By Jorge Jorquera PERTH — The West Australian's editorial on February 29 epitomised the media's efforts throughout the federal election campaign to direct protest votes to the Democrats rather than the WA Greens. It argued that the "Australian Democrats' policies on the environment, families, Aborigines and social advancement arguably give party candidates first claim on the votes of Australians looking for representation by an independent Left-leaning, but middle-ground force". The Greens, it said, "have moved to the unelectable borders of the distant Left vacated by the Labor Party in the 1980s". The media's anti-greens campaign was intended not only to weaken the WA Greens electorally, but also to undermine any support that may be brewing for the idea of a fundamental challenge to the political structures of this country. In parliamentary policy, the WA Greens don't seem too different from the Democrats. The real difference is that, in contrast to both the Democrats and the Australian Greens, the WA Greens have managed to walk the tightrope between parliamentary work and maintaining a link to the social movement activity from which they emerged in the 1980s. The WA Greens' appeal to community action and self-empowerment has been consistent enough to ring warning bells among ruling circles. The WA Greens senators' refusal to "do deals over different issues" — unlike the Tasmanian Greens for example — has made them a thorn in the side of establishment politics. In the words of a WA Greens election newsletter, "The Greens would not, for example, have traded forest protection for the passage of native title legislation in 1993. While deal-making is the norm of modern government, the Greens believe that governments and parliaments must make decisions based on community values and beliefs. The Greens do not believe that one issue, or one section of the community should be traded off for another."
The challenge
Despite standing by these principles, the WA Greens' lack of strategic vision and guidelines has left them rather disarmed in the face of attacks by the more opportunist Democrats. Sooner or later the WA Greens were going to face this challenge: dissolve their principles into a strategy aimed at minor alterations to the neo-liberal agenda, or elaborate a program of action to mobilise and organise the opposition to this agenda. The geographical and political isolation of WA may have immunised the WA Greens for some time, but without a renewal of mass struggle on some front, the choices that faced green parties elsewhere were bound to confront them here. Given the loss of one WA Greens senator in the federal election, a thorough discussion over future directions now seems completely unavoidable. There have always been many opinions within the ranks of the WA Greens, some pushing in the pragmatic direction, some insisting on the "grassroots" approach. These differences have coexisted in a framework dominated by a principled approach while the establishment parties have worked hard to coopt and demobilise the environment movement. The two-party system still needs an escape valve, and a demobilised community can easily be convinced to opt for "keeping the bastards honest" rather than kicking them out. For the WA Greens, the loss will increase pressures to secure their parliamentary presence in the immediate future. No matter how much they have defended their independence from the Australian Greens to date, membership of the Australian Greens would probably strengthen the parliamentary viability of the WA Greens. In the short term, without a real strategy for mass mobilisation and organisation, such a move would also strengthen the pragmatist wing.
Old bogeys
If the WA Greens are to avoid such a shift, they will have to engage in a serious and honest discussion around questions of political orientation, strategy and forms of organisation. Dissolving strategy into principles only leads to phrase-mongering. Sooner or later some views win out, usually those of the gurus who can "talk the talk". Eventually this opens the way for good old-fashioned parliamentary cretinism. In the struggle for reforms, "principles" are crucial, but they are always subject to the principle that some reform is better than none. That was the Tasmanian Greens' justification for their accord with Labor. The problem is that capital can turn reforms back. The guarantee against this is to be found, not in the hearts of honest parliamentarians, but in the mass organisation of people struggling to better their conditions of life. This means the WA Greens have to priorities an orientation to mass struggle, action and organisation. It's not good enough to get your toes wet and cheer from the sidelines. Last year, for example, the presence of the WA Greens in organising the anti-nuclear campaign was sadly disproportionate to their supposed size and influence. Trade unionists and socialists took the consistent organising lead. Many in the WA Greens confuse localised "community action" with mass social movement action and organisation. While local community action can change things, its strength is precisely in its ability to extend beyond the purely local and generalise the issue for other local communities and among others in struggle. If the WA Greens want to remain a force on the "radical" (anti-systemic) side of politics, they will need to be far more than the "community's voice". They will have to elaborate strategic objectives and a program of action, directed at sustained and organised mass activity. The WA Greens have inherited the worn-out analytical tools of Eurocommunism and spiced them with postmodern clichés. In that approach, not only is the working class no longer an agent of social change, but there are no agents of social change, just "communities". In fear of any "grand narratives", many radical greens face the grandest narrative of all (capitalism) without any theoretical tools with which to pose strategies of liberation. Radical greens rightly reject the narrow "socialist" view that defines change through political activity centred on the economic structures of capitalism. But economism is one thing, class analysis is another. Capital is increasingly monopolised and centralised, and the great majority of humanity is defined by its lack of access to the centres of economic and political power. The object of class analysis is not to reduce struggle to economic issues but to unite this great majority as not only a "class in itself" but also a "class for itself", fighting on every front against every aspect of this class-divided society.
Organisation
If greens are going to play a role in any such political mobilisation of those oppressed and exploited by the system, they must also face the issue of how to organise themselves. Greens might scourge the old socialist method of democratic centralism, but guru-based leadership and "consensus" are no alternative. The principles of decentralisation (versus centralisation) or diversity (versus political unity) are just abstractions in the absence of a practical green alternative that encourages the empowerment of people rather than privileging the intellectual elites. Some in the WA Greens, especially those formed by the ideas of the old Communist Party of Australia, blame Stalinism on democratic centralism. That misses the point that Stalinism had to destroy democratic centralism in order to suppress opposition to its strategy of appeasing the ruling class. Stalinism's betrayals were the result of the choice that constantly faces the left and progressive movement — between a strategic perspective based on the reform possibilities opened up by dialogue with 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ of the ruling elites, and one based on organising the power of ordinary people mobilised in mass actions that cripple the normal functioning of the system. Whatever name you give it, greens will have to deal with the same question that led the socialist movement to democratic centralism: how can ordinary people be encouraged to participate in political struggle in a way that simultaneously promotes the development of creative tools of analysis and the commonality of their interests in struggle, and also unites them in democratically decided action? That said, political discussion and debate do not happen in a vacuum. The WA Greens' ability to engage in a real discussion about their directions and to avoid having choices forced on them by the pressures of "parliamentary opportunity", fear of the socialist tradition and lack of confidence in the mobilising potential of ordinary people, will depend on the broader course of Australian politics. The longer we have to wait for mass fights back against the neo-liberal agenda, the greater the probability that the WA Greens will succumb to the pragmatist pull. At the moment, the main thing preventing this is the old left heritage of some of their membership and the integrity of many leading activists.