Socialist Outlook wants your letters! If you feel moved to write — and we hope you will -
Gorbymania Dear comrades, Like Sue Owen (Socialist Outlook 5), I feel that Oliver MacDonald's article on "Gorbachev and the left (Socialist Outlook 4) was affected by a touch of 'Gorbymania'.
However, I cannot agree with her when she criticises Oliver MacDonald's statement that 'the working class throughout the world has shown itself over and over again to be prepared to pay an astonishingly high economic price for greater political freedom', with the remark that 'the leaderships of the working class are willing that the workers should pay an extraordinarily high economic price for a political "freedom" whose principal beneficiary will be the leaders, not the workers themselves.'
Is Sue trying to tell us that workers have no interest in basic political freedoms? For one thing such freedoms are necessary for the conduct of the economic struggle itself — through permitting the uncovering and denunciation of the gross inefficiencies and injustices of the present system and in allowing the necessary opportunity for a discussion and mobilisation around alternatives. But apart from that, to suggest that workers have no interest in such things as artistic or religious freedom implies a highly idealist and reified view of the working class.
A basic criticism of
Gorbachev in my opinion is the fact that he has no commitment to a real democratisation of Soviet society. His glasnost policy is employed under strictly controlled conditions, for centrally determined and limited objectives.
I agree with Sue Owen that we should not identify ourselves with Gorbachev and 6 his '-ism'. But in so doing we please try and keep to a maximum of 300 words. Send to: PO Box 705,
London SW19 1HA. should not give any grounds for suspicion that we feel economistic and anti-intellectual form. Child abuse Dear comrades, The letters from Phil Hearse and from Stevi Jackson and Julian Wilson (Socialist Outlook 4) misunderstand the article I wrote in Socialist Outlook 3 with Judith Paton.
Neither letter understands what we meant by empowerment. It is not a legalistic' concept, and it is not restricted to the way abused children are treated after the abuse has been discovered. Nor is it something that belongs in the realm of socialist 'utopia'. It is an idea which is applicable immediately but which has far-reaching implications for the whole organisation of society.
The immediate demands we outlined in our article lead to a thoroughgoing re-appraisal of the way the care system, the medical establishment and the police and courts are organised and the way they perceive children.
The principle we wish to establish is that children should, wherever possible, be in control of their lives.
It is true that some children
ERS
The totalitarian methods, often mixed with xenophobia, characteristic of the left face of stalinism do just as much, if not more, damage to the socialist cause and to the development of genuine class consciousness amongst workers as direct deals with imperialism.
In any case both the 'right' will not have the knowledge or experience to make complicated and difficult decisions. However, it is obviously impossible to choose an age at which we deem children capable of deciding. Hence the only practical way of determining when adults should intervene is to allow intervention only when a child says she or he doesn't know or doesn't understand.
It is their very powerlessness within the family and in society which makes children vulnerable to abuse and which isolates them from possible
Both letters claim that we said sexual abuse is 'not about sexual desire'. This is not true. A consideration of the way sex and power are intertwined in capitalist society is vital in this discussion.
To appeal to agencies of the capitalist state to protect children, as Phil Hearse does, implies putting the blame onto 'abnormal' parts of society: the dysfunctional family rears its ugly head again.
One does not have to argue for the abolition of the welfare and 'left' sides of stalinism operate together at all times in the permanent counterrevolution in defence of the interests of the bureaucratic caste. A central part of our opposition to stalinism is the defence of human rights whether collective or individual o Colin Meade state as a consequence of recognising that the whole framework in which social workers, paediatricians and other professionals operate is geared to the needs of society as it exists now. This framework works against the interests of children.
My final criticism of both letters is that they approach the subject in a very polemical style, and, in the case of Phil's letter, with seemingly very little background knowledge of the research and discussion which has already taken place. It is an essential part of what we are trying to say that the sexual abuse of children is a widespread phenomenon, which will probably affect everybody, directly or indirectly, in the course of their lives. As such, the discussion is not an abstract or theoretical one
I hope that this necessary debate will continue in a spirit of sensitivity, of comradely discussion and of joint exploration of important and difficult ideas •
Dani Ahrens
frightened the life out of a NUPE leader- by COHSE for a day of action on 14 7
NHS:
Defence of the National Health Service is the driving force that has animated protest strikes by tens of thousands of health workers and brought a wave of support from other trade unionists.
vast popular support. HARRY SLOAN reports.
C.O.H.S.E.
IS TAKING YAN
INDUSTRIAL ACTIOI
TODAY, IN DEFENCE
OF THE N.H.S.
SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no o March/April 1988
HEALTH
EVEN IN THE unlikely event of an unexpectedly generous settlement for nurses in this year's April pay review, it would produce only a temporary slackening of the fight, since government policies are already set to sharpen the NHS crisis.
1987 saw the NHS close at least 3,500 ds, and cut many basic services, as appled with a shortfall of over £230r
Yet government spending figures for
1988-89 mean a further shortfall of almost £400m. These cuts come on top of a cumulative shortfall (estimated by an all-party commons select committee) of
NHS spending in advance of Nigel Lawson's 15 March budget, the Tories are