Brazil
Luke Fomiatti's letter (Write On, GLW #544) is not informed, but is based on wishful thinking. Fomiatti seems to know little of what is going on in Brazil and even less about the way in which the Lula regime is being received by the left throughout the continent.
On June 11, Brazil's public service unions staged their first protest against the da Silva government. According to organisers, the protest in Brasilia against the government's public service pension reform involved 40,000 workers. Subsequently the combined public service unions, representing some 850,000 public servants, have called an open-ended strike to begin July 8. This decision was despite the urging of the CUT leadership to restrain from industrial action and adopt a process of negotiation instead.
The da Silva government represents little more than the existing Lagos (Partido Popular-Partido Socialista-led) government in Chile. The tragedy is that the bulk of the left in Brazil is trapped in the framework of the Workers Party (PT), unlike in Chile where the Communist Party heads a significant trade union and community opposition.
It is no surprise that no one on the Latin American left has dared to pay Salvador Allende, 30 years after the Chilean coup, the disrespect of comparing the da Silva regime to his 1970-73 government. This comparison is what Fomiatti's argument suggests.
The key point to understand, which the Landless Peasant Movement (MST) certainly does, is that "the electoral victory [of the PT] was not the fruit of a rise in the mass movement but a result of the failure of the economic model adopted by the elites" (from "Analisis del Mivimiento de Trabajadores Sin Tierra de Brasil Sobre la Situacion politica de la victoria de Lula").
This means that, unlike the Allende government, the workers' movement in Brazil is in a position of weakness in relation to the government, rather than a position of strength from which it could force significant concessions like massive nationalisations and the other little things which distinguished the Allende government from this "Taliban neoliberal" government of da Silva (as James Petras refers to it).
Jorge Jorquera
Newtown NSW
Eminem
Three rousing cheers for Benjamen Standing (GLW #544)! It is a brave soul indeed who praises Eminem before an audience of certified progressives. I thought about being similarly laudacious but I didn't have the guts.
Standing has prompted me to come clean: I think Eminem is an extraordinary voice of social protest and possibly the best thing contemporary rock music has on offer. Of course he doesn't fit the mode. He says nasty things and employs a vocabulary we are supposed to reject. Because he is not offering us nice words to give us the right 'twang!' should we then demonise him for failing to wear the correct armband on his sleeve or speak the language we expect to hear?
There's an unfortunate habit among our kind which unconsciously imposes self censorship on taste and aesthetics by rejecting material that may seem to us to be programmatically weak. Eminem is therefore marked down for being homophobic and sexist... so it is supposed to be our duty to reject or ignore him.
Don't be so foolish the music of Marshall Mathers has a lot to offer. His work congeals protest and anguish primarily because he has found a lot to be angry about. Benjamen Standing is right to suggest that at its core, this anger is being generated by class.
It is a mistake to make support for Eminem conditional on him cleaning up his act.
Dave Riley
Brisbane
Billy Nessen
Your recent reports of journalist Billy Nessen's arrest in Aceh has caused much concern among his many friends and family in the United States. We know Mr Nessen to be a responsible and ethical man who has spent many years honing his craft as a writer unafraid to focus upon the lives of the downtrodden and oppressed.
He has won prizes for his reports of government violence in East Timor. His courageous decision to report on the violence in Aceh, despite the Indonesian government's attempts to keep him from doing so, has resulted in his arrest on trumped up immigration charges.
We know why he is being held: because of his recent reports in the Australian press (see < http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2003/A HREF="mailto:s881758.htm"><s881758.htm>) regarding massacres of civilian populations both by Indonesian ground and air forces.
Billy's friends and family are asking the Australian press to continue his work: courageously demand from the Indonesian government the truth behind William's reports has the Indonesian military committed egregious acts of violence against the civilian population or not? Was the Indonesian [military's] violence in East Timor the exception or the rule? Has Billy been arrested in order to prevent the world from knowing what's occurring in Aceh? We are counting on your hard work.
Elliot Warren
California USA
Cuba
I write in response to Kim Bullimore's defence of Cuba's jailing of political dissidents due to their links with the US and their opposition to socialism (Write On, GLW #544). Kim is a member of an organisation that agitates for the armed overthrow of Australia's system of government (as articulated in GLW's 1996 opposition to restrictions on public ownership of semi-automatic firearms), several members of which have, to my knowledge, enjoyed Fidel Castro's hospitality and ideological support.
So is it to be jackboots and jail sentences all round for the Democratic Socialist Party, or will you accept that a commitment to free speech has to extend beyond those you agree with? I note in closing that GLW's support for David Irving's right to free speech, while failing to back the organisers of the Varela project, suggests a worrying view of the relative evils of capital and Nazism.
Paul Barnsley
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[Editor's note: During 1996, GLW carried a number of discussion pieces on gun control. GLW #230 carried a cover story titled "Gun control: Are tougher laws enough?" that reflected our editorial line of supporting restrictions on the sale of semi-automatic weapons.]
Israel
I cannot for the life of me understand why leftists, of all people, are so vehement in their support of a murderous, oppressive society in the Middle East. Every time I read GLW, I am torn between the rational, compassionate message throughout the rest of the paper, and the nasty rhetoric spewed at Israel.
One would expect us leftists to understand the need to support the only free and democratic society in the region. In Israel, all people including Arab citizens are free to live and work as they wish. Women are respected, children are encouraged to learn about and value other cultures, and the Israeli government provides substantial aid to the poor in many nations. The culture that GLW supports, on the other hand, abuses women, sacrifices its children to murder innocents, is notoriously isolationist, and opposes all social and religious freedom.
As leftists, it would make sense for us to support the free society. Contrary to the sadly misinformed opinions of GLW writers and the rest of the Australian media, Israel wishes for nothing more than peace. That's why it has been willingly cut in half many times over, and subjected its own people to serious risk in the relentless pursuit of peace.
If only the Palestinian Arabs were committed to peace as well, the entire region could flourish. Unfortunately, however, the Palestinian Arabs will not be deterred from their goal of slaughtering every Jew and driving Israel into the sea.
Why are so-called "leftists" supporting a group with such a goal? Shouldn't we be on the side pushing for peace and prosperity instead?
Kimberly James Roachelle
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From Green Left Weekly, July 9, 2003.
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