BY KAMALA EMANUEL
HOBART — The usefulness of revolutionary solutions to "globalisation" featured prominently in the discussion at the June 13 public forum organised by the M1 Alliance. This was despite the fact that only one of the featured speakers — Greens Senator Bob Brown — explicitly referred to revolution in his presentation, and he spoke against it.
Other speakers on the panel were Labor MHR Duncan Kerr, academic and anarchist Warren Sproule, Yabbo Thompson from TasDEC Global Learning Centre and Alex Bainbridge from the M1 Alliance.
One hundred and twenty-five people packed out the front section of the Hobart Town Hall for the meeting, organised around the topic, "Globalisation: What it is and what to do about it". The highlight of the meeting, however, was the lively discussion from the floor.
The tone of discussion was set by the first question directed to Kerr, which attacked the ALP for accepting donations from transnational companies. Immediately after that, local activist Jack Lomax commented that parliamentary democracy has become empty of real democratic content. He added that progressive MPs risked making the parliamentary system look better than it really is while only being able to achieve minor changes.
Kerr responded by denouncing "violent revolution". He maintained that the record of social-democratic parties like the ALP was positive and argued that social democrats needed an international program.
Defending the parliamentary system, Brown argued the need for "democracy", implying that criticising the parliamentary form of democracy is the same as opposing all democracy. He also reiterated the call made in his speech for a world parliament with "one person, one vote, one value". In contrast to Kerr, who expressed a pious hope that corporate donations to political parties could one day be done away with (while accepting such donations in the present), Brown called for election campaigns to be fully publicly funded — including for small parties and independents.
Bainbridge, who is also Hobart branch secretary of the Democratic Socialist Party, defended the need for "fundamental social change" in opposition to the national and international corporate power structures. He argued that participatory democracy, comprising councils in workplaces and local communities, is the alternative to parliamentary democracy that Brown and Kerr ignore. Bainbridge also called for elected representatives to be paid no more than the average wage.
In the next round of discussion from the floor, Salamanca markets personality Lotus called for people to make a "personal revolution". Bruce Heckinger — also a busker at Salamanca — congratulated both Brown and Bainbridge for representing parties with "squeaky clean records" but chided Brown for ignoring the positive example of the Cuban revolution.
Brown conceded that since revolution simply means a radical change, he could support it. Nevertheless, he reiterated his opposition to "violent" revolution.
Sproule pointed out that modern "bourgeois democracy" is a product of the French revolution of 1789. He also argued that anarchism was the only political system that had not been tried out.
Concluding the evening, Bainbridge said it was "no coincidence" that revolution featured prominently in the discussion, because the capitalist power structures responsible for neo-liberal globalisation oppose the interests of ordinary people. He pointed out that, as a general rule, violence comes not from revolutionists, but from existing elites trying to defend their power and privileges.