PUBLIC HEALTH VS. PUBLIC RELATIONS

Dear New Socialist: I was really glad to see Jeff Shantz’s article SARS + Capitalism, Making Toronto Sick in the last issue of the magazine which provided a good overview and critical analysis of the social organization of SARS. At the same time I found his use of “public health” as a good thing counterposed to “public relations” rather troubling given my experiences as an AIDS activist. We always need to ask which public and whose health is being protected in the discourses and practices of “public health”. Historically “public health” has been mobilized to defend the “public” from those who are defined as the health “threat” or source of “infection.” In the context of sexually-transmitted diseases this led to targeting sex workers and “loose” women as the “vectors of infection.” This approach takes up a sexist double-standard associating “sexual promiscuity” with infection. In the AIDS crisis “public health” leads to attempts to protect the so-called “general population” (often defined as white, middle class and heterosexual) from the so-called “risk groups” of gay men, bisexuals, sex workers, injection drug users, and often people of colour. By making the people most directly affected by AIDS and HIV the problem public health practices mobilize discrimination and stigmatization against these groups and work against a politics of health from below which resonates with socialism from below. In developing a socialism from below which addresses people’s diverse health needs we need to engage in a critical analysis of public health. In solidarity, Gary Kinsman

SUPPORTING THE ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT

Dear Editors, The editorial “Reigniting the Anti-Capitalist Movement” in NEW SOCIALIST 42 is politically ambiguous. However, it could be read as suggesting that advocates of socialism from below should primarily organize separately and apart from broad mass movements against war. It bases itself upon an overly rigid dichotomy: “In short the global justice movement is a multi-issue and multi-tactic movement that places a premium on self-organization as means of social transformation, while the anti-war movement tended to be single-issue, single tactic, not always democratic, often class collaborationist and unable to develop anti-racist and anti-imperialist politics.” The characterization of the broad anti-war movement as being often class collaborationist is inaccurate and unfortunate. It can lead to a politically mistaken sectarian approach to anti-war activism. The anti-war movement is composed of all those forces who opposed the war on Iraq. People opposed to the war come from different experiences and political perspectives and have widely varying levels of consciousness and militancy. Many forces within the movement come from a politically limited pro-peace perspective. However the focus of the movement was concrete: it aimed to block the US-led invasion of Iraq. There is nothing class collaborationist about the unifying slogan “Stop the War.” In fact, it partially challenges the logic of capitalism when the movement is in opposition to an imperialist war. Within the broad movement there are vying politics and often widely held illusions. Some will tend to align themselves with sections of the ruling class, especially when it is badly divided, as the world’s rulers were about the Iraq war. Socialists need to defend the independence of the movement. Of course, an uncritical attitude doesn’t help. While supporting the broad movement we can and should raise anti-imperialist and anti-racist analysis and perspectives. However, there is absolutely no reason to take a sectarian attitude when tens or hundreds of thousands of people march against war. Unity in action on our side and strong divisions among imperialist rulers create favourable conditions and openings to build a movement. To be effective, socialists need to actively participate in broad movements.