BY JOHN PERCY
The decision of the Sydney Palm Sunday 2002 organising committee to ban participation by members of the Democratic Socialist Party sets a dangerous precedent.
Parties and other political organisations obviously have a right to determine their membership, based on their political program or basis of interest and whatever rules they choose.
But this is a very different situation — a broad committee organising a broad public demonstration around the question of peace and the elimination of nuclear weapons and the danger of war. To try to institutionalise the exclusion of one group or a range of groups from such a coalition sets an extremely bad precedent for the left and progressive movement, and in fact harms the very movement we are trying to build.
According to a February 19 letter sent to me by Peter Murphy, at its meeting on February 11, the Sydney Palm Sunday 2002 organising committee unanimously adopted the following resolution:
"Reaffirm the principle that people be invited to come by invitation and by agreement of those who are in the group.
"This invitation process is based on the experience of the Palm Sunday committees of the 1980s which opposed nuclear war and the nuclear arms race, our Working Group is broad with representation across racial, religious, social and political divides with no single group dominating."
This resolution attempts to justify the exclusion of DSP members by referring to the experience of the 1980s. Several fallacies and inconsistencies should be pointed out here.
Was the "experience of the Palm Sunday committees of the 1980s" one where some groups were excluded, specifically the DSP? That was not generally the case, and the experience of the most successful peace and anti-war campaigns, from the 1960s to the 1970s and the 1980s, was that the largest and most successful actions took place when they were organised by the broadest and most democratically organised and non-exclusive campaign committee, able to draw in the largest number of activists.
In fact, in most cities around Australia, including Sydney, DSP members actively participated in the Palm Sunday committees, and the DSP and Resistance actively built the rallies. Some DSP members year after year took responsibility for some of the less glamorous tasks associated with organising a big rally, such as setting up the stage and organising the sound system.
But even if some members of the Sydney committee weren't around in the 1980s, or if their memories aren't too sharp today, they should ask themselves: Even if exclusion of some groups from the coalition is the norm, is it correct? Perhaps some members of the committee should cast their minds back further to the period of the Cold War, when the conservatives attempted to ban the Communist Party, and to exclude CPA members from participation in various social organisations. It had to be fought then, and this exclusion has to be fought now.
Moreover, the resolution passed by the Sydney committee is internally contradictory. How can your committee be "broad", and "with no single group dominating", if at the beginning before sending out invitations you exclude one group or section of the movement?
Finally, exclusion of the DSP is not a sensible move if you're genuinely interested in building the largest and broadest participation in the event. The DSP, and our youth organisation Resistance, in the last few years, have produced the largest number of foot soldiers, leafletters, poster-pasters, and builders for some very successful events which the participants in the Palm Sunday Rally would undoubtedly acknowledge:
- The huge high school walkouts against Pauline Hanson in 1998.
- The big demonstrations against the Indonesian genocide against the people of East Timor following the referendum in 1999.
- The blockade of the World Economic Forum meeting in Melbourne's Crown Casino on September 11-13 in 2000.
- The blockade of the stock exchanges and financial institutions in eight cities on M1 in 2001 to protest corporate globalisation and corporate greed.
The DSP and Resistance are behind the publication of Green Left Weekly, with by far the largest distribution of any left paper in Australia. Green Left would be the main left paper that could publicise the Palm Sunday rallies. GLW of course will continue to publicise and build the rallies whether we're excluded from the "broad" organising committee or not, but it does look strange, and won't reflect well on the rally organisers in the eyes of the many GLW readers.
In fact, on March 1 at Sydney Town Hall internationally acclaimed journalist and film-maker John Pilger addressed a sold out meeting of 2000 people on the topic "Breaking the Silence — War, Propaganda and the New Empire". This public meeting was organised by Green Left Weekly. It is sad that the supporters of the paper which is doing most to break the pro-war media monopoly and get the message against war out to wider layers have been excluded from your "broad" committee.
We urge the Sydney Palm Sunday committee to reverse its decision to exclude DSP members from participation in the committee.
[John Percy is the national secretary of the Democratic Socialist Party.]
From Green Left Weekly, March 6, 2002.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.