Urban75 Home About Offline BrixtonBuzz Contact

Alex Callinicos/SWP vs Laurie Penny/New Statesman Facebook handbags

Status
Not open for further replies.
The Freedom Charter was the statement of core principles of the South African Congress Alliance, which consisted of the African National Congress and its allies - the South African Indian Congress, the South African Congress of Democrats and the Coloured People's Congress. It is characterized by its opening demand; "The People Shall Govern!"[1]
In 1955, the ANC sent out fifty thousand volunteers into townships and the countryside to collect 'freedom demands' from the people of South Africa. This system was designed to give all South Africans equal rights. Demands such as "Land to be given to all landless people", "Living wages and shorter hours of work", "Free and compulsory education, irrespective of colour, race or nationality" were synthesized into the final document by ANC leaders including Z.K. Mathews, Lionel 'Rusty' Bernstein and Alan Lipman (whose wife, Beata Lipman, hand-wrote the original Charter). The Charter was officially adopted on 26 June 1955 at a Congress of the People in Kliptown.[2][3] The meeting was attended by roughly three thousand delegates but was broken up by police on the second day, although by then the charter had been read in full. The crowd had shouted its approval of each section with cries of 'Afrika!' and 'Mayibuye!'[4] Nelson Mandela only escaped the police by disguising himself as a milkman, as his movements and interactions were restricted by banning orders at the time.[5]
The document is notable for its demand for and commitment to a non-racial South Africa, and this has remained the platform of the ANC. Members of the ANC with opposing Africanist views left the group after it adopted the charter, forming the Pan Africanist Congress. The charter also calls for democracy and human rights, land reform, labour rights, and nationalization. After the congress was denounced as treason, the South African government banned the ANC and arrested 156 activists, including Mandela who was imprisoned in 1962. However, the charter continued to circulate in the revolutionary underground and inspired a new generation of young militants in the 1980s.[4]
On 11 February 1990, Mandela was finally freed and the ANC came to power soon afterwards in May 1994. The new 'Constitution of South Africa' included in its text many of the demands called for in the Freedom Charter. Nearly all the enumerated concerns regarding equality of race and language were directly addressed in the constitution, although the document included nothing to the effect of the nationalization of industry or redistribution of land, both of which were specifically outlined in the charter.
 
This report from the NUS Black Section conference has a number of things in it:

Keep UAF in even though the Delta affair still hangs like a millstone around its neck.

North African or very pale black people are not adequately black to share experience of combatting racism or something.

Some kind of demand for a 'don't robustly rebut first time attenders of a conference' rule?

#nusbsc13 – Little democracy, little accountability, no different

The fallout following the anti-fascism and anti-racism proposal at the NUS was bizarre, and I assume the result of the acrimony between Kieley and the right-wing Labour students. If either group actually cared about campaigning against racism or fascism then they could have compromised.

By the way, SBL is a front for the Socialist Alliance and they are more than happy to be bag carriers for right-wing politicians like Diane Abbot. Members of the SBL at Sheffield Uni have a history of very bizarre behaviour, one female student politician in particular was very weird - she openly praised Ahmadinejad!
 
It's like a watered down version of bonkers US Maoists MIM:
It is through MIM's unique analysis of the "labor aristocracy" that MIM differentiated itself from other leftist parties in what it terms the imperialist countries. The labor aristocracy today, MIM argued, is that class of workers in imperialist countries that receive more than the value of their labor by sharing in the superprofits extracted from the Third World. MIM saw the principal contradiction in society to be that between imperialism and the oppressed nations and upholds the right to self-determination for oppressed nations. Although it allows that there are "scattered" white proletarians, MIM considers most white workers in the U.S. to be members of a labor aristocracy, meaning that that they benefit so much from the system of imperialism that they are bought off, thus having no revolutionary potential. MIM developed this analysis in part from the book Settlers: The Mythology of the White Proletariat by J. Sakai. MIM thus believes that revolution is impossible in the U.S. without external help of oppressed nations.
MIM states that it serves to build public opinion in favor of anti-imperialist and national liberation struggle.
MIM was one of the first Maoist organizations to explicitly oppose homophobia and heterosexism.
MIM's newspaper, MIM Notes, was anonymously written; authors do not sign their names to articles. Instead, MIM Notes writers may use the moniker MCX (MIM Comrade X), where X is a number. This is reputedly to prevent their members and supporters from being known by the state. This also functions to keep the focus on theoretical line and arguments as opposed to personalities.
MIM was known for its unusual spellings of many common words, such as womyn (and plural wimmin), persyn, I$rael, Kanada, and united $nakes of ameriKKKa, which reflects MIM's approach to language questions.
MIM also held the unusual position that all sex under patriarchy is rape due to power relations in patriarchal society. They have drawn on the theoretical works of feminist author Catharine MacKinnon in coming to this analysis.
 
...and we all know where this leads....

....the famous MIM movie reviews!

SHREK 2:

Gender bureaucrat enemy of the people "Fairy Godmother" lives a life of dogmatism following the scripts in "Cinderella," "Snow White" and such books that she keeps in her library. Living off the exploited workers, and selling hocus-pocus to the people like many other unproductive sector flim-flam artists we can think of today, Fairy Godmother spreads her poisonous visions of the future everywhere and lords over even the king himself.

Seeking to appropriate the sexuality of the king's daughter for her son, Fairy Godmother does her best to spread speciesist propaganda against ogres, one of which already married the king's daughter, thus making her unavailable to the Fairy Godmother's son. The evil speciesist propaganda finds fertile grounds in the king's mind and most of the people of the kingdom.

Highly class conscious characters including Pinocchio watching television immediately see through the pigdom's entertainment media, get off the couch and rush to help their compatriots locked up while filmed for a cop show. Once out of prison, our heroes rely on a toiling baker to launch on all-out assault on the bastion of reaction, the castle taken over by Fairy Godmother's plotting.

Using the past to serve the present as Mao instructed artists, the directors of "Shrek 2" rattle off cultural references like machine-gun fire. Making Godzilla sounds and tearing down Starbucks on the way to the castle, our heroes arrive in time to do battle with the Fairy Godmother. Borrowing a move from another movie, the king dives to absorb the attack from the Fairy Godmother and he ends up turning into a frog. By running the king-to-frog cultural reference in reverse and making a Godzilla type character a hero, the directors of "Shrek 2" show just how upside down and backwards our culture is.

Voices of Hollywood actors considered sexy go into "Shrek 2"---Antonio Bandera for example--but the rich and beautiful people do not appear in the film, which is an animation. The film explores the subjective notion of "cuteness" and ends up throwing the whole notion to the wind, much to the chagrin of the gender aristocracy and gender bureacracy everywhere. Even the cute, fluffy white dog died when Shrek dove into the concert pit, punk-style.

We only hope that there is a "Shrek 3," in which the newly-weds rampage through the rest of the society and culture. Otherwise the message will be that society has to be attacked just for the love of two people. Misguided people may watch this movie instead of doing something about the carnage in Iraq and when it comes their turn, they may lash out in violence "in the name of love." That's why there needs to be a "Shrek 3" in which the united workers of all species liberate themselves. We'd also point out to viewers that our heroes never killed anyone just for "love." Good riddance to the Fairy Godmother: she had it coming for a lot of reasons.
 
I would say that, on average I am a strong woman. This weekend however, I was reduced to tears over my treatment by delegates and observers at the conference. As a first time delegate I will stand up and say that this is not acceptable. A healthy sign of democracy is debate and an ability to criticise the institutions that represent you. When I exercised my right to do this, I was attacked on twitter by a guest speaker! That is not professional. If I had insisted on being in a safe space all weekend, I would have had to stay in the designated room without my phone...

Durruti worked in Paris as a mechanic. He then decided to return to Spain and arrived at San Sebastian, Basque Country, just across the border. Here, he was introduced to local anarchists such as Suberviola, Ruiz, Aldabatrecu or Marcelino del Campo, with whom he formed the anarchist armed-struggle group Los Justicieros ("The Avengers"). In 1921, during the inauguration of the Great Kursaal in San Sebastian, members of this group attempted unsuccessfully to assassinate King Alfonso XIII. Shortly after Buenasca, the then President of the recently-formed anarchist-controlled Confederacion Nacional del Trabajo CNT, persuaded Durruti to go to Barcelona to organise the workers there where the anarchist movement, as well as the syndicalists, was being brutally suppressed and most of its members jailed or executed. Here, with Juan García Oliver, Francisco Ascaso, and other members of Los Justicieros, he founded Los Solidarios ("Solidarity"). In 1923 the group was also implicated in the assassination of Cardinal Juan Soldevilla y Romero, as a reprisal for the killing of an anarcho-syndicalist union activist Salvador Seguí. After Miguel Primo de Rivera seized power in Spain in 1923, Durruti and his comrades organized attacks on the military barracks in Barcelona and on the border stations near France. These attacks were unsuccessful and quite a few anarchists were killed. Following these defeats, Durruti, Ascaso and Oliver fled to Latin America. They subsequently travelled widely, visiting Cuba and carrying out bank robberies in Chile and Argentina.[1]
 
marx-facepalm.png
 
Durruti worked in Paris as a mechanic. He then decided to return to Spain and arrived at San Sebastian, Basque Country, just across the border. Here, he was introduced to local anarchists such as Suberviola, Ruiz, Aldabatrecu or Marcelino del Campo, with whom he formed the anarchist armed-struggle group Los Justicieros ("The Avengers"). In 1921, during the inauguration of the Great Kursaal in San Sebastian, members of this group attempted unsuccessfully to assassinate King Alfonso XIII. Shortly after Buenasca, the then President of the recently-formed anarchist-controlled Confederacion Nacional del Trabajo CNT, persuaded Durruti to go to Barcelona to organise the workers there where the anarchist movement, as well as the syndicalists, was being brutally suppressed and most of its members jailed or executed. Here, with Juan García Oliver, Francisco Ascaso, and other members of Los Justicieros, he founded Los Solidarios ("Solidarity"). In 1923 the group was also implicated in the assassination of Cardinal Juan Soldevilla y Romero, as a reprisal for the killing of an anarcho-syndicalist union activist Salvador Seguí. After Miguel Primo de Rivera seized power in Spain in 1923, Durruti and his comrades organized attacks on the military barracks in Barcelona and on the border stations near France. These attacks were unsuccessful and quite a few anarchists were killed. Following these defeats, Durruti, Ascaso and Oliver fled to Latin America. They subsequently travelled widely, visiting Cuba and carrying out bank robberies in Chile and Argentina.[1]

not bad.

Chavez.png
 
My experience of conference was a negative one and I know I am speaking for others too. I had no safe space this weekend, conference floor wasn’t safe, even the internet was not safe

Lucio’s life is the stuff of legend. As an activist in 1950s Paris he counted André Breton and Albert Camus amongst his friends, worked with anarchist guerrilla Francisco Sabate in attempting to bring down Franco’s fascist regime and carried out numerous bank robberies to fund the struggle to free Spain. In 1977, after having his earlier scheme to destabilise the US economy by forgery rejected by Che Guevara, he put his plan into action. Lucio successfully forged 20 million dollars of Citibank travellers cheques to fund guerrilla groups in Latin America, bringing the bank to its knees in the process. In between he helped organise the kidnapping of Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie from his hideout in Bolivia, aided the escape of Black Panthers from the US and not surprisingly was targeted by the CIA. Lucio has defended his life’s work saying… ‘we are bricklayers, painters, electricians - we do not need the state for anything’
 

You make a reasonable point, but she is framing her dissent as victimhood, which is the only accepted discourse in this context.
 
Victimhood and retreat into artificially constructed "safe spaces".

It's certainly a tactic. When a particular Sheffield ex-SWP ISN member disagrees with someone he will accuse the person he is disagreeing with of being homophobic (particularly amusing when that person is gay) and then if the person isn't removed then he will accuse whoever is in charge of the space of not providing a safe space. Anyone who contests this tactic is homophobic for not agreeing with an "oppressed comrade".
 
MIM also held the unusual position that all sex under patriarchy is rape due to power relations in patriarchal society. They have drawn on the theoretical works of feminist author Catharine MacKinnon in coming to this analysis.​
what the fucking fuck??? :mad:
 
what a prick.

Anyway this is the group being tarnished - Feminist Fightback -

http://www.feministfightback.org.uk/?p=405


FF-Graphic-Footer-FF.png


Affiliated to the Muslim Council of Britain is the East London Mosque & London Muslim Centre, leadership elements is part of the IFE-Jamaat network - right-wing Bangladeshi Toryism.

560137_492828724110527_47462276_n.jpg


Notice the FREE SEGREGATED EVENT line - receive sex-appropriate Muslim messages: men be strong and lead, women back up and get other women to pray.

It's bog standard Islamic right-wing nonsense:- women should divorce only if they have absolute proof, polygamy is a valid, Jews have beit dins why not shariah tribunals for Muslims, Muslim lesbians should really not be out within the "Muslim community", Muslims support one another go out on strike in a white owned place but not against a Muslim firm or a Muslim Labour council offering halal food building up a Muslim-responsive local state.

But they have plenty money from somewhere (IFE) - lots of the food was apparently free, only the main evening meal needed a donation, people spent the day and got fed without even having to spend anything. (Forward the Muslim working-class intersection! or something?)

So this Oxford PhD male apparently is racially abused because someone apparently says 'hip hop is misogynistic' and inappropriate for a Feminist Fightback Party.
Then these feminists are so stupid they assume him to be a practising Muslim although his name is a Hindu origin name and he is drinking an alcoholic drink. Apparently.
Then says even though he doesn't know what the ELM is, yeah they're OK, and the feminists whose party it is probably think hmmn this guy is just here to play his own music, and have some free gin and tonics (and be a bit of knob).

(I'm a knob aswell, but we shouldn't explain other people taking exception to our being knobs as evidence of structural oppression from in-built psychological nature of white people). As for tweeting to all your followers ... it's not a solid form of anti-racism.

No wonder a stronger separatist (less feeding back into wider local mixed anti-cuts action) radical feminism is reemerging, with middle-class guys like this.
 
MIM also held the unusual position that all sex under patriarchy is rape due to power relations in patriarchal society. They have drawn on the theoretical works of feminist author Catharine MacKinnon in coming to this analysis.


what the fucking fuck??? :mad:

lol sounds like a theoretical framework to adopt if you want an excuse for why you don't have a girlfriend
 
They were funny at first. But actually deeply unpleasant.


Groundhog Day (1993)

How to get laid by a partner who can say no? Phil, a cynical
television weatherman suddenly doomed to live one day in his
politically incorrect life over and over again, gets an infinite
number of chances to change his patriarchal strategy and hit a lucky
number. He uses his 24 hours of god-hood to rape his politically
correct producer into "consent." When normal lies and threats fail to
produce the required surrender, Phil constructs an elaborate plot in
which he enlists the unwitting help of the entire town. By the end
of the movie everyone, even Phil, is convinced that he has lost his
sexism and transformed himself into the nicest father-figure around.
 
Maybe that loon who said that women shouldn't speak in meetings at the Christian Union society should be hailed as a paragon of anti-oppression practice.

fucking fuckers
 
It's certainly a tactic. When a particular Sheffield ex-SWP ISN member disagrees with someone he will accuse the person he is disagreeing with of being homophobic (particularly amusing when that person is gay) and then if the person isn't removed then he will accuse whoever is in charge of the space of not providing a safe space. Anyone who contests this tactic is homophobic for not agreeing with an "oppressed comrade".
The more aggressive and self serving/politically deluded will use it as a tactic. The people that actually could do with a bit of a temporary respite/calm in the middle of a storm will be encouraged to retreat into designated space spaces instead of getting stronger.

Edited to add a bit
 
:mad:

Jesus christ! :mad:

Honestly it's not an uncommon response, when someone with a history of inciting the death of LGBT people, women, Shias or Ahmadi Muslims or the oppression of women is invited to a university and there is a backlash the NUS either run a mile from people objecting to the speaker or accuse those of protesting against people speaking at their university calling for their deaths of racism.

Gender segregation is pretty common too, the end of year picnics at the Islamic Society at Sheffield Uni are not only separate, they are so separate that they are being held at separate times.

Right-wing groups have picked up on that and the vacuum it creates, the group publishing the report Student Rights is funded by neoconservative Think Tank the Henry Jackson Society.
 
what the fuck how could you take an innocent film like groundhog day which is one of the most feel good and nice films imaginable and turn it into a plot about rape?

Innit.

I mean it's a daft example, but indicative of the mindset we're talking.

grandstanding egotism using real shit as point scoring exercise.
 
There are no specific paid positions (and certainly no incentive) to pursue class politics within student politics, and as far as I know there are no equivalent positions to the identity politics (or in their parlance 'liberation') groups in any student union in the country. So you will get motion after motion that pushes for things like positive discrimination in elections or an increase in paid elected positions for an identity politics group and so on from people who want to demonstrate that they can get things done and then get elected to a 'liberation' position in the NUS.

Doesn't this raise a white backlash or raise white disinterest levels if you have more and more identity paid politics officers and fewer general ones?
What do you have in an average SU? SU chief, SU education expert, SU cultural events, SU women's, SU postgraduate, SU black, SU LGBTQI, SU foreign students, SU mature students, SU part-time students. Because of how things are quite boxed - the minority students often (but not always) get just SU black and SU foreign students plus maybe SU cultural events - so they demand a SU black women's and a SU black LGBTQI officer is that how it's working?


There is usually a lot of solidarity between liberation groups in student politics, and there are very real consequences if this gentleman's agreement is broken no matter how ridiculous or poorly thought out whatever is being pushed for is. For example, a motion for a black students officer (another paid elected position) at Sheffield Uni was agreed to in principle by members of the women's committee but several members of the committee suggested that their actual proposal was unconstitutional and needed some amendments before it could pass, the members of the women's committee voicing that opinion were subject to a lot of abuse and accusations of racism. In the end, the motion was found to be unconstitutional by the student press (which was then called right-wing and racist) and they are passing it with amendments again this week. I have no doubt that if the roles were reversed then members of the black students committee would have been subject to the same abuse.


When this threat of accusations of racism and abuse is directed at younger people, many of them still quite unsure of themselves and their politics and often influenced to some extent by identity politics and middle-class white guilt, you can see why this stuff goes unchallenged and gets more and more extreme.

No one wants to be called racist or sexist. Is this it?
But some seem to be fingering others as racist/sexist on extremely tenuous grounds, and when this is pointed out that's racism/sexism all over again.

It all feels like a cycle of action and reaction.
 
Doesn't this raise a white backlash or raise white disinterest levels if you have more and more identity paid politics officers and fewer general ones?
What do you have in an average SU? SU chief, SU education expert, SU cultural events, SU women's, SU postgraduate, SU black, SU LGBTQI, SU foreign students, SU mature students, SU part-time students. Because of how things are quite boxed - the minority students often (but not always) get just SU black and SU foreign students plus maybe SU cultural events - so they demand a SU black women's and a SU black LGBTQI officer is that how it's working?







No one wants to be called racist or sexist. Is this it?
But some seem to be fingering others as racist/sexist on extremely tenuous grounds, and when this is pointed out that's racism/sexism all over again.

It all feels like a cycle of action and reaction.

A related thing is that these are nice middle-class kids who have been brought up with the idea that nice people aren't racist. But how many of them could articulate a case against racism, reasoning from first principles? Precious few, I'd imagine.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom