Four years after a financial crisis that pushed Britain – and much of the world – into the worst recession for decades, the major political parties still have no policies to prevent a repeat economic meltdown.  They have failed to put in place adequate checks and balances to overcome the structural flaws in the private-ownership, free market system.

Unlike the Greens and Respect, the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat leaderships support the highly centralised, largely unaccountable neo-liberal economic system – a system that allowed irresponsible financial decisions by banks and other major corporations. This failure to remedy the causes of the crisis leaves Britain vulnerable to more chaos in the future.

A significant cause of the near-catastrophe of the last few years is the way economic power and decision-making is organised: centralised, elitist, autocratic, secretive and unaccountable. These factors predispose the economy to risk-taking and recession, as well as being inherently anti-democratic and unfair.

One element of a stronger and more just economy is greater economic democracy: more participation, transparency, decentralisation and accountability.

Here are seven ideas on how to begin the structural transformation of the economy, to ensure it is publicly accountable and socially responsible:

Make corporate negligence and recklessness an explicit criminal offence, to reign in big business cowboys and ensure more responsible economic management. Bankers and company bosses should not be able to wreck whole economies and squander people’s jobs, pensions and savings with impunity. They ought to be personally liable for damaging corporate decisions, in the same way that doctors and others can be held liable for professional negligence. Sir Fred Goodwin would have not gambled with RBS if he had known that he could be held personally liable and face imprisonment. The threat of legal penalties is likely to result in more prudent corporate governance.

Require medium and large-sized companies (and public institutions like the NHS) to be accountable to their employees and to the wider public by including on their boards one-third employee-elected directors and independent directors to represent the interests of consumers. Proposals for employee directors were included in the 1973 Bullock Report and Labour’s 1976 Programme, and they operate today under the German works council system. Employee and consumer directors would be more likely to promote the wider public interest, rather than narrow management interests. They could act as watchdogs and whistleblowers against corporate irresponsibility. If these directors had been on the board of Northern Rock and had proper oversight, I doubt the management would have got away with so many reckless decisions. Having directors who are not driven by the profit-motive also increases the likelihood of company policies that are more socially inclusive and environmentally responsible.

Give trade unions (or employee mutual societies) a majority stake in the management of their members’ pension funds, to decentralise and democratise investment decision-making and to give it a social and ethical dimension. The nearly £900 billion invested in pension funds accounts for a third of the stock market; a massive potential counter-weight to the economic clout of big business. These contributor-controlled pension funds could be invested in ways that help make the economy more people-centred and public welfare-oriented. They are, for example, less likely to invest in the arms trade and clothing sweatshops. They would be more open to investment to meet social needs, including renewable energy, medical treatments, affordable housing and quality public transport.

Retain the current full or part public ownership of the banks that were rescued by the government, to ensure they operate in the public interest and they use their future profits for the public good. Why should banks like RBS be returned to the private sector when it made such a mess of their finances? The knock-down sell-off of Northern Rock short-changed the public by hundreds of millions of pounds. Retaining public control or remutualising the banks could be the means to fund new social housing, low-interest loans to poorer families and employee-owned enterprises.

Give employees the legal right to buy-out their companies and turn them into workers cooperatives (possibly with funding from the publicly-owned banks). This would weaken the power of big corporations, localise and socialise economic decision-making and give employees incentives for greater productivity. Evidence shows that people employed in workers cooperatives often have higher output, better job satisfaction and stronger social solidarity.

Limit corporate bonuses to a percentage of profits, make them payable in the form of shares and defer payment for ten years. This would deter short-term, high-risk investments. It would make bonuses conditional on a business’s long term success. Only people who made successful, sustainable investment decisions would be rewarded.

Legislate for the progressive transfer of share ownership into trade union-administered employee share funds. This is a variation on the ‘wage-earner funds’ proposed by Rudolf Meidner of the Swedish trade union federation, the LO, in the 1970s. It would obligate all private share capital companies to assign to a union-controlled fund a proportion of their annual profits in the form of a new share issue. Gradually, over many decades, it would give employees, through their unions, a controlling interest in their firms – eventually transforming them into self-governing workers’ co-operatives. The great strength of this scheme is not only its democratic and social justice elements. It also incentivises and rewards employees for economic success. The more productive and profitable a company, the more shares it has to issue to the employees’ funds and the sooner employees gain a controlling stake.

As well as redistributing wealth and power in favour of employees and the wider public, these reforms would reduce the chances of a re-run of the economic crisis. They would achieve these twin goals by a combination of decentralising economic power, democratising economic decision-making, improving corporate social responsibility and strengthening the accountability of businesses to their staff and consumers.

Most of these policies could be implemented unilaterally by a UK government. However, given the globalised economy, they would work most effectively if they were adopted by the whole EU. Although still predominantly a big business cartel, there is nothing to stop the EU pioneering this new economic model if the peoples of Europe demand it and elect parties pledged to enact it. The EU’s massive share of international finance, production and trade would enable it to withstand pressure to conform to the dominant neo-liberal economics of the US-China axis. In other words, Britain and the EU could lead the way in the structural transformation of autocratic, dog-eat-dog capitalism into a more democratic, cooperative and accountable green socialised economy. Why not?

* For more information about Peter Tatchell’s human rights and social justice campaigns: www.petertatchell.net

US sabre-rattling against Iran is worrying. A military attack must be resisted. However, opposition to Washington’s war-mongering and neo-imperial designs is no reason for socialists, greens and other progressives to go soft on Tehran.

Iran is an Islamo-fascist state – a clerical form of fascism based on a confluence of Islamic fundamentalism and police state methods. It differs, of course, from traditional European-style fascism, being rooted in religious dogma and autocracy. This makes it no less barbaric. Iran under the ayatollahs has a history of repression that is even bloodier than Franco’s clerical fascist regime in Spain. Sadly, it merits far less outrage by the left.

Tehran’s tyrannical religious state embodies many (though not all) the characteristics of classical fascism: a substantially corporatist political and economic system maintained by a highly centralised repressive state apparatus. This repression includes bans on non-Islamist political parties and free trade unions, and a regime of unfair trials, detention without charge, torture, executions, media censorship, gender apartheid, violent suppression of peaceful protests and strikes, and the persecution of left-wingers, students, feminists, journalists, gay people and religious and ethnic minorities. Even lawyers and human rights defenders – are imprisoned and tortured.

The government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is also pursuing a racist, neo-colonial policy against Iran’s minority nationalities, such as the Arabs (who are abused even more harshly than the Israelis abuse the Palestinians), Kurds and Baluchs.

It used to be axiomatic that left and progressive movements fought fascism, wherever it is found and whatever its form. We do not appease or collude. Well, not until recently. Nowadays, there is a whole section of the left that has abandoned the freedom struggle in Iran. It goes to extraordinary lengths to downplay the excesses of the tyrants in Tehran.

The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament invited the Iranian ambassador as a guest speaker to its 2005 annual conference. It preferred to host the representative of an Islamo-fascist regime, rather than the leaders of Iran’s left-wing opposition and anti-nuclear peace movement. Indeed, CND members who objected to the feting of the ambassador of a dictatorship were forcibly ejected from the conference.

A similar fate befell Iranian refugees who joined the Stop the War Coalition marches. When they backed the call ‘Don’t Attack Iran’ they were welcomed, but as soon as they also condemned Tehran’s depotism they were denounced by some of the left and shoved out the of the demonstration by thuggish StWC stewards.

No democracy
We are told by these muscular leftists that Iran is a democracy and that President Ahmadinejad is elected. Nonsense. But even if this were true, so what? Tony Blair was elected but that did not make the Iraq war right. Israel is a democracy but this is no justification for its indiscriminate bombing of Gaza and its occupation of Palestine.

The truth is that Iran is no democracy. Liberal, secular, green, socialist and national minority political parties are outlawed. All candidates for election are vetted by a clerical council and those who dissent from the mullah’s orthodoxy are barred from standing for public office. Moreover, the conservative media favours establishment candidates and denies, or restricts, coverage of reformists and progressive ideas.

Human rights abuses in Iran are often dismissed by sections of the anti-imperialist left as ‘exaggerated’ or ‘neo con fiction’, despite incontrovertible evidence from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and from Iran’s underground left-wing, student and trade union movements. This shocking denialism is wholly divorced from reality and is a sordid betrayal of the Iranian people’s struggle for liberty and justice.

Some left-wingers argue that since the US is the main upholder of the unjust global economic system we must therefore support those who oppose the US. Because Tehran is against the US, we should support, or at least not undermine, the Iranian regime.

The left groups and activists who hold this view are the mirror image of the neo cons. Their stance on Iran is determined by an international political agenda and power play, not by the interests and rights of the Iranian people. They have allowed opposition to US imperialism to trump social justice and human rights in Iran.

For nearly 40 years I have campaigned in solidarity with the Iranian people, supporting their struggle against dictatorship – first against the western-backed Shah and then, since 1979, against the ayatollahs.

The Shah was bad enough, but the Islamists who overthrew him are far worse. They have out-butchered the Shah many times over; executing or assassinating an estimated 100,000 Iranians in the last 30 years. Many of those murdered – usually after gruesome torture – were left-wingers, trade unionists and other progressive Iranians.

The traditional socialist maxim used to be: fight the tyrants, support their victims; solidarity with oppressed people everywhere. This was the response of the entire left to the Shah’s brutal misrule. It stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the Iranian freedom struggle.

But in 1979, defying all its historic values and ideals, large chunks of the Iranian and international left backed the Islamist revolution of Ayatollah Khomeini. Their reasoning was that by supporting an anti-US movement this would help weaken US global hegemony. Many of us warned at the time that this opportunistic alliance with fundamentalist Islam would spell disaster for the Iranian left and progressive movements.

Sure enough, beginning a couple of years after the Islamists seized power, tens of thousands of leftists, workers, secularists, students and women’s rights campaigners were arrested, tortured and executed.

Despite this bloody history of tyranny, some left-wingers and anti-imperialists still shy away from campaigning against the Tehran regime.

The police-state oppression in Iran is some of the worst in the world. According to Human Rights Watch, in March 2008 an Iranian parliament member, Hossein Ali Shahryari, confirmed that 700 people were awaiting execution in Sistan and Baluchistan province, which is only one of Iran’s 30 provinces. Many of those on death row are Baluch political prisoners. This staggering number of death sentences is evidence of the intense, violent repression that is taking place under the leadership of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The regime’s terror is wide-ranging. Student leader Meisam Lofti was executed in 2007 on false charges of being a gang member.

Members of minority faiths, like the Baha\’is and, sometimes, Sunni Muslims, suffer severe harassment.

Truly barbaric
The regime’s crackdown includes the enforcement of harsh morality laws. In 2004, in the city of Neka, a 16-year-old girl, Atefah Rajabi Sahaaleh, who had been raped and sexually abused by men for many years, was convicted of \’crimes against chastity\’. She was hanged by the method of slow, painful strangulation, hoisted by a crane in a public square. This strangulation technique, sanctioned by the Iranian President, is deliberately designed to prolong the suffering of the victim. As you can see here, the hanged person is left dangling and writhing for several minutes before they eventually asphyxiate and die. Truly barbaric.

On 5 December 2007, Makvan Mouloodzadeh, a 21-year-old Iranian man, was hanged in Kermanshah Central Prison, after an unfair trial. A member of Iran’s persecuted Kurdish minority, he was executed on charges of raping other boys when he was 13. In other words, he committed these alleged acts when he was a child. According to Iranian law, a boy under 15 is a minor and cannot be executed.

At Makvan’s mockery of a trial, which was condemned by Human Rights Watch, the alleged rape victims retracted their previous statements, saying they had made their allegations under duress. Makvan pleaded not guilty, telling the court that his confession was made during torture.

He was hanged anyway, without a shred of credible evidence that he had even had sex with the boys, let alone raped them. The lies, defamation and homophobia of the debauched Iranian legal system was exposed when hundreds of villagers attended Makvan\’s funeral. People don’t mourn rapists.

Labour activists are also victimised. Mansour Osanloo, leader of Tehran’s bus workers syndicate, remains in jail – together with other trade unionists. He was sentenced to five years jail in July 2007 for his peaceful, lawful defence of worker’s rights.

Oppressing his own people is not enough for Ahmadinejad. His regime also exports terror abroad. It supports the Hezbollah fundamentalists in Lebanon, who, like Israel, indiscriminately attack civilian areas. In addition, many of the death squads in Iraq are trained, armed and funded by Tehran. These include ex-Badr Brigade members who, during the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, lived and trained across the border in south-east Iran. Nowadays, they assassinate political, sexual and religious dissidents; usually gunning them down in their home, workplace or street. No trial. No evidence. Summary execution, aided by Ahmadinejad’s government.

Regime change from within
The case for regime change in Iran is overwhelming, but it must come from within – by and for the Iranian people themselves – not as a result of US neo-imperial diktat.

Many Iranians hope for a non-violent Czech-style ‘people power’ democratic revolution, involving mass strikes and street protests by socialists, liberals, secularists, democrats, women, students, trade unionists, religious dissenters and minority nationalities. Others believe that the nascent insurrections by Arabs, Baluchs, Azeris and Kurds will burgeon into full-scale revolutionary war that will encircle and topple the Tehran regime.

Progress towards securing a democratic, progressive Iranian government is one of best ways to thwart a possible military strike by Washington. Such a government would pose no threat to anyone. This would make it much harder for the neo cons to persuade the American public and military to go to war. They would no longer have the excuse that Iran is a terroristic, fundamentalist, anti-semitic dictatorship that is striving to develop nuclear weapons and which poses a serious threat to international peace and security.

If Iran ceased to be a fanatical religious tyranny, the case for war would be seriously weakened. The pro-war Republicans and Democrats in the US would lose the battle for hearts and minds. Most public opinion would desert them. Anti-war US politicians and activists would be empowered and enhanced.

In contrast, a US military attack on Iran would strengthen the position of the hardliners in Tehran; allowing President Ahmadinejad to play the nationalist card and portray himself as a heroic war leader. It would also give him an excuse to further crack down on dissent, using the pretext of safeguarding national security and defending the country against US imperialism. This would set back the Iranian struggle for democracy and human rights.

Moreover, a US attack on Muslim Iran would increase the sense of grievance felt by Muslims worldwide; radicalising Muslim youth, fanning the flames of fundamentalism, increasing support for Islamist parties and resulting in thousands of new recruits to the ranks of Jihadis and suicide bombers.

Tragically, the leadership of the UK and US anti-war movements have been sleep-walking into making the same mistakes over Iran as they made over Iraq. They are silent about the regime’s despotism and oppression. Mirroring the neo con indifference to human rights abuses in Iran, they refuse to show solidarity with the Iranian peoples’ struggle for secularism, democracy, social justice, human rights and self-determination for national minorities. There is nothing remotely left-wing about this is sad and cruel betrayal. Put bluntly: it is collusion with tyranny.

More information about Peter Tatchell’s campaigns and to make a donation: www.petertatchell.net

The two defendants are the former Balochistan MP and government minister, Hyrbyair Marri, and human rights campaigner Faiz Baluch. They stand accused of inciting and preparing acts of terrorism against the regime of the Pakistani dictator, Pervez Musharraf, during his period in power, 1999 to 2008. Both men deny all the charges, stating that they are peaceful, lawful human rights campaigners.

The trial had been adjourned for part of November and December, after defence lawyers stunned the prosecution by seeking disclosure of cooperation between the British government and the illegal, unconstitutional dictatorship of General Pervez Musharraf – including communications between the two governments concerning the arrest and prosecution of the trial defendants. The adjournment followed submissions by defence barristers Henry Blaxland QC and Dame Helena Kennedy QC.

The defence secured disclosure from the prosecution that the Pakistan High Commissioner to London wrote to the court on behalf of the new democratic government of Pakistan. The High Commissioner’s letter advised that his government wanted reconciliation in Balochistan and opposed the prosecution, effectively calling for the charges to be dropped.

The defence wanted to establish the political motivation of the prosecution by revealing the high level complicity between the Musharraf dictatorship and the British Foreign Office, Home Office, police, security services and the Crown Prosecution Service, which reportedly sent CPS officials to Pakistan to help Musharraf’s men draw up the evidence against the defendants.

The request for disclosure threw the prosecution off balance and created panic in the government. The UK authorities do not want to reveal the relevant documents, as these are likely to demonstrate that they worked hand-in-glove with Musharraf’s agents.

As feared, the government, police and security services used ‘national security’ as an excuse to withhold damning evidence showing connivance between the British authorities and Musharraf’s anti-democratic regime.

During the trial, the defence have shown that British government collaborated with the illegal regime of Pervez Musharraf, which overthrew the democratically-elected government of Pakistan in 1999. This collaboration included illegally arming the illegal Musharraf regime to enable it to prosecute an illegal war in Balochistan.

British military equipment was supplied to Pakistan. It is believed that this equipment was used in Pakistani army operations in Balochistan, where the Pakistani forces have perpetrated war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The defence argued that the whole trial is an abuse of legal process, on the grounds that Pakistani military forces committed war crimes in Balochistan and that it is therefore inappropriate to prosecute the two defendants who were merely seeking to protect their people against these atrocities. This abuse of process argument was rejected by the judge, Justice Henriques.

The defence also submitted that the defendants acted in self defence to prevent human rights abuses in Balochistan. The judge also rejected this argument.

The judge accepted the Baloch people are an oppressed minority, and that they have been victims of war crimes and crimes against humanity, perpetrated by the Pakistani military, police and intelligence services. These crimes include the indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas, extra-judicial killings, disappearances, torture, detention without trial and collective punishments – all of which are illegal acts under international law.

The judge insisted, however, that despite this persecution and terrorisation by the Pakistani state, the Baloch people do not have the right to use violence to defend themselves and that anyone who supports or condones armed resistance groups in Balochistan is endorsing terrorism, which is a criminal offence under UK law.

According to this argument, and according to a strict reading of the UK’s anti-terrorism laws, the millions of people who supported the anti-apartheid struggle of the African National Congress of South Africa were criminal supporters of terrorism, and the heroic men and women of the underground resistance in Nazi-occupied Europe during WW2 were terrorists.

If the anti-Nazi resistance was happening now, under current UK law, the UK’s Special Operations Executive and the Maquis French resistance fighters would be put on trial and jailed as terrorists. This is the madness of the government’s anti-terrorism legislation: good, honourable, courageous people fighting a just cause are branded terrorists, prosecuted and face imprisonment.

Further background

The defendants, Hyrbyair Marri and Faiz Baluch, are accused of preparing acts of terrorism abroad – charges they strenuously deny. Both men have been law-abiding citizens. They fled to Britain to escape persecution by the military coup leader and tyrant, General Pervez Musharraf.

Marri is represented by Henry Blaxland QC and Jim Nichol of TV Edwards Taylor Nichol solicitors and Baluch is represented by Helena Kennedy QC and Gareth Peirce of Birnberg Peirce solicitors.

Marri is a former MP and government minister in the regional assembly of Balochistan – a previously independent state, which was invaded and annexed by Pakistan in 1948, and which has ever since been under Pakistani military occupation.

Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and the Asian Human Rights Commission have documented and condemned severe and widespread human rights abuses by the Pakistani armed forces in Balochistan – abuses that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas and the systemic use of torture. In one of the most gruesome recent abuses, human rights campaigners allege that Pakistani soldiers boiled to death four Baloch prisoners in April this year.

Marri’s father, Nawab Khair Baksh Marri, a renowned Baloch national leader, attended Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation in 1953, along with other world dignitaries, as a guest of the British government. His uncle is Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, the UN Special Representative to Sudan and the former Pakistan Ambassador to the United States, and his wife is the great grand daughter of the first Prime Minister of Iraq (1920-1922), Abdul Rahman al-Gillani.

Marri and Baluch, were arrested by police in London in December 2007. Marri spent four months in Belmarsh high security prison, and Baluch eight months.

In late 2008, tthe acting Interior Minister of the new democratic government of Pakistan, Rehman Malik. In late 2008, announced that terror charges against Marri in Pakistan have been dropped; stating that the case against him had been politically motivated. This discredits the whole basis on which Marri and Baluch have been charged in London.

Marri’s and Baluch’s arrest came just a few months after Musharraf demanded that the British government arrest Baloch activists in London. In exchange, Musharraf offered to hand over Rashid Rauf, implying that action against the Baloch activists was a precondition for surrendering Rauf to the UK. Rauf is wanted in the UK in connection with the 2006 terror plot involving liquid explosives on trans-Atlantic airliners, which resulted in the conviction of three men in London in September 2008. He is also sought in connection with a murder in the UK.

The arrest in London of Marri and Baluch took place two weeks after Pakistani government agents assassinated Marri’s brother, Balach Marri, a prominent Baloch nationalist leader.

Prior to Marri’s arrest, Musharraf’s regime made repeated representations to the UK government that he was wanted on terrorism charges in Pakistan – charges that have now been dropped by the Pakistani authorities. Soon after Musharraf met Gordon Brown at Downing Street in January this year, he held a press conference for Pakistani journalists where he allegedly denounced Marri as a terrorist and praised the British government and police for cooperating with his regime.

Claims of connivance are credible. For nine years, the UK’s Labour government supported Musharraf’s dictatorship politically, economically and militarily, despite him having overthrown Pakistan’s democratically-elected government in 1999. Labour sold him military equipment that his army uses to kill innocent Baloch people. The US supplies the F-16 fighter jets and Cobra attack helicopters that are used to bomb and strafe villages.

Marri is an unlikely terrorist. He is a former Balochistan MP (1997-2002), and was the Minster for Construction and Works in the provincial assembly in 1997-1998. He fled to Britain in 2000, fearing arrest, torture and possible assassination by Musharraf’s men.

One of his brothers is Mehran Baluch. He is the Baloch Representative to the UN Human Rights Council. He was the subject of an attempted extradition plot last year by Musharraf’s regime, on trumped up charges.

The arrest of Marri – together with the murder of one brother and the attempt to frame another brother – looks like a systematic attempt to target his family and crush three leading voices of Baloch dissent.

A former self-governing British Protectorate, Balochistan secured its independence in 1947, alongside India and Pakistan, but was invaded and forcibly annexed by Pakistan in 1948. The Baloch people did not vote for incorporation. They were never given a choice. Ever since, Balochistan has been under military occupation by Islamabad. Baloch demands for a referendum on self-rule have been rejected. Democratically elected Baloch leaders who have refused to kow-tow to
Pakistan’s subjugation have been arrested, jailed and murdered.

The Asian Human Rights Commission reports that Pakistani army raids have resulted in 3,000 Baloch people dead, 200,000 displaced and 4,000 arrested. Thousands more have simply disappeared.

Human rights abuses

Details of Pakistan’s human rights abuses in Balochistan are well documented by Pakistani and international human rights groups, including:

Human Rights Commission of Pakistan Balochistan mission
and
Human Rights Commission of Pakistan Balochistan report

Asian Human Rights Commission

International Crisis Group

Amnesty International

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Human Rights Watch

[Watch this TV interview by Peter Tatchell with Mehran Baluch, the
Baloch representative to the UN Human Rights Council->http://www.veoh.com/videos/v15574249Ka8gKRt6]

Peter Tatchell is the Green Party parliamentary candidate for Oxford East
www.greenoxford.com/peter and www.petertatchell.net

Small is Beautiful

E F Schumacher (Hartley and Marks Publishers, 1973)

Offering a people-focused, decentralised, environmentally sustainable economics, this book challenges the inhuman productivist, growth-maximising orthodoxies of traditional capitalism and socialism. It articulates a radical critique of corporate gigantism, materialism, consumerism and traditional methods of calculating standard of living. Schumacher was one of the first to dispute the imposition of western models of industrialisation on developing countries. A green pioneer, he trailblazed the self- reliant concept of low-cost, small-scale, eco-friendly, locally-made intermediate technology as the fastest, surest way to uplift impoverished peoples.

The Communist Manifesto

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels (First published in London, 1848)

Few books have had a greater impact on the course of modern world history. Much of its analysis still rings true today. The vision of a classless, egalitarian, cooperative society remains a noble ideal, despite its frequent perversion to justify mass tyranny. Strong on equality but weak on liberty, the manifesto fails to demonstrate how communism can go hand-in-hand with democracy and human rights. Other weaknesses are underestimating the ability of capitalism to evolve and survive and the ecological devastation of industrialisation.

The Second Sex

Simone de Beauvoir (First published in France, 1949)

This feminist tour de force draws on insights from history, biology, psychology and anthropology to show that there is no innate female nature: ‘One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.’ Traditional femininity and female roles are cultural impositions by men to maintain their gender supremacy. The inferior social status of women is not the result of the limited abilities of the female sex; women’s under-achievement results from their second-class status. Still relevant today, when the female half of humanity remains degraded, exploited and excluded from wealth and power.

Our Common Future

Gro Harlem Brundtland (Oxford University Press, 1987)

The long-term survival of humanity is threatened by the ravages of global
poverty, resource depletion, species extinction and biospheric pollution. This UN report sets out a radical agenda for
environmental protection, sustainable development and economic justice. Urging global action and solidarity for the common good, it says we must put universal welfare before the interests of privileged elites and internationalism before national self-interest.

Crimes Against Humanity

Geoffrey Robertson (New Press, 2000)

International humanitarian law is the new frontier in the universalisation of human rights. Since Nuremberg, the United Nations has enacted a series of groundbreaking conventions against war crimes, genocide and torture. Robertson demonstrates how realpolitik and diplomatic protocols have often allowed dictators, war criminals and torturers to escape justice. But with the creation of the International Criminal Court, we have moved a step closer to the era of human rights enforcement.

The Soul of Man Under Socialism

Oscar Wilde (1891)

This is the antidote to the statism, collectivism and authoritarianism of Leninism and other ‘ends justify the means’ variants of socialism/communism. Wilde argues that the great virtue of socialism is that far from enslaving the individual to the will of the collective, its ultimate goal and achievement will be to liberate the human spirit and allow the flourishing of the individual. Though he was a bit of a cultural snob, Wilde was right. Most people are salary and mortgage slaves, with their talents stifled by the materialism, greed and inequalities of capitalism. Under socialism, individuality and culture won’t be attributes that only the rich can cultivate; they will be extended to everyone and enrich us all.

Animal Liberation

Peter Singer (1975)

This book expands our moral horizons beyond our own species and is thus a significant evolution in the development of ethics. The right to be spared physical and psychological suffering should, says Singer, be extended to non-human animals. Their abuse in farming, sport, entertainment and Singer calls this abuse ‘speciesism’ – the doctrine of human superiority that is used to justify the exploitation of non-human animals. He argues that speciesism is a form of oppression comparable to racism, imperialism, misogyny and homophobia.

His selections can be purchased here.

A portion of the sales from purchases made through Red Pepper/Eclector’s book store contribute money to Red Pepper. Not all titles are available.

The puritanical rightwing feminist claim that porn is always anti-women is simplistic, untrue, insensitive, uncaring and, dare l say it, sometimes misogynistic and homophobic. Using sexually explicit imagery can be egalitarian, health promoting, emotionally fulfilling and life saving.

Critics say that porn is exploitative and degrading. Aren’t most jobs? Are people working in the porn industry more exploited than those working in mind-numbing, routine, dead end, low paid employment? Most skin flick actors get paid a damn sight better than the minions at MacDonalds.

Sexually explicit imagery that involves participants who have been coerced, pressured, manipulated, trafficked or blackmailed into taking part is obviously wrong, as is imagery that involves children or actors who have been forced into non-consensual acts of violence or humiliation. These forms of porn include unwilling actors who have not given their free and informed consent, and who suffer harm. This porn should be banned and criminalised.

Natural, healthy and lawful

Outlawing other visual depictions of sex – even very explicit depictions – is highly problematic and ethically dubious. After all, since consensual adult sex acts are entirely natural, healthy and lawful, why should images of these acts be criminal offences? Criminalising such pornography is neither necessary nor justified.

There are some grey areas that I feel uncomfortable about, such porn videos produced by consenting participants, which nevertheless show images of extreme sexual violence and degradation. But the censorship of these images involves inherent problems: how do you define degradation and who decides? While some porn is degrading, not all of it is. Do we believe that the state, and often-elderly conservative judges, are the appropriate and reasonable arbiters of such matters?

The main problem is that there is no agreed consensus on what constitutes a degrading, exploiting or humiliating image. Opinions differ widely. Even if a definition could be generally agreed, it would be very difficult – if not impossible – to set out in law and interpret uniformly in practice.

Legislation in this area is likely to throw up more problems than solutions. In Canada, one of the first prosecutions under that country’s tighter anti-porn laws was a consensual lesbian SM publication. Here, in the UK, our anti-porn laws were used successfully in the 1980s to prevent explicit safer sex advice to combat HIV.

Even in the case of depictions of sexual violence and degradation, much of it involves consensual SM fantasy and role-play, where two or more adults commit sexual acts with mutual agreement and where no one experiences any lasting physical harm.

Criminalising such behaviour violates the right to privacy, individual liberty and personal autonomy. To deny mutually consenting adults the right to personal private space, and the right to make decisions about their own bodies, has more than a whiff of authoritarianism. For these reasons, abusive images produced by consenting participants who act out extreme SM fantasies should not be banned; although there may be a case for discouraging and campaigning against them on the grounds that a minority of disordered people might be unable to distinguish between fantasy and reality and may come to view such abuse as normal and valid – to the detriment of their partners.

Any opposition to consensual sexual violence and humiliation is based on many ifs and maybes and it seems unfair to penalise the majority of mature, responsible SM lovers on the grounds of what an aberrant minority of viewers of this extreme imagery might do subsequently.

Emulation in real life

Critics say that abusive pornography encourages emulation in real life. Apart from a handful of disputed individual cases, this claim is not supported by empirical evidence. There is no research to show that that degrading porn generally or significantly causes copycat behaviour. While it may reflect the desires of a tiny number of disordered people, it does not create these desires.

Some defenders of oppressive sex imagery suggest that it might sometimes act as a ‘safety valve’ for the small minority of people who do harbour violent and abusive sexual fantasies. If this is true, and I suspect that it may be true in some cases, then extreme porn could provide a non-harmful outlet and have a positive social value, in that it helps reduce real-life sexual violence and abuse.

Even if a connection were established between porn and a few cases of actual sexual abuse, this would not justify a ban. We cannot legislate for the whole of society on the basis of what a tiny, dysfunctional minority might do. Otherwise, we would ban cars on the grounds that some people drive recklessly, cause accidents and kill people.

Protecting the participants

The real problematic issue with pornography is the way many women (and
some men) are forced into the sex industry via trafficking, imprisonment, blackmail or pimping. We need a more concerted effort to free and support these genuine victims, and to help them to secure alternative training, employment and income.

Some critics argue that banning porn is the best way to protect the often abused and involuntary participants. This seemingly plausible argument does not stand up. Although sex imagery is illegal in many parts of the world, it still exists as a worldwide phenomenon. Participants are still coerced and degraded. The producers ignore the law. The law can’t and won’t stamp out porn or the abuse it often involves.

Gay porn is different

There is an important distinction between gay and straight porn. Most women in the sex industry are not there by genuine choice. Many are pressured and threatened by pimps, traffickers and racketeers. Others turn to porn because of debt and financial problems. They use the money to pay the rent or to fund a drug habit. Very few women are involved because they really enjoy doing porno shoots. Moreover, the straight porn industry is controlled by men who produce images, often quite degrading images, to satisfy male fantasies. This porn reflects and reinforces the undesirable and unequal power relationships between men and women in our society.

Lesbian and gay sex imagery is usually quite different. It can be sordid, abusive and driven by financial greed or need, but often the scenarios between the actors are more egalitarian and they enjoy what they are doing. Even where money considerations are the main motive, many of the participants are using porn to fund an empowering goal like financing a college education, buying a house or paying for holidays.

Regardless of whether porno images are same-sex or opposite sex, there is a strong case for making consensual adult porn more legal and open, in order to break the links between the sex industry and organised crime, and to reduce the exploitation and abuse of the participants.

Criminalising porn only drives it underground – making it harder to monitor and more difficult to rescue its victims. If porn is made criminal, it will discourage participants who have witnessed serious abuses, such as the use of under-age models or the trafficking of models, from coming forward and contacting the police.

Legalisation, the other hand, is likely to create more spaces and opportunities for the production of independent, do-it-yourself and alternative sex imagery that avoids the traditional exploitative and misogynistic scenarios.

Liberalisation would help facilitate a non-degrading feminist porn, made by women, for women, from a women’s perspective with the aim of pleasuring women.

What’s wrong with wanking?

So what about the individual and social benefits of sexually explicit imagery?
Porn magazines are dismissed by some critics as ‘wank mags.’ But what’s wrong with wanking? It’s perfectly natural and healthy, for both men and women.

Indeed, masturbation, with or without porn, has a number of positive virtues. It is totally safe sex, with no risk of contracting or transmitting HIV or other sexually-transmitted infections (STIs). If, instead of going out on the town and shagging left, right and centre, a person stays at home and jerks off over a porn video, isn’t that safer?

In other words, good quality sexual imagery can make masturbation an
attractive alternative to casual sex, which can reduce a person’s number sexual partners and help cut the spread of STI’s.

Porn saves lives

Regular sex is vital for men’s health. Medical research in Australia has shown that men who cum five or more times a week from the age of puberty have a much lower incidence of prostate cancer. Therefore, if you haven’t got a regular partner, masturbation is good for you. If porno magazines and films assist frequent masturbation, then porn is helping save lives.

Sex mags and vids can be great sex education for young people. Unlike the coy, euphemistic nonsense that passes for sex education in schools, quality porn shows young people about sex – the techniques and skills involved, and how to satisfy yourself and your partner. This gives users of porn much better knowledge and expertise in the art of sex. The result? Often better quality sex lives and partners who are more sexually and emotionally fulfilled.

Pornography has been used very successfully to popularise safer sex. The use of sexually explicit leaflets and videos in HIV prevention campaigns has encouraged many people (gay, bisexual and straight) to switch to less risky behaviour. By promoting safer sex as exciting and fun, socially-aware porn has helped glamorise and eroticise responsible sexual behaviour – debunking the idea that non-risky sex is somehow boring, dull and second best. My own book, Safer Sexy (1994), was a good example. It won plaudits for making no-risk sexual behaviour appealing and exciting.

Sexual democracy

Porn also has another big social benefit. As an aid to masturbation, it may be the only means of regular erotic satisfaction for some single people, for partners in sexually dysfunctional marriages and for widows / widowers.

And what about people who are not young, beautiful, able-bodied and self-confident – or who live in isolated communities? Are these people supposed to do without sexual happiness? Not everyone measures up to the fitness and good looks that popular culture promotes as sexually desirable. It is cruel and inhuman to deny single disabled, overweight and elderly people the erotic fulfilment that pornography can give them.

We all grow old and lose our pulling power. But sexual desire may remain strong. It needs (and deserves) an outlet. That’s when sexy pictures and films can come to our rescue, helping us to maintain pleasure and satisfaction.

Pornography can thus be a cornerstone of sexual democracy. It gives everyone access to carnal pleasure and happiness, regardless of our age, looks, abilities or background.

For information about Peter Tatchell’s campaigns: www.petertatchell.net

Both men used to lead happy, successful professional lives. Haider was a doctor and Ibaa worked as a translator. Since the US and UK invasion, their lives have been turned upside down.

The chaos and lawlessness of post-war Iraq has allowed Shia fundamentalist militias and death squads to flourish. They enforce a savage interpretation of sharia law, summarily executing people for ‘crimes’ like homosexuality, dancing, adultery, being the wrong kind of Muslim (Sunni, not Shia), listening to western pop music, wearing shorts or jeans, drinking alcohol, selling Hollywood movie videos, having a fashionable haircut and, in the case of women, walking in the street unveiled or unaccompanied by a male relative.

In this witch-hunting, homophobic atmosphere, Ibaa and Haider came to the attention of the death squads. Both men were in their late twenties and unmarried. This circumstantial evidence, plus local gossip, was enough to get them targeted as sodomites. Ibaa received written denunciations and a grenade hurled through his windows. Haider was ordered to leave the country or face execution. Killers came looking for him at his house and hospital. His partner was kidnapped, tortured and murdered.

Both Ibaa and Haider eventually escaped Iraq and claimed asylum in the UK. With the support of the gay human rights group, OutRage!, they recently won asylum. Most Iraqi asylum seekers – gay and straight – are not so lucky. Their claims are rejected. They face deportation back to Iraq.

Moreover, unlike Haider and Ibaa, the vast majority of gay Iraqis have no chance of fleeing their homeland and gaining refugee status abroad. They don’t have the funds and exiting the country via Syria and Jordan is now very difficult. Gay Iraqis are trapped in a society that is sliding fast towards theocracy.

The murder of gays is encouraged by Iraq’s leading Shia cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al- Sistani. In 2005, he issued a fatwa ordering the execution of gay Iraqis. His followers in the Islamist militias are now systematically targeting lesbian and gay people.

Two militias are doing most of the killing. They are the armed wings of major parties in the Bush and Blair-backed Iraqi government. The Madhi Army is the militia of Muqtada al-Sadr, and the Badr Brigade is the militia of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq – the leading political force in Baghdad’s ruling coalition. Despite their differences, both militias want to establish an Iranian-style religious dictatorship.

Nyaz is a 28-year-old lesbian in Baghdad. Her nightmare is mild by comparison to what has happened to many gay Iraqis. Having seen so many gay friends murdered, Nyaz is terrified that she and her partner will also be killed. They have stopped seeing each other. It is too dangerous. To make matters worse, Nyaz is being forced by the Mahdi Army to marry an older, senior mullah with close ties to Muqtada al- Sadr. If she does not agree to the marriage, or tries to run away, both Nyaz and her family will be marked for ‘honour killing’ by Sadr’s men.

Nyaz is lucky. She is still alive. Many other gay Iraqis are not so fortunate. They have been killed by Islamist death squads. The fundamentalists boast that their ‘sexual cleansing’ operations have exterminated or forced into exile most lesbians and gays.

This homophobic terror is symptomatic of the terror experienced by millions of Iraqi citizens, gay and straight. Many left-wing Iraqis warn that the fundamentalists are gaining strength. If they eventually seize power, tens of thousands of people are likely to be slaughtered – similar to the bloodbath in Iran after the Shia Islamist revolution in 1979.

Iraqi LGBT is the clandestine Iraqi gay rights movement, supported by OutRage! More info: http://iraqilgbtuk.blogspot.com/

Internal Labour Party democracy is largely destroyed and members have no meaningful say about anything. Labour’s annual conference has been neutered, no longer deciding policy – every key decision is now determined by Gordon Brown and his inner circle.

This is autocracy, not democracy with party members reduced to cheerleaders and election fodder. Labour is now beyond reform, even if a majority of party members wanted a socialist agenda, the leadership would veto it. The era when Labour was the party of the left is over – forever.

New Labour has never been committed to the redistribution of wealth and power, the gap between rich and poor has widened since 1997 and Gordon Brown, like his predecessor Tony Blair, spends more time with millionaires than with trade union leaders. In the name of the ‘war on terror,’ the government is curtailing freedom and liberties on a scale unprecedented in peacetime. The snooping, surveillance state is fast becoming a reality, with ID cards, CCTV and widespread email and phone interception.

Labour’s great, historic achievement was the creation of the NHS and the Welfare State but Gordon Brown is gradually dismantling it. This creeping privatisation of health and education is something that not even Margaret Thatcher attempted. Blair and Brown have out-thatchered Thatcher.

The only alternative?

This poses a huge dilemma for the many good socialists who remain inside the Labour Party. Why stay with a party that isn’t even democratic, let alone socialist? What is the alternative?

The most significant left alternative to Labour is Respect, but it is politically compromised. Following in New Labour’s footsteps, it has an authoritarian, command-style leadership that has declared it is not a socialist party. They even support the monarchy!

The possibility of securing socialism through New Labour or left alternatives like Respect is zero. There is only one left option left – the Green Party, which is why I joined and why I am standing as the Green Party’s parliamentary candidate for Oxford East.

The Greens are now the most progressive force in British politics. With our radical agenda for grassroots democracy, social justice, human rights, global equity, environmental protection, peace and internationalism we are well to the left of New Labour and the Liberal Democrats.

Green is the new red

Green is the new red – an empowering political paradigm for human liberation which offers the most credible alternative to New Labour and the best hope for radical social progress.

Unlike the far left sects, the Greens are winners with a wide base of national support. We have dozens of local councillors and elected London Assembly and in the Scottish and European Parliament members. In the last European elections, the Greens won 6.2% of the vote in England, a promising and growing base of support from which to build an alternative radical politics.

If more leftwingers and progressive social movements united together in the Green Party, the Greens could do even better. We have the potential to become an influential electoral force, with the likely election of the first Green MPs soon.

A substantial and growing Green vote at local, regional, European and Westminster elections would pressure New Labour and the Liberal Democrats to adopt more left-leaning and pro-environmental policies. Perhaps, one day, the Greens might even hold the balance of power in parliament.

The Greens are not obsessed with elections and parliament, we are also committed to grassroots direct action protest and community empowerment. As Labour has moved from left to right, the Greens have shifted from centre-left to radical left, now occupying the progressive political space once held by left Labour.

The Green Party’s Manifesto for a Sustainable Society incorporates key socialist principles. Rejecting privatisation, free market economics and globalisation, and it includes commitments to public ownership, worker’s rights, economic democracy, progressive taxation and the redistribution of wealth and power.

The Green’s synthesis of ecology and socialism integrates policies for social justice and human rights with an agenda for tackling the catastrophic dangers posed by global warming, environmental pollution, resource depletion and species extinction.

The Greens recognise that preventing ecological cataclysm requires constraints on the power of big corporations. Profiteering and free trade has to be subordinated to policies for the survival of humanity. In other words, we need controls on business for the common good. Public interest must come before private profit. This sounds like socialism to me.

A red-green alliance

True, the Green Party includes people who are not on the radical left. The past political alliances and policies of some elected Green councillors have been a big mistake. Green Party members recognise these errors and are working to make sure they don’t happen again. There has never been a perfect left-wing party and there never will be but the Greens are our best hope.

Left-wing critics complain that the Greens are not a pure socialist party and are not working class-based. But look at the implications of what the Greens say; their goals and policies are often similar to the left’s – without the left-wing jargon. Despite a different way of expressing things, what the Greens advocate is, in essence, socialistic.

The Greens are building links with organised labour, we have a Green Party trade union group and Green conferences and public meetings increasingly feature trade union activists. Local Green councillors have been in the forefront of supporting union struggles, including the NHS and postal workers. With more leftwingers inside the party, the Greens would undoubtedly strengthen their ties to the labour movement.

Cooperation with the unions has great potential. Working with the Greens, the Australian construction and transport unions enforced ‘green bans’ on environmentally destructive big business developments that threatened inner-city working class communities. This shows how workers and greens can cooperate for the betterment of all.

The great virtue of the Green Party is that it is a grassroots democratic party, controlled by the ordinary membership with no power elite or embedded hierarchy. It is not a top-down, centralist party like New Labour.

Thousands of socialists have left New Labour in despair and disgust, many have already joined the Greens helping accelerate our leftward trajectory. If more socialists joined, the Green Party would move even further left.

Unlike New Labour, the Greens value idealism and principles. We have a vision of a radically different kind of society, which makes us receptive to left alternatives.

For all these reasons, the most effective way to advance the left nowadays is to join the Greens. Fusing the best of the red and the green would strengthen both strands of progressive politics, offering a powerful, united challenge to neo-liberal orthodoxy. The potential is there. Seize it. Now is the time for reds to go green.

Further information regarding Peter Tatchell’s campaigns
www.petertatchell.net and www.greenoxford.com/peter

Join the debate

Equally depressing, alternative left parties like the Socialist Alliance and Respect offer little cause for optimism. The Socialist Alliance tried, but failed, to secure electoral success. Respect is neither grassroots nor democratic. It is run on the same “democratic centralist’ lines as the Blairite Labour Party. All major decisions are taken at the top. It is dominated by the Socialist Workers Party, which is notorious for packing meetings and organising secret slates to secure the election of its people to key positions.

I left the Labour Party in 2000, after 22 years membership. My reason? “New” Labour has abandoned both socialism and democracy. It is no longer committed to the redistribution of wealth and power. Tony Blair spends more time with millionaire businessmen than trade union leaders. The gap between rich and poor has widened since 1997. Civil liberties are under ceaseless attack by David Blunkett, the most right-wing home secretary since Sir David Maxwell Fyfe in the 1950s.

There is, alas, no possibility of undoing Blair’s right-wing “coup’. Internal party democracy has been extinguished. Ordinary members have no say. Everything important is decided by The Dear Leader and his acolytes. Fixing the selection process for the London mayoral candidate in 2000 to defeat Ken Livingstone was one of many examples of Labour’s corruption. No socialist can remain in a party that rigs ballots and denies members a meaningful say in the decisions of their party.

I joined Labour because I want social justice and human rights for all. My values and aspirations remain the same. Labour’s have changed fundamentally and irreversibly. Winning back Labour to socialism and democracy is now impossible.

No political party lasts forever. Even the most progressive party eventually decays or turns reactionary. Labour’s great, historic achievement was the creation of the welfare state. The current party leadership is in the process of privatising it.

Leaving Labour does not mean giving up the battle for a fair and just society. There is an alternative option. After two decades of moving from right to left, the Green Party now occupies the progressive political space once held by left-wing Labour. It offers the most credible left alternative to Labour’s pro-war, pro-big business and pro-Bush policies.

The Green Party’s manifesto for a sustainable society (www.greenparty.org.uk) incorporates key socialist values. It rejects privatisation, free market economics and globalisation, and includes commitments to public ownership, worker’s rights, economic democracy, progressive taxation and the redistribution of wealth and power.

Greens put the common good before corporate greed, and the public interest before private profit. Forging a red-green synthesis, they integrate policies for social justice with policies for tackling the life-threatening dangers posed by global warming, environmental pollution, resource depletion and species extinction.

Unlike the traditional left, with its superficial environmentalism, Greens understand there is no point campaigning for social justice if we don’t have a habitable planet. Ecological sustainability is the precondition for a just society. The Greens also recognise that tackling the global ecological threat requires constraints on the power of big corporations. Profiteering and free trade has to be subordinated to policies for the survival of humanity. Can any socialist disagree with that?

Although the Green Party is not perfect (is any party perfect?), its anti-capitalist agenda gives practical expression to socialist ideas. Very importantly, ordinary members are empowered to decide policy. The Greens are a grassroots democratic party, where activism is encouraged and where members with ideals and principles are valued.

Unlike tiny left parties, such as the Socialist Alliance and Respect, Greens have a proven record of success at the ballot box, with candidates elected in the London, Scottish, local and European elections. These elected Greens are a force for social progress, far to the left of Labour on all issues. They are also well to the left of the Socialist Alliance and Respect on questions like women’s and gay rights, health care, animal welfare, the environment and third world development.

People tempted to support Respect in the forthcoming elections need to answer two crucial questions. Why split the left-wing vote and thereby diminish the electoral prospects of both Respect and the Green Party? Why vote for an unproven political force like Respect when there is a credible and radical left party – the Greens – that already has seats and can win lots more with the support of people on the left?