Vermischtes aus der Linken

Kasama hat auf seinem Blog einen Auszug aus einem The Communist Hypothesis betitelten Text von Alain Badiou zur Frage eines aktualisierten kommunistischen Projektes veröffentlicht, welcher geradezu zur Diskussion einlädt:

“In many respects we are closer today to the questions of the 19th century than to the revolutionary history of the 20th. A wide variety of 19th-century phenomena are reappearing: vast zones of poverty, widening inequalities, politics dissolved into the `service of wealth’, the nihilism of large sections of the young, the servility of much of the intelligentsia; the cramped, besieged experimentalism of a few groups seeking ways to express the communist hypothesis . . . Which is no doubt why, as in the 19th century, it is not the victory of the hypothesis which is at stake today, but the conditions of its existence. This is our task, during the reactionary interlude that now prevails: through the combination of thought processes—always global, or universal, in character—and political experience, always local or singular, yet transmissible, to renew the existence of the communist hypothesis, in our consciousness and on the ground.”

Die neue Arbeiternews (pdf-Datei) des Komitee der Solidarität mit den iranischen ArbeiterInnen – Hamburg ist erschienen; u.a. mit Interviews mit Mahmoud Salehi und Parwaneh Osanlou und einem Bericht zum Haft-Tapeh-Streik:

Mahmoud Salehi: “Wir haben in unserem Land 22 Millionen Arbeiter. Das Haus der Arbeit [staatsoffizielle Pseudo-Gewerkschaft im Iran] hat 2.000.000 Mitglieder, was passiert mit den anderen 20.000.000 ? Die Arbeiterklasse kennt das Haus der Arbeit, und das Haus der Arbeit selbst weiss, dass es unfähig ist, sogar einen 1. Mai zu organisieren. Das Haus der Arbeit ist der Auffassung, es kann im Parlament viele von den Rechten der Arbeiter zurückgewinnen. Aber diese Ausrede ist ein Traum und betrügerisch. Auch wenn die Arbeiter 200 Vertreter im Parlament haben, können sie ihre Rechte nicht bekommen. Weil das gesamte System kapitalistisch ist.”

Aus der Reihe “Demo-Parolen die wir nie wieder hören wollen”, ein Auszug aus einem Bericht von der Demo zum kürzlichen Bush-Besuch in London:

“Slogans chanted by comrades in the SWP were not only politically vacant, but many were downright ridiculous and in one case homophobic. To hear Socialist Workers’ Party activists chant “we pay your wages; let us pass” was bad enough; as if socialists call on the police to do our bidding because the state gives them tax money. Another classic megaphone moment came when an SWP activist exclaimed “the Allies didn’t fight against the Nazis in World War Two, just to have Fascist, Nazi, Gestapo SS police officers here!” which is ridiculous on two counts. Firstly, why are the governments of the Allied nations to be praised? Secondly, the police, bad on many counts, are not Nazis, or fascists, or part of the Gestapo or the SS.

But the worst of it was when an activist was heard to bellow hysterically through a megaphone the demand, “Stop sucking each others’ cocks, batty-men”. This sort of behaviour is shocking, but not entirely unsurprising. A coalition based on nothing more than opposition to the actions of one state over another and without any real political underpinning (i.e. working-class solidarity) is bound to result in every man and his dog bringing all their prejudices to the party. To be fair to the activist in question she did apologise, only to then defend her actions by asserting that the police themselves were homophobic!”