Tuesday, June 30, 2020

Sheila Rowbotham

Sheila Rowbotham is an author and my favorite of her books is 1973's WOMEN, RESISTANCE AND REVOLUTION.  JACOBIN speaks with her for a new article and this is the opening of the conversation:

ANP
You came into the Left in the early 1960s in the environment of the disarmament campaign and the lingering aftermath of 1956. How did those years shape your political development?

SR
I think it was key to be involved in a movement, because CND [the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament] had lots of different kinds of people in it. There were members of the National Union of Teachers who used to walk very solemnly and seemed incredibly old. Then there were people in leather jackets and people in jeans. It was a time when there was still a beatnik counterculture. Then there would be trade union people who went.
So there was a great mixture of people, and politics wasn’t at all sectarian; there were people who were Christian socialists and anarchists, and there was a tradition of direct action through the Committee of the 100 — peaceful direct action that came through the Ghandian influence. We did things like sitting down in protest, and on one occasion we marched to a regional seat of government. We had an idea that you’re challenging the lack of democracy in the state, at the same time as making a moral protest.

GW
You write in your description of those years — and I think you’re referring specifically to New Left Review — that you could not understand how they could be socialists but not bother about being personally remote from working-class people. I’m curious how you grappled with the question of being a middle-class socialist as you developed your political orientation.
SR
I think it may have been because I came from a northern industrial city that I had that awareness. People came from the south, and particularly London. My father’s family, and my mother’s, hadn’t had formal education. My father was a mechanical mining engineer and he’d gone up and down in life so he worked in the mines when he couldn’t get a job in the ’30s, and then became a salesman. There wasn’t a tradition of books in our home. We had various books that arrived there by chance because my father had gone to auctions and the books would come in lots, and I used to read those.
I had a really good history teacher at school, who was a liberal. At the time as I was growing up, there was such a strong emphasis on class, because of the culture of the novels, the angry young men — there was a rebellious feeling that class was something that people were protesting about. So, I think I picked that up before I ever had any idea of left politics. It was part of being against everything that seemed to have already existed.
ANP
What was your relationship with the New Left Review milieu?
SR
When I was in university, we had a group called Universities and Left Review. And it was a more fluid situation. My boyfriend then was called Bob Hawthorne and he was a close friend of Gareth Stedman Jones. I met Gareth in my first year of university. Actually, I met Gareth on a blind date — I got invited by a friend to meet some friend of somebody, and Gareth and I met.
I was not at all left-wing, and he had been chalking against the Algerian War in the streets. So it wasn’t the most successful blind date, because I was a sort of mystical beatnik hippie-type person, and I said I’ve been chalking in Paris — by which I meant I’d chalked to get money. And he’d chalked political slogans. And it wasn’t until I met him again through Bob that I got to know Gareth. But he was a student, and a bit younger than Perry and the people who started the New Left Review.
ANP
So, after a time as a Trotskyist, you describe yourself as drawn toward libertarian socialism and women’s liberation.
SR
I wasn’t really a Trotskyist. The main influence wasn’t Trotskyism and it wasn’t the New Left Review, although some of my contemporaries were connected to that. It was the politics of the New Left I’d read from the Reasoner and the New Reasoner that Dorothy and Edward [Thompson] had. I’ve always had friends who were in lots of different groups, so I developed an idea that I’m friendly with people of different political persuasions and I got that through participating in a movement in which there was this great mixture of people. There was a moral commitment, and the commitment to living and working with working-class people, which Dorothy and Edward did.
A lot of my life has also been involved in living in working-class areas and working with working-class people. I wanted to overcome the class divisions between people. From quite an early age, I felt they were pointless and stupid. And it seemed obvious that the inequalities affected people from very young, because I used to teach school, before I taught at Manchester University, so I could see the ways in which everything was against the working-class girls and boys that are taught.
ANP
Can you talk a little bit about your relationship with Dorothy and E. P. Thompson?

SR
I met them when I was nineteen. I met them because I had a tutor who I’d been sent to — because I was a bit of a problem. He said, you should go see these friends of mine, Dorothy and Edward Thompson, who live near Halifax, and they write about things like Chartism.
So I rang them up and I was exceedingly nervous. And Edward and Dorothy said I should come and visit, so I did. When I got to the house, I didn’t see Edward, I just saw Dorothy, who was in her thirties then, and she was wearing this black polo-neck jumper and black tights which is very much at that time what intellectual lefty women might wear, not the people that my mother knew. They didn’t know me or have any idea why I was there, particularly, but they just welcomed me.
I used to visit them a lot, and read everything in their study. So I did read The Making of the English Working Class in proofs. And it was like no other history book I’d read. I had read things like Primitive Rebels by Eric Hobsbawm, so I’d read some left history. But Edward’s book was just completely extraordinary — all these people — and quite a lot of the places were places that I was familiar with because they’re close to Leeds.

Read the whole interview.  Even just on paper, it makes for a lively and great conversation.

"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):
Monday, June 29, 2020.  Who is running Iraq -- or is it: who's ruining Iraq?



Where is the prime minister of Iraq?


It's a question that needs to be asked as all the problems continue in the country.  In July, he'll be in the US meeting with President Donald Trump.  Will Iraq still exist?

As the coronavirus rages in Iraq, THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE reports:

Iraqi authorities said Sunday 13 doctors have succumbed to coronavirus in the country since February.
A further 775 doctors have contracted the virus, Abdulalameer al-Shimmary, head of Iraq's Doctors' Association, told Anadolu Agency.


Hundreds of #Iraq's medical staff are now infected with #COVID19. Those doctors are risking their lives and their families' lives in order to contain the catastrophe with minimum resources. Many have died after getting the virus.
1:30 PM · Jun 24, 2020Twitter Web App


As a result, the government has made a move.  THE NATIONAL notes:

Men sit at a traditional cafe in the historic city of Shaqlawah, about 48 kilometres northeast of Erbil, in the northern Iraqi Kurdish autonomous region. AFP
Iraqi authorities ordered medical students to volunteer at the country’s hospitals after a sharp increase in coronavirus deaths was reported.
The National Security Council made the decision during a Saturday session chaired by Prime Minister Mustafa Al Kadhimi, state media said.
Fifth and sixth-year medical students will be “directed to volunteer to work at hospitals” to support health staff “in the confrontation against the coronavirus pandemic”, the council said.

The 'volunteer' term is an issue.  Will they be paid or not?  This is an issue and it's a serious one.  Iraq cannot find paying jobs for their citizens.  The government has noted earlier this month the decision to stop paying some workers.  You're ordering students to volunteer -- are you paying them?  Are you paying them a living wage?



Authorities in Erbil province announced a total lockdown on late Sunday as the number of coronavirus infections continues to rise. Meanwhile, Kurdistan Region health officials reported 139 new cases and six deaths due to the complications related to the disease over 24 hours.
A ministry statement detailed that among over 1,400 coronavirus tests given in the past day, 139 returned positive. It also said the total number of infections had risen to about 5,700.
The statement noted that six more patients had passed away due to the highly contagious disease and added that, since the beginning of the outbreak, 186 people in the Kurdistan Region had succumbed to the virus.


 
Firsat Sofi, governor of Erbil, informed Rudaw that the provincial lockdown will begin on Tuesday, rather than on Monday as previously noted in a statement

The order will now be put in place between Tuesday, June 30, at 6:00 am and 11:59 pm on Saturday, July 4.

All civilian movement will be prohibited, including vehicle traffic.

Residents will be allowed to purchase essentials at their local bakeries, supermarkets, groceries, and pharmacies, which will remain open during the lockdown, according to the issued order. No hours of operation have been specified for the essential businesses.

This morning Djhword Tweets:

Stop Turkey from bombing the Kurds in Iraq | We the People: Your Voice in Our Government petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/stop-
Lets get it to 100,00 signatures #TurkeyIsInvadingKurdistan


Yes, another problem the prime minister of Iraq should be addressing.  Turkey is in violation of international law and Iraq's sovereignty by bombing Iraq and by sending ground soldiers into Iraq. Seth J. Frantzman (JERUSALEM POST) reports:


There are growing concerns about Turkey’s military operations in northern Iraq, two weeks after Ankara began bombing areas of the country claiming it was “fighting terrorists.”
Turkey began operation “Claw-Tiger” on June 17 and it seems to come in the context of Turkey launching new military attacks every month in different countries to distract from failures at home by Ankara’s leading party.
Turkey has had almost a year of near-constant new conflicts and militarist saber-rattling.
Last spring and summer it threatened to invade eastern Syria, threatening US troops and the Trump administration in the process. The US tried to appease Turkey by having its anti-ISIS partners on the ground remove obstacles to Turkey’s invasion. It wasn’t enough, in October Turkey told Washington it would begin bombing the region and US troops must move.


That alone was already disturbing.  But now Orhan Coskun (REUTERS) is reporting:

Turkey plans to set up more temporary military bases in northern Iraq after stepping up its strikes against Kurdish militants there, a senior Turkish official told Reuters, saying the effort would ensure border security.
[. . .]
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) said on Wednesday that Turkish and Iranian military interventions violated Iraqi sovereignty. The UAE and Turkey in opposition on several fronts, including in Libya where they back rival sides.  


The spokesperson for the Iraqi military laughably declared weeks ago that ISIS was vanquished.  That's never happened.  ISIS remains active in Iraq and continues to carry out attacks.  It's an issue the prime minister needs to seriously address.  THE NEW DELHI TIMES notes:

The resurgence of the Islamic State can be attributed to a weakened Iraqi government along with an administrative and security vacuum in the country.
The Islamic State (IS) has carried out a series of attacks in recent times which has led security studies analysts to take note of the resurgence of the terrorist and extremist groups in Iraq. According to a May 2020 report by the Combating Terrorism Centre (CTC), there has been a surge in attack activities in the second half of 2019 and the first quarter of 2020.
The number of reported Islamic State attacks increased from 1,470 in 2018 to 1,669 in 2019, with 566 reported attacks in the first quarter of 2020 alone. As per the CTC report, the number of areas with active attack cells seems to nearly double, from an assessed 27 areas in December 2018 to an assessed 47 areas in May 2020. The IS attacks have taken place in the provinces of Anbar, Baghdad, Diyala, Kirkuk, Ninewa and Salah al-Din. The IS has also plenty of fighters at its disposal.

In May 2020, assessments from the U.S. Central Command, the Defence Intelligence Agency and the U.S.-led coalition, shared in a report by the Defense Department Inspector General, claimed that the IS as a group was still operating mostly on the margins, both in Iraq and Syria and the terror group lacks the capabilities to sustain that pace over several months. However, many security experts contend that the U.S.-led coalition is unable to see key changes on the ground.
The most recent U.S. estimates put the terror group’s force strength in Iraq and Syria at anywhere from 14,000 to 18,000 fighters. Further, despite the U.S. raid that killed former IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in October last year, IS has maintained command and control under new leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi.




Let's close with this:


We are so excited to announce the launch of Ms. magazine's very first podcast, On the Issues with Michele Goodwin! 
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Tune in Tuesday, June 30 for the first episode of On the Issues with Michele Goodwin—Policing in America: A Tale of Race, Sex and Violence. Professor Goodwin and her guests will ask critical questions like: where are the women in the field of policing? And why does it matter?
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