LEFT RIGHT CENTRE

Socialist Alternative | ASHRAF ABDUL HALIM, NIX HERRIOT

1. Although the Handmaid’s Tale remains as compelling and uncomfortably relevant as when it was first published, Atwood’s text is weakened by omitting the structural, racial and class dynamics of women’s oppression. Questions of class raised in the novel, embodied by the ‘Econowives’, were disappeared from the Hulu series along with the white supremacist character of Gilead’s ruling class. It seems implausible that racism doesn’t seem to exist alongside misogyny. Director Bruce Miller’s so-called “postracist” dystopia has understandably attracted criticism for its slave narrative that appropriates experiences from the plantation and crafts an society uncomplicated by blackness, history or class. As writer Sophie Lewis explains, this is symptomatic of a liberal worldview that abdicates a critique of capital to blame its woes on fundamentalists with guns. To recognise this weakness is not to castigate millions of readers and viewers moved by Atwood’s cautionary tale, but to demand a critique better suited to challenging capitalism. After all, contemporary gender oppression is primarily driven by capitalism, not Christian fascism.

2. Prohibiting information doesn’t necessarily work. The Anarchist Cookbook can be downloaded online despite bans in multiple countries. We wouldn’t ban the book. Socialists have always been staunch opponents of censorship. Written at the height of the counterculture and anti-Vietnam war movement, the cookbook gives readers questionable tools to make homemade drugs and bombs. But it doesn’t offer any effective recipe for social change. Its underlying view is that violence can be employed to spark change (a view subsequently renounced by the author). The turn to individualistic political violence by groups such as the Weather Underground was a disaster. Terrorist methods contradict the basic Marxist approach to change through mass self-emancipation. To paraphrase Trotsky, if guns and explosives are enough, why the need for class struggle, meetings, mass agitation and elections? The state is too powerful for small bands of guerrillas. Furthermore, terrorism frequently targets not oppressors but ordinary people. Collective action is needed to win a society free of violence, exploitation and oppression.

3. Marx and Engels’ writings remain central for those wanting to change the world. The Communist Manifesto isn’t a historical artefact nor dogmatic scripture – it’s alive with analysis, polemic and argument, a call to arms for our times. 1. More people now understand that the complicity to placate audiences with a white protagonist in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale is ironic. A white protagonist is no doubt in an attempt to make black experiences more palatable for Atwood’s audience. Yet discomfort was central to the intent behind The Handmaid’s Tale, and why Atwood’s works enjoyed their initial success. The 2017 television show should have embraced this central theme far more earnestly by casting a black lead, yet, profits come first under capitalism. It is high time for the arts to embrace new discourse written by authors that our slow progress has paved the way for instead of celebrating texts written for their time that benefit from the exploitation of marginalised groups.

2. The banning of book titles is an exercise of power that seeks to control the expression of ideas. Although Australia has become more relaxed since the establishment of the Book Censorship Board in 1933, a few non-fiction books remain banned including the Anarchist Cookbook. A guide to making explosives, weapons, and drugs, the book was made illegal shortly after its publication in 1971. Prohibited for its potential to incite violence, one could be mistaken for believing that this judgement was justified. However, if inciting violence was a

Greens Club | ANNIKA STEWART, CHAS DAVIS, LAZARAS PANAYIOTOU

justifiable offence, then one would surmise that other books such as Mein Kampf or the Turner Diaries would also be banned -alas they are not. Whilst legalising the Anarchist Cookbook would not necessarily improve its relative accessibility in the age of the internet, it would be a recognition that ideas are not violent only people are.

3. Greens theory and works play off each other and are becoming increasingly based. Based on what you ask? Our four pillars: ecological sustainability, grassroots participatory democracy, social justice, and peace and non-violence. The latest and greatest addition is Tim Hollo’s Living Democracy: An ecological manifesto for the end of the world as we know it. Having only been able to read reviews at this time, as the work enjoys a slow roll-out by virtue of being written by a Greenie with poor funding, the book is about how it’s the end of the world as we know it, but also how this doesn’t have to mean it’s the end of the world. ‘A brilliant treatise for our future and based on a deep understanding of First Nations knowledge – Tim Hollo has given us so much with this beautifully written work.’ – Dr Tjanara Goreng Goreng Labor Club | STEPH MADIGAN

1. The Handmaid’s Tale is a confessional style journal about the power of language to end oppression and give voice to suppressed histories. It leans heavily on the slave-woman trope, and critics have pointed out that it has a lot in common with the autobiographies of Black female slaves in antebellum America. Atwood, a history buff, uses the Christian fundamentalist ethnostate setting to make a point about how Puritan exorcistic tendencies manifest in modern America as intolerance and violence. But this message is focalised through a white protagonist because all of the Black characters were killed! Atwood, I think, tries to repay her narrative debt by giving the protagonist a character arc where she recognises her apathy towards social injustice and urges the reader to attend to current political struggles. The book fails to understand that degrees of oppression and liberty are set up even within the female gender. It turns a deaf ear to the double marginalization that women of colour have endured for centuries. The iconic status of Atwood’s story is testament to how readily Black history is appropriated to provoke sympathy for white women while banishing Black women. 2. Book-banning is an antiquated notion from the pre-internet age. Although governments are getting better at blocking access to websites on private internet services, the volume of content being created is too much for any algorithm to sift through and regulate. It is far too easy to access copies and prohibition has failed to deter people from doing so. There is also the social harm of incarcerating young, non-violent, otherwise law-abiding citizens. Finally, censorship is a function of power and an enemy of free speech. Anarchism is a historicallymaligned and widely misunderstood ideology, and it’s hard to ignore the anticommunist flavour of most pro-censorship arguments. 3. Mark Fisher’s ‘Capitalist Realism’ and ‘Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People about Race’ by Reni Eddo-Loge are great entry-points. Or anything by Arundhati Roy. Liberal | TAYLOR WESTMACOTT 1. This is poor scholarship, short and simple. I do not agree that Atwood appropriated the experience of Black Women. This is not how writing prose fiction works. This is not how the novel ought to operate. Having said this, I do find Atwood particularly tasteless at times (and Handmaid’s “the Underground Femaleroad” may be a quintessential example of this). But fiction is allowed to be tasteless. In some circumstances, it has to be.

2. The Anarchist’s Cookbook was Refused Classification in Australia, meaning it cannot be sold or imported. As a fundamental value, I’m against criminalising the possession of books. 3. I’m a ᴙepublican, so it’s difficult to say. My ideology? – A diet of equal parts Das Schloss, La Condition Humaine, Blood Meridian, Troy Chimneys, Candide, and Turgenev’s /Отцы и дети/ should just about get you there. (You should also know the Statement from the Heart.)

If I were in government, I would want to ensure possession of the Cookbook was not a criminal act – but I certainly wouldn’t approve it for commercial Classification. To better understand Republican philosophy? – Hobbes’ Leviathan and Locke’s Second Treatise of Government. Republicanism in Australia? – Mark McKenna’s The Captive Republic. Lastly, essential reading for all – Plato’s Republic and Marx’s Kapital.