"Books not bombs" has been
the rallying cry for tens of thousands
of students around the nation in recent
weeks. It is a sentiment difficult to
disagree with - one, in fact, that
was once endorsed by the CIA, which ran
an extensive covert cultural campaign
to win the Cold War by bombarding Europe
with, among other things, the Boston Symphony
Orchestra, Jackson Pollock paintings and
George Orwell novels.
Initially "Books not Bombs"
encapsulated the exuberant but largely
peaceful approach of student protests
against Australia's participation in war
on Iraq in particular, and war on Iraq
more generally. Last week, however, the
mission statement was sidetracked by violent
clashes with the police, causing second
thoughts among those sympathetic to the
students' cause about the worth of continuing
protests and whether those behind them
are necessarily the right activists to
entrust with managing the political
passions of youth.
The Books
not Bombs coalition, according to
Kylie Moon, who has been quoted in the
media as national co-ordinator, was formed
out of the March 5 student protests. But
I was at the Sydney protest that day and
it was clear the movement had already
harnessed considerable organisational
energy.
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It wasn't too hard to work out where
that was coming from. There was the young
man in the Riverview High uniform lugging
a megaphone with the word "Resistance"
scrawled on it, identifying it as the
property of the youth wing of the Democratic
Socialist Party. There were several
Resistance stalls, all which appeared
to be staffed by activists somewhat older
than 18 (and, in the case of a few, older
than 28 or 38). There was the slickness
of delivery of the most incendiary speakers,
which made me think they might have had
practice. And too many of those who appeared
to be in the inner organising group clustered
around the ute on which the PA system
is mounted were wearing Che
Guevara T-shirts.
Che Guevara? Let me fill in some biographical
detail. Though Che has been dead since
1967, executed at the ripe old revolutionary
age of 39 following his capture by the
CIA-supported Bolivian army, his cool
revolutionary visage, replete with beret
and wispy goatee, lives on. Che (given
name Ernesto, and how) was born into a
middle-class family in Argentina. He qualified
as a doctor before laying down the stethoscope
to take up the AK-47. Joining the exiled
Fidel Castro in Mexico City, he played
a pivotal role in the Cuban Revolution,
hanging around in Cuba until his itchy
trigger finger finally led him, in 1965,
to depart for central Africa before moving
on to Bolivia, where he met his fitting
end. Those that live by the gun die by
the gun.
Che is the poster boy of Resistance.
Which is ironic given this organisation
is now looking to pull in young recruits
on the basis of its anti-war credentials.
The Encyclopaedia
of Marxism notes that Che's main contribution
to revolutionary thought is his theory
of the primacy of military struggle. So
Che was no pacifist. But then neither
is Resistance. It simply prefers its killing
to be done in the cause - or at least
the name - of socialism and the workers.
And the United States does not fit the
bill.
The young, idealistic and impressionable
recruits being signed up at this protest
deserve to have a few things explained
to them. Like how the DSP, when it was
calling itself the Socialist Workers Party,
wasn't too peacenik to actively support
the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and
how the party managed to adopt such a
shame-faced position on the Chinese government's
massacre of pro-democracy students in
Tiananmen Square, and how the radical
left is largely deaf to human rights abuses
perpetrated in the name of
Marxist revolution.
While we're at it, let's also hear the
DSP explain why they insist on defending
Castro's Cuba as a socialist success story,
and how the party's devotion to the "popular
front" and the practice of "entryism"
worked itself out with the Nuclear
Disarmament Party and the Greens.
After I finished chatting with one DSP
recruiter about the Books not Bombs coalition,
and a second DSP comrade about Che and
militant politics and non-violent protest
(which he readily agreed has its place,
particularly today) I declined to buy
the newspaper of the Spartacist
League and headed out of Hyde Park.
There was one last table. "So who
are you guys?" I asked. They were
the Communist
League. "Are you in love with
Che too?" No, they didn't fetishize
Che like the DSP, they told me smugly.
But they did believe odd things about
the United Nations - a tool of the
United States,
apparently (no wonder the Americans are
irate). And then, of course, there was
Cuba. There are no political prisoners
in Castro's Cuba, the senior comrade told
me. Not now, not ever. We argued. Finally
I told him he should read a little more
broadly and walked on.
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But his conviction rattled me. He was
unwavering in his certainty. When I got
home I checked the Amnesty
International website. There are still
prisoners of conscience in Cuba. Then
I checked the Books not Bombs website,
and the Resistance website. The phone
numbers for coalition organisers in Adelaide,
Brisbane, Darwin, Hobart, Melbourne, Perth,
Sydney and Wollongong are the same as
those listed for Resistance. And Kylie
Moon also happens to be the national co-ordinator
of Resistance.
Writing in the latest issue of Green
Left Weekly (the official organ of
the Democratic Socialist Party), Moon
reports that Books not Bombs is now "a
large and powerful network of anti-war
activists across the country". She
reports that in Sydney, the BNB email
discussion list includes some 900 students
from 197 schools, TAFE colleges and universities.
"New activists are using the discussion
list to share ideas on how to do anti-war
campaigning in their school, deal with
school repression and take the next steps
for the anti-war campaign," Sydney
Resistance organiser Simon Butler is quoted
as saying.
So this is what I have to say to all
you students who marched for peace, and
especially to those of you more deeply involved.
It is for you that I have written this.
I want to applaud you. But I do not care
to salute you. The former, you will note,
is a civil act, the latter a militant
one. If you want militant look no further
than the array of radical groups keen
to sign you up at the next "student-organised"
protest march. I ask only that you treasure
the precious luxury of being able to think
for yourself, and trust you have the innate
sense to realise an independent mind does
not flourish by subjugating itself to
a party line.