Cohen's Own Party. posted by Richard Seymour

The philosopher P F Strawson once noted, in a polemical assault on Cartesian dualism, that there would be no point in dealing with an error that noone is likely to make. The same applies to Nick Cohen's latest attempt to smear the SWP, Respect, and the anti-war movement. He wouldn't be bothering if he didn't think that the movement was a) popular and b) likely to damage the pro-war Left, say, in the upcoming elections.

What is interesting about the latest is that Cohen introduces his article as if it contained a scoop, some exciting new trove of information with which he can bury the antiwar Left. He doesn't. Every single charge he adduces is either recycled material of his own, or borrowed from someone else. Let's deal with them ordinally, because they deserve no more than that:

1) "The far left was becoming the far right. It had gone as close to supporting Ba'athist fascism as it dared and had formed a working alliance with the Muslim Association of Britain, which, along with the usual misogyny and homophobia of such organisations, also believed that Muslims who decided that there was no God deserved to die for the crime of free thought."

Now, Nick Cohen will be aware that the Islamic faith has no elaborate hierarchy of priests and so on. It has no church authority. Suppose we had invited the Catholic Church along, with its history of holocaust complicity, intolerance, bigotry, misogyny, homophobia etc., would Cohen have thought he had reasonable grounds for complaint? Would he have described it as a coalition of the Left with "religious fanaticism" as he does here? Why should it be that the Muslim Association of Britain accrues the predicate "religious fanatic"? What is particularly fanatical about them? Yes, they have a mixture of beliefs both reactionary and progressive - characteristic of most religions, in fact. Does the MAB support suicide bombings? Do their leaders cheer on plane-crashers? Do they enumerate hook-hand among their ranks? No. They are simply a religious organisation with the aspiration of advancing the tenets of Islam in a Western democracy. Good luck. Should we refuse to work with them against a war we both disagree with?

2) "Read the liberal press and you will find that the rage of middle-class liberals and British Islam burns as brightly as it did in February 2003. As I have argued before on these pages, that rage is morally ambiguous. Disgust at the Bush administration has pushed liberal opinion around the world into the shameful position that it would not back the opponents of Saddam Hussein."

One presumes that Cohen means, by "the oppoents of Saddam Hussein" groups like the PUK, and not the Bush administration. Unfortunately for him, there were plenty of opponents of Saddam Hussein who did not want a war. They attended our demonstrations, in fact, which Nick would know if he wasn't bitterly stewing away down at Farringdon Road. And the PUK - need I really go through it again? - has done its absolute best to sell-out its fellow Kurds whenever the opportunity was there, going so far as to allow the Iranians to enter Northern Iraq and butcher hundreds of them in exchange for assistance in their war with Massoud Barzani. Forgive me, but I won't take any morality tales from them.

3) The beneficiary of the great left-wing revolt against Blair has turned out to be the right. The Tories are doing better than they have done for a decade. Voters disillusioned with established politicians are turning to the United Kingdom Independence Party rather than to the left. The reactionary shift should not be a surprise. The only unanswerable anti-war argument was the generally conservative, Little England case that it is no longer in Britain's interests to tag along behind the United States.

Dubious logic, and not much of a coup either. I thought we were to be treated to new information. No, the Tories are doing well, because they are the mainstream alternative. UKIP, of course, have the advantage of millionaires and minor celebrities backing them to the hilt. But for that, they would be little more than a cult perversion. In Spain, the Socialists benefitted from disillusionment with the war. In America, most likely the Democrats and the Naderites will benefit. In Australia, the Labor Party are benefitting.

4) "For a start you would have thought that a principled anti-war movement would have done everything it could to distance itself from Saddam. A first and essential step would have been a decision to have nothing to do with Galloway. He had flown to Baghdad and greeted a tyrant who modelled himself on Stalin, while emulating the racial extermination campaigns of Hitler, with "Sir, I salute your courage, your strength and your indefatigability". Yet there he was on stage as the star speaker at last year's anti-war rally in Hyde Park, and no one in the crowd booed or threw an egg. Since then, this modern Mitford sister has published his autobiography, I'm Not the Only One (unfortunately he's right on that), which is packed with apologetics for Saddam's slaughters of Kurds, Shias, democrats and socialists."

I'll just venture that Cohen hasn't read Galloway's book. In fact, I'll even go so far as to suggest that he got the idea that the content is so skewed from Johann Hari's abysmally inaccurate review a while ago. Second, as to his appearance before Saddam, I see no reason to make Galloway's excuses for him. Cohen could have read them if he'd actually read the book in question. What I will say is that at every stage before and after Galloway's meeting with Saddam, he had consistently opposed Saddam's regime. This is a simple matter of record.

4) "The Muslim Association of Britain, the British branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, said that Galloway was a man it could do business with when he told the Independent that "abortion is morally and ethically wrong". These comments, the association said, as well as Galloway's "statements on faith and God in the same interview, will surely be welcomed by British Muslims who see Respect as a real alternative to the main political parties"."

By gum, that's old news too! Look, the Respect Coalition is committed to The right to self-determination of every individual in relation to their religious (or non-religious) beliefs, as well as sexual choices. Galloway is entitled to his views on abortion, and on God, but he will not stand as a Respect candidate on the basis of wishing to repeal liberal abortion legislation. Incidentally, the MAB welcomed Galloway's faith in God - but as a Christian, not as a Muslim. So much for fanaticism.

5) A few weeks ago, there was a nasty incident when members of Peter Tatchell's OutRage! group joined a pro-Palestinian demonstration. Their placards read: "Israel: stop persecuting Palestine. Palestine: stop persecuting queers". The slogans had been inspired by the arrest and torture of Palestinian gays by Hamas and Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement. When the demonstration went into Trafalgar Square, the gay protesters were surrounded by an angry crowd of Islamic fundamentalists, Anglican priests and members of the SWP, and were variously denounced as "racists", "liars" and "Zionists".

One assumes he picked this one up in Harry's Place. Funnily enough, if I were going to a demonstration in favour of Palestinian rights, I wouldn't bring along a placard implying that Palestinians were responsible for homophobia (as if every Palestinian could be blamed for the behaviour of Fatah and Hamas). It strikes me as the height of stupidity to broach the topic in this way, and it is hardly likely to generate anything but a negative reaction.

6) Globalise Resistance, a hard-core anti-capitalist group, has had its independent members resign in protest at SWP domination. There is a long-running scandal on the Birmingham left about the treatment of Steve Godward, a working-class socialist who was sacked by his managers for his part in the firefighters' strike, and then hounded by the SWP because he would not parrot the party line.

I'll start with the last claim first. Steve Godward won his appeal against his sacking some time ago, so it's good to see that Nick is so in touch with the Birmingham left and its struggles. Nick will be aware that Steve Godward was voted ("hounded") out by members of the Birmingham Stop the War Coalition and subsequently from the chair of the Socialist Alliance because he opposed an alliance with local Muslims against the war. The argument from the dissidents, including Steve, was that we would have to give up our defense of gay rights and womens' rights if we worked with Muslims in an electoral project. Well, we're working with them, and we haven't, and we don't intend to.

Suffice to say, there isn't much more to Cohen's case than this. It is, I fear, the usual collection of bollocks served up ice cold. The level of argument never rises above the enthymematic. There are many promissory notes for argument, but they are never cashed in. Recycling old articles over fresh drinks, Cohen has proved once again that he can be as humourless and pompous as he once was wry, witty and down to earth. Unfortunately for him, he may well be faced with a writ for defamation . I wonder if I can persuade George to take Hari to court too?