Steve Clark's Bizarre Book Bazaar

Steve Clark (MILITANT/ÖGMUNDUR JÓNSSON)

The astonishing thing about the book fair recently held in Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan, is that Steve Clark attended it. Mr. Clark is a member of the Troika, namely the three-person team that constitutes the leadership of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). Of those three, he is the junior member, both in age and rank. His seniors are Jack Barnes, the National Secretary of the Party, and Mary-Alice Waters, who is Jack's significant other and head of Pathfinder Press. Comrades Barnes and Waters are both octogenarians. I believe Comrade Clark is a year or two younger than I am, which suggests he's about 70.

Mr. Clark, despite his status, rarely lets his picture be published, which likely explains why he's infrequently seen at public events, and has never run as an SWP candidate for any election. It's weird that he'd travel all the way to Erbil to be photographed sitting in an easy chair like a crown prince, attended to by hijab-clad women. Indeed, the phrase "crown prince" describes him rather well given his youth and status compared to the other two royals. He's the son that comrades Barnes and Waters never had.

Two other adjectives are inspired by the picture: old and frail. In knew Mr. Clark from the Chicago branch back in the early 1970s. He looked old then--the early onset of male-pattern baldness didn't do much for youthful good looks. He rose to the challenge, leveraging his appearance to seem more serious and mature than his fellow comrades. Today he just looks old--much older than 70.

Frail may be an artifact of the photo: being seated and surrounded by much younger, standing people will make anybody look frail. Still, I don't know what Mr. Clark actually does. He writes for The Militant only occasionally. He has no formal responsibility of which I am aware. I suggested in the past that he was in ill-health. Which may be true, but he can't be all that decrepit if he is able to fly from New York to Erbil and back.

I've dubbed Mr. Clark the Sycophant in Chief. If the Party had state power, he'd be the guy in charge of the concentration camps. He behaves the way you'd expect a good crown prince to behave.

Anyway, I think he joined the Movement after I did, and partly because of that bald pate made himself felt right away. He was always behind closed doors in some important meeting or another, or taking an urgent phone call. In those days the Revolution was serious business, and comrade Clark was in the thick of it. It was only a matter of time before fate called and he ascended into heaven the National Office to sit at the right hand of the National Secretary and his wife. I never saw him again except from a distance, as he has decorated the dais of every Oberlin conference since.

The current issue of The Militant has two articles by Ögmundur Jónsson: Book fair reflects class politics in Kurdistan and Iraq, and Socialist Workers Party author speaks on new title at book fair forum. From the former we learn that this is the fourth book fair that Pathfinder Press (the SWP's publishing house) has attended in Erbil. Pathfinder set up a large booth and sold 1200 books over the 11-day event. The organizers of the fair put the attendance at 600,000 people. (By comparison, last year Amazon sold about 330 million print books and an additional 300 million e-books.)

From the latter article we discover that Mr. Clark flew all the way to Erbil to deliver a talk to 50 people at the book fair. He was accompanied not only by Mr. Jónsson (who I believe is based in London), but also by Joe Young, from Toronto. The round trip airfare from New York to Erbil (basic economy) is over $1300 per person. It may be a bit more from Toronto and a bit less from London, but the Party spent the better part of $4000 getting these folks to Erbil. That doesn't include the cost of food and lodging, or the cost of transporting all the Pathfinder books to and from the site. If the trio sold 1200 books at an average price of $10 per, then total revenue comes to around $12K--which also has to cover the cost of printing the books.

Of course this makes no sense. It obviously makes no financial sense, and it doesn't look to make much political sense, either. Why should the third most important man in the Socialist Workers Party fly all the way to Iraq just to give a speech to 50 people? Is the Revolution really that desperate for eyeballs? My former comrades need to explain what they expect the political benefits of this extravagance to be.

Reading between the lines of Mr. Jónsson's article, I doubt his speech was especially well received. While Mr. Jónsson acknowledges the crime committed by Saddam Hussein in Halabja, he writes

Clark noted the importance of holding a book fair in Erbil, a city both in Kurdistan and Iraq. “The U.S. rulers have brought so much devastation to Iraq,” he said, pointing to the killings of hundreds of thousands due to Washington’s wars of 1990-91 and 2003 and the destruction still evident in Baghdad and other cities.

He fails to note that absent the American invasion the Kurds would likely have been wiped out. More, America has protected the Kurds in both Syria and Iraq from Turkish depredations. The Kurds love the Americans--why wouldn't they? I think it probably doesn't matter if you're a Communist or a Nazi or an Islamophobe or even a Jew--if you're an American you'll be warmly welcomed no matter what.

In addition, I think Mr. Clark makes one error of fact--probably minor. He says

“The U.S. rulers continue to assert their domination over Puerto Rico, which is the largest colony in the world today. The Kurdish people are the largest nation without a country, so you have something in common.”

This is not true. The Kurds have a population between 30 and 45 million. The Hakka minority in southern China and Taiwan number around 80 to 120 million people. The Dravidian peoples of southern India and Sri Lanka number around 250 million people. These are just two examples of other peoples who don't have their own country.

Back in the day--early '70s--the Revolution really was serious business. But nobody in today's SWP expects any imminent revolution--it's all put off into the distant future like the second coming of Christ. So it doesn't really matter who leads the SWP anymore. Steve Clark and his fellow royals imagine themselves to be indispensable, forgetting de Gaulle's maxim that "the cemeteries are full of indispensable men."

In the meantime they can play games with comrades' dues and sustainers. Comrade Clark's bizarre trip to Erbil's book bazaar is a case in point.

Further Reading:

• Book Review: The Low Point of Labor Resistance is Behind Us
• Chicago: Ilona Gersh Runs for Mayor
• John Studer Makes a Boo-Boo