DSP's rapid right-wing shift carries it into thoughtless, ugly racism

By Bob Gould

In the face of the clear difference in the social layers that
variously voted Labor on the one hand and Green or Socialist Alliance
on the other in the Marrickville by-election, the DSP leadership has
now moved well and truly into Pauline Hanson and Monash Institute of
Population Research territory.

In response to the fact that the voting pattern makes it obvious that
the ethnic communities in Marrickville, including the largish Muslim
ethnic communities, overwhelmingly voted Labor, Pip Hinman advances
this ugly piece of "analysis": "Labor also mobilised a range of ethnic
speakers to person (carefully underlining her politically correct
credentials) the booths to speak to the Chinese, Vietnamese, Greek and
other communities about voting Labor. This was particularly apparent
in Marrickville suburb, where the Greens didn't do as well given
Labor's long-standing community ties (based on a combination of
bullying, bribes and long-term loyalties)."

This DSP leadership racism is straight out of the political arsenal of
the most reactionary populist sections of the bourgeois press, such as
the Sydney Telegraph.

Ethnic communities are treated in this racist, reactionary mythology
as passive victims of Labor manoeuvres, easily bribed. This, you see,
is what happens when you get multiculturalism, the right-wing
populists tell us. The ostensibly left-wing DSP, which is also crooked
on multiculturalism, now says the same thing.

If Pip Hinman so easily talks about bribes and intimidation, as the
main reason why the overwhelming majority of NESB migrants tend to
vote Labor, she has an obligation to be a good deal more specific.
It's true that some of the more right-wing people in the Greens also
make assertions of that kind, but they have enough brains, and
probably enough decency, not to put them in print. Those
considerations obviously don't apply to the DSP leadership.

If Hinman claims that ethnic communities are bribed and intimidated on
a large scale by Labor, which is also the accusation made by
reactionary journalists, Pauline Hanson and others, all of these
accusers should be specific about such allegations. Of course they
never are because vile, racist slurs will do the job. They remain
vile, racist slurs when they emanate from the DSP leadership.

The reality of ethnic politics in Marrickville is quite different to
the sinister, racist imputation that Hinman and the DSP leadership
make. The various ethnic communities, in my observation, are energetic
campaigners in their own interests and rights, and they tend to pursue
those interests mainly through Labor because that's where they get the
best response.

There is, in fact, quite a substantial ethnic community membership in
Labor branches in the Marrickville area, and the most notable presence
is a large group of Aloites, a substantial Muslim community, mainly
from Syria, but also to some extent from the southern part of Turkey
and parts of Lebanon.

Historically, the Aloites tend to be one of the more left-wing and
secular groups in the Arab world, and those in the ALP branches are
mainly secular. They have elected one of their leaders, Sam Iskander,
as a Labor councillor, and he's an excellent councillor and
significant leftist. The DSP leadership should look carefully where it
is going and draw back from this ugly racism, which is dictated,
clearly, by their sectarianism towards Labor.