still Nursing NZ. By Grant Brookes, delegate Party co-leader Metiria Turei, is that we without union protection. for the New Zealand Nurses Organisa- are heading towards election year with As a result, New Zealand had the fastest tion (NZNO) and Fightback member. the momentum to create a different growing gap between rich and poor of future. any developed country over the last 20 Former NZNO organiser Jeff Sissons, years. 132 delegates, representing nearly now working as the CTU General 300,000 union members, met in Wel- Jeff Sissons discussed international Counsel, began by giving an overview of lington on 9-10 October. research by two British epidemiologists, where we’re at now. Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, The Council of Trade Unions Biennial The proportion of workers belonging to showing that this inequality is behind Conference 2013 examined the issues a union fell from 50% to just over 20% many of today’s public health problems, facing working people in New Zealand during the 1990s, he said, as the Na- from obesity, to mental illness and child since the last gathering in 2011, and tional Government removed the legal mortality from accidents. And New debated how to promote “Fairness at right to belong to a union, in breach of Zealand’s income gap is still growing. Work” as we face a fork in the road over our international human rights obliga- the next two years. The Conference also launched a major tions. new CTU report on the silent epidemic Down one possible path, our future will The Employment Relations Act, passed of insecure work (http://union.org.nz/ see the end of guaranteed meal breaks, a by the Labour-led government in 2000, underpressure). Under Pressure: Inse- loss of bargaining power, rising inequal- enabled unions to halt the decline. But cure Work in New Zealand shows that ity and growing insecurity at work. it wasn’t enough to generate any real at least 30% of New Zealand’s workers But the good news, conveyed in a recovery, and workers in many jobs – over 635,000 people – are now in jobs

4 Fightback November 2013 Unions

without guaranteed hours, ongoing cer- violate the principle of equal pay for liffe’s response to a question from the tainty of employment, or employment equal work. We will work to ensure pay Conference floor about the Trans-Pa- rights like sick leave, holidays, safety equity. Labour will extend paid parental cific Partnership. He expressed support at work and freedom from discrimina- leave to a minimum of 26 weeks, as set for PHARMAC, but also reiterated his tion. These workers often lack sufficient out in Sue Moroney’s Member’s Bill. party’s conditional support for the free income and are powerless to change “The Labour Government I lead will trade deal threatening our state drug- their situation. turn back the tide of anti-worker leg- buying agency. CTU President Helen Kelly said the islation that has been flowing from the How Cunliffe’s contradiction would problem of insecure work could affect Key Government for the last five years.” play out in practice in a Labour-led up to 50% of New Zealand’s workers. Both Cunliffe and Metiria Turei government will depend on how unions It has spread far beyond groups like signaled support for an overhaul of respond. young people working in fast food and employment laws, tying into CTU ef- Metiria Turei credited our movement is now creeping into the “good jobs” in forts to move beyond the Employment with opening up the possibility of a health, banking, higher education and in Relations Act and further strengthen different future, a path that is “good for government departments. unions, collective bargaining and secu- people, good for the planet”. Helen Kelly mentioned the 120 staff rity at work. “Workers and their unions are among employed in Elderslea Rest Home in “Labour will implement a new employ- those at the heart of the gathering Upper Hutt, who were told in July that ment relations framework based on in- momentum”, she said. “Thousands management wanted to remove perma- dustry standard agreements”, said Cun- have joined rallies and stood up against nent rosters and roster them all casually, liffe, “whereby working New Zealanders National’s attacks”. according to occupancy. have a real choice to get together and Helen Kelly called on us to “continue National’s latest changes to the Em- negotiate better pay and conditions with the local activism to get workers on the ployment Relations Act will accelerate their employers.” roll and out in the election campaign these trends and bring the problem But it also appeared that Cunliffe is – not just to vote – connecting all the of insecure work to more and more straddling a contradiction. “These campaigns to make wages and work a workplaces. changes are not a one-off ”, he said. key election issue” (http://union.org.nz/ But in a keynote address, newly-elected “They need to be an enduring part of news/2013/speech-nzctu-president- Labour Party leader David Cunliffe a New Zealand that finds common helen-kelly-nzctu-biennial-confer- spelled out his commitments for work- ground between productive workers and ence-2013). ing people (https://www.labour.org.nz/ good employers.” The next step, she said, is the referen- media/speech-ctu-conference). What happens when there is no “com- dum on the sale of Meridian Energy, “Labour will immediately raise the mon ground”? Mighty River Power, Genesis Power, minimum wage to $15 an hour. We Cunliffe plugged his appointment of Solid Energy and Air New Zealand, to will support the campaign for a Living unionists Andrew Little, Darien Fenton be held between 22 November and 13 Wage for all New Zealanders. A Labour and Carol Beaumont to industrial December. Government I lead will scrap National’s relations positions. But his speech to NZNO supports the Save Our Assets unfair employment law changes – in the the Conference was silent about his campaign because warm homes, power first hundred days. appointment of neo-liberal hardliner prices and ultimately electricity privati- “There will be no more fire at will with- David Parker to the finance portfolio. sation are a health issue. out even an explanation. There will be “New Zealand needs a strategic shift in “We need to use events like the asset no more attacks on collective bargain- economic management”, he said, “from sale referendum to maximum advan- ing, giving employers the right to opt a cost-based strategy that treats work- tage”, said Helen Kelly. “Delegates in out of good faith process. There will be ers as commodities whose cost is to be workplaces can facilitate the voting in no more attacks on vulnerable work- minimised, to one that sees workers as the asset sale referendum – get people ers. There will be no more taking away an integral part of a system that creates who do not get a paper to get on the smokos and lunch breaks. high value products and services”. roll, and check that those with a paper “We will restore the protections for our Does this verbal sleight-of-hand conceal cast their vote. most vulnerable workers currently con- two economic management strategies “We then need to keep the momentum tained in Part 6A of the Employment which are essentially the same? going into next year. We can make the Relations Act. The contradiction was also clear in Cun- difference.” “We will scrap youth rates because they

Fightback November 2013 5 Climate change Bid for recognition of first official climate change refugee

All over the atolls that make up the nation of Kiribati, desperate attempts are under way to stem the effects of climate change. 6 Fightback November 2013 Climate change

Ioane Teitiota is currently appealing a Foundation, around 26 million people the Associated Press last year when his High Court decision that refused him worldwide have had to migrate due to cabinet endorsed the plan. refugee status on the basis of climate the effects of climate change. It predicts Kitt told Australian media that the change predictions. Teitiota came to that this figure could go up to 150 mil- Pacific regions developed countries had New Zealand from the Pacific island of lion by 2050. a responsibility to help people displaced Kiribati in 2007 on a work visa that has Teitota’s application for refugee status by climate change. “Australia and New recently expired. He has three chil- was originally denied by immigration Zealand are contributors to climate dren in New Zealand and argues that authorities arguing that he could not be change because we have higher than returning to Kiribati would endanger considered a refugee because no one in average carbon dioxide emissions, it’s his family; his homeland was threatening his life if because of this problem that sea levels “There’s no future for us when we go he returned. Kitt countered by arguing are rising.” back to Kiribati,” he told the appeal that the environment in Kiribati was The right of migrant workers to free tribunal, adding that a return would effectively a threat to Teitiota and his movement is essential not only for cli- pose a risk to his children’s health. children who will have to return with mate justice, but for social justice in the “Fresh water is a basic human right ... him if he is deported. Pacific and worldwide. the Kiribati government is unable, and Rising ocean levels on Kiribati are con- A decision on Teitiota’s case is expected perhaps unwilling, to guarantee these taminating drinking water and killing after we go to press. A follow up to this things because it’s completely beyond crops, as well as flooding homes. article will appear in our December their control”. The threat is real- the government has issue. His lawyer Michael Kitt told the New even gone so far as buying a large area Zealand Herald that the case had the po- of land in Fiji to relocate the entire See also: tential to set an international precedent, population. “We would hope not to put not only for Kiribati’s 100,000 residents everyone on one piece of land, but if Pacific migration: Climate change and but for all populations threatened it became absolutely necessary, yes, we the reserve army of labour, Ian Anderson by climate change. According to the could do it,” President Anote Tong told London-based Environmental Justice

Pacific migration: Climate change and the reserve army of labour

This piece, by Fightback member Ian second-lowest maximum elevation of are killing it have names and addresses.” Anderson, was originally delivered as a any country, and it’s estimated that a In this case the responsibility lies with talk at the Socialism 2012 conference. sea-level rise of 20-40 centimetres could the big polluters of imperialist nations, We reprint it now as Ioane Teitiota strug- make it uninhabitable. By 2007, 3,000 including Australia and New Zealand. gles in court to be recognised as the first Tuvaluans had resettled, most of them With the exception of Nauru, which is official climate refugee. settling in Auckland. Kiribati is also subject to heavy phosphate mining by vulnerable to sea-level rise and extreme Australia, smaller Pacific nations emit weather events; less than a week before far less carbon per capita than Australia Climate change hits different regions the Kyoto Protocol was signed, a “king and New Zealand. in different ways. An area scattered tide” devastated coastal communities. While imperialist nations produce the with low-lying atolls, the Pacific is bulk of emissions, the smaller nations particularly vulnerable to sea-level rise. Global warming: of the Pacific will bear the brunt of Environmental migration must be a key Responsibility and anthropogenic climate change. As seen consideration for socialists in this region. in Tuvalu and Kiribati, low-lying islands consequences Nations such as Tuvalu and Kiribati will be hit particularly hard. Along with sea level rise, climate change means are already affected. Coastal erosion Radical labour organiser Utah Phillips health conditions such as heat exhaus- in Tuvalu, a nation comprised of atolls is quoted as saying, “The Earth isn’t tion; depletion of fish stocks; and crop and reef islands, has already forced dying, it’s being killed, and those who huge resettlement. Tuvalu has the failure, in a region where many still live Fightback November 2013 7 Climate change/Sexism

off the land. Oxfam Australia predicts army of labour. Like reserves in a sports demand full rights for migrant workers, up to 8 million climate refugees from team, a reserve army can be deployed or employers will use division to drive the Pacific Islands, and 75 million cli- when needed. The capitalist class uses down conditions overall. mate refugees in the wider Asia-Pacific, this threat of replacement to drive down In February 2007, management at Go over the next 40 years. conditions. Unemployed workers func- Wellington (owned by transport giant tion as a constant reserve army; in the Infratil) introduced new conditions to Contested status: Migrants 1951 waterfront lockout, bosses used cut down drivers’ access to overtime. the New Zealand Army itself to replace or refugees? When a number of drivers quit over dock workers; and New Zealand bosses these changes, the company shopped take advantage of Pacific migration as a People forced to resettle by environ- around for cheaper labour in Fiji, tell- source of cheap labour. mental conditions are widely termed ing applicants to sign scab contracts as “environmental refugees.” However, When this reserve labour is no longer rather than join the union. However, existing refugee law does not cover envi- needed, the tap can be switched off. the migrant workers got wise to what ronmental conditions. Some advocates Although the majority of over-stayers was happening and the majority signed also criticise the term because it implies in this country are Europeans, Pacific up to the Tramways Union. When the fleeing persecution, when many (espe- Islanders are more commonly targeted company locked the drivers out a year cially older migrants) would prefer not by police and immigration authorities. later, the majority were in the union, to resettle. This racism is driven by the economic and public pressure resulted in a swift needs of imperialism, to keep a Pacific This contest over legal status also has victory. This is much more effective than reserve army in check. economic implications. Rather than scapegoating migrants, and playing extending refugee status, Australia and into the capitalist divide-and-conquer New Zealand have extended work visa Solidarity: Open borders and strategy. arrangements in countries like Tuvalu emissions reduction This tactic, seeking temporary replace- and Kiribati. This means I-Kiribati and ment labour, is a common way to Tuvaluans, threatened by rising water, Though bosses use Pacific migration to drive down conditions. In October must find work in order to emigrate. undermine local labour conditions, we 2011, Warkworth company Southern Immigration serves many purposes, but overcome this through solidarity. Rather Paprika Limited (SPL) threatened 13 for the ruling class it is mainly a reserve than opposing migration, we must of its employees with redundancy. The Company admitted that it was profit-

A discourse on brocialism

8 Fightback November 2013 Climate change/Sexism

able, citing “efficiencies” to justify the attack. SPL aimed to replace 13 perma- Why you should get nent Tuvaluan and I-Kiribati workers with temporary workers under the involved in Fightback Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) scheme. Permanent workers faced racist harassment from SPL. According to We have an internationalist perspective the sworn evidence of a former Cadet Manager, an SPL worker received a text Workers all over the world have far workers of the world. We have been message from a company phone stating more in common with one another involved in successful campaigns to that: “The best Christmas present I ever than with the bosses of “their own” prevent the deportation of refugees had was a nigger hanging from a tree.” country. To fight effectively, workers and we urge the union movement In spite of this harassment, the workers in every country must support the to be migrant-worker friendly. We persevered in challenging the company, struggles of workers in every other oppose the reactionary nationalism and ultimately won the right to perma- country. This is what we mean by of campaigns like “Buy NZ-made”, nent work. internationalism. We are for open and instead advocate protecting jobs borders as the best way to unite the through militant unionism. The Situationists, a radical student group of the 1968 French uprising, coined the slogan, “Be realistic: demand the impossible.” Necessary solutions to this crisis are, to all appearances, utterly We oppose imperialism impossible. Even the seemingly in- The fight against imperialism is a vi- keeping”. We demand an immediate nocuous reformist demand of cuts to tal part of the fight against capitalism. end to the interference in the affairs emissions has been repeatedly stalled, by Imperialism is the system whereby of Pacific Island nations by New imperialist nations still dependant on rich countries dominate poor ones. Zealand and its ally Australia. We oil. We must fight for drastic emissions New Zealand is a junior partner in want an end to all involvement in cuts by imperialist nations, open borders the world imperialist system. The imperialist military alliances and the in the Pacific, and full rights for migrant Workers Party opposes any involve- dismantling of their spy bases. We workers. ment in imperialist wars such as try to identify the most politically those being fought in Afghanistan progressive anti-imperialist groups to On Brand, iconoclasm, and a woman’s and Iraq, even if the involvement is offer them our active support. place in the revolution: a dialogue with under the banner of so-called “peace- Richard Seymour on the question of how to reconcile the fact that people need stirring up with the fact that the people doing the stirring so often fall down when it comes to treating women and girls like human beings. By Laurie Penny, Contact reprinted from the New Statesman. Auckland Christchurch

Mike Byron It’s a good job I wasn’t in the office last 021 0843-3270 021 815-145 week, or the week before, when come- dian, celebrity-shagger and saviour of [email protected] [email protected] the people Russell Brand was sashaying around. Not that there’s anything wrong Wellington Hamilton with a good sashay. The revolution - as Brand’s guest edit of this magazine was Joel Jared modestly titled - could do with a little 022 384-1917 029 494-9863 more flash and glitter. It’s just that had I [email protected] [email protected] been in the office I would probably have spent a portion of my working hours

Fightback November 2013 9 Sexism

giggling nervously, or hiding in the loos many things apart from the hair and cautious, cowed purity of purpose and writing confused journal entries. My cheekbones that I admire about Brand. action which they still fail to achieve. feelings about Russell Brand, you see. He’s a damn fine prose stylist, and Brand, unlike almost every other smil- They are so complex. that matters to me. He uses language ing bastard out there, is exactly what Brand is precisely the sort of swaggering artfully without appearing to patronise, he says he is: a wily charmer with pots manarchist I usually fancy. His rousing something most of the left has yet to of money who thinks the system is rhetoric, his narcissism, his history of get the hang of. He touches on a species fucked and can get away with saying drug abuse and his habit of speaking to of directionless rage against capitalism so. Yes, he is monstrously self-involved and about women as vapid, ‘beautiful’ and its discontents that knows very well and self-promoting; yes, he is is wealthy afterthoughts in a future utopian sce- what it’s against without having a clear and famous and has, by many people’s nario remind me of every lovely, trou- idea yet of what comes next, and being standard’s, no right to speak to any bled student demagogue whose casual a comedian he is bound by no loyalty working-class person about revolution sexism I ever ignored because I liked except to populism. And he manages and be taken seriously. He also quite their hair. I was proud to be featured in without irony to say all these things, to clearly means what he says, and that the ‘Revolution’ issue that this magazine appear in public as a spokesperson for matters. put out, proud to be part of the team the voiceless rage of a generation, whilst I agree with Brand about the disap- that produced it. But the discussions at the same time promoting a comedy pointments of representative democracy. that have gone on since about leaders, tour called ‘Messiah Complex.’ If I must pick a white male comedian about iconoclasm and about sexism on I admire the audacity of it. It’s a bloody to lead my charge, I’m on team Rus- the left need to be answered. refreshing change from all those bland sell, not team Robert. And I am glad I’d like to say, first off that there are centrist politicians who grope for a - profoundly glad - that somebody has

10 Fightback November 2013 Sexism finally been permitted to say in public fire last week merely for pointing out ‘real struggle’ that hands the mic over what commentators and politicians that “if you’re advocating a revolution and over again to powerful, charismatic have not yet dared to suggest: that rising of the way that things are being done, white men? Can we actually have a up together in anger, as young people then it’s best not to risk alienating your revolution that relegates women to the did in London and elsewhere in 2011, feminist allies with a piece of flippant back of the room, that turns vicious might be a mighty fine idea. objectification in your opening sentence. when the discussion turns to sexual It’s not just Brand’s wealth and fame It’s just not a good look.” violence and social equality? What kind that allow him to say such things. Con- I don’t believe that just because Brand of fucking freedom are we fighting for? sider how the rapper and artist MIA is clearly a casual and occasionally And whither that elusive, sporadically was treated when she said very similar vicious sexist, nobody should listen to useful figure, the brocialist? things about the London riots two anything he has to say. But I do agree For this dialogue, I spoke to the years ago. Brand is playing the court with Natasha Lennard, who wrote that author Richard Seymour, formerly of jester, and speaking limited truth to “this is no time to forgo feminism in the the Socialist Workers’ Party, once the overwhelming power in one of the few celebration of that which we truly don’t foremost British far-left party, which remaining ways that won’t get you im- need - another god, or another mas- recently and dramatically disintegrated mediately arrested right now - from an ter.” The question, then, is this: how do in the wake of a rape scandal in its top enormous stage made of media money, we reconcile the fact that people need ranks (I wrote about the case on this liberally thickened with knob jokes, stirring up with the fact that the people blog earlier in the year). Seymour and I with a getaway sportscar full of half- doing the stirring so often fall down come from different left traditions with naked popstars parked out back and one when it comes to treating women and dispiritingly similar track records of tongue firmly in his cheek. girls like human beings? ignoring structural gender oppression, But what about the women? It’s not a small question. Its goes way and because he is a chap you’ll be nicer to him in the comments. Take it away, I know, I know that asking that female beyond Brand. Speaking personally, it Richard: people be treated as fully human and has dogged years of my political work Richard Seymour: equally deserving of liberation makes and thought. As a radical who is also My experience is me an iron-knickered feminist killjoy female and feminist I don’t get to ignore that ‘brocialists’ don’t openly embrace and probably a closet liberal, but in this stuff until I’m confronted with it. It patriarchy; they deny it’s a problem. Or that case there are rather a lot of us, happens constantly. It’s everywhere. It’s they minimise it. They direct your atten- and we’re angrier than you can pos- Julian Assange and George Galloway. tion elsewhere: you should be focusing sibly imagine at being told our job in It’s years and years of rape apologism on class. You’re being divisive. You’re just the revolution is to look beautiful and on the left, of somehow ending up in middle class (quelle horreur!). Or they encourage the men to do great works. the kitchen organising the cleaning rota attack a straw ‘feminism’ that is suppos- Brand is hardly the only leftist man while the men write those all-important edly ‘bourgeois’ and has nothing to say to boast a track record of objectifica- communiques. about class or other axes of oppression. tion and of playing cheap misogyny for It comes up whenever women and girls Or they just ignore it. To me that’s quite laughs. He gets away with it, according and their allies are asked to swallow our straightforward. Obviously it would be to most sources, because he’s a charming discomfort and fear for the sake of a difficult, given their egalitarian com- scoundrel, but when he speaks in that brighter tomorrow that somehow never mitments, to openly defend a gendered disarming, self-depracating way about comes, putting our own concerns aside hierarchy; but their defensiveness about his history of slutshaming his former to make things easier for everyone else this issue suggests they associate a conquests on live radio, we are invited like good girls are supposed to. It comes challenge to patriarchy with some sort to love and forgive him for it because up whenever a passionate political of ‘loss’ for themselves. The question is, that’s just what a rockstar does. Naysay- group falls apart because of inability to what do they have to lose? ers who insist on bringing up those un- deal properly with male violence against That’s where Russell Brand’s manar- comfortable incidents are stooges, spoil- women. Whenever some idiot commen- chism/brocialism come in. The swagger ing the struggle. Acolytes who cannot tator bawls you out for writing about and misogyny sits quite comfort- tell the difference between a revolution feminism and therefore ‘retreating’ into ably with another part of his persona that seduces - as any good revolution ‘identity politics’ and thereby distracting which is a sort of squeaky beta-male should - and a revolution that treats one attention from ‘the real struggle’. self-parody in which he appears to half of its presumed members as chattel But what is this ‘real struggle’, if it really trash the protocols of traditional attack in hordes online. My friend and requires women and girls to suffer struc- masculinity. I’m thinking of a routine he colleague Musa Okwonga came under tural oppression in silence? What is this did about travelling abroad and being Fightback November 2013 11 Sexism

‘embarrassed’ by his pink suit case and of masculinity. It’s the exercise of a acknowledge structural gender oppres- made to feel small about it by a bunch ‘privilege’ of patriarchy. Of course, not all sion, but has a slightly different reading of burly lads. Likewise, he mocks his men like or want such ‘privilege’. But for list and a more monochrome wardrobe. own sexuality in his act - the stuff about it to be effective, quite a large number of Nor is it all about gender. It also has to putting on an American accent while men and women have to accept its basic do with what we speak of in anarchist fucking, or wanking with a ‘serious face’, inevitability, its naturalness. circles as ‘the problem of charisma.’ It’s etc. To an extent, he genderfucks, he So I think the ‘brocialist’ disavowal, the about whether or not we need leaders at queers masculinity. He has his hair as a pretence that sexism doesn’t matter or is all, about what those leaders should look beautiful bird’s nest, and wears eyeliner. a distraction, is a natural coping strategy like and what they should do. The trend His comportment is very ‘effeminate’ in for those who really do think they desire in the past three years has been to- some ways. Part of his attractiveness, wards horizontalism, a very precise and then, is that for all his sexual swagger dogged refusal to appoint leaders or set and rigorous self-objectification, he isn’t So, in place of goals, an organic resistance to hierarchy conventionally ‘manly’. And yet this is a unity in which - but somehow the leaders we don’t have the same guy who makes rape jokes - usually end up being charismatic white not as a one-off but as something that the oppressed guys. How are we to fix that problem has happened a number of times - and without descending into dogma? is reported to have harassed female staff. preserve a tactful RS: I agree that it has a lot to do with More generally, he has a fairly obnox- silence, we need a power. If you look at the SWP’s ongo- ious way of talking about women which “ ing, worsening crisis, it’s really telling implies that they are only really of value complex unity, a just how many of the accusations con- or interest to him if they are ‘beautiful’. unity-in-difference. cern individuals who were in a position For someone so plainly rooted in the of authority, or were looked favourably 21st Century, it makes him sound like a This is what upon by those who wielded some sort of fucking Fifties crooner. ‘intersectionality’ power. I think that’s probably true else- Why doesn’t this jar? Why don’t such where. Personally, I don’t have a problem attitudes make him sick? Why don’t the means to me. It is with elected ‘leaders’ provided they are words stick in his throat? How can he the only strategy actually accountable. But whether we be so heartfelt in his sympathy for poor have leaders or not, I think we have women fucked over by the rich one that will work. to recognise that men are often too minute, and yet sound like an enemy of We aren’t asking deeply socialised into their gender roles women the next? Why do some men on to even be aware of what they’re doing, the Left who plainly feel in some way too much; we’re even with the best will in the world. oppressed and undone by masculinity, demanding the That’s why I think organisations on the who are obviously hurt by patriarchy - Left should have explicitly organised not at all to the extent that women are, bare minimum that caucuses of women, of LGBTQ people, but in real, concrete ways - respond by is necessary for of black people, and so on - and these embracing it nonetheless? It can’t just caucuses should have real authority, be that Brand is now a rich man. Loads success. they shouldn’t just be debating societies of leftist men who have no economic where issues that are ‘inconvenient’ can stake in the system share these attitudes. be hived off. They should make policy. total liberation, but haven’t yet broken The system of patriarchy has a lot of LP: That brings us back to the crux of with their ‘privilege’. material compensations and advan- the question, which is - are we asking tages to offer those who accept it and Laurie Penny: It’s very clear that the too much? Is it a waste of precious time identify with it. To me, the rape jokes discussion here on what we’re calling if we demand that a revolution be ‘per- and misogynistic language - all this ‘brocialism’ goes way beyond Russell fect’ before it begin? That’s the issue that is straightforward symbolic violence, Brand and his detractors. Nor is it I’ve seen raised time and again when it ascriptive denigration, and obviously unique to the organised left - the bro- comes to powerful men within move- linked to punishment for transgression. cialist’s more chaotic cousin is, of course, ments and sexism or sexual violence, or Whether knowingly or not, it’s an oc- the manarchist, who displays many of to matters of fair representation, often casion for male bonding - the ’naughty’ the same traits in terms of blindness to by those seeking to defend or excuse the laughter - and the production of a type privilege, casual sexism and a refusal to violence, but not always. If someone is

12 Fightback November 2013 Sexism

a galvanising figure - like Brand - or an that: you can’t hope to win unless you So, in place of a unity in which the important activist, like Julian Assange, bring an overwhelming majority with oppressed preserve a tactful silence, should we then overlook how they you, because the Party of Order is too we need a complex unity, a unity-in- behave towards women? powerful otherwise. And I agree that difference. This is what ‘intersectionality’ Because of course, there are elements of class is what unites the majority. means to me. It is the only strategy that socialisation at play that make it almost But, how do you unify people who are will work. We aren’t asking too much; inevitable that powerful men within divided not just by nationality, region we’re demanding the bare minimum movements who are attracted to women and prejudice, but by real structural that is necessary for success. will have a great many opportunities forms of oppression like sexism? The LP: I attended two talks last year at to abuse that power, especially because old (white, bourgeois male) answer is which I was told by older white men those movements so often see them- to say, “don’t talk about ‘divisive’ issues, in left academic circles that feminism selves as self-governing. One of the ignore them for now, they’re secondary”. was either irrelevant to class struggle biggest problems with the crisis in the They’re merely ‘identity politics’. They’re or actively its enemy. Mark Crispin SWP was that the victim, W, was of- somehow not as material as class. Judith Millar announced that ‘identity politics’ fered no support in going to the police Butler put her finger on what was were invented by the CIA as a way of with her complaint of rape and assault. wrong with this - what is less material dividing and weakening the American The fact that she might have expected about women wanting to work less, get left, by way of foreclosing any further better treatment from the Met, with paid more, not be subject to violence, discussion. their track record of taking rape less not be humiliated? And why should The thing is that on one level those than seriously, than she received at the class ‘compete’ with race or gender? conspiracy theorists are dead right - is- hands of the Disputes Committee, says Aren’t they contiguous? Austerity is a sues of race, gender and sexuality are a great deal. class offensive, but is it a coincidence extremely effective at creating divisions I believe that socialism without femi- that cuts to welfare, the social wage, within radical and progressive move- nism is no socialism worth having. disproportionately affect women and ments, large and small. But that’s not Clearly we need to be strategising a way black people? And at any rate, it won’t the fault of feminism, or queer politics, to have both pretty damn quickly. work: if you try to impose a ‘unity’ that or anti-racist organising. These divisions depends on people shutting up, they will RS: As I see it, the problem was posed do not happen because the whining just drop out. Gramsci was right: you most acutely by Occupy. They appealed women, queers and people of colour like can build broad alliances, but only if you to the 99 percent, the overwhelming to pick fights and want to hold back the genuinely incorporate the interests of majority of working people against the tide of history - in fact, we have even everyone who is part of that alliance. rich 1 percent. And I sympathise with more to gain from revolutionary change. Fightback November 2013 13 Sexism

The divisions happen because we are envision alternative processes of justice tify with patriarchy at some level, they not prepared to shut up and stay seated and accountability? still enjoy its brutality - the rape jokes, while people in positions of unexam- RS: I suppose what we do with the for example. Persuading them that this ined privilege try to create a new world manarchists and brocialists depends system ultimately harms them, damages which looks rather too much like the above all on one crucial consideration: their relationships with people around old one. the safety and well-being of others in them, and also prevents them from The left, because we like to fight from the movement, or the organisation. I be- realising their better aspirations - that it, the moral high ground, is particularly lieve that people can change, and I am not feminism, is their enemy - is vital. bad at confronting its own bullshit. very interested in ideas of ‘transforma- The global women’s uprising of the That tendency leaves it susceptible to tive justice’ that feminists have been last few years is a real opportunity to the mawkish modern delusion that all working on and trying to implement. start forcing this argument open. The rapists are evil, inhuman monsters, and But that wouldn’t always be appropri- backlash among some left-wing men therefore nobody you know personally, ate. Some men are in fact unwilling to has been real, but it is also caused others work with or admire could be that sort change their behaviour, and we have to question, rethink, and maybe even of abuser. In fact, revolutionary senti- limited resources. I think if they’re notice their own bullshit. ment and rape culture have never been dangerous, they have to be ostracised LP: Thanks for your time, Richard. I mutually exclusive. The Socialist Work- and anyone whom they have victimised also believe in forgiveness, and when er’s Party and Wikileaks are far from the has to be supported in whatever they the feminist counter-revolution comes, only such organisations to disintegrate want to do:including going to police if you shall be spared. All I’d like to add because there is no process of account- they want to. is that right now, women and girls ability, and no framework by which it But for most brocialists, I think it’s across the world are clearly not going can be understood that a man can do actually a question of getting them to to wait patiently for liberation until respected, useful work on the one hand see that sexism is not someone else’s the conclusion of a class struggle that and be an oppressor on the other. problem. Patriarchy, and the whole speaks largely to and about men. They That brings us back to the more im- system of gender regimentation that want change now and they are going to mediate question - if we accept inter- goes with it, is incredibly violent to keep demanding it, and I believe that sectionality, which some people prefer men as well as women. Of course men they - that we - will win. And brocial- to call basic equality, as a fundamental don’t suffer from it to anything like the ists everywhere had better listen, or get principle of making change - if we ac- same extent, but it damages them. At left behind. cept that sexism, misogny, homophobia the extreme, it might manifest itself as and racism should not be overlooked in homophobic murder, the literal oblitera- See also any figureheads who present themselves tion of someone who does not obey the • SWP: Sexism on the Left, Daphne - then what are we to do with all the correct gender protocols. You get this Lawless (http://tinyurl.com/ brocialists? Whither the manarchists weird thing with many brocialists (I m7dakaz) and their rousing communiques against think this is true of Brand to an extent) the Young Girl? Must they be taken out who are clearly hurt by dominant norms • Safer Spaces in Political Organising, and shot behind the chemical sheds? Is of ‘masculinity’, and who resist it to an Kassie Hartendorp (http://tinyurl. ostracisation the only option, or can we extent. And yet they still basically iden- com/m7dakaz)

14 Fightback November 2013 Tertiary education

Education and Capitalism: Behind the Massey- McDonald’s partnership Professor Ted Zorn and McDonald’s NZ managing director Patrick Wilson.

by Morgan Welch, Fightback Christch- learning for Massey’s College of Busi- and study model of education is actually urch ness, Shirley Carr, told Fairfax News something that has been advocated by that she hoped it was the first of many Marxist educationists at various times in such arrangements with companies as history, and has been a demand of the Massey University has formed a part- part of the university’s drive to forge organised labour movement. nership with McDonalds Restaurants closer links with business. In addition to this, arguments that come that will allow a number of McDonald’s The situation is telling when it comes from a defence-of-arts perspective can store managers to cross-credit their to how education happens in what is veer toward an ahistorical line that sup- prior learning towards an undergraduate sometimes referred to as late capitalist poses a past where education in those business degree. An in-house course run society. The agreement has been decried disciplines was provided widely and for McDonalds by an external provider, by supporters of the humanities and the comprehensively, this has never actually Service HQ, provides managerial staff social sciences, seen as a further blow to been the case, and education serving with the National Diploma in Hospital- the battered liberal arts education that the interests of the employing class is ity, a New Zealand Qualifications Au- has suffered cuts as funding for sci- nothing new. thority (NZQA) accredited qualification. ence, technology and trades education The head of Massey’s College of Busi- has increased. This publication aims to Education and early ness, Professor Ted Zorn, told the New provide a critical analysis of society, and Zealand Herald “We have gone into as such recognises the importance of the capitalism McDonald’s and looked at what they disciplines broadly defined as ‘the arts’. are doing…We assessed the content [of When capitalism emerged in the United However, placing the arts as in com- the in house training], and found there Kingdom it grew to become the domi- petition with other disciplines is not was a pretty good fit with some of our nant economic system through mass useful, given that any society, capitalist first-year papers.” production, which divided the produc- or post-capitalism, will require peo- tion of goods into a series of small This agreement was initiated by Mc- ple with a diverse range of skills and tasks, people concentrated in factories Donalds, who approached several knowledge- including even some of the could be taught quickly the task they tertiary institutions before selecting ‘management’ skills Massey will teach needed to perform. Mass production Massey, though director of teaching and McDonalds employees. A blended work is much more efficient than individual

Fightback November 2013 15 Tertiary education

production, and meant wealth could be of society’s wealth was available, via became consumers of education in a created in great excess to that required high taxation on the rich, for higher marketplace. When secondary examina- to provide workers with the means of education and research. In the USA in tions changed to the modern system of subsistence, which was paid in wages. particular, this meant the huge financial NCEA, which ended the arbitrary pro- At the time of the industrial revolution support for science and engineering cess of failing perfectly capable students, in Britain people had little formal edu- which laid the foundation for the space those who studied a discipline that cation, which was not required for the programme and the internet. Money didn’t lead to a prosperous career (along new factory jobs. Primary education for was also available for the arts, and when with those who choose not to study at children was provided by churches with popular movements pushed for new dis- all) were seen as making a poor choice, the support of charity, and some public ciplines such a woman’s studies (gender and ultimately responsible for further funding from the 1830s. Primary educa- studies) and ethnic studies programs, low wages or unemployment. tion was not compulsory until 1870. these could be provided. The growth of some disciplines and de- Secondary education throughout the Tertiary education in New Zealand was cline in others is not entirely the result nineteenth and early twentieth century free, and a prosperous economy meant of students (incredibly restricted) choice. consisted of grammar schools; academic students could choose their field of The capitalist class is incredibly influen- schools covered by student fees that study with little concern about the lack tial in what kind of education the state prepared students for university, and of career options it provided, or fear of funds, when politicians talk of matching the new tax-funded technical schools, poorer economic wellbeing in the future education to the needs of ‘business’ ‘the providing students with the education compared to studying an alternative. market’ or ‘the economy’ what is literally required for new jobs that had been It’s important to note however that the meant is using public money to educate created by industrialisation, but required mid twentieth century wasn’t a golden workers to a level required to perform more skills than production line factory age of higher learning, today a third today’s jobs. “Success in education is labour. of New Zealanders aged 55 to 64 have essential to the Government’s goal of a tertiary qualification compared to building a productive and competitive Universities at this time remained elite almost half for New Zealanders aged 25 economy.” Reads the State Services institutions, but the wealth created by to 35. Secondary school examinations Commission website, “It also helps New capitalism meant a small proportion at this time were designed to fail half of Zealanders develop the skills needed to of the population could be engaged in the students taking them, regardless of reach their full potential and contribute study and research, this is the reason ability, so university education was not to the economy and society.” Far from the nineteenth century is also associ- an option for many. mere rhetoric, both these statements are ated with great advancement in science accurate. as well as industry. The social sciences- economics, sociology, anthropology- Neoliberalism also emerged at this time. Education today The post war economic boom came The British model of education was to an end in the 1970s; in the decade As manufacturing jobs continue to spread to the colonies, including New following the election of the infamous move overseas and other low skilled Zealand, and the two countries fol- fourth Labour government in 1984 jobs are automated, the New Zealand lowed a similar path, both making changes to what was provided by the working class of the future will need to secondary education universal in 1944. state were made across the board, be more highly skilled than previous Universal secondary education had including in education. In 1992 (under generations. This is why the current gov- been a demand of the labour movement a National government elected the ernment has put emphasis on increasing and in the New Zealand context was previous year) tertiary education was the number of 18 year olds with NCEA among the reforms of the first Labour commoditised to an extent with the in- Level 2, and the number of 25 year olds government. Of course this was not as troduction of user pays. The state would with a level 4 qualification, as well as comprehensive as secondary education still fund each student to study, but the from 2014 providing all level 1 and 2 today and many students left at sixteen student would pay a proportion of the courses to under 25 year olds for free- or even younger. costs themselves. this is, completely state funded, with not With “user pays”, education became payment from students as individuals. The post war boom an individual rather than a social To oppose the expansion of tertiary ed- responsibility. In line with the ideol- ucation for the working class would be In the economic boom following ogy of individualism that accompanied misguided, while the major beneficiaries world war two a substantial amount neoliberal economic reforms, students is the capitalist class, a worker also ben-

16 Fightback November 2013 Tertiary education/Youth work

efits from increased education. Universal authority over workers means they can beneficial than training restaurant man- tertiary education (though unlikely to often join the wrong side of industrial agers) and there are many other indus- be free education under capitalism) is disputes -like the recent McStrike cam- tries where this model could be applied. the direction New Zealand is heading paign- education provision could mean However, skills-based education must in, and the form that education takes more managers seeing their interests not be tied to corporate demands. is likely to be different than tertiary with those of the corporation rather education has been up until now. than the rest of the work force. Where does this leave the As mentioned previously, the blended McDonalds likes to play up the fact arts? model of work and study that McDon- that most of their management -even alds managers will be undertaking is at a senior level- have risen up from the Student groups and education unions not dissimilar than models advocated shop floor, but the hierarchical structure have had limited success in defensive by Marxist thinkers on education, and of the business means the vast majority campaigns to keep arts education. practised in the first decades of the of workers will not advance to that level While an arts education is valuable, it Soviet Union. Educational ideas op- and gain the opportunities that come does not necessarily have to be a thing positional to capitalism can become with it. McDonalds provides sub degree apart from work or other learning. Arts absorbed into it – this has happened education (with NZQA accredited subjects could be provided alongside many times before- though this doesn’t hospitality qualifications) to all long science and/or practical training. With mean they suddenly become bad ideas. serving employees, though this is only more people gaining tertiary education, There are serious shortcomings with the first step, not a complete pathway to including through mixed work-study the Massey-McDonalds scheme, the a hospitality career. models, perhaps the next step is for only ones with access to degree level Fundamentally, training schemes are not the various stakeholders in education; education subsided by McDonalds will something to oppose. The New Zealand students, educators, unions- to advo- be managers. In practice managing Nurses Organisation and the Service cate for a more comprehensive tertiary operations and managing people are not and Food Workers Union have long ad- education, combining technical and separate. While skills such as provid- vocated for an educational pathway for scientific subjects with social science ing training and overseeing payroll are aged care workers to become qualified and humanities. essential in any workplace, manager’s nurses (arguably this is far more socially National youth wellbeing research highlights the impacts of increasing poverty

by Polly Peek, Fightback Christchurch ing in the ‘Youth ‘02’, ‘Youth ‘07’ and, tion are involved. most recently, ‘Youth ‘12’ reports. Because questions are kept consistent Randomly selected high schools are in each survey, comparisons are able A summary of the ‘Youth ‘12’ research approached to take part in the study, to be made across time, showing what carried out by the Adolescent Health which covers topics include ethnic aspects of youth health and wellbeing Research Group based at Auckland identity and culture, family relationships, are improving or getting worse, and al- University has recently been released, school, injuries and violence, health and lowing for further research to expand on showing a number of positive health the findings. A summary of the Youth and social wellbeing factors improving healthcare, emotional health, food and ’12 study was released recently and has for New Zealand teens, but also reveal- eating, leisure activities, sexual health, shown some interesting results. ing concerning increases in poverty- alcohol, smoking and other drugs, and related issues. community involvement. A portion of It points to role that government policy students enrolled with the school are and the economic climate have in shap- The ‘Health and Wellbeing of Second- invited to complete the comprehensive ing young people’s material condi- ary School Students in New Zealand’ questionnaire which “allows us to take tions and wellbeing outcomes. Where survey, conducted by the Adolescent an ecological approach to identifying funding has been allocated for on-going Health Research Group based at Auck- the risks and protective factors in young health promotion campaigns and acces- land University, has been completed people’s lives”. In total, about 3% of the sible support,New Zealand teenagers’ three times in the last ten years, result- New Zealand secondary school popula- wellbeing has improved significantly

Fightback November 2013 17 Youth work/Pink-washing

from the initial Youth ’02 study to today. toms. They are much less likely to have their environments. Where funding has Use of drugs, alcohol and cigarettes part time work than teenagers five or been invested in health promotion and have decreased for youth, as has danger- ten years ago and are considerably less support, young people have thrived in ous and drunk driving. able to access a doctor or other health- otherwise challenging situations. Where care support. The research also shows the market has been allowed to impact Experience of physical violence, sexual decrease in condom use, quite possibly on youth un-buffered, aspects of young abuse and fighting are also declining related to this healthcare inaccessibility. people’s wellbeing have been signifi- and fewer students are reporting having cantly affected. made a suicide attempt. The most concerning change in students’ lives, however, is the inability of their These findings call into question some In terms of protective factors, more families to afford of the stereotypes we often associate students are feeling safe at school and with young people, that their teachers and other adults are food. Between 2002 and 2012 there has fair and care about them. More students been a startling 49% increase in young such as engaging in risky behaviour are wearing seatbelts and increasing people reporting that their parents and being inherently disinterested in numbers are getting regular exercise. worry about having money for food. their health and wellbeing, willing to compromise on these for short-term Despite overall increases to many areas The political and economic climate has enjoyment. of health and wellbeing, there are some changed considerably in the last ten worrying trends visible, particularly in years. Following the global financial These stereotypes, while having some- areas where young people are vulnerable crisis of 2008 today’s youth are growing thing of a base in youth development to the impact of economic conditions up in an environment of high unem- theory, are problematic and can serve an and public spending cuts. ployment and significant social welfare ideological function – obscuring the fact restructuring, as well as other cuts to that with good publicly funded health Young people today are reporting be- public services. education and services, and an economy ing able to spend less time with their that enables people to work and earn families, and having less of a sense of One important thing that the Health more than subsistence wages, young wellbeing and more depressive symp- and Wellbeing studies have highlighted is the sensitivity of young people to people are bound to do incredibly well.

Palestine: Queer Liberation vs Pinkwashing

18 Fightback November 2013 Pink-washing

This talk by Ali Nissenbaum was origi- normative gay just wants to be allowed the dichotomy between the White West nally delivered as part of Beyond, a to serve in the military, to get a job, get (modern, progressive, liberal) and the conference organised by Queer Avengers. married, have babies, and fit in to heter- Brown East: Arabs, Muslims, Southeast It is reprinted here from the Not Afraid of onormative society. Asians and other populations who are Ruins blog. Homonationalism: means homonorma- constructed as conservative, patriarchal, tive nationalism. This is about the way homophobic, violent, backwards and that the cause of GLBT rights—but terrorists. Note: for the purpose of this article I’m more often than not just G and L Pinkwashing: a term used to describe using ‘queer’ as a broad term to describe rights—gets used to prop up national- the way that GLBT rights are used to all of us who are marginalised because ism and justify imperialism and mili- whitewash over unethical behavior. We our gender or sexual identity isn’t tarism. One example is when people see this when corporations use gay- normative. That includes trans, intersex, justify military attacks on Iran by friendly marketing to distract from the pansexual, lesbian and gay folks, among arguing that it is a homophobic country. terrible way they treat their workers. We others. I know that ‘queer’ is a culturally Another example is when people blame see it when NZ Defence wins an award specific label and that not all gender/ homophobia in New Zealand on Māori for being an equal opportunity employer, sexually diverse people identify as such. and Pacific Islander communities, who which is another way of saying that Let me start by explaining a few con- are portrayed as conservative and homo- anyone, regardless of sexual or gender cepts that are useful for understanding phobic. identity, can join in the imperialist oc- the relationship between struggles for It’s worth thinking about the correlation cupation of Afghanistan. queer liberation and nationalism. between the social acceptance of some For the purpose of this talk I’m going to Homonormative: a normative way of be- queers (normative ones) and racism, focus on the state of Israel as an exam- ing gay. The ‘proper’ gay person is some- especially anti-Arab and Muslim racism. ple of pinkwashing—partly because I’m one who’s cisgendered, monogamous, Identity is always formed in opposi- an Israeli, or to put it more accurately, White, middle-class, and definitely tion to someone else, it’s ‘us’ and ‘them’. I’m a settler-colonist on Palestinian not disabled—because disabled people Normative gays are allowed entry into land. Israel is a state that consistently aren’t supposed to have a sexuality. The ‘proper society’ in order to emphasise oppresses its Indigenous Palestinian

Fightback November 2013 19 Pink-washing

population in order to maintain an destination. These are Vincent Autin and societies. Israel is also a homophobic and ethnically-exclusive state. In other words, Bruno Boileau, the first gay French cou- transphobic society. New Zealand has its it’s an apartheid state. Maintaining an ple to get married after France legalised own problems with anti-queer oppres- apartheid state requires a huge amount same-sex marriage. Hila Oren, the CEO sion. More than that, struggles against of PR work to convince the rest of the of Tel Aviv Global & Tourism, came up racism and colonisation and struggles world that they should allow you to with a great marketing idea. She invited against transphobia and homophobia continue oppressing people. So the state this couple to come honeymoon in Tel can’t be fought separately. Homophobia, of Israel has come up with a marketing Aviv during Tel Aviv pride week. Ac- transphobia, racism and occupation are campaign called ‘Brand Israel’. cording to Oren, ‘the meaning beneath all intertwined; they are part of the ma- Part of ‘Brand Israel’ is to promote Israel is our mission, to broaden the conversa- trix of violence and oppression in Pales- as a queer-friendly country. This is really tion about Tel Aviv, for people to know tine. This isn’t just an abstract idea, it has a two-pronged approach: (1) situate that Tel Aviv is a place of tolerance, of real consequences for people’s safety. For Israel as a progressive, modern, pro- business and tourism, a place beyond example, there’s a history of the Shabak, LGBT country and (2) construct Arabs the conflict’. Vincent Autin told Israeli Israel’s General Security Services, black- and Muslims in general, and Palestinians media that ‘for us it’s very important mailing Palestinian queers into becom- in particular as conservative, patriarchal, to be a bridge, especially here in the ing informants—because they know and violently homophobic. Middle East, so that what’s happened in that outing them could endanger their France, and the way we are received and lives. The lack of freedom of movement embraced here, can become an example for Palestinians living in Gaza and the What’s wrong with this for the rest of the Middle East.’ This is West Bank means that queers living in picture? homonationalism—the idea that West- transphobic or homophobic communi- erners constitute ‘an example’ that the ties cannot easily leave. First of all the image on page 19 is a bit Middle East should follow. This is why Palestinian queer groups like misleading. The two soldiers in this pho- This kind of pinkwashing has found its al-Qaws, Aswat and Palestinian Queers to aren’t lovers, and actually one of them way into the queer community in New for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions is heterosexual. The photo was staged by Zealand too. At Queer the Night 2011 all work to fight both anti-queer oppres- the Israeli Defence Force Spokesperson’s someone showed up with a pro-Israel sion, and the racism and colonialism of Office and posted on its facebook page placard. Queer the Night was sup- the Israeli state. with the caption ‘It’s Pride Month. Did posed to be about standing up against you know that the IDF treats all of its Palestinian queer groups endorse the transphobia, homophobia and oppres- soldiers equally? Let’s see how many Palestinian call for Boycott Divestment sion. But somebody managed to derail shares you can get for this photo.’ and Sanctions (BDS) on Israel. Pal- it and use it as an opportunity to incite estinian civil society groups launched The image on the left is just plain incor- prejudice against Arab and Muslim the BDS campaign in 2005, and part rect. This photo isn’t from Palestine, it’s people. of the campaign is ‘queer BDS’ which from Iran. The two boys in this photo Sometimes pinkwashing is a lot subtler is specifically about challenging Israel’s were hanged—though their supposed than that. I was pretty shocked when I pinkwashing. Joining the BDS campaign crime is unclear. Originally Western read this article in the June issue of Ex- is one way that we can be solid with all media outlets were reporting they were press. The author was clearly impressed Palestinians—queer and straight. hanged for having consensual sex with with the Gay Cultural Centre in Tel each other, but human rights NGOs Here in Aotearoa we’ve recently estab- Aviv, and on the surface this seems pretty haven’t found any evidence that cor- lished the Aotearoa BDS Network, and innocuous. But celebrating Tel Aviv as a roborates this claim, it’s more likely that our first campaign is focusing on G4S, a queer-friendly city without acknowledg- they had raped a younger boy. Either way, private security company that provides ing that it is a city built on the ethnic what happened to them is horrific and prisons and checkpoints for Israel. We’re cleansing of Palestinians is pinkwashing inexcusable—the death penalty is never inviting queer organisations to endorse racism—as the Jewish American lesbian ok, especially against children. But this the campaign by signing the letter we’re writer Sarah Schulman puts it ‘Tel Aviv is an example of how information about writing to Super Fund asking them to is a theater set, behind it is the reality human rights abuses is manipulated to divest their shares in G4S. If you want of profound oppression and violation of justify imperialist intentions, whether to learn more, you should come along to human rights.’ against Palestinians or against Iran. our campaign launch on November 2 at Pinkwashing arguments are built on a Thistle Hall. Part of this ‘Brand Israel’ campaign has false logic. Transphobia and homopho- been to promote Israel as a gay tourism bia aren’t limited to Arab and Muslim

20 Fightback November 2013 Queer liberation

Love and Marriage: Queers, Capitalism and Equality Bill Logan marching as part of a Queer the Night march

After a six-and-a-half month passage All those are great things, and often in ideal marriage requires you to love a through Parliament, marriage was the world we live in today, they are our millionaire, a film star, or preferably a finally legalized for same-sex couples in best sources of personal security. But prince – all of whom are probably pretty New Zealand in April 2013. Among the what we are talking of here is passionate, unlovable. questions raised among left-wing queer spontaneous sexual love. The Pet Shop Boys are not exactly right and trans activists was whether to sup- Now, in this sense love and marriage that love is a bourgeois construct – it port marriage equality as a democratic both have long histories in Western would be more true to say that love is right, or to oppose marriage in general. culture, going back thousands of years, a feudal construct, because the modern In October 2013, the Beyond conference but they are almost entirely separate ideology of love is primarily shaped in organised in Wellington by the Queer histories. Love and marriage have quite the ideals of the knightly chivalry of the Avengers followed up on some of these simply had nothing to do with each Middle Ages. And of course love under issues. This piece by Bill Logan was origi- other. Even the fiction that love and chivalry was always outside marriage, nally delivered as part of Beyond, and marriage should somehow be combined and about either unfulfilled yearning, or is reprinted here from the International is rather recent, and rather unevenly unadulterated adultery. Marriage was Bolshevik Tendency website. applied. Marriage has always been about about power and property, and love was status and property. Even in the last counterposed to it. two hundred years, when marriage has Like most of us, I’m far more inter- If love penetrated the ruling classes attempted to appropriate love for its ested in love than marriage, but I during the age of chivalry, it had a own purposes, it is a debased, deformed want to consider the connections and pre-history, which is largely unwritten. kind of love that marriage has sought to antagonisms between love and mar- Before chivalry, love was confined to the incorporate – a love where the perfect riage today. I don’t want to attempt a lower orders. Citizens of Athens and match involves celebrity, power and precise definition of love here, but I Rome did not love their wives, though money, and where your grandmother don’t merely mean deep caring for our they may have been infatuated with a tells you it is as easy to fall in love with fellow-humans, or close friendship, or slave-girl or a boyfriend. But servants a rich woman as with a poor one. The filial affection, or warm companionship. and shepherd boys, whose lives went

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mostly unrecorded because they didn’t render it socially harmless, and of spic- strument of liberation. Many of us don’t matter, were able to love each other, and ing up marriage to make it acceptable. want to join the army or the police force, love intensely. Although the record is This is not to say, of course, that there is or to become a truck driver, or adopt sparse, traces are inevitably left in song no real love in the world today – indeed children. But we want the same rights and verse. many get a taste of genuine love, and to do those things as anyone else. The We live in a cynical age, and intelligent some get a full serving, but the commer- point about the fight for the right to get people are not supposed to believe in cial mass-media love industry and the married was not that we were advocat- love. However, in hints and traces, and attempts to tie love to the institution of ing that all of us queer people should also in anthropological studies of pre- marriage have profoundly misshapen it. actually get married, but that we should class societies, we can see that patches, The pursuit of love is combined with a be allowed to get married. incidents or explosions of love have pursuit of money, power and fame, and While there were some attractions in formed in most of the different kinds the experience of love is twisted by crass the argument that we want the right to of social arrangements our species has commercialism, showy weddings, and be different, not merely to be the same tried out. We can see that love is some- the legal and social controls that define as the majority, the truth is that the times capable of great heroism against marriage. fight against oppression (whether sexual, the predominating institutions of soci- Nor is this to say that marriage at an in- religious, national or economic) is al- ety. And we can see that love has been dividual level is necessarily a betrayal of ways a fight for equal rights, the right to most widespread where power, status love. Each of us must make their way as be the same. Separate but equal, is not and property are weakest. Indeed, what best they can in this broken world, and equal. Where Muslims or atheists do I want to argue here is that love can marriage helps many negotiate a path. not have the same rights as Christians, appear in many environments, and has But as a cultural institution, marriage is they are pushed to make their beliefs extraordinary potential for social disrup- fundamentally conservative. about religion invisible. Where queers tion, but if love is to transcend the ex- do not have the same rights as straights, And so we come to the struggle for ceptional and episodic, and if there is to they are pushed to make their queerness same-sex marriage rights, which has be a generalized freedom to love, then invisible. It is only through winning the emerged with remarkable historical class society must be dismantled. right to be the same that we really gain speed on a global basis very recently. the freedom to be different. Of course the spontaneity and diverse When I was a younger man fighting for forms of love – its passion and sheer joy homosexual law reform in the 1985-86 So we supported the campaign for equal – do not sit easily beside the authority campaign, gay marriage was not some- marriage rights. But it was hardly an and hierarchy necessary to run a class thing we thought of as a possibility to earth-shattering episode, and although society. So marriage has become a tool be considered. our little victory in that campaign was for the organization of love. Love is a quite satisfying, mostly because we don’t In the context of the way marriage danger, and marriage is put into service get to experience very many victories, is carried out, its social role and its for its moderation and debasement, and it was not exactly a turning point in debasement of love, it is frankly not to render it uniform. history. The campaign was an occa- surprising that radical queers looked sion for some highly reversible mass So heterosexual marriage is the standard, on this movement with great suspicion. consciousness-raising, and possibly laid against which all other relationships Why would we want to buy into the some groundwork for the more impor- are measured. Parental expectations, process whereby the creative, disruptive, tant struggle to protect queer kids from housing policy and architecture, family passionate power of love was tamed bullying in high-schools. But the objec- law, and popular music all tend to push to fit the conservative straightjacket of tive and concrete achievement of this toward a marriage-like form. To the ex- marriage? tent that a relationship is in the nature campaign was actually just a tiny logical But marriage will not be transcended of a marriage – a heterosexual marriage extension of bourgeois democratic by maintaining the limitations and con- – it is judged successful. rights, which will have very little impact straints on it, but by opening it up, and on our real lives. At the end of the day it And so we have the modern nuclear by freeing it of the compulsions which was not a big deal. family under capitalism as an instru- surround it – compulsions which are When the celebrations died down queer ment for the mass organization of ideological, legal and material. domestic tasks and reproduction, and and trans people still faced discrimina- So of course, most of us took a deep for disciplined training of the workforce. tion and oppression in families and breath, and supported the marriage The ideal wherein love and marriage schools and workplaces, as we always reform. We supported it quite simply are combined has a dual function – of knew we would. In my counseling because legal prohibition is not an in- bureaucratizing and routinizing love to practice I still see heteronormativity 22 Fightback November 2013 Queer liberation

pushing people to the brink of death. I ing at school, and a significant number And as well as addressing the immedi- see very high levels of stress and addic- want to kill themselves because they ate needs of adolescents, good accom- tion among queers. I see the Independ- have been kicked out of home with no modation options would also address ent Youth Benefit denied to adolescents resources. the needs of married people when their who have nothing – no family, no What I want to argue is that we should marriages were in trouble, or they were accommodation, no job [though it is not separate, but rather we should link, merely needing a little space. Whether routinely given to youth who are not the struggle for immediate needs and it is a question of domestic violence, ir- queer or trans who are cut off from the struggle for a more profound libera- ritations about the relatives visiting, or a financial support by family breakdown]. tion. Indeed it is only in the struggle to new sexual configuration disturbing the There are in fact extraordinary levels of meet immediate needs that we can lay a equilibrium of the household, access to unemployment among young queers path to profound change and a funda- housing would remove one of the most right now. I still see health professionals mentally better society. important constraints that too often refusing to take seriously the problem of turn a marriage into a prison. To take the example of housing: it is queer and trans suicidality, and gay boys clear that an abundance and a variety When there are children, one of the bullied at school, and trans teenagers of subsidized housing would be an compulsions that ties the couple to- kicked out of their homes. enormous step in meeting immediate gether and makes it difficult to escape It sometimes feels like we’re in a bat- needs – helping counter the effects of a marriage even though it has passed tleground, and in the context of the poverty and taking a lot of the sting out its use-by date is the expense of setting trauma that surrounds us, and the lesser of family transphobia and homophobia. up accommodation that allows genuine but still urgent practical needs, our If even modest housing were immedi- co-parenting. People are forced to stay imaginings of a future utopia of poly- ately accessible it would take much of in the marital home in order to keep morphous perversity seem a bit indul- the stress and conflict out of adolescent connected to their children or, in leaving gent. We might want a world where the coming out crises. There are depressions the marriage, they also leave most of the privileges of monogamy are dismantled, that would lift, and suicides that would parenting to one of the former partners, where there is a culture of celebrating not happen. usually the mother. Decent accom- diversity and a universal validation of modation options for families that are In fact, it’s not just queer and trans ado- relationships with many different shapes. coming apart would remove another of lescents who need access to accommo- But right now what we have to concern the compulsions that shape marriage. dation separate from their parents. Most ourselves with is that almost all queer families with adolescents at certain So while certainly it is true that fam- and trans kids grow up in fear of bully- points need more housing options. ily law, fairy tales and Hollywood are

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important forces shaping and maintain- place would be removed. With mate- But the resources exist. There is a study ing the institution of marriage, actually rial security can come enormous sexual on the basis of data for the year 2000 by it is too often simply the absence of an freedom and diversity of domestic ar- the United Nations World Institute for alternative place to live, or even to stay rangements. Development Economic Research. It temporarily, that keeps a given marriage Of course we are told that the system reports that the three richest individuals going, or determines its shape. simply cannot pay for full employment, in the world possessed more financial As with housing, so with decent free easily accessible decent housing and assets than the lowest 48 nations com- childcare, which is another thing we childcare, and I guess that the people bined. It reports that the richest one should be fighting for. It would remove who say this to us know their system percent in the world owned 40 percent another set of compulsions that keep in and that they are right. This system can’t of global assets. place the marriage system and gender pay for these things. So much the worse So the program for a world beyond inequality. for the system. Throw it away. marriage must be a program that ad- A program to remove those largely eco- And so the struggle for domestic dresses the obscene inefficiency and nomic compulsions and see what people freedom is indivisible from the struggle inequality of the capitalist system. Only make of their lives without them seems for socialism. The running costs of the a program of socialism can create the a far more sensible way of approach- capitalist system are simply too high. conditions for transcending marriage. ing the world of the future, than to try There is an awful lot of corruption Exactly how will we live under social- to imagine in advance how it will look, and freeloading involved in running ism? We cannot know. We cannot know because that is something we simply capitalism, and also an awful lot of what will replace our current marriage cannot know. paperwork, all of which eats up human and family arrangements. But we can We cannot know the future of marriage, lives without giving anything back. And suspect that when issues of material but we can fight for the removal of the then there is the human effort wasted security are behind us, people’s personal constraints on domestic relationships. If in financial shenanigans, and whole preferences will trump any consid- there were true material security, which industries that add very little to the sum erations of family pressure or popular would of course include guaranteed total of human happiness – banking and prejudice. And we can expect that our access to well-paying jobs, the compul- insurance and advertising. Capitalism is domestic arrangements will be extreme- sions that today hold marriage and the profoundly wasteful. ly diverse. currently prevailing family system in

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