Northern Ireland
Dave Riley's article "Sinn Fein Says Yes" (GLW #318) misses the point.
According to Dave, the problem with the peace deal is that it accepts partition. He cites as evidence the changes to the Irish constitution. However, partition has been a reality for 75 years. The fact that the Irish constitution has until now said otherwise does not affect this reality.
Partition is not based on words in a constitution but on military, economic and political facts, including (a) the presence of British troops in Northern Ireland, and (b) the cooption of the Protestant section of the working class in Northern Ireland by British imperialism. This cooption is maintained through a system of institutionalised discrimination, in which Protestant workers have had relatively privileged access to jobs, housing, etc.
The real question regarding the peace deal is whether it helps or hinders the struggle to overcome these concrete obstacles to a united Ireland.
An unequivocal answer to this question is difficult. Some elements of the deal are extremely vague. A lot depends on how it is actually applied, and this in turn depends not solely on the goodwill of the signatories but also on the level of mass struggle.
The agreement contains provisions that are supposed to end discrimination on the basis of religion, nationality, etc. It is supposed to guarantee democratic rights for all, fair systems of justice and policing, etc.
It also contains the possibility for a referendum in Northern Ireland to vote on leaving Britain and becoming part of a united Ireland. Victory in such a referendum would only be possible if a significant section of the Protestant population broke from their traditional pro-British outlook and accepted a united Ireland. Sinn Féin presumably hopes this will become possible once peace is established and institutionalised discrimination is overcome.
Whether the peace deal will lead to such an outcome is debatable. But these are the issues we need to discuss, rather than lamenting the demise of De Valera's constitution.
Melbourne
[Abridged.]
Paul Robeson
Barry Healy's report on Paul Robeson (GLW #317) glosses over what has always presented his biographers with a difficulty.
Robeson's undoubted courage in fighting the forces of US Imperialism cannot excuse the one blot on his record — his role as an apologist for the Stalin regime. As an adolescent at the time, trying to make sense about what was happening in Russia, this worried me.
I believe that Robeson's role should be critically examined now.
When Robeson came back from Russia after his visit there in 1934, he said regarding Russia that it was "the first time I felt like a full human being". At the time Stalin had begun the massive purges which killed off the whole of Lenin's Central Committee except Trotsky, Alexandra Kollontai and Stalin himself.
It is beyond belief that Robeson could not have been aware of the millions of Russians murdered by Stalin. As late as 1961, here in Australia, he was still calling the monstrous dictatorships in Eastern Europe "people's democracies" and stating that they were superior to Australian democracy.
It has always been a contradiction that Robeson sang magnificently about Joe Hill, but he could not find a word to say about the hundreds of thousands of communists murdered by Stalin.
Any biography of Robeson which omits these significant facts is incomplete and misleading.
Shellharbour NSW
Unity for democracy
It was fantastic to see more than 1000 Indonesians, mostly students, participate in a vigil in solidarity with the people of Indonesia on May 20. ASIET strongly welcomes this development, and hopes to join together with the Indonesian community in Australia in the struggle for democracy in Indonesia.
Prior to the rally, ASIET members were asked by a vigil organiser, Professor Arief Budiman, to come as individuals, not representatives of an organisation. He urged us to help present an image of the vigil as made up only of those who are politically inactive but concerned with the situation in Indonesia.
We were very surprised to find marshals linking arms around the rally, refusing to allow anyone to distribute fliers to participants. Arief Budiman not only wanted to maintain the "apolitical" image of the Indonesian community, he was concerned that if ASIET was allowed into the rally, we would "dominate and take over". He wanted only certain views to be expressed.
ASIET believes that the movement is strengthened (not weakened, as Budiman suggests) by allowing the views of all to be expressed and debated.
Budiman argues that in public the Indonesian community and ASIET must remain separate, although unofficially we may work together. Yet the lesson from the struggle in Indonesia is that now is the time not to march separately but to unite around our common goal — democracy in Indonesia.
ASIET member, Melbourne
[Abridged.]
National Action Bookshop
Manrico Moro is right (Write on, GLW #318) that National Action's inability to establish a base in the working-class suburb of Fawkner and keep its shop open was a victory. It is a welcome sign that large 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ of working-class people are not attracted by far-right solutions, despite the perpetuation of racism by the federal government and One Nation.
Campaign Against the Nazis (CAN) initially involved a wide range of progressive activists and organisations; however, it had less success involving local residents.
After an initial rally of 1000, the actions tapered off and the campaign's focus moved from rallies and pickets to petitioning the shop's landlord to evict NA. The majority view in CAN was that closing the shop (by whatever means) was the most effective way to combat fascism and racism in Melbourne. One of the CAN member organisations, the International Socialists, petitioned Moreland City Council to close the shop, although CAN as a whole did not endorse this.
The best way to prevent far-right, racist groups from gaining mass influence is to mobilise the broadest range of people possible against the government's racist policies, and against the far right. The more people mobilised, the less fertile the ground for far-right ideas.
By concentrating on closing down NA's bookshop, CAN left itself open to accusations that the anti-racist movement simply wants to dictate who is entitled to freedom of speech. This hides the fact that it is the far-right groups which are infringing on the democratic rights of the majority.
CAN's focus on closing down the NA bookshop left it with the dilemma of how a small group could carry this out. Some CAN members advocated physical attacks on the bookshop, others called on the state to close the shop, and others advocated reaching out to the Fawkner community and building a united opposition to NA and racist ideas.
Building a broad united front and mass actions to politically challenge the rightists are the most successful methods for defeating racism and fascism because they isolate the far-right group.
Historically, fascism has only succeeded when the far right has put forward a (racist, anti-worker) solution to the economic misery confronting the masses, and the left has failed to present its own clear, anti-capitalist alternative to this misery.
Coburg Vic
[Abridged.]
NT rail link
The Federal Government can no longer claim any environmental credibility after allocating $100 million in the Budget towards the construction of the Alice Springs-Darwin rail link.
Apart from the fact that this project will prove to be a bottomless hole for taxpayers' money as long as it operates, it will involve, at the least, destroying a swathe of vegetation 1600 kilometres long and probably about 100 metres wide (some 16,000 hectares), disrupting the continuity of habitat of the present suite of flora and fauna.
This horrendous scar on the face of the earth will have to be maintained in a cleared state or as a grassland either by the use of fire or by the use of weedicide. If by the latter, the long-term effects on contiguous flora and fauna, and on the waterways that pass under the rail, are incalculable and probably have not been considered.
Stripping Australia of its natural resources, which is what this railway is intended to facilitate, simply to enrich the already rich, while at the same time taxing those being robbed in order to subsidise the process, is just one more example of the insanity that is driving humanity worldwide to destroy its own life support systems in the names of development and globalisation.
Alawa NT
Shakespeare
Ken Cotterill had views on the IRA and the struggle for Peace and Justice in Northern Ireland. Ken now says that Shakespeare was a dunce, who did not write his plays (GLW #318).
Big job there, Ken, against the combined scholarship of five centuries. Shakespeare's "mark" is his capacity to use images, extended images and symbolism — and his Humanism. His female characters out-think and out-argue his male characters. No-one came near Shakespeare in this ability, and when you read the other playwrights, even Marlowe, you know you are reading journalism compared to Shakespeare's immortal poetry. Ben Jonson said "I loved him this side idolatry".
What did the Nazis make of "the Bard"? Who would want to destroy this Humanist, even if his plays did not confront his own historical present, e.g. "Good" Queen Bess's (Liz I) invasion and slaughter of about 600,000 Irish in Ulster (according to Engels and Marx). Or was this Macbeth? Shakespeare called the Irish "rough, rug-headed kerns", and "kerns" became "coons".
There you are, Ken, belt the silly old bastard with that! As for the rest, you're on a loser. Check your sources.
Wentworth Falls NSW