Socialist Voice Review:
October – 2022
Just when we thought that things could not get worse at Socialist Voice – they did.
There was a time when the CPI could be relied on to provide reasoned and accurate analysis on international affairs. Not any more if the current issue of Socialist Voice is anything to go by. This is not the first time that the CPI has called for sanctions – that is, illegal unilateral or multi-lateral coercive measures – against Israel. The article is headed “Sanctions needed against the Israeli killing machine” and ends with “The time has now come to act, and to call it what it is: that Israel is an apartheid state, and that sanctions must be implemented immediately against the Israel killing machine”.
Another article tells us that the CPI sent a delegation to Brussels to attend the launch of a research paper dealing with unilateral coercive measures – ‘sanctions’ – and their relevance in international law, produced by Mick Wallace MEP (a late entry added to the website after the October issue was published which might explain how the sanction Israel article was not nipped in the bud). Or, maybe not.
It is difficult to know where to start. Calling for sanctions puts the CPI on the wrong side of the Charter of the United Nations and on the wrong side of the Group of Friends in Defense of the Charter of the United Nations established to protect the Charter and oppose illegal coercive measures. This Group seeks to promote multilateralism and diplomacy over the use of force against perceived violations from other UN member states. The Group is made up of 20 countries among them Russia, China, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia and the State of Palestine.
Among the principles of this Group of Friends are “non-interference in the internal affairs of States, peaceful settlement of disputes, and to refrain from the use or threat of use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State, as enshrined in the UN Charter.”
So, while a considered article on the Nord Stream pipelines sabotage condemns sanctions imposed by the US and the EU against Russia the next article calls for sanctions against Israel. Not only that but the sanctions called for are not defined in any way, there is no hint as to who might impose any such sanctions, who such sanctions would be directed against and to what end. Simplistic or what? Not only is such a broad demand stupid it is also dangerous. Essentially, there is a single authority with the power to authorise and impose sanctions on a country and that is the UN Security Council. Considering the inhuman sanctions imposed on North Korea by the Security Council, there is reasonable cause for even that authority to be questioned and held to account.
Of course, countries or entities can choose not to trade or engage with other countries or entities. However, the problems arise when such ‘sanctions’ are backed by coercive measures. In any event, ‘sanctions’ as we know them and as we have seen them applied, apart from the destructions and deaths that follow in their wake, have seldom if ever succeeded in achieving their stated aim.
It is absurd to bestow unlimited and undefined authority on the very same governments and blocs who have been imposing illegal and inhuman ‘sanctions’ against every progressive government that ever existed – all of which the CPI would have opposed and campaigned against – just because you cannot think of any other way or because it suits your current or particular agenda or because you are too lazy to work out the dangers and contradictions in your position.
Another article deals with the death of Mahsa Amini in Iran. Again, dealing with complex issues from a simplistic or sectional perspective is not what we should expect from the CPI. What a shame that we have to turn to other outlets such as Counterpunch.org in the US for a little more insight:
Richard Falk, an international law and international relations scholar in the US stated “I find most disturbing about the main media approach in the West is its total failure to discuss the protests within their historical and international context.” He continued “These are difficult issues to interpret under any circumstances. Sustained hardship and a tightening of theocratic discipline in Iran likely hit the urban middle classes most directly.
“There is every reason to think that the reaction to Mahsa Amini’s tragic experience produced a spontaneous reaction concentrated among women, youth, and the urban poor who had been suffering for decades from the lethal mixture of encroachments on personal freedom of state power and external pressures undermining their security and wellbeing.
“We do not know on balance whether the successful defense of national security in the face of constant external destabilizing challenges earned the government a measure of loyalty from more established sectors of Iranian society. There are so far no visible signs that this latest wave of protests is a ‘front’ for a return of the Pahlavi dynasty, and yet there seems present a more generalized democratizing set of goals at play than the narrow agenda of gender freedom suggests.
“It may be possible that a secularizing movement with a liberal/progressive social agenda will spiral out of this protest activity with its seemingly narrow focus on women, the hijab, and theocratic harshness.”
Dr Behrooz Ghamari, professor of sociology at Georgia State University in another article stated that “The revolutionary spirit that lingers in Iran remains bewildering. The courage, the fearlessness with which young women claim the streets, and the hope that is espoused in the piercing chants of Women, Life, Freedom, need to be embraced and encouraged, without reservation. The brutality of the police and the carceral state must be exposed and condemned without hesitation. At the same time, I believe, it must be recognized that no gesture of solidarity or condemnation happens in a political vacuum. In this trajectory, the geo-politics of Iran, remapping the Middle East and extending the American and its regional allies influence, and the effects of the violent crippling sanctions against imposed on Iran cannot be ignored.”
Unfortunately, these issues were ignored in the Socialist Voice article and it should be noted that neither of these commentators quoted from Counterpunch.org could be accused of been favourable to the government in Iran.
Meanwhile, back home, a report on the 26th Congress of the CPI is a strange mix of secrecy, regurgitation of old positions and an age profile complex.
A new leadership has been elected and while we accept that publication of the membership of the entire National Executive Committee would neither be required nor even desirable it would be expected that the names of the top leadership – General Secretary and National Chairperson – might be divulged. It seems that information is too important to be shared with the readers of Socialist Voice.
Apparently, age profile is still a sensitive issue in the CPI (no change there either). Strange then that the only article that offered any pathway to progress as distinct from the nonsense of “we must”, “we demand” etc, is an excellent article “Democracy and Freedom: A vehicle for the proletariat? written by a contributor who certainly would not bring down the age profile but who knows that people need some agenda and strategy to work from. Especially the young ones.