how the SWP ended up working in Tower Hamlets with fascists & war criminals

[durruti02]

"But this opportunism reached its depths not just with the Comrade Delta debacle, but in the SWPs actions in Tower Hamlets over the last decade.... the SWP clearly made a conscious, opportunist, decision to ... work with a group regarded as fascist by those Left wing Bangladeshis, and ignore those Left wing Bangladeshis, who fought the NF and BNP fascists in the 1970s and 1980s, who led militant squatting campaigns to secure rights to council housing, who secured political representation for the community."
"the SWP took a clear and disgraceful decision to bypass this, often secularist, Bangladeshi Leftist community and have RESPECT make an alliance with the very evangelical and extreme Islamist East London Mosque."
"the East London Mosque is no ordinary Mosque. It is run by those who sided with the Pakistan govt and opposed Bangladeshi independance in 1971. Worse than that, it is affiliated to a political party in Bangladeshi called Jamaat e Islami which in 1971 operated death squads under the name of Al Badr which killed tens of thousands of socialists, academics, Bangladesh nationalists, women and used rape militarily. And worse the main man at the ELM, Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin, is wanted as a war criminal in Bangladesh.
http://www.genocidebangladesh.org/?p=296 and http://bit.ly/J1xEyC"
http://durruti02.wordpress.com/2013...hose-who-carried-out-mass-rape-in-bangladesh/

 

[ayatollah]

"But this opportunism reached its depths not just with the Comrade Delta debacle, but in the SWPs actions in Tower Hamlets over the last decade.... the SWP clearly made a conscious, opportunist, decision to ... work with a group regarded as fascist by those Left wing Bangladeshis, and ignore those Left wing Bangladeshis, who fought the NF and BNP fascists in the 1970s and 1980s, who led militant squatting campaigns to secure rights to council housing, who secured political representation for the community."
"the SWP took a clear and disgraceful decision to bypass this, often secularist, Bangladeshi Leftist community and have RESPECT make an alliance with the very evangelical and extreme Islamist East London Mosque."
"the East London Mosque is no ordinary Mosque. It is run by those who sided with the Pakistan govt and opposed Bangladeshi independance in 1971. Worse than that, it is affiliated to a political party in Bangladeshi called Jamaat e Islami which in 1971 operated death squads under the name of Al Badr which killed tens of thousands of socialists, academics, Bangladesh nationalists, women and used rape militarily. And worse the main man at the ELM, Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin, is wanted as a war criminal in Bangladesh.
http://www.genocidebangladesh.org/?p=296 and http://bit.ly/J1xEyC"
http://durruti02.wordpress.com/2013...hose-who-carried-out-mass-rape-in-bangladesh/

Just "bending the stick" , durrati02. You just dont have the "grasp of the dialectic" required to see the irrefutable revolutionery logic in the described tactic.

I dont either I have to admit . And we need to remember that the Lindsey German/Rees ("we represent the positive side of IS/SWP history") split, AND an awful lot of the "democratic oppositionists" so soundly bureaucratically thrashed , ritually humiliated, and soon to be purged, at the 10th March SWP Special "Conference" (Show Trial), went along with these poisonous tactics too ! Into the Dustbin of History with em all ! Will the last SWP member left (just Alex probably) please switch off the lights on leaving.

 

[durruti02]

thanks for pointing out my dialectical ignorence Ayatollah! you are of course correct :-D
I love the idea of dialectics as a process, but, as you show, the SWP became the holders of that poisonous stalinist dialectics they used to attack so much in my time onboard.
One of the things that i never understood was when they junked "Neither Washington nor Moscow but international socialism" Clearly following the end of the cold war that in itself was no longer the issue but instea dof keeping the autonomist fundamental they jumped straight into a orthodox stalinist/trotskyist "our enemies enemy is our friend". tragic

 

[Mrs Magpie]

I'm altering your thread title as the 'and those who carried out' sounds like a visit to the offie.

 

[frogwoman]

nice to see you around again durrutti02

 

[J Ed]

"But this opportunism reached its depths not just with the Comrade Delta debacle, but in the SWPs actions in Tower Hamlets over the last decade.... the SWP clearly made a conscious, opportunist, decision to ... work with a group regarded as fascist by those Left wing Bangladeshis, and ignore those Left wing Bangladeshis, who fought the NF and BNP fascists in the 1970s and 1980s, who led militant squatting campaigns to secure rights to council housing, who secured political representation for the community."
"the SWP took a clear and disgraceful decision to bypass this, often secularist, Bangladeshi Leftist community and have RESPECT make an alliance with the very evangelical and extreme Islamist East London Mosque."
"the East London Mosque is no ordinary Mosque. It is run by those who sided with the Pakistan govt and opposed Bangladeshi independance in 1971. Worse than that, it is affiliated to a political party in Bangladeshi called Jamaat e Islami which in 1971 operated death squads under the name of Al Badr which killed tens of thousands of socialists, academics, Bangladesh nationalists, women and used rape militarily. And worse the main man at the ELM, Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin, is wanted as a war criminal in Bangladesh.
http://www.genocidebangladesh.org/?p=296 and http://bit.ly/J1xEyC"
http://durruti02.wordpress.com/2013...hose-who-carried-out-mass-rape-in-bangladesh/

Fucking bizarre, it's like a leftist group supporting Pinochet or Franco.

 

[durruti02]

yes it is JEd .. yet anyone who criticised this in TH was abused as being Islamophobic .. even when the majority of local MUSLIMS oppose the politics of the ELM

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

Given the latest revalations about the scum its not surprising they wouldn't mind working with a group that used rape in war, they probably thought that exposure to a few pamphlets by Lyndsey German would soon sort that out.

 

[J Ed]

Given the latest revalations about the scum its not surprising they wouldn't mind working with a group that used rape in war, they probably thought that exposure to a few pamphlets by Lyndsey German would soon sort that out.

I know that you are being sarcastic but I would not be in the least bit surprised if this were true.

 

[butchersapron]

I mentioned 8 years ago on these boards that they were working with them through Mohanmed Naseem and his birmingham network (MN being a fomer youth lead of Jamaat in pakistan). Guess what i was called. And by who.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

I mentioned 8 years ago on these boards that they were working with them through Mohanmed Naseem and his birmingham network (MN being a fomer youth lead of Jamaat in pakistan. Guess what i was called. And by who.

An Islamophobe?

 

[butchersapron]

Indeed. I wonder what way those people jumped over the weekend.

 

[frogwoman]

this is absolutely disgusting. IIRC did the egyptian section of the SWP not recently call for a vote for the muslim brotherhood?

 

[J Ed]

this is absolutely disgusting. IIRC did the egyptian section of the SWP not recently call for a vote for the muslim brotherhood?

I came across this recently http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=28464

If you think Islamophobia is on a worrying rise in Europe, you should have seen the Egyptian Twitter-sphere during the week of the sit-in. Liberals and leftists were reacting in the most disgusting way.

Do the SWP seriously think it's okay to compare moderate Muslims and/or atheists from a Muslim background to the likes of the EDL?

 

[frogwoman]

I came across this recently http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=28464



Do the SWP seriously think it's okay to compare moderate Muslims and/or atheists from a Muslim background to the likes of the EDL?

And not only that but atheists and muslims from a muslim country where the likes of the Muslim Brotherhood and similar groups hold state power, are used by the regime as a bulwark against the left and behave in a similar way to fascists over here.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

Do the SWP seriously think it's okay to compare moderate Muslims and/or atheists from a Muslim background to the likes of the EDL?

Well they think it's reasonable to work with violent nationalists and to let rapists off with a stern finger wagging and a bit of gardening leave so hey why not?

 

[butchersapron]

This is Chris Harman's brief characterisation of them btw - from 2008 when involvement with them them was being used - and i kid you not - as a stick with which to beat Galloway and the people who went withhim from the RESPECT shambles:

This is especially so since some of Galloway’s allies in the Islamic Forum of Europe have connections with the Bangladeshi group Jamaat-i-Islami. Founded in pre-Independence India, this group developed as a very tight knit politico-religious organisation in both West and East Pakistan. It was involved in the military suppression of the Bengali liberation movement in 1969, before developing separate Pakistani and Bangladeshi wings, both of which still use force to drive the left from university campuses. Until recently the Bangladeshi Jamaat was in government with the right wing National Party, while the Pakistani Jamaat has been part of the alliance that has governed in coalition with General Musharraf’s supporters in one province.

 

[J Ed]

This is Chris Harman's brief characterisation of them btw - from 2008 when involvement with them them was being used - and i kid you not - as a stick with which to beat Galloway and the people who went withhim from the RESPECT shambles:

Sounds like the sort of description that the SWP would characterise as Islamophobic if it came from someone they didn't like.

 

[Mrs Magpie]

I mentioned 8 years ago on these boards that they were working with them through Mohanmed Naseem and his birmingham network (MN being a fomer youth lead of Jamaat in pakistan). Guess what i was called. And by who.

Wasn't that a spat with Jazzz?

 

[ayatollah]

this is absolutely disgusting. IIRC did the egyptian section of the SWP not recently call for a vote for the muslim brotherhood?

They did . The Socialist Worker "argument" on the Brotherhood has been something like " yeh we know they're a bunch of women-oppressing, anti -democratic, neoliberalist economics expounding, anti working class (indeed pretty neo-fascist in their systematic use of mass violence against the Left and workers movement), mediaevalist, Military Junta privileges maintaining, shitbags - but their mass membership is "confused" , and ultimately recruitable by us, and we share a common enemy vis a vis the Military Junta. An argument spookily reminiscent of late 1920's, early 30's justifications for underestimating the danger of the NSDAP. Even when they were about to be rounded up by the Stormtroopers , elements of the KPD and SPD leaderships still believed that lots of the Brownshirts were really "Beefsteaks" , ie, "Brown on the outside, but "RED on the inside"- and after Hitler and co had "inevitably cocked it up", the Left's day would surely come.

Well "they ken noo".

And to be fair, by now I think the Revolutionery Socialists in Eqypt now know, painfully, that this tactic delivered little but betrayal and pain.

Quite why the SWP lurched quite so uncritically into unprincipled alliances with some of the most reactionery political forces in UK society in the "Stop the War Coalition" and other recent initiatives is still a gobsmacking poser though. Still, the WRP went cap in hand to mass murderer Gadaffi, so maybe the simple answer is that when a political leadership has simply lost the political plot after 30 odd years of neoliberal stasis blocking any Left advance, any tactic which keeps the street collection buckets filled, and hence the entrenched, self-important, young comrade abusing, old boys club of party bureaucrats paid, becomes per se "a justifyable tactic" ?

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

Wasn't that a spat with Jazzz?

No that was a seperate thing

 

[Mrs Magpie]

No that was a seperate thing

Fair dos, it was a long time ago.

 

[butchersapron]

I mentioned it during something with him (in fact naseem has produced endless hours of fun) - but i also mentioned it to the brum based SWPer called Mutely a number of times.

 

[J Ed]

They did . The Socialist Worker "argument" on the Brotherhood has been something like " yeh we know they're a bunch of women-oppressing, anti -democratic, neoliberalist economics expounding, anti working class (indeed pretty neo-fascist in their systematic use of mass violence against the Left and workers movement), mediaevalist, Military Junta privileges maintaining, shitbags - but their mass membership is "confused" , and ultimately recruitable by us

I've heard this schtick before, is there any evidence from history that they can provide to back it up? I can think of a few examples (Portugal, Iran, Iraq, Syria and now Tunisia and Egypt) where the Left has worked with or not fought against anti-government far-right mass movements but none with a very happy ending.

 

[emanymton]

this is absolutely disgusting. IIRC did the egyptian section of the SWP not recently call for a vote for the muslim brotherhood?

Yeah, but apparently most of their members ignored them anyway.

 

[butchersapron]

Yeah, but apparently most of their members ignored them anyway.

More inspiring leadership then. This form of organistion does consistently produce the goods i must say.

 

[butchersapron]

I****

 

[sihhi]

yes it is JEd .. yet anyone who criticised this in TH was abused as being Islamophobic .. even when the majority of local MUSLIMS oppose the politics of the ELM

There's been all kind of odd 'wider Middle East' politics going on with the SWP - in aspects of the approach to Iran during the RESPECT era.

"When Rostami claimed that the Iranian women had more rights and family protection after the revolution than before, it was just too much for the Iranians in the room. There was an uproar of protest at her nonsense, especially from the Iranian women.
...
What? No time to question all this nonsense that was spluttered out at this poor English public? The Iranians were furious. Even I, normally a placid person, couldn't stop myself from going to the panel and shouting
"You talk about freedom of speech. You have a meeting about Iran and yet you don't let the Iranians in this room speak?" I roared at the panel. By this time SWP activists were calling for more reinforcement on their mobiles. Elaheh Rostami finally had to be escorted out of the room surrounded by a ring of SWP activists, while Iranians were shouting "Shame on You, Shame on You" at her."

Also in the behaviour in Turkey still in tacit support of the soft Islamist (neoliberal) decade long AKP government.
Here is their key theoretical leader in Turkey - Roni Margulies shaking hands with the Prime Minister after he won the power-centralising constitutional referendum (SWP supported the government, most of the left and Kurdish nationalists endorsed boycott, some called for a no).

The woman next to him is Bejan Matur also a government supporter.

In an even stranger twist [whilst the Turkish government is allowing covert assistance from the Gulf states to the Sunni hardcore in a few refugee camps administered and controlled by the Turkish military (a group of centre-left opposition MPs tried to visit but were barred)] the SWP then organised a protest not against their own government but against Putin opposite the Russian embassy.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I bet red pepper and the whole let's go beyond the fragments crew again crew are rubbing their hands .

"Hils and articul8 sitting in a tree..."

 

[treelover]

They did . The Socialist Worker "argument" on the Brotherhood has been something like " yeh we know they're a bunch of women-oppressing, anti -democratic, neoliberalist economics expounding, anti working class (indeed pretty neo-fascist in their systematic use of mass violence against the Left and workers movement), mediaevalist, Military Junta privileges maintaining, shitbags - but their mass membership is "confused" , and ultimately recruitable by us, and we share a common enemy vis a vis the Military Junta. An argument spookily reminiscent of late 1920's, early 30's justifications for underestimating the danger of the NSDAP. Even when they were about to be rounded up by the Stormtroopers , elements of the KPD and SPD leaderships still believed that lots of the Brownshirts were really "Beefsteaks" , ie, "Brown on the outside, but "RED on the inside"- and after Hitler and co had "inevitably cocked it up", the Left's day would surely come.

Well "they ken noo".

And to be fair, by now I think the Revolutionery Socialists in Eqypt now know, painfully, that this tactic delivered little but betrayal and pain.

Quite why the SWP lurched quite so uncritically into unprincipled alliances with some of the most reactionery political forces in UK society in the "Stop the War Coalition" and other recent initiatives is still a gobsmacking poser though. Still, the WRP went cap in hand to mass murderer Gadaffi, so maybe the simple answer is that when a political leadership has simply lost the political plot after 30 odd years of neoliberal stasis blocking any Left advance, any tactic which keeps the street collection buckets filled, and hence the entrenched, self-important, young comrade abusing, old boys club of party bureaucrats paid, becomes per se "a justifyable tactic" ?

important thread this and its good that Durriti is back, but sure not sure that brave women like Gigi Abrihim who i think is a R/S would be endorsing the M/B, quite the opposite, she has been threatened by their supporters on a number of ocassions...

https://twitter.com/Gsquare86