A World going to War and the resistance (3 of 3) – a multipolar alternative?

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In the previous post I said that the results of the war in Ukraine would include the deaths of hundreds of thousands; massive physical destruction; a Ukrainian state more corrupt and more subject to imperialist predation; increased division within the working class; and both NATO and the reactionary Russian belligerents remaining in place.

Yet the pro-war Western left defends NATO because without it Ukrainian victory would be inconceivable and it is this victory that they prioritise above all else.  This is an inescapable consequence of their position.

Alternatively, some other leftists, in mirror image, support the victory of Russia but in doing so also bear responsibility for supporting the consequences of the war. They take this position on the grounds of opposition to US imperialist hegemony and for some, that a more multipolar or ‘pluripolar’ world is the pivotal objective.  They do not seem to appreciate that the wars in Ukraine and Middle East are the results of the developing of this multipolar world, which is another name for imperialist rivalry and conflict.  Only the historically ignorant could believe that the development of a multipolar capitalist world would not lead to imperialist conflict and war.

The idea that a more multipolar world will lead to equality of nations makes no sense to anyone who believes that capitalist states are political formations that compete with each other in an analogous way that capital itself competes – by destroying or expropriating rivals.  Socialists believe that workers should not side with their own capitalist state and should fight it, just as we call on workers to oppose their own capitalist exploiter; supporting your own capitalist state is analogous to supporting you own exploiter.

That many have come to this sorry end means that they have also ended any real connection with socialism, regardless of any subjective beliefs.  It’s not that they are stupid; it takes some intelligence to construct the respective arguments but the results above are the same whatever the rationale advanced.

It matters not if you think China is socialist and therefore you should support its ally Russia, because this means you desert the Chinese working class and Russian.  It matters not that you do so to defend colonial or semi-colonial countries, because the point about multipolarity is that many of these countries have advanced and developed so that they exploit the rivalry within the multipolar system to defend their own state and class interests.  The language of anti-imperialism, or anti-colonialism, is often employed by them to denounce other capitalists’ interests and power.

By coincidence, a friend sent me a link to an article that illustrates one consequence of the development of the multipolar world – the ability of some states to balance between US & Western imperialism on the one hand and China & Russia on the other.  The article points to this in terms of economic collaboration between many BRICS countries and the Zionist state of Israel, exploding the idea that there is emerging some state alignment of the good guys against the bad.  Not only are there no good guys but even pretence that there is a unified group doesn’t survive the obvious divisions within them, as the article illustrates.

One rationale for support for Russia was made on Facebook, which read: ‘In truth what will bring about a new revitalised working class movement is the fall of US imperialism. The world policeman will no longer be able to intervene throughout the world to suppress movements fighting for social equality. A big step forward for humanity.  For instance, if there was no US imperialism there would be no genocide of the Palestinians and Israeli would cease to exist as a settler and apartheid state.’

The article referenced above makes clear that, while the US is currently decisive in defending the Zionist state, there are no principled reasons why other imperialist and capitalist powers would not do so also, just as they currently hypocritically collaborate with it.  The principal reason that they do not, or cannot do so now, is because US imperialism is already doing it.   Israel would not be averse to being someone else’s imperialist enforcer if it had to; its history shows previous reliance on the British, German and French imperialism, not to mention the early approval of the Soviet Union.

None of the capitalist states that are rivals of the US have demonstrated that they would not carry out the same policy as the US, were they in the same hegemonic position.  Belief in a multipolar world seems to be under the illusion that such a world would involve the removal or amelioration of inter-imperialist rivalry and conflict, as opposed to the reality of its intensification, demonstrated in the current wars in Europe and Middle East.  In such a situation, support for one or other imperialist alliance is not a temporary tactical or strategic approach but a fundamental capitulation to never-ending support for imperialism, whatever its particular variety might be.

There are two ways in which ‘the fall of US imperialism’ could occur and ‘the world policeman . . .no longer be able to intervene throughout the world’.  The first is if a rival imperialist bloc defeated it, in which case there would be a new imperialist hegemon ‘able to intervene throughout the world’.  What reason, let’s call it success, would lead this hegemon to behave differently?  Would its current left supporters then withdraw their support or stick with it?

The second is if the US hegemon was overthrown by the working class.  Let’s say through a combination of military defeat and internal revolt.  The task of the working class in these circumstances, assuming for the sake of argument that only US imperialism ‘fell’, would be to defend itself against the rival hegemonic imperialist alliance.  This would be because this new hegemon would recognise what its current left supporters do not, that its real enemies are the working class.  In this case it is more likely that the rival imperialist alliance would seek to defend the newly subordinated US imperialism from overthrow by the working class and seek to crush it themselves.

What sense does it make to support this potential alternative imperialist hegemon unless one swallows the nonsense that China is either socialist, or is some sort of peaceful version of capitalism, which in either case would require ditching everything taught by Karl Marx about what capitalism is and what is involved in rule by the working class?  Or even if one doesn’t consider oneself a Marxist, how is such a view given any confirmation by the history of the world over the last 150 years?

Whatever the steps necessary to establish an independent working class force in the world, they will not be taken through supporting either Western imperialism or the China-Russia Axis, not least because each makes their working class a prisoner of its own state and thereby prevents their unity across their division.

Back to part 2

A World going to War and the resistance (2 of 3) – Two proxy wars

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Western imperialist support for the Zionist state and its genocide in Gaza has exposed its hypocrisy to millions across the world but the developing war against Iran exposes what lies behind this support.

The repeated provocations against Iran, involving assassination of leading figures and terrorist attacks in Lebanon have in each case been designed to provoke an Iranian response that would justify further Israeli attacks and increased intervention by the US.  The US has been saying two things during this Israeli escalation: promoting a ceasefire that will release Israeli hostages but that will permit continued Zionist aggression thereafter, and repeated declarations of support for the Zionist state, backed up with more and more weapons plus financing for a deficit that is forecast to be almost three times that expected before the war but will turn out to be even greater. 

The Western media repeats ad nauseum that the US has been struggling to prevent regional war and that it has also struggled to rein in Zionist bellicosity.  What it also occasionally reports is that a new ‘reformist’ President in Iran is seeking to improve relations with Western imperialism in order to reduce sanctions against his country, and that this is why Iran is deliberately seeking to prevent escalation in its responses to provocation.

If the US wanted to rein in Israeli aggression, it would not supply the weapons that allows the Zionist state to carry out genocide, invade Lebanon and attack Iran.  It would not supply the finance that allows the Zionist state to finance “the longest and most expensive war’ in its history, according to its finance minister.  In other words the US is lying and the Western media parrots its lies, which are reported as news and then recycled by its talking heads and columnists as the truth.

Since the real enemy of the Zionist state and threat to its regional hegemony is Iran, the target of escalation in the war – through the invasion of Lebanon with the purpose of smashing Hizbollah – is the organisation’s patron.  Since the Zionist state is the projection of US/Western imperialist power in the region the main enemy of the US is Iran, because behind it is Russia. And behind it – China.

The invasion of Lebanon and attacks on Iran are not something the US opposes but is its proxy war against Iran and Russia.  Israel is thus playing the same role as Ukraine is playing in the war against Russia, which is why the US has supplied weapons and financing for both and why the Western media displays its bias in favour of both. 

However, even the Western media is increasingly reporting that Ukraine is losing the war while trying to determine what can retrieved from the defeat.  Anyone relying on this media would be surprised by this turn of events having been fed a diet of Russian failure and Ukrainian valour and success.  The story now is very different.

In the Financial Times its reporters quotes the head of the Washington office of the European Council on Foreign Relations thar “we are losing the war” while the rabidly pro-imperialist Economist editorialises that ‘If Ukraine and its Western backers are to win, they must first have the courage to admit that they are losing’; rich coming from that publication – given the lateness to recognise it themselves.  Even now it ventures a cunning plan for victory, of sorts, through yet more money to build up a Ukrainian arms industry, which is admission that Western imperialism can no longer supply Ukraine with their own weapons, not least because they are needed to kill Palestinians, Lebanese and Iranians.  

Having advocated and heralded previous escalation by imperialism, The Economist sees no need to explain its own failure but simply supports yet more escalation and a plan even less credible than the one concocted by Zelensky.  

Both publications provide ample evidence that Ukraine is failing and that the views of Ukrainians themselves are changing, making them less willing to fight the proxy war, never mind ‘fight to the last Ukrainian’.

“Most players want de-escalation here’ says a senior Ukrainian official, while one Ukrainian commander states his fear of a “forever war”, and another officer notes that “if the US turns off the spigot, we’re finished.”  In The Economist yet another drone commander states that “the West and the United States in particular have an unequivocal responsibility for the deaths of Ukrainians.”

Both publications note the increasing corruption of the Ukrainian state: the forced mobilisation “is perceived as abusive, worse than if you are a criminal” according to the director of the Kyiv Centre for Economic Strategy.  “It tears people apart.  The real enemy is Russia, but at the same time they fear a corrupt, abusive enrolment office doing the wrong thing.”  The effect on the front reported by The Economist is that ‘many of those drafted into service are ill-suited to fighting: too old, too ill, too drunk.’  It notes that there is no clear path out of the army, making ‘being mobilised seem like a one-way ticket to the morgue’.  It states that 5-10% are absent without leave despite prosecutions and that ‘fewer than 30% of Ukrainians consider draft-dodging shameful.’

The Economist also notes that ‘corruption and nationalism are on the rise’ while the Financial Times reports a governing party MP that ‘the biggest domestic problem for Zelenskyy might come from a nationalist minority opposed to any compromise, some of whom are now armed and trained to fight . . . The far right in Ukraine is growing.  The right wing is a danger to democracy.”

Thus, many Ukrainians understand the important role of Western imperialist intervention, even if the pro-war Western left professes not to.  They understand the rampant corruption of the state, the life and death consequences for themselves, and seek to avoid them, while this left champions the defence of the state and supports the supply of weapons to Ukrainian conscripts who simply do not want to die.  The importance and threat of the far right is recognised while this left, never slow to denounce the fascist threat everywhere else, has minimised, glossed over and treated it as inconsequential.  All these failures flowing from the initial failure to understand the war as an imperialist one in which socialists should support neither side.

Both publications proffer incomplete and confused plans for ending the war, both of which appear to treat the Russian view of how it should end as secondary to their own.

What they both do, is treat the question of NATO membership as central, yet another vital element the pro-imperialist warmongers have treated as some sort of Russian excuse.  “Land for [Nato] membership is the only game in town, everyone knows it”, says one senior western official quoted by the FT.  “Nobody will say it out loud . . . but it’s the only strategy on the table.”  On the other hand the FT quotes a senior Ukrainian official as stating that “I don’t think Russia would agree to our participation in Nato.”

The gung-ho Economist supports Ukrainian NATO membership but simply glosses over the acknowledged risk – ‘If Russia struck Ukraine again, America could face a terrible dilemma: to back Ukraine and risk war with a nuclear foe; or refuse and weaken its alliance around the world.”  It fails to notice that the US has made a choice on NATO membership already (refusing immediate admission) and simply elides the risk by claiming that a choice of not giving membership would entail Ukraine’s defeat, which ‘would be much worse.’  What could be worse than a world war between two states armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons is not explained, but this, apparently, is the future promised by the prominent publication of Western imperialism.

For the moment, The Economist and Financial Times still support the war, with the former seeking to redefine victory as less than before.  However it ends, the war will have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands with many more wounded; much of Ukraine will have been destroyed; the Ukrainian rump state will be weaker, more corrupt and more subject to imperialist predation than before; the political division within the former Ukrainian working class will have been immeasurably strengthened; and both NATO and the reactionary Russian regime will remain.

These are the already known inevitable results of the war that those leftists who think victory for one band of capitalist robbers is better than the other have to justify. Socialists will remain implacably opposed to both and will not entertain the claims of these leftist pretenders that after the fighting is over they will go back to opposing NATO or Putin.

Back to part 1

Forward to part 3

A World going to War and the resistance (1 of 3) – Palestine and Lebanon

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Beirut Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Israel is reported to have killed more than a thousand people in its two weeks of bombing Lebanon and has now started a land invasion, which has caused a displacement of more than a million people, almost a fifth of the population.  It continues to murder hundreds of civilians in Gaza with the death toll approaching 42,000, not including many more buried under the rubble of destroyed buildings. One estimate, and not the highest, is 186,000!

After repeated provocations Iran attacked Israel with an unknown number of missiles that Israel says were mainly shot down, while video evidence claimed to show that many were successful, although it is not obvious that they hit their intended targets.  A main objective appears to have been to impact military airbases.

Iran reportedly gave notice to both the US and Israel that it was going to attack, allowing the Israelis to remove their aircraft from harm’s way, while it also said that its response to the provocations had finished.

Netanyahu shamelessly and offensively publicised his order to kill the leader of Hizbollah (and those unconnected who were near him) when he was at the UN in New York, straight after a speech in which he claimed that “Israel seeks peace. Israel yearns for peace. Israel has made peace and will make peace again.” After the Iranian missile strike he warned that Iran had made a “big mistake” and threatened that it “will pay for it”.

After the continuing genocide in Gaza, the more than thousand killed in Israeli bombing and now ground invasion of Lebanon, Keir Starmer declared that he and the country he claims to speak on behalf of, “stands with Israel” and recognises its right to self-defence.  The Labour Defence Secretary John Healey said that British forces had “played their part in attempts to prevent further escalation”, which must be his way of boasting that British aircraft helped the genocidal Israeli military to stop the Iranian missiles.  The US has already sent more military into the region and also boasted of its efforts against the missilles.

No one reading this will need an exposition of the lies and hypocrisy these statements involve, told by either the Zionist leaders or their Western backers: the selective condemnation of terrorism, selective endorsement of the right to self-defence, selective concern for civilian casualties and selective condemnation and sanctions against outside invasion.  All this is obvious.  Starmer’s support and defence of the genocidal Zionist regime has played a part in the collapse of his already low popularity and that of his government – his net approval number is now minus 30 and his government less popular than the one that has just been shredded:

More demonstrations are taking place and planned across the world, following the mass walk-out of delegates to the UN at the start of Netanyahu’s speech.  The pathetic role of the Irish delegation was clearly exposed by their staying in their seats to listen to the latest catalogue of lies that insults its listeners.

The Irish people have an opportunity to demonstrate their opposition to genocide and the attack on Lebanon through a march on Saturday.  The support declared for it reveals widespread support but also the depth of much of it. What is the purpose of this demonstration and the campaign generally? Is pointing out the hypocrisy of the government and its actions anywhere near enough?

The purpose, it would seem, can only be to put pressure on the government to take action but the repeated demands on the Government by some opposition TD’s have only been met by revelations that it will not even enforce its own laws that might somewhat inconvenience the transport of weapons to Israel – allowing flights over Irish airspace without any question.  The governing parties are riding high in the polls and are busy bribing the population with their own money in the budget – their money and that amassed as a tax haven for US multinationals. If putting pressure on it is the objective, the question must be asked – what pressure?

The political voices of these 160 civil society organisations supporting the demo have been demanding various actions from the Irish government for a year, with no success beyond its hypocritical statements that rival those of the other Western powers.  After a short time, this reveals not the power of public opinion but its weakness and that of the solidarity campaign that seeks to mobilise it.  It reveals the political poverty of demanding that the Irish bourgeoisie do something that is not in its interest.  If you expect they will do so you are naïve at best and if you don’t you are fooling your supporters and yourself.  

Look at the organisations supporting the demonstration! They include the trade unions and will probably include Sinn Fein; the party that partied with genocide Joe on St Patricks day.  Who could possibly feel pressure from such hypocrites?  The governing parties could easily turn round to the trade unions and ask – what have you done to boycott the Zionist state?

In other words, the Palestine solidarity campaign should be demanding that those who claim to support it do something, beyond supporting demonstrations that long ago revealed that bourgeois governments don’t care what their populations think as long as they can get away with it. If these governments will not take action, it needs to be taken for them, or rather – against them.

That means demanding that Sinn Fein boycott the genocidal US regime and the trade unions campaign to persuade their members to take direct action to boycott Israeli bound armaments etc. and defend them when they do.  If they don’t then their participation in solidarity demonstrations is a sham and by extension is a fraud on all the other participants who are genuinely opposed to the actions of the Zionist state and want to do something about it.

The Irish state is a very junior and subordinate partner in a Western imperialist alliance that supports the Zioinist state because this state is the West’s – primarily the US’s – instrument of power in the Arab world and beyond.  To expect that it will rebel against its dominant partners is delusional, and continual demands that it do so miseducates and misdirects everyone who doesn’t understand this. It must stop, and the campaign look to Irish workers as the means to put pressure on imperialism, starting by opposing their own state that is a part of it.

Forward to part 2

Bourgeois democracy in Ireland in two Acts (2) – Orwellian and Surreal

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Bourgeois democracy can not only lie, it can also invent crimes for which you can be punished.  The Government is going ahead with the hate crime bill, shorn of its hate speech elements.  This follows its stinging defeat in the family and care referendum in which it also lied about the implications of what it was proposing when asked whether these had been raised within it as a concern.

The original proposals about ‘hate’ speech were particularly threatening but the retention of the definition of “protected characteristics” raises all sorts of questions that the government will again have to spin and lie about in order to defend.

These “protected characteristics” include ‘race, colour, nationality, religion, ethnic origin, descent, sex characteristics, sexual orientation, disability and gender’.  Beyond general issues about the wisdom of agreeing to greater repressive powers for the state, and the inclusion of essentially subjective considerations such as ‘hate’ in punishment, there are two questions – what is ‘sex characteristics?’  Is this just another term for sex, in which case what is the point of two words instead of just three letters?

The second is the definition of gender included in the legislation: “’gender” means the gender of a person or the gender which a person expresses as the person’s preferred gender, or with which the person identifies, and includes transgender and a gender other than those of male and female”.

This farrago of words is obviously not a definition of anything, certainly not of ‘gender’ or ‘transgender’, and as I have written before, it’s doubtful that one can be clearly stated.  It seeks to protect people who are ‘other than those of male and female.’  Who are they?  Where are they and how do they, or could they, exist?  In what way is this not putting into law the nonsensical ideas of gender identity ideology that the Government parties don’t have the courage to openly argue for?

When the right wing Senator Michael McDowell asked the Department of Justice what is intended by the term ‘transgender’ and ‘a gender other than those of male and female’ he got no response.  Instead, the department provided a statement that included this: 

“If someone is assaulted because they are transgender, that is a hate crime.”

“People identify as non-binary. That’s a fact. If someone follows a non-binary person after they leave a gay nightclub, and then assaults them while shouting homophobic abuse, they would likely be charged with assault causing harm aggravated by hatred (carrying a max sentence of 12 years, instead of 10 years because of the aggravating factor). If it’s not found that it has been aggravated by hatred, then the person could still be charged with assault causing harm,” it said. “A definition is required to protect that person. It has absolutely no implications outside of this law.” (Emphasis added – Sráid Marx)

The department also asked: “Does Michael McDowell believe that this person should be protected by this law, or does he believe this person should have to identify as male or female to be protected?”

There is so much that is simply stupid in this that it’s difficult to know where to start.

I am quite sure that Michael McDowell would respond that it does not require anyone to identify as anything in order to be protected, which is what the Department of Justice seems to imply. Or does the Department believe it must be proved that an assailant knows the inner thoughts of someone in order to secure conviction or aggravated punishment?  For that is what the department assumes when it wants to protect someone who is in some way not either male or female and walks out of a gay club.

How on earth could someone be attacked for being ‘non binary’ without the assailant having some prior knowledge of the person?  If a stranger was attacked for coming out of a gay club it is much more likely that any motive beyond purely violent intent would consist of homophobia, which is obviously what would be indicated by their “shouting homophobic abuse”.

It is indeed a fact that “people identify as non-binary” but it is also a fact, that the government wants to elide, that there is no such thing as a non-binary person (neither male nor female or both).  Assaulting someone for this reason is not an assault on someone because of what they are (e.g. gay) but an assault because of their (misconceived) ideas about what they are.  Since such ideas are as varied as there are ‘genders’, the state has opened up a panoply of grounds upon which to claim hate crime warranting additional punishment.

The state may have dropped attacks on free speech that might lead to criminal punishment arising from disagreement with the idea of the many ‘genders’ claimed by some activists, but this still leaves open the potential for punishment for those disputing such claims.  This may seem absurdly alarmist but it is already the case that the Department of Justice is implying that only inclusion of a gender identity in a victim ensures protection, something just as absurd.

The ability of the state to conjure up offences and therefore punishment on grounds that are non-existent is surreal.  The word Orwellian is overused but the Irish state is claiming that not only can it identify the inner thought crime of an accused but also that the inner thoughts of the victim can also be divined by the accused and in turn accessed by the state.

It is a feature of gender identity ideology that it throws up such idiocies that are easily dismissed, but these are a result of the foundational one that men can be women just by claiming to be one, and this is one nonsensical claim that is already being validated and legislated for.

McDowell has also noted that ‘the Bill suggests that there are genders (plural) other than male or female. It does not enumerate or describe such other genders”. He argues that unspecified genders beyond male and female would raise questions “over statutory provisions providing for gender balance in judicial appointments, board compositions, etc”.  “There is no case for legislating for an open-ended multiplicity of subjective genders the meaning of which is obscure,” he said.

The idea that the numerous legal and social provisions based on gender – understood as sex – will not be affected by the legal recognition in this Bill is naïve at best and does not accord with experience across the world.  I have argued elsewhere that these implications are reactionary.  They have included attacks on freedom of belief; freedom of speech and freedom of association; destroying women’s sex based rights; putting males in female spaces; attempting to obliterate sexual orientation and lying to children that they can change sex before they even have a full appreciation of what it is.

Those who think that because McDowell is right wing he cannot be quoted or we cannot agree with him on this should consider why a government and state that is complicit in genocide, as we pointed out in the previous post, should now be considered to be in the vanguard of social progress.  They might also consider that Genocide Joe Biden described trans rights as “the civil rights issue of our time. There is no room for compromise when it comes to basic human rights”. Tell that to the Palestinian people.

Back to part 1

Bourgeois democracy in Ireland in two Acts (1) – supporting the Palestinians

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In June the Taoiseach Simon Harris assured the Dáil that “no airport in Ireland or Irish sovereign airspace is being used to transport weapons to the conflict in the Middle East or any other war”.  The Ditch web site in September began reporting that nine such flights had been made to Israel, although the site reported that there were, and no doubt still are, many more.  It noted that ‘Carrying munitions of war through Irish airspace without permission from the minister for transport is a criminal offence punishable by up to three years’ imprisonment.’   

Harris stated in June that “In relation to the overflights, the Government of Ireland has never provided any permission for such an overflight to take place in terms of carrying munitions and therefore the Government wouldn’t have been in a position to inform the Dáil of such a flight. That position is quite clear,” which means that unless the Government expressly permits the law to be broken, it hasn’t been.  It would appear that it is only broken when it has been admitted but since the Government is never going to ask to inspect aircraft overflying or landing, it is never going to be admitted, and we just have to accept that the law has not been broken and Irish neutrality policy has not been breached.

In response to the evidence that neither of these things are true the Government has called an investigation into its own actions, as if it doesn’t know what it has been doing. Meanwhile Harris accused his critic, Sinn Fein’s Mary Lou McDonald, of “misleading people” and of trying to “muddy the waters”, which would make more sense if it was self-criticism.

The Green Party Minister of Transport has claimed that “no airport in Ireland, or Irish sovereign airspace, has been used to transport weapons directly to Israel” while he has also claimed that he supports new legislation that would allow random checks.  The sponsors of separate legislation have pointed out that the government already has powers to carry out checks but it isn’t using them, while it’s opposing their own proposals. The Minister has promised to “sit down with my officials and with legal experts over the coming months to make sure that new legislation is developed that is watertight, is workable, and is compliant with international aviation law.” Sitting for months is as near an honest admission of what action it will take as the government is likely to provide.

The prospects of any further Government legislation that would be implemented can be gauged by the fate of the Occupied Territories Bill, which would ban and criminalise “trade with and economic support for illegal settlements in territories deemed occupied under international law”, most notably Israeli settlements in the occupied territories.

This was passed in both Houses of the Oireachtas but has been stymied for four years, with yet another statement by Harris that he would seek “fresh legal advice” to extend the never ending delay.  The message is that a majority in the legislature can vote for something that is undoubtedly approved by the majority of the people but this doesn’t mean the Government will do anything to implement it.  The Ditch again explained the precise mechanism employed in this particular case, one of the many in bourgeois democracies to ensure that what democracy there is is suited only for the bourgeoisie:

‘On 25 February, 2019 Hadie Cohen from the Israeli Ministry of Justice emailed colleagues.’

‘Cohen referred to a “confidential call” (emphasis Cohen’s own) with Paschal Donohoe. Cohen said Donohoe told Israeli finance minister Moshe Kahlon that the Irish government would “block” the bill.’

“We understand that during a confidential call on 13 February between the Irish Minister of Finance and his Israeli counterpart, the Irish minister confirmed that the Irish government will be using a procedure known as “money message” to seek to block the progress of the draft Irish legislation criminalising dealings with products and services from the settlements – the Control of Economic Activity (Occupied Territories) Bill 2018,” wrote Cohen.’

‘The “money message” was invoked by ‘then foreign minister SImon Coveny [who] said government would invoke article 17.2 of the constitution . . . Coveney said government had to do this, not to frustrate the democratic process as critics of the money message argue, but because government’s “view is that additional costs will also arise from voted funds for certain Irish diplomatic missions abroad should this bill be enacted. I should state clearly at this point that because of these costs across a wide range of areas, there can be no doubt that the bill will require a money message to proceed to committee stage.” More sitting down with legal experts perhaps to ensure nothing is done.

Paschal Donohoe has denied this call but only in the sort of non-denial denial manner, similar to the non-apology apology.  What all this demonstrates is that the Irish State is no different from every other capitalist state, which are committees to run the affairs of the bourgeoisie that inevitably involve conspiracies to lie to their own people.

The Irish State joins with the others in the West in having its fingerprints all over genocide in Palestine, laced with its own particular flavour of hypocrisy, all the more disgusting because it pretends to be the very opposite if what it claims – to be in support of the Palestinian people based on its own experience of colonialism. Its reputation as an ally of the Palestinian people is exposed as a fraud and its public spats with Israel a piece of theatre.

Given this exposure of gross hypocrisy we can clearly see the futility of repeated petitions and demands by many on the left that the Irish state take action against Israel in order to help bring an end to the genocide. It is simply not in its interest to do so. The state is in hock to US multinationals, something referenced every day in the media reports of the increase in corporation taxes received from them. When it looks like some gesture might be made the US has ensured that its client Israel is protected and the Irish told what it cannot do.

The only force in Ireland with the capacity to prevent the transportation of weapons, and this itself is limited, are Irish workers, but pointed questions, petitions and criticism is never levelled by the likes of People before Profit at the trade union leaders who refuse to organise and advocate such action. The various mechanisms employed by the state to avoid taking action will not be changed by speeches in the Dáil. Action must be taken outside it, advocated and encouraged through speeches at meetings and in workplaces of those we want to take the necessary direct action; against the wishes of the government and state and the genocidal governments it stands in support of.

Workers’ democracy is the alternative to the conspiracy and lies of bourgeois democracy, and no matter how weak workers’ democracy is, it is much, much stronger than reliance on the bourgeois kind.

Forward to part 2

Russian Red Lines

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Photo: Cemetery in Mykolaiv, southern Ukraine, Bulent Kilic/AFP via Getty Images

On top of the fog of war we have the additional problem of understanding due to the fog of the media.  Again and again we have been told that the West can increase its intervention because Putin’s red lines are a bluff.

In The Irish Times, its Ukraine correspondent commented (under the headline – ‘Ukrainian long-range strikes on Russian supply lines would likely expose Putin’s escalation bluff’) – that previous delivery of F16s and invasion of the Kursk area of Russia had not ‘triggered the escalation that Moscow threatens.’  The byline also states that ‘Permission from US and Britain for Kyiv to hit targets deeper inside Russia expected to spark closer Moscow link with Iran and North Korea, not conflict with Nato.’

A second IT article states that ‘The US may in the coming days grant the UK and France permission to let Kyiv use their long-range strike weapons, which rely on American navigational data, inside Russia as requested by Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said people familiar with the discussions.’  In the event, we have been told that this decision has been postponed.

The British, in the shape of Starmer and Lammy have been to the forefront in pushing their use, with Lammy rejecting Putin’s threats because he was just “throwing dust up into the air” with “a lot of bluster.”  Some voices urging caution have been reported (see the second link above) but no explicit explanation why Putin’s ‘threats’ might be real.

The western media pretends to the truth and objectivity but this whole narrative is suffused with propaganda and illustrative of how an unwitting and unwilling public could be dragged into war.  The US and UK threaten to hit Russia with long-range missiles, but it is Putin who issues ‘threats’.  The potential for escalation can be ignored because previous Russian red lines have been crossed without consequence, even if many of these red lines have been the creations of the Western politicians and media itself, under the cover of general Russian disapproval and vitriol.

The West threatens these attacks while dismissing Russian ‘escalation’ as if the word escalation is a Russian one, which only its actions involve. It has also been suggested that Russia doesn’t really have any red lines, a view which ironically helped bring about the war in the first place. If there are three claims made about it, it is that Russia carried out a full-scale invasion in 2022 that was illegal and unprovoked.  However, only one of these is correct.

Without doubt the invasion was illegal but it was not full scale and was not unprovoked.  The head of the Ukrainian armed forces Syrskyi recently admitted that Russia invaded with around 100,000 troops, a force far smaller than the Ukrainian army. Hardly full scale in terms of numbers and therefore in objectives.  Russia had for decades made it clear that Ukrainian membership of NATO was unacceptable and represented a threat to its security.  The Russian invasion took place because this red line was crossed, and the threat of long range missiles against it is confirmation of why it took this view.

This does not mean that its position is therefore justified and should be supported.  The nature of the war is determined by the nature of the forces involved and socialists cannot support either Russia or Ukraine/NATO without ceasing to be socialist.  Many in the West have taken this course and in doing so crossed class lines – the red lines that socialists have – to become traitors and enemies of the working class.

Repeated escalation of Western involvement has been accompanied by the claim that previous Russian red lines have been crossed while at the same time stating that they don’t exist.  Russian warnings can thus be acknowledged and then ignored, bit by bit habituating workers in the West to further and further aggression and steps towards outright war.  This has been clear from before the Russian invasion through NATO expansion into Eastern Europe but still many leftists in the West pretend there is not an imperialist proxy war, a claim more and more impossible to square with each escalation.

Putin, who the media is ever so keen to quote, has stated that in order for long range missiles to strike Russia NATO personnel must be directly involved, on top of provision of intelligence and targeting assistance.  This is one reason given why Germany has rejected such action – because it involves NATO in direct conflict in a new way.  The risks of a significant step towards world war are obvious, made all the more unjustifiable by repeated acknowledgement by those championing their use that these missiles ‘would have only “a limited effect” on the war as a whole’ and Lammy’s admission that “No war is won with any one weapon.”

Putin has stated  that “direct participation” of NATO countries in the war in Ukraine “would substantially change the very essence, the nature of the conflict. This will mean that NATO countries, the USA and European states, are fighting with Russia.”  The self-censorship of the Western media means that this statement is quoted without any attempt to acknowledge its truth or even to deny it.

There is a certain amount of irrationality in such a course and a number of ideas have been propounded about it, such as that the US and Russia will have an agreement that certain targets will be off-limits if/when these attacks are carried out. In any case, it is clear that Zelensky and the most rabid Ukrainian nationalists either cannot or will not survive politically without escalation, with their justification that it will bring the end of the war closer through Russian agreeing to negotiations already being disproved.

Ukraine is losing the war, and its only hope is increased US/NATO intervention, which it may seek to achieve through provocations against Russia producing a response that could be used as justification.  Just as Ukraine is losing, so is Russia winning, which is why so many of its purported red lines have been ignored while it has continued its objectives of degrading and neutering the Ukrainian armed forces. It has no reason to seek to go beyond its existing approach.

The goal of the US is degradation of Russia, and it has no interest in ending a war that achieves this or makes a significant contribution towards it.  At the same time, it has no interest in a war with Russia although miscalculation can play a part in creating one.  Its intervention so far has been to prolong the war through military support to Ukraine, without which it could not have continued, and scuppering the potential peace deal that was being negotiated, something given additional support by a recent interview with the US apparatchik Victoria Nuland.  If the war cannot be pursued through Ukrainian collapse the US with NATO may seek to freeze it in order to lay the ground for another one at a more propitious time, as it did with the MINSK agreements.

Whatever motives and calculations are being made by the various imperialist elites we can be sure that the fog of the media will not reveal them but provide the gloss necessary for their actions to maintain the passivity and ignorance of their populations.  The pro-war left go a step beyond this to prettify these motives, calculations and actions so that they are worse than the capitalist media. They too rely on it to ensure that the real nature of the war is covered up.

See also Sticking it to the Russians

What is bourgeois democracy?

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Most of Europe is involved in a proxy war against Russia, costing billions of Euros and untold lives; untold because the personnel involved were not supposed to be in Ukraine in the first place.  Who voted for the war?

This question sums up bourgeois democracy.

This has not prevented many on the left enthusiastically supporting it.  This left, which normally would not dream of calling a strike without a ballot, has given a blank cheque to its ruling class and its state.  Rather than demand a vote in order to debate the purpose and objectives of the war, they have simply endorsed it and called for it to be supported more vigorously.  I doubt the idea of a debate and vote even crossed their minds, not least because they don’t have an alternative anyway.

The justification, ironically, is that Ukraine is a ‘democracy’ and Russia is not; even though the current president of Ukraine is no longer an elected leader, since his period of office has expired, while the President of Russia actually won an election, for what it’s worth.  In the last few days Zelensky has tried to concentrate even more power in his hands by sacking around half his cabinet.  That opposition parties and media are banned in Ukraine matters not a jot to these people while Russia’s elections are regarded as a sham.  Let’s think about that for a minute and consider recent elections in the ‘democratic’ West as a comparison.

First, we have the new Labour government in Britain, elected with an enormous parliamentary majority by only 20% of the electorate on the basis of not much more than not being the Tories.  Starmer and his colleagues did their best not to commit to any specific policies and have quickly broken promises that they did make – on energy prices and austerity.  No doubt, further measures will confirm this course.  The widespread opposition to genocide in Gaza, reflected in support for some independent candidates, could find no reflection in the choice of government as both Labour and Tories support it.

Second, we have the most powerful bourgeois democracy in the world in which counting the money is a better guide to who will win than the polling of support for the various policies that the candidates claim to support.  The US is possibly even worse than Britain in terms of the vacuum of debate on what exactly parties will do when elected, whether anything they say can be believed and is not just a catalogue of lies.  For every Donald Trump and Kamala Harris we have a Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer.  The main appeal of each candidate is aversion for the other.

When the usual mechanisms for making sure the ‘right’ candidates are selected fail these are ditched and the men and women with money and political power step in to make the ‘right’ selection.  After months of primaries and the votes of millions – 14.5 million in fact – the Democratic grandees and apparatchiks stepped in to ensure that Genocide Joe would not be the Presidential candidate.  In this he was simply the subject of the same machinations that ensured he was the candidate in 2020 instead of Bernie Sanders, who was judged too left wing regardless of the popularity of his policies or of himself.

Even the proponents of bourgeois democracy worry that all this is not sustainable, while certain sections of the left cling to it all the more firmly the more rotten it becomes.  In an opinion piece in the Financial Times, a contributing editor noted that Kamala Harris has given only one media interview and even that not by herself – ‘she seems to think that if voters understand what she will do as president, they will be less likely to support her.’  It notes the irony that, while claiming to defend democracy against the “existential threat” to it posed by Trump, the failure to do what you say you are going to do means that ‘rather embarrassingly, you will be the one undermining the system of representative government.”

The argument of socialists is that bourgeois democracy – “representative government” – is a sham.  How could it be otherwise in a system in which the means of production are controlled by the capitalist class, including the means of communication – of producing ‘the news’ and disseminating it, and the state machinery through which government policies are implemented – thorough its top personnel and the economic structures through which policies can be allowed to work or alternatively are throttled.

A final example of bourgeois democracy in action is in France, where the defeated Emmanuel Macron, having prevaricated for two months, has announced that Michel Barnier has been chosen by him to be Prime Minister.  Despite the New Popular Front having won a plurality of the votes he has selected a leader from the right wing Les Républicans, which won only 6.57% of the first round vote.

The leader of France Insoumise, Jean-Luc Mélenchon has declared that “We’ve been robbed in this election”. It is normally the largest formation that is permitted to form an administration but such normalities are always disregarded when the political establishment thinks that it faces some sort of threat, especially from the left.

The real anti-democratic nature of this move by Macron is not so much the abuse of this Presidential mechanism but what the employment of this power signifies.  The elections were a decisive rejection of Macron and his policies, reflected in the vote for the New Popular Front and in the rise of the far right Rassemblement National.  Yet Barnier was selected preciously in order to confirm and continue these policies.

The front page of the Financial Times explained that the purpose of Macron’s choice was to ‘find a candidate . . . who would not seek to undo his pro-business reforms.’  The fraudulent nature of the far right alternative to mainstream capitalist policies was revealed by the response of Marien Le Pen who is quoted as ‘cautiously’ welcoming the appointment and saying that “Barnier seems at least to meet one of the criteria we’d demanded . . . and be able to speak with the Rassemblement National.  That will be useful as compromises will need to solve the budget situation.”

An analyst from one of the think tanks that litter the capitalist political environment stated that his appointment would ‘help in France’s bid to reassure markets over the economy and public spending’.  “He’s a safe pair of hands known to market participants, known to Europe and the domestic political elite within France”, adding that he would be expected to ensure that ‘Macron’s labour and pension reforms would remain intact.’

So, there we have it.  An overwhelming vote against Macron’s policies is turned, or is attempting to be turned, into an administration that will ensure their maintenance.  It is not the clear wishes of the electorate that must be counted but that of the ‘markets’ – national and international capitalism – and the ‘political elite’ that counts.

For all the hypocritical cant about ‘democracy’ we have yet another example of how bourgeois democracy is democracy for the bourgeoisie.  For the majority, including the working class, democracy does not extend beyond occasional visits to the polling booth in which meaningful choice has often been removed, or when it has not, constitutional devices are employed until these too are insufficient whereupon more forceful measures are employed.

Mélenchon is reported to have called for protests against this subversion of the popular will, demonstrating that, for the working class, democracy can only be enforced and guaranteed by its own actions.  What this action cannot do, however, is democratise the state itself, which is the instrument of the political elite and the markets – the bourgeoisie and capitalism.

The resort to protest is testament to where power for the working class arises and where it must be advanced – in the organisation and mobilisation of the workers themselves.  Elections can measure its strength and level of politicisation but only the workers own organisations can form a democratic alternative to the political elite, the bourgeois class and its state.  This in turn demands that the organisation of the working class movement itself must be democratic, but until some current socialists stop supporting capitalist war in defence of bourgeois democracy they will have nothing but a reactionary role to play in building up the workers own democracy.

Marxism and Gender Identity Ideology (6) – what it demands

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EPA source BBC

Yesterday I listened to part of a podcast that discussed the view that the gender critical movement was over because the gender identity ideology had peaked.  The claim wasn’t convincing and today I woke up to an Australian judge deciding that sex is “changeable and not necessarily binary” with the BBC pointing to its worldwide implications.  In Australia the Prime Minister has claimed that there is an “epidemic” of violence against women, something akin, then, to the reported levels of violence against women in Ireland.

It is wryly amusing to look at the number of changes to the photographs used in the BBC article, illustrating the old proverb that a picture paints a thousand words.  While this post was mainly written long before the court decision, I can’t help noting a couple of things about the photographs used above and other media material on Roxanne Tickle.

First, Tickle is clearly a man. Second he would appear to have women supporters. That some women are happy to undermine their own sex-based rights is not exactly news but it does reinforce the view that the struggle for women’s rights doesn’t pit women against men but is one critical part of a general struggle against all oppression and for a new society that this blog argues is socialism.

Gender Identity ideology has some bizarre consequences, as we noted in previous posts and I wrote before this recent event, including that the intimidation of women defending their sex-based rights is somehow progressive.  Rejection of the idea that men can become women and entitled to the rights of women is claimed to constitute oppression, with the consequence that women can thus become the oppressors of certain types of men.  Discrimination against women cannot be measured, in fact cannot even be conceived since gender identity is everyone’s ‘true self’, whatever that is, something outside our material reality and social interaction as we noted when we tried to work out exactly what gender is.

Feminists who oppose gender identity ideology are criticised for focusing on body parts, such as the male genitalia of transwomen, even as this ideology leads to women becoming ‘menstruators’ or ‘cervix owners’.  When not so described, they are totally erased and described as ‘pregnant people.’  Even the British medical journal The Lancet referred to ‘bodies with vaginas’, ‘birthing parents’ instead of mothers, and breast milk as ‘human milk’, before having to apologise.  Johns Hopkins University in the US defined a lesbian as ‘a non-man’ attracted to a non-man’ before again having to retract.

Despite the insults, censorship and objectification of women into body parts, the assertion of the impossible – that ‘transwomen are women’ – is often accompanied with the demand to ‘be kind’, in other words accept the ideology because the feelings of a group of men, many with a sexual fetish, have their feelings hurt.  Diverse groups with little in common but an irrational ideology defend it and ignore the fetishism of many men claiming to be women.

It is instructive to note part of the Australian court proceedings that held out the criteria by which it appears we can decide that some men are actually women. Tickles’ lawyer asked the woman who was CEO of the women-only social media app the following:

“Even where a person who was assigned male at birth transitions to a woman by having surgery, hormones, gets rid of facial hair, undergoes facial reconstruction, grows their hair long, wears make up, wears female clothes, describes themselves as a woman, introduces themselves as a woman, uses female changing rooms, changes their birth certificate – you don’t accept that is a woman?” 

Since no amount of surgical or medical treatment, including cosmetic surgery; dressing up, wearing lip stick and dresses; self-description, using women’s spaces or changing the text of a piece of paper, changes one’s sex, the answer was ”No.”

It has often been noted that the gender ideology movement has achieved success rapidly, coming to public consciousness relatively recently and without the long struggle engaged in by gay men and lesbians.  Trans people are held up to be particularly oppressed, vulnerable, and marginalised and politicians who are asked to explain their support for the ideology’s demands often fail to answer questions by immediately stating their unique vulnerability and marginalisation as if this covers all the issues.

This movement is portrayed as a ground-up, grass-roots movement for liberation yet it has powerful support and achieved its success in part because of support from some who are very definitely not oppressed.  This includes the corporate executives of some very large companies, and their HR departments and Diversity and Inclusion policies, employed to burnish their PR and boost the bottom line.  (Becoming less popular precisely because it doesn’t).

It has had the support of prominent politicians such as the Joe Biden who, in his first day in office as President of the United States, stated that ‘transgender equality is the civil rights issue of our time’, issuing an executive order instructing federal agencies not to discriminate on the basis of gender identity.

State bureaucracies such as the NHS now pretend women inhabit men’s bodies, which is an impossible way to consider human health.  A whole book has been written on how the pretence that there is no difference between male and female bodies (making the male one the default) has affected many areas of women’s lives, including most obviously their heath.  

Well-funded NGOs such as Stonewall spread the message through awards to businesses and organisations that adhere and implement the ideology, including awards to such progressive organisations as MI5.

It has achieved it successes not through mass demonstrations and civil disobedience but through lobbying the powerful and through policy capture.  In other words, through bureaucratic means, for which shutting down questions through the mantra ‘no debate’ is perfectly suited.  It has inspired legislative changes erasing the importance of sex and imposing gender identity that have been introduced under the radar with most people unaware of it happening or innocent of the consequences.

The British National Health Service is a good example of the consequences of the intrusion of this ideology and its regressive consequences.  The Cass Report into the treatment of young people with difficulties attributed to gender identity was a stinging rebuke of gender identity ideology, recording many of the damaging consequences of its intrusion into health care.  These include the lack of evidence for puberty blockers and opposite sex hormone treatment, which may have permanently damaging and irreversible effects that vulnerable young people may easily be unable to fully appreciate.  Cass noted the fear of some clinicians of working in the area and the lack of evidence for the ‘gender affirming’ approach.

Six of the seven gender clinics involved refused to cooperate with the inquiry in supplying data and information on their patients and treatment, raising suspicions that what was being practised had more to do with ideology than best treatment for the “various combinations of confusion about sexuality, psychosis, neurodevelopmental disorders, trauma and deprivation, forensic issues and a range of other undiagnosed conditions” (Transgender Trend). Without shame, the supporters of the ideology have attempted to discredit the evidence behind the report, without success.

Finally, in the ’Weekly Worker’ series of articles on transgender rights that we have occasionally referenced, the author notes that a socialist response will have to be one that is not grounded on ‘trans’ as an independent single issue and/or on the politics of anti-discrimination and ‘rights’.

He states that “I think that the political nature of this positive approach has to be one which stresses the commonality of the oppression of trans people with other experiences of oppression and exploitation, rather than stressing the difference.’  Yet, even with that approach, the claims of Gender Identity ideology must be assessed and challenged.  When it impacts on the rights of women to their detriment, even this mistaken approach must look at what commonality of oppression exists – how does defending the reality of sex against a false and spurious claim that men are oppressed by not being recognised as women constitute any sort of oppression?

The ‘Weekly Worker‘ articles repeat again and again the paucity of the distinct demands from the ideology’s movement that socialists can support or that are not already common currency, such as against discrimination for anyone diverging from sexist stereotypes.

Others are explicitly rejected: ‘Trans rights activists have identified doctors’ ‘gatekeeping’ access to drugs and surgery as an aspect of their oppression. But self-diagnosis is not always the right answer.’  (An unacknowledged hole below the waterline for the whole ideology since it rests totally on acceptance of the word of those making claims to belong to the other sex).  In relation to the Tavistock gender clinic, it notes ‘some evidence of belief by some children and parents, shared by some staff, that a trans outcome for the children involved would be preferable to self-acceptance as gay or lesbian.’

The demand for adequate health care by trans activists is a common need for all working class people unable to pay directly for satisfactory services, while the particular and specific demands of gender identity ideology are reactionary.  These demands involve access to women’s places in society including toilets, changing rooms, rape crisis centres and refuges, hospital wards, women’s prison estate, and participation in women’s sports where men’s physique gives them an advantage.

In all these cases women’s comfort, privacy and safety are compromised and considered irrelevant to the demands of men identifying as women, justified on the grounds that not all men are violent predators.

This simply ignores that violent and sexual crime is overwhelmingly carried out by men and that women are unable to identify which men are not disposed to carrying it out.  Since there is no evidence that transwomen are any different to the general male population in this respect, it cannot be claimed that transwomen are not a potential threat.  The argument for transwomen in women’s spaces is therefore one that applies to all men. The view that men and women should ideally be able to share all public spaces might be made a reality when the reality of this pattern of criminal behaviour is changed.

These demands also include opposition to ‘conversion’ therapy for children reporting their belief that they are trans.  These young people have many other difficulties that might explain their symptoms of unhappiness, stress and depression etc. These include puberty and the accompanying anxiety arising out of their sexual development, or their autism, eating disorders, or simply finding their attraction to the same sex. Instead it is demanded that their claims to be trans are immediately affirmed without consideration of the potential for this self-diagnosis by immature young people to be the result of social contagion, peer pressure from friends or social media, or arising from any of their other comorbidity conditions.

Once again, the world is turned upside down.  The therapeutic approach of watching, waiting, and talking over young people’s feelings of alienation – to get to the root of their distress, whatever it might be – is damned as ‘conversion’ therapy.  Yet the radical medical and surgical treatment that can involve the removal of perfectly healthy tissue; consumption of puberty blockers and opposite sex hormones, which have known significant risks to long term health and fertility – this is supposedly not conversion treatment but ‘affirmative’ treatment when what is really being affirmed is gender identity ideology.

There is nothing progressive about any of this.   We have gone from men claiming to be woman, claiming and replacing their places in society, to the idea that it is impossible even to tell the difference between a man and a woman (courtesy of the head of the International Olympic Committee).  Despite this we have a left captured by identity politics, or influenced by liberal and hollow claims to oppression, that defends this nonsense and attacks the rights and essential existence of half the human race. When challenged it often responds with angry and empty insults. It is a big part of the problem.

Back to part 5

Forward tom part 7

Sticking it to the Russians

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When the Ukrainian regime first accepted responsibility for the invasion of the Kursk region of Russia the justification was that it was simply giving it to the Russians as the Russians had given it to them.  And this, as far as it goes, is perfectly true.  This will not give its supporters in the West any pause for thought that this equality might mean that both sides are equally reactionary.  When one of the early apologists for the Ukrainian state justified support for it and its alliance with Western imperialism and NATO, he said that:

‘To describe the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, in which the latter country has no ambition, let alone intention, of seizing Russian territory, and in which Russia has the stated intention of subjugating Ukraine and seizing much of its territory – to call this conflict inter-imperialist, rather than an imperialist war of invasion, is an extreme distortion of reality.’

He went on to justify the supply of western weapons to Ukraine with the argument that:

‘Since the Ukrainians’ fight against the Russian invasion is just, it is quite right to help them defend themselves against an enemy far superior in numbers and armament. That is why we are without hesitation in favour of the delivery of defensive weapons to the Ukrainian resistance.’

“Defensive weapons” became the loophole through which this support for western imperialist intervention was smuggled in – ‘we must also oppose the delivery of air fighters to Ukraine that Zelensky has been demanding. Fighters are not strictly defensive weaponry, and their supply to Ukraine would actually risk significantly aggravating Russian bombing.’

This loophole has now been ripped apart to reveal wholehearted support for western imperialism, with the provision of main battle tanks spearheading the invasion of Russian territory; ATACMS /HIMARS/ storm shadow missiles hitting targets inside Russia; special forces troops on the ground ensuring their successful operation; attacks on Russian territory including on radar stations that warn of nuclear attack from the West; and now the F16 fighter planes that were claimed to typify a non-defensive weapon.  By its own admission Ukraine and Western imperialism is on the offensive

The British Ukraine Solidarity Campaign has been urging its government to supply more military material than it has, in effect criticising one of the most hawkish western imperialist powers from the right – for not being aggressive enough! According to its earlier analysis the war is an imperialist proxy war and they should now be opposing the Ukrainian state and western imperialism.

They cannot because they will not, and they will not because they have decisively placed themselves as the ‘left’ of a pro-imperialist alliance.  This formal and informal coalition has far, far stronger partners than them, from the imperialist states it calls on to arm Ukraine to the reformist left that is reformist precisely because it will never break from its own imperialist state.  It does not have the political tools to explain its capitulation and navigate its way out of it.  It can currently damn this imperialism for its role in perpetrating genocide in Palestine while urging it to greater action in Ukraine, as if it had a Jekyll-and-Hyde personality, a good side and a bad side, that will sometimes play a progressive role in advancing the interests of the working class.

It has hooked itself up to Western imperialism with excuses that by supporting the Ukrainian state it is supporting the Ukrainian people, while it disregards altogether the class nature of the state and of the different classes within it.  By this logic we are now witnessing the invasion of Russia by the Ukrainian people.  Given that the invasion is led by the most effective units of the Ukrainian armed forces, which are also among the most rabidly nationalistic and reactionary, we should also be hearing its support for the working class Russian conscripts fighting them.

We don’t because the reality of Ukraine has exposed the hollowness of its claims to victim status.  It chose to build a large army trained by NATO and to allow the CIA to camp in its territory in order to assist its covert actions against Russia.  It chose to seek NATO membership and float the idea of stationing nuclear weapons on its territory. 

Whenever it is not urging increased intervention by its own imperialism the pro-war left is dispensing analysis oblivious to its meaning.  Even in the paragraph quoted above, it is noted that Russia is ‘an enemy far superior in numbers and armament’.  Left to itself, Ukraine would have already sued for peace.  That it has not is because of the support of Western imperialism, and just as the war continues because of imperialism so is the nature of the war determined by it.

The Western media portrays the Kursk invasion as an ‘incursion’ even as it celebrates the magnitude of the territory conquered as much larger than that won by Russia over many months in the Donbas.  It claims that the Western powers that finance and plan its war; that trains its army; provides the weapons, targeting and intelligence for its attacks on Crimea and Russia, had no knowledge of the invasion.  Only the ignorant or stupid could swallow this nonsense. We are expected to believe that Ukraine has not told the US and NATO of its invasion when it is supposedly required to tell them how far it can fire its missiles. NATO helped plan its 2023 offensive, so the idea it has not done so now – peddled by the Western media – simply exposes its output as propaganda.

A western-planned invasion of Russia using US and German armoured vehicles, and British main battle tanks has crossed another Russian red line, just as many earlier ones have been erased.  There is no reason to believe that this is the last, while such a course leads to a world war and a descent into hell.

The pro-war left feigns concern for the Ukrainian people while more of its young men try to escape from being sent to the front, recruiter’s vehicles are burned, and it faces into a freezing winter with a power system mostly destroyed.  Instead of supporting the end of the war it rows in behind its own imperialism’s increasingly belligerent prosecution of it, using Ukraine as its proxy.

This support for continuation of the war is in the interest of neither the Ukrainian or Russian working class.  It is not even in the interest of the Ukrainian state that is now bankrupt, in hock to western imperialism, and denuded of people and territory it will not get back.  The Russian state has no interest in a forever war on its doorstep, or any peace deal that sees NATO camped in whatever is left of Ukraine and that is only a temporary respite before another NATO inspired conflict is provoked.  Just like the previous Minsk Accords experience.

The only player that has an interest in continuation of the war is Western imperialism, which has no concern to end the bloodshed, as it has demonstrated in its support for the Zionist state in Palestine. But as we have argued, one other minor performer has evinced no interest in an end to the war without Ukrainian victory.  Why would its position be any different, having hitched itself to Western imperialism?

The Ukrainian regime is now claiming that its invasion is intended to encourage negotiations, which Russia has said are impossible while its territory has been invaded. The invasion is an initiative born of approaching Ukrainian defeat that it cannot escape, from ‘an enemy far superior in numbers and armament.’  Either Western imperialism accepts this prospect and tries to extract something from it or it escalates and crosses more red lines and brings hell closer.

Socialists should be supporting the end of this war and opposing the supply of weapons and troops to Ukraine and Eastern Europe as a whole.  If they continue to support it, their claims to socialism will be a case, not of wearing the emperor’s new clothes, but of wearing the uniforms of the armed forces of western imperialism.

Anti-racists in Belfast push back against the fascists

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A week after a far right rally in the city centre led to an impromptu march to South Belfast, and attacks on ethnic minorities, the far right thought that it could cement their success with a rally in the same place the following Friday night.

Their initial Saturday rally was already small but grew when it passed through some working class loyalist areas and headed for the areas with a more prominent ethic minority presence.  They were eventually stopped, not by the police, who limited themselves to a stationary presence, mainly to defend the Islamic Centre, but by residents of the lower Ormeau Road, a mainly working class nationalist area.

The following week there were numerous attacks on ethnic minority businesses and individuals, mainly in Belfast and mainly in loyalist areas, but not exclusively so.  The far-right rally drew some attention world-wide with pictures of racists waving British Union flags and Irish tricolours, with comments about how the infamous religious division in Ireland had been overcome.  In fact, the appearance together of Irish fascists and Irish loyalists is not something to write home about, but media pundits couldn’t resist commenting and far right bloggers around the world couldn’t help claiming an historic success.

The Belfast racist’s attempt to repeat their success on Friday night was an ignominious embarrassment.  An acquaintance of mine mentioned that he had gone into Marks & Spencer for a cut-price sandwich and had gone out the back door to have a look at the racist/fascist/loyalist admixture, only to find twenty or so guys, some with Glasgow Rangers football tops, wondering why they were so few.  In the end there were less than 100 facing a counter-demonstration of around 1,000. 

The counter-demonstrators had much fun chanting:

We are Many

You are Few 

We are Belfast

Who are You?

and

There are many, many more of us than you

There are many, many more of us than you

There are many, many more

Many, many more

Many, many, more of us than you

The following day thousands of demonstrators took to the streets for a demonstration to the same site in the front of the City Hall.

The actions of the residents of the lower Ormeau Road and the mass anti-racist demonstration has gone a long way to putting the racists and fascists back in their box, but there are many reasons not to think that this particular struggle has been won.

First, the Belfast events were part of a series alongside far right attacks in Britain and follow similar attacks in Dublin and across the Irish state.  In both of these the scale of attacks were much larger and broader.  The killing of three young girls blamed by far right rumours on a Muslim immigrant was the occasion for the attacks in Britain and these in. turn were the catalyst for the Belfast attacks.

The Belfast demonstration was attended by some far right protestors from Dublin, including from the Coolock group that had rioted to prevent the creation of accommodation for asylum seekers in the area.  Dozens of arson attacks across the Irish state have been made on such prospective sites and a major riot in Dublin in November followed an attack on young children by a man originally from Algeria.

Just as the attacks in Britain and the south are not new, neither are attacks on ethnic minorities across the North of Ireland, which became more frequent recently.   Most of these are in unionist or loyalist areas because demographic decline has meant that accommodation is more available and less expensive, while property for new ethnic shops is also cheaper.

For many older people the sight of significant (but still tiny) numbers of ethnic minority people is still in some ways remarkable.  It’s a bit like seeing young people wearing GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association) tops in places where previously even someone suspected of being a Catholic would have been in mortal danger.  It is visual confirmation of the relative decline in the unionist population and increase in the nationalist one, alongside their greater political and social prominence.

These working class Protestant areas would once have been full to the brim of a monocultural population which considered itself the rightful subjects of the state who could look down on the Catholics as second class citizens.  Against this, a significant number of Protestant workers were consciously non-sectarian and anti-sectarian but they did not define the tone of the neighbourhoods, especially during the Orange marching season.

Racism therefore has two reasons to be more prevalent in loyalist areas – ethnic minorities are more prominent, and loyalism has always been based on supremacism – expressed in sectarianism – for whom racism is not exactly a distant cousin.  Nationalists have in the past looked to the black civil rights movement in the US as analogous to their own discrimination and resistance and have looked upon racism among loyalists as confirmation of their own world view.

So, no one on the counter demonstration or the following day’s anti-racist march was wearing a Rangers top whereas there were many GAA tops and a few Glasgow Celtic shirts.  There were many Palestine flags and at least one Irish tricolour, while at one point a large part of the crowd was singing a song in Irish.  There was also a noteworthy republican presence on the Friday night counter demonstration.

This is not at all to suggest that the counter demonstration was a purely nationalist one or that the Saturday demonstration was either, even if the political speeches were by Sinn Fein, the SDLP and the People before Profit MLA from west Belfast.  No one on either demonstration would have considered it to be a nationalist one and it identified itself repeatedly in chanting that it was anti-racist and anti-fascist. No one, however, is blind to the obvious facts, including that the racist demonstrators waved union flags and posters and the previous Saturday’s racist march was made up of loyalists that the fascists from Dublin could ‘unite’ with.  The PSNI (Police Service of Northern Ireland) has stated that loyalist paramilitaries have been involved in the recent racist attacks.

There is thus some irony in the numerous placards and repeated declarations on the Saturday demonstration that it was in support of ‘diversity’ with one placard saying that Belfast itself was built on it. I doubt that any of the demonstrators expected their diversity to include their fellow demonstrators to be wearing Rangers or Linfield tops or waving Union and Ulster flags, or politicians from the DUP to be speaking from the back of the lorry.

Of course, when demonstrators talk about diversity they mean opposition to discrimination on grounds of race or sex or sexual orientation etc. and not politics, but this shows that politics is central and focusing on diversity erases this centrality.

One example was a young woman holding up a home-made placard telling the racist demo ‘check your privilege’.  If she had checked the racist demonstrators herself she might have noted that there wasn’t much evidence of privilege.  In general the rioters have been poor, ignorant and frequently quite stupid.  Of course they have been white, but so were the vast majority of the anti-racists.

A number of speakers pointed out that the racists are scapegoating asylum seekers and refugees for the failure of governments and their austerity policies.  They pointed to years of Tory austerity and to Starmer’s promised continuation of it, but these are not the only offenders.

These culprits are now offering their own law and order solution to racist violence and the main Muslim speaker at the Saturday rally, Raied al-Wazzan, Vice-chairman of the Northern Ireland Council for Racial Equality, called on everyone to support the police – the police that had just failed the previous week.

In Britain various police forces have been proved again and again to be racist and misogynistic while they have been embroiled in scandal after scandal including corruption and spying on left wing organisations.   In the North of Ireland they have an even worse history, including collusion with the loyalists that are now behind the racist attacks.

The call for the police to protect ethnic minorities from racism at least reveals that the immediate question is one of physical self-defence and the solution to that was demonstrated by the lower Ormeau Road residents.  Workers should organise to protect their own communities and by involving the targets of racism themselves.

This was something that wasn’t argued for at the rallies despite repeated chanting and invocations that “When migrants’ rights are under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back.”  Lots of slogans about fighting back but zero calls or steps at the rallies to begin organising it.  Instead, there were a number of calls for Hate Crime legislation to be introduced, which is a call for increased police powers, a step to close down free speech and a weapon that will be employed against the left and defenders of women’s rights.

While we had many pointing the finger at politicians who had sowed the seeds of racism by blaming refugees for poor public services that they had been responsible for reducing, there was not a murmur at Sinn Fein who had a speaker at the Saturday rally.  Not only has Sinn Fein imposed austerity in the North, while washing its hands of responsibility by blaming ‘London’, it has formed a partnership with the DUP that jointly dispenses little more than slush funds between republican supported and loyalist ‘community’ organisations that provide power and prestige to loyalist groups.

In the southern Irish state Sinn Fein has followed the example of the Tories and Labour in Britain, and Fine Gael and Fianna Fail in Ireland, in presenting refugees and immigrants as a problem, as something to be reduced and a population of the undeserving that must be expelled as soon as possible.

Sinn Fein’s new policy of an audit of services etc. in working class areas so that a rationale can be provided to prevent accommodating refugees within them is further pandering to racist opposition.  Applied in the North, the current areas of highest refugee populations would likely fall foul of a Sinn Fein ‘audit’.  You will not be surprised that this new great policy of Sinn Fein was not proposed at the Saturday rally.

There was only one discordant note from a speaker at the rally, when the NIPSA union leader and Socialist Party member Patrick Mulholland, noted that racists had waved both union flags and tricolours while they carried out their actions.  This resulted in a few grumbles from some in the crowd but has the unfortunate quality of being true.  Irish politicians and some left nationalists have complained that this is a misuse of the national flag and the racists and fascists have no right to it. Their problem is that the racists and fascists have as much reason to claim to be nationalists as any of the other nationalist organisations.

The strength of the anti-racist and anti-fascist movement was on display in Belfast over the weekend – its numbers, its enthusiasm and its determined opposition.  Also on display was its weakness – its reliance on the state and police, the hypocrisy of many of its adherents, the poverty of its immediate organisational objectives and weakness of overall political alternative.

The answer to racism and fascism is not ‘diversity’. Like gravity, such diversity exists anyway and will continue to exist whether celebrated or not. What matters is not that we are different in many ways but that we have cause to unite; the grounds for this unity is where our interests lie and that must be our central concern.