What Is a Green?

 
    Note: I wrote this piece some time ago ,but it is still basically true today .In the more advancednced industrialized countries the Greens remain on the political left. Theycntinue to put a high priority on nonviolence and are opposed to the existence of NATO. In the past this has been a major obstacle  for the Green Party of Canada.If Dimitri Lascaris is chosen as the next leader of the Green Party of Canada this could change. 

The recent federal election caused a lot of problems for supporters of the Greens. Particularly in Saskatchewan. The New Green Alliance, formed in 1999, has fought two provincial elections and a number of by-elections. Across the province the NGA is known to be a committed environmental and social justice movement, to the left of the provincial NDP. On fiscal and tax matters, the new party has regularly endorsed the progressive Alternative Budget created by the Saskatchewan branch of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. To this we add some Green tax and fiscal policies. The NGA has been strongly opposed to the neoliberal taxation policies of the federal government and provincial NDP government, which are shifting the tax burden from corporations, wealth, and high income earners on to low income people.

In contrast, the leadership of the Green Party of Canada, and the Ontario Green Party, regularly state that they are “neither left nor right.” During the federal election campaign, Jim Harris, leader of the GPC, commonly stated that the Greens would cut corporate taxes and move to eliminate the income tax. This policy position was widely cited by the mass media and the NDP. The right wing Ottawa Citizen praised the GPC for its tax policies. This caused a lot of confusion, in Saskatchewan and elsewhere. People wrote to the New Green Alliance asking if we are a “right wing party” because that is how the Green Party of Canada has been characterized by the New Democratic Party.

The Greens: Neither Left Nor Right

The term “neither left nor right” was first used by the fascists in France and Italy in the 1930s to support their view that fascism was above traditional left and right politics. The new fascist movement would rise above the old class conflict between owners of the means of production and the workers. The term was also used by Herbert Gruhl, one of the founders of the German Green Party, in his famous book, A Planet Plundered. He quit the Greens and formed a right-wing patriarchal party when the German Greens embraced feminism. Today, the term “neither left nor right” is associated with the Third Way element in social democracy. Tony Blair’s ideological guru, Anthony Giddens, has written their basic text, Beyond Left and Right. How does the world wide Green movement line up in this debate?
First, it might be useful to revisit the origin of the terms “left” and “right” as they are applied to politics. After the French Revolution, when men without property were allowed to run for office and vote, a wide range of political parties developed. In the French legislature, and elsewhere in the parliaments in Europe, the legislators sit on benches or at desks in a half circle facing the Speaker. Parties align themselves in this half circle as they wish. From the beginning those parties which supported equality and the expansion of democracy placed themselves to the left of the speaker. They became known as “the Left.” Those parties who opposed equality and the expansion of democracy placed themselves to the right of the speaker. They became known as “the Right.” This practice continues today, and European Green parties in each country decide where they will sit in relationship to the other parties. This is a recognition that deep ideological and class differences remain today and are central to politics. It is not possible to ignore or try to be above these divisions in society.

Where do the Greens place themselves in this ideological spread of political parties? In Australia and New Zealand, the Greens are to the left of the Labour parties. They are the left opposition when Labour is in office, as they are today in New Zealand. In England the Greens are to the left of the Labour Party. They joined in coalition with the Socialists to support “Red Ken” Livingstone in his campaign for mayor of greater London. In Scotland the Greens are part of the left opposition in legislature with the Scottish Socialist and the Scottish Nationalist Party. The government of the right is the alliance between Labour and the Liberal Democrats. In Wales the Greens are on the left, in opposition with the nationalist party, Plaid Cymru. In Northern Ireland the Greens are quite small, and in the recent European Union elections won less than one percent of the vote, one half of the vote received by the Socialist Environmental Alliance. In the last UK election, they ran jointly with the Women’s Party. In Ireland, the Greens, until recently the Green Alliance, are on the left and work closely with Sinn Fein, which now is primarily a socialist party; they jointly opposed the participation of Ireland in the European Union and the surrender of Irish neutrality. The Green Party of the USA is well to the left of the Democrats and Republicans, and its general policy is well to the left of the platform of the Green Party of Canada.

So in the English speaking world the Greens are on the political left. Social justice, opposition to militarism, opposition to the U.S. imperial wars, and support for the anti-globalization movement are all policies that are central to their political ideology. The Green Party of Canada is certainly the most right wing of all these Green parties. What about the Greens in Europe?

There is a wide range of Green parties in Europe. In the past, and at the present time, there are countries where there are two Green parties. There are three today in France and Spain. Most belong to the Federation of European Greens, but some do not. Some are aligned with the European United Left - Nordic Green Left. In Iceland the Greens are known as the Left Green Alliance. In Norway there is no formal Green Party, for the Socialist Left Party is a red-green party back by environmentalists. In Denmark there is the Unity List - Red Greens. In The Netherlands there is the Green Links - Green Left. In Finland there are two Green parties, the Left Wing League and the Green League, both of which get close to 10% of the vote. In Greenland there is the Inuit Community Party, socialist and green, which was the largest party after the 2002 election with 25% of the vote. In Portugal, the Partido Ecologia Os Verdes participates in a formal electoral alliance with the Portuguese Communist Party as the United Democratic Bloc.
All of these Green parties are clearly on the political left.

In France, asLes Verts participates in the Radical Alliance with the Socialist and the Communist Party. The two other Green parties are smaller: Generation Ecologie and Les Alternatifs. In Italy the Federation of Greens is part of the Olive Tree Alliance with the Socialist and former Communists. This alliance produced a Green mayor for Rome.

In other European countries, the Greens have been growing in strength; it would be hard to label them as on the political right. The European Greens have been strong in supporting Peace, opposition to the Iraq war, opposition to NATO, and opposition to the so-called “free trade” agreements, including the Maastricht Treaty. As the social democratic parties strongly supported the European Union and “free trade” and globalization, they moved to the right and the Greens moved to the left. Thus in Sweden, where the Green Party started out as a middle class party to the right of the Social Democratic Party, they are now on the left working closely with the Left Party. In Germany, as Alliance 90/The Greens has been badly divided on ideological issues and over the electoral alliance with the Third Way Social Democratic Party. But they are identified as the left element in this electoral alliance.

Thus as we look around the industrialized world, we can see that the Green movement today is on the political left, opposing militarism, globalization, supporting the World Social Forum, fighting to retain the Keynesian welfare state, while remaining the one force which is deeply concerned about environmental degradation, global warming and climate change. It seems quite obvious that the New Green Alliance in Saskatchewan is in step with this movement and the leadership of the Green Party of Canada is not.