When it comes to monarchism and its public dishunker down and wait for the storm to blow over - not an unreasonable response to the arrest and harassment of dozens that occurred during the recent royal wedding. But the state is only able to marginalise a movement that is small or weak. It is an argument to mobilise.
A better explanation for left abstention from the issue is the fear of taking on a losing battle. A majority in society see the monarchy as a positive and not a negative. Getting on the wrong side of this majority is seen as an obstacle to gaining support for more winnable struggles. The republican cause is seen as a distraction from more urgent tasks in the class struggle.
This is mistaken. It is a perspective that wrongly tends to reduce class struggle to the economic. Little is more important to the overwhelming majority than defending liv19 Execution of Kings Charles I in 1649 ing standards, welfare, education and pensions. But these struggles happen in a political context.
The fact that in recent elections no significant credible political alternative was presented considerably weakened the fight against the cuts. That absence helped feed into the majority viewpoint that cuts are necessary given the financial crisis. Creating mass confidence in the possibility of an alternative political strategy is a necessary precondition for a successful struggle against this austerity offensive.
The polls are important vehicles for building this alternative. Not because change can only be achieved through elections, but because - alongside strikes, demonstrations and other campaigns - they are an essential means of demonstrating that a socialist alternative is a reality and of organising that alternative. But the undemocratic voting system makes electoral interventions by minor parties very difficult. The fight for a more democratic electoral
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system is therefore part of, and not a distraction, from fighting austerity.
Other political struggles that directly relate to the "economic" issues are those for trade union and democratic rights. Without these, there is no possibility of defending the right to protest and to strike - both essential to the anti-cuts tool kit.
All this may seem some at some remove from the question of the monarchy. But, as should now be apparent, there are political aspects to even the most basic "bread and butter" demands. Without political battles of various types there is no possibility of that "economic" struggle succeeding.
The very notion of an artificial separation is a non-starter. A rounded-out strategy is needed, focussing clearly on the priority goals, but linking in to a range of others.
Week in, week out, those with power in our society conduct a "battle of hearts and minds", undermining confidence in the possibility of any political alternative and to peddling myths about capitalism. This ideological struggle takes place on many levels, some less explicit than others. There is a cultural field - from blockbuster Hollywood movies fostering illusions in society being based on freedom and justice to TV game shows promoting the idea that anyone can succeed. There is the management of news media, education and advertising. And there are the ways in which the machinery of the state operates - for example the courts and parliament.
The monarchy is one such institution playing a powerful ideological role. It provides a succession of heads of state based on the descendants of the current queen, on into the infinite future; heads of state that the people have no right to choose or veto.
A citizenship that acquiesces to this - however symbolic the monarch's role - is fundamentally compromising on its basic democratic rights and is educated in the process to accept unaccountable rule in many other ways. For instance the "right" of public and private agencies to make decisions about our lives, often to our detriment; and of private companies to control the creation, expropriation and distribution of resources and services.
tions. Getting on the wrong side of this majority is seen as an obstacle to gaining support for more winnable struggles. The republican cause is seen as a distraction from more urgent tasks in the class struggle.
are by-products of this.
However, the monarchy's role is not purely symbolic. The queen has "residual powers" - including appointing the prime minister. On her behalf the government of the day also has prerogative powers - for instance to wage war without any democratic endorsement or to call elecIt may be debatable how much substantial power is wielded in practice. But it underlines the possibility, the threat, that democracy is only on temporary loan to the people and it can always be taken away. That is precisely what did happen with the sacking of Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam in 1974 by the Queen's representative, the Governor General, when Whitlam challenged US and British security interests.
This has a pernicious impact, suffocating democratic impulses, encouraging a loss of political independence and self-confidence among working class communities. This leads to political self-limitation or disengagement. And it helps support a false notion that the state is a "neutral" body that is somehow above the people rather than accountable to it. The monarchy is steeped in militarist traditions - with a close association to imperialist wars and the regiments that fight them. The ability of the ruling class to fight foreign wars (as has happened almost without interruption over the last decade) is considerably assisted by the ideological influence of the monarchy and its trappings. The monarchy is also used to whip up nationalism. When people said that the recent royal wedding "brought the nation together", they were wittingly or unwittingly feeding into the ConDem narrative that "we are all in this together."
The monarchy's web extends into many corners of society as the centrepiece of a system of reactionary and elitist institutions that help prop up the capitalist state. They include the House of Lords, the lack of a written constitution, the influence of the public schools etc. The antidemocratic aspects of the electoral system and parliament The royal family also promotes values associated with the bourgeois family: marriage, heterosexuality and moRepublicanism isn't an optional extra nogamy - irrespective of its own failure to live up to these ideals. This is enshrined in statute with the sexist principle that the male first born is always first in line to the throne. And the monarch also embodies the connection between church and state as head of the Church of England.
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Catholics and those married to Catholics are barred from the throne. Dating back 300 years, this sectarianism contradicts the state's claim of disinterested engagement in "reconciling the communities" in the North of Ireland. It stems directly from a history of subjugating and colonising Ireland and inter-imperial rivalry with France and Spain in earlier centuries.
All this has been very much on show in recent months. The royal wedding was presented by the media as an image of the monarchy of the future - a modernised and informal, "Cool Britannia" waiving the rules. But it was difficult to recognise the realty from this hype.
The multi-million pound pageant - staged at a time when hundreds of thousands are receiving redundancy notices and many more are worried sick about the future - was a distraction from the grim daily reality of austerity. Beamed across the globe, the soap-opera glamour was counter-posed to the idea of a hot summer of protest following the half million strong TUC anti-cuts demo in March.
Half a million also thronged to the wedding, but the Royal carriages had to be protected from them by lines of machine gun carrying police officers. There was a kiss on the Buck Palace balcony, but then Tornado and Typhoon jets flew over, presumably on their way to bomb Libya.
Elizabeth Windsor's visit to Ireland was similarly laden with ideological baggage. She came, in the wake of a multi-billion bailout by Britain, to a society crashed by finance capitalism; subject to savage assaults on jobs, wages and welfare; where mass emigration is rapidly becoming the norm once again. Whatever spin and interpretation is put on her mute non-apology for hundreds of years of British imperialism, the underlying choreography was not in doubt. Not a meeting of equals, but an attempt to wipe from the slate the hundred year interregnum kick-started by James Connolly and others in Easter 1916. Do not adjust your set, normal transmission will be resumed. Forget the unresolved national question. All this is a dress rehearsal for 2012 when the Queen's Diamond Jubilee will celebrate a longer reign than probably any other head of state on the planet. Over the next year there will be a battle. One of economic perspectives, for and against cuts, based on who should pay for the catastrophic follies of capitalism. But also an ideological battle of what sort of society we should look for.
The ability of working class communities, students and the labour movement to resist the ConDem government's cuts offensive is directly related to progress in this second political struggle. Whether monarchist triumphalism is allowed to proceed unchallenged will be a part of that.
This isn't to suggest that the Coalition of Resistance and anti-cuts organisations should define themselves as antimonarchy. But the labour movement and the left have to take up the issue, help to spread the republican word and back actions; create a visible opposition to such entrenched elitism; and encourage a vision of a more democratic and egalitarian future. It's no good waiting around for Charles to move on from organic farming to micro self-reform.
The republican agenda should be linked to a range of connected radical democratic demands, designed to drag this country into a 21st century based on democracy, internationalism, peace and equality - the opposite of everything the monarchy stands for. That means proportional representation and voting at 16; abolition of the House of Lords; ending the anti-trade union and anti-terror laws; self-determination for Ireland, Scotland and Wales; getting rid of nuclear weapons; slashing the defence budget; and withdrawal from Nato and the UN Security Council. See http://socialistresistance.org/2091/monarchy-in-theuk-the-string-that-ties-the-robbers-bundle for more
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Britain, email [email protected] Youth Summer Camp
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Victory to the Libyan revolution: No to Imperialist intervention: Arm the resistance Dave Packer Socialist Resistance has expressed its unconditional solidarity with the revolutionary peoples of Tunisia, Syria, Libya and across the region since the beginning of their uprisings against the brutal pro-imperialist dictatorships and we continue to do so. We do this despite the limited democratic character of all these revolutions in their We recognise that the Libyan revolution is part of the broader movement for democracy, social justice and real national liberation, that we have seen erupt elsewhere, referred to as the 'Arab Spring. At the same time as building solidarity with these revolutions, we have opposed any intervention by the imperialist powers in the region, including opposing the 'so called' NATO/UN "No Fly Zone' in Libya.
The intervention into Libya, ostensibly in support of the democratic revolution there, is in reality an attempt to manage and take control of the unfolding revolutionary process in the interests of 'oil imperialism' and in defence of private property. Behind imperialism's planes stand the oil cartels, the big banks and the IMF. Ultimately the aim is to broker a cease-fire and settlement between the democratic forces and the old regime - without Gadaffi. The statements from the Fourth International of March 3 (http:// socialistresistance. org/1643/) and 23 (http:// internationalviewpoint.org/spip. php?article2044) in solidarity with the people of Libya, which we support, also The escalating imperialist intervention into Libya has changed the dynamics of revolution, and has caused much confusion Whilst opposition to the UN/ NATO intervention is a widely held view, full or 'unconditional' support for the rebellion (the position of Socialist Resistance) is not. There are even sections of the left who support Gadaffi and want to see the rebellion defeated.
Many on the left profess support for the Libyan revolution but are not prepared to call for them to be armed or even oppose this. In fact to deny them arms is precisely to push them into the arms of NATO. The most important source for such arms (although the rebellion has the right to get them from where it can) should be the other revolutionary Arab countries, Egypt and Tunisia in particular.
After Gaddafi's brutal counterrevolutionary assault against the democratic revolution, we recognised the real possibility of massacre in Benghazi, Ajdabiya and Misrata, and therefore supported the right of those under extreme threat to call for aid, including military assistance - but not from imperialism but from the neighbouring revolutionary Arab states, especially Tunisia and Egypt.
We believe that calling for and continuing to support the UN so-called No-Fly zone (UNSC resolution 1973) was a wrong response by Transitional National Council (TNC) and will prove to be a dagger aimed at the heart of the revolution. The neighbouring countries are the best placed to give aid and arms, including offering volunteer revolutionary brigades to assist the revolution, but the silence of their governments has been deafening. The explanation is that the interim regimes in Tunisia and Egypt have not broken from Today, Cameron's deployment of attack helicopters is just one more escalation of the imperialist intervention, an intervention that from the beginning has gone beyond the UN resolution and now threatens, if Gaddafi does not go, to escalate the blitzkrieg into a full-scale ground war. Fortunately, a threat to deploy ground forces has been greatly weakened by divisions in the imperialist camp. We demand the immediate cessation of the bombing and an end to imperialist intervention. Rather we call for arming the revolution from whatever source, but without any conditions or strings attached. Only the armed people can beat Gaddafi's war machine and at the same time defend the revolution against imperialist plans for Libya. However, in our view the unfolding revolutionary process must at all costs remain independent from imperialism.
France, Britain or the USA, do not intend to arm the revolution, or allow it independence. They continue to support the UN arms embargo imposed on both sides of the conflict. They do not want an outright victory for the revolution, but after Gaddafi has been driven out, they plan a brokered compromise that will defend imperialism's oil interests and capitalist property. Such a solution will fail to meet the demands of the revolution, in particular true self-determination and social Worse, the already compromised interim regimes in Tunisia and Egypt that resulted from the democratic mass movements there, continue to manoeuvre to defend the essential capitalist interests of the old regimes and frustrate the demands of the masses, and have little interest in