Write on: letters to the editor

The Greens and parliament Sarah Stephen (GLW #213) is mistaken in her assessment of the struggle between The Australian Democrats and The Greens for parliamentary representation. First. This struggle is more significant than "a squabble between two kids who both want the front seat of the car". What is at stake here is the establishment of a viable, socially progressive alternative in an era where the historical compromise of a "two party system" is clearly disintegrating. The Democrats hegemonic claim to being "the third force" is being seriously challenged from the left. Second. An anarchistic condemnation of parliamentary representation may sound sweet to some ears, but it cannot substitute for an understanding of the way political process are advanced in late capitalist liberal democracies. I cannot even begin to take seriously the statement that the Greens, and Bob Brown in particular, are solely concerned with parliamentary representation. The generally celebratory view of the Democratic Socialist Party for parties with a focus on the parliamentary process, such as the German PDS or New Zealand Alliance, seems inconsistent with their views on the Australian Greens. Third. What is wrong with a focus on parliamentary representation anyway? Choosing representatives in a democratic election is a great gain for any society, regardless of the power interests who can influence that process. Moreover, winning an electoral contest confers a great deal of legitimacy on an activist party. No contender for state power can afford to dismiss the electoral process and parliamentary representation.
Jeff Richards
Prospect SA
[Edited for length.] IRA cease-fire The cessation of the IRA cease-fire, after 17 useless months, has demonstrated that its leaders stand apart as men who will not be bought off or sell the right of nationhood for even so precious a thing as peace. In all that time Prime Minister Major steadfastly refused to talk with Sinn Féin, but invited Ian Paisley into his office. He made the so-called peace process a phantom and treated it like a joke. The cease-fire called Major's bluff; its ending proved false his assumption that Gerry Adams would sell the Irish as Yasser Arafat sold the Palestinians and as Nelson Mandela sold the Bantu working people. For 17 months the IRA kept its cease-fire, whilst Loyalist paramilitaries remained active. British border guards assaulted and humiliated foreign tourists crossing the border in partitioned Ulster, in a Europe of open borders. Major's response was to use the cease-fire to consolidate British rule in the occupied two thirds of Ulster. The cease-fire proved the IRA's sincere desire for peace. Its cessation proves they are not fools who will take it at any price, such as the surrender England has never been able to force from the Irish in 900 years. Nor did Clinton's use of the old "Irish card" work either. Having seen so many sell-outs of peoples by politicians this century (including Keating's sell-out of the fine East Timorese people) I have taken heart that there are some men of principle still left. My sympathy goes to all who were injured in this bombing. But the sole moral responsibility rests on Major's shoulders. The end of colonialism in Ulster would render the IRA unnecessary.
Tomas O'Gliasain
Mr Druitt NSW
[Edited for length.] Socialism and technology I would like to comment on Neville Spencer's statement that if Marx's general law of history (which says that the conflict between development of the forces of production and the mode of production ultimately overturns the latter) ever operated at all, it did so only (or mainly) under capitalism. (Rescuing Democracy from History, 7.2.96). Certainly, it is only under capitalism that we find the development of productive forces totally subjugated to the needs of the ruling class; however, this results in a mechanism which overcomes the former conflict between mode and means of production. Marx, who clearly saw that the ideology of a society is the ideology of its ruling class, for historical reasons did not make the connection between technology and ideology, and instead saw technology as having its own independent and hence progressive dynamic. Ever since, many socialists have tried to shoe-horn socialism into the framework of capitalist technology and reductionist science, with disastrous results; the capitalist means of production allied to "value-free" ways of "scientific" thought invariably bring with them a repressive capitalist mode of production, together with increasingly catastrophic human relationships and the ultimate destruction of our planet. Blake, with remarkable insight, saw "Britain's dark satanic mills" as maiming our thinking as well as our bodies. He was right. For human-based socialism we have to almost start from scratch and create technologies based on people's needs and developed with people's cooperation. Far from being daunting, this opens up new and exciting prospects.
Gerry Harant
Blackburn Vic Greens and cooption I would like to respond to your article on the history of the Greens (GLW #219). As an active member of the Greens party I share some of your concerns about the co-option of Green parties overseas. However, I think you have ignored significant facts that make such a "sell-out" unlikely in Australia. When Australian Greens leader Bob Brown resigned from the Tasmanian parliament, he had been in for over 10 years. Yet he was as active as ever in the extra-parliamentary sphere. This included getting arrested at protests, organising campaigns and building activist organisations beyond the Greens party. I believe that this is a model that most Australian Greens aspire to. While no other Green parliamentarian has been in for nearly as long as Bob, most have a similar record. At one of the most vilified pieces of direct action in Australia's history I met an activist who had had her travel costs paid by a Tasmanian Green MP who was unable to attend personally. It is this commitment to activism that will (hopefully) prevent the Greens from becoming a party more concerned about putting a Green gloss on government than fundamental change. You are also quite wrong in suggesting that the Greens are not interested in promoting links with the Trade Union movement. The Australian Greens candidate for the Senate in South Australia is heavily involved with his union. In Victoria our candidate for McMillan is a shop steward in the Energy division of the CFMEU. It is true that so far Greens have intervened in Unions as individuals rather than part of Green tickets, but this generally reflects the age of the Green party rather than an aversion to this form of struggle.
Stephen Luntz
Melbourne Vic
[Edited for length.] NTEU Michael Morrissey of the University of Wollongong Branch of the NTEU wished to hear from South Coast federal election candidates regarding their attitude to the current dispute between his Union and the government (GLW #218). The Democratic Socialists, for whom I am standing in the seat of Cunningham, have fully supported the NTEU in this dispute. Democratic Socialists took part in the NTEU's January 22 national day of action and distributed a leaflet outlining the issues and putting the attacks on University workers in the context of ALP government cost-cutting. The Democratic Socialists particularly welcome the willingness on the part of the NTEU not to suspend their struggle in deference to the electoral needs of the ALP. We believe that to defend their rights, workers must be independent of both Labor and Liberal governments and that the influence of ALP bureaucrats in the union movement has severely weakened the unions' ability to struggle with devastating effects on workers' living standards. The Democratic Socialists have been committed to resisting attacks on tertiary education long before the current dispute. During the 1994-95 student No Fees Campaigns, Democratic Socialists played a key role in focusing student anger beyond specific charges for particular courses and onto the ALP government's cost-cutting which was behind all the moves towards tertiary fees.
Margaret Perrott
Democratic Socialist candidate for Cunningham
Wollongong