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Part Two: Unholy Alliances: The Stop the War Coalition, The Extreme Left and Islamic Fundamentalism
“The old word for the ability to switch the party line in an instant and indulge mass murderers is ‘Stalinist’. The bulk of the marchers were anything but…But they allowed themselves to be organised by people who tolerated tyranny, who weren’t over-disturbed by the murder of 20 million people in Stalin’s one-party state or hundreds of thousands in Saddam’s one-oarty state. All the talk of the Seattle generation bringing a new politics to a new century ended with the same old scowling faces from the age of European dictators back in charge. It was as if the supporters of fox-hunting and village post offices had allowed the British National Party to run the Countryside Alliance.” - Nick Cohen. (1)
Imagine a movement whose chairman praised Hitler and dismissed as “hack propagandists” those who “abominate Hitler’s name above all others.” Imagine also, that one of the leading figures associated with this movement, upon being asked if he would consider himself a Nazi, replied, “If you are asking, did I support the Third Reich, yes I did…The disappearance of the Third Reich is the biggest catastrophe of my life.” Naturally, such a movement would immediately lose all credibility.
Replace the words “Hitler” with “Stalin”, and “Third Reich” with “Soviet Union” and you have the exact positions of Andew Murray, chairman of the Stop the War Coalition, and George Galloway MP, the renegade Labour MP who became Vice-President of the StW Coalition and who was expelled from the Labour Party in the aftermath of the war.
Andrew Murray, who is well as being chair of the StW Coalition is on the politburo of the Communist Party of Britain, wrote an article for Morning Star on the 120th anniversary of Stalin’s birth, in which he wrote,
"If you believe that the worst crimes visited on humanity this century, from colonialism to Hiroshima and from concentration camps to mass poverty and unemployment have been caused by imperialism, then [Stalin's birthday] might at least be a moment to ponder why the authors of those crimes and their hack propagandists abominate the name of Stalin beyond all others. It was, after all, Stalin's best-known critic, Nikita Kruschov, who remarked in 1956 that `against imperialists, we are all Stalinists' "
There is of course, a very good reason to “abominate the name of Stalin beyond all others”. He killed more people than any other single figure in history. An estimated 20 million people died under his reign, more people than were killed by Hitler. Does pointing this out make one a “hack propagandist”?
George Galloway has also tended to show affection for history’s greatest mass murderer. On asked if he was part of the Stalinist left, he replied,
“I wouldn’t define it that way because of the pejoratives loaded around it; that would be making a rod for our own back. If you are asking did I support the Soviet Union, yes I did…The disappearance of the Soviet Union is the biggest catastrophe of my life.”(2)
Just as Galloway indulges the tyrants of the past, he has also done so with more recent dictators. He describes Fidel Castro as “the most magnificent human being I’ve ever met”. Once a vehement opponent of Saddam’s regime, he now classes Saddam’s deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz as a friend, saying of him, “I admire Tariq Aziz, very much. He’s a sophisticated and interesting man…He was a great Shakespeare man, a great Sinatra man. If Saddam Hussein had listened to him more, Iraq might not be in the mess it’s in today.”(3) Most notoriously, he travelled to Baghdad in 1994, stood before Saddam, the man he had once protested against, and said, “Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability.”(4)
It’s something of an embarrassment to the left that for much of the middle portion of the Twentieth Century, large sections of the left in Britain and other countries heaped praise upon Stalin (before the right-wingers get too smug about this, it should be pointed out that during the same period that the Manchester Guardian and the New York Times were lauding Stalin, the Daily Mail and Time magazine were also expressing admiration for Hitler). To find such relics around in the first decade of the new millenium came for something of a shock. It was doubly shocking to find them in leading positions in the biggest protest movement of British history.
I can’t help observing a bizarre paradox about the presence of Stalinists in a protest movement. Something I’d love to ask Galloway, Murray and their ilk is this: think back to the late 80s and early 90s. How do you account for the fact that some of the most successful protest movements of that period, the most remarkable and inspiring examples of people power in action, was of ordinary people rising up, not to install Communist regimes, but to overthrow them? How about the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989, when Berliners swarmed to the wall to tear it down and thus greet their neighbours for the first time in 40 years? The residents of Moscow who took to the streets in 1991 to bring down the hardliners coup against Gorbachev, and thus sound the death knell of the Soviet Union? Or Czechoslovakia’s Velvet Revolution of 1989? Or how about that fateful moment, also in 1989, when Nicolae Ceausescu stepped out onto a balcony in Bucharest to receive the applause of the Romanian crowd, only for the cheering to turn into a chorus of boos and jeers, leaving Ceausescu looking like a snake-oil salesman who has just realised that his audience has suddenly seen through his sales pitch (which in a sense, is exactly what he was)? Is Lech Walesa not a hero of the trade union movement? Where’s Vaclav Havel in your list of great human rights activists? Protest movements are supposed to be enemy of autocracy, but at the heart of what, at its peak, was the largest and most diverse protest movement this country has ever seen, were people who make excuses for autocrats.
Also prominent in the Stop the War Coalition leadership were the activists of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). Prominent SWP figures such as Lindsey German and John Rees sit on the steering committee of the StW Coalition, and the SWP‘s activists are a common sight at StW Coalition gatherings (along with the Socialist Party, the Communist Party of Britain, the Communist Party of Great Britain, Workers Power etc, etc - spend enough time among the hard left and you really start to appreciate the grains of truth in the scene from Monty Python‘s Life of Brian where the distinctions are explained between the Judean Peoples Front and the Peoples Front of Judea). As a Trotskyist organisation, the SWP can claim to be untainted by Stalinism. “Real communism has never been tried” is a refrain often repeated by Trotskyists. Essentially the Trotskyist argument boils down to, “Well, Communist regimes may have degenerated into a particularly brutal form of state capitalism just about everywhere else that it has been tried, but it won’t under us.” Maybe the SWP has among its ranks people with the economic genius of John Maynard Keynes, the intellectual honesty of George Orwell and the saintliness of Mahatma Gandhi who can lead us into paradise but (and yes, this is probably something of a cheap shot) based on the specimens I found myself working alongside during my time in the Coalition, I somehow doubt it.
Because of the strong influence of the SWP on the StW Coalition, the Coalition has inherited some of the SWP’s strengths (notably the ability to organise and coordinate protests on a large scale), but also many of its weaknesses (crass dogmatising, reducing complicated issues to a banner-sized slogan, simplistic “America/Israel - evil: rest of the world - good” dichotomies). One particular weakness of the SWP that has been absorbed into the StW Coalition is its bizarre tolerance of Islamic fundamentalism. A result of this that has been commented on frequently is the relationship between the StW Coalition and the Muslim Association of Britain.
Along with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB) has co-sponsored the major demonstrations organised by the StW Coalition. Much has been made on the left of the need to confront what has been called “Islamophobia.” There is a lot of merit to this. It’s certainly true that there has been a rise in racism towards Muslims since September 11th and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, leading to ordinary, decent Muslims becoming tarred with the same brush as al Qaeda and Taliban. It’s perfectly right to challenge this. Most Muslims aren’t fundamentalists. The overwhelming majority of Muslims are moderate, tolerant people.
The problem is that the Muslim Association of Britain aren’t moderate, tolerant people.
The MAB, according to its own literature, is affiliated to the Muslim Brotherhood, an international Islamist organisation prominent in Egypt, the Sudan and other countries. The Muslim Brotherhood has a track record in these countries of anti-democratic, anti-labour movement, anti-secular and anti-feminist activity. The Alliance for Workers Liberty (AWL), one of the few left-wing organisations to criticise the StW Coalition has created this briefing on the MAB, drawing from the MAB’s own literature to show the disturbing trends of thought that run through the MAB, and its links to Islamic fundamentalism in the Middle East. The briefing concludes:
It is sometimes pointed by the MAB’s apologists that it has condemned the September 11th atrocity and disassociated itself from the activities of more radical Islamist groups. Certainly MAB stewards on the anti-war demonstrations have attempted to restrain groups such al-Muhajiroun; certainly its politics are not as extreme as those of eg al-Qaeda. However, this is not saying very much…The MAB is at the moderate, reformist end of the Islamic fundamentalist spectrum, but it is part of that spectrum nonetheless.(5)
As anyone who was at the massive London demonstration on February 15th 2003, or at the wave of protests that swept the country on the day war broke out, will tell you, the protests by the StW Coalition were by no means made up merely of left-wing revolutionary apparatchiks and right-wing reactionary religious bigots. After all, one would not have been assembled two million people in one place if they were made up of only these groups. Many intelligent, moderate people marched with the Stop the War Coalition, but at the helm were extremists of the Stalinist and Trotskyist left and the Islamist right.
When I began working with the Stop the War Coalition, it became obvious to me that many of the people I was working with held views that were not my views, and did not represent the views of any but a marginal minority of Britain’s population. I continued to work with them anyway, perhaps slightly naively hoping that I could inject a degree of moderation into proceedings. Besides, the StW Coalition was the only major platform available from which I could express my deeply-felt opposition to a looming war that I felt was unnecessary, immoral and illegal. At times I felt like I was the only one in the StW Coalition who found themselves the only one with moderate views. In reality, I probably wasn’t. This letter, printed in the New Statesman is from a StW Coalition activist whose experiences seem strikingly similar to mine.
I contacted Stop the War and threw myself into it; I canvassed, attended meetings, marched on 15 February, attended more meetings and a couple of local demonstrations. However, things did not feel right from the start and the more I probed, the less happy I became. Despite my ideological unsuitability, I was eventually selected for a ‘people’s assembly’ at a meeting of hard-left individuals. I found the gathering at Central Hall, Westminster to be totally unrepresentative of British society and the conduct of the day-long meeting anything but democratic. Some reluctant supporters of Stop the War argue that it is the only umbrella organisation for opposition to the war, but this is an umbrella with holes.(6)
My own impression from the inside was that, as soon as the war began, the moderates immediately began to drift away. Some felt that now that war had started they had an obligation to support the troops. Others saw no point in opposing going to war now that the decision had been taken anyway. I opted to continue protesting, because I wanted to make the statement that just because the war had started I wasn't willing to shut up in order to spare Tony Blair’s blushes. As the war began in earnest, the moderate voices on the protests dissipated with frightening rapidity, and the Coalition imploded on to its extremist core. On the day war broke out, hundreds of people massed in my city centre to voice their anger. A week later, and we were still able to assemble a reduced but still surprisingly large crowd to march through town. A week after that, and protests had been reduced to a small gathering of the various left-wing groups selling their newspapers to each other, and it was around this time that I felt that I could do no more with the Coalition.
Something else was prompting me to leave. As the war progressed, one started to see banners that said not just “Stop the War” but also Socialist Worker-sponsored placards proclaiming “Victory to the Resistance.” This disturbed me, because I had opted to protest because I was opposed to going to war, not to become a cheerleader for the Fedayeen. At a local StW Coalition meeting I attended the question was raised, “What do we want the outcome of the war to be?” On a personal level, my view was that, although I opposed the decision to go to war, I felt that the least worst outcome would be a swift coalition victory, ending the whole business as quickly as possible and causing the minimum amount of suffering to the Iraqi people. Others at the meeting, took a different view. They stated that what they hoped for was for Britain and the US to receive, as they put it “a bloody nose.” By this they meant they hoped for the coalition to lose the war with massive casualties.
This was too much for me. Quite apart from the unpalatable issue of being asked to hope for the mass slaughter of one’s own countrymen, which I was not prepared to do, the only way such a scenario could conceivably come about would be one in which Iraqis, soldiers and civilians alike, died in even greater droves. What happened to this being about compassion for the people of Iraq? Within days, I had stopped attending StW Coalition events.
It’s a safe bet that those at that meeting who were praying for the War in Iraq to turn into a gigantic bloodbath are now cheering on the guerrilla attacks on coalition troops that have continued after the war, in full knowledge of the fact that by far the greatest number of casualties caused by the guerrillas are Iraqi civilians. On 28th February 2004 the StW Coalition held a conference described by one observer as “characterised by its almost total lack of debate” at least one speaker described the attacks as “very welcome.” (7) Tariq Ali, who holds a Vice-Presidency in the StW Coalition, has attempted to characterise the guerrillas as a national liberation movement, and says that, “Sooner or later, all foreign troops will have to leave Iraq. If they do not do so voluntarily, they will be driven out…Meanwhile, Iraqis have one thing of which they can be proud and of which British and US citizens should be envious: an opposition.”(8) He expresses hope that if the resistance triumphs, they will form a government that “will combine democracy and social justice”,(9) something that Baathist thugs and Islamic fundamentalists (who make up a significant portion of the resistance) are generally not known for their interest in.
Perhaps the silliest comments on the resistance to the occupation have come from a man who really ought to know better. John Pilger is a journalist who has won enormous respect for his analyses of the human suffering caused by globalisation and US foreign policy. He is one of the intellectual gurus of both the anti-war movement and the anti-globalisation movement.
In the New Year of 2004, Pilger gave this view on the guerrillas:
“I think the resistance in Iraq is incredibly important for all of us. I think that we depend on the resistance to win so that other countries might not be attacked, so that our world in a sense becomes more secure. Now, I don't like resistances that produce the kind of terrible civilian atrocities that this one has, but that is true of all of the resistances. This one is a resistance against a rapacious power, that if it is not stopped in Iraq will go on as we now know to North Korea where Mr. Cheney and others are just chomping at the bit to have a crack at that country.”(10)
A few weeks later, upon being asked, “Do you think the anti-war movement should be supporting Iraq's anti-occupation resistance?” he replied,
Yes, I do. We cannot afford to be choosy. While we abhor and condemn the continuing loss of innocent life in Iraq, we have no choice now but to support the resistance, for if the resistance fails, the “Bush gang” will attack another country. If they succeed, a grievous blow will be suffered by the Bush gang.(11)
That sound you hear is the sound of a once-respected figure completely losing the plot. To save North Korea, Iraq must burn? Apart from anything, it looks increasingly unlikely that the US is going to go on to invade Iran, Syria, North Korea or wherever. The war has left the US with a gargantuan budget deficit, a badly overstretched armed forces and the loss of large amounts of political capital. The US Army is too busy trying to keep the peace in Iraq and Bush is too busy trying to win the November elections for there to be any more large-scale US military adventures for the foreseeable future. It looks unlikely that Britain or anyone else would support any such invasion, not least because a hefty chunk of the British Army are tied up patrolling Southern Iraq.
But much more than this, how can anyone with the slightest sense of decency or integrity advise a movement forged in opposition to violence to support the perpetrators of violence? Civilian deaths are abhorrent and inexcusable when caused by the cluster bombs of the USAF and RAF, but not when caused by suicide bombers? I disagree with John Pilger. The problem with the anti-war movement isn’t that we can’t afford to be choosy with our friends. The problem is that we haven’t been choosy enough.
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Notes
1. Cohen N.(2003) Pretty Straight Guys. London: Faber and Faber.
2. ibid. 132-133
3. Mueller A. (November 2003) George Cross: Interview with George Galloway. Independent on Sunday. http://www.andrewmueller.net/print-versions/inter-print-07.html
4. Cohen N. op. cit. 130
5. Alliance for Workers Liberty. Briefing on the Muslim Association of Britain http://www.workersliberty.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=570&mode=thread&order=0
6. Robertson E. (14 April 2004) Letter in New Statesman.cited in Cohen op. cit. 132
7. Wood M. (29th February 2004) Stop the War Conference. http://www.workersliberty.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1877&mode=thread&order=0
8. Ali T. (3rd November 2003) Resistance is the first step towards Iraqi independence http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1076480,00.html
9. Ibid.
10. Pilger J. (31st December 2003). A Review of 2003 With Noam Chomsky, John Pilger, Katha Pollitt, Martin Espada, Michael Parenti and Aarti Shahani http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/12/31/1539246
11. Pilger J. (28th January 2004) Truth and Lies in the ‘War on Terror.’ http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2004/568/568p10b.htm 1 |
