Here is the video of Derek Wall, Green Party Principal Male Speaker at the SR event. It ends rather abruptly because the tape ran out about one minute before Derek finished talking. Think of it as symbolising what an environmental crisis could do to our species.
Derek Wall – Green and Red
Here is the video of Derek Wall, Green Party Principal Male Speaker at the SR event. It ends rather abruptly because the tape ran out about one minute before Derek finished talking. Think of it as symbolising what an environmental crisis could do to our species.
1–2 minutes
10 responses to “Derek Wall – Green and Red”
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What is you opinion of the fact the conunist party in Lebanon has sided with the party responsible for treating women as second class citizens and want to kill democracy?
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Just back from session. Will answer in the morning.
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I’ve never made a habit of sticking up for Communist parties anywhere. However while Hezbollah were fighting the Israeli army I had no trouble cheering them on, even if I strongly disapproved of randomly lobbing rockets into towns in the Israeli state. It’s possible to support the sort of resistance they conducted while arguing fiercely against the many reactionary elements of Hezbollah’s politics. I used to do something very similar with homophobic, ultra Catholic Sinn Fein members. An interesting article by a French academic on the organistion can be found on this link.http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article1169Well done on a terrific blog. I’ve been recommmending it to people.
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MacDara makes a series of factual errors.Lebanon is not a democracy, like Northern Ireland it is a sectarian state.If their were genuine democratic elections in Lebanon, Nasrallah would probably be the president. But Nasrallah can’t be the president – because under the Lebanese constitution no Muslim can be president! Despite 80% of Lebanon’s population being Muslim!The French created a constitution (and US marines intervened in ’58 to back it) that means that despite being less than quarter of the population of Lebanon, Maronite Christians are guaranteed half the seats in the parliament. Part of Hezbollah’s aim is to smash the sectarian system in Lebanon which is defended by the pro-US regime.You also state erroneously that Hezbollah oppose democracy, actually in Lebanon they are a mainstream political party allied with the biggest Christian party, Aoun’s patriotic alliance (the recent demonstrations have included thousands of christians, see this article on why Hezbollah’s TV station is broadcasting Sunday Mass:http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=22&ItemID=11573.Hezbollah have also recognised that the goal of an Islamic state is not viable in Lebanon – they still support that goal formally, but have realised that in a multi-confessional society it would be unfruitful to push that goal. This reflects what we have to grasp about Hezbollah, it is not a monolithic islamist organisation, but one that is being shaped by Lebanese poltics and the national liberation struggle. In the areas it controls, Hezbollah doesn’t enforce religious law, doesn’t impose special strictures on women but rather allows them to be visible and active, doesn’t persecute other ethnic or religious groups, and works with leftists rather than execute them as other Islamist groups do.On women’s rights they generally take a far more progressive line than most Islamist organisations and even have a woman on their politbureau.Now, if I were a socialist in Lebanon, I might be in a united front with Hezbollah in opposition to the pro-US government & the Israeli invasion, but would clearly be attempting to build an independent working class leftist politics.Also, I would profoundly challenge Liam MacUaid’s claim that Hezbollah was deliberately targetting Israeli civilians. In fact, the reports of journalists like Jonathan Cook based in Nazareth suggest that Hezbollah’s targets were military, the bases and installations that are predominantly situated in Galileee the Arab area of Israel, he also crucially notes that much information on what Hezbollah was targetting has not been reported, because all reporters and media had to submit their reports to the Israeli military censor.http://www.jkcook.net/Articles2/0261.htm#Tophttp://www.jkcook.net/Articles2/0269.htm#Tophttp://www.jkcook.net/Articles2/0272.htm#Top“But to anyone living in Nazareth, it was clear the rocket attack on the city was not indiscriminate either. It was a mistake — something Nasrallah quickly confirmed in one of his televised speeches. The real target of the strike was known to Nazarenes: close by the city are a military weapons factory and a large military camp. Hizbullah knows the locations of these military targets because this year, as was widely reported in the Israeli media at the time, it managed to fly an unmanned drone over the Galilee photographing the area in detail — employing the same spying techniques used for many years by Israel against Lebanon.””Israel’s military censorship laws are therefore allowing officials to misrepresent, unchallenged, any attack by Hizbullah as an indiscriminate strike against civilian targets.Audiences ought to be alerted to this danger by their media. Any reports touching on “security matters” are supposed to be submitted to the country’s military censor, but few media are pointing this out in their reporting. Most justify this deception to themselves on the grounds that in practice they never run their reports by the censor as it would delay publication.Instead, they avoid problems with the military censor either by self-censoring their reporting on security issues or by relying on what has already been published in the Israeli media on the assumption that in these ways they are unlikely to contravene the rules.”Adam Johannes
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PS. I have no ideal what this has to do with ecology! Any chance that you recorded the Michael Lowy contribution?Adam Johannes, Cardiff Campaign against Climate Change
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Adam,think of it more as a pub conversation ranging far and wide. Thanks for your well informed contributon. I’ll need to look at the tapes to see if the Lowy session is ok. As you can see my camera operator in some parts is not likely to be moving to Hollywood anytime soon.
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I should clarify something I wrote, evidently Hezbollah did bump off Communist party cadre in it’s early years – but this is in the past, and they are now in alliance. Their politics have changed quite considerably since, particularly with the emergence of Nasrallah as the leader. Also, of course I’m critical of Hezbollah – I’m a socialist and support secular poltiics.There’s actually an excellent article on the contradictions of Hezbollah and their relations with the communists on your own International Viewpoint website, http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article1169What is amazing and extraordinary now, is that almost half of the Lebanese population have taken to the streets. It will be interesting to see how Hezbollah reacts to this massive movement that could soon begin to move to make more radical demands than Hezbollah are currently making. Obviously, given it’s contradictory politics it could well be driven towards compromise and selling out the movement on the streets – hence the need for an independent marxist current that can drive things forward if Hezbollah falters.AJ
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AJ a serious of factual errors usually means more than the one you pointed out. Lebanon is a democracy but it is based on a confessional system that ensures representation of all the religious and ethnic groups. 17 of them by the way. The troika system or three presidents ensures that while the President of the country is Maronite Christian , The speaker of the house also known as the president of the house is Shiite( Currently Nabi Berri) and the Prime minister or President of the Government is Sunni.Yes you are correct that the majority of Lebanese are muslim around 70% estimate based on Social indicators, as the last official census was in 1932. The break down between Sunni and Shiite is nearly50/50 most would say Sunni are larger grouping with the Druze making up 5% of the 70%Muslims . These figures give Shiite around 32% of the population who mostly support the opposition but not all. Most of the Sunni’s support the Government. General Aoun claims to be the majority Christian but this is very disputable as the number of Seats in parliment would not back it up. ( Last election was based on a syrian imposed law and needs to be changed ) however while Aoun does have most Maronite Christians 60% of them he does not have the same support in the other christian groups. The Druze mostly support the government. The problem with Lebanon is that it cannot be looked at in simple terms and also cannot be forced into agreement by outside parties whether they be US or Iranian.As to Hezballah( Party of God) yes they do believe in Democracy at present but there fundamental Belief is in an Islamic state, and while they currently dont force Women in Beirut to wear Hijabs I can assure you in their Strongholds it is the dominant Garment. I personally like a lot of what they stand but they are now trying to force thier will on the entire population. But I have only Lived here for four years and so am still learning about how the country works.
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It’s nice to see you two getting along so well.Adam neither my attention span nor memory are what they used to be and they were never particularly good. It seems that the reason I had some difficulty finding the video of Michel Lowy or remembering what he said at the ecosocialism event is that he didn’t speak at it. I’m told that he sent his apologies. However we have vague plans to invite him to London in the new year and I’ll make sure it’s recorded.
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Liam redux 
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