Liam redux

Mutiny on the Bethnal

You know you are well on the way to becoming a fuddy duddy when you have to restrain the urge to contribute to a discussion on polyamory by pointing out that it’s at least twice as expensive as monogamy and you might not have the energy to keep it up for any length of time.…

Liam
2–3 minutes

image You know you are well on the way to becoming a fuddy duddy when you have to restrain the urge to contribute to a discussion on polyamory by pointing out that it’s at least twice as expensive as monogamy and you might not have the energy to keep it up for any length of time. Tonight’s Mutiny event in Bethnal Green set itself the job of putting love on trial.

The evening was a mixture of poetry, drama, politics, free form discussion and thimble sized bottles of beer for £3. Described like that it had the potential to be an orgy of pretentious introspection but it avoided the trap. It’s the first time I’ve been at an event ten minutes walk from home where the mention of Alexandra Kollantai got a cheer and snippets of Engels’ views on the family were applauded. The format owed as much to the Quakers as Marxism. Anyone who wanted to put their point of view simply had to sit down at a table and take the mike. An entitlement to express a view was the motif and it made for a refreshing change from the predictable choreography of many radical meetings.

My sense was that the organisers were trying to come up with an innovative way of melding radical politics, culture and activism. Penny Red articulated a persuasive case against excluding dissenters and, in a sign of changed times, referred to c++tish behaviour without getting heckled.

As well as activism sexuality and love filled the evening. The least warm response of the evening was given to a political fulltimer who give the crassest rebuttal of LGBT autonomy I’ve ever had the misfortune to hear. Given that a fair chunk of the other people around the table were enthusiastic defenders of the concept and most people in the room agreed with them it was a case study in how not to win the wavering middle ground.

Here was a good example of how to rip up the rule book and make up a new way of facilitating genuinely participatory politics. It did so while drawing on the experience of the Marxist tradition and pointed the audience in the direction of combining theory and practice.

The prime mover seems to be Clare Solomon and chances are you’ll be able to find out about the upcoming Democracy On Trial here.

14 responses to “Mutiny on the Bethnal”

  1. splinteredsunrise Avatar
    splinteredsunrise

    Sounds like a fun night. Striking that the European left has lively cultural evenings as a matter of course – music, poetry or film with a bit of a political theme – but in these islands we don’t seem to be able to get it together.

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  2. Tansy Hoskins Avatar
    Tansy Hoskins

    Great review to read so soon after the event. Glad to have brought Kollantai to your doorstep. Great participation from a crowd who held with the ideas through a really packed evening. Jointhemutiny.wordpress.com for more info… Tansy.

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  3. shug Avatar
    shug

    Anyway Liam,did any lass take your fancy.

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  4. Jodley Avatar
    Jodley

    “activism sexuality”?

    Is that a missing comma or a reference to horizontal recruitment?

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  5. shug Avatar
    shug

    We are jesuit over this way,and that is cool.Bit of light relief from the oppressed and dirge that capital feeds.

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  6. Liam Avatar
    Liam

    Missing comma Jodley.

    Shug – a primal fear of castration with a blunt instrument is a major inhibitor of polyamorous tendencies.

    On that theme I’m aware that this quick sketch didn’t do justice to the richness of the discussion. The audience was pretty young and included a lot of student activists and I think it’s easier to be actively contemplating polyamory when you have a certain amount of freedom over how you can spend your time and you are mostly socialising with other people who have the same luxury.

    For what it’s worth my impression that polyamorous relationships, what I think used to be called “shagging around”, tend to be dominated by endless discussions of the relationships. That’s fine if you enjoy spending a lot dwelling on that sort of thing and I’m not sure that they are a viable option for most people most of the time.

    And I laughed out loud at a new concept called “political polyamory”. I’ll give £100 to the first Trot group that makes that a cornerstone of its next perspectives document.

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  7. tamworthalternative Avatar
    tamworthalternative

    Liam, thats a huge hostage to fortune since we are both in the ‘tradition’ most likely to spawn the offshoot which produces such a document…
    And £100 would come in very handy for the photocopier I am looking to buy.

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  8. Doug Avatar
    Doug

    Nothing says middle class radical quite like an evening with poetry..

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    1. Liam Avatar
      Liam

      Brecht.

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  9. andy newman Avatar
    andy newman

    And I laughed out loud at a new concept called “political polyamory”.

    is this waht used to be caled te “fuck circuit” ???

    The Left Platform is showing itsef to be old wine in new bottles I think

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  10. Clare Solomon Avatar
    Clare Solomon

    Liam, thank you for your very kind review. We certainly had a few hairy moments throughout the evening but in the spirit of the event I think they smoothed out rather well, all things considering!

    Its a shame we didnt get to meet-i saw you on the paypal but then was so involved (and getting slightly pisseder by the minute) that i forgot to look for you. Did you make any contributions? Next time come say hello 🙂

    Andy, despite your request to me to provide you with some copy for Socialist Unity you are being publicly hostile-why is this? Also, I have to correct you on a few things.

    1) poetry is not a middle class thing. I think my sons’ mates who ‘spit’ and ‘slam’ (yes, these are the words on the streets these days!) would find your comment patronising. A sentiment that DJ Steaz, who spoke in the final session, would also share.

    You can read one of them at http://jointhemutiny.org/blog

    2) Mutiny was not, nor has ever been, a Left Platform initiative. A group of friends have mulled over this over a few pints of beer and it just developed, and at a time, in the summer, when there was not much else going on so we just went ahead with it. A few people who used to be in the Left Platform attended, and there were about 4 who were not in it. It’s a shame more SWP people didnt attend because extra political focus would have been welcomed.

    It was a great success albeit a bit short on analysis (mind you, as was repeatedly announced, the event was not intended as a lecture, with a strict line on things) so all in all we are happy with how things went and would hope that other comrades would appreciate it for what it is…

    Tried and tested formulae may not make mistakes, per se, but it is the new ones that we learn the most from.

    You are welcome to come to the next one: Democracy on Trial which will be just before the general election, we hope…

    Liam, thanks for your generous article. See you soon…C

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  11. Derek Wall Avatar
    Derek Wall

    Sorry not to make it, sounds a good event…..let me know about the next event

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  12. Derek Wall Avatar
    Derek Wall

    yes its democracy on trial….

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  13. Adamski Avatar
    Adamski

    Kollontai’s concern with various forms of oppression and women’s liberation translated into an overall commitment to revolutionary workers democracy. It is ashame that her brilliant pamphlet ‘The Workers Opposition’ written to combat the degeneration of the revolution and parties of revolution is little read today, a complement to her novels such as ‘Love of Worker Bees’ which show the difficult problems of transitional societies.

    There is the old truism that ‘culture is an important weapon in the struggle for socialism & socialism is an important weapon in the struggle for culture’

    On poetry, I was recently re-reading ‘Detroit – I do mind Dying’ a classic account of the Dodge Revolution Union Movement in the detroit car plants and right-on workplace activism. One of the things the union particularly stressed was the importance of cultural struggle as one of the leading activists put it ‘we took it for granted that sophisticated art goes with sophisticated politics’. the union had its own film-makers collective, published original poetry in its newspaper etc. Within the marxists associated with ‘The Race Today Collective’ in Britain we see the importance of figures like John La Rose who launched the Carribean Arts Movement and Linton Kwesi Johnson and so on.

    some of the greatest poets in world literature – pablo neruda, faiz, hikmet, mahmoud darwish, hell even dylan thomas (who referred to his poetic method as a form of dialectics) – alligned themselves with the small forces of marxism.

    in the 1930s, the communist party in britain had roots within the literary and artistic world. later on in the 50s after the notting hill riots, a west indian marxist named claudia jones helped launch a carnival to celebrate the culture of the carribean while simultaneously building bridges between communities. we had rock against racism a while back that gave youth an opportunity to rage against labour-party-capitalist-britain

    as james connolly once commented you can judge a revolutionary movement by its music and its songs.

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