Pirates of Somalia

Our old friend Sean Banville over at breakingnews.com has again provided teachers with more rampantly reactionary worksheets (free to download), this time on Somali pirates. For those teachers in Spain, where the issue of ships being attacked by “Somali pirates” is particularly current, we would suggest they look more critically and historically at the events  rather than confirm local media bias. For we believe that the issue of piracy off the Somali coast is bound up with imperialist exploitation generally and US geo-political strategy in particular. And, although we are normally not in the habit of doing so, below is a Gap Fill taken from Simon Assaf’s article from Socialist Worker November 2008 , which we hope puts events in a somewhat more balanced perspective:

Fill the gaps below with the appropriate numbers and expressions

A) Tens of thousands            B)300       C)£1.70      D)£670

E) no compensation and no clean up    F) did not sink or seize any     g) 20 years         G) nothing

H) a multi-million dollar industry       I) misery for Somalis.

When the Asian tsunami of Christmas 2005 washed ashore on the east coast of Africa, it uncovered a great scandal. Tonnes of radioactive waste and toxic chemicals drifted onto the beaches after the giant wave dislodged them from the sea bed off Somalia. 1. _____________ of Somalis fell ill after coming into contact with this cocktail. They complained to the United Nations (UN), which began an investigation. There are reports from villagers of a wide range of medical problems such as mouth bleeds, abdominal haemorrhages, unusual skin disorders and breathing difficulties,” the UN noted. Some 2.__________  people are believed to have died from the poisonous chemicals.

Many European, US and Asian shipping firms – notably Switzerland’s Achair Partners and Italy’s Progresso – signed dumping deals in the early 1990s with Somalia’s politicians and militia leaders. This meant they could use the coast as a toxic dumping ground. This practice became widespread as the country descended into civil war. Nick Nuttall of the UN Environment Programme said:

“European companies found it was very cheap to get rid of the waste. It cost as little as 3.______________ a tonne, whereas waste disposal costs in Europe was something like 4.____________ a tonne. And the waste is of many different kinds. There is uranium radioactive waste. There is lead, and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury. There is also industrial waste, hospital wastes, chemical wastes – you name it.”

But despite the evidence uncovered by the tsunami, an investigation into the practice of toxic dumping was dropped. There was 5.___________________.

In 2006 Somali fishermen complained to the UN that foreign fishing fleets were using the breakdown of the state to plunder their fish stocks. These foreign fleets often recruited Somali militias to intimidate local fishermen. Despite repeated requests, the UN refused to act. Meanwhile the warships of global powers that patrol the strategically important Gulf of Aden 6.____________vessels dumping toxic chemicals off the coast. So angry Somalis, whose waters were being poisoned and whose livelihoods were threatened, took matters into their own hands. Fishermen began to arm themselves and attempted to act as unofficial coastguards. They began to seize ships in late 2005. These were released after a ransom was paid. Among them were cargo vessels, luxury cruise liners and tuna fishing boats.

Januna Ali Jama, a Somali pirate leader, explained that their actions were motivated by attempts to stop the toxic dumping. He said that the £5.4 million  ransom they demanded for the return of a Ukrainian ship would go towards cleaning up the mess. Ali Jama said the pirates were “reacting to the toxic waste that has been continually dumped on the shores of our country for nearly  7. _________

“The Somali coastline has been destroyed. We believe this money is 8. ________ compared to the devastation that we have seen on the seas.”

But the nature of this piracy soon began to change. Members of the Somali government, who were part of the then Western-backed Transitional Federal Government (TFG), started to get involved. They transformed the piracy operation into 9. ___________ that funded their lavish lifestyles. The TFG was ousted during a popular rebellion in July 2006 led by the Union of Islamic Courts. Later that year the US backed Ethiopia’s invasion of Somalia to drive the Islamic Courts out.

This provoked an insurgency labelled by some as the “third front” of the “war on terror”. The US became embarrassed when it emerged that its allies in the TFG were deeply involved in piracy. As concerns grew for the safety of ships heading towards the Suez Canal, global powers began to take notice. Indian and US warships began to sink Somali fishing boats if they sailed too close to cargo vessels or trawlers. These warships transformed Somalia’s coastal waters into a “free fire zone”. When a giant Saudi oil tanker was seized, these powers declared all-out war on the pirates.

British foreign minister David Miliband recently boasted that Britain would be taking the lead in cracking down on the pirates. The Royal Navy will take command of a European fleet of warships as part of “Operation Atalanta”, he said. The target will be the Somalis – not the vessels dumping waste or the illegal foreign fishing fleets.

As global powers dispatch their warships to the Somali coast, the problems that caused this outbreak of piracy remain unresolved. European, US and Asian ships will continue to dump hazardous waste and plunder coastal fishing stocks – leading to continuing 10. _____________

Answers: They are actually in the order in which they appear.

Chris Harman (1942-2009)

Last week marked the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Many political commentators have written about the significance of this event but one great political commentator, the Marxist, Chris Harman, sadly died only two days before the commemorations took place. The same Chris Harman  who dedicated a good part of his life to understanding the true nature of the society that had lain behind it and its lessons for the left, and the same Chris Harman who documented the forces that would bring it to its end. Of course, Harman would have preferred to have seen a socialist uprising rather than a move sideways to an oligarchic capitalism, but would have, despite his humble predisposition,  raised a wry smile to those who expected workers to rise in defense of it rather than participate in its demolition. The wall itself was nothing but a symbol of competition between two imperialist capitalist powers, keen to carve the world up between them. Unlike the Berlin Wall, and the “Soviet” empire that lay beyond it, Chris Harman, most certainly the greatest Marxist of his generation, will be so sadly missed.

For an obituary on  Chris Harman, we strongly recommend Andy Wilson’s piece in the Commune rather than the somewhat over-reverential offering from his Party comrades in Socialist Worker. Wilson’s article combines a fitting tribute to the man and his ideas alongside an excellent discussion of the origins and relevance of State Capitalism as a theoretical tradition; a tradition we are proud to stand in. In the coming weeks, Marxist TEFL Group will finally publish  a long awaited critique of the David Graddol’s theory of English and Globalisation, to which we are, as so often, in great debt to the works of Chris Harman. We console ourselves by the fact that our class will produce more in the mould of Chris Harman and that his writings, like the writings of other talented working class Marxists before him, will be (to borrow a metaphor from Harman’s friend and mentor, Tony Cliff) the giant shoulders on which they stand.

Profit is Knighted and Education Blighted. Time to fight back against the continued presence of neo-liberalism in Education.

I understand and share people’s anger towards the behaviour of some banks. But anger on its own does not offer us a solution. Instead, Britain needs to lead the world in reforming and restructuring our banking system.

We are told by the our glorious leaders (for example Gordon Brown above) that the lessons have been learned about the economic crash. After all, it is taxpayers’ (i.e. working people) who have been burdened with the responsibility for bailing out the system. We are told by Brown that the system will now be regulated better and that the banks will become the servant of our economy and society, never its master. Yet it is the leaders like Brown who continue to place profit ahead of social values, it is Brown who continues  to argue that even education must be run by the principles of the market It is Brown who wants to put students in greater debt to these banks. It is Brown and his mates who continue to bestow peerage and influence on the high priests of profiteering., co-opting them onto committees to reorganise national institutions.

For we should not forget that when Brown refers to the behaviour of some banks he is indeed referring to his favoured banks. The Royal Bank of Scotland, which the government bailed out to the tune of 20 billion pounds, was so mismanaged that they knighted its Chief Executive Officer, Fred Godwin in 2004. Of course in the light of the collapse of the Royal Bank of Scotland Sir Fred was awarded an honorary fellowship of the London Business School. Wiki lists his other interests as follows:

Goodwin has chaired various government task forces including one examining the work of credit unions and the New Deal programme. He is a former president of the Chartered Institute of Bankers in Scotland.  He has been chairman of The Prince’s Trust since 2003.

Of course were Brown to be taken to task on this he would reply that lessons had been learned. But we would suggest both that the media is highly unlikely to take him to task on these issues and that Brown has learned no lessons at all. An example of this is another Knight  of the big round pig trough, Sir Alan Davies. Sir Alan was knighted for his services to education in January 2000. Davies represented the incorporation into British Education of what Simon Caulkin describes as Neo-Taylorism:

Managers abandoned true north in favour of “neo-Taylorism” – quantitative techniques, “the cult of the expert”, of which the temples were business schools, and heroic CEOs. Raging self-interest and the malign influence of shareholder value did the rest; as it did in the UK, where, lacking their own tradition and burdened by inferiority complex, UK managers were all too easy to drag in the same direction.

Last week Sir Alan Davies resigned from Copland Community College where he had been Headmaster rather than face the same fate as deputy head, Dr Richard Evans MBE, who was rightfully sacked for coruption. You see it appears our noble Knights pilfered over a million pounds in unlawful bonuses from the state over several years. Of course Ed Balls, Education Secretary, who finally had to act on this issue was keen to remind us that

he supports extra pay for heads who take on additional responsibilities, he has emphasised that this should be only “where appropriate and justified”.

What Mr Balls did not comment on was whether he would find the money (30 million) to fund the rebuilding of the crumbling Copland Community College or whether he still expected the school to continue with Sir Alan’s plans to finance the building through selling off a considerable portion of the school’s grounds to private property developers.

Again you might argue that lessons have been learned. However, we learn that Lord Browne, former CEO of BP, is to lead a review into university funding (picture above). Is this not the same Lord Browne, (Gordon Brown and his mates granted the noble lord his title) who lied to the court when denying his relationship with a young male “escort”? (Obviously Lord Browne will have some creative ideas on how young hard up students might earn a bit of extra cash.) Is this not the same Lord Browne who oversaw the bribing of Azerbaijan State Oil? Is this not the same Lord Browne whose cost cutting exercises at BP plants led to the deaths of  15 workers at a Texas refinery? Is this not the same Lord Browne who was involved in dirty dealings with the Libyan government (his MI6 partner in crime later being given a plum job with the same oil company with which he so objectively co-operated). Is this not the very same Lord Browne who “resigned” from BP, relinquishing his right to a lucrative pension? Surely, a government who place values before profit would not place such a man in charge of such an important review, would they?

Troops Out of Afghanistan

In the wake of the killings of five British soldiers in Afghanistan by an Afghan policeman, a YouGov survey conducted for Channel 4 News reveals a further drop in support for continuing British military presence in the country. 

This video, originally hosted in The Guardian, reveals exactly why troops need to be withdrawn:

“at first naive, almost childlike”: Battles Rage in South Korea

South Korea is a country of rugged and unsurpassed beauty, covered with mountains, surrounded by seas. Its people are some of the warmest and most generous on earth. Its culture is ancient, refined, and filled with vitality. There is little crime here—cars are left untended and running, house doors unlocked, and goods out in the open. For a westerner, the way Koreans trust one another seems at first naive, almost childlike. Soon one realizes this is the way things should be. Spending a year in a country with its social fabric still largely intact is endlessly refreshing

Jalel Marti Sager, Transitionsabroad.com October 2009

The attack began at dawn today and lasted until late afternoon. Under a hail of metal bolts and stones from Ssangyong company thugs, liquid tear gas dropped from police helicopters, incessant loud music and an all-out assault by police commandos armed with steel pipes and taser guns, the occupying workers at the Ssangyong auto factory in Pyongtaek, South Korea, have held out for one more day.

Owen Miller in Seoul, Socialist Worker August 2009

Obviously one is struck by the enormous difference between the two accounts of South Korea. One account appearing on a website specialising in recruiting TEFL teachers for jobs abroad and the other, an eyewitness account of strike-busting, reported in the British Trotskyite weekly, Socialist Worker. We raise the difference between these two accounts because we want to make sense of the complex events occurring inside South Korea in relation to the recruitment and treatment of native speaking English teachers (NESTs). Treatment which appears to be a campaign of well-orchestrated discrimination and harassment of NESTS, a campaign which is not reported on the sites of TEFL recruitment agencies like Transitions Abroad, Cactus TEFL or English First but a deadly serious issue nevertheless. A campaign which involves constant media accusations of criminal activity and which has culminated in visiting teachers being subjected to HIV testing. We also raise these two accounts because in trying to make sense of these experiences we are faced with viewing them through the prism of “cultural differences” (as in the world of Transitions Abroad) or understanding these so-called cultural differences in the light of class, race and gender politics.

A History of Imperialist Domination

The first point to be made is that South Korea is a relatively recent fragile bourgeois democracy, it enjoyed considerable “military and economic support” from the US during the cold war and, in particular, America’s proxy war with China and the Soviet Union during the 50’s (there are still currently some 37,000 American US service men and women in South Korea).However, it has grown more economically advanced and the relationship between the two is undergoing changes. On the one hand, America wants a harder line against the North Korean government and a greater financial subsidy from them for its own occupying army and, on the other, there has been an increase in nationalism in South Korea which wants the government to exercise more sovereignty over its domestic and foreign policy decisions. The decision of 30^th October 2009 to resend troops to Afghanistan was clearly an attempt to appease its American allies in light of continuing disagreements between the two.

Indeed, history shows that American Imperialism (in its role as “defender” of Korean interests) has exercised an enormous influence over the Korean Peninsula. It was America which effectively sold Korea to the Japanese in 1905 in return for the unchallenged exploitation of the Philippines ( see Taft-Katsura Agreement) Moreover, having successfully provoked Japanese imperialism’s entry into the second world war and emphatically crushed it thereafter the US was able to grab the South of the country in 1944. Unfortunately, for the US, the leader of an insurgency against Japanese forces, Kim II Sung, supported by the Russians, had managed to establish himself as leader of the North. In 1950 (after failed negotiations over reunification) Sung led a reckless incursion into the South and was repelled by the combined forces of the US and South Korea. Hopes of advancing northwards, however, were effectively stopped by the entry of Chinese troops into the conflict. After three years and up to two million deaths later the war ended in stalemate, Korea remaining divided North and South, with Soviet and Chinese imperialism on the one side and American imperialism on the other.

The Economic Miracle.

From 1960 to 1990 South Korea was one of the four Asian Tiger economies (Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan being the others) and it had the second fastest growing economy in the world. It was what was termed a newly industrialized country, in that it had successfully industrialised and had shown itself capable of “competing” with more advanced nations, a fact which appeared to challenge Lenin’s theory of imperialism and Dependency Theories, which suggested all such countries were doomed to a life of poverty, providing only raw materials for the richer more advanced countries. Both views of course, were over-mechanistic and, Lenin’s view in particular, was that of a specific period in capitalist development. What cannot be denied, however, is that capitalism has established an international division of labour, whereby, countries “lower down the value chain “ generate profits which are realised elsewhere. We again return to our favoured example of Michael Jordan being paid more money to sponsor a sports shoe than the total sum of annual wages received by all the workers in Indonesia actually manufacturing the shoes for the world market. It cannot, and should not, be ignored, however, that certain states have enjoyed considerably more success than others at marshalling resources towards independent economic development. Indeed, this is part of the contradiction of capitalist development, despite its tendency towards the concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands, the need to generate new surplus involves capital opening up space for competitors (competitors who are not necessarily hampered by investment in out-dated technology or subject to organised class resistance). Of course, the unequal exercise of import and export quotas, the control of financial institutions like the IMF and the use of copyright etc are all used to maintain advantage for the advanced capitalist “core”. What has to be recognised in the case of the four Asian Tigers from the 1960’s to the 1990’s and China today, is that this domination is not total, rather it is partial and dependent on a number of complex geo-political factors.

If one ignores, for one moment, Immanuel Wallerstien’s obsession with Krondatieff cycles and merely considers them capital looking for investment opportunities in a time of low profits, we can agree with him when he says:

…………at first several zones compete vigorously to be the prime beneficiary of this relocation. But it is also normally the case that only one such zone is in fact able to do very well, since there is only so much production activity to relocate, and there are economic advantages for producers in concentrating the relocation in one area. The basic picture thus is one of opportunity for several zones, but great success for only one of them. I remind you that as recently as the 1970’s, when the term NIC’s was invented, most commentators listed four countries as the most significant examples: Mexico, Brazil, South Korea, and Taiwan. But by the 1980’s, Mexico and Brazil began to be dropped from the list of examples, and in the 1990’s we hear talk only of “the rise of East Asia.” It is thus clear that it is East Asia that has been the great beneficiary of the geographical restructuring of this Kondratieff B-phase.

Of course, we must also explain why it is that East Asia was the great beneficiary rather than, say, Brazil or South Asia. Some scholars attribute the present rise of East Asia to its history over the past 500 years: either the Meiji Revolution, accounted for in turn by the commercial development of the Edo period (Kawakatsu Heita) or the China-centered tributary system (Takeshi Hamashita). However, it can be plausibly argued that, as of 1945, the economic situation of Brazil or South Asia was not in fact all that different from that of East Asia, and that therefore one could plausibly have expected either of them to have made a surge forward in the post-1945 world. The great difference between East Asia on the one hand and both Brazil and South Asia on the other was the geography of the Cold War. East Asia was on the front line and the other two were not. Hence the view of the United States was quite different. Japan was a very great economic beneficiary of the Korean War as well as of direct U.S. assistance. Both South Korea and Taiwan were supported (and indulged) economically, politically, and militarily for Cold War reasons. This difference in the 1945-70 period translated itself into the crucial advantage for the 1970- 1995 period.

By 1990 the rapid economic growth of South Korea had come to an end and it became enmeshed in the stagnation faced by other Asian economies, most notably Japan. Dependent on finance from the IMF to fund a struggling export driven economy, it faces a tough economic squeeze which brings it into conflict with a student and trade union movement which developed during more profitable periods. It is worth addressing these contradictions of South Korea in the world economy because, despite its “successes”, it still trails considerably behind its more advanced competitors and this helps explain why South Korea is still keen on attracting NESTs and why they, despite their lower levels of training, are paid not only more than local non-NEST teachers but more than many South Korean doctors. It is understanding these contradictions which will help guide us to a proper understanding of the problems faced by both NEST and non-NEST teachers in South Korea.

A Thin Veneer of Democracy.

In 1948, the American government recognised the new government of Synghman Rhee. The government was virulently anti-communist and trade unions were illegal. Indeed, South Korea was run by such an autocracy until 1960 when a burgeoning civil rights movement, composed of workers and students toppled the government and brought about democratic reforms. Unfortunately, these reforms were short-lived as the government was overthrown by a military coup in 1963. In 1979 some semblance of democratic rights was restored but to a position prior to 1960 and not the legalisation of a left-wing opposition or independent trade unions. It was not until 1995 that anything resembling a modern bourgeois democracy was established. The new government took a less hostile attitude to North Korea, instigating a sunshine policy, but was also more avowedly nationalistic and not afraid of challenging certain aspects of American foreign policy (most notably the Iraq war). This new state nationalism, however, in its various manifestations is profoundly conservative with respect to the role of women. It also argues that trade unions should accept labour-market restructuring in order to build a strong independent Korea. When the behaviour of NESTs is spoken about in the Korean parliament it is precisely because politicians are attempting to construct a notion of Korean identity which suits the need of capital accumulation in a time of crisis. This nationalism, however, is not an imposition from the top but a cynical manipulation of years of resentment experienced by a people in an occupied country.

Anti-Foreigner Resentment.

Early anti-foreigner resentment was, not surprisingly, aimed at American Servicemen and women. In 2002 when two soldiers ran down two Korean schoolgirls on their way to school, despite apologies from the US government and compensation paid to the families, Koreans took to the streets to protest. Photographs of the girls’ battered bodies were posted on subway walls and one American soldier was stabbed to death by a particularly “aggrieved” citizen. It did not help that the two servicemen escaped punishment but clearly this is not the common response to a “traffic accident” but an outpouring of years of hostility to occupation and humiliation. For those accusing us of Anti-Americanism we would remind people that we refer to the policies of consecutive American governments which supported right-wing governments on the basis that these tyrants served “American interests”. We are not referring to Americans in general whose own interests were not served by those same consecutive governments either.

Much of this anti-foreigner hostility now seems aimed at NESTs. First was the discovery that many teachers employed in local academies were “unqualified”. By this we mean that they did not have a university degrees. Now there is an argument within TEFL as to whether teaching English as Foreign Language requires a university degree (especially as any degree, chemistry for example, seems adequate for those requesting such a qualification). One can see, however, that in a country where people study hard for many years to obtain qualifications, that they might resent people who complete a short four-week “training course” and have no other qualification to teach other than they were born in an English speaking country. This resentment is further compounded by the fact that such teachers can command a higher salary than those Koreans who have dedicated considerable years to their professional development. Again, this is not to dismiss the considerable qualifications and experience, not to mention knowledge of Korean language, that many NESTs bring to their teaching but to identify the roots of ill-feeling that certain Koreans (especially non-Nests) may harbour towards “foreign teachers”

The second “scandal” which has generated problems for NESTs is the appearance of “saucy photos” and “dating tips” on social networking forums and English Teacher websites. Despite the obvious puerility of such behaviour, as said before, state nationalism promotes a conservative view of Korean women, these pictures and discussions have been used to expose the “predatory nature of Westerners”. They have also been pretty disastrous for many Korean women involved but then again there is a long history of TEFL adventurous putting the reputations and lives of “friends” in foreign countries at risk.

It is against this background that the newspapers have run campaigns against NESTs arguing they are responsible for criminal activity and that their sexual predatory natures are putting the nation in danger. It is also little surprise therefore that the nationalist government feels able to insist that visitors undergo an HIV test before being granted contracts in schools, even though native Korean teachers are not subjected to the same rules.

NESTs have established a “union” ATEK (Association of Teachers of English in Korea) to campaign for NEST interests which has also been attacked vociferously in the media. Founding member, Tony Hellman, found himself subject to a particular campaign from nationalist “netizens” (people using the net to expose wrongdoings) and more conservative minded teachers who felt his campaign was making things worse for more established teachers. The intense public attacks (whether true or false) effectively silenced Hellman but ATEK, taking a markedly more moderate stance, continue to operate. What is clear is that ATEK made mistakes in its initial months, especially in its failure to canvass the opinion of more established (F1Visa) NESTs, but this does not mean political quietism is the solution.

Resistance Movements.

The future of NESTs in South Korea ultimately rests in its ability to garner support from the wider community. Like immigrants suffer in the countries from which NESTs originate, they too face marginal status. On one hand offering economic benefits to parts of those societies but also providing an easy scapegoat for unprincipled politicians wanting to shift blame and focus which should rightly be on them onto others. Despite the essential role immigrants play in the American and British economies they are blamed for a lack of social cohesion. similarly we constantly here the words American jobs and British jobs for American and British workers. This marginalisation and fear makes it easier to exploit such workers.

Unfortunately, the trade union movement itself is facing its own problems in dealing with the Asain economic crisis and it resorts to conservative and nationalistic solutions. One of the problems of the trade union movement is that it is base on enterprise unionism rather than industrial unionism. Instead of confronting Capital it seeks to insinuate itself in its management problems (i.e. participating in human resources and investment committees) This how the Marxist economist Martin Hart-Landsberg puts it:

Union members are becoming increasingly isolated from the broader concerns of working people. The main reason is that unions in South Korea are enterprise unions. And, the degree of unionization is highly correlated with the size of the enterprise. While the largest workplaces, those employing over 1000 workers, make up only 2.7 percent of all unionized enterprises, workers employed at these enterprises make up 61.2 percent of all union members. Thus, most KCTU (Korean Confederation of TradeUnions) members are regular employees in the country’s largest manufacturing corporations. They therefore enjoy higher wages and better working conditions than most workers.

And;

The enterprise system also works against the efforts of the KCTU to promote unionization at small and medium-sized workplaces. Workers at these enterprises do not have the resources, human or financial, to sustain active organizing campaigns or unions. The KCTU itself is unable to help. The federation has limited resources and the large member unions have been reluctant to share funds for activities that do not directly benefit their members.

This has had a particularly adverse affect on women, who have been particularly effected by the irregularisation of the labour market (non-permanent contracts rose from 42% in 1997 to 54% in 2005), and they have sought to build their own trade unions capable of representing women. Clearly what is needed, however, is a linking together of struggles across industries and gender to resist the neo-liberal onslaught. Of course, business owners are arguing that unless there is significant labour-market restructuring, they will relocate their factories in China. Only an approach rooted in the interests of the international working class can deliver any hope of self-determination as the bourgeois nationalist project is, and always will be, about curbing rights and aspirations and following models of other capitalist countries.

The Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union is a part of KCTU and it too has suffered reverses. Again while it cannot be criticised for developing political positions, in particular its policies towards North Korea, such politics will be undermined if it fails to organise rank and file resistance to the attacks its members are suffering. Indeed, its nationalistic turn has meant that members are easily and mechanically drawn towards witch-hunts against foreign teachers rather than seeking to work alongside them. The quality of a teacher should not be defined in terms of their nationality but the skills, experience and attributes they bring to the job. The linking of NESTs and Non-NESTs can only strengthen resistance.

Building Unity.

Whilst NESTs harbour feelings of cultural superiority or subscribe to views that America Foreign policy is benevolent to the Koreans they only alienate themselves further. Many NESTs already dissociate themselves from such propaganda and seek to help ordinary Koreans define themselves in a new ever-changing world. These NESTs have taken the time to learn the language and integrate themselves, where possible, with the local communities. For such teachers, Korea is not an adventure, or a blank page on which to write the next glorious history of International English, but an engagement with complex social forces which are transforming them as teachers and as human beings.

Such teachers need to work with the global resistance against TEFL adventurers (the new colonialists) who design and administer these rotten four week TEFL courses and dispatch the naive around the globe. They need to help counter the racist propaganda of Cactus TEFL and their ilk, who proudly display their Aryan soldiers clutching the globe and consuming countries. They need to say that TEFL is a career, that NESTs have got a role in foreign language teaching but only as qualified teachers with a grasp of local languages and working alongside local non-NEST teachers and the local education systems. In short, we need to stand side by side with those who are fighting for basic rights, those who are having tear gas poured on them by police helicopters and enduring attacks by paid company thugs rather than wrap ourselves in convenient myths of an exotic inexplicable other.

The Repeal of Clause 28, Six Years On

On 18th November England, Wales and Northern Ireland will celebrate the sixth anniversary of the repeal of Clause 28 of the Local Government Act 1988 (the clause had been  repealed some three earlier in Scotland). The amendment to the Local Government act ordered that a local authority “shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality” or “promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship”. The passing of the legislation had led to huge angry protests, including the invasion of the BBC studious by a group of protesters during the broadcasting of the national news.

The rightwing backlash against gay and lesbian rights and the rights of local authorities to support gay and lesbian constituents and raise awareness about gay and lesbian issues took, as its focus, an innocuous book appearing in a local school library. Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin was a simple story of a girl and her relationship with her father and his male lover. The book appeared with hundreds of similar books featuring heterosexual relationships but rightwing commentators felt that local authorities were using taxpayers’ money to undermine the traditional family. Clearly, they felt that the “natural” family could be so undermined by the mere existence  of one solitary book amidst a sea of heterosexist propaganda. 

Certainly, well before its repeal the legislation was seen as redundant, nevertheless, the repeal of clause 28 represented a symbolic victory for progressive forces within British society. What concerns us, however, is that books of the nature of Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin are still missing from library shelves around the UK, in particular, and the world in general. Imagine the outcry, and people would be quite correct to do so, if children’s’ books did not portray children of different ethnicities or single parent families or deal with problems of divorce. The absence of such literature only adds to the stigma and prejudice experienced by children whose families don’t fit neatly in with the mythical tight uncomplicated white protestant nuclear family.

And of course, clause 28 still operates in English Language Teaching. This is not to say that celebrity gays and lesbians do not appear in TEFL books but always in a de-humanised manner. They are never (or extremely rarely) represented with their partners or children. We at Marxist TEFL say it is time to end this censorship.

Open Access: The Joy of Sharing.

Inspired by Darren Elliot’s recent piece on free on-line ELT journals over at livesofteachers we thought we would add some resources ourselves.

Firstly, however, we would like to point out how iniquitous this whole journal by subscription business is and why we, along with Darren, are so keen to make them available free to all rank and file teachers. And what better place to start than ARL’s (Association of Research Libraries) figures that demonstrate that whilst in 1986, libraries spent 44% of their budgets on books compared with 56% on journals; twelve years later, the ratio had skewed to 28% and 72%. Today that difference is even greater. This is due to two pressures, the increasing costs of journals and books and lack of resources in libraries(journals increasingly representing “better value for money”) on the one hand, and the super-exploitation by publishers of authors on the other; you have to remember that the authors provide free articles to the journals. With this in mind, we demand open access to the ideas that are given freely and oppose the super-profits of parasitic publishers.

Having made our case, we would like to recommend the free on-line journal, Critical Literacy. This is a fantastic journal which attempts to apply critical pedagogy to the teaching of literacy. A little over academic at times but then again, as the bourgoise tell us, “you can’t have everything”. Unfortunately, you will find little of this critical pedagogy in ELT journals (at least not critial pedagogy worthy of the name), with its obsession on techniques and annecdotes. One exception in our industry is the work of Sara Hannam at Critical Mass ELT, and we highly recommend that you read her debate with Scott Thornbury.

On an equally, if not more, important note, we remind readers to keep abreast/particpate in the debates hosted by the indefatigable Alex Case (a big word yes- but Alex is deserving of it) at TEFL.net. We particularly recommend Part Three of his interview with the indomitable (for she is equally deserving of such big word) Karenne Sylvester.

Finally, we welcome Dolphin Hotel to our blogroll. Not only is there some great wrting about Micheal’s experiences in Japan, interspersed with his obsession for Newcastle United football club (you have been warned), there is also an uncomprimising commitment to socialist politics.

Enjoy.

Reclaiming Our Words: Critical Pedagogy and Special Interest Groups.

The new tyranny, like other recent ones, depends to a large degree on a systematic abuse of language. Together we have to reclaim our hijacked words and reject the tyranny’s nefarious euphemisms; if we do not, we will be left with only the word shame. Not a simple task, for most of its official discourse is pictorial, associative, evasive, full of innuendoes. Few things are said in black and white. Both military and economic strategists now realise that the media play a crucial role, not so much in defeating the current enemy as in foreclosing and preventing mutiny, protests or desertion.

John Berger, 2003

Reading Maureen Ellis’s impassioned plea to Cardiff IATEFL to adopt critical thinking (critical pedagogy) in the classroom, we are reminded of John Berger’s wise words. For any serious examination of Ellis’s text finds the exact reverse of critical thinking, an exercise in using words to push a neo-liberal agenda. This is ultimately (for we do believe that Ellis is naive and misguided rather than cynical) the same language that Bush and Blair used to invade Afghanistan and Iraq, arguing that bombing civilian populations and occupying their countries, was about progress, equality and democracy. Ellis’s attempts to divert resistance over climate change, racism, imperialism, poverty, inequality, economic crisis etc into Global Issues- Special Interest Groups IATEFL is exactly what Berger refers to as foreclosing and preventing mutiny, protests or desertion. To suggest anything less than the disbanding of IATEFL and the radical reorganisation of higher education can further the cause of critical thinking in English Language Teaching is an exercise in deceit of Blair/Bush proportions.

Firstly, a key part of critical pedagogy is for the teacher to be an intellectual and not a technician. An intellectual is someone who reflects deeply on thoughts, seeking to transform themselves in the process and challenge inequality:

Educators should dissuade individuals who reduce teaching to the implementation of methods from entering the teaching profession. Schools need prospective teachers who are both theoreticians and practitioners, who can combine theory, imagination and technique.

Henri Giroux, Teachers as intellectuals

Now, any ordinary rank and file teacher reading Ellis’s text will be surprised to find that for every ten words she writes, there are at least two academic references to demonstrate how well read she is. This is despite her paper being written for what is supposed to be a teachers’ conference and not an academic get together. Of course, the subtext is, “if you want to express yourself and be listened to then you had better read as many books and journals as Ellis. Naturally, as access to such books and journals is strictly controlled  you will have to sign up for an appropriate university where you can have access to the same material she uses”. This is, of course, why many overseas students go to American and British Universities thus impoverishing their own educational establishments, simply because these  universities have better research facilities. In short, Ellis reduces critical theory to a technique, remaining unable to grasp its true insights. Our humble advice to Maureen Ellis is that she read a little less and understand a little more.

Also in the text she repeatedly refers to the NGO, Oxfam, and ELT learning from their experiences. Nowhere in the text does she point out that Oxfam are a somewhat theoretically bankrupt organisation that have been reduced to promoting an idea of development that is little different from the neo-liberal policies which have impoverished communities around the world. Ellis specifically pushes Oxfam’s campaign for Education for Global Citizenship. Whilst dressed up as sensitivity to the plight of others, Education for Global Citezenship is nothing more than an excuse to consolidate global inequality and blame ordinary people for others’ suffering. As Andreotti points out, it treats “globalisation as human progress” but does not ask what has been globalised.  Students are encouraged to consider different access to the world’s resources (for example water) but are never asked to consider these in terms of class and capitalism. Indeed it presents itself as enlightened because it asks working class kids in deprived areas to blame themselves for the poverty of other countries.

The first time I came to the UK as a school links officer to visit schools, I asked British teachers in a conference organised by the British Council what I could do for them. Almost all of them asked for me to connect them with ‘a school out in the sticks’ (preferably in the Amazon forest and without running water). I was very surprised as the aim of school linking wasprecisely to challenge stereotypes and their approach seemed to confirm them. When I asked them why they wanted a school like that, the answer was that they wanted to show their students how privileged they (the British students) were.

Andreotti 2006

Should working class kids accept the blame for inequality? Are they in charge of the IMF?  Will a good global citizen accepting low pay when they grow up help kids in poorer parts of the world? The answer is clearly, no. As Andreotti notes, there is nothing really fixed to study. It’s a myth, an exotic view of difference, as, given different tools, these communities would create an entirely different scenario for British school children to study. Poverty in Brazil has nothing to do with it being a “poor country” and everything to do with capitalist development.  American and  British school children would see something different if you started with capitalism rather than access to water, that’s why the programme doesn’t see any value in showing working class kids the rich private schools of Brazil that the elite send their children to. Similarly, one might show them inside the many elegant London residences of the rich elites, from whatever country they originate, and ask the  children, “who do you have more in common with the powerless or the powerful?” 

Maureen Ellis also promotes the IATEFL organisation- Global Issues Special Interest Group. Now normally a special interest group is taken to be political advocacy (normally on the part of the under-represented). Therefore, we would expect other special interest groups like the Non-native English Speaking Teachers Group, Gay and lesbian Teachers Group, Womens’ Rights Group, Disabled Workers Group. Yet these organisation do not exist in IATEFL rather you have a narrower definition of technical interest like the Technology Special Interest Group and Young Learners- Special Interest Group. Exactly the emphasis on teachers as technicians rather than teachers as intellectuals which critical pedagogy despises.  Of course, Ellis can live with this contradiction as her approach has nothing to do with critical pedagogy rather she wants ELT teachers to merely use the simplistic and ineffective materials of Oxfam Global citizenship in their classrooms. A challenge to global inequality in ELT, however, would surely start with the creation of Non-native English Speaking Teachers Group, would start with the question of why they remain so relatively powerless and discriminated against in ELT

This issue of a critical pedagogy and special interest groups is further borne out by a recent discussion of ELT writers being exploited by ELT publishers on Jason Renshaw’s English Raven. Jason Renshaw claims that many leading authors have spoken to him privately to congratulate him on his piece but dare not speak publicly themselves for fear of being victimised by the industry. We would politely suggest to Maureen Ellis that there is no critical pedagogy, where methodology writers are too terrified to speak the truth as they see it. We would also politely suggest this is a better place to start than blaming rank and file ELT teachers for the economic crisis and global inequality. We would also politely suggest to someone fortunate enough to be able to have employment in the same country that she grew up in, to refrain from castigating those not so fortunate.  Ellis places the blame for global warming on workers (chasing a living abroad) travelling home for family reunions. For we Marxists, being able to celebrate the birth of your sibling’s child with family and friends or being at the bedside of a dying parent is not a luxury.

Finally, along with critical theory and special interest group, we would also wish to reclaim the term association of teachers. An association of teachers is an organisation to represent the interests of teachers and not a network of teaching organisations and publishers which sponsors teachers to further their own ends. It would be equally ridiculous to call an association of retailers, an association of shoppers just because they pay for focus groups. A conference is a vehicle for debate about the industry and not a trade fair. The fact that teachers feel they have no other avenue open for them in trying to shape the industry than attend such pantomimes and join such special interest groups does not excuse the abuse of terminology. Reclaiming our words from the tyranny, for that is what it is, of the TEFL Industry, is our first step towards liberation

The House that John Haycraft Built. Part Three

Here we continue our notes towards biography of John Haycraft we started in parts one and two

 Part  Three,  Haycraft’s Internationalism offends.

As pointed out in Part Two, Haycraft was committed to becoming a writer, and his school was secondary to this ambition. When he published his first book “Babel in Spain”, however, a book about his experiences setting up a school, he quickly became persona non-grata in Cordoba , its contents insulting Franco loyalists and opponents in equal measure. Moreover, the details of his book also put the lives of certain people in danger. Carlos Castillo de Pino, in his book “Olive House”, describes Haycraft as a “champion of stupidity” and derides him for the way he carelessly put the lives of his “friends in peril”. Although, Franco exiled Haycraft from the country, it would be wrong to think this was for Haycraft’s anti-fascism but rather it was an example of Franco’s patriotic gesturing. Afterall, in the book, Haycraft talks about the type of drinking partner he kept in Cordoba,

He was a frank idealist, and passionately patriotic. ‘Franco’s only got to say the word, and thirty million Spaniards’ll march behind him to take Gibraltar!’ he once remarked. England he regarded as perfidious and hypocritical, yet, like so many Spaniards, he distinguished sharply between the individual and the group, and always treated us as the best of friends. He enjoyed discussing politics, and I often went out with him to drink wine in a tasca.

 Haycraft, “Babel in Spain”

No, what people found offensive was his bigoted attitude:

‘Peace!’ shouted Pepe. Never does one get such a clear sense of the medieval as when attempting to enter a Spanish house. Like a foraging warrior, one can pass through the doors and gates only when one has pledged peace. Sometimes an eye will even gaze down from a hole in the ceiling, while the visitor shrinks instinctively to one side for fear of molten lead.

And

Dona Carmen was the dominant partner. If anything her relationship with her husband was cool: it had followed a pattern, common in Andalusian homes, where husband often marries wife not for companionship but for comfort and from desire.

 And people’s relationships in the UK and the US don’t?

 The whole book is a cheap  commentary on the lives of people living under a dictatorship, self-congratulatory waffle on his and his wife’s “internationalism” and cultural superiority

He seemed strangely contradictory. Perhaps he tried to be internationally minded, but failed to eliminate the prejudices which influenced his upbringing. Perhaps his was merely the natural frustration of someone who had once enjoyed a way of life differentfrom the one he was leading.  In spirit, he was half Danish and half Cordobese, a division which must have been equivalent to schizophrenia.

And

 By the way—‘ began Augustin. ‘If you don’t mind—‘ he stopped.

‘What?’

‘Don’t tell people we were bathing in the river.’

‘No?’

‘As you’ll learn, they’re very conventional. They’d think we were mad. And

as a lawyer—‘

‘No—all right. We won’t.’

We thanked him again and shook hands.

Brita kissed me happily as we walked down the street on our way home.

‘Be careful,’ I laughed. ‘You may be alienating potential conventional pupils.’

‘I don’t care,’ she said. ‘I don’t care.’

This cultural superiority is, of course, behind Haycraft’s belief that language learning was promoting  a new “world understanding”. Everywhere he looked in Spain, it seems Haycraft saw nothing but medieval attitudes. When we hear TEFL teachers criticising the cultures of  the countries in which they teach, particularly their education systems and how they do not prepare students for the communicative approach, are they not echoing the prejudices of the father of modern English Language Teaching?

We should contrast Haycraft’s writing to that of a man who had lived in a radically different Spain, A “Spain” of  barely a decade earlier. A man from the very same social class, but who, following his service as a policeman in Burma, grew to question the attitudes of Empire and side with the ruled against the ruler

It was the first time that I had ever been in a town where the working class was in the saddle. Practically every building of any size had been seized by the workers and was draped with red flags or with the red and black flag of the Anarchists; every wall was scrawled with the hammer and sickle and with the initials of the revolutionary parties; almost every church had been gutted and its images burnt. Churches here and there were being systematically demolished by gangs of workmen. Every shop and cafe had an inscription saying that it had been collectivised; even the bootblacks had been collectivised and their boxes painted red and black. Waiters and shop-walkers looked you in the face and treated you as an equal… There were no private motor-cars, they had all been commandeered, and all the trams and taxis and much of the other transport were painted red and black… Down the Ramblas, the wide central artery of the town where crowds of people streamed constantly to and fro, the loudspeakers were bellowing revolutionary songs all day and far into the night. And it was the aspect of the crowds that was the queerest thing of all. In outward appearance it was a town in which the wealthy classes had practically ceased to exist… Practically everyone wore rough working-class clothes, or blue overalls, or some variant of the militia uniform. All this was queer and moving. There was much in it that I did not understand, in some ways I did not even like it, but I recognised it immediately as a state of affairs worth fighting for. Also I believed that things were as they appeared, that this was really a workers’ state and that the entire bourgeoisie had either fled, been killed, or voluntarily come over to the workers’ side; I did not realise that great numbers of well-to-do bourgeois were simply lying low and disguising themselves as proletarians for the time being

George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia

Of course, George Orwell’s different concept of internationalism meant that he had to look deeply into his own culture before commenting on the culture and experiences of others. Orwell also came to recognise that it was easy to be fooled by simple appearances, the born-to-rule arrogance of Haycraft meant that he was never afforded this most precious of insights.

In parts 4,5 and 6 to come, we look at how Haycraft institutionalised his world view through the International House franchise and the RSA teacher certificate.

This Machine Kills Fascists

As this article is being written, demonstrators are massed outside the BBC in Shepherds Bush, London, protesting against the decision of the BBC to give a platform to the Fascist, Nick Griffin. It appears that 11^th hour attempts to persuade the broadcasters to desist from this dangerous nonsense have failed. It is with this thought uppermost in our minds that we turn to our poets and songwriters, that they might help inspire us in the battles ahead. 

One such inspiring songwriter was the American folk singer Woody Guthrie, a champion of the rights of working people and a particularly powerful voice in the fight against fascism. Woody carried the words, This Machine Kills Fascists, on his guitar and one of his best loved ballads was, All You Fascists Are Bound To Lose:

Another powerful voice for working people and against fascism, is the singer-songwriter Billy Bragg. You can listen to Billy Bragg’s version of Woody Guthrie’s song here.

And finally, here is dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson, giving his forthright account of how to deal with the Nazis