Protesting racism
I was pleased to see that you have continued your attacks against Hanson's and Howard's racism over many weeks. While all the issues you cover are vital, scapegoating on racist grounds is more so than others.
This is perhaps more clear to those of us who are old enough to remember the joke that Hitler seemed to be in 1928. Five years later he was dictator of Germany. During those five years, the mass media touted the attitude of "ignore him and he'll go away".
Today, the mass media carries the same message. Again, it claims that "violent" opposition to racism at mass protests is counterproductive. This ignores two facts.
The first is that any violence is that of a minority, who may well be there with intent to provide the excuse the mass media is looking for to complain. The second is that mass protests are the only way to keep popular attention focused on the dangers of Hanson's and Howard's policies.
I was proud to be at the Findon, SA, rally against Hanson's One Nation launch, and thrilled at the size of the turnout. However, I was disappointed that our PA system was devoted for nearly the whole time to leading chants. These, if you had no chant sheet, were mostly too fast and ragged to be understood.
After a while, repetitive sloganising is mind-numbing. It is very important that, in every 20 minute period, about three minutes is given to clear, basic and well thought out politically educational speeches to our supporters.
Another two minutes in every 20 should be open slather for supporters, with a further couple of minutes for a PA chair to sort out any confused statements that might happen as a result. Such opportunities are far too good to miss and we should make the most of them.
Brompton SA
[Abridged.]
Government lies
I recall the time Menzies tried to destroy the Labor Party as well as the Communist Party with a "ban the reds" referendum, but it failed. When he pulled a rabbit from the hat called the "Petrov affair", the Aussie battlers demonstrated against "the reds". ASIO had a field day, and Menzies retained government for another term on the strength of it all.
In times of trouble it is fortuitous to find Hanson's One Nation party waiting in the wings. Now this is real newspaper fodder — we can find a closet fascist in every toilet; racist ratbags ruining the economy; agitators at Hanson meetings violently demonstrating; young, white activists waving Aboriginal flags confronting the police; aged pensioners getting kicked in the head; a breakdown of law and order, on nightly television news with voice-overs. Newspaper editorials the next day carry gory details, with "expert" editorial opinion.
Meantime, back in the real world, Australia's democratic right to social justice, free speech and assembly are being destroyed. The socialist left who are in the forefront of Hanson demonstrations, have misread political history. We are being manipulated by media beat-ups. Left out of the news, Hanson will never be heard of again. The real issues are staring us in the face. Don't be fooled, or the next wave of boat people could be Aussie battlers heading for China. I think we are being sold a bunny rabbit.
Dickson ACT
[Abridged.]
Fluoridation
The adverse effects of the fluoridation of 75% of Australia's drinking water are slowly and relentlessly creeping up on us. Because the damage is not immediately obvious, many people are ignoring the problem.
Most of us are either to "laid-back" to care, or we shrug our shoulders and say "someone should do something". Your readers might feel that they should do something, however small, when they realise that:
1. The dentists admit that more than 10% of our children will suffer from Dental Fluorosis (mottled and stained teeth) which is the first visible sign of fluoride poisoning throughout the whole body.
2. Research is confirming our fears that in fluoridated areas young men suffer more from Osteosarcoma (a rare bone disease of the leg).
3. Chinese research scientists are revealing that fluoride can damaged a part of the brain before a child is born, with the result of lowering the IQ of the child.
4. Many international research papers reveal an increased number of hip fractures in the elderly because the hardening which is caused by fluoride is a brittle hardening which snaps.
Fluoride is not the tooth fairy. It is poisoning us.
Wynnum Qld
[Abridged.]
Open letter to Resistance
We are writing to express concern at an article that appeared in GLW #276 entitled "Fighting up front fees at Melbourne University". Our main concern is with the section which reads: "some students, notably members of the ISO, SA and Left Alliance proposed that the occupation pressure the university into putting on the lights by throwing office files out of the window".
We believe that making this statement effectively points the finger at members of these organisations as being involved in illegal acts. Left Alliance believes this was an irresponsible thing to print in a publication that is widely read and circulated, not because we do not want to damage our reputation, but because we do not think the best thing for the student movement at the moment is for people to be facing criminal charges.
If this seems paranoid, we should remind you that student activists are undergoing prosecution as we speak.
For example, in the case of the Austudy five, members of the ISO were arrested not so much for their involvement in a student demonstration as for their political affiliations. The 1995 Rabelais editors still face criminal charges for printing an article about shoplifting. La Trobe students were also prosecuted over an occupation of an administration building in which university property was allegedly damaged. In at least two of these cases, police and courts have tried to use material from student, alternative and/or socialist media to aid prosecution. How can we think they won't do this again.
Perhaps by the remark in question, and others in the article, the authors were seeking to differentiate Resistance from other left student groups, portraying them as ultra-radical and irresponsible, in contrast to Resistance's more moderate line. What is not legitimate for an organisation claiming to be socialist is to open members of other left wing organisations to possible prosecution by the state, all for the sake of scoring a political point. This is uncomradely, irresponsible, and profoundly contradicts any assertions from Resistance that they work in solidarity with other left groups.
We believe the authors owe an apology to Left Alliance, the ISO and SA, for placing their members in danger of potential state repression.
Left Alliance
Brunswick Vic
Ireland
Martin Thomas (GLW #282) should take care that facts don't ruin a good story. What Irish workers need may be one thing; what they've got is another.
A division, for want of a better word, divides. The division between unionist and nationalist is the primary aspect of Irish politics. Thomas believes it should be ignored or got around without telling us how. By default he allies himself with the traditional Westminster policy on Ireland (along, unfortunately, with the bulk of the British "socialist" left). Instead of struggle, Thomas lectures the readers of GLW on the need for reconciliation.
Thank god (whether a Catholic or Protestant one) for Sinn Féin — the one party in all Ireland which remains loyal to all the democratic tasks of the Irish revolution. There can be no major progress toward working class unity until the British presence in the six counties is at an end.
In that direction, SF's strategy — particularly this year — has been excellent. After the major perspectives were adopted by its national congress, in succession, the party peace policy was endorsed through a series of stunning electoral successes: in the British general election, the local council polls and in the elections in the 26 counties.
Thomas would do well to read SF's election manifestos and its recent peace proposals before accusing it of "Catholic chauvinism". Similarly the new Sinn Féin TD, Caoimhghin O Caolain, voted for Bertie Ahern for prime minister "solely on the basis of the peace process" but refused per his SF mandate to vote for the new coalition cabinet or its program for government.
O Caolain's vote was a manoeuvre, pure and simple, designed to improve the likelihood of forcing the British government to the conference table. No accord has been suggested and O Caolain has re-asserted his party's commitment to environmental, housing, tax and other social justice policies, as well as opposition to joining the European Union.
Unlike Thomas, despite differences I may have with SF on some tactical aspects, if I were an Irish socialist, I'd be proud to be a member, rather than signed up with some sectarian outfit which spent half its time trying to ignore its presence, mass support and the justice of the cause it espoused.
Brisbane
Balanced view of Stalinism
Ric Throssell's novel Tomorrow stands, as he argues (GLW #281), on the sturdy legs of an appraisal of how Soviet Stalinism contributed to the failure of the socialist vision for many CPA members.
The almost exclusive focus of the novel on the grime of Stalinism, however, created, for this reader, a pervading sense of black despair quite at odds with the other, redeeming, aspects of the communist activist. Whilst not the feast of Marx's classless society, the social and political issues that were the communists' bread and butter were significant and are a part of any balanced treatment of the whole noble and tragic, flawed and contradictory twentieth century communist experience, and the prospects for a socialist future.
An author's intentions do not always equate with the effect on the reader and it is the sense of unbalance in the novel, not the well-worked but always needed warning against attaching socialist loyalties to a country rather than to principles, that generate despondency rather than regenerating a socialist vision in the novel.
Learning the truth about Stalin may have killed the soul of many former believers, or failed to penetrate the hide of unrepentant Stalinists, but in my days in the post-Stalinist CPA, it was part of renewal. Far from causing a heart attack in the bookshop worker, it was a standing joke that the place to look for the re-shelved Progress Publishers books was under "fiction".
And one doesn't have to be a believer in "old-style socialist realism optimism-over-all" to have a Marxist literary alternative. The novelist and revolutionary, Victor Serge, did not let his reality-check on the Stalinist nightmare turn into anti-socialist pessimism.