Dear Editors,
In response to Julian Prior’s letter about the article on the Internet in the August issue of Socialist Standard I’d like to make a few points.
The first one is that the Internet is just like other information disseminators such as newspapers, books and magazines except it’s electronic and generally cheaper. For instance the Socialist Standard is a hard copy form of information distributed to a few thousand around the world and compared to the Sun, a tabloid gossip rag in the UK. which is read by around four million daily it doesn’t compare.
Similarly, on the net socialists distribute their information electronically but once the big corporations move in, again, socialist material will be dwarfed. It's true what he says about groups resisting this encroachment by corporations onto the net, but that's capitalism isn’t it? The past 200 years of capitalism has been about people resisting the commercialisation of life. It's also true what he says about Mexico and the Mayan rebels, indeed the same could be said about the Russian coup attempt in 1991 or Tiananmen Square both of which used fax and computer technology to alert the world. But what’s new about this? In the past, rebellions and wars were brought to public view using newspapers or leaflets. All that has changed is the method not the content. It’s also true that socialists won’t stand aside whilst the corporations move in, but if the Internet is growing at such a rate then socialists will be sidelined. If half the net is commercialised now after only two or three years of real net use then what’s it going to be like in 10 years?
My general view is that we should see the net for what it is, a convenient and valuable information and communication resource and use it as such. In fact that’s what I find exciting about the net, the accessibility of information and its global reach. I certainly don't think it will go away, but I'm sure that this new global reach of the net is going to be used by corporations for their own ends.
As for how people are going to become socialists if information is market-led, people become socialists for various reasons. not exclusively through access to socialist literature. In some ways it could be argued that people have to be socialist or socialistically-inclined to know where to get socialist literature in the first place, in other words most socialist literature preaches to the semi-converted anyway. But, of course this shouldn’t mean that socialist literature has no wider value, as people's life experiences and increasing global outlook encourages them to look for better ways to manage our world then socialism will become an increasingly viable option.
Jonathan Meakin,
Leixlip, Co. Kildare,
Ireland (jmeakin@iol.ie)
Band Aids and Aspirin
Dear Editors,
No doubt there is a need for the relief given to the desperate. poor, starving and sick people of the Third World by various charities, including Oxfam (Socialist Standard July). Just as there is no doubt that there is a need for the secondhand clothing sold to the poorest people in this country by Oxfam and other charities.
The fact is, however, that a world in which some depend on charitable schemes for bare subsistence. and others, the admittedly less absolutely poor, depend on the discarded clothing of the more affluent, is a sick world. Charity, I am sure the most fervent Oxfam supporter must admit, is not a solution, but band aid or aspirin at best Socialism is the cure.
Robert Taylor,
South Shields, Tyne & Wear
In defense of Islam
Dear Editors,
I am writing in response to A. Ditta's letter about "Socialism versus Islam" (Socialist Standard, August). In his letter, Ditta states that "Islam is a very oppressive religion depriving women, gays and other minority groups of fundamental rights". I find this statement very hard to swallow. The goal of Islam is to give rights to all people in order to create a just and tolerant society. In pre-lslamic Arabia, a woman was looked down upon as a source of grief, and baby girls were sometimes buried alive. Henry VIII forbade the women in England to read the Bible, and throughout the middles ages, the Catholic Church treated women as second-class citizens. Before 1850, women were not counted as citizens in England and English women had no personal rights until 1882 (Islam: Beliefs and Teachings, Ghulam Sarwar). Under Islam, women have had all of these rights and more for fourteen hundred years. As for Islam being oppressive towards minority groups. I’m not quite sure to whom A. Ditta is referring. If Ditta is referring to “racial minorities", I will point out that Islam embraces people of all colours. If Ditta is referring to the economic minority, the upper class, s/he can rest assured that they are not deprived of their fundamental rights. I am not clear on whether or not gays are deprived of their fundamental rights, so I must abstain from making any comment at the present moment.
Islam's main goal can be paralleled to one of the goals of socialism. This goal is to create a just, loving and tolerant society. It is compulsory for Muslims to give charity and the richer members of society are advised to spread their wealth throughout the community to try and balance the unequal distribution of wealth. It is true that Muslim countries have a record of abusing human rights, but the religion of Islam cannot be blamed for that. Many people in power abuse human rights on a regular basis and use Islam to justify their actions. They cloak their sins by falsely sighting Islam as the reason for what they do. It is these people who are responsible for denying fundamental rights to other human beings, not Islam. Erum Faruqi,
London SWI
Reply:
Assuming that Erum Faruqi is correct about the goals of Islam being to create a "just, loving and tolerant society” the fact remains that it has failed to do so in fourteen hundred years. If Islam is such a powerful force of good and tolerance then these abusers of human rights would not have got to the positions they have. It is strange that one cannot cite a single Islamic country that lives up to the ideals that she refers to. or even comes anywhere near—the divisions of wealth in all of them is as great as anywhere else. The answer, of course, is that Muslims put their trust in leaders (both religious and secular) instead of themselves and that is fatal.
Islam accepts the class nature of society though it had some difficulties in embracing the capitalist form but in the end managed to find a way round that. There's an old saying about the rich will do anything for the poor but get off their backs and this is precisely what the rich Muslims who "spread their wealth throughout the community” are doing. They still rely on the exploitation of Muslim and other workers to maintain their wealth and privilege and then arc “generous" enough to hand a few coins of conscience money back.
Erum Faruqi says that a goal of Islam is to give rights to all people. Who are these people who are to bestow these rights? Probably the very same people she accuses of abusing human rights. Socialists don’t want to be given anything by the capitalist class, our aim is to get the majority producing class in society to take democratically the resources of the world and use them for the benefit of all. As socialists we aren't concerned whether Islam is or is not better than other religions. As far as we are concerned all religions—Islam, Christianity. Judaism. Hinduism. Buddhism, the lot—are absurd and wrong.
Islam may have started out with good intentions but now workers all over the world should start questioning their religious beliefs and their support of leaders and ask themselves if they can better their situation by organising together democratically to build a socialist movement which won’t be able to be hijacked by power-seekers who use the discontent of workers to get to the top.
Editors.
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