Respect where respect is due - Robin Cook a principled advocate of peace.

Neil Williams | 07.08.2005 14:22 | Analysis

In defence of peace advocates

Respect where Respect is due.

Its amazing how events such as the death of Robin Cook bring out the sectarian and immature best in some few readers of Indymedia. Any politician deemed not “perfect” (whose definition of perfection?) and who has dared to “dirty” their hands by entering parliament is seen automatically as a traitor to the cause (who’s cause, and traitor in who’s eyes?). This really is the politics of infantile sectarianism that some people spend their lives involved in rather that the hard day to day grind of political struggle in the trade unions, political parties or political movements such as CND or the Stop the War campaign. How nice to be so pure so unsullied by the real world that you can remain above the fray looking down on others and insulting every and any action they make.

RESPECT is right wing I read - well not to the many 1000’s that have joined it over the last 18months. Robin Cook was no saint (who is?) and I could find many, many issues I could and have disagreed with him and others in the Labour Party on. However he was one of only two cabinet ministers who resigned over the Iraq war and for this and his continued opposition to the war he should be applauded and not condemned. He was indeed a principled advocate of peace and will be missed by many 1000’s of people both inside and outside the Labour Party.

You can continue to attack, continue to find fault (as could I if we were having a debate about the nature of the Labour Party) but if those of us on the left cannot unite on common ground such as opposition to the war in Iraq (whilst respecting each others differences and politics) there will never ever be any hope for the Socialist movement in the UK. That is why RESPECT was formed and has become the fastest growing political party in the UK. Sorry about that, but RESPECT is clearing connecting with many 1000’s of ordinary people even if they are not all readers of Indymedia.

Robin Cook 1946 - 2005 - Sadly missed.
A principled advocate of peace.

BBC tributes at:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/4127724.stm

Neil Williams

Neil Williams
Homepage: http://fightbackuk.blogspot.com/

Comments

Hide the following 10 comments

A hypocritical "peacenik"

07.08.2005 14:44

Robin Cook was directly involved in the sale of Hawk Jets to Indonesia to use in East Timor.

The jets were used in violently suppressing the indigenous uprising there throughout the nineties.

Lets not see any crocodile tears shed for him. Just because the man bailed out of Tony's leaking ship at the outset of one war doesn't make him automatically a decent chap.

this ain't news

07.08.2005 15:00

Remove this post - it ain't news and Indymedia is NOT the Daily fucking Mail. Having ago at Indymedia readers who don't have your selective memory - Just fuck off you patronising prick!

selective memory

Yeah your right

07.08.2005 15:44

Cook sold weapons, but the first comment about him living in the real world is right. He kept his job and had some power to wield at a later date, he gave up that position and kept on at Tony incessantly assisting in the press maintaining focus on the Iraq issues. Without him there would have been less debate and less focus on the lies of the prime minister after the war. He 'believed' in the parliamentary system, if you think that is wrong then that is your 'belief', but he did good within the belief system he worked within.. the one which whether you like it or not live in. Choosing not to sell the jets would have meant him quitely out of a job and a 'yes man' in the job instead, no nasty resignations for Tony later.

It's not good even for Tony he is out of the job though. He gave Labour a gentlemanly, inclusive, democratic and open image. It's up to you whether you believe that the image was a true representation or not, I'm sure he believed it was... well more or less.

Others, often with reason, are more prone to believe it is just image.

rebound

please refrain...

07.08.2005 19:04

Neil, will you stop using this newswire as a recruiting tool for Respect/SWP

urban1

rebound

07.08.2005 19:11

Rebound, you seem to be saying it's ok to be partly resopsible for death, repression and the like, providing your a thorn in Tony Blair's side. I can think of a lot better ways without the suffering af thousands people

Please don't remove this article

07.08.2005 19:35

Why are so many people on this newswire so keen lately to censor other people's views? If you disagree with the argument, say so and say why - that's how democracies work. It's amazing that people who claim to be radicals are adopting exactly the same tactics as the people they claim to be fighting against.

Friar Tuck

No Respect

07.08.2005 20:23

In his "anti-war" resignation speech, he says that :

"The present Prime Minister is the most successful leader of the Labour Party in my lifetime. I hope he will continue to be the leader of our party and I hope he will continue to be successfull. I applaude the heroic efforts the Prime Minister has made in trying to secure a second resolution. I do not think anybody could have done better than the foreign secretary in working to get support for a second resolution within the security council."

He did not think anybody could have done better than him to try to secure a green light from the security council for going to war against Iraq.

Me too I have a forensic mind.

eidenk

Be reasonable

07.08.2005 20:57

Cook was neither a saint nor a devil, I suspect, but it's hardly sectarianism for someone to point out the contradictions in his legacy.

It will no doubt weigh in Cook's favour that he saw the Iraq war for what it was, and gave voice to the contradictions within the ruling party in a way that at times drew upon and reflected the sentiments of the 2 million who marched against the war, and the millions more who opposed it. I don't think anyone would suggest that he did so for opportunistic reasons. We can say thanks for that, at least, Robin.

AN Other

We do need to organise to change society and we need politics!

07.08.2005 22:26

Friar Tuck, a thoughtful comment. I too have noticed how a number of viewers (notice i said a number, not all or many) want censorship on a site set up to provide an alternative voice to those who have none.

To Urban 1 - are you teelling me that after evaluating the Iraq War and the current stae of politics and democracy (or lack of it) here and in the USA we should just sit back and NOT try to suggest a political way forward (the neo-liberals will love it!).

You dont have to agree with me - tell us what you think the solution might be and I will be he first person to listen. I feel the time have arrived for Indymedia to review it rules and allow politcal statements and articles so long as they are atributable to someone and othes have the right to reply - its called "democracy". I am pround to be a member of RESPECT and have been an active Socialist and trade unionist all my life as was my father, mother and grandfather and gandmother (both dad and grandad were miners).

Tell us what YOU think and lets shout it from the rooftops for if we remain silent at this time future generations will ask why we did not speak out , why we remained silent when our democracy (with all its faults and inperfections) was destroyed. We still have time - pretending this can be done "without politcics" or "party politics" or organisation to challange "their" ideas with our alternative view of the world leaves the capatialists in control and fashionng every aspect of our society including the dominate ideas of the day.

If you think anarchy is the way forward - make your case and tell us how this will challange the ruling elite and as an example, stop the war in Iraq and win the people of this country over to supporting this alternative view of society. So Urban 1 its over to you how will it be done???

Neil Williams

Neil Williams

Organising to change society

10.08.2005 03:03

Society is class-divided.
Worthwhile change means, ultimately, eliminating class relations and establishing Communism, that haunting spectre.
We are social - therefore political - animals: social orders are created, destroyed through such as resource mis-panning or mis-management, new and better orders emerge, knowledge and cunning grow, advancing through greater structures and hierarchies, evolving, making mistakes, in permanent revolution, constantly changing through quantity and quality.

The power for social change and natural (r)evolution lies in the organised working class, the deliverers of the only value, where the phantom of commodity capital is forced ever to return to and deal with. The futures markets have failed to deliver and the capitalist class must take back everything it has afforded from its previously bloated table. Their economic gurus read text books like religious tracts, including such as Malthus, and convince themselves it's good for humanity to occasionally cull vast number of 'useless eaters', through war and other interferences.

But ever onward pushes the vital spring of productive humanity, a sleeping, betrayed, headless dragon. One definition of Revolution, from Lenin, goes something like 'when the ruling class can't rule in the old ways any more and the ruled class can give no more'.

The people who have time to raise their consciences a little, the 'intelligentsia' - including people who can afford to voice their opinions on the net - have a role in helping the toilers in that realisation. As Trotsky points out, the problem for the proletariat at every turn is the question of a trusty leadership. (Whither the TUC these days?)

There is a political party, a daily newspaper, a touth organisation, that enshirines this necessary historical message and is building the necessary leadership - www.wrp.org.uk

Skidoo23