The left in the student movement needs a cultural revolution. That is what Communist Students is in business to fight for, writes Ellie James

The lead-up to the October 29 student demo against fees in central London has seen the NUS left busying itself with the usual sort of petty factional squabbles that discredit it in the eyes of many.

Arising from a meeting held on October 14, a number of left organisations including the Socialist Worker Student Society/Respect and Education Not for Sale (with the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty centrally involved) provisionally agreed on a united left contingent for this march. Why on earth they agreed to that is a mystery. Surely the left could agree a set of common slogans … around student grants, around democracy, around getting UK forces out of Iraq. But on the day it should seek to win the entire demonstration to them, not seal itself off as a league of the pure. The AWL certainly wants to wall themselves off from islamic student societies such as Fosis. But this organisation is pro-imperialist and proudly calls itself Zionist!

Not surprisingly, after this outbreak of madness was reported to the SWP leaders, their hapless student organiser (Rob Owen of Manchester student union) – who agreed to the ‘initiative’ – was instructed to attack the proposal and state that he was now against any separate left contingent.

But will any of this be honestly and openly be reported in Socialist Worker? No, the left sects have a rotten record when it comes to telling the truth especially about themselves. A Sheffield Communist Students meeting on October 11 was given a classic lesson in this by a comrade from Socialist Students (the student wing of the Socialist Party in England and Wales). Replying to a CPGB speaker who argued for full transparency in such matters, he told the meeting that any such thing would “confuse people”.

As if the working class and students are too thick to understand that leftwing politicians, as well as denouncing capitalism, can tell the truth about arguments that are happening on the left. Now, we can quote chapter and verse from some of the giants of the Marxist movement about the need for full openness – but it is more important to grasp the thinking that lies behind this patronising approach. It explains, for instance, why much of the left produces such deadly dull papers that practically no-one reads and why despite their best intention these comrades constitute a barrier to the socialism they espouse.

Essentially, they view politics as conspiracy - something that happens behind the backs of the movement that the left is supposedly in business to serve. For us socialism must be democratic and an act of self-liberation from below – only possible through the training, education and knowledge provided by openness.

What is Respect?

Given the fact that that Respect confidently announces on its website that the 2006 NUS conference could see it mount “a serious challenge for the presidency”, this organisation should matter to students.

Its flamboyant MP George Galloway claimed that “10,000 students” had “joined” Respect during the recent round of freshers fairs. A huge exaggeration, of course. Nonetheless, Respect has made an impact on some campuses and is well positioned to made headway at the national level in the NUS. So what is it and what does it stand for?

• Respect is meant to be an alliance between the “secular socialists” of the SWP and “muslim activists”. In fact, the muslims are pretty few on the ground – they largely make up Respect’s phantom rightwing.
• This has not stopped leading members of the SWP being willing to go wobbly on basic socialist principles – or “shibboleths” as one leading members contemptuously put it – in order to bring ‘the muslims’ on board. Specifically, she was offering to ditch explicit commitments to women’s rights and defence of gays.
• At the 2005 NUS conference, this tailist approach saw the SWP trail the Federation of Student Islamic Societies (Fosis) when they heckled, slow hand-clapped and walked out on guest speaker Houzan Mahmood of the Organisation for Women’s Freedom in Iraq. Her crime? To criticise the anti-democratic nature of the islamist resistance in Iraq.
• According to the London Evening Standard of October 20, the leading spokesperson for Fosis, Amar Latif, told journalists that “homosexuality is impermissible in islam, and there is no room for homosexuality to become permissible”.
• At the 2006 conference, SWP executive member Suzie Wylie supported a motion that argued that religious schools provide a “uniquely” beneficial environment for children from ‘minority communities’.