Bill Henson : Art or Pornography?

Posted on May 25, 2008 by @ndy

Update : This is not porn, say Henson’s models, Paul Bibby, The Sydney Morning Herald, May 26, 2008

Opening tonight at the elegant Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery in the heart of Paddington is an exhibition of photographs by Bill Henson, featuring naked 12 and 13 year-olds

is how Miranda Devine began her article on the ‘Moral backlash over sexing up of our children’ (The Sydney Morning Herald, May 22, 2008).

Devine’s concern is the sexualisation of children, a project which has allegedly brought together “artists, perverts, academics, libertarians, the media and advertising industries, respectable corporations and the porn industry – to smash taboos of previous generations and define down community standards… successfully erod[ing] the special protection once afforded childhood”.

Previously in the ascendant, today these malignant forces confront a backlash, one consisting of “parents, feminists, psychologists, teachers, grandparents – conservatives and progressives”. Further, “At the eye of the storm is the current Senate inquiry into the “sexualisation of children in the media”, instigated by the Democrats leader, Lyn Allison, and due to report next month”. (An inquiry which is, quite probably, one of the Democrats’ last gasps.)

However, in what is, presumably, regarded by Devine as a small victory for parents, feminists, psychologists, teachers and grandparents, the Henson exhibition has been closed, a number of the works confiscated by NSW police, and the artist himself, as well as the gallery owners, likely to be charged with criminal offences. Dolly (ACP) and Girlfriend (Pacific) magazines, on the other hand — publications which, Devine reports, Julie Gale, a Melbourne mother of two and the founder of parents’ lobby group, Kids Free 2B Kids, claims has a “preponderance of 11, 12, and 13 year-olds featured in their pages, along with stories about anal sex” — may carry on unmolested.

(See also: Peter Craven, Sexuality or spirituality: it’s a matter of taste, The Sydney Morning Herald, May 23, 2008.)

Art or Pornography?

‘Who would call this art?’ ask Clare Masters and Justin Vallejo (The Daily Telegraph, May 23, 2008). Not, apparently, either the NSW Premier Morris Iemma — “As a father of four I find it offensive and disgusting,” Mr Iemma said — nor Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd — “I think they’re revolting” (Rudd ‘revolted’ at art of naked children, ninemsn, May 23, 2008). Not to be outdone, soon-to-be-dumped Leader of the Federal Opposition, Brendan Nelson, reckons the whole thing is decidedly un-Australian (Naked child photos ‘violate Aussie values’, AAP/Herald Sun, May 23, 2008).

Others, however, disagree with the assessment of police, Premier and Prime Minister, at least insofar as the nature of the photographic images contained in the censored exhibition are concerned. ‘Adolescent nude photos not unusual: art expert’ (The Sydney Morning Herald, May 23, 2008): “The naked body has been the subject of art for thousands of years and artist Bill Henson’s photographic exhibit of nude adolescents is not pornographic, an art expert says. The question, said art market analyst Michael Reid, is “have the images [been] sexualised?,” and believes they have not.” Meanwhile, “John McDonald, art critic for the Sydney Morning Herald, says there is nothing sexual about the photos. “To me, the big shame is that the only time that we start looking at art and talking about art in the mainstream media is when it’s banned, when it’s supposedly pornographic, when it’s doing something that’s taboo,” he told ABC Radio’s AM (Art community defends naked teen photo exhibition, May 23, 2008).

More considered reflection is contained in Clive Hamilton’s article on Crikey, ‘Henson fracas: Art the victim of child sexualisation’ (May 23, 2008):

Henson is one of Australia’s foremost photographic artists with a considerable international reputation. Much of his work explores the idea of adolescence as metamorphosis from childhood to adulthood. It reminds the viewer of the anxieties, confusions and intense emotions in which their mature selves were forged.

The photographs in question are of a naked girl, back-lit, who appears to be about 12 years old. Her poses and expression convey wistfulness and ambiguity, as if she is saying “Here I am, as you see me; but who am I?”. Like much of Henson’s work they have a dream-like quality to them.

The photographs show the girl’s budding breasts, her hips and, in one case, a glimpse of her vagina. Their intention is not to arouse erotic feelings and they are unlikely to do so except in those already inclined to view children in that way. They are imaginative, haunting and beautiful. Although not sexual images, they can be seen as a commentary on the slow, halting and unsettling metamorphosis of child’s body into an adult one.

However, the fact that the pictures cannot be characterised as pornographic is not the end of the ethical story because the social context in which the photographs are presented changes their nature.

If we lived in a society of sophisticated people with mature sexuality, one that respected children and the integrity of their maturation process, then there could be no objection to the Henson exhibition. Alternatively, if the photographs were seen only by the intended audience and in the gallery environment, the exhibition could fulfill its purpose without controversy.

Perhaps some decades ago such a world, or at least a subset of the world, existed; but it doesn’t any more. The exhibition cannot be isolated from a society in which children are increasingly exploited for commercial reasons and used for gratification…

In other words, the kinds of images of children’s bodies present in Henson’s work must inevitably be viewed, it would seem, as ‘pornographic’: “In destroying the sexual innocence of children they [that is, the forces responsible for “the sexualisation of children by the media and the wider culture”] have destroyed the innocence of innocence.” In short, no-one is ‘innocent’, and the viewing of images of children’s naked bodies — regardless of the intent of the producer — is a ‘pornographic’ experience. In summary, Hamilton argues:

Closing down the exhibition should not be characterised as the victory of prudery over artistic licence. Oddly perhaps, if the exhibition had been mounted in more conservative times it would have passed unremarked and been appreciated by the art-loving minority. If artists have a responsibility to push at the boundaries of the acceptable, society has a responsibility to push back. After a decade or more in which children have been increasingly exploited, society is beginning to push back and Bill Henson has been a victim: innocent perhaps, but he should have known better.

Response

As a result of the police confiscation and surrounding publicity, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery issued a statement:

Media Statement
Friday 23 May 2008

Statement on behalf of Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery and Bill Henson

After much consideration we have decided to withdraw a number of works from the current Bill Henson exhibition that have attracted controversy. The current show, without the said works, will be re-opened for viewing in coming days.

Bill Henson is one of Australia’s leading contemporary artists and is internationally respected. His works are held in every leading art institution in Australia and are included in the collections of a number of the world’s most prestigious art museums. The Art Gallery of New South Wales and the National Gallery of Victoria have both recently held a retrospective of 30 years of the artist’s work.

Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery will remain closed while the current exhibition is re-hung.

As it stands, then, the exhibition is going ahead — minus the offending photographs — although police are “likely” to lay charges against the gallery owners under Section 578C of the NSW Crimes Act (1900). If found guilty, the maximum penalty for such an offence “in the case of an individual” is “100 penalty units or imprisonment for 12 months (or both), and in the case of a corporation 200 penalty units”.

Writing in The Australian (Porn case is likely to fail, May 24, 2008), however, Chris Merritt believes that these and other associated charges are unlikely to stick:

THE success rate in obscenity trials in Australia is extremely low – and experts believe the looming case against renowned photographer Bill Henson will prove no different. With Henson facing the possibility of indecency and child pornography charges after police seized 20 of his works from a Sydney gallery yesterday, Australia is facing a rerun of the divisive Oz obscenity trials in the 1960s and 70s. The case will almost certainly boil down to a decision by either a magistrate or a jury on whether the photographs are obscene… They were seized yesterday using a warrant issued under a Section 91G of the NSW Crimes Act which prohibits the use of children for pornographic purposes. If charges are laid under the same provision, the fate of the photographs could turn on whether expert evidence can show they were being used for an artistic purpose…

Note that, under Section 91G:

Any person who:

    (a) uses a child who is under the age of 14 years for pornographic purposes, or
    (b) causes or procures a child of that age to be so used, or
    (c) having the care of a child of that age, consents to the child being so used or allows the child to be so used,

is guilty of an offence. For which the maximum penalty is imprisonment for 14 years. In addition:

    (3) For the purposes of this section, a child is used by a person for pornographic purposes if:

    (a) the child is engaged in sexual activity, or
    (b) the child is placed in a sexual context, or
    (c) the child is subjected to torture, cruelty or physical abuse (whether or not in a sexual context),

    for the purposes of the production of pornographic material by that person.

Assuming that (a) and (c) do not apply in this case, it would appear that guilt or innocence would depend on whether or not “the child is placed in a sexual context”. If one were to accept Hamilton’s logic, this would seem — perhaps sadly, but inevitably — to be the case.

Nevertheless, Henson has also received the support of the NSW Law Society (Law Society backs nude child pics artist, The Sydney Morning Herald, May 24, 2008):

The Law Society of NSW has backed embattled artist Bill Henson, who could face charges after police seized his latest gallery images which feature nude children. Society president Hugh Macken said he could not see how a crime had been committed, and police prosecutors would have to argue the renowned Melbourne-based artist had intended to produce something other than art. “What is relevant to the commission of a crime is the intention,” Mr Macken told reporters in Sydney. “If the intention is to produce a work of art, and solely to produce a work of art, then I can’t see how a crime has been committed.”

Which would appear to be a rather sensible position, as well as present a difficult challenge for police. That is, assuming that Macken is correct, “the challenge” is to demonstrate that Henson intended to produce ‘pornography’ rather than ‘art’.

Finally, note that, perhaps not unexpectedly, the gallery owners have allegedly been subjected to threats of violence (Gallery under angry siege, Frank Walker and Heath Gilmore, May 25, 2008The Age, May 25, 2008).

Bill Henson in the wonderful world of blogs:

Avert your eyes, deborahb.blog
Art and the sexualising of children, blue milk (thinking + motherhood = feminist)
This is not art?, Larvatus Prodeo
and just because a lawyer can’t leave a good case alone, Squibblog
The Bill Henson ‘kiddy porn’ fiasco, skepticlawyer
Bill Henson, art and child porn, What the cat dragged in
Sunday Text – in support of Bill Henson, our man in berlin
Bill Henson # 6 uncensored, Junk for Code
Projection onto Adolescent Forms, The wells of fancy
But is it art? — 2, Ninglun’s Specials
Parallax error: Bill Henson (2), The Morning After: Performing arts in Australia
What Censorship Looks Like, Flaming Horses
putting a sock on the henson case, Barista
Feelthee Peektures of Cheeldren on the Eentairnet, Tug Boat Potemkin
R-I-D-I-C-U-L-O-U-S – Shock of the Nude 2, cecilia fogelberg
Bill Henson photography exhibit – a tangent, The Ship That Faced A Thousand Launches …
When nudity equals sex and art equals pornography, Somebody Think Of The Children
Troops needed back in Sydney to protect us from evil!, Atheist with Attitude

Andrew Bolt nails it:

Artists rage: let us undress 13-year-olds
Saturday, May 24, 2008

Many Australians would agree:

THE art world has denounced a ”dark day in Australian culture” after police seized up to 21 photographs of naked child models and said they would lay charges over an exhibition by the renowned artist Bill Henson.

But the difference here, of course, is that the “art world” thinks the darkness in our culture isn’t the stripping and photographing of 13-year-old girls, but the seizing of the soft-porn shots by police.

UPDATE

An Age headline-writer insists:

“Creepy? Perhaps, but it’s not porn”

This appears over an article by Age critic and theosauritis victim Robert Nelson, who on the contrary admits:

In the past, I’ve been critical of Henson’s work and have noted the parallel between his images and pornography. The sense of a powerful male presence of the photographer and a disempowered youngster as model has to be faced. I find the pictures a bit creepy.

I feel that someone is going to steal up on the girl on my computer and offer her various comforts that will put her even further in a man’s power. So the images could almost be set up for sinister wish-fulfilment, a dream of possessing and controlling an almost nubile child for sexual gratification.

So in fact it’s creepy AND porn. Creepy because it’s porn. You see, Nelson has just described a common reaction to pedophile pornography, forcing him (and his sub editor) to then arbitrarily redefine the work that produced that reaction to merely “creepy” to dodge the debate. It’s the psueds’ [sic] equivalent of saying they read Playboy just for the articles.

To add insult to insincerity, Nelson – desperate to find reasons to justify a gut reaction contradicted by his groin [!] – then insists that if you can’t perve on 13-year-olds, you are dead to sex [!]:

But without the artistic inquiry that recognises irregular erotic feelings, we have a culture without curiosity for sexuality, a repressive regime that simply seeks to crush feelings as illegitimate just because they don’t conform to our best moral templates.

The same argument, of course, can be run to justify the publication of photographs and films celebrating rape, bestiality, incest, necrophilia and extreme sado-maoschism. Without that, by Nelson’s desperate argument, we wouldn’t be interested in sex at all.

Makes you wonder how devout Christians, Muslims and Jews ever reproduced.

Fact is, Henson’s photographs are soft porn, featuring girls as young as 13. The arts lobby likes to boast that artists change society. Now is not the time to argue that when it comes to an artist’s child porn, the effects will not be felt outside the gallery walls. That’s wimping it, in many ways.

The only consistent defence you could make of this exhibition is that letting gallery habitues and the artistically inclined enjoy child porn is worth the risk of having other children stripped, photographed and enjoyed by people not quite so, um, refined.

UPDATE 2

Tim Blair points out that Nelson’s argument is sillier still. Take Nelson’s plea that we respect the violent taboos of extremists in the Middle East:

In some cultures, it seems unquestionably appropriate to behead a woman for wearing a miniskirt. And up to a point, we have to respect those alien standards… It would be much better to look at the photographs with a humbler mind, form your own opinions and move on. Unfortunately, the law is denying us this fundamental right.

Observes Blair:

So we have to respect “alien standards” in regard to beheading women, but the alien standards of Australian law in regard to pictures of naked children are some kind of rights-denial deal. Art critics are morons.

Posted in Art, Sex & Sexuality, State / Politics | 42 Comments

Angry yoof in Brussels; angry racists in Bamberg

Posted on May 25, 2008 by @ndy

Teh interwebs is being blamed for violent clashes between angry yoofs in Belgium. Supposedly, RSC Anderlecht fans fought North African yoof outside the stadium in Brussels: “Police said the violence had been organised through a Web site calling for an “attack on all white fans of football club Anderlecht”. It was prompted by a confrontation between Anderlecht fans and a group of yoofs of north African origin after Anderlecht’s Belgian cup final victory last Sunday” (Football fans and African yoofs clash in Brussels, Reuters UK). A report in The Australian (Yoofs turn on police) claims that “400 to 500 teenagers, a mix of Anderlecht supporters and boneheads on one side and local yoofs of mainly North African origin on the other, duly squared off, but separated by 200 police, including mounted officers. The police presence prevented direct clashes, but the youngsters then turned on the police.”

Whatever.

    Above : Welf Herfurth and amateur Holocaust revisionist Fredrick Töben unveil the NPD flag in Sydney

Across the border in Bamberg, Germany, the NPD is holding its annual conference, at which about 3-600 delegates attended, and several thousand more counter-protested. Udo Voigt, the current (since 1996) NPD Fuehrer, was invited by local ‘anarchist’, former NPD member, Blood & Honour supporter and New Right Fuehrer Welf Herfurth to address the 2003 Sydney Forum. Voigt was apparently denied a visa by the Australian Gub’mint on the basis that he was A Bad Man.

Bonus!

NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL DRUMMING!

At any parking space on the information superhighway the feeling of absurdity can strike any man in the face.

Posted in !nataS, Anti-fascism, State / Politics | 2 Comments

mgk / suki has an opinion down after complaint by local white supremacists to MD Webhosting

Posted on May 24, 2008 by @ndy
    Update : OK, so the balding villain in the piece appears to be Darrin ‘Sleeping Dragon’ Hodges. According to Weezil: “Eagle-eyed mgk readers will have noted that this site was ’suspended’ from about 1AM to 9AM AEST today. This was due to a false complaint of child pornography on this site, lodged by Darrin Hodges, one of our beloved local white supremacists/neo nazis, about the Bill Henson image accompanying the immediately preceding post.” In addition to once declaring that Hitler had the requisite views on multiculturalism, on Stormfront Down Under, in 2005, concerning the racist pogrom in Cronulla, Dazza declared: “Friends, today was an historic day, the day Australians stood up against state-imposed multiculturalism”… Accompanying his posting is a series of photographs he took at Cronulla that day, including one of a T-shirt emblazoned with the words “wog free zone” and another of a sign offering free sausages to the crowd, with “no tabouli”. Cretinous yes, but credible? Not especially. Darrin even fancies himself as being something of an anarchist nowadays!

Over a month ago, my blog was the subject of a complaint. To cut a long story short, it took a few weeks for it to come back up. At the time, credit for this interruption in our regular broadcasting schedule was taken by a member of a local fascist group, known as the New Right. One of those who supported my blogging efforts was Weezil, a blogger from NSW, and the blogger behind machinegunkeyboard. Unfortunately, seemingly as the result of a complaint by another fascist, Weezil’s blog has just now been suspended by MD Webhosting. In addition, feminist blogger suki (suki has an opinion) has also been shut up.

We cross now to Weezil:

For those of you unfamiliar with my blog, the main topics of mgk:Machine Gun Keyboard, normally located at http://machinegunkeyboard.com, are social justice, civil rights, civil liberties, anti-racism, media vs. democracy and freedom of speech. I have my own website because my views are not always popular and I wanted a site where I had final editorial control- within the broad and reasonable limits of the terms of service agreement with my host.

My hosting company, MD Webhosting, have suspended access to http://machinegunkeyboard.com. My email program started throwing errors at about 1.16am this morning. Everything’s down, email, FTP and the website itself. There was no reason given. MD Webhosting made no attempt to contact me. I really don’t know specifically at this point WHY the site has been suspended- but I have a VERY good suspicion.

On Thursday, 22nd May, I put up a post on mgk entitled ‘Paedophilic pornography paranoia’ where I lambasted the NSW Police for taking seriously a complaint of child pornography against world-renowned photographer Bill Henson, whom you will know (unless you live under a rock) has had his most recent exhibition of nude photography closed after a complaint from Hetty Johnston of an anti-child abuse group called ‘Bravehearts.’ Police have seized 21 of 40 images from the Henson exhibition at the Roslyn Oxley9 gallery in Paddington. Police also say they expect to lay charges regarding the ‘depiction of a child under the age of 16 in a sexual situation.’

Henson is a photographer of international renown, with works exhibited in museums worldwide. His images are used in NSW high schools as part of the photography curriculum. We are not dealing with a common pornographer.

Amongst educated people, there is no controversy. Hetty Johnson and NSW Police have not just gone overboard but are sinking to the bottom- FAST:

Under fair comment (Aus) and fair use (as mgk is physically published from server facilities in the USA) guidelines, I normally host a copy of an illustrating image to go with my blog posts. This post about paedo porno paranoia was accompanied by a Bill Henson image I found out on the web. That image is attached. The image is also available at http://xupacabras.weblog.com.pt/arquivo/BillHenson.jpg

I specifically chose a Henson image that could in no way be construed as ‘pornographic’ nor ‘sexualised.’ A supine model, alone, possibly sleeping, in soft, ‘painterly’ focus. A nude model under the age of 16 which is NOT in a sexualised context can in no way be construed as child pornography. The gist of the blog post itself (the text of which is presently locked up by MD Webhosting, so I can’t even copy it for you here) is that ‘neither nudity nor pubescence alone constitute pornography.’

Is it a confronting image? You bet it is. That is largely due to the cultivated paranoia regarding child pornography. The viewer must take a moment and think about the image. Is this a sexual situation or simply a lovely image of an adolescent form? This is what art SHOULD do. It should make us THINK about what we’re viewing. What is this young girl’s story? Is she actually human or something supernatural, a woodland faerie at rest perhaps? Is she even alive? Could this be an image of a body thrown from an airplane crash? There’s any number of possible stories that could go with this image, but absolutely NONE of them would include titillation or prurience- UNLESS the viewers themselves had some sexual interest in adolescents! If sexual interest in an adolescent is part of the viewer’s story, that simply has to come from the viewer- because it is not present in the image.

Some argue that nude depictions of adolescents should be banned because they are arousing for paedophiles. If this is so, Bondi Beach should be shut at once. Museums should require ID cards and psychological examinations for those who want to view nude artworks.

We can not, should not and DO not alter our entire society to compensate for every specific human failing or shield us from every danger- or there would be no cars, bars or casinos. Healthy humans don’t pursue every urge, to excess or otherwise. You don’t protect children from drowning by banning water- you teach them how to swim.

This foolish attack on nude depictions of adolescents- which are very clearly NOT pornographic- vastly devalues the case of Hetty Johnson and other child protection activists. The boy has cried wolf.

Johnson has elected to take on the art world as well as civil libertarians. If Henson and myself are child pornographers, Johnson will necessarily use the same standard to trawl museums and libraries, seeking to eradicate ALL nude images of adolescents and children, in sexualised context or not. This is very clearly not just unacceptable but well beyond the pale. I normally would support Johnson’s stances when she comes to the aid of exploited children- in a reasonable manner. I’m FULLY disappointed that someone who could be doing something useful has pulled a stunt that has not only backfired but will set back the cause of child protection for DECADES.

Depiction of nude human forms of all ages has been around since the most common medium was a cave wall. Of all the obvious subjects for art created by humans, humans themselves must be the most obvious. Nude cherubs, based on human infants, flit about in Renaissance paintings from numerous artists. Sylphs, faeries and goddesses often take androgynous, prepubescent forms. We don’t see libraries and museums conducting cleansing bonfires- and for very good reason. Nudity alone does not constitute pornography. Adolescence is as fair a subject for nude depiction as any other phase of human existence. To deny that we have human form between infancy and adulthood is patently absurd.

Despite numerous contacts with MD Webhosting via trouble tickets filed via the customer control panel, they have YET to contact me, in spite of the MD Webhosting commitment to 24 hour customer service. I have yet to confirm that this kerfuffle is precisely why mgk is presently shut off, but it could SIMPLY be nothing else. The hosting fees are paid in advance and the domain registration has recently been renewed til 2009. I’ll update you with some certainty once I have heard from them. Until this is sorted out, I am contactable only via my optusnet account.

This much I’ll tell you- mgk will go back live with NO content changes. If that means I have to move hosts, so be it- but I’m LIVID- and hell hath NO fury like a censored writer.

Regards

Brian aka ‘weez’
mgk:Machine Gun Keyboard
http://machinegunkeyboard.com

Posted in Anti-fascism, Media | 11 Comments

Francis De Groot Brigade : Update

Posted on May 24, 2008 by @ndy

So I’ve decided to update the Francis de Groot Brigade file. Aside from the inevitable sectarian melodramas and paranoid speculation over who’s working for ZOG, there’s not a great deal that’s ‘news’: the far right remains more or less where it was several years ago. Nevertheless, there have been some developments. Thus in addition to the raft of personnel changes on Stormfront Down Under, and the three-way split in the Australia First Party, perhaps the most significant event has been the emergence of the notional anarchists of the New Right. An attempt to employ ostensibly anarchist rhetoric and imagery in the name of white supremacy, the New Right/national anarchists are a rum lot, whose public manifestations have thus far been confined to three protest rallies. First, the APEC demonstrations in Sydney (September 8, 2007); secondly, the Olympic Torch rally in Canberra (April 24, 2008) and finally the May Day rally in Melbourne (May 4, 2008). No doubt they will be attending future rallies, much to the general bewilderment of the left and the public-at-large.

Posted in Anti-fascism | Leave a comment

Against Chauvinism, Against Nationalism!

Posted on May 24, 2008 by @ndy

Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front – ZACF
May 23 2008

As the media, the politicians and the “experts” rack their brains in search of the cause of the “criminality” and “xenophobia” that has killed 42 people in 10 days and driven [at least] 15,000 from their homes, organisations of the working class have come closer to the truth than any of these wise men and women.

The Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front supports and replies to the Abahlali baseMjondolo Statement on the Xenophobic Attacks in Johannesburg.

Abahlali baseMjondolo [the South African shackdwellers’ movement] tell how “the anger of the poor can go in many directions”. They tell how fury is stirred up by “the rats and the fires and the lack of toilets”, by unemployment, homelessness and mandrax. They tell how people are “damaged” in a world where few are rich and many are poor.

The demon that has been unleashed in Gauteng, that is spreading to Mpumalanga and other provinces, is the demon of poverty. It is the child of the demon of capitalism, of the demon of exploitation.

But another demon has also been unleashed. This is the demon of NATIONALISM.

Abahlali point out that all the poor, all the workers, face “the same kind of oppression”. They call on all the poor and the workers to join in struggle against this oppression. The Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front joins this call.

But against this unity of the working class appears another unity, a false unity, the unity of nationalism. This is a false unity between the rich and the poor, between the oppressor and the oppressed. It is a false unity that divides those who should be united. It proclaims that because the master and the slave were born in the same country, they have something in common, from which the slaves of other countries must be excluded.

The ZACF does not deny or reject bonds of language, culture and tradition. But in the greatest of struggles, the struggle against poverty, exploitation and oppression, we proclaim that class unity, the unity of all the oppressed and exploited, must come first.

When Winnie Madikizela-Mandela declares that those who attack foreigners are not real “South Africans”, she calls up the demon of nationalism. She says that to be South African is good, and not to be South African is bad. She presents herself as a leader who can decide who are the real South Africans. And like so many politicians, she would surely say we should be “proudly South African” – as if where you are born is the most important thing to be proud of.

These are the divisions that keep us in slavery, that stop us uniting against our true enemies. Our true enemies – the real criminals – are the capitalists and the state, the robbers who exploit us and the politicians who lie to us. Always these partners stand together against us, and seek to stop us standing together against them. They so fill our heads with lies that some of us even think the insane rise in food prices is somehow the work of foreigners – when clearly it is the work of the small band of capitalists of all countries who control the world’s food.

Poverty and oppression can never be resolved through capitalism or the state.

The ZACF agrees with the greatest part of Abahlali’s analysis and supports the bulk of their demands. But we have one difference. We cannot join in their call for “a police force that serves the people”. No police force can be anything other than a force of repression, a force for the state to keep itself on top and the masses at the bottom, a force for the defence of the rich against the poor. Again and again the police have shown this against the movements of the poor, arresting, torturing and murdering us. Not to mention their attacks on immigrants. When the politicians condemn poor South Africans for attacking foreigners, it is because they wish to preserve this power of violence for themselves and their forces alone.

We can and do fight to stop the worst police repression. And any of us, in fear of our lives, will seek the help of the police when there is no alternative. We cannot blame anyone for seeking refuge with the police, or for calling them in to prevent imminent attacks.

But we hope for something better. If there is no alternative, let us try to create one. Let us build our movements to the point where immigrants – or women facing rape, or gay and lesbian people facing chauvinistic violence – do not need to seek the dubious help of the police. Let us build strong, organised working class communities that can defend themselves and their comrades against repression and chauvinism.

And let us build our movements to the point where they can fight oppression in every form, everywhere. The dockworkers of Durban recently prevented a shipment of weapons from passing through South Africa to the Mugabe regime – but the weapons reached the butcher of Harare by another route. With a stronger movement, an international movement of the working class, we could halt all future shipments. We could cease quarreling over the supposed ideals of tyrants and topple tyranny. We could cease fighting over who should get a house, and demand and obtain houses for all. We could cease blaming our brothers and sisters for “taking jobs”, and demand and get jobs for all. We could cease seeking scapegoats for soaring food prices, and force a halt in the rise in prices as a step towards food for all. We could win ID books for all – or better still, a world in which none will need ID books. We could tear down the Lindela concentration camp. And building a global movement that reaches across every border, we could proclaim to the whole world:

NO BORDERS! NO NATIONS! NO DEPORTATIONS!

Posted in Anarchism, Anti-fascism, State / Politics | Leave a comment

GO PIES!

Posted on May 23, 2008 by @ndy

Tonight Geelong were

STUNNED
RIPPED APART
PULVERISED
HAMMERED
CLINICALLY DESTROYED!

Collingwood stun Geelong
The Australian

COLLINGWOOD stunned AFL reigning premiers Geelong tonight, smashing them by 86 points with a brutal and brilliant team performance at the MCG. The Magpies’ fierce tackling set the agenda from the opening bounce and they dominated all but a few minutes of the match, winning 20.14 (134) to 7.6 (48)…

Magpies rip apart Cats
Raman Goraya
ABC

Geelong’s undefeated start to the season came to an astonishing end courtesy of an 86-point drubbing by Collingwood at the MCG on Friday evening. The Magpies were ferocious at ground level and even more relentless in attack as they powered to a faultless 20.14 (134) to 7.6 (48) victory to move into fifth position on the AFL ladder…

Magpies pulverise sorry Cats
Andrew Wu
Sportal

Geelong’s winning run is over after Collingwood rediscovered its competitive edge to deliver its best performance of the season and stun the reigning premier by 86 points at the MCG on Friday night. Save for a five-minute burst at the start of the second half, the Magpies comprehensively outplayed Geelong setting up the 20.14 (134) to 7.6 (48) demolition with a powerhouse first half when they outscored the Cats 11 goals to three…

Posted in Cats, Collingwood | Leave a comment

Citizens say the darnedest things

Posted on May 23, 2008 by @ndy

Following on from the revelation that the Royal Canadian Kilted Yaksmen were big fans of the Canadian Punk Rock Band The Suicide Pilots comes an editorial from the Upright Ottawa Citizens’ Association.

The ‘What Do You Expect’ dept.
The Ottawa Citizen
May 23, 2008

Many Canadians likely would want to dismiss Jeffrey Monaghan as nothing more than a misguided young man, but in fact he has provided a service by restoring a measure of unity to our fractured political body.

That is, politicians of all stripes are united in their belief that Mr. Monaghan is a misguided young man.

Ok, perhaps that’s not exactly how politicians are putting it, but they are agreed that Mr. Monaghan is wrong to complain that the RCMP is persecuting him and his friends. If anything, the consensus seems to be — rightly — that the police would have been derelict had they not done some checking into the group’s activities.

Mr. Monaghan belongs to a punk rock band that calls itself the Suicide Pilots, and its logo is an image of airplane heading towards the Parliament Buildings. In the post 9/11 world, this is a bit like making jokes about hijackers at the airport. If you joke about hijackers at the check-in, people are going to notice and start asking questions. It’s disingenuous to then react with righteous indignation and claim that you are shocked — shocked! — to be mistaken even momentarily for a terrorist.

An intriguing question: just how many jokes about hijacking a plane does the Al Qaeda Training Manual actually contain? And are hijackers instructed not to make jokes to airport authorities about their intentions to commit a terrorist attack upon boarding? Or is there, in fact, a strict limit on the number of jokes concerning their immediate goals members of the terrorist cells are able to relate? Inquiring minds demand answers.

The Citizen continues:

The Suicide Pilots learned from documents obtained through the Privacy Act that their band had caught the attention of the RCMP. Actually, police already knew Mr. Monaghan. He was arrested last year while working on a temporary assignment with Environment Canada, on suspicion of leaking government materials relating to environmental policy. Mr. Monaghan was associated with an anarchist group in Ottawa at the time and while no charges have been laid, he has made clear that he is a fierce political opponent of the government.

“Actually” — that is, in reality — it appears that the investigation into the band was launched almost immediately upon Monaghan’s arrest. Further, the investigation concerned not just the supposed leak — the treatment of which raises other issues — but Monaghan himself, his band, and his political activities as a whole, including — but presumably not limited to — his involvement in Exile, an anarchist infoshop. “According to documents obtained by Monaghan through the Privacy Act, two days [after his arrest] the RCMP decided to investigate the band, which “compares Harper to Hitler.” The handful of pages released by Monaghan of the 184 pages he obtained indicate that police examined the band’s lyrics and Monaghan’s involvement in an anarchist bookstore” (Mounties probe band: Investigate lyrics, logo, Elizabeth Thompson, The Gazette, May 22, 2008).

Now, Mr. Monaghan is absolutely correct to insist that police should not be harassing people for their political views, no matter how eccentric they might be. But celebrating suicide terrorism — as the name and logo of the band seem to do, at least at first glance — can hardly be dismissed as just another variety of political dissent. Mr. Monaghan and his fellow musicians are no terrorists, but it’s hard to blame the RCMP for wanting to confirm that.

Uh-huh. Well, actually, the band’s logo can be dismissed, quite easily. (Try it at home.) But the point is that it wasn’t. By an institution — the RCMP’s Integrated National Security Enforcement Team — dedicated to combatting non-state terrorism. On what basis? Do the Yaksmen seriously believe that a terrorist organisation would form a band and call it The Suicide Pilots? If so, then the RCMP’s account of the terrorist threat requires some very serious revision:

Threats to our national security are continually changing, presenting an “intelligence challenge” to governments and law enforcement around the world. Potential terrorists may not have yet engaged in criminal activity and are therefore difficult to recognize and impede. Terrorist organizations, whether foreign or domestically-based are increasingly sophisticated, with members linked through technology and loosely linked groups or cells, allowing them to operate in an environment where borders are virtual and detection is difficult. This global operations base for terrorist groups emphasizes the importance of an integrated policing approach where intelligence is shared among countries around the world.

On the other hand, “increasingly sophisticated” potential terrorists may also form punk bands, call themselves The Suicide Pilots, and employ a silly cartoon as their logo; a real ““intelligence challenge”, this sneaky tactic.

The editorial concludes that “The anarchists with whom Mr. Monaghan has been associated may not like our system of government, but they’re lucky to be living under it”; to be precise, to be spied upon by it on the basis of their cartoons.

The last word goes to The Suicide Pilots:

SP and the Terror Coppers!
May 22, 2008

It appears some idle bureaucrats in Ottawa’s spy departments have been evaluating the terror-ness of The Suicide Pilots.

A note on our logo: Please, please, notice the plane has a face. Unless you’re a crude and improbate crap-sack, you will recognise that “planes” do not have faces. Therefore, if this “plane” has a face, is it really a “plane”? Now, silly reactionaries, ask yourself that question. If you’re being snide, let us help you: The answer is no! (our apologies for all individuals that did not need that condescending explanation). That is not a plane. It is an image of a plane with a puzzled face. That means it’s a symbol, or metaphor, or whatever the fuck you want to call it. Please feel the freedom to interpret it any particular way you’d like. We’ve displayed the image publicly and have therefore accepted the risks of independent interpretation. So please, eat that shit up.

Authoritarian states have a long history of suppressing dissent. Some of history’s most powerful images of dissent have been expressed through various means of art (for the record, we don’t consider our art, or expression, or music – for that matter – particularly important). The fact that the gargantuan “War on Terror” apparatus of the State has identified and catalogued our work is an example of the ridiculousness of this phony war. Of course, there have been many individuals directly impacted by this war’s racism. We do not want to understate those abuses. Along with the renditions, racism, and other forms of oppression perpetuated by the “War on Terror” campaign, the spying on social activists, artists and others, displays the real character of the State. It shows a closed group of power-hungry megalomaniacs entirely concerned with protecting their power and suppressing movements that challenge their authority and legitimacy.

Paranoid governments are prone to attacking artists and dissidents. Perhaps the paranoia evident in this enormous police apparatus is an expression of the system’s weakness; the tighter their grip, the more people will slip through their fingers. As more folk find themselves on the fringes – disenfranchised, manipulated, persecuted & cast aside by a system emphasizing property and profit – resistance to this abusive structure will grow. Things desperately need to change; the more those at the top of the hierarchy struggle to hold on to the reins of power, the more apparent it becomes, even to those who never thought themselves radical, that change is imminent. We would like to believe that this bloated, top-heavy, cop-shop-State – being built by people, can be broken down just the same. Sarah Polley shall lead the charge that sees Harper swingin’ in the breeze, so much crow meat… Apologies to Ms. Polley if they take that last sentiment as seriously as our poor little plane.

For centuries the buildings atop of Garrison Hill (aka Parliament Hill) have coordinated the violence of this colonial enterprise. No empires last. When in Rome, do as the Vandals.

FOR A LIFE WITHOUT DRUDGERY
FOR A HOLIDAY WITH NO BEGINNING OR END
FOR A SOCIETY WITHOUT PARANOID COPS AND TERRORCRATS
FOR A MEDIA WITHOUT SENSATIONALISM AND TRIVIALITY
SMASH THE STATE!

Posted in !nataS, Music, War on Terror | Leave a comment

Troy Southgate as state asset?

Posted on May 23, 2008 by @ndy

Troy Southgate is the political bizarro responsible for establishing a fascist groupuscule known as the New Right in the UK, and for propagating the bizarro doctrine of ‘national anarchism’. In Australia (and um, New Zealand), his Antipodean equivalent is Welf Herfurth, who’s established a groupuscule of the same name propagating the same philosophy (and to which a few local teenagers and twenty-somethings have been attracted). Anyway, it’s all rather old information now, but Southgate appears to have dabbled in ‘security’.

In 2005, the ‘Anglo-Saxon League’ emerged in the UK.

WELCOME……

An Introduction to the Anglo Saxon League.
We are a NON PROFIT [Mutual] aid organisation for members & their families.
We believe in building a NON materialist, Traditional Family based alternative to today[‘]s modern world.
Our way may not be everyone[‘]s, but it’s ours.
We will not push or [implement] our way of life on anyone & we in turn expect the same.
Please view our website & decide for yourself.

The usual shite.

What’s rather odd about the League (or rather was — the League is apparently now defunct) is its contact address: Suite 530, 27 Colmore Row, Birmingham, B3 2EW, England. Further, the same address is used by ‘BMB Security Services’. The supposed connection between Southgate and BMB is that the League was another one of his various front groups — like many others on the political fringes, Southgate has a habit of establishing one group after another: the English Nationalist Movement, the National Revolutionary Faction, the English People’s Party, the Anglo-Saxon League, the New Right, et cetera. The BMB site (no longer available) linked to MI5. This, supposedly, constitutes evidence of Southgate’s sneaky service for the state… a rather tenuous link, in my opinion.

Curiously, a company of the same name (“BMB Security Pty Ltd”) also operates in Australia — but this is probably just a coincidence.

Posted in !nataS, Anti-fascism | 6 Comments

Boris gets Spiked

Posted on May 23, 2008 by @ndy
    More fun and games courtesy of the bizarros @ Spiked.

Boris gets spiked
James Turley
Weekly Worker
(#722, Thursday. May 22 2008)

Ex-communists continue their rightward evolution, reports James Turley

One of the less well circulated bits of journalism on the recent London mayoral elections was Dr Michael Fitzpatrick’s piece, ‘I’m backing Boris for London mayor’ [March 31, 2008]. Not so remarkable, you might think – he was certainly not the only one, since Boris Johnson did indeed pick up the job.

But the esteemed doctor’s justification for this support was not so commonplace. In 2002, Ken Livingstone had publicly stated that his then unborn child would not be having the combined measles, mumps and rubella immunisation, during a related health scare, and would instead be going to “one of the sleazy private clinics” that had cashed in by giving the old separate jabs. Boris Johnson, by contrast, went so far as to lambaste the Daily Mail for consistently intensifying the panic. For Dr Fitzpatrick, this represents the qualitative difference between the two candidates.

Just a curious individual hobby horse? No – the article, if readers have yet to guess, appeared on Spiked Online, the journalistic manifestation of the tight, clandestine political group once known as the Revolutionary Communist Party. [1]

Spiked’s coverage of the new mayor has been generally positive. It views him as some kind of libertarian, and enthusiastically urges him to be more openly so (though Spiked editor Brendan O’Neill has criticised his new ban on drinking on public transport). It is similar to Socialist Appeal’s approach to Chávez – you might call it ‘critical fawning’ (the problem for Socialist Appeal is that Chávez is not the future of socialism, and the problem for Spiked is that Johnson is not really a libertarian).

The new mayor, in an exciting twist, has repaid the favour, employing regular Spiked contributor Munira Mirza as his cultural advisor. Mirza’s main contribution to the ideological melange of this curious project has been to add to its highly unfavourable attitude to multiculturalism. “Multicultural policies,” she writes on the Guardian’s ‘Comment is free’ blog, “have encouraged ethnic-minority groups to believe they are in need of special recognition … paradoxically, by insisting on engaging with muslims as a separate group, the authorities make many of them feel even more excluded.” [2]

Munira might simply be a ‘fluke’, employed on the basis of her papers for the rightwing think tank, Policy Exchange; but rumours abound that she will not be the last appointee from the Spiked project.

The artists formerly known as the RCP

All this seems a far cry from a group that once called itself revolutionary and communist. To explain this, it is worth looking at the history of the RCP (and its successors), one of the weirder tales of post-war Trotskyism.

In 1973, a large number of members of the International Socialists were expelled by Tony Cliff. Their opposition had not had much cohesion at all, but they were nevertheless a faction of sorts, and got the boot at roughly the same time as a number of other such IS factions, when Cliff was “rediscovering” Lenin (that is, pseudo-Leninist bureaucratic centralism). [The IS changed its name to the Socialist Workers Party in January 1977.]

The group soon split again, with one section joining the Labour Party (the secretive Discussion Group around Roy Tearse) and another rapidly signing up to a virulent third-worldist strain of Stalinism (the Revolutionary Communist Group). The rump was organised around bright young Kent sociologist Frank Furedi, and after a few years as the Revolutionary Communist Tendency, decided that they were a party after all, and launched their paper The Next Step.

Their main ideological shibboleth in the early days followed on from Lenin’s (correct) characterisation of reformism as organically tied to and reliant on imperialism. Furedi and his allies believed that this implied two things – firstly, that the widespread support of reformism in the British working class rendered it as such a non-revolutionary entity; secondly, that any campaign that promoted reforms was objectively a threat to the revolution. The RCP became infamous for an ultra-sectarian attitude to all such ‘reformist’ campaigns, even going so far as to sneer at the 1984-85 miners’ strike and demand a strike ballot well beyond the time when such a ballot may even have been possible.

Furedi believed that the Labour Party was imminently going to undergo a total crisis, and – since other left groups were contaminated with ‘reformism’ – the RCP was likely to replace it. For the 1987 election it organised the Red Front with the Revolutionary Democratic Group and Red Action (a street-fighting squad then primarily engaged in militant anti-fascism and Irish republicanism). The results were desultory in the extreme; in places they were outperformed by the Monster Raving Loony Party.

This, along with the collapse of the Soviet bloc, was the final straw for Furedi – the working class was, if not dead, at least defeated for the next historical period. Consequently, what mattered were those apparently ‘non-political’ aspects of all our lives, whose analysis would yield a revolutionary strategy and whose resolution would produce a revolutionary agent. Somewhat fortuitously, then, the model of a Marxist was to be … the sociology professor.

Furedi declared a “turn to the suburbs”, which in practice meant total immersion in the academic system. Its former journal Living Marxism became LM and then folded after ITN successfully sued it for £375,000 over the LM allegation that ITN’s coverage of Serb atrocities was partially falsified. Its main successors are Spiked and the Institute of Ideas think tank. The RCP was formally liquidated in 1997.

The particular academic milieu that proved most amenable to RCP entry was the positivist-scientist ‘third culture’, with its veneration of technological progress and general technocratic coloration. Whereas in the past the RCP was known for setting up myriad front groups, today the ex-RCP manages to find its way into leading positions in a whole network of think tanks, umbrella groups and lobbies, listed by long-time bête noire George Monbiot in an article for the Guardian: Sense About Science, Global Futures, the Science Media Centre, Progress Educational Trust, British Pregnancy Advisory Service, and the Pro-Choice Forum. [3]

For a time, it was highly influential in the broadcast media, and effectively produced its own TV programme on the environmentalist movement, Against nature, in 1997. This caused a minor ‘reds under the bed’ scandal at the time. [4]

They need not have worried. The operative political project of the ex-RCP group is a thoroughgoing bourgeois libertarianism. While not as explicitly rightwing as (particularly green) critics make out, its objective result has been very close cooperation with what are effectively fronts and lobbies for corporate interests. Sense About Science, for example, is very enthusiastic about corporate GM research; the RCP project has also promoted Forest, the ‘smokers’ rights’ lobby funded by the tobacco industry.

One area where it has maintained a dubious continuity with the left is in its rather monomaniacal approach to anti-imperialism. As mentioned, LM foundered on a lawsuit over ITN’s coverage of the Bosnian war – the RCP was one of those declared Serb-defencist groups which were never to be found acknowledging the grotesque atrocities perpetrated by Milosevic, Karadzic and company.

‘Rightwing nutcases’?

It is easy to dismiss the RCP evolution as a cautionary tale – yet more proof that an ultra-leftist is, as Trotsky put it, an opportunist afraid of his own shadow. The gap between the heady left hysteria of The Next Step and the smartly-suited dinner parties of the LM days seems enormous, but the key break took only months. The formal and final abandonment of the working class as the agent of political change – indeed, of ‘agency’, full stop – was bound to lead to a wrenching shift in political orientation. The only variable was precisely which blind alley Furedi’s sect would take.

But there are lessons – positive lessons – to be learned from both phases of the RCP story. It is true that, in the 1980s and today, the left is rendered effectively inert by its series of concessions to reformism. The kowtowing of the Socialist Workers Party to Labour loyalists in the Stop the War Coalition, for instance, ruled out any electoral intervention, and indeed anything other than dwindling protest marches. The transformation of Socialist Party activists into trade union bureaucrats has led to serious sell-outs, too.

Likewise, one does not have to be a full-blooded climate change denialist like Furedi to recognise the dark underbelly of large sections of the green movement. As left groups scramble to liquidate themselves into the green movement, the Spiked project’s reminders of the reactionary nature of most variants of official greenism is timely. It is true that simply breaking up big enterprises – replacing Tesco with local greengrocers, mechanised farms with ‘old MacDonald’ operations and so on – would produce such a drastic drop in global production that literally billions would starve (as opposed to the millions at present).

And, to return to Munira Mirza, there is a legitimate line of attack to be brought against multiculturalism. On this, the RCP gets as close to the truth as a group deliberately limited to liberal positions can get. Another of its ‘cadre’, Kenan Malik, has made very forceful criticisms of the move from political struggles (which unite) to ‘cultural’ struggles (which divide).

All of this will be of little concern to Johnson, who is simply looking for some brainy ammunition against multiculturalism. Indeed, this alliance is not just one more iteration of the Spiked project – it represents another break for the RCP.

Despite the rather feeble attempts of Dr Fitzpatrick to paint him as a defender of science, and of Emily Hill to call him a libertarian, the London mayor is a figure on the hard authoritarian right of the Tory Party. Though they once defended fox-hunting on libertarian grounds, the RCP has never infiltrated anyone quite like Boris.

Whether this pans out as another ideological shift for Spiked, a flash in the pan, or a chaotic second-time-farce replay of Ken Livingstone’s alliance with Socialist Action, it is certainly not business as usual in the sociology department at Kent.

For unconditional military defence of the Chinese deformed workers state!
China is not capitalist!
For proletarian political revolution!

Posted in Trot Guide | Leave a comment

Resistance : Another one bites the dust

Posted on May 22, 2008 by @ndy

Following the purge of several dozen (that is, all) members of the Leninist Party Faction (LPF) from the Democratic Socialist Perspective (DSP), and the expulsion of James Crafti from the Melbourne branch of Resistance, comes news of the expulsion of another LPF member from the DSP’s Youth Brigade the same “independent” socialist yoof organisation, run by, for and on behalf of the yoof.

May 20, 2008

Resistance National Council Statement on the Expulsion of James Crafti and Shua Garfield

On May 18 the Resistance National Council (NC) voted to expel Melbourne Branch member James Crafti and Sydney Branch member Shua Garfield from Resistance.

This decision was not taken lightly and there have been very few, if any, cases where such disciplinary action has occurred in Resistance.

Both James Crafti and Shua Garfield have the right to submit a written appeal to the next Resistance National Conference and a report on the decision of the NC to invoke Rule 13 will be given at the Conference, as required in Rule 14, Section 6…

The statement then proceeds to outline the offences allegedly committed by the pair, the crux of which is the public expression of dissatisfaction with the DSP:

The NC reaffirmed our position of political solidarity with the DSP as outlined in the Resistance Constitution [unavailable online]. It ruled that Resistance members do not have a right to publicly and openly criticize the DSP. It was deemed that such attacks harm Resistance given that:

• Resistance supports building a revolutionary party as stated in the introduction to the Resistance Constitution.
• Resistance and the DSP have broad agreement over the main political issues.
• Resistance receives significant material support from the DSP including the use of GLW [Green Left Weekly] to publish a regular Resistance Page and the use their offices for Resistance activities.

Resistance does not deny its members their right to have criticisms of other organizations and our political perspectives. However there is a process, as outlined in the constitution, to convince other members of Resistance to alter our political positions and actions, including changing our long held position of working with and helping to build the DSP.

The Resistance National Conference will be held from Friday June 27–Sunday June 29 in Sydney, employing the slogan ‘Turn Anger into Action!’. As for the GLW, it describes itself not as the publication of either the DSP, Resistance or the Socialist Alliance, but “a proudly independent voice” which “aims to provide a much-needed forum for discussion and debate about changing the world”; GLW “is your paper. As a grassroots publication, it thrives on your input”. In reality, both Resistance, SA and GLW are strictly subordinate to the DSP.

As for Shua, aside from being a member of the LPF, their alleged crime was to send an email from the Sydney Resistance address, allegedly attacking Resistance/the DSP. The NC claims that this action constituted “a threat to the security of property of Resistance (particularly its membership lists)”, and therefore warranted their immediate expulsion. Thus:

In response to the posting to various email lists of public attacks on Resistance and the DSP by Sydney Branch member Shua Garfield, the NC voted to charge Shua Garfield with violating Article 2 of the Constitution and the Introduction to the Constitution. Shua Garfield’s actions also included accessing and using the [Sydney Resistance] email account to send a statement on the recent split in the DSP. The NC deemed that there was a threat to the security of property of Resistance (particularly its membership lists), as shown by the accessing of Resistance email accounts and lists, and therefore invoked Rule 13, Section 6 of the constitution to take immediate disciplinary action and expel Shua Garfield.

In re-asserting authority over the DSP, the leadership is certainly being thorough. The two main problems it will encounter in future will be accounting to curious members for the continued failure of SA to be anything other than a front group, and the inevitable demoralisation that such events as the expulsion of a significant minority of members from its ranks will have on those who remain loyal. As for those expelled, some may be tempted to (re-)constitute the LPF as a separate party; others, to join one of the other Leninist parties currently in existence: Socialist Alternative and Solidarity being the main contenders, Direct Action (a tiny group formed in 2006 by former members of the DSP) and the Socialist Party being others. On the other hand, some may even consider joining the Greens.

Posted in !nataS, Trot Guide | 12 Comments