ESF Fallout - Lefty Ritual Does Its Thing

Well, the inevitable leftwing infighting has now had a few days to marinate since the European Social Forum, and it's boiling down to one of the most spiritually important rites in the lefty calendar - the exchange of angry letters to the Guardian. This always happens, and it takes the form of each party to the split getting everyone they know to sign the letter so it appears with "..and 6 others" after your signature. The greater the number, the stronger the tribal mana associated with the rite. The only honourable response is to conduct a counter-ritual with more signatories. Eventually, a particularly influential lefty in the spirit world might get the ultimate compliment of a piece on the Comment page, with the attendant prestige.

I've never done it myself, but I think if this happens you have to sacrifice a goat or two and undertake the shaman's flight.

What it all concerns, aside from the punch-up at the ESF, is apparently that the leadership of the Stop the War Coalition don't think one of their members, the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions, is sufficiently anti-war because they think the occupation should not end until the elections have been held. This has led to one of the trade unions involved, UNISON, deciding to pull out. You have to say it seems a little odd for people in north London to tell Iraqis whether they are fighting the occupation enough, but then this is the left. Deeper, it's the usual thing of the main-streamers versus the Socialist Workers (Trotskyists), who may or may not be up to their traditional practice of entryism depending on who you talk to. Whether they are or not, their very presence tends to make the trade unionists paranoid about infiltrators. So far, the UNISON leadership has got in the first blow, with a follow-up from the IFTU representative in Britain. Today, the SWC (or perhaps the SWP) hit back and moved the mana level radically higher, when they achieved a piece in the Guardian's comment page.

They'll be out on Hampstead Heath tonight with the goat, I don't doubt.

Why anybody should think this kind of student politics nonsense is a worthwhile response to the world's problems is beyond me, but then, you have to feel sorry for the goat.