NOVANEWS
Keeping Palestine Solidarity Campaign Anti-Racist!!
by Francis Clark-Lowes
Following a motion adopted at Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s Extraordinary General Meeting on the evening of 7th April 2013 (Yom HaShoah), an Ethics Sub-Committee has been established composed of the following six members: Toni Grimmstein (Chair), Stephen Cohen, Simon Gold, Rick Silverman, Zeb Horowitz and Aaron Levin. The Sub-Committee is charged with ensuring that PSC remains an anti-racist organisation.
This memorandum includes (a) a summary of the events leading up to the EGM, (b) the measures proposed by the Sub-Committee, and (c) a diagram (attached as a PDF) to assist the screening of applicants for membership of PSC.
(a) A summary of the events leading to the calling of an EGM
Toni Grimmstein had called for the EGM, and explained her reasons at the meeting as follows.
“Following the expulsion of Frances Lowes-Clarke in 2011, he exercised his right of appeal at the 2012 AGM. We never should have included a right of appeal for racists in our constitution because it gave Lowes-Clarke an opportunity to harangue delegates for five minutes with his anti-Semitic filth. That the right of appeal was not removed at that AGM is a matter for profound regret, happily rectified at our AGM last January. But this was too late to prevent another five appeal speeches, all equally obnoxious, being heard at that meeting. Of course, the decision to expel was upheld in all cases, but the process of hearing appeals was undoubtedly damaging to our movement, and some deluded people may have been persuaded of the arguments they heard from appellants.
There was, however, one helpful consequence of this shot in the foot, and that was the revelation that a substantial minority of our membership are racist. 20% voted for Lowes-Clarke in 2012 (although most of those were Stalinists), and between 15% and 30% voted in the cases before us earlier this year. It thus became abundantly clear that we have work to do in ensuring that racism, anti-Semitism and Holocaust Denial have no place within our movement.
To this end I move that an Ethics Sub-Committee be established …”
(b) Measures proposed by the Ethics Sub-Committee
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A programme to screen for racism all written and oral material in the public domain. In particular attention will be paid to articles, books and oral material where the words Jew, Jewish, Jewishness, Jewess, Holocaust denial and revisionism are mentioned. A list of racist authors/speakers will be compiled.
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Any members found to be on the list of racist writers/speakers should immediately be expelled from both his/her branch and from the national organisation. Branches will be duty-bound to report any incidents of racism, and to provide documentary evidence of it. This duty should override any undertakings of confidentiality within branches.
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Applications for membership should be checked against the list of racist writers/speakers, and if they are found to be on it, their application should be refused.
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This is not a sufficient precaution, however. There is a need for a rigorous screening process of application because once racists have been admitted to membership they can cause a great deal of damage to our reputation. To this end we have drawn up a questionnaire, with the diagram below to aid the assessment of responses. The Ethics Committee must endorse all applications before a new member is admitted.
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If the responses given to items on the questionnaire by members admitted to membership prove subsequently to be false, their membership will immediately be recinded.
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22 Responses to Keeping Palestine Solidarity Campaign Anti-Racist!!
February 16, 2012 at 1:42 pm
February 16, 2012 at 2:13 pm
February 16, 2012 at 2:24 pm
February 16, 2012 at 6:51 pm
Oe thing on bullet point 1: score 3 if the applicant always uses the phrase “anti-Zionist Jew” about any Jew in the solidarity movement.
February 16, 2012 at 6:59 pm
February 18, 2012 at 8:10 pm
February 16, 2012 at 7:14 pm
February 16, 2012 at 11:01 pm
February 17, 2012 at 7:46 pm
Narcissists do not give, they take. And when they are done using your organization, and have damaged it for their own nefarious desires, they trash it on the way out. It’s all about them, and you are just a bit-player in their great drama.
February 17, 2012 at 8:26 pm
February 17, 2012 at 10:12 pm
I am not at all fond of narcissists, but am very aware of the damage they can do. And having spent a great deal of time studying personality disorders, I am aware of the problems damaged individuals can bring to our endeavors, and how they can hijack them. Loving ones-self is not narcissism. Narcissism is a disorder: loving ones-self, in a healthy manner, is necessary for all of us if we wish to be well balanced individuals.
February 18, 2012 at 9:33 am
I feel I was a bit ungrateful for your support, but you pressed one of my buttons. After many years of working in the area of mental health myself, and also of research into the history of psychoanalysis, I’ve come to have an aversion to psychological language. It seems to me that it obscures, rather than enlightens, particularly when used in discussion with people who are not specialists. But even among specialists, I doubt if it really helps to label someone narcissistic. At best it is a very rough description. And after all, one of our main objection to our opponents is that they label us according to their schema of the world.
The definition of narcissism I got from the internet is:
(1) Excessive or erotic interest in oneself and one’s physical appearance.
(2) Extreme selfishness, with a grandiose view of one’s own talents and a craving for admiration.
In relation to the people we’re talking about, we not in a good position to make judgements about their erotic life, but when it comes to their interest in their physical appearance, the definition seems to fit rather badly! As regards the second part of the definition, when does ‘extreme’ kick in? And what does grandiose really mean?
How about simply reverting to good old English and saying that these people are arrogantly convinced on their own view of the world, and enjoy the power derived from convincing others of this view? This may take longer to say, but it has the great advantage of being a common-or-garden judgement, and therefore of not pathologising people. Once you give someone a pathological label you are, effectively, absolving them of responsibility. This is the last thing I want to do with the people who had me removed from PSC.
I feel a post coming on!
I’m sorry, once again, for my rather hasty comments last night.
February 18, 2012 at 7:57 pm
February 17, 2012 at 10:16 pm
Francis I think you mean Paranoid, and it is understandable, because the PSC were plotting against you.
February 17, 2012 at 10:23 pm
February 17, 2012 at 10:36 pm
February 17, 2012 at 10:55 pm
February 17, 2012 at 11:17 pm
February 17, 2012 at 11:23 pm
February 18, 2012 at 10:08 am
I know Francis said that in the audio interview
It is quite an amusing idea. But I think it would also be a very painful job
February 18, 2012 at 10:45 am
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February 17, 2012 at 11:28 pm
Like Laura, I too had to do a double-take on this one Francis, just because it mimicked their crazy ways so well. LOL when the penny dropped:-D