Though Cowards Flinch

Having been told that the Socialist Students group at the local university is going to be building for the anti-war demonstration on October 24th, presumably with street stalls and leafleting, my main response was, “Why?” I have been a proud and loyal “stopper” since before the war broke out, but aren’t our energies better devoted to other things now?

The purpose of the anti-war movement, as I always saw it, was three fold. First, to prevent the war. Failing that, to maintain pressure on the government to make the wars as short as possible by bringing the troops home. Third (and centrally to this argument) the point was to create a nexus that would gather both the regular political activists and the irregular activists, those ‘normal people’ outraged by the war.

I think that, with certain qualifications, the Stop the War Coalition has failed on point number three. The main qualification is that engagement with the public has not ceased; petitions are still steadily signed on Stop the War stalls around the country – and in towns with major barracks such as Canterbury, that’s important. The SWP here do a solid job in that regard.

Notwithstanding this engagement, however, the socialist Left only has a limited number of activists with a limited amount of time and resources. I think these can be better directed towards union work and building to fight cuts to Council jobs and services. Moreover, I think that the forum for debate created by such a campaign would be infinitely more productive than anti-war work at this point.

As has been detailed on this blog over the course of several articles, the ways in which Councils are intending to cut jobs and services are manifold. Tory Councils particularly seem to be gearing up, possibly anticipating primary legislation to help them (when the Tories win the General Election) – which Paul has speculated on at length. Labour is thinking in the same vein – and cuts to education will be felt in local services too.

It can be argued that these issues are not of immediate relevance to students, but I think this is too narrow an approach. Students regularly campaign on free education, campaign for the protection of university staff and services. The SP-led Socialist Students organisation is also involved with the Youth Fight for Jobs campaign. These campaigns are at their best when they have the active support of other workers.

The position of these workers, in terms of organisation, political consciousness and ability to render aid to other workers, is directly affected by such cuts, and this impacts the position of students – which is one reason why so many students at SOAS went all-out to save staff in danger of deportation after dirty tricks by management.

So perhaps it is time for a little less concentration on Afghanistan, Iraq, Venezuela, Sri Lanka (etc – QUB/UU Socialist Society site gives an additional flavour) and a little more concentration on building the links (and, as an object lesson in socialist theory, updating the organisational concepts of?) solidarity necessary to sustain the campaigns about things which do have direct relevance to students. Which might, additionally, have the effect of changing the rather turgid and sterile character of SU politics.

There is no point in having a bastion of radicalism amongst students if those students remain isolated, and are not used to direct unionisation and the extension of working class organisation. For groups like Socialist Students, which often gets off the ground in towns without branches of the Socialist Party amongst local workers, this is doubly important. Isolated, students will be defeated every time.