Alliance must learn lessons of liberation struggles
In the run up to the December conference which will decide the future structure of the Socialist Alliance, one area of political debate which has not been sufficiently explored is the whole question of positive action. The Alliance needs to decide what – if any – measures we should take to ensure the full involvement and representation of the different oppressed groups in our society, such as women or black people, within our own structures.
Behind the question of adopting different administrative measures however, lies a broader and probably more important debate about what our vision is for a different type of society and the ways of getting there. Having a political exchange about these questions is of value in itself, whatever precise organisational decisions we take at the conference. Terry Conway offers a view for debate.
The Socialist Alliance has developed and evolved in a political period where the ideological credibility of those who argued that history was over, and that the capitalist society in which we lived was meeting everyone’s needs is being rejected by more and more people. The rise of the anti-globalisation movement is an exceedingly positive development in a situation where the world and country we live in has seen defeat after defeat for the left.
However that does not mean that winning people to a vision of socialism is a straightforward one. Two of the most powerful organisations which historically argued that they championed the cause of socialism – Social Democratic Parties and Communist Parties – are deeply implicated in what has been discredited.
The vision of socialism that we put forward through the Alliance is obviously one that differentiates itself both in theory and practice both from the legacy of Stalinism as well as from any idea that Blair’s project has anything to do even with social justice, never mind socialism.
We have tried to take on board in the Alliance the fact that the vision of the future we develop and act on needs to be one which relates to the concerns of those coming into activity today – for example by putting environmental politics at the centre of our concerns.
Whether we have carried through this intention in practice is another question, but we have at least recognised the importance of the aspiration.
On other political questions however we have been less developed. Its not a question of beating ourselves up over this – we are a relatively new organisation operating in relatively difficult circumstances. But we have to look honestly at our weaknesses and discuss how we can address them.
>From this point of view, we should look critically at which social forces we have so far attracted to our banner.
If we put to one side for a moment those who a members of revolutionary organisations, what is most noticeable about those who have become involved up is that these are not people who are new to politics – although many had been inactive or only partially active for a period.
Of course it’s excellent to see people, with all that wealth of experience and talent coming back into activity. But it doesn’t answer the other side of the equation – how we win the new generations to support for our ideas – how we really evolve a politics for the 21st century. That is why the Alliance needs to give conscious thought over the next period to how we win young people to the organisation.
The involvement of women in the Alliance is more complex. It’s not possible to give statistics at this stage because there is no unified membership system, but my guess would be that in terms of membership at local level, women and men are fairly equally involved.
However, when it comes to the participation of women in the leadership structures – the officer’s group and the Election Committee /Executive this involvement, energy and talent is not replicated.
In our view this is a situation that needs to change. Despite the gains of the women’s liberation movement, without conscious measures, there is always a tendency for organisations to replicate the sexual division of labour in our society – a division of labour which disadvantages women and undervalues the contribution we can and do make.
This problem is one which faces organisations of the left as well as other types of organisations in capitalist society, because we are conditioned and shaped by the sexual division of labour that permeates that society.
The best way is of addressing such inequalities will vary from situation to situation: but the first hurdle that needs to be overcome is winning acceptance that some such measures will be necessary.
Another related issue that we need to look at critically is the involvement of black people in the Alliance. The Socialist Alliance rightly put the question of opposition to racism and defence of asylum seekers at the centre of the General Election campaign.
It was often the most difficult issue to argue with people who otherwise supported our ideas – for example among the callers who rang the national office after the election broadcast, a significant number focused on this issue.
Since the election campaign, if anything the issues have moved even more to centre stage – we have seen increased racist attacks and provocations from the BNP in particular and rebellions in response from significant layers of black youth. In the last weeks we have seen the Tory leadership campaign wracked by questions over BNP involvement.
It’s true that in this latter period part of the difficulty for us nationally has been having the political resources to respond to these questions. If Alliance members have been involved, they are more likely to have used other umbrella’s such as the Anti-Nazi League or other anti-racist organisations rather than acting in our own name. And it’s fair to say that such difficulties have occurred across the political spectrum, and not just on questions of racism.
But at the same time, while we were able to put forward a significant number of strong black candidates at the General Election (as well as in the London Assembly elections before that) there can be no doubt that we remain an organisation where the proportion of black people remains shamefully low.
The ISG has believes that in order to create the sort of organisation we need to meet the challenges facing us, the December conference should support a number of measures to help address these an similar questions.
We should:
Support the right of women, black and minority ethnic people, lesbians, gay men and bisexuals and people with disabilities to caucus within the alliance. Such caucuses should then put forward proposals to the alliance as a whole which can both make the organisation more habitable and more effective in fighting oppression
Adopt measures that will ensure that leadership structures have at least a minimum number of women involved. At this stage we would suggest a rather modest figure of 25% – but this figure should not be one we are happy with in the long term.
Elect both a youth officer and a black officer, with the remits of working with the leadership team to involve more black people and more youth in the Alliance.
One of the effects of the times we have been living through (really since the Miners’ strike) is that there has been a break in political culture and legacy.
Many of those who are involved in the Alliance today have lived and been politically active through a time when for example the women’s liberation movement was much more dynamic and visible than it is today.
It is important to value and pass on the contribution made by socialist feminists to the development and successes of that movement.
We should be aware that young women and men today are certainly not getting access to that legacy through – for example – the books available in libraries whether at college or where they live.
Today what tends to make the news are stories of women’s successes – particularly in exams at school – while the fact that most of these very same women will end up earning less than their male counterparts is rarely noted never mind challenged.
But when such a discourse has become so dominant, we should certainly work to expose the reality – that, while it has undergone significant changes in the last couple of decades, women’s oppression continues to be a very real phenomenon.
As usual history (or "herstory"!) is written by and about those with power and money, and what survives in popular culture is not the struggles for equal pay or abortion rights, not the legacy of Women against Pit Closures but the question of how many female chief Executives there are.
The fierce political debates which took place – between groups of women who had a different idea of what sort of society they wanted – on the way forward for the women’s movement should be of interest to the whole left.
The distortions in the presentation of the fight for women’s liberation impact today on the way that particularly young women are likely to approach the question.
And the role of New Labour is not insignificant at this level.
The argument goes "If Clare Short or Mo Mowlam is a feminist ,then I am not… I have more in common with working class men that those women who cut child benefits or condemn women and their families in the third world to die painfully through poverty and disease."
The response of socialist feminists to this argument should be clear. Whatever label she uses, a woman who uses her own position of power to attack other women, and to reduce their standards of living is not a feminist – any more than a woman or man who does the same thing can be allowed to use the label "socialist".
A central part of our whole reason for existence as the Alliance is to say as loudly as possible that Tony Blair’s politics have nothing to do with socialism.
It’s not so different to argue at the same time that privilege for a small minority of women has nothing to do with any real vision of women’s liberation.
The other movements against oppression; the lesbian and gay movement, the black movement and the movement of people with disabilities all have things to teach the Socialist Alliance and challenges to pose to us.
The histories of each of these movements have things in common – and also their own particular dynamic which there is not space or time to explore here.
And of course the ways that activists coming into activity for the first time today will raise questions, and the issues that are priorities today, will be different from those that animated people who have been involved for some time – affected by both the gains and the problems of those previous struggles.
We need to find ways to discuss these lessons and to work together with these movements in the battles that they are taking on.