Search

The Notting Hill Carnival

Marxism today august 1982 31 cecil gutzmore the notting hill carnival on the final weekend of august 1982 some hundreds of thousands of people will take part in the 16th annual notting hill carnival. Not a carnival atmosphere certainly if that is taken to mean solely one of 'jollity' and yet in so far as it is also of the essence of carnivals as occasions of mass cultural expression that they are pregnant with rebellion, the police had succeeded in deepening the reality of this particular carnival.

BONDAGE JUDGE SHAKES GISCARD

bidalou, 36, a leading activist in the left wing french judges' trade union, the syndicat de la magistrature (it really exists and has not been invented for the columns of marxism today), was suspended from the hayange (moselle) bench on 9 february last for declaring himself a 'punk' and appearing in court in unbecoming hairstyles and garb. Lord unemployed man who had defaulted on a denning and mr justice melford-stevenson bank loan, judge bidalou subpoenaed prime (who is itching to come out of retirement) will minister raymond barre on the grounds that emerge to continue their vigilant and famous unemployment was the ostensible cause of defence of the individual from state harassthe offence, and the prime minister was ment.

Italy the intractable crisis

nevertheless, the real difficulty of the trade unions, the basic relationship which should be established between the political obstacle which they have come up against in recent years, the obstacle leadership and the new forms of participation by the working class with which they are still confronted in developing their role as and the people which should be at the foundation of 'democratic autonomous bodies in the economy, is outside the trade unions, is programming', or whether it is considered from the more specific standpoint of the political forces which should, concretely, make up political. a 'democratic alternative' the unstable situation, the absence of leadership, the moral and political bankruptcy of the ruling classes could not have been more obvious or more serious, and it was in this situation that the italian communist party issued a proposal for a government that would include all the 'healthy' forces of the nation and exclude the christian democrat party (dc), the party that has governed italy without interruption since 1947 and, in the course of all those years, has built up a complex power system based on a very close relationship, and in many cases on confusion, with the state.

PHOTO-FEATURE SPECIAL FEATURE

as children, o ften exem plary “ g o o d ” and “ q u ie t” children, th e y have been cu t o ff from teamwork th eir pow ers o f relating to o th ers; because as adolescents th e y have been unable to a t th e heart of th e new schem e, in place o f th e static and clum sy m ental hospital m ake th e tran sitio n to th e stu p ify in g drudgery o f fa cto ry , office or house w ork; because as adults they have slow ly realised th a t th ey are unable to live up to their to be a flexible and accurate in stitu tio n — the therapeutic team. Officially described as “an interm ediary stage betw een hom e and hospital is w rong to lum p even laing and c ooper to g e th e r they share one basic principle: th at day hospital gives th e full range o f trea tm e n t during th e day, while th e p atien t hom e at nights.

Margaret Thatcher And Ruth Ellis

If femininity is opposed to violence according to one stereotype - women are not violent - thatcher presents a femininity which does not serve to neutralize violence but allows for its legimitation.39 it is a grotesque scenario - one which mimics that of ruth ellis in reverse where a woman who stands for a super-rationality writes violence into the law (or would do so), instead of being executed by it: In doing so, the case led to a redefinition of violence; the violence not only of the criminal, but also of the due processes of the law.23 the irony will be that margaret thatcher will return to the issue of capital punishment, calling up the collective memory of ruth ellis, as part of an attempt to put back in place the very terms which that earlier moment had put so definitively under threat.

The S.D.F, and the Boer War

And this failure was compounded by the federation's gigantic political errors (in particular its withdrawal from the labour representation committee) which reversed the centri¬ petal forces of the boer war agitation and isolated the social democratic federation from the mainstream of the british labour movement, thus depriving the movement even of the full benefit of its anti-imperialist instinct. but whatever the arguments over the rationale of its anti-war stand, the manifesto in practical terms had a heal thy effect on the social democratic federation, for it en¬ couraged it to increase the intensity of its anti-war campaign.

A. "The firms nobody owns"

These five points were (1) the highly unequal distribution of shareholding and the concentration in the hands of 20% of the shareholders, (2) the highly unequal distribution even among these twenty, and the size, on average, of the largest holding, (3) the family and other connections that can often be traced between many of the twenty largest shareholders "making them a coherent group," (4) the nature of the largest holders "which in many companies are themselves companies, (5) "the fact that many of the large shareholders are often directors; or if these shareholders are companies, that the directors of these shareholding companies are often directors of the company whose shares are held" (logic, pp. 193-4). (for example, directorships in provident mutual life and the royal exchange and equity and law are held by men who are, not only directors of the bank of england, but also directors of such large concerns as g.e.c., a.e.i., cadbury bros., and courtaulds; directors of lloyds bank are also directors of such insurance companies and building societies as london assurance, mutual assurance, sea insurance, abbey national, and such large firms as royal dutch shell group, vickers ltd., and english electric.

In Praise Of The Modern

In fact, i believe and hope that in the long 27 designing for change 'the present crisis has been brought about by modernism's inability both to adapt to changing needs and to learn from its mistakes' marxism today we see our work as a continuation of the modern movement, trying to expand its approach to meet constantly changing needs. the primary function of the city as a meeting place for people is being eroded by a wide variety of developments such as the invasion of the vehicle; the introduction of private activities into the public realm; the separation rather than the overlapping of working, living, playing and shopping; the positioning of buildings standing singly in space - more often than not a 'piazza' filled with cars; and the growth of cheap, dumb, commercial buildings standing in the public realm.

CLOSE UP ON Mick McGahey

60 september 1986 marxism today close up on mick mcgahey donald maclntyre ick mcgahey leaves the tuc general council this month having finally emerged as a focus for opposition, albeit still muted, to arthur scargill within the num. when peter heathfield was elected general secretary in february 1984, it was widely assumed that he would use the constitutional authority invested in the job to assert himself as a counterweight to scargill. it is unlikely that mcgahey will openly condemn scargill for his continuing emphasis on industrial confrontation and his bitter attacks on notts miners as spencerites before or after he steps down as vice president in july; though there are many within the num and the labour party who would like him to do so.

Everyday Offensive�notes on ideology

(and of course the women’s movement alone cannot do this, nor can the male-dominated left, or the labour movement do it alone, nor the militant forces of black people, but only a many-sided revolutionary socialist grouping or movement which preserves the autonomy of its various forces, and organises at all levels in terms of ideological struggle and the development of new social relationships-a new balance and unity of our needs through struggle, which means the needs of the oppressed being set in total opposition against the needs of the oppressors to hang on to their power and keep us divided, materially, by sex, race, age, occupation etc.) while struggling through louis althusser’s article on ‘ideology and the state’ i found myself thinking how much he was still blinded by being inside male supremist ideology— so that he, of all famous theoreticians, while writing away about ideology, simply couldn’t see the sexist aspects of capitalism and its ideology, because of his age, history and situation as a male intellectual. apart from these obvious ruling class ideologies, there are other false ideas adding to this tension, new ideologies which reflect the extent to which the trade unions are beginning to be integrated, by way of the leadership, into the state, and become a part of the capitalist economic plan—for instance, the worker doing his bit for the national interest, the possi­ bility of ‘honourable’ bargains between (male) workers and bosses, workers ‘participation’ in management, etc. so you have the fact of individual powerlessness and deprivation in the face of a repressive system, coupled with the dream of individual male power and ownership (material and sexual-the goods).

Labour's Lost Millions - viewpoint

we need not be surprised that public perception of our manifesto was unfavourable, because it was drawn from labour's programme 1982, which was explicitly prepared not as an instrument for persuading the public to elect a labour government but as a meticulous von schlieflen plan for the lifetime of the next labour government which everyone took for granted. The general election results demonstrate that labour supporters are distressingly willing to vote tactically where the alliance candidate may beat the tory, but there is not the slightest indication that alliance voters are prepared to vote tactically for a labour candidate.

THE ARTIST'S INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION

By coverage of the controversy in britain led october of that year an extraordinary to crude juxtaposition of the individual general meeting was called to discuss the freedom of artists against the soviet suspension of the political clause in the emphasis on the social responsibility of the aia's constitution, 'for an experimental artist to work in a widely accessible form. A peace exhibition was held later in the year but took place under the auspices of a new organisation, artists for peace, whose membership came almost entirely from the left of the aia.

Lucky Jim and the Labour Party

58  lucky jim and the labour party of course, there have been times in history when intellectuals have joined left parties for precisely these reasons, and have nevertheless become useful members of them, and have even succeeded in resolving their personal tensions in the service of a cause outside themselves. It would be entirely different both from the clinical or is noticeable that the most strenuous disapproval of ambitious motives of the professional politician, and lucky jim has come from the organs of the middle- from the economic motives of the ordinary man in the aged progressives, notably from that ageing prima street, who—if he joins in political activity at all— ballerina of the social revolution, the new statesman.

THE FRENCH PARADOX France after the election

After all, as chirac pointed out before the elections in an opportunist attempt to ostracise the neo-fascists, recent french history has been marked by the often bloody opposi- rather, the shift to the right is also the direct result of the ideological earthquake which has been shaking french politics since the mid 70s, lifting the 'taboos' of the post-resistance period, and which has enabled violent anti-communism and nationalistic attacks on 'alien elements' within the population (two key ingredients of the petainist national revolution) to  18 may 1986 marxism today disruption and corporate egotism, the 'new' socialist ethic has undoubtedly struck a chord of sympathy among management staff in industrial firms and young the rout of the left dynamic entrepreneurs in high-tech, and 'mitterrand must be credited with having transformed the socialist party from an thus widened the appeal of the socialist ideology-bound, partly marxist faction into party. Flanked by a vociferous ultra-right, hemmed in by the constitutional powers of a socialist president, and faced with a socialist party which, in obtaining 30.8% of the vote, has achieved its immediate objective of remaining by far the strongest party in france (hence the champagne - which many a disappointed left voter must have considered to be an untimely manifestation of party egoism), the prospects of a full and unproblematic implementation of the 'common programme' of the right have become dimmer.

Consuming in the face of hatred

This is still thriving, but the street now also boasts a continental-style gay cafe/bar, a gay restaurant, an all-night gay coffee shop, a gay hairdresser, a gay cab company, a gay tanning salon and two gay retailers, one stocking pornography and sex aids as well as mainstream gay fashions and books, the other carrying more upmarket designer gear. On he most basic level, stonewall could lead a tough campaign over the gay age of consent in 1994 because tens of thousands of lesbians and gay men up and down he country were prepared to write to heir mps and say 'i'm your constituent, i'm gay, and i want you to listen to me' - a resource denied to he handful of brave fighters who pioneered gay law reform in he 1950s and 1960s.

Russian political graphic art of 1905

But these conditions perpetuated the most politically-minded intelligentsia the modern world has known, so much so that even the aesthetic 1 2 quoted from the complete text which is included in the reminiscences of serov's daughter, recently published in the u.s.s.r. three hundred and eighty have been listed by the lenin library, moscow and fall into three main categories: those published with the support of established groups notably mir iskusstva and the peredvizhniki; student journals (mainly produced by the students of the st. petersburg academy of fine arts), and a third group which included magazines and illustrated supplements to newspapers published by the bolshevik and menshevik sections of the social democratic party. Newspaper drawing and social caricature came of age in relatively well-established periodicals as satirikon and novy satirikon which was matured still further by younger artists who in their turn responded to revolutionary attitudes during the years of the first world war when the renewed cultural activity of the social democrats reached a high level in the literary and art criticism of plekhanov and lunarcharsky.

Night Errantry: The Epistemology Of The Wandering Woman

Unsurprisingly, lombroso's attitudes towards the vagabond woman ranged freely, from pity (one must offer help to this diseased woman), to fear (the female offender was driven by strong chemical currents and capable of great evil under their influence), to disgust (with her heavy jaws and hairy moles, the female offender was physically repulsive), to fascination (note what peculiar things female offenders do). The neo-darwinian narrative of de-evolution, issuing in a legitimized imprisonment of wandering women, failed, then, not only because 'prostitution' as a way of life and a form of identity became impossibly diffuse, difficult of access and definition; but also because nineteenth-century social meliorism included in its attitude a new kind of political critique and sentimental narrative at odds with the cold, apolitical, pseudo-objectivity of lombroso, tarnowsky, and simonot.

The Wandering Jew as Thinker and Revolutionary

Yet, in a way, spinoza's god and ethics were still jewish, only that his was the jewish monotheism carried to its logic conclusion and the jewish universal god thought out to the end; and once he had been thought out to the end, he ceased to be jewish. Yet, i think that marx went to the very heart of the matter when he said that jewry had survived "not in spite of history but in history and through history," that it owed its survival to the distinctive role that the jews had played as agents of a money economy in environments which lived in a natural economy, that judaism was essentially a theological epitome of marketrelationships and the faith of the merchant; and that christian europe, as it developed from feudalism to capitalism, became jewish in a sense.

Anti-Social Youth in a Welfare State

The army took me across the continent to monterey, where the rockshore resists the sea in spectacle unknown in asbury park, and back again to my new jersey; then across the other sea to berlin, where i met the girl from boston who became my wife, and to worms-am-rhein, where we were married and our son was born; and back again to my new jersey, back to my college town, and here i am still: patrick raftery, master of arts, patrick raftery, book salesman and poet manqué. i see raftery in medias res, res, res—workaday raftery in march walks through the city daily . . . In a capitalist society catering for new groups of customers, the shops and the new teen-age magazines have created the image of the good-looking elegant teen-ager: no longer a difficult customer torn between the adult and the children’s departments, but a new force with a right to their own departments in the big stores, their own coca-cola bars and their own records.

The National and International Significance of the Adenauer policy

I s h a n d c o n t i n e n t a l cuisine q u i c k s e r v i c e p a r t i e s r e s t a u r a n t 12 n o on to o p e n 3 p.m. and 5 . Its members are international fascism doing organized youth work; with holiday camps (17 youth even people who deal with the problem of german neocamps in 1959); etc. in the above-mentioned publication mr. gnielka writes: fascism very thoroughly seldom realise that most of these “the number of radical fascist organizations, groups and movements are in a very well-organized network of fascist societies has become immense since the removal of the obligation groups in other countries as well.

PEOPLE AID A new politics sweeps the land

A popular initiative from the unions last year with liveaid el al could have raised large sums of money from within the unions, increased awareness amongst union members about third world issues, created the organised left has been almost totally absent from the whole movement new links between popular cultural figures and the unions, enhanced their public image, and enabled new forms of mobilisation and creativity within the unions themselves. When politics makes contact with this culture, it finds itself in touch with the cultural language which, for the majority of young people today (and for many not-so-young people, too), most authenti- run the world - or across your room sportaid, like liveaid, also built on a popular cultural form.

CHERNOBYL FALL OUT A Nuclear Cloud Over Britain

June 1986 marxism today 7 chernobyl fall out a nuclear cloud over britain chernobyl overnight has transformed the debate about nuclear power in britain. The flowers commission into the environmental consequences of nuclear power was a monumental milestone in the history of opposition to nuclear power in britain.

Consuming in the Face of Hatred: Lifestyle and the gay advance

This is still thriving, but the street now also boasts a continental-style gay cafe/bar, a gay restaurant, an all-night gay coffee shop, a gay hairdresser, a gay cab company, a gay tanning salon and two gay retailers, one stocking pornography and sex aids as well as mainstream gay fashions and books, the other carrying more upmarket designer gear. On he most basic level, stonewall could lead a tough campaign over the gay age of consent in 1994 because tens of thousands of lesbians and gay men up and down he country were prepared to write to heir mps and say 'i'm your constituent, i'm gay, and i want you to listen to me' - a resource denied to he handful of brave fighters who pioneered gay law reform in he 1950s and 1960s.

Tales Of The Lost Land: Palestinian Identity And The Formation Of Nationalist Consciousness

When life is sufficiently disrupted to throw the relevance of old categories into doubt, people are able to subordinate old oppositions to the need for new alliances.27 the radical transformations of traditional life brought about by the israeli occupation - massive expropriation of agricultural lands, militarization of vast areas, development of a migrant labour market to serve newly developed industrial and service sectors, intensive inculcation of western capitalist culture, full-scale political repression, and so on - have forced the majority of palestinians to recognize the inadequacy of old confessional, factional, and territorial divisions and to look for new ways of forging a strong national awareness out of the fragments.28 this is not to say that there is a united palestinian nationalist movement operative in historic palestine at the present time, but that the distinct borders within which national identity develops (borders drawn both territorially and by widespread recognition of membership in a group opposed to a common and clearly visible enemy) provide the necessary knowledge of who will be fighting against whom, and for what. Hence, in the palestinian instance, territoriality, a central focus of group identity, is qualified both historically (by using pre-1948 palestine as the territorial locus of palestinian identity) and semantically (by distinguishing in name between the two homelands - israel and palestine - which occupy the same geographical space) so that the identity palestinians (both in their diaspora and within historic palestine) derive from the land they claim is kept distinct from and antipathetic to that which the israelis derive from the land they occupy.

Arts

One can scarcely imagine a com bination m ore pro­ mising or m ore likely to captivate the left-wing theatre audience: the brilliant and tormented figure o f gramsci, set in the context o f one o f the m ost important high-points o f twentieth-century revolution­ ary thought and action, the occupation o f the engineering plants by the turin workers in 1920. 3 meeting o f workers representing the factory councils o f fiat meeting in the office o f giovanni agnelli (founder and chairman o f fiat.) sitting behind agnelli’s desk is giovanni parodi, workers, one o f the leading militants.