Glasgow University's Cancel Culture

 More than 500 academics from around the world, including a Nobel prize winner, Royal Society fellows, and former and current presidents of major academic bodies, signed a petition delivered to Glasgow University this week to protest it of “capitulating” in two separate cases that have undermined academic research because of the lobbying activities of pro-Israel and Zionist supporters.

 A peer-reviewed paper by Jane Jackman in the university’s scholarly journal eSharp in 2017, which examined methods used by Israel to form public opinion and support from the UK Government and following complaints over the content of the article, the journal issued an apology and said it recognised the article had caused considerable offence and promoted an “unfounded antisemitic theory. ” The scholars who support the petition say that criticism of Israel and its supporters cannot be conflated with antisemitism.

The article was an examination of the mechanics of how Israel and its allies influence and inform public opinion with the aim of maintaining British Government support. Similar articles are published about other nations lobbying such as China and Russia, but they are not accused of anti-China or anti-Russia racism. But on Israel, it is considered antisemitic. 

Jane Jackman, who was then a scholar at Exeter University, published the paper, titled Advocating Occupation, examining the evolution and role of Israel lobby groups in the UK, in the immediate wake of a 2017 documentary aired by Al-Jazeera on the lobby’s interference in British politics.  Footage filmed by an undercover reporter showed an Israeli embassy official, Shai Masot, covertly colluding with Zionist groups to undermine senior UK politicians – especially the then head of the opposition Labour party, Jeremy Corbyn – who were seen as too critical of Israel’s oppression of Palestinians. Jackman concluded in her paper that “critics of Israeli policy expose themselves to the possibility, indeed the probability, of being smeared as anti-Semites”. 

 Initial complaints against Jackman’s paper shortly after it was published were dismissed by Glasgow University's administration but later pro-Israel blogger, David Collier,  accused Glasgow staff of  “heavy antisemitism” in clearing it for publication. He and fellow activists to wrote to Sir Anton Muscatelli, Glasgow’s principal, complaining that Jackman’s paper was “laden with conspiracy, antisemitism and errors”.  , He claimed it was a “poison spreading through our universities. With malignant cells in place such as Exeter, [London’s] SOAS and Warwick – it acts as a cancer – with new academics, freshly dosed with antisemitic ideology, leaving the nests to spread the sickness elsewhere.” 

In her article, Jane Jackman had identified Collier as particularly adept at characterising critics of Israel as “haters” and antisemites. Collier, she had noted, was a favourite of the Israeli embassy that had invited him the previous year to help train more than 100 representatives from British pro-Israel groups on advocacy tactics to counter those who sought to tarnish Israel’s image. 

Glasgow University authorities then reversed course and concluded  Jackman had promoted “an unfounded antisemitic theory regarding the State of Israel and its activity in the United Kingdom”. Glasgow University suggested that action had been taken against Jackman’s paper in accordance with the IHRA definition of antisemitism. It also implied that her research was an example of “hate speech”.

The signatories of the petition say it “extraordinary” that Glasgow University had had to apologise and then labelled the article's content as “hate speech”.

Noam Chomsky said: "The capitulation by the University of Glasgow is a serious blow to academic freedom that should not be allowed to stand.”

Separately, Glasgow University's politics department took the unprecedented step of demanding the right to vet a talk on Israeli and Palestinian politics. Somdeep Sen, a professor at Roskilde University in Denmark had invited Sen to speak on his new book, Decolonising Palestine, published by Cornell University Press. The university then insisted on new conditions – apparently after submitting to pressure from a Jewish student body to seek the Jewish students’ approval before agreeing to the talk going ahead. 

Sen was contacted by the department to say it had received “a message of concern from the University’s Jewish Society” about his forthcoming talk and that he would need to “provide information” on the main points and any slides he intended to use.According to the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (Brismes),  the information would be shared with the Jewish Society to assess whether it would have “negative repercussions” for Jewish students.  Brismes warned such acts would lead to “self-censorship on the part of individual scholars and students”.  

Taken from Jonathan Cook blog

Over 500 scholars launch fightback against Israel lobby (jonathan-cook.net)

Glasgow University accused of undermining academic freedom in 'antisemitic' ruling | The Scotsman

Be a Socialist

 

What is the nature of our civilisation? What is the controlling force which is guiding our destinies, and regulating our actions? What is the nature of the system? Is it operating for good or evil? could it be replaced by a better or a worse one?  Is our social system a success, or is it a failure? These are questions some of us ask ourselves. We pride ourselves in being called “civilised.”  We point at our great culture and grand works of art, our wonders of scientific achievement, our massive cities and communications, our complex technology as our glories of civilisation. It is our labour alone which supplies all human wants. The workers never cease toiling to satisfy the insatiable demands of the owning and employing class. It is the worker alone who carries on civilisation and keeps humanity going, too. 

What about the capitalist? What is his place in our social system? It is to extort another huge slice out of the worker, by buying his or her services as much beneath their true value as he can possibly procure them, and selling them as much above their worth as the circumstances will permit him to extort. The more extensive his trade, the greater will be his power over his employees.

Civilisation is successful so far as it is associated with harmony. Civil conflict, political intrigue, and internal strife of all kinds are its destruction. Mutual peace and prosperity mark its success. Which course are we now pursuing? Whether it be a theocracy, autocracy, constitutional monarchy, or bourgeois republic we find in all alike the one common political basis – the division of the people into the rulers and the ruled. The government may differ in form, but they are alike in fact; whatever they may be called, presidents are virtually kings, plutocracies are intensified aristocracies, elections are conquests by oligarchs. Whatever the form of government, they are all marked by this general characteristic – they all rest upon APPROPRIATION and EXPLOITATION. Slavery, in some form or other, is found to underlie the social structure. Those who have appropriated the world to which all are justly entitled, hold in slavery the millions whom they have expropriated and live upon the results of their toil. And the State holds guard with all the machinery of law, police to protect the idle proprietors’ extortion.

That the present social system has failed must be apparent to all. It has made the many subservient to the few; it has thwarted the best human endeavours, and facilitated every method of exploitation; it disinherits the great mass, and fore-ordains their lifelong misery before they are even born. It is an incentive to pillage and plunder.  It creates jealousy, hatred, and injustice. All political institutions are destructive and reactionary, self-seeking, dishonest, and tyrannical, and ever ready to dominate and oppress those over whom they exert authority; and not only does it corrupt those who rule it, but its evil effects extend to those whom they govern, for every extension of governmental function assists in decreasing and dwarfing the energies self-reliance of the people themselves and making them more helpless, cowardly, and servile than before.

 

No reform can end the evils which the capitalist machine has brought into being.  The existing evils of society are too gigantic to toy, tinker or tamper with. “Remedies” are no remedies at all.  The slavery and the robbery of the workers by rent, interest, profit must be abolished – abolished peacefully, expeditiously, and permanently. And to do so, we must start from where we now stand, and despite all the disadvantages which surround us, and with all the ignorance, all the bigotry, all the intolerance, and all the debasement and cowardice which characterise the down-trodden, we must side by side make our way along the path which so many have found slippery until we reach the long-cherished goal of labour’s emancipation.

But how can we do it? How can we get from the present unjust, destructive system, into one in which justice and happiness shall be the distinguishing characteristics? How shall we fight out of the present blood-thirsty system without the shedding of blood and without the disastrous reaction which has marked the bloody rebellions of the past? How shall we walk from bondage into liberty?  Slaves as we are, have to emancipate ourselves. It can be done. It must be done. 

 

Is it "our nation"?

 Land equals power. If you own land it gives you economic, social and often political muscle. And the more of it you own, the more potential power you have.

 According to Shona Glenn from the Scottish Land Commission, "At the moment the balance of power really sits with landowners and we need to shift that so that communities and society at large have much more of that power."

The BBC in a 2-part programme sets out to find out  'Who owns Scotland?'

One thing is sure, it is not its working people. 

There are 47,000 long term empty homes in Scotland - the number's doubled since 2005.  If you were to place all the vacant and derelict land in Scotland together in one space, the area would be twice the size of the city of Dundee. The most concentrated areas of dereliction are spread through west-central Scotland and down the Clyde coast.

 In Glasgow, the derelict properties seem to be spread out, spanning much of the city with no obvious pattern - until you add another layer. When you superimpose the areas of greatest deprivation onto the map, they sit almost precisely on top of the places where you find the most derelict land.

Tom Smith explained: "When you add that layer (to our map) there does seem to be a direct correlation between the vacant and derelict land in Glasgow and its deprived areas."

Private Ownership or Common Ownership

 

Private ownership divides society into two distinct classes. One is the class of employers, and the other is the class of wageworkers. The employers are the capitalist class, and the wageworkers are the working class. The capitalist class, through the ownership of most of the land and the tools of production — which are necessary for the production of food, clothing, shelter and fuel — hold the working class in almost total economic and industrial subjection, and thus live on the labour of the working class. While the working class, by their labour, produce today — as in the past — the wealth that sustains society, they lack economic and industrial security, suffer from overwork, enforced idleness, and their attendant miseries, all of which are due to the present capitalist form of society. The working class, in order to secure food, clothing, shelter and fuel, must sell their labour-power to the owning capitalist class — that is to say, they must work for the capitalist class. The working class do all the useful work of Society, they are the producers of all the wealth of the world, while the capitalist class are the exploiters who live on the wealth produced by the working class.

As the capitalists live off the product of the workers, the interest of the working people is diametrically opposed to the interest of the capitalists. The capitalist class — owning as they do, most of the land and the tools of production — employ the working class, buy their labour-power, and return to them in the form of wages, only part of the wealth they have produced. The rest of the wealth produced by the working class the capitalists keep; it constitutes their profit — i.e., rent, interest, and dividends.

Thus the working class produce their own wages as well as the profits of the capitalist class. In other words, the working class work a part only of each day to produce their wages, and the rest of the day to produce surplus (profits) for the owning capitalist class. The interest of the capitalist class is to get all the surplus (profits) possible out of the labour of the working class. The interest of the working class is to get the full product of their labour. Hence there is a struggle between these two classes. This struggle is called the “Class Struggle.” 

The crises of the world capitalist system are becoming more acute than ever before and are intensifying the suffering of the people. It is absurd that the social character and higher efficiency of the new technology in the means of production should bring about more unemployment and worsened working conditions. This is because the capitalist relations of production require that firms maximise their profits and win in the competition with rivals by increasing high-tech equipment and by cutting wages. We must understand the inherent laws of capitalism which lead to the chauvinist and racist notion that migrant workers are to blame for taking jobs away from the host people.

 

The aim of the Socialist Party is to overcome the capitalist class. The Socialist Party shows how the working class is exploited by the capitalist class; why capitalism must be overthrown and replaced by socialism, and how the working people must realise these goals. This theory provides the essential tools workers need to orient the struggle for their emancipation. The primary task of the Socialist Party is the political education of our fellow workers through our agitation and propaganda to explain the true nature of the system that oppresses workers, and the need for socialist revolution. Our task is to bring class consciousness to the working class. The Socialist Party will also use the forum presented through elections and parliaments to expose the true nature of these institutions. We will use them as a tribune to denounce the injustice of the existing social order and urge the workers on in their fight.

We are living under a system that is more and more revealed as the enemy of humanity. It has vast productive potential, but it means poverty and oppression for most people. It brings hunger to many of the working people of the world. Capitalism is responsible for the destruction of the environment. War and the armaments industry monopolise most of the world’s research and development, cynically profiting from destructive conflicts. The root cause of all this is capitalism’s guiding principle, the quest for profit, which takes precedence over any human interest.

We, socialists, organised in the World Socialist Movement declare that to the working class through the ballot box, will abolish the capitalist system of ownership with its accompanying class rule and oppression, and establish in its place socialism — an industrial democracy — wherein all the land and the tools of production shall be the common property of the whole people, to be operated by the whole people for the production of commodities for use and not for profit. We ask our fellow workers to organise with us to end the domination of private or state ownership — with its poverty-breeding system of production — and substitute in its place the socialist cooperative commonwealth in which every worker shall have the free exercise and full benefit of his or her faculties.

The Future We Want

 Environmental destruction is always a consequence of capitalism. The only sure cure for the climate crisis is the replacement of a society based on accumulation for a profit with one based on production for need. It is the mad drive of capitalists to accumulate capital that is now threatening the very thing on which human life depends - our planet’s health.

In the fierce commercial war where businesses compete with one another, the blind drive of capitalists to keep ahead of each other, the collateral damage is the environment’s eco-systems. People attending COP26 hope the 'great and good' will listen to reason and many wait patiently for the solutions. Many eco-activists trusts that capitalism can control carbon emissions but a socialist understanding of the economic system might help enlighten them a bit more. None of the solutions on offer will save the planet or stop climate catastrophes.

Climate change causes species extinction on a scale hitherto unknown and it is costing lives across the world. malaria, dengue, tick-borne diseases, zoonotic plagues related to Covid are spreading. Changes in climate are resulting in more numerous and intense hurricanes, droughts and floods inflicting increased suffering and misery. The huge devastation and death is being wreaked upon people around the world. The extreme weather is being caused by the capitalist system, largely by burning fossil fuels, which has made storms far more potent and powerful. Sea levels are on the rise, vast regions may be too hot for human habitation and millions of climate refugees can be expected to be on the move. Thus, for good reason, socialists often emphasise a “dystopian” future if capitalism is not replaced, rather than an emancipatory vision of the future that the socialist movement once espoused.

 Capitalism has simply proven incapable of stopping or limiting the detrimental impact of global warming. The engine of capitalism is profits, competition and the need for each business to grow and expand. “Accumulate, accumulate, that is Moses and the prophets” as Marx said. It is an inherent law of capitalism.

Capitalism is driven by its hunger for profits. Investment decisions are made on the basis of what will make the greatest return in the quickest time. Capitalism is based on the cheapest and fastest exploitation of labour and nature and the endless expansion of exchange value. The business-as-usual pursuit of profits and growth is destabilising life on earth and is no longer something we need to read about in scholarly journals. We witness the signs unfolding before our very eyes. 

Lifestyle changes and campaigns against consumerism miss the point. It is not about consuming less for most of us. It is about ensuring capitalism doesn’t consume the planet. The World Socialist Movement is trying to win over environmentalists to revolutionary change. Our civilisation is being sacrificed for the opportunity of a very small number of people to continue making enormous amounts of money. Our biosphere is being sacrificed so that rich people can live in opulence. It is the sufferings of the many, which pay for the luxuries of the few.

A global economy that requires constant expansion of markets and increased production, has to be transformed at its roots. We’ll have to develop an economic structure fundamentally different and more equitable than we have now. Until we start focusing on what needs to be done, rather than what is politically possible, there is no hope. Solutions within the system are implausible and so we should change the system itself.

Too often many green-minded activists advocate de-growth and austerity, rejecting technology rather than acknowledging society’s capacity for the abundance that could abolish poverty and offer freedom from drudgery and toil.

 The WSM hold that the potential of prosperity and abundance is the key to mobilising our fellow workers to the socialist cause, not depictions of compulsory rationing. Socialism means the goal is to transform the relations of production, to usher in new relations of consumption. We place the environmentalist shaming about overconsumption into perspective for the deprived slum-dwellers and poverty-stricken around the world where so many endure lives based on under-consumption.

 Nor is socialist abundance about the “abundance” of material goods and mere objects, but the relationships between work and the individual to acquire more free time for social interactions concentrating resources upon healthcare, childcare, and care for the elderly and infirm, making care a primary purpose of society.

We have not come to COP26 in Glasgow to beg world leaders to care. They have ignored us in the past and will ignore us yet again. They have run out of excuses, and we are running out of time. 

We have come here to let you know that change is coming, whether you like it or not. The real power belongs to working people. We cannot achieve a socialist zero-growth steady-state economy simply by citing the latest climate science statistic and hope that will be sufficient to awaken the need for change. The World  Socialist Movement needs to convince people of a more inspiring and positive future where the basic premise that our universal access to our basic needs (food, energy, housing, healthcare, companionship, leisure) can still be built by organising production integrated with our ecological knowledge.