Search

IS THIS THE TIME?

But the cp, day in and day out, talks of nothing but unity! from thorez (7) sfio — initials of french socialist party, means 'french section of the 91  is this the time down to the local party member, every hand is stretched out to guy mollet, daniel mayer, and lacoste. On the one hand, the government headed by the socialist leader, guy mollet, capped its record of repression in algeria by initiating the suez adventure; on the other, the french communist party upheld its reputation as the most 'stalinist' cp in western europe by its uncompromising endorsement of the soviet intervention in hungary.

The art of life

manliness' the late eighteenth century gave form to the political, social and cultural contours of european modernity: the cultural differences of femininity and masculinity; the emergence of empires and the racialising of european cultures; the conflict between reason and feelings, commerce and sensibility; the divide between the public and private spheres of social life; the creation of the modern self and its other as a defining category of social life. Norbert elias has 76  the art of life described the changes in the customs of the roman upper classes and howsubsequent legislation altered the balance of power between men and women in women's favour.2 it was this weakening of private patriarchal authority and the changing relationship between the family household and the public sphere of the state which encouraged a philosophy of care of the self.

The limits of inclusion

All developed democracies have imposed limits on immigration at one time or another, but this has usually been done, so to speak, with a bad conscience.3 liberal political philosophy maintains the appearance of coherence at the level of theory through the strategy of concealment: the vast majority of works in liberal theory do not address the question of national belonging and political membership, and only remain plausible on the assumption that the question has been answered in a way that satisfies liberal principles - but this assumption remains highly questionable.4 if the question of membership is made explicit, it becomes clear that there is an irresolvable contradiction between liberal theory's apparent universalism and its concealed particularism. But we should expect a theory of the good citizen to be relatively independent of the legal question of what it is to be a citizen, just as a theory of the good person is distinct from the metaphysical (or legal) question of what it is to be a person.5 if kymlicka and norman are correct, political philosophers can proceed with constructing theories of good citizenship based upon participation, and, with a clear conscience, leave the question of citizenship-as-legal-status for the lawyers 5.

Reimagining the inhuman city

processes which he conceived of this as a right to direct and internalise the shape the character and direction of the city spacial inequality of through forms of participation and appropriation cities' which are distinct from, and transcend, the right to property and the right merely to visit the city.9 expelled from the centrality of the city by the omnipresent walls of property and the enclosure of public spaces, and also expelled intellectually and symbolically from the representations of the city which pervade and structure official decision-making processes, marginalised groups find their ability to form this 'meandering cry and demand' crushed. the argument of gramsci, that advanced capitalist societies depend for their legitimacy on the 'spontaneous consent given by the great masses of the population to the general direction imposed on social life by the dominant fundamental group' can inform our ways of thinking about how social/political movements can challenge and reshape this direction.3 dominant groups elicit this 'spontaneous consent' by constructing hegemonic power relations which, through a complex interlocking of political, social and cultural forces, diffuse their own lived system of meanings and values throughout the whole of social life.

Mozambique - under new management

in mozambique, control of land and the economy is passing to international businesses, while control of government policy and services has been taken by a consortium of private companies, non-government organisations, foreign governments, and international agencies. A particular trick was to 188  mozambique - under new management give well paid consultancies in which government staff did work for an ngo but on government tune and using government resources.

Beyond the Community Romance

The attempt to counter this effect by using 'community relations' as a euphemism for 'race relations' only underlines the strategy of exclusion which is practised in its t 33  or is it something intrinsic to the term itself? community as soap opera my argument is that the popularity of community as an item of public speech derives from the fact that it provides a space of representation in which social contradictions and conflicts of every kind can be publicly played out, yet within a framework To identify these 'special cases' it then becomes necessary to interject a specialised descriptor - the black community, the bangladeshi community, the gay community, the deaf community, and so on.

Kings Of The Road

what this tells us is not that women are at meadow well - the poll tax capping of north tyne- nicer than men, but that men and women side council was by any standard puni- inhabit gendered traditions which they tive, and it has laid to waste much of the themselves reproduce: the beleaguered welfare infrastructure on estates all ambition to live in a community is susaround. (beatrix campbell, politics, pyra- mids and people) 'the police presented a passive, pessimistic front to community organisations, largely sustained by women, but what they did actively respond to was the hunt' mar i98j: gorbachev is elected general secretary of the cpsu.

Out Of The Ashes

you may say that all this is an argument not for socialism but for a humanised mixed economy, ranging from the social market (which is capitalism with a bit of social christian input) to socialdemocratic states like the scandinavian ones and austria, which is capitalism with rather more of a socialist input. i f the communist idea of socialism was determined by the imperative of backward countries to get economic growth as quickly as possible, whatever the cost, the social-democratic policies were to be dominated by another special historical situation, namely the great interwar slump, the crisis of capitalism; to be more precise, by mass unemployment.

Clinging To The Wreckage

hall in 'the cultural logic of capital' (new left review, 146, july/aug 1984), where you characterise what is now called post-modern culture, you assume a direct correspondence between capitalism and culture: 'bourgeois culture corresponded to the era of organised capitalism - what lenin called "imperialism".' how do you manage to go on thinking new situations in a fruitful and novel way, while the underlying logic of your argument remains grounded in exactly the texts that were used to tell such a different story - the revolutionary nature of capitalism, its dialectical quality in producing its own negation, the proletariat, in the communist manifesto and the grundrissel j a m e s o

A Member No More

where, asked ayisha, a young muslim school assistant in bradford, was this zeal when, a few weeks after the death threat to rushdie, her young daughter was shut inside a dustbin with a savage dog by some teenagers yelling 'bloody muslim'? Experience the rushdie affair has changed yasmin alibhai's life a member no more three profoundly important things have happened in my life these past months.

The End Of History?

For the purposes of this argument, however, what matters is not what hegel, or indeed kojeve actually thought, but what fukuyama derives from them, namely: (a) idealism, in the philosophical sense: events in the realm of consciousness determine those in the material world, rather than the other way round; (b) 'history' is driven by contradictions between 'large, unifying world views'; (c) 'mankind's ideological evolution ended in the ideals of the french or american revolutions' aka 'liberalism', • gareth stedman jones w stedman jones: 'the present global triumph of liberal capitalism says more about the exhaustion of the historical alternatives than the intrinsic strength of liberal capitalism itself' hat is curious about francis fukuyama's picture of 'the end of history' is that a position currently being attributed by journalists to 'the right' should have derived from a reading of hegel which is generally regarded as radical and proto-marxian.

Back To The Future

The old idea of progress was founded upon the belief that the state had 17 'when i imagine the new ideal of progress i see an agitated metronome clicking erratically backwards and forwards' marxism today a special power to promote and cohere change. 'the decade of thatcherism marks the demise of an old ideal of progress' the focal point for politics in the period lasting from the 1930s to the 1970s was an ideal of progress which was to some extent shared by left and right, business and unions.

Bones In The Corset

It is by now a fairly orthodox view on the british left that the most creative, innovative political thinking for the last 20 years has come from the various strands of the women's movement 'we're not saying we agree with them, mind' - or the whole area called 'sexual politics' that includes feminism, gay and lesbian politics. '1 a politics of identity based on 'critical awareness' could start tracking down those 'traces', try making an 'inventory' of personal history, because it recognises that political activists, like everyone else, are determined by circumstances outside their control, but in the process of understanding them can begin to become selfdetermining.

Olympic Spirit Of Sparta

Below, harold jackson assesses the nature of the modern olympic spirit upon which the games are founded id anyone in the small crowd gathered at the sorbonne in 1894 think to question baron de coubertin's assertion that reviving a greek quadrennial sporting competition was the road to world peace and international harmony? aside from ethical and medical arguments, the assumption underlying the sex test - that women who succeed in sport must be male seriously underestimates the sporting potential of women.

Power To The Parents?

Power To The Parents? It is easy enough to see the recent events at Dewsbury

MAKING WAVES - roundtable discussion

a roundtable discussion the participants in the roundtable are: jan etienne, women's officer for the london borough of hackney; lee harrison, chair, women's committee, nottingham city council; marie kane, women's officer, stirling district council; deborah worsley, formerly joint head of the glc women's committee support unit and currently joint head of the women's equality group in the london strategic policy unit. from that flowed all the things that we then tried to do, which i think all women's committees do, and that is to be participative, open, consult, make the authority accessible to those women, be prepared to be the channel by which all those diverse women get access to the authority, to be resourcing women in the community.

CRIME IN THE CITY

What crimes had been committed figures in 1000s 3000290028002700 1400 13001200 — 1100 1000900 — 800 700 600 500 400 300 200 100 - theft from motor vehicle burglary bicycle theft theft of motor vehicle theft in dwelling theft from the person/ robbery sexual offences of crimes 2.953,000 1.364.000 904.000 287.000 283.000 126.000 650.000 71.000 percent ° recorded in criminal statistics 30 48 50 98 38 8 11 vandalism source: taking account of crime: key findings from the 1984 british crime survey figure 2 levels of recorded and unrecorded crime, 1983: british crime survey estimates against them - the argument that the 'moral panic' about crime is nothing more than a political smokescreen, behind which the strong state tools up, has just as surely been nailed. In a survey of over 1000 police officers in merseyside (carried out as part of the merseyside crime survey), only 3% of police time was in london in 1983 the number of crimes cleared up per police officer fell to four per year spent interviewing witnesses.

Goodbye to the GLC

That's a albeit with much struggle - came to inform other areas, including internal staffing policies (the atmosphere at counthe politicians learnt from ty hall was genuinely multiracial in a red bologna quite new way); the introduction of contract compliance (for the first time in powerful potion, especially in london britain, and evidence of the glc's where civil society is highly developed, a progressive eclecticism, the idea being dense and rich undergrowth of activities imported from the us), or arts policy (the glc's cultural repertoire stretching from and organisations. meanwhile, in opposition, the left in the glc labour group dug itself deep into the london labour party, and found a new generation of candidates to stand in the 1981 election.

Feminists in the Factory

The group tried to deal with this problem in different ways (a) trying to organise women ‘outside’ the union, e.g. calling the saturday meetings (b) putting out informa­ tion which would help women to know what was going on in different sections of the factory etc — crucial to trying to deal with the union (c) trying to influence the women shop stewards e.g. through setting up the equal pay day school. October issue includes articles on babysitting, birmingham women’s centre, rule of the women in greece, reports on self help in turin, women and council housing in glasgow as well as fashion in the 19c, book, film and theatre reviews.

Where Women & Psychiatry Meet

________ ;__________________ address ________________________________ what remains? ... yet not the mad women, the drunken women, not the ugly sisters, neurotic women, agoraphobic women, not the depressed women, the witches, the battered women, the silent women, dying women.

WEST on the DOLE

The deflationary government stance of 1981 had its foreseeable effect in aggravating unemployment, but an increasing combination of deflationary policies - high interest rates, cuts in civilian public expenditure - with what may be called war keynesianism, reflationary armaments - caused public deficits, has kept unemployment at a medium high level. The latter has probably also a great deal to do with the, among the low unemployment countries, singularly weak dose of keynesian-type expansion policies and with the fact that switzerland is the only low unemployment country which has pursued a monetarist policy, in the technical sense of setting policy targets for the money supply.

MINING - the popular front

when the wales congress in support of mining communities was launched in cardiff s city hall on october 21 to consolidate and broaden support for the num's strike throughout wales, its proceedings were dramatically interrupted by sixty london local government workers marching in with a banner proclaiming 'brent nalgo supports the dulais valley'. conscious of the human and organisational forces being unleashed by and for the miners in the midst of the crisis, the wales congress in support of mining communities initially set out to bring the debate back to one over the future of the coal industry rather than 'picket line violence' and to increase the unity around the a new alliance mining communities.

POLITICS, Pyramids and People

even here, we affirm labour party marxism today 27 chauvinism, and indeed labour movement chauvinism which i'm certainly heir to, by talking about the labour party when we're talking about the future of the labour party. We have a labour party now dependent on the non-aligned left, which is into sexual politics, the politics of race, radical housing and environmental politics, etc. and activists in those arenas have a conduit to the local state through a radicalised labour party.

Hopes, Dreams & Dirty Nappies

People are for just £2 (£1.50 unwaged), you can take part in one of the social events in the socialist calendar.at merlin's cave, margery st, london wcl,on friday 14 december &t just send in the form below live music • late bar • food wild dancing • guest stars name _______ ______ address _ a seasonal spectacular for writers and readers alike-^ bring along a gift for marxism today's grand christmas appeal for the miners 11 i enclose £2 (waged) £1.50 (unwaged) - cheques payable to "marxism today*. ann j lane in her introduction to herland says, 'because women are nurturers of the young and bearers of the cultural values of love and co-operation, and because women have been excluded from the sources of power, they are in an ideal position to create an alternative social vision'.

THELABOUR GOVERNMENTS 1945-51

LABOUR IN POWER: 1945-51 Kenneth O Morgan Oxford University