And while we’re trawling YouTube, this has become quite the hit in the last couple of weeks. Kind of reminds me of History Today… if they did the economics news in this style, the punters might pay some more attention.
Here’s something you won’t read on Shiraz Socialist
February 9, 2010 at 10:34 pm (Homophobia, Judaica)
It seems it’s not only Pat Robertson who has some weird ideas about the Haitian earthquake:
Rabbi Yehuda Levin, spokesman for the Rabbinical Alliance of America issued the following statement:
“When Americans are suffering economically and millions need jobs, it’s shocking that the Administration is focused on its ultra-liberal militantly homosexualist agenda forcing the highlighting of homosexuals and homosexuality on an unwilling military. This is the equivalent of the spiritual rape of our military to satisfy the most extreme and selfish cadre of President Obama’s kooky coalition.
We agree with Eileen Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness that this will hurt the cohesiveness of the military, cause many to leave the army, and dramatically lower the number of recruits, perhaps leading to the reinstatement of a compulsory draft.“Thirteen months before 9/11, on the day New York City passed homosexual domestic partnership regulations, I joined a group of Rabbis at a City Hall prayer service, pleading with G-d not to visit disaster on the city of N.Y. We have seen the underground earthquake, tsunami, Katrina, and now Haiti. All this is in sync with a two thousand year old teaching in the Talmud that the practice of homosexuality is a spiritual cause of earthquakes. Once a disaster is unleashed, innocents are also victims just like in Chernobyl.
“We plead with saner heads in Congress and the Pentagon to stop sodomization of our military and our society. Enough is enough.”
Now, imagine the shitstorm if this had been a Muslim cleric…
The latest round of peace processing
February 9, 2010 at 12:55 am (Norn Iron)
There’s been rather a lot going on in the north this past week, so let’s do a quick roundup of the major stories.
The Big Deal:
Devolution has been saved, huzzah! So what, after so many days of negotiation, was hammered out?
The full text is here [pdf], but most of it is newspeak and waffle. Here are the highlights:
Policing and justice: This will be devolved on 12 April, way before the DUP wanted. There will be a minister appointed by the Assembly on a cross-community vote, probably Alliance leader David Ford. The SDLP are spitting blood because under d’Hondt they would be due to take up the post, but it’s not as if they couldn’t, say, persuade unionists to give Margaret Ritchie the job. There’s nothing in the rules that says otherwise, but realpolitik says Fordy will get the gig.
What this means, practically, is that Fordy will replace Goggins, the NIO staff dealing with this area will move over to the justice department, and the minister will have a Stormont committee to answer to periodically. I’ve never understood, personally, why it was such a big issue, except that it became a virility test for the parties. There’s also a note from El Gordo about financing, but in the manner of these things it’s money he’s announced before.
Parades: The joint presidency will appoint a six-person committee of DUP and PSF MLAs to tinker about with the Pantsdown proposals before the marching season. This means the abolition of the Parades Commission, which was a key unionist shibboleth. However, they’re having to slowly get to grips with one of the key parts of the GFA settlement, which was the expectation that the Orange would have to obey the law – as opposed to the old days, when the Orange were the law. Expect the outcome to be a Son of Parades Commission with some local mediation processes bolted on – and don’t be surprised if it runs over time. Once we’re into the marching season, it will be hard to discuss anything before September.
Improving Executive function: Reggie and Margaret are to have a rinky dinky little working group of their own to bitch and moan about how the DUP-PSF duopoly aren’t paying them any attention. The bigger parties will pretend to pay attention.
Outstanding Executive business: this means the 11+, which the parties still can’t agree on.
Outstanding business from St Andrews: this means the Irish language. It’s doubtful the much ballyhooed Acht Gaeilge will ever happen, but the culture minister will have to come up with an Irish language strategy. Since this is Nelson McCausland, who only got the culture job to wind up nationalists, it should be fun.
My two cents: it’s a fudge, as these things always are, but in general PSF did well – they got their P&J date without budging on their red lines. The DUP have the demise of the Parades Commission to crow about, but it’s not a DUP-friendly deal and it looks like they buckled. However, they did this without splitting, and the Fourteen Apostles have stayed more or less on side. Why?
Well, there are a number of factors. One is that the DUP love devolution, their ministries and toy parliament, and don’t want another bout of direct rule – especially if it would be green-tinged direct rule. There was also the rumbling from the Brits about cutting off MLAs’ salaries if the Assembly was suspended, which may have concentrated minds.
And while loyalty to Peter Robinson isn’t quite absolute – especially from the Paisley faction – there’s a lot of respect for him as a negotiator, and he’s the best leader available, especially since exonerating himself and returning to the first minister’s office. There’s the famous DUP discipline, exemplified by those undated resignation letters all candidates are supposed to sign. And, while there’s still worry about electoral meltdown after the Robinson scandals, there’s a sense that their rivals have failed to take full advantage – the TUV may have lost a little momentum, while the OUP-UCUNF has been wrongfooted lately (see below).
Finally, what options do the DUP dissidents have? They don’t, at this stage, have the strength to force Robbo out – they had their chance to take charge of events and they blinked. And defection can’t seem like much of an option – the likes of Gregory Campbell, Nigel Dodds or Willie McCrea, much as they might chafe at Robbo’s leadership, are not going to be greatly enticed by the possibility of playing second fiddle to Jim Allister. Robbo, on the other hand, has smoked out his dissidents – he has to live with them, but he’s got their number.
Everyone’s disarming:
What with the IICD’s mandate running out tomorrow, there’s been something of a rush to decommission, with no less than three announcements today. This raises a number of questions. One is to what extent the immunity associated with the IICD process undercuts what’s being done by the Historical Enquiries Team, the latter much beloved by the DUP. Another is that, since the decommissioning process involves carrots as well as sticks, to what extent we’ll be seeing funding turning up in various community groups. The political classes in Westminster, Dublin and Stormont are sensitive on the subject of writing cheques to superannuated paramilitaries, but there are ways to grease the wheels.
There was an announcement from Tommy Millions’ breakaway South East Antrim UDA. However, those shambling miscreants from the North Belfast UDA who were granted asylum in Carrick may like to think twice about going home.
There was an announcement from the INLA. This has not been universally popular with the Irps’ online warriors, but it does fit in with the IRSM leadership’s long-term perspective of renouncing militarism, cleaning house and striking out on a political path. This also involves a unity offensive aimed at getting the IRSP into a broad front, but it’s not yet clear who might be willing to go into a broad front with the IRSP. Certainly, their relations with éirígí – the closest group in terms of formal politics – are characterised by extreme suspicion shading into glowering hostility, whilst other groups of republican or socialist hue would be understandably cautious about going into any lash-up with the IRSP, at least until the house-cleaning has had time to bed down.
Finally, there had been speculation around Belfast about an announcement from the country’s most shy and retiring armed group – the Official IRA, alias Group B, alias The Stickies. That would have made sense in terms of bringing to a conclusion the Goulding project of converting the Republican Movement into a Marxist party – something that conditions in the north had stymied, much to the frustration of many WP veterans (not all of whom went with DL), who felt that the OIRA was unfinished business. As it is, we’ve had a statement from something purporting to be the “OIRA”, but it seems that may be the Newry-based ORM (who would then be claiming to be the Real Officials, as opposed to the Official Officials). Whatever about The Group That Doesn’t Exist, which never formally wound up or disarmed, it may have been too much to hope for a formal announcement.
Area woman appointed to world’s shittiest job:
The South Down and Londonderry Party held its conference at the weekend, and Alan was there getting a flavour of proceedings. The big news is that social development minister Margaret Ritchie beat out South Belfast MP and deputy leader Alasdair McDonnell for the leadership.
What does this mean in the grand scheme of things? From the outside, it looks like the SDLP will remain in a persistent vegetative state. I’m not a huge fan of Alasdair McDonnell, but in that I’m in good company – lots of SDLP people can’t stand him, particularly those who’ve worked closely with him. On the other hand, it seemed to me that Big Al was the SDLP’s best chance of revival. You saw this in his remarkably bolshy concession speech, when he said that he’d offered radical change but it was seemingly too radical for the party. What he meant, apart from a more aggressive approach to the Shinners, was that he’d wanted the SDLP to operate as a functional party rather than a federation of local fiefdoms – something it’s never been, and apparently never wanted to be. He’d also been a partisan of merging the SDLP into Fianna Fáil, but – just as NIPSA failed to roll itself into the PCS when it had a chance – this fell foul of the parliament of mice.
Brian Feeney put it well when he said that Margaret would ruffle no feathers – she hasn’t even managed to persuade Eddie McGrady that 73 might be a nice age for him to retire from Westminster. Big Al, on the other hand, was convinced that feathers needed to be ruffled. The party, if one can call it that, disagreed.
Fickle Reggie:
Mark Durkan had a good joke at the SDLP conference – he does have his moments – that Reg Empey had had more partners than Tiger Woods. Political partners, that is – the idea of Reggie as a John Terry-style lothario doesn’t really bear thinking about.
Anyway, as you’ll know, Reggie has taken the Official Unionists into an alliance with the British Tories, the snappily named Ulster Conservative and Unionist New Force. (That’s UCUNF, which is not how it’s pronounced in Belfast. I am still waiting for them to ally with the TUV and become the Conservative and Unionist New Traditionalists.) This has geed up the Toryboy wing of his ramshackle party – the remaining Labour-leaning Unionists are unhappy, but they have nowhere else to go – with a quixotic vision of non-sectarian pan-UK civic unionism that would mobilise the mythical Garden Centre Prods while magically transforming middle-class nationalists into unionists. Personally, I think these guys have spent too much time in England.
Anyway, it became known a couple of weeks back that Tory spokesman Owen Paterson had brokered inconclusive talks between the OUP and the DUP aimed at creating an electoral bloc. It further became known that, unbeknownst to Reggie’s Tory allies, there had been previous unity talks between the two parties brokered by the Orange Order. This led to three Tory candidates, two of them women and two Catholics, resigning. Reggie has now said that unionist unity is a generation away, and there is now a push to get the three Tories to unresign. However, in the interim he has lost his very able director of communications, Alex Kane, who is dead against any deal with the Dupes and fired off a parting broadside in his News Letter column. (Granted, as an atheist and anti-monarchist, Alex was an odd fit for the OUP, but he was far and away the best they had.)
Reggie is also promising to speedily deal with the Sylvia Problem – that is Lady Sylvia Hermon, the OUP’s sole MP and arguably the most popular figure in the party, who is inconveniently a Labour supporter and adamantly refuses to run under the UCUNF label. So dismissive is she of Reggie’s big idea that she hasn’t bothered to attend party conference for two years running, and on the day of the last one was ostentatiously photographed doing something much more important – walking her dog. Reggie has signalled to his Toryboys that she’ll be swiftly defenestrated, but this is a headache in itself, given her strong support from the North Down UUA, and also the friendly reception that she got recently from the North Down SDLP – since a nationalist vote in North Down is a wasted vote, quite a few Bangor Catholics may be tempted to lend an X to a non-sectarian moderate civic unionist. I still wouldn’t like to bet against her beating the crap out of anyone the Unionists or Tories put up against her.
All this means that the OUP-Tory relationship has been put under strain, while chasing the chimera of unionist unity has undermined the logic of UCUNF. Tory Story says Paterson put conditions on any united unionist bloc that it would be non-sectarian and committed to genuine power-sharing with nationalists – neither party has a stellar record on those things, and as the Horseman points out, what the Brits think of as British values and what unionists think of as British values are not necessarily the same thing.
Besides, UCUNF still haven’t got their candidates in place. Reggie has been tantalising us with a star-studded lineup of rugby legend Trevor Ringland in East Belfast, teevee anchor Mike Nesbitt in Strangford and, er, Freddie Mercury impersonator Flash Harry in Upper Bann. We, the punters, expect him to follow through.
Self-defeating strategies, part 94:
Not, strangely enough, from éirígí, who are being surprisingly sharp. No, they are playing a game of rope-a-dope with the PSNI, whereby éirígí activists are engaging in agitprop stunts, and the cops are Section 44ing them with gay abandon. Thus, er, proving their point about repression of republican political activity.
Meascra na mblaganna
February 7, 2010 at 8:20 pm (Blogging)
I’ll be doing an overview of the latest developments in local politics separately, but there’s still plenty of interest in this blog roundup. To begin with, we have the sad news of the death of Tomás Mac Giolla, formerly long-time president of (Official) Sinn Féin and latterly the Workers’ Party, at the age of 86. Garibaldy has an obituary, WorldbyStorm notes a remarkably candid interview, and Conor reproduces a clip of the great man at last September’s Desmond Greaves School, in one of his final public appearances.
For jaw-dropping moments, Madam Miaow is not taken in by Alistair Campbell’s tearful performance on the Andrew Marr show; almost as offensive are comments by the egregious Lorna Fitzsimons, noted by Neil. Across the pond, Gryphen takes a look at the Crazy Woman’s speech to a convention of racist lunatics, while Jacob Weisberg is taken to task.
It’s been a good week for reviews. Malachi does C4’s Mo Mowlam biopic, while Coatesy tackles Francis Wheen’s Strange Days Indeed. Fight Back! covers what looks like an interesting book on the Colombian FARC. And you always get good international stories from the PSL: there’s Venezuela cancelling Haitian debt (quite a while before the G7), coverage of Cuban relief efforts in Haiti, and the continuing story of Vieques residents’ battle against the US military. Meanwhile, the Communist Party of Vietnam celebrates its 80th birthday.
Leaving aside the media shitstorm around Pope Benny’s address to the English bishops, there are plenty of other juicy religious stories. The Scottish bishops have just had their ad limina, and as Mulier Fortis notes, got off without the coded rebuke aimed at their English counterparts. Rocco looks forward to the Irish bishops’ upcoming crisis summit in Rome. Meanwhile, Rankin’ Dave Cameron is attempting to bring the C of E’s doctrine into harmony with contemporary moral attitudes, as Ruthie reports; Cranmer is unimpressed, as is His Hermeneuticalness. Will gives us the SP on the race to be the next Presbyterian Moderator. And, in the funniest blog post I’ve read for a good while, Paulinus has a plan of almost Baldrickeque cunning for slapping it up Titus Oates. Fr Ray reckons it’s a good idea, while his commentariat are a bit more sceptical.
Here’s a good piece on the politics of climate change denial; Anton despairs of tabloid headline writers’ treatment of John Terry; Red Maria is annoyed at the Ukrainian government’s award of a posthumous honour to Stepan Bandera; and Professor Billy McWilliams is richt scundered at the lack of Ulster-Scots content at the Ulster Museum.
Links has a critical assessment of Slavoj Žižek, while Luna17 returns to Gramsci, this time on the united front. Socialist Resistance carries an opinion piece on recent happenings in the SWP. Aaro Watch has the ongoing Nick and Martin saga. I’m very taken by Jamie’s ascribing to New Labour of the practice of Chinese legalism. And finally, I’ve just seen this rather strange piece from the Cleverest Man In Ireland. Any suggestions as to what David actually means would be gratefully received.
Apostles of Empire find romance… pity about the wife and kids…
February 7, 2010 at 1:37 am (Academia, Love, Neoconservatism, Tories)
This is too delicious to miss:
The internationally celebrated historian and TV presenter Niall Ferguson has broken up with his wife of 16 years after a string of adulterous affairs.
The 45-year-old Harvard professor has left former newspaper editor Susan Douglas, with whom he has three children, for his mistress, the Somalian-born feminist Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
At which point Ms Douglas may be thinking hard thoughts about the nature of sisterhood.
Professor Ferguson, whose books, television programmes and work with financial hedge funds earn an estimated £5million a year, is understood to have been in a relationship with Ms Hirsi Ali since last summer.
Today, The Mail on Sunday can reveal how Ferguson’s philandering behaviour – described by one confidante as ‘more akin to a Premiership footballer’s louche ways than an esteemed professor’s’ – wrecked his marriage to Ms Douglas, one of Tory leader David Cameron’s closest friends, a leading member of the Tory ‘A-list’ of potential parliamentary candidates and a former Fleet Street editor.
Will Dave include this in his list of examples of Broken Britain? Or why it’s necessary to bolster the institution of marriage? I doubt it.
The British historian Sir Alistair Horne, with whom he is currently writing the authorised biography of Henry Kissinger, is said to know about the affair, as does Mr Kissinger. However a spokesman for the statesman declined to comment yesterday.
‘It’s rather awkward because both Sue and Niall know Henry and his wife Nancy, neither of whom can understand why Niall has been bringing women other than his wife to private dinners,’ said a source.
Allowing Kissinger the moral high ground would be quite a feat…
He is seen as a contentious figure in literary circles, prompting one rival historian to declare: ‘He has the kind of face you want to punch.’
Indeed so. Which is why this has me roaring my leg off. Get the whole story in your super soaraway Mail.
The rogues’ gallery, and a wee bit of meta-blogging
February 7, 2010 at 12:58 am (Blogging)
Well, the entries for the Orwell Prize are out, and your humble host is among the 164 eligible contenders in the blogging category. I stress, of course, that the OP is self-nominating, and the fact that you’re an entrant doesn’t betoken anything beyond your ability to fill out the online form. We shall await the longlists for a sense of what’s being looked for.
Nonetheless, I recognise a good lot of those on the list. It’s nice to see some of the extended family there, of course, and some of my regular reads are there too. There are only a couple that I recognise as downright stinkers, although somebody must like them, and there are lots that I look forward to discovering. Besides, how often are you likely to find yourself on a list with such elevated company as Peter Hitchens or Stephanie Flanders?
And if we look amongst the entries, we can see some of the features of a successful blog. Of course, blog ipsus loquitur, and you find your own way to make it work, but it helps to have a particular selling point – maybe not a unique one, but one you do well. The two aforementioned are actually good examples, especially since quite a few traditional journalists are clueless about new media when not actually hostile – someone somewhere else paraphrased Orwell in this sense as “Freedom of speech, if it means anything, means journalists not having to be told they’re wrong.” Peter Hitchens, on the other hand, despite his carefully cultivated image as a reactionary fogey, embraces interactivity – being a man who loves nothing better than to argue about political ideas, he’s a blogging natural.
Another approach is taken by Stephanomics. You’ll know Stephanie Flanders from her regular appearances on the BBC news where she talks about productivity figures or quantitative easing. But there are limits to what you can say in a ninety-second package on the evening news, and Steph likes to use her blogging space to show off her economics expertise and go into the sort of detail about her field that the TV medium doesn’t really allow for.
Particular knowledge about your field does help with building up the audience. If you want to know about legal issues, Jack of Kent is your man. If you want to know about matters religious, Archbishop Cranmer is a must. (Despite my well-known taste for traditionalist Catholic blogs, I’ll cut some slack to a conservative Anglican.) Anton is great at skewering tabloid culture. PC Bloggs is deeply entertaining about the forces of law and order. More locally, Chekov can tell you everything you ever wanted to know and more about the strangely fascinating world of UCUNF.
It also helps that all these people can write. You could be emeritus professor of blogging at Oxford University, and it wouldn’t do you any good if you wrote like some slobbering imbecile from Have Your Say. Maybe the Orwellian dictum of making an art of political writing is a bit highfalutin, but you should at least aim to be an enjoyable read. And apropos of this, I’ve just come across these Ten Commandments, which may be worth pondering. (Via.)
Now to more political business. As the 27th most influential Labour blogger (according to Total Politics), I am frequently asked how the left of the blogosphere can make itself more effective. There’s recently been some interesting commentary on this theme here, here and here, and I have been meaning at some point to come back in detail on this. But I do have a few thoughts that I’d like to touch on here.
Statisticians recognise three types of error. There’s the false positive (type I); there’s the false negative (type II); and there’s the wonderful type III error, where your answer may be correct but isn’t meaningful because you’ve asked the wrong question. The Man Who Invented Blogging used to have a theme of asking why the left was so useless at blogging, and concluded that this was because the internet was natural territory for the entrepreneurial right. This is a type III error.
In the first place, Iain always conflated “the left” with “Labour”, meaning that a highly successful blog like Lenin’s Tomb – not to mention a whole thriving culture of socialist blogs outwith the Labour Party – simply failed to appear on the radar. Secondly, I think it is an error to ask why the left doesn’t have an analogue to Iain Dale, Tim Montgomerie or Guido. As Phil explains:
But there is a certain blindness to the conditions that made the big three of Tory blogging so big – a mix of a less crowded blogging market place and pre-existing relationships with insiders that allow Iain and Guido to break Westminster gossip, and for ConHome to steal a march on policy announcements are better explanations than self-serving bollocks about the internet being natural Tory territory.
This is true, and there’s a further point to be made in that many Labour heads (but not, say, Kerry, who does understand social media) were in thrall to this narrative – they saw what the Tories had and wanted their own. Hence the misguided search for a “Red Guido” which led to the Draper debacle. Recently the centre-left has been getting its act together by doing different things – the evidence-based policy-centred approach of Left Foot Forward is particularly appealing. Generally, I like the idea of the progressive (centre-left as well as socialist left) blogosphere being a pluricentric ecology rather than revolving around two or three big stars.
Which is not to say that the left can’t learn from the right. Some of the bigger left-of-Labour blogs have much higher traffic than specifically Labour-identified ones, but there are still bad old leftist habits. One thing that’s impressive about the Tory bloggers is that, though they have disagreements, they don’t escalate into nuclear polemic – they do recognise each other as being on basically the same side – and also, they link to each other assiduously. Compare that with the far-left blogs, where in some particular cases, a mixture of sectarian dogmatism and personality clashes leads to long-running feuds, and in one or two cases putatively socialist blogs that do little except run furious denunciations of other socialists.
The question of linkage comes into this, too. On this, I’d say it depends what tasks you set yourself. Lenin’s Tomb rarely does links, but that’s reasonable enough given it’s really about providing a platform for Richard’s (consistently excellent) writing. On the other hand, sites like Socialist Unity or Liberal Conspiracy, which are centrally to do with coalition-building and putting together a broad community of online progressive politics, do quite a lot, and so they should. I don’t see that everybody should be linking all the time, but a culture of backscratching rather than backstabbing would be an improvement.
There are happy mediums. It’s like saying your comments box either has to be an unmoderated bearpit, or be so heavily moderated that it starts to look like the Pravda letters page. Managed correctly, the comments box is your friend, pulling you up on factual mistakes or sloppy argumentation, and helping you clarify your argument. This is especially so if, like me, you have a tendency to run freewheeling – and sometimes half-baked – think-pieces that end up in unpredictable places, and the process of writing – and the further process of feedback – can be a great help to thinking things through.
There is also, if you’re willing to be laid-back enough, a chance at cross-pollination of ideas. In the real world, members of rival left groups don’t all that often get the opportunity to discuss politics in an in-depth way with each other, and non-party leftists even less so. Online, that can happen at any time. And, as a countervailing force to keyboard rage, you can take a catholic approach to discussion. There are those on the dogmatic left who will argue that the Labour Party, or the Greens, or Respect, are politically unsupportable. Fair enough, you can argue that in a formal sense, but it’s much harder to say that they are outside the realms of dialogue. Spending time arguing with people who don’t agree with you is the best proof against sectarianism; sitting in small rooms with people who agree on everything often has the opposite effect.
Finally, it’s important, when you’ve decided what to do, to follow through with it. I can immediately think of one ambitious centre-left blogger who talks the talk about coalition-building, and is even quite eloquent on some constituencies that might be excluded, but who has a shocking record of blanking potential allies, and will basically not engage with anyone who isn’t either (a) part of a very small coterie of mates, (b) incredibly sycophantic, or (c) a complete moron who can then be easily demolished. Apart from being bad manners, it actually contradicts what the writer has ostensibly set out to do. You know, even if you can’t easily come up with a winning strategy, there is enough intelligence out there to avoid actively self-defeating strategies. One would hope. Sin é.
Department of the lowest common denominator
February 5, 2010 at 1:26 am (Fashion, Sex)
And now for something completely different. The incomparable Madame Arcati draws our attention to a company called “Dapper Dicks”, which makes… well, there’s no way to say this politely… clothing for the penis.
I kid you not. You know when you see people out walking those wee dogs with beady eyes, and at this time of year the dog often has a coat on it? This is the same idea. There is a one-piece garment, in a coat or jacket style, that you can wrap around your member, as well as a rinky dinky little hat that you can stick on top of John Thomas if you so desire. And a mere snip at $45 a go! How did we ever survive without these ingenious inventions?
But before you commit yourself to a job lot of XXLs, it may be as well to mosey on over to the Dapper Dicks website to get a look at what range they have on offer. It may not surprise you to know that, if you’re looking to outfit your knob tastefully in a sober grey suit or maybe a nice brown Harris tweed with blue twill, you will be disappointed. I’m sorry to say that the Dapper Dicks wardrobe does tend towards the garish.
We start off with a Mafia-style pinstripe, and from then on… you have medical scrubs (tip of the hat to George Clooney), a pirate, a cowboy, a fireman and a GI. You may have noticed a theme developing here, but there is still some way to go – by my reckoning, a Sailor, an Indian, a Cop, a Construction Worker and a Leatherman – before Dapper Dicks can boast a full lineup of Village People.
Who exactly is the target market here, I wonder? As a fun novelty item, I can see it. As a bedroom enhancement, one suspects it might be more likely to rouse the Other Half to uncontrollable laughter than uncontrollable lust. Maybe, to appreciate the concept, you need quite a silly sense to humour to begin with.
On the other hand, I can see it taking off big time with male strippers. If you come on stage dressed as a fireman, stripping off to reveal a junior fireman downstairs would be a neat embellishment for your act. And if the ladies love a man in uniform, a cock in uniform might be worth a punt – at least it would make a change from the boring old posing pouch.
The funniest thing of all about Dapper Dicks, mind, is the warning that “Dapper wear must be removed prior to intercourse.” From the point of view of health and safety, not to mention lurid litigation, some people just need to be told.
One final thought: for their next outfit, it would be a hoot if Dapper Dicks could do a replica Chelsea strip. I’ll want commission for that, mind you.
Chile: the right returns to power
February 4, 2010 at 12:46 am (Latin America)
From Solidarity, an overview of the recent presidential election in Chile and its meaning:
Two weeks ago, in a relatively close run-off election, the ‘center-right’ Alianza por Chile coalition edged the incumbent ‘center-left’ Concertación which has ruled Chile since the return to democracy in 1990. Progressives who follow Latin American politics are lamenting Christian Democrat Eduardo Frei’s loss, fearing it portends a swing in favor of the region’s conservative neoliberal forces. Some have taken this ‘setback’ as an indication that the tide of reformist governments and rising popular movements across the region has exhausted itself. This interpretation is flawed on many counts.
The Concertación, led by the Socialist Party and Christian Democracy, fielded Frei, a former president and a dull candidate who failed to mobilize the needed votes to stem the right-wing opposition’s first presidential victory in the post-Pinochet era. The winning candidate, Sebastián Piñera, belonged to the Alianza, which was formed by Renovación National (RN), representing the modern and ‘democratic’ entrepreneurial right, and Union Democrátic Independiente (UDI), with origins in the ultra-conservative, old oligarchic and pro-Pinochet elite. Piñera is a member of Chile’s new billionaire class who benefited handsomely from the 1980s privatizations and the pro-business policies that have followed uninterrupted. Though Piñera supported the return to democracy in the country’s 1988 plebiscite, the leading role of UDI in his coalition, along with his family’s ties to the military regime, have contributed to fears of a democratic reversal and the beginnings of a new phase of unbridled capitalism governed directly by businessmen.
In the end, Piñera, who led all candidates in the first round with 36% of the vote, beat Frei quite handily in the run-off, reaching almost 52%. Frei, who disappointed throughout, failed to capitalize on the unfading popularity of president Bachelet (SP) and managed to scramble together 48% in the run-off, compared to the lowly 29% he received in the first round. The candidacy of ‘independent’ Socialist, Marco Enríquez Ominami or MEO, made these elections more interesting than past ones. MEO broke from the Concertación ranks and obtained just over 20% in the first round, having successfully tapped into the current frustration with Chile’s neoliberal model and the Concertación governments that have managed it. And, Jorge Arrate, an old-school Socialist (albeit with strong ties to the Concertación) ran on the Communist-led ticket, getting a respectable 6.2% of votes cast. As Arrate’s votes were already committed to Frei, the second round largely became a contest over MEO’s followers.
But what do these results really mean? A number of incorrect (or at best incomplete) conclusions, often stemming from questionable assumptions about the current regime, have been reached. Treating Piñera’s win as simply a win for the right and a defeat of the ‘center-left’ fails to clarify what has actually happened in Chile since 1990 and what direction the country may now move in. What follows is a short analysis of the elections and Chilean politics in general which might help correct some of the erroneous views that have been offered in the aftermath of the January 18 run-off.
1. The loss of the Concertación should not be viewed in terms a right wing backlash or reassertion against the region’s ‘Pink Tide’. The Concertación has very little to do with the ‘Pink Tide’ phenomenon, both in terms of its social bases, its domestic policies, and its position on hemispheric affairs. It is with good reason that the US foreign policy establishment views the Concertación as the prime exemplar of the ‘good left’ in Latin America.
While the Concertación governments have enjoyed majority electoral support since 1990, business has been a key pillar of the governments and their stability. In fact, maintaining business confidence is the Concertación’s paramount concern. Moreover, it has ruled in an openly exclusionary way. This is best illustrated by its approach to demands of the Mapuche indigenous minority and their actions in the south of the country. The coalition governments of the SP-PPD (party for Democracy, a Socialist Party creation)— CD (Christian Democrat) governments have severely repressed Mapuche communities in their fights to reclaim land from forestry and energy companies, many of them multinationals. In fact, the government has deployed its repressive apparatuses under the guise of a Pinochet era anti-terrorist law. And it has done so quite effectively, imprisoning scores of activists and killing not a few.
The regime also excludes large chunks of the working class from even formal incorporation. Recent estimates show that well over half of Chilean workers are under-employed, informally employed or generally employed in jobs considered ‘precarious’. The percentage of workers in unions and those covered by collectively bargained contracts have actually shrunk since 1990, from 10% and 12.5%, to 8.5% and 11%, respectively. This should come as no surprise as under the current regime, Pinochet’s regressive labor law remains in effect. To this day, industrial unionism is not allowed (workers can only bargain at the firm level) and the broad layers of informal and subcontracted workers enjoy no legal protections. Similarly, the peasants have not only failed to recover the land which the 1967-1973 land reform process granted them and which the coercion of the market or the military took away, small-holders continue to lose their lands to highly capitalized export farmers and transnational food conglomerates. The recent worries expressed by Concertacionista Viera-Gallo that Piñera might opt for repression when dealing with Mapuche grievances is nothing short of absurd. When adjudicating between claims on natural resources disputed between indigenous communities and large capital, the Concertación consistently responded with brutal coercion against the Mapuche!
The Concertación has pursued unadulterated Pinochet era neoliberal policies. Privatizations advanced dramatically under Alwyn and Frei (first two Concertación administrations), services continue to by decentralized or ‘municipalized’ (and thus severely underfunded), prior privatizations and ‘municipalizations’ (eg Social Security and education) were not revised, despite their huge social costs and wide disapproval, and large multinationals continue to enjoy the most favorable conditions, often at the expense of local communities. Besides the situation in Mapuche territory, this is best exemplified by the Pascua Lama mining project. Annual growth rates in Chile, which are higher than the regional average, remain predicated on the export of agricultural and extractive commodities, namely fruit and copper. There has been a significant improvement in terms of poverty reduction and alleviation, as the Concertación has implemented World Bank-style targeted, means-tested welfare programs.
While poverty has been reduced, the social problems that afflict Chilean society are not too far beneath the surface. They are increasingly exposed and everyday move closer to the point of eruption. Chile has become one of the most unequal societies in the world and large sectors are losing their patience. The explosion of the students’ movement in 2005-2006 shows this as do other smaller and more local struggles. Along with the persistent Mapuche movement, the huge 2007 wildcat strikes by sub-contracted miners, and the persistent shanty debtors’ protests, are clear indicators of the potential for large-scale social unrest.
Some, not least of all the formerly ruling politicians themselves, argue that the Concertación’s hands have been tied by the rules left in place by Pinochet and the constraining effects of international competition. But there is little truth to the notion that top Concertación policy makers reluctantly pursued a strict neoliberal agenda. The fact is that they have championed free-market policies, even to the point of glorifying Pinochet. Asked about the dictator’s contribution to Chilean development, Alejandro Foxley, a leading Concertacionista economic manager, and more recently Bachelet’s Foreign Minister, stated without flinching:
Pinochet carried out a transformation, particularly of the Chilean economy, which is the most important change of the century. He deserves credit for anticipating the globalization process… We have to acknowledge his visionary capacity for opening our economy to the world, decentralizing, deregulating, etc. this is a historic contribution that which will endure for many decades in Chile… Moreover, he passes the test for what it means to make history, for he ended up changing the lives of all Chileans, for good, not for bad. This is my opinion and it situates Pinochet in a high place in Chilean history.
This is not the position of a renegade member of the Concertación. Foxley, a former critic of neoliberalism, is a leading voice in the coalition. Such praise of and commitment to Pinochet’s counterreforms are defining feature of its program, one which all leading members share, Christian Democrats and Socialists alike.
The Concertación is one of Washington’s most trusted allies in South America. Along with Mexico, Columbia, Peru, and (now) the coup regime in Honduras, Chile is a stalwart friend of the US in its moves against the countries and regional alliances that seek continental integration and more independence vis-a-vis Washington. This unabashed move into the US’s sphere of domination was deepened under CD-SP leadership. Let’s not forget that former president and SP member Michelle Bachelet was Defense Minister under Lagos and helped cement this close relationship from that position. In fact, Chile has replaced Argentina as the US’s ‘carnal’ ally in the Southern Cone. This all happened under the Concertación.
While publically Chile projects an image of neutrality in disputes between the region’s radical populist regimes and governments advancing US interests, Chile’s role under the Concertación has been far from impartial. In the 2005 Mar de Plata Summit, where Washington’s proposed FTAA was definitively defeated, the head of state that most fervently promoted this neocolonization scheme, after Mexico’s ultra-conservative Vicente Fox, was Ricardo Lagos, the SP president who preceded Bachelet. Further, Chile’s national security forces are highly integrated into US projects, both in terms of military strategy and weapons systems, a development, to repeat, that Bachelet facilitated. While foreign policy under Piñera might be more openly aligned with US strategic interests, it will be marked by basic continuity. 2. Politically and socially, Chile has changed dramatically since the end of the military regime. The transition and return to (low-intensity) democracy shifted the content of class politics, political fault-lines and terms of debates. It is wrong to view these elections through pre-1990 lenses that pit right v. (center) left, dictatorship v. democracy, unbridled exploitation v. social justice. These old lines of demarcation are today almost irrelevant. A facile conclusion is to state that Piñera’s election is a defeat of democracy and a return to power by THE right. In fact, in Chile’s elections since the end of the dictatorship, two right wings have competed, both promoting a limited form of democracy and neoliberal policies. Surprisingly, many historic left figures, such as Manuel Cabieses, founder of Punto Final, a newspaper that used to be very close to the MIR (Revolutionary Left Movement), asked leftists to hold their noses and vote for Frei, the ‘lesser evil,’ in the run-off, in a desperate effort to prevent the pro-Pinochet, anti-human rights monstrous RIGHT from regaining power. While the RN-UDI Alianza is right-wing, and is composed largely of Pinochet-era monsters, it is impossible to characterize the Concertación ‘alternative’ as anything but right-wing. This framing of the contest, its rhetoric and the fear it appeals to have been used to get popular sectors to vote for and defend the neoliberal policies of the Concertación, the other Right.
3. The Concertación lost not because the right has enjoyed any kind of surge in popular support. In fact, the vote total of the RN-UDI Alianza did not surpass their totals in the 1999 and 2005 run-offs. Indeed, the votes for the ‘right’ have remained fairly stable since the ‘Yes’ vote (for prolonging Pinochet’s regime) in the 1988 plebiscite obtained 44%. This does mean that non-Concertación right has real, substantial, and enduring electoral support. But is also suggests that the Concertación lost mainly for internal reasons, because it has exhausted itself as a political option (for now). People have not moved increasingly to the right; they have abandoned the Concertación for failing to deliver on the expectations of change; they are simply fed-up with its anti-popular policies, its epidemic corruption, the grotesque bickering over resources and positions by its unsavory and elitist political class, and its growing clientelistic practices. Analysts are correct to point out that the Concertación has squandered the ‘political capital’ it began its rule with in 1990. They had managed to eke out victories by exploiting the specter of a restoration of military rule, fear of which was not unreasonable coming out of a 16 year brutal dictatorship. Today, however, they are a shaken and weakened, if not spent, force, and this appeal to people’s basic desire for democracy and human rights has lost its efficacy.
The Concertación just barely squeezed by in the last two elections. It was only a matter of time before its marketing would prove ineffective in the content-less popularity contests that elections have become. Since there has been basic agreement between both rights in Chilean politics, the elections have been governed primarily by personalities. In fact, Chile can be said to have anticipated the US ruling elite’s Obama ploy in 2005 by offering Michelle Bachelet to a disillusioned public. The Concertación had nothing to offer programmatically so it came up with a seemingly down-to-earth single mother (albeit one that hobnobbed with top Us and Chilean brass) that the female electorate could identify with, and a former political prisoner who might appeal to the sentiments of the left and democrats in general, to boot. At the time, the Chilean electorate found her to be more ’simpática’ than her opponent and she won in a close race. In fact, her popularity has only grown since then, despite her disastrous handling of two key crises—the student movement and the ‘restructuring’ of Santiago’s transit system. Yet her high approval ratings (80%) did not help the Concertación’s fortunes this time around. Between a grey Frei — whom people associate with the worst of the current political class and the internal bickering of a Concertación which is increasingly removed from the everyday lives of Chileans — and Piñera — someone who seems to have a more dynamic personality — this time around they found the latter more ’simpatico.’ Frei obtained 200,000 fewer votes than previous Concertación candidates summoned in past run-offs. A fraction of a third candidate Marco Enríquez Ominami’s votes were enough to get Piñera over the hump.
4. The institutions of the current Chilean regime are designed to be as exclusive as possible. And the Concertación has hardly tried to correct this in spite of its claims. When discussing this point, most observers emphasize the most blatant arrangements left in place by Pinochet, like the designated senators which have historically stacked the Senate in favor of the pro-Pinochet right. This is certainly a residue that must be eliminated. But far more effective in reducing real democracy are the binomial electoral rules. This system has allowed a powerful party elite (from both camps) essentially to decide the makeup of Congress even before elections or primaries take place. It has given party bosses huge amounts of power and has removed popular sectors as far as possible from real decision-making. It has also effectively excluded small, third parties from having a voice on the national scene. To date, this institutional configuration has served both political blocs quite well. They have been able to govern through this regime with impressive stability, despite its exclusionary character. Nevertheless, there are rumblings from down below which the elites from both sides will take note of. It remains to be seen whether the disenchantment among workers, students, shanty-dwellers, the Mapuche, etc. will be able to breakthrough this institutional stranglehold that both rights currently have on the Chilean political system or whether, following these elections, elites will find ways to ‘fix’ the institutions and keep them working in their exclusive favor.
In short, the post-Pinochet regime stands atop an institutional arrangement that is designed to exclude. In fact, the Concertación has quite comfortably co-existed and even co-ruled with the Alianza opposition. And there will be many Concertación forces now calling for a more formalized power-sharing deal with the Alianza, a pact resembling the Social Democratic-Christian Democratic Punto Fijo pact that reigned in Venezuela from 1958 until the rise of Chavez. One of the effects of such exclusionary political practices and institutions has been an increasingly alienated electorate, a development that could only hurt the incumbents and help the Alianza. Only two thirds of eligible voters registered to vote in the first round and over one sixth of those didn’t even bother to show up. Uncharacteristically, abstention actually increased slightly in the run-off. In the end, Piñera, similar to victorious candidates before him, won with less than 30% of the eligible voters. Most alienated from the electoral politics are young people, representing more than half of unregistered voters. And among working class youth, things are even worse. The apparent apathy and resignation that the exclusionary character of the post-1990 regime has bred is a problem that the radical left will have to address.
5. A critical question: What opportunities, if any, does this outcome present for the radical left and organized popular sectors? If the Concertación is not to be counted among the new Pink governments in Latin America, does its loss signify an opening for the social forces that back Evo Morales in Bolivia and Hugo Chavez in Venezuela? Better yet, does its failure create opportunities for a truly independent left and the emergence of vibrant, autonomous struggles from below? Many have suggested just the opposite, arguing that a return to power by the Right will mean a closing of spaces for political participation and a further clamping down on the struggles that are just beginning to gather steam. This is a pretty dominant view among sections of the left linked to the Communist Party of Chile. In fact, the 6-7% of the electorate that voted for the Communist candidate in the first round wholeheartedly supported Frei in the run off for this very reason. In exchange for this support, the Communists and its allies were ceded three congressional seats by the Concertación. The logic behind such a deal with Christian Democrat and Socialist Party neoliberals is that it keeps the Right at bay while simultaneously giving the Left a parliamentary foothold. However, for the reasons listed above, this position is unconvincing. Having the Concertación in office does no more to level the political playing field for the anti-capitalist left. And tying the success of the left to the fortunes of the neoliberal Concertación seems doomed to fail.
Others saw in the first round candidacy of Marco Enríquez Ominami (MEO) a promising development that can be built upon. MEO, the biological (but certainly not ideological) son of legendary MIR founder Miguel Enríquez, broke off from the Concertación and launched his campaign promising a new and more democratic way of doing politics. His demagogic campaign was indeed more dynamic and his new face and style won him an unprecedented 20% of the vote. Yet, while many saw in him a left figure, who not only was stirring things up in a stagnant and decomposing Concertación but was also offering a real left alternative, the fact is that programmatically MEO offered nothing of substance. If anything, despite his attacks on business as usual represented by both competing camps, he represented certain continuity with the neoliberal model, as his flirting with further privatization of the copper industry indicates. More realistically, his vote tally is a sign of the general and directionless frustration with the Concertación rather than the beginning of a new movement. His campaign should be seen as a maneuver by a disaffected yet nonetheless establishment Concertacionista intended to improve his bargaining power. In the end, a third of his supporters voted for Piñera, supplying the numerical margin which the Alianza right needed to win this time around. That his campaign mobilized a motley collection of opportunists and malcontents, and the eclectic nature of his ‘platform’ belies the notion that MEO might somehow head a new left alternative in Chile.
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In my opinion, the Concertación’s defeat does represent an opportunity for the anti-capitalist left, even if significant dangers exist. This is not because a Piñera victory will make things that much worse for the masses, awakening them and channeling them into militant action. Not only is such a view morally repugnant, it is, in the Chilean case, unrealistic. Material conditions will not change significantly as the Alianza will in all likelihood continue the ‘social-liberal’ policies of its predecessor. The moment may be favorable for the radical left because the shifts and re-positioning that take place within the Concertación may weaken the constraining links that the Socialist Party (and even the Christian Democrats) has with labor and popular sectors. The Concertación will do everything in its power to prevent this, yet given the infighting and ‘cannibalism’ among its leaders, it may not be able to. Still, it will make every effort to pull MEO and his followers back in and to re-distribute power quotas in order to please the entire coalition, keep it as intact as possible, and minimize disruption to the overall political order. If this is achieved, the Concertación will present itself as a loyal and constructive opposition and enter into a alternating power-sharing arrangement with the Alianza, further entrenching the elite and undemocratic nature of the post-Pinochet regime. If this outcome does in fact materialize, Chilean politics will bear resemblance to Mexico’s following the defeat of the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party, which ruled for 70 years until the new century). Since 2000, the PRI has refashioned itself and now is poised to recover power from the other dominant and neoliberal party, the PAN (National Action Party), in 2012. In Chile, the Concertación, if it rebuilds successfully, will try to come back in four years, possibly with ‘simpática’ Bachelet as its candidate. If this occurs as party bosses envision, prospects for the radical left will remain very difficult.
However, the disruptions that the electoral defeat will inevitably produce inside the formerly ruling coalition should allow its latent loss of legitimacy to translate into real action and opposition by workers and popular movements that escape the binding and demobilizing effects of the Concertación. Many sectors of the Socialist Party — Allende’s party — for instance, will finally realize that substantive change will never come from within the coalition. We can expect them to return to their ‘roots’ and replant themselves in the workers and popular struggles that have until now been (mostly) effectively ignored by ruling institutions. Having been convinced of the bankruptcy and futility of the Concertación, the departure of these groups can have a positive effect on the reconfiguration of a real left in Chile. This tendency will be more pronounced to the extent that the CD continues to fragment, pulling factions to the right.
Naturally, such prospects depend primarily on the reemergence of stronger and larger struggles by independent movements. With the Concertación monkey of their backs — the threat of a return of the ‘Right’ having finally materialized — rank and filers, Mapuche activists, and community organizers have little reason to temper their demands and actions. In this context, and with the controlling nature of the post-Pinochet regime in question, we should see a multiplication and intensification of struggles from below. These struggles will be the building blocks that will reconstruct a real anti-capitalist left in Chile, one that will fight both Rights, the Concertación and the Alianza. They will redraw the lines of demarcation of a new class politics and they will rely on their own efforts, rather than the hollow promises of the ‘center-left’, to restore real justice and democracy in Chile.
Fortunately, there are political formations in Chile that have this outlook. The Movimiento de los Pueblos y los Trabajadores (MPT — the Workers and Peoples Movement) is an effort to regroup and rebuild revolutionary socialism from below and through the creation of independent working class power. ‘Facing the alternating power of elites, it is necessary to build up an alternative from below and in all disputed terrains of the class struggle,’ states activist/writer Andres Figueroa, a member of the MPT. Correctly viewing the Concertación and Alianza as two sides of the same neoliberal coin, he adds:
It’s true that after a long retreat, organic and political decomposition, despair and depression, anti-capitalist socialism just now is beginning to write the prologue to the reconstruction of its leadership among workers and popular sectors. This will be done slowly, with audacity, and, at the same time, giving confidence, clarity, and strength to the future agents of the deep, independent, and popular change that the vast majority of Chileans demand. For this reason, its main tasks are participating in the genuine struggles and movements of the working class, and dynamically and comprehensively broadening the anti-capitalist struggles of indigenous communities, women, environmentalists and the queer community.
To the extent that the post-1990 regime has been shaken and openings will present themselves for increasing active popular struggles, and to the extent that the a new generation of anti-capitalist activists and movements follow the advice of groups like the MPT, the prospects for a genuine radical left in Chile may improve.
Secular liberals feign shock that Pope doesn’t subscribe to secular liberalism
February 3, 2010 at 1:42 am (Catholicism, New Labour)
Titus Oates of the National Secular Society is a very, very angry man. But then, isn’t he always? On the other hand, Ruthie Gledhill is over the moon, and well she should be as a religion correspondent, because it seems Pope Benedict only has to reiterate orthodox Catholic doctrine to generate a media shitstorm. Poor old Rowan Williams had to advocate the introduction of sharia law to get this kind of reaction.
Meanwhile, we’ve seen the kneejerk response from the English liberal left, who it seems only need to hear a word of Latin before the red mist descends and they go all seventeenth-century on us. There are lefty bloggers out there – naming no names – who I know to be decent, tolerant human beings as a rule, but whose line on Catholicism differs not a fierce amount from this guy. And some language being thrown about that, were it applied to another minority, could not inconceivably lead to collars being felt.
Let’s take the temperature down a little. We can usefully start by looking at what Benny said, rather than the spin the London media have put on it. To begin with, it’s important to remember that this was the public address marking the end of the five-day ad limina visit of the English and Welsh bishops, where they review the work of the last five years and map the way ahead. Usually such an address is a mixture of exhortation and backslapping; this one was notably short and blunt, with a remarkable shortage of backslapping. If this is what was said in public, one can only guess at what was said in private. (And that would be nothing compared to the rocket waiting for the Irish bishops when they get to Rome.)
The second thing you have to bear in mind is that, although the Pope sometimes directs remarks to secularists (he did this in the famous Subiaco Address just before his election), his main audience is closer to home, and most of what he says ties in to his project of revitalising Catholic identity. I hate to prick secularist egos – no, actually I don’t – but the Pope does not usually make speeches with the fragile sensibilities of Terry Sanderson or Evan Harris foremost in his mind. In an address to the Catholic bishops of England and Wales, the primary audience will be the Catholic bishops of England and Wales, and the secondary audience the Catholic clergy, religious and laity of England and Wales.
Finally, it is the Pope’s job to enunciate the teaching of the Catholic Church, which is an organic whole and not a pick ‘n’ mix. Although he is an authoritative figure, what he can actually say and do is constrained by both canon law and pre-existing Church teaching. For this reason you can’t have a liberal Pope – if B16 woke up tomorrow morning, had a rush of blood to the head and decided he wanted to reshape Catholic doctrine into a form acceptable to the Guardian and Channel 4 News, he wouldn’t be able to do it. (Which is why neither Catholic nor Orthodox Churches will ever ordain priestesses, no matter what Harriet Harman has to say on the matter.)
Right, so what was in the address? Emphases and interpolations are mine, of course.
Your country is well known for its firm commitment to equality of opportunity for all members of society. Yet as you have rightly pointed out, the effect of some of the legislation designed to achieve this goal has been to impose unjust limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs. In some respects it actually violates the natural law upon which the equality of all human beings is grounded and by which it is guaranteed.
This, in its entirety, is the controversial passage, and I’ll get back to it shortly. But you will notice that it is phrased vaguely and deliberately so. There is no specific reference to the Labour Party, Harriet Harman or the Equalities Bill; there is no specific reference to gay adoption; there’s actually no mention whatsoever of gay people in the entire address. The bishops will have known what specifically he meant, because it would have arisen from their discussions with him; but he’s more interested here in setting out a general framework.
I urge you as Pastors to ensure that the Church’s moral teaching be always presented in its entirety and convincingly defended…
If the full saving message of Christ is to be presented effectively and convincingly to the world, the Catholic community in your country needs to speak with a united voice. This requires not only you, the Bishops, but also priests, teachers, catechists, writers – in short all who are engaged in the task of communicating the Gospel – to be attentive to the promptings of the Spirit, who guides the whole Church into the truth, gathers her into unity and inspires her with missionary zeal.
This is more important in terms of internal Catholic politics. The Pope is telling the English and Welsh hierarchy that their public interventions must be orthodox (they aren’t always), they must speak up strongly and convincingly (often they don’t) and that they must speak with a united voice (good luck with that). It backs up Vinnie Nichols’ leadership – Nichols is not part of the Eccleston Square mafia and, unusually in the English hierarchy, has taken the trouble to read and understand Ratzinger’s thought – but also sets out a benchmark for the Nichols regime. Vinnie may well be getting a red hat later in the year, so this matters for Church politics.
Continue to insist upon your right to participate in national debate through respectful dialogue with other elements in society. In doing so, you are not only maintaining long-standing British traditions of freedom of expression and honest exchange of opinion, but you are actually giving voice to the convictions of many people who lack the means to express them…
This is a good summation of Benny’s view on the role of religion in the public sphere. He’s written and spoken on numerous occasions about the need to keep church and state from getting too closely entwined – to prevent either one becoming an arm of the other – but has no patience for the sort of liberal monism that seeks to exclude any religious voices from public debate.
Make it your concern, then, to draw on the considerable gifts of the lay faithful in England and Wales and see that they are equipped to hand on the faith to new generations comprehensively, accurately, and with a keen awareness that in so doing they are playing their part in the Church’s mission.
The idea of drawing on the gifts of the laity may well have sent a shiver through the bishops, some at least of whom regard the active laity with horror.
In a social milieu that encourages the expression of a variety of opinions on every question that arises, it is important to recognize dissent for what it is, and not to mistake it for a mature contribution to a balanced and wide-ranging debate.
Indeed not. It’s easy to mock the “Stand Up For Vatican II” crowd, but there is a difference between the Magisterium of the Church on the one hand, and what some trendy liberal says is his personal interpretation of Catholicism on the other. The ideas of the trendy liberal may be more personally congenial to you or me, but that’s why old Joe is the Pope and we aren’t.
There’s some stuff in there about the example of Newman – B16 is a big Newman fan and a beatification is expected in September – before we get to this zinger:
I would ask you to be generous in implementing the provisions of the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus, so as to assist those groups of Anglicans who wish to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church. I am convinced that, if given a warm and open-hearted welcome, such groups will be a blessing for the entire Church.
Benny needs to say this, because he knows there are some in the English hierarchy who regard Anglicanorum Coetibus as a big giant pain in the hole, and would not be inclined to be generous in its implementation. Bluntly, there are two ecumenical projects going on. The English hierarchy are committed to the ARCIC process of having pleasant cups of tea with Anglican bishops and pretending they don’t have serious disagreements; the Pope has a project of bringing traditionally-minded Christians into full communion with Rome where they aren’t already. B16 is supportive of the English hierarchy’s work; the converse is not necessarily true.
That’s an overview. Now, what of the three sentences that have got everyone so het up?
There is the reference to natural law, but the Aristotelian-Thomist concept of lex naturalis, which is barely understood outside of Catholic circles these days (and not very well in them), is a very wide-ranging area indeed, encompassing the broad sweep of Catholic moral and ethical thought. This needs explaining to people who see the phrase “natural law”, read it as “gays”, and then accuse the Pope of being obsessed with homosexuality (and equally to those who really do have a morbid obsession with homosexuality, and will cherrypick what seems congenial from Benny’s comments). The Church’s various peace and justice campaigns come under the natural law rubric; so does its developing teaching on the environment; and the threat of legal euthanasia is something that’s very much in the news. Sexual ethics come into this, surely, but they aren’t the sum total.
Let us now get onto the whole question of sexuality, and I want to have a little dialogue with this quite fair-minded piece from Dave Osler. I want to say at the outset that Catholic teaching on the matter is not the same as Protestant fundamentalist teaching of the Iris Robinson variety, which is based on cherrypicking quotes from Leviticus. The problem with the Catholic natural law approach is not that it’s irrational – if anything it’s too rational, in that it doesn’t lend itself easily to making exceptions for sexual minorities. And, even though things have moved forward in recent decades – see the writings of Hans Urs von Balthasar or Angelo Scola on gender – Church teaching does remain within the same basic framework.
That said, I think Dave may be under a slight misapprehension, perhaps referring back to the sin of Onan, as to just how restrictive Catholic sexual ethics actually are. He may be surprised to learn, for instance, that oral or anal penetration are not proscribed as foreplay, just as long as they don’t substitute for the main event. And sex is not merely about procreation but is also about the oneness of the couple – this is why Ratzinger’s critique of libertinism is based on the idea that sex outside a loving relationship, purely for the purposes of physical gratification, is ultimately empty and not truly erotic. Having said that, openness to the possibility of procreation is still regarded as vital, which is why homosexual acts – which deny the possibility of procreation – fall foul of the lex naturalis concept.
Moving on from this, although Catholic teaching continues to described homosexual acts as “objectively disordered”, the relevant CDF documents modify this in a more tolerant direction by stating, for instance, that:
It is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or in action. Such treatment deserves condemnation from the church’s pastors wherever it occurs. It reveals a kind of disregard for others which endangers the most fundamental principles of a healthy society. The intrinsic dignity of each person must always be respected in word, in action and in law.
Which can lend itself to generous interpretation, such as the expansive and humane approach taken by the impeccably orthodox Cardinal Marc Ouellet of Québec in reaching out to those who have been hurt by the Church in the past. There is a further formal statement in the CDF documents condemning unjust discrimination against gay people, which is obviously open to interpretation. The possibility is allowed that discrimination in certain narrow areas – such as military recruitment, adoption services or the legal recognition of marriage – may be justified in terms of the common good, but also allows space for argument on these grounds.
Now, to the question of British politics. A lot of the problem comes down to the inherent problem in liberal rights theory that it’s never been satisfactorily worked out what you do when two sets of rights conflict. For a lot of the liberal left, this isn’t really a problem – the rights of gay people (our kind of people) should take precedence over those of Catholics (not our sort of people). This, incidentally, is not only the position of gay advocacy groups – which is entirely justified from their point of view – but was actually written into law by New Labour on the introduction of the Sexual Orientation Regulations.
Now, my view is that you have to work out a modus vivendi, and I like Dave’s quip that:
Common sense alone dictates that the League Against Cruel Sports has no duty to be an equal opportunities employer in respect of illegal cock fighting aficionados. If you apply to be a Conservative parliamentary candidate and then inform the selection meeting that you are an anarcho-syndicalist, you do not have grounds subsequently to bring a discrimination case.
Peter Tatchell – a man with whom I usually agree on much – has been widely quoted taking the Pope to task on this one. But my guess is that he wouldn’t hire an overt homophobe for an admin job at OutRage!
By the same token, if you want to work for the Catholic Church, your potential bosses might reasonably expect you to uphold the teachings of Catholicism.
I largely agree with this, but then I’m a pluralist rather than a liberal. There’s a sort of illiberal liberalism in Anglophone political culture that I really don’t like – the sort of liberal monism that the late Francis Canavan criticised, with its view that anyone who doesn’t subscribe to the job lot of liberal nostrums should have to shut up, in the name of liberalism. I think a lot of it goes back to Locke, whose appeal for religious toleration was specifically on behalf of the nonconforming Protestant sects, and who opposed toleration for Catholicism on the grounds that you couldn’t tolerate the intolerant. (If you think you hear echoes of Geert Wilders, you are not far wrong. British politics was dominated for over 300 years by the Catholic Problem, and the present-day Muslim Problem is old wine in new bottles.)
You start out with basic liberal good intentions, but if liberals don’t get a grip on their busybody instincts, you end up with a situation like you had in Holland back in 2005 when the Dutch courts tried to ban state funding to the Staatkundig Gereformeerde Partij, a small Calvinist political party, on the grounds that it refused to allow women to become members of the party, and indeed had done since it was founded in 1918. (The court case eventually failed, but the SGP was cajoled into changing its membership rules.) The liberal who states that “there is no right to be reactionary” is a liberal with no sense of irony. The well-intentioned busybodying of New Labour around moral issues is not distinguished by much irony.
Whatever misgivings the Catholic bishops may have on the matter, the gay adoption battle has been fought and lost. But it was a battle that never needed to be fought in the first place. Removing the legal bar on gay adoption was the right thing to do, but the actual number of gay adoptions is so small that, taken in conjunction with the Catholic adoption agencies only catering for a smallish minority of children, the religious opt-out could easily have been left in place without infringing in the slightest on the access of gay couples to the many other agencies in the field. (And, whisper it, it wasn’t entirely unknown for the Catholic agencies to place children with a gay person who would adopt as the sole parent, leaving the partner out of the formal process – the sticking point was the insistence that they formally place children with gay couples.) Now, the Catholic adoption agencies have either ceased to offer adoption services, or have adopted a New Labour-approved gay-friendly policy and pretend to have nothing to do with Catholicism.
You’ve got a similar thing with the Equalities Bill – a blockbuster piece of legislation aiming to solve everything from homophobic hate crimes to equal pay to boys’ educational underachievement – although the usually lackadaisical C of E are doing the heavy lifting on that one. The substance of the argument is a bit abstruse, with Lady Harman insisting that the status quo will remain (much to the chagrin of the militant secularists of the NSS variety, who have a disturbing relish for the state bossing religious people about), while Church lawyers are warning that some loose wording could bog them down in litigation for years to come. But that is by the by.
Is it the case that, for instance, the ranks of teachers at Catholic schools contain remarried divorcees, people cohabiting with unmarried partners and (yes) active homosexuals? Yes, much as it may shock some of the crustier Catholic Herald readers, there are loads of them. Effectively, this is dealt with by a policy which Bill Clinton might dub “don’t ask, don’t tell” – the gay teacher can hold down a job at the Catholic primary, but she may be best advised not to go dancing on a float at Pride. Sure, there’s hypocrisy built in, but it’s a system that works reasonably well. It might be a reasonable expectation of someone working in a faith-based organisation that they not go around publicly flouting the ethos of that faith.
The thing that most bothers your Catholic in the street, as opposed to the bureaucrat in the CES, is the perception of an aggressive anti-religious bent in New Labour, and this is something that goes way beyond whether gay adoption could have been handled better. You have, for example, Mary Honeyball MEP declaiming on how the Labour Party shouldn’t allow Catholics to hold ministerial office if they actually believe in the teachings of the Catholic Church. You had Alan Johnson’s abortive plan to force faith schools to take a quota of pupils from non-religious families. You’ve had Barry Sheerman MP saying that faith schools are tolerable as long as they don’t take the faith bit very seriously. Now we have one Stephen Hughes, an MEP for the North East I’m told, who is making a bid for the Nancy Pelosi/Patrick Kennedy “I’m a Catholic, and as such I disagree with everything the Church says” franchise.
You know, it is open to Gordon Brown, or Jack Straw, or Dougie Alexander at any time to state that these are not the views of the Labour Party. But they’ve been reluctant to do so for some unaccountable reason. The majority of Catholics in Britain are Labour voters, and this doesn’t go unnoticed. If a message is going out that the Labour Party doesn’t want your support – well, it’s just as well nobody on the Tory or Lib Dem benches (the SNP is another matter) can make a convincing pitch, or you may well be tempted to take your custom elsewhere.
UCPN(M) maps out perspectives
February 1, 2010 at 9:54 pm (Maoism, Nepal)
The following comes from the Maoist Information Bulletin. The UCPN(M) are a pretty significant and in many ways impressive outfit, and if you don’t mind a bit of M-L speak this is a very interesting insight into their thinking and what’s currently going on in Nepal.
People’s Democratic Revolution in Nepal is now passing objectively through a gateway of great victory accompanied by a danger of serious defeat. A sharp and thoroughgoing 2-line struggle on the ideological and political questions and the need to develop through it an acquiescent plan to transform the challenges into opportunity is essentially a way to acquire necessary subjective strength that the objective condition demands. With a deep sense of responsibility, our party’s Central Committee Meeting, which continued for about three months amid intense ideological and political struggle, ultimately reached to a unanimous position on the questions of line. The document adopted in the very CC Meeting has been produced herewith.
Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)
Present Situation and Historical Task of the Proletariat
Dear Comrades,
Today, our great and glorious party, the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), has arrived at a serious and extraordinary juncture of possibilities and challenges.
The way how people’s revolution, in the external struggle, is advancing amid immense possibility of victory and serious danger of defeat, in the same manner, party’s internal life, as a reflection of the former, also lies in the midst of potentiality of advance and danger of anarchism and chaos as well. The height to which we can create new unity, voluntary discipline, self-confidence and vigour by means of a correct line, strategy, tactic, plan and programme to ensure as far as possible the decisive victory of revolution in this complex crossroads of class struggle, to that level will we be able to make victorious the revolution and party by safeguarding them from the danger of defeat and anarchism. In order to develop that kind of line and plan, we, by abandoning all kinds of subjective prejudices, must be able to have objective estimation of the situation and balance of class force based on the universal theories of MLM. The plan and programme prepared on the basis of objective analysis will enable our party to lead the decisive victory of revolution. Expressing high regard and esteem to the entire known and unknown martyrs of Nepalese people’s revolution including those of ten years of people’s war and admiring the entire disappeared, injured fighters and their family members, this plenum of the central committee will be able to bring about a new dynamism in our party.
1) A short evaluation of present situation
a) On the international situation
After the dissolution of erstwhile Soviet Union and so-called “end” of cold war, the academic pundits of western imperialism widely propagated that capitalism had become “absolute”, communist ideology and communism had “ended” and the “unipolar” world had been established. The premeditated propaganda is going on, but the whole imperialist world order has now entrapped into a dreadful global economic crisis. To have emerged an epicentre of new global economic crisis in the United States of America that had been presenting oneself as a leader of the world imperialism after the Second World War imparts a special meaning and implication.
When the imperialist moneybags were celebrating “victory” of capitalism before the dreadful cyclone of the current financial crisis had come up, right then too it was clear from the statistics of the World Bank itself that the gap between rich and poor had been surprisingly widening. Consequently, after the 90s the living standard of about a 1.75 billion of the people has severely dropped. About a 30,000 children, who could be cured by primary healthcare, are dying daily and about 1 billion people victimized by malnutrition cannot reach their 40. Children ranging from 250 million to 300 million in number from poor countries of the third world are being used as child-slaves for their bread and butter. Millions of young women are being pushed into prostitution daily. Tens of millions of youths of the third world are being forced to be sold as modern slaves in the globalized labour market for their livelihood. It is a short glimpse of so-called victory of capitalism after the cold war.
On top of that the present economic crisis has given rise to a more horrendous outcome. The bourgeois economists the world over are now bound to realize that the present global economic crisis is of several times deeper and wider nature and of far-reaching significance than the crisis that had emerged around 1930, before the Second World War. Big banks, financial institutions and industries of the United States of America have been declared to be bankrupt over night. In America, about 7 hundred thousand workers had lost their job merely in the last February; 6 hundred 50 thousand workers have been now loosing their jobs in every three months. Only after the economic crisis has started, 4.4 millions of people have lost their jobs. The industries that produced about 20 millions of cars before are now forced to produce only half of that. This Tsunami of severe economic crisis is going ahead engulfing not only the United States of America but also the third world countries, including Europe.
The imperialist ringleader who used to publicize that the open market economy was a non-missing target are now forced to take such a policy that provides financial support in different forms including nationalization of banks and bail of out industries by the government. It has been to the extent that some of the bourgeois economists are now referring to adopt some of the aspects of socialist economy to put the instantaneous crisis on hold. From this what has been proved once again is that it is the capitalism that is the main reason to bring crisis one after another for humanity and it is socialism only that can bring about a bright future for the human beings. The dream of unipolar world with which America as a gangster had come forward the world over is now becoming a daydream as a result of inter-imperialist contradictions along with the resistance carried by Russia, which is consolidating internally, and China, which is an upcoming economic super power. However, the proletariat must not minimise imperialist globalization and military strategy of capturing the whole world and the unjust wars which are being imposed upon Iraq, Afghanistan, Middle East, South Asia and the world over and the stratagem of military bases being established there as well. Rather, in order to resist that it is urgent to go forward seriously with immediate and long-term plans to handle inter-imperialist contradictions, to resolve the principal contradiction between imperialism and oppressed people and nations by building, on the basis of proletarian internationalism, a worldwide united front amongst the communist revolutionaries. Finally, the imperialist globalization and hooliganism of the US imperialism is bringing the world revolution closer and proves that revolution is the main trend today.
It is necessary to be clear on the background and reason behind this economic crisis that has exploded after about 70 years in United States of America, the centre of imperialist world order. The capitalism always creates a problem of overproduction because it pays no attention to the basic needs of the masses but always emphasizes on production that produces super profit to investors. The development of huge industries and worldwide apparatus to earn super profit results in creating a socialist base and mechanism and consequently it creates a contradiction with the private ownership of the capitalists; which is the inborn reason behind the fall of capitalism and rise of socialism. A question arises here, what reason caused to stop for so long years the process of fall of capitalism and rise of socialism that was intense during the period of the First World War to the advent of the Second World War? In the advent of the Second World War, one of the main reasons behind it was, in view of economic recession and inevitability of war, to centralize the main strength and investment in war-centred military economy on the part of the United States of America. From Second World War to Vietnam War and the cold war to different levels of wars till now made it possible to sustain capitalist economy in general and American economy in particular. Production of fighter planes, submarines, tanks, rockets and other military equipments in an extensive way and enormous wealth plundered thereof helped maintain that situation. Another important reason behind this is the temporary respite that they gained by expanding finance capital all over the world and increasing domination in the big markets like China, India and Russia. But, as a result of inherent unproductive and speculative nature of finance capital, it was unavoidable on the part of world imperialism to get trapped soon into a new crisis and so got trapped too.
In the period following the collapse of former Soviet Union, the imperialists deliberately developed worldwide mechanism for globalization of finance capital and extraction of profit to exploit and oppress the labourers and working class people the world over. As a result of the development of globalized production and oppressive structures, today the outburst of crisis and unemployment is spreading everywhere whether it be the US or Europe or Asia or Africa or Latin America. Special attention to be paid here is that the capitalist economy, on which war and military industries sustained, is now entrapped into a worldwide severe crisis. In order to protect it from being ruined the imperialists should develop terribly destructive technical weapons and impose qualitatively disastrous genocidal wars. Now, traditional and scattered wars and usual war economy is not sufficient to safeguard capitalism. Right at this point, a danger of imperialism staging a most severe destruction in the history of mankind is hidden behind it. Therefore, it has become especially necessary for the people, who are in favour of justice, equality, peace and independence, to come forward together against the imperialist crisis and terror of wars. In fact, this situation in the final analysis is creating a qualitatively favourable situation to build a people’s new world through world revolution.
India is gradually surrendering to the US imperialism. As a result of this, America is intensifying its economic, political and military activities all across the region. Entrapping India in its strategic web, the US imperialism is going ahead along its master plan of suppressing the entire national liberation, new democratic and socialist movements in this region and encircling and dividing China, the strong competent of the 21st century. In spite of this, the need to pay attention on is that there exists contradiction too between the US and India in view of mutual shares in South Asia. In the context of Nepal, India wants to extend its border up to the Himalayas, where as US wants to establish a special base in Nepal and go ahead on its own. The proletariat in this region should determine its strategy and tactic paying attention to both the aspects i.e. collusion, the principal aspect, and contention, the secondary aspect, existing in between US and India. In general, Asia, Africa and Latin America remain as the storm centres of revolution, but as a result of firstly, the special nature of contradiction against feudalism and imperialism, secondly, the wideness of revolutionary national liberation and democratic movements and thirdly, huge number of exploited and oppressed masses living in South Asia, make it a main storm centre of world revolution in the first decade of the 21st century. In this context, proletarian revolutionaries should take up a policy to go ahead by uniting the entire national liberation, democratic and socialist movements and building a broad united front against imperialism. What is necessary to pay attention here is that the wave of victory of anti-imperialist leftists in Latin American countries in the elections attracts a special significance. The left opinion there will have a special role in developing an anti-imperialist front in the world level.
b) On the International Communist Movement
Aforesaid brief analysis of the world situation clarifies that the objective condition to build up communist parties based on MLM and develop revolution is speedily getting favourable in various countries of the world. However, compared to the objective situation, the subjective condition of the world communist movement is very weak.
MLM, the only scientific and revolutionary world outlook and principle, has developed as an ideological weapon of the proletariat. As a science, communist revolutionaries must grasp the question of defending, applying and developing MLM very seriously. In the context of defending, applying and developing MLM, right revisionism remains as the main deviation and ideological foe of the communist movement even today. Real defence, application and development of MLM is not possible without undergoing strong ideological struggle against right revisionism that backs class collaboration, reformism and national capitulation. While waging this struggle, the proletarian revolutionaries must remain vigilant on the danger of mechanical and sectarian dogmato-revisionism and eclecticism and centrist deviation as well. Finally, in the communist movement, Marxism has developed to Marxism-Leninism-Maoism in the midst of struggles against all sorts of deviations.
We can correctly accomplish our historical task only by waging struggles against mainly the right revisionism and also dogmatism prevailing in the international communist movement today. For this, maintaining relation with MLM parties in and outside of Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM), we should go ahead on the way to building a new international amidst lively ideological struggle. In the context of defence, application and development of MLM, we, as a party that has acquired experiences in the midst of 10 years of people’s war and a range of mass movements and as a big force against feudalism and imperialism and also accepting heartily that we have a historical responsibility upon our shoulder to develop ideological struggle and international movement, should step up initiative to that direction.
Present National Political Situation
The main specificity of the present Nepalese political situation is that our country is being pushed towards a matured state of revolutionary crisis from the sensitive state of transition. Consistent with the tactic and demand that the revolutionary communists had put forward, by way of fusion of people’s war and historical mass movement, the constituent assembly election has taken place, and through that election the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) has been established as the most popular party in the country, and bringing to an end the 240 years old monarchy, the federal democratic republic has been established as a result of the initiative and the strength of our party. Gaining experience of a very new front to drive the new democratic revolution forward against feudalism and imperialism, this party has already led a nine months long people-elected first government of the Republic of Nepal. Certainly, these are the achievements that have far-reaching importance in the context of Nepali democratic revolution. True proletarians must have high evaluation and regard to these achievements.
But in spite of aforesaid achievements, there has been no basic change in the semi-feudal and semi-colonial condition of the country. The fundamental problems of the country and people related with nationhood, democracy and people’s livelihood are not basically solved. There is no basic change in the class character of the state. Even today, there is a sole control of comprador, bureaucrat and feudal classes in the state. Seizing the achievements of great people’s war and historic mass movement or by means of counterrevolution this class wants to retract into status quo. Certainly, these challenges clarify the reality that Nepalese democratic revolution has not yet been accomplished rather its final completion along with decisive struggle still remains waiting. True revolutionaries must take these challenges and realities seriously.
In this way, what is clear from the aforesaid facts is that to devaluate the present political change as insignificant or overestimate it as equal to revolution are both wrong. Protecting the achievements, to go forward for the success of democratic revolution is the responsibility of genuine proletariats.
For the feudal monarchy has come to an end, the principal political contradiction of Nepalese people with monarchy has also ended. Now the comprador, bureaucrat and feudal elements that favour status quo have taken that position. Changed political context and the latest political events, in particular, have clarified that a drama of building puppet government comprising of diehard rightist elements has been staged against the spirit of interim constitution, the basic democratic norms of civilian supremacy, people’s mandate expressed in the election, peace and the process of constitution building in the naked intervention of foreign reactionaries. What this situation clarifies is that not only has the contradiction of Nepalese people with compradors, bureaucrat capitalists and the feudal classes that favour status quo and national capitulation intensified but also the Nepalese nation’s and people’s basic contradiction with imperialist-expansionist forces that prop up the aforesaid classes has also been sharpening. Because the status quoist domestic reaction has been proved weaker compared to the revolutionary forces in Nepal, the special situations, on which one should also pay attention is that any time there is a possibility of contradiction of Nepalese people with both the domestic and foreign reactionaries becoming simultaneously principal or the possibility of national liberation becoming principal after there is direct military intervention on the command of foreign power against the Nepalese people, predominantly exists. Party must remain prepared to confront both of the aforesaid eventualities, but right now grasping the fact that internal contradiction is principal it is seriously necessary to build up prerequisites for tomorrow by way of exposing and resisting different forms of ongoing foreign interventions.
Politically, there is a serious debate on two questions now. They are: firstly, which is the main obstructing or inspiring idea and force behind the 12-point understanding? And secondly, whether to limit the present federal republic within the regressive and status quo republic that represents the interest of compradors, bureaucrats and feudal or establish a people’s republic of entire patriots including workers and peasants and oppressed class, nationality, region and gender? Now in answer to these basic questions naturally two different ideas are coming up. The proletariat, which defends the interest of oppressed classes, nationalities, regions and genders including workers, peasants, patriotic intelligentsia and national bourgeoisie, claims that the main thinker and inspirer behind the 12-point understanding is the people’s war and the mass movement led by itself, where as compradors, bureaucrats and feudal and their foreign masters present themselves as the major force and the inspirer. Likewise, the proletariat is making effort to step up the federal democratic republic to People’s Republic and institutionalize it where as the reactionary class is making effort to entrap it into or step down to status quo republic. From the viewpoint of class politics, the key reason behind the present political tussle, contradiction and confrontation lies in it.
It can be understood in another way also. Yesterday, absolute feudal monarchy had come forward as a common enemy of both of the class forces that favoured parliamentarian status quo and People’s Republic. A common necessity to fight against it created a base for 12-point understanding. The election of constituent assembly and complete democracy (i.e. federal democratic republic) could become a common programme at that time. When this kind of understanding was being made, both the political forces, parliamentarian status quoist and communist revolutionaries, had seen advantage on their part. Had not both the forces seen advantage on their part no understanding was possible too. It is a general law of political process.
As a result of limitation in their class outlook, it is in general the specificity of bourgeois reactionaries to underestimate the strength and ability of the masses of the people including workers and peasants and the communist revolutionaries as well. Having concrete analysis of the concrete condition and objective estimation of class forces, to decide correct policy is the speciality of the revolutionaries. Constituent Assembly election and its result have proved the said specificity well. Proving to be wrong the analysis and estimation of imperialist, expansionist and domestic reactions, Nepalese people made the communist revolutionaries reach to the highest position. Although the Nepalese people placed the revolutionary forces in the first position against expectation, effort and estimation of the reactionaries, only after their entire plots to stop that force from leading the government failed, finally the Maoist-led government was formed. Formation of the first elected government of Republic of Nepal under the leadership of Maoist revolutionaries was a matter of surprise for both the reactionaries and democratic forces the world over. The class contradictions of the state power are soundly displayed in this event, which has come up as a particular expression of balance of class forces developed in the course of 10 years of people’s war and historical mass movement. In this situation, it is obvious for the leadership to seek its own dictatorship and the dictatorship to seek its own leadership. Clear class difference and speciality is that the proletarian revolutionaries present themselves responsible and honest towards the nation and people where as the reactionary and revisionist elements prove themselves to be very totalitarian, national betrayers and anti-people.
As a partisan force of people’s federal democratic national republic i.e. People’s Republic, naturally the Maoist-led government, not in any support or gesture of foreign reactionaries or domestic status quoist forces, remaining honest to nation, people’s war, mass movement and the mandate of constituent assembly, started going independently and lawfully ahead as to institutionalize and address the changes. All the way through struggles pursued in preparing policy, programme and budget of the government to Prime Minister’s formal visit to China, India, America, Norway and Finland, the government tried to address the necessity of the changed situation and Nepalese people’s struggle and sacrifice for epoch-making changes. In the process of institutionalizing changes, the government presented several important programmes as to make the masses avail immediate respite to strategic plans to build a new Nepal and it adopted a policy to gradually transform bureaucracy and security mechanism corresponding to the essence and necessity of the federal republic. In this process, the government lawfully took action upon the “commander”, who used to time and again challenge the republic and the supremacy of civilian government, speak against the peace agreement, advocate feudal monarchy and serve the foreign reaction.
It was natural to become government’s aforesaid activities intolerable to the reactionary elements that were conspiring not to allow forming the Maoist-led government and making it fail in case it was formed. In spite of innumerable conspiracies to make the Maoist-led government topple down, as well as fraudulent and deliberate propaganda to defame it, when they saw that Maoist popularity was growing and were going ahead firmly along their strategy, then the reactionaries heightened their conspiracies further. By means of deliberate and subjective propaganda like “Manipulating the army, the Maoists are seizing power according to their strategy”, “Maoists are implementing one party totalitarian rule” the reactionaries, who talk of constitutional supremacy, democratic values, rule of law, civilian supremacy, finally displayed their real despotic nature. Justifying that democracy is a show tusk of an elephant for the reactionaries; they hatched a midnight counterrevolutionary conspiracy by using the president as a mask.
In the gesture of foreign lords, turning down the decisions of the civilian government in an unconstitutional and despotic manner, not only has the drama of a commander’s reinstatement exposed national capitulationist and undemocratic nature of the old parliamentarian and revisionist political parties but also has it shown their defeated and humiliated mentality.
The reality that behind this unconstitutional move of the president lies a ghastly conspiracy, on the part of domestic and foreign reactions, of pushing the country towards war and confrontation, disrupting constitution writing and peace process, slaughtering the throat of federal democratic republic by means of military terror and finally attacking upon the national existence and chastity of Nepal is evident. At this particular historical crossroads, a revolutionary prudence and courage was anticipated from the vanguard of the proletariat to defeat counterrevolutionary conspiracy and show honesty and responsibility towards nation, people and the class. Our great and glorious party and its central leadership proved its prudence and courage through aggressive but balanced attacks in succession against reactionary conspiracies. Raising high the banner of right of national self-determination (i.e. national independence and self-respect) and civilian supremacy, the events from the action upon Katuwal to the resignation of Prime Minister, from the resignation to Prime Minister’s last address in the constituent assembly, from the last address to struggle going on in the legislature and street, have exhibited the aforesaid historic truth. Our party rank and file and the broad masses as well are proud of it and should be too.
While making comprehensive objective evaluation of the first coalition government of Republic of Nepal constituted under the leadership of our party, we must humbly admit that we could not attain the expected and possible achievements as a result of, on the one hand, the obligatory situation in which we had to work within the limitation of old reactionary state machinery and our lack of experience to run the state, lack of planned coordination among the tasks of government, legislature and the street etc. On the other, in spite of aforesaid limitations we must not loose sight the key achievements for example our success to raise optimism towards the future and the revolution among the broad masses, make conflict-affected people avail relief even though a few, initiate effective intervention for forward looking transformation in several organs of the old state power and take some positive initiative to protect and promote national interest and self-respect etc. In total, the positive and negative experiences of this short period have provided important reference material to establish and run the state power of the proletariat in the days to come.
As a result of prudence and courage exhibited by the revolutionary party, today the process of polarization of genuine patriotic, leftist, progressive and democratic forces and the broad masses on one side, and a handful of national capitulationist compradors, bureaucrats and feudal elements on the other side is intensifying. A flame of serious debate and contradiction has ignited mainly within Nepali Congress and UML, the political forces that formed a puppet government. Even there, honest patriots, leftist and democratic leaders and cadres are, in an organized and extensive manner, opposing capitulationist character of the national leadership and their act of kneeling down before military supremacy. Right at this time, given the atrocity carried out by the Indian security forces upon Nepalese people along the bordering areas of Dang district and the events of border encroachment in different parts of the country including Bara district, the awareness and initiative of defending national self-respect and territorial integrity has been qualitatively expanding among the entire political activists including the broad masses, except a few compradors. By transforming this awareness and initiative into a material force, to come forward to liberating our country from the semi-feudal and semi-colonial condition is the historic task of the proletariat at present. This liberation will be the completion of democratic revolution. However, it will be a serious mistake to think that this historic task will be accomplished with no trouble. For that, there must be untiring labour, sacrifice, endurance and conviction in all the fields of ideology, organization and struggle; which we will discuss in another chapter. The question to pay attention here is that the reactionaries are now seriously involved in the conspiracy of making Maoist revolutionaries commit a mistake through provocation, alleging Maoists through an artificial incident, killing political leadership, creating split in the party and movement to disrupt peace-process, weakening the constituent assembly and pushing the country into war. Reactionaries, in and outside of the country, have clearly understood that the ideological, political and sentimental relation of the peace-process and constituent assembly is inseparably related with Maoist people’s war and the revolutionary movement. In the special context of Nepal, for the reason that peace-process and constituent assembly are the fruit of people’s war and revolutionary movement, victory of reactionaries in this arena is impossible. From the result of constituent assembly election, from the programmes related to nationhood, democracy and people’s livelihood that the Maoist-led government had put forward and mainly from the political superiority of the Maoist revolutionaries and also from the increasing popularity proved by the past mid-term poll, the reactionaries have clearly understood this reality.
In this backdrop, without falling in enemy provocation, the urgent necessity to develop independent proletarian policy, plan and programme that defeats their strategic aspiration is evident. At this time, we must not search imaginary and bombastic slogans but centre our attention on the slogans that emerged in the midst of lively struggles against reactionaries and make them reach to the masses in a systematic and planned way. Enemy is trying to isolate us, our slogan must isolate the enemy, enemy is trying to push the country into war, our slogan must be able to rally the whole country around the banner of peace, enemy is trying to make the constituent assembly powerless, our slogan must make it lively, enemy is trying to make the peace agreement and interim constitution a worthless piece of paper, we must respect them as a common mandate of the people’s war, 12-point understanding and the mass movement, enemy is abhorrently conspiring to malign people’s verdict expressed in the constituent assembly and impose puppet government upon the Nepalese people, our slogan must fully respect people’s opinion expressed in the constituent assembly, the enemy is finally and mainly trying to wreck national independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Nepal and our slogan, uniting the whole country, must be able to shatter the enemy’s ambition. For that, tactically peace, constitution, national independence, ‘civilian supremacy’ and ‘Maoist-led national government’ must be included in our slogans. Based on these slogans, the planned struggles carried from legislature and the street, by defeating the reactionary conspiracies, broad masses can be led to the completion of strategic goal of democratic revolution.
2) On the party line and polarization of revolutionary communists
As a result of correct implementation and synchronization of party’s clear ideological and political line, strategy, tactic and plan of action, today our glorious party the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) has been developing as a main stream of the communist revolutionaries. The process of revolutionary polarization that came forward with the historic initiation of people’s war has now qualitatively attained a new height.
When the great people’s war was advancing towards its climax, the party unity with CPN (Masal) organized under the leadership of comrade Dinanath Sharma after rebellion against dogmato-revisionism and the unity, 2 years later, with Kirat Workers Party led by comrade Gopal Kirati set off the process of revolutionary polarization in an organized way.
It is clear that the scientific outlook regarding strategy, tactic and tactical unity has made our party achieve an important and leading role of realizing 12-point understanding, fusion of people’s war and mass movement, peace process, constituent assembly and establish federal democratic republic.
From our first position in the constituent assembly election to the popular programmes on the part of the people-elected first republican government under party leadership and programmes of agitation, from prime minister’s resignation in order to struggle in favour of national independence, civilian supremacy, peace and constitution to the important decisions taken in the legislatures and the ongoing programmes of mass movement as well have imparted new dynamism for the revolutionary polarization.
From the unity taken place between CPN (Maoist) and CPN (Unity centre-Masal) that were carrying out joint activities ever since the great process of people’s war to the unity with CPN (MLM) led by comrade Krishnadas Shrestha, Democratic Front led by comrade Bhim Bahadur Kadayat, CPN (Masal) led by Keshav Nepal, CPN (ML-Revolutionary) led by comrade Tek Bahadur, dozens of cultural fighters, who rebelled in group from UML, dozens of intellectual and political personalities that rebelled from various groups and the ranks of thousands of revolutionary cadres, who joined the CPN (Maoist) before and after the constituent assembly election, all has clarified the fact that the Unified Communist party of Nepal (Maoist) that has a revolutionary line, strategy and tactical thinking to go forward to socialism and communism after the accomplishment of new democratic revolution in Nepal has become a main stream of communist revolutionaries today.
3) From the latest peace process to the present: on party’s problems and Weaknesses
From the viewpoint of class struggle as a whole and the objective political initiative there has been a good advance. But, from the subjective and organizational point of view there have been scores of serious problems and weaknesses. If we could not develop concrete policy plan and programme to identify the problems, reasons behind them and the ways to resolve them howsoever bright future may be seen objectively in fact no achievement can be obtained even if these are not implemented in practice. In this context, first of all problems should be discussed.
a) MLM has taught us and we have clearly understood that it is not possible to lead revolution to a decisive victory without the leadership of a militant and disciplined communist party, vanguard of the proletariat, based on the unity of ideology and resolve. In spite of numerous limitations and weaknesses, for the whole period of people’s war party’s principal aspect was militant political vanguard of the proletariat. There was dominance of high proletarian spirit of ideological consistency, resolute unity, voluntary discipline and sacrifice. But, after the peace process and mainly after the party has come open, unfortunately the party not only did not remain a militant and disciplined political vanguard of the proletariat but also a danger of it being gradually transformed into an anarchic crowd has come into sight. The process of achieving new unity on a new basis by means of ideology-centred debate and unity-struggle-transformation is being gradually replaced by the danger of individual interest-centred unhealthy competition and new factions and splits. Bringing this situation to an end, we must allot utmost emphasis to drive the party forward as a political vanguard of the proletariat in a true sense.
b) Today party committee system is going towards the direction of becoming lethargic, burdensome, chaotic and messy. The committee system of a communist party ought have been swift, orderly and proficient to provide lively leadership to the committee, organizations and masses of the people under one’s responsibility, but our committees have become so huge that firstly there can be no meeting and secondly very difficult to take up decisions in case there is meeting. Consequently, the position of collective decision and individual responsibility, the organisational concept of MLM, is being occupied by individual decision and collective responsibility. This situation must be changed. Committee system cannot be improved without reactivating the method of conducting committees based on the organizational principal of democratic centralism and making them lively and strong by way of criticism and self-criticism. In a genuine communist party, in case there is no practice of regular criticism and self-criticism from the central committee to the cell committees, naturally different kinds of confusions, whisperings, propaganda, factionalism and anarchism emerge within the party and they make the party hollow and indolent.
c) Now, there has been rapid deterioration in party’s proletarian conduct and working style. The competition of individual concern, interest and return is trying to replace collective concern, initiative and sacrifice for party and revolution. Mutual help, reverence and healthy criticism among comrades is gradually being replaced by the trends of non-cooperation, intolerance and unhealthy criticism. The economic anarchy and opacity, on the one hand, is rapidly making the party slide down from the communist ideals and, on the other, it is making the mutual relation among comrades very much suspicious and unhealthy. A communist system of unconditionally depositing cash or appliances obtained from any source by a comrade of any level of the party has been disappearing and a very bourgeois process of piling up and using them personally by those whoever can is burgeoning. From this, thousands of honest and revolutionary cadres have been victims of desperation, humiliation and discomfort, for they are entrapped in the problems of solving their own daily subsistence, minimum supply of daily necessities, family problems and basic problems of the local people, where as a trend of taking individual benefit by a few party officials and some ‘actives’ is growing. This situation has created wide dissatisfaction among the revolutionary cadres and it has time and again given rise to natural unrest and fury before the party leadership and the party centre. In order to bring this situation to an end, there is no other way than sorting out plan to develop proletarian conduct and working style and implementing them firmly in the party.
d) Regular ideological and political training and schooling, which is very much necessary, has become messy. Daily political events, parliamentarian tug-of-wars and their ebb and tide and premeditated materials that are publicized by big media houses, controlled by reactionaries, have become the major political training materials for the entire party ranks and supporters. Naturally, as a result of this, proletarian ideology, politics and strategic issues are falling under shadow and everyone is running behind the daily events and is getting confused by it. By bringing this situation to an end, and taking publication, publicity, political training and schooling seriously it is necessary to push the tasks forward in a planned way.
e) The great people’s war gave birth to thousands of professional revolutionary fighters. In the course of people’s war, a huge number of fulltime and part-time cadres were actively involved in party works, people’s liberation army, militia, war front, democratic state, people’s courts, communes and democratic schools. Thousands of martyr’s families, disappeared fighters, wounded fighters and their families had active participation in either of the aforesaid tasks. After we entered into the peace process, as a result of dissolution of people’s power, people’s court and militia, and centering of PLA in cantonments and no formation of local bodies after the constituent assembly election also, thousands of district and local level cadres had to become unemployed. Also the lack of management of fulltime cadres, families of martyrs, disappeared and wounded fighters and regular plans and programmes of mass mobilization and struggle, caused to develop obvious confusion, doubt and dissatisfaction among the cadres. On the one hand, emergence of that situation in absence of plan and programme in the local level and, on the other, differences in opinion among the responsible members of the central committee broadly also caused to emerge symptoms of pessimism. Without raising to a new height the process of management and mobilization through correct policy, plan and programme this problem will have no real solution.
f) Thousands of youths, in the course of people’s war, involved in revolution by leaving their study in campuses and schools. Even after the Party-led government was formed after the constituent assembly election academic certificate became compulsory in governmental and non-governmental jobs and when they saw their age-group friends studying in different levels, naturally apprehension about their study and future started growing. Besides, uneasiness has widely grown after some of the cadres, by any means, started reading and taking examinations. Although party had brought forward a concept of Open University and tried to solve it but that has not yet been effective. Now, party has certainly taken up some concrete initiatives on behalf of the government to teach sons and daughters of martyrs and disappeared fighters and it has given a positive impact too. But, party should take up clear policy on education of the whole cadres.
g) Inability to push forward the tasks related to four preparations and that of government, legislature and the street also increased distrust and doubt within the party. In the days to come, it is necessary to carry forward these tasks in a planned way.
Behind the aforesaid problems, the acts like, ‘loose talking’, ‘back biting’, ‘rude comment’ against this or that comrade of the party leadership contrary to the party system of democratic centralism have become in itself a serious problem before the party. It has been urgent to resolve these problems through open discussion and criticism and self-criticism. While doing so, even if there remain differences in opinion in certain issues, there must be commitment to conducting ideology-centred debate in a systematic way and implementing the decision in a unified manner.
Behind increment of the aforesaid kinds of problems in the party, our attention should focus on the following main reasons.
a) To jump into this complex front without developing, as far as possible, clear policy, plan and programme on the organizational and practical problems that could arise while coming from war to peace, seems to be one of the main reasons behind the aforesaid problems. After coming into this front, it was apparent that there would have been compulsion on the part of main leadership to engage in day to day national and domestic works. By having prior estimation of that kind of situation, clear concept and overall work division must have been done on the tasks of party, army, state power, mass organizations, front etc.
b) After party acquired victory in the constituent assembly election in contrary to domestic and foreign reactionaries’ analysis, estimation and expectation, our inability to pay adequate attention to maintain uniformity, through thorough discussion in the CC meeting, on the issues like — whether the party should join government or not, in case it was decided to join what could be the overall plan, what could be the party policy, plan and programme to mobilise masses compatible with the programmes of the government, how to crush conspiracy and encirclement on the part of imperialism, expansionism and domestic reaction after the government was formed etc. caused the aforesaid problems to arise.
Owing to aforesaid main reasons, no concrete plan to resolve aforesaid problems including the management of cadres could be developed. Consequently, a contradictory situation, in which there was enthusiasm among the people but mistrust among the cadres, arose. Chairman should take the main responsibility for such situation to arise in the party and then other comrades respectively, in accordance with their hierarchical status, should do. And, refraining from such weaknesses in the future, planned initiative should be taken up to make the party go ahead.
4) A rough sketch of the immediate plan
Aforesaid analysis and review clarifies the possibilities and challenges before the party. From this it is apparent that the forces of revolution and counterrevolution are going ahead towards the direction of decisive confrontation. The objective situation is allowing neither the people’s revolutionary force nor the counterrevolutionary force of feudalism and imperialism to linger in status quo. The reactionary force, domestic and foreign, is now seeing their superiority in war, autocracy, national capitulation and military supremacy while quite contrary to it the force of proletariat and the revolutionary masses is seeing their interest and superiority in peace, constitution, national self-respect, democracy and civilian supremacy.
It is not so easy for the reactionaries to instigate war owing to our leading position in the constituent assembly, situation of federal democratic republic and growing support, on the part of civilian movement and the broad masses, to our commitment to peace national self-respect, democracy and civilian supremacy, rather a possibility, in which initiative and victory remains in the hands of mainly the proletariat and revolutionary masses, has increased. Yet, we must not minimize the danger of counterrevolution because the restless reactionaries are intensely conspiring to trigger off war. In this sensitive situation, the only basis and condition for the victory of proletariat and masses is to develop strong unity within themselves with clarity towards the goal. Only by remaining united can the proletariat and the revolutionary masses, after completing the historical task of democratic revolution, open the way to go ahead towards socialism and communism.
a) Form and direction of the immediate movement
To develop wide-ranging peaceful mass movement around the issues of civilian supremacy, national independence, peace and constitution and formation of Maoist-led national united government must be our main task at present. Where one must be clear is that national united government means, in the present context, the government of those forces that favour civilian supremacy, national independence and federalism. When carrying out this movement, if the civilian supremacy is established, we must remain prepared to form national united government, but we must be clear on the fact that to participate in the puppet government without civilian supremacy will be a political suicide. Until the situation of civilian supremacy and national government is built up, we should take a policy of raising movement from one height to another.
– Paying attention to the special political significance of Madhesh, recent conspiratorial division in Forum, sensitivity arisen out of continuous events of border encroachment and the necessity of national movement, we should emphasize to go ahead with a special plan that focuses on the questions of developing strong movement in the whole Terai (Madhesh, Tharuwan and Kochila) in general and Madhesh (Mithila, Bhojpura and Abadh) in particular. Objectively, the situation is getting favourable to develop movement in Madhesh under the leadership of our party.
– In order to resist foreign intervention upon the national independence of our country, it is necessary to consolidate internal nationhood. For this, autonomy and federalism must be taken to implementation strongly.
– In the context of solving the problems of people’s livelihood, the issue of revolutionary land reform should be carried forward with special emphasis.
b) On the broad united front and mass mobilization
– A broad united front should be established under the party leadership to effectuate the movement of civilian supremacy and national government. We should endeavour to build up that kind of united front in two levels. First, a front made up of various mass organizations, national and regional fronts inclusive of prominent personalities under the leadership of our party and second, a broad united front comprising of entire leftists, progressives, patriots and other parties, institutions and individuals favouring civilian supremacy should be built up.
– Mobilize masses to declare Sherpa autonomous region in the east and Bhote-Lama autonomous region in the west along the entire Himalayan range of the north.
– Develop movement to declare the establishment of national and regional autonomous regions.
– Take initiative to organize without delay the local bodies in accordance with the spirit of interim constitution.
c) On peace process and writing of the new constitution
Although our party is in opposition, we should play an active role to succeed the process of peace and constitution writing. We must justify through policy and practice that we are honest and responsible to make the peace process reach to a logical conclusion and build a constitution in line with the necessity and interest of the nation and people. The fact that the elements that defame democracy by defying the interim constitution and disregarding the mandate expressed in the constituent assembly election are against peace and constitution building must reach to the people in a planned way.
– The army integration and rehabilitation should be carried forward simultaneously in parallel with the task of constitution writing. Party must remain very careful to the reactionary plot of weakening and disarming party by integration and rehabilitation before people’s constitution is written.
– The constitution that is being submitted on behalf of the party must include the essence and concept of anti-feudal and anti-imperialist democratic constitution. Not a constitution for constitution, party must remain clear on the fact that the constitution must be able to protect and consolidate country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity along with national independence and self-respect and ensure right of the masses of entire oppressed class, nation, region and sex including workers and the peasants.
– It must be ensured that the constitution should provide sufficient democratic right to the autonomous regions, however paying attention to the sensitive geo-political location of Nepal, particular state of population distribution and also to the main necessity of the socialism-oriented democratic structure, the system of democratic centralism should be consolidated taking into account of building an appropriately strong executive body at the centre also. In the constitution, federalism with Nepalese particularity and provision of the oppressed class, including the workers and peasants, acquiring priority in representation and leadership must be guaranteed both in the autonomous region and at the centre. In the case of leadership of autonomous region a policy of providing leading right in the first election and then to priority should be taken up.
– Food, shelter, cloth, education, health and employment including multi-party competition, people’s supremacy, rule of pro-people law and freedom of expression in line with the spirit of “Development of democracy in the 21st century” must be guaranteed as the fundamental rights of the people.
d) On party, mass organizations, fronts and departments
– Considering the situation and necessity of political struggle existing in the country, it is necessary to consolidate party by organising its Congress soon. The Congress is equally necessary to clarify the ideological ambiguity noticed in the party, relatively systematize and consolidate the bulky and chaotic organizational structure and style of work.
– Keeping at centre the necessity of movement, the task of relatively consolidating mass organisations and departments by means of gathering, training, constitution, reconstitution and other organizational works should be completed till mid-September to prepare and mobilize them in a unified way.
– Taking seriously the issue of collecting real data of fulltime activists, mobilizing them in a planned way for their management, the upcoming mass movement and the main preparation in the capital, big cities and headquarters and erecting a special mechanism at the centre, initiative should be taken to fulfil it without delay. This mechanism will also sort out concrete programmes to mobilize martyrs’ families, families of disappeared fighters, wounded fighters and their families in the movement along with necessary help to them.
– A special working plan should be chalked out to bring major mass organizations including worker, peasant, student, women, Dalit and culture well in order, expand organizations up to the masses and mobilize the major regional and national fronts in a unified way.
e) On solving the financial problem
– Make all the state committees and district committees along with collectives involve in production work including labour, and collecting financial support from them.
– Emphasize to regularize levy and quota.
– Collect special donation at the centre, states and the districts for the movement.
– Reactivate the central financial department to chalk out concrete policy and find out ways in relation to collecting funds, accounting and maintaining transparency of the expenditure.
f) On the sketch of programmes of the mass movement and its general routine
– Central committee will prepare entire programmes and the general routine of the mass movement.
Comrades, we are at a very much glorious but challenging juncture of Nepalese democratic revolution. We have to accumulate energy by remembering the dream of great martyrs and disappeared and wounded fighters. We, grasping the hope and expectation of the millions of people, have to develop unity and confidence within ourselves. Defending, applying and developing the fundamental principles of MLM, we have to serve the world revolution and the internationalist proletarian movement. Finally, as a scientific and revolutionary communist, we, maintaining the high records of patience, prudence and courage, have to crush the counterrevolutionary conspiracies. If we failed to do that Nepal and Nepalese revolution will undergo a big accident. Therefore, let us unite, let us go ahead, people’s victory is guaranteed.
Thank you!
