Workers' Liberty Australia
In this issue July 1999For union solidarity with East Timorese independence struggle by Janet Burstall
More on union solidarity with East Timor - links
Indonesia goes to the polls by Martin Thomas
Workers unity can win self-determination in the Balkans
Defend the rights of Albanian Kosovars! Two articles representing an exchange of views on the Balkan conflict based on the circulation of a resolution carried at a conference of academics held in Germany. The text of the resolution is reproduced.
An open letter to the Flight Attendants Association and its members -written in response to an email petition by the FAA. The flight attendants union calls on fellow unionists to support a campaign of maintaining conditions for section of Australian workers at the expense of workers overseas.
Look Left - a brief analysis of the Green Left Weekly's position on the Kosovar conflict. In many respects the GLW has a similar position to that of Workers Liberty.
Stonewall was a riot - a central event in the history of the liberation struggles of gays and lesbians by Janine Booth
New book - Lost texts of critical Marxism
In this issue - Top | Workers Liberty Australia Front Page | Workers Liberty Britain
Your comments to the editor or author? E-mail to wlaus@ozemail.com.auFor union solidarity with East Timorese independence struggle
How can there be a free and fair vote in East Timor, for independence, when pro-integration militias are terrorising the Timorese? Can we really hope that the Indonesian government even wants ABRI to disarm the militias? Can there be any chance that the UN would send an armed peace keeping force to East Timor, without the agreement of Indonesia? Is there any reason to believe that Indonesia would agree to UN troops? Can we have any faith that UN peace keeping troops are capable of defending people from a racist or chauvinist army?
The people of East Timor are being asked by Australian Prime Minister John Howard and Indonesian President Habibie to trust the Indonesian government and military (ABRI) leaders to control the violence of the pro-integration militias. That the Australian Labor Party and the ACTU now support East Timorese self determination, after 23 years of backing the Indonesian dictatorship, is a change for the better - and shows up how foul and wretched Labor policy has been all that time - but now they ask the East Timorese to trust the UN. Workers' Liberty has no trust in the Indonesian government, ABRI or UN troops. The East Timor independence movement's reliance on the UN sadly shows the weakness of the international labour movement. What can we do to begin to mend that weakness?
Working class support
The ACTU has given approval to trade-union delegations taking part in the supervision of the self-determination ballot in East Timor. "The ACTU supports affiliates encouraging officials and members participating in the UN activities to supervise the ballot process". Union activists should campaign to build on this policy to get a strong trade-union delegation and thus give the East Timorese some guarantee that the Indonesian government and its militias cannot rig the ballot without triggering protests from the Australian trade-union movement and all its international allies.The ACTU has also given endorsement in advance to any unions taking industrial action against Indonesian interests, if the milita violence escalates. The violence is escalating. Public opinion in Australia supports the rights of the East Timorese. Already some action has been taken against Garuda Airlines. We believe that union activists should press for an extensive, well-publicised effort to identify owners of capital with investments in Australia and Indonesia, and industrial action to target them.
In the past the Australian working class provided important solidarity to Indonesia's struggle for independence from the Netherlands. We should renew that tradition. As well as demanding free self-determination for East Timor, we should insist on full rights for independent trade unions to organise and operate in Indonesia, and the freeing of political prisoners like trade-union leader Dita Sari and People's Democratic Party leader Budiman Sujatmiko.
The United Nations
The United Nations does not have a positive record as peace-keeping force from the point of view of oppressed peoples. The United Nations is the representative of capitalist world order. It does not send troops anywhere, unless it is with the agreeement of the government in question, or unless the government has incurred the opposition of the major imperialist powers who run the UN.During the Bosnian war UN troops and diplomats stood by as towns like Srebrenica were destroyed and their inhabitants tortured, expelled, raped or murdered. In the Gulf War of 1991 the UN acted as a diplomatic cover for the US's drive to reassert its dominant influence in the world's richest oilfields against the sub-imperialist forays of Saddam Hussein.
The regime in Indonesia does not threaten to disrupt trade. It is not a diplomatic outcast by the major powers. The USA and Britain are major suppliers of arms to the Indonesian army. In order to keep the Indonesian government on side, the UN has been instrumental in making the vote in August one on autonomy within Indonesia. If autonomy is rejected in the vote, Habibie has promised that he will move to give independence to East Timor. But that is only a personal promise, not a binding international commitment by the Indonesian state.
by Janet Burstall
In this issue - Top | Workers Liberty Australia Front Page | Workers Liberty Britain
Your comments to the editor or author? E-mail to wlaus@ozemail.com.auLinks on solidarity with Indonesian workers and East Timorese independence
For Australian union activists, there are several ACTU decisions, which provide a good starting point for rallying support in your workplace and union.Escalating violence in East Timor, and a response from Australian unions - 30 April 1999
Executive decision acknowledging that the task of assisting the development of a free, independent and effective union movement in Indonesia is the ACTU's highest international priority, 24-25 February, 1999
ACTU Council resolution."The over-riding objective to be pursued is to defend and promote human and trade union rights throughout the region... Action in this regard is to be taken through direct intervention and campaigning as well as through areas such as participation in ICFTU, APRO, APHEDA, Amnesty International, ACFOA and ILO activities...Indoneisa is the most important priority." December 1998
Other Australian solidarity
Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor - statement April 1999 Main slogans: Cut all military ties with Indonesia, Disarm the pro-integration terror gangs, Indonesian army out of East Timor, Self-determination now!
News of international solidarity with Indonesian workers and East Timorese indepenence
Ontario Secondary School Teacher's Federation. This site's search engine located reports from the ACTU web-site, which were more up to date than the search engine on the ACTU web-site itself could give.
Labour Start :where trade unionists start their day on the net, includes a search engine for news of union struggles around the world.
ZMag includes links to the Campaign for Labor Rights which reports on "Labor unrest in Indonesia". Labor Alerts is a service of Campaign for Labor Rights . To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to CLR@igc.apc.org.
Stop the Hawks - No Arms to Indonesia is a UK coalition of groups who are aiming: to stop the export of British Aerospace Hawks to East Timor; to enact solidarity with the peoples of East Timor and Indonesia; and to encourage the opposition of all weapons exports to Indonesia. About 15 organisations are listed in support this coalition, including the Fire Brigades Union.
East Timor Action Network/U.S. "ETAN/US provides information about, and ways to help, East Timor... ETAN advocates changing US foreign policy and urges support for self-determination and human rights for East Timor." Appears to be a well organised campaign, though with no focus on union soidarity. The site includes extensive links.
From inside Indonesia
Manifesto of the PRD Published here under the title "The Struggle for democracy in Indonesia", this manifesto was issued on July 22, 1996 at a ceremony to announce the formation of the Peoples Democratic Party. Following this manifesto, excerpts from other documents adopted at the April congress. Although the PRD organises workers in the most militant independent unions in Indonesia, their manifesto does not criticise capitalism or suggest any kind of workers alternative. It is a radical democratic manifesto.
The PRD - Peoples Democratic Party.
Indonesian background and links This mainstream site has around 100 links to parties, news agencies, government and files of international news agencies, and other sites with good collections of links. Also Indonesian mailing lists, newsgroups and Internet Searching.
Links to links
In this issue - Top | Workers Liberty Australia Front Page | Workers Liberty Britain
Your comments to the editor or author? E-mail to wlaus@ozemail.com.auIndonesia goes to the polls
As of early July, votes are still being counted in Indonesia's first parliamentary election since the fall of Suharto's military dictatorship, and final results are not expected for several days. So far, the PDI-P, the party of Megawati Sukarnoputri, leads the polls.Megawati is the daughter of Sukarno, who led Indonesia to independence from the Netherlands and was president until ousted by Suharto in 1966. Her party has 30-odd per cent of the vote, and the old Suharto party, Golkar, has 20-odd. Although Golkar is gravely discredited in the big cities, it is possible it may keep power. It can still pull votes in outlying areas, where other parties have not been able to organise much, and where local bigwigs and military commanders can influence the vote. Those outlying areas are heavily over-represented in the parliament. Golkar, with many supporters in the government machine, is well-placed to manipulate the long and complicated process of vote-counting. And the parliament still includes unelected members who are likely to side with Golkar.
In a seeming paradox, big capitalist interests are dismayed by the idea that the people who served them well for 30-odd years should retain power.
Capitalism wants stability
According to the Dow Jones news service: "Everybody's expecting stability to come back to Indonesia if reformist parties like [Megawati Sukarnoputri's] PDI-P come to power," said Pardi Kendy, head of treasury at PT Bank Buana. "Nobody really expects stability will be regained with Golkar."
Although millions have voted for Megawati as a symbol of democratic and populist opposition to the old order, she is at best an Indonesian version of South Korea's Kim Dae Jung, the Philippines' Cory Aquino, or South Africa's Nelson Mandela - a candidate of capitalist restabilisation-with-reform. In fact she is less than that. Unlike Mandela or Kim Dae Jung, she has no record of taking risks or showing any firmness of principle in opposition to the old regime. She has told Business Week magazine: "The first priority is how to get the people to believe in their government. That is the main problem and the main priority. And then after that, give the IMF a chance to solve the problems of the people of Indonesia".
She has also come out for continued Indonesian rule over oppressed East Timor, taking an even worse position on this than Indonesia's current president, Suharto's former deputy B J Habibie. Evidently she is anxious to reassure the military, who still have great autonomous power, that she poses no threat to them.
Sadly, the rebirth of Indonesia's workers' movement after the decades of military repression has been slow. The devastating economic crisis - closing many factories, and making the workers in those which remain open desperate to cling onto their jobs - and the weakness of radical political traditions have been major factors here. We have no figures yet for votes for independent working-class candidates in the election.
For a Workers' and Peasants' government
The major left-wing party, the PRD, linked with the DSP in Australia, stood some candidates, but seems to have campaigned as if it were supporting Megawati. The PRD joined pro-Megawati rallies with the slogan "People united defeat Golkar", which in the context must come across as synonymous with "Vote Megawati". This line chimes in with the PRD's call, not for a workers' and peasants' government in Indonesia, but for a democratic coalition government.
Support from Australian workers for Indonesia's radical opposition - and especially for the release from jail of their imprisoned leaders, Dita Sari and Budiman Sujatmiko - is more than ever necessary, to help give them the increased confidence and assertiveness which will enable them to counterpose their pro-worker and socialist ideas directly against the bourgeois opposition, rather than appealing for coalition.
by Martin Thomas
In this issue - Top | Workers Liberty Australia Front Page | Workers Liberty Britain
Your comments to the editor or author? E-mail to wlaus@ozemail.com.auWorkers unity can win self-determination in the Balkans
The eleven-week long NATO Balkan bombing campaign is over. The deal which has been struck with Milosevic involves the establishment of a military protectorate for the area of Kosova and the introduction of 'substantial autonomy' for the Kosovars. As we go to press the combined NATO armies are pushing their forces into Kosova and Serbian troops are rapidly moving out. It is unclear how quickly and to what extent the Kosovar refugees will return. Much of the Serbian population of Kosova seem fearful of reprisal, and are fleeing the territory.The first thing to say is that the Kosovars have not been granted the right to full independence. For the time being most Kosovars - particularly those who stayed inside Kosova throughout the war - will just feel an enormous sense of relief.
Independence
However the issue of independence will reassert itself in the coming months. Any elected Kosova assembly will demand independence from Serbia. At that point NATO will have to face down one or other group - the Serbians or the Kosovars.
NATO remains fundamentally only interested in the 'stability' of the region particularly of the artificial states such as Macedonia, which has a large Albanian population. The rights of the Kosovars are cut down to what the West believes is 'stable' and 'workable'.
The NATO war is over but the events of the last weeks have had immense costs. A relatively long-term bombing campaign has caused massive economic damage in Serbia and the loss of hundreds of Serbian civilian lives. Blair now intends to punish Serb civilians by denying aid. We must demand economic aid for Serbia too.
Well behaved dictator?
NATO's actions have also had serious consequences for Kosovar Albanian lives. NATO thought Milosevic would be a well-behaved dictator, one whose actions could be predicted and, when push came to shove, would be malleable in the face of a greater power. But Milosevic was willing to put his own people in the firing line, calculating that outside bombardment would bring the internal Serbian opposition into line. And so he used the bombing campaign, at least temporarily, as a cover to step up his ethnic cleansing in Kosova.
In retrospect this was a stupid miscalculation on NATO's part, stemming from their willingness to do dirty deals with people like Milosevic.
But let us be clear: the ultimate responsibility for the ethnic cleansing lies with the Milosevic regime. The truly terrible cost of the last few weeks has been that ethnic cleansing: the driving out of the Kosovar Albanians from their homes, the murdering of young men by Serbian para-militaries, the splitting up of families, the raping of women. Milosevic attempted to destroy and scatter a whole population, to obliterate a whole society.
No trust in NATO then or now
Socialists could not back, support or give any credence to NATO's war. We could give no political trust to NATO throughout these weeks and we cannot trust them now.
We do not support the deal they have done with Milosevic.
Despite all our qualifications the interim consequences of the ending of NATO's war, the limited security the Kosovars have now gained, and the liberation, for the time being at least, from the savagery of Serbian military repression are for the Kosovars a tremendous improvement.
Why do we support independence for the Kosovar Albanians?
Socialists are not nationalists and do not make a fetish of national independence. Yet in situations such as the Balkans, with national conflicts, stirred up by wars and conquest stretching back for centuries, socialists have always advocated consistent democracy. If a nation, or part of a nation, feels itself to be oppressed then it must have the right to self-determination - self-government, autonomy or, perhaps, full independence.
Kosovars want independence and we should respect their democratic rights. If some sections of the KLA or the Kosovar population feel it is 'their turn now' and try to act against Serbs we say they are wrong. We are for working out democratic structures by which people can live side by side if not together.
We say, democracy not revenge!
The Left's response
It is our opinion that much of the left's analysis of NATO's war has been one-sided and their response to the plight of the Kosovars at best weak and in some cases abject beyond words. The best of those leftists organised in the 'Stop the Bombing' campaign concentrated on saying that only the Serbian opposition had the right to stop Milosevic. They failed to face up to facts. Firstly the working-class Serbian opposition, in the trade unions for instance, is very weak. As much as we solidarise with them they could not stop Milosevic. Should we ask the Kosovars to wait to be annihilated as a people, or to be dispersed throughout the Balkans and the rest of Europe, until such a Serbian opposition was built?
If it were the case that NATO had started to mount a full-scale invasion and conquest of Serbia then we should have taken a different attitude - we would have defended Serbia against NATO. But in these circumstance we could not be, as some in the anti-war movement were - and not just Serb nationalists - for 'Victory to Milosevic'. Victory to Milosevic meant one thing only - the ethnic cleansing of the Kosovar Albanians.
Other sections of the left - specifically, for example in Britain, the SWP - used the war as an opportunity to shout the most oppositional slogans they could muster against their 'own' ruling class - Blair and NATO - in order to prove how utterly 'revolutionary' they are. 'The main enemy is at home' they said. Yet in this situation, however much we indict NATO, and we do, the 'main enemy', the biggest war criminal, was Milosevic, his army commanders, his paramilitaries and his police thugs.
Breathing space
In the immediate period, the NATO/Milosevic deal brings some relief and breathing space to the Kosovars. However socialists never accept the world as it is, shaped by rotten bourgeois deals and compromises. We maintain our independence. In this war the West wanted a 'stable area' in the Balkans, all the better for the EU to swallow up and incorporate it into a sphere of 'free trade' influence. We didn't buy into those war aims. Even if there is little we can do but condemn and criticise, still we do not have to bow down to the capitalist reality. We attack the hypocrisy of Tony Blair who talks about 'democracy' in a land far away and abolishes trial by jury for his 'own' people. Or the hypocrisy of the West who do not move against Turkey despite their treatment of the Kurds. We continue to attack NATO for the rotten deal it has done in the Balkans, the only consequence of which will the continued division of its peoples.
The only consistent democratic solution and way to a stable peace is for a voluntary federation of the Balkan peoples where boundaries are drawn according to where the peoples live and not according to the arbitrary dictats of either NATO or Milosevic. For unity between Serbs, Kosovars and all the workers of the Balkans!
From Action for Solidarity (Britain)
In this issue - Top | Workers Liberty Australia Front Page | Workers Liberty Britain
Your comments to the editor or author? E-mail to wlaus@ozemail.com.auDefend the rights of Albanian Kosovars!
The following two articles represent an exchange of views on the Balkan conflict based on the circulation of a resolution carried at a conference of academics held in Germany. The text of the resolution is found below the WL reply.Thanks for sending me the text of the resolution from Germany. I am interested in following discussion about the war. However I need to express my strong disagreement with the text of the resolution.
I think the resolution starts from the wrong point. To make a call for an end of the bombing without any statement in support of the right of the Kosovars to safety or independence is to accept the right of Milosevic, and the Serb chauvinism he relies on and inflames, to finish the job of ethnic cleansing in Kosova. To say stop the bombing now without demanding Yugoslavian (Serbian) troops out of Kosova, the arming of the Kosovars and independence for Kosova is to give up on the Kosovars. If bombing stops will the ethnic cleansing stop? The opposite is likely to be true - it will escalate.
Kosovar Independence?
To say that 'Ethnic expulsion and terror waged by a state against its own population are criminal.' and 'Ethnic conflict in the Balkans cannot be resolved by bombs and rockets' is to beg the question how will the war be stopped? How will the Kosovars be guaranteed their safety and their right to independence? Calling for a halt to the bombing with out also trying to discuss and advocate answers to these questions is to say to Milosevic 'finish your dirty work.' It is to say we are indifferent to the plight of the Kosovars and the question that raises is why?
Why don't the academics at the German conference raise the right of Kosovar independence? Why are they more concerned with the bombing 'wiping out the infrastructure and industries of Yugoslavia; terrorizing innocent people and destroying their homes, workplaces and prospects for the future; or killing them as "collateral damage"? Where is the mention of their call to Milosevic to stop the destruction of homes, industry, and the future of the Kosovar people?
Of course there is a complex history to be told of western compliance with Milosevic and greater Serb chauvinism since the breakup of Tito's Yugoslavia in the late 1980s. In a way similar to Hussein before the falling out over Kuwait, Milosevic has been the west's 'statesman' in the Balkans, the strongman able to ensure 'stability' in an unstable area. When there was mass opposition to Milosevic in the aftermath of the rigged elections less two years ago and there were nightly demonstrations of hundreds of thousands in the freezing winter nights the West sided with Milosevic. When he incited and aided the murderous war in Bosnia the West stood by and did nothing until too late. When the Kosovars had their rights progressively stripped away over the past few years and were increasingly subjected to indiscriminate physical abuse the West made only the weakest protests.
NATO not for self determination
What has been consistent has been the West's position of opposing Kosovar independence even though 90% of the population are Kosovars and no longer want to be ruled by Milosevic or the Serb police and army. One of the most regrettable consequences of the bombing is that the opposition within Serbia has been marginalised and in some cases physically annihilated. The prospect of a working class led opposition to Milosevic has been set back.
It is a situation strikingly similar to East Timor yet no conference of academics would fail to raise to the fore the right of the Timorese to independence.
There are other points in the resolution which are I think quite weak, for instance the claim that the accelerated ethnic cleansing, murder and rape is the result of the West's war. While it is true that NATO hadn't thought out the consequences of their initial onslaught we shouldn't give cover to Milosevic who used the start of open conflict to accelerated a process that was already well under way.
Only two camps?
It seems to me that much of the western 'intellectual' opposition to the war rests on some very hoary old political stances based on the Cold War - that is, there are good peoples and bad peoples, some who are worth defending (and turning a blind eye to their oppressive actions) and others who don't deserve support; the idea that Yugoslavia is in some way a remnant of 'socialism' and therefore to be defended; that Yugoslavian territorial 'integrity' (something that is itself a result of imperialist carve up after the first world war and which involved the forced merging of peoples at best reluctant to join together) should be defended and that people who want their own self-determination should be left to defend themselves without arms in the face of one of the biggest and best equipped armies in the world.
Nobody should trust NATO - not its politicians, its bombs or troops. But it is indefensible to stand by, watch and say nothing while a bloodthirsty massacre against unarmed people takes place.
by Tony Brown
In this issue - Top | Workers Liberty Australia Front Page | Workers Liberty Britain
Your comments to the editor or author? E-mail to wlaus@ozemail.com.auMore than 100 scientists and other academic intellectuals from 14 countries debated from May 12-16 in the Jagdschloss Glienicke near Berlin/Germany under the general heading "Rethinking Progress".
The international conference was organised by the Berlin Institute of Critical Theory (InkriT) together with the Freie Universitaet Berlin and the US journal Boundary 2 (Duke Press).
The Balkan war overshadowed the debates from the opening session on. The members of the conference finally voted the following resolution.
International Declaration Against the War "The signatories call upon the responsible parties of NATO to cease the bombing of Yugoslavia immediately.
Ethnic expulsion and terror waged by a state against its own population are criminal. But NATO, claiming to answer these crimes, commits other crimes. Ethnic conflict in the Balkans cannot be resolved by bombs and rockets. Indeed, NATO has accelerated and intensified what it claimed to prevent: the expulsion and mass suffering of hundreds of thousands of Kosovars. The peak of the absurdity is reflected in the refusal of most NATO countries to take in any significant number of refugees.
This model of conflict resolution is a disaster for the world. It threatens the UN, which is the only instrument through which elements of a peaceful world order can be developed.
Even those who reject the unconditional cessation of bombing, because they feel it is necessary to effect the safe return of the refugees, must at least demand the immediate suspension of the bombing in order to clear the path for negotiations under the auspices of the UN Security Council.
The signatories issue an urgent appeal to maximize pressure on the responsible parties of NATO to halt the bombing and begin UN sponsored negotiations."
In this issue - Top | Workers Liberty Australia Front Page | Workers Liberty Britain
Your comments to the editor or author? E-mail to wlaus@ozemail.com.auAn open letter to the Flight Attendants Association and its members
The following was written in response to an email petition by the FAA. The flight attendants union calls on fellow unionists to support a campaign of maintaining conditions for section of Australian workers at the expense of workers overseas. The original petition is found below.Dear fellow unionists,
I support your concern to protect working conditions, and not to be undercut by cheap labour. However, I cannot sign your petition, because I do not believe that Australians are specifically more entitled to jobs than any other human beings. If you were circulating a petition to demand uniform wages and conditions for all QANTAS cabin crew, regardless of where the are based, then I would be more than happy to give you my wholehearted support. I find it disappointing when unions see our national borders as the best form of protection for workers' jobs and conditions. I really believe that international solidarity is the way to go, but why will workers in other countries feel any sense of solidarity with us, if we have begun from the point of view that Australian workers are more deserving than them? Our own members, and potential members can be more easily confused by claims of "national interest", as in Howard's claims on the GST, if union leaders also seek to appeal to national interest. Capital uses nationalistic slogans like "spirit of Australia", cynically for its own enrichment, to get workers to feel that their collective loyalty is national, hoping that we won't realise that our collective enemy is actually greedy capital . The reality is that capital crosses national boundaries, and our solidarity must cross those same boundaries. We can't build genuine solidarity if we don't genuinely accept the workers of other countries as equally entitled as Australian workers to jobs and decent conditions.
Janet Burstall
The Flight Attendants Petition Return the petition to the FAA at info@faa.net or if you have copied it to hard copy mail to Flight Attendants Association, 4th Floor, transport house, 388-390 Sussex St, Sydney NSW 2000 or fax to 02 9267 9663.
PETITION: STOP QANTAS EXPORTING JOBS OVERSEAS
"We, the undersigned, condemn QANTAS management for seeking to employ foreign nationals as flight attendants based in overseas ports (e.g. Thailand and New Zealand). We believe QANTAS should employ Australian citizens/residents who have the appropriate skills here in Australia. It is socially irresponsible of QANTAS management to seek to employ foreign nationals when Australia's unemployment rate is currently 7.4 percent. QANTAS has posted impressive profits using its current Australian based cabin crew, so there is no need to employ low wage workers based in other countries. We call upon QANTAS management to employ Australia's sons and daughters as flight attendants on QANTAS aircraft which, after all, are emblazoned with the words, 'QANTAS - THE SPIRIT OF AUSTRALIA'. "
In this issue - Top | Workers Liberty Australia Front Page | Workers Liberty Britain
Your comments to the editor or author? E-mail to wlaus@ozemail.com.auLook Left
The following is a brief analysis of the Green Left Weekly's position on the Kosovar conflict. In many respects the GLW has a similar position to that of Workers Liberty.GLW has carried some excellent articles supporting the Kosovars - and said many true things about NATO's role. NATO bombed Serbia because it saw Milosevic's brutality would inflaming Albanian nationalism and so destabilising existing state borders. But why suggest that NATO intervened to stop the KLA as they were about to drive out Milosevic? Why suggest that Serbia had some good anti-imperialist grounds for its war effort? Why denounce only NATO as "imperialist", while Serbia's was the more destructive imperialism? Why call for "arm the Kosovars" only in muffled small-print: "removal of all restrictions on the ability of the Kosovar Albanians to defend themselves"?
Why obscure the difference between NATO aiming to control Kosovar nationalism by measured concessions, and Milosevic, to destroy it by genocide? An anti-NATO stance which has to pretend that the "imperialism of free trade" is no different from the imperialism of genocide is not stronger, but weaker, than one which recognises the facts but calls for an independent working-class "Third Camp". And a solidarity with the Kosovars against Milosevic's genocide which is proclaimed forthrightly as the central issue is more worthy of socialists than one which can win its place only as an appendix to routine anti-NATO slogans.
by Martin Thomas
In this issue - Top | Workers Liberty Australia Front Page | Workers Liberty Britain
Your comments to the editor or author? E-mail to wlaus@ozemail.com.auStonewall was a riot
The rallying point of the gay liberation movement"... "the bar riot that ushered in the gay rights movement"... "Stonewall is the emblematic event in lesbian and gay history... Stonewall has become synonymous over the years with gay resistance to oppression."The Stonewall Inn was a gay bar on Christopher Street, Greenwich Village, New York. It stood at the heart of a three-block area which you might describe as a homosexual community, or you might call a gay ghetto.
It was a two-storey building, with opaque windows, and had been operating for two or three years. "every time we start a place, the cops break it up sooner or later"
When Prohibition was repealed in 1933, the State Liquor Authority instituted a ban on serving alcoholic drinks to homosexuals. In 1969, it remained illegal for men to dance with men. The police routinely raided gay bars, and met with little resistance.
Sodomy was a crime in all but two American states, and "solicitation" laws were frequently used against gay people. Public displays of affection could get you nicked for "lewd or disorderly conduct". People who ran lesbian or gay events or publications could be arrested for "contributing to the delinquency of a minor".
Ah, to live in the land of the free.
"The Mafia-owned and operated bars in the city were places where possible violence was always present. Gay bars were seedy, the drinks were watered, but at least they were there." It was widely believed that many gay bars paid protection money to either the police, organised crime syndicates, or both. The police helped to enforce the Mafia's protection rackets.
The Stonewall itself was rumoured to be Mafia-owned (although others claimed that this was an unfounded assumption based on the fact that its owners were Italian).
"It was awful when the police came. It was like a swarm of hornets attacking a bunch of butterflies."
On the night of Friday 27 1969, the Stonewall Inn was raided for the second time in a week, by the New York City Police Department (Public Morals Section) and the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board. They had a warrant to raid the bar for allegedly selling booze without a licence. The agents arrested two bar stewards, three drag queens and a lesbian. Other customers were told to leave. Only a handful of officers carried out the raid, as they did not expect resistance. They were mistaken.
"Then, without warning, Queen Power exploded with all the fury of a gay atomic bomb... the lilies of the valley had become carnivorous jungle plants... Urged on by cries of "C'mon girls, lets go get'em", the defenders of Stonewall launched an attack." A crowd of hundreds began to gather outside the Stonewall. As the police led away those they had arrested, the crowd started to throw coins, then stones and bottles, at the agents. Someone tore up a parking meter and used it to block the Stonewall's door.
The police retreated into the bar, barricaded themselves in and called for reinforcements. The Tactical Patrol Force arrived in full riot gear. The police dragged one gay man into the bar, slapped and punched him. They smashed up the bar, breaking mirrors, jukeboxes, phones, toilets and cigarette machines.
"Drag queens and kings, many African-American and Latino, hustlers, students, gays and lesbians in the area held their ground and fought back... [police] vehicles raced to the scene with lights glaring and sirens blaring. The crowd grew. Someone set a fire. More people came. People protested for three days. And for the first time, after innumerable years of oppression, the chant, Gay Power, rang out!"
By Saturday afternoon, the boarded windows of the Stonewall Inn were chalked with slogans of defiance. That night, there were 4,000 lesbians and gay men on the streets of Greenwich Village, and rioting and fighting with the police resumed.
Over the next few days and nights, lesbians and gay men held meetings, formed committees and staged a Gay Power march up Sixth Avenue.
Lesbian and gay (known as "homophile") organisations did exist in America before Summer '69. Groups such as the Mattachine Society, Daughters of Bilitis and the Society of Individual Rights had been formed in the 1950s as social and civil rights groups. They struggled against the homophobic hysteria of the McCarthy witch-hunts, and they objected to the most overt forms of discrimination, such as police brutality. These groups also produced the first gay publications, held the first public meetings, provided legal help for lesbians and gay men in trouble with the law, published information unavailable elsewhere about sexual health, and held social events.
But they shied away from active confrontation. The Mattachine Society refused even to adopt a resolution from one of its members, declaring that homosexuality was equally as valid as heterosexuality. The morning after the Stonewall riot, Mattachine posted notices around Christopher Street appealing for calm.
It was not calm that was needed; it was a fightback. Within a month of the Stonewall riot, the first Gay Liberation Front (GLF) meeting was held in New York. There was plenty to keep them busy.
"We don't like fags, we don't like places that serve fags, and you might as well declare bankruptcy because you're going to be closed."
So said a Los Angeles police officer to a bar owner. The L.A. branch of the newly-formed GLF formed a Gay Action Patrol to observe the police.
In early 1970, the Snake Pit bar in Greenwich Village was raided, again on a liquor-law technicality. Customer Diego Vinales feared persecution by immigration officials. (In order to obtain a visa to enter the USA, you had to swear you were not a homosexual, and you could be deported if you were found to be homosexual.) Diego jumped from a second-floor window and was impaled on five steel fence spikes. Emergency surgery saved his life; a spontaneous march and vigil was held in protest.
GLF actions also targeted bar owners. In Houston, a GLF picket broke the whites-only door policy of a gay bar. In Chicago, several gay bars did not allow dancing. Although men-with-men dancing was not illegal in Illinois, the bars were trying to stay out of trouble by maintaining an image of "normality". A GLF campaign of leafleting and boycotts forced them to change policy.
GLF hit out at homophobia in its many forms. In May 1970, activists invaded the national convention of the American Psychiatric Association, which considered homosexuality to be a mental illness.
On the first anniversary of Stonewall, between five and ten thousand marched in New York on "Christopher Street Liberation Day". The following year, still bigger marches were held in New York and Los Angeles. "Pride" was born.
GLF had a view of liberation much more far-reaching than piecemeal legal reform. It stressed the importance of "coming out of the closet" as part of a strategy for building a mass movement. Breaking the habits of their conservative predecessors, theirs was a non-apologetic, proud homosexuality, a direct challenge to oppression and social norms. In the early 70s, coming out was rebellious, defiant, a challenge. Today, thankfully, it is a lot easier to be "out" - albeit heavily dependant on factors such as where you live and where you work. In 1999, dancing and tripping at G.A.Y. on a Saturday night does not make you a rebel.
"Prior to that summer there was little public expression of the lives and experiences of gays and lesbians. The Stonewall Riots marked the beginning of the gay liberation movement that has transformed the oppression of gays and lesbians into calls for pride and action."
The Stonewall riot was able to ignite lesbian and gay activism partly because it happened in a wider radical political context. In Sixties America, there were anti-Vietnam war protests; there was a Civil Rights movement and a militant black struggle; there was student political activism; and there was the beginning of a new women's liberation movement. Stonewall did not invent the struggle for lesbian, gay and bisexual rights - to claim that would be an offence to the many women and men who had fought before. But it was a turning point. It set off an explosion of militancy that built the profile of sexual liberation as a political issue, and forced a sea change in social attitudes.
The advances we have won since for lesbian, gay and bisexual rights could not have been won without the action of the pioneers who fought bravely against homophobic persecution when to do so was much harder than it is now.
Today's campaigners would do well to remember that Stonewall was a riot - not a letter to an MP. It signalled rebellion against both the police and the activities of bar owners able to exploit a clientele captive because of oppression.
Today's activists have a responsibility to keep up the fight, and not to retreat into the apologetic, conservative pleading of the pre-Stonewall days. We stand on the shoulders of those who stood and fought before us.
Janine Booth
In this issue - Top | Workers Liberty Australia Front Page | Workers Liberty Britain
Your comments to the editor or author? E-mail to wlaus@ozemail.com.auThe Fate of the Russian Revolution: Lost texts of critical Marxism
Exactly what was the USSR? Was it socialism? A powerful body of critical Marxist analysis of the USSR was produced in the 1940s and '50s by Max Shachtman, Hal Draper and others, including CLR James. Today, their work is virtually unknown. It does not deserve to be. The Fate of the Russian Revolution: Lost Texts of Critical Marxism is a work of rediscovery. Here the reader will find the key texts of these long-eclipsed, but very important, political thinkers. The Fate of the Russian Revolution: Lost Texts of Critical Marxism vindicates those who made the October Revolution. It restates the real ideas of those Bolsheviks who fought Stalinism until it killed them. It provides an account of efforts to remake a democratic, revolutionary socialist movement in the maelstrom of the mid-century events that gave to the world the shape it would retain until the 1990s. A long introductory essay traces Leon Trotsky's attempts to understand Stalinism and submits Trotsky's ideas to a systematic criticism.
The Fate of the Russian Revolution: Lost texts of critical Marxism Edited by Sean Matgamna Includes Max Shachtman, Hal Draper, CLR James $45. 608 pages Available from Workers Liberty P.O. Box 313 Leichhardt, Sydney 2040
In this issue - Top | Workers Liberty Australia Front Page | Workers Liberty Britain
Your comments to the editor or author? E-mail to wlaus@ozemail.com.au