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Moving on at the conference (by Alan Johnson)

My suggestion is as follows. People who opposed the war but with a proper sense of the other considerations, the ones that moved us left-liberal supporters of the war, should be willing to move on. All said and done, they didn't agree with what was done, but what was done removed a scourge and they will recognize that and look to what is now the best possible course forward for the people of Iraq. (Norman Geras, March 5 2004)

This was the month when the British labour movement decided to move on. Over the last six months a group of people from the Labour Party, trade unions, NGOs, the media and academia have been working with Abdullah Muhsin the UK representative of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions to encourage the labour movement and the left to move on to the task of building solidarity with the democratic forces in Iraq. The TUC has shown the way with fact-finding missions, money and now the launch of the 'TUC Aid Iraq Appeal'. A new group, Labour Friends of Iraq (LFIQ) has been set up - they can be contacted at Labour Friends of Iraq, PO Box 2421, Reading, RG1 8WY - and a website will be launched soon. Abdullah Muhsin has visited local Labour Party branches and Union conferences, has been warmly welcomed and received pledges of solidarity. Many British Trade Unions have made donations to the IFTU and sent fact-finding missions (RMT, FBU, Unison and others). This work made tremendous strides forward this month at the TUC and Labour Party conferences. At the TUC conference the following resolution was passed (extract):

Congress urges the General Council to maintain and strengthen contact with Iraqi trade unionists, in particular the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU), by:

i) initiating, together with affiliated trade unions, a solidarity committee to liaise with, and give practical support to, the trade union movement in Iraq, including the delivery of a structured education programme on the TUC model, and assistance with the provision of IT and other office equipment;

ii) facilitating visits and twinning arrangements between Iraqi and British trade unionists;

iii) ensuring that links are made between Iraqi women trade unionists and their British counterparts; and

iv) working with the ICFTU and the ILO to press for the maximum involvement of Iraqi trade unionists in the drafting of new labour laws which conform with the core Conventions of the ILO.

At the Labour Party conference, which ended today, the IFTU held a successful fringe meeting. Forces that had opposed and supported the war were united in moving on to the task of building solidarity with the democrats in Iraq. Harry Barnes MP, Abdullah Muhsin, Owen Tudor (TUC International Secretary), Keith Sonnet (Deputy General Secretary of Unison), Bill Rammell (Foreign Office Minister) and Rt Hon Ann Clwyd MP (Prime Minister's Special Envoy to Iraq on Human Rights) were all united in moving on to the agenda of supporting democracy in Iraq.

During the Iraq debate at conference the moving-on argument carried the day as these extracts show. (Each of these speakers opposed the war.)

Shahid Malik (Labour Party National Executive Committee):

Now is not the time to desert the people of Iraq... We must support the people of Iraq to bring democracy... And with us in this hall today is Abdullah Muhsin, an Iraqi trade unionist whom I am proud to call a friend. Abdullah has spoken at some events this week and he has been very clear about what the Iraqi Trade Union movement believes and how we can show solidarity. The Iraqi Trade Union movement pressed for UN Resolution 1546 and they want us to do everything in our power to support it. They believe that if we pull out too quickly we literally put their members lives in danger. To Abdullah I say, 'We salute you, we salute everything that you stand for, and we salute the Iraqi people in this time of need. We will not desert you.'

Clare Wilcox (Streatham CLP):

What matters now is helping to bring Iraq towards a lasting peace... And this resolution is clear about our role as Labour Party members in this. It highlights the work that is already going on in Iraq, as those who supported and those who opposed the war are united in helping to support emerging civil society. Led by the TUC, working with the IFTU inside Iraq, creating a federal, democratic pluralistic and unified Iraq, often at extreme risk to their personal safety... We may not agree on how we got to this moment in time but it is certain that from this moment in time we have to move forward together.

Harry Barnes MP:

I am here to support the progressive democratic forces in Iraq and to give full backing for people such as Abdullah Muhsin, the British representative of the IFTU and whom I am proud to be associated with and to be working with... Whether we supported or opposed the invasion... one thing is clear. We support a viable democratic peaceful Iraq. And who is it that struggles for that? The women in their organisations, the youth groups, community groups, national bodies in culture and bodies such as the IFTU... We can never force people to be free but we can help comrades on the ground struggle for rights, recognition and influence. The TUC has recognised this. Individual unions have recognised this... so let us help our brothers and sisters to achieve their dreams.

Yvonne Ritchie (GMB):

I opposed the war... However we cannot rewrite history... I do not want to leave the Iraqi people defenceless and vulnerable... The consequences of washing our hands of Iraq, if we could, would be heinous. I am an internationalist, a socialist and a trade unionist committed to a world where fairness, justice and freedom are a basic human right. Iraq has a trade union movement, the IFTU. Conference, we in this movement must stand in solidarity with the IFTU and will work with them to realise their dreams. They need our support. We should not walk away when the going gets tough... With elections due in January 2005, we must do everything we can to help the people build a democratic country.

The case for moving on now has wide and growing support in the Labour Party, trade unions, the media, academia and the blogosphere. We must keep up the momentum. (Alan Johnson, Executive Committee, Labour Friends of Iraq.)

'They haven't lived through Saddam'

At the Labour Party conference:

Labour's leadership has seen off calls for an early pull-out of troops from Iraq, winning a conference vote on the issue by a margin of four to one.
.....
The call for Mr Blair to set an early date for withdrawing the troops was defeated by 86% to 14%.

From one of the speeches:

[F]ormer Iraqi exile, Shanaz [Rashid], backed Mr Blair's handling of the war and called on Labour conference to support the British troops guarding "freedom" in Iraq.

"I beseech you to understand what it means to be free," she urged in an emotional address. "It is your soldiers, your sailors and your airmen who have laid down their lives, their humanity, to give us the freedom to give me my dream."

There's more on that speech here:

The woman who helped swing the vote at the Labour conference over pulling troops out of Iraq today accused party members of naivety about the situation in the country.

Shanaz Rashid – whose husband is a minister in the interim Iraqi government – was earlier given a standing ovation when she made an emotional appeal not to pull troops out.

Close to tears, she told party activists that many friends had perished under Saddam Hussein and she had kissed the ground with joy on arriving back at Baghdad after the war.
.....
"But for the great majority of Iraqis WMD was never the issue. We don't understand the criticism of your Prime Minister. All we wanted was to be free."

She added: "I appeal to you all... to help us build a new democratic federal Iraq that would respect the lives of human beings."

Asked later if she considered Labour members naive about the situation for Iraqis, she said: "Yes I do think so. They don't know the reality of their lives.

"They haven't lived through Saddam. They don't know what we've been through.

"It is not fair of them to ask the British Government to withdraw their forces before completing their mission.

"They are going to harm the Iraqi people more. They are going to cause more deaths.

"If they are concerned about the Iraqi children they should not be asking the British Government to leave them alone at the mercy of others."

Another delegate:

TA officer Ivor Morgan, who has served in Iraq, said he found it deeply offensive when Labour party members referred to [the] armed forces as "occupiers" when they were liberators.

What he said (as heard by me on the radio) was:

I have never served in an army of occupation, only an army of liberation.

Children of Baghdad

More than 40 people, most of them Iraqi children, have been killed as three car bombs exploded in western Baghdad. It was feared the toll would rise as 200 people were injured in the attacks.

"We have 41 dead - three men and one woman and the rest were children," said Naji Shitshan, the morgue director at Yarmouk Hospital. Three more people were later reported dead.
.....
Residents said a ceremony to open a new water and sewage plant was taking place when the attack occurred. The children had gathered to watch the ribbon-cutting.

Media bias over Iraq

Here's John Pilger's version of the problem:

Up to the fall of Baghdad, the misinformation and lies of Bush and Blair were channelled, amplified and legitimised by journalists, notably by the BBC, which defines its political coverage by the pronouncements, events and personalities of the "village" of Whitehall and Westminster. Andrew Gilligan broke this rule in his outstanding reporting from Baghdad and later his disclosure of Blair's most important deception. It is instructive that the most sustained attacks on him came from his fellow journalists.

In the crucial 18 months before Iraq was attacked, when Bush and Blair were secretly planning the invasion, famous, well-paid journalists became little more than channels, debriefers of the debriefers - what the French call fonctionnaires. The paramount role of real journalists is not to channel, but to challenge, not to fall silent, but to expose. There were honourable exceptions, notably Richard Norton-Taylor in the Guardian and the irrepressible Robert Fisk in the Independent. Two newspapers, the Mirror and the Independent, broke ranks. Apart from Gilligan and one or two others, broadcasters failed to reflect the public's own rising awareness of the truth. In commercial radio, a leading journalist who raised too many questions was instructed to "tone down the anti-war stuff because the advertisers won't like it".

The heroes of the episode: Gilligan, Fisk and Norton-Taylor. And the BBC? Bush and Blair's friend. Move on.

The necessary Iraq apology

It's that time: the one that comes round every few weeks, when people start talking (again) about the Blair apology. And he doesn't give it. He says:

I can apologise for the information that turned out to be wrong, but I can't... apologise for removing Saddam. The world is a better place with Saddam in prison, not in power.

Quite right. But they won't give over and nor will they ever. They say this:

For many of us who opposed the war on Iraq [sic], Blair's sort-of apology was not enough. He did go much further than he has ever done before in admitting mistakes, but to shrug and say: "Oh well, we're better off without Saddam" is just not good enough. He didn't apologise for the great blunder of going to war, not against the international terrorist network of al-Qaida, but against Bush's own personal demon of Saddam's Iraq - horrible, but not a threat to us.

Horrible but... just not good enough... not a threat to us. Nice. And they say things like this:

The terms in which he [Blair] did it [addressed the controversy over Iraq]... were as evasive and manipulative as ever, and as irresponsibly heedless of the current reality in Iraq. Time and again, Mr Blair falsified the terms of the debate. He said he could apologise for the information (about Iraq's weapons) that turned out to be wrong, 'but I can't sincerely apologise for removing Saddam'. So why was it that this country went to war?

That's from the same newspaper (The Independent) as believes that...

...Mr Straw [through the handshake] was not alone in having "inadvertently bolstered a vile regime"...

A vile regime - unlike Saddam Hussein's. I'll take those calling for an apology more seriously than I've been willing to up to now when they apologise for having supported a course that would have left that regime standing.

The Momma 'n' Daddy Collection 7

Knowing that some of you, o readers, are not out-and-out devotees of the genre, my educational efforts of more than a year on this site notwithstanding, I started out the present country music series by steering clear of anything too sentimental. I thought I'd err on the side of... astringent. However, now that we're up and really moving, I feel that you should be adequately prepared for something just a little more syrupy. Step back up Mr Ricky Skaggs, with 'Thanks Again':

I've sent bouquets for Mother's Day,
For Father's Day a shirt and a card.
While they came from the heart,
They all fell short of saying how special you both are.
It wasn't till I was up and gone,
Married with a couple of kids of my own,
Doing what mamas and daddies do,
That I realized what I must have put you through.
So thanks again for the love in the cradle,
And all of the changes that kept me dry.
And thanks again for the love at our table,
And tannin' my bottom when I told you a lie.
For takin' me fishin' and flyin' my kites,
And tuckin' me in, yes, night after night:
To my beautiful life-long friends,
Hey, Mom and Daddy, thanks again.

The thematic and musical climax, as you might say, comes later - with this line:

But most of all, Daddy, for marryin' Mom...

[Previous instalments: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.]

September 30 then

On this day in 1938, the Munich agreement was signed:

In the early morning hours... British and French prime ministers Neville Chamberlain and Edouard Daladier signed the Munich Pact with Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, thus giving Czechoslovakia away to German conquest. Daladier abhorred this appeasement of the Nazis, but Chamberlain was elated, and even stayed behind in Munich to sign a single-page document with Hitler that he believed assured the future of Anglo-German peace. Later that day, Chamberlain flew home to Britain, where he read the document before a jubilant crowd in London and praised the Munich Pact for bringing "peace in our time."

On the same day in 1928 Sir Alexander Fleming - Ayrshire-born - announced the discovery of penicillin.

On September 30 1955 James Dean - of East of Eden - was killed in a car accident.

An ugly incident

Gerald Kaufman reports on an ugly incident in which he was subject to anti-Semitic abuse:

At this point I was spotted by a pro-hunt demonstrator, a stout, middle-aged man dressed in checked tweeds. He rushed up to me and yelled: "You Jewish bigot!" He went on screaming this at me dozens of times; perhaps it was the only phrase he knew.

The commotion he made attracted other pro-hunt demonstrators, hundreds of them, who surrounded me, penning me in so closely that I was unable to move and could, to my repellence, see the pores in their faces, which were contorted with rage and hatred. All of them were howling at me, and a number took up the tweed-clad man's theme, offering such observations as: "You're an immigrant", and "You weren't born in this country".

I found their anti-semitism, though loathsome, ironically amusing, since I was - if I could get there - on my way to make a speech which would undoubtedly impel pro-Sharon Jewish chauvinists to accuse me of being a self-hating Jew and, as a lackey of the Board of Deputies of British Jews has recently put it, straying far from my Jewish roots.

Loathsome is right, as are some of the other epithets Kaufman applies in the same piece. All the same I find part of what he says here disturbing. Intended or not, there's a suggestion that his being a critic of the Sharon government makes him more of a 'good' Jew; or if not this exactly, then that it has some bearing on the character of his Jewishness or on what happened to him. But (a) it doesn't. And (b) that isn't how these prejudices and hatreds work.

Gay rights

Society Guardian today marks 40 years of campaigning for gay rights with a dozen people talking of their own experiences. Here's an excerpt from Allan Horsfall on the origins of the Campaign for Homosexual Equality:

We started under the name of the North-Western Homosexual Law Reform Committee because the Homosexual Law Reform Society was seen as purely London based, driven by the Hampstead set. The trendsetters may well have been in London, but the blokes overwhelmingly were not.

We happened to be located in Manchester, but it wouldn't have mattered if it had been Bristol or Newcastle; it just had to be somewhere away from London so people could see that we could push homosexual law reform forward in the provinces without the sky falling in.

I was working for the National Coal Board at that time, and living in a house that belonged to the coal board in the middle of Atherton, a mining village in the south Lancashire coal field. I got our committee notepaper printed with my address and we launched our first leaflet, 10,000 copies, and sent it to social workers, gay groups, and to the press of course.

The local paper ran a front page feature with a banner headline, and I thought all hell was going to break loose. Not a murmur. No letters opposing it, no hostility from neighbours, not much at work. I thought: "Well, this really can't be as controversial as people are trying to make out." So we put more leaflets out, inviting people to support us.

There's also a chronology here.

September 29 then

On this day in 1954:

New York Giants centerfielder Willie Mays made a running catch with his back to home plate on a 450-foot blast by Cleveland Indians batter Vic Wertz in the opening game of the World Series. It is widely considered to be the greatest catch ever made.

(See also here.)