In 1974, when I was eleven, my parents bought me a box set of George Orwell novels. At 16 I joined the NDP, perceiving it to be the best vehicle for promoting my newly acquired social democratic convictions. I still believe it is. What I appreciated most about Orwell was his ability to oppose Stalinism as effectively as capitalism and fascism. Readers of Orwell’s book "Homage to Catalonia" remember that often, social democratic values have been defended with guns.
I remember that our Party long championed the interests of those Canadians who fought in the Spanish Civil war against fascism, despite the fact that the League of Nations, the 1930′s version of the U.N., voted against any involvement in the conflict and even worked to prevent aid from reaching the country.
In the late 1930′s the party of Tommy Douglas worked with Canadian Communists to send men and material to Republican Spain.
Those Internationalists, who fought with Orwell, rightly perceived:
1) that borders are a tool for dividing working people;
2) that all that "national sovereignty" really means is that the ruling class of a county have a sovereign right to exploit their own people and
3) it is in the self-interest of working people across the world to help each other in the struggle for democracy and liberty.
With respect to foreign relations, what main policy "themes" will help or at least not hurt the NDP’s ability to convince at least a quarter of those who vote that we would make the best government?
Foreign relations will not determine the outcome of the election but the wrong posture will reinforce the negative sterotype moderate-left Canadians have of our Party.
The NDP I grew up in backed the African National Congress in its violent struggle against apartheid and the Sandinistas, for a time, in their fight with the Contras.
George W. Bush is our adversary, not our enemy.
The people of Canada are not threatened by Republican Conservatives but from fascists. Today, religion is bent in service to their goals: Sikhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism and Islam are perverted to serve the will of those whose objective is to deprive human beings of their inalienable rights.
If the U.S. did not exist these fascists would still be incinerating tall buildings because their will is to enslave us.
At least since the breakup of Yugoslavia the most effective tool in thwarting the ambitions of Bin Laden and his ideological brethern has been the Armed Forces of the United States of America.
Saddam Hussein killed more Iraqis than the American military and if his oil trading buddy Conservative French President Chirac had his way, Saddam’s killing machine would still be operating today.
The NDP believes in women’s rights and labour rights. Tens of thousands of trade union activists are buried by Saddam’s Baath Party in the Iraqi desert. Today the Iraqi labour unions are strong and growing.
My perception is that the NDP’s current position is to wait for permission from the U.N., most of whose members are busy murdering political dissidents at home, before we are willing to use our armed forces to support middle-eastern democrats.
Only democratic countries have rights. At the 2003 Federal Convention in Toronto I voted against our anti-war resolution. I was probably the only one. I didn’t speak against the resolution. No one did. At the time I felt my dissent would only serve the interests of those media that work against our Party.
Now that democratically elected governments in Afganistan and Iraq are in place and are not demanding that the armed forces of the United States and Canada leave, will we just abandon them?
Dave Mann
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Well spoken Dave. Had I been at the 2003 Federal Convention in Toronto, I also would have voted against our anti-war resolution. Instead, in 2003, believing that the US and UK should have allowed the IAEA inspectors to persist with their work, I volunteered to play piano at a peace rally held at a local church where one of the invited speakers explained (to my utter astonishment) that the toppling of the butcher Saddam Hussein was really a cover for Israel to ethnically cleanse Palestinians while no one would be watching.
I am utterly appalled repulsed and disgusted by the direction our party is heading in on foreign policy issues. There seems to be no debate whatsoever within the party because the status quo or pseudo-left is unwilling to defend the aspirations of democrats in the ME and elsewhere lest it be perceived as siding with Bush, Harper, neocons and Israelis. Meanwhile, calling themselves "war resistors" and "peace activists" they defend Iran\’s aspirations to become a global militaristic and totalitarian nuclear power and rally beside angry men and women who glorify Hezbollah, and don\’t think anyone will notice.
The bubble that the pseudo-left inhabits is one where alliances with Stalinists, conservative Islamists, right wing paleocons, libertarians, Kissingerian realists and isolationists are acceptable. It is a bubble in which the UN is beyond criticism, the US is considered a fascist regime, terrorism is a phantom bogeyman created by the CIA, 9.11 was a US false flag operation, Israel is the biggest threat to international stability, the greatest human rights abuser in the world and either wags the American dog to do their bidding (James Petras, Canadian Dimension), or are the US government\’s lapdog proxy whose raison d\’etre is to inflict misery on stone throwing Palestinian children in order to steal their land and prevent Palestinians from ever acquiring statehood (Chomsky).
It is a bubble in which secondary and tertiary sources from anonymously run web sites like Information Clearing House and from anti-political conspirazoid sites like If Americans Only Knew, Rense.com and Global Security.ca are seen as more trustworthy than any analysis from a mainstream source. A bubble where Juan Cole is considered a prescient scholar and Christopher Hitchens a babbling alcoholic moron and traitor. A bubble where Ahmadinejad, Khameini, Assad, Nasrallah, Castro and Chavez are glorified as courageous resistors of US Imperialism and Tony Blair is considered a poodle. It\’s a bubble where International Treaty and Humanitarian Law is rarely read, but where selective articles of law may be trotted out as long as only the US and Israel are strongly condemned while Shari\’ah jurisprudence which isn\’t at all acceptable for Canadians is considered acceptable and natural for Asian and ME peoples.
Have these people never read Bernard Crick\’s In Defence of Politics?
As the foreign policy espoused by far too many Dippers tends less and less to become distinguishable from that of either the Liberals or the conspirazoids in the Canadian Action Party, I wouldn\’t be the least surprised if after some spectacular and tragically successful murderous act of non-combatant civilians by theocratic martyrs affiliated with either the Sunni/Muslim Brotherhood, or the Shia/Islamic Revolution branches of state and proxy sub-state terror networks, Steven Harper\’s Conservatives win a majority government, despite their regressive policies towards the environment, education, social investment, First Nations and same sex marriage.
Pardon me for being so blunt and unforgiving in my contempt for the international pseudo-left. But I am heartened by your post. I just wish I could locate more Dipper allies where I live.
By the way, I don\’t know what it is about Manitoba, but I wouldn\’t consider either MP Pat Martin, or Premier Gary Doer as pseudo, or status quo leftists. However, I am hard pressed to find any other elected NDP politicians, or NDP supporting union leaders across the country who aren\’t esconced on the stopper bandwagon.
The NDP has always been a populist party, but tragically, the ascendance of a crass populism very reminiscent to me of the American Firsters movement of the 1930\’s and early 40\’s, as well as very disappointing responses from former allies and comrades in the party have alienated me from the party and people that I have worked and campaigned with over the last 5 years and the party candidates I consistently voted for since I became eligible to vote nearly 30 years ago.