The New Cyprus Republic - Part 2 (1961)

From the February 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 1

(2) The Rude Awakening

The rude awakening was to come before the new Republic was three weeks old, and Ledra Street, which once echoed with the revolver shots of those bent on replacing the colonial government with one of their choosing, was to echo with the shouts of demonstrating Trade Unionists, striking in support of their fellow workers sacked for “economy reasons”.

The attention of the new representatives had been drawn to the plea, uttered against the dismissal of Public Works Department employees in the Paphos district, four days before Independence. Promises “to see what he could do about it” were given by the Minister of Labour in the transitional government. Combined right wing (SEK) and left wing (PEO) unions then issued strike notices against wrongful dismissal. At the same time, Mr. Beeley, the British representative at UNO, was placing the application of Cyprus for membership before the Security Council, saying “A democratic system of government and the necessary machinery for safeguarding the human rights and the interests of all sections of the community” exists in Cyprus.

While the voice of organised labour was beginning to express itself, the body of employers had been reorganising. Even as the daily press, was relaying as front page news the visits of diplomats presenting credentials at the Presidential Palace, (the old Government House) there appeared notices on their back pages. These were to give notice that “application had been made to the Cyprus Government for a licence ‘to form’ . . . The Cyprus Employers Consultative Association … to safeguard and promote the interests of all employers in Cyprus, especially in securing their fullest co-operation in, dealing with matters affecting relations between employers and their workpeople.” Continued link-ups of employers’ associations throughout the island have resulted in the association covering leading employers and most individual employers’ associations.

Still the sackings continued, amid strong press reaction, with T.U. delegations making representations to the Minister of Labour. A letter was published from the Government Workers’ "freedom is of real value as long as the worker is deprived of the sacred right Union to the Government saying, “No” to work" (Cyprus Mail 26/8/60). On August 27th, while pickets were demonstrating on the streets of Famagusta against dismissals, President Makarios announced a scheme for the expenditure of £331,300 on new public works to reduce unemployment. Then with cruel irony he said “We are in sympathy with those dismissed from Public Works, and certainly we don’t want them in the streets jobless. But I want to make it clear that I am not going to give in to slogans of demagogues. A labour conscience must be developed for the good of the country. Demagoguism and laziness must stop. What our country needs is work and production. Workers will be protected in the new state, but they must also work “.

One can be quite safe in saying that the first pronouncement of a government after its election is to call on the workers to work harder. In this case it came rather later than expected, but rarely has such a call been so cruelly worded. The “unemployed worker” who out of sheer desperation is forced to send deputations to beg for work from his newly-elected government, is roundly berated by the leader of that government for not working. The dismissals continued amid protests. The grant was seen by the workers as a stop-gap measure which, apart from failing to secure the re-engagement of the dismissed workers, would do nothing to relieve unemployment in the future. Plans for abolishing unemployment by means of foreign loans were discussed continually. Finally, a meeting of SEK, PEG, and the Turkish Federation of Labour decided on an island-wide strike for 8th September if the dismissed workers were not reinstated.

We Want Bread

The workers’ representatives negotiated up to the last minute with Minister of Labour and the President, who assured them that it was government policy to help the workers and that they would do everything in their power. But governmental concern was not sufficient for them to reverse their previous dismissal decisions, and a twenty-four hour protest strike was called. Shouts of “We want work—we want bread” went up outside the House of Representatives, while a union delegation went inside to present a solution. In every town mass rally and picket demonstrations were held, with placards saying, “Our children are hungry”, and “Let the promises become deeds”.

This token strike, undertaken by workers half-fearful of bringing the government in disrepute, had the sympathy of the general public, was peaceful, and moreover was an extremely effective example of how the working people, in default of anyone else, were prepared to “safeguard their imprescribable rights”. The strikers returned to work the following day to await the next move by the government.

The naively unrealistic “friendship with all countries” policy was to bring immediate reaction from the United Arab Republic. The friction was caused by the declaration that Mr. Zev Levin would be installed as the first Israeli ambassador to Cyprus. This came in the face of warnings by the Arab League to Cypriot merchants against trading with Israel. The announcement of the appointment was like a slap in the face to Egypt. Since the Suez, invasion launched by the British in 1956, Egypt had given full support to the self-determination agitation wishing to remove the threat of an unfriendly Cyprus on its doorstep.

The first reaction from Egypt was to suggest that the reports were circulated by Israel to disturb the excellent relations with the new republic, but when it became evident that the report was factual, the question was given priority at the Arab League Foreign Ministers’ meeting which started in Beirut on August 22nd. At the closing session of its meeting, the League passed a resolution warning Cyprus that Zionism aims to succeed imperialism in every country and to continue exploiting it. The Cyprus Federation of Trade and Industry, in expressing great concern in the deterioration in diplomatic relations, revealed their real concern in a cable sent to the President. This stated that the economic interests of Cyprus demanded the strengthening of ties between the Republic and Arab countries. In reply to this a message was sent to the President by a committee of businessmen trading with Israel, who expressed support for the “bridge of friendship” policy, and requested a meeting with him to put forward their viewpoint. Although a trade pact was signed with the UAR at the end of September, the Arab-Israeli dispute continued to be one of the main newspaper topics, and no solution seems likely to satisfy all parties permanently.

Hence the two main policies upon which the new state was to have based its action had come to grief; and with it the idealistic policy of independence and industrial peace in a capitalist world of political and economic line-ups.

Opening the Seventh Cyprus International Trade Fair, President Makarios stressed the importance of the island as a trade link between East and West. In doing so he was merely following the path mapped out for him by numerous government leaders in as many countries, engaging in the monotonous and dangerous pastime of market-grabbing. The urgency of his appeal is underlined by the recently published Economic Review for 1959, which lays stress on the continued unfavourable trend in the terms of trade.

Storms Ahead

In spite of continued expressions of optimism in the future of the new state, from the point of view of economic and political stability, and trade and foreign relations everything points to more storms ahead. Cyprus has mainly an agricultural and mining economy, the latter accounting for more than half the value of exports. Agriculture can absorb no more of the labour force; already it accounts for over half. Although the most important single activity, it is uneconomic and heavily subsidised. A large number of farmers, unable to pay off loans, are threatened with the enforced sale of their land.

The question of capital investment to finance such projects has been the subject of much dispute. The Ambassador to Greece for the Soviet Union, Mr Sergeyev, with the appearance and behaviour of a miniature Khrushchev, visited the island and offered aid “without strings”. AKEL of course advocate taking up the offer, whilst others advise caution and consideration of other offers.

The question of future intercommunal disturbances has recently been given prominence by the statement of a Turkish political leader, Mr. Denktash, that attempts by Greek Cypriots to undermine the Zurich and London Agreements would lead to chaos and civil war. Scarcely a day passes without the Greek and Turkish dailies on the island throwing mud at each other. The prospects of even elementary political organisation involving both communities seem remote at the moment. The brightest hope, from the working, class point of view, is the admirable demonstration of unity during the recent strikes and demonstrations, which the workers have threatened to repeat. Both Turk and Greek spoke as one. The Trades Unions have recently opposed the principle, imposed by the Constitution, of a 70 per cent./30 per cent. division of Civil Service jobs between Greeks and Turks as being discriminatory and introducing political factors into a purely labour field.

Difference of Opinion

The difference of opinion between Makarios and the mayors mentioned earlier is developing into a full scale feud. A week after Independence Day it was announced that the mayors would publish a book stating their opinion of the Agreement. At the same time they served notice that they would revive the feud with Makarios, who went on record as saying “that some of them deserve to be tried by people’s courts”. Their next move, taken with a number of doctors, editors, lawyers, and party leaders, was to send a telegram to the Secretary General of UNO on the eve of the maiden speech made by the island’s representative, Mr. Zenon Rossides. As though to belie his references to newly independent Cyprus as “a bridge of unity for understanding and co-operation”. The telegram pointed out that the settlement was imposed on them, and infringed their fundamental right to self determination. Two more telegrams followed immediately, one from the Turkish Communal Chairman in support of the agreement and another of opposition from the Greeks. It is quite probable that an influential body, a kind of unofficial opposition outside Parliament, will develop.

In municipal matters a Greek and a Turkish Municipal Chamber administers the respective communities with moneys allocated by the government according to the 70 per cent./30 per cent. Ratio. This rigid partition in municipal matters is also found in education and in separate representation at parliamentary level.

Police Power

In this government as in so many others, the responsibility of power has had a very sobering effect on the erstwhile rebels. They have become respectable, cautious, and apprehensive. No doubt it is the current crime wave, including some murders of those who were informers during the emergency, that has prompted the President to announce an island-wide arms round up; after which very serious action is to be taken against those holding arms. The response to this was the negligible total of 30 guns; shocking the government into the threat of snap road checks and surprise house searches. Indeed, police power has already been strengthened by the government decision to retain the pass system, introduced by the British Government during the emergency, where by all adults over twelve years old must be in possession of civilian identity cards.

The possibility of an outbreak of violence between the Communists and the Eoka faction, which had spasmodically flared during the emergency, cannot be far from the President’s mind. Reports have come from Athens of renewed political activity by Grivas, and of his statement concerning the further clarification of certain points in the Constitution. We are reminded that it was in Athens that he first organised a private army, during the German occupation in 1943. During the civil war that followed liberation, the royalist Grivas had aligned his army against ELAS, the Communist army which he had known for a long time, intended to take over Greece, and which had put a price on his head. After Greece had been forced into the camp of Western Capitalism, he made an unsuccessful attempt to get into the Greek Parliament. The subsequent failure and disillusionment turned his interest to his native Cyprus, where the growth of Communist Party influence gave him cause for concern. Although AKEL had supported the earlier Enosis movement, the Greek Civil War and its outcome had resulted in a typical about face. As always the communist attitude was inconsistent and vacillating, but union with a member of the Western, as opposed to the Eastern Capitalist blocks was not to their liking. Whilst apprehensive that self-determination would result in Enosis, their present attitude appears to be in favour of independence. The present set-up suits them very well, giving them plenty of room of manoeuvre Cyprus into the communist camp. True to the principle of “catching them young”, both groups have already formed youth organisations.

Under colonial rule, there is often identification of the ruling class with the colonial power. The belief used to be current in the “left wing” that after the achievement of national independence the resulting disillusionment would provide the experience necessary for the working class to see the class issue more clearly. Of course, this is not believed by Russia who is just as anxious as any other country to woo the newly independent states, to capture their trade and to use them as counters in international diplomacy. In any case it is a fallacious argument and certainly not borne out by the facts.

The struggle in Cyprus resulted in many hundreds of working class dead and wounded. The voice of its Capitalist Class, as yet young and weak, but struggling to be heard, finds a ready mouthpiece in its government which has shown itself to be just as chauvinistic and trade conscious as any of the other governments set up as a result of national independence. It has taken its place with the other capitalist states in a world of actual and potential aggression, and will add its voice to the general discord which is called “trade and peace”, no doubt falling into line behind one or other of the major powers.

Socialist Knowledge

This is not a step forward for the working class of Cyprus or anywhere else, and far from there being any sign of them becoming socialist, independence has thrown the nationalistic aspirations of Greek and Turk into relief. The introduction to the Cyprus working class of socialist knowledge with its clear-cut class issues, uncomplicated by nationalistic arguments, is badly needed to dispel these bars to its emancipation.

Then it will realise that its struggle, whether resulting in Enosis or independence, effectively enables its capitalist class to capture more elbow room to develop, and secure a hold on labour, in order to exploit it more efficiently in the name of the new Cyprus Republic.

R. J.

The New Cyprus Republic (1961)

From the January 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

(I) The Exiles Return

The Cyprus Republic proclaimed to a 21 gun salute and a fanfare of trumpets at midnight on 15th August whilst inside the House of Representatives, the Treaty of Independence was being signed. Diplomatic protocol was rigidly observed throughout. Sir Hugh Foot, the retiring Governor, Archbishop Makarios, and Dr. Kutchuk, now President and Vice-President respectively of the newly born Republic made the speeches expected of them. The crowd cheered and went away to await the arrival of the contingents of Greek and Turkish troops. The troops were greeted at the port of Famagusta by their respective supporters with cries of “Long live the Turkish Army”, and “Long live the Greek Army”. They then entered Nicosia to banner greetings of “Freedom and peace-loving soldiers, we welcome you to Cyprus” from whence they proceeded to their camps to prepare for whatever “peace-loving” activities the future might call, upon them to perform.

This Nicosia reception, though far from being wildly excited, was riotous compared with the departure of the late Governor of Cyprus, from Famagusta a few hours earlier. To the accompaniment of a bagpipe lament Sir Hugh Foot and his family departed the island followed by the silent stares of the thousands of watchers assembled on the town walls to greet the incoming troops.

The real highlight of the day came later, with the arrival at Nicosia Airport of 23 Eoka men, exiled to Greece under the amnesty terms following the London Agreement. Any doubts that Eoka had the sympathy and support of the majority of Cypriots must have been dispelled by the scenes. Weeping, shouting, kissing, hugging, hand-shaking men and women slowed the six mile journey from the airport to a two-hour crawl, which ended at the Nicosia Stadium, packed to capacity, with the surrounding roofs crowded. Cries in unison of E-O-K-A changed suddenly to MA-KA-RI-OS as the new president made his appearance.

Here the drama of the day was enacted. Before hysterical crowds the returning exiles made their speeches, and were officially greeted by the President with phrases like …”Your heroism has surpassed the bounds of history and become a tradition . . . In your heroic faces the Cypriot people see again with tears of gratitude and great emotion the sacred symbols of the struggle.”

Very adroitly he proceeded to draw the stings of the exiles who must have been very conscious that their struggle had not borne the fruit expected. The man who had so obviously benefited from what was regarded as a sell-out then said, “A new stage of struggle lies before us. We must all jointly undertake these peaceful struggles not with the hand-grenade and the arms, but with the power of our souls in order to build our Republic on sound foundations and to ensure the happiness, progress, and peace of our people.” He concluded, “I am sure that with the same faith with which you fought on the battlefield you will fight now on the peaceful front.” Significantly, the anti-Makarios Ex-Eoka Fighters Association which had boycotted the celebration, had complained that eight of its members had been arrested and held for one night in jail for distributing leaflets attacking the London and Zurich Agreements—during these same celebrations.

The general tenor of opinion was expressed by the Greek paper Ethnos:

“Greek Cypriots must live not with the memory of what they suffered or how much they were wronged by the British, nor how much their differences are with the Turks, nor should the soul be filled with bitterness at the negation of national hopes. The celebration must be the expression of joy at independence and also the expression of the determination to carry on the new struggle.”

Mr. John Clerides, leader of the Democratic Union, after calling the new Republic a fraud said, “We shall not molest those who believing in this fraud have accepted political responsibilities in the new state. We shall, however abstain from their jubilation.” An understandable remark. since his son, Mr. Glafcos Clerides, had just accepted the position of Speaker in the new Parliament.

The Akel (the Cyprus Communist Party) view was expressed by their paper Haravghi, which called for a policy of peace and friendship abroad in order to secure markets for “our” products. Mr. Papaioannou, General Secretary of Akel, stated from East Berlin, after opposing the presence of British troops, that the Cyprus people must form a broad anti-imperialist front to overcome the impediments of the Agreements.

During the many press conferences that followed, the President continually stressed his “friendship with all countries” policy. Occasionally reporters would fire awkward questions, such as the Turkish woman who asked why, on national holiday, the Turks had cheered in the Turkish contingent and the Greeks had celebrated the return of Eoka. Or others concerning the President’s attitude to Grivas (“in spite of differences my warm feelings to Grivas have not changed”). Or a question on the possible trouble from Eoka. which was answered by the assertion that Eoka must work peacefully for the common good. The President’s training received in manipulating the minds of the faithful in church was standing him in good stead. Concerning the all important question of trade, it was made clear that “trade with all countries would be encouraged and developed within the framework of a sound labour and social policy, safeguarding the capital importance of labour and the imprescribable rights of the working people.”

Thus the domestic and foreign policy of the new Republic was as one would have expected. All would be well, provided “the imprescribable rights of the working people were safeguarded” and “friendship with all countries” could be guaranteed. Assuming that these statements were not intended to be tongue-in-cheek platitudes, one must suppose that the President’s knowledge of the real world is as deficient as those of his many supporters who believed that somehow or other, a change from colonial to self-government would result in full employment, peace, and prosperity.

R. J.

(to be continued)

Notes by the Way: South Africa the Golden (1946)

The Notes by the Way Column from the September 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

South Africa the Golden

Gold mining is by far the largest industry in South Africa. It employs 40,000 Europeans and 360,000 natives. It pays more than £17,000,000 a year dividends to the shareholders. What it pays to the natives and how they are treated has been described in an article by E. S. Sachs, South African Workers’ Delegate to the I.L.O. (Manchester Guardian, 19/8/46).

“They receive an average cash wage of 2s. 2d. per shift . . . Part of this meagre wage is deducted to repay advances made to the worker on recruitment for boots and other purposes. The African worker must also buy a cheap mattress or sacking for use on the concrete bunk on which he sleeps in the compound where he is forced to live. He must also buy some clothing . . . There is no extra pay for overtime or Sunday work. He is provided with food and medical attention free, but receives no sick pay. The Chamber of Mines estimates the cost of food to be 5.28d. and medical services 1.15d. per shift per man. The only paid leave the worker gets is on Good Friday and Christmas Day.”

In 1943 a Government Commission recommended an increase of 3d. a shift, but the owners refused to pay it, and “the Government did nothing except introduce an emergency regulation prohibiting meetings of Africans on land proclaimed as a mining area.”

They are not forbidden by law to form trade unions, and many are organised, but they “may not leave their compounds without a special pass from their employer and are subject to severe penalties, including imprisonment with hard labour, for absenting themselves from work or for any breach of their contract.”

The natives have had no increase of pay since 1914 and their union has pointed out that their wages were actually much higher 60 years ago than to-day.

We wonder if the native workers derive much comfort from the United Nations Charter, of which South Africa is a signatory, proclaiming the determination of the upholders “to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom!”

An appropriate footnote is the following news item in The Star (July 24th, 1946) announcing the arrival by ‘plane of a cargo of very important persons from South Africa, on official and private business in London.

“In the silver Skymasler “Drakensburg,” belonging to South African Airways, were 34 millionaires, multi-millionaires, or near millionaires, including Van der Byl, Field-Marshal Smuts’ right-hand man and a leading figure in South African industry. The party, most of them from Johannesburg, were met by Sir Eric Crankshaw, Secretary of the Government’s Hospitality Fund."

Russia, Turkey and the Dardanelles

While British Imperialism seeks to safeguard capitalist interests in the Middle East by keeping troops in Transjordan and Palestine and by military agreements with Egypt and Iraq, Russian Imperialism counters with a demand that Turkey shall permit the setting up of Russian military forces on Turkish territory in the Dardanelles area and by promoting its own puppet movement in Persian Azerbaijan. Russia has also been carrying on propaganda to secure the support of Arabs in the Middle East countries as a means of reducing British influence there. In short, the two old firms carry on as all through the 19th century notwithstanding that Russia is now labelled “Communist” and Britain “Labour.”

Twenty-four years ago, when Russia was weak, it was Russian and British Communist Party policy to pose as the friends of the Turks because Turkey was then in conflict with Britain, and British troops were in occupation of Constantinople and the Dardanelles. The Executive Committee of the Communist Party of Great Britain accordingly produced a declaration demanding that Turkey be freed from the Imperialist occupation forces.

“The E.C. of the C.P.G.B. sends its greeting to the British Muslim Association and desires to join with it in the demand . . . that Constantinople and Adrianople shall be restored unconditionally to the custody of the Turkish people.” 

(The Communist, September 23rd, 1922.)

Now Russia is stronger so the old policy goes on the scrap heap and the demand is made that Russia have forces on Turkish soil.

The same resolution went on to demand that North Africa, including Tripoli, be given complete independence. It also opposed the “insidious regime” of the League of Nations mandatory system.

In view of this it is entertaining to observe that at the Paris meeting of the Big Four Powers in May of this year Russia put in a claim for a United Nations Trusteeship or Mandate for herself over Tripoli, a claim that was later abandoned in face of opposition and watered down to a claim for the appointment of a Russian Administrator with an Italian deputy and an international advisory committee. (Daily Telegraph, 11/5/46).

Longer Life—and Shorter

While one body of the scientist hirelings ot capitalism are busy improving atom bombs, germ warfare and other means of destruction, we read the following (Evening Standard, 16/8/46): —

“First details are disclosed to-day of the existence in Britain of research on making people live longer and becoming more useful . . . the possibility of increasing life to as much as 200 year has been freely discussed.”

3 Per Cent. by Another Name

“New York, Friday.—A U.S. agreement to lend £2,500,000 to Saudi Arabia, announced to-day, contains no mention of interest payments. 

The word ‘interest’ was omitted because Moslems oppose on religious grounds the charging or paying of interest. Under the heading ‘Thanksgiving,’ however. Saudi Arabia will pay the usual 3 per cent.”

(Daily Mail, 10/8/46.)

German Social Democrats and the Russian Zone Election

Elections are being held in the Russian Zone of Germany, and as, under what the Communists call democracy, they are prevented by the Russians from putting up candidates, the S.D.P. has advised its members to spoil their voting papers. The following appeal was published in their journal, the “Social Democrat” :–

“The election in your zone is not a democratic election. Should you, therefore, stay away from the poll altogether? That would really be best. but for many of you it might have heavy consequences. Our advice is, therefore, that you should take part in the poll but demonstrate against constraint of conscience by making your voting papers clearly invalid. Make this action a united and powerful demonstration for freedom. Do not divide yourselves by voting here or there for some other party that appears to you as a lesser evil.”

The Manchester Guardian correspondent (20/8/46) who quotes this, describes it as “political folly,” on the ground that it would be better to vote for the Christian Democratic Union or some other group in order to strengthen the opposition to the Communists (now calling themselves “United Socialist Party”).

While we are opposed to the reformism of the German Social-Democrats, this refusal any longer to vote for the “lesser evil” indicates a marked improvement on their past behaviour.

Plenty—For Those Who Have the Money

The following quotations, one from the Daily Worker on British capitalism and the other by Mr. Hugh Chevins on Russian State Capitalism, need no comment: —

“Luxury Feeders. Why should there be, to all intents and purposes, no limitation at all on the amount and variety of food which luxury purchasers can acquire, while the bulk of the families in the country have to prepare for still further sacrifices on the food front?” (Daily Worker, 8/7/46.)

“It was once said that anyone may dine at the Ritz in London—if he can pay the price. The same remark applies with equal truth and more irony to eating at the smart hotels and restaurants in Communist Moscow. . . . The average money wage is reliably estimated to be about 350 roubles a month. That amount can be spent in a single meal with the utmost ease at the Metropole, National, Moscow or Savoy Hotels, and at the Astoria, Caucasus or Europa restaurants, but only by the privileged class.” (Mr. Hugh Chevins, Industrial Correspondent, Daily Telegraph, 9/8/46, after a recent visit to Moscow.)

Shades of the Versailles Treaty

It was common talk early in the recent war that at least the politicians would remember the errors, the cynicism and the idiocies of the Versailles Treaty after last war and avoid them this time. Here is the lament of the Manchester Guardian on the outcome of the labours of the foreign ministers of the Allied

Powers to date : —

“That it is a bad job few will deny. As they stand the draft treaties are deplorable. They follow no accepted political or economic principles. They are both unjust and inconsistent. No attempt has been made to discover the facts or consult the will of the inhabitants by commissions of inquiry or plebiscites. Each one is a compromise between rival Powers who openly fear and distrust each other. Even so they represent the best that can be done by patient and enduring diplomacy, and as such they will be welcomed by a weary Europe. Blessed are the peacemakers—even if the peace in this case is one which passeth all understanding.” 

(Manchester Guardian, 10/7/46.)

Edgar Hardcastle

Editorial: Russia and the Straits. (1916)

Editorial from the August 1916 issue of the Socialist Standard

That element of comedy which relieves almost every tragic situation, appears at last in the ultra-tragic situation on the Continent. For generations the British policy of preserving the “balance of power” in Europe has led our chivalric masters to adopt an attitude of protection and support toward certain ”small nations,” which wet-nurse attitude has afforded fools and sycophants a splendid opportunity to erect and nurture a theory of British love of “right” and “justice” that has precious little foundation in actual fact. What monumental sacrifice was undertaken in our grandfathers’ time (and at our [the working class] grandfathers’ expense) to argue Russia into a right state of mind concerning the sacredness of Turkish soil, and what farce has since been played, over the reeking graves of butchered “small nations,” to maintain in his pestilential power the “sick man of Europe,” whose rotten carcass happened to bar the way of Russia to the Mediterranean ! And what British blood has deluged the plains of Flanders and the Low Countries to maintain their “inviolable rights” (in fiction) because (in fact) their acquisition meant a disturbance of power, military and commercial, that did not recommend itself to British chivalry !

And now Time, like the corner-men in the Nigger minstrel troupe, supplies the comic relief without which both the “Spanish onion” song and the high tragedy of international politics are insufferable. British policy is on the horns of a dilemma. Cherished traditions come in conflict. The Russians want the Straits of Gallipoli and the Germans want Belgium. It is deucedly awkward, don’t-ye-know, and if that wild scramble to the Peninsular had only succeeded the situation might have been saved. The Turks might have capitulated on terms that would still have left them masters of their fate, guardians of the “holy places,” benefactors of the Armenian and other poor devils who would be so much better off under the rule of the gentle Russian. But the Churchillian “gamble” fell through. The paeans which eulogised the marvellous way in which the British caught hold of the turkey at Gallipoli were outdone by the chants praising the clever way they let it go again, and the attempt to save the “sick man of Europe” from himself and the Russian bear collapsed. And now British chivalry has had to decide between Germany and Russia.

The problem was brought within reach of the minds of British statesmen by one or two existing facts. In the first place, Germany, the enemy of the moment by reason of her superior industrial development, had already gained such ascendency in Turkey as rendered her conquest eventually of the historic sea outlets a foregone conclusion—and better Russia than Germany. On the other hand opportunity was ripe for Russia, who found herself provided with both the excuse and the means to carry out her long-cherished aspirations. She had only to divert her strength to the purpose, leaving the other occupants of the cockpit largely to fight themselves to a standstill, and she would soon have accomplished what her great love for Christianity has impelled her to essay more than once before. The knowledge of these things, no doubt, helped to maintain that united front, that common effort on behalf of international freedon, those bonds woven out of love of honour and justice and the rest ; but that delegates should find it necessary to come from Russia in order to make bargains in the matter of plunder speaks volumes concerning the real nature of those bonds and the difficulty of keeping them intact.

Letter: Childish? (2013)

Letter to the Editors from the August 2013 issue of the Socialist Standard

Childish?

Dear Editors

I thought your article Resistanbul in the July Socialist Standard was one of the best, most informative and helpful I have read in a very long time. But did you really have to spoil it on the front cover with a trite and infantile reference to turkeys and stuffing?

Your article was extremely respectful and sensitive to the issues and challenges facing Turkish society and the Turkish people. Your cover was cheap and childish.

Andrew Northall. 

Kettering

Cyprus—A Mediterranean Hotspot (1958)

From the June 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Cyprus is the healthiest place in the world—for anyone except a policeman. It exports false teeth and fine lace and the seeds from which many an English gardener raises his cauliflowers. It is an island in a state of confused emergency, where the Greeks riot because they want the British occupation to end and the Turks riot because they want it to continue. The British don’t intend to leave, anyway. The island has been a trouble spot for centuries; what is the background to the present disturbances ?

History and Economy

The history of Cyprus is the history of sea-power in the Eastern Mediterranean; the island has always been occupied by a dominant naval power. In 1571 it became part of the Ottoman Empire and this lasted until the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 revived European interest in its strategic position. At the time Russia was penetrating into Asia Minor, and when in 1877 they inflicted a tremendous defeat on the Turks at Adrianople and Armenia, London decided to intervene, (In the music halls they were singing the song which began, “We don't want to fight, but by jingo! if we do. . . .") Turkey accepted Russia’s terms at San Stefano in 1878; at the same time she signed a “Convention of Defensive Alliance” with Great Britain which agreed to British occupation of Cyprus, in return for an undertaking to fight with Turkey against future Russian expansion. On the outbreak of war in 1914 Britain annexed the island by Order in Council, on the grounds that Turkey was then an enemy country. In 1923 Greece and Turkey signed the Treaty of Lausanne, which recognised British possession of Cyprus as part of the territorial balance in the area.

The first Britishers found Cyprus an impoverished land, with backward agricultural methods and suffering from chronic soil erosion. Forests had been ruthlessly destroyed and there were few useful roads, bridges or harbours. As British occupation became established, capital flowed into the island and reafforestation and agricultural development schemes were started. The copper mines (reputed to be the first in the world, but neglected since the Romans left) were reopened. By 1928 the Cypriot population was twice as large as in 1878 and everything was controlled by a police force and legal system similar to the British patterns

The Cypriot economy remains based on its agriculture, which absorbs over half the working population. Mineral production is of great importance, and there is a little minor industry, producing buttons, hand-made shoes, and the like. Most of the exports go to West Germany, the United Kingdom and Italy, in that order; the United Kingdom supply the bulk of the island's imports. The death rate in Cyprus is among the world’s lowest—at 6.3 per 1,000, lower than the U.S.A. and Great Britain. Although it was once called one of the most malarious places in the world, Cyprus has not had a single case of the disease since 1949. At the moment there is virtually no unemployment on the island (unless EOKA can be said to be out of work!), but this could easily change, for 60 per cent. of the exports are made up of minerals, at prices at the mercy of world trading conditions.

EOKA, the Greeks and the Church

EOKA (the letters stand for the Greek words meaning National Organisation of Cypriot Combatants), emphasises the campaign for enosis (union of Cyprus with Greece) by acts of killing and sabotage. At its head is Colonel George Grivas, a romantically 'moustached character who once led the KHI. This undercover royalist movement was held responsible for many murders in the 1946-47 disturbances in Greece.

The EOKA guerrilla hide-out in the Troodos mountains, coming down into the towns to kill selected persons, or to toss a bomb (as many as 20 a day have been known recently). The organisation has been active for about three years, killing over 100 and wounding over 350 British people. For the past year or so things have been quieter until the recent bomb incidents. Now EOKA are threatening another campaign unless the Cyprus question is settled quickly. General Kendrew, who once captained the England Rugby team and who now commands the British security forces, has promised that if EOKA starts up again they will get treatment which will make the Harding regime seem "mild and benevolent" by comparison.

The idea of enosis is not new. The first British Governor in 1878 was greeted by the Bishop of Kition with the hope that “. . .  Great Britain will help Cyprus . . . to be united with Mother Greece. . . ." In 1931 there were violent demonstrations in favour of enosis, after which 10 Cypriots, including two bishops, were exiled and the island's Legislative Council suspended. This upset may have been aggravated by the extreme conditions which Cyprus was experiencing in the world slump, but it is difficult to find any similar reason to explain the enosis movement to-day. As we have seen, most of the colony's trade is with Europe, and certainly Greece, with her low standard of living, infantile trade union movement and lack of political freedom should offer little to attract a thoughtful Cypriot. If the emigration figures are a guide, few Cypriots are attracted to Greece. 6,441 Cypriots left the island in 1956; 5,233 of these came to the United Kingdom and 730 went to Australia. Between 1952 and 1955 only 15 Cypriots went to Greece. The principal force behind the enosis movement stems from the fact that 80 per cent. of Cypriots are of Greek origin and are easily misled into supporting the Greek effort in her age-long struggle with Turkey over the territorial carve-up of Asia Minor. The Cypriot Communists also support enosis, even though their counterparts in Greece have been very roughly treated and General Grivas is their fanatical opponent.

The Greek Orthodox Church is a substantial landowner in Cyprus and a powerful supporter of union with Greece. The Church's political influence began with the Turkish occupation, when leaders of the Church were granted the Sultan's commission to collect taxes and to keep an eye on the not always submissive local officers of the Ottoman Empire. These leaders became associated with the illegal anti-Turkish movement; when the Greek War of Independence broke out in 1821 nine of them were publicly hanged and several more beheaded. The British put an end to the tax gathering, but the Church was unwilling to abandon all its temporal activities; it therefore devoted itself to political affairs and, as tradition foretold, gave support to the enosis movement. Now that the movement has gathered its own momentum, the Church dare not drop its support, for fear of losing influence to laymen. Because of their attitude, Archbishop Makarios and the Bishop of Kyrenia were deported to the Seychelles Islands in March of 1956. A year later they were released and allowed to go anywhere except Cyprus.

The Turks

As the Greeks rang their bells to celebrate Makarios’ release, and as Lord Salisbury left the British Government in disgust, so Turkish Cypriots sent a protesting telegram to the Prime Minister of Turkey. What are the Turkish interests in Cyprus ?

Although Russian penetration may present a greater threat, the Turkish Government must still worry about the long struggle with Greece. It remembers the attack of 1922, when the Greeks almost reached Ankara, but were thrown back upon Smyrna, where Kemal Attaturk massacred them with indescribable bestiality. They cannot forget that Cyprus is only 40 miles from the Turkish mainland and commands the approaches to the important ports of Mersin and Iskenderum. They look on a Greek Cyprus as an intolerable threat.

Yet a Turkish Cyprus is out of the question, for the Turks make up only 18 per cent, of the island's population. So Ankara is in favour of British occupation of Cyprus and supports British power in the Middle East, as a check on Greek ambitions. No Cyprus question, therefore, existed for Turkey, until recently they sensed a change in British policy. Then the Turks began to kick over the traces. Only after protest did they make the “final sacrifice" of accepting the idea of partitioning Cyprus. Now, convinced that London is preparing to betray them, they have started rioting, complete with killings and demonstrating schoolchildren. They have called for the dismissal of the liberal" governor. Sir Hugh Foot and the return of the "tough" General Harding. There is a Turkish Resistance Movement which has declared itself “on the verge" of starting its (ominous words) "struggle for freedom.” The Turks have shown that they can be as violent as the Greeks.

British Interests

In all this confusion of interests, the policy of the British Government remains firm to the point of stagnation. Gone are the days of 1915, when the Greeks were offered Cyprus in exchange for support of Serbia against Bulgaria (Athens declined). Every proposal made by the British Government in recent years, including those of the Radcliffe enquiry in late 1956, have clearly presupposed the continuation of British occupation of Cyprus.

Why is Whitehall so adamant ? The 1956 Colonial Office report on Cyprus stated that ". . . Her Majesty's Government formally recognised the principle of self-determination, but considered its application not to be a practical proposition at the present time on account of the existing situation in the Eastern Mediterranean." That is the clue to it. Great Britain was once the dominant power of the Middle East. Now, with the oil discoveries throwing up nationalist Governments, British influence has been squeezed out of one country after another. Apart from her own interest in the oilfields, Britain has a number of strategic obligations to protect the sheikdoms on the Persian Gulf against attack by their neighbours (the most powerful of these is the American-influenced Saudi Arabia). Cyprus, the one remaining toehold in the area, is vital to this conception of British interests, as a convenient springboard from which the Persian Gulf can be reinforced.

Great Britain also has commitments to the Bagdad Pact, which joins Pakistan, Persia, Iraq and Turkey in a defensive alliance with the classical aim of preventing Russian penetration of the Middle East Cyprus—1½ hours’ flying time from Bagdad—is important to British participation in the pact. So the British stay in Cyprus and, for fear of being voted out of the island, will not, allow the Cypriots to express their preference on enosis. To put the matter into sharper perspective we should remember that the bloodshed in Cyprus is small beer compared to that in, say, Algeria. And Greece is not the only small country with imperialist designs; the Yemen, Spain, Guatemala and Mexico are others.

Tragedy

There are people (they often call themselves Socialists) who like to think that the Cyprus struggle is a special sort of regrettable tragedy. They thought the same about Kenya and Malaya, and before that of Ireland. The ignorance and don’t care attitude, which never tries to find out the reason for these problems—that is the real tragedy, in Cyprus and England and over all the world.

Ivan.

50 Years Ago: The war in Cyprus (2024)

The 50 Years Ago column from the September 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Greek nationalist agitation for enosis (ie, union) broke out in 1931. It was suspended during the war, when Cypriot troops were part of the Allied armies, and resumed not long after it. The Atlantic Charter of 1941, a set of wartime humbug-platitudes, laid down the principle of self-determination for “all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live”, but in 1947 the British government ruled out any change of status for Cyprus. In a plebiscite in 1950 the Cypriots – of whom Greeks form four-fifths – voted overwhelmingly for union with Greece.

From 1954, with Archbishop Makarios as leader of the Greek population, the guerrilla organization EOKA waged war on British rule. A military governor was appointed by the British government, and in 1956 Makarios was deported. Besides the EOKA campaign, Turkish Cypriot nationalists pressed claims for a partition of the island and fought the Greeks. The “solution” of 1960 was a constitution in which Greeks and Turks shared in government – no enosis, no partition; Greece and Turkey stationed token forces there; and Britain retained sovereign rights in certain areas for military purposes. Near-war again in 1963, and shells and bloodshed in 1974.

Why is Cyprus important to Britain and other world powers? Its economy, apart from some minerals and a lot of cheap wine, is insignificant. But in the Middle Ages Cyprus was a vital entrepot for commerce with the east, and every trading state established stations and bought trading rights there. In the 19th and 20th centuries it has remained a vital strategic point. Disraeli in 1878 wanted it as a link in a scheme to defend British interests in India; Eden in 1956 declared that the possession of a British base in Cyprus was necessary to protect British and West European oil supplies. (…)

While Turkey and Greece fight for advantages and pickings from the other’s need for Cyprus, their peasants and workers remain poverty-stricken. Futile bloody slaughter, indeed: capitalism lives, and the workers die. Stop it. Stop your nationalism, and your support for this wretched system – quickly!

(Socialist Standard, September 1974)

Halo, Halo! (2024)

The Halo Halo Column from the April 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Nautilus, 28 February, reviews a book by a Professor of Psychiatry at the American University of Yale. The article is titled Evolution Is Going According to God’s Plan. The reviewer says its author believes ‘evolutionary theory is, in fact, theologically reaffirming; natural selection is purposeful and guided, and provides both evidence for a creator.’ Double quelle surprise! The Prof is a lifelong Mormon and is now a Latter Day Saints Bishop.

It seems it’s not only Christian evangelicals who have problems with reality, other religions do too. The Yetkin Report, 23 February, notes that those in charge of education in Turkey, having their country’s children’s best interests at heart, banned Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution from being taught in schools several years ago. Now ‘The Ministry of (Turkey’s) National Education, under the title of the biology curriculum, has introduced the notion of creationism into the 2024-25 schedule’.

Atlantic Council, 16 February, reports an elderly Iranian gentleman has seriously upset the Iranian authorities and has quite rightly (ahem) been taken into custody to undergo rehabilitation. George Orwell’s 1984 wasn’t just a work of fiction but a manual used by totalitarian regimes for the suppression of dissent. Totalitarian? Did someone mention Julian Assange? The heinous crime of this individual? Posting himself singing and dancing on social media. ‘The hardline Islamist world-view of the Islamic Republic, and its small but powerful constituency, subscribes to outlawing public dancing and singing as “un-Islamic” practices.’

American politician Mike Johnson again. Windytimes (14 February) notes that he flies three flags outside his office. The national flag, the State flag and ‘a white flag with a green tree in the centre and the words “An Appeal to Heaven”. This flag, which originated in the American Revolution, today is associated with a religious movement, New Apostolic Reformation, a rapidly growing force among various evangelical and charismatic groups that seeks to conform society’s seven spheres—education, religion, family, business, government, arts, and entertainment—with their interpretations of Christian scriptures and history’.

Any extraterrestrials who arrive to check out the third rock from the Sun would, if they have any sense, turn right around and avoid it like the proverbial. It is to be sincerely hoped that such visitors are not Vogons intent on demolishing the planet to provide an interplanetary space by-pass. Douglas Adams in his series of books beginning with Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy was using his imagination. There have been many who have insisted that they have indeed been abducted by aliens or who have been taken up into a UFO and had unspeakable things happen to them.

A Frenchman named Claude Maurice Marcel Vorilhon claimed to have met with ETs and, in December 1973, formed the Raëlian Movement and changed his name to Raël. Perhaps these alien visitors possess a twisted sense of humour because the number of times that various religious/cult founders have had revelations conveyed to them through hearing or meeting with ‘other worldly’ beings is quite a coincidence.

DC

Letter: But What Can I Do? (2007)

Letter to the Editors from the February 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

But What Can I Do?

“But what can I do?” How many times do you hear that or similar phrases from people too overwhelmed by the enormity of the task that they can’t see the wood for the trees?

Socialism isn’t going to be born overnight, that has long been agreed. It’s going to be a long uphill struggle by those with enough conviction against the million and one forces stacked against it, and I’m not talking about the forces of the imperial armies or the might of the transnational corporations, I’m talking about the likes of your brother-in-law who can only see as far as the next pay day and a six-pack in front of the TV, or the woman at work who can’t understand that you won’t buy a lottery ticket because winning the jackpot won’t exactly mean you beat the system. Life can get tedious explaining the same old obvious thing to yet one more sceptical punter, however, if we don’t………?

This is about one of my bêtes-noires, which is, why do so many people drink Coca  Cola? (insert your own pet-hate here.) Not only does this company have a terrible track record for union busting around the world even going so far as to be involved in killings by private militia, for depriving some Indian villages of water and poisoning wells through over-extraction in others, but it’s so full of sugar and junk that it tastes horrible and it’s harmful to health to boot.

All the restaurants, cafes and bars in the tourist areas close to here offer Coke or Pepsi whichever concession is dominant in the particular vicinity and it follows that their other soft drinks and bottled water are purchased through the same concession. In towns and villages outside the tourist areas it is unusual to be offered bottled water at restaurants, coffee houses, bus station cafeterias and the like.

Water comes in a jug from the tap. Village water here is clean, unadulterated and abundant. Many townfolk can be observed stopping at their favourite spring by the roadside to stock up with several days’ supply of what is considered the best drinking water. In the towns where chlorine etc is used in the public supply local shops deliver large containers of natural spring water (the preferred option) to homes and businesses.

In our very local favourite restaurant which served water bottled by the Coca Cola Co. here in Turkey (acknowledged in letters so small as to require both good light and good eyesight to see it and which has been guilty of union-busting here too), we would ask for a jug of village water from the tap, – no Coca Cola bottled water for us thankyou!

Over time and with a few more Turkish lessons under our belt we painstakingly explained our position to a number of employees and to the owners. One tack they understood and warmed to was that there are a number of small local water bottling plants, soft drink manufacturers and fruit juice companies (for the environment generally speaking local is better than national and national better than international). Very soon we noticed the presence of a local company’s bottled water on the tables in place of the  earlier offence to the eye and the conscience. And my water from the tap now tastes  even sweeter.

We’ve had similar results with another restaurant we patronise, up in the mountains by a fast-flowing river. All the food served here comes from within just a few miles and now that includes the bottled water too.

So, 2 down, 999,998 to go. A drop in the ocean? Yes. A message in a bottle? Maybe.

Janet Surman, 

Turkey.

After Hezbollah, war with Iran? (2006)

From the September 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard

Was Israel’s attack on Hezbollah part of preparations for a coming US attack on Iran?

As we go to press, a serious and already escalating crisis can be expected to go into overdrive the instant the Iranian government, at the moment under a UN deadline to stop uranium enrichment by 31 August, tells the UN what it can do with its resolution.

Sanctions will no doubt be announced, but to what effect and with what response from Iran remains to be seen. Iran has already intimated it would spark a global oil price crisis in response to UN sanctions, and it is unclear whether China and Russia – each with vested oil interests in Iran – will go along with any sanctions. The worst-case scenario is that the US will express feigned frustration at Iran’s unwillingness to cooperate and use the rejected resolution as a chequered flag to attack Iran militarily.

It is against this backdrop that we can begin to set the present Middle East crisis in context, particularly the recent Israeli attack upon Lebanon. This latest act of Israeli aggression was not about capturing back the two Israeli soldiers kidnapped on 14 July but was rather, it would seem, about oil and the securing of other resources and about preparing for any wider conflict against Syria and Iran.

Planned in advance

There are numerous claims that the war in Lebanon had been planned in advance by Israel. Reporting from Tel Aviv for the San Francisco Chronicle (21 July), Matthew Kalman wrote: “More than a year ago, a senior Israeli army officer began giving PowerPoint presentations, on an off-the-record basis, to US and other diplomats, journalists and think tanks, setting out the plan for the current operation in revealing detail.”

Speaking to CNN, veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersh said: “July was a pretext for a major offensive that had been in the works for a long time. Israel’s attack was going to be a model for the attack they really want to do. They really want to go after Iran.” (Guardian, 14 August).

In bombarding Lebanon and the Gaza strip (Gaza is still being bombed) the objective was to neutralise two opponents of Israel – and the US – Hezbollah and Hamas. Hezbollah’s fire power and missile capabilities needed to be tested. Israel was unsure of the number of rockets in the hands of Hezbollah (some said 20,000) or indeed their range. Now they know. The Israeli bombardment of key roads and bridges and passage to Syria can serve no other function than to cut of the weapons supply route to Hezbollah. By striking pre-emptively Israel seems to have planned to destroy as many Hezbollah weapons as possible in advance of any rocket attack on Israel resulting from any US-allied bombardment of Iran.

Oil and water

Widely unreported in the Western popular media and brought to a wider audience by Michel Chossudovsky, a Canadian economics professor, on the Global Research website was the inauguration of the Ceyhan-Tblisi-Baku (BTC) oil pipeline. This links the Caspian Sea to the Eastern Mediterranean, and was opened one day before Hezbollah’s kidnapping of the two Israeli soldiers that ostensibly started the recent war in Lebanon.The BTC pipeline is anticipated to carry a million barrels of oil a day to Western markets. In attendance at the inauguration ceremony were BP’s CEO Lord Browne and senior officials from the UK and USA, along with Israel’s Minister of Energy and Infrastructure Binyamin Ben Eliezer, accompanied by a delegation of top Israeli oil officials.

The BP-dominated pipeline skirts the Russian Federation, cutting through new pro-US states Georgia and Azerbaijan, countries allied with NATO and with a standing military pact with Israel. Israel already gets 20 percent of its oil from Azeri oil fields and this new pipeline is set to increase Israeli imports from the Caspian basin. Israel is now tipped to be a key player in the East Mediterranean oil transport protection racket.

Officially, the BTC pipeline will be channelling oil to Western markets. What is not admitted, however, is that some of this oil will be redirected towards Israel via a proposed underwater pipeline from Ceyhan in Turkey to the Israeli port of Ashkelon, and from there via a pipeline system to the Red Sea. The plan not only seems to serve Israeli oil consumption needs, but also plays a part in the US’s wider game of global-politics.

Oil channelled from Ashkelon to the Red Sea will then be re-exported from the Red Sea port of Eilat to Asian markets. This will help undermine the inter-Asian energy market eventually weakening the position of Russia in Central Asia and cutting off China from Central Asia’s oil reserves. In April of this year Ankara and Tel Aviv publicised their intention to create four pipelines which would bypass Syrian and Lebanese territory. As the Jerusalem Post (11 May) reported:

”Turkey and Israel are negotiating the construction of a multi-million-dollar energy and water project that will transport water, electricity, natural gas and oil by pipelines to Israel, with the oil to be sent onward from Israel to the Far East.”

The scheme further envisages a pipeline to carry water to Israel from upstream Anatolian rivers Tigris and Euphrates. Not only is this plan catered for in the recently-announced military pact between Israel and Ankara, its implementation will be devastating for Syria and Iraq. The execution of this joint Israeli-Turkish venture requires that land and sea routes between the Ceyhan border, through Syria and Lebanon, and to the Lebanese-Israeli border, be militarised.

Michel Chossudovsky asks in his article ‘The war on Lebanon and the battle for oil:’

“Is this not one of the hidden objectives of the war on Lebanon? Open up a space which enables Israel to control a vast territory extending from the Lebanese border through Syria to Turkey.”

Israel is keen to play a more dominant role in the Middle East and seeks to achieve a degree of economic autonomy by becoming a key player in oil politics. Its military programme is increasingly looking like being tailored to the region’s strategic oil pipelines and by the Western oil companies commanding the pipeline passages. Of course to punch above its weight it needs outside help, hence alliances with the US and more recently with Turkey and NATO.

Chossudovsky’s oft-cited piece “Triple Alliance”: The US, Turkey, Israel and the War on Lebanon details the alliances and agreements which apparently underpin the war with Hezbollah.

“We are not dealing with a limited conflict between the Israeli Armed Forces and Hezbollah as conveyed by the Western media. The Lebanese War Theatre is part of a broader US military agenda, which encompasses a region extending from the Eastern Mediterranean into the heartland of Central Asia. The war on Lebanon must be viewed as ‘a stage’ in this broader ‘military road map’.”

Significant, for Chossudovsky, is the Turkey-Israel alliance which involves military and intelligence sharing on Iraq, Iran and Syria, as well as joint military exercises and training.

Pepe Escobar, writing for Asia Times, stresses Israel’s water needs as partly behind the recent war in Lebanon. : “There’s also the all-important matter of the waters of the Litani River in southern Lebanon. Israel might as well prepare the terrain now for the eventual annexation of the Litani. Beyond Lebanon, Israel is mostly interested also in Syria. The motive: the all-important pipeline route from Kirkuk, in Iraqi Kurdistan, to Haifa. Enter Israel as a major player in Pipelineistan. So Israel wants to grab water (and territory) from Palestine, water (and territory) from Lebanon and oil from Iraq. This all has to do with the inevitable – the 21st-century energy wars.”( Link.)

Seeking greater independence and an enhanced role in the Middle East, the smell of profits all around, Israeli aggression now becomes more understandable.

Long war

Tel Aviv recently announced it was in for a “long war” – clearly not with Hezbollah. It has been stockpiling weapons for several years and was re-supplied throughout the war with Hezbollah by the US. On top of its arsenal of 200 nuclear warheads it has in excess of 500 bunker-busting bombs, only a few, by all accounts, used recently in Lebanon. Clearly Israel is preparing for a widening and intense conflict. Speaking of the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said: “We need to make clear to Syria and Iran that there is a choice: come into the international community and play by the same rules as the rest of us, or be confronted.”

Can this hypocritical statement be interpreted as anything other than a serious threat ofviolence to those Middle Eastern countriesthat would stand in the way of profit-hungry masters of war and their ambitions for global domination of the planet’s vital resources?

Seymour Hersh has repeatedly asserted that President Bush ordered all-out war against Iran shortly after his re-election in 2004. Pat Buchanan’s American Conservative, amongst other sources, sides with Hersh in arguing that vice-president Dick Cheney has drawn up a war plan for Iran inclusive of the possible use of nuclear weapons.

US Defence Secretary Don Rumsfeld has placed US forces on alert and Lieutenant-Colonel Bruce Carlson, commander of the 8th Air Force acknowledges: “We’re now at the point where we are essentially on alert. We have the capacity to plan and execute global strikes in half a day or less.”

Dan Plesch (Guardian, 8 August) suggests President Bush has at his disposal: “200 strategic bombers (B52-B1-B2- F117A) and US Navy Tomahawk cruise missiles. One B2 bomber dropped 80,500lb bombs on separate targets in 22 seconds in a test flight. Using just half the available force, 10,000 targets could be attacked almost simultaneously. This strike power alone is sufficient to destroy all major Iranian political, military, economic and transport capabilities.”

Dangerous times

We live at a dangerous stage of human history, in which the greatest crime a country can commit is to have more than its fair share of resources in a world in which the leading superpower is seeking full-spectrum dominance. Iran’s real and unforgivable crime – leaving aside its refusal to halt its uranium enrichment programme – is to have enviable oil and gas reserves, to control access to the Persian Gulf , which is a vital oil and gas transhipment route to Europe, Japan, and the rest of the world, and to have contemplated oil deals with a serious rival for US supremacy, China. With China expected to have oil demands similar to US levels within 20 years, already consuming vast resources of coal, iron and steel, not to mention almost 70 percent of the world’s cement supplies on a single dam project, the panic button has clearly been pressed.

As Socialists we are naturally fearful as we watch events unfold; fearful for our class, our fellows throughout the world and for whom we hold no ill feelings. As always, we refuse to take sides in conflict, seeing all war as rooted in the desire to make profit, and viewing workers, wherever they are, united as one class with the same basic needs and common interest, diametrically opposed to the interests of those who would urge them to kill each other.

 Before the slaughter begins again, we once more take the opportunity to declare our heartfelt solidarity with the workers of all countries, and their true common cause. We appeal to workers to organise consciously and politically and to use the power at their disposal to head off the threatening bloodshed, and secure the space we need in order to build a world of peace and stability. As ever, we appeal to the workers of all lands to join with us in campaigning for a system of society where there are no leaders, no classes, no states or governments, no borders, no force or coercion; a world where the earth’s natural and industrial resources are commonly owned and democratically controlled and where production is freed from the artificial constraints of profit and used for the benefit of all; a world of free access to the necessaries of life. A world without waste, or want, or war.

John Bissett

Life and Times: Behind the crime (2023)

The Life and Times column from the July 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

We all make bad decisions. Sometimes the consequences aren’t that bad, but sometimes they are. That may depend on the circumstances at the time, but it may also depend on the long-term build-up to the decision. This came out clearly in a recent BBC radio programme which looked at the life of a woman whose bad decision – in fact whose series of bad decisions – caused her to end up in prison.

Marriage, abuse and incarceration

Sinem was the daughter of a Turkish family who had fled from persecution in their own country to settle and start a new life in the UK. She told us that, as a young girl, she did well at school but found it hard to fit in with others of her age largely due to the strictures of her home background. This sent her somewhat off the rails. As a teenager she was found in bed with the son of another Turkish family and, given the culture, that meant only one thing – marriage. She quickly had children, which, though it somehow made her feel more secure, did not satisfy her and she managed to enrol on a university course and get a degree. But employment was hard to find and she eventually took a job as a prison officer – in a men’s prison.

This is when things really started to go downhill. Her abusive husband was violent to her and she decided she had to leave him. But in doing that she lost the extended family support she had previously had to help look after her children. This meant she had to reduce her hours of work, and this caused her acute financial difficulty. To be able to pay her rent and other expenses she fell into debt. And this triggered another bad decision. She started smuggling drugs into the prison she was working in to raise money. Inevitably perhaps she was found out and arrested.

But it’s what happened then that, as a listener to this programme, I found particularly interesting and noteworthy. When her smuggling activity was discovered, she was not shunned or blamed by her fellow workers in the prison but treated with great understanding and compassion. Though she had, in a sense, betrayed them, during her arrest they carried on supporting her and treating her like the human being fallen on hard times they knew she was. And when she herself was prosecuted and sent to prison, they carried on keeping in touch with her.

Understanding and compassion

This behaviour by her co-workers seems to accord well with the view now widely expressed by writers and commentators that the age-old idea of an inevitably ‘nasty’ human nature is no more than a myth and that, given half the chance, human beings will be kind to, cooperative with, and supportive of one another – including, and perhaps especially, when someone is ‘in trouble’. Rutger Bregman’s recent massively influential work, Human Kind, for example, argues that the innate, fundamental default of human beings is to be friendly, communal, kind-hearted and cooperative, something that seems to be confirmed by what happened in Sinem’s case. And Sinem’s incarceration also then turned out positive for her. In the open prison she was sent to, again she found enormous support, especially from the ‘mentor’ assigned to her. This helped her to recover from being the ‘broken person’ she said she was and to be then granted a day release arrangement to begin studying for a further degree and afterwards, when released completely, to end up as a university lecturer in criminology.

So a sort of happy ending. But a lucky one too, since, as the programme pointed out, we are all profoundly marked by the string of experiences that constitute our life. And of course in many cases this does not have a happy ending. In Sinem’s case the earlier experience of a repressive culture, an oppressive partner, and then the pressure of poverty led to an act which could have seen her life spiral entirely out of control. The fact that it didn’t was, to a large extent, due to the kindness of others. This made her realise that, regardless of the ‘crime’ she’d committed, some people were on her side. And this made it possible for her to gain sufficient strength to make a relatively stable life for herself and her children, and also to help educate others.

Autonomy and cooperation

If we look more widely, how many times, in the society we live in – a society that is so advanced in technology and productive capacity but oh so backward in the way it makes use of these things – does lack of money and/or lack of the power and autonomy over their own lives (the two ‘lacks’ often going together) limit or remove an individual’s control over their own life, their freedom of choice, their ability to interact cooperatively and, above all, to make the ‘right’ decision? And how much more likely is it that, in the society organised on the basis of ‘from each according to ability to each according to need’ that socialists argue for, the cooperative ‘nature’ of humans will prevail. And how true too is the writer Tine De Moor’s statement that ‘human beings claim togetherness and interaction’ and ‘our spirits yearn for connection just as our bodies hunger for food’.

Howard Moss

Turkey’s ambivalent elections (2023)

From the June 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

Turkey’s modern political history is one of genocides, state-sponsored political assassinations, demonstrators machine-gunned by unknown actors or tear-gassed by police and army, and the Left arrested, executed, imprisoned en masse, or forced to flee: all under the ever-present threat of army intervention, with its military intelligence heavily exposed to the CIA.

And elections, such as this one.

Turkish political dynamics express themselves through a multiplicity of parties which then form coalitions to fight elections, which are essentially bipolar. The names of the parties shift as they fracture or are suppressed by the state: compared to European politics there is a bewildering turnover. Since 1982 Turkish courts have suppressed 19 political parties, violating the ECHR’s Convention on Human Rights in almost all cases it has reviewed, mainly for expressing Kurdish political interests. The two main reasons given are that the party is in conflict with ‘the indivisible integrity of the State with its territory and nation’, or ‘the principles of the democratic and secular republic’. This is a fair summary of the vague limits of Turkish political activity, though democracy gets shot on the court steps.

Deep state

Then there is the ‘Deep state’, a term which Turkey originated and Trump merely co-opted. This was exposed to the public in the Susurluk scandal, where a Turkish mafia assassin, his model girlfriend, the Istanbul chief of police, and a Turkish MP, were involved in a car crash (only the MP survived). But it was and presumably is a constant feature of Turkish political life: an unaccountable (except perhaps to the CIA) association of military intelligence, the criminal underworld, and enabling fascist political figures, originating as part of Operation Gladio but with its own autonomy. Its relative strength is demonstrated by its ability to slay those investigating them, including most probably a former prime minister, Turgut Özal, and avoid punishment. Its control of the Turkish heroin trade, worth more than the entire Turkish state budget at the time ($50 billion to $48 billion) accounted for much of their power, as well as their American allies in the shadows.

Closely linked with the military, and formed with its aid, are the ultra-right/fascist party, the MHP, and their youth/terror wing, the ‘Grey Wolves’. Opposing them is a strong ‘communist’ and ‘socialist’ tradition, often fragmented, often suppressed, often imprisoned. Their parties form new initials as quickly as the courts suppress the old ones. Not content to merely imprison them, in 2000-2001 the authorities forced them out of dormitory prison blocks, where they practised actually existing prison communism, into small three-person cells. There were mass protests, hunger strikes and deaths.

Always there is the issue of religion, though the matter is more complex than it appears: one is reminded of the fable of the Wind and the Sun. The state was aggressively secular, and aggressively against minorities, most of whose identity was in part religious. Politically speaking, expression of religious identity was and is thus in part a matter of cultural rather than religious fervour. Also, secularism is associated with wealth, the middle class, and the western cities of Turkey. As the poor agricultural workers of the Turkish heartland migrated to the cities, religion became a defining, comforting feature of their mutual character as they lived in the spaces left to them, in gecekondus (shacks built overnight) or other poor housing.

Then there are the Kurds, Alevi and Sunni. A genocide in the 1930s killed or displaced many Alevis from their home in Dersim, which was renamed, on maps at least, to Tunceli: the very name, ‘Bronze Fist’, of the genocide operation. And there is the ongoing war against Sunni Kurds in the South East. These remain politically relevant. There are many other nationalities in Turkey, but they were brutalised long ago.

Failed coup

Recent history, since the election of Erdoğan’s AKP (Justice and Progress Party) in 2002, has seen several changes within this continuity. Corruption has moved to private industry, where new corporate players have emerged: especially in the construction industry, largely responsible for the Eastern earthquake calamity where their cheap and profitable buildings fell down. The army has been suppressed, with mass show trials in the Ergenekon scandal and others, more so since the failed 2016 coup. From a situation where the Army had the standing power via the National Security Council to suppress civil politics, essentially a permanent coup option, now Erdoğan, their victim in the past and now rid of them, has adopted a similar bullying role as president in lieu of restoring civil society. Fethullah Gülen, master of a ‘parallel state’, a network of civil servants and army officers, once Erdoğan’s ally in the shadow war for the deep state, is now an enemy of the state exiled in the US.

In 2017 Erdoğan strengthened the presidency in a constitutional referendum, granting him powers to appoint and sack ministers and issue executive decrees. And in 2018 the last election was carried out still under the ‘state of emergency’ declared 5 days after the coup attempt. All in the context of war at home and abroad, mainly against Kurdish aspirations but also seeking to gain from Syria’s woes. Turkey has a seat at the table in NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine, and its restive place in NATO is a matter for constant Western scrutiny and cajoling, especially over the Syrian war, and purchasing Russian arms. All in the context of economically bizarre policies that have seen inflation wipe out savings and drive the population to penury. But the most important recent event is the catastrophic earthquakes of February this year, killing 50,000 and leaving 1.5 million homeless. This last was thought to set the context for the election, making Erdoğan’s general misrule an electoral focus in itself that might attract the disaffected/dispossessed right and harden support among the newly homeless in the South East.

Secular opposition

And so to 14 May 2023. There are three main electoral alliances, two standing for the presidency as well, the candidates being Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (AKP) and Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu (CHP). The ruling right-wing ‘People’s Alliance’ of the AKP and the MHP (Nationalist Movement Party), versus the ‘Nation Alliance’ of the CHP (Republican People’s Party) and five other parties, with support from most other parties from centre-right to ultra-left. There are tensions in both camps – the MHP for example is both virulently opposed to any compromise with the Kurds, such as the current peace process, and also its Turkic ultra-nationalism clashes with Erdoğan’s Islamic dreams. As always though the right is far more cohesive than the centre and left, strange bedfellows united only in opposition: the CHP is the original party of the Turkish state, of Ataturk, and still professes the secularism, nationalism and capitalism that most of its bedfellows in some way disagree with.

The second and only other substantial party in their alliance, the İYİ Parti (Good Party) is a splinter from the MHP, professing to be civic nationalists instead of Turkic nationalists, and good followers of Atatürk: their voter base consists largely of the right wing who are disillusioned with the existing right wing, in other words a classic populist party. This ability of a fragment of the MHP to thus realign leftwards gives some idea of the complexity of Turkish politics, even though most voters will have an imperative which eventually dictates their political choice. The third alliance is the Labour and Freedom Alliance, egalitarian progressives, but almost entirely composed of HDP (Democratic Party of the Peoples) candidates expecting the state closure of their party and so standing as Yeşil Sol (Green Left) candidates. (In the aftermath of the failed 2016 coup more than 10,000 HDP members were imprisoned, including their leaders, on vague accusations of being supporters of terrorism). They are backing Kılıçdaroğlu for president rather than splitting the vote. But while wishing to see the back of the AKP and MHP, they have no reason to love or trust the CHP who when in power suppressed them just as savagely, and so are merely advising their supporters to vote for cholera instead of typhoid in the presidential election.

And the result? In parliamentary terms, Erdoğan’s People’s Alliance has a clear majority, of 322 seats against the Nation Alliance’s 212 and the Labour and Freedom Alliance’s 64. Presidentially also, it would seem that Erdoğan has survived. Neither candidate having 50 percent, the presidency goes to a second round: but with 49.51 percent of the vote to Kilicdaroglu’s 44.88 percent in the first round, the presidency seems all but his to keep. (There was a third candidate, Oğan, with 5 percent, a former contender for the MHP leadership).

The last act will be bruising. Erdoğan used his post-election speech to label his opponents as terrorists, setting the tone. And the earthquake survivors? They have to vote from their registered homes. That means that in order to vote they will have to travel back once more to those ruins from wherever they are billeted in Turkey, at no mean expense of money or time. Exhaustion, as always, tends to work for the incumbent. Time and fate is on Erdoğan’s side.

SJW