An important piece for which huge thanks, shedding light on the application of the Anti Imperialist United Front, and underlining the absolute importance of class politics. I vaguely recall Brian Grogan, a former leader(?) of the FI in Britain being quoted as saying in Iran during the revolution ‘God is Great’. This seems well outside the United Front maxim of striking together whilst not mixing our banners (ie maintaining programmatic independence). Is my memory playing tricks and, if not, I’d be interested to learn how comrades at the time (or later) responded. Thanks
Brian was the central leader of the US SWP's tendency in the IMG, and thus it was fair that he was a central part of the IMG leadership team. He and the US SWP's other co-thinkers were mistaken in their approach to the Iranian revolution.
That said, saying "Allahu Akbar" is small beer, like saying Hallelujah. Arabic, Iranian, and European languages are littered with religious language: even the Bolsheviks wrote of Jihad.
Achcar and Jaber are the same person, you treat them as though they were different individuals. They were not, they were the same person, one the public persona the other the party name.
Some readers complain that all my articles are too long: I have to leave out everything I can. If someone wants to find the Jaber article, they will need to use that pen name.
It would have taken a short expression like (a.k.a Gilbert Achcar). Most people would be unaware they are the same person and so contradictions or continuities between the texts then and Achcar now would seem like they were between two different people. It is dishonest.
I don't expect anyone to have the same view of a revolution at its start as they have after half a century that involved the decisive defeat of that revolution. Does anyone expect Achcar to have the same assessment of Nicaragua today as in 1981, or in 1981 to have anticipated the evolution of the FSLN? That makes no sense: the Fourth International doesn't reify people, the way that Ted Grant is canonised, and no one is expected to know at the start of a revolution how it will play out. Even concretely, I really don't think it makes people any more or less likely to read the 1981 article (given that it's in French) and then wonder how it relates to later articles by other people. I don't think it's valuable, and certainly not dishonest.
I don’t expect anyone to necessarily have the same position even after 5 months in relation to a revolution. My point was you cited him twice in the same article giving the impression they were two different people. To use your Grant analogy, you wouldn’t refer to him as Isaac Blank in an article and also as Ted Grant without telling readers they were the same person or better still Mandel as Germain. That was my point.
An important piece for which huge thanks, shedding light on the application of the Anti Imperialist United Front, and underlining the absolute importance of class politics. I vaguely recall Brian Grogan, a former leader(?) of the FI in Britain being quoted as saying in Iran during the revolution ‘God is Great’. This seems well outside the United Front maxim of striking together whilst not mixing our banners (ie maintaining programmatic independence). Is my memory playing tricks and, if not, I’d be interested to learn how comrades at the time (or later) responded. Thanks
Brian was the central leader of the US SWP's tendency in the IMG, and thus it was fair that he was a central part of the IMG leadership team. He and the US SWP's other co-thinkers were mistaken in their approach to the Iranian revolution.
That said, saying "Allahu Akbar" is small beer, like saying Hallelujah. Arabic, Iranian, and European languages are littered with religious language: even the Bolsheviks wrote of Jihad.
Achcar and Jaber are the same person, you treat them as though they were different individuals. They were not, they were the same person, one the public persona the other the party name.
Some readers complain that all my articles are too long: I have to leave out everything I can. If someone wants to find the Jaber article, they will need to use that pen name.
It would have taken a short expression like (a.k.a Gilbert Achcar). Most people would be unaware they are the same person and so contradictions or continuities between the texts then and Achcar now would seem like they were between two different people. It is dishonest.
I don't expect anyone to have the same view of a revolution at its start as they have after half a century that involved the decisive defeat of that revolution. Does anyone expect Achcar to have the same assessment of Nicaragua today as in 1981, or in 1981 to have anticipated the evolution of the FSLN? That makes no sense: the Fourth International doesn't reify people, the way that Ted Grant is canonised, and no one is expected to know at the start of a revolution how it will play out. Even concretely, I really don't think it makes people any more or less likely to read the 1981 article (given that it's in French) and then wonder how it relates to later articles by other people. I don't think it's valuable, and certainly not dishonest.
I don’t expect anyone to necessarily have the same position even after 5 months in relation to a revolution. My point was you cited him twice in the same article giving the impression they were two different people. To use your Grant analogy, you wouldn’t refer to him as Isaac Blank in an article and also as Ted Grant without telling readers they were the same person or better still Mandel as Germain. That was my point.
No, I just don't get it. I edited the article yesterday to a note about it, but it seems trivial to me.