Wednesday, August 23, 2006

The Euston Manifesto

I was raised to appreciate to socialist ideal. From the time I can first recall my father and mother were involved in the concept of universial socialism and, along with their circle of friends, all immigrants from pre-WWII Europe (Ukraine, Russia, Poland, Hungary) were of a like mind that this would ultimately be of benefit to humankind. Collectively they subscribed to the ideal of an egalitarian and free society, open to any and all, with respect due uncompromisingly to all people of good faith who wished to live together in peace and harmony.

A robust cultural programme was important to this group of quasi-intellectuals and socially-conscious people of an emerging immigrant middle class, devoted to their vision of a social revolution. An emphasis was placed on higher learning, on the importance of educating oneself through reading, and lively musical, dance and theatre productions were laid on, invitations to perform for an appreciative audience going to to people in the arts throughout North America.

My parents' larger social-cultural organization worked tirelessly on behalf of equal recognition for Blacks.
This was a time when Jews were forbidden entry or membership to universities, teaching positions, private clubs and other such emblems of upper-crust Protestant and Catholic society within Canada. People of Japanese, Chinese or East Indian extraction were viewed with suspicion and suffered great indignities in Canada. Aboriginals, Canada's First Nations, were treated with utter disdain and considered somewhat less than completely human.

The CCF and its later incarnation, the New Democratic Party, was their political party of choice and they enthusiastically supported it. In turn the NDP supported people like my parents and their friends, through their focus on workplace unions, on universal accessibility of health care, on social support services for the poor and underprivileged.

Since those early years the NDP has come far, was responsible for encouraging Canada's other parties in implementing social programmes that became the bulwark of a progressive country based on immigration, hard work and resource extraction, farming, factory production. A slow general emancipation became the order of the day, and people like my parents were proud possessors of Canadian citizenship, the opportunity to exist as equals among equals in a free and fair society.

The left had its signal place through all these events, and I was proud to be a supporter. A sad degeneration began to take place within the NDP party, as with left-leaning political parties almost everywhere in the last decade or so. Politically correct became the order of the day, where instead of bringing critical insight to a situation that demanded it, one had first to consider conditions, cultural, traditional, religious that impacted to result in unsavoury situations.

Thus the poor, the disenfranchised, the overburdened, the indigent, those who came from broken homes, those who suffered childhood abuse, aboriginals and others were held to a different accounting than all others. Their situation in life was considered to be their excuse for behaviour deemed unacceptable by all others. New-immigrant cultural traditions that led to the vitriolic condemnation of others from without that culture were accepted, as one considered the source, rather than the expectation that in this society one adapted to the values of the host culture.

I will no longer, ever again, after a half-century of voting for the New Democratic Party, Canada's party of the left, vote NDP.

Now I read that there is a nascent group on the international horizon, one which, if it is successfully supported by sufficient people of good will who feel the lack of a political party that truly represents their way of thinking, may even come to Canada. From what I have read of this emerging political party it can readily encompass the views and values of people who had voted previously for the left, for right-of-center, and even social conservatives.

This group's website is www.eustonmanifesto.org, and to access the site is to inform oneself of the potential to vote for a political party, should plans come to fruition and their establishment become a matter of record, that would express the democratic ideal in its fullest detail. Its 15 principles are outlined there, along with its background and it is worth looking at.

A thumbnail sketch of those principles looks something like this:
  1. Free elections, separation of church and state.
  2. No excusing of or apologetics for anti-democratic forces.
  3. A firm commitment to the universal character of the Universal Declaration of Human rights; a critique of culturally relativistic arguments that can legitimate injustice in non-western societies.
  4. Commitment to gender and ethno-racial equality; support for labour rights and free trade unions.
  5. Globalization must serve the interests of the majority of workers and citizens in the developing world through policies such as fair trade, debt cancellation and anti-poverty programs.
  6. Rejection of a reflexive anti-Americanism as a guide to foreign policy.
  7. For a two-state (Israel/Palestine) solution, implicitly condemning Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other similar groups...Syria and Iran which by word and deed oppose Israel's legitimate existence.
  8. Opposition to racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, as well as anti-Semitism and those variants of anti-Zionism that merge with anti-Semitism.
  9. United against terror - assertions of a just cause do not justify acts of terror.
  10. States that cross a threshold of inhumanity can see their sovereignty overturned under the "responsibility to protect" recognition.
  11. Politically constructive ideas and voices can be found, on certain issues, on both the left and the right.
  12. An objective historical record exists and should be respected.
  13. Freedom of ideas - with the exception of libel and incitement to violence, free speech, including the right to criticize religious ideas.
  14. Maximizing flows of ideas and information, including the open development of software and opposing patenting of genes or facts of nature.
  15. A precious heritage - a catch-all endorsing the 18th century principles of liberty, equality, solidarity and human rights, while arguing against claims to one total and unchanging truth.
Whether one enthusiastically embraces the above in their totality, or has reservations about some of the principles, it is certainly sufficiently all-embracing to entertain a wide audience, and to give more than ample food for political thought.

posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, August 23, 2006

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