spartacist stall....outside soas (russell square)

riku | 09.10.2008 21:59 | London

the stall, is mad!

I don't know about the spartacist league in general, and my opinions only relate to my experience on the stall which was positioned outside soas university today.

the stall had inflamatory statements put on placards, and the one which drew me into debate with one of the guys manning the stall went something along the lines of "down with the dalai lama"....

after a small debate with the guy i got the impression of a severely dogmatic, black and white thinker who saw the dalai lama as a bastion of the imperialist us government whilst the chinese government was shrouded in this beautiful glow of loveliness....with the tibetans living a wonderful life...

surely, such left-wing propaganda does no good, it has no humanity and no thought in it. . . to all the new students at soas, their stall can only serve to make them incredibly sceptical of holding left wing views..

there are many great left-wing organisations operating these days and making connections to people....its just very sad to see these dogmatic ideologues in such a prominent place....

riku

Comments

Hide the following 5 comments

a brief point

10.10.2008 00:17

there is too much evidence of the dalai lama's support for imperialistic war to ignore ( kosovo back in 1999 and afganistan more recently ). china was certainly no liberating force in tibet but the oppression of the ruling monks beforehand is severely understated..

onlooker

ok

10.10.2008 08:34

yeah thats true, and i believe the dalai lama admits that himself (he favours modernisation). there are problems and im not saying the dalai lama gets off scot free....however my point is that i dont think anyone in their right mind can come to the rational decision that the tibetan people are better off under the new regime than they would be if the dalai lama ruled today....the guys blind dedication to the Chinese government seemed just scary...

riku

boring!

10.10.2008 12:30

is this really news worthy. should i strart posting up articles whenever i see a stall that i don't agree with?

sorry!

10.10.2008 12:45

sorry if you were brought down with boredom...you were obviously interested enough to add a comment. still his issue isnt boring...these people were in a prominent position, and in my opinion should be tackled if we are to promote better alternatives...because at the moment they are detrimental to reaching out to a wider audience who would otherwise be sympathetic to left wing causes.....

riku

So do your own stall

10.10.2008 13:42

It is not a free world of a free country but we still have a bit of free speech and the space outside SOAS has plenty of stalls and stuff. If you have a political viewpoint you think worth putting across to others, get active and do so, instead of just whinging about those who have the courage of their convictions.

(I am not a member of the Sparts by the way, and not even very keen on much of their politics.)

communist