A letter to Jeremy Corbyn re prostitution

Posted on by dianelangford

We realize that Jeremy has had rather a lot on lately! But we hope a dialogue on this crucial issue will be possible. @Lezzers4Jezzer

11 April 2016

Dear Jeremy,

Like many people delighted at last to have a ray of hope in our political landscape, I support your promotion of social justice, your principled stance re the racist treatment of asylum seekers and the rights of the Palestinians, and your opposition to the cruel austerity narrative and the right-wing economic policies that currently prevail.

In the wake of new legislation in France, I write with regard to your recent comments about prostitution. I appreciate your willingness to debate openly and would like to offer some thoughts on this issue.

There is a fundamental question to consider here: can a society that regards as legitimate the commodification and buying of (predominantly) women’s bodies for men’s sexual gratification and exercise of power truly call itself civilised? If not, what is the best way to work to end this trade in human bodies?

Those who advocate decriminalization of prostitution often argue that this represents a way of keeping vulnerable women and men as safe as possible, a principle all human rights upholders would surely support. I suggest that this safety cannot be achieved by reforming the status quo, that prostitution exists within a spectrum of misogynist abuses of women, and that joining with the movement to abolish prostitution would be the most progressive policy.

The French law will promote awareness of the harmful impact of prostitution and re-education of punters, France now being one of the European countries to follow the Nordic model which criminalises the demand for paid sexual access to people, decriminalises those who are so exploited, and offers exit routes for prostituted people, including education and training. Here, people have worked long and hard on initiatives that provide examples of alternative approaches which actively support and facilitate people to leave prostitution, e.g., the End Demand campaign http://enddemand.uk/ which puts responsibility on those buying sexual access and is supported e.g. by the Fawcett Society: http://www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/2014/10/end-demand-fawcett-supports-new-sexual-exploitation-campaign/

Icelandic feminists have shown that the sexual commodification of women can be ended, while Gunilla Ekberg, the Swedish government’s lead official on prostitution a decade ago, described the Nordic model as looking at prostitution as a form of male sexual violence. The law focuses ‘on the root cause, the recognition that without men’s demand for and use of women and girls for sexual exploitation, the global prostitution industry would not be able to flourish and expand.’ In Canada the Department of Justice supported new legislation with plans to use $20 million to assist people who want to leave prostitution, to fund trauma therapy, addiction recovery, employment training, housing, etc. It is now illegal to purchase sexual access to another human being in Canada. This is a great step forward in recognising the harm done by prostitution, showing that what is required is the political will.

The Labour Party could be inspirational in following this path. I hope you and other Labour politicians would, for example, join survivors, organisations and parliamentarians from around the world who attend events such as the International Abolitionist Congress in Paris, organised by CAP International: Coalition for the Abolition of Prostitution http://www.cap-international.org. Representatives and MEPs could also support the European Women’s Lobby campaign and the Brussels call: Together for a Europe free of prostitution http://www.womenlobby.org/get-involved/ewl-campaigns-actions/together-for-a-europe-free-from/the-brussels-call-together-for-a/?lang=en –‘The European Women’s Lobby has for years been committed to working towards a Europe free from prostitution, by supporting key abolitionist principles which state that the prostitution of women and girls constitutes a fundamental violation of women’s human rights, a serious form of male violence against women, and a key obstacle to equality between women and men in our societies.‘

‘The pitcher cries for water to carry/and a person for work that is real.’ These lines from the poem To Be Of Use by feminist writer Marge Piercy come to my mind when prostitution is described as ‘work’. The use of euphemisms like ‘sex work,’ sex industry,’ and ‘client,’ needs to be exposed as signifying the attempt to legitimise prostitution as an acceptable job when, as Dr Finn MacKay has rightly said, it is a ‘shameful blot on humanity.’ I can’t put it better than Rachel Moran, who was prostituted in Ireland from the age of 15 and has written on why the Nordic model ‘is vital to liberate women from sexual abuse and economic exploitation.’  ‘The second class status of women is upheld when the spurious idea that we exist for the use and entertainment of men is promoted at governmental level’… this model is ‘simply the only law on earth that assumes, as a starting point, that prostituted persons are worth more than what the circumstances of their lives have forced them to accept.

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/11/why-paying-sex-legal-so-many-countries-because-laws-are-made-men

She goes on to ask ‘why do parliaments reject legislation to criminalise those who pay for sexual access to female bodies? Because of the deep misogyny carved into the male power structures of our world.’ She also points out the significance of language: ‘lobbyists use the deliberately whitewashing language of “sex work”; as though oppression could be morphed into something else by simply assigning it a different name. The truth is prostitution is a brutal system of socially institutionalised and financially compensated sexual abuse, and no amount of repackaging will ever do anything to change that.’

My local newspaper has reported that female university students are taking up offers from an older men’s ‘dating website’ (‘Fees hike forces students to seek ‘sugar daddies'”, Whitstable Times, May, 2012) Could there be a more appalling indictment of the current economic climate and enforced student debt than the horrific fact that young students are taking up the option of transactions in which they are valued not as intelligent human beings but as bodies to be purchased? The paper’s uncritical account of these abhorrent financial dealings provided free advertising for the businessman – pimp – behind the scheme, who remarked gleefully that increased ‘tuition fees have been great for business.’ The transformation of education from a public resource into a privatised commodity has resulted in students themselves becoming commodities for sale. The normalisation of this means some are themselves unaware of the unethical exploitation involved in their own objectification. This is but one of many groups of women whose lack of funding, support, employment, decent pay, housing and safety turns them into convenient prey for profiteering opportunists. As government policies and public spending cuts force women out of work and into increasing poverty and inequality, the clock is turned back on gains made through our struggles. Here is an intersection of factors where you could take a stand and promise to try to make a real difference. It’s hard to see that this could be meaningful, however, if policies condone prostitution by accepting it as an inevitability that can be ameliorated.

In New Zealand legislation around prostitution, including brothel ownership and pimping, means the industry operates under employment and public health laws. This follows from the notion that prostitution is a form of work that should be regulated like others, involving unionisation and legislation, better conditions etc. This entrenches the view of prostitution as just another job. I have been involved in feminism since the Women’s Liberation Movement of the late 1960s and with many other activists I ask: who benefits from this idea gaining credibility? Why is the lobbying by pro-prostitution advocates taking such hold and in whose interest? Feminism is a political movement to end all forms of the exploitation and oppression of women. This cannot be divorced from socialist principles. Our movements have envisaged a transformed world where the oppressive hierarchies of socially-constructed gender roles, institutionalised racism and class are history. This is not conceivable if the abolition of prostitution is not factored in. This should surely be a priority for any party working toward the real equality which can only come from radical political change, as opposed to a liberal notion of equality within an unjust system.

Those lobbying for the prostitution industry argue that abolitionists are puritanical or patronizing. This argument is clearly designed to silence or guilt-trip campaigners and does not stand up to scrutiny. Indigenous activist and critic of the New Zealand model, Dr Pala Molisa, describes how prostitution ‘preys on women already marginalised by class and race’ … ‘Like the war industry, this global multi-million dollar industry feeds off the despair, poverty and hopelessness that the engine of global capitalism is producing – and that afflicts the lives of young people, especially indigenous women and people of colour.’ Demolishing the proposition that prostitution is ‘empowering’, or a matter of choice, he sees that the ‘only distinction between what happens in prostitution, and any other form of non-consensual sex/rape is that the women in prostitution have made a choice to endure the rape in exchange for money … and other kinds of rape victims/survivors have not had to make this choice to purposely put themselves in harm’s way as a means of economic survival.’ http://e-tangata.co.nz/news/breaking-the-silence/issues#

The specious notion that prostitution is simply ‘providing a service’ by selling ‘sex’ also needs challenging. (Punters are not buying ‘sex,’ in fact, they are buying a depersonalized human body, which is ‘theirs’ to use for a period of time.) What is the assumed right to this ‘service’? Behind it lie patriarchal concepts of male sexual access and rights of control, which feminism has always opposed. Is there an unquestionable right for men to have their demands met, further entrenched by the global marketplace? As Jeremy Seabrook writes in Song of the Shirt: Cheap Clothes Across Continents and Centuries, ‘the very term “demand” takes precedence in the seemingly neutral equation of supply and demand; demand is imperious and dominant; supply, submissively responsive.’

But what if we agreed that prostitution is a form of work after all – perhaps the ultimate work under venal, unregulated neo-liberal capitalism, taken to its logical ruthless extreme – callous, contemptuous, brutal in its unfettered greed for profit and exploitation of the world’s resources? In this context perhaps it is just another job, in an economy in which a scarcity of properly-paid employment, destruction of the welfare state, low pay, zero hours contracts, weakened unions, debt and global human trafficking ensure a steady supply stream of bodies for sale. In such a situation lives are rendered precarious and employers have the power and advantage of a labour market where notions of fairness are being shredded. Training for the job starts in childhood with abuse and other forms of the devaluing of girls. Perhaps prostitution is the logical extension of the purchase of labour – albeit not only the time and energy of the worker but their flesh, vagina, breasts, anus, mouth, etc. Suppose this is a form of work? Would that make it OK? Pala Molisa, agreeing with Chris Hedges that ‘prostitution is the quintessential expression of global capitalism’ says this is ‘a culture where workers around the globe are increasingly debased and degraded. Where they become impoverished and powerless. And where they’re thrown away like so much human refuse when they’re no longer of use.’

What then constitutes ‘real work’ – a concept increasingly forgotten, in which there is the satisfaction of doing socially useful, properly remunerated work, in which each person may fulfill their potential and use their gifts? Work in which pride can be taken is a far cry from that offered in today’s world. But it is surely still an ideal we should assert and uphold. You have offered the possibility of alternative, constructive employment being created for those whose jobs will be affected if Britain takes the sane path of not renewing that weapon of mass destruction, Trident; why should this principle not be extended to prostituted people?

As a feminist I come at this issue from concern about women and men being prostituted. But we should be concerned too about what effect the legitimisation of prostitution has on men who can assume the right of sexual access to other people’s bodies. What sort of men do we want to live amongst – our sons, brothers, fathers, neighbours, colleagues? In the better, future society we hope and strive for would they continue to have this right? Will it still be the norm that as punters they are ‘serviced’ by purchasing and using other people in this way? That would make a mockery of upholding the idea of the right to equality and freedom from harm for women and girls. There is an urgent need for education for young people which promotes respectful, non-exploitative relationships, to counter the endemic abuse of girls and women and the attitudes that give rise to sexist violence. Don’t we have a responsibility to champion this now? If you, as Labour Party leader, at a meeting or conference say, promote ideas which legitimise prostitution, you are in effect saying to your male colleagues and audience that it is OK to go out afterwards and buy a woman’s body to use. Can that really be what you believe?

I thank you for the time taken to read this, and hope that a discussion within the Labour Party develops on this crucial issue, changing the minds of those who think prostitution is acceptable and showing that a truly progressive agenda must aim for its abolition.

All best wishes

Yours sincerely

Frankie Green

[We’d like to add links to two more great organisations to those provided in the letter: thanks to Rachel Moran for bringing them to our attention:

Ireland’s Turn Off The Red Light campaign: http://www.turnofftheredlight.ie

SPACE INTERNATIONAL: Survivors of Prostitution-Abuse Calling For Enlightenment: http://spaceintl.org%5D

 

 

Letter to Guardian Review, Freedland and Yehoshua

Posted on by dianelangford

24th April, 2016

Dear Editor,

Where was Jonathan Freedland [The books interview, Saturday Review, 23rd April], and where was A.B. Yehoshua, when Israeli historian Benny Morris launched The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem in 1989? Yehoshua claims he ‘never heard people speaking about Arabs in a racist way’ until now. Doesn’t ‘ethnic cleansing’ count? In 2004 Morris gave an interview to Ha’aretz in which he extolled the pre-planned policy of slaughter and forcible removal of Palestinians from their homes known as Plan Dalet. Didn’t Yehoshua hear about that? Did he stop his ears when Yitzhak Rabin ordered the Israeli army to ‘break the bones’ of Palestinians? Characterising the 1948 catastrophic dispossession of Palestinians as ‘The War of Independence’ and denying Israel’s brutality by rewriting history doesn’t sound like ‘the unofficial liberal conscience of the nation.’ These antecedents explain the thousands who flocked to a ‘Death to the Arabs’ rally in Tel Aviv this weekend.

The claim that Israel ‘left’ Gaza is equally a travesty when Gaza is constantly under attack and siege, held in a vice-like grip by an Israeli ring of steel from air, sea and land.

Yehoshua’s suggestion that Area C of the occupied West Bank now be annexed is no different from the demands of the settler movement; the idea that the occupation would be reduced by further colonisation is risible.

Diane Langford

No Profit In Prisons – Sina Brown-Davis speaks against the prison industry

Posted on by dianelangford

Te Wharepora Hou's avatarTe Wharepora Hou

*Te Wharepora Hou member Sina Brown-Davis speaks at the NO TO SERCO rally at Mt Eden Prison on Saturday 01 August 2015*

Photo courtesy of Jos Wheeler. Photo courtesy of Jos Wheeler.

Tēnā koutou ki ngā iwi kua huihui mai nei. Kei konei ahau ki te taha o te rōpu Te Wharepora Hou. Kei konei ahau me te hunga e whakahē ana ki ngā whareherehere. Ko Sina Brown-Davis ahau nō Ngāti Whātua ki Kaipara.

I am like many gathered here today, the family of a loved one inside. I refused to be ashamed of having a father as a prisoner, even though my dad is incarcerated, I will stand by him and love him unconditionally always. Prisoners are human beings, with human rights, I am sick of the sadistic and vengeful attitude that this country has towards prisoners. I am sick of a racist and punitive system that has resulted in the mass incarceration of Māori…

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Welcome to the Palestinian Circus

Posted on by dianelangford

An important commentary on the everyday restrictions faced by Palestinians to their culture and lives. Shame on those who oppose BDS as a way of supporting a population living under a racist apartheid regime!

Memo to Polly Toynbee: regarding Deir Yassin

Posted on by dianelangford

Memo to Polly Toynbee: Deir Yassin must be remembered!

Over the past week, there has been a concerted effort by pro-Israel advocates to smear Jeremy Corbyn and accuse him of anti-semitism because of his steadfast support for Palestinian human rights. Several articles, repeating the same mantra, under different bylines, emanate from the British Israel Communications and Resarch Centre (BICOM) 

On August 14, @pollytoynbee tweeted:

“Wise words from excellent ‪@J_Bloodworth : foreign policy is being all but ignored in Lab leadership.Read this ‪http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/13/jeremy-corbyn-labour-leadership-foreign-policy-antisemitism …” 

The article by James Bloodworth was a mash-up of one that first appeared in the Jewish Chronicle on August 10th by Marcus Dysch; a Jewish Chronicle editorial on August 12;  and another on the website Left Foot Forward, under the byline of Loris Cross-Bell, a researcher for the British Israel Communications and Research Centre.

Further work on behalf of BICOM has been carried out by Alan Johnson, an editor of Fathom.

Joan Ryan, the new ‘chairman’ of Labour Friends of Israel, was quick to join the smear campaign, expressing ‘concern’ at Corbyn’s candidature. Ivan Lewis, who attempted to establish ‘guilt by association’ rather than make an outright accusation, had to hurriedly backtrack when a headline in the Daily Telegraph, featuring his insinuations, spelled out his underlying accusation of anti-semitism.

Bloodworth mirrored Lewis, stating that, “Because there is no direct evidence that he has an issue himself with Jews, there is overwhelming evidence of his association with, support for – and even in one case, alleged funding of – Holocaust deniers, terrorists and some outright anti-Semites.”

His reference was to an organization known as Deir Yassin Remembered (DYR).

Both Bloodworth and Loris Cross-Bell use near-identical language when pointing out that DYR is ‘an organization so extreme that even the Palestine Solidarity Campaign refuses to associate with it.’

Others repeated this implication (“even the Palestine Solidarity Campaign”), hinting that the Palestine Solidarity Campaign is itself anti-Semitic, but DYR is even more so!

None of these writers mention that Jeremy Corbyn is Honorary President of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and was involved in deciding the PSC’s stance towards DYR and other holocaust deniers who were promptly exposed and expelled by the organization at a packed AGM. Like Jeremy Corbyn, the PSC is firmly anti-racist and rigorously opposes anti-semitism.

Like Corbyn, the PSC advocates human, civil, national and political rights for Palestinians. This stance has invoked the smear campaign by BICOM and those working on behalf of the Government of Israel.

In the early 2000s, I attended two events organised by DYR in London, having read about its American counterpart which was set up to raise funds to build a Nakba memorial dedicated to all those who were massacred during the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, known as The Nakba, to make way for the foundation of the State of Israel.

The first such event, as I remember, was held in a reform synagogue in St. Johns Wood and featured music, poetry and readings by renowned actors. I do not recall whether Jeremy Corbyn was there, but there were certainly some Members of Parliament, public figures and Church Leaders. It was a given that we were in a space where the issue of antisemitism would not arise.

A year later, musicians, dancers and actors, gave a performance for Medical Aid for Palestinians, organised by DYR, at the Peacock Theatre. Shortly after that, my friend, the late Hanna Braun, issued a warning regarding the involvement in DYR of Israel Shamir, a Russian-Swedish Israeli with links to Paul Eisen.

A bloc of DYR board members, including Hanna, resigned in protest. Over time, Eisen and his Israeli associate, Gilad Atzmon, emerged openly as Holocaust deniers and anti-Semites, with links to extreme rightwing groups and individuals. The potential damage to the Palestine solidarity movement was averted by the speedy, anti-racist action of PSC. It is hard not to draw the conclusion that the subversion of DYR was designed to fatally damage the solidarity movement and PSC was the prime target on their list.  For too long, the activities of Eisen and Atzmon continued to be facilitied by the Socialist Workers Party.

Hanna Braun, who died a few weeks after the publication of her autobiography in 2011, was an anti-Zionist Jewish woman who’d been taken to Palestine as a child. While a teenager she was recruited into the Haganah, a Jewish terrorist group. She remembered Deir Yassin in her frank account of her life, Weeds Don’t Perish, Garnet, 2011.

‘Early one morning in April 1948 a friend burst into my room with tears streaming down her face. “They’re massacring everyone in Deir Yassin!” she cried…the senseless brutality of such slaughter was incomprehensible. Even more despicable was the parading of some of the male villagers in an open van through the streets of Jerusalem prior to their being shot. Our only comfort, if such it could be called, was that the atrocity was perpetrated by the Stern Gang, forerunners of Likud. That fig leaf was torn from us when, a few months later Stern and Etzel members were incorporated into the army and their commanders became our officers.”

It is worth noting that in his Jewish Chronicle article, Marcus Dysch, refers to the “alleged killing by Jewish soldiers of 100 Arabs before the 1948 war of Independence.”

This language says all you need to know about Nakba denial. By using the word ‘alleged,’ Dysch plants an element of doubt about an event that is well documented, is not denied by Israeli historians and is pictorially represented in the national archives of the State of Israel. Calling Palestinians “Arabs” avoids the word “Palestine” or “Palestinian” in a bid to render Palestinians invisible. Referring to the massacres, ethnic cleansing and land grab upon which the State of Israel was established as a “War of Independence,” is both Nakba denial and a cover-up of Israel’s colonial settler enterprise.

Hanna Braun was determined that Deir Yassin should and must be remembered. Her book chronicles her journey from Zionism to activism in the Palestine solidarity movement.

The original organization, based in the USA, whose name was appropriated by Eisen to discredit the solidarity movement worldwide, had among its initial advisory board, Hanan Ashrawi and Edward Said. Its website  quoted Simon Wiesenthal’s observation that “Hope lives when people remember.”’ It is time to remember Deir Yassin, the symbol of the Nakba: Palestinian dispossession, forced expulsion, massacre and oppression.

Tolpuddle 2015

Posted on by dianelangford

FOR ATTENTION OF NIGEL COSTLEY

SOUTH WEST TRADE UNION CONGRESS

Dear Mr Costley,

This year’s Tolpuddle Festival was an inspiring, vibrant event that was good for the soul after the recent depressing election results and the vicious attacks on trade unionism, disabled people and those, in and out of work, living in poverty.

I am a veteran trade union activist, Mother of the SOGAT Chapel at The Press Association for 15 years and have been an activist in the Palestine solidarity movement for over four decades. It is brilliant that so many unions, branches and chapels have affiliated to the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and have taken up the cause of the occupied Palestinian people. Thousands of trade unionists have recognised that this is the anti-apartheid issue of our time and have responded with solidarity and empathy. They have heeded Nelson Mandela’s statement that no-one can be free without the freedom of the Palestinian people. Many South Africans, including Ronnie Kasrils, have observed that the situation for Palestinians is ‘worse than apartheid.’ The brutal military occupation, the use of weapons of mass destruction against captive civilians with nowhere to run, mass arrests and detentions without trial, abuse of child prisoners, the constant threat of ‘transfer’ based on racial identity, ethnic ‘cleansing’ of swathes of Palestinian land, the abuse and second-class status of Palestinians, including ethnic ‘cleansing’ of Palestinian villages within the State of Israel, the racism endemic in Israeli trade unions…the list is endless.

Please do not be offended if I suggest that the inclusion of a stall promoting the State of Israel was an affront to the memory of the Tolpuddle Martyrs and to the overwhelming number of attendees at the festival who strongly oppose Israel’s genocidal policies and who tirelessly campaign on behalf of the besieged, long-suffering and courageous Palestinian people.

If you examine the Facebook page and website of this pro-Israel group, you will see a link to the extreme right-wing ’think tank’ the Henry Jackson Society, plus many other distasteful, racist and extremist comments.

I had heard there was a ‘reconciliation’ stall at the Festival and I initially approached them in a friendly manner, inquiring if there were any Palestinians involved in their group. I was met with extreme aggression and told ’they are killing us…they are over there’ (pointing to a lone, young man on the PSC stall). Rather than attempt to engage with the stall-holders, I made a complaint to stewards in the marquee. Later, I also registered a complaint at the information tent where I saw many others lining up to do so.

A South African woman who was collecting for Medical Aid for Palestinians outside the Martyrs Marquee on Saturday was harassed by the pro-Israel stall holders and told ‘You are collecting for weapons’ and ‘Palestinians breed too much.’ She also made a complaint to organisers. It was deeply shocking that the stall was allowed to remain for the rest of the day, after this racist abuse had been reported. If people of colour cannot come to Tolpuddle without being insulted in this way, is this not a failure of the anti-racist ethos of the trade movement?

Having examined the pro-Israel Facebook page and seen the triumphalist comments posted there, I conclude that the entire endeavour was staged as a provocation in order to garner publicity. The widespread accusation of anti-semitism as a response to criticism of Israel is a co-ordinated by a well-funded propaganda machine directed by the British Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM) that receives funding from the Israeli Embassy. The Henry Jackson Society is a part of this, along with extremist websites such as Harry’s Room.

I do hope you will not mind if I disagree with your comment that the ‘Israel-Palestine’ issue is perhaps not one that should be discussed at Tolpuddle. The pro-Israel group states in its publicity that it went ‘into the lion’s den’ to counter the role the Palestine Solidarity Campaign has played in raising the issue of the Israeli occupation and apartheid system within the trade union movement. Their aggressive actions over the weekend demonstrated their inability to defend the indefensible by legitimate means. It is deeply worrying that senior organisers within the trade union and Labour movement are unable to distinguish between an extremist, hard-core, zionist group and ’soft’ zionist groups such as Peace Now, who believe in ‘reconciliation,’ albeit in the context of continued occupation. You could have consulted Jews for Justice for Palestinians for a knowledgable, measured evaluation of the group in question.

Palestinian trade unionists have been invited to speak at trade union conferences and desperately need our solidarity and support. It would be entirely appropriate to invite a Palestinian trade unionist to be a keynote speaker at Tolpuddle, rather than try to evade the issue by citing ‘security’ issues.

I sincerely hope that you will take up this suggestion with your colleagues.

In solidarity,

Diane Langford

No Pride in UKIP – No UKIP in Pride!

Posted on by dianelangford
From: Frankie Green 
Subject: An open letter to Flo Lewis, ‘LGBT in UKIP’ – ‘I didn’t march for this.’
Date: 5 June 2015 19:04:41 BST


No Pride in UKIP – No UKIP in Pride.  

An open letter to Flo Lewis, ‘LGBT in UKIP’:

Dear Flo,
I was very lucky to be able to take part in the first Pride march in London during time within the Gay Liberation Front. In your article in Pink News asserting that your group had a right to march in this year’s Pride, you cite that original march as an historical precedent that your group is heir to. It seems to me that you have somewhat misunderstood the facts regarding that event, and I am therefore writing to provide some information that may be useful. In light of the welcome news of the decision that your group will be disallowed, I would like to add my comments to the debate.
 
Firstly, despite your thinking that the first march almost completely consisted of gay men, I assure you that many women were amongst those ‘few hundred men who marched, years before my birth,’ who faced ‘serious abuse and threats when they set off from Hyde Park. They were pioneers and must be celebrated for their courage.’
 
Those women, of whom I was one, went on to work in hundreds of organisations working for the rights of lesbians because of what we had experienced including losing custody of our children, our jobs and housing, being stigmatised and ostracised or incarcerated as mentally ill. Some of us have worked in coalitions with gay men and others and in Trades Unions against class exploitation, racism, ableism and sexism. We have also worked in the overlapping causes of justice for those, including LGBT people, seeking refuge after fleeing persecution elsewhere in the world (often as a result of British military intervention in their countries of origin) and combating racism in its myriad forms (also a direct legacy of British imperialism and colonialism) and the principles of human rights, feminist and anti-racist causes – and continue to do so. 
 
I’d like also to let you know those women and men in GLF came from and celebrated a variety of European and world-wide backgrounds. We were well-aware of the traditional practice of scapegoating immigrants, and anyone regarded as ‘other’ by racist mindsets (as if Britain was not a nation formed by migrants), by the political establishment, as a means of turning people against one another and diverting attention from real common enemies, such as unjust systems of power, economic greed and mean-minded notions of nationalism. In the current rightwing climate, we see the same old same old dynamic in the hate-mongering attempt to stir up resentment against involvement in Europe, immigrants and people in need of safety. Ironically, all the while – if preserving national sovereignty were something you cared about – it should be obvious that the real threats to democracy actually come from the machinations of global corporate capitalism such as TTIP, e.g.
I remember clearly how our intentions back then were based on progressive principles of sharing, open-heartedness, internationalism and human solidarity. We were not simply about ‘equality’ – a much-misused term. Most of us were not seeking equality within an unjust system, but radical social transformation. The clue to what was going on is in the names! Gay Liberation Front, Women’s Liberation Movement. If you are interested in history then you will see that at the time of our movements’ flowering, the world was undergoing huge changes brought about movements in countries throwing off colonialism, the Black Power movement, the civil rights movement … in that context we analysed the political situations of patriarchy, capitalism, white and male supremacy, and developed an understanding of the links between oppressions.  We felt ourselves part of a time in which the struggle for universal liberation from oppression was in ascendency. We were joyful and celebratory as part of that zeitgeist, not only because of developing a pride in being lesbian or gay. Our activism was carnivalesque in the sense of turning the world upside down, inverting and mocking the traditional power structures. I cannot speak for other women and men who formed that original contingent, or subsequent generations of activists (though if any of them read this they are welcome to add their names to mine), but I can say for myself that I believe most of us in that optimistic era never dreamt of a time when a group such as UKIP would co-opt our activism, our language and our cause in a specious attempt to give itself legitimacy. You misrepresent the notion of inclusivity and render it superficial at best if you think we could be connected in any way to the kind of narrow, xenophobic views espoused by UKIP.
In 2012 I was again fortunate, being able to be amongst people at the front of the London march with the banner “Veterans of 1972,’ marking the fortieth anniversary of that first march. Simultaneously I was proud to be part of the anti-pinkwashing campaign, marching against the attempts by Israel’s government to hijack hard-won rights as a propaganda smokescreen for its oppression of the Palestinian people under the slogan: No Pride in Israeli Apartheid. (This follows a slogan adopted by an Israeli LGBT group opposing the ongoing theft of Palestinian land, ’No Pride in Occupation.’) I saw this as a continuation of GLF’s radical tradition of solidarity; standing opposite the South African embassy I recalled countless demonstrations in Trafalgar Square calling for an end to that previous vile apartheid system. With thousands of other people I’ve marched for that cause and many others, including subsequent Pride marches and anti-Clause 28 with my family and friends comprising a hugely diverse mixture of humanity.
I didn’t march for this: a noxious political party representing an appeal to the basest elements: fear of others, ignorance, bigotry and repression. The presence of UKIP on a Pride march is an affront to those who took part in long struggles for justice. The racist and anti-democratic nature of UKIP cannot be disguised by its adopting a tactical veneer of respectability, and it is a travesty to present yourselves as victims bravely facing intolerance.
I sincerely invite you to rethink your positioning of yourself in alliance with this party and to join the worldwide movements for justice and liberation.
No Pride in UKIP – No UKIP in Pride.  
Yours sincerely
Frankie Green

PARTNERS IN AGGRESSION

Posted on by dianelangford

The following article was written by A. Manchanda (Manu) for the April-May 1965 issue of the West Indian Gazette. This proved to be the last issue of the paper as a result of Manu’s illness, lack of resources and the refusal of previous outlets to distribute the paper. After the appearance of the editorial, Manu was immediately suspended from the Communist Party, a culmination of years of struggle within it over issues of  racism, ‘the national question’, colonialism and neo-colonialism. Manu and Claudia Jones (the late founder and editor of the paper) had both been told by party ‘comrades’ that  they did not want ‘colonial comrades’ in leadership roles. Claudia Jones had died in December, 1964, as the schism in the world communist movement between the Soviet Union and China was about to crack wide open. Claudia had visited China a couple of months before she died and Manu was in China at the time of  her death. This article reflects the global issues of the day as well as the internal differences within the Communist Party of ‘Great Britain.’ 

Editorial

PARTNERS IN AGGRESSION

As the storm of national liberation movements sweep the world against imperialism and neo-colonialism, the imperialists, headed by U.S. imperialism, find it more and more difficult to openly carry on their wars of aggression and interference in other countries. To deceive the world people the imperialists have been trying their best to cover their wanton aggressions under the fraudulent excuse of “keeping the peace.”

Thus the Truman Administration used “United Nations Forces” for its aggression in Korea, but claimed that the “use of force” in Korea by the United Nations had “greatly strengthened the cause of peace.”

In its aggression against Congo (L) the Kennedy Administration asserted that what was at stake “is the issue of peace not only for the Congo but for the world.” The Johnson Administration alleged that its massacre of the people of Panama was for the preservation of “peace and security.” Its barbaric aggression in South Vietnam and expansion of its war in Indo-China are claimed to be steps for the “realisation of peace in South-East Asia.” In its latest aggression against the Dominican Republic, U.S. imperialism has used the pretext of “protecting American nationals” and “to preserve law and order” to brutally massacre the heroic Dominican people, but it is dragooning Latin American Governments into legalising its aggression and interference under the cloak of “collective action” for “law and order.”

United States imperialism, in particular, which has carried on aggression and interference in all parts of the world, is facing strong opposition to its policy. It is for this reason that the United States has been trying, for a long time, to establish a permanent U.N. force and use it as its tool for aggression. The late President Kennedy, in summing up U.S. aggression against the Congo (L) said “the U.S. goal could best be served through the United Nations.” U.S. Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, was even more to the point when he said, “The flag of the United Nations is the emblem of a world community. It can be flown in places where the flag of another sovereign nation would be considered an affront.”

By manipulation and control, the United States has used the U.N. as its tool of aggression and subversion in violation of the Charter, which is being used more and more as a weapon of neo-colonialism.

In the 19th U.N. General Assembly session, under the direction of the United States, a resolution was adopted without a vote to set up a “special committee for peace-keeping operations.”

As explained by U.S. Vice-President Humphrey, “In its most operational form, peace-keeping in action is armed patrol of soldiers of peace in blue berets” to intervene in “explosive local disputes.”

The chief Soviet delegate, N.T. Fedorenko, declared in New York on March 26, 1965, that the Soviet Union was ready to enter into partnership with the United States for the establishment of “United Nations armed forces”. He added that the Soviet Union was willing to share the expenditure for this international gendamarie.

Echoing the speech at the U.N. General Assembly in September, 1958, of Mr. Dulles, in which he had suggested that countries other than the permanent members of the Security Coucil, could most profitably provide personnel for a U.N. Peace Force, Mr. Fedorenko repeated this proposal and added that the U.N. Force be an instrument in the hands of the permanent members of the Security Council.

Of course the troops from Africa, Asia and Europe will be trained and financed mainly by the USA and Soviet Union, to do the dirty job of supporession. In a memorandum, the ex-premier of Soviet Union Krushchov had submitted the proposal in July 1964 for a “UN Force” that could be sent to any “troubled areas” in the world.

It is natural that the oppressed peoples in Africa, Asia and Latin America should rise in revolt against the imperialist aggression and for the overthrow of colonial rule and that the newly independent countries should resist the subversion and interference in their countries. The U.S. imperialists call them “explosive local disputes” and according to the Soviet Union they are in “troubled areas”. Hence both these big powers are engaging in a partnership to suppress national liberation movements, under the flag of the U.N.

In fact, Mr Fedorenko in his speech associated Vietnam with the “peacekeeping” operation of the U.N. saying that the U.N. Committee for Peacekeeping operations began its work “in a characteristic atmosphere created by the U.S. actions in southeast Asia that are extremely dangerous to the cause of peace.”

In fact, the United States has been trying its best to internationalise and legalise its aggression in Vietnam by associating it with the U.N. If the Soviet Government tries to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for U.S. imperialism, it will only burn its fingers.

The Soviet delegate had made a façade of protesting regarding the payments of the cost of U.N. operations in the Congo, for which it had voted in the United Nations. This U.N. operation had not only helped the United States to murder the great leader of Congo, Patrice Lumuba, but has made it possible for this country to become a colony of the United States.

The government of the Soviet Union today has gone a step forward not only by providing a fig leaf to naked U.S. aggression, but has, in fact, offered to join in a partnership in aggression with U.S. imperialism to suppress the national liberation movements, all in the name of “keeping the peace.”

The peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America have had a great admiration for the Soviet Union and its great scientific achievements and space explorations, but they shall resist all attempts at domination carried on by the U.S. imperialism whether or not in joint partnership with the Soviet Union.

The plans of U.S. imperialism for world domination, with all its nuclear weapons and its “economic aid” neo-colonial plots and despite its dual tactics of war blackmail and peace frauds are doomed to destruction. We warn the Soviet Government that by collaborating with the worst enemy of all peoples and world peace, it will only share its fate.

THE SHAME OF MOSCOW

The people of Asia, Africa, Latin America and all those who are resolutely opposing U.S. imperialist aggression against Vietnam, were shocked to say the least at the action of the Soviet authorities to suppress in brutal violence, the angry demonstration of Asian, African and Latin American students in front of the United States Embassy in Moscow.

On March 4, students in their righteous indignation marched to the U.S. Embassy to protest against the barbaric aggression of U.S. imperialism against Vietnam. In the glorious traditions of the anti-imperialist peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America, they shouted slogans and threw stones at the Embassy breaking its windows. The authorities of the Soviet Union had thrown in 700 soldiers, police and mounted guards and quite a few snow ploughs and fire engines around the U.S. Embassy to prevent the demonstrators from getting near it. When the students pressed on, the soldiers and police attacked them ruthlessly, injuring 130 students from Vietnam, Indonesia, Cuba and other countries, quite a few of them were admitted to hospitals.

To add insult to injury, the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs tendered an apology to the U.S. Ambassador and rushed workers to clean the walls of the Embassy.

It is a matter of shame that the present leaders of this great land of Lenin – who stood for consistent support for the oppressed people and uncompromising opposition to the imperialists – should so obsequiously express solicitude to the butcher of the Negro, Congolese and Vietnamese people, while perpetrate brutalities on the glorious anti-imperialist student demonstrators.

Have the Soviet leaders learnt these barbaric methods of suppression of popular demonstrators from their “friends” the Johnson administration, who have a special expertise in suppression of the Negro people of America?

West Indian Gazette April-May, 1954
West Indian Gazette April-May, 1954

Rare BBC Editorial Complaints Unit ruling on Edo Hecht article:

Posted on by dianelangford

British Broadcasting Corporation White City, 201 Wood Lane, London, W12 7TS

Telephone: 020 8743 8000 Email: ecu@bbc.co.uk

Editorial Complaints Unit

AB/1400381

29 October 2014

Dear Ms Langford

“Gaza: How Hamas tunnel network grew”, bbc.co.uk

 

I am writing to let you know the outcome of the ECU’s investigation into your complaint about this article on the BBC news website. I am sorry that you were not happy with the response you received when you first raised this with the BBC. We have now read the article and reviewed the earlier correspondence and conducted research on the internet. I have considered your complaint against the BBC Editorial Guidelines concerning Accuracy, particularly that which says:

We should normally identify on-air and online sources of information and significant contributors, and provide their credentials, so that our audiences can judge their status.

The author of the article, Dr Eado Hecht, is described as

…an independent defence analyst and lecturer in military doctrine at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar Ilan University.

You have complained that it is inaccurate to describe him as independent given his association with the Israeli military. This is described by the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies (BESA):

Dr. Eado Hecht is an independent defense analyst specializing in military doctrine and its interpretation. He teaches military theory and military history at Bar-Ilan University, Haifa University and at the Israeli Defense Forces Command and General Staff College, and serves on the Editorial Advisory Panel of The Journal of Military Operations.

In response to your complaint, the Middle East desk at the BBC news website has made the point that as Dr Hecht is not employed full-time by BESA, or any other institution, the description is appropriate. They say:

Eado Hecht is independent in that he is not employed on any full-time basis by any institution, including the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies (Besa). He is an external lecturer, who gets paid per course only.

At the time he was commissioned to write the article, Eado Hecht was not teaching at the Israel Defense Forces Command and General Staff College as his contract had ended. As he is independent, the General Staff College is one of a number of institutions where he has been paid to lecture. As pointed out in an earlier response: “If Mr Hecht was employed by the IDF he would have required the IDF’s express permission to write for the BBC, and then by [Israeli] law he would not be permitted to accept any payment from us.”

When Eado Hecht wrote the article, Besa was his only active contract.

I understand the point they are making but it seems to me that, particularly in this context, this is an unduly narrow definition of “independent” which, based on employment, is not one that the audience would be aware was being used. In this context, I believe that the average reader would take the word to mean the position of someone who is not aligned with a particular party in a dispute and who stands aside from it, offering independent analysis. This does not seem to be the case with Dr Hecht. Without wishing to cast any aspersions on his academic credentials, it would appear to me that articles published under Dr Hecht’s name reveal a clear pro-Israel perspective and offer guidance and analysis as to how Israel might better prosecute its dispute with the Palestinians.[1] I note, for example, one he co-authored in 2005, entitled: “Neglect of IDF Ground Forces: A Risk to Israel’s Security” whose executive summary says:

Dramatic cuts to the IDF budget have forced the army to reduce its ground forces capabilities. This is a mistake, as the IDF still must rely on a capable and credible ground force to deal with its strategic threats, specifically the rocket-launching capabilities of Hamas and Hizballah.[2]

In addition, Dr Hecht’s connection with BESA is not confined to that of an external lecturer paid according to the courses he teaches. His articles are also published under the imprimatur of BESA, which describes itself as advancing

…a realist, conservative, and Zionist agenda in the search for security and peace for Israel. The center conducts policy-relevant research on strategic subjects, particularly as they relate to the national security and foreign policy of Israel and Middle East regional affairs.

BESA Center publications and policy recommendations are directed at senior Israeli decision-makers in military and civilian life, the defense and foreign affairs establishments in Israel and abroad, the diplomatic corps, the press, the academic community, leaders of Jewish communities around the world, and the educated public.[3]

This is a clearly pro-Zionist agenda and unless Dr Hecht’s articles, published under BESA’s auspices, explicitly disassociate themselves from this mission statement – which they do not – it seems to me that they must inevitably be considered part of BESA’s endeavours. The fact that BESA describes him as “independent” does not dispose of this issue given the problem of definition which I have identified above.

Finally, I note that, in 2002, Dr Hecht appeared on CBS 60 Minutes, in a report investigating Iraqi and Iranian backing for terrorism, where he was described as a senior Israeli intelligence official.[4]

Taking all of this into account and bearing in mind the meaning that the average reader is likely to ascribe to the term, I do not believe that “independent defence analyst” is sufficiently accurate or informative in relation to Dr Hecht, and I am upholding your complaint.

As Andrew Bell explained in his earlier email, this is a provisional finding and you have the opportunity to comment on it before it is finalised. If you wish to take that opportunity, I’d be grateful if you would let me have your comments by 12 November. In the meantime, thank you for writing to us and giving us the opportunity to investigate your concerns.

Yours sincerely

Fraser Steel

Head of Editorial Complaints

[1] http://besacenter.org/author/ehecht/

[2] http://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/neglect-idf-ground-forces-risk-israels-security/

[3] http://besacenter.org/about/mission/

[4] http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/760059/posts

BBC Today Programme, 19.3.15: Ya’alon

Posted on by dianelangford

I’d be grateful to receive a reply to this complaint. Thanks.
The Today Programme Thursday 19th March 2015 showed institutional pro-Iraeli bias when, at 08.39, Sarah Montague hosted Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Ya’alon. I say ‘hosted’ rather than ‘interviewed’ for the following reasons:
Ya’alon was given free rein without being challenged to claim that Palestinians “enjoy political independence,” “decided to be divided,” and that “Arabs” have “the same civil rights as we enjoy.”
Ms Montague facilitated Israel’s extremist, illegal actions by presenting them as normal. She went further, plugging the Israeli narrative and drawing out further excesses from Mr Ya’alon. By treating with kid gloves a putative war criminal representing a self-avowed racist government that has vigorously reaffirmed its determination to defy international law, Ms Montague was actively enabling war crimes.
How was it possible that she remained silent while a torrent of lies was disseminated on air? Can you tell me why she did not challenge the fantasmagoric assertion that “Actually, they enjoy already political independence. They have their own political system, government, Parliament, municipalities and so forth…We don’t want to govern them whatsoever.”
Mr Ya’alon was allowed to speak for nearly three minutes, uninterrupted, unchallenged, before Ms Montague decided to ask him another simpatico question.
Is it possible that Ms Montague has never heard of checkpoints, the apartheid wall, the military occupation under which the life of every single Palestinian in the West Bank and Gaza is jeopardised, restricted and terrorised? Where was she when white phosphorous rained down on Gaza? When whole families were wiped out? Is it possible that the BBC is more obliging to the Israeli regime than even the United States of America, whose government has today expressed concern over the racism and extremism that was manifested during the election campaign, and Netanyahu’s rejection of a two-state solution?
Had Ms Montague not heard about Mr Ya’alon’s colleague, the Israeli FM who has recommended “beheading Arabs”? Had she not heard about Mr Netanyahu’s Jim Crow warning to get the right-wing voters out: “Arabs are being bussed to the polling stations”?
Did Ms Montague not know that Israel reacted with extreme violence to the formation of a Palestinian unity government? Otherwise, how come she did not challenge Ya’alon when he concocted his fiction that “they decided to be divided into two principal entities.” Has she not heard of the UN partition plan of 1947 that imposed the State of Israel in the region and divided Palestinian land to make way for Israel?
Why did Ms Montague focus on ‘security’ issues for Israel raised by the spectre of a unitary state with equal rights for all citizens? This echoed Israel’s racist ‘demographic problem’ that manifests in ethnic cleansing, threats of ‘transfer’ and keeping Palestinians in a state of constant terror.
Ms Montague showed no concern for the victims of Israel’s extremist, apartheid policies.
While she has no such inhibitions when she interviews Palestinians – a rare occasion, admittedly, isn’t it strange that she becomes meek and obliging when ‘interviewing’ Israeli war criminals?
Yours sincerely,
Diane Langford