Comment by Allen Myers
Several letters received this week (see page 8, the letters by Vandy Meyer and others, by Nick Ward and by Tom McLoughlin) appear to make this an appropriate time to explain once again what the Green Left project is and isn't about. This is all the more timely because the expansion of the paper's circulation has put it into the hands of increasing numbers of people for the first time.
Green Left Weekly was conceived and launched last year as something new in Australian "movement" publishing. It is not the paper of a single party or organisation, in which that group presents its "line". Rather, in addition to presenting a range of news and information not usually available in the commercial media, it is intended to provide a forum for discussion and debate, with the aim of clarifying, and hopefully overcoming, differences.
Nearly 15 months after GL's launch, it is clear that the project meets a strongly felt need. The issues debated in these pages have ranged widely over such topics as how to oppose war, methods and programs suitable to building a national green party, the viability of various alternative energy sources, pornography and censorship, conclusions to be drawn from the collapse of the "socialist bloc" and much more. Throughout this period, both the paper's circulation and the number of contributions for its pages have steadily increased.
This breadth does not mean, of course, that GL has no political orientation; it is not a blank sheet on which anyone can write anything they please. Such a paper would be both impossible (because of space limitations) and pointless.
The political orientation is spelled out in the paper's name: it is intended as a paper of and for the left of the greens and the greens of the left - for everyone who thinks radical solutions are required, and is willing to discuss calmly with others what those solutions might be and how they might be achieved. This does not imply that every article must be written from such a standpoint, but that it contain information or arguments of interest to those with such a perspective.
This left green orientation, it appears to me, touches the substance of Tom McLoughlin's letter. A left green view does not regard the words "green" and "environmentalism" as interchangeable. Without ignoring specifically environmental issues, it seeks a solution to the ecological crisis in a fundamental reorganisation of social relations, from economics to militarism to gender and race relations. (Much the same thinking was behind the German Greens' adoption of the famous four principles: an ecologically sustainable economy; social and economic justice; disarmament and non-violence; grassroots democracy.) I would suggest that the green activists whom Tom McLoughlin surveyed have a much "leaner" idea of green than does GL. But, it might be asked, exactly who is a left green or a green left? Those involved in producing GL haven't seen it as their task to set up definitions that include or exclude anyone. The people who are part of the Green Left project are largely self- defined by their willingness to participate in the Green Left project in various ways - writing for it, submitting photos or art work, phoning in news, selling the paper, sponsoring it, buying shares in it, encouraging friends to read it, typing articles, supporting fundraising functions. In short, GL is a paper of and for those who think such a paper is a good idea, and who try in some way to make it succeed.
Inevitably, there are some who don't want Green Left to succeed - or even survive. The International Socialist Organisation does not think that a paper such as GL is a good idea, and that group makes no secret of its desire to see GL fail. This is not a matter of objecting to any particular position put forward in Green Left, but is based on the ISO's in principle opposition to any paper trying to serve as a left/green forum. Thus, even before the first issue of GL appeared, the ISO paper Socialist ran a long article by Phil Griffiths condemning the project as harmful to socialism.
"The historical experience", wrote Griffiths, "is that far from expanding the influence of revolutionary socialist ideas, such 'movement' papers simply serve to fragment and demobilise the socialists who publish them.
"Rather than acting as the vehicle for socialists to influence a wider layer than their own ranks, they act as an obstacle to achieving such influence." (Emphasis in original.)
The view that GL is an "obstacle" accounts - partly - for the ISO's recent campaign to convince anyone who will listen that Green Left has been running a "campaign ... to denigrate last year's anti-Aidex protest" (as representatives of the ISO National Committee put it in the April Socialist). Put simply, this is a lie - even if one done from the noble motive of removing an "obstacle" to socialism.
In fact, as a reader documented in the previous issue (Write on, April 15), GL's coverage of the Aidex protests has been overwhelmingly positive, both before and after Aidex. The longest article, immediately after the protests, was more positive than the "qualified success" recommended in Nick Ward's letter.
But saying that the Aidex protests were a "success" - qualified or not - hardly exhausts the subject. There are always things to be learned, negatively and positively, from even the most successful action. What the ISO is up in arms about is two articles which argued that tactics which the ISO favours made the protests less successful than they would otherwise have been.
The ISO campaign about GL's "negative coverage" in effect claims that its tactics and the Aidex protests are the same thing. Some ISO members may actually believe this, but they are badly mistaken. Those ISO members who are not afflicted by such confusion and who nevertheless participate in the campaign must have some other object in view, such as preventing reasoned tactics.
GL has also printed criticisms of those two articles from various standpoints, including that of the ISO. We did so only because we thought readers would want to consider the points raised; we have also printed letters from the ISO on other subjects, and for the same reason.
We do not print letters from the ISO because it has a "right" to reply - it doesn't, not within the pages of Green Left. An organisation which is opposed to GL being published at all is not entitled to trade on the hard work of GL supporters to reach beyond the much smaller audience it is confined to by its idea of what a left paper should be.
The ISO members who claim they aren't being heard (because we print a few of their letters instead of all of them) have chosen to spread their political views through a paper controlled solely by themselves, in which they discuss only the topics they choose and permit at most token criticism. Having made that decision, they should not expect those who have chosen a different method to undo for them the consequences of their choice.