Is (1) forming this alliance with Muslims without giving the same thought for Sikhs, Hindus, or other opressed minorities, and (2) is forming the alliance with the elites of Islam, the Imrams and the mosques, not with the ordinary working-class Muslims, and the mosques are not representive of the whole Muslim community in the area.

Just my 2 cents....

"The SWP are setting up Peace and Justice? good on em."

Do you not see that Peace and Justice aren't abstract notions? They're bound up with what you actually DO? So the SWP have just stabbed people in the back, sh*tting on a load of principled activists like Steve Godward and Rumy Hasan in the name of "justice". Can you not see that that's a bit like shagging for virginity?

It's not, and never has been a bland debate about "working with Muslims".

The evil SWP won a majority vote in a meeting.

What's wrong with that?

ABOLISH CAPITLISM WITH LOVE

mozaz

That's how sneaky and evil the SWP are! They get their way through the sinister bureaucratic mechanism of arguing their position and winning votes. If they were serious about working with others, they'd keep their ideas to themselves and sit on their hands.

Staedtler and Waldorff, or kurious and sonic as they call themselves, do the Stalinist tradition they seem keen to uphold proud by their new "This is what democracy looks like" line. It's kind of embarrassing -for them, I would have thought- to have to go over old ground but I'm kind of bored and it's easy enough sport so, here's a quiz...

**Is it "democratic" to warn an independent socialist activist that, should he *dare* to participate in a Trade Council sponsored "teach in" which your own organisation doesn't *control*, he will be challenged and removed from any position of influence? Tony Soprano would love it, no doubt. But is he a model for democracy?

**Is it "democratic" to encourage all of your mates to join a political organisation, with which they have had no prior involvement or connection, in the week before an important vote, FOR NO OTHER REASON than to remove said independent activist from office and, thereby, effectively castrate the organisation?

**Is it "democratic" to eyeball and nudge any members of your own organisation still principled enough to feel uncomfortable with what's happening and trying to abstain, thereby making it apparent that they'll be getting grief should they fail to toe the line?

**Is it "democratic" to similarly oust EVERY OTHER holder of political office with a tendency to show disturbing signs of autonomy, replacing them with people who appear to have NO analysis, and who can, therefore, be manipulated to follow your own party line?

**Is it "democratic" to shit all over dissent as an abstract principle, smearing anyone who differs your (or, to be more precise, John Rees') viewpoint as "Islamophobic"?

If your answer to any of the above is "yes", congratulations! You may find ahome in the Socialist Workers' Party.

If not, welcome to sanity.

Much as I'd love to engage in another bout of Intra-Trot No-Holds-Barred Ideological Wrestling (wow, maybe Vince McMahon should give that some thought!) I take the point from exasperated IMC folks that this is a newswire not a discussion board.

Sorry folks. Will desist.

I always thought that islam was not about peace and justice but about a struggle, for islam, for equality, or whatever. Muslims voting for socialists or socialists voting for muslims is not a big deal the problem is when the leading partners in the SWP/SA make make a united front with the muslim clerical elite.
The strugle must start at the grass roots and not with an un-democratic party "vanguard" who style themselves on another undemocratic party making an alliance with another un-democratic organisation.
Don't give up the struggle,