EUROPEAN SOCIAL FORUM: Faultline Becomes a Frontline

By Sanjay Suri Reprint | | Print |

Sanjay Suri

LONDON, Oct 16 2004 (IPS) - The meeting on ‘The Faultline in British Politics’ at the opening of the European Social Forum in London Friday came to resemble at least a little the frontline in Iraq. Civil society seemed at civil war.

Some trouble had been expected when the leader of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU) Subji al Mashadani was listed as a speaker at one of several anti-war meetings. This was a meeting on the occupation of Iraq as ‘The Faultline in British Politics’.

But al Mashadani was not allowed to speak or even to stay on at the meeting. He was heckled and jostled around by a few persons, and he had to leave the meeting room.

The meeting had been arranged at the Friends Meeting House in Central London.

Subji al Mashadani has come to be known as a union leader prepared to work with the occupation forces in Iraq. He was never going to be popular at the European Social Forum (ESF), a meeting of mostly civil society and left-wing groups in Europe.

The IFTU leader has stirred controversy since his intervention at the annual Labour Party conference last week. He and other IFTU supporters urged the Labour Party conference to welcome the U.S. appointed Iraqi premier Iyad Allawi.

Members of this group successfully lobbied the trade union affiliates of the Labour Party to oppose a motion calling on British Prime Minister Tony Blair to set an early date for the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq.

Several major trade unions dropped their support to the motion as a result.

”It is understandable that British trade unions should wish to express their support to the working class of Iraq in its extremely difficult struggles,” Stop the War Coalition said in a statement later.

But it pointed out that ”IFTU is one of a number of trade union and workers’ organisations in Iraq, distinguished from others by its support for the Allawi government and, it is now apparent, for the foreign occupation on which that government depends for its existence.”

The Stop the War Coalition said it condemns IFTU’s ”political collaboration with the British government, exemplified at the Labour Party conference, and its view that genuinely independent trade unionism in Iraq can develop under a regime of military occupation.”

Differences have widened among trade unions following the Labour Party conference. Members of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), the largest union in Britain representing 6.5 million workers, had passed a resolution opposing occupation of Iraq. But several TUC members also backed the IFTU leader.

The angry outbursts against Subji al Mashadani Friday only underlined the divisions between Stop the War Coalition and several of the unions. The TUC said the IFTU leader had been denied the right to freedom of speech.

The TUC accepted him in fact as a legitimate voice of Iraqi trade unions and said in a statement that ”the voice of Iraqi trade unions should be heard” because ”the IFTU is one of several trade union voices in Iraq and the TUC is of the view that all of them should be listened to if we are to help the Iraqi people to rebuild their country.”

The TUC did not say how it sees a British role in the rebuilding of Iraq.

But the TUC said it still held ”that the war was wrong and that troops should be withdrawn as soon as possible. The only way forward is to allow people of differing opinions to have their say.”

More differences over this issue are certain to surface through the ESF. The ESF programme is packed with meetings against the occupation of Iraq.

”This will be a major element of the third ESF,” Chris Nineham from the Stop the War Coalition told IPS. Many civil society groups are expected to come together in a new campaign against occupation through the forum.

Stop the War Coalition was the leading group that helped organise joint protests throughout Europe on Feb. 15 last year against an invasion of Iraq.