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Page 2
$OIJDARiTr Ulhtve we
sttl
Are you satisfied with your
lUe in our society?
Certainly,
there seems to be plenty of room
for improvement. Wherever you liYe,
it's certain that every aspect of
your life is regulated by managers
and officials of one kind or
another. It's ~uite likely that you
don't know your neighbours or
workmates very well - and feel
anxious and lonely from time to time.
Although we apparently have a much
higher standard of living than our
grandparents ever had, everything
you buy seems shoddy, and the
process of getting the necessary cash
is a soul destroying struggle.
On the other hand, there are
good reasons to be cynical about the
prospects for change. Socialists and
social reformers were offering
answers to these problems long
before any of us were born; yet
despite bloody revolutions, protracted
industrial struggles, and the election
of reformers to government, little
has changed for the better. Conditions
in every country today are remarkably similar; the labour, Communist
and Trade Union movements now seem
to be an integral part of the
forces that intend things to stay
that way.
But Hhen we come to come to examine
most radical and revolutionarv
movements, we find that in p;actice
they have little to do with freedom.
Rigid hierarchical organisation and
the worship of dead heroes go hand
in hand ;Iit.h a coolness approaching
contempt for anyone who doesn't
share their particular formula for
saving the world.
And yet there exists a movement
for freedom. It isn't to be found in
any formal organisation, but rather
in some of the responses of EVERYONE
who fells down-trodden and ripped
off. Whenever we recognise the needs
of another person, sex, race or
creed, and that recognition is
returned, a link of the chain snaps.
l>lhenever,Ie join hands in an open an
e~ual fashion to shift the deadweight
of bureaucracy even fractionally, a
shudder passes throt~h the whole
structure,
SOLIDARITY is a small group of
people involved in this struggle,
which attempts to broaden and deepen
the growing criticism of modern society, in theory and practice. We
try to rediscover the history of
ordinary people, that lies beneath the
history of their leaders and generals,
and attempt, within our means, to
encourage autonomy, participation, and
e~uality in every strv€gle against
management and officialdom that we
are involved in.
Rlay
'68
Ten years ago we seemed to be at
the dawn of a new wor Id , The l'IorldHide
movement of protest against the Vietnam
war had stimUlated a radical critique of
capitalist society. especially amongst
stUdents. In France, 10 million workers
went on s trike in a movement wn i.ch,
in both strength and radicalism, l'Ias
probably the most advanced ever in the
history of capitalism. The whole of
our lives seemed about to change.
Today, how different it seems.
Although there are many positive things
happening. the running seems increasingly
to be made by the forces of reaction.
In most countries racism has emerged
as a strong political force. The state
is taking more control, aided by the
antics of 'urban guerillas'. Far from
creating the future, people are concerned
with holding what they've got and
trying to stop things getting worse.
For instance, in the field of education,
which was one of the major areas of
struggle, l'Ieare increasingly concerned
l'Iithopposing cuts, rather than attacking
capitalist schooling.
The revolutionary movement has
responded by reverting to the ways of
the past.A proliferation of Trotskyist
groups argue about the correct line.
the 'Communist'Party of Great Britain,
which seemed a joke in I968,se8ms to
be increasing its influence.And ~urocommunism
lcoks li"e kttaining some
pOl'lerin France and Italy,l'Ihere the
struggles of 68 were greatest.
Part of this difference is an
illusion. The movement was not as strong
then as it seemed to be to those
~
of us involved,and it has grown in
important Hays,involving neH groups
of people. The student movement,for
instance,in Britain l'Iasmainly in a
fel'lmajor Universities,and nol'lmany
more students are involved in other
institutions. But there are real
problems which l'Iehave to face.
Some of these arise from
economic changes. Although the end of
the postwar boom Has 'risible by 68,
economic factors were still much less
of a constraint. Today unemployment and
inflation are a real constraint.As in
the JOs,the'crisis of capitalism'has
paradoxically not helped those Vlho
attack that system.
Also the state has learned more
+.han its opponents. As one of the
'gurus' of that period put it "the
revolution revolutionises the counterrevolution'. The sta t,e is both more subt
and more determined.Likewhise
many in
the press and elsewhere were scared
off by the prospect of real change.
But some of the major problems
arose from the weaknesses of the
movement itself. It was in many ways
naive,and important differences were
ignored. The paradox of anti-Stalinists
waving North Vietnam flags went unnotice!
'Solidarity' would not now print
apa>mphlet about a pro-Vietcong demo
without mentioning the appaling nature
of that organisation.
One of the major problems l'Iasthe
attitude of revolutionaries to women.
This was one of the most glaring
weav~~esses in France,for instance. Out
of this grew the women's movement,
attacking at first the attitude of the
left to the l'Iomenin its ranks,This
fight continues today, but at least
no-one dare suggest that there is no
problem, or t.hat the blatant macho
posturing of 'Street Fighting HAN'has
anything to do with socialism.
The other big problem which has
to be overcome is that of nationalism.
vihilst the movement of ten' years ago
was consciously international,its
attitude to nationalism vias confused.
Nost supported 'national-liberation'
movements, and many called for 'nationalisation', Indeed most still do. As
nationalism and racism become more
important to the ruling classes, the
consequences of this confusion will
become much worse.
One movement wh i.ch has arisen in
the aftermath of 1968 is the ecology
movement. This ,like all real movements,
has its problems and contradictions,
but in many ,lays it has the greatest
claim to inherit the'Spirit of 68',
And,as a worldHide movement against
nuclear power develops,it is seen to
be the largest mass campaign since
that time.
Solidarity intends to report and
discuss these and other issues,and the
overall strl~gle of people to do away
Hithbosses
of all sorts,which was an
important element cf the movement in
I968.That was an important year for
the socialist movement,but what is
important for us is to prepare for the
future. 1968 is dead.
DON'T liIOURNFOR IT. ORGANISE .
ten years
on
SOLIDAIUTY is the paper of the
Solidarity National Group. It is
produced in rotation by the various
autonomous local groups. This issue
was produced by the Oxford group;
all editorial decisions are our
responsibli ty alone. vlhile the
contents of the paper generally
reflect the politics of Solidarity,
articles signed by individuals don't
necessarily reflect the views of all
members.
str~ke
A recent and still continuing
dispute in the North Sea has shown
some of the particular difficulties
facing workers on unofficial strike.
1\li
th a few notable exceptions,
national trade union organisations
have been unenthusiastic and
lffisuccessful in helping people
working offshore. In some cases,
full-time officials have told offshore workers that they can do
nothing for them. The response of a
group of electricians, EETPU members
working for Hather and Platt Alarms
Limited, was to organise themselves at
a local level. This was very successful, and the wages and conditions
they acheived Here among the best in
the British sector of the North Sea.
Fr.om Hather Platt's point of view,
this was unprofitable, especially as
their workforce grew. They began
sUb-contacting Hork, and just before
Xmas announced 30 redundancies. vlhen
the' rest of the electricians came out
in support they too Here sacked.
Pickets "ere mounted at J'lather&
Platt offices and at Dyce Heliport,
Aberdeen, from where the workers were
flown to the rigs.
The EETPU refused to make it~
members' case official. Apart from
the lack of strike pay, it proved
difficult for the strikers to
approach and gain support from other
Horkers. A feH local TU officials
gave the strikers assistance, but not
openly, for fear of treading on the
toes of EETPU officials. But from most
quarters the response Has that since
the strike Has unofficial, no help
could be given. This meant that
contacting sympathetic trade unionists
was either difficult or impossible,
since by control of information (eg.
how to contact shop steHards) union
officials have considerable pOHer
over communications.
[JT
This does imply, of course, that
an official strike Hill meet Hith
cooperation and support; but in an
unofficial dispute it is much easier
for officials to oppose a strike they
,!isCl.gree
Hith. Aberdeen Trades Council
voted support for the strikers and
"CiS putting an emergency motion to the
Scottish TUC in mid-April on their
behalf when the chairman ruled that
this was Qllconstitutional because
the strike Has unofficial. A
compromise was reached: the Trades
Council maintained its verbal
support for the strikers but
withdrew the emergency motion.
Finally the lack of official
backing by the strikers' union may
undermine support from other
Horkers - though this has not
invariably happened.
Since the vast majority of
strikes are unofficial at the start,
and many continue without being made
official, the issues mentioned above
should be of general r-eIevance , The
long standing libertarian vieH that
lllofficial strikes are preferable to
of'f'Lc
Lal. ones because of the
relative autonomy with which the
strikers can sometimes operate has
to be offset against the factors
mentioned above.
Despite the dif:ficulties in
getting support, the Hather and
Platt strikers voted at a mass
meeting on 27th April to continue
the strike. Some of them have
received une o l.i.c i. ted job offers
from other companies operating in
the North Sea,they see thls as an
attempt to break the strike,
hOHever.
Sandy.
Spare a thought for the Electricity Board customer who , when Hriting
a complaint, found that he had -~o quote the following reference number:1740519518000A64001001000010390V
pound away
o
Shoddy production of the new
pound notes has caused a lot of
trouble for the High Street banks.
Their 24-hour cash dispensing machines
Here all adjusted to "recognise" the
new notes, but oHing to large random
variations in size, the machines have
malfunctioned badly, either rejecting
the notes, or packing up altogether.
A Treasury spokesman Has however
unrepentant; "We don't make them by
hand, you k..'10W",
he quipped. Heanvlhile,
the decision to print the serial number
on just one corner of the new note has
caused chaos in the handling of torn
and damaged currency.
A new computer software package
called ROBOT has been developed in the
States, -which is supposed to be able
to a lLo« the computer user to communicate Hith the machine in Plain
English, via a tygewriter keyboard.
The idea behind this is certainly not
to permit everyone to have access to
information held on computers; rather,
a saving is forseen in employing
unskilled workers to replace skilled
programmers and coders for certain
purposes.
bureauscab
An interesting document was
recently circulated to staff in the
Department of Education and Science;
here are a few extracts:INSTRUCTIONS FOR STAFF IN THE EVENT
OF A RAIL STRIKJ£ ON I jVIA.IWH,
1978
1. The general requirement lS that
you must make every effort to
report for duty at ycur normal
place of work unless you receive
instructions to'the contrary.
If you are physically fit you
should be preparr"d to walk up to
4 miles each way as a stage of
your journeys to and from your
office.
8. If you cannot reach your normal
office under one of the arrangements above, and cannot work at
home, you should try to reach one
of the other offices of the
Department (for example, Canons
Park or one of the Departmental
Nuseums). If this is not possible
you should report in person to a
Department of Employment Exchange
or Branch Employment Office.if
there is one wichin 4 miles of your
home. You should say that ycu are
a Civil Servant reporting under
the emergency scheme for loan to
some other department. If there is
no employment exchange or Branch
Employment Office Hithin 4 miles of
your home you should report to any
other government department Hithin
that distance. You should tell your
Senior Officer in the Department
of Education and Science what you
are doing either by telephone or
post.
If, having taken all reasonable
steps to fit into one of the
categories above no work has been
found for you, or you have been
unable to report to your own office
or that of another government
department, you may at the Department's discretion be paid your salary in full. In these circumstances
you may volunteer for emergency
duties outside the civil service ••.
And so it goes on ....•••.••.......
0=
Page 4
Oiler
nevr to tLis s crt
Has ra.ised to
ra,cistp
anti-"-,--,abour
game;
ar«,
finance
ti-fascist ~saflets. A succession of
a strong case for the
ViSH
the National Front Here
Fighting Fascism .....is il becoming an
and
1I'Iovement",
in the central tradition of Hitlerite
~\T'::izismJ'in case any-body was in any
doubt. :ie Here told at some length
about
record
of Naz i sm in Germany,
Ites hard to think of any
leftist campaign in recent
that has generated as much
as the Anti-Nazi League. So it seems
important to ask hOH effecti;e this
campaign really is, both agaJ.nst the
National F'r on t , and as
of the
wider
project
of
war is tTdO generations
auay for many
v ounv neoDle
n ow. Vie Nere repeatedly
~'e!~i~d~dthat the National Front w ou l d
a.nticirated~ altl)ough I felt that the
be getting an increasing volume of
I
recently took part in tHO major
ANAL t'unc t.Lons , and
deeply imp~'essed by the
.,
of so many people to put a spoke
~r:
the Front~s
blg
wheel,
Hhich.is perhaps not as superfluous as
it might at first seem; after all, the
Vlere
exceJlent1
des:pite c o-rt i.nua I hassles
w i.t.n v o.Lumc
distortion
on the PA.
The t.emend cue
I t
have b,:.;:,e.n
I feel
t.ho.t
a
question mark bangs over ANAL itself.
The first~ and most
of these f'unct i.ons Has the
Carnival in Victoria Park on Apr i I
30th. It has been arguei for
time that the old-fashionec1. macho
left demonstration is too tedious
unproductive for most people to
stomachs and thE carnival seemed to
ShOH very clearly Nhat a little
can do in politics. That
people Here :pre:paredto march
for the-highly political purpose of
enjoying themselves, as Hell a~
waving t.vo fingers at the f'asc i s t.s ,
points to a lesso11 for us all
the National Front could only muster
200 people the folloHing day for the
counter-march
that
been quite
to boot.)
1
Yet the ma.rcb itself Has pretty
unimagina ti ve s even though the police
were nowhere to be seen most of the
time, This ','la3
probably our own
fault, although the strong disapproval
voiced by the leftists when libertarian chants Hent up Has a certain
disincentive to dcing anything else,
The only interesting incidents Here
the chanting of "Colonel B is H A
Johnstone"
the march as it
passed through
street, _and the ,
obvious discomfort of a small group 01
police Vlho had been assigned to stand
guard over a skip of cobblestohes
lying in the march's path in the East
Bnd, The National Front launched an
abortive attack on the march in Bethnal Green, but for the most part they
just huddled in small groups behind
protective police lines,
v e.r, ~LOl1g march leading
8-:-1.01-18(1that the organis8rs
l<P to
concerned Hith creating a
s oec t.aoLo than -vlith our
t help being
j
;
level
iL\rol,,rements,
,an~i great
~~=:ess 'Ylas
10.1<1O~ :.he need to propaganulse
at
~'Jorizplace
street
levels l~ather
than in meeT..ings
of vJI-lat tIle lefL. is
pleased :"0 call Ilvrorkers ~ organisa tLons" ~ the Unions and the _~abour
t~a~e::~e
t:::
~:~:~r,:r
~'::~l~~~~~:ers
in
great;18ss r
the collecting
vre re clrc!l.lated.
11
lesbians,
l;'jhi
te
e
of
tins
very strai;<ht
ar.n+i n -a rrr , si:~ging
Hi t.h
HobiY1S8nr, s l\~lad To Be
The concern shovn by th.B artists
for
the aaf e t.y of the c r owd \'JetS
mueD
their political
their
mor'e overt statements,
as
ilobinson~s appeal on behalf of the
H A Johnstone defendants,
not excepting the
eve.ry or;e
itself
was "prett.v- m.ch in
So
in a; att~mpt to find
the organisation,
itself,
..L attenJed
the inaugural. meeting
of AT·,TAl... .in
home t01'Tl1.
This
i t;::-", l~ositive aspects.
Some three
to four
people
turned up, and I -c'rd_nk many of them
Y8t. 0.1th ough I ~IIas enc o~).r2ged
so nany
Nere c onc erned
::lbout oFPosing f'a.sci s.n , I felt
tha-~
-their goodNill Vias thoroughly
at-used
by ANAL. Not only Here 'tiebeing asked
to accept a very shalloH picture of
vas , He Here constantly
exhorted to drop Vlsectarianismll and
embrace Christians, Labour Party
members, and other long-standing
opponents of the oppressed, at the
expense of our ONn brothers and
HIlat fascism
sisters.
The clearest
uns poken expression
of thisdas
that every speaker Has
both Ifni te and maLe , Nothing was said
about the threat posed by fascism to
0=
the aspirations
vcmen, or the very
existance
gay people of both sexes.
A}liAt Hal-ional Secretary
Page
5
go into it".
Nothing was said about the
National Front's authoritarianism,
or the inadequacy of the fetish of
leadership as a solution to our
insecurity in these troubled times.
Quite the reverse. Paul Holborow
twice said of the unemployed, "we
think those people ought to be set
to work" (his choice of words, not
mine !). And we were told that only
the "disciplined workforce" could
defeat fascism.
Even the "non-sectarianism"
seemed to be pretty one-sided. The
meeting gave every appearance of
being tightly controlled by the
Socialist I~orker's Party. Hhen a
group of Trotskyists walked out,
they ,Iere rabidly denounced.
(Actually, they had gone to look
for someone who had thro,m a can
labelled "Zyklon B"into the hall).
No time was allowed for
discussion, and when the meeting
protested, "questions" only were
allowed. Only three questions were
permitted. They were asked where ANAL
stood on "No Platform For Fascists"
and Immigration Controls, but they
obviously didn't Hant to embarrass
their Labour Party friends by
replying. They were also asked how
decisions would be taken in ANAL in
future. vIe were told that a committee
Hould be elected at the next meeting,
but it seemed pretty clear that ,IE
weren't going to be allowed to make
any decisions ourselves !
Although this was only one
local meeting, from What we've
heard from elseHhere, it Has not
atypical. So perhaps it is Horth
trying to put fascism in
perspective, before we ask hOH we
can possibly associate with this
kind of organisation.
I can't agree Hith those Hho
say that anti-fascism is a waste
of time. The National Front pose a
big practical problem, particularly
as a physical threat to everyone
who meets Hith their displea3ure. I
can't stand idly by and watch my
brothers and sisters get beaten up;
and the best Hay to fight them is
to prevent their recruiting through
meetings and paper sales, and to
campaign more generally to loosen
their foothold amongst Horking
people and others.
At the same time, the National
Front are a small problem compared
Hith the state and its political
apparatus as a Hhole; indeed, the
LEFT wing has been far more
successful in recent years in
attacking and demoralising our
struggles - though there methods be
more subtle. Quite clearly, ANAL
asks us to abandon the fight against
our main enemy for the sake of unity
against fascism.
50 my attitude is that although
there is no Hay I'm going to join
ANAL, if they initiate activities that
seem HothHhile, like the carnival,
then I'll be there. I may Hell have
my OHn leaflets, and they may not
like Hhat I've got to say.
consume more, live less, in
ised authority.
Bureaucracy and rigid
A feH weeks ago Dr Husak (the
Czechoslovakian premier) visited
planning have given socialism a bad
Hest Germany. The event was presentname. It seems that the only Hay to
ed in the liberal press as a ;Jig Eastchallenge this is to organise in local
\{est meeting. In reality it Has nothcollective groups.
In the village
ing of the kind The only difference
Hhere I stayed it Has noticeable hOH
betHeen v/estern repression (notably
the people cooperated at a grass roots
level as long as the party officials
in Hest Germany) and Eastern oppression is that they have different labels
and higher paid managers stayed out
attached. This may seem like a sweepof sight.
ing statement, to some extent it is.
Secondly, Socialism must be associated
But during a visit to Czechoslovakia
Hith open and easy expression of
last year I encountered the problem
ideas. \,eattended a meeting Hi th the
head-on in a discussion Hith a Czech
"Socialist National youth League"
student. The girl explained how the
Hhere He were told that the reason
schools and colleges teach the kids
Czechs are not able to travel to the
to denounce the ~Jestern countries
west is that our governments Hill not
as "State Capitalist." And here He
give them visas.
In reality Czechs
are told that the trouble Hith Russia
have a long struggle to get authoHas that it moved steadily to a "State
risation to leave the country. The
Capitalist" position.after the exciteCzech didn't translate these lies
ment of the revolution had died away.
until the direct question was put,
So He all exist und er- the same chains.
>lhen she had to explain that she
Centralised control of the economy in
Czechoslovakia is mirrored by the multi- hadn't translated because she ~~eH
the official Has lying.
nationals in Britain. Speechlessness
and powerlesness of the Horking people
Thirdly. no revolutionary
is maintained by THE SUN and RUDE PRAVO
change can come about solely by
alike. In Czechoslovakia the party
altering the structure of the economy.
encourages higher consumption in order
People's everyday lives must be
to strengthen socia11sm and build the
radically altered first. Some aspeots
Horld revolution. Here He are bullied
of the Czechoslovakian economy are
into massive consumption on the basis
>lhat I Hould expect to find in a
of the individualist ethic of "Have
socialist country. others (particularmore - live happier."
ly'the central domination Hith
respect to production targets) Here
The differences are slight,
completely alien and ridiculous.
though it is true to say that He do
"From each according to his ability
have an advantage in being able to
to each according to his needs".
produce magazines like this Hhich
Nevertheless, if the pOHer of the
Hould never be seen in Czechoslovakia
party and the army could be relaxed I
except perhaps amongst a feH groups
guess that t0e Czechoslovakians might
of "subversive intellectuals" Hho
move rapidly in the direction of a
sometimes duplicate sheets and books
more socialist form of organisation.
Hithout being tracked dOHll and imSome young people I met Here awar-e or
prisoned. FeH of us Hould find it
the ways in Hhich their ideals have
easy to live under thelliron fist"
been distorted.
Perhaps future crises
of the communist party. But here the
and upheavals in the capitalist
fist is present even though it is
countries will be reflected in
disguised in a soft glove, What can
Czechoslovakia in neH forms of liberHe learn from the experiences of
tarian communism.
The alternative is
people living in Czechoslovakia ilnd
the continued growth of strong states
the other "Peoples Democracies"?
throughout the Horld.
Firstly, Czechoslovakia acts as
Fried Egg
a Harning against any form of centr3.l-
~
t
I
~I,
~~
.~
Vastan Bulbous
L
-
-----------------
Oxford
Nurser~
Occupation
South Oxford nursery was due to
be closed by the C01L'ltyCouncil on
March 2Jrd. Parents of the children
and supporters of the Oxford City
Nursery Campaign had tried all other
means of protest in an attempt to keep
it open - petitions, public meetings
and demonstrations.
But it was no use,
the Council wouldn't budge. 1:/e
decided to occupy the nursery ,on
March 21st and entered the building
when class was over, armed with advice
about the Criminal Tresspass Law.
The day-time running of the class
and the continuous occupation of the
building was organized by a series of
rotas and was only possible through
the broad based support of the
community of Oxford. The practicalities
of teaching, cooking, security,
pUblicity and administration were
organized democratically and all
meetings were and continue to be
open to all supporters of the campaign.
We heard that the Council was going
to cut off our supplies of water,
heating and electricity and asked
NUP~ to block this attempt, which
they did.
We decided early on that we had to,
obtain the goodwill and support of the
public and especially of parents with
young children.
Clearly the campaign
had to be effective politically but
we wanted it to appeal to children too.
So we put on a lot of events - first
we dressed up as a flock of clowns
and went through the town with
balloons and cymbals, leafletting and
collecting signatures.
l'ieheld a
carnival demonstration on April 1st
which 200 people in fancy dress came
to., And on Easter Sunday we held a
party for all children of nursery age.
Our leaflets explained the campaign's
demands: to save the JO nursery
places and also the jobs of the
teacher, assistant, cleaner and dinner
staff. We also said how people could
help us and offers of help flooded in
throughout the occ upa tion, from
donations of money to cakes and offers
to cook the children's dinner.
Letters of support from local Unions
and labour Party branches flowed in
daily whilst Oxford Trades Council
pledged support and formed a
delega tion to pressure the Council.
But the Council refused to meet them.
The national press and TV covered
the first day of the occupation but
local papers gave us great support and
continued their coverage throughout.
But the Council were hoping' that
public support would dwindle in time
- they refused to talk to us.
On April 17th came the first
official response to the occupation,
an ultimatum from the coucil. We called
a demonstration to answer the demand
we leave and JOO people turnEjd up to
blow a rasberry at the Council
officials, who were ~oo nervous to
enter the playgro=d
in the presence
of their rate-payers.
On April 21st the children made
a cake and we had a birthday party
to celebrate one calendar month in
occupation.
That same day we
received a notice of court action
from the Council.
We had kept up
a regular nursery class of 14 children
and a rota of at least 6 adults, 24
hours a day for a month. The
Council's public image had taken a
battering, their patience had run out
and now they were taking us to court
the following
Thursday.
Needless
to say, our defence was useless; they
allowed an airing of our arguments
but the law was-heavily in the
Council's favour, all they had to do
was prove ownership of the building
and the eviction was granted.
At 7.45 am on Friday the bailiUs
and police arrived to meet press, TV,
photographers and lots of nursery
supporters who'd been on watch since
6 <,tm(weld had a tip-off from the
press).
They peered into the classroom, then disappeared.
Hould they
come baik? The nl~sery class began
as usual at 9 am. Iiould they have the
patience to wait till after the
children had left at J.JOpm?
- No.
llam,AprH 28th
They return, this time
scurrying from door to door unable to
use their keys
class becomes a singsong
we hold their attention but not their
patience.
(me small window a twist of the key
the c Laasr-oom is full of uniforms and
heavy weights
like smashing a glass child
a knee in the windpipe from the system
'breaking/ the hole/ pane
all the occupation sucked outside
frozen moments of order shattered
emotions lying brittle bric a brac
upon the floor
we build our own pack of cards
this time
and finally they showed how easy it was
to destroy it.
still swaying from the experience
we moved into a nearby youth club and
there the class continues.
So it's
back to street canvassing, producing
an exhibition about the occupation
and taking it ro=d community centres
,.,ndshopping centres, showing our
video film in pubs and launderettes ...
The campaign marches on, always keeping
in mind that without wide community
support community actions can't succeed.
Roger
:~:i
,,~,CQL!,.'B', .&y
,.~b',;\
:,)..'
5
'~~ :":_ij-:?~;\:
>L'.'_)-,~
.'; "
l\,,<
QFINTEL,LIGE
and Peace
published
Colonel 'B's name as Colonel H.A.
Johnstone to help demystify
the
coAjfi::j,ved "secrecy"
surrounding
the
Autir'~;y,6Berry/camp be 11 Offic ial Secrets
Case:;' Af~r all,
in cross-examination,
J ohns,tonehad
said that he I d been
eVBuftis
existence,
let alonehowlll'1lCh 'it,'
c08t-out.si.dc the 'cl,osed circ,.le of
those
'
and, in,t'oct-'
In fact., it:
for'him .t o.
reprisals.
protect
This
by the· Sunday: Times.,
even had the sickness i of mind
tb oompar'e him to a rape victim in
this
.yet:he
made it
clear Hhiit his,rarik
and"
i-ras'~and .in "VIhich
magazirie"his
.name cou l dvbo .f ound ..
His telephonet'iumber's
in the
directory,
so he can hardly' !beill'
danger.
The DPP told the papers
the court had ·:)rdered his name
be published,
but at the time
order Vias maae ,
too,
for
the
thp
curious
s
mentality.
People
became a poli tica:
and many others »h cse stint
left
them Hith a very
cast of mind. If Colonel
dOHn from abQve~
be mor.e,prepared
to speak·).lP from
beloH .. ,
aVl,arded' NeVIs anci Eeveller ,
NeVISand Socialist
shoestring.,
T,hug t.he ,tHO
Hhich have con~istentiy
,e)cp':)sea
"secrets:'<bii;:e
t.hE! dust
i
,
Bufthat'snot
all. Solidarity
Ylas'farfroffi"being"the
en Iy
",.,'
publicatiOnYlhi.ch
'reprintedJonndtone'
s
name) 'but 'Ehe Special Branch chose
the NUJ's 0rgari""The Journa'lis't"
(Yll'tiCn publisrYed "thenarile" C[ uitelate
on) i 'andcl1arged
theed'i t o",Ylith
contempt.
Thus; it was'inevitable
t9il,t thel'!lJJ 's Ap:cil .c onf'er-ence
,iould,Fjave,plentypf
motions on the,
subject,
some naI!l~ng,theColonel.
So the Director,ofJ?ublic
,Prosecutions
colllep.alimg, andord~rs
that the ,n",me .
not
uttered
there ore~se.
The
unionconrl?lies
,b)1t the'namE!'s
sho~ted out anyway.
NearlHhile,
LaocYtir',M.P'sarecircula-teu·wi
th
the NtiS' s"story" 'so 'four '''Teft'-'
Vlingers' stand up on Thursday April
2 Qt,h, a.nd:uttBJ:; thenametq,tl;lB
,world.
The 'rest .iq"CQml))'gllknoHIedg(O;.:How
the DPF;tri'~dto
,ord",r th!i::paper.,s:not
to republish
"t,he':nallkB"and "the, ::'
s);!'f0li"v,x';;l.ed",that ~e : wCj.p :~ntd;t~e~"
to say this:,.09.d, grvve,~leda,b~ut
hgH' '
he sh().)11d.havep:r;eyent~\it1fe.d":e0d
..' '
:.)1i?.IDfi o'?tng ut,tf'rE;od Most J?apers . '. ,
;pr~nted.:thel'a}1le .30BYYlaY:,,-a,nd
,J;!\11ld.i
t.s
poni;if,i,cated.f
or.iiayson
the e,nd;of
civi,L.i;sat;ton'2.$ we .kn o» it.,,Al:)..,fo1]
a name.
be
viot I s in this name? The Hhole
thing's
yeiyconvenient
for
those Hho Hant the lid kept on hoYi
Page 8
men
Around 200 men spent the weekend
of 22nd and 23rd April at the men's
national conference in London. My
artiole describes those two days
from one particular viewpoint.
Undoubtedly many other men experienced
things very differently.
l came along not knowing what
to expect and was very scared.
Fortunately l was with a friend.
Many others were alone - sitting
widely scattered, reading (or pretending to read) conference papers.
This lasted for over an hour, while
the hall slowly filled. It took a
lot of courage to strike up conversations with some of these sombre
strangers. ~ventually the opening
plenary was started. The discussion
was muted and the organisers took it
upon themselves to reply to every·
point made from the floor. The
conference structure was outlined 18 specialist workshops, divided
into four sessions, two on Saturday
.and two on Sunday. On the Saturday
night there woul~ be a theatre group
and a social and on Sunday midafternoon a closing plenary.
Qnd
",en
lnstead of encouraging the
discussion the organisers stated that
"it has been a lot of work and we
would prefer you not to fuck about
with the conference structure." They
told us it had taken twenty (!)
meetings to organise. The plenary was
very quiet and obedient. Further
argument with the leadership seemed
pointless. We announced that there
would be an anti-workshop lasting
throughout the two Saturday sessions
and we invited all those interested
to join us.
The plenary eventually decided
to adopt a very watered-down version
of our proposal - the participants
wouid immediately split into
informal groups for one hour, tl;ley
would then break up for specialist
workshops and would come back
together briefly in tea-breaks between
workshopcsessions.
OUR ANTl-WORKSHOP
MEN AND THINGS
A major split over structure
became evident. Some of us argued
that the proposed structure was
unnecessarily specialised. We
suggested that on the first day men
could separate into non-specific
workshops' t.o relate to each other in
whatever way they chose and to discuss
whatever topics were of interest to
'them. The second day could be used for
a few specialist Workshops. Our reasons
were the following: men attend
numerous conferences, meetings and
seminars devoted to the discussion
of this or that topic. On such
occasions the topic is all important,
the participants don't matter as
people. We hadn't come to this
conference to discover any new truths,
agree on better theories or proclaim
manifestoes. We wanted to waste time.
To get to know each other. For the
people to be all-important, the
topics incidental.
This approach would not be suited
to the practical topics, such as Creche
Organisation, which could take place
on the Sunday. Most of the proposed
workshops were not of this kind.
Their topics were ideally suited for
discussion in a self-organised
group, for example Sexuality,
Monogamy, Men and Child Care,
Patriarchy, Contraception, Consciousness Raising. The separation of these
topics into distinct workshops
struck us as insane - instead of the
one duality fostered by contemporary
society (Personal versus Political)
we were being asked to categorise our
lives into eighteen compartments !
Instead of the originally
proposed two sessions, our antiworkshop went on for all four
sessions of the conference. Our
numbers varied over the two days, but
most of the time there were about
twelve of us. ~ight men stayed
together for the four sessions,
others joined in for one or one or
two sessions. All together about 25
men spent at least one session in our
group. At first we were scared, very
tentative and rather abstract. In our
first hour together we found out, in
a haphazard way, each other's names
and Some background details. The
spectrum of male. sexua.Li, ty was well
represented: men variously describe~
themselves
as bisexual,homosexual,
celibate or heterosexual. Our ages
varied from about fifty to about
twenty.
Our make-or-break crisis came
when the formal workshops were due to
start. At this point some men got up
to go to the Sexuality workshop.
Someone suggested that we talk more
openly about our individual sexuality
rather than going on talking in
generalities. Those who had been on
the point of leaving decided to stay
and give the group a chance. Somehow
we broke the ice and from then we
went like a bomb - no stopping us~
A refugee from the Sexuality workshop
joined us after a while. He told us
that they were sitting up as stiff
as· ramrods, looking very tense and
discussing points typed out on a
sheet of paper. We all fell about
the floor laughing - not because the
other workshop was tense, but in
delight at having overcome our own
tension. Those men who had earlier
been about to leave said now that they
were very glad they had stayed.
From talking to other men in teabreaks and from the reports of refugees
we pieced together a picture of the
other workshops as being abstract and
lonely places. This, though it may
well have been a false picture,
strengthened the bonds between us,
as we felt that we were in an oasis,
surrounded by desert.
WE TAlli@
ABOUT •••
We talked about so much ..•all
men having small penises .••people
imprisoning each other in expectati~
...monogamy ••. jealousy ..• intercourse
...dislike of intercourse ..•alternatives
...cuddling .•.the Hite Report .••
dancing ...tasting your semen ..•how
to tell someone else what you want ...
and what you don't want
children
...not having children
'meat markets'
.•.marriage ...rape •..battering of
women ...celibacy .•.masturbation •••
bisexuality
cuddling with men .••
homosexuality
communes ...childcare ...
computers
work ...black men and
white women
black women and white
men ...us seeing each other again ...
We didn't discuss the men's
movement .•.the women's movement ...
socialism ..•the revolution .•. Ireland
..•and other matters too numerous
to mention.
We weren't gentle, if being
gentle consists of talking
quietly and smiling, while looking
into each other's eyes. We were'
aggressive, if being aggressive is
getting excited, interrupting each
other, telling each other to shut up.
Those who advocated this kind of
gentleness and criticised this kind
of aggressiveness
soon left us. We
were glad to see them go.
We weren't equal, if being equal
means going round the circle, taking
turns speaking. We were being
dominated, if being dominated
consists of some people having more
ideas to communicate than others,
or more pain to relieve than others.
We didn't perform an analysis,
practice self-criticism
or promise
critical support to anyone.
On Sunday morning the group was
tense. Many of us felt very scared
of the evening, of leaving this
island of sanity which we had so
painfully established. We eventually
got over this preoccupation with
dissolution and enjoyed ourselves
again. It was a sunny day. After lunch
we walked to the local cemetery and sat
on the grass and talked on. When it
got cold we went back indoors and
when it·got late we went home.
Misha Wolf.
Page 9
e
D~
The anti-nuclear 'week of action'
which began with the 10,000-strong
rally against the Windscale extention
at Trafalguar Square on April 29th,
ended with a march and festival at
Torness (30 miles east of Edinburgh)
the following weekend.
Together these represented the
biggest effort by the environmental
movement in Britain to mobilise its
supporters since the Campaign for
Nuclear Disarmament in the early
sixties, and so they were a test
of the present strength of the
movement and of where it has got to
in raising and aneve.ri.ng the
questions implied by the nuclear
programme and possibly successful
ways of opposing it.
The Scottish Demonstration
attracted an estimated 5-6,000 on
the march from the rallying point
at Dunbar to the proposed site at
Torness, of which 4,000 stay~d to
camp out for the weekend.
The multitude sat cross-legged
or sprawled in the solar energy to
hear platform speeches, folk and
rock music and later showings of
films of other occupations from
the US (Seabrook) and the German
(Kalkar) the latter vividly
showed the violence the State is
prepared to exert in order to resist
opposition.
other events included examples of
alternative technology in action.
A 10 foot windmill brought to the
site bv a trawler converted by the
enviro~ment group Greenpeace for
their campaign to stop the killing of
whales. One unplanned event was the
success of 200 demostators to
embarass 6 policemen into releasing
a dope arrestee by the use of nonviolent action. The van he had been
put into was surrounded and chants
of "we all smoke dope" were heard.
It was a good weekend, most
people probably enjoyed themselves,
and a lot of learning and discussion
went on. But it probably didn't
make the technocrats quake in
their .jackboots. Nor were the
questions of whether there is a
non-violent 'day to oppose nuclear
development tackled (and what do we
do if not), and even what 'nonviolence' means.
Before the two day occupation
ended a formal declaration against
nuclear power was left on a sign
board on the site. Discussions
about what kind of activities would
be necessary to continue resisting
the expansion of nuclear technology
included proposals to attempt a
long term occupation of the Torness
site, and a bus to tpur the country
carrying information on alternative
technology.
Information about further events
can be got from the organizations
listed below:
SCRAN The Scottish Campaign to Resist
the Atomic Nenace, 2, Aninsle Place,
Edinburgh.
Greenpeace (London) 6, Ensleigh
Street, London WCl
N.I.N. Nuclear information Network
c/o 29, Gt. James Street, London WCl
Foe
2.
Friends of the Earth (London)
Poland street, London WI
A new Ecological Rag just hit the
the streets "Ec ol.ogy and. Anarchism"
Which includes articles on .....
Ecology and the French ~lections
.
Chemical and Biological vlarfare .
La Hague, the French vlindscale ..
Crimilization of the German Anti
Nuclear movement ...~~ffects of
nuclear pollution on living beings
plus an editorial discussing the use
of the Nuclear Power program by the
State as an excuse to "promote mass
insecurity and make more repressive
social control messures acceptable"
Copies can be obtained from :
B.A.N.G c/o 63. Nillbrook Road,
Brixton, London SVI9 lOp + 7p postage
anarchists
afloat
SOLIDA~ITY is one of forty
anarchist groups who have been sent
leaflets by the Naritime Revolutionary
\-Iorkers,Via ~'erruccio, 4/B - RONA
00185, Italy. They are looking for
support for the project described
below.
"We are preparing a vessel to
transport cargo worldwide on a
money less o,merless basis. Negociations are in progress to have a
10000 ton cargo ship, sailing under
international registration, ready to
load cargo by mid-1980. The ship will
not be controlled by force, either
inside or from outside, so that a
non-violent anarchist nature can be
alloHed its expression.
\-IeknoH that there are nOH groups
of people producing the necessary
products required by the starving and
lli~comfortablesick bodies of billions
of humans. One of the strongest
feelings is that there is so much
available cargo to move urgently to
so many needy people that the Hork is
already a priority Horld peace
precursor. ~~ganisation is required
to be able to work and communicate
t.ouards liberating the wor-Ld
population's basic human needs in a
simpler Hay Hithout this present
horrifying waste and destruction.
Vieare asking ourselves questions
such as: "Who can support this· ship?
Hhere Hill this ship load ?vlha twill
this ship load ? \AlhereHill this ship
take that load ?
Vie have may people who Hant to
operate many ships "ithin these more
practical liberating structures.
HOHever, outside support is essential
as the maritime workers at sea are D1
a very difficult position to organise
the necessary vast amOQDt of contacts
etc.
Aboard ship today the radio is
protected by force. A liberated radio
Hould enable each ship to maintain
contact Hith all information needed
to carry out its trip. Constant
information bet"een groups involved in
cargoes and people and abr oad, as Hell
as braodcasts to local listemers in
some South American port, for examyle,
giving much required information.
vie wish to receive information
from other groups and individuals
of similar azimuth to enable us to
to establish a fix from which the
Nari time Revolutionary vi orkers can
begin to set course".
Page 10
Hhen violence errupted at the 1976
Notting Hill Carnival, Sir Robert Nark
(Police Commissioner) said that it was
in no sense a race riot. It was not
racial in the usual sense of the vord ,
where one race sets out to do another
one in. It was far more an antipolice demonstration.
The violence
towards the police by yOlli1gblacks
stemmed from an enormous backlog of
hatred and resentment.
The young blacks benefit the least
from the education system. Many leave
school hardly able to read and Vlrite.
A group of school leavers in the City
of Westminster could not Hrite their
own names 1"Iithoutsupervision in order
to claim social security benefits.
Some do not even have a command of
standard spoken English.
They can only
communicate Hith their OHn
Hest Indian dialect and
slang.
Upemploymeht among
people is
high, and in this area again
blacks
are worst off. Their unemp.loymerrt
rate is four times that of young Hhites.
Hhere jobs are available young blacks
take the least qualified.
They are
also discriminated against bec~use of
their colour. Like all young people
they 1"Iantmoney in their pockets to go
to discos, buy records and clothes.
It is small wonder they turn to theft.
The police knoH this and as one of them
said ',~epay pat icu.lar- attention to
young blacks'.
the past feH years there had alHays
been a certain level of crime at the
Carnival in the Hay of stealing but
not on this scale and not accompanied
'oy such violence.
The change indicates
the deterioration in the state of young
bl.acks and their ever increasing mood
of defiance and hatred for
society
Hhich had rejected them. Their unemployment rate had increased 21C%
betHeen Hay 1976 and Hay 19T?
Asi t ua tion which su:cface:i in an obvious
Vlay for the first time Has that they
Here nOH mugging their own people. A
crowd of black people HerE! set on in
'destbourne Park
, Hi thout a single
Hhi te person
invol veri. A ccoHd
of' black youths invaded
carnival
dance at the Hammersmith Palais. They
were mostly
gir Is
police interest. however, goes
a long Hay beyond this. There are many
wrongful arrests and frame-ups. Indiscriminate rll-idsare made on black homes
A youth intervie:vledon tel~~\sion said .
he oftens stays in at nights because it
is not worth being out on the streets'
at night because of police harassment.
This situaW,on was well understood by
blacks and liberal and left whites so
that Hhen the violence exploded at the
1976 Carnival everyone was united in
condemning the police. Particularly
because of the excessively heavy police
presence Hhich Has regarded as an insult
and a provocation to blacks generally.
THE 1977 CARNIVAL
The situation at the 1977 Carnival
was very different.
The fighting with
the police Vias preceded by the two days
of violence perpetrated by young blacks
on whoever happened to be there. Over
selves thro}! the kids out and reject
them completely.
GTe acutely awar-e
j
accross the
by their
The
fact that they Hill set on their peer
group ShOHS their increasing
from their
ovn people.
alienation
HUH8ver the Droblem cannot be
soL\le(l simply
hos-tel for homelJ:';ss kids in t'Jaltnam
Forest ca t.e.red lor 6/+ blacks and 11
Hhi tes.
This prob.sJJly gives a fair
l'reen
the tHO communities.
The reasons the kids ended UTI
there Here various.
One factor H~,S
social. deprivation, Hhich neither the
kids nor their parents eouId do very
much about.
One kid. had both parents
Horking nights.
He had to look after
the ,younger children in the evenings
:3,nd could
not
do his
homework,
As he
hardly ever saw his parents to talk to
the
situation
N3.S
neve r s or t.cd ouL. In
sitJ.:i.t,io,:1
loom so much larger
obvious reaction is
SYIfl)VJ
I~;
h lack
lend
pride are regarded
:3U8Picion. The
militates
for them that the
to try to control
Ari10ng the V/estindia"ns
there is a.
split between the family and a tctal
lack of family structure.
Girls have
babies. The men :1D not
marrying them o:c taking any
They think they can
0-3..ts
and come and go as
In Jamaica tne crime a.nd
,general instability of
na tional
the lack
life
is oft en put
of a stable
family
especially
,Ii UI j'("U'
:).Lac!-c,s
the kids rigidly and keep them on a
ti6ht rein.
people.
by nis father to have a girl friend at
0,[
this. The Horking
c Lae s blacks live on moce of a knife
edge than the Hhi te working
class
in.
the struggle for surv.i va.; and resDectability, a thing Hhich is very im;ortant to lIlanyof them. It is so much
easier for their kids to leave school
Hithout qualifications or a job to go
to, to drift into :petty crime and
trouble wiLh the police. The pitfalls
cases it
e,
of attitudes
between
and t.hc ir par-en Ls 1 arguments over
dea.dlocks
e t.c , One boy \'las forbi(lden
the age of 17.
Many C)ld(~rblacks I:lant
to work bani, keep Lhe.ir heads down
and p;enerallj
themsel'.res ,?~S inconf;pic1]ol]s
as IJosI3iblein Vlhite s oois ty ,
Any ;:;_il:n::-:, of ('('be LIia::. OY v i.s Lb.l e
a different
much against
the end he got so cheesed off he sim]ly
IYI most
by putting
attitude to people and expecting
Cd t i ona.l.i.
ty to Hi:'lthe 'lay. The
l.oo
The fact that many black youths
are i,omeless is central to this. They
are in conflict Vlith their own families.
Aggravcction between kids and
parents is not peculiar to the
but it shows
to .'1 l.arger extent
and .nuch more
among them.
In the first year of its existence a
Harkers
p,3.rents.
V,Testindi=:Ln
:30cial
THli: SOCIAL SITUATION
Bl~:;,.cksocial
of this problem.
Pastor Norris a'ld Jeff CraHford,
Community relations officer for Hackney,
have said some ;lar,:l tl'1it16s a aout
setting
on young ;)lack
them and
them
estima te of the overall breal,down ~etThe
I..'Testinii3.n
autbo_cita.~cian ,:3.,t ti tU/'_8S
and Af:eican JXl::Lents are ltlel.l kn own .
Afrisan
kids aTe also among the homeless
ThG p rren t.s of Len take a heavynanded
and vic t.or in.: at t iLude when it comes
to discipline and orderly behaviour.
This is a legacy of colonia t ism 'dhen
19th c en t..ury attitudes Here imposed on
the bi-i.cks and persisted
after
they had
broken down in the imperial
c ount.ry, *
This C>Ul result
in an exceas i.ve harshness.
1:'1 ffiELny sasest-he
:93.1."8n ts
them-
,iOHD
to
structure
by strongly religious
This
must be an added
reason
for those blo~cks »ho consider themselves to be respectable family
people to :ro:-:Lisetheir
kids on the
straight and narrOH.
AnotI1er factor
in the cultural
gap
relates to music. At Carnival the
young blacks ignore the steel bandS
and hang ar ound the SOLL'1dsystems.
The steel band sprang up inpost-Har
Pag" II
Trinidad as part of a youth rebellion
movement. It was an urban slum
phenomenon, founded on the waet.eof
industrial civilization. They started
banging on old machine parts, dustbin
lids and oil drums. The first
steelbandsmen were the roughnecks.
There was intense rivalry between the
bands and their followers resulting
in violence at Carnival. A similar
thing had happened last century
with lights be tweeri rival gangs of
stick fighters. Police and trOOllS were
used to put them down resulting in
Carnival riots. However the Crown
Colony administration had grown vastly
more sophisticated over the years
and this time social workers were
liasing with the steel bands.
The steel bands were particularly
despised by the coloured middle class,
who were oriented to white culture
and despised anything black particularly
if it reminded them of their African
origins. ** One coloured barrister
speaking in Colony said that it
Hould be a terrible thing if Trinidad
culture VIas represented by gangs of
hooligans beating on drums. He said
that he was 'all for educating people
to an appreciation of true culture'.
However the steel drums were rapidly
developed so that they could play
melody as well as percussion. AllTrinidad steel band contests Here
organized. The competing bands started
playing the European classics., They
had adjudicators from music colleges
in this country. One said that the
steel bands could be judged by the
same standards as the symphony orchestra. After they had proved themselves
technically proficient and moved
closer to Hhite culture the steel
bands became very respectable,totally
integrated into the national life and
regarded as a credit to Trinidad.
At Carnival the young blacks do not
folloH the street parades. The
masquerade bands are all older blacks
or very young children. The teenagers do not participate. The reggae
music which sprang up in Jamaica has
not as yet been incorporated to the
same extent. It is still a vehicle
for the rebellion and resentment of
youth. The lyrics froTI the soundtrack
of the Jamaican film 'The Harder They
Come' contain such lines as
'\~alkingd own the road v i th a pistol
in your waist,
Johnny you're too bad
Just stabbing looting and shooting
Johnny you're too bad'.
In 'Many Rivers To Cross' there
is the line 'Sometimes I feel like
committing some dreadful crime'.
Junior Murvin's 'Police and Thieves'
Has a hit in 1976. fLD older black,
writing in the Caribbean Post,
remembered the ce Iebr'ac i on of the
Jubilee in the 1930's. He recalled
all the Honderful calypsos of the
time and asked what blacks ]oIeredoing
to celebrate this Jubilee. 'All]ole
hear now is the harsh strident beat
and threatening lyrics of the reggae'.
His antipathy explains Hhy it is still
a vehicle for the thoughts and feelings
of the young.
;{oHever, there seems no doubt that
reggae Hill eventually be recuperated.
Manley tried to utilize reggae in the
run-up to the general elections in
Jamaica. For many young blacks
dreams of stardom, money and status
In other words Vielie like hell and
rely on the liberalism of people in
the media to bend over backHard to
accept this story". The reason this
kid bleH it allover the air Has
because he Has talking in the
immedia te aftermath of Carnival.
There did'not seem any pcint in
telling the same old story. Any
white persons Hho think that blacks
are in any ]oIaygrateful for this
HH1TE SYCOPHAL~CY MID THli:YOUNG BLACKS
liberalism are deceiving themselves.
The attitude taken to the antiThey just see it as something Hhich
social activities of young blacks by
can be taken advantage of. The same
many wh i.t.epeople has been one of
thing applies to the attitude of
concealment, an attempt to SHeep it all some black militants to the whi.t.e
under the carpet. This has been true
revolutionary left They don't like
of liberals and also the revolutionary
Hhite left Hingers for a variety of
left. 1nl974 The Sunday Times did
reasons. Partly because there are
a magazine feature on black youth in
innate feelings of ]oIhitesuperiority,
Britain, telling the truth about the
Hhich sho]olin a patronising attitude
Hay many of them Here living. There
Bu~ ~here ,;,re also Hh ite,libe:al~
Has nothing reactionary about it, but
~ullc feellngs, so that tne ]oIhlte"
outrap-ed liberals nearly did a Har dance. ~end over back]olardsto the blacks
They ~rote to The Times not so much
Just because they are black,
somehOH manageing to do the two things
disputing the truth of vThat Has said,
at the same time. Some black militants
but saying it should never have been
take the attitude that if you scratch
published at a.lI., It Has simply
at the surface of a Hhite revolutionary
providing racists Hith ammunition.
you find a vlhi-celiberal and if you
This vieH Has mistaken then and
scratch a Hhite liberal you have got
t.hr-oughthe mus i.cindustry must
present an alternative to socialism
as a Hay out of a dead end situation.
The millionaire status of Bob Harley
is a potent example. Another example
is the kid 1-IhoHas into thieving and
used the money to set himself up Hith
an expensive sound system and became
a freelance entrepreneur.
even more so after t.he last Carnival,
when there wa.s no point in
to
anymore, J.t. has
In the extreme plight or'
blacks being hidden and l.he
ir
the street crimes in the
area are perpetrated
blacks,
6cp/o of the victims
vlhit.e. ,These
figures have oeen left as a propagania
point for the National Front, as no
serious attempt has ever been made to
connect the social conditions 'IIiththe
statistics. Host people prefer tc
ignore the statistics.
Cne young black intervieH2d on
the radio said that when they Here
asked about stealing they
said
B:VJe ne-ver
do
police just
a fucking
Hhile whites can be seen
in this Hay
just keeps the t1W ~aces
~.Dart.If one lot are trying to put
,~'
one over on the others it dO,e~ no
leave much room for comradesrnp and
honesty.
THE SOCIALIST 'IJORKERS'PARTY
d
A distinction has to be dral'm
bet.ueen liberals and
like the
Socialist Workers'
they fail
to tell the truth it has to do Hith a
conscious manipUlation '-'Thich
springs
from their attitudes to party building.
This is particularly acute in relation
to black youth. About th:cee years ago
the SvlP had just discovered unskilled
Horking cLass 1>lOmenand black youth.
The move in that direction Has occasioned by their lack of success in
their traditional hunting
among the advanced 'Ihit.e
All SvlP full timer speaki ng about the
demonstrations they Here planning outside job-centres said "':Ie Hill use
black youth." It is hard to believe
that these manipulatory attitudes
have
chang ec.
This is an inbuilt f'ea.Lur'e
of vanguard parties in the Leninist mou.L",
They believe that the Horking class
cannot achieve much except under the
leadership of the Party. This ShOHS
itself in an interesting Hay in "Socialist Horker" reporting of the
events Hhich concern black youth.
The 19'16 Carnival riot Has described
as a police riot. The impression gained'~rom the reporting Has that the
police Here the real aggressors.on
that day, and that the poor dOHntrodden blacks Here being hammered
yet again by the pig arm of the capitalist state.In fact the reverse Has
true. The kids set on the police Hith
incredible ferocity in revenge for
past persecutions The police took
one of the Horst beatings of their
lives. The yOilllgblacks proved extremely courageous and skilled street
fighters. To describe ]oIhathappened
in any other Hay does not give them
credit for what they did.It takes
the triumph aHay from them. The reporting of events at LeHisham took
an entirely different, tone. i~estopped
L-
.
.
.
.
.
_
Page 12
implied a Hi tude that it Has aLmos t a
good thing that they Here not benefiting and advancing themselves.
Middle
class people do not seem to think that
their superior skills, knoHledge and
occupation of professional positions
makes them any less revolutionary.
"Why this should have such a deleterious
effect on people from working class
backgrounds is a mystery.
It can be
argued that the more 1l1easant life is
the less people are likely to Hant
major changes.
On the other hand the
more capable they will become of
achieving their OHn liberation.
Given
the fact, however, that some kids have
already been deprived it Hould be
wrong to expect them to knuckle under
in jobs they hate. If they do not
Hant to work this has to be accepted.
the "",;;is.The Nazi Front got the
hammering of their lives last saturday. Thousands of people responded
to the SwP call to stop them marchi ng.· The difference lies in the fact
tha tat
the Carnival
it
I'Jas
the y oung
blacks on their OHn, wh i Le at Le,lisham the bViP played a leading part. It
seems that the blacks cannot be creGited Vli-::-.h .].
unless it is under:
the leadership and guidence of the Party
Most Hhite left groups have persued apolicy of trying to recruit
blacks into their'oHJl organistions.
This has been met 'lith a certain
amount of suspicion. Blacks see
Hhite middle class peo]Jle maintaining
their ascendancy even Hithin left
groups. They do not see the possibility of a change in black/Hhite relations. They rather see themselves
being taken over yet again. A much
better approach, and one which amazingly enough has never seriosly been
tried, Hould De to seek fratern:11
links Hith blacK groups ani try to
find common ar-eae of Hork. Ap'"xt
from anything else there is nothing
the white left can do direccly to
get through to the most alienated
of the black youth. It can only come
from the blacks themselves.
YOUNG BLACKS AND TH8WORUNG
MOY,EMENT,
CLA3S
How are the black youths to ]Jarticipat", in the working class movempnt?
T~is question poses a dilemma in relat.i on to t.radi t l.ona.Lleft Ilo1itics.
The kids rebellicn ex t.ends into the
field of employment. It is not true
to say th:1t they are all unemployed
simply because they cannot find Hork.
Many have had jobs and Halk out on
them because the expectations are
greater than those of their parents.
The Vlest Indians who came here in the
fifties sHept the streets, cleaned un
in hospitals and did all the mema 1 ~
jobs which the white workirlg class
would no longer touch. Their children
will not put up with tho Garno thing.
The jobs are low paid but money is
not the most important factor, \~hen
asked Hhy they left a job the same
answer is always given: "I just got
bored with it."
Left politics 2,re generally
cen/red
a.r ound health
and safe ty
at 'work, wage demands and right to
work. The question of job satisfaction, which is Qf immense importance to working class people, is
never raised.HoH are these kids
to be involved in the wQrking
class movement if tLey are unemployed and do net
politics.All this is implicit in
the notion of Rank and File. In
the case of young blacks it would
mean encouraging th8Ifl to knuckle
under in the boring joos H'.,ichthey
have rejecteel anyway.
It wou.ld mean
integra.ting them into a system in
orde:c to take them through a llrocess
of de-integration. In some Hays
it would be
them backwar'ds .
If the Hhi t.e
class had
reached the same stage and Here
seLying I'm not interested in more
for this particular job, you
the job.
One thing Hhich springs from the
extreme alienation and isolation of
many black kids is their entire lack
of class consciousness. A member of
the Defence Committee for kids
arrested at the Carnival tried to
interest them in going to the picket
line at Grunwicks. The response
Has 'Great, we Hill do some pick
pocketing there', A sense of class
solidarity cannot arise in the normal
way, through experiences in work and
in the unions. If their isolation is
tooe broken d oun some other organizational f'rameuor-kHill have to be
found.
This is not to say that the
black kids {HVe a consciously 1'IO:,ked
out revolutionary perspective. They
do not fully understand the causes of
their oppression nor do they have a
strategy for dealing Hith it. They
ha.ve an instinctive gut rea.ction.
Their rejec tion of wJrk probably does
not
from eupe r i.or-aspi:cations.
It w ou Id
interesting to kn ov how
many of them could conceive of a job
they Hould like to do, or of a
si tua Lion they Hould really like to
be in, vlhat is certain, houeve r , is
that their rebellious instincts are
far advanced Nhen it comes to what
they are p:cepQrod to 'put up Hi t.n .
.This raises the question of
organizing among the unemployed.
v,lhenthe black caucus in Hhat Has then
IS were campaigning for their 'Right
to vlork Iv,arch'they came across a
persistent answer from young blacks.
'He are not interested, vie do not
want to Hork.' They could not see much
point in marching from Manchester to
London for the privelege of Horking in
low-paid, boring jobs, initiatives like
the Right to Work Campaign are obviously
based on the campaigning Hhich took,
place around unemployment in tne 19JOs
They have not been a success.
.
A vi ev po i nt is often expressed
on the left that the more de;crivPd
people are the more likely this is to
make them revolutionary.
I have heard
it pu~ at a meeting that the more
working class kids benefit from the
education system the more likely they
are to be integrated and to turn aHay
from social
change.
want to work anyway.
They are certi'.inlynot going to
be involved in trade unionism Hhich
means that a good chunk of traditional left politics is inappropriate
to yQung blacks. The trad left
believe that you can lead people
to revolutionary poli tics
a series of stages. First
they have to be encouraged cO JOln
TUs and then to fight the un i on
leadership
A series of refo':'mist
demands can be formulated
H11ich
escala te to the I~oint wnere it can be
pointed O:lt to people that there
is no. solution wi thin t[18 prese::1t
system . In this way it is believed
people can be led to r'evoLut.Lona.ry
~
~
The~ce was an
In the 'J06 lhe hard ccre of
the unemployed were men Vlho had been
ih work m:1ny years and had TU experience. Nowadays many of the unemployed
are school leavers who have never
worked. From the point of vieH of
employers many of them are unemployable.
In London the response of many of
the ~nemployed has taken the form of
a semi -criminali ty, The young blacks
steal, Many people are working off
Page 13
their cards: window-cleaning,
house
painting and casual labo&ring. This
is because there is still enough
money around for people tD afford
these services. The situation is much
more uneven than in was in the 30's.
Then unemployment was largely confined
to those areas which had industrialised in the 19th century. They were
uniformly depressed so there was no
opportunity to make any money on the
side. Everyone was in the same boat.
There was no one on the streets with
anything worth stealing. Superm~kets
did not exist. Stealing from the
corner shop would have been too difficult, and the owner was probably a
friend anyway. Most people nowdays
have no scruples about ripping off in
Tesco's. There is still enough
prosperity around for people to be
able to alleviate their condition and
tUrn it into something of a lifestyle.
Such people are not going to be
involved in anyon-going
organisational framework. Their activity will
probably take the form of direct
action around specific issues like
opposing the Front at Lewisham. People
will come together for a short period
and then fall away again. To hope for
anything more immediately would be
bashing one's head against a brick
wall. How activity can be developed
from this is an open question.
Barbara Roberts
* The facts about slavery and the
obvious ways in which blacks are
kept down are well known. But one
writer in the Jamaican Gleaner said
that what is not s,o generally
appreciated is the way in which
we were colonised in our minds.
**'rhe "horrible African Drull" was
banned from 19th century festivals.
*_***-ihlI**
THIS TEXT IS PART OF A PAMPHLET BEING
WRITTEN BY BARBARA ROBERTS ON "BLACK
YOUTH IN BRITAIN".
The Hunting of an Indian
Leonard Crow Dog, "The Medicine
Man", was born in 1942 on a
reservation at Rosebud, South
Dakota, a member of the BrulesSioux tribe. In 1973 he took part
in the occupation of Wounded Knee
and became one of the more important
members of A.I.M. (American Indian
Movement).
The siege of Wounded Knee and
the police provocation allowed the
authorities to charge him with
"inciting violence and injuring an
official in the execution of his
duties". The case was heard in 1975
at Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The prosecution
witnesses failed to identify Crow DO&
contradicted each other, and swore
that they had suffered no violence,
but this wasn't enough to halt the
course of justice - Crow Dog was
sentenced to eleven years in prison.
Many petitions were organised and the
sentence was suspended subject to
confirmation. The defence appealed.
The police didn't give in. On 5th
September 1975 they moved in 'on Crow
Dog's small holding with helicopters
and personnel carriers. They threatened Crow Dog and his wife a~d son,
beat him up and hua~ed him off to
prison, where he was subjected to
sleep deprivation and night and day
interrogations. The question was
always the same - "where is Dennis
Banks?"
(head of A.I.M.).
Crow Dog didn't know but in
January 1976 the F.B.I. picked up
Banks in San Francisco. Crow Dog was'
charged on a new count of "acts of
violence occasioning actual bodily
'harm". The trial was rushed through
in four hours, the defence lawyer
having no time to prepare his case,
and Crow Dog got ten years. At
first he was held in solitary
confinement at Haute Terre, Indiana.
Then he was transferred to Rapid
City where he lost over thirty pounds
in weight. A writer friend who
visited him was shocked at how thin he
had become.
But the legal offensive was not
yet finished - a third accusation was
followed by a third trial. In March
1976 an incident occured at his home
with a "stranger" WhO became overfamiliar with his wife. He was
accused of "threatening behaviour
with an offensive weapon" - a toy
tomahawk. The third trial (with an
all-white jury) lasted two days.
One piece of evidence produced was
a pnotograph of the "injured" man
(a mock-up - white man's magic to
a medicine man ?)
The address of District
Hurd clarifies the situation
a.dmirab Ly •••
"This country, its govermnent
and its system are good .•.• to
protect them is one of my duties .•.
that is why I am keeping you in
custody. Perhaps Pfersicka molested
Crow Dog's wife, but I am inclined
to think that he was thrown out of
the house on the grounds that he was
a government informer, and, if he is
a government informer, it is to
protect it, the government and its
system".
The case has still not been
decided. Meanwhile Crow Dog was
transferred from prison to prison
- the seventh and last was Chicago and the sentence passed after Wounded
Knee was confirmed. Finally Amnesty
International adopted him, a fund was
set up for his defence and bail and
he was freed on bail. The story
continues ....•....
Gonzo
*
June 1977
Adapted from FRONT
LIBERTAIRE DES
LUTTES DE CLASSES
No. 69.
'rad'io ora
persorral1y'didntt
touch,
anyt.h.l ng and my soId'i.er-s who,dared
takething13
had, their 'loot c'arrfisca t.ed ,
But the' DOYSLoct.ed., ,They,sinfply,
as said" plundered, and looting
thirty
years old
this brief
:time
in 191+8,1956;1967
is fighting
its
in the Lebanon'.
bombard nen t.s ,
\,1ei'~mann,
the'US -'for: having
,
bombsd.n Lebanori.
He did
not~'krio1;I9:he ;"said; that .rri.s predecesso~
had promised the US not to use'thes~
bombs on civilian
targets.
No one in
Israel,wants,to'talR-or'hear'
- about
this war-.
~ tezei>-'
arise
f'r cm t.he conflict
Zionist
immigra:nt-sett~ers
and the indigenous Palestinian
population
- deprived by the Zionists
Ithinkf~at6ne
reaS011fo:r: the
J:'botfpg i(f:r:lfitration..
the "(frustratec
desiretpfeel
,like ,a\ii6t~:r:iou.§
attzy'despitc
the fact that there was
no, war.'Dal113en-Amotz ,ssiltHink,
oncewroteonthissl1bject
of looting
in war, ·,Irione- 'ofhisbooks,
I;,lean' t
remember tr6~,i"wh.r&h;hedescri
bes
the desi'r'e:,ef'8!'conquering
army to
loot as"a sor-t 6f compensation for
,the,ftghters
;:11" -c ompa.ree this "\;0_
}'Iars·of 'the past,
Hhen'part "(if 'the
tellfptact±6nto
fight Has .the lOof'
aHaitirig the, Victors.thepo,s:3ibili
ty
to' rape 'Homen,' etc. However" ,"
unpleasant/'this
may be,col1sftlering
'all 'educationana'hiJ,maneness
,'I '
think that deep inside the human
beil1g"esPeciillythesoldier"
there
still
'lurks
animal drive to
"One of my' s,oldiersHhorn,,1
ccaught, looting
wa1;isent;enqed"po;'
,thi't'tY;cfi ve days;inprison.
NO",,d.t
wasn':t .,thebattalion
commanderlHho
;:;lep.tsnced,him, ,but the miU tary
.pol Lce , '\i'illour·ba
t ta'I,i6n'comrnander
senten6e anyonefo:r:looting?1
wish
he himselfnere
sentenced;
He' sits
in
his command tent Hith Lebanese
Hhiskybo,ttles'
and juke boxes.
Palestinian
resistance
In all
entire
movement crushed.
f'our previous
Israeli
-Jarstho
11
population
the tiny anti-~ionist
edly supported the Har effort.
Although conscription
makes
service
compulsory
2 for Homen) and
every Israeli
has to, serve one month' a year in t.he
Reserves until his f'ifties~ mostnever
grumbled.
JvIany
~ even Hhen their services
required.-b::l the authori t.i es ,
called
up often
felt
changed foI.' the first
the
"Lebanese
operation'.
there is a vague feeling
is
a "dirty
,;,At
first
.they said HtO,C
ould vt.ake
'melllel'l:t:oes', oi1ly~ T,neydl.d~'t
know
that Lhiscculd
.be 'j.n~eipre~eci
'
,diffe:relltly
by~ach
peI'Eon:,S,oone
took a "\;iil:llsistorse,t,a
•mem'entoI ,
and, a,nother took
T.Yset. ,,\fhen:they
so.H ,J"ll;a't,HaS, ha,PP8l)-ingtheY,sa,id., it
Has Tor bidden To taKe anything. But
tha,tl;'0P already, a bit t.oo li3.te"By
thenJo qi;ing ;wasalreaCiy: at ;,i t~f
height.Fighters
took less. Command
staff,coming
after
the fighters,took
large '1uan ti ties
of property.13ut .a.Ll,
in all-everybody
took.I
searched the
gear of veach Of, my,s~ldieI',s,and
yhat
ever was fouild'Has.'b\ITutin
front
of
their'eyes.But'
the.dainage"\;pth~,hOUS
-es and property
Has done and it
matters
little
if the robbers
enjoyed'it
'0r not, '
,a
There is no point in complaining.
All in all,He Hant to get out of there
This situation
is w'pleasant.At
night
you are Hith your finger
on the trigg
-er literally
defending your life. But
is a feeling
that this
We fought there as at EI-Alamein,
Hith a huge armoured corps. But on the
Hhole this is not territory
for
Page
-----------~------------------------------.....,
armoured warfare. Why are we training
for years to execute what is called
'vertical roundabout',that is,to fall
on the enemy from the sky,in his rear?
I understand that the (possible)
number of casualties is a problem.
still, to solve this problem - and
there was readiness to do so - we
should have acted otherwise. We should
have landed on the bridges of the
Litany, which is a natural and serious
water obstacle, which can hardly be
crossed at this time of the year,
except over the bridges. And then the
rest of the army should have pushed
them from the Israeli border northwards
(towards the Litany). There would
have been a hard Har then, that is
clear. But vie would have hit the
saboteurs. They would have fallen into
a serious trap.
With the present method, as it
was carried out, I don't think it
will make any difference to them.
They were not seriously hit at all.
I'/ecaptured headquarters. we destroyed
saboteur bases, but most of their camps
are between Tyre and Beirut. I also
fail to understand the Government's
policy in this matter. With whom did
they intend to negotiate an arrangement?
With the PLO which they don't recognise?
With the Lebanese Government which
doesn't exist? With the USA, which
has no authority over the area?
The 200-JOO saboteurs' killed are
a tiny, and meaningless, percentage.
As for the destruction, may I suggest
to all do-gooders to join an armoured
corps, to put on the gear, and sit
out during a bombardement. The
possibilities then are rather
limited - if you wish to stay alive particularly as the saboteurs are
dressed in civilian clothes. When
we move to conquer a big village
like ~l-Khyam I prefer that it first
be bombarded by planes and artillery
rather than having a single soldier
of ours scratched.
I realize that there are two
kinds of justice: their justice the justice of the civilian population,
and our justice - the settlements in
the North (of Israel) who wish to
live in quiet and not rush to the
shelters twice daily. We cannot
afford our nation the luxury of
justice versus justice. On the
scales Eof justice), it is clear to
me that my justice is more important.
When we enter a village and ten
civilians are killed, that is
unavoidable. I prefer this to the
possibility that two of my soldiers··be
killed. It is Horth the price to me.
When I fire on a house susp~cted of
harbouring saboteurs I prefer that
house be demolished rather than one
of my soldiers be wounded. When we
go to blow up a house with explosives
it is clear that we check it seven
times so that no-one stays inside,
and that, as far as possible, all
property is taken out. But when you
are under fire you have to reply,
forcefully and massively. A sterile
war does not exist. Only in movies,
perhaps.
As for the popu Iat.Lon b. the area,
I don't think it is entirely innocent.
The saboteurs ruled by force, spreading
terror. But it was proved that whoever
wanted to resist .them could do so.
The Christians wanted to resist,
created a popular army, and barricaded
themselves in the enclaves from which
t.ne saboteurs were expelled. Those
who surrendered are Ln- fact accomplices. This may sound un-humane,
but that's it.
The job is hard. When the
saboteurs heard us approaching they
took off their uniform, hid their
weapons in the attics and mixed with
the population. We have no ,way to
distinguish one from the other~
Often many civilians are hit. I
propose to whoever considers himself
humane to join me one night in an
ambush Oft the Litahy river, He will
return in the morning scared to death.
'I'he»let him talk of han:iling th9
problem with kid gloves an:i simihr
nice things
Note: Anything published in an Israeli
neHspaper is subject to triple
cencorship: a) by a civilian censor,
b) by a military censor, c) by
editorial self-censorship. This letter
did not slip through this triple
barrier by chance; On page 2 of the
same issue there are blanks indicating
censored material.
Perhaps the censor thought that
this letter might help silence those
in Israel who protested against the
Israeli war in Lebanon, the dogooders to whom the officer allu:ies.
It is doubtful whether it will
'Lchieve this aim. In Israel, even
the do-gooders have been in the Army
and fought wars. They can smell a
dirty war. In any case, this letter
'admits the accusations of the
'do-gooders' As for the dubious
nature of the officer's morality
and justifications one can only
suggest that those who share them
might consider the possibility that
Zionism itself, by expropriating
the Palestinian people, is responsible
not only for the conduct of it,:3
Army in the recent invasion of
Lebanon, but for the very occurrence
of all four wars that preceded it.
A.a.
15
RECIPES
BRAISED
BUREAUCRAT
AU BOEUF
Stewed eel has been a low-cost
favourite among the working people
of Britain since Shakespeare's time,
and this timely variation Hi th its
slippery human equivalent is sure to
prove just as popular.
Clean and scrape scales from:
1 bureaucrat
take care in this step, even if dead
some residual muscle twitching may
occur, and combined \'liththe oiliness
of the skin surface this may make
pinning dOHn for cleaning nearly
impossible. Nearly, \'Iesay; perseverance will payoff.
Cut. TUC official into six-inch long
strips and soak in acidulated water
for three hours. Drain, then cover
with:
Fresh water
add:
1 sliced or whole COlWenor st uck
with cloves
'~up chopped shop stewards
credentials
J ground pay slips
Simmer uncovered until tender, from
three to four hours. Slice very thin
and serve hot \'lith:
Lenin harangue pie
or cold in:
pay freeze aspic.
Trade unions were the peacemakers and ,the peacekeepers of
industry, TUe general secretary
Mr Len Murray .• aid yesterday.
But, Qike .the police when ~hey
were doing their duty, they did
not always get tIlle credit for it.
He said at the Institutson that
<it was euldectdve bargaining
which brought orde into whitt
would othel1Wli.sebe a jungle.
"
procedures f.elr
.
of
of wOII'ke:rs;woe prevent disput:
ht W9U1dor1Jherwise do a great
deal of damage to the econ.
amy," hej said.
The :111'!adeunion movement
has never been a movement of
violence, nor (If the condonmg
of violence.
1t is sometimes
cOmpelted to' onganise a .jJIrotest
or a picket ·lJi,ne,but it r,Ioes not
set out to organise a puch-up, .
" The J'ight 1n strike is no
longer
generally
questioned,
and as there ds a I1lght to strike
0" there lis .a, 'right roo persuade
others not to break .' strike,
and mhait means the 'light to
picket at the plac~ of !IV,,11k."
If
Page 16
Hello.
Dear c omra.des,
Vie ;;ish to criticise
certain aspects of "Solidarity for
Social Revolution" number 2.
Firstly, we found "vla.nk
i.ng ;
Women; \~aste;
e t.c '",
on the
cover,
waste
of space
and Hasn~t
large
and a,morpholls
containing all sorts we certainly wou Ld
want to have no truck with, but that's
no excuse
insulting and sexist, and we are not
the only ones to feel this, some
women ;,e tried to sell it to refused
to buy it for this reason. ~ie can't
believe there Has anything accidental
in the arrangement of this list,
and feel the responsibility must rest
Hi th the entire London editorial
group.
Secondly, the cartoon on page 5
was a. total
The VILNis
It is nOH a cDmmonplace among
even those vaguely familiar Hith ]Varx
that the failure of pre-capitalist
society to develop the means of
production is one of the pr i.nc i paL
reaSDns for a bourgeois revolwtion.
Since Narx was heavily imbued Hith
bourgeois ideology he makes this
the motivating force for all social
revolutions but He can disregard this.
HOHever, I Hould reckon it to be
behind state-capitalist revolutions.
for
us to ignore
the
rest,
do we need to protect our purity?
\'Iecio not accept Liz' s interpretation of 'feminist' as: "This
wo.rd implies that the interests of
Homen are taken to be of paramount
importance, to the exclusion a~
eventual detriment of others. John
Stuart Fl i i L frequently referred to
himse.lf as a 1feministC, to him it
meant the political and economic
Of
equality
of Homen with
men, and that9s
basically ;;hat it means to us. The
difference today is ;wmen no longer
significance.
Thirdly,
whi Le-t we agree with
most of the criticism
Liz \IIillis
need to rely On mer: to fight against
sexism for them. Anarchist-Feminism
means to us that \flOmen are not
made of the \,omen's movement in
prepared to leave re'JDlucion and the
or Biology?"
tone
p. 18, \tie
and unncccusar-y.alone.
Liz says "It is
just that the
'mixed
movement has made certain
t
things
into !I v-J
omen I s issues" by
reluctance
or antagonism to dealing
wi th them. The women s movemcn t has
done so too. Quite true, but it has
done this because, of the longstanding
attitude of the 'mixed' moven.err; and
as a direct response to it. The
\~omen's Liberation Novement
developed partly as a reaction
indifference in the 'mixed' movement
and its o ont.i.r
ued "reluctance or
antagonism .•." has only
groHth of hostile separatist
Hi thin
the VLLN Theref ore it can t
be held responsible for the continued
false division of politics into "main
issues" and "Homen's issues". The
blame for this still falls
the male dominated (i.8. 'mixed
political organisations ;;ho
to mostly ignore issues of sexual
politics and persDnal life.
Of course all libertarian Homen
are part of the Homen's movement, as
Liz says, and as such should be eager
to make their v i evs known vr i.thin the
VlLN ;;ith all its faults. Similarlv all
liberatrian black's are part of the
black movement, vfOuld Liz recommend
that a black comrade ShDUld not be
invDlved Hith other organised blacks,
because that movement includes black
separatists and Heird religious sects
like the Black 11uslims and Rastafarians
I
II
a
i
of a new society
past societies
to Iren
have been
established by men illtheir 01'1£1
interests often to the detrime;nt
of
1tJomen's independence and interests,
Of course,
the sort
s cc i e ty He
hope to build VIould be based
on 1all
peeples i.nterests~ and to 3,chiev-;this
end the best means is for all
people to organise
together.
Separate
organisation
f or- this end is a
contradiction difficult to :ceccncile
with our idea.ls. Nevertheless it
would lle foolish
to let our ideals
obscur-e the r-ea ii ty, that ce.p i t.a li at
society socializes men and women into
separate roles so that their interests;
though not mutually
exclusive, are not
necessarily identical either.
As
long as t.h i.e
true,
both 1-TOmen
and blacks
c out.ir.ue to feel the
need to
separately. The most.
important
now is vThether He can
c o+ope.raLe to bring abcrt a revolutiona.ry cr:ange cf society that Hill put an
end to false divisions, or ;;hether He'll
1
:remain in isolated
irn.potence.
It's
for
the 'mixed' political groups t.o make
the first
move by shoHing that they
d on t see so called ilvTomen's issues
a.s inferior, but equally necessary to
a revolutionary analysis encompassing
the Hhole of life.
t
ll
t
Fraternally,
Sheila D. Ritchie and tiike Ballard
?
Stefan appears to have an
line on various
matters. Superficially. environmentalism is anti-Haste (conservation, etc)
Indeed, many environmentalists go on:
about saving oil, trees, Hhales, etc.
HOHever, they apparently contradict
themselves by calling for the Haste
of Hildernesses, uranium resources,:
and suchlike, in pursuit of other
objectives. But this contradiction is
only apparant. Environmentalists
really have other objectives
(broadly, the creation of a sustainable
d ecentralised society). Arguing in
bourgeDis terms is very much easier,
if far more dangerDus, than putting
fDrHard radical reasons Hhy Dil should
not be burned in motor car engines.
environmentalistll
lI
even funny, maybe someone ;iOuld like
to explain to us its revolutionary
"Politics
found her
One of the main messages of the
ideolDgy of the development of production is the anti-Haste campaign. Trad
left pUblications are full of this.
So it' s ,ro:::'th
looking very carefully
when alleged. libertarians start
Hriting in similar vein (Solidarity 2).
Is Haste bad ?
In fact, everyone of Stephan's
examples Df Haste can be condemned
far more fDrcefully on other grounds.
iiIarfareis bad because it kills and
maims people. A vacuum cleaner in
every house is bad because it is part
of the con Hhereby intellegent,
creative beings are obliged to do
moronic, repetative Hork, and so on.
As regards human labDur pOHer,
there Hill alHays be plenty as long
as there are people ar ound , So ;Ihy
Horry about conserving it ? TechnDlogy
(even very "soft" technology) can
enable people to satisfy their needs
and still have lots of time left over
Vlhat are they auppos ed t.o do ;;ith it?'
Sither they can produce useless goods
or services (;;aste) or they can produce
nothing (Haste).
In reality, "vae t.c" s a Hord like
"Heed" Hhich only admits to a
subjective definition. A DDst
revolutionary society Hill doubtless
have its OHn perspective. Mean;;hile,
I suggest that the "revolution of
everyday life" - the revolt against
drugery and hierarchy in all their
manifestations - is the main item On
the agenda. To bring up Haste is to
raise a side issue - or to express the
in Hhich capitalist ideology
heavy on even the most "advan," _ sections of the popu Lat i on , Some
",OLIDARITY pUbJication (I forget
said that "Anyone 1'1'10 want.s
three square meals a day and endless
':O::k"
can find them in any Hell run
Jall . The phrase "a.nd the abolition
of' ·',aste"should be added.
Love,
Hartin S.
17
Page
SCRAP
SUS LAW
tt..o'"',t.tts
on
feMale se)(ualit:1
& t~e J,ite report
You
have to do an~rGniri~s
arrested
and imprisoned. Accorciing
the Vagrancy Act of 182Li-,a person
to
can
be oharged crith "being a suspeoted
with intent to oommit
.This
as ~sus~or'
~,gives police power to
anyone they van t to, Li.ke other
seotions of the Vagrancy Act,Hhich
LA.!!
deal
vTi.thoeggars9fortUJ18
tellers90r
just people s.leeping rough, it Has
introduced to control potentially
troublesome elements, particularly the
unemployed, and people injured in the
Napoleonic "aI's.
It is not surprlslng then that
black youths, Hho a+e often unemployed
and cons idered a threat, are frea wen tLv
cna.rged under this Act. In London, although only
of the po puLa t.l c.i are
black, over
of t.n ose charged are.A
~eaflet
produced
b;y a group cam.paigning
against the La»
an example
01 a 15 year
boy ,Iho Has arrested
J times Hithin a year,on each occasion
the excuse Has suspicion of theft,but
he Has never charged Nith any of these
offences. Naturally it is very d.ifficu
-u to defend oneself against this
sort of charge,as the offence only
exists in the minde of the police,In
this respect it resembles the conspiracy charges9
Hhich have been used in-
creasingly in recent years to attack
protestors,Hhen there is no actual
action they can be charged Hith
A number of black community groups
and neighbourhood laH centres in London
have begun a
to repeal
the law (bectlon
the Vagrancy
Aot).They may be contacted at :
B.P.O.C.A.S.c/o 206 bvelyn st
London 3''''.9
racism and
In a period of
and unefficial)
a t'tacks Cboth
should
on black people,such a
He
be supported. But at the same
must be careful net to give the impression that
i'
this Law: The Ylho:uostate machiheFarJoiament,Police ,JUdiciary etc.-is
racist,sexist and repressive. If they
don't keep people dOHn one Hay,they
Hill try another.
PHIL McS
The Hi t.e Report - Hell Hhere J.O
you begin? It's a collection of the
feelings and experiences of Homen Hho
ansHered a detailed questionnaire on
female sexuality.
I don't Hant to give a summary of
the book - although I could list
some of the questions that Here asked,
or some cf the conclusions that came
out of Hhat the Homen ansHered. I 1'e,,]
as though almost everything in the
book is important; quoting, one bit
Hould mean quoting all of it. But
I Hould like to try and convey something about the reassuran6e and
exhilaration and
that I
felt Nhen I read
conned! It Has so amazing to read
account
after
account
cf viomen
relating their personal experiences like hOH they feel about masturbating,
about orgasm - their feelings about
intercourse; or all the other things
- and find hOH similarly they connected
to my ONn individual feelings - its
so nice to talk about h01'lsexuality is
for Homen --- Homen are so sensible!
Cath
In the Hite Report Homen describe
their sexuality and emotions Hith a
lot of honesty and pain and joy and
a great sense of li-beration. Reading
it gave me that same sense of pain
and
and liberation. I felt angry
and
that I have been raped a
thousand times in the name of love or
sex or both. I felt hOH hard it is to
be our ovn bodies, rather than be in
them. I felt that a neH female sexuality is possible, perhaps an
androgynous sexuality.
A time Hill come Hhen sex Hon't
be defined by a patriarchal myth that
intercourse is best for men and Homen.
fiIasturbationis best! Lesbianism is
best! Clitoral stimulation is best!
~verything and anything is best!
Intercourse can be great for some
Homen some of the time. But that's
all - the rest isn't 'foreplay'.
I felt a time Hill come, if'He
make it, Hhen sex Hill no longer be
a frenetic genital activity - the
only acceptable Hay to find creative,
loving, emotional and sexual expression
for ourselves, for each other. Sex Hill
no longer be aimed at orgasm. Touching
and caressing and hugging and playing
Hith a lot of people a lot of the
time Hill be OK !Friendships Hill
not be either platonic or sexual;
people Hill not be homosexual or
heterosexual or bisexual. People Hill
be sexual. After all, sexual energy
is jLst ]jj'E' Energy. Friendship and
love Hill be sexual ..•smiling will
be sexua1. ..love Hill be sexuaL ..
sex Hill be loving ...
Danna
lie each want.ed to w.cite separately
Hhat He felt about the Hite Report but
He talked and shared a lot of our
feelings after reading it and Hhile
Hriting this article. ',-Ie
think this
book is excellent - He think" it's
great.I'ie think you should read it,
Hhether you are a Homan or a man.
The Hite Report - Summit Books
available from most bookshops.
£1.75
----------"_. ----
..---------~
Page IS
oes Love :: Dea.th
stern Europe
rrhis is a srreat film, the latest
of Fr~ncesco Ro~i's attempts to
demystify the real structure of power
and to expose it for the sorded
maniuulation it really is. In this
vell'l.J..Roshas
already fiven us such
i
t.echniques . An extravagant party
1'Ihere,amid an ostentatious
of conspicuous consumption
of food) memebers of a top bourgeios
family insult
one another;
{liscussi~lg
the me'ri.t
s 'J-.f Stalinism
and Trotskyism.
percipient
works as "Hands ove=c the
City e
~ Salva tore Giuliano e
~
Luciano' and ~the
But this is r.i.s most
A series of clues and chance
obse:cva,tions have nOH ::::onvinced
the inspector that O:1e, at least,
of the real plots is being hatched
w.ithin the Esta,blishment j tself.
explicitly political film to date.
Generals
The scene is cont,8mporary
Lt.a..ly ~
The old. administr3..tion :is tired and
t.hr ead oare
There is C orrupti.on
Noisy leftists
are on
B
The Com.munist Party
the "verge of legally
series of
murdererl..
the revengefu.J
A
indicted
men
sheer number
implies
a cevas ta t.Lng comment on
co;temporary
Lt.a l i.an g justice ~).
leads an
cone Lus i.ons ~
It.
begins
to da..vrn on
him that the murders are "politioal'
and that their o'bjective is
de~stabilisation~
But. by whom? In
\'7h088 interests?
O-fficia11y the
po li ce suspect,
t~'le leftists.
Ivlodern Lechru.ques
of phone tapping
\'J'e
(beYJare the friendly
La i.). as
it
enter vast
devoted
of the leftis"Gs
Vast stores
of f i.Lm,
t.a.pes
every conc e i.vab.Lo dissident.
Piles of pamprLe t.e
A pr of'us Lon of
&
The political
their
pe.rmanerrt
necks,
their
weaporis ready,
The inspector Harns an old
pel schoolfriend
now a journalist.
The Party decides that the threat is
real: one of their top leaders Hill
meet the inspector, check his
information.
But the zealous
inspeotor has by nOH himself fallen
under suspicion. He knows too much.
He must be eliminated. He is
in a deserted museum,
the Party Seoretary
to Hhom he is spilling ehe beans
about the right-wing plot.
The Police Establishment put
out their OHn explanation
for
pub li.c c onaunpt i cn ,
'In
his
inspector
I'Tas becoming
class
hc.r.c.i.f'Led ,
Not at
par an o.i.d ,
the
murder
of
one of its leaders, but at the
effect a popular
by the murder
of the Party leader, might provoke.
(The fruits of office are nOH
literally Hithin its grasp.)
The Party, cynioally, falls in Hitb
scene is
surveyed
'lith considerable subtlety. Articulate
magistrates~ in the privacy of their
homes, rant and rave about Ya subversion of authori.ty that started
with Voltaire
and haen' t ended yet
even 1-7ithIvl2.Tcuse ~.
in action.
Police
9
the
She writes with a definite aim in
To shake us up and make us think.
The book shooked me out of the comI placent idea that I am doing okay
I by simply trying not to be sexist.
Such Hays of thinking are not enough.
It is feelings and relations Hhich
must change. \\8 must look at the r-ea.;
misunderstandings, the real origins
(sexual and psychological as well as
eoonomic) of our masculine system
before we can hope to c onf'r-on t
capitalism. There is no room for
Utopian beliefs. ilemust act nOH. Even
if it does mean "closing the
educational seotor to men 'bef'or-e it
is too late."
I
concern
to solve the earlier murders the
is
t.o
modern gadgets. The
Har economy,
This is a book I reoommend
everybody to get a look at. It
challenges lots of assumptions about
the traps of male and female roles,
marriage, the conoept of love in
wcstern sooieties, and exclusive
"one-to-one
relationshipsll" Heavy
sections on rape and transvestites
are counter-balanced by humorous
passages Hhich reveal the stupidity
of the systems in Hhich He live:
"I am convinced that an active
radical struggle against the nuclear
family is the ONE THING that our
otherHise tolerant-repressive society
- where all the rebels are put on
TV and Hrapped in spun sugar as
ornaments in democracy - would not
tolerate."
Haiting for the right moment.
In an anti-red frenzy he had decided
shoot dOHn the Party Secretary,
then to oommit suicide'. The Party
and bv.gging are brill.iantly
illustrated.
vla.gging its
and ~d:nir~Lls ~ top officials
in the JYIinistries~ even ;his own
Chief of Police' are in it up to
1
acceding to :powero
But further
"nones t '
I b~~~~~:RBr!~orFROMLOVE
"of'f ic i.al " cx p.lana.td.cn , The
Revolution?
\'rell~ the Revolution
is the
to p01'ler?And
if the
gets
the Hay? 1~lell,
pace granisoi, sometimes the truth
is not revolutionary
i •
I mind.
Ii
II
"Fr-om the nuclear f'ami.Ly to
nuclear weapons .•. That is in brief
the history of patriarchal culture."
or
L:--------------~~~---ead
Maurice B.
H
Ef)'j
\(2) Stick ~ srV\.). 0,",- ut-
I
,y",.....J.\ ",~tJ.:c. "'i"''-~Si c, fohl-o;;""'o h;.--. <.rAps;
-\-W"
;n,
~,-,.-"'\"t,.kt~j~'."'-W.oljI'EHr•..• f'l'\i
\"1>-(01'>, (..wt 11\ hq.lf; hl" Vine,.
or
~M ft\.5h.l!<r
berufsverbot
german
"The vlest German Face of NcCarthyism"
by Hugh Latham, available from the
author, 6 Little Green Lane, Farnham,
Surrey, 30p including postage.
If you want a job in the public
service in v/est Germany (teacher,
social 1'lOrker,train driver, swimming
bath attendant, and so on) you must
provide details in your application
of your residence in the last five
years. You are then investigated by\
the secret police (Verfassungsshutz).
If they raise any dcubts on your
"loyalty to the constitution" you are
summoned to a hearing. You aren't
charged Hith anything specific, but
your guilt is assumed. until you
prove your loyalty (if you Hish).
This isn't alHays easy, as this
chilling little dialogue suggests:
HERR HERZER (member of the tribunal):
"Do you really believe that a person
dominated by communist ideology could
be in agreement Nith the 3a.sic Law ?
You must be able to anSHer this. You
must ~~OH the difference betHeen
communist ideology and the Basic
Lau , As a public
suppo:-t t~le free
servant
you must
anJudemocratic
constltutlonal order .
NANFRED LGHNER
(Catholic pacifist
denied job as a teacher) : "I have
alreadv declared that I utterly and
completely support the f'r-ce and
democratic constitutional order".
HH: "But, if at the same time you
support
this program (of'
:";nl'man
Peace society)
we begin to
doubts. In the report
of the '/(;::cfa.ss-
-lUld3schutz of 19?J the German Peo.c~ "
Society is descr-i bed as pr'o-communts t.
NL: "I know the program and practice
of the German Peace Society, and from
this I know that the GPS is not a
o ommuni.st organisation but that in it
people of differing political
persuasions campaign for peace. I
knoH too Hhat can be believed about
~his statement by the Verfassundsshutz
about the GPS. For examp.Le , it snys
that the Federal Presi.dent
of t.h.. GPS
has been a member of the prov inc i.ai
executive
Peace
committee
Union
of the German
in North-Rhine-Hestph::J
..li a .
He has never lived in North-RhinG'westphalia
and has never been a meI:1bel'
of the GPU. On the other hand, he :LS
a member of the FDP (Liberal Party).
Herr ~laikofer, Federal Minister for
the Interior, has apologized foi'·this
mistake. I know of a discussion
•
IS
a disgusting
•
pracnce
betHeen the Hessian Institute for
Research into Peace and Conflict Hith
a representative of the Ninistry in
Hhich it Has agreed among other
matters that the Ninister Hould in
future avoid all statements that could
give grounds to a third party to
consider the GPS or its members as
hostile to the constitution. Have you
nothing about this?
HH: "No".
ML: "But here is something in my
f'avour and you know nothing about it".
HH: "But the Hessian Institute for
Research into Peace and Conflict is
obviously infiltrated by Marxists.
\vhat do you actually know about
}larxism
?tI
jVIL:"As far as I am awar-e tire Hessian
Institute is supported by provincial
sta te funds. For me 11arxism is a
scientific theory."
FRAU RIST (member of tribunal): "I
don't understand you, Herr Lehner.
You are informed that the HessianInstitute is infiltrated by l'larxists
and then you describe Marxism as a
scientific theory. At the mere idea
of l·larxismcold shudders run d oun my
spine".
(Latham pp,' 4-5)
Since the Beruf'sverbot (literally,
'occupation ban') began in' 1972 a
million people havy been investigated,
and more than J,OOO have bElen sacked
or refused appointment. Some have been
members of the cP and its f rorrt
organisations; others were pacifists,
Social Democrats and Free Democrats
(Liberals). Possibly some - though
l.;a.tham i~nores
them - Here
libertarians. The evi.dence against
them has included "parti.cipation in a
meeting protesting at the National
Party (Neo-Nazi)"; attending public
meetings and even film ShOHS,
.upport ing appeals, petitions, protest
eclarations; writing letters to the
ress; scholarly publications and
,ontributions to seminars; travel in
;.heGDR and U33R; living in a c ommuna j
ous e ; visiting a pub used by
c-.,}mm'u~'lists;
parking a car near a pub
.ere there was a c onmun i s t meeting;
Inouncing an information stand for
i, .nnes
t International; ref'using to
recant t.he aims of the Socialist High
School. League or the German Peace
Socie'~y; activity for solidarity Hith
Chile or Vietnam; distribution of
LeafLe t s , use of the c onc oj.L "-j
ialism"; scholarly Hork Hhich does not
by John KinG>:
conform to the theory of CriticaR
Realism (the philosophy of Karl
Popper). And still there are six
years to 198'+ ~
Latham's
is the first
detailed account
the Berufsverbot
to appear in Bratain. It isn't r~a~ly
very good, Hhich is hardly surprlslng
given the publisher (the jll~stEur-ope
Committee of the CPGB). It s prlnted
on flimsy paper, has a most
una t.t.rac
t.i ve paper, and is blessed
Hith cartoons Hhich have all the
subtly of your average MORNING STAR
headline. I simply don't believe, as
Latham claims, that the Berufsverbot
Has introduced because of the ruling
class' fear of the groHing might of
the I'lestGerman CP. (No Maoists,
anarchists, RAF, studen:j.s ? j ~oometimes
it's dOHnright evasive. Berufsverbot
victim Ilja Hauslade n, wno ' s already
told his tribunal that he Has
politicised at a very early age by
his grandparent's experience in
Dachau and Ravensbruck, is less than
entirely convincing
in the folloHing
exchange:
Hrlerr Herzer: "What do you see to
criticise in t.he GDR ?"
Llja Hews laden : "There are certainly
some things in every country Hhich
are open'to criticism. But as I told
you at the beginning, I haven't
studied the laws of the GDR and I can
only criticic.e
th~..l:gr: '!Jhi21~.
informed about. TIllS is
CEtSe
here$"
Lai.ham lets
this
}laSS 'Vr1
t.hort Conmerit..
Nc\t'~does he stress
t.he Hay in Hhich
;)olJular anti-Nazi
sent:l!TH:::Clts
Here
;}:!',10i
ted to justify
the L':.t::.:,tl(lLtction
~)~
.. l.he Ber-uf'evez-bo t , which ha.s in
c t i.c e left
the neo-Naz.i.s UILf=:ca tl'led ..
~_:-'i might be a lesson
-a-vis the National
'pes are very slippery
The struggle
aga i.net. t.ne Berui'""
rbot is much too i,mportt:Lr_'~0
be
j't to the CPo
It's al,l too easy to
,:::gine the same thingover
re , YJith Labour Pact.v hacl:s ;~sh8dding
oc odi Le tears
as theil' cn,nl ,l,)caJ
{"uthorities
weed out th0se \-!it,:-l nasty
pen-conformist
ideas, everyone elSe
c: inges even more than Gf3Lic1.J_ a~nd the
Special Branch tOiles reacl, fOT
sky,
Are there any Solidarity readers Hith
first-hand experience of the syat.en,
or with ideas for a sp3c:~.f'ica:L~y
libertarian
ca.mpa.i.gn against
it.?
~y,Jow
~I'"
Ol'\~
(",-Shv o~ \"e, c.",,...
1::<>eao.cl S:J.02-
Page 20.
Hol
s in t
sun
After
with
a
week
of
celebration on Friday 21st - 28th
July at Lauriston Hall in the Scuth
West of Scotland.
Partly this is to help us to
catch up a bit on personal politics
and the atmcsphere should be more
relaxed than at a typical Solidarity
weekend conference. All Solidarity
members, friends, critics, sympathisers and their kids are Helcome.
The rates are
.80. per day
inclusive and half for kids, but it
sh ould vlO:ck out less if you can only
just afford that because we will be
operating a (VOluntary) incomes
sharing policy for the Heek,
Bo.o.KAS soos AS Po.S3IBL-,"
to
John Cowan, (3R) 17 Chevict Crescent,
Fintry, Dundee. Please enclose a £5
deposit
.50. for kids) vrh i.ch w i.L].
eventually be subtracted from your
HbiI1'1.
I,.-ka
, Wl-!",( 's fh""f
&ezi'r'e. plazjr'j c.ha..n:tks.
S ...•.
p}>o.se.a fi:. be- M,'(Yf/''j?''
o c.,~eJ
-ftA.YI ~
~("Cl.clt..
mcJ.fu)-ol •.sfYI"!
" Di.cltc.l->ca.l
The last C;OLIJAHITY conference
in Aberdeen attracted a small but
Ideas for the Heek and offers to
lead
Looks
off discussions,
games
etc
Conference
dedicated bunch of members
sympathisers
T.here Her,? severa,l
Scottish
libertarians
and contingents
from Lond on , OXford, l'lanchester
and
Newcastle.
Despite
its small size I
felt
tha.t t..he conference vJ8,S one of
6
Hould also be welcome.
?
in
I
AB8RDSEN - Solid3-rity, Box 2],
l6J, King Street,
Aberdeen
lfu\l'):;Hl£STER
-
S.D.
Ri tchie
o.XFORD Lo.NDo.N-
c/o
f
,Hornchtlrch
Court, Bonsall Street,
lIl3-nchester,
lWA Books, JI+, Cowloy
, Oxford.
12], Lathon Road, London
the better ones I'd attended
over the last feH years. The conflicts
and arguments, of Hhich there Here
many, Here conducted in a forceful
but sensitive
Eembers of the
London
spirited
defence
group conducted a
of their issue of
the magazine. but in the end their
interrogators extracted only limited
admissions of sexism~
The open session of the conference
on 'Nationalism,
Ecology
Decentralisation'
If you Hant to find out about
Solid3-rity contacts in other are3-S,
Hrite to the National Secretary via
the Aberdeen Group. Irrt.e rna tiona1
Correspond3-nce and Subscriptions
for a string of pearls of wisdom)
should be sent to the London GrouD,
Hno Hill also be doing the next issue of SaLIDARITY magazine.
(I)
NOlN
~fio)JJ~",~
k'\,....e
~~'
mainly
a discussion
and
ended up being
on nationalism.
Nevertheless it Has sustained at a
high level for over three hours,
Perhaps it Hasn't such a bad thing
that the introductory speaker left his
notes in London~
an Saturday night the Aberdeen
comrades put on an excellent social
Hith bopping dOHnstairs to reggae/
soul/TRB and Irn Bru upstairs to
sustain the polemics.
The Sunday morning session vias
serious but no breakthrough in the
problem 01 hOH He relate to each othe
o.nthe one hand there Here people
Vlho claimed positive discrimination
for the more inarticulate and
traditionally dOVlntrodden (gays and
vromen ) - and vno seemed to put d oun
those Hho Hou1dn't take advantage
of the opportunity to be inarticulate
and shut up those vrho Here articulate
regardless of the fact that they
Here boring or interesting. On the
other hand there Here those Hho
Vlanted to see the clearest exposition
and development of ideas and Here
relatively content Vlith any elitist
consequences. Be tween tyro such
positions it is not necessary to
choose, rather it is a question
of balance. What emerged in this
session VIas a recognition of the
necessity for that balance Vlithout
any achievement of it.
0
Nonetheless, it Has Hell Horth
the three-day train journey and many
thanks to the Aberdeen comrades
for their organization and hospitality
J.L.
~
it
'r-
\4;~~,
'J(l'\.,. ~M"k.e..
~
\.~~~
9-
tr-.:( '-I;~
tt-.I! I\..,.a.Mes
IA
o...,.."J- f1...~
lJ>~w~L.