Solidarity 122, 22 November 2007

A toxic mix

About an hour and a half into the "Respect Renewal" conference held by George Galloway and his allies on 17 September (at which point I left), there were about 200 people present. So the widely cited figure of 250 is probably about right. “The hall was packed out with a genuinely diverse crowd - young and old, men and women, black and white, Asian, Muslim, Christian and those of no faith, plus trade unionists and socialists from different traditions,” enthused the next day's Morning Star. There were certainly a variety of people there. However, my impression of the mix was rather different. In...

SWP-Respect:Turn to the left!

The SWP-Respect conference at Westminster University on 17 November was essentially an SWP event — extra observers were turned away “for lack of space”. One observer from the CPGB who did get in told us that around 400 people attended and practically no direct discussion actually about the split in Respect took place! The leadership essentially put on a show of business as usual, with bland motions amounting to a rally. The following text is from the leaflet we distributed to the conference. The SWP and those close to it have now broken with George Galloway. The recent SWP national meeting...

The power of documentary film

The following films are not necessarily the best documentary films every made, and by no means the only films that have changed the course of events in the real world. But they have been either innovative in some aspect of film technique or led to changes in the way filmmakers represented the “creative treatment of reality” (John Grierson). All of the films have been highly influential. Nanook of the North (1922) combined the editing techniques and dramatic structure of fiction film with real life characters, Inuit Eskimos, to try and represent and establish a common humanity across cultural...

Walking back to happiness?

Into The wild reviewed. I like to think I’m a pretty low-tech, non-materialistic kind of person. Apart from a few books, I’ve not accumulated much stuff over the years. My analogue radio is permanently tuned to the one BBC station that in spite of podcasts etc. hasn’t changed its format much in 30 years. My mobile phone is the cheapest, is five or six years old and has a huge crack in it’s casing from when I dropped it in the gutter four years ago. I do not own an MP3 player. If it’s cheap, it’s stood the test of time and it’s not broke, why fix it? Who needs more shiney tat? This is my basic...

History as romantic mush

Elizabeth, the Golden Age reviewed. I have a lasting grievance against Solidarity. Why? Because on the recommendation of its review of the film Elizabeth (Elizabeth I to the new Elizabeth II so to speak) I went to see Elizabeth, the Golden Age. It was more than the disappointment you expect from all such films. Almost all “historical” drama is inaccurate. In history, satisfying dramatic moments like, for example, Trotsky at the Congress of Soviets shouting after the Mensheviks and others who walked out in protest at the greatest democratic revolution in history “go — to the dustbin of history”...

No Hizbollah!

Eve Garrard has circulated the following on the activists’ e-list of the lecturers’ union UCU. “Our union is affiliated to the Stop the War Coalition, which is holding a conference on 1 December. One of the speakers it has invited to this conference is Ibrahim Mousawi, the editor of al-Manar TV, Hizbullah’s broadcasting network. Al-Manar has circulated rumours that the attack on the World Trade Centre on 9/11 was a Zionist conspiracy, and has also broadcast soap opera episodes showing Jews killing Christian children in order to use their blood for ritual food. That is, it has been responsible...

Oxford union: vigil or demo?

As reported in the last Solidarity, a lot is being done in Oxford by local unions, Labour branches, student unions and community groups to stop the Holocaust denier David Irving and the BNP leader Nick Griffin speaking at the Oxford Union student debating society on 26 November. However, the contribution of the Unite Against Fascism national office has been questionable. At an organising meeting two weeks ago they were put in charge of negotiating with the police. Apparently they told the police we were organising not a mass picket of the Oxford Union building where the fascists would be...

We need a socialist women’s officer!

No one needs to tell feminist activists that the fight for women’s liberation has not been won. In Britain women make up 70% of recipients of the pathetically low minimum wage, we face cuts and privatisation in the public services so many of us rely on, domestic violence and rape aren’t taken seriously by a judicial system full of ancient male chauvinist judges and disinterested police, we still have to cast doubt on our own mental health to get an abortion, and we struggle to find high-quality affordable care for our children if we study or to work. Internationally, the situation is no better...

Defend Karen Reissmann

The strike to get sacked UNISON steward Karen Reissmann reinstated is continuing. Karen was sacked for speaking out against cuts. A massive show of support on the demonstration in Manchester on 24 November will show the employers and government that we are not prepared to let trade unionists be gagged or disciplined for carrying out the job of representing their members. Sheila Foley, the Chief Executive of the Manchester NHS Mental Health Trust, has refused to reopen substantive discussions with UNISON over Karen’ s dismissal. Foley was “ambushed” by pickets as she returned to work from her...

Northern Rock and the case for nationalising the City

The Liberal Democrats are calling on the Government to nationalise the failed bank Northern Rock, and denouncing New Labour from being held back from this course by "ideological preoccupations". Such are the weird convolutions produced in British politics by the Blair-Brown counter-revolution in the Labour Party. Lib Dem economic spokesperson Vincent Cable, a man solidly on the pale-Thatcherite right wing of the Lib Dems, denounces the Labour Party leadership for having "ideological preoccupations" against public ownership (Guardian, 20 November 2007)! Cable, of course, only wants "the...

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