Mike's Letter from America No18

It's not a Mosque and it's not a Ground Zero

You know it's an election year when politicians start whipping up fear against minorities.

First gay marriage (legalized in California, then banned, unbanned, and now in legal limbo) was supposed to undermine American society. Then Arizona passed a racist law allowing the police to demand to see the papers of anyone they think is an illegal immigrant (that is, anyone who looks Latino). Now, however, the Republicans think they have found the trump card to winning the mid-term elections in November: The 'Ground Zero Mosque'.

Firstly, we need to get one thing clear – the 'Ground Zero Mosque' is not at Ground Zero and is not a Mosque. A Muslim group called the Cordoba Initiative plans to build a 13-story interfaith community centre, and were given the OK by New York City two weeks ago. Of these thirteen floors, only two will be devoted to prayer space. Far from being 'at Ground Zero', the building will be two blocks away from the former site of the World Trade Center. So it would more accurate to call it the 'Half a Mile from Ground Zero Building that's 15.3% Mosque'.

Until recently, this project was wholly uncontroversial. However, a concerted campaign starting in the far-right blogosphere has whipped up an Islamophobic attack against building a mosque on 'hallowed ground' amid claims that the building – established by a moderate Sufi group that stresses interfaith outreach – will be a terrorist recruiting center.

It's not hard to unpick the hypocrisy and warped thinking of these people. Apparently a mosque offends the 'hallowed ground' status of the area, but a Burger King, the 'New York Dolls' strip club, and countless stalls selling 9/11 tourist kitsch are entirely in keeping with the solemnity of the site. Of course, the feelings of 9/11 victims' families have been used to attack the project (even though many families publicly support it), but the fact that Ground Zero is a grave for hundreds of people has not stopped plans to build the new 'Freedom Tower' as prime real estate on it. Tenants are already being lined up for this new office space, including a Chinese company that will set up a 'China Center' in the tower. In another era, the right would have complained about 'godless Chinese Communists' setting up shop on 'hallowed ground' – but that was yesterday's scapegoat, yesterday's bogeyman.

The campaign against Park51 (to give the centre its proper name) could be dismissed as yet another publicity stunt by the borderline-insane world of far-right bloggers, as it is being peddled by the same sort of people who claim to have located President Obama's Kenyan birth certificate. Pamela Geller, the blogger who started the whole frenzy, believes Obama is the secret illegitimate son of Malcolm X, and that the Nazis were inspired by Muslim ideas! http://www.loonwatch.com/2009/08/pamela-geller-the-looniest-blogger-ever/ However, the moment Obama himself made some moderate comments in support of Park51, the mainstream Republicans seized upon the issue, promising to make it a cornerstone of their election campaign.

This is a classic 'wedge issue' – a distraction cynically designed to win votes for the right by whipping up fear and playing on people's emotions. Some Republicans are quite open about this – one congressman admitted that opposing gay marriage wasn't going to work as an issue for them, but that the 'Ground Zero Mosque' was. They were aided by the president's clumsy intervention, doing the familiar Obama two-step of taking a principled stand (his speech defending Park51) then spoiling it by losing his nerve and back-peddling (saying that he supported the right of New York's Muslims to build the centre, but wouldn't support them actually do it). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C23mCQvJ8I4 With Obama dithering, the Republicans scented blood, pinning the issue on the president (who, according to a recent poll, 46% of Republican supporters believe is a Muslim).

Many top Democrats followed Obama's unprincipled lead. New York governor David Paterson has talked of 'compromise' and offered a site for the 'mosque' further from Ground Zero – as if allowing the center to be driven up-town by an Islamophobic hate campaign is somehow a liberal act. Democratic senate leader Harry Reid (involved in a close reelection race in Nevada) was equally bad, echoing Paterson's view that Park51 should be built somewhere else. Even former Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean, something of a hero to the left of the party, has backed this line of 'compromise' with racists. Far from being ashamed of their cowardice, the Democrats have had the chutzpah to attack the left. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs complained of Obama's critics on the left that 'they will [only] be satisfied when we have Canadian healthcare and we've eliminated the Pentagon'. Both sound good to me, Robert.

The Republicans' rhetorical attacks on Muslims are bad enough, but they will only fuel the very real attacks faced by America's Muslim community. The facebook page 'say no to the Mosque at Ground Zero' is full of racist abuse and even direct threats of violence. In Jacksonville, Florida, a bomb exploded outside a mosque, fortunately killing nobody. In Tennessee, a mosque was burned to the ground. In Florida, a church plans to mark the 9/11 anniversary with a 'Koran Burning'. This is the sort of atmosphere that could lead to Muslims being attacked or even killed, and the Republicans are pouring fuel on the fire while the Democrats remain silent.

Fortunately, there is resistance. A challenge by a conservative Christian group to building a mosque in Murfreesboro, Tennessee sparked off a big, multi-faith campaign in defence of the Muslim community. http://socialistworker.org/2010/07/20/challenging-islamophobia Movements such as this point the way to challenging the racists, but we also need to build a principled alternative to the Democratic Party.

P.S.
If you've ever wondered where the term 'Ground Zero' comes from, it originally meant the center point of a nuclear explosion. At the 'real' Ground Zero in Hiroshima, the Japanese built not a lucrative office development but a Peace Memorial Park. In 1996, UNESCO declared it a World Heritage Site – over the objections of the USA. Still, America honours the dead of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in its own way – check out these cool atom bomb earrings! http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/14624

Oxford Budget Day Protest on YouTube

Oxford Budget Day Protest 5pm Cornmarket

George Osborne will announce his emergency budget at 12.30pm on Tuesday 22 June . Right to Work will be now be holding a demonstration outside

Downing Street from 11am onwards to greet George Osborne as he leaves to present his austerity day budget. Later in the evening local protests will be taking place nationwide.

Oxford Right to Work Protest

5pm Cornmarket (Outside HSBC)
Confirmed speakers so far include : Oxfordshire Unison Health branch, Ruskin Students Union, Oxford & District TUC, Save Temple Cowley Pools & Fitness centre campaign, Oxford Unite Against Fascism, The Peoples's Charter, Oxfordshire NUT, plus Mizz Lyrikal from Oxford Love Music Hate Racism

http://sites.google.com/site/righttoworkconference/

Free Joe Glenton Meeting June 10th

Group: Oxford Stop the War
Event: Public Meeting - Free Joe glenton!
Details: SPEAKER: JOHN TIPPLE (CASE WORKER FOR PRIVATE JOE GLENTON)
Date: 10th JUNE
Time: 7.30pm
Venue: TOWN HALL, ST ALDATES, OXFORD
Email: oxfordstopthewar@hotmail.com

Oxford Stop the War Coalition Question Time

Oxford Stop the War Coalition invites you to a

General Election Question Time

Tuesday 20th April 7.30pm

Oxford Town Hall, St Aldates

Featuring local General Election candidates. 

Confirmed so far candidates from Labour, Liberal Democrats, Green Party and Ukip. Also invited- the candidate from the Conservative Party.

The panel with be joined by Sami Ramadami from the Stop the War Coalition.

All welcome. Please come and put your questions to the panel.

oxfordstopthewar@hotmail.com

Letter from America No 18

One Year of Obama

Barack Obama has now been in office for over a year, and, given the heightened expectations around his ‘Hope and Change’ rhetoric, it is not surprising to find his presidency falling short of expectations. I’m going to leave aside the hysterical criticism of Obama from the rabid right – these people think anybody to the left of Ronald Reagan is a socialist, and just cannot get over the fact that a Black Democrat is president. No, there are more realistic reasons for opposing Obama than those offered by right-wing conspiracy theorists.

Obama’s commitment to sending more troops to Afghanistan was a blow to those on the left who had faith in him. It was, however, hardly a betrayal, as he had constantly said he would do so during his election campaign. Although Obama seems to have genuinely opposed the Iraq war from the beginning (unlike most of the Democrats in Congress, who voted for it at the time), in his debates with John McCain he criticised it not on principle, but because it was the ‘wrong war,’ distracting the US from what, presumably, is the ‘right war’ in Afghanistan. What is more worrying is the depth of Obama’s commitment to the ‘right war’. The 30,000 troops he committed late last year was the MAXIMUM number recommended by the generals. In other words, Obama is almost more militaristic than the military. Since Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize last October, the US military presence Afghanistan has become bigger than that in Iraq.

Obama is also moving to the right on the economy. The recession forced him to break long-standing free-market taboos by pumping money into the economy, which was a welcome step. However, in his State of the Union address in January he promised a spending freeze and was positively Thatcheresque in his praise of small businesses as the key to job creation.

Obama’s biggest failure, however, is in healthcare reform. Despite the claims made by Republicans that they are a Trojan Horse for socialism, Obama’s proposals are incredibly modest, focusing on reform of the private health insurance companies, rather than the creation of an NHS-style comprehensive public system. Even these cautious reforms have been watered down by conservative Democrats in Congress;  the House of Representatives passed an amendment effectively banning abortion from being paid for by health insurance, while the Senate removed the idea of the ‘public option’, a government-run scheme that would compete with (but not replace) private health insurance. What is left of the ‘reforms’ might even make the system worse, as the 40 million Americans currently uninsured will be mandated to buy insurance through the very private companies that are the cause of the whole mess that is U.S. health ‘care’.

Obama and the Democrats have proceeding with amazing caution for a party that controls the presidency and has huge majorities in both houses of Congress. From day one, Obama has preached ‘bipartisanship’, despite the fact that the Republicans have vowed to do everything they can to disrupt his agenda. Their tactics of using delaying measures in Congress alongside corporate-funded, fake-grass-roots demonstrations have been remarkably effective. Rather than respond by mobilizing their own supporters, the Democrats have obsessed about parliamentary procedure, and attempt to smooth-talk the mythical ‘moderate’ Republicans into voting for reform by removing any measures that might offend the big insurance companies.

It need not have been this way. Obama swept to victory in 2008 on a wave of enthusiasm and the hard work put in by a movement of new, young activists. Some people, such as Michael Moore and err… me, wrongly believed that this movement might take on its own momentum, and push Obama to the left despite himself. What we underestimated was how far ‘Obama the movement’ was a top-down affair with the sole aim of getting Obama elected. It was demobilized as soon as he was in the White House, apart from the odd mass email from HQ urging supporters to write to their congressman. Also demobilized was any kind of independent movement that might have held Obama’s feet to the fire. The anti-war movement, already divided, was undermined when the pro-Democrat section decided to pack up for the duration of the election and put all its hopes in an Obama presidency. This strategy has been repaid in drone attacks and civilian deaths in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

As has been the case throughout U.S. history, the real movements for change are coming from outside the Democratic Party. Last year’s massive march in Washington for same-sex marriage rights was mobilized by a coalition of grassroots organizations, including socialists, and was opposed by Democratic politicians and even the mainstream gay rights organizations until they realized they could not stop it. And it had Lady Gaga as a speaker, which is something the Christian Right will never have.

 

Oxford Radical Forum

http://oxfordradicalforum.wordpress.com/

OXFORD RADICAL FORUM 2010!

Comrades and travellers,

We are excited to announce the current programme for the Oxford Radical Forum 2010, which will be taking place Friday – Sunday, 5 – 7 March.

Once again Wadham College will play host to a broad range of critical debates and discussions on the radical left, with leading speakers, commentars, activists and academics. As always the event is entirely FREEand we are also pleased to announce a Forum dinner on the Friday night, and an evening social on the Saturday night.

We hope to see many of you at Wadham over the course of the Forum and hope that you will join us in making this another successful and fruitful event.

oxfordradicalforum@googlemail.com

Getting to Wadham College: http://www.wadham.ox.ac.uk/images/files/wadhmaprev.pdf

<< We view re-energising popular discussion and action on the left a necessity. Our belief in the need for an event in Oxford bringing together progressive politics stems both from a conviction in the continued and critical relevancy of Marxist and leftist ideas and theory and from the sad and persistent weakness of focused or organised progressive political organisation locally and nationally, despite such pressing conditions of political and economic crisis, and despite the very many who would under more favourable circumstances participate in such interventions. Therefore we are hosting again this forum which will continue to address these issues and draw in individuals from the two universities in Oxford, the city and beyond to consider critically ideas about social progress and transformation. Ultimately ORF seeks to contribute to a critical culture of left debate, theory and action, as well as to cement political and intellectual links between individuals and groups who will have a basis upon which to work in the future. >>

CURRENT TIMETABLE

(NB: All venues will be around the Ho Chi Minh Quad in Wadham College. The exact room will be clearly inidcated on the day.)

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FRI

2:30 – 3:45

:: DIRECT ACTION WORKSHOP

With the ‘Seeds For Change’ collective.

4:30 – 6:00

:: ENGLAND’S POSTIMPERIAL MELANCHOLIA

Paul Gilroy (author, There Aint no Black in the Union Jack; Anthony Giddens Prof., London School of Economics).

6:45 – 8:15

:: THE BLACK AND THE RED: MARXISM & ANARCHISM TODAY

Paul Blackledge (author, Reflections on the Marxist Theory of History; Leeds Metropolitan University); Ruth Kinna (author, William Morris: The Art of Socialism; editor, Anarchist Studies; Loughborough University).

8:30-…

:: FORUM DINNER

All Forum attendees welcome…