No Quebec independence
I am writing regarding the article in the February 5 Militant "Why `Militant' supports Quebec independence." I emigrated to Montreal from New York for two years and I speak French fluently. When I first arrived there I was very sympathetic toward the French. By March of last year I had become totally disillusioned with Quebec and I left. Now I can say unequivocally that independence is wrong for Quebec and the Militant is wrong in supporting their independence movement.
I was not accepted by the Quebecois nor were other immigrants that I met, in spite of the fact that we spoke French fluently. They could always identify us by our accents and the fact that it is almost impossible for an immigrant to learn their slang. No one who was not born in Quebec is ever really accepted.
As Robert Sheehy said in his letter to you, it is truly a racist state which they wish to establish. Many of the French are good people, many have voted against independence but an independent ethnic state would give expression to the most abhorrent elements within their culture, including those who supported Hitler during World War II. Furthermore the socialists are a very small minority within the separatist movement.
The Canadian government may not be perfect but it is far more pro-socialist than the U.S. government. For many years while the U.S. has blockaded Cuba, Canada has maintained normal relations with Castro and every year many Canadians go there on vacation. Education is much more accessible in Canada because the Canadian government subsidizes their universities much more than the U.S. does. Also Canadian society is more democratic, with fewer extremes of wealth and poverty than in the U.S.
Independence has been democratically rejected twice by the voters of Quebec in referendums, conducted by pro-independence provincial governments. Other socialist parties in Canada and around the world support a united Canada and in the interests of socialist unity the SWP should also, or at the very least remain neutral.
Susan Berman writes that if a mass movement organized the referendum, they "would ensure that only Quebecois could vote." This is racist and wrong! In his recent autobiography, Nelson Mandela states on page 150 that "the country belongs to all those who have made it their home." The Indians and the English minority living in Quebec have as much right to vote as the French do. Why doesn't Ms. Berman say that only Indians should be allowed to vote, since they were there first?
A breakup of Canada would reduce socialism there and bring it much closer to the U.S. government, which is the greatest enemy of socialism in the world. The independentists are competing with English Canada to see who can be more pro-U.S. because they want the U.S. government to support their cause. A breakup of Canada would probably result in several western provinces joining the U.S. as states, thus making the already too large American empire even larger.
Richard Terence Jeroloman
South Nyack, New York
Yugoslavia
Thank you for the exchange with reader Steve Craine on what has and has not changed in Yugoslavia. I hope that a subsequent article will amplify one point.
Argiris Malapanis wrote, "It is these social relations... that have not been destroyed. That's why it's not useful to use Craine's yardstick."
While the term "social relations" appears with some frequency in the Militant's coverage of the important developments in Yugoslavia (and in other workers states) it is infrequently explained. My own experience in discussing this with fellow workers on the job and elsewhere is that what is meant by this term is not well understood. I hope you will return to it with some of the concreteness that Malapanis used to buttress other points in his recent article.
Geoff Mirelowitz
Seattle, Washington
Death camps came later
In the otherwise excellent article in the February 19 Militant, "Don't give NATO what it hasn't taken," I think there is an incorrect statement: "The Nazis won popular support for their openly stated aims of exterminating Jews and non-Aryans based on the smashing of the labor movement."
The exterminating of Jews and "non-Aryans" (a term for the Nazis' ideal rather than a scientific term) was begun in the latter years of World War II. The exterminations were a culmination of the anti-Semitic policies initiated after the crushing of the German labor movement in 1933.
The Nazis did not "win" popular support for the death camps. The camps were not openly proclaimed. (The first reports of the camps were thought to be war propaganda.)
A statement that sounds like the extermination of the Jews was done with "popular support" in Germany only reinforces the collective guilt garbage that has been drilled into every generation since World War II.
Rick Young
Chicago, Illinois
Kurdish national rights
In an article on Turkey ["Turkey: elections signal instability" in January 15 Militant] I omitted an important aspect of the December 24 elections in that country.
The unyielding struggle of the oppressed Kurdish people for their national rights is also a major factor contributing to the current political instability that gives severe ulcers to the vulnerable fat stomachs of the imperialists of Bonn, Washington, and Tokyo, and Turkey's capitalist rulers.
The People's Democratic Party (HADEP) ran in the elections and received 4.17 percent of the national vote. HADEP campaigned against the war waged by Turkey's rulers on Kurds and called for recognition of the Kurdish people's national and cultural rights. In cities in the southeastern part of Turkey, such as Diyarbakir, where many of the Kurds live, the elections took place in a continued state of terror imposed by Turkey's armed forces. Despite this, HADEP won the majority of votes in that region. But due to undemocratic election laws, HADEP will not be represented in parliament.
Meanwhile, on January 8, as the newly elected members of parliament were sworn in, hundreds of prisoners in 23 jails across the country were taking part in protests and hunger strikes demanding better conditions and respect for their human rights.
The revolt began in late December in Istanbul's Unraniye jails where the police cracked down on protesting political prisoners, killing three and wounding over 30. Thousands of working people and youth in Istanbul participated in a demonstration on January 8 in solidarity with the prisoners' revolt. Organizations taking part in the demonstration included the Turkish Human Rights Association, HADEP, and the DISK labor federation. The police attacked the protest and arrested hundreds. One of those arrested, Metin Goktepe, a journalist, was brutally murdered by the cops. Over 10,000 supporters of democratic rights gathered at his funeral on January 11 in Istanbul protesting cop brutality.
By mid-January most of the protesting inmates returned to their cells after the prison authorities were forced to an agreement to improve the inhuman conditions in Turkey's jails.
Bobbis Misailides
Athens, Greece
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