The student ‘far left’ in Scotland and England needs to get better.

Edit 11/05/12

I never meant to disrespect women in Palestine activism, Muslim women, women in the ISG, women of colour or people trying to improve things in socialist circles. I have immense respect for you personally as well as other socialist women who are working in these organisations and as well as Muslim sisters etc. I know it must massively suck to be a feminist of colour since feminism is so heavily dominated by white women like me, having to deal with misogyny on a daily basis as well as ethnocentrism from people supposed to be sisters.

I’m unreservedly sorry for basically displaying a massive amount of white privilege, ethnocentrism and eurocentrism and thank you for calling me out on it. I’m not changing the original post – which can be seen in full below. I still believe in what I wrote though I think a few things were probably phrased clumsily and I regret not putting in a paragraph about women working to change things in some of the organisatons I criticise, as well as not being clear enough about certain things.

I do not believe I am Islamophobic or racist. HOWEVER – I do display a massive load of white privilege and atheist (culturally Protestant) bias all the time. I don’t think it’s Islamophobic to say that people across all cultures, religions and classes can be shit sometimes.

Original article:

I’m writing this not because I want to rile people or to be offensive – but because if we are to grow or make a difference we need to seriously examine our behaviour. I only know about what’s going on in Scotland and England which is why I’ve only written about them.

In England the fight between Student Broad Left and other groups against Alliance for Workers’ Liberty is getting tiresome and boring. The vast majority of people involved are not in any of these groups. This is not to say that there should not be a conversation – that is exactly what should happen. We should start talking openly about difference instead of engaging in passive aggression and shouting ‘Stalinist’ and ‘Zionist’ at each other. Further, people need to start defining what they actually mean by those terms. We cannot equate those who are racist and violent towards Palestinians with people who are quite possibly looking for pragmatic solutions to a crisis in which the world’s greatest powers view the state of Israel as legitimate. Israel is not going to go away. I am scared to voice my views on this because I worry people would think I am a Zionist, but basically in my opinion need to work together to solve the immediate problems – like getting Israeli forces out of the occupied territories – before asking for anything bigger. (Norman Finkelstein has some interesting stuff to say about this.) There’s a tendency to be suspicious of anyone who believes that Israel should or has to exist – is this Zionist? I think that inevitably Israel is going to exist for the foreseeable future, whether you like it or not, and I would rather concentrate on things that are winnable, like getting withdrawal from the occupied territories, which are after all going against international law. I understand that there are deeper concerns about the AWL than this, but no one really talks about this properly, and I had to dig around to find an article (from 2005!) that actually addressed this.

Re: Student Broad Left, who are a front group for Socialist Action, and many other “socialists”: they have some very dodgy international politics, but everyone seems to ignore this. As far as I’m concerned, if you support despot dictators you are not leftwing because you don’t give a shit about the working class in those countries. Why do ‘comrades’ take the stupid attitude of ‘my enemy’s enemy is my friend’ instead of actually sticking to principles? Gadaffi was a vile dictator who needed to go, and the situation was more complicated than just a struggle with the West, plenty of Libyans wanted him gone. People who defend him can get to fuck. George Galloway is awful, an apologist for all sorts of vile regimes, he’s anti-choice and homophobic. Please can we stop pretending he’s leftwing or in any way okay. So many of the other ‘leaders’ people seem to latch on to are fucking dreadful. I even have a problem with people idolising Hugo Chavez. It all just smacks of bowing down to Great Leaders (who are nearly always men) rather than engaging in mass class action, which is the only way any kind of real change will be achieved. This kind of thing is obviously unacceptable, too.

In the Scottish left in particular, but also in the student movement in England, I’m sick of the masculinist culture of aggression and people using class or background as an excuse or saying it’s ‘just their sense of humour’. It’s nearly always men but I have seen a few women doing this. Shouting in people’s faces, refusing to talk to people you disagree with, bigging up vile dictatorships, and sexist, homophobic organisations just because they stand up to the West. This kind of thing can get to fuck. I’ve seen ‘comrades’ “joke” about ‘bring on the Islamic revolution’ or supporting Hamas or the Muslim Brotherhood. (They know who they are.) It must be nice not to be a queer woman and therefore not to have to deal with the fact that those organisations hate women and hate LGBTQ people. I don’t have that luxury. I don’t know if they are joking or not, either way it’s not fucking funny.

I’d rather be realistic and miserable than give people false credit when they’re homophobes or liars. I’m getting major activist burnout from having to deal with all the double standards and hypocrisy and the privilege that people exhibit daily when they prioritise their own causes over standing up to things that hurt LGBTQ people, women and minorities in this country and others. This is not to say that I support fucking military interventionism or think that it’s the West’s job to police the world and rid it of dictators, but some of these dictators and organisations are really fucking bad and just because they are critical of the US that doesn’t make them beyond reproach.

There seems to be a culture of vanguardism and of valuing stereotypically masculine, ‘strong’ traits in the International Socialist Group (Scotland), which makes me hugely uncomfortable. !Yay being ‘radge’ and fucking shit up and group mentality! Now the first two of those have their place but valuing them so highly is grim because it tends to be men who embody those traits, just because of the way men are brought up. Just because someone doesn’t bring flares to a demo or avoids being arrested, that doesn’t mean they aren’t radical. They might have more radical views than you but just express them differently.  (There are lots of students in ISG so this is relevant.) Because ISG work with other lefties people seem to just accept all their faults (Although if anyone was at the first Scottish Students Against Cuts conference they will know that anything but working together was on the agenda – it was vanguardism all the way. Sarcastic hooray). I’d rather we were able to openly talk about how we move forward, especially in Glasgow as I’m moving there soon, working with ISG, Scottish Socialist Party and the many other groups as well as independents like myself. I’m quite nervous about this because I am used to working mainly with students in Edinburgh who are largely independent. By the way, other Edinburgh independents and I have been accused of having ‘no politics’ because we’re not in a party. Just because I’m not in a party that doesn’t mean I ‘don’t have any politics’ or I haven’t thought about things seriously. Quite the opposite. There isn’t a group that I a) identify with and b) see the point in joining. Anything I want to do I can do outside a party, and to boot I won’t have to pay dues or sell papers. Win-win. There are lots of people I consider true comrades who are in all sorts of parties though.

Silencing people who criticise things that deserve criticism, like student anti-cuts groups, many pro-Palestine groups and ALL of the parties and factions is counterproductive at best. Pushing your own party or faction’s agenda at all costs is transparent and alienating. I’m particularly fed up of people try to get their own party’s way through entryism and bullying, it all just makes me feel sick and not want to be part of the “left”. People who are in parties should be able to criticise their own party externally so they don’t turn into a weird cult. The other thing is, and this is a note for Palestine activists and anti-AWL people, working with someone or being friends with someone whose stance I disagree with on Israel does not make me a pro-Israel or some sort of sympathiser, it makes me willing to work with people on other issues, like anti-cuts. I don’t appreciate the attitude of ‘us or them’; it does no one any favours. Working with people who are wrong but are not murderous and do not agree with what is being done on behalf of the state of Israel is not the same as working with Netanyahu or meeting IDF spokespeople.

Refusing to engage with people who have a different view from you is understandable in some cases and appalling in others: how on earth do you expect to win anyone around if you dismiss them from the get-go? If they are slightly uninformed/misinformed or they are in the midst of forming their opinions, you’re just alienating a potential organiser. There needs to be more real discussion instead of battening down the hatches and refusing to criticise ourselves. I’m tired. I’m tired of arguments with people where they say that so-and-so isn’t ‘that bad’ and I should stop criticising things for the sake of ‘unity’. I’m sick of people telling me that class politics are above all else like feminism or LGBTQ rights – what about working class lesbians? I’m tired of people taking stuff up with me and making absolutely no sense or espousing arguments that are practically Stalinist or imperialist. I’m sick of being lectured, patronised and hurled abuse at. Make sensible arguments and I will consider them.

In the London (student) activist scene in particular, there’s way too much apologism for people who are violent, including sexually violent people. Read these blog posts: Sexual predators are not welcome. People, often women, do not try to get rid of people who’ve assaulted them for the lols, they do it because they have to protect themselves and others. They’re not overreacting, they try to bar people because those assaulters are a danger to people.

I’m sick of people prioritising their own causes over anything else, failing to see where they’re going wrong. I’m fed up of people not taking criticism from ‘outsiders’ – maybe I wouldn’t be an outsider if you changed your organisations or groups so I felt comfortable in them. I’m completely appalled by the ‘my enemy’s enemy is my friend’ attitudes, the badge of honour culture around arrest and winding up authorities – sometimes it’s just not worth doing stuff like that.

I can’t abide the fetishisation of the underdog that is so abundant. Not all Muslims are good people, lots are of course, and Islamophobia is a real and awful problem, but, ironically, not allowing people to criticise Islam as they do other religions, and taking on the cause of Muslims worldwide smacks of imperialism and Orientalism and is also bad Marxism. Not all Arabs are good people, particularly not despot dictators. Lots are and there is a culture of racism towards Arabs in the West which is deeply worrying and needs to be challenged, but again don’t patronise and glorify one particular group of people, it’s embarrassing. Not all working class people are nice, some of them are pretty horrid and I think it’s clear that there’s a distinct lack of working class women and minorities in the left because white straight men of all backgrounds and classes don’t listen to them.

If you want people to take your cause seriously, if you want a united Left, if you want to get heard, if you want to be effective, some of you need to take a good hard look in the mirror and stop thinking of yourselves as so worthy and good because of the time you devote to activism.

I personally prioritise things I see as having a big impact and a good chance of winning as well as things that are important and things close to my heart. I have a limited amount of time and energy, and it’s not wrong to make conscious decisions about where that goes. Stop judging people because they didn’t turn up to a particular event, sometimes we all need time off, stop treating each other as a rent-a-crowd, if you actually build properly for stuff and make it appealing  then people will come. If you don’t have many women in your group ask yourself why, don’t blame them.

I’m sick of all the bullshit. There are a lot of really good people I respect in ‘the left’ but there is also so much obnoxiousness that I find it hard to cope sometimes. Please can we try to get better. I want to be proud of our movement, not embarrassed. Suggestions welcome.