Is Religion Any Different Today? (1973)

From the February 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

A few times every year the Socialist Standard receives letters which read, on average, as follows: “I have been a reader for some months and agree with nearly all you say, except that you seem to find no room for Christianity in your socialist case. Surely Christianity and Socialism both aim at the same objective, i.e. the brotherhood of man? I am myself a lifelong member of the Anglican Church . . .”

The answer is that ever since its foundation the Socialist Party of Great Britain has been unequivocally opposed to religion in every form. No-one holding a religious belief is admitted to membership. The opposition is twofold. First, to give credit to the supernatural and supposed absolute truths is to have blockades up against an intelligent understanding of the world. Second, organised religion has always been fostered by rulers to keep subjects in their place. With fear and ignorance as stock-in-trade, and poverty and submission as blessed states, belief provides a perfect instrument. “Let them eat cake” means the divine ready-mix on which every status quo in history has been nourished.

Lingering Decline

In 1910 we published the first of numerous editions of Socialism and Religion, the pamphlet in which our attitude was fully stated. Then, as now, it was an attitude which only Socialists could take. Plenty of other organisations and individuals may have shared the feeling that the churches were in the pockets of the ruling class, but were not prepared to damage their prospects of power by publicly declaring it; the evasive principle “religion is a private affair” had widespread acceptance in the Labour and radical movements. The churches knew the position only too well, however. In 1914 a Catholic Congress in Belfast heard an address on Socialism and Religion. “The poisoned breath of Socialism” was the lecturer’s phrase, and his plea “that it shall never be allowed to establish a foothold within the fair hills of holy Ireland”.

Why is not Socialism and Religion published today? If there were money to spare, we might have done it; but the fact is that the exposure of religion is no longer a “must”. The social importance and the influence of religion have declined steadily in the western world. There are, of course, special cases — principally where Catholic populations exist. Nevertheless, if it can still be inflammatory to write “Kick the Pope” on a wall, it is hard to imagine “Kick the Archbishop of Canterbury” causing indignation (“Kick the Chief Rabbi” would annoy the Race Relations Board more than anyone else). A regular churchgoer is now almost an exceptional figure. In non-urban areas where the churches’ direct influence on social life has continued longest, only handfuls now attend. In recent years between eight and nine hundred churches in Britain have been shut up or demolished and their parishes incorporated in others.

Without doubt, the vestigial beliefs linger on. Most people if asked would probably acknowledge never attending church except for baptisms, marriage and funerals; but assert also the “rightness” of it on those occasions and profess faith in God and an afterlife. They would think it wrong, too, to swear in front of a clergyman or anyone known to be “religious”. The word “atheist” has curious connotations of shockingness (“agnostic” is more respectable, conveying vague intellectual qualities). Indeed, Christians seem to take for granted a right to make themselves offensive to whoever does not share their beliefs. Tell one that you are an atheist and he will say either “I hope you’ve thought about this” (well, yes: have you?) or “I hope you don’t thrust it down your children’s throats” — which, considering all the religious throat-thrusting, is as absurdly insolent a remark as could be made.

Playing for Safety

Why do these traces and assumptions hang on as gross impediments to sensible thought? One reason is simply conditioning: what we are brought up on is not readily relinquished. Prayers, axioms, reverence, the annual reiteration of the Christmas and Easter myths — no-one escapes them in childhood, and it is made heavily inconvenient to do so afterwards. Another is psychological need: many people’s inability, itself promoted by the social environment which includes religion, to face the conflicts and problems of life. Its phenomena range from Moral Rearmament’s screaming that sex is a Communist plot, to the small boom in spiritualism after every war. The common word for adopting belief in such circumstances, “embraced”, is remarkably apt. It suggests arms thrown round in an imploring hold, hugging tightly for support lest the subject slide to the ground.

Do they really believe it? All the evidence suggests that mostly the vestigial beliefs are professed and rational thinking rejected as a kind of post-burial insurance, a hedged wager to cover the however-unlikely chance of the outsider coming in. As Samuel Butler wrote, the well-known hymn ought to say “I bet that my Redeemer liveth”. This is in fact the agnostic’s position — despite lofty phrases like “an open mind”, agnosticism is merely hoping not to be caught out. Certainly the usual claim that it is “scientific” to be an agnostic is the height of inanity: how far would science get if practised in the frame of mind that leprechauns are always a possibility?

Belief and Action

But nor do the more ardent Christians believe in the nonsense they preach. George Orwell, replying to a critic in 1944, wrote: “Most Christians profess to believe in Hell. Yet have you ever met a Christian who seemed as afraid of Hell as he was of cancer?” There is a shrewdly-conceived episode in The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists where a preacher is challenged over a biblical passage saying believers may take poison without being harmed, shown a likely-looking bottle, and invited to demonstrate. His answer—”I wouldn’t be such a fool” — is precisely what all Christians would say about the literal pursuit of their beliefs. Why should they not be expected to pursue them if they do believe them? After all, it is usually Christians who say to holders of unrespectable views: “What would the world be like if everyone were like you?” Well, what would it be like if everyone acted on Christian precepts? To see large numbers of people rejecting riches, turning the other cheek, giving precedence to the meek and lowly, etc., would be a nice change.

Bottom Knocked Out

There has been an interesting example recently. General Amin, when he first proposed to expel the Ugandan Asians, announced that he had been told by God in a dream to do so. Considering the precedents for this, the political and religious leaders in Britain should have been very deeply impressed by it. Instead, it was universally taken as proof that Amin was mad. So the hushed reverence with which the Bible stories of similar visitations are told and received is a spurious currency, circulated against the background knowledge that repetitions would not be allowed to upset the way this society goes on.

Of course, many Christians disclaim the superstition and mythology; most of our correspondents do. They could hardly say otherwise if an argument is to be had. The main supernatural claims of religion have been demolished by scientific discovery which has become everyday fact, from Darwin and Lyell to space-exploration. Even allowing that many Americans reportedly think no-one has been to the moon and the whole thing is a TV studio production, nobody has commented that one of the oldest props of rule by fear has gone. It was never suggested or expected that the astronauts might run into flights of angels or pass Paradise on the way; yet only a generation ago schoolchildren were taught and adults believed that they were all above the earth, looking down.

The religious fashion today is to talk as if those beliefs were never taken seriously, and the remaining supernatural doctrines can (if it suits, that is) be disowned. Thus, the self-styled “thinking” Christian can play a game of can’t-catch-me: on one hand repeating Creation, virgin birth, Hell, Holy Trinity, resurrection, on the other explaining that these are allegories whose meanings his opponents don’t understand. It would be more to the point to say that he finds them impossible to support but is anxious for other people to believe them.

Meanwhile, in Society …

The decline of religion is due to more than simply scientific knowledge, however. Just as devout Christians do not live according to the Commandments and the Beatitudes because it would be materially inconvenient to do so, working people generally are less and less ready to swallow doctrines palpably against their interests. A notable instance is the increasing failure of working-class Catholics to comply with their Church’s orders about family life. Irish Catholics practise birth-control of a kind by marrying as late as possible, but in Britain and America the majority of Catholic families are seemingly affected by relative sterility. The reason is obvious. In a different environment, the extreme poverty of outsize families becomes unacceptable : belief goes to the wall.

It is worth reflecting, too, on the altered social status of the clergy. Up to, roughly, the second world war they were taken seriously. Churchmen’s pronouncements were reported on the front pages of newspapers. In country districts they were almost dictatorial, virtually commanding people to church. If you look at jokes in old numbers of Punch, a great many were about the clergy; curates were usually nincompoops with fertile wives, but bishops were always shown as awesome figures of rectitude. Compare that situation with the minuscule congregations and the clergy-jokes of today, as in the TV comedies like All Gas and Gaiters. In them, clergymen (including bishops) are shown as asses who impress nobody and think of not much besides fleshpots. These depictions are not tremendously funny, but that is not due to any feeling of sacrilege. When real prelates and vicars can be seen on television, bumbling in news items and burbling in religious programmes, for sheer hilariousness there is no comparison. The clergy, apparently, do not complain of Gas and Gaiters; the actors would have a far better case for complaining of unfair competition.

Nothing in Common

But what of “the brotherhood of man”? Can the absurdities, the superstitious and absolutist elements be stripped from religion and an entity remain which Socialists and Christians are striving for alike? The answer is no. The presumption that brotherliness and co-operation are “what Christianity is all about” is another religious spoof. They are what, humanity is all about. Man is a social being, with co-operation and order as his dominant tendencies — if he had not them, we should not be here today.

Socialists therefore do not seek the brotherhood of man: it exists already. What we aim at is the creation of a society in which it can flourish, instead of being continually frustrated and perverted as it is under capitalism. And, to come back to where we began, religion gives no aid in that task. On the contrary, by the churches’ support for capitalism and Christians’ hocus-pocus beliefs, it is an enemy of social progress. If, improbably, in a sane society there turned out to be individuals who could not live without imaginative consolations, that weakness would be accepted (certainly it would not be treated with the malevolence with which Christians behave towards atheists today). However, we are in the world of capitalism, and in that context socialism and religion are diametrically opposed.

Robert Barltrop

Liberating Africa? (1980)

From the March 1980 issue of the Socialist Standard

There is a country in Africa which has so much liberty that it is actually called Liberia. It should of course have been christened Tyrannia so similar is it to the other “independent” states of Africa (and so independent that it almost belongs lock stock and barrel to Firestone Tyre of America). Its tyrannical ruling class is not however composed of indigenous blacks but of the descendants of former slaves who returned to Africa after the American Civil War and proceeded to make virtual slaves of the entire black population.

In many ways, Liberia has served as a prototype for the dozens of “liberated” African hell-holes which have emerged since the end of the Hitler war. The sufferings of the mass of the people in the countries that were formerly parts of the European imperialist empire are such that most people do not even have a glimmer of understanding of what goes on there. Oh yes, we all know about the slaughters in Uganda by the minions of the murderous Amin, and perhaps many people became aware that innocent black workers and peasants were butchered at will by another megalomaniac called Emperor Bokassa in a former part of the French empire called the Central African Republic. But there arc numerous other appalling regimes which have busied themselves in murdering thousands of their own populations in countries that arc barely even names in the West.

Who knows where to find Ruanda or Burundi or Upper Volta on the map (assuming you know they exist in the first place)? Who then knows that countless numbers of innocent men, women and children have been drowned in rivers of blood whose sources are their own black ruling classes? In case anyone imagines that the rulers of other African states view these events with horror, just ask the question: Now that Amin and Bokassa (to name but two) have been overthrown, what has happened to them? They are alive and well and living in other African states, enjoying the wealth they accumulated through the sweat of their black subjects. It is significant that these murderous robbers enjoy the protection of their fellow African rulers—and, let it not be forgotten, of their friends—their former European masters like President Giscard who brazens out the scandal of the diamonds he got from Bokassa—with the help of the French Communist Party which says such things don’t matter!

In fact, there is not a square yard of freedom from Cairo to the Cape (ironically there might prove to be a change in that regard in, of all places, Rhodesia, but more of that below). The facts are clear; nationalism, whether it be African, Basque, Irish, Scottish or Welsh, is a trap for the working class. It is a delusion that the workers’ wage-slave status will be different if the slaveowners are changed from white to black or from Castilian to Basque. So that all the sacrifices and all the misery that were endured to get rid of the hateful British imperialism in, say, Uganda, have merely served to change white tyrants for black ones—who in many cases proved even more monstrous. Those British leftists who backed anti-colonial movements thirty or forty years ago show not the slightest understanding of, let alone remorse about the grisly results. Fenner Brockway (now My Lord, if you please), who was formerly young and stupid and is now old and stupid, makes it clear whenever his voice is heard that he remains proud of his efforts to foist the likes of Kenyatta, Nkrumah, Nyerere, Kaunda upon the suffering African people.

To add to the horror of it all, pseudo-socialists like Brockway and similar people in the Labour Party and other so-called leftist organisations, not only besmirched the name of socialism by supporting these appalling nationalist movements, they still lend their names to the preposterous claim that these countries are socialist. Socialism, however, can only be brought about by the conscious understanding and support—freely and democratically given—of the majority of the working class. That understanding is a long way from being evident in countries like Britain, where the workers have a chance to register it freely if they were so minded. The notion that the majority of workers in places like Tanzania, Zambia, Mozambique, Angola, Libya, have had an opportunity to discuss and debate the issue of capitalism or socialism and have freely and democratically elected socialists to their parliaments, is clearly absurd.

In all these countries the regimes are tyrannies, where there is no possibility of free socialist parties being allowed to propagate their views. Where, indeed, opponents of any kind are intimidated, gaoled or killed. The white regime in South Africa is undoubtedly obnoxious, but the leftists (including such organs of the capitalist press as the Guardian, the Observer, the New Statesman, Tribune) who spend so much time screaming against that regime, carefully overlook that there are more blacks rotting in the dungeons of Nyerere’s Tanzania or Mengitsu’s Ethiopia—two countries which vie for the honour of first place in Amnesty’s lists of murderous regimes—than South Africa has ever had.

In Rhodesia, at the time of writing, an election campaign is proceeding and—give or take a few murders—it seems that a number of parties, black and white (but of course all capitalists of varying hues) have the opportunity to state their views and canvass votes with all manner of reformist promises, just like good old Britain (they even vie with one another about curing unemployment just like our own con-men). Yet whether any semblance of democracy will exist when the elections are over must be gravely in doubt. The apparent leader in the race for power is Robert Mugabe, who has the impudence to call himself a Marxist (which is echoed by all the ignorant press here). This man has been running a guerrilla army for some years based in Mozambique and his ideas are so full of democratic freedoms that not only does he murder the supporters of opposing parties and even of allied leaders of the so-called Patriotic Front; he even kills and imprisons his own party members who happen to disagree with him. Lord Soames, the temporary British governor, has twisted Mugabe’s arm to release over seventy of such victims from his prisons in neighbouring Mozambique (another Marxist state, of course!). This item was referred to in a leading article in the Guardian (Jan 20). What the leader omitted to mention was that Mugabe only agreed on condition that they arc not allowed to move freely inside Rhodesia during the election campaign (even though some of them are candidates!). In other words, he keeps a private prison and will hand over the victims on condition that they remain chained and gagged. So if he is like this with his own party members before he attains power, the imagination boggles at what kind of hell he will visit on the country if elected in place of the previous incumbent, Bishop Muzorewa. King Stork for King Log!

Finally, we must refer to a recent (January 28) article in the Guardian: President Machel of Mozambique has “advised” (quotes in original) the “Marxist” Mugabe “to send envoys to South Africa to spell out a policy of peaceful co-existence and non-interference. And Mugabe’s vice president of ZANU-PF, Simon Muzenda, is expected to fly to the parliamentary capital of Cape Town soon to add his avuncular charm to such tidings.” All this without a blush in the great “liberal" paper which screams its head off about a team of bone-headed rugby players going out there to play games. One almost feels more at home with the right-wing rugby corespondent of the right-wing Sunday Telegraph, John Reason, who, asked by a BBC twit about the reactions to the rugby tour of the Organisation of African Unity, replied: “Might as well worry about Idi Amin. He was their chairman recently”.

L. E. Weidberg

Amin, Africa and the World (1976)

From the September 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

The way to stop understanding of events is to show them as resulting from personal misconduct or mismanagement by those in charge. Had Hitler not been mad and bad, the Second World War would never have happened. Stalin's treacherousness made Russia what it is. But for a succession of weak and untrustworthy leaders, the Labour Party would have brought us all to the Promised Land. This view of history means we are perpetually invited to look at figures idiotic and corrupt, and put all the blame on them. Without doubt they are all as objectionable as stated, but that is not the answer. The high chairs in which these characters sit are provided by capitalism, and at some time of need each appeared to be the ideal occupant.

The special place of buffoon-turned-villain is held at present by President Amin of Uganda. Since his regime began it has been characterized by killings, culminating in the "Makerere massacre" of over 100 students in August this year. It has included the deportation of Asians in 1972, and a series of international incidents; in July there was a confrontation with Kenya, and on the 28th July Britain broke of diplomatic relations with Uganda. There have been attempts at uprisings and to assassinate Amin. On 1st August The Observer had an editorial headed "Getting rid of Amin".

The fact is that Amin's takeover in January 1971 was supported by Israel and favoured by Britain. A lengthy article in The Observer on 15th August recalled that the previous Prime Minister of Uganda, Dr. Milton Obote, had at the end of 1969 introduced a "Move to the Left" policy that was "Britain's reason for welcoming the coup d'état 13 months later". On Amin's accession, the article went on: "The British Government was delighted . . . One of Amin's first acts was to de-nationalize the British businesses taken over by Obote." Israel viewed Uganda under Amin as as an ally against the Arab states. While these relationships lasted, Amin was presented as a not-unsympathetic clown; since they were reversed, the Ugandan regime has been shown as a reign of terror.

Uganda was formerly a British protectorate, and remains part of the British Commonwealth. In the 19th century and up to World War II trade was carried on by a number of European countries and Asian traders; there were thriving cotton, coffee and timber industries, and large stocks of timber were contributed to war production for Britain. The wartime increases in world prices for cotton and coffee brought economic advances and the importation of industrial machinery and this in turn promoted ideas of nationalism. British companies still operate in Uganda — according to a report in The Times on 29th July they include Unilever and the ubiquitous Lonrho group, and subsidiaries of Grindlays, Barclays and Standard banks.

The concern with Uganda and other African states today is their relationship with the conflicting interests of the big powers. In East Africa, Somalia is backed and armed by the Soviet Union. Ethiopia is armed by America, but has officials who talk the parrot-jargon taught by Russia. In June this year the American government provided Kenya with a 44 credit for the purchase of 12 American fighter aircraft. A report in The Times on 20th July said:

In the American view, Soviet and Chinese arms supplies to the African states in recent years have completely altered the balance of power, and this must now be redeemed. Kenya is an obvious starting point.

In the week of Amin's Makerere massacre 98 men were executed in the Sudan for taking part in a revolt supported by Libya and other Arab countries (Times, 6th August) without expressions of horror from the western world.

Amin's support in finance, arms and technical personnel comes from the Arab states, particularly Libya, which is in turn supplied by Russia. In the flare-up between Uganda and Kenya it was said that neither America nor Russia wanted to see a shooting war develop in this part of Africa and had advised caution to both sides and their neighbours. Nevertheless, the balance between Africa and Middle East states and the major powers which "handle" them is like that of the Balkan states and Europe before 1914. It is absurd to imagine that this position would be different if Uganda, Libya and other states had more amiable rulers. In some cases they had different ones, who were made unacceptable by the situation instead of the opposite happening.

The continual threat of war is created by the worldwide working of capitalism. The major powers all want to exploit Africa far more intensely than was done under direct imperialism; at the same time the nationalism of the African countries provides a market for arms production. According to figures in the 1976 Yearbook of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, in the Middle East "where the arms trade had been most conspicuous" nearly 16 per cent of the region's gross product was being spent on military purposes.

The cause of war remains the same: conflicts among the capitalists of various nations over markets, trade routes and resources of production. Of course it is masked by diplomacy and and political motives. The last major war fought more or less openly for markets was World War I. The immediate factors in the modern world are control of strategic points and influence over particular sections, presented as a conflict between "ideologies". Ultimately, however, all wars are economic. The balance of power in Africa is between the growing and aspiring ruling classes of the states there, their deals for aid with bigger nations, and the bigger nations' own need for oil and minerals for commodity production.

In this balance, the grotesque Amin is entirely dependent on his sponsors. The continuation of the Kenyan oil blockade in July could have caused his downfall, and from the viewpoint of his Arab allies he is unreliable and disposable; no doubt their attitude is like Samuel Pepys's — "whether it will be better for me to have him die, because he is a bad man, or live, for fear a worse should come". Meanwhile, workers in Uganda and countless other countries not only under tyrannical regimes but have the prospect of being fodder for wars, in which the enemies are a matter of permutation. This is the result of production for profit. It does not have to go on.

Robert Barltrop