News in Review: The Pope and peace (1965)

The News in Review column from the November 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Pope and peace

Of course it made some nice headlines for the newspapers; but the one thing the Pope's visit to New York last month was not concerned with was peace.

It is difficult to imagine anyone being taken in by the Pope’s speech, so numerous and familiar are the appeals and declarations which are constantly being made on the subject—often by politicians who are up to their necks in war.

None of the world leaders who make these appeals ever has the slightest difficulty in excusing the wars in which he gets involved. None of them ever has any difficulty in excusing the most horrible of atrocities; all of them are concerned with the national interests of their ruling class before any considerations of humanity.

In one way, it was fitting that the Pope should make his appeal at the United Nations, for that more than anything highlighted its ineffectuality. UNO has a function when the smaller nations are involved in a comparatively trivial dispute, which the bigger powers want to see cleared up. But when the stakes are higher, it is a different matter.

UNO was helpless in Korea. It could do nothing over the Berlin crisis. The vague noises it made over Cuba were not allowed to divert Russia and America from their stern purpose. It stands helplessly by now, as the war rages in Vietnam.

Just as the great powers of capitalism do not allow UNO to affect the way in which they protect their interests, so they do not tolerate interference from religious leaders. The Pope has his uses to capitalism, but international politics cannot be settled in the Vatican.

In any case, what are any appeals for peace worth? War in the modern world does not happen by accident, or because the leaders of world religion have omitted to make a speech about peace. War is a direct result of the nature of capitalism and there is no more ardent supporter of that system than the Catholic Church.

That is why Catholics are in no two minds, when a war breaks out. With the blessing of their Church, they take arms—often killing their fellow Catholics on the other side.

The time for a religious leader to speak out is when the shooting starts. But to do so would be to challenge the capitalist social system; it would be to expose religious hypocrisy, with which the churches constantly divert working class energies from the essential task of building a world of peace and brotherhood.

It is only necessary to state this proposition, to see how ridiculous it is.

New York had quite a time during the Pope’s flying visit. And when he was gone they went back to the business of running capitalism; in factories and offices the American workers were still exploited, the Stock Exchange went on with its dealings, in the South the Negro was still persecuted. And the Pentagon was still running the show in Vietnam.

Indonesia

“PALACE COLONEL OUSTS SOEKARNO.'’ 

“JAKARTA CLAIMS COUP CRUSHED.”

Conflicting headlines—always a sign that nobody is quite sure what is going on, but everybody’s doing their best—brought Indonesia once again onto the front pages. Not that Indonesia is out of the news for very long. This “Republic of Islands”, as one newspaper aptly described it, is the largest country in South East Asia.

Like so many new States that were once colonies of a European power, Indonesia is a rather ramshackle affair, with great difficulty in holding its scattered parts together. The boundaries of these colonies were largely fixed by what the colonisers could grab, and hold against the attacks of their greedy rivals.

They are not always particularly easy to administer as an independent state. In addition Indonesia has terribly poverty. This has not however prevented their new ruling class from embarking on a continual policy of Imperialist expansion, aimed at making Indonesian the dominant power in South East Asia.

One’s mind goes back to 1945, when the “Dutch East Indies” proclaimed their' Independence, and began a fight against Holland. It was one of the first to do so, and great hopes were held by the “Left” as to their prospects.

“Australian Unions” organised strikes to hold up shipments of arms, and “Hands off Indonesia” placards were carried on May Day in London. Independence was gained, and their followed the usual process of exploitation by the new ruling class that had replaced the old.

The main conclusion was that this revolt, which appears to have been “Communist” inspired, would weaken Indonesia’s ties with China. This may be the case, but should anybody happen to be worrying, if it suits the interests of the ruling classes in these two countries, the ties will soon tighten up again.

Gas strike

Towards the end of last September British Petroleum announced that they had struck natural gas beneath the North Sea, although they were not sure that they had found enough to make it a paying proposition.

This was the first strike of any importance in the search which eight groups are carrying on in the North Sea, at a cost somewhere near £100 million. At that price, they obviously hope to find something worthwhile and the news from BP gave them the first glimmering of hope that they will do so.

Of course, the press rhapsodised upon the benefits which the gas strike is supposed to be bringing the people of this country. But a couple of weeks later another piece of news put the matter in a different perspective.

On 6th October the Dutch and British governments signed an agreement which fixed the exact line dividing the areas over which each of them has the right to grant licences to drill for gas and oil. The British government already had applications for licences from the big oil firms in their pending trays.

What this means is that, in the search for valuable raw materials and fuels, the British and Dutch ruling classes have simply annexed the North Sea, giving themselves the legal powers to do so in the process.

This is something like what happened when the newborn capitalist powers were opening up the world to their manufacturers and commerce. They simply moved in and stole vast areas of the world, suppressed the inhabitants, fixed the borders, signed agreements with other international robbers and gave licences and concessions to their own companies to exploit the place. 

There is, of course, no need to suppress the fish in the North Sea. But the carve-up of the area could be as much a source of dispute in the future as was the division of Africa and the Far East.

We are being told that nothing but joy and plenty will result from the discovery of gas and oil under the North Sea. Yet there are no grounds to believe this.

How much happiness did the Congo’s rubber bring? What contribution to the peace of the world has the oil in the Middle East made? What were the effects on the war in Algeria, when the French discovered- oil and gas under the Sahara?

Capitalism is a competitive system, in which rival powers fight ruthlessly for advantage. In this set-up, the discovery of sources of natural wealth often turn out to be anything but a blessing for mankind.

If the North Sea is the El Dorado which some of the experts think, it may well become another sore spot. The agreements which now divide the area will be challenged by those powers which arrived too late to get a share. Legal arguments—and perhaps worse—will be used in the dispute; there will be the customary declamations about “right” and “heritage”. And who dare say what the end of it will be?

Indian A-Bomb

The plain fact about the Indian government’s much publicised decision, several years ago, not to produce an atomic bomb is that it is too good to be true.

And so it is turning out.

India's renunciation meant that some people thought of her as a country where human interests were put above those of narrow nationalism. India was held up as an example for the rest of the sabre-rattling world to follow.

This has never been consistent with the way India acted over, say Goa and Kashmir—incidents which made Delhi’s attitude to atomic weapons look suspiciously like one inspired by anything but humanitarianism.

In any case, the Indian government always made it clear that, if the international situation demanded it, they would make the Bomb. For a long time they have been working on the basics of a nuclear weapon—their separation plant near Bombay, which produces plutonium, has been working for over a year.

And now comes the news from New Delhi that the pressure from Indian military and political circles to make the Bomb is growing, and that (according to The Guardian of 27th September last) the first one may be exploded sometime next year.

The campaign in favour of an Indian Bomb, to go with the rest in the world, has gathered strength from recent events. Indian military men complain that Pakistan had the advantage of advanced American weapons in the fighting in Kashmir, and that the threat from China looms ever larger.

They also claim that the old argument, that the Bomb was too expensive, has been disproved. The estimated cost is now around £20 million. There is no record yet of anyone in India protesting at this sort of money being spent on weapons by a country which has such a chronic problem of hunger and disease.

Such considerations are irrelevant. The reasons for making the Bomb are always the same; one senior Indian officer summed them up: " . . if national interests are at stake . . . we have no alternative but to go ahead.”

Everyone is familiar now with the argument of “national interests”. It is used to excuse any suffering, any atrocity, any betrayal. It is an argument which will be used by many nations if and when a global nuclear war ever starts.

It is only appropriate that we should be hearing the same argument now that India may be getting ready to go back on her word over atomic weapons. It is also appropriate that India, who has done so much to foster the idea that there are such things as oases of nobility among the murderous desert of capitalism. should herself expose the fallacy.

Tiny Tips (2024)

The Tiny Tips column from the November 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘I cried deep inside of my heart’, said Nisa, now 32, recounting her first contract wedding. ‘Who wants to sleep with an old man? I did this purely for the money, so my parents can eat and my siblings can go to school.’ With her encouragement, her sister also became a contract bride, bringing in a dowry of $3,000 for her first marriage because she was a virgin. Nisa estimated that she herself has been in 20 contract marriages (‘Sex tourism in Indonesia sells itself as Islamic temporary marriage’.) 

(Los Angeles Times).

‘Interestingly, some of these people were supporters of the communist regime only a few years ago. There are of course others who are still convinced by CCP propaganda, who believe that China is the safest place in the world and that everywhere else is in chaos’, Cui adds. He attributes China’s economic development to “the hard work of the people” who are exploited by Party leaders. As an example of the lack of political rights, he cites the fact that the regime has taken away the freedom and wealth of nouveau riche figures like Xu Jiayin and Jack Ma. He cites the words of late Premier Li Keqiang, who made public in 2020 that some 600 million Chinese live on less than US$140 a month. 

(Equal Times)

As for national liberation, all one can say is that with friends like Hamas, Palestinians do not need enemies. Rather than freedom, the so-called ‘Islamic Resistance’ has nothing to offer them but poverty and bloodshed. Hamas’s position is crystal clear. ‘These are necessary sacrifices’, military commander Yahya Sinwar said of the mass. destruction in Gaza in a communication with fellow Hamas leaders in Doha, Qatar. 

(Daniel Lazere)

‘While Ukraine presses on with its incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, its troops are still losing precious ground along the country’s eastern front – a grim erosion that military commanders blame in part on poorly trained recruits drawn from a recent mobilization drive, as well as Russia’s clear superiority in ammunition and air power. “Some people don’t want to shoot. They see the enemy in the firing position in trenches but don’t open fire. … That is why our men are dying,” said a frustrated battalion commander in Ukraine’s 47th Brigade’. 

(Libcom)

Ahn Chang-ho, who opposes anti-discrimination laws, also rejects the theory of evolution and wants creationism lessons in schools. A former judge nominated to lead South Korea’s human rights body has sparked outrage with his comments against the LGBTQ community and the theory of evolution, with observers citing him as proof of the country’s flawed system for official appointments. Ahn Chang-ho, 67, is under scrutiny for his statements in parliament suggesting that homosexuality is a tool used by communists to incite revolution. 

(MSN)

In a healthy ecosystem, the various sets of animal … get along with each other without the need of any system of authority or dominance—indeed, without overriding structure or organization of any kind soever. 

(Counterpunch)

(These links are provided for information and don’t necessarily represent our point of view.)

Voice From The Back: Weakest Link—for real (2001)

The Voice From The Back Column from the February 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

Weakest Link—for real

Employees at one of Britain’s fastest-growing and most respected companies, FI Group, are being offered a £1,000 bounty to name colleagues who could be replaced by cheaper workers from India. . .

Financial Mail on Sunday, 24 December.

How it’s done

Former BMW boss, Bernt Pischetsrieder today admitted that he had deliberately provoked Rover’s crisis two years ago to weaken union bargaining power. Mr Pischetsrieder, now a top executive with Volkswagen and running its Seat subsidiary, admitted he had undermined the launch of the Rover 75 as the “last chance saloon” in front of the world’s press at the Birmingham Motor Show in 1998. He said BMW had been deep in negotiations at the time over company demands to boost productivity and the ploy was needed to win concessions from workers as the strong pound started to hurt the business.

Evening Mail, 13 December.

Only joking (?)

“This Christmas, indulge in a little blackmail, extortion and torture.” Advertisement for an Olympus camera.

How the wealth is spent

Forget Monte Carlo and Belgravia, for the very rich in 2001 the ideal home has no postcode. Instead they are trying to secure one of the few remaining apartments aboard the world’s first residential cruise ship . . . With no fixed abode, residents are not liable to pay tax and one Monaco-based oil trader is already arranging the transfer of his entire business to his new floating home . . . apartments on the 12 decks cost between $2 million (£1.4 million) and $5 million . . . one Saudi businessman signed for his £3.5 million pad, with its £250,000 annual service charge, within 15 minutes of reading the brochure.

Times, 27 December.

How the wealth is made

The [European] Parliament will be told that clothes for Adidas were made in two factories using child labour, forced overtime and sexual harassment. Representatives of workers in two Indonesian factories supplying the German company will tell Euro MPs that in the Nikomax Gemilang and Tuntex factories, in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, children as young as 15 were: made to work 15-hour days; expected to do at least 70 hours a week and punished for refusing to do overtime; paid less than $60 a month, rates below the International Labour Organisation’s demand for a living wage; penalised for taking leave during medical difficulties and had illegal deductions taken from wages as punishments for minor misdemeanours . . . Pay at the Nikomas plant was increased to more than 9,000Rs (75p per day) following the campaigners complaints, Adidas said. 

Observer, 19 November.

How the wealth is lost (1)

More pensioners died from cold last winter than during any winter since 1976. If latest wealthier predictions are correct, the death toll this winter will be even worse. Almost 55,000 people died from cold-related illnesses between last December and March, new figures from the Office of National Statistics reveal. The figures will acutely embarrass Ministers who had pledged to end pensioner poverty. “It’s a tragedy that people in Britain are still literally freezing to death and a main reason is poverty,” said Ben Harding of Help the Aged. “We deal with thousands of cases where older people can’t meet the costs of heating their home. They need heat all day and sometimes at night are particularly vulnerable.” 

Observer, 26 November.

How the wealth is lost (2)

The number of people in Britain classified as very poor has increased by half a million since 1997 when Labour came to power, according to an independent report. The number of people living in households with less than the 40 percent of the average income is now 8,750,000. The study, published today by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, also reveals an increase in the number of people living below the poverty line—defined as less than half the national average income—to 14,250,000 over the past two years. That is one million more than in the early 1990s and more than double the number of the early 1980s. Older people are suffering more according to the survey. Since 1993 the proportion of elderly households helped to live at home by their local authority has fallen by 30 percent. 

Times, 11 December.

World View: Australia - in defence of profits (2001)

From the February 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Australian government is to boost its “defence” spending by an estimated $500 to $600 million. Prime Minister, John Howard told a Liberal Party dinner in Sydney on 4 November last year that Australia “needed more resources to fulfil its role at home and in the Asia-Pacific region”, as well as in East Timor (West Australian, 6 November).

Continued Howard: 

“The Government does set a very high priority on maintaining a strong defence capability. We do need as a nation to spend more money on defence.”

Howard said he wanted to make the Collins-class submarine project work, despite “its litany of cost blowouts and delays”. The reasons for Howard’s concerns are not difficult to find.

Brian Toohey says (West Australian, 6 November) that “Indonesia is playing an ugly and dangerous game”. It has apparently upset both Australia and the United States recently, its patrol boats challenged a US destroyer delivering aid to East Timor, claiming that it believed that the American destroyer was, in fact, delivering arms to separatists on the trouble-torn Indonesian island of Ambon.

Toohey claims that the Indonesian government has failed to disarm the militia in West Timor. It, he says, harassed not only East Timor, but also Papua New Guinea, and even Australia. It cancelled the visit of a top-level ministerial delegation to Canberra at the last minute; at the same time, it expected Australia to stop a South Pacific Forum meeting in Kiribati from mentioning the Indonesian army’s brutal activities in West Papua. Tourist and investment dollars are at risk. And, horror of horrors, the governor of Bali has made it plain that Australian tourists are no longer welcome. Brian Toohey, echoing the views of others in Australia, argues that “Australia has little to gain from trying to curry favour in Djakarta by insisting that the Javanese empire should last for ever.” An Indonesia, even more weakened by the loss of former Dutch colonies, and various islands such as Ambon and Bali, could be welcome news in Canberra.

Christmas Island, an Australian possession 250 miles south of the Indonesian capital of Djakarta, is also in the news. Australia bought it from Britain in 1958, because it feared that the newly-independent state of Singapore, the island’s former administrators on Britain’s behalf, would nationalise the phosphate reserves run by the Australian and New Zealand governments, who needed its cheap fertiliser for their farmers.

Because it is so close to Indonesia, Christmas Island serves as a useful base for Australia’s northernmost radar over-the-horizon beacon, which is linked to the United States/Australian Joint Defense Research facility at Pine Gap, south-west of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory.

Moreover, Australia’s “Asia Pacific Centre” plan to build a satellite launching facility, with roll-on-roll-off port facilities to deliver large rocket components, as well as hazardous materials, such as satellite and rocket fuels. Says Vanessa Gould (West Australian, 17 June): “At 10 degrees south of the equator, Christmas Island was ideal to place satellites into geostationary or polar orbits.” As well as being yet another small, but important, part of Australia’s “defence” of its capitalist class and their increasing investments in the area.

Peter E. Newell

Indonesia: all change for no change (2001)

From the October 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

The chain of over 13,000 islands stretching 3,600 miles from Malaya to Northern Australia have a long and chequered history. Evidence suggests humans resided on some of these islands over 50,000 years ago. From 3000 BC to 500 BC immigrants from South China mixed with, or displaced, the original Melanesians. Indian influence from AD 700 created a Buddhist and two Hindu empires co-existing among those islands. The introduction of Islam by Arab traders in the 13th century eventually destroyed these empires. Brunei became a powerful Islamic Sultanate, dominating the whole of Borneo and parts of the Philippines. The whole chain of islands were divided into many kingdoms but Arabs came to dominate trade and religion throughout.

The first Europeans to open a sea-route to Asia were the Catholic Christians of Portugal. Their ruthless hatred of Islam was welcomed by the island kingdoms who assisted in breaking the trade monopoly of the Arabs. The first half of the 16th century saw the demise of Arab trading as the Portuguese built fortified trading posts, not only among these islands but, throughout the whole of Asia in an attempt to monopolise commerce in that part of the world.

In the latter part of the 16th century serious European rivals appeared on the scene. The Protestant Christians from Holland hated the Catholic Portuguese and they proceeded to evict them entirely from the island chain. The Dutch set up their trading centre at Batavia on the island Java and they would eventually colonise the entire archipelago under the name of Dutch East Indies. In the meantime the British were eliminating Portugal from India and Malaya. It was the lust for the lucrative trade in eastern silks, porcelain, precious stones, perfumes, spices etc that drove these commercial ventures and caused so much bloodshed.

France squabbled with the British over India but later settled for claiming Indochina (Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam). Borneo was partitioned and claimed by the Dutch and Britain while the Philippines were claimed by Spain. Way down in the south, Australia would become British and the large island to the north, New Guinea, would be partitioned and claimed by the Dutch (west), Germany (north-east) and Britain (south-east). After losing World War I, Germany would lose this colony to Britain and the whole eastern half of this island would be handed to Australia to look after. The sole remnant of Portuguese activity was the eastern portion of Timor, the Dutch claiming the western half.

The Japanese overran all these colonies, except India, during World War II and this prompted European colonies throughout the world to seek independence after Japan was defeated. The armed conflicts between foreign ruling classes and local ruling classes have done nothing to improve the lives of workers in any of these countries. 1945 saw the end of World War II, and Holland challenge the claim for independence by their East India colonies. The military expeditions and attrition of guerrilla warfare became economically unsustainable and independence was granted in 1949 when the Republic of Indonesia was formed. Centralised rule from Java was been opposed by several other islands and the Republic quickly became a seething mass of discontent. Ongoing revolts and dissent in Sumatra and in the original “Spice Islands” (the Moluccas) and other territories have been met with by excessive military brutality.

This authoritarian dictatorship embarked upon policies of expansion to extract wealth from surrounding resources, enabling the ruling elite to live on obscene opulence amongst the grinding poverty of the masses. West New Guinea (Irian Jaya) was invaded and forcibly annexed in 1963, adding another festering sore of discontent to the Indonesian collection.

In this same year, 1963, an aggressive Indonesia was lured by the lucrative oil in Northern Borneo. A secret war was fought when British and Australian interests in oil-soaked Brunei insisted that this area of land be incorporated into Malaysia. SAS units from Britain and Australia, and the 3rd Australian Regiment, made damaging and deadly incursions into Indonesian territory (Kalimantan) during this undeclared and clandestine war. Plans were made in 1964 to bomb Jakarta. This information was made available only recently, under the 30-year secret-file rule.

This conflict ended abruptly about 1965, as though an undercover political deal had been struck between the parties involved. Indonesian army officers were suddenly being trained in Australia for jungle warfare, and in the same year up to 700,000 Indonesians were massacred by their army for dissent. It was alter revealed that US Intelligence was also implicated in this slaughter.

The solitary Portuguese colony of East Timor, surrounded by a sea containing suspected riches in oil and natural gas, waited apprehensively for the outcome of independence wars being fought by Portugal against their African colonies of Angola and Mozambique. Indonesia also waited.

When both Portuguese colonies eventually won their independence in 1975, East Timor also announced their own freedom., they were immediately invaded by Indonesia and officially annexed in 1976. No action was taken by the UN against this act of blatant aggression or against the human violations in which tens of thousands of Timorese civilians died. In indecent haste, with Portugal now out of the way, Australia officially recognised the annexation and struck a 50/50 deal with Indonesia for the riches of the Timor sea. It seemed as though this had all been pre-planned, a political “pay-off” to Indonesia for backing down in Borneo perhaps?

Exploration since the late 1970s has revealed increasing riches of oil and gas in the Timor sea—a bonanza. Is it pure coincidence that the UN has shown increased interest, during the 1990s, in Timorese “Human Rights” in direct proportion to the increasing wealth reported lying beneath the sea “owned” by this island territory? Increasing pressure has been put upon Indonesia, by the UN, to introduce democratic elections, and in 1999 East Timor successfully voted for Independence.

An ever-opportunistic Australia, always a UN agent for Western capitalism, provided Timor with protection and peace-keeping troops on “humanitarian grounds”, after 24 years of inactivity and indifference to their plight.

A new agreement has been drawn up whereby Australia will now “manage” all the resources in the Timor Gap, worth billions of US dollars, without the need to pay any “aid”. Royalties from profits will be sufficient payment for East Timor with some left over for Australia to pocket. Indonesia will miss out completely.

All the usual major Western capitalist companies have moved into the area, among them the US giant, Phillips Petroleum and Australia’s Woodside Petroleum, etc, and—oh yes—the Dutch are back again with their Royal Shell Group.

Ron Stone

Bird’s Eye View: Many a true word is spoken in jest (2023)

The Bird’s Eye View Column from the February 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

Many a true word is spoken in jest

‘The Islamic religion not only bans pork and booze; Islamic governments are totally anti-LGBTQ. In Muslim countries you are not allowed to eat, drink or be Mary. It was interesting to watch the Qatar team score its first goal. When the players got excited about it and celebrated by hugging each other, it was surprising they were not immediately stoned by authorities. Karl Marx was not right about much, but he hit the nail on the head when he said, “Religion is the opium of the people”’ (Daily Caller, 1 December, bit.ly/3VQdv5P).

Indonesia today, unlike Qatar, is an example of what passes for democracy under capitalism, yet its recently amended penal code would not look out of place there. Both say there is no room for the proliferation of the LGBT movement. Even worse:

‘Spreading communist, Marxist, or Leninist ideologies, or philosophies deviating from the national ideology of pancasila—five largely secular guidelines for Indonesian life introduced by the country’s first president—will be punishable by up to 10 years in prison. And the country’s rules on blasphemy will be expanded to include apostasy (persuading a believer of one of Indonesia’s six recognized religions—Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism—to become a nonbeliever), punishable by up to four years in prison’ (Time, 6 December, bit.ly/3iDfpIC).

Verily, the past lies like a nightmare upon the present. Worse still, the growth of socialist knowledge, the mass understanding and conscious change at which we aim, can only be hindered by such legislation. Marx said, 175 years ago in the Communist Manifesto, ‘law, morality, religion are to him [the working class] so many bourgeois prejudices, behind which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests’. In other words, the ruling class will employ any moralistic ideals at its disposal to tape over the brutal system of exploitation which we run in their interest.

As a dog returns to his vomit, so a fool repeats his folly

China Miéville, author of A Spectre, Haunting, On the Communist Manifesto (2022) stated recently:

‘I constantly look around at the world and I think this cannot be as good as we can do. This can’t be as good as we can do and there are only so many times we can say if you just let us tinker with that a little bit, it’ll get better. And when that keeps failing, and keeps failing and keeps failing, we have to say to ourselves there is something in this structure that is leading to this. And when the structure itself says our driving energy is profit, not human need, it is not rocket science to think this might be related to the problems of the world’ (MSNBC, 7 December, bit.ly/3ULNQu2).

This voice of reason makes a welcome change from what passes for informed comment in, for example the American Thinker (sic!):

‘On a personal note, I know these clowns don’t read the book, because I ask every time I meet one; I have yet to find a “communist” who has actually read the Manifesto. (There’s really no excuse given the fact it’s basically a pamphlet, and contains an ideology responsible for the deaths of more than 100 million people, so what could they possibly have going on that’s more important than getting to the bottom of it, especially if they’re actively advocating and voting for communist policies that pave the way for more of the most horrendous tyranny known to man; but what do I know?)’ (American Thinker, 2 December, bit.ly/3Bp9eym).

Echoing the Manifesto’s ‘Society can no longer live under the bourgeoisie, in other words, its existence is no longer compatible with society,’ Miéville states in a by far better, earlier interview:

‘Marxism isn’t about saying you’ll get a perfect world: it’s about saying we can get a better world than this one, and it’s hard to imagine, no matter how many mistakes we make, that it could be much worse than the mass starvation, war, oppression, and exploitation we have now. In a world where 30,000 to 40,000 children die of malnutrition daily while grain ships are designed to dump food into the sea if the price dips too low, it’s worth the risk’ (Science Fiction Studies, November 2003, bit.ly/3PerFvx).

The pen is mightier than the sword

‘In her 50 years of filmmaking, Reichert won two Primetime Emmy Awards and was nominated for four Oscars, winning one with her partner Steven Bognar for “American Factory” in 2020. She quoted “The Communist Manifesto” in her speech, saying “things will get better when workers of the world unite”‘ (abcnews, 2 December, bit.ly/3XRF5RC).

Indeed. But what then, you may well ask, will be socialism’s attitude to existing religions?

‘All religions so far have been the expression of historical stages of development of individual peoples or groups of peoples. But communism is the stage of historical development which makes all existing religions superfluous and brings about their disappearance.’

And, to be clear for the old trope-believing American Thinkers out there:

‘Communism is the doctrine of the conditions of the liberation of the proletariat’.

Liberation, not elimination! To be fair, those Thinkers probably have not read The Principles Of Communism in which these passages appear, one of Engels’ two early drafts of what would become the Communist Manifesto (bit.ly/3hbg3wL). In fact, setting to one side the capitalist measures at the end of section 2 (which Marx and Engels in their joint preface to the 1872 edition declared obsolete) there is still much that socialists today would incorporate into a Manifesto for this century including:

‘The working men have no country. We cannot take away from them what they have not got.’

‘…every class struggle is a political struggle.’

'The struggle for socialism ‘is the independent movement of the immense majority, in the interests of the immense majority.’

‘The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.’

‘Workers of the world, unite!’

World View: Target Indonesia (2000)

From the May 2000 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Is Australia preparing for a possible war with its erstwhile ally Indonesia?

In outback Western Australia, on a road to nowhere (actually a place called Warburton north of the Great Victoria Desert), lies Laverton; and nearby there is a forest of metal towers, military structures, which form part of a new, until recently secret, “Jindalee” over-the-horizon radar network that spies on Indonesia. There are similar radar sites at Longreach in Queensland and at the United States/Australian Joint Defense Space Research facility at Pine Gap, south-west of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory. These link to 16 beacon sites from Ajana, north of Geraldton in Western Australia, through RAAF Leamouth, RAAF Curtin, Broome, Humpty Doo, Horn Island south of the Torres Straits opposite New Guinea, Queensland, and downwards to RAAF Schenger and Lynd River¸ also in Queensland. Importantly, they link to a beacon station on Christmas Island, an Australian possession 250 miles south of Jakarta. The while system connects to RAAF surveillance headquarters in Adelaide.

The network enables radar operators to observe all air and sea traffic up to 2,000 miles beyond the Australian northern coast, and halfway across the Indian Ocean, to link up with the United States base on Diego Garcia, without the need for air or sea patrols.

According to the West Australian (18 March) the Jindalee network underpins “Australian defence planning based on repelling an invader through the Indonesian archipelago”. The Laverton base has twice the range of the Longreach and Alice Springs sites. The new radar system is so accurate that its operators in Australia can see RAAF Hercules C130 troop carriers turning on their final approach Dili Airport. And Jindalee radar can also detect US stealth bombers, which normally remain invisible to ordinary conventional, land-based radar. The cost, however, has not come cheap. Comments the West Australian:

“Jindalee’s losses have contributed to more than $1 billion overspent on botched Australian defence projects. Mismanagement of the original Jindalee project cost prime contractor Telstra a whopping $609 million in cost overruns before the project was rescued in 1997 by Lockheed Martin.”

Another $250 million was required for the first two of Australia’s six new Collins Class submarines; and another $272 million is needed in the current year to top up the original “defence” estimates to refit two former United States Navy ships for the Royal Australian Navy.

At the time of writing, there are about 40,000 Australian troops in East Timor. They are not there to defend Timorese workers, but to defend Australian business interests and investments, the vast oil fields and reserves under the sea between East and West Timor and northern Australia and, if necessary, to take on the Indonesian armed forces in any future dispute. It should not be forgotten that, in 1964, the government of Prime Minister, Sir Robert Menzies, planned to bomb Indonesia and its capital, Jakarta, if it escalated its confrontation with Malaysia. And, in fact, Australia sent troops as well as the SAS into Indonesian Borneo/Kalimantan. Such are the priorities of capitalism.

Peter E. Newell

Material World: Coal Nationalism versus the Climate (2021)

The Material World column from the November 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

In China there have been well-publicised electric outages that have led to a contraction in factory output, a failure in fulfilling new orders, a slow-down in exports and rising manufacturing costs. The cuts in the electric supply have been the unintended consequence of the shift away from coal to meet its CO2 emission targets. Despite China being one of the dominant players in alternative energy sources it cannot fully substitute for the need for coal. So high is the demand from industry that mining companies are now increasing coal supply (tinyurl.com/a92x87s4).

In October the National Energy Commission met. Afterwards, the Chinese prime minister, Li Keqiang, presented a statement which declared:

‘Energy security should be the premise on which a modern energy system is built and the capacity for energy self-supply should be enhanced. Given the predominant place of coal in the country’s energy and resource endowment, it is important to optimise the layout for the coal production capacity, build advanced coal-fired power plants as appropriate in line with development needs, and continue to phase out outdated coal plants in an orderly fashion. Domestic oil and gas exploration will be intensified.’ (Guardian, 12 October)

According to Michael Meidan of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies: ‘The short-term reality is China is still going to double the size of its economy, it’s still urbanising, energy demand is still increasing. There is still an imperative for growth.’ Isabel Hilton of the think-tank China Dialogue describes China’s recently approved five-year plan as ‘a great disappointment’ as regards its carbon-intensity targets (a measure of emissions per unit of electricity generated) and its continued coal power expansion.

China is not alone. India too struggles to achieve the balance between meeting the demand for electricity and calls to reduce burning coal for its power. Power cuts have taken place there too. India already has plans to boost its domestic coal production to 1bn tons by 2024. 55 new coal mines are planned and expansion projects for 193 existing mines are to be expanded.

Indonesia, the world’s top exporter of coal for power stations, generates 60 percent of its power by burning coal. It is also the world’s eighth-biggest carbon emitter. It has brought forward its goal for net-zero emissions from 2070 to 2060 and announced plans to stop commissioning new coal-fired power plants. It faces the dilemma of how to balance its environmental targets with the cost of phasing out an industry that contributed $38 billion in export earnings in the first seven months of 2021 (tinyurl.com/3vs3377j). It will be under economic pressure tol follow China and India’s lead.

In South Africa, Gwede Mantashe, the Mining and Energy Minister, has said that it must manage its transition away from coal-fired power generation systematically and not rush to renewable energy sources: ‘We are not a developed economy, we don’t have all alternative sources, …we must not collapse our economy…’ (tinyurl.com/cteddxey).

The United Nations is imploring all OECD nations to phase out coal from their power grids by 2030, and for non-OECD countries to do so by 2040. Nevertheless, Australia has rebuffed this call to phase out coal, their Resources Minister Keith Pitt declaring ’The future of this crucial industry will be decided by the Australian government, …. not a foreign body that wants to shut it down, costing thousands of jobs and billions of export dollars for our economy’. He has proposed setting up a government-run US$180 billion lending facility for the country’s coal industry so the government can be the ‘lender of last resort’ to the mining sector to fund and underwrite the industry.

All these coal-rich states are going to be reluctant to agree to or to comply with any international agreement that risks the prosperity of their coal industry. They will reason like China that ‘given the predominant place of coal in the country’s energy and resource endowment, it is important to optimise the layout for the coal production capacity, build advanced coal-fired power plants as appropriate in line with development needs.’

If they didn’t do this, they would be placing themselves at a disadvantage in terms both of energy security and of competitiveness. So for years to come coal will continue to be burned.

In this way, competition between capitalist states, with different energy mixes, is going to prevent the rational, world-wide response that is required to deal with the climate change crisis.

ALJO

New States—old story (1964)

From the May 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

We live in an age of newly rising capitalist states. The years since the end of the second world war have seen the emergence of Israel, Indonesia, Ghana, and many others in Africa and the Far East. Often after a bitter struggle, the older powers have had to give way to the rising nationalists and hand over control of their former colonies. The winning of political freedom has been the green light for the development of native ruling classes, who have not been slow to consolidate their power, at times with an urgent ruthlessness which would have won the admiration of a Hitler or a Stalin. And in this, they have, of course, applied some of the lessons which they learned from their erstwhile oppressors.

So the British and French empires are no more, and as the new states gain influence, this will have some effect at least on the balance of power in the world of capitalism. Ghana, for instance, has made approaches to other West African states, and it is said that Nkrumah is aiming at a federation with himself as its political leader, it goes without saying. All the same, it would be unwise to assume that the influence of the old powers has come to an end, because whatever abuse may be hurled occasionally from the petulent Nkrumah, Tshombe and others, they have to face the fact that they cannot exist in isolation from the outside world. That world is already the market in which they sell their exports, comparatively small though they are at present. It will become more and more important to them as time goes by.

But until then, and in preparation for that day, a great deal of development will be going on, for which capital investment will be needed in large measure, and it is here that the business men of the old world will see their chance. There is a sort of mutual wooing between them and the new states anxious to attract capital which their own ruling class are not yet rich enough to provide. So this is the sort of background against which we must set the Ghanaian president’s statement to his parliament on March 10th, that £540 millions of the £1,016 millions for the seven years development plan will be from private investors:—

He stressed that his government had no desire to limit private investment in Ghana. Foreign investors were welcome and could earn their profits here, “provided they leave us an agreed portion for promoting the welfare and happiness of our people as a whole as against the greedy ambitions of the few ”. (Guardian, 11.3.64.)

He went on to mention the part played by the American Kaiser group of companies in the Volta hydro-electric scheme and by loans from Britain, America and the World Bank. So we can confidently ignore the president’s lying claims, "made almost in the same breath, that Ghana is a Socialist country.

Now take a look elsewhere in Africa. In the Autumn, Northern Rhodesia will become independent, and one British textile firm at least must be very pleased about it, having secured an order from Mr. Kenneth Kaunda’s United National Independence Party for 1½ million yards of gaily coloured cloth for the national dress. The printed cloth will bear the inscription “Freedom and Labour,” which shows the ideas that the nationalists have in mind for their native workers.

And in Kenya, too, the British government is busy negotiating financial deals which, in the words of Mr. Kenyatta, will provide the capital for diversifying Kenya's economy and reducing its dependence on agriculture as a source of income. There is also the question of military aid here, which goes to show that the area is still of strategic importance to the British capitalist class. Quite clearly in the modern world, there are other means of keeping fingers in the old colonial pies besides direct political control. It is not just a coincidence, after all, that there is a large amount of foreign capital invested in India; for example, the bulk of it British.

But the larger powers were not the only ones to have lost territories abroad, and if we look further east to Indonesia, a former Dutch possession, we will see the same sort of process going on there, too. The Indonesian Republic was born in a welter of blood and violence. In 1958 all Dutch property was confiscated, but now there are signs of a reconciliation between the two sides, hastened no doubt by the emergence of the hostile next door neighbour, the Malaysian Federation.

The Guardian of March 19th tells us how anxious the Indonesians are to resume trade with Holland and to encourage investment. This is a case which is perhaps different from the others we have mentioned to that the place had been developed industrially to some extent under the Dutch, and their help is needed to undo the dilapidation which set in after their withdrawal. Nevertheless, the same basis is there—that of a set of native rulers who are in the saddle and mean to stay there, but who need economic bolstering from outside, at least until their industries get working and their workers have been adequately trained.

What will happen after that is anybody's guess. Perhaps there will be another attempt to grab all foreign assets, but this will depend in part anyway on the economic and military line-ups at the time. After all, Russia has not been inactive there all these years, and recently, China has been putting out feelers as well. It should certainly be interesting, then, to watch the progress of the new post-war capitalist states.

And what of the workers in these places? Certainly they have given plenty of support to the creation of their homegrown oppressors, and are showing all the signs of being just as nationalistic as their brothers elsewhere. But the bitter lesson will have to be learnt sooner or later, that the swapping of one set of masters for another of perhaps darker skin will not alter their fundamental position. When they find that they have to fight for better wages and conditions, they will clash with the very politicians to whom they once gave such willing and enthusiastic support. A new social system is the only worthwhile proposition—that is the biggest lesson of all for them to learn.

Eddie Critchfield

Not Revolution at All (2022)

Book Review from the March 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ripe for Revolution: Building Socialism in the Third World. By Jeremy Friedman. Harvard University Press £28.95.

This book covers attempts to build so-called socialism in developing countries. Case studies deal with Indonesia, Chile, Tanzania, Angola and Iran, each supported by a great deal of detailed documentation. It is not about socialism at all, of course, but still contains a lot of useful information and interesting discussion, about such topics as rivalry between the rulers in Moscow and Beijing, and the use or not of parliament.

The examples are very different from each other. In Indonesia the ‘Communist’ Party (PKI) was not in power, but Russian aid was supposed to help build heavy industry and so increase the role of the working class. Sukarno’s dictatorship eventually resulted in the killing of perhaps half a million PKI members and supporters. In Chile Allende ‘saw himself as creating a completely new model of socialist revolution’, but he was not in full control of the Congress and was able to do little more than nationalise the copper industry. The end in 1973 was another coup and thousands of deaths. Nyerere in Tanzania claimed to want socialism without class struggle, but his agricultural reforms (‘forced villagization’) led to a drop in production and massive food imports. In Angola there were competing ‘liberation movements’ and from the mid-70s there was a combination of ‘political Leninism with a mixed economy’, resulting in a ‘Leninist oligarchy’ that skimmed profits and preserved its political power. Despite its vast oil resources, the country exemplified ‘Leninist capitalism’, where a kleptocracy justified itself on the grounds of national development. Iran shared with Indonesia the influence of Islam, but land reform was not implemented, and the idea that an Islamic state would mean a more just economic system proved baseless.

Friedman concludes that the Russian rulers’ idea of state-led industrialisation did not deliver what was promised, and so the market had to be re-introduced (not that it had ever gone away). He talks briefly about various definitions of socialism, but does not refer to the idea of a classless stateless global society. He sees the ‘Leninist model of politics’ as an enduring legacy, and a number of organisations built on such lines still hold power in southern Africa. The Cold War did not end so clearly in the less developed parts of the world, but the claim in the final paragraph that ‘the attempt to build a socialist future in the Global South was real’ is simply unsupported. Rather, there were attempts of various kinds to expand the role of capitalism (not necessarily state capitalism), with Russian and/or Chinese support. The book is a useful reminder that non-Bolshevik efforts to build ‘socialism’ also existed and failed.

Paul Bennett

World View: Death and destruction in Dili (2000)

From the April 2000 issue of the Socialist Standard

In 1996 (Socialist Standard, March) we reported, and commented upon, Indonesian repression in East Timor and Australian interest in, and control of, the vast oil deposits under the sea between Australia and East and West Timor. Much has happened since then.

East Timor is now “independent”. The Indonesians have gone. But not before they had killed thousands of Timorese and largely reduced the capital, Dili, to a burned-out ruin. Much of this has been levelled against Eurico Gutterres, a former Indonesian militia leader, now living under an assumed name in Jakarta. According to the West Australian (18 December), “the Indonesian military recruited and trained Guterres who commanded a paramilitary group called Aitarak, or Thorn, which was given the responsibility for security in Dili”. He ordered the destruction of East Timor, “carrying out his threat to turn East Timor into a wasteland if the Timorese voted to rejected Jakarta’s rule”. He now says that he does not feel guilty. He was only carrying out orders, he said.

In what the West Australian (15 January) calls “the razed capital” of Dili, “thousands of the deeply religious East Timorese Catholics turn out for Mass to thank god for delivering them from the horror of 24 years of Indonesian occupation”. But just outside Dili there are hundreds of children starving. Of the situation, reports the West Australian of the same date:

“Stagnant pools of sewage lay nearby, mixing with the regular afternoon rains, virtually ensuring that all open wounds would become infected. A girl, aged about five, stands half-naked except for a skin of massive, infected lesions which stretch from under her jaw to her waist.”

Yet,

“A blackmarket for food and goods has sprouted in Dili, with tonnes of rice and noodles being imported and held under guard in warehouses in the razed capital.”

Meanwhile, thousands of Timorese are starving in West Timor refugee camps. President Clinton is said to be concerned about a possible military coup, and the spread of religious violence in Indonesia; and Richard Holbrooke, the US Ambassador to the UN, “accused pro-Jakarta militias of blocking the return of about 125,000 East Timorese remaining in camps in West Timor. Responsibility for this lies primarily with the Indonesian military who continues to support the militia in the camps, he said” (West Australian, 17 January).

By last September, 75 percent of East Timor’s population had been displaced, and 70 percent of its houses, public buildings and essential utilities had been destroyed by the Indonesian-backed militias and military (West Australian, 8 January). However, Australian companies “have a chance to grab a slice of the $800 million which will be spent on rebuilding on East Timor over the next three years”. Indeed, more than £300 million will have been pumped into reconstruction by June this year.

There are, of course, problems for Australian capitalists, if not exactly the same as for Timorese workers and peasants. Land ownership was a problem, as records had been destroyed; and it was impossible to know who owned what. ” Conditions in Dili were tough, but foreign businesses were working there,” said Malcolm Murray, the international projects team leader with the Australian Department of Trade and Commerce. Nevertheless, Australian construction businesses have moved into Dili “with gusto”. There were many unemployed Timorese workers; but “the Australian Council for Overseas Aid also warned that pay rates for local workers could lead to gross inequality in wealth” (West Australian, 17 January).

Meanwhile, reported Agence France-Press (17 January), Australian, international and East Timorese officials held a conference to discuss a new Timor Gap oil treaty to replace the “illegal” treaty signed in December 1989, between Australia and Indonesia over the oil-rich waters between northern Australia and East Timor (see Socialist Standard, March 1996). However, Indonesia said that it would “accept a review or a cancellation of the treaty with Australia”, presumably as it now has little choice.

The UN made it clear in 1979 that the Indonesian invasion of the former Portuguese colony, and its subsequent occupation, was illegal and that therefore so was the so-called oil treaty. But “the Australian government has always maintained that the treaty is legal”, reports the West Australian of 18 December. As of December last year, Australian companies BHP, Santos and Petroz had already extracted 32,500 barrels of oil daily from three wells in the zone jointly controlled by Australia and Indonesia. BHP, however, have since sold its assets to the US company, Phillips Petroleum. There have been, it would seem, disputes over a number of as yet unstarted fields, including the Woodside’s Laminaria field and BHP’s Buffalo field which “would fall into an area which might be claimed by East Timor as well as Australia” (West Australian, 18 December).

East Timor has now replaced Indonesia as Australia’s partner in the Timor Gap oil treaty, according to the West Australian (12 February). The official ceremony was held in Dili at the beginning of the month, James Batley, Australia’s resident consul in East Timor, who signed the new treaty, said that “there are important investment prospects here, and this has smoothed the path for those to go ahead”. Of course! And the United Nations secretary-general, who recently visited Dili, said how pleased he was at Australia’s quick response to the UN’s call for troops to go to East Timor. Yes; of course, of course!

Meanwhile, the poverty-stricken, propertyless, often starving workers and peasants of East (and West) Timor watch, sometimes pray, and hope that things will get no worse.

Peter E. Newell

Aftermath of the Tsunami: Querying ‘American Values in Action’ (2005)

From the February 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard 

  The tsunami in South-East Asia provoked very different responses from western governments and the populations they supposedly represent. The US state was obliged to raise its donation more than 20- fold in the light of public reaction, but arguably too late to disguise the politicians' real agenda.

Realising that upwards of 100,000 of the then estimate of 165,000 victims of the Tsunami disaster were Muslims, the US wasted no time in sending US Secretary of State Colin Powell to the scene of the devastation. There was much to gain from this mission at a time when the US has been accused of an anti-Muslim crusade in the wake of the devastation it has wrought on Afghanistan and Iraq.

Powell was keen to show the world’s 1.2 billion Muslims that the Bush administration is not islamophobic, even if its military machine did seem to have a penchant for the slaughter of Muslims. He said “We’d be doing it [participating in the relief effort] regardless of religion, but I think it does give the Muslim world and the rest of the world an opportunity to see American generosity, American values in action.”

As for the US “values” Powell’s mission aimed to promote, we need only mention Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay for starters before moving on to the myriad international treaties, on gun control, nuclear proliferation, the environment, human rights etc. that the Bush administration has flicked the proverbial two fingers to since 2000.

US “values” have prompted successive White House administrations to support dictators and tyrannical regimes on every continent, from Pol Pot and Suharto to Saddam Hussein and Papa Doc Duvalier. Between 1945 and 1999, this same defender of global well-being toppled forty governments and helped crush thirty populist movements, assassinated scores of prominent individuals and perverted elections in every corner of the globe. During this period the US armed terrorists, trained right-wing guerrilla movements in the art of torture and financed armies intent on overthrowing democratically elected governments. Some values!

When asked on US television whether the death of 500,000 Iraqi children as a consequence of Western sanctions was acceptable, Madeleine Albright, Powell’s predecessor under President Clinton, replied: “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price — we think the price is worth it.”

It seems there are American “values” and “values”. Those Powell is charged with furthering are those of a corrupt elite operating in the interests of corporate America. He was certainly not sent to Indonesia on a show of hands of the US public. His attempt to seek political capital out of present US offers of help to the disaster region is thus opportunistic and utterly despicable, nay, nauseating.

Powell further commented in Indonesia: “I’ve been in war and I’ve been through a number of hurricanes, tornadoes and other relief operations, but I’ve never seen anything like this.”  This from the man who rose to prominence trying to cover up the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, when US forces slaughtered 500 Vietnamese women and children, part of a larger conflict that left 2 million dead, many from the use of napalm and agent orange. We can only assume that Powell is suffering from selective amnesia.

While he feels a surge of pride in the knowledge the US government has promised $350 million to the stricken areas, what is to be made of the fact that this is only a minute fraction of the amount spent on the US invasion and occupation of Iraq? Or, to put it another way, the world is meant to applaud the Bush administration for paying out $350 million with one hand to help people in Asia, while forking out $150 billion (http://costofwar.com/) with the other to kill people in the Middle East.

If you consider that we err in comparing the war in Iraq with the rescue mission in the Indian Ocean, then remember the reason for the invasion of Iraq. Bush and Blair both claimed that this was a humanitarian intervention, a rescue mission, aimed at restoring democracy and freeing the Iraqi people from years of oppression. On this count it stands as the most expensive humanitarian mission in history, considering the size of the Iraqi population — and what does this make of the people who opposed that invasion, the 35 million across the world who marched and protested at the Bush/Blair rescue mission to Iraq in February of 2003?

When Jan Egeland, the UN emergency relief co-ordinator, criticised the initial US offer of $15 million in aid as “stingy”, Bush’s response was to claim Egeland was “very misguided and ill-informed”. Bush later had the figure raised to $35 million, with this figure later increased tenfold – a figure, incidentally, now dwarfed by private donations in the US. All Egeland was saying was that in times of disaster Western governments do in fact appear parsimonious.

Many radical commentators backed Egeland’s “stingy” claim, pointing out that the Bush administration would be spending far more on the president’s inaugural celebration on January 20th and how the Republican Convention in New York last year cost a staggering $166 million (inclusive of $70,000 for donuts and coffee for the press). We can perhaps better set the US aid promise in context by  considering that the occupation of Iraq is costing the US an estimated $270 million per day, and that the Pentagon’s military budget is $1.5 billion per day – this spent with a view to killing people, not saving them. What else are guns and bombs, tanks and warships for? One F22 Raptor fighter costs $225 million. It does not carry food parcels and medicines but surface to air missiles and cannons. According to the US-based International Action Centre’s estimates, “for what the US is spending for less than one second of bombing and destruction, it could construct a system that could have prevented thousands of needless deaths [caused by the Tsunami].”

As in Britain, so too in the US have the general public humiliated their governments with their generosity. If we accept that the invasion of Iraq was a humanitarian step, that Bush and Blair were motivated solely by the plight of the suffering Iraqi people under Saddam, why did they not set up a charity and see how much the public would have donated to this mother of all rescue missions? Simple, because they realise that people, though often conned at election time, are just not that stupid, and that they couldn’t have collected enough to feed a regiment’s mascot goat.

The generosity shown towards the victims of the Tsunami disaster is not the Bush administration’s “values”, which Powell seems to have been implying in his damage limitation exercise in Indonesia, but rather the basic values of human beings in America, indeed the world over. Unlike other animals, humans are endowed with the ability to sympathise and empathise with their fellow beings. Humans derive great pleasure from doing good, are at their best when faced with the worst and will go to extraordinary lengths to help alleviate the suffering of others. Across the US, as in other countries, there have been all manner of fundraising events, in all sections of society, inclusive of nursery schools, prisons, universities and impoverished communities. In some instances people have queued for over an hour to put money in a plastic collection bucket.

Americans are generous with their time as well. According to a survey by Independent Sector, a US coalition of non-profit organisations, the percentage of volunteers in America is the largest of any country, almost 56%. The average hours volunteered per week by an individual is 3.5 hours. According to Charity America, donations to charity for 2002 were $241 billion, 76.3 per cent of this given by individuals.

If governments depended for their existence on us promoting our real values, they wouldn’t last a week. That is why they spend so much time trying to divide us as a class, lying to us, instilling in us false needs, a false consciousness, appealing to patriotism and the rest of the rot. When it comes to values, there are only class values, ours and theirs. That Powell had to go to Indonesia to try to hijack any US-initiated relief effort, before it was credited to the workers of the US, shows perhaps that they fear not only class solidarity across the world but the very values that have come to the surface in recent weeks.

John Bissett

Floods of tears (2005)

From the February 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard 

The undersea earthquake in the Indian Ocean on 26 December, and the ensuing tidal wave or tsunami, have devastated many areas in South and South-East Asia. At the time of writing, deaths are estimated at 225,000, a figure likely to rise, with millions having lost their homes and most of their possessions, and disease likely to increase the number of fatalities. Across the world, people have watched fascinated as their TV screens showed dramatic shots of the tidal wave hitting coastal areas, only to be appalled by the resulting devastation.

Such catastrophes make many reflect on their cause and what this reveals about the world. The religious strove to reconcile the notion of a loving god with the apparent evidence of uncaring brutality. While science can explain how and why these things happen, mystics and other believers have nothing to offer but nauseating platitudes. The secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain opined that ‘People of faith need to have a very firm belief in God almighty… It is for the betterment of mankind at large.’ Of course he neglected to explain how the deaths of so many can benefit humanity. The leader of the Catholic Church in England and Wales was no better, saying that Christians ‘trust that prayers and belief in an omnipotent God will bring good out of seeming evil and senselessness’. But again he failed to suggest how this might happen. 

While natural forces were responsible for the quake and tsunami, it is at least possible that an early-warning system could have been installed, which would have saved many lives, but of course the issue of cost was a real problem. And its effects have been magnified in many places (in southern India, for example) by developments taking place (in the name of profit) right on the beach, thus destroying natural protective barriers such as sand dunes and mangrove forests.

The Aceh area of Indonesia has been one of the hardest hit. But little attention has been paid in the media to Aceh’s situation before the earthquake. Despite its rich gas resources, its people have been blighted by poverty and malnutrition, as these resources have been exploited for the profit of Exxon Mobil and the Indonesian government. Aceh has also been subject to military occupation for years, with assassination and kidnapping rife, since the government refuses to allow a referendum on independence from Indonesia and persecutes anyone who advocates this. The Indonesian government and army have taken control of aid supplies shipped in to the local airport, and are only distributing these to those who support them.

Of course socialism will still see natural disasters, since it will not involve any kind of ‘mastery’ over nature. But their effect will be minimised by sensible precautions unencumbered by the profit motive. Action to relieve distress will be unhampered by nationalistic and military considerations, and will make use of well-established regional and global frameworks for cooperation and responding to emergencies. It is clear that such disasters call for working together rather than against each other and provision according to need rather than ability to pay.

Paul Bennett

One world or many states? (2020)

From the June 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have been asked for our view on the movement for West Papua to gain independence from Indonesia. Here is our reply.

The Socialist Party and wider World Socialist Movement in various locations throughout the world, consists of individuals who have come together for one purpose: to assist in the urgent task of establishing world-wide socialism. We define socialism as a society in which all the resources of the world are used in common to meet all the needs of all the people of the world, without any distinction whatsoever, including the distinction of so-called national identity. It follows, then, that we do not concern ourselves with either the destruction or the creation of national or territorial borders within capitalism. This is a policy that we have upheld from our formation in 1904. During that time, we have, of course, been admonished to recognise the seemingly vital need to defend this national group against that one; to support the imposition of this territorial border or the dissolution of that one; to denounce this act of nationalist aggression or to excuse that one. Our reply has always been that while capitalism exists, such disputes and conflagrations are unending and it is not the role of socialists to act as adjudicators over the rights and wrongs of conflicts that are endemic to capitalism. 

To talk of self-determination is to play with words. Past circumstances notwithstanding, the world is today so integrated that no country can be genuinely independent in how it acts. Usually, it can’t even independently decide how it behaves within its own ‘borders’, for fear of criticism or censure from international bodies, or, more usually, powerful outside interests.

World capitalism always has been, is now, and always will be a quagmire of different competing interests along national, religious and ethnic lines. But all such differences are artificially created by artificial scarcity. Only world socialism can finally put an end to this fight for resources – a sordid fight that, in order to acquire a semblance of decency, hoists coloured rags on poles and conscripts evolved human morals and ethics into ‘national’ armies and risibly ordained ‘national’ interests.

Socialists don’t deny the value of human culture, of course not. What we abhor and oppose is the culture of all the people of the world – which ‘belongs’ to and should be accessible to us all – being turned into nothing more than ruses to corral the working class of the world behind artificial borders, the real and sole purpose of which is to enlist us into fighting for and protecting world markets for ‘us’ and not ‘them’.

Historically, West Papua is little different from any of the countless other regions that have been colonised and invaded over centuries. Today, a population of less than a million in West Papua contains 6 ‘ethnic’ groups, practises 5 religions and speaks a variety of languages. Yet, the twin issues of personal poverty and the human rights of the individual are the main concerns in West Papua, just as they are in West Ham in London or West Bronx in New York. Why should the members of the human family who happen to be born in the particular part of the world named (by ‘foreigners ‘) West Papua limit their horizons, in this day and age, to West Papua? Why shouldn’t an inhabitant of West Papua not see themselves as a citizen of the world, free to live wherever they choose on the planet? Why shouldn’t anyone have the right to go and live in West Papua if they so desire?

Capitalism, of course, can never allow for such a world at peace with itself, of personal universal rights and personal self-determination – the only form of genuine self-determination and the only form that socialists care a hoot for. Only in capitalism is it necessary to construct borders around a designated area arbitrarily created by history, to keep certain people in and keep other people out. Socialism, the only universal solution to ‘borders’ will require no such artificial distinctions between the world’s people and will have no borders. And since this is the goal of socialists, why would we do something as illogical as interrupt or postpone our endeavours to create a borderless world in order to advocate new borders that we aim to abolish?

Letters: Housing problem (1991)

Letters to the Editors from the March 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

Housing problem

Dear Editors,

A few years ago I gave a talk on housing at a Socialist Party branch. I pointed out that the housing problem can never be solved as long as houses are built for profit and not for human need, and quoted statistics on homelessness and the numbers of people in sub-standard accommodation. In order to illustrate the consequences of bad housing at a personal level. I cited a newspaper article (Guardian. 18 December 1982) about a man living on a council estate in East London who set fire to the flat where he lived with his wife and small daughter in a desperate bid to get rehoused. (Capitalism was able to solve his accommodation problem, in the short term at least, by sending him to prison for nine months).

In seeking material for another talk on housing recently, I came across an article (Guardian, 17 November 1990) about a man who set fire to his house, killing his two-year-old daughter as a result. This time the man “owned” the house himself, but after being made redundant could no longer keep up the mortgage payments. To stop the building society from repossessing the house, he burned it to the ground, with tragic consequences.

Such acts of desperation are only the extremes to which people can be driven. But with the number of homeless increasing, with record figures for mortgage arrears, with the unbelievable squalor of inner- city council estates, with three building workers being killed on site every week, it is clear that capitalism is utterly unable to meet people’s housing needs. The earlier claims of reformist politicians to have solved the housing problem are exposed as hollow, and nobody would make such outlandish statements now. The truth is that the “housing problem” is really a poverty problem, and will not disappear until the cause of poverty— capitalism—has been abolished.

Paul Bennett

Manchester

East Timor

Dear Editors.

Having read your November 1990 issue about the Economic Causes of the Gulf War, may I say that you should not trivialise the economic significance of East Timor.

The key to understanding Australia’s support for the Indonesian takeover in 1975 was that their oil companies knew of enormous oil reserves under the Timor Sea. Hence, well before the Indonesian invasion in December 1975, the Australian ambassador in Jakarta reminded Canberra to take this factor into account when determining its attitude towards East Timor’s future status. Australia gave de jure recognition of Indonesia’s "integration” of East Timor in 1979 and from then on entered into negotiations for the joint exploitation of these reserves. Its reward is the conclusion of the Timor Gap Treaty in December 1989 which will provide a bonanza for Australian petroleum companies. The reserves in the Timor Sea are thought to exceed reserves in the Middle East.

The oil question worked in reverse for East Timor as compared with Kuwait, i.e. that it was in the West’s interest for Indonesia to control the country.

Even without oil, East Timor produces a great deal more than carrots. Its crop of high quality coffee has always been a great world market attraction. Since the invasion, the coffee trade has been taken over by the army and has profited people like General Murdani who commanded the invasion operation and continues to take a keen interest in Jakarta's policy of colonial control and exploitation of East Timor.

Carmel Budiardjo 

Indonesian Human Rights Campaign 

Thornton Heath, Surrey

William Morris

Dear Editors,

DAP (January) agrees with my general point that there are attempts abroad to “confuse William Morris's Marxist heritage’’, but suggests that the new book, William Morris and News From Nowhere: A Vision For Our Time is not amongst them. DAP goes on to suggest that I should back up my “generalities with some facts and evidence’’. It seems to me, however, that swopping textual analysis of the book is unlikely to clarify the point at issue. This can be done without the need to quote too much chapter and verse.

News From Nowhere is probably the finest example of a number of utopian socialist works written in the last years of the nineteenth century. The motivation for their production is easy enough to see. There had not at that time existed anywhere “socialism in power". Therefore there was a need to speculate on what socialist society might be like. That does not of course make Morris a utopian socialist himself.

News From Nowhere therefore is about a vision of socialism and to focus specifically on it is to run the risk of avoiding the question of how that vision related to Morris's political practice. In this sense the book skews matters from the start.

What is needed is not to use News From Nowhere as a starting point for further utopian explorations but to tie it back to the debates in the socialist movement at the time. Some chapters in the book, for example Jan Marsh's "Concerning Love" on the woman question do this very well indeed. Although I do not, of course, agree with Marsh’s actual treatment of the subject. But others, for example. Paddy O’Sullivan's “The ending of the journey” (which DAP also criticises) which uses Morris as a stick to beat opponents in a debate about late twentieth century ecological politics, quite clearly do not.

The book is a political curate’s egg and in so far as it tries to claim Morris for some form of utopian socialism quite muddle-headed. That is not to deny that it is an interesting book. But if socialists wish to revive the memory of William Morris, and that would be no bad thing, another vehicle will be needed.

Keith Martin

London, N11