Write on: Letters to the editor

August 20, 1997
Issue 

Liverpool dockers

Congratulations on the excellent article by James Vassilopoulos on the Liverpool dockers' strike.

Last month, Mairi and I were in Britain and we attended a most inspiring meeting in Liverpool of about 50 women of all ages organised in a group called "Women of the Waterfront". Most of them had just come back from lobbying the biennial conference of the TGWU and they were full of excitement about getting the conference delegates to overturn the TGWU executive recommendations.

Only one of the women belonged to a political party — a young woman who had been a Socialist (Militant) Party candidate in the recent general elections. Before they formed WOW, most had not known one another. They meet each week and they apologised for the numbers at the meeting we attended. Normally, they have about 80. They were all full of enthusiasm and making plans for further actions like picketing the houses of scabs, joining the men's picket and raising extra money for special hardship cases.

One thing I particularly noticed was their lack of racism. The support they have received from Japanese and South African trade unionists showed to them that their real allies were other workers, irrespective of other considerations.

George Petersen
Shellharbour NSW
[Abridged.]

ETA and the Basques

Paula Ajuria ("Basque independence struggle under attack", GLW #284) correctly reports Spain's unjustified opposition to Basque independence and the holding of political prisoners. However, it is a grave mistake to portray ETA as the legitimate voice of the Basque people.

ETA formed in response to Franco's brutal suppression of the Basque people during his fascist rule. As a result, ETA's manifesto explicitly espouses violence as the only way to achieve Basque independence. Basques overwhelmingly want independence, but they generally do not support ETA — its current membership is 100.

In the last two decades, ETA has claimed responsibility for over 1000 politically-motivated killings, double the number of Basque prisoners held in Spanish jails. They also kill Basque politicians who disagree with their methods. Pro-independence Basque journalists and intellectuals now report they are scared to publish articles critical of ETA's tactics, for fear of becoming victims of ETA violence themselves.

ETA is extremely nationalistic; its songs and literature asserting that the Basque race and language are superior to Spain and France. Were ETA to gain power over a new Basque nation, it would form a government virtually the mirror image of Franco's regime.

Mercurius
Sydney

Socialists and free speech

In relation to the anti-One Nation demos: GLW #285 carried an article by Sean Healy ("Socialists and free speech") which argued that socialists defend the democratic right of free speech and that "any restriction of democratic rights by capitalist governments is an attack on the working class's ability to discuss and debate what politics are best suited to advancing its interests".

The whole of Sean's article seemed to offer a naive belief in the "democratic rights" that exist in a capitalist society. In reality these "rights" do not exist and any call to "defend" them fosters false illusions about the true nature of capitalist society.

Sean claims that capitalism "is forced to continually try to restrict democratic rights". In fact, the working class under capitalism constantly encounters the contradictions between the "rights" proclaimed by the "democracy" of the capitalists and the thousands of real limitations and dirty tricks which the dictatorship of the capitalists imposes. To argue in favour to the "democratic right to freedom of speech" in a capitalist society is to support the status quo. It is the argument of Howard and Hanson.

Does Sean really believe that the working class thinks that there should be no restriction on what people are allowed to say; for instance, the public promotion of child sexual abuse? This position also causes you to oppose racial vilification legislation, which will alienate you from other groups in the community who are actively combating racism. "Free speech" is directly connected to who has power and who doesn't, and Sean's position fails to recognise this.

On the issue of non-violence: I was a participant in the anti-One Nation demonstration in Robertson which was attacked in an orchestrated way by racist thugs. While some may see this as a "good example of a non-violent protest" ("One Nation supporters attack peaceful protest": GLW #285), I do not think that being beaten and attacked was an "empowering" experience. Malcolm X, a very famous anti-racist fighter, once pointed out that to argue non-violence in the face of racist violence was "a crime". While I am not advocating attacks on One Nation supporters or their meetings, I do believe that self-defence and self-protection can involve having to decide whose blood will be spilt. When the working class confronts the enemy holding the white flag of non-violence, history shows it is not long before that flag is stained red.

Nick Southall
Fairy Meadow NSW
[Abridged.]

One Nation meeting bans

I agree with GLW that we should aim for big, vocal demonstrations outside One Nation meetings — which will much reduce them, and that's good — but to define our aim as "shutting Hanson up" is unreal and marginalises us pointlessly. To call for state bans is to call for the capitalist state to get new powers which it can then use against us.

But GLW is wrong, I think, to denounce the decisions by Ipswich and Brisbane city councils to refuse council meeting halls to One Nation. These Labor councils do not control all meeting halls in their areas. They are not legislating new state powers to suppress political parties. They are telling One Nation: "We cannot dispute your legal right to meet, but we can express our abhorrence. If you want to meet, you'll have to find some other hall."

I'm sure GLW would agree that trade union meeting halls should "ban" One Nation. In Britain, the Labour Greater London Council of 1981-85 opened up the council's meeting rooms to left and anti-racist groups, and to striking miners, while denying them to racist groups. Yes, the unions and Labor should take sides against the general bias of society.

Martin Thomas
Brisbane

Grameen Bank

I strongly disagree with Gina Neff's account of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh (GLW #281). The rhetorical style of the article ensures that this form of development is seen as a free market model, ergo of no value. This conception of development is extremely narrow-minded, not to mention irresponsible, as it quotes statistics that are grossly inaccurate.

In Bangladesh, where 90% of the population is Muslim, women are equated with dogs. They exist not only with the daily violence of extreme poverty, but also with the on-going threat of Islamic fundamentalism.

When I visited Grameen, I met a group of women who had received a small loan from the bank. One had purchased a cow and was selling the milk to the other women in the village. With this income, she was putting a few taka away each week to repair her roof. She set up a disaster fund within her village for when the floods came, and pooled a few taka with other women in the village to pay for a school teacher to teach reading and writing to their children. The woman was able to provide two decent meals a day for her family and pay back a portion of her loan at set meetings.

Neo-classical economic theory has created an extremely wealthy elite in Bangladesh. Billions of dollars have been pumped into this so-called "bread-basket" nation over the years, with the overwhelming majority of the population never seeing a dime. The facts cited in Gina's article are wrong and this can be verified by visiting the Grameen website at: www.citechco.net/grameen/bank or contacting the Grameen support group : 7 Burke Place, Mount Colah, NSW 2079.

Whatever you think about this model, find out the facts for yourself. Question the politics of Grameen and make up your own mind. I still don't know whether this is the best way to enable the poorest to feed themselves, but I do know that it is the most effective program I've discovered so far and it is based on the most fundamental of human rights: The right to live without poverty.

Jessie Williams
Newtown NSW

Unleaded petrol

Whilst reading a motor sport magazine we came across an article that raised our concern about perceptions in the community over the safety of using unleaded fuel.

"Vehicles using unleaded fuel without a catalytic converter or with a faulty converter will exhaust gasses that are unbelievably poisonous. Lead was removed from petrol for one reason and one reason only and that was that dry catalytic converters become clogged very quickly with lead particles and stopped working."

The article also states that more than half a litre of unleaded petrol is not petrol. It is actually a brew of aromatics — Dimethybenzene, Mesitylene, Toluene, Xylene and Benzene. All of these are declared carcinogens and will cause leukemia and other cancer-related illnesses.

We would like the petroleum companies to reveal why leaded fuel was replaced with unleaded when it costs more to produce, contains cancer-causing substances and creates dangerous pollution due to the fact that they have to make the aromatics as well (an equally dangerous process). Why was this information suppressed from the public, who were led to believe they were getting a green solution?

J. Kirk, A. McCabe, L. Hoyer and L. Bain
[Abridged.]

Raymond Chandler

Phil Shannon's review of the most recent biography of Raymond Chandler offers a generally fair estimation of the writer and his work. In a half-page review, however, many truths are bound to be half-truths, since shortage of space doesn't allow of niceties. Chandler's attitude to the Hollywood Ten is a case in point.

It is true Chandler claimed in a letter that he had no sympathy for the Hollywood Ten. He believed, as he wrote in the same letter (to James Sandoe in January, 1948), there was no reason why they should not declare whether or not they were members of the Communist Party, since it was a legal organisation, and that they were simply "afraid to say they were Communists or to say that they were not". Three years later, in a letter that appeared in the London journal, The Author, he maintained that the Ten were wrongly convicted, because it was not a crime to be a member of the Communist Party and because they had been denied the right to cross-examine.

Whether or not Chandler was right or wrong in his opinion, also expressed in the letter to Sandoe, that the Ten had received bad legal advice is a moot point. As to his view of McCarthy, he wrote to Hardwick Moseley in 1954, "A stevedore on the docks is more articulate in France than most senators and Congressmen are here. And McCarthy would last over there about the length of time necessary to uncover the cesspool." One gathers Chandler thought the stench of McCarthy would have made sure he didn't last long.

Raymond Southall
Wollongong
[Abridged.]

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