Religion & politics

In his first electoral outing after being expelled from the Labour Party (Respect, 2004) George Galloway promoted himself as “a fighter for Muslims”. Trying again in Scotland on 5 May, he now pitches himself as the champion of... Celtic fans. Shamefully, some of the Scottish left are backing him. http://bit.ly/meN0TA

Is Islamic religious dress such as the veil a tool of oppression or a symbol of anti-imperialist resistance? What should socialists say about religious fundamentalism? Click here to download article as pdf .

French president Nicolas Sarkozy, flagging in the opinion polls, is attempting to boost his popularity with appeals to the right and an exaggerated concern about the state of integration — or not — of France’s Muslim minority into national life. This has been shown most obviously with the recent ban on wearing the burqa or niqab (face veil) in public. This law came into force on 11 April. Ostensibly a law against “hiding your face in public”, the law has so many exceptions — wearing a mask for sport, work, carnivals, etc — and the debate around it makes it clear that it is aimed at the tiny...

Ann Widdecombe has become something of a “national treasure” after her performance on Strictly Come Dancing . She has been praised for her “good nature and resourcefulness”. Voted back week on week showed people were actually warming to her. But Ann Widdecombe who has been a Tory MP in Maidstone since 1987, is a supporter of “social conservatism” — read social engineering. She is a dedicated anti abortionist, has opposed every equality measure concerning homosexuality in Parliament and defended the policy of shackling pregnant women to their hospital beds. She is a “true blue”: Tory in her...

Rioting has ceased in Belfast, but cases of intimidation of workers by Orange hooligans are still occurring. In the shipyards and docks Catholic workers are still being driven out. Non-Catholic clergy are making strenuous efforts to restrain such intimidation. They visit areas where intimidation occurs and seek to restore tolerance. In the South the pogroms have also ceased. Labour and other bodies have passed strong protest resolutions. Three hundred families burn out and from 500 to 700 workers deprived of employment - those are the nett results of the Belfast pogroms. Rioting has ceased and...

A collection of articles and responses from Workers' Liberty 8, October 1987. Including Scottish devolution, the question of banning the Orange Order and a letter on Zionism and Israel by Tony Greenstein with a response from John O'Mahony. Click here to download pdf .

A collection of articles and responses from Workers' Liberty 8, October 1987. Including Scottish devolution, the question of banning the Orange Order and a letter on Zionism and Israel by Tony Greenstein with a response from John O'Mahony. Click here to download pdf .

The question of how to respond to religion, and the fact that a lot of working-class people (particularly in the so-called “developing world”) hold religious beliefs, has been a tricky issue for revolutionaries for... well, forever really. Karl Marx famously described religion as an “opiate”, comparing it to a drug that people take to make themselves feel better rather than actually dealing with the root causes of their problems. He said that it promised people a “heart in a heartless world” but only provided an “illusory happiness”. We think that was pretty much spot-on then and remains...

The SWP's attitude to religion is one element of a more generally flawed political approach - not independent working-class politics, but different variants of "my enemy's enemy is my friend". SWP members will often pretend that their difference with Workers' Liberty is that they defend Muslims and people of Muslim background against racism, while we, as "Islamophobes", do not. In fact this sort of "anti-Islamophobia" is common ground. The real difference is that they are increasingly unwilling to criticise not just Islam as a religion, but even right-wing political-religious (Islamist)...

The organisers claimed 20,000 people joined the “Protest the Pope” march in London, from Hyde Park Corner to Downing Street, on 18 September. One of the organisers, Peter Tatchell, said: “Among the marchers were Catholics and other Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and people of no faith. The protest was not against the Catholic church or Catholic people. It was against the Pope and his often harsh, intolerant teachings; especially his opposition to contraception, women priests, gay equality, abortion, fertility treatment, embryonic stem cell research and the use of condoms to prevent the...