October 03, 2004
Throw what into the sea?
There's a fair old ding dong going on over at the Workers' Weekly. I won't clutter up this blog with the correspondence but follow the link above and astonish yourself. Royston Bull, a former doyen of Arthur Scargill's Socialist Labour Party, kicked off by making a reference to "Jewish/imperialist colonisation" whilst engaging in a clumsy and homophobic denunciation of Peter Tatchell and co's flirtation with Zionism. My friend Roland Rance (there I've declared my interest) countered that he (Roland) wasn't party to this colonisation and that therefore the use of the word "Jewish" to denounce imperialism was at best a crass generalisation... Royston counter-countered that he wasn't aware of Roland Rance being opposed to the establishment of the state of Israel, to which Roland counter-counter-countered that that said more about Royston Bull's activism (or lack of) than it did about Roland's. Charlie Pottins also joined the fray taking Roland's side; rather touchingly, I thought, given that Charlie and Roland have had their disagreements in the past. Then Tony Greenstein weighed in to praise Roland Rance's anti-Zionist work and to denounce Royston Bull's anti-Semitism and homophobia. He also demanded an explanation of Arthur Scargill as to how and why Royston Bull was so elevated within the ranks of the Socialist Labour Party. Finally, so far, Royston Bull engaged in some breathtaking hypocrisy when he said that "the issue is about political understanding [which Bull obviously does not have], not ..... grotesque distortions about who did what. [which Mr Bull had started two weeks before]. Then, having denounced Jewish. colonisation in Palestine, he went on to say that the cause of anti-imperialism cannot be advanced without first "driving this rotten Zionist stunt into the sea". Now then, we'll have to wait and see if he means driving all of Palestine's Jews into the sea. What I'm hoping for is that Royston Bull and Peter Tatchell bump into each other on the way to the next Free Palestine/anti-war demonstration. Perhaps then we'll all get some peace.
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