Tony Greenstein and Uncomfortable Truths

Tony Greenstein, who occasionally writes for local newspapers, has been suspended from the Labour Party. He’s not sure of the reason, because despite repeated requests over several weeks, party officials still haven’t told him the nature of the complaint against him. However, he believes he is accused of anti-semitism.

He believes this because information was leaked to the The Daily Telegraph, which reported his suspension as evidence of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party. The Party took no steps to challenge this report, though Tony did. As a result, the Telegraph has now published a retraction of any implication that Tony may be anti-semitic, as has The Times, which subsequently ran the story.

Tony is understandably aggrieved about the allegation. He is Jewish, steeped in Jewish culture as the son of an orthodox rabbi, and a life long anti-fascist. As an atheist he has rejected his religion (we’ve had many an argument about faith), but he remains fiercely opposed to anti-semitism and all forms of racism. He is also an anti-Zionist and has campaigned for years for better treatment for the Palestinian people. And this is why he has upset a great many influential people.

He is undoubtedly one of the rudest men in Brighton – as I know to my cost – but he is a sincere anti-fascist and his knowledge of both Nazi genocide and the history of Zionism is more comprehensive than anyone I know. He may sometimes overstate his case, but what he says is almost always based in firm historical fact.

Tony’s suspension has been greeted with a torrent of online abuse. In most political disputes, I would say Tony can give as good (or as bad) as he gets. However, no one should have to endure insults such as, “(It’s a) shame your family survived [the Holocaust] world can do without XXXX (an extreme obscenity) like you” or “You must feel terrible having a Yiddish name why don’t you change it to Hitler”.

Tony’s people were East European Jews from a German-speaking area of Poland near the border with Ukraine. His father was the last of the family to speak Yiddish. Most of his extended family died under the Nazis. Tony travelled there with his son some years ago, visiting Auschwitz and several towns and cities. In every one he says they found memorials to the victims of massacres and atrocities. This is why he has spent his life opposing fascism. And that is why it is a cruel insult and to call him an anti-semite.

The suspension has also been a low blow, considering his health. In recent years, Tony discovered he had somehow contracted Hepatitis C and that his liver was damaged beyond repair. He endured seemingly endless months of painful treatment and uncertainty – attempting to safeguard his family’s future, while waiting for a new liver he knew might never come. It was a worrying time, not least because he has a severely disabled son. In the event, a transplant saved his life. However, he is still recovering and is not really in a position to fight his corner.

It seems to me that the Labour Party is far too ready to squander talent and experience, while being fearful of the genuine cut and thrust of ideas. Tony’s view is that, on the Left, the incidence of anti-semitism is negligible – and that hostility to Muslims is a greater problem. I strongly disagree with that view, but that doesn’t mean I cannot benefit from and respect his knowledge and commitment.

People should not be barred from public life because they challenge ideas or make mistakes – still less be silenced if they sometimes speak uncomfortable truths we need to hear. The Labour Party should think again.

Women, Islamism and Domestic Terrorism

Note: A slightly amended version of this article was first published on the Quilliam Foundation Blog.

In the wake of terrorist atrocities in Brussels, there has been much talk about the determination of European nations to stand together and not give way to fear. It’s assumed that we’re all in it together and that if we are scared, it’s of the same thing – young men with bombs and kalashnikovs.

I suggest this is not the case and that, faced with islamist terrorism, women and men experience very different levels and kinds of fear. While all of us – adults and children – fear explosives and guns in the hands of fanatics, it is women and girls who are likely to experience the most visceral terror. During the Second World War, all Britons feared Nazi occupation – but the fear of British Jews must have been of a different order. Most knew what occupation meant for them. In a similar way, women know what Isis and its affiliates want – and what they intend for us.

Powerful politicians and the liberal commentariat seem indifferent to Isis’ threats to place a black flag over Downing Street and absorb Europe into an islamic Caliphate. They consider such threats unrealistic and grandiose, despite the fact that Isis and associated islamists continue to control huge oil revenues and swathes of land in the Middle East. They are aware that Isis brings death, sexual enslavement and servitude to women – as well as to many minorities – but they can live with it, because there’s no immediate prospect of conventional military occupation in the UK and little threat to them. Sexism blinds them to the suffering of women, while racism and arrogance causes them to under-estimate their enemy. They do not understand the power of ideas to subvert the institutions and social structures they take for granted.

Women tend to have a different perspective. For many of us, occupation seems an immediate threat – or in fact began long ago. It’s not that men in balaclavas are fighting in our streets. It’s that the ideas which fuel such men are here already and have been for decades, blighting the lives of women and girls of both immigrant and indigenous communities and putting all women at risk.

British politicians may suggest islamist terror first came to these shores on 7/7 – and boast that security services have prevented many atrocities. The fact is that domestic islamist terror – rooted in the same islamist ideology as Isis and Al Qaeda – reached homes and streets on these islands decades ago and has flourished unhindered ever since, shored up by Saudi-funded Salafi and Wahhabi teachers in mosques, schools and universities. Politicians have done little to counter this. Rather they have turned a blind eye, appeased and colluded with it. British lawyers and institutions – and even the former Archbishop of Canterbury – have sought an accommodation with sharia law and sharia courts, despite the fact that both deny females equal rights.

As a consequence, in many British homes, women and girls are denied their rights under British and international law, confined to the home, without freedom or control over their own bodies and fertility, finances or futures. Husbands have mastery over wives, brothers over sisters, uncles over nieces and sons over mothers. Polygamy is tolerated because, though bigamy is illegal, unregistered ‘religious’ marriages are not. Under age marriage of teenage girls to much older men takes place, denying girls education and a career and condemning them to repeated pregnancies. Hard line Imams and even some school teachers justify domestic beatings and sexual violence, instructing girls that they may not ‘refuse’ their husbands.

There are no public slave markets, but there is domestic slavery and organised trafficking and abuse of vulnerable young girls by groups of men – until recently, routinely tolerated by politicians and the police. There is also female genital mutilation, forced marriage and so called honour killing. These abuses are illegal, but convictions are vanishingly rare. Each is declared an abomination, but the ideology which underpins so many of these crimes remains unchallenged.

There is the ‘Prevent’ programme, but it promotes ‘tolerance’ not equality – certainly not equality for women and girls. In practice, our society treats the control of women and children by men, even returning jihadis, as a religious imperative or a bargaining chip – to be tolerated provided men keep their violence off the streets.

The Sussex Boys

Where are they now,
Our swaggering sons
Our likely lads?
Shouldering black flags and guns
In Syria and Iraq.

Hard to think
They took the bus
Wrote GCSEs
And drank in parks,
then staggered back.

Did they use stones to kill
Or buy girls cheap in a market place
To rape another day?
These sad-faced dead-eyed boys,
With mobile phones and southern ways

Some are dead –
Did they die alone?
Did they call for their mothers
As it’s said
real soldiers do?

Or curse some bastard father
Safe at home.

Violent Domestic violence offenders should always be prosecuted

This post was first published on 27th February, 2016 by brightonpoliticsblogger

Perpetrators of domestic violence in West Sussex are to be offered a 10 month programme to change their behaviour at a time when victims’ services are being slashed.

It concerns me that high-risk abusers will be diverted from the criminal justice system at a time when domestic homicide and other forms of violence against women are on the increase. And that failures in the criminal justice system are being blamed on victims’ reluctance to give evidence. In fact, more women would give evidence if offered the opportunity and better support.

It’s terrifying and exhausting for victims of serial attacks to bear the burden of a prosecution, especially at a time when they may be coping with the threat of further abuse and supporting traumatised children, sometimes in insecure accommodation. They shouldn’t have to, because this isn’t a private matter. Domestic violence is closely associated with homicide, child abuse, sexual assault and other criminal behaviour and social problems. It costs our country billions. It’s in the public interest to pursue prosecution.

Police should be required to pursue prosecutions without relying entirely on adult victims, gathering evidence using every means at their disposal and protecting the victims at all times. The late Ellen Pence, founder of the effective ‘Duluth Model’ in the USA – which by collaborative inter-agency working cut domestic homicides in Duluth to almost none – urged police to investigate every domestic incident, including the first, “as if it were a homicide” and prosecute even ‘minor’ offences. She advocated treatment for perpetrators, but only following prosecution – and after protection and support for victims and child witnesses was in place.

I’m Voting Out of the EU

I admire Caroline Lucas. So I was disappointed to read her comments on the EU referendum, in which she suggests that an decisive majority for the In side is needed to ensure an end to further “sterile” discussion. This is both patronising to those who disagree (as I do) and ignores the vital importance of issues at stake.

In 1975 people voted for the Common Market, but did so without understanding the extent to which the UK would surrender sovereignty and democratic control. Confidential government documents of the time indicate that the Heath and Wilson governments deliberately misled the public, falsely suggesting there’d be no loss to sovereignty. Now there’s an opportunity to discuss ideas about national independence, self-determination and democracy. Democrats should welcome this.

In 1975 I was convinced by the arguments of people like Tony Benn, that the Common Market was nothing more than an anti-democratic mechanism for big business and corrupt elites to pursue greater profits. Nothing I’ve seen since then has changed my mind.

I don’t believe the EU is reformable, neither do I think it preserves our rights. Those rights we have were fought for over centuries, including the right to vote for our government. Yet now we are governed by unelected European Commissioners whom we cannot fight. We cannot control our own borders, our infrastructure is collapsing under the weight of unmanaged immigration and we cannot plan effectively for the future.

We need a family of equal and independent European nations, bound together by shared history and a common commitment to equal human and workers’ rights. The EU cannot deliver this.

Note: This post was previously published in the Brighton & Hove Argus.