Articles

Articles:

Mayoral Election Sunday Times 2016
An Alliance of Democracies 2015 MiddleVision blog Article
Terrorism and Liberty 2009 Article
Russia and New World Order 2009 Speech & Article
The Democratic Dilemma: Democracy For China? 2009 Article
'Left Wing and Islamist Infiltration' Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs magazine 2009
The Times 'Why I blew the lid on Ken Livingstone' 2008

Atma Singh says of Sadiq Khan “He will revert to type”

Respected ex Labour member Atma Singh was adviser to Ken Livingstone on Asian issues from 2001 to 2007.

CyberBoris Blog (Atma Singh Sunday Times Article on Mayoral Election 2016)

17 April 2016

His article in the Sunday Times is given below in full.

Let Red Ken be a warning about hard-left mayors and Islamists

The last time I spoke publicly during a mayoral election, it was to blow the whistle on Ken Livingstone. I was one of his advisers for seven years, and I witnessed first hand the damage his brand of radical far-left politics did to London. At this mayoral election I am speaking out again because I fear we are about to make the same mistake with Sadiq Khan.

I was a Labour party member most of my adult life — until last year. I ripped up my membership card when Jeremy Corbyn was elected because I didn’t want to see a return to the nasty, deeply divisive politics he and Livingstone represent.

It’s not just their obsession with the old battles of the 1980s, or economic policies from the 1970s that led to a three-day working week and rubbish piled high in the streets. Most seriously, it is their unacceptable tolerance for extremism.

Ken with Sheik Al Karadawi

Virtually my last act as a Labour member was to vote for Tessa Jowell in the selection for London mayor. I voted for her because I like and respect her brand of inclusive, progressive politics. But I was also voting against Khan.

I know for a fact he shares the hard-left, radical politics of Livingstone and Corbyn. It was no surprise to me that Khan nominated Corbyn for leader — he used his voters to secure the Labour mayoral nomination. He was an architect of the Corbyn insurgence because he shares his political outlook. He was Corbyn’s candidate in the selection race, and I am in no doubt he would be Corbyn’s mayor.

Writing in the Evening Standard recently, Livingstone asked Londoners to vote for Corbyn’s vision. And I know what that looks like because I was a part of it when Ken was mayor. Platforms, power and public money given according to political loyalty. The police undermined. Oxygen given to extremists.

When Livingstone rolled out the red carpet for Yusuf al-Qaradawi — who defends Palestinian suicide bombing and believes the Holocaust was “divine punishment” — I was horrified. I argued against it, but was overruled.

During al-Qaradawi’s visit in 2004, a young Muslim lawyer was asked at a parliamentary hearing whether he thought it was appropriate to invite him. Khan, then a human rights lawyer, refused to condemn him: “What I can say with regard to personal views is that I would not believe all the hype. Quotes attributed to this man may or may not be true.”

I voted against Khan because I felt his record shows he, like Livingstone, has been too willing to turn a blind eye to extremism. I can accept he was just doing his job representing Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called “20th hijacker” on 9/11.

But I cannot accept his decade-long campaigning for convicted terrorists Babar Ahmed and Talha Ahsan — responsible for the first western jihadist websites.

I cannot accept his decade-long association with Tooting imam Suliman Gani, who on the night of the Paris attacks attended an extremist event calling for an Islamic state. Khan shared platforms with Gani over many years, including speaking outside Tooting mosque following a march for Palestine in 2009 that called for a boycott of Israeli goods.

And I find it troubling that he has never said whether he tried to dissuade his former brother-in-law — who used to call openly for a “full-scale war of jihad” — from being involved in the extremist group al-Muhajiroun.

This is exactly the same attitude to extremism I saw with Livingstone and I see with Corbyn. Extremists rely and thrive on politicians who look the other way. They muddy the water by responding to any challenge with the charge of “Islamophobia”.

Sadly, politicians of the hard left fall too easily for this ploy. Politicians like Khan, who know full well with whom they are dealing, but choose to hear no evil because it suits their electoral ends.

Whatever Khan says now, it is clear to me that if elected, he will revert to type. We will see the same radical politics at City Hall we saw under Livingstone, with profound implications for the police, transport investment, council tax rates and our global reputation.

He would “fight” against the Tory government — like Livingstone fought the Blair government — to make political points, rather than working with it to get a better deal for London.

Corbyn will use Khan’s city hall as a shield to bolster the hard-left Momentum movement. He will use a Khan victory as evidence that he can win. And don’t be surprised to see Livingstone back in the administration. He and Corbyn will be the winners, and London will be the loser.

Atma Singh Article on An Alliance of Democracies 2015)

An Alliance of Democracies?

2nd December, 2015

An Alliance of Democracies?

The challenge of the extreme left means having a principled foreign policy. This is difficult but by no means impossible. My ex-boss at City Hall Ken Livingstone has shown the danger of extreme left-wing thinking. This week he said that the 7/7/2005 London terrorist bombing was a protest in which terrorists “gave their lives”. This apology for terrorism for the barely disguised purpose of attacking Tony Blair displays a deep problem about foreign policy thinking, particularly on the “left”.

The end of the Cold War has not heralded “an end to history”. Today, we see Europe facing an onslaught by terrorists guided by an ideology of Islamism. Equally, China and Russia are increasingly becoming aggressive in Asia and Europe respectively. On the other hand, the West has weak leadership even appeasement leadership. I believe we have to go back to the drawing board in order to defend and advance progress.

I want to advocate the idea of ‘a global alliance of democracies’ as a new strategic anchor for progressives.

The champions of progress (who tend to be in the centrist part of politics with open minds to actual developments and principles of freedom, democracy and humanity close to their hearts) need political ideas to advance. Democracy is already a battle line between progressive and reactionary politics – from the left and right.

To paraphrase Mahatma Gandhi – there is no way to democracy; democracy is the way.

Today, two major totalitarian systems have been vanquished to the sidelines: Nazism in WW2 and Communism at the end of the Cold War. However, the remnants of communism still exist in China’s Communist Party rule etc. In addition, individual dictators exist in many parts of the world such as Russia’s Putin or Zimbabwe’s Mugabe and theocratic rule exists in places like Iran. There are also absolutist monarchies in places like Saudi Arabia.

The West has been the heartland of democracies. The USA is militarily the strongest democracy in the world – the only power stronger than Russia – and the only power capable of offering protection to other democracies under attack. Europe saw the emergence of new democracies in Eastern and Central Europe with the end of the old communist bloc.

The number of entrenched democracies has grown outside of the west such as gigantic India, Israel under severe siege and Japan and South Korea with advanced economies.

A global alliance of democracies concept provides a vehicle for evaluating relationships with non-democratic and anti-democratic players on the global stage. For instance, how to relate to China? To Russia? To Islamist Turkey? To Saudi Arabia? To Venezuela? To Islamist movements?

An alliance of democracies is the best framework for mobilising public opinion and creating strategic policy.

Western public opinion is confused and easily swayed. People need leadership partnered with straight-talking on these issues.

By Atma Singh

Atma Singh is a writer and policy adviser – advocate of a global alliance of democracies. He is the Author of ‘An Asian Century Manifesto: Global Political Economy of the C21st’ 2008. He is a former Policy Adviser on Asian Affairs to the Mayor of London Ken Livingstone 2001-2007 – and a critic of the extreme left’s security and economic positions.

Terrorism and Liberty

Summary:

I am opposed to terrorism and I support liberty. I have backed up my views with a high profile policy disagreement inside the Greater London Authority on the issue of 'suicide bombing'.

"Here I stand. I can do no other". I cannot compromise with those supporting terrorism.

I discuss the dilemma of balancing the fight against terrorism with the need to protect the liberty of innocent people. The issue of terrorism as an exceptional circumstance requiring exceptional measures and laws is also addressed.

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My view:

A person who espouses suicide bombing can have no legitimate space in City Hall in London. It is a wrong signal to send to people in London.

The 9/11 were suicide bombings in New York. There have been suicide bombings in Spain, France, Turkey, India, Indonesia and in many other parts of world.

The UK has suffered numerous terrorist plots and some of them have been truly on a horrific scale.

London itself has been a victim of "suicide bombings on 7/7 (7th July 2005) - which killed 52 people and injured hundreds.

So London's leadership has to be clear on the subject on 'suicide bombing'.

The media has reported my views e.g. The Times and Channel 4 Dispatches programme in which I was the main source.

But these merely report the fact of the difference - on the invitation to Sheikh Al Qaradawi, the Muslim Brotherhood pro-Hamas Qatari cleric, who espoused suicide bombing and was given an invitation to City Hall and was seen to receive a friendly embrace from the Mayor of London by the world's media - and do not give a rationale of my thinking.

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The following short article gives my views on terrorism and liberty and its basic line of my thinking.

My concept of the state is based on its legitimacy to use force.

Hobbes was right - the state can prevent a situation where life for every citizen is "short, nasty and brutish." The state prevents violence in a democratic society by organising this task within a set of rules and accountabilities to be carried out on behalf of citizens, who are all equal and free in a democratic society.

The state also has a general duty to protect a society against external and internal threats to destroy a democratic state. I believe democracies have to be very strong in defending themselves.

The democratic state did win against dictatorships during the last decades of the 20th century. Pluralism and freedom has to be defended and preserved against threats. There is still a danger of covert subversion of democratic states by dictatorships using modern forms of covert warfare such as hijacking or sabotaging computer systems. There are still a large number of dictatorships and authoritarian states in developing and emerging economies.

However, the main active violent external threat now comes from non-state actors in the form of terrorism. The scale of terrorism varies from control of territory with mini-armies seeking to overthrow the established states in some developing countries to small groups of individuals preparing operations in democratic states.

My opposition to terrorism is not conditional.

Terrorism has lost its political cover. It cannot be justified by by politics or religion. The last bastions of ideological support for terrorism are being cornered and attacked.

Religious justifications are being challenged - from total rejection to partial rejection. There is still room for clarity and leadership from many religious leaders to end their ambguity on this issue.

Using terror to uphold religion is not moral and quite strongly against the religious founders (Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, etc). The central moral issue is the killing of innocent people. The concept of a spiritual service to God cannot even contemplate injuringor killing innocent human beings. Religious scriptural authorities have to be interpreted to negate these moral domains to justify terrorism.

The terrorist embraces a concept of forcing religion upon people and eliminating any dissent with their often thuggish concept of morality - denying religious choices or different roads to God as well as wider denial of freedom of choice. They turn religion into a blood-soaked morality. The progress made in establishing the right of critical about religion and the progressive, modernist schools of religious thought are discarded to create a fundamentalist mindset and paradigm for the terrorism to operate in a 'moral' climate.

The only argument that religious terrorists give is the corruption of their religion (by internal factions or by foreign forces) or the brutality and repressive violence of the state. I do not subscribe to the view that true religion (separate from instutionalised or state religion) can easily be corrupted.

Nationalist justification is extremely limited. Most states have attained sovereignty. The remaining 'national' questions have been weakened rather than strengthened by terrorism. All of them have suffered seismic defeats by using terrorism as a method for achieving their objectives.

The religious and nationalist terrorist weapon has been shown to have failed in terms of utility as well as morality on a huge scale, but not in all parts of the world and not in all ideological formations. This is a task to be fulfilled.

The robust progress against terrorism at the level of force has to have a champion on the political terrain of a democratic and free society.

The moral case against terrorism has to be put clearly and in exact terms. Confusion leads to weakness in the fight against terrorism. It is right to protect a democracy from terrorism. In a democracy, a nationalist argument can be placed on the political agenda but the use of force cannot be justified. So there is space for political expression of difference in a democracy. This invalidates the resort to force.

This is true for minorities too. A minority is able to play a political role and seek to convince the majority of its case. This may be very difficult, but it is not impossible. In either case, terrrorism cannot be considered a legitimate weapon for those defeated on a political terrain or failing to win majority political support.

Democracy and freedom is an enemy of the terrorist by its very openness to political discussion.

The argument that the state is brutal and uses violence is false when used by terrorists and their supporters - because terrorists also use repressive and brutal violence in the geographical areas or territories they control and only complain about violence by others and not by themselves.

The defeats suffered by terrorism have been painful to some people linked to terrorist support base, but terrorism offers no protection to 'victims'.

Victimhood does not mean that one evil justifies another. Instead, the movements that resort to terrorism are shown to be shallow in terms of supporting moral relativism and not able to withstand the force of the opposing side in the 'realpolitiks' of modern warfare.

I also believe that there is a legitimate role from a technical LEGAL point view of the state in protecting its territorial integrity and its monopoly over the use of violence. Non-state actors do not have the same authority or right to do any acts of violence, whereas the state does have some legal authority in its constitution - even if it's scope and character is disputed. The state is the authority with a legitimate right to use force to maintain law and order internally and externally. This is the hub of the matter. The actions of the state are permissable. The legal scope is the only matter subject to debate.

There are two schools of those who oppose terrorism - the anti-civil rights school in which, it is argued, that civil rights have to take a secondary role to an emergency situation (called 'war on terrorism' school) as terrorism threatens the freedom and lives of the innocent people of a democratic society and all pre-emptive actions. Incidentally, although this rule applies to non-democratic and authoritarian states too, I do not AT ALL support non-democratic authoritarian or dictatorial regimes.

The other school says that democracies have to lead by example and apply its values even to the issue of terrorism ( including the rule of law, due legal process based on evidential tests, presumption of innocence until proven guilty, legal accountability of police and security/ military forces etc). They treat terrorists as normal criminals and seek to contain terrorism ( hence they are called the 'containment school'). According to this school, terrrorists have to have full human and civil rights e.g. on the basis of the assumption of innocence before being proven guilty. The logic of making exceptions to human and civil rights for terrorists can lead to the weakening of these rights and opening up the state to abusing them in a wider way, according to this school.

Purely in terms of utility, terrorism has been defeated by 'robust' ( in reality, brutal and very violent state action - including wars, bombings of terrorist bases, killing rather than arresting terrorists, matching violence of the terrorists by even more violent acts by the state, targeting civilian supporters of the terrorist by violence or detention, etc). The war on terrorism works.

The argument that the USA itself has not been attacked by the terrorists since 9/11 because of the war on terrorism in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. is true in a specific sense. Equally, the war on terrorism has had success in India, Sri Lanka, etc. The war against terrorism is purely a brutal contest of violence - in this way of thinking - it is the state emulating the "tougher than thou" approach. This is the classical position of hard line opponents of terrorism.

I do not agree with the argument that the state has a free license to do what it wants. Democracy as human freedoms and the rule of law is an important. Maybe I am deluding myself, but I do not regard the killing of any innocent person to be a price worth paying for the war on terrorism. I believe a moral and human rights prism does exist, but only to protect the innocent and not to protect the terrorist. This creates many difficulties in law-making and establishing operational rules.

Even when I think that there may have been a genuine error of judgement, I still believe that police or security/military forces are accountable.

For instance, I believe that the Metropolitan Police should be accountable for the killing of Jean Charles De Menezes because he was innocent. The minimum I expect is an exemplary disciplinary punishment - and I would go so far as to see it as a criminal matter. No innocent person should be killed without an extreme level of accountability, even if it done by the police or security/ military forces. The state should feel the pressure of accountability especially when an innocent person has been the victim. Democracy should protect the innocents and their inalienable rights including the right to life and liberty. To argue this does not logically entail being soft on terrorists. There has to be a distinction drawn.

So I am fairly clear in my views on this issue.

However, how do you deal with preventative action against alleged terrorists who might pose a real risk or with captured potential terrorists without the evidential requirements of a normal trial being met? There is an 'exceptionalist argument'.

I can understand the case on both sides. The Bush government sought to create isolation and segregation of terrorists from normal US society by creating a specific facility at Guantanmo Bay where US civil rights legislation did not apply and normal legal rights of detention of criminals were denied to these people on the grounds they were enemy combatant and the war emergency rules apply as the new legal basis for such exceptionalism. Historically, in wars tough interrogation techniques have been used to extract intelligence to prevent attacks on civilian or military bases. The test of effectiveness has to be one of the tests in the fight against terrorism. Removing terrorists from normal rules of civilian criminal trials is reasonable state behaviour based on the threats posed by the terrorists to democratic societies and their use of subterfuge to carry out their operations and hide information given any opportunity.

In the UK, the killing of a British tourist kidnapped in the Sahara desert by Al Qaeda because Abu Qatada was not released from prison (where he was held for deportation to Jordan) shows the difficulties is finding evidence related to terrorist acts. The legal system based on human rights can be a negative tool to frustrate the holding of potential terrorist leaders or promoters of terrorism. There is in addition a sense of injustice, targeted at the weakness of the state in fighting terrorism, when it is obvious to the public and media that some people pose a threat to the state or advocate terrorism. This can weaken the authority of the democratic state. It can lead to the growth of counter-authority anti-democratic political forces and mindsets e.g. supporters of the racist and anti-democratic extreme right. The law has a duty of safety by curtailing the activities of the terrorist and their support groups ( both logistical and political).

I would not like to give the benefit of doubt to terrorists if the risk is to the public. Preserving the lives of innocent people, who are its citizens, is the paramount duty of the state.

The opposite is also true, but for innocent people not involved in terrorism - I do not condone any violations of the rights of innocent people specifically at the most serious level of killings or long-term injury. Minor inconvenience is not my main worry or even some level of mistakes. So this is a judgement call and a complex balancing act requiring state responses. History or circumstantial evidence should be used to make this judgement. A man applauding terrorist acts and seeking to argue for them is a danger. There should be an assumption against him. Exceptionalism rules should apply to him. There can be very finely balanced judgements.

Although I do not like the detention of any innocent people, I would on balance support the detention of those posing some risk of terrorism. I do not support the use of torture, but equally I do not believe in being soft on terrorists trained in withholding information. The use of tough interrogation techniques such as sensory deprivation has to be permissable within legal guidelines of reasonable state behaviour proportionate to the threat posed by terrorist acts. The protection of the public is important. These issues are weighing one moral risk against another.

There is another issue: how to hold police security/ military forces accountable when they are shown to be clearly wrong about a person when it is a question of a risk on a balance of probabilities rather than beyond reasonable doubt test?

I do not think that democratic police and security/military forces are on the same level as the terrorists at all and not remotely so, but I do not believe in a carte blanche to their conduct. They are the paid guardians of democracy and paid to protect public security. They are lawful agents of the democratic state. They are moral components of democratic societies against external and internal threats such as terrorism. They are heroic in carrying out these duties. They have died in such duties. They put their lives and bodies in the way of a threat. They deserve to be honoured.

Equally, if they have done something to violate the law or transgressed human rights they ought to bear some responsibility. The law and human rights legislation must permit them to act against terrorism and not let terrorists win. There has been some very high profile cases of the state standing by when people have advocated terrorism. This is unacceptable. The state forces are not civilians - and there is some scope to assess their conduct and decisions within the duties imposed on them rather than on the same level as civilians.

The other side of the argument is easy to understand in one way. This is the argument of Obama - shut down Guantanmo Bay detention facility, bring the terrorists to the mainland to be within US jurisdiction, don't detain people without a time limit, trials of the terrorists should be conducted within the US courts, etc.

The US legal system and values of democracy and freedom have to be proven to be superior to the arbitrary and lawlessness of the terrorists, who have no moral or ethical values of protecting innocent people. The civil and human rights values of such an option is clearly greater but it may lack credibility as an effective deterrent to advocacy or acts of terrorism - specifically when and if the terrorists succeed in their attacks. There is also a danger of a perception of the state being weak in the face of threats.

In the London attacks, the intelligence agencies were criticised for failure because they had not taken sufficient action against a terrorist who they had captured on CCTV and had seen as part of a terrorist lead they were following. There has to be control over the state authorities to obtain accountability, but there should not be control to prevent them from acting, even if they make some mistakes (provided those mistakes do not lead to serious injury or loss of life).

However, this still raises issues about the question of the possible necessity for the segregation and isolation of those accused of terrorist offences. It still raises the issues of the evidential requirements in such cases or even the scope of terrorist legislation to catch all those involved in the wider terrorist movement (those behind the scene or those seeking to escape from punishment by avoiding the technical definitions of terrorism).

I believe in democratic societies there is a real difficult choice to be made between liberty and stopping terrorism. As someone who believes that civil liberties are precious values and who wants to take the strongest measures possible against terrorism ( and who has no sympathy with terrorism on the basis of 'victimhood'), I believe that choices have to be made. There has to be an element of presumption that the state forces are acting for the benefit of society. Mistakes can happen. Minor mistakes should not be causes for alarm. However, serious mistakes such as serious injury or death of an innocent person has to be fully investigated and accountability rules applied to state agencies. Equally, normal rules should not apply to terrorists or their supporters. There has to be a level of exceptionalism based on a shift in normal rules of the legal process e.g. presumption of guilt based on circumstantial and history of the person including their political support for terrorism.

Equally, there is real scope for debate on this matter to arrive at the right policy and legislative decisions through an informed public policy discussion.

Difficulty does not mean an abstention of responsibility. It means clarity of the goal of protecting innocent people from the enemy of terrorism and protecting innocent people from a willful or careless abuse of state power, even in a democracy.

A free society is worth defending and a free people worth protecting.

The Democratic Dilemma

This article is written because Cay Lennart, who I deeply respect, raised the issue of whether I was being too harsh on China.

The Democratic Dilemma: Democracy For China?

I have been a long term supporter of China's economic development and recognise the challenges faced in a country with over a billion people. I also enjoy Chinese culture. I was responsible in London for bringing the Chinese New Year celebrations into Trafalgar Square (reported in Xinhua).

I think it was important to address this issue because I did not address it at the time specifically over the issue of strategies and tactics in relation to China.

I want to operate within a clear set of principles. I do not believe in unprincipled government. So the only way to do this is to present my views openly and clearly, so that it is possible for people to see where I stand on these issues.

I think it is necessary to be clear about the society you live in and its character.

I support democracy universally as a system of the people choosing their governments in free and fair elections with the right of people to express different views. In the modern era, democracy has superceded absolutist forms of government (both religious and monarchical) that dominated Europe. However, in the developing and emerging economies, this is not the case.

I want to be consistent and principled in my position on this matter.

So European countries of the EU, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, Indonesia, South Africa, Brazil etc - are all democratic countries. They have freedom of choice at a political level and conduct free and fair elections. There may be this or that criticism, but the system they operate is democratic.

I oppose dictatorships - including military rule (e.g. Burma), non-plural or one-party systems (e.g. Communist Party one-party systems - in Communist Russia or Communist Eastern Europe), anti-pluralist religious states (e.g. Iran, Taleban rule).

I will apply these principles in making any political statements or having any relationships. So I do not believe in trying to describe a dictatorship as a democracy (e.g. China is not a democracy) or trying to describe democracies with dictatorships (e.g. US is a democracy irrespective of a criticism or even fundamental disagreement of its foreign policy and even its moments of serious failing on the democratic test - did Al Gore or George Bush win the 2000 Presidential election due to problems in the ballot machines, etc. does not invalidate this democratic political system).

I am willing to think through issues of democracy rather than just paint stereotypes.

I am willing to consider that democracy may come through various ways to dictatorships.

For instance, I have been to many talks where people have argued that democracy can happen through engagement rather than through condemnation. The director of the Russo- British Chamber of Commerce made this argument where he argued that engagement can lead to democracy better than condemnation. I clearly support the democratic rights of East European countries against bullying by Moscow e.g. in Georgia.

In terms of China, I am willing to concede that China's middle classes will create a democracy through the success of their economic and cultural freedom space. Equally, I support economic development in China as a developing society and as a society with poor people. I welcomed the Tiananmen protests in Hong Kong on the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen protest repression and I support its right to exist as a democratic space in China under the 'one country two systems' agreement. Equally, I unconditionally opposed the attacks on the Dalai Lama by the Chinese government. I also unambiguously supportive of the right of Tibetan people to protest and opposed Chinese repression in Tibet. I also broadly support economic engagement with China and oppose protectionism directed against Chinese goods.

In terms of Dubai or Arab kingdoms, I am willing to concede that economic development space and consumer choice will create the basis of an opening up of social and political pluralism. Equally, I do not equate Islam with being anti-democratic or anti-social liberalism (e.g. Pakistan and Indonesia are democratic countries and I support the fight to retain democracy and social liberalism in Pakistan, Egypt is fairly democratic and socially liberal). I also do not write off the Arab Kingdoms from developing in terms of social liberalism or democracy.

I am willing to concede that boycotts may not be the right tactic to put pressure on military dictatorships such as in Burma. I am clear that the democracy movement has to be fully supported - including the holding of democratic elections without preconditions and unconditional release of political prisoners and the democratic leader of Burma Aung San Suu Kyi. I was very clear that a military dictatorship was a backward step for Thailand after hearing the British Ambassador for Thailand doing a London briefing session on this issue fairly soon after the event.

So I think there is a room for discussion of strategies, tactics and forms of engagement/ boycott, etc. However, this does not mean at all giving a blank cheque or trying to cover up the reality.

I am clear that Russia is authoritarian, China is a one-party dictatorship, Dubai is an autocratic country and the Arab Kingdoms are autocratic in political and social terms, Burma is a military dictatorship, etc.

Equally, I am against election fixing in a democracy or political corruption etc. in democratic countries.

So I will not try through semantic or political logic-twisting to present reality in a different way. I will support democracies and oppose dictatorships as a matter of principle.

However, I am willing to consider criticism of democracies and consider different tactical responses to get change in dictatorships. However, I am not willing to deny any abuse of human rights against anyone - this is a matter of principles.

So there is a dilemma, but this dilemma is within a clear framework and clear yardstick. I support democracy over dictatorship. But there is a dilemma for a real democratic. I will always address it in a principled way and with openness about my views on this issue.

Russia and New World Order

‘Russia’s role in the new world order’

by Atma Singh BA Hons FRSA

As an expert of public policy and strategic Asian Affairs, I wanted to extend your thanks for allowing me to present my thoughts on the question of Russia’s role in the new world order. I thank the hosts for presenting this speech in my absence here in Chania, Greece. I could say, like Winston Churchill, that: “I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma: but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interests.” But I do not think this is entirely true of 21^st Russia both internally and externally.

In my forthcoming book ‘An Asian Century Manifesto: Global Political Economy Of The 21^st Century’ , I wanted to capture the vast historical changes going on in the world at an economic and political level in the 21^st century world. My strategic argument is that the economic axis of the world is changing from the West to Asia. This is the most significant economic development for over a century and maybe in the last 500 years. It has profound and seismic consequences for the world.

Today, under the cloud of the global economic recession, everyone realises that the world is changing before our eyes. However, I want to put forward my view that China and India - from being very much third world countries in the post-war period have become very significant global actors - and will lead the world in the 21^st century on an economic level with their vast populations of over a billion people, according to many global projections such as the one by Goldman Sachs report and the recent US National Intelligence Council report.

I also have a very strong view about the present global economic crisis. I regard it as the worst since the Great Depression in the 1930s after the Wall Street crash in 1929 in terms of its global impact – much bigger in scope than the 1980s global recession or the 1990s Asian currency crisis. It is possible, in my opinion that the crisis is more fundamental. In the 1930s global economy went through a global restructuring process in which the US emerged as the most important global economic power. Many people in power have been much faster at recognising this economic crisis and its depth. At the same time, governments across the world have sought to intervene through a form of Keynesian intervention - learning the lessons of the Great Depression and the US New Deal as a recipe for successfully tackling the crisis. There are very few - part from Zimbabwe - who have sought to tackle the crisis through unleashing huge quantities of currency into the economy yet and causing hyperinflation and economic devastation like in the Weimar Republic that led to the conditions in which Nazis took power.

In a restructuring process – I believe two things are critical – managing the restructuring process to relieve as many economic pressures on people and then a process of modernisation.

I have been asked to say a few things about the role of Russia in the new world order. Russia has been a very significant power in Europe for centuries, despite its changing role in this period. It has been part of the European continental alliances as well as part of the division of Europe between the East and the West. Russia played a crucial role in defeating Nazi Germany with millions of lives – to which we all owe a debt of gratitude – even more than six decades later because European democracy is a product of this role which ironically Russia played to defeat the enemy of democracy. Although most of Russia is in Asia in geographical terms, its political power and cultural thinking has been very European – based in St Petersburg and Moscow. Russia has been an imperialist power as well as part of the Soviet Union – an alliance of technically independent entities - although some people have described this as a proto-imperialist entity.

Russia in the 21st century is seeking to establish a role within the new multi-polar world instead of the bi-polar world of the cold war.

Russia has discovered a new role as a part of the world of new ‘Oil-archies’ – countries who wield vast global power during the period of hyperinflation in the commodity prices through the importance of their energy sector, its production and reserve capacities. Billionaires mushroomed in Russia. Oil and gas were some of the most valuable commodities on earth. This has been a glory period for post-cold war Russia, although the rest of the non-oil based economic world might have suffered terribly and they have a different view of this period.

Russia used some of this wealth to pursue internal economic development – and I have a very simple principle of applauding economic progress and success - and so I welcomed the use of wealth to improve the cities and towns of Russia. Most people in Russia felt that this period was an important period of economic development. This was in contrast to ‘the shock therapy period’ of economic collapse of Russia in the 1990s. Professor Jeffrey Sachs, who incidentally I criticise for his shock therapy recipes, he is now a convert to a new earth saviour role with his new-born expertise in Asian affairs, wanted to convert state-led industry and welfare into a full scale privatisation programme - without caring about its social consequences. In 1990s Russia life expectancy fell in Russia. I disagreed with this course of action. I do not subscribe to the view that good economics is about being anti-people.

However, I am not a critic of the pro-western liberal political forces in Russia. In my book, I argue that the most dynamic economic and political forces in the 21^st century will combine a pro-western and pro-Eastern economics and politics: and those who are based on an anti-West or anti-East positions will become the least dynamic and in some cases like the anti-Western forces become like the Taliban, a stone age economic and political force.

Now Russia is faced with a new policy agenda in its internal affairs and a new policy agenda in its external affairs. In internal affairs, the economic downturn has sharply reversed the economic position of Russia and its economic growth. The fall of the rouble is a sign of the problems of Russia. This is still an ongoing issue. Currency management is a major issue around the world. Russia is technically in a recession, according to one Russian Minister although Russian PM Putin has sought to downplay if not deny this.

I believe that old-style Russian denial of reality is bad policy. I am a strong advocate of plural democracy around the world. I want the Russian economy like every other economy in the world to succeed. The Russian economy will face restructuring and I would welcome measures to manage this process and to prevent economic pain to the Russian people as much as possible. A pluralist democracy would be a positive aspect – to get political and consumer feedback and competition in the Russian system - to ensure that the impact of the economic recession on ordinary Russians is not hidden by its political elite. An effective restructuring of the Russian economy based on the realities of the 21^st century global political economy, can only really take place in a plural democracy. Russia has to be a Western and Eastern economy. Its politics has to be based on Western democracy and Russian progressive values – the most modern and progressive of the Eastern and Western values and policies.

Let me address the question of Russia’s position in the geo-strategic affairs and its foreign policy. Russia does not occupy the same space in global affairs that it occupied during the cold war era when it played a role as part of the bi-polar superpower equation. It occupies a significant role on its vast border regions. Its global alliances and thinking is primarily focused on this. The borders include East Europe, Caucuses and Central Asia as well as the Far East.

So far there has been conflict, if not war, in Georgia as well as extreme tensions in Ukraine, some tensions in the Baltics and simmering tensions in Central Asia over NATO and US bases. I do not support big power bullying of small nations on territorial questions. Russia still occupies a role on the UN Security Council and it is still the second biggest nuclear power in the world. But in reality it has ceded much of its global role to China due to China’s growing global economic role as a manufacturing and trading power, making deals with Russia’s traditional allies across the globe. Russia is a much weaker global player than USA despite the US failures in Iraq. The US has taken a political turn with the election of Barack Obama. This is likely to herald a shift by the USA to consolidate and develop new global alliances and seek a new nuanced and less confrontational presence in the world.

The Russian political leadership has focused on a very defensive geo-strategic posture: guarding itself against further disintegration and loss of territory to the NATO and US military camp- mostly by the full support of former Russian satellites, which are now independent countries with new alliances and new members of Western geo-strategic bodies. Its foreign policy rows with the UK have symbolised this.

It is clear that there has been some shift in Russian foreign policy after the Georgian crisis. Despite, its military grab of parts of Georgia in an act reminiscent of the Russian ‘Big Bear’ opening its claws to gobble up nearby prey that has consolidating anti-Russian opinion in most of Eastern Europe, it is equally seeking alliances with part of the European Union specifically France who also seek to play a new role as a global player. Russia has done the same with India with a visit by the Russian President to its former cold-war Asian ally.

However, I believe the critical events will be Russia’s relationship with USA under its new President Barack Obama and new Secretary of State Hilary Clinton. I am not sure whether Russia will be able to calibrate this new relationship with its subtle changes in policy and not necessarily a strategic shift in US policy towards Russia. However, without grasping this specific change, I think Russia may end up being isolated as an old cold war type of power without becoming a serious player on the new map of global powers in a multi-polar world.

It equally may mistake its relationship with China and India, into a simplistic ‘Trilateral Asian Alliance’. The increasing importance of Asia on an economic level and potentially geo-strategic level does not automatically lead it to adopt anti-USA positions. Both China and India have very developed economic relationships with the USA. India has recently signed an Indo-US nuclear power deal. China has very entrenched economic relationships with the USA. China has nuanced relationships with the USA and so has the USA witnessed by President Bush attending the Beijing Olympic Games.

I want to conclude without charting a course for Russia to discover its role in the new world order. This may arise due to external events and pressure or internal policy shifts. However, it will have to address its position in a new multi-polar world of the West and the East and its new role in the global political economy of the 21^st century - and move beyond its cold war role.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

War is Peace and how to make a "Spontaneous Demonstration"

(http://zionism-israel.com/israel_news/2009/01/war-is-peace-and-how-to-make.html)

This article a superb analysis of Grass Roots strategy and how it works: "Spontaneous" demonstrations are never spontaneous. This is how support for Hamas is organized. It shows how "progressive" "peace" activists can be subverted to support a radical, reactionary anti-peace movement.

Examination of the 'Entryist' Tactics of the Hamas Front Organisations and the Extreme Left in the UK Gaza Protests in London

06/01/2009

Atma Singh | UK Affairs

Introduction

The public policy agendas of revolutionary socialist and Islamist organisations in the UK have increasingly converged on the question of Israeli action in Gaza. This convergence has become especially pronounced following the termination of the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas on 19 December 2008.

In London, a national protest took place on 3 January 2009 under the heading 'National Gaza Massacre Demonstration'. It included the slogans 'Hands off Gaza. Stop the Bombings. Free Palestine' called by the Palestine Solidarity Organisation; Stop the War Coalition (STWC); British Muslim Initiative; CND and many other organisations. The speakers included Ken Livingstone, former Mayor of London.[1]

This article highlights the involvement of two key controlling revolutionary organisations involved in these London protests through their 'front'[2] organisations or politicians (the list includes STWC; British Muslim Initiative and Ken Livingstone as a political personality through his advisers), through an examination of the key objectives and political methods of these modern revolutionary socialist and Islamist UK actors. Specifically, attention will be given to analyzing how the organisations manipulate and infiltrate state agencies and mobilise public opinion. By doing so they influence public policy on the questions of terrorist non-state actors in the Middle East, such as Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement), which has been declared a terrorist organisation by the European Union and the United States of America, and their positions of opposition to legitimate nation-states like Israel.

Protests such as this one, which mobilise the Islamic and peace constituencies in the UK, put the British Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary under pressure regarding their policy towards Gaza. The primary aim is to shift UK policy away from supporting Israel's sovereign right to defend itself against Hamas attacks, whilst a secondary aim is to legitimise Hamas. Furthermore, these constituencies seek to rally the forces opposed to the two-state solution and build an anti-Zionist (i.e., not recognising the right of the state of Israel to exist) position amongst Islamic, peace and left wing groups in the UK. A distinction should be made between these acts and the legitimate democratic right of any member of the UK's general public to protest, criticise and oppose state policy.

Socialist Action and Muslim Association of Britain: Examples of Extreme Entryist Organisations

Two key revolutionary socialist and revolutionary Islamicist 'entryist'[3] organisations in the UK have adopted a strategy which uses the authority and resources of the UK to support Hamas and oppose Israel. 'Entryism' is a political tactic by which an organisation or state encourages its members or agents to infiltrate another organisation in an attempt to gain recruits or take it over entirely. These are Socialist Action (which is not an open, but a deep entryist organisation that seeks to hide its real identity in UK politics) and the Muslim Association of Britain (a front for the Muslim Brotherhood organisation in the UK, which also uses a form of entryism in UK politics by concealing its real identity). They attempt to obtain the passive or active support of state actors in the UK to legitimise Hamas and portray Israel as an aggressive state, thus de-legitimising it.

These two non-state actors have been highly successful in using the Greater London Authority to pursue their goals, receiving both passive and active support for Hamas front organisations and anti-Israeli public policy positions during Ken Livingstone's term as Mayor of London. This success has been used to further infiltrate the UK (in policy terms) and the police and security services (subverting anti-terrorism strategy and policy). In addition, this level of infiltration has been used to marginalise the most mainstream Jewish organisations in the UK (for example the Jewish Board of Deputies, through its characterisation as a 'Zionist' organisation which must be smashed) and to bring extremist Islamist organisations (such as the Islamist, pro-Jamaati and pro-Hamas Muslim Council of Britain [MCB] and the Hamas Muslim Brotherhood front organisation [MAB]) into the mainstream.

Socialist Action[4] centred on the now defunct magazine Socialist Action and the current public website 'Socialist Action Review', is an organisation mainly composed of British citizens. Members if the Hamas front organisation the Muslim Association of Britain[5] are mainly of Palestinian origin or expatriates of other Islamist states. Both are modern forces in the sense that they pursue their goals using two key modern tools of political influence―positions in the UK state and access to the media―to further their objectives on issues ranging from terrorism to foreign policy. Socialist Action members played a key role in the Mayor's office of the Greater London Authority as advisers to Ken Livingstone during his term as Mayor of London, with people such as Simon Fletcher as Chief of Staff; Redmond O'Neil as Policy Director of Transport and Public Affairs; John Ross as Policy Director, Economic Policy; Judith Woodward as Senior Adviser on Culture; Anne Kane as Consultant and myself, a former member of the Socialist Action. Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood supporters have played significant roles in influencing the UK police and security agencies through MAB, its presence in the Muslim Council of Britain and its highly influential modern European Islamist philosopher and academic Dr Tariq Ramadan. MAB members such as Dr Azzam Tamimi have been regular guests on media programmes, including BBC's programme Newsnight, and Anas al-Tikriti has often written in The Guardian newspaper's 'Comment is Free' column.

This process of modernising extremism has been labelled 'fascists in suits', in reference to neo-fascist groups in Europe, who wear suits to disguise themselves as 'mainstream' political actors in order to obtain legitimacy in the media and amongst the electorate.[6] In the UK there are both 'revolutionary socialists in suits' and 'revolutionary Islamists in suits'. The former are the leading lights of Socialist Action and occupied key political positions in the Ken Livingstone administration. The latter are MAB members who occupy important political positions within the peace movement and the UK Islamic constituency, denoting the legitimacy they have gained in mainstream circles.

However, as was stated earlier in the article, this is a process based on 'entryism'. Its main ingredient is subterfuge, concealing the real identity of the groups' political affiliations. The real affiliations and political positions of these revolutionary groups open them up to scrutiny and criticism in their roles in state agencies and bodies such as the Greater London Authority and the police and security services, to the extent of threatening their viability.

Socialist Action: Objectives and Strategy

Socialist Action strategy is based on the Trokskyite concept of a world socialist revolution.[7] It seeks to overthrow capitalist states and replace them with a Leninist 'Proletarian Dictatorship'. Its predecessor organisations operated an electoral strategy outside of the Labour Party, without success, as the International Marxist Group British Section of the Fourth International. This is what has led Socialist Action to use entryism. The group decided to use an 'entryist' strategy to gain access to the Labour Party in the 1980s and 90s. It is a 'modern' Trotskyite group in a different sense to the use of the term 'modern' earlier in this article – which was 'modern' interaction with the state and the media. This is its willingness to operate on the terrain of contemporary UK and global circumstances by accommodating the new left wing social movements, among them women's liberation, black liberation, gay liberation and the greens. Later on, it will be noticeable that Socialist Action has sought to make Hamas Front organisations in the UK to some of these new left social movements.

The group bases its tactical sophistication on the Trotskyite concept of the 'United Front'―a willingness to make temporary and very narrow political and limited objective-based alliances with wider social movements and political forces on an issue by issue campaigns basis. During the 1990s it acquired an ability to work on a long term basis with the leftist elements of the Labour Party, specifically the Campaign Groups of MPs and Ken Livingstone. It also used the 'united front' tactic to work with much wider sections of the Labour Party and other political and social movements on short-term objectives of issue-based campaigns such as abortion rights, anti-racism, gay rights and the peace movement.[8] This paved the way for it to obtain a passive legitimacy within the Labour Party. However, Ken Livingstone denied its abilities and effectiveness as a revolutionary organisation to journalists such as the BBC's Andrew Hosken in his biography Ken: The Ups and Downs of Ken Livingstone.

Socialist Action as a Labour Party entryist group sought a symbiotic relationship with leftist Labour MPs who would work with the group on a long-term basis. This was underscored by an unwritten contract: support for the electoral and political ambitions of the MP in return for organising the political activists and quietly recruiting members to the organisation, as well as pursuing revolutionary aims at a covert level through this new level of legitimacy. Furthermore, Socialist Actions positions on Israel, to some extent, and to a lesser extent on Hamas, overlap with those of leftist MPs, although the latter have not been subjected to any intense scrutiny. Only Ken Livingstone, as Mayor of London, was closely examined. Indeed, sustaining his relationship with Muslim Brotherhood elements and his decision not to retract his racially inflammatory and deeply insulting description of a Jewish reporter as a 'concentration camp guard' caused him huge political damage.

Muslim Association of Britain: Objectives and Strategy

The Muslim Association of Britain (MAB), as the UK front organisation of Hamas and the wider Muslim Brotherhood, has a natural sympathy with the strategy of seeking to overthrow the 'Zionist' state of Israel and 'corrupt' Muslim regimes. This is consistent with its aim to establish Islamic states according to the Muslim Brotherhood model and Hamas Charter.

Article two of the Hamas Charter clearly states that 'The Islamic Resistance Movement is one of the wings of the Muslim Brothers in Palestine. The Muslim Brotherhood Movement is an international organization, the largest Islamic Movement in the modern era. It is characterized by a profound understanding, by precise notions and by a complete adherence to all concepts of Islam in all domains of life: views and beliefs, politics and economics, education and society, jurisprudence and rule, indoctrination and teaching, the arts and publications, the hidden and the evident, and all the other domains of life'. The organisation is anti-Western in that it conforms to the distinction drawn by its key historical ideologue Sayyid Qutb between Jahiliyyah (pre-Islamic ignorance) and Islamic Sharia (religious law): all Jahili 'Muslims' (according to his interpretation), Jews and Westerners must be destroyed. According to Qutb's book Milestones, all non-Islamic states are illegitimate and should be eliminated, including his own native Egypt.[9] The organisation has links with European front organisations of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Federation of Islamic Organisations in Europe, and the more theological European Council for the Fatwa and Research.

In the UK it has adopted a strategy similar to the Trotskyite 'United Front' on the issues of Islamism, with two main elements. Firstly it aims to capture the UK constituency interested in global issues of Islam, specifically supporting the creation and defence of Islamic regimes and movements. Secondly, it supports the Islamicisation and radicalisation of Muslims in the West.

However, its primary focus is to support Hamas through the building of a 'united front' on the Palestinian question and defeating 'Zionist forces' in the UK. This focus has emerged again and again in different formats in its UK strategy. The key element of its legitimacy has been its participation in the anti-war and pro-peace movement, alongside a relationship with UK police and security services or their sub-elements. Since September 2002 STWC protests have been co-sponsored by MAB. Thus it has played a major role in mobilising the UK Islamic constituency within the broader peace movement, giving it some political legitimacy. These protests have included those against the Iraq War (for example the one million people march in London), the march against the Israeli conflict with Hezbollah (Hezbollah is a close ally of Hamas in the Middle East) and now the protests against Israel in its conflict with Hamas in Gaza.

In the middle of this decade the Respect electoral coalition of the revolutionary socialists and the extreme left in the UK utilised a key strategy of working closely with the MAB. For example, former MAB President Anas al-Tikriti headed Respect's Yorkshire and Humberside slate for the European elections in June 2004, without any electoral success. MAB has also sought an electoral strategy through the British Muslim initiative (BMI), led by its key player Mohammed Sawalha, a former Hamas military commando. It used the initiative for the electoral mobilisation of its Islamic constituency against pro-Israeli and pro-Iraq war politicians during the last UK general, European and Mayor of London elections. It has not been wholly effective.

MAB's key ally Ken Livingstone was defeated in the elections for Mayor of London in 2008.The British Muslim Initiative was given some legitimacy by hosting a meeting with Reverend Jesse Jackson during his visit to the UK. This may have been facilitated by Ken Livingstone's traditional allies in the UK black community. Reverend Jesse Jackson was photographed with Mohammed Sawalha at this event.

The leaders of the STWC and Respect, and in particular the Socialist Workers' Party (an overtly revolutionary socialist organisation in the UK), have gone to great lengths to portray the MAB as representative of all people of the Muslim faith, or even all ethnic minority organisations in Britain. This is very far from the truth. The MAB is a political organisation with a very specific political agenda. In the issue of MAB's newspaper Inspire produced for the 28 September 2002 anti-war demonstration, an article on the MAB's 'Historical Roots and Background' linked it explicitly to the Islamist tradition of the Muslim Brotherhood.

MAB seeks to lead its market domain by innovation, takeovers, alliances and mergers in the political field of Middle East and Muslim politics in the UK, to use strategic economic terminology. It has taken over Muslim organisations where it can. In 2005 it took over the North London Mosque from its competitor for the radical Islamist constituency in the UK, Abu Hamza and his firebrand extremism. It even used the Metropolitan Police to help in this task,[10] using highly sophisticated political tactics and manipulating state agencies to gain control over other organisations by portraying itself as moderate. It also exploits the disruption caused by its opponents for its own benefit. This sort of tactic has been made possible by building up the credibility of its work through a visible and active relationship with UK state actors.

MAB has differentiated itself from its competitors in Hizb ut Tahrir (HuT), which is now banned in the UK. Rather than putting itself in a position of opposition and conflict with such forces, MAB has learned from the tactics used by revolutionary socialist and extreme left organisations in the UK. . MAB has also been a beneficiary of the political participation of Hamas and many Muslim Brotherhood organisations in elections. However, contrary to its own and its allies' claims and attempts to manipulate public opinion, Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood's participation in elections does not make them a democratic force. Rather, the ideology of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood is opposed to democratic pluralism, as demonstrated by Hamas in Gaza.. The Bolsheviks participated in Constituent Assembly elections―they lost to the Mensheviks and resorted to a coup d'état to seize power. The Nazis under Adolf Hitler also participated in elections, but used these to abolish democracy and destroy freedom in Germany. There is no logical link between participation in elections and a commitment to democracy. Hamas is perhaps more similar to the Bolsheviks and the Nazis, used its election success to eliminate its opposition. It carried out a coup d'état to purge Fatah military forces loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian National Authority: it resorted to killing its political opponents and competitors.

MAB has also sought to mobilise the UK and European Muslim constituency for Islamist radicalisation through building short-term issued-based campaigns on issues such the French ban on the Muslim headscarf (Hijab) in a campaign called 'Pro-Hijab'. The title of the campaign was deliberately designed to send an Islamist message to its Islamic constituencies in the UK and Europe, despite the argument that this campaign was based on the right of Muslim women to choose to wear the Hijab, in opposition to the French government's ban.

MAB has been highly successful in taking over Muslim organisations in the UK and across Europe. It has the controlling share of a huge network of Muslim organisations and umbrella bodies such as the Federation of Organisations of Islamic Students (FOSIS), the British Muslim Initiative, the North London Mosque and the European Muslim Brotherhood fronts.

Peace Movement Players against a Peace Settlement in the Middle East?

Despite participation in the 'peace' movement, revolutionary socialist and revolutionary Islamist organisations have political, anti-Zionist positions that directly contradict the international community's efforts to create a comprehensive peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinian people. Peace is equated solely with the defeat of Zionism and imperialism, even if this means 'terrorism'. In this sense, these revolutionary non-state actors are anti-modern. They cannot perceive that modern forces in developing countries, including Islamic-majority states, may want an accommodation with the West as part of an economically dynamic equation in the global economy. The contrast between successful Middle Eastern economies open to the West, such as Dubai, and those closed to the West, such as the failed and highly unstable Afghanistan state under the Islamist Taliban and Somalia under the Islamic Courts Union regime, does not fit into the revolutionary paradigm of these organisational actors who romanticises Islamism.

Israel is a recognised nation-state (it is defined as such by the United Nations by its membership of nation-states). The Palestinian National Authority is an embryonic state on the basis of developing a viable nation-state. A key part of the comprehensive peace settlement is the recognition of the state of Israel and its legitimate right to exist. By raising once again the question of Israel's right to exist, Hamas has generated one of the biggest obstacles to the peace settlement. It is part of a new Islamist revolutionary position against the existing positions of the international community, such as the Quartet on the Middle East (compromising the United Nations, European Union, Russian Federation and United States of America) and the dominant trend in the established Middle East nation-states.

Socialist Action describes Israel as a 'terrorist' state, and by implication a state without any legitimacy or right to exist. In fact, such a characterisation seeks to validate attempts to attack the state and to destroy it. By this logic, supporters of such a state are sympathisers with terrorism and must be opposed. This is part of the ideology of terrorism which, by a twisted logic, describes Jewish people as Zionists and part of a global Jewish conspiracy. It also gives ideological and theological encouragement to those willing to carry out terrorist attacks, including those on specific Jewish targets, such as Nariman House in the recent Mumbai attacks.[11]

To defeat Israel politically by de-legitimising it together with its supporters in the UK is a second primary objective of the revolutionary socialist and Islamist organisations. One part of this tactic is to undermine the level of crime committed during the Holocaust by the Nazis against Jewish people. Israel must be portrayed as an aggressive rather than a defensive state, created as an act of aggression rather than as an escape from persecution. One of the recent protests in London has termed current events the 'Gaza holocaust'―a highly dubious and questionable metaphor on many levels (amongst them scale, legitimacy and aims of state and non-state actors). This borrowing of the terminology of suffering can often have the effect of undermining the scale of the genocide and barbarity in the Jewish Holocaust carried out by the Nazis.

However, this attempt to de-legitimise Israel and portray it as an aggressor is being pursued at a global level. In the Middle East, for example, Iran hosted the global Holocaust revisionism conference and inn the UK Ken Livingstone labelled a Jewish reporter a Nazi concentration guard. This was intended to soften up public and political opinion, which views the Jewish people as victims of the Holocaust.

Ken Livingstone the politician has a long history of constantly characterising Israeli politicians such as Ariel Sharon as 'war criminals'[12] and the actions of the Israeli state in military operations as 'crimes against humanity'. Yet it is still important to understand the specific impact of entryist revolutionary actors in sustaining and encouraging pro-Hamas and anti-Israeli positions.[13] They encourage Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood to be active and legitimate actors in UK politics, rather than a group which should come under public, political and media scrutiny and whose legitimacy should be challenged on grounds of its pro-terrorism positions.

Conclusion

The national demonstration on the current events in Gaza, held in London on 3 January 2009, was a product of the work of MAB and Socialist Action, two entryist organisations, through their roles in STWC, the BMI, as advisers to Ken Livingstone and in other organisations. The role of revolutionary entryist actors in the UK in supporting Hamas and opposing Israel has been significant. The UK government has taken significant steps to contain the advocacy of terrorism. The media is also helping in exposing terrorist sympathisers in the UK. Both need to be aware of the use, by these two revolutionary movements, of entryist tactics in order to influence public policy on the Middle East. They must be vigilant in challenging the legitimacy of these organisations, as their policies are directly opposed to a diplomatic peace settlement on the Israeli-Palestinian question. It is necessary for all political, media and government bodies in the UK to articulate a strategic two-state solution in order to achieve a full and urgent settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian question and avoid being manipulated by entryist revolutionary socialist and revolutionary Islamist actors, their front organisations and political personalities.

Originally written for the the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs magazine, MESI. Reproduced here by Zionism-Israel.Com

About Atma Singh

Atma Singh is Public Policy and Asian Affairs expert and a former top level Policy Adviser on Asian Affairs to the Mayor of London Ken Livingstone in the Mayor's Office 2001-2007. He left the Mayor's Office on the issue of the Mayor's developing relationship with Muslim Brotherhood, which he opposed. He is the author of 'An Asian Century Manifesto: Global Political Economy of the 21st Century' (London: ASK Publishers, 2008).He is a former Lecturer and Senior Human Resource Development Consultant. He is a member of the Keynote Professional Speakers Network and Public Policy International. He has a Bachelor of Arts degree in politics from Newcastle Upon Tyne University (UK) and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Notes

[1] A copy of the publicity leaflet is available as a pdf file at http://stopwar.org.uk/images/documents/Gaza-Demo-new-assembly.pdf. There are many press reports of this protest. For example, the UK newspaper The Independent lists some of the organisations organising the demonstration as well as some of the political and cultural personalities who spoke at the protest, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/riot-police-called-out-in-london-as-protest-ends-in-skirmishes-1224474.html. There is also a report of Ken Livingstone's remarks as one of the top most well-known politicians to attend this protest, http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/01/03/Thousands_in_London_protest_over_Gaza/UPI-90901231029679/.

[2] A 'front' organisation is an entity set up and controlled by another organisation.

[3] 'Entryism' (or 'entrism' or 'enterism') is a political tactic by which an organisation or state encourages its members or agents to infiltrate another organisation in an attempt to gain recruits or take it over entirely. Subterfuge is an essential element to the success of 'entryist' organisations, since entryism involves hiding real identities or intentions. Although in the UK entryism is better known through the example of the Trotskyist group Militant Tendency's infiltration of the Labour Party, here we will examine 'deep entryism' practised by a formerly open Trotskyist and entryist organisation, whereby the very existence of the organisation is hidden to the extent that it has no publicly active manifestation (such as a clearly visible organisational front or its own media outlet). The second type of entryist organisation, Islamicist, is not familiar to UK audiences although it is well-known in the Middle East and South Asia, in circumstances where a state has banned a particular organisation for its terrorist or other illegal activities.

[4] A short history of Socialist Action available on Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Action_(UK). The most recent account of Socialist Action is my own article in the UK-based The Sunday Times on January 19 2008,http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article3216954.ece. (ST 19.01.08) Socialist Action Review website provides information on the current views of the organisation including its two articles on Israel as a terrorist state, http://www.socialistaction.org.uk/. This organisation is a deep entryist organisation. It does not publish its views openly from named sources and neither does it organise meetings or any other activity openly. 'Socialist Action believed themselves to be the inheritors of the Fourth International — a Marxist group seen as the true inheritors of Trotsky's political vision. Essentially, they believed they were working towards a global revolution. Their support of Hugo Chavez today reflects these earlier political beliefs. The Venezuelan president's stated aims of establishing a workers' state chime with Socialist Action's own objectives in the 1990s and early 2000s of advancing global revolution.

'They believed Britain needed a workers' revolution and hoped to foment anti-state forces. In the early days, they held rallies and marches and published pamphlets in the hopes of mobilising a political alliance with forces of international socialists.

'Socialist Action's leaders were John Ross, who has acted as economics adviser to Ken Livingstone for many years, and Redmond O'Neill, his deputy chief of staff. Other members of the group included Anne Kane, who has undertaken consultancy work for the mayor, and Simon Fletcher, the mayor's chief of staff, who was always on the periphery.' (Ibid ST 21.01.08)

[5] Muslim Association of Britain (MAB), http://www.mabonline.net/. On 19 December 2003 Louise Ellman MP said the following in UK Parliament: 'It is time that the spotlight fell on the Muslim Association of Britain, particularly the key figures, such as Azzam Tamimi, Kamal el Helbawy, Anas al-Tikriti and Mohammed Sawalha. All of them are connected to the terrorist organisation Hamas. The Muslim Association of Britain itself is a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood―an extremist fundamentalist organization founded in Egypt in 1928, and the spiritual ideologue of all Islamic terror organizations. It is militantly anti-Semitic and always has been.' (Quoted on 28 May 2008 in an article by Melanie Phillips, http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/archive/2008/May/.) Hamas (Harakat Al Muqawama Al Islamiyya or Islamic Resistance Movement) describes itself in its Charter as the Palestine wing of Muslim Brotherhood. Mohammed Sawalha and Kamal el-Helbawy are two prominent members of the Europe and International Affairs Committee of the Muslim Council of Britain. Dr Azzam Tamimi was quoted by the BBC on 14 July 2005 saying that he would be willing to become a suicide bomber in Israel: 'I would sacrifice myself it's the straight way to pleasing my God.' http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4681857.stm Mohammed Qassem Sawalha, President of the British Muslim Initiative (BMI), was described by the Muslim Brotherhood website, www.Islamoneline.com, in 2008 as political manager of the Muslim Brotherhood in the UK, founder of IslamExpo (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article4926218.ece ), a trustee of the North London Mosque (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article513868.ece) and former military commander of Hamas. Anas al-Tikriti, the current President of MAB, is an Iraqi Sunni. His father is leader of the Iraqi Islamic Party, the Iraqi wing of Muslim Brotherhood.

[6] The phrase 'fascist in suits' was used in the anti-fascist magazine Searchlight in the UK in 2005, http://www.searchlightmagazine.com/index.php?link=backIssuesTemplate&date=2005_09. This is in contrast to the stereotypical image of the neo-fascist activist as a skinhead with tattoos and a thuggish look.

[7] Wikipedia has an overview article of contemporary Trotskyism as well as a summary of Leon Trotsky's political views, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trotskyism. The Trotsky archives on the internet provides the most comprehensive list of the writings of Leon Trotsky, http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/index.htm.

[8] http://www.workersliberty.org/node/9907.

[9] http://majalla.org/books/2005/qutb-nilestone.pdf.

[10] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4639074.stm.

[11] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7753639.stm.

[12] http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2005/mar/04/london.israel.

[13] Ken Livingstone has a history of holding anti-Israel views. This dates back to September 1982 when he published a three-part history of Israel in the Labour Herald., According to BBC journalist Andrew Hosken in his biography Ken: The Ups and Downs of Ken Livingstone (London: Arcadia Books Ltd, 2008) Livingstone described Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin as a 'creature of terror' (p394). He also wanted to counter the 'feeling of guilt throughout the Western world" over the Holocaust since this was seen as supporting "the demand for a Jewish homeland' (p394). He published a cartoon of Menachem Begin dressed in a black SS uniform making the Hitler salute, standing on a pile of Palestinian skills with the words 'The Final Solution? Shalom?'. In 1984 he described the UK-based Jewish Board of Deputies as dominated by 'reactionaries and neo fascists' (p395). As I revealed to Andrew Hosken, Socialist Action also characterises Israel as 'a terrorist state'. Its article stated: 'The terrible atrocities committed by the Nazis against the Jewish people in the Holocaust were cynically used by imperialism to establish Israel in 1948 ... the plan of the imperialist powers was to create a state in the Middle East completely dependent on and loyal to Western imperialism. Thus Israel came into being, and is today armed by the US.' (www.socialistaction.co.uk) This version of history does not see Israel as part of the greater movement of independence gained by nation-states following the Second World War. The Holocaust played a critical role in the creation of the state of Israel, giving a sympathetic reading of the facts to legitimise and support the right of Israel to be established as a state.

Atma Singh's full article on Ken Livingstone. January 19 2008

(The Times Article ' Why I blew the whistle on Ken Livingstone'By Atma Singh 2008)

Why I blew the whistle on Mayor Livingstone

The political chief of Britain's capital city has become besieged by allegations of misdeeds and a far-left conspiracy that could sink his bid for re-election this year. On Monday, an explosive piece of Channel Four Tv investigative journalism about London Mayor Ken Livingstone could end his eight-year reign.

Here the Dispatches programme's main whistle blower, Atma Singh, tells The Sunday Times why he bravely decided to expose his former boss.

I started work in City Hall in July 2001 as a policy adviser on Asian Affairs for Ken Livingstone. I had previously worked on his 2000 campaign and even entered Romney House on the Sunday after his election with his team. Norman Foster's Greater London Assembly (GLA) building had not been even been built.

I was introduced to Ken Livingstone years earlier in the 1990s through involvement with the Anti-Racist Alliance (ARA). I worked on the GLA executive and about three months after the ARA had started in November 1991. I was involved in left-wing politics and respected him as a prominent figure on the left of the Labour party. I had come to know many of those who now make up his most trusted advisers years earlier through a Trotskyite group called Socialist Action. I joined in 1981.

Socialist Action believed themselves to be the inheritors of the Fourth International — a Marxist group seen as the true inheritors of Trotsky's political vision. Essentially, they believed they were working towards a global revolution. Their support of Hugo Chavez today reflects these earlier political beliefs. The Venezuelan president's stated aims of establishing a workers' state chime with Socialist Action's own objectives in the 1990s and early 2000s of advancing global revolution.

They believed Britain needed a workers' revolution and hoped to foment anti-state forces. In the early days, they held rallies and marches and published pamphlets in the hopes of mobilising a political alliance with forces of international socialists.

Socialist Action's leaders were John Ross, who has acted as economics adviser to Ken Livingstone for many years, and Redmond O'Neill, his deputy chief of staff. Other members of the group included Anne Kane, who has undertaken consultancy work for the mayor, and Simon Fletcher, the mayor's chief of staff, who was always on the periphery.

We would meet in pubs and community centres around London, although the hub was in Shacklewell Lane in Hackney, where Lithoprint printed Socialist Action's monthly magazine and other pamphlets.

In the late 1990s, Socialist Action decided to operate as an entryist organisation so at meetings and rallies we would use code-names. I was called Chan.

One of their key objectives was to put "their" people in positions of responsibility in other organisations. I suppose they wanted to ensure they would not be marginalised and would always be tapped in to left-wing politics. In the last 20 years they have had members working for the Anti-Racist Alliance, National Assembly Against Racism, the National Abortion Campaign, Labour CND, NUS Black Students Campaign, Stop The War and even at one time Sinn Fein.

But those jobs have often been given at the expense of others who actually understand the issues better. It is a trend which I have observed continuing to the present day at the heart of the mayor's office.

This is typical of the behaviour of many Marxist organisations and after a while I began to feel it wasn't right especially when it came to Asian affairs. They always wanted to impose their own views and positions on what I was doing on behalf of my community. I officially left Socialist Action in 1994; I wrote to Redmond O'Neill at the time to explain that I no longer wanted to be considered a member. Socialist Action didn't understand the basic principles of black politics, which has to begin with respect and honesty and a willingness to promote black people as political figures. This was most dramatically shown in the way that, with Livingstone's help, they went about trying to wreck the black-led ARA because Marc Wadsworth, its leader, refused to allow them to control it.

Despite this rift I continued working closely with SA members, and even carried on paying a small subscription into the group's bank account until 2004.

In the mid-1990s Socialist Action became very loyal to Ken Livingstone. I think that Ken Livingstone ultimately wanted political power so he didn't object to Socialist Action pursuing their agenda as long as this coincided with him having an increase in power. They organised his campaigns successfully and dealt with spin. Ken Livingstone was never a member of SA but he was close to the group. Almost like the leader — certainly the most prominent politician that the group is associated with.

Socialist Action continued to meet regularly when Ken Livingstone decided to run as an independent candidate in the 2000 London mayoral elections. I remember that John Ross was working in Russia at the time. Ken had visited him and met Guennady Ziuganov, the leader of the communist party in Russia. Ross had been writing articles on economics and distributing them at the Duma. As soon as Ken Livingstone won the election Ross flew back to London. I remember him arriving at the Silk & Spice Restaurant where we were holding the celebration party. I think he was carrying his luggage.

Once elected, the mayor appointed his firmest champions as his policy advisers in City Hall. The Socialist Action meetings continued while advisors were in office — until at least 2001 — at least that's the last one I attended. In these meetings members discussed everything from politics in the Balkans to the Public Private Partnership that ran the Tube, even the GLA New Years Party. They discussed whether the Congestion Charge in London should be set at £6 or £5. They were held in the upstairs room of a pub in Islington.

Of all the things discussed the theme that was regularly returned to was what they called a "bourgeois democratic revolution". Essentially, that London should be a city-state and a beacon for socialism. They saw themselves as holders of political power in London.

The advisers who surround Ken Livingstone are driven by a desire to maintain as much political power as possible through control of London's finances, control over the staff who run London and the removal of opposition. They wanted to control everything that was sensitive politically and kept a strict control over what went out to the press for instance. They advise the mayor on policy decisions and worked to implement these decisions on his behalf. The advisers were completely responsible for their area, we made decisions about what the mayor should say in his speeches, which events he should attend, which meetings he should go to. In 2002 they began to reconsider how City Hall might be organised. Restructuring was done, firstly proposed by John Ross, and he hired KPMG.

The whole point of that restructuring was to put a lot more power in the hands of the mayor's office in terms of policy advisers and less power in the hands of the other directors. And so eventually the directors, as they came to be known in the mayor's office, would be the people who would make the decisions, not only in the GLA's City Hall or Romney House but in the whole of the GLA. So it would change the balance towards the political side. Ken said it was a democratic side of the GLA versus the bureaucracy of the officers.

The mayor's office also wanted to control anything that was sensitive politically and particularly what went out to the press for instance. And what went to the assembly. The structures got tightened so that under the Freedom of Information Act the amount of information that was in the public domain was restricted by having, for instance, shredders for anything confidential.

It was made clear that this was our role during the run-up to the 2004 election. We were expected to participate in campaigning activity to ensure that Ken Livingstone was re-elected. We were asked to write articles and briefings on behalf of the mayor, to arrange and go along to trips and visits to bolster the campaign. We were even asked to fundraise on behalf of Ken Livingstone. I personally collected cheques and am aware that other policy advisers did so too.

I met Hemlata Singh (a donor) in a coffee shop next to City Hall before the election and collected £30,000. And I persuaded Sir Gulam Noon to donate £6,000 to the campaign for a marketing strategy. There were several others.

It was clear to me this was not proper behaviour. We were told to use our personal email addresses and have meetings outside of City Hall. I have since found out that we were in fact breaking the GLA's regulations and am angry that the culture in City Hall made this seem normal.

Ken Livingstone absolutely relies on his advisers and trusts their decisions. However, I did find that he didn't want to hear about anything where he himself had failed in quite major ways. As long as it wasn't a political problem and wouldn't damage him in the polls he would ignore it. I started to point out that that there was a lot of tokenism in the GLA; there was only a certain level at which Asians could ask for things. There was a lot of rhetoric of support for Asian issues and there were Asian events, but these things didn't demand an increase in expenditure and didn't empower the Asian community. There was no attempt to look at what Asians wanted or what their needs were. I believe that race relations are dealt with simply as an electoral issue: 'How can we get them on board while not actually delivering?'

I repeatedly raised my concerns about this but I felt that I was being ignored, progressively marginalised. The stuff was very petty — they would organise meetings while I wasn't there. Committees I once chaired would be dissolved and someone else put in my place, and after the 2004 election I rarely accompanied the mayor on visits.

It's a shame that by ignoring me in this way Ken's staff were also ignoring Asian affairs. On the issue of the number of Asians who were on the senior management teams of the GLA which was zero, he just didn't want to know about that. He left it up to Redmond O'Neill or Lee Jasper.

One time Ken proposed to have another Chinatown in London, the people in China town wanted it, so he announced it in Trafalgar Square on Chinese New Year. Initially there was a lot of reluctance in the mayor's office to pursue this. Then there was some serious work to try and look at it and to get the backing of a local authority to find space for it. And then suddenly it was abandoned. I believe the mayor's office were reluctant to give greater power to the Asian community.

My health, meanwhile, deteriorated as a result of the stress of responding to this vicious behaviour and I had to take leave. Relations broke down when I returned to work and in March last year I began a grievance complaint on the grounds of harassment and bullying, which I believed had been conducted over the past two years with the aim of forcing me to leave the GLA.

I felt I was treated the same as when I was in Socialist Action - like a small child being told what to do, which included being shouted at. I accepted it for a long time but I shouldn't have. It's just abuse.

The mayor's office launched disciplinary proceedings, claiming that I had neglected my duties and I began proceedings with the employment tribunal. We settled out of court and part of the agreement was that I wouldn't speak out about the way I was treated. At the time I was too ill to continue to fight and reluctantly accepted this but now I feel passionately that I should speak out. They think they are untouchable. I think they're wrong.

Atma Singh was adviser on Asian issues to Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London, from 2001-07

Submitted by Editor on Sun, 01/20/2008 - 15:48

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