In April 2000, I was privileged to attend the first national
conference of the Labour Party Pakistan in Lahore. As one of 13
international guests, I witnessed four days of political discussion and
debate which left us all with a common impression that this was a party
that was going to make a difference to politics.

First, there was a tangible political confidence in the hall of
the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan where the 138 delegates,
from all around Pakistan, and 28 observers worked hard through four
days of reports. Among the congress delegates were many seasoned
trade union activists who had been involved in recent struggles, such as
in the railways where the army had tried to quell two months of strikes
and go slows.

There were delegates who recounted a heroic battle between
railway workers and the army on the Peshawar Road in Rawalpindi.
There were peasant leaders from the Sindh, Baluchistan and Punjab
who had stood up to the ruthless assault of big landlords used to having
their way. And there were valiant students who persevered on
campuses still constrained by political restrictions from the days of the
Zia ul-Haq military dictatorship and now also blighted with right-wing
religious fundamentalists.

So this palpable confidence was founded on real experience of
persistent and brave struggle. Second, this was a party that wasn’t just
talking about “left unity” - as many left groups do – but actually doing
it. As I recorded in my notes then, many of the delegates had been
members of other political parties, including the Communist Party,
National Workers Party, Watan Dust Peasant Party, Socialist Party,
Sindh Peasant Committee and People’s Party. But they had all found
common cause in the LPP in rejecting the old orientation of most of the
Pakistan left of looking to the “progressive” national capitalists for a
“national democratic” alliance.

The delegates to the LPP conference were agreed that the
Pakistani capitalist class — whether governing in military or civilian
mode — had demonstrated that it was against the great majority of the
population and in league with the big landlords and the imperialist
capitalists. The delegates still had some differences about the exact
political theory that explained this, but they were totally united in
opposing the approach of the old left.

In a sometimes heated but ultimately comradely discussion,
the delegates worked to bridge the political gaps between leftists who
previously dismissed each other “Trotskyites” or “Stalinists”.

There was a lively discussion on the national question. Pakistan was carved out by the capitalist and landlord classes of the
Indian sub-continent to stop the advance of communism. The country’s
borders contain several nations (or part of them), including the Punjab,
Sindh, Baluchistan, Kashmir and the Siraiki nations. The Punjabi
capitalist class clearly dominates Pakistan politically and economically
and so there is an issue of national oppression. The LPP conference
resolved to support the struggles of all oppressed nationalities and
minority religions.

A major issue at the congress was the nature of General
Pervez Musharraf’s military rule. Musharraf had seized power the
previous October in a military coup against the government of Nawaz
Sharif but, as Farooq Tariq explained, when Musharraf took power,
many people had illusions in the new regime because the previous
regime was so corrupt and repressive. However, the military had shown
since then that it hadn’t “changed its spots”,

Just two weeks before this LPP conference, the military and
police had raided the offices of the LPP and the homes of its leaders,
who were forced into hiding for a week. The LPP was raided because it
had dared to hold a peaceful demonstration in Lahore against the visit
of then US President Bill Clinton. The raid was widely condemned in
the local media and by progressive groups around the world.

Yet at that time, some of Pakistan’s old left leaders and non-
government organization leaders were supporting the military regime.
In sharp contrast, the LPP congress called for the military to return to
barracks, for a democratic government based on worker and peasant
representatives, and for free and fair elections in 90 days. It dismissed
Musharraf’s offer of non-party political local elections as an attempt to
cloak military rule in “democratic garb”.

Musharraf went on to make himself president of Pakistan, and
in the wake of US President Bush’s declaration of the so-called “War
Against Terrorism”, he became the beneficiary of more than $10 billion
in US military aid – at least $700 million he is alleged to have stolen
for himself! However, eight years later, Musharraf has been
humiliatingly forced into resignation under the pressure of a massive
popular movement galvanized by a militant response to his sacking of
judges who refused to do his will.

The LPP comrades were “right in there” (as they say in
Australia) in this movement, defying one of the world’s most brutal
armed forces and showing a militant lead all the way. They fought side-
by-side with the most militant lawyers’ movement the world has ever
seen! And, at the same time, they were also organizing among the
workers and the peasants battling feudal and military landlords. As I
wrote on behalf of the DSP, earlier this year, in a letter of
congratulations to these brave Pakistani comrades:

“Congratulations to the fighting masses in Pakistan for their
latest victory! Given the history of Pakistan has been so bloodied by
military dictatorships, such a humiliating end to the political career of
the latest military dictator is a great victory for people’s power.

“Congratulations! “Down with dictators, down with
imperialism! “Working masses of the world unite!”

This brings me to the role of Comrade Farooq Tariq. The LPP
clearly gathered and developed many great leaders, only a few of
whom I have had the privilege to meet. But I remember those I have
met, and treasure the conversations we shared. In the stories brought
back from visits by other DSP comrades, I’ve also heard about these
many other leaders, young and old. However, Farooq Tariq, who was
its secretary general until the last LPP conference, clearly was a
comrade who played a critical role in bringing the LPP together and
building it into what it is today. My comrade and partner, Pip Hinman,
noticed in her visit to Karachi for the 2006 regional World Social
Forum, the clear love and respect of many comrades (from the LPP and
other groups) for Farooq Tariq.

I had met Farooq before the 2000 LPP conference as he had
visited Australia earlier but meeting him on his home ground really
consolidated some impressions of him.

Farooq is a warm man. I will always remember him waiting to
meet me at the border crossing from India – itself an extraordinary
experience! Farooq’s warm welcome made me feel at home in a place
that otherwise struck me as a strange combination of an ancient, almost
“biblical”, scene (complete with donkey!) and a military parade ground.

A lot of lefties can spout political theory, make rousing
speeches, etc but to give real political leadership in the revolutionary
movement demands the deepest and strongest humanity. This famous
quote of Che Guevara sums it up: “At the risk of sounding ridiculous,
let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by feelings of love.”

Farooq is a brave comrade. His years of struggle against
dictatorship and his in-and-out history with Pakistani jails (all for
political stands) attest to this. But my firsthand insight into Farooq’s
plucky spirit came when we were briefly detained by Indonesian police
along with several other foreign guests at a conference on globalisation
near Jakarta in 2001. First, there was Farooq’s hilarious failed attempt
to evade arrest – via the conference toilet — and then over the
subsequent couple of days’ detention, Farooq demonstrated his
experience how to deal with bullying police. His pluckiness even
earned briefly him a sort of short-term pass out, which he promptly
used to go out and buy us some tasty food from stall holders outside the
police station. I’ve also seen him in action in a demonstration in Sydney
(against the detention without trial of refugees). This is not a comrade
who shies away from confronting the forces of the state – indeed the
opposite.

Farooq is also a wise comrade and, while principled in his politics, he
is clearly by nature a builder and not a splitter. I’ve experienced and
appreciated this in the course of his many visits to Australia and in
various political correspondences. Here in the DSP, we’ve had our
own challenges, including in recent times a pretty hard and protracted
internal dispute. Farooq has always played a role in trying to help us
stay as united as possible while retaining a respectful distance to avoid
interference. I deeply appreciate this. But this is more than evidence of
the wisdom and skill of a single comrade, it reflects another important
characteristic of the LPP itself – its genuine internationalism.

Farooq has said to me that he learnt from his earliest contact
with the DSP that while international solidarity and collaboration –
especially between revolutionaries – is priceless, we cannot build
serious parties in different countries without independent political
leaderships. But I suspect that is only part of the story, and that the
truth is that the LPP, like the DSP, has learnt this from its own political
experience.

Peter Boyle
Sydney, September 2008.