Considering events over the past year or so (“fuck off, the lot of you”), it will come as no surprise that George Galloway and Yvonne Ridley– who participated in the Socialist Workers’ Party’s Marxism 2007 conference– are not on the speakers’ roster for Marxism 2008.
More interesting is the absence from this year’s “Arts and culture” program of another “Marxism” perennial– the antisemitic jazz saxophonist Gilad Atzmon. After years of mealy-mouthed explanations for “platforming” Atzmon, has it finally dawned on the SWP’s commissars that he in fact is what they’ve been denying he is?
My optimistic guess (and those who know better should feel free to correct me) is that “Marxism” regular Michael Rosen and perhaps other invited participants finally got up the nerve to tell the conference organizers: “Him or me.”
Update: While Iranian President Ahmadinejad has only expressed a wish to wipe Israel off the map, the SWP has already done so. Israeli participants in the conference are identified (pdf) as from “Palestine.”