[Marxism] "Aussies" race, class, immigration etc.

[Ggregray@xxxxxxx]

I want to comment on a few of the issues that have arisen in the line of
discussion on this list that more or less has its starting point on my post 
about
the Cronulla riot.

First I want to let list readers outside of Sydney and Australia know that
there are a variety of actions , rallies etc being planned to protest at racism
and to call for support for the Arab and Muslim community.

In Sydney there is a rally and march planned for this Sunday. This has been
initiated by  the National Union of Students and is supported by the Greens , a
number of left groups and is being promoted by the Teachers' and Public
Service unions and I believe a number of other unions.

Hopefully this and other actions around the country will be well supported.
As I have previously mentioned this is a difficult time of the year to get a
response to political action.

As to matters raised in the discussion I can't agree with the basic position
taken by Calvin Broadbent which in my view is  too dismissive of the
importance of class action to fight racism. I have no difficulty with his 
assertion
that Australia is an imperialist country I don't think there would be many on 
the
left here who would although there may be some who have difficulty in
developing a practice that properly takes that into account.

It is true that Australia is often seen as a junior partner of imperialism
either with Britain or the US as the senior- notoriously "our" PM Howard is
often depicted in cartoons as Bush's deputy sheriff. But this, I believe
underestimates its own independent imperialist role particularly in the Pacific 
region.


Ther have been references in the discussion to "black" people being attacked
in the Cronulla riot. Now in all the reportage that I have seen its clear that
the crowd was directing its venom at people it identified particularly as
Lebanese. The people who were actually attacked on the day, from everything I
have seen or heard about the events were singled out because they were perceived
to be "middle eastern" looking and presumably one aspect of that would have
related to skin colouring. However I did not see or hear of any abuse
specifically directed at "blacks". Undoubtedly there would have been people 
within the
crowd who would have been willing to attack "blacks " in other circumstances
especially the professional political racists who were at work on the day

But  there is another important consideration why I don't accept describing
what happened at Cronulla as attacking  "black people". I have been politically
and otherwise involved with people of Arabic background for some 35 years.
This includes working with people of Palestinian, Iraqi, Egyptian, Libyan and
other Arabic backgrounds in Australia, and with people in Iraq, Lebanon
including the Palestinian camps of Shatilla and Sabra, Dubai and Arab 
communities in
Italy, France and Britain.

In all that time and in those varying Arabic communities I have never heard
any Arab either self-identify or refer to any other Arab as "black". This is
not to label Arabs as anti-black-many I have known are particularly sympathetic
to black liberation struggles -but its not their identity.

Its important to try to understand things in the particular rather than
imposing a schematic generalisation which leads not to changing the world-which 
is
the point as Marx reminds us- but to the self satisfaction of labelling and
thereby thinking you have understood what is labelled.

Calvin is correct about the fond feeling for the East Timorese felt by many
Australian servicemen who were forever grateful for their help when they
operated behind Japanese lines in WW11. Many believed they owed their survival 
to
the East Timorese. These men were outraged by the betrayal of the East Timorese
when the then Labor Government under Prime Minister Whitlam acquiesced in the
Indonesian invasion in 1975.

Calvin mixed up things with the reference to Gallipoli as others have noted -
a Ww1 battle in Turkey. But I don't think he deserves to be mocked for this
mistake nor do I think that the discussion needs in general to take on the
rather strident tones it sometimes has. I have stated my disagreement with what 
I
understand to be Calvin's underlying position but I don't want to repeat the
arguments ably made by others on that point- the issues are before the list
readers and I don't think I am about to change Calvin's position or vice versa. 
I
have found this list most useful when positions have been clearly and
vigourously stated or information provided eg Nick Fredman's fleshing out of 
the bare
bones and somewhat underinformed analysis I made of Cronulla's class make-up.

Sometimes in this and other threads heated discussion seems to become an end
in itself rather than serving clarification or providing information.

So now I hope I don't fall from a high horse in my next point. This is the
reference to how socialists should intervene in various struggles that arise
including anti-racist action.

I don't want to make any great point about any particular individual in
regard to this . I think it is a widespread attitude among socialists that is
reflected in their practice. Certainly in the past I have had that approach and 
I
still struggle to understand and overcome it.

I mean by this the idea that we, being whatever group, have a correct line,
or program or practice and our relationship to any struggle is to bring that to
bear on it and particularly to win recruits and build a cadre who can do more
and more of that in more and more struggles - a sort of pyramid sales
approach to building a socialist leadership. Often it can seem to be successful 
for a
while but like a pyramid scheme in the commercial world is doomed to failure
beyond the short term.

This is, I have now come to believe,  a grave misunderstanding of the idea of
a vanguard leaderhip. In an idealist way it turns Marx's dictum of the
communists having no interests other than those of the working class on its 
head to
be understood as the working class having no real interests other than those
of the communists (insert name of current group here.)

In the concrete my attitude to the anti-racism rally coming up on Sunday is
that I will be there to support the campaign, to stand alongside those standing
against racist attacks on Arabs and Muslims and to have the opportunity of
entering into an exchange of ideas with others taking part. In that I will be
prepared if the opportunity arises to discuss with others about my Marxist based
understanding of what has happened in the last couple of weeks but I am
certainly open to learning as well. It's through that sort of practice that I 
think
we can start to see the beginnings a way of building a socialist leadership
rather than propping up a ready made facade constructed of preset programmes
and policies ready to be moulded to any new circumstance.

It's probably obvious that  I am still feeling my way on this but I have
certainly had a number of experiences of the other way and that  has, in my view
,been thoroughly discredited.

I would be very interested to read what others on the list have to say on
this if there is any interest at all. However I have over many years in various
ways become used to being vilified for various politcal positions many of which
I would not now hold or defend and I have been far from blame for similar
behaviour myself at times  ( a high/low point of abuse addressed at me was some
years ago when I approached a tiny group of people who were demonstarting in
Sydney on some issue to see what was going on and it turned out that they had
been organised by my old Healyite comrades. One of these who had once been a
close friend of mine started chanting through his bullhorn that I was Greg 
Adler,
the notorious renegade from Trotskyism, much to the bemusement of passers-by
who did not know me or him or what a renegade from Trotskyism was.)

My point is that if somehing like that is likely to be your response it would
be a bit of a waste of everyone's time.









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