Kurds
I would like to congratulate you for your article on Kurdish self-determination. I used to purchase GLW regularly either in Central Station or Summer Hill Station, always paying the solidarity price. But as a born and bred leftist and as a Kurd, I felt greatly offended with the sometimes overtly anti-Kurdish tone of GLW during the lead up to and the immediate aftermath of the war.
The GLW failed to provide an examination of Kurdish motivations for regime change to its audience. The Kurds stood by the USA, despite its responsibility for two catastrophic betrayals against us in living memory. The Kurds had been fighting Saddam Hussein for more than 30 years and perhaps knew a thing or two more about him and his fascist/Stalinist regime than the GLW.
Some articles trivialised the crimes Saddam committed against the Kurds (except when talking about the times when Saddam was allied to the US) and they contained such derogatory terms as "pro-imperialists" or "imperialist stooges" to denote the Kurdish freedom fighters. No matter that the percentage of the Kurds supporting the regime change was in high 90s and probably even higher, and supported by every shade of the Kurdish political spectrum.
A petition for a UN-sponsored referendum for self-determination was signed by nearly two million Kurds, nearly 80% of the adult population in southern Kurdistan. So much for listening to the voices in the street.
This stands in a stark contrast to the news and commentary space and the sympathetic treatment given by the GLW to the East Timorese liberation struggle or Palestinians or most recently to the Iraqi insurgency.
If there is anything in common between Tariq Ali and Paul Wolfowitz (or the Left and neo-cons), it is in their overt stand for a Palestinian statehood on one hand and in their tacit collusion against Kurdish people's right for self-determination on the other.
Fortunately for the GLW at least, this is changing.
Ejder Memis
Lewisham, NSW
[Editor's note: We reported on the mass signing of the petition for a self-determination referendum in Iraqi Kurdistan in GLW #576 (March 24).]
Nukes
I requested, in GLW #601, a clear statement on how GLW reconciles its opposition to nuclear power with its apparent support for the Iranian nuclear program. Doug Lorimer, in GLW #602, appears to give me one, but it raises rather more questions than it answers.
Leaving aside the precise nature of the Iranian nuclear power program for the moment, Lorimer appears to suggest that it is not the role of Green Left Weekly to question the actions of sovereign dictatorships, even where their policies are contrary to GLW's and threaten the wider region with environmental damage.
As a long time reader of GLW, this comes as something of a surprise. I have found GLW extremely willing to criticise the domestic policies of dictatorships (and indeed democracies) when they deviate from the principles GLW espouses, as Iran appears to. It will come as good news to the government of Israel that they are no longer to be subjected to critiques of their internal policy by imperialistic outsiders.
Lorimer then suggests that Iran's nuclear power program is in some way defensible because Israel has one, the Shah wanted one and the US wanted to let them both. It ought to be obvious that while this kind of nod to other, past and present, villains upholds a proud tradition of changing the subject, it does not logically follow from Lorimer's historical musings that Green Left ought to make itself the mouthpiece for a government it ought to deride, pursuing a policy it abhors.
Finally, even if we take Lorimer's inability to express a view on nuclear power as given, how upstanding is Iran's record in this regard? While we can go back and forth on the current completeness of Iran's declarations to the IAEA, Iran's undeclared importation of 1.8 tonnes of natural uranium, a missing 1.9 kg of uranium hexafluoride, swipes taken from Narantz showing weapons-grade 20% enriched uranium and the unsuitability of Iran's heavy-water reactors for its proposed power program are all matters of record. Even to a supporter of nuclear power (or the inviolability of dictatorial sovereignty), Iran's behaviour has been secretive and suspicious.
Paul Barnsley
Sydney
Federal election
It is easy to become disheartened following the election of the Coalition government after the hard efforts of the valiant members of the Socialist Alliance and other progressive activists.
I have taken part in election campaigns since 1944, and there is one important feature in 2004 that I have never seen before. At the big rally on October 3, speakers from Socialist Alliance, ALP, Greens and Democrats and other opponents of the Howard government all spoke from the same platform. This has established a good precedent that augurs well for a better and brighter future.
Bernie Rosen
Strathfield, NSW
SIEV X
I find it interesting to compare the coverage of the tragedy in Beslan, 350 killed, with coverage of the tragedy of the sinking of the SIEV X. In the latter case, so near to us, and with so much evidence pointing to the Howard government's involvement, Tony Kevin has been heroic in his demands for a real inquiry into it. And bravo to Sarah Stephen in giving it the profile it deserves. The killing of those in the sinking of the SIEV X may have been equally intentional as the killing in the Beslan school atrocity; the death toll for that tragedy in international waters, under heavy Australian surveillance, was 353.
The crimes of John Howard and his government are many. From the abuse of refugee rights, to the war crime of the invasion of Iraq. Our memories are long, and Howard will one day be held to account. In the meantime, I find it inspiring to remember the true words of the East Timorese; "to resist is to win". Keep it up!
Stephen Langford
Paddington, NSW
From Green Left Weekly, October 27, 2004.
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