FRFI 246 August/September2015
Labour hypocrites
While the Labour Party’s latest shameful chapter saw it refuse to oppose the Tories’ swingeing cuts to welfare last week, there was a notable amount of praise from the British left for the albeit piffling number of Labour MPs – just 48 – who did defy the whip to vote against it. However, nearly a third (17) of these noble rebel Labour MPs also voted for NATO’s genocidal bombing of Libya in 2011. They were: Diane Abbott, Debbie Abrahams, David Anderson, Geraint Davies, Mary Glindon, Helen Goodman, Helen Jones, Sir Gerald Kaufman, Sadiq Khan, David Lammy, Ian Lavery, Michael Meacher, Ian Mearns, Madeleine Moon, Grahame Morris, Teresa Pearce, and Iain Wright. Given the comings and goings since the election, only four can say they voted against both – yet even they continue to swear allegiance to this irredeemable party of warmongering racist imperialism. NATO’s bombs massacred innocent civilians in Libya and plunged the country into a brutal civil war, and manufactured the devastating migrant crisis in the Mediterranean. Not only does this show that these Labour MPs don’t give a damn about the international working class, it exposes the pretence that they are willing to stand up for the British working class only as a matter of political expediency to further their own careers. It’s profoundly sickening that they receive any praise at all.
BARNABY HARRIS
South London
Home movies
The Sun’s revelation of a royal ‘home movie’ from 1933, showing Princess Elizabeth, the future Queen, her sister, mother and uncle, the future King Edward VIII, in the grounds of Balmoral practising Nazi salutes, set the press and the royals in a spin. With the exception of Edward, who anyway was later to prove unreliable by marrying a divorcee, let alone being chummy with the Nazi leadership, the commentators were all anxious to reassure the British public that the future Queen, aged seven, and her relations either didn’t know what they were doing, or it was 1933 and the fascists had hardly got going. After all, they said, the royal family subsequently showed their true mettle by patriotically remaining in London during the war and leading the nation to victory.
What they all failed to mention was the fact that the key feature of fascism, in both Italy and Germany, that was admired by wide sections of the ruling class, including the royal family, was its systematic attacks on and destruction of working class organisations and left-wing leaders. By 1933 this was well established. The ruling class had good reason to fear the potential threat to their privileges from the working class following the First World War, the victory of the Bolshevik Revolution and the upsurge in socialist struggle across Europe in response to the capitalist crisis. The ruling class regarded fascism as the vanguard in their struggle to protect themselves and to destroy socialism. Patriotic they may have become, but anti-fascist they never were and never will be.
Finally we are offered the excuse that the royals were and are understandably aggrieved by the killing of their Romanov cousins by the Bolsheviks. Unfortunately the truth is that the royal family were instrumental in ensuring that the Romanovs were denied asylum in Britain after the revolution, out of fear that the British working class might choose socialism. A brave lot, the Saxe-Coburg-Gothas (who changed their name to Windsor)!
CATHERINE STALLARD
London
Trauma and resistance in Gaza
I attended a reportback by David Harrold, from the Palestine Trauma Centre (PTC), of his visit to Gaza in April 2015. His eyewitness account, entitled ‘Grief and joy in Gaza’ was presented at a Stop the War meeting in Battersea, south London. The PTC works with traumatised Palestinian children and their families. 125,000 Palestinian children now need direct psychological intervention, having lost homes and/or siblings and parents. His visit took place eight months after Israel’s latest imperialist onslaught on the Palestinian people when Israeli forces killed 2,199 Palestinians including nearly 500 children. 3,374 children were wounded, with more than 1,000 left permanently disabled.
Harrold spoke of the Palestinian people ‘living in an abusive relationship’ with the Zionist Israeli state. He quotes Dov Weisglass, an adviser to Ariel Sharon, who said ‘the idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not make them die of hunger’, and spoke of Israel’s infamous ‘Dahiya doctrine’ which sets out to ‘destroy the community’s infrastructure to immerse people in the problem of survival, making resistance impossible’.
He showed a photograph of the yellow flags of Fatah and the green flags of Hamas together in Gaza which reminded me that in April 2014 Israel became very angry at the reconciliation deal agreed between Fatah and Hamas, and threatened to withhold tax revenues it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority. Was the offensive against Gaza last year an Israeli attempt to sabotage the deal, to isolate Hamas and punish Fatah for the rapprochement? Fatah entered the conflict in July 2014 with missiles launched against Israel in the West Bank. Amin Maqboul, Secretary-General of Fatah’s Revolutionary Council said Palestinians were united against the Israeli assault: ‘We all know that the main Israeli goal has been to break up the national unity reconciliation. We will respond by strengthening our unity and reconciliation’ (Palestine Pulse, 10 July 2014).
Harrold went on to speak of therapy linked to resistance, quoting from the work of the revolutionary and psychiatrist Frantz Fanon: ‘His glance no longer shrivels me up nor freezes me and his voice no longer turns me into stone’. Harrold himself speaks of catharsis which echoes Fanon’s words in The Wretched of the Earth: ‘At the level of individuals, violence is a cleansing force. It frees the native from his inferiority complex and from his despair and inaction; it makes him fearless and restores his self-respect’.
STEPHANUS
London
Free Steve Kaczynski!
We are writing to highlight the plight of Steve Kaczynski. He is a Scottish national who is currently in prison in Istanbul. In Turkey, as in many imperialist countries, political policing and the silencing of political opinion have become the norm. The sole reason why political activists like Stephen Kaczynski are arrested and kept in isolation is because of their work highlighting social injustice against the rights of women, workers, the poor and the oppressed. Stephen has a particular interest in Turkey, has participated in several International Symposiums against Prison Isolation, and has reported on the death fast protests in Turkish F-type prisons, during which 122 individuals died. Steve is a prolific writer and has written numerous articles and books, including one recounting the story of a father whose two daughters died in prison on death fast.
On 2 April 2015, the Turkish police and army terrorised the local community and attempted to disrupt an annual anti-imperialist conference that was being held at the Idil cultural centre. Steve and musicians from the band Grup Yorum were arrested, detained and tortured; Steve remains interned, in solitary confinement without charge. He is currently on hunger strike in protest at being held in harsh conditions, in isolation 23 hours a day, not being allowed to have any reading material, and being denied many of his visits.
Steve is a dedicated, progressive thinker and for decades has been a close friend to the struggle for national liberation in Ireland, and to workers’ struggles in Scotland, Wales, England and internationally. Steve has not committed any offence and we demand that he is released immediately.
The Committee for Freedom for Steve Kaczynski is organising regular demonstrations outside the Turkish embassy in London every Wednesday at 12 noon. Supporters are encouraged to attend, as well as to write letters of protest to the Ministry of Justice in Ankara: 06659 Kizilay, Ankara; telephone 90 (0312) 417 77 70; fax 90 (0312) 419 33 70; email ı[email protected]
Please also support Steve by writing letters and cards to: Steve Shaw Kaczynski, Maltepe 3 No.lu Hapishanesi, Yabancılar bölümü Büyük Bakkal Köy Mah, Yakacık Yolu Üzeri, No 13 Maltepe, Istanbul, Turkey.
CINAED DECANNTUN
Committee for Freedom for Steve Kaczynski
Justice for Sheku Bayoh!
On 3 May, 31-year-old Sheku Bayoh, who was originally from Sierra Leone, was violently arrested and died in Kircaldy it
the custody of the national police force, Police Scotland which was formed two years ago. Up to nine officers were involved in the arrest and used batons, CS gas and pepper spray, leg restraints and handcuffs against Sheku. As doctors and nurses struggled to revive him at Victoria Hospital, officers refused to remove handcuffs and leg restraints.
There have been 11 deaths in the custody of Police Scotland since it was formed.
On 7 June RCG supporters attended the funeral march, passing where Sheku was arrested and stopping outside the local police station. At the press conference which followed we heard details of the police operation of lies and attempts to smear and to intimidate the family into silence. Meanwhile the officers involved refused to release their notebooks or speak to the Scottish investigatory body, the Police Investigations and Review Commissioner (PIRC) for a month after Sheku’s death. RCG supporters attended the launch of the Sheku Bayoh campaign on 25 July in Glasgow.
What then has been the Scottish SNP government’s response to this racist killing? Scottish justice secretary Michael Matheson stated he will not intervene in the police investigation into Sheku’s death and has rejected calls for PIRC to be given new statutory powers which would allow them to compel officer witnesses to be interviewed.
DOMINIC MULGREW
Glasgow
Support the campaign by liking the facebook page Justice For Sheku Ahmed Tejan Bayoh and donating to the campaign at Bank of Scotland: Sort code 80-47-68, Account number 10897861
Full IBAN: GB34 BOFS 8047 6810 8978 61
Strangeways: from book to film
The article about my book (Life in Strangeways: from riot to redemption) in FRFI 245 is truly appreciated. Many people are becoming increasingly aware of the book’s content and the prison system’s ways. It’s something I cannot forget and anything that exposes it is good. The book is now going to be turned into a film! That will be good.
ALAN LORD
Manchester
