I am becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the terminology we currently use with debates about religion. The dichotomy of moderates vs. fundamentalists bothers me somewhat.

Let me try and explain…

If you follow a particular religion, then to me this means that you base all your ethical beliefs, your metaphysical beliefs, and your lifestyle on the teachings of a particular holy book. You have FAITH that this book represents the word and will of God, the Gods, or divine prophets.

So then, this book is the be all and end all. Because of your faith, or your “relationship with God” or whatever, then the writings of this book become the ultimate reference point, and the ultimate justification for everything you do and everything you believe.

So then, what is a fundamentalist? Apparently, it is someone who takes the writings of a holy book completely literally.

But hang on, rather than using the term fundamentalist, shouldn’t we just call these people “properly religious”. Given their faith in God, and their subsequent belief that the teachings of the holy book are true, then surely, these holy texts are not open to interpretation?

If you edit out or reinterpret bits of the Bible’s (for ease of example) teachings, to suit yourself, or the society in which you live, then that means you are not following your religion properly. You are not basing your beliefs/actions on the word/will of God.

So called “moderates” will say that the Bible was written thousands of years ago, and therefore, we can’t take literally everthing that is written in it, and so, we must provide a modern interpretation.

Sorry, but this doesn’t wash with me. ALL of the Bible was written that long ago, in a time of much more limited understanding, and therefore, by the reasoning of the moderate, it is ALL open for interpretation. So, can you pick and choose which bits of the Bible you want to believe, and still call yourself a Christian? Can you say, “I reckon the bit about the resurrection is probably true, but, Im not too sure about God giving Moses the Ten Commandments, thats a bit far-fetched to me. Modern science suggests that he was schizophrenic, or tripping balls of mushrooms.” and still say, “I am a Christian”? No.

The point is, religion has always been a reactionary force, which holds back progress. God DOES say, quite EXPLICITLY, that homosexuality is a sin. Genesis DOES spell out that women are subordinate to men. Abortion and contraception, if you follow the teachings of the Bible to their logical conclusions, are sins, as they interfere with Gods creation/plan or whatever.

Homosexuality was outlawed and frowned upon. Women were oppressed. This continued because of the strangle-hold of the Bible’s teachings on society. Its the same across the board with Islam:  Muslims have been up for a good ol’ Jihad since the middle ages, and all this “we can coexist with the kuffar”  is a very wishy washy interpretation of the Q’uran.

It is only through the struggles of women, and homosexuals, and rationally minded people, that society has become more tolerant, and understanding. Nowadays, you are an old-fashioned bigot if you think women should do what men say and shouldn’t control their own choices with regard to childbirth, or that homosexuals are bad. Therefore, people inclined to be religious, have to edit and reinterpret their holy text so that they can continue to worship comfortably in a more humane world.

So rather than fundamentalists and moderates, we should be talking about religious people, and slightly religious, or quasi-religious people.

Second, a lot of the people who we call fundamentalists don’t follow the teachings of their holy text literally at all. Take for example, the so-called, “fundamentalist Christian right”.

They believe in right wing economic policy; laissez faire capitalism.

They believe in hawkish foreign policy (holy war against the brown people etc.)

They believe in severe civil liberty restrictions through draconian law.

What what ol’ J.C. make of this?

Following Jesus’ teachings, economically we arrive at some form of collectivism, communes with all of Gods creation held in common. In an industrial society then this translates to some kind of anarchist communism as far as I can see. Yeah, you heard, yer rednecks, COMMUNISM!

Total pacifism. That means no holy wars….sorry guys.

Now what about outlawing abortion, gay marraige etc. Well, lets see. First of all we’ve got “let he without sin cast the first stone”. Human beings can’t go round punishing others unless they are completely pure of sin. The whole point of this is that all human beings are sinners. Thats why Jesus is our saviour for dying for all our eternal sins, so that through faith in Jesus, and a faith based effort to follow his teachings, you can get to heaven.

Next we have the all out pacifism, so physically apprehending people and sending them to jail shouldn’t be allowed.

Then, isn’t God supposed to be the only one who can judge us? Thats the whole point of this earthly life isn’t it? The exam to get into heaven. So, again, we shouldn’t punish sins directly in this life.

Just a few off the cuff thoughts. Tell me what you think…

It was good to see so many people (tens of thousands), of all different backgrounds, ages, races, etc. come together like that. That so many people bothered their arses to at least try and do something was quite heartwarming.

I got to see my mate Rob, who I met in last year at a Marxist conference. We mutually decided that there were certain things wrong with SWP, and vowed to go to Kenya for the WSF the following January, which we did. Rob’s an awesome guy; always funny and interesting to talk to. So that was a good thing about the day.

Bumped into Rosa, a hippyish girl I met in Kenya. She told me about some of the exciting direct actions she’d been involved in recently, which was cool, and we promised to stay in touch, with a view to going to G8 protests in Germany this summer. Her and her friends are also holding their own social forum, on their Uni campus in Brighton in May, so I’ll be going to that.

Now, what was negative about the day?

Basically, it highlighted for me how unchallenging the anti-war movement in Britain is. There is no threat from us at all. A march is fully organised, with pre-conceived police presence, barricades are put up round trafalgar square, with further police presence, and everyone funnels in for the closing rally.

Its like we are pretending to resist. 

People say, “yeah, but, peaceful protest can really make a change man, look at martin luther king.”

To suggest that today’s anti-war marches are anything on a par with what the civil rights movement did, is a complete insult to African-American history.

The thing is, they weren’t allowed to march the places they marched. They knew they were going to be beaten, hosed, jailed, and some of them killed. But they marched on, and on, until they could barely stand from being brutalised. Then they were thrown in jail. Yes, they were peaceful, i.e. they weren’t using violence, but they were consciously creating havoc and unrest, at their own very real sacrifice.

The protest at the weekend seemed more like this had happened. Some organising committee person of the stop the war coalition rang up Tony Blair and the following conversation ensued.

Stop the War: “Hi mister prime minister, erm, we’d like to “resist” some of your policies, hope you don’t mind, what date is good for you?” 

Blair: “No, no, shouldn’t be a problem. How’s the 24th of February. Ill tell the chief of police, and we will barricade the square, close the roads, and bring along some of the boys in blue to make sure there is no trouble”

Stop the War: “Oh good, good. Yes of course, we wouldn’t want to effectively challenge the state or anything, we just want to have a whinge, makes us feel better you see. Oh, and the SWP would like to recruit some more gullible first year students”

Blair: “Oh yes, its good to have a few faux-radicals in our universities, swallowing a dead ideology; makes us look tolerant, diverse and hip.”

Stop the War: “Exactly. Well, Mr. Prime Minsiter, I won’t be saying very nice things about you on the 24th, ’cos, Im totally against war you know, but its been nice speaking to you.”

Blair: “Ta ta.”

Im exaggerating, but you get the picture. The commitment people made on saturday, and the cliched speeches at the end were admirable, but there is absolutley no reason to believe that the government, or the population, will take the blindest bit of notice. The concept of peaceful protest marches, has, over the decades, become assimilated into the status quo. Nobody listens, and the government has no reason to be scared, because we don’t pose a concrete threat or danger to the powerful at all. It’s a mass whingeing session, without any means to constructively make change.

What to do?

hmmmmmmmmm

As I have already mentioned, the WSF occurs annually to provide an open platform for grassroots social movements from around the world. But this year, for some reason, something had gone wrong.

Being held in Kenya, one would have thought that one of the central issues would have been Kenya itself, and it was to an extent. However, the poorest of the poor in Kenya were being charged to get in!

Thousands of people live in slums on the outskirts of cities. Here, access to water is limited, there are no toilets, houses are terraces of rusting corrigated iron huts, and people are either unemployed, or, if managing to find work, or managing to trade in what they can make/get their hands on, they earn around 35,000 shillings a year, or around 300 pounds. 

Charging these people over 50 shilling to enter then, is absolutely obscene, and then on top of this, food prices on the stalls inside were way above normal (because the stadium was full of people from more economically developed countries than Kenya). Can you imagine only earning 35000 shillings a year, and being asked to pay 250 shillings for a half decent meal, when they only reason you are there is to discuss the causes of, and create solutions to your own poverty? It beggars belief. 

There is political organisation in the slums, they have a ”popular parlaiment” held everyday, which provides space for everybody to express their grievances, for advice to be given, for support for the youth, and to form links in the community to form organisations which can resist the situation forced upon them. This is all set up by the people themselves.

However, the sad thing was, that most slum residents were either unaware of the WSF, or couldn’t even afford to travel there, and certainly couldn’t afford to get in. How this situation came about, I don’t know. Whether the organising committee simply misjudged, or if corrupt government ministers had a hand in preventing anything too radical from occuring, or if businesses applied pressure, weaseling their way in to the forums’ organisation, or whatever other explanation, I have no idea.

On the second day, over one hundred slum residents protested on the streets outside the stadium. I was unaware of this, however heard reports. Then, on the third day, they took direct action. They stormed the gates, demanding free entry, and either out of fear or solidarity the guards let them in. I managed to meet many young slum residents. Most of them begged for my charity, and a couple of times I obliged, buying them food. (It would have been impossible to do that for everyone though). Their stories were all moving. They were predominantly charming, funny people, who managed to smile and joke despite their situation. Collections began, rounding up money so that the poor could buy food since the prices were obscene.

The next day however, things stepped up a notch. I came out from a meeting to find hundreds of kids in rags, running around the building chanting “WE WANT FOOD!” I asked strangers what was going on exactly, and this is what I was told by everyone there: The focus of the protest was obviously that they couldn’t afford the food prices inside the venue, but there was more. The Kenyan Internal Security Minister owned one of the restaurant stalls in the venue. He was selling better quality food at westerner prices. He is an ultra-rich hotelier, an old bosom buddy of the British colonial regime, and an extremely corrupt and violent official. He goes by the self-appointed nickname “the rattlesnake”. To give you a picture of the kind of person we are dealing with, the week prior to the forum, he ordered that thirteen people be killed in a police raid of a media center that had printed bad things about him in the press. When questioned on the news he replied, “If you rattle the snake, you’ll get bitten.”

The fact that his business was present within the grounds of the WSF may give us a clue as to why poor people had been excluded from the Forum. There is no justification for a super-rich capitalist come violent goverment minister having any kind of presence at this kind of event. A man who embodies everything about the world that the movements gathered there aim to change. Maybe he muscled his way in, and had influence in how the Forum was run. There is no evidence for this besides the presence of his business. I have no idea if thats what had happened, but the point remains, the poor were being financially excluded, Kenyan big business was there making a buck out of the event, in particular one owned by a violent government minister. So, plenty of reason to protest.

To add insult to injury it was later reported that, on his orders, poor people selling food and water at the event for cheap, who didnt have permits, were evicted from the venue!

A few dozen kids (average age, 16 to 18) gathered around his restaurant. He wasn’t present, but a couple of armed police were. They continued to chant “WE WANT FOOD!”, before barging their way in to the marquee and each grabbing a plate. The police drove them back with threatening and menacing swipes of their heavy, wooden batons. They regrouped and continued to chant, and appealed to several of the forum attendants, explaining in simple english how empty their stomachs were. A few ad hoc signs were made and waved around, and a guy with a video camera started filming.

He asked several people their thoughts on what was going on. One guy (a Ugandan) said he understood the reasons for protest, and supported the stuggles of the slum residents, but that this was not the place for chaos and unrest. They should organise and do this thing at government institutions etc. The protester stepped in next. His English was good. He talked briefly, but emphatically about the need to take action, and how slum residents were denied “basic rights” like food. Some irritating Americans started saying that it was wrong, that they were “just thieves”, and that “this kind of thing is not what the event is supposed to be about.” I gave my two cents in response, basically saying, quite excitedly, how affirmative action is a positive thing from poor and oppressed people. That self-determination was manifesting itself and that westerners had no right to complain, but should shut up and listen to the words of the slum kids themselves. “This is exactly what this is about!” I exclaimed, to the smiles of the Ugandan, and the cameraman. (By this time the Kenyan boy was back in the thick of it).

 The group continued to apply pressure all afternoon, until, eventually, they were all given free food.

These events affected me in numerous ways. First of all, it shows how resilient, and unified people can be, and that they can achieve results through collective action. Mostly though I was moved by the desperation and need that is present in the world today. To be face to face talking to people who have grown up in iron huts, without sanitation, without any chance of higher education, and with very few job prospects but constant hard toil, in the heat, for pittance, is a profound experience. As a middle class, educated, white British kid, I was given a snapshot of a different world; one of poverty and oppression.  

If anything, this has spurred me on to become more active. If those who live in free societies, who are not held back financially, can’t start to take on the powers that be (even if its just by spreading the word), then how can we expect the Kenyan slum kids to do the same thing. Well they are. I sometimes have a hard time looking in the mirror, and I guess this is why.

So, Ill be going on demonstrations, and I guess Ill be active as a student, getting groups together, writing and distributing material etc. But thats nothing compared to the brave fight I witnessed that day. This country needs a change of consciousness, and I’m starting with mine.

In these posts, I just felt like talking about my experiences there a little bit, some of the things I’ve learnt, and whatnot, y’know…

First, some interesting stuff about the Chavez government in Venezuela. I saw two Venezuelans, who work for a human rights group called Provea talking about their report, of which I have a CD-ROM, on “economic, social, and polical rights” in Venezuela since Chavez has been in power. The reports are very revealing. It commends the situation greatly on the “economic and social” front (I know these terms are a bit vague, but its how the report has it) which is obvious. Since Chavez, families who have lived in slums for generations have been given housing, landless peasants have felt the benefits of agrarian reform, hundreds of thousands of children are able to go to school for the first time, and healthcare has improved from zilch, to at least half-decent for the poor indiginous masses.

The detailed description of these things takes up most of the report and holds the Chavez government in a very good light, however they make note that with regards specifically to housing, health and education, Chavez has fallen short of his promises quite majorly in certain areas of the population. This is where things seem to get messy.

There has been continued dissidence amongst small sectors of the population, obviously the anarchist community (with whom one of the speakers organises), but more generally, just politically active people who haven’t had their lives improved that greatly by Chavez’s government. This dissidence is now being crushed by state force, often violently. Also, propaganda campaigns, and political spin are portraying anybody who doesn’t support Chavez as a so-called “imperialist”. Basically labelling people as supporters of the old US enforced economic model, and the constant threat (and implementation) US CIA and military intervention, if they don’t favour him. Odd since a lot of those people protesting are the ones who helped bring him to power.

The guys went on to talk about how Chavez is consolidating state and military power, and is attempting to dissolve the Communsit Party, to make one big party, broadening the base of his own power, and obviously weakening democracy. Sections of his party are now called “batallions”, and he has conjured fanatical support from large sections of the population. These measures, according to the human rights activists were in a sense “militarising” society as he called it. They are part of “batallions”. Any one against them is an “imperialist”. They will crush those who resist. (As well as state repression of protest, the civilian supporters of Chavez have often broken up protests about housing etc.)

State violence against resistance? Moving away from democracy? Consolidating state and military power?  Militarising society? Has all the hallmarks of a state commie tragedy to me.

Of course I don’t want to speak too soon. Positive things are still going on under Chavez; as well as further economic development for the poor, Chavez’s government is using its riches to act as a key player in creating genuine integration between South American countries. Something that hasn’t happened since the colonial invasions 500 years ago, and was most recently held at bay by the Washington Consensus. South America is moving towards economic independence, with help from Chavez and his petro-dollars.

You’ve just got to heed the warnings thats all. When Chavez speaks, he seems like a real nice guy, you just wanna cuddle him for being so courageous and honest in front of the UN etc. But, aspects of his rule with regards to civil liberties, and his current political agenda, point dangerously towards the creation of a dictatorship.

All the best to my Venezuelan comrades, out there reporting this stuff, making it known all over, and bravely taking to the streets when necessary. Its only possible to stave of another “socialist” tragedy, if the population remains vigilant and active, and doesn’t get sucked in to propagandised “batallions” to guarantee him election victory.

To the indigineous people of South America, you’re efforts and activities have inspired hope and generated genuine change. You put westerners to shame. But please, prove your commitment to democracy and don’t put too much trust in very rich men that you put in power!

Solidarity

Ste

p.s. please note that all the things I have heard about what Chavez is doing have come from the mouths of, based on reports by, Venezuelan human rights activists. Therefore, my opinions expressed here assume that their reports are true, whether or not you hear this kind of information in the mainstream press, or in lefty papers and circles. Maybe they were lying or perhaps exaggerating, but they stressed, if you really wanna see what its like, go to Venezuela. Cant argue with that.

Anyhow, something annoyed me yesterday, so I’m gonna tell you about it. Waiting for a train at southport station, I heard this announcement:

“Customers are reminded that putting your feet on the seats is offensive behaviour. As of the 5th of February anyone caught with their feet on the seats may be prosecuted” 

I laughed at first, but then began to tremble at the disastrous implications of this message. Its straight from the dictionary of totalitarianism;

1. The use of the passive voice; no one is reminding me, I just am reminded. Well, gee, thanks…who the fuck are you? 

2. “is offensive behaviour” So now one of society’s institutions is telling the country what is and isn’t offensive. Frankly, I’d much prefer a world where people can openly make their own minds up about what they find offensive, but obviously that would entail a society with far too much of a genuine commitment to civil liberty.

3. “may be prosecuted” WTF!? Since when was it a criminal offence to offend other members of the public. Now, there may be grey areas, but I really can’t see it as just that merely because an old lady might get a little bit rattled by the state of the youth today, that the young man across the seat from me, who’d obviously had a long day on a building site, or something similar (you could tell by his dirtied clothes and luminous jacket) was relaxing, possibly attempting to sleep, and had one of his feet up, could get prosecuted. Presumably the penalty being some kind of hefty fine. Forgive me if I think this is ridiculous.

 Now, personally, I like to put my feet up when tired on the train. I understand that this may dirty the seat, and so do my best to keep my shoes resting on the plastic in between the seats. Whether you think that is offensive is up to you, but I really hope that you’d agree that the state should NOT be able to prosecute me for this!

This all might seem a little petty, and yes, it is. Until we start thinking about the implications. Our society is becoming more and more comfortable with increasing state power. From proposed ID schemes, police taking DNA samples from speeding motorists, penalty fares, ASBOs, house arrests without charge for “terror suspects” (which apparently is Newspeak for innocent Algerian taxi drivers), and now, ridiculous laws which right now seem perverse but unenforcable.

But what of when they begin to enforce them? If we don’t wake up soon we will be locked in a situation where the government knows everything about us, right down to biometrics, we are constantly under surveillance (we are the most watched nation in the world, if you go out, you are likely to be on camera 18 times in an hour, or something obscene like that, and face recognition technology is about to kick in..), police are everywhere, enforcing petty laws which curtail our fundamental liberties, and you can be detained without charge.

And don’t give me that crap about how if you follow the rules, then you’ve got nothing to worry about. First, its the principle. No elite group should have that much power. Its just WAY too dangerous. Secondly, with the current state of affairs, there is plenty of reason why you might want to resist the government, even, start breaking the rules.

Think about it…

Funding for education and health is being slashed, living costs rise, minimum wage (relative to inflation) falls, the environment is literally on the brink of destruction, and our tax money is spent builidng weapons that can wipe out populations, and on launching criminal wars for oil.

And you wonder why they want more social control? Forgive me for being cynical but…ha!

Fuck me! 

Or at least help me start a revolution…Maybe I’ll start by writing to my MP, *sigh of futility*, nah, lets just go binge drinking…