Sexual politics — 1
I do not intend to reply in any detail to Robert Stainsby's letter (Write on, August 19). I do wish, though, to take up two points.
Firstly, I consider that his selective choice of quotations from my article is not a serious way of debating.
Secondly, I need to clarify that when I wrote my article I did not have any socialist group in mind. However Robert accuses me of parodying a Marxist position in order to attack it. Well ... The ISO claims that autonomous organizing is a tactic, not a principle. Whether they deserve it or not, this lays them open to charges of political opportunism. At the very least they can be seen as not respecting the special needs and specific politics of the gay and lesbian movement (and of other social movements.)
I leave the debate to other writers to take up.
Michael Schembri
Surry Hills NSW
Sexual politics — 2
Instead of attempting to understand Michael Schembri's article on gay and lesbian politics (GLW #62), Robert Stainsby (GLW #67) attacks it from the didactic of the "pure revolutionary". The ISO position fails to comprehend the way in which people come to a rounded political awareness.
The oppression of gays and lesbians is founded on the needs of capitalist society to reinforce its sexist ideology — the central role of the nuclear family. It is for this reason that struggles by gays and lesbians for democratic rights can have an anti-capitalist trajectory. Of course these struggles may be limited to demands around legislative changes or specific needs of gays and lesbians. But trying to achieve demands and coming up against the limits of the system can help to further radicalise some in the movement.
Stainsby denies the existence of a gay and lesbian politics. Schembri correctly points out that openly identifying your sexuality is an important aspect of that politics. Developing a sense of solidarity with others and raising consciousness about the causes of oppression can lead to a view of the need for change. A strong and autonomous gay and lesbian movement is essential for enabling that process to occur.
Schembri's article is a challenge both to those of us already convinced of socialist ideas and to those gays and lesbians developing a political understanding, to find the ways in which we can most effectively work together.
The ISO position reflects the dogmatic view of a sect rejecting any fight that does not offer final solutions. Socialists need to be relevant, to understand and relate to the many forms of oppression, to bring others into the struggle. We can't afford to stand aside and preach political purism.
Melanie Sjoberg
Adelaide
[Edited for length.]
Censorship
As a newly radicalised woman, as a Feminist, I have to ask myself several questions. How to best expend my energy and resources, on which issues.
I ask — how many women die of pornography related rape as opposed to how many women die from domestic violence, from botched backyard abortion, from famine and poverty related to patriarchal wars, from violence directed at them by men whose only exposure to pornography
has been mainstream media's portrayal of women.
And then, if I can ignore my strongly held conviction that to give the State more power is dangerous, I must ask myself this — if censorship laws were put in place would the male dominated judiciary system use these laws to prosecute and imprison the very rich, very powerful, legitimate businessmen who profit from pornography or would these laws be used to further harass, intimidate and oppress already disadvantaged groups like Women and Homosexuals? I know the answer to that question.
Rose Matthews
Hobart
Population
The arguments of a number of recent letters to GLW, that overpopulation and excessive population growth rates are the cause of poverty, are incorrect. They are based on a model of the cause of poverty that has been espoused by the western media, academics and intellectuals.
This model says that developments in health and medicine in third world countries have led to dropping death rates which have meant that the population growth has increased. The third world nations then can't feed their growing numbers, and famine occurs which brings the death rate up again. This model sounds logical enough but we think that it is wrong.
Enough food is being produced in the world at the moment to feed everyone. This leads to one conclusion: it is the distribution of food (or lack of it) that is causing poverty. While it is absolutely true that the current growth rate is unsustainable, it is also true that the current population is sustainable.
The reason why so many countries are poverty stricken is not the fault of their overpopulation, or even their high growth rates. It is because they are locked into a world economy which has kept them poor ever since they were colonised.
When these countries became "independent", they took out huge loans to "develop", but they have never developed and they have also never been able to repay their debts. Their ever increasing debt payments keep these countries poor and bleed the population and the This also makes them "unstable" where the governments of those countries have to buy more weapons to control the people's resistance. The purchase of these weapons make the poor countries even poorer and the rich countries who sell the weapons even richer.
To solve the problem of excessive population growth rates in the third world, which if they continue will be unsustainable, requires solving the problems of poverty, debt and social injustice, and not the other way around. All of the birth control programmes which have tried to bypass these problems have failed.
Rohan, Davina, Claire, Teresa, Zari, Forest, Perizapa, Suzie, Nicola, Tash, Ruth
Environmental Youth Alliance (Hobart)
Cuba
I would agree with Steve Robson's sentiment (GLW Aug. 5) that there is much worth defending in the Cuban revolution. However, the continuing denial of the right of the working people to speak and organise freely is one of that revolution's most retrograde features. If the Cuban Communist Party is so certain of its popular support, then surely it would have no trouble winning an election where all citizens not engaged in armed struggle against the state would have the right to participate (and form parties if they wished). By Gail Reed's estimate, socialism and the party would win hands down.
To imagine that the one party state and one party system can be a substitute for the freely associated self organisation of the working class is a tragic mistake that imperils the revolution. There is no doubt that the one party rule of the Cuban Communist Party will be defeated. The question we must ask are whether the state be able to make an effective transition to political pluralism without destroying the social gains of the revolution? Will the civil organisations established by the Castroist movement survive the transition to political pluralism and win popular legitimacy or will they follow the road to oblivion taken by organisations linked to Communist parties in Eastern Europe and Russia.
When we on the left attempt to defend a one party system to workers we look ridiculous and hypocritical. We turn ourselves into a joke. The only hope for socialism in the future is in our organising and winning support in the context of political freedom.
Jeff Richards
Prospect SA
Support for students
This is a letter of support for the students which, I feel, is in order. The students have shown great courage, regularly and consistently in their bitter struggle against a cruel adversary — the loans scheme.
I have given them my support from the mighty March 26 demo to the most recent one on August 13. I have shown my concern because the attacks will not stop with the students as the powers-that-be really intend to hurt us all. Australia's youth have been a major casualty. Firstly, circumstances force large numbers of them out on the streets where they become "sitting ducks" for the vilest tudents become threatened with a loans scheme and, if this is not enough, our youth are to be forced into an absolutely ridiculous training scheme on a pathetic $3 an hour with little employment future at the end of it all.
The students are to be commended for their great effort in fighting the proposed loans scheme and I wish that all of the unemployed take a leaf from the students in a similarly courageous effort against both unemployment and Newstart.
But I cannot close this letter without asking all those concerned to defend the "Austudy 5". They are not criminals; they have been made scapegoats to attack our rights to demonstrate.
John Wickham
Melbourne