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7272006 86358 EDITORIAL Their Democracy – and Ours

Since the Iraqi election of January 30, 2005, the Bush the February 2004 coup in Haiti that put a vicious gang of administration has bragged about its record as a force for thugs in office, and have continued to back this regime despite democracy and freedom. Images of Iraqi voters, their fingers its repressive attempts to smash political opposition and social dipped in purple ink, have flashed on TV screens. Pundits have movements. proclaimed that the war on Iraq was indeed really about liber- Iraq, Venezuela and Haiti point to two lessons already ation. A few commentators who have now abandoned the anti- learned at great human cost in the last century. One is that war movement have been given ample air time. Western states that bray about democracy will readily act to get But the notion that Bush and his ilk are serious democrats rid of democratically-elected governments that pursue policies is nonsense. Nothing could be more disorienting for people contrary to their interests. The other is that the kind of liberal who want to change the world than the idea that the US and democracy supported by everyone from George Bush to Jack other Western states are promoters of democracy. Layton is a very weak form of democracy indeed. In Iraq—a country under bloody US military occupation It is a terrible mistake to equate democracy with the parlia- after a war condemned around the world—the US government mentary systems that exist today. While unquestionably prefer- did not want the direct elections that happened last January. Its able to outright dictatorships, these are versions of capitalist original plan was to draw up a constitution, have indirect elec- democracy that allow citizens to only vote every few years on tions without mass participation and regulate political parties. who will preside over a society in which most important deci- Shiite Muslim leaders rejected this plan and organized major sions (in the workplace, for example) are made without any demonstrations against it, forcing US leaders to accept elec- pretense of democracy. Balanced-budget laws, international tions. Of course, Bush and the rest have tried to spin the elec- economic agreements, and constitutions like the one proposed tions they didn’t want to their own advantage, but we should- for the European Union make not only capitalism but its n’t forget that these elections were never their Plan A and that neoliberal version mandatory for elected governments. resistance to the occupation grows. In fact, the concept of “freedom” advanced by liberals has Allowing the people of Iraq to determine their own future typically meant free markets and the protection of capital—not has never been a plan for the Bush administration. They intend freedom for people at large. The US (and other) ruling classes to keep a large permanent military presence in Iraq in order to are no different today: one doesn’t need to scratch too far shape it as a neoliberal paradise whose natural resources (espe- beneath the surface of their rhetoric about “freedom” (in Iraq cially oil) and labour are ripe for exploitation by US multina- or elsewhere) to find their true economic interests. Indeed, the tional corporations, while using it as a platform to expand their US National Security Strategy (2002) elevates free trade to a political and economic interests in the region and globally. “moral principle,” and states that “free markets and free trade In Venezuela, when a right-wing coup against nationalist are key priorities” in the US’s global pursuits. President Hugo Chávez began in April 2002, the US govern- Thankfully, this is not the only democracy imaginable. In ment made its support for the coup clear. But popular mobi- 2000, a popular uprising rooted in democratic grassroots lization defeated the plotters and restored Chávez to office, organizations defeated the privatization of water in the leaving the US administration embarrassed. Now that Chávez’s Bolivian city of Cochabamba. For a week, Cochabamba was in speeches are growing more radical (and some in Venezuelan the hands of its working people. This was just the most recent social movements are demanding a real “revolution in the revo- upsurge in the history of the struggle for far-reaching democ- lution”), Bush would love to see Chávez go the way of Haiti’s racy from below whose most famous high-points are the Paris deposed president Aristide or Chile’s Salvador Allende, killed in Commune (1871), the Russian Revolution (1917) and the the US-backed 1973 coup. However, Chávez’s referendum Spanish Revolution (1936). In this kind of democracy lies a victory in 2004 makes it hard for the US to paint him as unde- flicker of hope that humanity might be able to avert the social mocratic. and ecological disasters to which imperialist democrats like ★ The governments of the US, France and Canada supported Bush and Paul Martin are steering us.

2 Box 167, 253 College St. Toronto, ON M5T 1R5 (416) 955-1581 [email protected] www.newsocialist.org Issue #51: May / June 2005 NEW SOCIALIST offers radical ★ HOMEFRONT ★ analysis of politics, social movements and culture in the Isn’t marriage queer? A socialist take on same-sex unions ...... Frances Piper 4 Canadian state and internationally. Our magazine is a forum for Grassy Narrows: Activists speak up ...... Dave Brophy 6 people who want to strengthen today’s activism and for those who wish to replace global capitalism ★ INTERNATIONAL ★ with a genuinely democratic socialism. We believe that the Bolivia: Class struggle and popular indigenous rebellion ...... Jeffery R. Webber 8 liberation of the working class and oppressed peoples can be won China: Capitalism, socialism only through their own struggles. and class struggle ...... Paul Burkett & Martin Hart-Landsberg 12 For more information about the Iran: America’s next strategic target? ...... Hamid Sodeifi & Hassan Varash 16 publisher of this magazine, the New Socialist Group, please see the inside back cover. ★ RELIGION AND POLITICS ★ EDITORS Todd Gordon Marxism and religion: Opium of the people? ...... Michael Löwy 19 Sebastian Lamb Harold Lavender Fundamentalism, US Style: Before and after 9/11 ...... Dianne Feeley 24 Nick Scanlan Sharia in Ontario? An interview with Amina Sherazee ...... Neil Braganza 28 Tony Tracy The Middle East under the EDITORIAL ASSOCIATES reign of imperialism and fundamentalisms ...... Shahrzad Mojab 32 Richard Banner Jackie Esmonde Denise Hammond Clarice Kuhling ★ REVIEWS ★ Alex Levant Morgan MacLeod Pluggin’ Away: A thirst for pop ...... Mark Connery 35 David McNally Dana Milne Judy Rebick’s Ten Thousand Roses ...... Sandra Sarner 36 Keith O’Regan The Prophet Armed, Unarmed, Outcast ...... Dale Shin 38 Frances Piper Sandra Sarner The Assassination of Richard Nixon ...... Neil Braganza & Karen Ruddy 40 Hamid Sodeifi John Simoulidis Shiraz Vally ★ ★ Ingrid Van Der Kloet OBITUARY Jeff Webber Torvald Patterson (1964-2005) ...... Peter Drucker 42 DESIGN & COVERS Colin Campbell (Front Image) Ryan Cherawaty (Front layout) ★ TIME TO ORGANIZE ★ ...... 43 Sandra Sarner (Design/Layout)

Signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of the Editors or members of the New Socialist Group. Send letters and other contributions to [email protected]. We wish to correct the following errors that appeared in issue 50 (Feb, Mar, New Socialist is a member of the CMPA. April): the name is Marc Lepine, not Lapin (p.6, 7, 37), Anishinaabe not Printed at Journal Printing, a union shop Annihilable (p.9), and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, not People’s Front for the Liberation of Palesting (p.27). We apologize for these errors.

3 Isn’t marriage queer? A socialist take on same-sex unions

“Marriage! What a strange word to be applied to two men! Can’t you BY FRANCES PIPER hear the hell-hounds of society baying full pursuit behind us?” Letter from American artist F.O. Matthiessen to student and lover Russell Cheney, September 23, 1924.

wonder what Matthiessen, a Christian and a socialist, would say today. In the I36 years after New York’s Stonewall riots ushered in the movement for queer liberation, the battle lines for civil rights have been drawn and redrawn. While gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgender and trans- sexual people are far from living free of discrimination, they’ve nonetheless made substantial gains around such issues as censorship, freedom of association, pension entitlements, employment equity and AIDS treatment. And in the coming months, the Canadian government will vote on Bill C-38, which legalizes same-sex unions. BILL C-38

For many on the left, the bill marks a significant step forward, clearing the way for queers to be fully accepted into society. Others argue that demanding such accept- ance is more accurately viewed as capitulat- ing to the cultural norms and institutions of a patriarchal capitalist society, and a step backward from the sexual radicalism that once characterized the movement for queer liberation. We should be knocking down pillars of the current social order, critics argue, not rapping on the system’s doors, asking to be let in. Such a critique is power- ful, and has the merit of keeping the broader goals of the movement for radical The religious right is aligned in a way congregations. On the political front, change in plain sight. It doesn’t engage, we’ve not seen in Canada since the abor- they’re backed by Stephen Harper and the however, at the level on which the debate is tion issue came to a head in the late 1980s. Conservatives. They’re also bolstered by actually occurring. As a result, though a Led by Primate Ouellet, archbishop of their friends south of the border. crucial reminder of the need for radical Quebec and Canada’s Catholic Church, Evangelical leader James Dobson—who transformation, on its own, this argument who claims same-sex marriage “threatens to made headlines recently for his homopho- fails to provide practical political direction unleash nothing less than cultural upheaval bic attack on SpongeBob SquarePants, an in the face of the very real possibility that whose negative consequences are still absorbent cartoon character who holds the bigotry of the religious right will win impossible to predict,” the SOS Marriage hands with another male cartoon charac- the day. coalition has flooded MP’s constituency ter—was quick off the mark. On the offices with emails and phone calls, and airways immediately after Prime Minister Frances Piper is an editorial associate undertaken a massive postcard mail-out to Paul Martin introduced Bill C-38, he of New Socialist.

4 urged Canadians to follow the lead of the responsibility, cost and labour involved in issue. Nonetheless, it’s important to fight US. There, the 1996 Defense of Marriage feeding, clothing and nurturing each other for queer access to private pensions if only Act defines marriage as a heterosexual insti- is placed in the hands of individuals. to expand rather than limit the options and tution and shields states from having to Meanwhile, capitalists benefit from having rights of individuals in the here and now. recognize same-sex marriages from other a workforce that is fed, rested and healthy. It’s also critical to acknowledge that social- jurisdictions. And last fall, Dobson’s coali- And let’s not forget that weddings are a ist-feminist and queer liberationist forces tion Focus on the Family orchestrated an multi-billion dollar industry, many of are too weak to influence the terms of eleven-state ban on same-sex marriage (six which turn into grotesque carnivals of public debate. We can only intervene, states banned civil unions too). consumerism, with capitalists standing in which in this case means intervening on a As a result, Bill C-38 may not pass. the wings, preying on and reinforcing terrain shaped by a constitutional argu- Opinion polls reveal even splits among people’s fantasies for eternal happiness. ment on the one hand and bigotry on the politicians, or slender majorities in favour (South African diamond giant De Beers is other. If the religious right prevails (or even of the bill. Despite proclaiming that “you a great example: just as Coke invented makes significant inroads) today, it will be can’t pick and choose the minority rights or Santa Claus, De Beers invented the emboldened to pursue its agenda further, the fundamental rights that you are going diamond engagement ring and the slogan attacking abortions, daycare, teaching to defend,” Martin can hardly be said to be rallying the troops. He’s insisted only that his cabinet vote en bloc: other Liberals can “vote by conscience.” That is, they’ll do Weddings are a multi-billion dollar industry, many whatever is politically expedient in their riding. What should have been a slam- of which turn into grotesque carnivals of dunk—with the support of the governing Liberals and the NDP—has become a consumerism, with capitalists standing in the truly tenuous proposition. The most forceful endorsements of wings, preying on and reinforcing people’s fantasies same-sex marriage come from EGALE (the “respectable” face of the lesbian and gay for eternal happiness. movement), Canadians for Equal Marriage, the New Democratic Party and a handful of liberal religious groups. They argue, like Martin, that same-sex marriage “A diamond is forever.”) Allowing gays and evolution in schools and more. And that— is a human rights issue. In a letter to lesbians to marry may push at the bound- taking the wind out of the sails of the Martin, the General Council of the United aries of those sexual norms, but not in a right—is one of the most important Church of Canada, however, writes that way that challenges the system itself. reasons to support Bill C-38. alongside unequivocal support for same-sex Rather, it encourages people to see In the meantime, it is worth noting that civil marriage, it also “unequivocally marriage as the only stable and legitimate gays and lesbians aren’t exactly rushing to supports the right of communities of faith foundation of human relations. Moreover, the alter. While same-sex marriage has been to decline to perform such marriages”—a as gay wedding trade shows, magazine available for up to 85 per cent of Canada’s provision which is, in fact, embedded in features or the upcoming TV reality population for two years (since the 2003 the bill. Such a position is disingenuous. program My Big Fat Gay Wedding attest, it decision by an Ontario appeals court led to Human rights are, by definition, universal. invites newlyweds to plow tons of money marriage liberalization in six provinces), In introducing qualifications—be it a vote- into what writer Anne Kingston calls the only 4,500 ceremonies have been by-conscience or an exclusionary policy— “wedding industrial complex,” as they latch performed, and the rate of marriage has these “defenders” of same-sex marriage onto the myth that it’s a gateway to eternal fallen in the last year. Clearly, the country’s signal their willingness to allow bigotry to bliss. Indeed, left-wing critics of same-sex tens of thousands of same-sex couples don’t exist in pockets. marriage are reacting in part to the retreat view marriage as the apotheosis of freedom. QUEER LIBERATION within queer communities from libertarian Many may in fact share Matthiessen’s sexual politics and their growing social perspective, who continues his letter to his Still, is same-sex marriage worth fighting conservatism, through which the interests lover: “We are beyond society. . . And so we for? Marriage is the cornerstone of patriar- of professional, well-heeled gays and have a marriage that was never seen on land chal capitalism, a powerful and pervasive lesbians dominate. or sea! . . . Oh it is strange enough. It has means of regulating sexuality and gender So, how can such an institution possibly no ring, and no vows, no [wedding pres- relations. It legitimates only one form of be part of the plan for queer liberation? ents] . . . And so of course it has none of the union (up until now, monogamous and Well, only in the limited, partial way that coldness of passion, but merely the serene heterosexual) as the best suited for raising a all bourgeois rights are. Think, for instance, joy of companionship. It has no three family; in the name of marriage, women of same-sex pension benefits. Integrally hundred and sixty-five breakfasts opposite have been overworked, undervalued, wound up with capitalist power relations each other at the same table; and yet it berated, beaten and killed. It’s also the and structures of legitimacy, they are desires frequent companionship, devotion, primary mechanism through which the simply an individualist solution to a social laughter. Its bonds indeed form the service that is perfect freedom.” ★

5 GRASSY NARROWS: HISTORY OF THE FIGHT Mercury poisoning, clear-cutting and government collusion

BY DAVE BROPHY

This is the second of three articles about Indigenous struggle in what is less, in the 1960s many members of the now known as Northwestern Ontario. The first article, in the Grassy Narrows band were able to earn a Feb/March/April 2005 issue of NS, briefly examined the relationship decent livelihood as commercial fishers or between the Anishinaabe of the lake of the woods region and the Canadian as fishing and hunting guides for white- state during the years leading up to and following the signing of Treaty 3 in owned outfitters. 1873. The article described how the Canadian state violated the agreement But this all changed dramatically as a and initiated a campaign to destroy the indigenous economy that had result of the mercury contamination. The historically allowed the Anishinaabe to be a prosperous people. employment rate plummeted from about 90% to 10% when the government This article will examine how the Canadian state continues to undermine acknowledged the mercury poisoning and the livelihoods of the Anishinaabe and the political factors that are shaping declared commercial fishing on the Grassy Narrows’ present fight for their lands. English-Wabigoon river illegal. The government was horrendously slow reasonable starting point for mercury, which was being dumped into the to provide any compensation to Grassy sketching the historical back- water upstream at the Dryden Pulp and Narrows and White Dog for the enormous ground to the present struggle Paper Company’s mill. Recent media economic and health effects caused by the A coverage of the impact of the mercury mercury poisoning. Indeed, 15 years passed of Grassy Narrows is the hydro devel- opment on Anishinaabe lands in the poisoning has drawn attention to the before Canada, Ontario and the corporate 1950s. Ontario Hydro built two major severe, on-going health problems of many successor of the company that dumped the dams at Ear Falls and Whitedog, members of both Grassy Narrows and mercury coughed up about $10 million for causing significant and unpredictable White Dog First Nations, the two commu- the people of Grassy Narrows and White fluctuations in water levels which nities most adversely affected by the Dog. This meagre offering, which affected wild rice beds, the habitat of contaminated river system. But the impact amounted to about $10,000 per person, fur-bearing animals and the local of the mercury poisoning on the fishery. local economy has not received In the 1960s Grassy Narrows was relo- attention for a long time, even cated by Indian Affairs so that it was more though the high rate of unem- affordable to provide services to the ployment that currently plagues community. Although the move wasn’t far both Grassy Narrows and White from the original site it had a considerable Dog can be largely traced back impact on the community. For the first to it. time, there was a school on-site, which As noted in the previous meant the kids were no longer taken by the article, despite extensive devel- government and sent to far-away residen- opment throughout the Treaty 3 tial schools. But the move also meant the area from the late 1800s onward, community was now accessible by road, racist hiring practices limited which caused considerable social upheaval. employment opportunities for In 1970 the community was faced with the Anishinaabe. Employment another major upheaval, when the govern- discrimination in white-con- ment publicly acknowledged that the trolled industries was com- English-Wabigoon river system had been pounded by the fact that the contaminated by several tons of inorganic steady degradation of the land caused by outside development undermined traditional alterna- Anishinaabe activist blockading a logging truck at Dave Brophy is a member of Friends of tives to waged work. Neverthe- Grassy Narrows. Grassy Narrows Winnipeg

6 was to make up for destroying the commu- nities’ source of water, a major part of their diet and their most important source of income. Bearing in mind the Dryden Pulp and Paper Company’s responsibility for the mercury contamination, we can see that clear cutting of the Whiskey Jack Forest by Abitibi-Consolidated, the most immediate reason for the current logging road block- ade at Grassy Narrows, is only the latest instance of a forestry companies’ destruc- tion of Anishinaabe lands in the Treaty 3 area. This should be no surprise. After all, the stakes are high. Across Northwestern Ontario an estimated 15,000 jobs are related to the forestry industry, which also generates about $600 million in tax revenue for governments. GOVERNMENT COMPLICITY

The Canadian state is structured in such a way that it undermines Native peoples’ self-determination. For treaty peoples, the nation-to-nation agreements that they signed with Canada provide a legal basis for upholding the responsibilities of Canada as from within. The Indian Act imposes the asserting their Aboriginal rights. But when signatory to the treaties, while OMNR is elective system of band government on treaty rights concerning traditional land are designated official jurisdiction over land First Nations, which deprives traditional violated, Natives’ demands that these rights resources in the province of Ontario, and is leaders of recognition by insisting that the be upheld are dodged by the Canadian thus responsible for issuing logging only spokespeople of the band are those state through legal obfuscation. permits. elected according to the Indian Act. The last article ended with a quote from Before issuing these permits, OMNR is In a community like Grassy Narrows, a speech given in 1946 by Treaty 3 Grand obliged to consult with First Nations, but where there is mass unemployment because Council spokesperson Tom Roy, addressing decisions are often made without the people’s livelihoods have been taken away members of the federal parliament in support of the communities affected. This from them, the main sources of income are Ottawa: was the case with Grassy Narrows, whose welfare checks and band council jobs, both “We contend that the terms of our treaty participation in the consultation process of which depend on government funds. were violated…by the federal government with OMNR and Abitibi amounted to Obviously, such deep economic depend- on or about April 16, 1894 when, without tokenism. Despite the community’s ence on a state that has waged a centuries- notifying the Indians, the federal govern- staunch opposition to clear-cutting, long campaign of genocide and assimila- ment transferred the natural resources to OMNR consistently approved plans that tion against you is devastating in terms of the provinces, with whose laws we have allowed Abitibi to clear-cut on traditional chronic poverty. But what is just as debili- [had] to comply since then. The Indians lands. tating is the social stratification that this have tried to protest against this…. The GRASSROOTS STRUGGLE situation causes. The band council jobs are answer has been: ‘This comes entirely virtually the only locally accessible means under the provincial governments, and When Aboriginal and treaty rights of of employment and adequate income, and there is no authority whatever vested in our First Nations like Grassy Narrows are not therefore those who control the band department to change their laws’.” respected by the terms of logging permits council, the local political class, wield The Grand Chief’s words apply just as issued by OMNR, they are told to consult power disproportionately in the commu- well today. The blockade at Grassy INA. But when they appeal to INA, the nity. Narrows went up in December, 2002 but a federal ministry insists that Ontario’s juris- Not surprisingly, then, strong resistance decade of protest against the clear cutting diction over land and resource allocation from First Nations to exploitation and through official channels preceded it. prevents them from taking action. The oppression has not often come from the The community’s concerns about clear collusion of the two levels of government official leadership. This was true in the cutting by Abitibi-Consolidated have been thus creates a situation in which corpora- 1970s, when there was a major upsurge of repeatedly ignored by the federal Ministry tions gain easy access to resources in First militant grassroots action among native of Indian and Northern Affairs (INA) and Nations’ territory. peoples throughout North America. The the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources Native peoples’ self-determination is (OMNR). INA is officially responsible for further undermined by the Canadian state See GRASSY NARROWS: Page 11

7 BOLIVIA: OCTOBER OR JANUARY AGENDA? Regional division, class struggle and indigenous rebellion

BY JEFFERY R. WEBBER

L HTS JEFFREY WEBBER ALL PHOTOS: he “Agenda de Octubre” (October Agenda)—a list of popular demands T to remake Bolivia in the name of the poor and the indigenous majority— emerged from the inspiring rebellion of the indigenous and popular classes of the alti- plano (high plateau), the shantytown of El Alto and the neighbourhoods on the hill- sides of the capital city, La Paz, in the “Gas War” of October 2003. Bolivian social movements are mobilizing to reclaim Bolivia’s natural resources and win January 2005 witnessed the ongoing real power for the Indigenous majority. struggle for the October Agenda in the “Water War” of El Alto, led by the party, the MAS, led by Evo Morales, has working through the Trotskyist- and syndi- Federation of Neighbours of El Alto generally opted for passive support of the calist-influenced Bolivian Workers Central (FEJUVE), and the coca growers’ Mesa administration. The historic window (COB), represented the vanguard of the (cocaleros) 10-day road blockade in the of opportunity forced open by the October Bolivian Left. In 1985, the newly neolib- Yungas region that was brought to an rebellion is slowly closing as Mesa follows a eral National Revolutionary Movement abrupt end by tear gas and rubber bullets. middle of the road path and Morales, who party (MNR) unleashed orthodox shock However, we’ve also seen the first impres- dreams of winning the presidential election therapy. The neoliberal model continues to sive counter-mobilization of the Right in in 2007, moderates the MAS’s demands this day. the massive, bourgeois-led demonstrations and moves away from direct action in the The principal targets in 1985 were the for “autonomy” in the city of Santa Cruz. streets. state-owned mines, more for political As the social movements in the western January’s almost three-week-long hunger reasons than economic ones. The brutal departments (provinces) of the country strikes, occupations of public buildings, process of privatization was facilitated by persist in their commitment to the October airport blockade and massive marches in the unlucky coincidence of a crash in the Agenda, the departments of Beni, Tarija, Santa Cruz—some say more than 300,000 price of tin on the world market. More and, most importantly, Santa Cruz have took to the streets—demonstrate the than 25 000 of the 32 000 miners were laid fortified the Right’s “Agenda de Enero” frightening capacity of the “Cruceño” [the off. Many miners migrated to the cities (January Agenda). people of Santa Cruz are Cruceños—NS] (especially El Alto), or to the Chapare The regime of President Carlos Diego elite to mobilize students, unions and the region, near the city of Cochabamba, Mesa Gisbert—put in power by the forces popular sectors behind a bourgeois agenda, where they became coca growers. They of October after the ousting of Gonzálo concealed beneath the banner of regional took their Marxist traditions with them. Sánchez de Lozada (Goni)—provided “autonomy.” In this case, the region’s US foreign policy and its “War on Drugs” enough rhetorical support for the October people are asked to unite against the helped spur to life an anti-imperialist, Agenda to pacify temporarily the radical- “centralism” of the capital city, La Paz. campesino-indígena [small farmer-indige- ized sectors of the altiplano and El Alto. ORIGINS OF OCTOBER AGENDA nous—NS] movement in the Chapare But in practice it continued subservience to region. The cocaleros emerged as the new IMF dictates, the US “war on drugs” and To understand the current conjuncture vanguard of the left, mixing as they did the the neoliberal model first set in place in we need to look back. From the 1952 traditions of the miners and the Indigenous 1985. National Revolution until the neoliberal traditions of the longer-standing coca Meanwhile, the strongest leftist political counter-reform of 1985, the tin miners, growers. The MAS emerged out of the cocaleros as a Leftist/Indigenous force in Jeffery R. Webber is a PhD student at the University of Toronto and a member of the New the national panorama of political parties. Socialist Group, currently in Bolivia. His regular updates are found at www.newsocialist.org. But it was not until 2000 that popular

8 forces took the offensive against neoliberal- ism. The February-April 2000 Water War in Cochabamba successfully booted out a multinational consortium and reversed the privatization of water. This revitalized Bolivian social movements, bringing a sense of hope back into the struggle after the dark years of retreat. This new cycle of contention reached its zenith in the dramatic mobilizations of the Gas War of October 2003. It was a revolt against neoliberalism and the social conse- quences of economic restructuring. It sought national sovereignty in the face of pressure to adapt to a vicious new world order. It aimed to reclaim Bolivia’s natural resources. It strengthened the class struggle. It demanded real power for the Indigenous majority. The most important, all-encompassing component of the October Agenda is the The Bolivian social movement organization FEJUVE, whose offices are pictured above, call for a Constituent Assembly. This repre- is working towards the expulsion of the water company Aguas del Illimani, owned by sents a potential threat to the large French multinational Suez. FEJUVE was heavily involved in recent strikes. landowners, the petroleum multinationals and the business elite that run the show in as veritable channels of power for the Over the last five years, however, the Santa Cruz and used to run the whole Cruceño bourgeoisie. Cruceño elites occu- dominance of Cruceño capital has slowly country. pied key ministerial positions that defined been put in jeopardy. There was a decline the political economy of the last 20 years, in the ideology of free market capitalism at THE REBELLION OF SANTA CRUZ as well as the highest levels of the three key the outset of the 2000s. There was the To understand recent events in Santa neoliberal parties. considerable collapse in the performance of Cruz, one needs to appreciate what’s at State support for the Cruceño elite has the traditional neoliberal parties in the stake for the Cruceño elite. The funnelling had a considerable impact on Santa Cruz’s 2002 presidential elections. These parties of state largesse to the region of Santa Cruz, role in the Bolivian economy. As is common fell still further from grace in the municipal in an effort to dynamize its oil, gas and with corporate welfare bums, the Cruceño elections of last year. Finally, and most agroindustrial export economies, began bourgeoisie has constructed an elaborate importantly, the October Agenda chal- soon after 1952. It reached exaggerated ideological edifice that inverts their actual lenged the fundamental ethos of the proportions under the dictatorship of historical relationship with the state and the Cruceño elite and its material basis. The Hugo Banzer (1971-78). rest of Bolivia: “we generate almost half of January Agenda is the answer to this threat. Since 1985, the traditional political the national taxes, and carry on our backs MESA’S NEOLIBERAL REFORMISM parties (MNR, ADN and MIR) have acted the major part of the economy.” President Mesa, vice president under the Goni regime, was brought to power on the crest of the October Rebellion after distancing himself from the violent repres- sion ordered by Goni. He then surrounded himself with “gonistas” and other neolib- eral ministers. Unlike Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, Mesa has never denounced neoliberal orthodoxy when attending international forums. His administration has agreed with the IMF to continue with the neoliberal model, to respect previous privatizations and to persist in paying the crushing external debt. Indeed, it was an IMF dictate that sparked the mobilizations that would become the January Agenda. In early Bolivia has entered a time of uncertainty, a time of regional division in the class struggle and clearly delineated, conflicting national projects. December 2004, a Bolivian government

9 from Santa Cruz came out against the January Agenda. Bolivia has entered a time of uncertainty, a time of regional division in the class struggle and clearly delineated, conflicting national projects. The hope for the October Agenda lies in the radicalization of the social movements of the western part of the country which would pressure Mesa to grant reforms while emboldening the courageous dissidents within the Santa Cruz department POSTSCRIPT—SUNDAY, MARCH 27, 2005

Much has happened since I wrote this article in early February, but the basic polarization between Left and Right national projects has not changed. Undoubtedly, the event with the most political and social consequence in the last two months was Mesa’s faked resignation. The Bolivian state, in support of its bourgeoisie and conservative middle-class, seeks to On the evening of March 6, Mesa repress mass mobilizations for democracy against capital. announced that he would present his (revo- cable) resignation before Congress the next morning. team travelled to Washington to finalize neoliberal reformism, although their power Late that Sunday night and into the early the details of a loan, which was to come is restricted primarily to Santa Cruz. hours of Monday morning I went to the into effect on January 1, 2005 and to Even in Santa Cruz itself the elite faces Plaza Murillo, which hosts the Presidential continue until the end of March 2005. A challenges. On January 27, university Palace, to witness thousands of sponta- medium-term plan was reached that called students and indigenous groups marched neously organized middle-class right- for measures to improve the precarious against the January Agenda, mobilizing wingers from La Paz work themselves into fiscal situation of the Bolivian state. over 1000 people. Workers, some business frenzied chants of “Death to Evo!” On December 29, the newspaper La people, campesinos and others marched on (Morales), “Evo and Abel are the Razón reported that the IMF was explicitly the same day in Sucre against the Cruceño Apocalypse!” (Abel Mamani is a key leader opposed to existing subsidies for diesel and rebellion. San Julián, on the road connect- of the Federation of United Neighbours of gasoline. The next day Mesa ordered an ing the departments of Santa Cruz and El Alto), and “mano dura” (“iron fist”). increase in the price of both. This sparked Trinidad, was blockaded by peasant colo- They asked Mesa to stay in government mobilizations all over the country, includ- nizers. Apparently the influence of the and repress the social movements that had ing the business-led demonstrations in Landless Movement (MST) in this block- effectively shut down most of the country Santa Cruz, which morphed from a fight to ade was impressive. through blockades and strikes in the maintain subsidies on diesel and gas to the The next day, university students, the preceding week. Cruceño elite’s January Agenda. Civic Committee, market vendors, the In retrospect, it seems clear that Mesa THE CURRENT IMPASSE Federation of Neighbours of La Paz, and never intended to resign. He announced others marched in the capital against the his resignation for Congress to consider, In one sense the gigantic mobilization in January Agenda. Morales’s MAS party expecting that they would rally behind Santa Cruz demonstrates the first signifi- appears, haltingly, to be taking to street him. The un-elected President—Mesa cant counter-reaction to the October politics once again. Morales announced holds office as a result of the October 2003 Agenda. But the fact that the Cruceño elite plans for a march, concentrated in the city popular insurrection—was looking for a have regionalized their struggle and have, of Cochabamba, of campesinos, cocaleros, new mandate from the political Right. In in a sense, temporarily forsaken the and others in defence of “dignity and his manipulative speech of Sunday evening “national” struggle to control the Bolivian demanding the approval of a new he named the enemies of the state—Evo state, is also a sign of their weakness. It Hydrocarbons Law.” The march would also Morales and Abel Mamani—and indicates that the October Agenda has be in defence of the democratic process and announced the necessity of proceeding effectively crushed the bourgeois ideology against the Cruceño revolt, which he said with policies around natural resources that of the free market, foreign investment and threatened liberty and constitutional would be “viable” in the face of the “inter- racism outside of Santa Cruz (and Beni and government in Bolivia. Marches took place national community” (in other words, the Tarija). The Right is stronger than they over these weeks in other cities as well. imperialist and sub-imperialist states, the were after October 2003, thanks to Mesa’s Finally, the mayors of all major cities apart international financial institutions,

10 transnational corporations and the local of El Alto, who played a central role in the through the lower house and moved to the bourgeoisie with extensive ties to interna- October rebellion), Alejo Véliz (leader of Senate, on March 15 Mesa announced on tional capital). the Trópico de Cochabamba, an association television that he wanted presidential elec- To do this the country needed to rally of coca-growers), leaders of the MST, tions, scheduled for 2007, moved forward around Mesa, to clear the roads of block- Oscar Olivera (a leader in Cochabamba’s to August of this year because it was impos- ades and protect the “human right” of free “Water War”), and Omar Fernandez (from sible to govern. This was rejected as uncon- transit and commerce, and to denounce the the irrigating farmers’ association in stitutional by Congress, and Mesa contin- Aymara-indigenous social movement and Cochabamba) and others. Journalist Luis ues as President (although now with signif- Leftist political party leaders Mamani and Gómez has commented that these folks icantly less support from within the middle Morales. As Mesa hoped, the middle class don’t normally pass time comfortably class). The blockades were lifted, however, came out in force, drawing on a long tradi- together, never mind sign pacts of solidar- as Morales helped to de-radicalize the tion of racial hatred and fear of the lower ity. So, at the time, the potential seemed cocaleros, many of whom wanted to classes. In Congress Mesa abandoned his great. continue with blockades until the demand tacit 17-month old pact with Morales and The unifying theme was the demand for 50% royalties on gas was won. MAS and built a new Right-wing coalition that the new hydrocarbons law, then in The proposed hydrocarbons law is before with the traditional parties MNR, MIR front of Congress, would increase royalties the Senate, and the outcome remains and NFR. This part went as Mesa planned. paid by transnationals to the Bolivian state unclear. There are no roadblocks, and the What he didn’t predict was a radicalized on hydrocarbons (mainly natural gas) to capital is eerily quiet given the tradition of unity of Left forces. On March 9, an “anti- 50%. Blockades went up in force in many residents of La Paz to leave the city oligarchic” pact was signed in the historic support of this demand, especially those for religious vacations during Holy Week. La Paz headquarters of the COB by led by the cocaleros, who are closely The “tense calm” that everyone here refers Morales, Jaime Solares (leader of the aligned with MAS. to is likely to break in the near future, as COB), Felipe Quispe and Román Loayza Then followed a complicated and bizarre the extraordinary underlying tensions (leaders of the campesino union, the set of events. As the blockades persisted and social divisions within this country CSUTCB), Roberto de la Cruz (councillor and a “light” hydrocarbons law passed persist. ★

cils to sometimes follow a policy of conser- blockaders at Grassy Narrows were Grassy Narrows vatism that does not properly represent the supported by their Band Council only Continued from Page 7 majority of band member. Overt self-inter- reluctantly at first, and more recently have est may be the cause of this, but most often been excluded from talks with Abitibi and band councils are simply faced with a great the provincial and federal levels of govern- nearby town of Kenora was in fact a focal challenge. Given their dependency on ment, while the official leadership has point of this upsurge in 1974. With the Indian Affairs for funds to provide basic gladly taken the opportunity to negotiate, upheaval and repercussions of the mercury services to their impoverished communi- with leverage, on behalf of the community poisoning still reverberating acutely ties, they have to make difficult decisions with high-level representatives of the through Grassy Narrows and White Dog, on if and how to make demands of the company and governments. protest led to the armed occupation of state. But Grassy Narrows’ fight for their Anishinaabe Park, which lasted over two At Grassy Narrows, the current blockade homeland is far from over. Talks have so far weeks in the summer of 1974. was initiated by three young people, who yielded nothing but a rejection of scant Some of the activists involved in the were quickly supported by a core group of offerings from Abitibi, with INA and Anishinaabe Park occupation went on to other activists in the community. It was a OMNR participating solely as passive organise the Native People’s Caravan that year before any meaningful response came observers, in keeping with their typical crossed the country from BC to Ottawa in from Abitibi-Consolidated or the govern- strategy of non-intervention vis-a-vis September of the same year, ending with a ments. Predictably, it was the Grassy upholding aboriginal rights. Meanwhile, march of almost a thousand native people Narrows Band Council, rather than the Abitibi is talking about making further job on Parliament Hill. While the natives’ blockaders, who were approached, even cuts at the Kenora mill, and politicians are anger was directed most forcefully at Jean though the former had nothing to do with calling for corporate welfare to prop up Chrétien’s Ministry of Indian Affairs, there initiating the blockade and had largely the forestry industry in Northwestern was also much frustration expressed at the remained aloof from it during the first year. Ontario. ★ grassroots with band councils’ failure to The relationship between Grassy take action that properly reflected the Narrows community activists who have The final article in this three-part series, radical demands being made by members spearheaded the blockade and the local appearing in the July/August 2005 issue of of their communities. Band Council has been perhaps similar to New Socialist, will look at the struggles of This is not to say that the official leader- the situation at Sun Peaks, where commu- Grassy Narrows activists to address these and ship of First Nations in Canada are inher- nity activists have had to negotiate a deli- other recent developments and discuss strate- ently corrupt. But it is important to note cate relationship with the official leadership gies for activists trying to work as allies to the structural factors that cause band coun- of the Shuswap Nation Tribal Council. The native, anti-colonial movements in Canada.

11 THINKING ABOUT CHINA Capitalism, socialism and class struggle

BY PAUL BURKETT AND MARTIN HART-LANDSBERG admirers of China generally treat the increasing anti-market-reform struggles of Chinese working people as disruptive and hina’s economic transformation has stunned the world. The country has threatening to China’s future. Implicit in become one of the world’s main exporters of manufactured goods and sites this perspective is the belief that there is no Cfor transnational corporate investment, while purportedly lifting hundreds positive potential for popular struggles to of millions out of poverty. As a result, analysts across a wide band of the political inform our basic conceptions of develop- spectrum have embraced China’s market reform strategy, promoting it as a model ment and policy. Another important element underlying for other countries. Disagreements over policy do exist, but they are largely about the consensus on China is the shared the appropriate sequencing and pacing of the reform process. Conservatives advo- acceptance of the nation as the primary cate a faster dismantling of barriers to the free operation of internal and external unit of analysis. In other words, individual market forces; progressives argue for caution in order to avoid a repetition of the country successes (such as China’s) are not “shock therapy” disaster in the USSR. Significantly, despite their differences over seen as organically connected to the failures the desired pace of reform, many on both right and left now share the view, based of other countries (e.g., the 1997-98 East largely on the Chinese experience, that market reforms and insertion into the global Asian crisis). Rather than combining these capitalist economy can, when properly managed, offer tremendous opportunities national experiences into a vision of capi- for achieving growth, development and poverty reduction. talism as an organic, global, unevenly developing system, the consensus approach Politically, the most crucial features of eral and militarized capitalism. However, tends to lead to a focus on unwise policies this consensus on China are its top-down both groups see China’s continued as an explanation of individual country vision of socio-economic change and ideal- modernization and democratization as failures. Presumably if all governments ized view of markets and the reform natural outcomes of the country’s market- adopted China-like policies then all process. Both left and right agree that driven economic development. This shared nations would develop. One consequence China’s development successes reflect the perspective explains why both right and left of this approach is that the capitalist system wisdom of her government leaders. This helps explain the repeated paeans to the “smartness” of the Chinese leadership. Both groups recognize that China’s rapid growth has generated economic and social problems: macroeconomic instability, rising inequality, breakdowns in the health care and educational systems (especially in rural areas), worsening environmental pollution and so on. But they tend to view these malfunctions and maladies largely as symptoms of institutional lags in the marketization process, not as organic outgrowths of marketization itself. Naturally, conservatives prefer that China modernize in the US mold and build cooperative relations with the US, while progressives more often champion China’s regional and global emergence as a welcome counterweight to US-style neolib-

Paul Burkett and Martin Hart-Landsberg are authors of China and Socialism: Market 1998 meeting where Chinese drivers voted overwhelmingly to organize an independent Reforms and Class Struggle. labour union. The government-owned firm then refused to recognize it, calling it illegal.

12 escapes critical scrutiny. share of industrial output fell from 64 but we can highlight some of its main From a Marxist perspective, these trou- percent in 1995 to 30 percent in 2002, elements. First, increased reliance on bling methodological features of the right- while the foreign enterprise share rose to 34 market and profit incentives meant a left consensus on China have a common percent; the manufacturing workforce fell greater emphasis on monetary profit and basis: the failure to take account of the by fifteen million over the same period; the loss statements in the evaluation of enter- class-exploitative and alienated roots of the real, as opposed to official, urban unem- prise efficiency. Since state enterprises were market and of market-driven development, ployment rate is now in double digits; real saddled with relatively high tax rates as well and the corollary failure to choose the side manufacturing wages declined over the last as employment, investment and employee- of working people in the class struggle and decade; the urban-rural income gap, once welfare responsibilities (pensions, housing, consider development policy from their one of the lowest, is now one of the highest health care), they appeared increasingly standpoint. Correcting this failure leads to in the world; the share of exports produced inefficient compared to private enterprises. a very different picture of China’s experi- by foreign enterprises rose from 17 percent For the same reason, private enterprises ence, one that illuminates the ongoing in 1990 to 51 percent in 2001; and the grew much faster than state enterprises. restoration of capitalism and resultant country’s dependence on exports has grown Second, the imposition of employment skyrocketing of social and ecological costs. to the point that export growth accounted “rationalization” policies in state enterprises The consensus emphasis on elite choices for 74 percent of China’s overall economic (contract labour, for example) to promote is justified in one respect: it was the growth in 2002. greater market efficiency encouraged the Communist Party leadership’s decision to The specifics of the reform dialectic shedding of workers and increased the move the country in a pro-market direc- cannot be fully developed here (see our importance of private enterprise for job tion. At the time Deng Xiao Ping book China and Socialism for an overview), growth. Third, the falling profitability of succeeded Mao Zedong there was growing worker unrest over the inefficiencies and imbalances in China’s system of production and investment. But there was no mass Anti-occupation and socialist-feminist movement seeking to solve these problems though market forces and private enter- T-SHIRTS FOR SALE prise. Rather, many peasants, workers and intellectuals, and their spokespersons in the Party, were calling for socialist renewal though more grassroots cooperative-demo- cratic decision-making in economic, politi- cal and cultural arenas. Deng and his faction of the Party were threatened by, and saw partial marketization as a safe alterna- Feminist t-shirt: front and back tive to, this response. This was not stated openly, of course. Rather, market reforms were presented as a more stable and effec- tive approach to socialist renewal than any grassroots-oriented strategy of “putting politics in command.” CHINA AND THE FREE MARKET Anti-Occupation / Anti-Imperialism t-shirt: front and back However, while it may have been a Party- elite decision to begin marketization, BOTH SHIRTS ARE NOW AVAILABLE IN BOTH “REGULAR” SIZING AS WELL AS WOMEN’S “FITTED” SIZES! market imperatives quickly became uncon- FEMINIST AND PROUD (red & white on black): “regular” sizing ❏ XS ❏ S ❏ M ❏ L ❏ XL trollable. Each stage in the reform process FEMINIST AND PROUD (red & white on black): women’s “fitted” ❏ XS ❏ S ❏ M ❏ L ❏ XL generated new tensions and contradictions END THE OCCUPATION (white & yellow on black): “regular” sizing ❏ XS ❏ S ❏ M ❏ L ❏ XL that could only be resolved (given the elite’s END THE OCCUPATION (white & yellow on black): women’s “fitted” ❏ XS ❏ S ❏ M ❏ L ❏ XL bias against worker-community centered _____Shirts @ $20.00 Cdn each = $ alternatives) through a further expansion of + $7.50 shipping (for up to two shirts) = $ 7.50 market power. The “slippery slope” of TOTAL =$ market reforms thus led to ever more Name: ______reliance on the market at the expense of Address: ______planning, and the privileging of private Contact Phone Number and/or Email: ______enterprises over state enterprises and, increasingly, of foreign enterprises and For shipping costs for orders of more than 2 t-shirts, or to arrange for pick-up markets over domestic ones. The general in Toronto, contact us via email at: [email protected] or phone: 416-955-1581. direction of the reform process is captured Please make cheques or money orders payable to New Socialist Group by the following trends: the state enterprise and mail to: Box 167 • 253 College St. • Toronto, ON • M5T 1R5

13 state enterprises led to a growing volume of and exports. Given these inexorable also mask the deteriorating situation of unpayable state enterprise debts, which dynamics, it is disingenuous for progressive working women who have borne a higher encouraged privatization of state enter- admirers of the Chinese model to confi- share of state-enterprise lay-offs and longer prises as a way for the government to dently proclaim that enlightened Party spells of unemployment compared to men, unload these debts and increase revenues. leaders will implement social welfare and as well as worsening job- and wage- Fourth, privatization encouraged greater regulatory policies capable of ameliorating discrimination, under market reforms. reliance on foreign investors, who were the human and environmental costs of Women have also suffered more than men often the only ones with sufficient financial market- and profit-driven behaviors. The from the destruction of the social safety resources to purchase the targeted state reality is that the reform process has net, which has increased their domestic enterprises. Fifth, the growing resistance of progressively eroded the motivation and workload (e.g., care-giving for children and state workers and managers to market and ability of an increasingly bourgeois Party the elderly), thereby undermining their profit driven behaviour encouraged greater elite to formulate and implement such competitive position in labour markets— state support for foreign organized produc- countervailing policies. Moreover, the accentuating their growing dependence on tion as a means to overcome this resistance. rising unemployment, economic insecurity, male incomes. The expanded and uncom- pensated domestic duties of women—a result of the reversal of progress toward socialist production relations—are completely unaccounted for in the official estimates of poverty reduction. On a practical political level, it is obvious that left agreement with the consensus on China can only have a disastrous impact on international worker solidarity. Those who admire the “smart” reform policies under- taken by China’s Party-elite are implicitly endorsing the efforts by that same elite to suppress and fragment the slowly rising tide of worker resistance to China’s capital- At present there is a population (some estimate around 200-300 million) of mostly ist restoration. Far from a wise or “realistic” unemployed rural workers who are wandering throughout China looking for work. modernization, that elite and its interna- tional supporters are on the backward- Sixth, the growing inequality and overpro- inequality, intensified exploitation, and looking side of history—the side declaring duction generated by marketization meant declining health and education conditions that “there is no alternative” to the market that exports had to take a leading role if for China’s non-wealthy majority are not and private profit as the main organizing rapid growth was to continue, and this new only inseparable from China’s economic principles of economic and cultural life. emphasis on exports naturally meant still successes; they were and are essential Insofar as such elitist thinking is posed as a greater reliance on foreign enterprises, preconditions for these successes. new “socialist realism” it can only sow especially in high-tech industries. Seventh, It is not surprising to see the World Bank confusion and suspicion among Chinese the increasing centrality of exports and and conservative economists claiming worker-community activists about the foreign investment meant that China’s massive poverty reductions on the basis of motivations of international socialists and growth increasingly depended on accession the growing percentage of China’s popula- even the meaning of socialism itself. to global trade and investment agreements, tion whose monetary incomes exceed $1 or China’s economic transformation has above all the WTO, which further intensi- $2 per day. What is shocking is that many not only come at high cost for Chinese fied market liberalization, privatization and progressives, and even some Marxists, have working people it has also intensified (as export pressures. echoed these claims. Apart from the well as benefited from) the contradictions CHINA’S NEW REALITY massive distortions in the official Chinese of capitalist development in other coun- data and the highly imperfect purchasing tries, especially in East Asia. Far from In sum, without denying the importance power conversions that underlie such simply a positive sum experience replicable of naked class interest, the key dynamic poverty reduction figures, it makes no sense by other nations, China’s increasingly driving China’s transformation was the to say that people are no longer poor, export-led growth is intensifying competi- path-dependent channeling of policy regardless of their earnings, if they no tive pressures and crisis tendencies options into pro-market, pro-capitalist longer have access to affordable housing, throughout the region. For example, directions. The results were increasing health care, pensions, and education. And China’s emergence as the leading export alienation of economic priorities from the mass disenfranchisement of workers platform for transnational capital greatly grassroots needs and capabilities, and a and peasants from these basic necessities accentuated the overproduction that was at corrosion of the state’s ability to plan and was a direct result of the break-up of the the heart of the 1997-98 East Asian crisis. direct economic activity, both of which communes and of state-enterprise employ- China’s growing export prowess is now only reinforced the growing dependence on ment reforms. driving an even more profound restructur- markets, private enterprise, foreign capital The official poverty-reduction figures ing of East Asian economic activity.

14 Chinese export successes in advanced capi- Despite intensive government under closer worker-community control, talist markets, in particular that of the US, and then extend this control to other activ- are forcing other East Asian producers out repression and ideological ities. This extension can and should be of those markets. They have responded by manipulation, Chinese workers informed by studies of past efforts at reorienting their export activity to the workers’ production control and self- production of inputs for use by export- are resisting cuts in wages, management—a history that has been oriented transnational corporations operat- suppressed or distorted by capitalist media ing in China. Thus, all of East Asia is being pensions and health benefits and mainstream social science. knitted together into a regional accumula- Socialists also need to critically engage tion regime that depends on continued ing against exploitative taxes and land grabs with existing popular struggles for China-based export success. The much by private- and government-sector capital- improved work and living conditions, even slower post-crisis growth of the erstwhile ists. Throughout East Asia, popular move- when they do not explicitly demand East Asian “miracle” countries compared to ments have prevented capitalists, their worker-community control over produc- the pre-crisis period, and the heightened governments and the IMF from shifting all tion and investment. The limits, and competitiveness pressures that are squeez- the costs of the 1997-98 crisis onto hidden revolutionary potentials, of these ing living standards throughout the region, working people and their communities. movements need to be studied and inter- suggest that this rearrangement of regional Indonesian and South Korean grassroots polated in a process linking reform strug- economic relations is incapable of promot- and labor movements continue to press for gles to structural economic transformations ing a stable process of long term develop- democratic change and its extension from that gear production, exchange and distri- ment. Meanwhile, China’s export explosion political and cultural to socio-economic bution to socially agreed upon use values was also enabled by, and has accentuated, spheres. rather than the exploitative and destructive the industrial hollowing out of the Japanese If these struggles coalesce, their ability to requirements of competitive monetary and US economies as well as the unsustain- envision and fight for human need-based accumulation. In short, far from under- able US trade deficit: the two main sources forms of regional development will be mining the relevance of Marxism, the of imbalances and potential breakdowns in greatly strengthened. In this connection, Chinese experience highlights its critical the contemporary global capitalist China’s capitalist transformation has served importance as a framework for understand- economy. ing and overcoming the dynamics of to tie Chinese and other East Asian workers ★ In short, while the search for national into common transnational investment, contemporary capitalism. development models based on national production, trade and financial networks, competitive criteria suggests that different thereby subjecting them to a common set countries can achieve China-like successes of competitive pressures. In this way, capi- WOMEN based on their simultaneous adoption of talist uneven development is creating a China-like economic policies, in reality this common ground for nationally based EDUCATE • RESIST is a fallacy of composition. China’s growth struggles to merge into a regional move- The NSG is sending at least one of has been both cause and effect of the ment from below pressing for more our women members to a week-long growing problems of FDI- [foreign direct worker-community centered economic socialist feminist school at the investment -NS] and export-led growth in relations. International Institute for Research other peripheral nations along with the Socialists inside and outside East Asia and Education (IIRE) in Amsterdam. contradictions of capitalist maturation in can assist this broadening and deepening of the US and other developed countries. worker-community struggle by demystify- This will be an opportunity to develop China’s export competitiveness should not ing all apologetic ideologies of capitalist politics, share experiences and make blind us to the fact that its rapid industrial- development, including neoliberalism and international links. ization has been part and parcel of the so-called market-socialism. This means But all this costs money. We need to uneven development and overproduction uncovering the class exploitation and alien- raise over $2000 to cover air fare, of capital on a world scale. To ignore this ation that lie at the core of marketization tuition and expenses. So we are wider dynamic is to take the global capital- and privatization policies, and debunking ist framework as a predetermined, natural the myth that there are no alternatives to asking you, our readers, to help out constraint on development visions and the market. In fact, collective/public provi- with financial donations. No contribu- policies. sion of health care, education, housing, tion is too small! Fortunately, working people in China transport, water, power, land use and many and the rest of East Asia continue to other basic services has already proved ❏ $25 ❏ $50 ❏ $100 ❏ $____ oppose attempts by their respective states more cost-effective (in terms of the rate of Please make cheques or money orders to force down their living conditions in need satisfaction per unit cost) than their payable to New Socialist and indicate order to achieve greater national competi- private- and market-based administration that it’s for the Women’s School initia- tiveness. For example, despite intensive in a broad range of circumstances. This tive, and mail to: government repression and ideological explains the deep popular opposition to Box 167 manipulation, Chinese workers are resist- privatization and marketization policies in 253 College St ing cuts in wages, pensions and health an equally broad array of national settings. Toronto, ON M5T 1R5 benefits, while Chinese peasants are fight- The challenge is to bring this public sector

15 IRAN US’s next strategic target?

BY HAMID SODEIFI AND HASSAN VARASH he terror masters in Washington seem to be getting ready to move on to their next target: Iran. TAccording to Seymour Hersh in a recent article in The New Yorker, intelligence and military officials have confirmed that Iran is the US’s “next strategic target.” In the same article Hersh goes on to say that the “administration has been conducting secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran at least since last summer.” In a speech in February, Scott Ritter, the ex-marine turned United Nations Special Commission weapons inspector, alleged that “President Bush has received and signed off on orders for an aerial attack on Iran planned for June”. The Bush administration, for its part, has made it clear that so far as Iran is concerned, it will keep all options open, ing some on the left, who obstinately refuse including military attack. In recent to accept this proposition despite the months, the US government has ratcheted written declarations to its effect by those in continued, “is a determinant of well being, up its smear campaign against Iran in an charge of the US government at the highest of national security, and international unimaginative repeat—down to charges of levels . power for those who possess this vital assisting international terrorists and pursuit The invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, resource, and the converse for those who of Weapons of Mass Destruction and the situation in Lebanon, Syria and do not”. (WMD)—of the lead up to the Iraq war. Iran today can only be properly understood From the vantage point of the Neo-cons Could they really be serious? After all, as in this broader context. Central to this in charge of the White House and the Bush himself put it recently, “Iran is not strategy is securing control of the richest Pentagon, there is an historic opportunity Iraq” and the Americans are already having deposits of carbon fuel in the globe—the to cement the faith of the 21st century in serious difficulties in Iraq. most important source of primary favour of the US if it can take advantage of MIDDLE EAST AND PAX AMERICANA energy—both to satisfy the US’s own its absolute military superiority to wrest energy requirements and, more impor- control of the vast energy resources of the As hard as it may seem at first sight, tantly, to control the flow of oil and natural Middle East and Central Asia (as well as given the idiocy of their mascot George gas to its allies and adversaries. Two-thirds other parts of the world, of course). This Bush, the Neo-cons in charge of the of the known reserves of oil in the world has been the guiding principle of White current US administration have always had are in the Middle East, with potentially House foreign policy for the last four years a very coherent plan for the Middle East. another ten percent in the Caspian region. and will remain so for the next four. The steps taken so far—invasion of Middle Eastern countries also sit atop an To seize this rich source of power and Afghanistan and Iraq—were not taken enormous reserve of natural gas, increas- profit, the Neo-cons in Washington have arbitrarily, nor were they responses to ingly an important source of primary undertaken to control the region directly, external imperatives like support for terror- energy. by establishing a large permanent military ism by these countries or threats posed by As Robert Ebel of the Center for force in its heart. This, of course, is at once them to the US. They were deliberate Strategic and International Studies put it to the continuation and escalation of over 25 moves designed to ensure the hegemony of a State Department audience: “oil fuels years of US policy in the region—ever the American empire into the 21st century. military power, national treasuries, and since the Carter Doctrine, shortly after the There are many people in the West, includ- international politics.” Petroleum, he fall of the Shah of Iran, established that the US considers access to the Gulf oil of “vital Hamid Sodeifi is an editorial associate of New Socialist. Hassan Varash is author of Nationalism interest” to its national security. As former and Islam in Contemporary Iraq. US President Carter put it, the US will use

16 “any means necessary, including military force”, to keep the Gulf oil flowing. The US Central Command (Centcom) was formed specifically to guarantee this flow of oil. Centcom Commanders have been very clear about their mandate over the years. Consider, for instance, the testimony of Centcom commander-in-chief General Binford Peay III to the US House subcom- mittee in 1997: “With over 65 percent of the world’s oil reserves located in the Gulf states of the region—from which the United States WWW.SPIEGEL.DE imports nearly 20 percent of its needs; Western Europe, 43 percent; and Japan 68 percent—the international community must have free and unfettered access to the region’s resources.” [Any disruptions in the flow of oil] “would intensify the volatility Anti-American mural artwork in Iran. of the world oil market [and] precipitate economic calamity for the developed and US (and Israeli) interests. Their success in in Iraq and take control of Iraqi oil; and developing world alike.” Iraq has only whetted their appetite for the they’ve done just that. And to top it all, The Carter Doctrine, however, could not most important piece in the puzzle: Iran. they have won themselves another four be fully implemented so long as the Soviet SUCCESS IN IRAQ? years in office. Union could keep the US plans in check. There were, of course, mistakes made Shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union, Before turning to Iran, it may be neces- along the way, both political and military, Bush senior and Centcom commander-in- sary to clarify the matter of “success” in and lessons to be learned. There remain, as chief Norman Schwarzkopf executed the Iraq. Surely, with the increasing death toll, well, significant challenges for them in first Gulf War against Iraq. Despite the lack of access to basic services and generally Iraq, such as securing the Iraqi pipelines. insistence of the Neo-cons at that time to miserable conditions for most Iraqis, lack The Neo-cons do not deny this. Indeed, the contrary, however, the US government of security and jobs, the continuing occu- they will use the lessons of the Iraqi occu- decided against direct occupation of Iraq pation and the sham elections, we cannot pation when it comes to Iran. after the first Gulf War. The second Gulf refer to Iraq as a “success”. But the Neo- With its massive energy resources and War, so far as the Neo-cons are concerned, cons were never interested in the well-being critical geo-strategic position, an obedient merely completed what should have been of Iraqis or a truly democratic outcome. To Iran is vital to the success of the Neo-cons’ done a decade earlier. This is why they were believe otherwise is to fall into the trap of plans. Conversely, they see a strong, poten- tially nuclear, Iran, with the ability to control the Strait of Hormoz and the Only one country has demonstrated the Persian Gulf and act as a regional power as a most undesirable outcome for both the barbarity to use nuclear weapons against a US and Israel. The fact is that the Neo- cons, under the direction of Douglas Feith, civilian population; not once but twice. That have been exploring potential military options against Iran for some time. The country is the United States. recent hype about Iran’s nuclear energy is merely the smokescreen to justify a poten- tial attack. Let’s remember, when there is so eager to invade Iraq from the beginning White House propaganda. The Neo-cons concern about nuclear arms in the hands of and were not going to be deterred either by were successful because despite the dire “uncivilized” nations, with its typically facts that disputed their claims about warnings before the invasion of Iraq about racist overtones, that only one country has supposed terrorist connections and the an Arab uprising throughout the region, demonstrated the barbarity to use nuclear existence of WMDs, or by international potentially leading to the fall of pro-US weapons against a civilian population; not law. The stakes were simply too high and regimes, no such thing happened. They once but twice. That country is the United the US too powerful to worry about any were successful because the fears of States. More recently, the Neo-cons have kind of opposition. irreparable damage to the US’s relations been toying with the idea of developing But the Neo-cons plans do not end with with its allies, especially the Europeans, “tactical nuclear weapons” to be used in Iraq. They always saw the invasion of Iraq proved to have been greatly exaggerated. their “theaters of war”. The Neo-cons’ as part of a broader strategy to reshape the They were successful because they had set anxiety is not so much about proliferation entire Middle East in line with long-term out to establish a permanent military force of nuclear weapons as it is with the mainte-

17 the world”. They also categorically reject the underlying assumptions of the Neo- cons and believe that an attack against Iran would have serious negative repercussions for the US. Instead, they propose to engage “selectively with Iran to promote regional stability, dissuade Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons, preserve reliable energy supplies, [and] reduce the threat of terror.” This section of the American ruling class is in constant struggle against the Neo-cons over a whole host of issues in its quest for hegemony in the US. The European states, while not necessar- ily opposed, at least at the moment, to let the US play the role of global cop on behalf of international capital, are nonetheless suspicious of the Bush administration’s unilateralism and military adventures in the region. They depend on the Middle East for much of their oil requirements and have, as well, a great deal of other trade and nance of overwhelming military balance of attacks against Israeli positions. economic interests in the region. Their power which certain weapons technologies An attack on Iran may thus have to be insistence on pursuing diplomatic options (such as nukes) affords them. postponed until Lebanon and Syria are is motivated primarily by these considera- They are thus deadly serious about dealt with. Indeed, Syria may have moved tions. keeping Iran out of the nuclear weapons higher up in the Neo-cons’ plan of attack as To make the situation even more game and will do whatever they see fit to a result. But the success of US/Israeli plans complex, the Chinese and the Indian make sure that it does not obtain them. in Lebanon and Syria itself depends to a governments have recently signed major oil One possible scenario under consideration large extent on subduing Iran and, no less and natural gas deals with Iran, frustrating by the Neo-cons is to attack a selected importantly, on getting the approval of Washington’s plan for control of energy number of targets in Iran, including mili- Russia. Russia, for its part, has made it clear supplies and submission of Iran through tary and nuclear energy sites. Aside from that it will not agree to a US or Israeli sanctions. The Neo-cons are thus stuck in a the obvious military benefits, the Neo-cons attack against Syria, symbolized by its difficult place. Their vision of global domi- hope that such an attack will initiate a refusal to halt the delivery of mobile anti- nation necessitates control of energy flows popular uprising against the much-disliked aircraft missiles to Syria, as demanded by from the Persian Gulf and the Caspian theocratic government of Iran. The Israel. regions. This, in turn, requires that Iran be problem, however, as the Neo-cons see it, is More troubling, so far as the Neo-cons brought into their orbit of direct influence. the potential for asymmetrical response by are concerned, is that none of their war Yet, the options for achieving this are, at Iran through its network of supporters in games against Iran have produced satisfac- the moment, limited. They lack any real the region (including in Iraq) against US tory results despite their ability to attack it organization in Iran and their simulated and Israeli interests. Lebanon is of particu- from the east, west and south now that they war games have produced disastrous lar concern given the influence of Iran have control of Afghanistan, Iraq and the results. To top it all, they face strong oppo- there through groups like Hezballah. Persian Gulf. Moreover, the idea that an sition in the US itself and internationally. Hence, the recent developments in attack against Iranian targets, including This is why they seem to have backed off Lebanon may be closely linked to possible nuclear energy facilities, would result in an from their belligerent stance by accepting plans for attacks against Iran (and Syria). uprising against the Iranian government is the European’s proposed course of action to By creating an international incident the subject of ridicule by more serious contain Iran’s nuclear technology through a (murder of Hariri), purportedly committed analysts in the US and globally. series of so-called incentives, such as admis- by the Syrian regime, the Israeli and US In the US, a powerful and influential sion to the World Trade Organization. governments hope to force the removal of wing of the American ruling class, with a In the short run, therefore, a US attack Syria from Lebanon, making it easier for multi-lateralist outlook, has been arguing against Iran seems unlikely. That said, we Israeli backed forces to take control and in favour of “a new approach” toward Iran should remain vigilant, as the Neo-cons are subdue militant Islamists and pro- by recognizing that the US “unilateralist a vicious bunch of ideologues whose Palestinian forces. This will not only sanctions has not succeeded in its stated actions are not necessarily guided by achieve a long-standing policy objective of objective.” Instead, they argue, by denying rational analysis. They may yet take a the Israeli state vis-à-vis Lebanon but also Washington greater leverage vis-à-vis the gamble on Iran which, regardless of the reduce the possibility of pro-Iranian forces Iranian government, this policy has outcome, will cost tens of thousands of using Lebanon as a staging ground for harmed US “interests in a critical region of lives. ★

18 FEATURE: MARXISM AND RELIGION Opiate of the people?

The Marxist view of religion has been greatly over-simplified, typically identified with the well-worn refrain that it’s the “opiate of the people.” In this article, MICHAEL LÖWY challenges this misconception, and pres- ents us with a richly nuanced view of Marxism and religion.

s religion still, as Marx and Engels saw it in The expression appeared shortly after- the nineteenth century, a bulwark of reac- wards in Marx’s article on the German Ition, obscurantism and conservatism? To a philosopher Hegel’s Philosophy of Right large extent, the answer is yes. Their view still (1844). An attentive reading of the para- applies to many Catholic institutions, to the graph where this phrase appears, reveals that fundamentalist currents of the main confes- it is more qualified and less one-sided than sions (Christian, Jewish or Muslim), to most usually believed. Although obviously critical evangelical groups (and their expression in the of religion, Marx takes into account the dual so-called “Electronic Church”) and to the character of the phenomenon: “Religious majority of the new religious sects—some of distress is at the same time the expression of which, such as the notorious Moon Church, real distress and the protest against real are nothing but a skilful combination of finan- distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed cial manipulations, obscurantist brain- creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as washing and fanatical anti-communism. it is the spirit of an unspiritual situation. It is However, the emergence of revolutionary the opiate of the people.” Marx’s phrase, “Religion is the If one reads the whole essay, it appears Christianity and Liberation Theology in Latin opiate of the people,” is often America (and elsewhere) opens a new histori- cited. Less often quoted is his clearly that Marx’s viewpoint owes more to cal chapter and raises exciting new questions starting point: “Religion is the sigh left neo-Hegelianism, which saw religion as which cannot be answered without a renewal of the oppressed... the heart of a the alienation of the human essence, than to of the Marxist analysis of religion, the subject heartless world, and the soul of Enlightenment philosophy, which simply of this article. soulless conditions.” denounced it as a clerical conspiracy. In fact when Marx wrote the above passage he was THE WELL-KNOWN PHRASE “RELIGION IS THE still a disciple of Feuerbach, and a neo- opiate of the people” is considered as the quintessence of the Hegelian. His analysis of religion was therefore “pre-Marxist,” Marxist conception of the religious phenomenon by most of its without any class reference, and rather ahistorical. But it had a supporters and its opponents. How far is this an accurate view- dialectical quality, grasping the contradictory character of the point? First of all, one should emphasize that this statement is religious “distress”: both a legitimation of existing conditions not at all specifically Marxist. The same phrase can be found, in and a protest against it. various contexts, in the writings of German philosophers Kant, It was only later, particularly in The German Ideology (1846), Herder, Feuerbach, Bruno Bauer, Moses Hess and Heinrich that the proper Marxist study of religion as a social and histori- Heine. For instance, in his essay on Ludwig Börne (1840), cal reality began. The key element of this new method for the Heine already uses it—in a rather positive (although ironical) analysis of religion is to approach it as one of the many forms way: “Welcome be a religion that pours into the bitter chalice of ideology—i.e. of the spiritual production of a people, of the of the suffering human species some sweet, soporific drops of production of ideas, representations and consciousness, neces- spiritual opium, some drops of love, hope and faith”. Moses sarily conditioned by material production and the correspon- Hess, in his essays published in Switzerland in 1843, takes a ding social relations. Although he uses from time to time the more critical (but still ambiguous) stand: “Religion can make concept of “reflection”—which will lead several generations of bearable...the unhappy consciousness of serfdom...in the same Marxists into a sterile side-track—the key idea of the book is way as opium is of good help in painful diseases.” the need to explain the genesis and development of the various forms of consciousness (religion, ethics, philosophy, etc) by the Michael Löwy is a member of the Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire social relations, “by which means, of course, the whole thing (LCR) in France and author of many books, including The War of can be depicted in its totality (and therefore, too, the reciprocal Gods: Religion and Politics in Latin America. action of these various sides on one another).”

19 After writing, with Engels, The German Mammon, the Golden Calf and, of Ideology, Marx paid very little attention to course, the concept of “fetish” itself. But religion as such, i.e. as a specific this language has rather a metaphorical cultural/ideological universe of meaning. than a substantial meaning in terms of One can find, however, in the first volume the sociology of religion. of Capital, some interesting methodologi- cal remarks; for instance, the well-known ENGELS DISPLAYED A MUCH GREATER footnote where he answers to the argu- interest than Marx for religious phenom- ment according to which the importance ena and their historic role. Engels’s main of politics in the Ancient times, and of contribution to the Marxist study of reli- religion in the Middle-Age reveal the inad- gions is his analysis of the relationship of equacy of the materialist interpretation of religious representations to class struggle. history: “Neither could the Middle-Age Over and beyond the philosophical live from Catholicism, nor Antiquity from polemic of “materialism against ideal- politics. The respective economic condi- Engels recognized a dual character of ism,” he was interested in understanding tions explain, in fact, why Catholicism religion: its role in legitimating and explaining concrete social and histor- there and politics here played the dominant established order, but also its critical, ical forms of religion. Christianity no role.” Marx will never bother to provide the protesting and even revolutionary role. longer appeared (like in Feuerbach) as a economic reasons for the importance of timeless “essence,” but as a cultural system medieval religion, but this passage is quite undergoing transformations in different important, because it acknowledges that, under certain histori- historical periods: first as a religion of the slaves, later as the cal circumstances, religion can indeed play a decisive role in the state ideology of the Roman Empire, then tailored to feudal life of a society. hierarchy and finally adapted to bourgeois society. It thus appears as a symbolic space fought over by antagonistic social IN SPITE OF HIS GENERAL LACK OF INTEREST FOR RELIGION, forces—for instance, in the sixteenth century, feudal theology, Marx paid attention to the relationship between Protestantism bourgeois Protestantism and plebeian heresies. and capitalism. Several passages in Capital make reference to Occasionally his analysis slips towards a narrowly utilitarian, the contribution of Protestantism to the early emergence of instrumental interpretation of religious movements: “each of capitalism—for instance by stimulating the expropriation of the different classes uses its own appropriate religion... and it Church property and communal pastures. In the Grundrisse he makes little difference whether these gentlemen believe in their makes—half a century before German sociologist Max Weber’s respective religions or not.” famous essay The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Engels seems to find Capitalism!—the following nothing but the “religious illuminating comment on the Under certain historical disguise” of class interests in intimate association between the different forms of belief. Protestantism and capitalism: circumstances, religion can play However, thanks to his class- “The cult of money has its struggle method, he realized— asceticism, its self-denial, its a decisive role in the life unlike the Enlightenment self-sacrifice—economy and of a society. philosophers—that the clergy frugality, contempt for was not a socially homoge- mundane, temporal and fleet- neous body: in certain histori- ing pleasures; the chase after cal conjunctures, it divided the eternal treasure. Hence the connection between English itself according to its class Puritanism or Dutch Protestantism and money-making.” The composition. Thus during the Reformation, we have on the one parallel (but not identity!) with Weber’s thesis is astonishing— side the high clergy, the feudal summit of the hierarchy, and on the more so since Weber could not have read this passage (the the other, the lower clergy, which supplied the ideologues of the Grundrisse was published for the first time in 1940). Reformation and of the revolutionary peasant movement. On the other hand, Marx often referred to capitalism as a While being a materialist, an atheist and an irreconcilable “religion of daily life” based on the fetishism of commodities. enemy of religion, Engels nevertheless grasped, like the young He described capital as “a Moloch that requires the whole Marx, the dual character of the phenomenon: its role in legiti- world as a due sacrifice,” and capitalist progress as a mating established order, but also, according to social circum- “monstrous pagan god, that only wanted to drink nectar in the stances, its critical, protesting and even revolutionary role. skulls of the dead.” His critique of political economy is Furthermore, most of the concrete studies he wrote concerned peppered with frequent references to idolatry: Baal, Moloch, the rebellious forms of religion.

20 The struggle between FIRST OF ALL, HE WAS INTERESTED IN century, wanted the immediate estab- primitive Christianity, which he materialism and religion lishment on earth of the Kingdom of defined as the religion of the poor, the God, the millenarian Kingdom of the banished, the damned, the persecuted does not necessarily prophets. According to Engels, the and oppressed. The first Christians Kingdom of God for Münzer was a came from the lowest levels of society: correspond to the war society without class differences, slaves, free people who had been private property and state authority deprived of their rights and small peas- between revolution and independent of, or foreign to, the ants who were crippled by debts. He members of that society. However, even went so far as to draw an aston- counter-revolution, Engels was still tempted to reduce reli- ishing parallel between this primitive gion to a stratagem: he spoke of Christianity and modern socialism: a) progress and regression, Münzer’s Christian “phraseology” and the two great movements are not the his biblical “cloak.” The specifically creation of leaders and prophets— liberty and despotism, religious dimension of Münzerian although prophets are never in short millenarianism, its spiritual and moral supply in either of them—but are mass oppressed and ruling force, its authentically experienced movements; b) both are movements of mystical depth, seem to have eluded the oppressed, suffering persecution, classes. him. their members are proscribed and Engels does not hide his admiration hunted down by the ruling authorities; for the German Chiliastic prophet, c) both preach an imminent liberation from slavery and misery. whose ideas he describes as “quasi-communist” and “religious To embellish his comparison Engels, somewhat provocatively, revolutionary”: they were less a synthesis of the plebeian quoted a saying of the French historian Renan: “If you want to demands from those times than “a brilliant anticipation” of get an idea of what the first Christian communities where like, future proletarian emancipatory aims. This anticipatory and take a look at a local branch of the International Workingmen’s utopian dimension of religion—not to be explained in terms of Association” (the multi-national network of working-class the “reflection theory”—is not further explored by Engels but is organizations formed in 1864, also known as the First intensely and richly worked out (as we shall see later) by Ernst International). Bloch. According to Engels, the parallel between socialism and early The last revolutionary movement that was waged under the Christianity is present in all movements that dream, through- banner of religion was, according to Engels, the English Puritan out the centuries, to restore the primitive Christian religion— movement of the 17th century. If religion, and not materialism, from the Taborites of John Zizka and the anabaptists of Thomas furnished the ideology of this revolution, it is because of the Münzer to (after 1830) the politically reactionary nature French revolutionary com- of this philosophy in munists and the partisans of England, represented by the German utopian com- Hobbes and other partisans munist Wilhelm Weitling. of royal absolutism. In There remains, however, in contrast to this conservative the eyes of Engels, an essen- materialism and deism, the tial difference between the Protestant sects gave to the two movements: the primi- war against the Stuart royalty tive Christians transposed its religious banner and its deliverance to the hereafter fighters. whereas socialism places it in This analysis is quite inter- this world. esting: breaking with the But is this difference as linear vision of history inher- clear-cut as it appears at first ited from the Enlighten- sight? In his study of the ment, Engels acknowledges great peasant wars in that the struggle between Germany it seems to become A Stalinist anti-religious propaganda poster produced in the materialism and religion blurred: Thomas Münzer, Soviet Union by Cherepukhin in 1930. The text reads: “The road does not necessarily corre- the theologian and leader of to colonial oppression by capitalism and imperialism is paved by spond to the war between the revolutionary peasants priests and missionaries assisted by the poisonous narcotic of revolution and counter- and heretic (anabaptist) religion.” Labels on gas canisters: “Poison gas narcotic of revolution, progress and plebeians of the 16th religion.” regression, liberty and

21 Instead of waging a despotism, oppressed and ruling Church (like Basil the Great classes. In this precise case, the philosophical battle in the and John Chrysostom) relation is exactly the opposite denounced social injustice. one: revolutionary religion Today this cause is taken up by against absolutist materialism. name of materialism, Rosa the socialist movement which Engels was convinced that brings to the poor the Gospel of since the French Revolution, reli- Luxemburg tried to rescue fraternity and equality, and calls gion could no more function as a on the people to establish on revolutionary ideology, and he the social dimension of the earth the Kingdom of freedom was surprised when French and and neighbour-love. Instead of German communists such as waging a philosophical battle in Cabet or Weitling would claim Christian tradition for the the name of materialism, Rosa that “Christianity is Com- Luxemburg tried to rescue the munism.” He could not predict labour movement. social dimension of the liberation theology, but, thanks Christian tradition for the to his analysis of religious labour movement. phenomena from the viewpoint of class struggle, he brought out the protest potential of religion ERNST BLOCH IS THE FIRST MARXIST AUTHOR WHO RADICALLY and opened the way for a new approach—distinct both from changed the theoretical framework—without abandoning the Enlightenment philosophy (religion as a clerical conspiracy) and Marxist and revolutionary perspective. In a similar way to from German neo-Hegelianism (religion as alienated human Engels, he distinguished two socially opposed currents: on one essence)—to the relationship between religion and society. side the theocratic religion of the official churches, the opium of the people, a mystifying apparatus at the service of the MANY MARXISTS IN THE EUROPEAN LABOUR MOVEMENT WERE powerful; on the other the underground, subversive and hereti- radically hostile to religion but believed that the atheistic battle cal religion of the Albigensians, the Hussites, Joachim de Flore, against religious ideology must be subordinated to the concrete Thomas Münzer, Franz von Baader, Wilhelm Weitling and Leo necessities of the class struggle, which demands unity between Tolstoy. However, unlike Engels, Bloch refused to see religion workers who believe in God and those who do not. Lenin uniquely as a “cloak” of class interests: he explicitly criticized himself, who very often denounced religion as a “mystical fog,” this conception. In its protest and rebellious forms religion is insisted in his article “Socialism and Religion” (1905) that one of the most significant forms of utopian consciousness, one atheism should not be part of the party’s programme because of the richest expressions of the Principle of Hope. “unity in the really revolutionary struggle of the oppressed class Basing himself on these philosophical presuppositions, Bloch for creation of a paradise on earth is more important to us than develops a heterodox and iconoclastic interpretation of the unity of proletarian opinion on paradise in heaven.” Bible—both the Old and the New Testaments—drawing out Rosa Luxemburg shared this strategy, but she developed a the Biblia pauperum (bible of the poor) which denounces the different and original approach. Although a staunch atheist Pharaohs and calls on each and everyone to choose either herself, she attacked in her writings less religion as such than the Caesar or Christ. reactionary policy of the Church in the name of its own tradi- A religious atheist—according to him only an atheist can be tion. In an essay written in 1905 (“Church and Socialism”) she a good Christian and vice-versa—and a theologian of the revo- claimed that modern socialists are more faithful to the original lution, Bloch not only produced a Marxist reading of millenar- principles of Christianity than the conser- ianism (following Engels) but also—and vative clergy of today. Since the socialists this was new—a millenarian interpretation struggle for a social order of equality, of Marxism, through which the socialist freedom and fraternity, the priests, if they struggle for the Kingdom of Freedom is honestly wanted to implement in the life perceived as the direct heir of the eschato- of humanity the Christian principle “love logical and collectivist heresies of the past. thy neighbour as thyself,” should Of course Bloch, like the young Marx of welcome the socialist movement. When the famous 1844 quotation, recognized the clergy support the rich, and those the dual character of the religious who exploit and oppress the poor, they phenomenon, its oppressive aspect as well are in explicit contradiction with as its potential for revolt. The first requires Christian teachings: they do serve not the use of what he calls “the cold stream of Christ but the Golden Calf. The first Marxism”: the relentless materialist analy- apostles of Christianity were passionate Ernst Bloch did not view religion simply sis of ideologies, idols and idolatries. The communists and the Fathers of the as a “cloak of class interests”. second one however requires “the warm

22 One of the key criteria for stream of Marxism,” seeking to the 1930s, the worker priests rescue religion’s utopian cultural judging the progressive or of the 1940s, the left-wing surplus, its critical and anticipatory of the Christian unions in force. Beyond any “dialogue,” Bloch regressive character of religious the 1950s, etc. dreamt of an authentic union But to understand what between Christianity and revolu- movements is their attitude has been happening for the tion, like the one which came into last thirty years in Latin being during the Peasant Wars of America (and to a lesser the 16th century. towards women, and extent also in other conti- nents) around the issue of BLOCH’S VIEWS WERE, TO A CERTAIN particularly on their right to Liberation Theology we EXTENT, SHARED BY SOME of the need to integrate into our German radical scholars known as control their own bodies: analysis the insights of the Frankfurt School. Max Bloch and Goldmann on Horkheimer considered that “reli- divorce, contraception, the utopian potential of the gion is the record of the wishes, Judeo-Christian tradition. nostalgias and indictments of What is sorely lacking in countless generations.” Erich abortion these “classical” Marxist Fromm, in his book The Dogma of discussions on religion is a Christ (1930), used Marxism and discussion of the implica- psychoanalysis to illuminate the Messianic, plebeian, egalitarian tions of religious doctrines and practices for women. and anti-authoritarian essence of primitive Christianity. And Patriarchy, unequal treatment of women, and the denial of the writer Walter Benjamin tried to combine, in a unique and reproductive rights prevail among the main religious denomi- original synthesis, theology and Marxism, Jewish Messianism nations – particularly Judaism, Christianity and Islam – and and historical materialism, class struggle and redemption. take extremely oppressive forms among fundamentalist Lucien Goldmann’s work The Hidden God (1955) is another currents. In fact, one of the key criteria for judging the progres- path-breaking attempt at renewing the Marxist study of reli- sive or regressive character of religious movements is their atti- gion. Although of a very different inspiration than Bloch, he tude towards women, and particularly on their right to control was also interested in redeeming the moral and human value of their own bodies: divorce, contraception, abortion. A renewal religious tradition. The most surprising and original part of his of Marxist reflection on religion in the twenty-first century book is the attempt to compare—without assimilating one to requires us to put the issue of women’s rights at the center of another—religious faith and Marxist faith: both have in the argument. ★ common the refusal of pure individualism (rationalist or empiricist) and the belief in trans-individual values: God for religion, the human community for socialism. In both cases the faith is based on a wager—the wager on the existence of God and the Marxist wager on the liberation of humanity—that presupposes risk, the danger of failure and the hope of success. Both imply some fundamental belief which is not demonstrable on the exclusive level of factual judgements. What separates them is of course the suprahistorical character of religious tran- scendence: “The Marxist faith is a faith in the historical future that human beings themselves make, or rather that we must make by our activity, a ‘wager’ in the success of our actions; the transcendence that is the object of this faith is neither super- natural nor transhistorical, but supra-individual, nothing more but also nothing less.” Without wanting in any way to “Christianize Marxism,” Lucien Goldmann introduced, thanks to the concept of faith, a new way of looking at the conflictual relationship between religious belief and Marxist atheism. Marx and Engels thought religion’s subversive role was a thing of the past, which no longer had any significance in the epoch of modern class struggle. This forecast was more or less historically confirmed for a century – with a few important exceptions (particularly in France): the Christian socialists of

23 RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISM: US STYLE Before and after 9/11 BY DIANNE FEELEY In the cultural upheaval of the 1960s and ‘70s, while millions of Americans opposed war and marched for desegrega- tion and women’s right to full equality, many others found inspiration in the certainties of their Christian faith. By 1976 a Gallup Poll found one-third of all Americans had experienced a conversion, or a process of being “born again.” The same poll found about half of all Protestants and about a third of all Catholics believed that the Bible was “to be taken literally, word for word.” According to Steve Bruce in “Pray TV: Televangelism in America”, almost 60% of Protestants and 40% of Catholics were evangelical, that is, eager to recruit others to their beliefs. This evangelicalism is not just limited to the printed word, but has led to the establishment of Christian radio and Massive evangelical gatherings for men, such as those organized by the Promise Keepers, TV, much of which is controlled by the are aimed at upholding patriarchal relationships of men as the “heads of households”, while many in the Christian Right claim that these gatherings challenge sexism and Christian right. In 1986 three of the top racism. eleven Christian shows were hosted by the right-wing evangelicals: Pat Robertson’s 700 Club, Jerry Falwell’s The Old Time In fact, some of these women have trials or the battles over slavery and Gospel Hour and Jim Bakker’s show. created their own niche in the anti-abor- women’s rights without studying the devel- A survey conducted in the late ‘80s tion movement. “Silent No More” groups opment of US Protestantism. Over the found that among the “baby boomer” began to emulate pro-choice speakouts by course of the 19th century dominant US generation (people born between 1946-63) testifying about abortions they now regret. Christian religions replaced the Calvinist one-third accepted the biblical version of At one recent public event there was a notion of the sinner being helpless before creation over evolution and agreed that display of baby shoes labeled with the God and predetermined for either good- “temptations are the work of the devil.” names of the unborn. These women have ness or evil, with one in which individual Most considered themselves “moderate” also testified at various public hearings choice was central. The individual could but 13% classified themselves as “funda- against abortion and claim it is a dangerous choose to respond to God’s plan of salva- mentalists.” It is this latter grouping that is procedure that can lead to cancer. When tion by adjusting to social change rather the cohesive core we can identify as the reporters point out that no scientific proof than fighting to preserve the old ways. Christian right. supports this assertion they reply that the With few possessions and one’s Bible, “Born again” Christians face the same scientific “establishment” can’t tell the youth would leave the family farm and stress and conflicts and are immersed in the truth because of the liberal stranglehold head for new opportunities. In this new same culture as the rest of us. In fact, evan- over society! world hard work and thrift would lead to gelicals have a slightly higher divorce rate success and therefore good standing in the than the general population. And although CULTURAL UPHEAVAL AND US PROTESTANTISM eyes of God. The reality, of course, was far the religious right opposes abortion under more complex. Indeed, alcoholism became any circumstance, one out of six women Throughout US history important social a widespread social problem as the growing who have an abortion considers herself a tensions have played out through religion. work force attempted to adjust to the new “born again” Christian. One cannot understand the Salem witch rhythms of industrial and urban life. By the late 19th century a new form of Dianne Feeley is an editor of the bi-monthly socialist magazine, Against the Current, and a member of US socialist group Solidarity. Protestantism arose: fundamentalism. Its roots were in the populist movement but it,

24 like many 19th century populists, quickly gelicals are undoubtedly a less supportive ered by inequalities of wealth and power. became conservative. This brand of conser- subculture for the Christian Right than the The Bush administration has attempted to vative Protestantism proudly defined God’s more fundamental evangelical ones. alter domestic government programs that chosen people as white Anglo-Saxons. aid poor or low-wage working families by WHAT THE CHRISTIAN RIGHT WANTS Early fundamentalist preachers such as funding “faith-based” solutions to various Billy Sunday were convinced that Christian fundamentalists are backed by social problems. This has enabled the American social and political structures a whole range of institutions and organiza- administration to privatize services, reward were superior because they had been built tions, from private schools and home its conservative religious base, reach out to by God’s chosen people. Thus fundamen- schooling networks to Bible Institutes, other church-based programs and hook talism justified imperialism. colleges, radio and TV programs, publish- them into the network as well as fund Along with the even greater emphasis on ing houses and legal centers dedicated to particular right-wing approaches to social reading the Bible, fundamentalists have advancing a conservative agenda. (Note: issues. Sexual education programs advocate been preoccupied with pinpointing the end Home schooling is not just a project of the abstinence. After-school reading and math of the world. There are a variety of opin- fundamentalists, but they have built a programs teach specific skills that reflect ions about when and how Christ’s second network of fundamentalist educational the kinds of tests the “No Child Left coming will occur, but most believe God materials that reinforce their specific Behind” legislation mandates. And the has divided human history into several views.) The Christian Right demands “faith-based” programs successfully ages, or “dispensations.” According to this society accept and conform to its notion of compete with the community-service line of thinking, we are living in the final what it means to be a good family and a programs that already have a proven track stage, where current events like earth- good citizen in God’s kingdom. It is a record in terms of social service provision. quakes, tornadoes, floods, wars, political social, political and religious movement According to Sara Diamond, who has crises and social decay are all warnings from that wants the government to regulate and followed the evangelical Right for years, the God. Indeed, both the establishment of the maintain traditional hierarchical relations Christian Right can be considered partly state of Israel in 1948 and the 1967 Six- oppositional and partly system-supportive. Day War, in which Israel seized East It is oppositional to mass culture, which Jerusalem and the West Bank, are viewed as explains why the United States has such signs that the end is near. For that reason sharp culture wars. But it glorifies most US fundamentalist Christians are America’s past and more or less supports its staunchly pro-Zionist. present economic system. However, even Since the 1950s the more moderate though it “accepts” that America and its Protestant denominations have declined as social institutions are good, this provincial the theologically conservative ones grew nationalism does not coincide with dramatically. Part of the reason for this Corporate America’s globalization project continuous growth of fundamentalism is —even if Christian fundamentalist support its aggressive proselytizing, and its claims to to Israel reinforces US policy in the Middle have answers to both the alienation, isola- East. Thus there is an inherent contradic- tion and commodification in modern capi- tion in its alliance with the Republican talist society, as well as the changing role of Party. the family. Within the fundamentalist According to the Christian Right, one of community there are supportive institu- the big problems in society today is a lack tions in which one’s family can flourish safe of religion. In 1980 Tim LaHaye, a from the chaos and conflict outside. This founder of the Moral Majority, published siege mentality fuels political activism and The Battle for the Mind. Widely circulated, is driven by the need to accomplish one’s this book explains that there is a vast work before the millennium brings such conspiracy involving Hollywood movie possibilities to a close. Fundamentalists producers, Unitarian churches, the view themselves as a beleaguered group American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), under attack by the establishment, who between men and women and between the National Organization for Women stands before them as a Goliath in opposi- parents and children. It sees the role of the (NOW) and the National Association for tion to their role as David. state as enforcer of “moral” (read: sexual) the Advancement of Colored People The specific evangelical churches that are behavior. That’s why the right of homosex- (NAACP). From a Christian right perspec- the fastest growing are the ones which are uals to marry represents to them the begin- tive, these opinion-shapers are out to harm the most adaptive, with worship services ning of the end of society. They ask, “what Bible believers because they deny God’s that use popular rock music, have casual next? Polygamy? Bestiality?” sovereignty. That is, moral conditions dress codes and cater to youth, newlyweds Yet, from this perspective, poverty is seen become worse because of people’s attempts and singles. Mark Shibley, a sociologist of not as a moral issue but as the result of to solve their problems independently of religion, concluded that these are growing individual bad luck or bad behavior. God. Ultimately, it is the “secular human- because they have become more like the Because the Christian Right views hierar- ists” who are causing the problem. surrounding culture, not less. These evan- chy as natural and positive, it is not both- To fix the problems of society, then,

25 Emotionally-charged ceremonies mobilize the constituency of the Christian Right.

requires the “moral majority” getting However the local skirmishes had impor- developed the tactic of deploying “sidewalk involved in the electoral process and taking tant national repercussions. These included counselors”—people who would attempt charge, either as candidates or as workers defeat of the federal Equal Rights to convince any woman walking into the assisting the right kind of candidate. The Amendment, where only 35 out of the clinic not to have an abortion. But with the Christian Right first developed several necessary 38 states ratified the amendment founding of Operation Rescue in 1986 by single-issue campaigns against the Equal before the deadline, as well as hundreds of Randall Terry, a graduate of the Pentecostal Rights Amendment and against the liberal- legislative restrictions on abortion. Elim Bible Institute and a used car sales- ization of abortion. It also developed a man, Catholic dominance of the anti-abor- ANTI-ABORTION ACTIVISM network of organizations and Christian tion movement dissolved. By 1990 Time schools out of opposition to desegregation During the 1980s grassroots anti-abor- magazine estimated that anti-abortion orders. tionists developed several dozen clinics that activists were two-thirds evangelicals and The Christian Right developed a “hit advertised themselves as abortion referral one-third Catholic. list” of congressmen who it felt were partic- services and offered free pregnancy tests. Operation Rescue gained national ularly anti-Christian, anti-family and While women waited for their results, they publicity in the summer of 1988 with its against ‘traditional values’. By 1982, as a were forced to watch a presentation about four-month siege of Atlanta, during which result of the combined efforts of the New the alleged dangers of abortion. Several over 1200 people were arrested. Staged to Right and the Christian Right, two million women filed lawsuits and the clinics were coincide with the Democratic Party’s new voters went to the polls. Not only was forced to cease their false advertising. national convention in Atlanta, the action Ronald Reagan elected president, with Today, a network of about 3,000 “Crisis galvanized clinic blockades across the white fundamentalists accounting for two- Pregnancy Centers” advertising as abortion country. But the publicity also sparked pro- thirds of his lead, but 23 out of 27 opposi- alternatives rely on their powers of persua- choice mobilizations and injunctions to bar tional congressmen targeted by the funda- sion and narrowly circumscribed ‘help’ the “rescuers” from blockading and enter- mentalists lost. which includes: offering free pregnancy ing clinics. Between 1988-90 there were However, the Christian Right didn’t tests, legal and medical advice, adoption more than 400 blockades. By 1991-93 the manage to get much from the Reagan and information, and infant and maternity number had fallen to 170 although there Bush I tenure. Instead they were drawn clothes. At least a third are operated by two was an increase in incidents of property into supporting right-wing military umbrella organizations, one Catholic and damage, hate mail and harassing phone regimes in Central America. Not only did one Protestant. calls. Finding the strategy of mass arrests the Christian Right identify with these But if one section of the anti-abortion difficult to sustain and having lost a lawsuit regimes because they carried out their movement was willing to put energy into brought by the National Organization for repression under an anti-communist manipulating pregnant women, and Women, Operation Rescue (OR) activists banner, but right-wing evangelicals such as another larger grouping was willing to switched to a “No Place to Hide” Guatemala’s Rios Montt led the military lobby to restrict abortion at the state level, campaign, targeting doctors who command. The Christian Right mobilized still another strategy included direct action. performed abortions. their constituency through publications As soon as abortion was legalized in The campaign developed “Wanted” and media programming, justifying death 1973, anti-abortionists developed a series Posters that contained a photograph of the squads in Guatemala and El Salvador and of harassment tactics. These included pick- doctor and detailed her/his daily activities. terrorist contras in opposition to the eting hospitals and clinics, where the bulk The inflammatory rhetoric about doctors Sandinista government of Nicaragua. They of all abortions were performed, and being “baby killers” eventually culminated were so eager to collaborate with the White harassing clinic personnel by following in the murder of five clinic personnel in House in this anti-communist crusade that them home, distributing flyers to their 1992-93. However, the murders and subse- the battle for family values was relegated to neighbors, or picketing their houses. quent public reaction prodded Congress state and local fights. Joseph Scheidler, a Catholic from Chicago, into passing the Freedom of Access to Clinic

26 Entrances Act in 1993. Previously, doctors Gary Bauer, a domestic policy adviser for THE CLINTON ERA who performed abortions were usually Reagan who served as undersecretary in the The Republican Party, with much help forced to take elaborate precautions to Department of Education. By the mid- from the Christian Right, was able to ensure their safety. But as public opinion 1990s the Council had a mailing list of defeat some of Clinton’s earliest and most reacted sharply against the murders, and as 250,000, a staff of seventy and a budget of important proposals and delayed or sabo- clinic violence was now made a federal $10 million. Bauer’s FRC works closely taged his appointments. Most importantly, offense, attacks on clinics slowly declined. with Dr. Dobson’s Focus on the Family. despite the fact that Clinton carefully The two organizations provide congress- STRATEGIES AND EXPERTISE avoided a single-payer health care plan, the people with research on “pro-family” issues. Christian Right worked hard to defeat his The Christian Coalition, under the lead- By the 1992 Republican Party conven- so-called reform. The victories of the ership of Ralph Reed, created a network of tion, an estimated 47% of the delegates Christian Right showed that they had the local fundamentalist activists. Through its described themselves as “born again” capacity to work around issues without annual Road to Victory conferences it Christians. Of the 2,000 delegates, 300 seeming to appear too dogmatic. trained them in the nuts-and-bolts tech- were members of the Christian Coalition. The 1994 elections were an incredible niques of organizing. The Coalition They secured, over the objection of other breakthrough for the Christian Right. In a stressed working at the precinct level to get a majority of Christian conservatives elected as delegates to their state The 1994 elections were an incredible breakthrough for the Christian Republican parties. They aimed to run for Right. In a midterm election, where turnout is generally low, they city councils, school boards and state legis- latures. probably mobilized four million activists and reached 50 million voters. The Coalition also encouraged its members to work within other conservative organizations. Most important has been delegates, a party platform demanding a midterm election, where turnout is gener- the Concerned Women for America, ban on all abortions, opposing civil rights ally low, they probably mobilized four founded by Beverly LaHaye in 1979. She for gays and lesbians, calling on the govern- million activists and reached 50 million organized women into prayer chapters first ment to stop the sale of pornography and voters. Exit polls revealed that about 25% to oppose passage of the Equal Rights to condemn “obscene” art. The platform of those who voted were white evangelicals, Amendment and then later to become also endorsed school prayer and home 70% of whom voted Republican. “kitchen table lobbyists.” By 1991 they schooling and opposed making contracep- Congressional candidates backed by the worked hard to win Clarence Thomas’ tives available in public schools. Christian Coalition won 55% of their confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court, Bush’s defeat that November was widely campaigns and fully 25% of the elected cheering him on when he arrived in the perceived as a rejection of that religious first-term representatives were members of Senate hearing room to testify. They also war. But without the support of the evangelical churches. lobbied for Congressional passage of the Christian right – indeed, the Christian The Republican agenda was the Defense of Marriage Act, which allows states Coalition distributed forty million voter “Contract with America”. Although this to deny the legality of gay marriages guides to 246,000 churches – Republicans 10-point Contract didn’t seem to have the (1996). would have suffered even greater defeat, for fingerprints of the Christian right all over Another leading organization is the according to Reed, evangelicals provided it, Ralph Reed detailed the behind-the- Family Research Council (FRC) headed by 46% of Bush’s total vote. scenes negotiations over its provisions in his 1995 book, Active Faith. While Reed Has the Christian Right overplayed its hand in the Terri Schiavo case? originally raised three proposals to be Terri’s parents asked Randall Terry [founder of anti-choice group Operation Rescue— included—parental choice legislation NS] to act as their spokesperson and mobilize support in front of the nursing home. But around abortion, a permanent ban on the expected crowd never materialized. Anti-abortion zealots were interviewed at the site, taxpayer funding on abortion and a tax cut but the size of the vigils peaked at roughly 100. Terri’s parents asked them to leave a few for families with children – Newt Gingrich days before her death. Perhaps they were an embarrassment. explained that his goal was to have the At first, the media spun the case in a way that associated it with the Christian Right Contract signed by all incumbent crusade “for life”. But within a week, reporters shifted their focus to how the case was a Republicans. Therefore, abortion and personal tragedy for the people involved and not part of a Christian Right cause. “other contentious issues” would have to be In Congress, politicians repeatedly denounced the judiciary for accepting the findings of put on the back burner. neurologists and granting Michael Schiavo’s request not to prolong Terri’s life. But the law Reed reluctantly agreed provided the they passed didn’t stop the courts. Republicans move quickly on the tax cut The Christian Right used the Terri Schiavo case to try to convince the population that and work on social issues after the first the legal system is out of control and must be reigned in. The most prized target is the US hundred days in office. That is, the leaders Supreme Court, which has trimmed women’s right to abortion over the last thirty years of the Christian fundamentalist movement without actually banning it. The right feels it has earned the ability to influence public were willing to bide their time in building policy, but it does not see its agenda being implemented. This frustration and impatience is hopefully the sign of its coming downfall.—D.F. See US FUNDAMENTALISM: Page 31

27 SHARIA LAW Religious arbitration and the privatization of law An interview with Amina Sherazee

On January 17th, 2005, former Ontario Attorney General Marion Boyd recommended that the province of Ontario allow religious law—such as Muslim law, also known as “sharia”—to be used in private arbitration to settle commercial and family disputes if parties agree to it. Private arbitration is toted as a wonderful voluntary alternative to the public court system. Boyd’s report examining the question of religious arbitration was commissioned by current Attorney General Michael Bryant. NEIL BRAGANZA interviewed Toronto lawyer and human rights activist AMINA SHERAZEE Amina Sherazee speaking at an anti-war rally. for New Socialist on March 23rd, 2005.

Neil Braganza: What would sharia different cultural interpretations of those problem with using religious arbitration to arbitration in Ontario involve? How religious precepts. There is no one univer- deal with what should properly be seen as would it work? sal codified Muslim law because the laws public and social issues. For example, Amina Sherazee: To be honest, I don’t vary according to different schools of though the regulations of family law, child think sharia arbitration is workable. There thought. There are the Shias, the Sunnis welfare, inheritance rights and so on all is a lot of ambiguity and uncertainty as to and the different branches of Sunnism and relate to property rights and disputes how it would be implemented, monitored Shiaism. Nevertheless, the proponents of between private citizens, those disputes— and applied. The proposal is that sharia sharia arbitration are proposing that it for instance, disputes over the division of arbitration involve informal forums adjudi- involve the arbitration of family law property and support for ex-spouses and cated by qualified arbitrators who are matters, and inheritance matters, and of children, the feminization of poverty and members of arbitration societies and have course commercial arbitration. the best interest of children—concern and impact on the public at large. In our some training in arbitration principles NB: Why do people, especially those in society, we try to regulate these issues (though not necessarily formal legal train- Muslim communities, oppose the idea of through law because it is widely recognized ing). Arbitrators, of course, would also sharia civil arbitration? What is the concern that these issues have an impact on the have to have some awareness of sharia law. about the impact it might have on women? Now it is important to point out that public and on how we relate to one there are different schools of thought in AS: The organizations I represent and am another. People in Muslim communities Islam. There are different interpretations of familiar with are not opposed to the use of who are opposed to sharia arbitration don’t the various tenets of sharia by various sharia law for commercial arbitration. They want these public issues to become priva- Muslims communities. There are different have no problem with two parties who tized. Rather, they understand and appreci- religious sects, with different religious share commercial interests and who are ate that aside from the law there are social precepts, and all this is complicated by more or less equal using sharia law to settle relationships between people that deter- commercial disputes. However, there is a mine how (or whether) legal rights are exer- cised. These relationships—for example, Amina Sherazee is a staff lawyer at Downtown Legal Services in Toronto and a human rights gender inequality, or inequalities of activist. Neil Braganza is a member of CUPE 3903 at York University and a member of the New economic and financial power—are public Socialist Group. issues and problems because they cut across

28 all cultural and religious communities. We NB: In your opinion, why is the Canadian instance, that a woman is only entitled to a don’t want people—who more likely than government considering this now, and whose quarter of the inheritance that a male heir not will be women—being put in the posi- interests would be served with the is entitled to. Furthermore, some rules tion of having to bargain away their rights introduction of sharia arbitration? around custody and child and spousal just to acquire a standard of living for support payments and support rights are themselves and their children. AS: The Ontario government is dealing very much in favour of men. So it serves Now, because we are dealing with sharia with it now because there was a lot of the interests of the patriarchal economic we have to look at the occurrence of these media controversy after the Islamic Civil elite. inequalities within Muslim societies. Institute announced that it was already Second, I think that sharia law to a great There have been very conservative inter- using sharia law in binding arbitration of extent serves the interests of the govern- pretations of sharia, and there is no way to family disputes. The announcement came ment. Religious arbitration is a way for the monitor the prevalence of such interpreta- as a surprise to many of us. People started government to offload many of the services tions in arbitration hearings. For this asking why this is being allowed and why it should be providing to make the legal reason sharia arbitration can have a very this is occurring. The proponents of sharia system more relevant, responsive and acces- adverse impact on women. Plus, because responded by saying that religious arbitra- sible to religious, cultural and racial Muslim women often face cultural and tion was permitted under the Arbitration communities. To properly remedy the lack linguistic barriers, threats of stigmatiza- Act. Opponents to sharia disputed this, of legal services, the government would tion and pressures of assimilation—all arguing that there is nothing in the Act that have to do a complete overhaul of the legal made worse by their economic inequal- allows people to use sharia in family law system: it would have to make the judiciary ity—there is no reliable way to guarantee and child welfare matters. Furthermore, more representative, it would have to that women’s legal rights will be protected opponents charged that it is very problem- provide interpretation and cultural services, in sharia arbitration hearings. atic that groups are claiming that the right it would have to incorporate the values of Another reason for opposing sharia is to religious arbitration is a given. This litigants into both legal procedure and that it undermines the rule of law and that whole debate probably would not have some of the law itself, and so on. Religious it is a move to establish a different set of happened if the issue did not receive the arbitration is a great way for the Ontario laws for Canadians in the Muslim commu- profile it did in the media. government to avoid these responsibilities nities. This raises major questions about The second part of your question asks by claiming that groups can just regulate themselves on their own and meet their own needs. This frees the government to narrow its focus to the dominant cultures of society while claiming that special minority groups are both marginal to public interest and an unnecessary financial Homa Arjomand, strain on the system. coordinator of the In other words, religious arbitration is International about the privatization of law and the privatization of legal services. Furthermore, Campaign against it’s about not having to address the current Sharia Court in inequality and discrimination that exists Canada questions within the legal system. For instance, if you look at the judiciary on the federal level Marion Boyd you’ll see that there is isn’t a single person about the lack of of colour who is a judge—not one! In the protection for provincial courts in Ontario it was not until 1989 (yes, 1989!) that we had the first human rights in black judge. I just read in the news that by the Arbitration Act the year 2017 visible minorities are going of 1991. to be the visible majority. But if that’s the case then the composition of the judiciary should be reflecting that reality. the marginalization and segregation of whose interests are served by introducing Establishing sharia arbitration is a way for Muslims from the rest of society. So the sharia. There are two main interests that are the government to avoid dealing with concerns are twofold. The first concern is served. First, sharia arbitration serves the racism and exclusion in the legal system. how inequality is going to play out in interests of the elite within the Muslim Now, proponents of religious arbitration perpetuating discrimination within communities in that it gives them a way to claim it is less expensive and more accessi- Muslim communities. The second concern determine property matters to their ble. But that’s only because legal aid has is that the different application of different benefit. Some sharia law can be construed been eroded by underfunding. When laws is going to ghettoize and exclude to serve the interests of men over women proponents romanticize religious arbitra- Muslims from the rest of society. because it can be read to stipulate, for tion as being cheaper and more informal,

29 their argument relies on the fact that the accessible and less discriminatory and way Muslims are being treated by the current legal system is in disrepair. For racist, proponents of religious arbitration courts is a by-product of the racial exclu- example, proponents claim that a husband are offering people a way to accommodate sion that Muslims have faced historically. and wife can duke it out in an arbitration these inequalities and live with them. These The indefinite incarceration of Muslims court in front of an arbitrator who charges inequalities exist because the government under the draconian security certificate them very little money or no money at all, has abdicated its responsibility to properly process, the routine violation of their due and that this will be a quick, easy and fund legal aid. Proponents of sharia are process rights and the fact that there are no cheap way for the couple to settle their trying to push litigants into the private Muslims in the federal judiciary—these are dispute. But at the same time, proponents resolution of their disputes, and the all examples of the systemic marginaliza- claim that if you don’t have arbitration, government is trying to get out of the busi- tion and exclusion of Muslims. Sharia arbi- you’ll have to get a lawyer, go through a ness of governance and permit the privati- tration is part of this pattern because it is a completely inaccessible court system, suffer zation of resolving family breakdown. way for the government to acknowledge long delays, pay for your own lawyer and so these problems but at the same time trans- NB: How would you make sense of the move forth. Thus, there’s a lot of scaremongering fer the responsibility for solving these prob- to introduce sharia law in the context of the used to sell religious arbitration to commu- lems from itself to Muslim communities. general crackdown on Muslims since nities. Furthermore, this plays on and rein- It is important to trace out how the September 11th, 2001? forces the problems because it accepts a government is contradicting itself here. completely racist, classist and inaccessible AS: I think it’s a further marginalization Marion Boyd’s report recommends that legal system. Rather than taking up the and a further exclusion of that community sharia law be allowed because, in general, larger task of making the legal system more from services and legal entitlements. The religious arbitration should be allowed. But if you look at her actual recommendations, they not only interpret the law as it is, but propose to change the law. For example, there are recommendations for many amendments to the Family Law Act, the Arbitration Act, and to the Child Law Reform Act. So the question is: if the Ontario government needs to amend the law to make religious arbitration legal, why is it allowing religious arbitration to happen right now? Doesn’t this mean that the religious arbitration that is happening today in Ontario is happening illegally? And if it is happening illegally, how can anyone claim that it has any legitimacy? The answer to this last question raises more issues. When the groups I represent were invited to give deputations to Marion Boyd, we were informed that when she was the Attorney General at the time that the Arbitration Act was passed in 1991, she intended for it to apply to family arbitra- tion. Why? Because she claimed Jewish leaders had lobbied her to permit religious arbitration. However, nowhere in the legis- lation is this clearly reflected.The sharia law debate is exposing all this back-room wheeling and dealing. And now, the people who were not part of those deals are demanding that the process be made more open and democratic. Rather than allowing Boyd—who is now a private consultant— to interpret the law in response to people who happen to have her ear, the govern- ment should be saying that religious arbi- tration is illegal until the proper process is followed to make it legal. After all, despite Boyd’s willingness to respond to whatever voice manages to lobby her, as it stands

30 now there is nothing in the Arbitration Act NB: What would the government have to that says that religious-based arbitration is fear from broader consultation? AS: The reason I don’t think we should allowed, and her report confirms that. have religious-based arbitration is that we AS: The government wants to avoid a The position of the Muslim groups need one law to apply to everyone. The much needed overhaul of the legal system. opposed to sharia is that we would like a only way to accommodate different values Those who support religious arbitration statement from the Attorney General and different religions is to do so within the and Boyd’s usurpation of parliamentary saying that what’s happening right now is one publicly funded and controlled legal process isolate the debate and try to make illegal and it should be prohibited. And if and judicial system, not by creating it very insular. But the truth is that the supporters of religious arbitration want it substandard procedures and systems for issue has implication for general law. to be sanctioned and made legal, then there different groups. Creating sub-systems of Keeping the issue insular prevents us from has to be a proper legislative debate on the adjudication ghettoizes and marginalizes asking why our legal system doesn’t reflect issue. In a way, Marion Boyd’s report those who are already marginalized. It not the needs and concerns of various groups in usurps parliamentary process. What is only segregates a community, it contributes this province. It prevents us from asking supposed to happen is that a parliamentary to the further marginalization of people how we could change the system for the committee studies a law and creates a bill. who are already marginalized within that better, or asking about an entirely different The bill is supposed to be debated within community. This moves them farther away system. That deeper conversation would the committee, and the committee is from the public eye and makes it more involve everyone. Even non-Muslims supposed to receive and incorporate difficult for them to fight back to reclaim would be involved in the debate. But if it is submissions from the public. The bill is their rights. framed as a “sharia law” debate then a then supposed to be debated in parliament, So, religious arbitration establishes a very broader discussion suddenly becomes and if it passes third reading it becomes dangerous slippery slope towards the priva- unnecessary. law. But instead of striking up a parliamen- tization of public matters. Its proponents Furthermore, by hiring a private consult- tary committee, the government hired a use the concept of “multiculturalism” as a ant to study what is framed as a very private private consultant (Boyd). The Boyd report justification to segregate people and give and narrow issue, what the Attorney is thus a sneaky way to undermine public them a different standard by which they General is doing is in fact allowing the debate on laws before they are enacted. So, will be judged. That’s not multiculturalism. dominant members of certain groups to not only does the content of the Boyd Real multiculturalism means integrating petition that consultant and influence her. report represent, effectively, a call to priva- the margin into the centre. I think that the After all, who are the most vocal? The most tize legal services, but the very manner in philosophy behind Marion Boyd’s report is vocal are the most organized, and the most which that report was commissioned and that groups should have “equal but differ- organized are the most financially capable. produced represents a move to privatize ent” treatment. But, as Martin Luther King So that’s another big problem with this parliamentary procedure. What we are has informed us, the principle of “equal but process. It’s keeping a lid on the Pandora’s seeing is the privatization of government different” is precisely the rhetoric used to box instead of opening the Pandora’s box in and the privatization of legal services and justify segregation. Rather than isolation a very public and democratic manner and justice. I think that is the biggest concern and exclusion from the mainstream, we actually dealing with what comes out of it. around religious arbitration. And clearly need desegregation and incorporation into this should not just be the concern of the NB: Any last thoughts? the mainstream. ★ Muslim community but the concern of all.

ronment where lesbians and gays are more and multiple Supreme Court appoint- US Fundamentalism accepted in US society than ever before. ments likely pending, the fundamentalists Continued from Page 27 Despite Senator John Kerry’s assertions feel truly empowered to advance an openly that “abortion should be the rarest thing in anti-feminist, anti-secular and especially up alliances that would eventually lead to the world”, they still know that however anti-Muslim agenda. Time will tell how their demands. circumscribed by restrictions, abortion is aggressively, and with what success, they still legal. One of their very own people, press their demands on Congress and the THE 21ST CENTURY John Ashcroft, was US Attorney General Bush regime. ★ With two decades of organizing experi- for four years, yet the Roe v. Wade ruling ence, and having won some clear victories, remains in force. The ranks of the The author recommends the work of Sara the Christian Right nonetheless feels dissat- Christian right are asking themselves: isfied with its lack of results. They had What kind of “power” is this? Diamond, who has written several books become the backbone of the Republican 9/11 brought a sea change to US politics. on the Christian right. including Not by Party, but were confined—constantly told Fighting “the war on terror” (not the issues Politics Alone: The Enduring Influence to behave themselves and unable to achieve of abortion, evolution and gay rights) of the Christian Right. She would also what they wanted. Having gained a place elected Bush II in 2004. That election has recommend the work of Stephanie in the Republican Party, they have not been scared the liberal mainstream even further, Coontz, whose latest book is Marriage: A able to move their agenda forward. opening up even more space for the They are not content with winning refer- Christian Right to inhabit. Today, with the History from Obedience to Intimacy endums opposing gay marriage in an envi- Republicans entrenched as the ruling party or How Love Conquered Marriage.

31 THE MIDDLE EAST Under the reign of imperialism and fundamentalisms

BY SHAHRZAD MOJAB

n December 2004, I travelled to the Middle East as part of my research exploring Kurdish women’s struggles for democracy and I justice. I was unable to go to the Kurdish region of Iraq, where I had visited four years earlier. In Turkey, however, I visited several women’s centres in Istanbul and three Kurdish cities, listening to and learning from enthusiastic and dynamic Kurdish women Demonstration of Iranian women against Ayatolla Khomeini’s activists about their visions and aspirations for transforming their statement regarding the veil, 1979. www.iranchamber.com lives and societies.

These women were fully conscious of In dealing with the Middle East, be it aggression, this politics inevitably moves the many dimensions of their problems Afghanistan, Israel, Palestine, Iraq or away from internationalism and enters into and struggles. Many are organizing against Turkey, some activists on the left are not the realm of ethnocentrism and national violence rooted in the ancient institution willing to comprehend the significance of chauvinism, as I will explain. of patriarchy, both in the private sphere of domestic regimes of exploitation and LETTING DOMESTIC REACTION the family and the public sphere of the oppression. They see only one centre of OFF THE HOOK state. destruction: Western imperialism. They The challenges are enormous. Women generally ignore the domestic order, and This kind of politics has a long history and men are suffering from many forms of how it is tied to imperialism. on the left. The most recent case is the violence including war, militarism, poverty, Such a politics is politically destructive. approach of some of the left to Iraq, where national oppression, displacement, forced It separates domestic exploitation and there is a widespread and bloody resistance urbanization, army and police brutality, oppression from global capitalism. It mini- to the equally bloody US occupation. It is and environmental destruction. In all of mizes or ignores domestic repression, and, difficult to understand exactly what is these cases, the Turkish state and the US in the case of Iraq and Afghanistan, confers going on in the resistance front. One can are seen as main actors, in spite of the fact on reactionary and repressive forces the claim with certainty, however, that the that the media, educational system and status of freedom fighters (in Middle great majority of non-Kurds resent the official propaganda treat the state and its Eastern political culture as in Marxist tradi- occupation. In the beginning of the third army as sacrosanct. More significantly, tions, the words “reaction” and its deriva- year of occupation, many Iraqis (especially though, the state and its international tives are borrowed from the French non-Kurds) who were brutalized by the supporters are not the only sources of Revolution of 1789. As I use it here, it Ba’thist regime now long for the past. trouble. State power is exercised with all its refers to a host of political agendas that The economic fabric of Iraq, which had brutality in the midst of the equally brutal advocate the perpetration of ethnic and been disrupted during the Iraq-Iran war of exercise of power by the male gender, reli- nationalist supremacy, tribalism, feudalism, 1980-88, was further destroyed by the gion, tribalism, feudalism and capitalism. patriarchy and religious superstition). 1991 US war, a decade of sanctions, and Women are the main target of this combi- Paved with the good intention of forging two years of war since March 2003. The nation of powers. solidarity with the targets of imperialist forces of tribalism and feudalism, which had been reinforced by Saddam Hussein during his wars against the Kurds and Iran, Shahrzad Mojab is Associate Professor in the Department of Adult and Counselling Psychology have been further unleashed by the current at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education and the Director of the Institute for Women’s war. Different sects of political Islam have and Gender Studies, University of Toronto ([email protected]). unleashed a brutal war against women and

32 others. If women could walk in public places more or less freely under the previ- ous regime, now they can do so only in hejab and in the company of male rela- tives to protect them. Secular voices are being systematically silenced by part of this “resistance,” which exercises real power in the streets. The Shi’ite leader- ship, which is a major power block in the elected parliament, continues to demand a theocratic political order. Part of this “resistance” uses methods such as blowing up civilians; their goal is to prevent the occupying power from establishing its client regime in the country, using any possible means. This is a war between two repressive orders: one is made up of political Islam and Ba’thists and the other is the US occupy- ing power. Both sides use similar There is a symbiosis between rule by local reactionaries in the Middle East and the methods of warfare that qualify as war western imperialist order. Both are similar in that they repress women, workers, crimes and crimes against humanity. Two peasants, secular people and the poor. years is long enough to predict what kind coexisted in the West for about three liberal, or conservative. The struggle of regime each side wants to impose on the centuries. Islamic fundamentalism and against patriarchy, too, was primarily led by peoples of Iraq. capitalism coexist, cohere, coincide and women and men who were communists The losers in this war are the majority of collude. and secular liberal democrats. Iraqis, especially women, workers, peas- Equally significant is that there is no In the wake of WWII, the US gradually ants, secular people and the urban poor. convergence of interest between the replaced the old colonial powers in the The winners are a minority, although they peoples of the Middle East and theocratic Middle East, Britain and France. In order are diverse and wield power, including political Islam. There is, however, conver- to defeat both communism and liberal Islamists, tribal and feudal lords, clergy- gence between fundamentalism and capi- democracy, the US built up despotic mili- men, new mafias and smuggler rings. The talism in their patriarchal, militaristic, tary regimes, conducted coups and Ba’thists are removed from the seats of state despotic, imperialistic and misogynist poli- opposed freedom of the press and academic power, but they are everywhere, and the US tics. Both rely on a culture of violence and freedom. Part of this suppression of democ- may eventually negotiate a settlement with fear. racy was the US advice to its client regimes them. If Western imperialist states foster to use Muslim groups and individuals Much of the left is unable to see the mythologies such as “they do not have a against communism, which in their view symbiosis of local reactionaries and imperi- democratic tradition,” much of the left included all social movements. alism in Iraq, despite a long history of inadvertently plays into this game by This was done in many cases, including similar experiences. For example, the denying or forgetting or remaining unin- pitting the Muslim clergy against the prominent US socialist James Petras argued formed about a century of struggles by nationalist regime in Iran in the early in the Winter 2005 Iran Bulletin: Middle women, workers, peasants, students, jour- 1950s, Saudi Arabia’s use of Islam against East Forum for unconditional support of all nalists and others in the Middle East. Since Arab nationalist movements in Egypt, the Iraqi “resistance” in his article “Third the late 1800s, imperial powers in the Oman and Palestine, the mobilizing, World resistance and western intellectual region have fought these social movements arming and training of any Muslim willing solidarity.” with all their might. As part of its crusade to fight the pro-Soviet regime of IMPERIALISM, FUNDAMENTALISM against communism after WWII, the US Afghanistan in the1980s, Turkey’s use of an AND RESISTANCE promoted Islam against the social move- Islamic terrorist group against the secular ments. Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), and In recent wars in the Middle East, US Beginning in the late 19th century, Israel’s support of Islamic forces against the imperialist power and Islamic fundamen- democratic movements in the Middle East Palestinian secular left leadership. When talists are not on the opposite sides of a pursued a project for the separation of state the second revolution in Iran was in the conflict. They do not form a contradiction. and mosque. This struggle found its most making in 1978, the US and other Western Historically and politically, Islamic funda- radical expression in the Constitutional powers supported Islamic fundamentalists mentalism and Western capitalism form a Revolution of 1906-11 in Iran. directly and indirectly. They could hardly symbiosis, not a contradiction. The two Throughout the twentieth century, most of tolerate what they feared would be the loss sides have coexisted and benefited from the resistance against feudalism and colo- of Iran to communists, which they associ- this relationship, much as slavery and capi- nialism in the Middle East was inspired ated with Soviet domination over this oil- talism or democracy and racial apartheid and lead by secular leaders, whether leftist, rich and strategically-vital country.

33 The anti-communism of the US impeded the struggle for democracy. It paralyzed the fight for separating the state and religion. It helped establish new theoc- racies in Iran and Afghanistan. While fundamentalist Islamic forces readily compromise with imperialism, they have no intention of offering any concessions to women, workers, national and religious minorities, or feminist, communist, or secular politics. Many leftists in the West fail to understand these dynamics of class struggle. Iraq “liberated” by Ba’thist terror- ists or Islamic fundamentalist terrorists will be as reactionary as the client regime which is in the process of creation by the United States. In Iran, communists paid a heavy price by treating Khomeini as a “progres- sive force” only to be vilified and slaugh- tered by him once he replaced the Shah. Unlike Iraq’s Islamists and Ba’thists, Khomeini did not yet have blood on his hands when he replaced the Shah. Western leftists descend into ethnocen- The Iraqi Women’s League marches against the recent cancellation of laws that long trism when they fail to treat the peoples of provided some protections for the rights of Iraqi women. These changes mean that Iraqi the Middle East as worthy of struggle for women must rely on religious institutions rather than civilian courts for various matters, socialism, separation of state and religion, or including marriage and divorce. even liberal democracy. This part of the left is not conscious about the class and gender dimensions of the war in Iraq or racism, and preventing the transformation has already divided the world into two Afghanistan. Iranian theocrats, the Afghan of liberal democracy into fascism. Marxists, types of human beings: those worthy of Taliban and the Iraqi Islamists (both Shi’ite unlike most liberals, believe that liberal living and those worthy of dying. The and Sunni) want to rule over the peoples democracy is not simply democracy, it is megacities of the world warn us of coming and countries of the region. Once they capitalist democracy. They realize that capi- disasters: a planet devastated by the forces achieve state power, Islamic political forces talist democracy can transform into of capitalism, with small fortresses in will conveniently share the booty with the fascism, as it did in the 1930s in Europe. In which the rich minority reproduces itself US and its client states in the region. This is Germany the transformation occurred and its rule through sheer military force. not surprising in so far as their main targets through democratic elections. This can During the last reign of fascism, in WW2, are the people and countries they rule or happen again, especially under conditions communists and socialists were the major aspire to rule. Since Khomeini’s 1979 of crisis, or even the perception of a serious force in the struggle for freedom, from the assumption of power, political Islam almost crisis. The most liberal of all liberal politi- streets of Paris and Milan to the mountains everywhere demands no less than state rule. cal philosophers, Michael Ignatieff, of Greece and China. What role are the ISLAMOPHOBIA AND defended the US war in Iraq, and used the forces of the left, especially socialists, FUNDAMENTALISM theory of lesser evil to argue that war, playing in the current crisis in which the torture and other evils can be used in order conflict between reactionaries has over- The struggle of Middle Eastern peoples to get rid of the great evil of terrorism. If shadowed class and gender struggles? against political Islam should not be liberal democracy transforms into fascism, I began this article with my observation confused with the politics of Islamophobia citizens of Middle Eastern origins and about the situation in Turkey, which—like fostered by the Bush administration in the those practising Islam in Western countries the worldwide peace marches of February post-September 11 days. Islamophobia and can readily become targets of genocide or 15, 2003—points in an optimistic direc- anti-Arabism, like anti-Semitism, are forms end up in concentration camps (as tion. In both cases, we see the power of the of racism, which the modern Western state happened to Japanese-Canadians during people of the world to resist repression. appeals to in order to maintain its hege- WW2). Concentration camps and forced However, the spontaneous, ruptured, scat- mony in times of crisis. One can oppose population transfers can occur even in the tered initiatives of social movements, no both political Islam (by advocating the absence of a world war. matter how powerful they may be, are not separation of state and mosque) and The current world situation is develop- a match for the organized power of capital- Islamophobia. ing in a direction that smacks of more ism. The words of Rosa Luxemburg are The struggle against Islamophobia can setbacks for the people of the world, for the more telling today than they were a succeed only if it is a project of overcoming planet and surely for socialists. Capitalism century ago: “socialism or barbarism.” ★

34 PLUGGIN’ AWAY BY MARK CONNERY A thirst for pop

s winter has come to its trancey song about going clubbing and not Ever wondered if you could snort end, the cumulative effect finding your friends. “Wouldn’t Have It Prozac? If mint could make you halluci- A of too much TV, and, espe- Any Other Way” is “Blinded”’s twin: nate? Ecstasy drain spinal fluid? This cially, too much Much, has created a thirst instead of going clubbing Mike stays on the reviewer has found two fabulous websites for pop music with a bit of substance and couch with his girlfriend smoking roaches. based on the culture of mind-altering ambiguity. Interesting work seems to be Taking Back the Streets: Women, Youth, drugs, which can answer these questions. coming from the odd corners of hiphop— and Direct Democracy by anarchist historian Erowid, or www.erowid.org, is a non-profit Toronto’s Mind Bender and K-os, USian Temma Kaplan is a brilliant piece of social online encyclopedia of mind-altering MF Doom, and England’s Dizzee Rascal, history. Kaplan tells the story of the activi- substances and techniques. It’s best known MIA, and The Streets. I’ve been revisiting ties of women activists during the over- features are its particular ‘vaults’ on varying the latter’s A Grand Don’t Come For Free throw of the dictatorships in Chile, chemicals, herbs, plants, ideas and art. It (Pure Groove/Universal). This is amongst Argentina and Spain. The social histories has also put online a myriad of books, the most low key of “concept” albums—it’s are extremely complicated and involved, essays and other documents about drugs, the guy’s life over a couple of days. “It was and I learned a lot from the basic history visionary experiences, visionary art and supposed to be so easy” opens with power- that Kaplan tells. Her emphasis, and where visionary thinkers. The other is the New ful Wagnerian horns. Skinner’s misadven- the book excels, is describing the particular Bluelight www.bluelight.nu, also a non- tures start with returning an empty DVD contradictions that women activists played profit, which is primarily a chat and discus- case, lining up for the bank machine which in these struggles. Some progressive women sion board which originated from Ecstasy won’t give him any money, his cell phone worked to break gender laws and codes, & rave culture. On a very basic level these going dead, and then losing all his money while others appealed to them. One can see sites offer excellent harm reduction infor- which was stored in a shoebox by the TV. this in the instance of the Argentinean mation that encourages the responsible use “Not Addicted” is about betting on soccer Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. By acting as of intoxicants and provides information without knowing fuck all about it. activists and defying the state, these women and support for people badly affected by “Blinded by the Lights” is a beautiful are breaking rules, but often rely on conser- them. Erowid, which has tried to stay vative ideas of the role of mother- word-of-mouth, has had some media expo- hood. The chapter I found most sure due to negative statements by “War engrossing was the second, “Pots On Drugs” reactionaries and praise by and Pans Will Break My Bones,” caregivers who sought honest information which deals with the symbolism on little known drugs. Bluelight also offers of empty pots and pans, initially an arena for informal peer to peer counsel- used by right wing women in ing. Most importantly these sites provide Chile in the coup against Salvador users with information about what is being Allende’s government and then imbibed and its possible psychological, later by anti-fascist women during physical and social effects. A more abstract, the struggle against the Pinochet but just as admirable, dimension of these regime. The book is quite dense, sites is they offer a practical alternative way and sometimes more detailed of doing science. Due to the criminaliza- than a reader may wish, but it is tion and hassles involved in researching an important contribution to the non-patentible, illegal and/or otherwise history of social movements, the difficult to commodify drugs, and the successes, failures, and limits of spread of communications technologies, a struggles against fascism, and to collective, international and participatory the empirically grounded theo- pool of knowledge has been built and rization of gender. continues to be built. BTW, the answers to the questions above are: Yes, but you don’t want to; yes, Salvia “pfull” by Jay Levin - from Divinorum is a potent psychedelic mint Erowid.org plant from the Oaxaca region of Mexico; and Ecstasy does a lot of things to a body Mark Connery is a child care worker and library enthusiast from Toronto. Pluggin’ Away is an ★ ongoing column of reviews in New Socialist magazine. but doesn’t drain spinal fluid.

35 BOOK REVIEW Chronicling the women’s movement in Canada

TEN THOUSAND ROSES: THE MAKING OF A FEMINIST REVOLUTION

BY JUDY REBICK

PAPERBACK: 256 PAGES PUBLISHED 2005, $24.00 CDN AVAILABLE FROM RABBLE.CA/BOOKS

REVIEWED BY ANDRA ARNER S S Judy Rebick

touched by the movement itself—espe- udy Rebick’s Ten Thousand Roses is a cially for young women today—too much welcome major contribution to a is left unaddressed. Jchronicling of the second wave Another example. Rebick tries to give a women’s movement in Canada of the balance of space to women in the three main 1970s and 1980s. The story is told through political branches of second wave femi- the voices of dozens of women who played nism—liberal feminists, radical feminists key roles in the fight for women’s liberation and socialist feminists. But, although some and women’s rights. as a history of the Canadian women’s sense can be gained from the stories them- Through first hand accounts, we learn of movement, it is also disappointing on a selves, no description is provided of the protests, meetings, lobbying and debates. number of fronts. different analyses behind each perspective The voices of organizers help us relive the There is very little attempt to provide and their implications for the movement struggles, set-backs and victories as women context or analysis for the stories told. and the particular struggles addressed. organized for reproductive rights, for child Why is it called second wave feminism? Different analyses lead to different strate- care, against violence, against racism and Nowhere does Rebick explain that the first gies. Different strategies lead to different war, for equal pay, job equity and union wave of feminism in North America grew methods of organizing, different results recognition. out of the early civil rights movement and and sometimes to gains for middle class The story of the Canadian women’s women’s struggle for the vote. Nowhere is women but not for poor and working class movement is also the story of battles for it explained that, just as first wave femi- women. Because the book makes very little recognition within the movement itself. nism coincided with massive worldwide attempt at analysis, the full implications of Lesbians, women of colour, immigrant, struggles for workers’ rights and socialism debates within the movement can be diffi- native and disabled women had to chal- in the early part of the 20th century, so the cult to sort out. Nor are the reasons always lenge middle-class white women before second wave developed as part of the clear behind the successes in some areas their issues were taken up and seriously general radicalization of the 60s and 70s. and the set-backs or stalls in others. fought for. As a result, feminists have often Some of this is implied — but not clearly More analysis could also have situated been in the forefront of struggles around drawn out. the women’s movement more clearly issues of racism, ableism and sexuality. This is one reason why Ten Thousand within the general radicalization of the Rebick’s book is extremely valuable but, Roses will be most useful and appreciated by period. Fortunately, some of this is those who have some familiarity with the provided in the introductions to the period and the struggles that Rebick is sections. But the relationship is rarely Sandra Sarner is an editorial associate of New chronicling. But for those who did not live drawn out within the stories of the Socialist magazine. through this period, or who were not struggles themselves.

36 In fact, as a socialist feminist, it is surprising that Rebick has not given us more about some of the important mass mobilizations and grass-roots initiatives that were an integral part of the move- ment. So, for example, we do not hear about the Canadian Union of Postal Workers’ strike of the mid-70s that won the first maternity leave benefits for working Inco wives played women. a leading role in Nor do we get any details of the Fleck strike of the later 70s when mass mobiliza- the victory of the tions of women’s organizations along with miners’ solidarity actions from rank-and-file Steelworkers Local autoworkers won a victory for women 6500 in the late working in the autoparts industry. In early 1970s: as a morning mobilizations, thousands of socialist feminist, women movement and trade unionist activists, many bussed in from afar, linked it is surprising that arms to close down Fleck until the Rebick has not employer was forced to negotiate. A couple given us more on of first-hand accounts would have given this and other readers a flavour of the optimism about grass-roots grass-roots power and potential for a better

PHOTO: STEELWORKERS WEBSITE STEELWORKERS PHOTO: initiatives. world that infused the women’s move- ment—and all the radical movements— especially in the 1970s and early 1980s. wildly successful International Women’s group of women We do get the important story of how Day (IWD) march in Toronto in 1978. But went through remarkable personal and key women activists pulled together a we don’t hear the incredible story of the political transformations as a result of the broad-based coalition to organize the first Inco miners’ wives who led the march. This support work they did during the 9- month-long strike by Sudbury miners in United Steelworkers Local 6500. MAIN BRANCHES OF FEMINISM: A THUMBNAIL SKETCH Politically inexperienced housewives became militant feminists in the course of their work building support for the strike. LIBERAL FEMINISTS. Those who work for change within the existing system. Liberal femi- They went from raising money locally and nists are fighting for equality with men under capitalism — for better representation of hosting pot-luck suppers in the early weeks women in parliament, for more women in key leadership roles in society, for equal pay, to taking over picketing in the face of equal access to jobs, equality under the law, etc. Liberal feminists tend to concentrate on injunctions against the strikers and travel- legal and parliamentary change and generally favour lobbying over mobilization. Their ling across the country, speaking publicly and building solidarity as the strike struggle is for women’s rights. dragged on. In the end, the strike ended in a victory for the Steelworkers, with no RADICAL FEMINISTS. Those who see the main division in society as that between women small credit due to the women. and men and the main problem as being the patriarchal system which gives men power Despite these criticism, Ten Thousand over women. Radical feminists tend to favour women-only mobilizing as they see men Roses is a valuable resource. Rebick has as the enemy. Many radical feminists were active in the anti-pornography movement and done a good job of including voices from across the country and across a wide range in issues around violence against women. Most radical feminists envisioned their strug- of issues. By dividing the book by decade gle as one for full liberation for women. and devoting individual chapters to partic- ular issues, the book is a handy reference. SOCIALIST FEMINISTS. Those who are fighting for a revolutionary transformation of society And although it leaves many questions and who see the problem as some combination of patriarchy or male power and capi- unanswered—perhaps most importantly, talism. Socialist feminists favour grass-roots organizing, mass mobilization and the build- the question of how feminists today can continue the struggle—it celebrates the ing of solidarity between feminists and other oppressed and exploited sectors of society, many victories of a generation of women including organized workers. The ultimate goal of socialist feminists goes beyond activists and documents the rich tapestry of women’s rights to women’s liberation, and ultimately, human liberation. second wave feminism in Canada. ★

37 BOOK REVIEW Made for revolution

THE PROPHET ARMED: TROTSKY, ruling monarchy and install a representa- 1879-1921, 497 PP tive democracy, thereby launching the THE PROPHET UNARMED: development of liberal capitalism in Russia—which in turn would set the scene TROTSKY, 1921-1929, 444 PP for a socialist epilogue to this ‘bourgeois’ THE PROPHET OUTCAST: revolution, albeit at an unspecifiable future TROTSKY, 1929-1940, 512 PP date—Trotsky acutely foresaw that the coming upheaval would not exhaust itself BY ISAAC DEUTSCHER with these limited goals, but would culmi- PUBLISHED BY VERSO nate in gyrations aiming at the immediate abolition of class rule, helmed by the rela- REVIEWED BY DALE SHIN October uprising and civil war, through his tively small, but disproportionately power- leadership of the ill-starred Left Opposition ful, urban working class. n any reckoning, Leon Trotsky has to Stalin, to his exile from the USSR and Trotsky’s audacious prognosis of “perma- strong claims to be considered the eventual assassination at the hands of a nent revolution” was to be eminently borne Ogreatest revolutionary of the previ- Soviet agent—sought to redeem his rich (if out by the events of 1917. His prevision ous century. Early critic and later comrade- uneven) legacy; but also to recall the demo- was not without its limits, however. in-arms of V. I. Lenin, whose Bolshevik cratic ideals that had animated the Russian Flushed with optimism, he predicted that Party in October 1917 spearheaded Revolution in its early years, before the the Russian Revolution would incite history’s first socialist revolution; founder Stalinist counter-revolution buried them, concurrent working-class insurgencies of the Red Army that won the ensuing civil along with the women and men who across the continent, without whose aid it war; courageous witness to the subsequent fought against their perversion. More than would not be able to prolong itself. It never degeneration of that revolution into a a decade after the collapse of entered Trotsky’s mind that Soviet Russia police raid, under the heel of Joseph Stalin, “Communism,” Verso has reissued would be abandoned to its own meager the despot who succeeded Lenin as leader Deutscher’s magisterial trilogy so as to resources by the inertia of the European of the Bolsheviks, and whose name became remove anew the amnesia, and anathema, labour movement. And yet, if he could not synonymous with the totalitarian rule he that continue to surround Leon Trotsky visualize this possibility, he did unwittingly exercised—here is the profile of one of the and the revolution he was made for. summarize beforehand the usurpatory outstanding Marxists of his generation, of THIRD EYE OPEN logic that was to inform the ideology and whom the Polish socialist-historian Isaac practice of the post-revolutionary state so Deutscher, in his authoritative biography of Deutscher borrowed the title of his work isolated: “the party organization at first Trotsky, wrote that he was “made for revo- from Nicolo Machiavelli’s The Prince, substitutes for the party as a whole; then lution.” where, in a passage reproduced as an the Central Committee substitutes itself Originally published under the shadow epigraph to The Prophet Armed, for the organization; and finally a single of the Cold War, Deutscher’s classic work Machiavelli notoriously argues that “all ‘dictator’ substitutes himself for the helped to reacquaint readers on both sides armed prophets have conquered, and the Central Committee.” of the Atlantic with its subject’s prolific life unarmed ones have been destroyed.” By As The Prophet Unarmed shows, this and influence, at a time when “Trotskyism” “prophet,” the Italian philosopher meant schema of “substitutionism,” first silhouet- was a popular term of ridicule in left-wing an innovator possessed of visionary imagi- ted in 1904, essentially characterized the circles—in the main due to the malicious nation and ambition, not an actual clair- evolution of Bolshevism in government. slanders propagated by Moscow’s paid voyant. The dual sense of the term, Threatened with foreign invasion, left to intellectual publicists, as well as the petty however, suits the Russian revolutionary, fend for themselves by the Western prole- sectarian feuding and obsessive hairsplit- who was equipped with “a sixth sense, as it tariat, and drawn into a bloody civil war, ting amongst Trotsky’s self-styled adher- were, an intuitive sense of history, which the Bolsheviks promoted a self-destructive ents. Deutscher’s monumental study, with singled him out among the political siege mentality; they closed ranks within each volume chronicling a different chapter thinkers of his generation, sometimes the party, banning organized factions, and of Trotsky’s saga—from his role in the exposed him almost to derision, but more throttled dissent outside it, outlawing all often found triumphant, if delayed, vindi- oppositional groups. These were measures Dale Shin is an occasional contributor to cation.” Thus, while most Marxists before which Trotsky, to his discredit, enthusiasti- New Socialist magazine. Some of his best 1917 believed that the impending Russian cally supported, and whose pernicious friends are Trotskyists. Revolution would overthrow the then- precedents would later be invoked by

38 Stalin to crush resistance to his growing forcible collectivization of agriculture and eroding Stalinism from the inside,” as the monopoly of power—in the front rank, modernization of industry, in spite of the bureaucracy itself began to press for the Trotsky himself. By a grotesque historical massive toll in human suffering and loss of democratic reform of Soviet society. From irony, Trotsky’s arch-nemesis “struck him life these incurred—to which should be above, outside, and inside: history, down with his own weapons”; and in added the scores of political opponents he evidently, could be made from anywhere 1929, he was banished from the republic had executed or imprisoned. but below. The historian, alas, lacked not and branded a traitor. Even in exile, To be sure, this “second revolution” only his subject’s unswerving commitment however, Trotsky’s restless speculative mind (which was reproduced in the East to “undiluted Marxism,” but also his orac- would not lay fallow: among other things, European countries annexed to the USSR ular powers; “de-Stalinization” proved less he forecast the rise of Hitler, warning that after WWII) strayed considerably from the the heroic prologue to a “return of classical the short-sighted tactics imposed by Stalin model of working-class self-emancipation Marxism” than a farcical prelude to the and others upon German labour in the traditionally conceived by Marxists as the dissolution of “actually existing socialism.” fight against Nazism were clearing a path only viable road to socialism; it was, rather, UNFULFILLED PROPHECIES for the Third Reich. a continuation of that “substitutionism” HOW STALIN GOT HIS GROOVE BACK that had yielded Stalin’s dictatorship in the The Prophet trilogy has been widely first place. But those, Deutscher hailed as one of the greatest modern biog- The exoneration, then, of a revolution- concluded, were the world-historical raphies, and it is not difficult to see why. Its ary martyr who deserved a better fate than breaks. Not a revolution “from below,” but protagonist, as is well-known, was himself a to have his exemplary record of socialist one “from above and from outside” had notably gifted writer. Peerless among his internationalism effaced by the calumnies been the order of the day, relegating the contemporaries, Trotsky’s literary prowess heaped upon it by his adversaries. But also was matched by that of his biographer. an exculpation of the autocrat chiefly Deutscher’s sinuous prose, demonstrating responsible for his downfall: these were mastery of a language that was remarkably Deutscher’s mutually canceling accom- not his native tongue, conscripts his reader plishments. For it is one of the principal into the hothouse world of Russian revolu- aims of The Prophet Armed and its sequels tionary politics: one athwart with epic to trace “the thread of unconscious historic popular struggles, acrimonious intellectual continuity” that led from Lenin and debates, and sanguinary factional intrigues, Trotsky’s shamefacedly repressive policies and enlivened by a pervasive sense that an of the early 1920s to the atrocities perpe- epoch was here being defined. trated thereafter by Stalin’s homicidal But it is Trotsky’s indomitable revolu- regime. Deutscher could thus argue that tionary spirit, the sheer constancy of his Stalinism, so far from an aberration in the convictions amid so many personal betray- course of the revolution, represented its als, disappointments, and humiliations, consummation, whose most important that impart the most durable impression of “practical achievement,” that is, a national- that world. Never before had the entire ized economy based on state control of machinery of a state—political, ideological, industry and trade—for Deutscher as for military—been deployed to destroy a single Trotsky, the saving grace of the Soviet individual. Yet, for all the persecutions “workers’ state,” however “degenerated” Trotsky faced, “there was no penance in otherwise—could not have been secured him to the end.” Understandably bent (he without resort to despotic means. even contemplated suicide, hoping to Such is the thrust of the Machiavellian exchange his life for those of his children— flourish Deutscher mines for his all of whom died before him), his will commanding metaphor: after the civil war, remained fundamentally unbroken. A when the Russian people, fatigued by the Trotsky: politics was his passion but his young Trotsky had pronounced “a curse... ravages of the preceding years, lost their interest extended to all aspects of life. upon all those who want to bring dryness ardour for the revolutionary cause, and and hardness into all the relations of life”; when even some Bolsheviks, aghast at the and the seer was to persevere in his opposi- creeping authoritarianism of the upstart “undiluted classical Marxism” upheld by tion to the established powers of his age— state bureaucracy, were expressing belated Trotsky to a political anachronism; the fascism, Stalinism, capitalism—up until misgivings about the direction they were futility of which was exemplified by his the day an assassin struck him fatally in the headed in—Trotsky included—a new, final years as The Prophet Outcast—years head. The prophet’s curse revenged itself tougher-minded, “prophet” was needed in spent collecting cacti, raising rabbits, and against the first two members of that Triple order to shepherd and, when necessary, refereeing the internecine disputes among Alliance; it has yet to descend upon the strong-arm the demoralized masses and his ever-fractious followers. Another third, which continues to bring dryness divided party to their common destiny. paradox, however: for the very material and hardness into all our lives. But then, Enter Stalin, whose lasting virtue was to progress over which Stalin had presided Trotsky only proposed the end of class have overseen, beginning in 1928, the was now—in the 1960s— “disrupting and society—he left it for us to dispose of it. ★

39 FILM REVIEW American dreams and nightmares

THE ASSASSINATION OF RICHARD NIXON DIRECTED BY NIELS MUELLER STARRING SEAN PENN WITH DON CHEADLE, JACK THOMPSON AND NAOMI WATTS

REVIEWED BY NEIL BRAGANZA AND KAREN RUDDY

arx and Engels once wrote capi- lost interest in him and is instead dating a talism produces its own man who really does own a Cadillac. And, Mgravediggers. What they meant last but not least, he is stuck in a job he is capitalism creates the working class, hates. whose poverty and experiences of dehu- The film portrays the tragic life of a man manization leads them to organize collec- who knows he has failed to live up to his tively to overthrow the very system that own standard of manhood, but who must begets their destitution. The Assassination of nevertheless sell himself as a successful Richard Nixon offers us the grim lesson that man. Bicke works at a family-owned office capitalism not only produces its own furniture store that only hires married men. gravediggers: it also produces its own To keep his job and win the recognition of psychopaths, people who rebel against it his boss, he must pretend he’s married. attached to the image of Richard Nixon, not by joining a class struggle to transform And, to win back his wife, he must demon- who his boss identifies as the “greatest society, but by killing themselves and inno- strate to her that he’s a successful salesman. salesman of all.” While the Watergate cent working people. Trapped in this vicious circle, Bicke is scandal isn’t explicitly depicted in the film, The Assassination of Richard Nixon forced to live a life of lies and deceit that he almost every scene contains a television (2004) is set against the backdrop of the finds morally reprehensible. that is tuned into the inquiry. Audiences Watergate scandal and is based on the true As a salesman Bicke must exude a confi- and characters are constantly subjected to story of Samuel Bicke’s (his real surname is dence and assertiveness he lacks. His work- Nixon’s endless speeches in which he Bycke) failed attempt in 1974 to hijack a place, like countless others under capital- blames the social and economic crisis of the passenger airplane and crash it into the ism, is structured to produce feelings of early 1970s on the failure of individuals to White House. Most of the film focuses on insecurity and alienation. Bicke’s boss tries believe strongly enough in the American Bicke’s life the year preceding his assassina- to teach him how to be a successful sales- dream. Throughout the film, Nixon’s voice tion attempt, and explores how an ordinary man, but does so by playing on Bicke’s eerily blends with the voice on the self-help man could be driven to commit mass insecurities. Not only must Bicke compete tape Bicke’s boss gives him to improve his murder. with co-workers for recognition, his boss sales technique. The two messages are iden- also intimidates him into lying to and AMERICAN NIGHTMARE tical: anyone can become successful simply manipulating others. The greater the boss’s by believing in the reality one wishes Bicke’s story is all too ordinary. He is a efforts, the more Bicke loses confidence, existed. In other words, the American white working man who desperately wants and the poorer a salesman he becomes. dream can be yours if you want it badly to live the American dream: to open his Bicke ends up despising his boss, his job enough. own small business with his best friend, a and himself. He realizes that to be success- Bicke’s inability to piece together a black mechanic; to fulfill his role as family ful he must degrade himself and his respectable life for himself and his family breadwinner and thereby reunite with his customers by deceiving them, and subordi- gives the lie to the American dream, kids and ex-wife; and to drive a Cadillac, nate himself to his boss and the rules of his showing it to be the illusion that many the classic symbol of the American dream. workplace. His success could only come at working women and people of colour Yet, he is turned down for the loan he the price of his emasculation. always knew it to be. While it may have needs to start his business; his ex-wife has Bicke’s hatred for his boss and job gets been realizable for the white men of an earlier generation, who reaped many of the benefits of what is now commonly referred Neil Braganza and Karen Ruddy are members of CUPE 3903 at York University. Neil is also a to as the post-WWII “boom,” after the member of the New Socialist Group. This review is the product of a post-film discussion between the authors and Clarice Kuhling and Alex Levant. recession and oil shocks of 1973, that

40 In the absence of any mass radical movement that could provide him with a sense of collective struggle and an outlet for his frustration and despair, he ends up turning his anger inward until he can no longer psychically cope with the reality that he will never live the American dream. economic security began to disappear. and feeds on their insecurity by offering Bicke is part of that group of white them an unrealizable dream, and his own American men who in the 1970s saw the sense of alienation and disenchantment at American dream—and its promise of pros- work, leads him to identify with the perity and happiness for anyone who is oppressive experiences of women and honest and hard-working—crumble before people of colour. Bicke desperately searches their very eyes. for ways to organize with others to address The film captures the ambivalence of systemic exploitation and oppression. Yet, Bicke’s situation. his lack of knowledge of the history of On the one hand, as a white man, he struggles against racism and sexism leads enjoys the privileges of post-war capitalism, him to be patronizing towards those he In the final month of his life, Bicke is and still believes deeply in the American wishes to convert to his cause. In one scene, alone and depressed. He decides that the dream. He continues to think he can he tries to convince the Black Panthers to only way to right the wrongs of his situa- escape insecurity and exploitation without change their name to the “Zebras” so their tion is to assassinate Nixon. He feels some escaping capitalism. For instance, when movement can better reflect what he sees as remorse that his assassination attempt will Bicke applies for a loan, he tries to sell the the common struggles of whites and blacks. involve taking the lives of innocent people, loans officer a vision of a new way to do In his personal life, Bicke’s ex-wife and his but he convinces himself that he will be business in America. Rather than manipu- best friend resent being told that they are redeeming all of humankind. On the tape late his customers, he pledges, he will be being duped by an oppressive system when he sends to his favorite composer, Leonard upfront with them about how much profit they have to put up with sexism and racism Bernstein, which outlines his plans, Bicke he is making from his sales. But, as the at work everyday in order to make a living. describes himself as a grain of sand lost on loans officer cynically points out, being Bicke is enraged by the dehumanization a huge beach—a grain that will shed its honest about how much profit you’re he sees around him, and this rage could anonymity by rising up and changing the making doesn’t change the fact that you’re have served as a basis for his politicization. world. Indeed, by killing Nixon, Bicke making a profit. This scene reveals the But in the absence of any mass radical believes he could finally realize the dream absurdity of seeing capitalism as simply a movement that could provide him with a that it is possible for individuals to trans- moral problem that could be solved if busi- sense of collective struggle and an outlet for form their situations by virtue of their ness owners were only more honest with his frustration and despair, he ends up sheer willpower. He will push this impos- their workers and customers. turning his anger inward until he can no sible dream to its logical conclusion by On the other hand, Bicke’s hatred for a longer psychically cope with the reality that becoming the one individual to rise above society that continuously degrades people he will never live the American dream. all others in the name of ending manipu- lation and corruption. In the end, Bicke’s assassination attempt fails miserably. After he kills one pilot, shoots a number of passengers, and holds one airline worker hostage, he takes his own life. It would be easy to feel sorry for Capitalism Bicke, since his plight as a working man is not only so similar to that of many people under produces its capitalism. It would also be easy to roman- ticize him as a hero who, despite his fail- own ures, wants to destroy one of the key gravediggers: symbols of American capitalism: the it also White House. But the fact that Bicke produces its understood his actions to be those of the own individual hero so celebrated by Nixon’s ★ psychopaths. American dream should give us pause.

41 OBITUARY: TORVALD (TOM) PATTERSON (1964-2005) ‘All the dreams we had, I will carry on.’

The following is an excerpt from PETER DRUCKER’s obituary for Torvald Patterson, who joined the New Socialist Group shortly after it was founded in 1996.

To read other obituaries and memories of Torvald from far and wide, please visit www.newsocialist.org/torvald STEPHEN PEARCE

orvald had long and close ties to pay for his trips. He rarely had a steady job, the Fourth International’s school, and at the end was surviving on the laugh- which he and I attended for the able income that an “advanced” capitalist T state considers appropriate for someone first time in the fall of 1987. The school was a place not just to learn facts or theo- with a disability. These difficulties ries (though Torvald was great at absorbing prevented him from attending the first that exists in the leather community, which facts and theories) but also to reexamine LGBT Strategy Seminar in 1998. However, is not something an outsider necessarily our politics and understanding of the he helped with the follow-up to the 2000 expects. But besides the difficulties in his world in a critical-minded way. Torvald and 2002 seminars, particularly by manag- relationships that his depression caused, and I loved it. ing a couple of queer left email lists. He’ll there were forms of alienation there char- Torvald has been one of the few be missed on the net as well as in person; acteristic of the surrounding capitalist comrades from English Canada we’ve had that was another way he helped people society. Torvald never became middle-aged; at the school in the past 15 years. He came communicate across boundaries. I can’t imagine he would have, not at heart, several times as an interpreter—a gifted Queer politics was Torvald’s first and however long he lived. The example of his and enthusiastic one. His love for foremost political love. The Vancouver life has helped me keep on trying to sustain languages, including sign language, was an branch of Socialist Challenge, as I met it a queer revolutionary socialist feminist _expression of his strong desire to commu- through Torvald in the late 1980s, was the politics against the odds. I hope his nicate across boundaries. He was willing to only branch of the FI I know of anywhere memory will help sustain me in the future. work at it too, despite being paralyzed by in the world ever to be made up of a major- Part of why Torvald will be so badly bouts of depression, which got in the way ity of gay men, organically connected to missed is he was always happy to explain in of formal education or training. He was and playing a leading role in a local gay detail the realities of Canadian society to never just an interpreter of course; in the community. Though I never lived in comrades from other countries—and there corridors and late at night he was often in Vancouver, I felt at home with those are a lot of complicated details in the the thick of political discussions. He comrades in a way that it’s hard for a Marxist analysis of this medium-sized devoted himself to participants’ practical lesbian/gay person to feel fully at home in imperialist country of yours, especially for education as well—if there were any cute most Marxist organizations. foreigners, who don’t pay all that much guys among them, Torvald was not the I always admired Torvald for intransi- attention to it—but also to explain what it man to leave their sexuality untested. gently sticking to the ideals of gay libera- means being queer, or living with depres- Torvald participated (both as an inter- tion in his own life. In hindsight I think sion, or living with HIV/AIDS, or being preter and speaker from the floor) in the that in the first years I knew him, when I into S/M, or working in the sex trade. Even FI’s most recent World Congress in 2003, was head-over-heels in love with him, I revolutionary socialists were not always where a long resolution on lesbian/gay idealized his sex life too much. He gave a happy or comfortable with what Torvald liberation was adopted. It was always a lot of sweetness and love to his sexual part- had to say, not that he ever claimed to have struggle for him to get money together to ners, and thanks to him I got glimpses in the last word on anything. All the more these last years of the warmth and affection reason for us to keep the discussions going and keep pushing back the frontiers of our Peter Drucker is a socialist in the Netherlands. ★ The title of this article is from “For a Friend,” by Jimmy Somerville, a song Torvald loved. sexual politics, even now that he’s gone.

42 TIME TO ORGANIZE

Branches and members of the The situation in Bolivia remains New Socialist Group are active in volatile. See Jeffrey Webber’s a number of cities. Call for article on page information about our activities. 8, and watch for his frequent updates at newsocialist.org

VANCOUVER Box 4955, Vancouver, V6B 4A6 [email protected]

HAMILTON [email protected] (Ingrid)

EDMONTON (780) 451-3103, or email: [email protected]

KINGSTON (613) 542-8462 (Contact Toby), or email: [email protected]

TORONTO (416) 955-1581 [email protected]

WINNIPEG (204) 775-0265 [email protected]

FOR ALL OTHER AREAS [email protected] (416) 955-1581 Box 167 253 College St Toronto Ontario M5T 1R5 www.newsocialist.org THE NEW SOCIALIST GROUP is an organization of activists working to renew socialism from below as part of today’s struggles. Our socialism is The NSG works with the Québec revolutionary and democratic, committed to organization GAUCHE SOCIALISTE working-class self-emancipation, internationalism and opposition to all forms of oppression. We MONTREAL [email protected] reject bureaucratic and authoritarian notions of QUÉBEC CITY [email protected] socialism and look instead to the radical tradition and the OUTAOUAIS [email protected] of socialism from below, which believes that liberation can only be achieved through the GAUCHE SOCIALISTE activity and mobilization of the oppressed CP 52131, Succ, St-Fidele, Québec, G1L 5A4 themselves. Ideas need to be put into action. So if www.lagauche.com you like what you read, get in touch with us.

43 Friendly Fire by Alan Sears

U.S. Friendly Fire Kills 8 Iraqis friends like these who need enemies can’t tell the enemies from the friends here all look the same, speak the same language (whatever it is) Hands UP! You’ve seen the movie Don’t pretend you don’t speak English

I’m talkin’ to you, LOUD the universal tongue what part of m-i-c-k-e-y m-o-u-s-e don’t you understand? I SAID (Captain, we’ve got a situation here) friendly fire Stop! In the name of love before we break you error is terrorists and the remnants of the old regime

U.S. soldiers opened fire on uniformed Iraqi policemen chasing you assessed old oil wars opted for a new one a formidable attack politics meant chasing Hussein again sins of the father who pulled out too soon consummate the act occupy Iraq it burns burns burns that friendly fire the name of every Iraqi who dies burnt into the memory slow burn blow back no truth storm troops desert storm fire storm lots of fire but no smoking gun you gotta believe in the weapons of mass destruction still got the receipt filed under old friends, old friends sat in their dark trench like dead ends thanks for the memories reverberations through generations rubble trouble we came we saw we contracted out Bechtel WorldCom Haliburton Creative Associates with friends like these who needs