So& Wloirkdersa’ Lirbeirtty y Volume 3 No 201 20 April 2011 30p/80p For a workers’ government

AV: what we On the streets The many sides say page 5 of Tunis pages 7-9 of Malcolm X page 12 Royal Wedding: a celebration of privilege and parasitism See UP THE page 5 REPUBLIC! INTERNATIONAL

What is the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty? Germany to go non-nuclear Today one class, the working class, lives by selling its labour power to another, the capitalist class, By Dave Elliott In Japan, with the which owns the means of production. Society Fukushima plants still far is shaped by the capitalists’ relentless drive to 250,000 people joined from safe and the exclu - increase their wealth. Capitalism causes demonstrations across sion zone now extended to poverty, unemployment, the blighting of lives by Germany following the 30 km, there have also overwork, imperialism, the destruction of the Fukushima disaster, call - been major anti nuclear environment and much else. ing on the government to demonstrations — on 10 Against the accumulated wealth and power of the phase out nuclear power April, 15,000 people capitalists, the working class has one weapon: solidarity. completely. marched in Tokyo in a demo organised by local The Alliance for Workers’ Liberty aims to build solidarity And after a massive shopkeepers, and 2,500 through struggle so that the working class can overthrow swing to the Greens in the called for the closure of the capitalism. We want socialist revolution: collective ownership regional elections, so far unaffected Hamaoka of industry and services, workers’ control and a democracy Merkel’s battered govern - nuclear plant, which is on much fuller than the present system, with elected ment now seems willing to a earthquake fault line. representatives recallable at any time and an end to comply, with the backing Meanwhile, what’s hap - of a key power industry bureaucrats’ and managers’ privileges. pening in the UK ? The trade association, BDEW, We fight for the labour movement to break with “social government has set up a which has called for a full partnership” and assert working-class interests militantly nuclear safety review, and We need a stronger campaign for renewables phase out by 2020 or 2023 against the bosses. the final phase of the reac - at the latest. Two of the as - Our priority is to work in the workplaces and trade unions, tor “Generic Design As - signs that a policy shift using some of the 112 sociation’s members, nu - supporting workers’ struggles, producing workplace bulletins, sessment” process has may occur — with possi - tonnes of Plutonium clear plant operators E.ON helping organise rank-and-file groups. been delayed until after bly a slow down in the stored at Sellafield. and RWE, opposed the de - We are also active among students and in many campaigns the safety review is com - proposed eight new plant This plutonium came cision, but were outvoted. and alliances. pleted later this year. expansion programme, re - from the reprocessing of Germany currently gets However, initial indica - flecting the extra costs spent fuel from existing 26% of its electricity from tions were that the govern - likely to be involved in try - UK and overseas nuclear We stand for: nuclear and 17% from re - ment was not expecting ing to make the plants, and plant, some of which has G Independent working-class representation in politics. newables, so there will the safety review to result their on-site spent fuel been converted to mixed G A workers’ government, based on and accountable to the have to be a rapid switch in major changes. Secre - stores, acceptable after plutonium and uranium labour movement. over. Current plans are to tary of State Chris Huhne Fukushima. They are all on oxide fuel for use else - G A workers’ charter of trade union rights — to organise, to push renewables up to told the House of Com - the coast, at sea level. where — e.g. in Japan. strike, to picket effectively, and to take solidarity action. 35% by 2020, 50% by 2030, mons on 24 March “we It may also have to re - There was 95 tonnes of G Taxation of the rich to fund decent public services, homes, 65% by 2040, 80% by 2050. will have to wait to see its think the proposal from Mox in Fukushima Reactor education and jobs for all. That may have to be accel - results and base the debate the nuclear industry to ex - 3. They may not exactly be G A workers’ movement that fights all forms of oppression. erated. on the facts”, but, he tend the operating life of in the market for more. Full equality for women and social provision to free women German Environment We don’t need any of added “I do not anticipate the UK’s existing plants — Minister Norbert Röttgen this. A whole fleet of re - from the burden of housework. Free abortion on request. Full that it will lead to enor - many are of similar age to told Der Spiegel : “The cent scenarios have sug - equality for lesbian, gay and bisexual people. Black and white mous changes”. And later those at Fukushima. events in Fukushima gested that the UK, EU workers’ unity against racism. on he was quoted as say - However, in perhaps a marked a turning point for and the world as a G Open borders. ing: “There is no intention poorly timed initiative, the all of us. Now we jointly whole, can get near G Global solidarity against global capital — workers for us to do anything but nuclear lobby is pushing support phasing out nu - 100% of its power from everywhere have more in common with each other than with learn the lessons... for ex - for the UK to spend more clear energy as quickly as renewables by 2050, or their capitalist or Stalinist rulers. ample, about the back up money on a new pro - possible and phasing in re - maybe earlier, if the po - G Democracy at every level of society, from the smallest for cooling.” gramme, for Mixed Oxide newable energies.” litical will is there. workplace or community to global social organisation. But there are also some Fuel (MOX) production, G Working-class solidarity in international politics: equal rights for all nations, against imperialists and predators big and small. G Maximum left unity in action, and openness in debate. South Australian unions demand G If you agree with us, please take some copies of Solidarity to sell — and join us! 020 7394 8923 [email protected] Labor dump right-wing leader 20e Tower Workshops, Riley Road, By Martin Thomas London, SE1 3DG. Unions”, repeated the call tion campaign, became a “left” Maritime Union of for Rann to quit on behalf Labor member of the Leg - Australia, states in his lat - “The reason why the of the state’s whole union islative Assembly and a est leaflet: Labor Party was estab - movement. “All of today’s minister in a Labor gov - “Under my leadership lished was because the shenanigans are really the ernment carrying through the MUA Queensland GET SOLIDARITY unions [knew] we same boofhead politics modified privatisation and branch will not involve it - needed to elect our own we’ve seen for some time quickly becoming as right- self in ALP machinations representatives to parlia - from this government”, wing as Iemma ever was. over the heads of the EVERY WEEK! ment to make the laws she declared. Robertson is now Labor membership. that cared for workers The stance of the South leader in NSW. Special offers “It will use the union’s and their families... Australian unions is a A serious union re - representation in the Aus - G Trial sub, 6 issues £5  model for how Britain’s sponse across Australia “But in South Australia unions should have re - would mean unions debat - tralian Labor Party, both at G 22 issues (six months). £18 waged  £9 unwaged  today what have we got? sponded to Tony Blair and ing and sticking to a clear state level and nationally, The complete opposite. Gordon Brown in 1997- set of working-class poli - openly to champion work - G 44 issues (year). £35 waged  £17 unwaged  “Our Party... belongs to 2010. cies; campaigning on that ers’ interests and challenge us and we’re going to take It is the exception in the basis against Rann, and the ALP leaders. What the G European rate: 28 euros (22 issues) or 50 euros (44 issues)   it back. The unions formed Australian union move - also against Queensland union says and does in the Labor to legislate for ment; and developments premier Anna Bligh and ALP will be democratically Tick as appropriate above and send your money to: workers... in other states indicate that federal prime minister discussed and decided by 20e Tower Workshops, Riley Road, London, SE1 3DG “We need to reshape union members in South Julia Gillard; and demand - MUA members. Labor with a new leader - Cheques (£) to “AWL”. Australia need to take con - ing ALP accountability to “The MUA will speak ship team...” trol of the anti-Rann cam - the working class. out in the same way that With those words, Or make £ and euro payments at workersliberty.org/sub. paign to ensure it is not But most of the “left” South Australian unions Wayne Hanson, state sec - satisfied with sops. unions have gone quiet, are currently speaking out retary of the AWU, the In New South Wales, the leaving the political initia - for the removal of Mike Name ...... most conservative of Aus - unions ran a big campaign tive to backroom deals and Rann as unworthy to be a tralia’s big unions, pro - against electricity privati - to right-wing AWU leader Labor representative. Address ...... posed a motion at the sation, and in 2008 both Paul Howes, who was one “It will not let issues South Australian Labor blocked the scheme and of the main figures in the drop once a token vic - ...... Party conference in late forced the resignation of its dumping of Labor prime tory has been gained, as 2010 to demand the resig - architect, Labor premier minister Kevin Rudd in the NSW unions let is - ...... nation of Labor leader, and Morris Iemma. June 2010 and his replace - sues drop once Morris premier, Mike Rann. Once Iemma was gone, ment by Gillard. Iemma had been ousted I enclose £ ...... When Rann made a gov - however, John Robertson, Bob Carnegie, currently and his particular variant ernment reshuffle in Feb - the secretary of Unions running for election as of electricity privatisa - ruary, Janet Giles, secretary New South Wales, who Queensland branch secre - tion blocked”. of “South Australia had led the anti-privatisa - tary of the traditionally 2 SOLIDARITY NEWS Misrata: our Guernica, our Srebrenica Syrian uprising By Martyn Hudson their intention for Adjadbia inaction. But leaving the re - and Benghazi if the regime bellion to the hands of the From back page has any measure of success. tyranny will also affect continues Fundamentally, NATO NATO's reputation among The International Organi - does not know what to do. the millions of people fight - By Mark Osborn sation for Migration (IOM) Air strikes outside of rebel- ing for democracy in the re - has organised the trans - held cities are one thing but gion from Homs in Syria to “From alleyway to alley - port of migrant workers intervention into a divided the Arabian peninsula. way, from house to and wounded to Benghazi city at war is militarily Our concerns are differ - house, we want to over - — but this is less for hu - tricky. ent from NATO's, but there throw you, Bashar”. manitarian purposes than Meanwhile the flickers of are massive implications for to deflect a potential Islamism in the rebel move - workers solidarity and the The movement against refugee problem away ment are fading. Even if bringing together of work - the repulsive, brutal regime from European borders. they become more vocal in ers in, say, Newcastle and of Bashar Assad continues a post-war democratic set - Yemen around a struggle to spread geographically Qaddafi's deputy foreign tlement, they will be mov - for democracy and liberty and deepen in intensity. minister Khaled Kayim is ing away from a jihadist and against the vulgarities On Monday 18 April arguing for the ruthless de - military posture. Or at least of a pro-tyrant left. thousands marched in the struction of the city. To throw our efforts into that is the feeling of both in - city of Homs to bury dead Amongst the loyalist cheer - pushing NATO towards ternational and domestic protesters killed over the leaders for the regime — a inaction, rather than into observers. weekend. Mourners regime which still holds a supporting the Libyan re - Fearful of the impact that chanted, “Either freedom great measure of support in sistance, would amount intervention might have on or death, the people want the western areas of Tripoli - “Zenga Zenga” song para - room, alley to alley, person to backing a massacre of moving people towards Is - to topple this regime!” tania — there is a popular phrases the words of Saif to person we will disinfect our people, our children lamist critiques of the US, Later Suhair Atassi, a song which is being trans - al-Islam and declares that the whole country from on the streets of Misrata. “House to house, room to filth”. The same will be NATO is wavering towards prominent human rights mitted everywhere. The activist, said 10,000 people had occupied Al-Saa “Stop the War” abandons rebels square in the centre of Slipping towards Qaddafi? Homs late on Monday night. Demonstrators said When the revolt against the square had been re - or Leningrad" (the 1941-44 Cockburn suggests, was re - By Dan Katz their war is only one to pro - Qaddafi started in Libya, named Tahrir Square and siege of Leningrad by the garded as a dire threat by tect civilians. hardly anyone on the left they planned to occupy it Nazis, in which up to four the main central bankers. The Stop the War Coali - STW demands an “imme - — however broadly de - until the regime fell. million people died). "Taking down the [Qaddafi] tion (STW) is now an em - diate end to NATO bomb - fined — could say any - The state responded by Remember being told Central Bank" is "top of the barrassing rump of ing and military thing in defence of sealing off the town. Live during Serbian tyrant Slo - globalist agenda". Stalinists, Counterfire, the intervention”. It makes no Qaddafi. ammunition and tear gas bodan Milosevic's attempt Cockburn concludes that SWP, and similar types. call on Qaddafi to stop were used following a to drive out or massacre the he would "like to see an ob - fighting. The meaning of With the start of the "no- STW, which takes its lead deadline to clear the area. whole Kosovar population jective account of Qaddafi's these demands is the over - fly zone", many on the left from the classless “anti-im - Over the past month of of Kosova, that Milosevic allocation of oil revenues running of Misrata and started to sideline the issues perialism” of the SWP and protests over 200 people was not as bad as Hitler? versus the US's in terms of Benghazi, the slaughter of within Libya and focus its Counterfire offshoot, is have been killed by the Same argument. social improvement". rebels, the re-imposition of their efforts on denouncing more concerned to strike regime in an effort to stamp Cockburn slid on to sug - Nothing in Cockburn's Qaddafi's rule, torture and NATO. poses of hostility to Britain out dissent. A number of gest "that the rebels might article is stated openly and terror. Now the denunciation of and the US than to help soldiers have also died, actually be under the over - honestly, nothing is argued STW now sees the rebels NATO, in turn, is acting as those fighting for democ - possibly killed for refusing all supervision of the inter - out objectively. as a mere outpost of impe - a lever to introduce defence Everything is done by racy in Libya. to fire on protesters. national banking industry, rialist ambition. “The of Qaddafi and denuncia - insinuation and sarcasm, In a recent statement, However, demonstra - rather than the oil majors". Libyan opposition in Beng - tion of the rebels into just as old-style Stalinists “Why we oppose Western tions were also reported on Their provisional govern - hazi [has been subordi - broad-left discourse. used to deflect criticism intervention in Libya”, Monday in the southern ment has set up a central nated] to the interests of The Morning Star of 18 of the USSR by studied STW claims that “Cameron, city of Daraa – where bank. Why is that sinister? Britain, France and the US”. April, in an article by wondering whether the Sarkozy and Obama have But the rebels are fight - protests began a month ago Qaddafi, so Cockburn Alexander Cockburn, regime was quite as bad openly declared that NATO ing for democracy, not on — in the Barzeh district of claims, had a scheme to cre - started by saying that the as extreme Western right- military intervention in behalf of international oil the capital, Damascus, and ate a new international re - casualties in Qaddafi's as - wingers used to say, or Libya is a war for regime companies, with whom, in Ain al-Arab in the serve currency, "the gold sault on Misrata, while whether the right- change”. In fact these lead - anyway, Qaddafi has long mainly Kurdish north. dinar", to replace the dollar "cause for dismay", were wingers' motives for criti - ers have said explicitly that been happy to do busi - Alongside repression, the and the euro. "less than a medieval siege cism might be suspect. Qaddafi is not a target and ness. regime has also promised This crackpot scheme, reforms. It has released Kurdish and Islamist politi - cal prisoners. Assad also Burqa ban is an appeal to the right stated that 300,000 Kurds – born in Syria, but currently living without citizenship – By Vicki Morris number of French Muslims Muslim background. would be granted Syrian (10%), that the UMP is “on Sarkozy has been shaken naMtioonsatlirteyc. ently Assad French president Nicolas the case”, and at reinforc - by opinion polls which has said the hated Emer - Sarkozy, flagging in the ing what they have been show that he would do gency Laws, in force opinion polls, is attempt - attempting for years now, worse in next year’s presi - since 1963, would be ing to boost his popular - to foster a specifically dential first round vote abolished. However, the ity with appeals to the French Islam, without ties than Marine Le Pen, the killings continue. right and an exaggerated to foreign influences in - new leader of the Front concern about the state cluding more fundamen - National. A Le Parisien poll of integration — or not talist strains in the Middle showed Le Pen on 23 per — of France’s Muslim East and north Africa. cent, Sarkozy on 21 per Egyptian minority into national Thus, one of the 26 pro - cent, and Socialist Party life. posals is “the exercise of leader Martine Aubry on workers’ religious services outside 21 per cent. Aubry is likely This has been shown of religious buildings will to be replaced as the So - leader tour most obviously with the be subject to permission”. cialist Party candidate by recent ban on wearing the Marine Le Pen Sarkozy has expressed Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Kamal Abbas, General burqa or niqab (face veil) concern about the Islam who is likely to do better Coordinator of the Cen - in public. the niqab/burqa (authori - and have produced 26 pro - “of the cellars”, where the than Aubry. tre for Trade Union and This law came into force ties put the number at posals for discussion. state cannot hear what is On these figures, Workers Services, will on 11 April. Ostensibly a about 1,900). There are es - These include extending a being preached. Sarkozy would not be speak in the UK in May. law against “hiding your timated to be about five prohibition on wearing In 2004, the government present in the second • 19 May — FBU confer - face in public”, the law has million women of Muslim headscarves in school to banned the wearing of “os - round, which would be be - ence, Stockport so many exceptions — background in France. mothers accompanying tentatious” religious sym - tween a Socialist Party • 19 May — Egypt Work - wearing a mask for sport, Sarkozy’s party, the school trips. bols in schools; this candidate and Le Pen. ers’ Solidarity meeting, work, carnivals, etc — and Union pour un Mouve - The proposals seem to A majority of the pub - included large crosses and Liverpool the debate around it makes ment Populaire (UMP), re - be aimed most at convinc - lic, around 76%, sup - the Jewish skullcap, but • 20 May — Egypt Work - it clear that it is aimed at cently held a conference to ing potential Front Na - ports the burqa ban. The was mainly targeted at the ers’ Solidarity meeting, the tiny minority of French discuss the integration of tional (FN) voters, with ban is also supported by headscarf worn by some London (6:30pm, Room Muslim women who wear Muslims into French life, their anxieties about the a majority of Muslims. young women from a G3, SOAS) SOLIDARITY 3 5 MAY ELECTIONS Labour, but fighting cuts!

By Jack Yates and re-make links with the ston have already been trade union movement lo - canvassed and although Polls suggest the Tories cally is an important step many people have simply and Liberal Democrats in preparing any potential said “yes” or “no” when will lose 1,700 council - act of defiance by these asked whether they intend lors on 5 May, mostly to councillors. It also has im - to vote Labour, many have Labour. plications for the kind of engaged canvassers in party and labour move - lengthy discussions, ex - That will bring into ment that is needed to not pressing doubts about even sharper relief the only defeat the Labour’s ability and will - contradiction between the Tory/Liberal alliance but ingness to stop or reverse unpopularity of the cuts also govern in the interests the cuts. — and the Tory/Liberal and under the direction of In these situations, hav - government forcing them the working class. ing a Labour candidate through — and the reality and Labour materials that of Labour-controlled spell out a “no cuts” posi - councils imposing them “RECKLESS” tion has been decisive in locally. Also at the Trades Coun - getting votes and winning In Broxtowe, Notting - cil debate was Council - back votes. hamshire these elections Labour activists need to be won to defying the cuts lor Alan Rhodes, leader Greg’s and Andrea’s look set to force a change of the Labour Group on campaigns demonstrate in the borough council. bined an anti-cuts mes - ready have been done.” remain accountable to the Nottinghamshire County what is both possible and Labour is unlikely to win TRADE UNION LINKS sage on the streets with ar - organisations such as Council. necessary if we are to an overall majority but guing inside the party. Greg and Andrea con - yours, whose money and Although Labour coun - translate anti-cuts energy they will almost certainly Greg Marshall: “There are vinced five other candi - support keep the Labour cillors voted against the and sentiment into politi - increase their council rep - councillors and council dates to sign a letter to Party in existence.” swingeing cuts-budget cal action. resentation. But in Brox - candidates in Broxtowe local trade unions com - As Andrea Oates com - proposed by the Tory Unfortunately such towe, two of the Labour Labour Party who do not mitting them to cam - mented at a recent debate leadership of the council, campaigns are rare due to candidates are campaign - support this [anti-cuts] po - paign with trade organised by Notting - he claimed that refusing to a lack of confidence as ing on a clear “no-cuts” sition. They are frightened unionists who work in or hamshire Trades Council: make cuts or the setting of well as a lack of consistent platform. by stories from the 1980s, use the services that are “We need to build an anti- a no-cuts budget was woTrukrinnigngclathssispsoiltiutiactsi. on Greg Marshall (candi - though individual council - under attack. cuts movement that “reckless”. around will require fur - date in Beeston West lors can no longer be at - means it’s not just a mi - “As future councillors in Andrea responded that ther organisation. If ward) and Andrea Oates tacked in the same way. nority of councillors a victorious Labour coun - it was “reckless to cut li - elected, the Beeston (Beeston North) joined Their argument is that we standing for a no cuts cil in Broxtowe, we pledge braries, reckless to cut so - anti-cuts candidates and Labour after the 2010 Gen - should wait for the return budget but the majority of ourselves to vigorously cial services, reckless to others like them will be eral Election. of a Labour government to people in a large cam - oppose… cuts, support close women’s centres”. put under huge pressure During their election sort the mess out. But that paign.” campaign, they have com - jobs for your members, Large sections of Bee - to toe the party line. means the damage will al - defend public services and Seeking to re-establish Scottish left is in a sorry state

By Anne Field given their record in power to the strength — or lack of Scotland. of its founder, and does vir - Labour in the Holyrood — it did represent an asser - it — of the Labour left in Another major difference tually nothing during elec - elections is the sorry state Calling for a Labour vote, tion of basic working-class Scotland. between the Holyrood and tions and absolutely of the left outside of the combined with rebuilding politics. Numerically, it is proba - Westminster elections is the nothing between elections. Labour Party — above all the left and pushing the In the Holyrood elec - bly even weaker than else - fact that Scottish voters And certainly not for as represented by those unions to assert them - tions, Labour’s anti-Tory where in Britain, partly have two votes — one for “The Respect Party George who have thrown in their selves politically, is the rhetoric fulfils a different because of migrations to first-past-the-post con - Galloway (Respect) — lot with Galloway. only serious left policy in function. Fundamentally, it the SNP, or to the Scottish stituency candidates, and Coalition Against Cuts” ei - Whatever the outcome of Scottish Parliamentary is used to avoid challeng - Socialist Party at the time one for regional “lists”. ther. This is no more than a the election, the incoming elections on 5 May. That ing the SNP’s policies. when the SSP was a serious In a region such as Glas - vanity project to try to pro - government will be one is not because the Over the past four years political force. Organisa - gow, where Labour wins all vide Galloway with a seat which seeks to pass on the Labour campaign, or the the SNP has implemented tionally, it exists virtually or nearly all of the individ - in Holyrood. The involve - Con-Dem cuts in public Labour Party’s policies, reforms — however mod - only on paper. ual constituencies, there is ment of the Socialist Work - spending. are good. est — which Labour failed But now and for the fore - arguably little or no point ers Party and the Socialist Socialists need to com - to implement during the seeable future the Labour in voting Labour in the re - Party (Scotland) would be bine campaigning against The Scottish Tories will preceding eight years when Party remains the focus for gional “list”. In fact, laughable if it was not so cuts with rebuilding the be lucky to hang on to a it was in a coalition with trade unions seeking throughout the history of pathetic. Labour left, both individual handful of seats. In the the Lib-Dems. The SNP’s change in the political the Scottish Parliament no And the Scottish Socialist Labour Party membership Holyrood elections the election is largely based on arena (although how effec - Labour MSP has ever been Party (SSP)? There is a and also affiliated unions basic question is: do you promising a continuation tively unions organise and elected as a Glasgow “list” stronger case for voting for re-asserting themselves as a want a Labour or an SNP of those policies. fight to secure such change MSP. them than for the SLP and political force within the government (or some kind The Labour leadership in is another question). the cheerleaders for Gal - Scottish Labour Party of coalition with one of Scotland is not prepared to The SNP, on the other LEFT CANDIDATES? loway; but the SSP has structures. those parties at its core)? These are the argu - attack the SNP from the left hand, has no such links The Holyrood electoral been unable to recover The SNP does not claim ments socialists should and argue that the SNP’s with the trade union move - system itself therefore from the damage inflicted to be a socialist party. But be raising in the election policies do not go any - ment. Despite the fact that provides openings for on it by Sheridan, the SWP the policies on which it is campaign, along with try - where near far enough. some union activists are parties of the left to win and the Socialist Party. contesting the Holyrood ing to develop a network Such an approach is pre - SNP members, the SNP, by representation in the Par - Politically, the SSP re - elections are far removed of activists which can cluded by the Labour lead - its very nature, has no in - liament, even if those mains an uneasy amalgam from those on which the provide a basis for cam - ership’s own politics. terest in becoming the “po - parties are only the vot - of Scottish populism and Tories contested the West - paigning along these litical wing” of the trade ers’ second choice. vaguely class politics, with minster elections. There is a lines after 5 May. union movement in Scot - more than a dash of vin - big overlap between So is there a case for vot - ANTI-TORYISM land. tage Stalinism thrown in Labour and SNP policies. ing for one of the socialist Their way out of this The SNP has moved on for good measure. Its much • More: George Galloway The SNP will contest the parties/coalitions in the re - dilemma is to appeal to a from its primitive national - reduced size also high - stands for the people? No, elections on the basis of its gional “lists” (or at least in gut anti-Toryism and ism of the 1970s and earlier. lights a sectarian strand in just for himself! record in power at Holy - Glasgow, given the number claim that Labour is best And its commitment to in - its politics: its demand that www.workersliberty.org rood, rather than a promise of constituency seats which placed to challenge the dependence is expressed unions disaffiliate from the /node/16334 of Scottish independence. Labour is likely to win in Tory (and Lib-Dem) gov - less vigorously than in the Labour Party, for example, How the Socialist Party In the Westminster elec - that region)? ernment in Westminster. past. simply has no purchase on (Scotland) justifies its elec - tion campaign Labour Certainly not for Arthur But its overarching politi - reality. toral alliance with George turned to gut anti-Tory One difference between Scargill’s Socialist Labour cal framework is still de - In fact, one of the Galloway rhetoric to bolster its vote. last year’s Westminster Party (SLP), an organisa - fined by its goal of an strongest supplementary www.workersliberty.org Despite the hypocrisy of elections and this year’s tion which embodies the independent capitalist arguments for a vote for /node/16401 the Labour leadership — Holyrood elections relates essentially Stalinist politics 14 SOLIDARITY WHAT WE THINK Up the Republic!

In recent years, polls have put support for abolition of ing class saw as dangerous were elected to Parliament, the the monarchy as high as 43 per cent, and one 2002 poll Queen or King William could choose a Labour right-winger found that 70% believed Britain would be a republic for prime minister and through the “payroll” factor enable within 50 years. that prime minister to construct a majority from sections of A majority still accepts the monarchy as harmless, or a Labour, Lib Dems, nationalists, and maybe some Tories, boost to the tourist trade, or “a bit of fun”. But we have pleading the need for “consensus” and “national unity”. AV was used for the New South Wales state election on 26 moved on a lot from the days — as recent as the early 1970s Back in 1925, Leon Trotsky disputed the claim of the March, as for almost all polls in Australia. Result: huge — when cinemas would play “God Save The Queen” at the Labour Party leaders of that time that “the royal power does disillusion with a right-wing Labor government produced a end of every programme, and the audience was expected to not interfere with the country’s progress”. landslide for the Liberals (Tories), with left candidates and stand. “The royal power is weak because the instrument of bour - even Greens marginalised. Above: Fiona Byrne, unsuccessful The Windsor-Middleton wedding on 29 April will be used geois rule is the bourgeois parliament, and because the Green candidate in Marrickville. by the Government to try to distract people from the grim - bourgeoisie does not need any special activities outside of ness of the cuts, and by the ruling class more generally to parliament. But in case of need, the bourgeoisie will make build up William Windsor as a “nice young man” whose ar - use of the royal power as a concentration of all non-parlia - rival as king, possibly soon, can revive the monarchy. mentary, i.e. real forces, aimed against the working class”. This is not harmless. The monarchy is objectionable not In 1981, writing a book summing up lessons from 11 years Democracy, only as a blatant celebration of inequality and privilege, but as a Labour minister, Tony Benn asked what would happen politically. “if a government elected by a clear majority on a mandate The Queen, not Parliament, chooses the Prime Minister. of reform were to introduce legislation to complete the The Prime Minister chooses the government, and thus process of democratic advance”. “buys” himself or herself a “payroll vote”. “The Lords veto, the prerogative of the crown to dismiss yes! AV, no! This gives the monarchy huge power. Do not be misled and dissolve, and the loyalties of the courts and the services to adjudicate upon legitimacy and to enforce those judge - by the fact that the monarchy usually limits itself to show- Many improvements need to be fought for in Britain’s business. The ruling class keeps the monarchy out of ordi - ments might all be used to defend the status quo against a parliamentary majority elected to transform it”. political system, even within the limits of what Marxists nary politics the better to have it in reserve for extraordinary call “bourgeois democracy” (parliamentary-type politics. The monarchy is a feebler reserve power than it used to be. Having decided that its traditional methods of self-pro - democracy operating within the social and economic In 1975, the Queen’s representative in Australia, Gover - domination of the capitalist class). nor-General John Kerr, sacked that country’s reforming motion, deliberately developed by Disraeli and others in the Labor government on the pretext of its difficulties in getting years beginning with Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee in The government should be selected and accountable to its Budget approved by the upper house of Parliament. Kerr 1887, had become too old-fashioned to continue, from the Parliament. At present the prime minister is selected (or can installed the Tory opposition to rule instead, called a gen - early 1980s the monarchy tried the methods of showbiz - be sacked) by the Queen, and then the prime minister eral election, rode out a big wave of protest strikes, and saw and fell foul of them. chooses the government, giving himself or herself a large the exultant Tories win the election. With people such as Sarah Ferguson, “Duchess of York”, “payroll vote” to control Parliament. The Queen, or a future King William, could do the same as its representatives, it looked seedy, bloated, and boring. The House of Lords and the monarchy should be abol - in a political crisis in Britain. Maybe, in time, large sections of the ruling class will decide ished. Or if the trade unions should come to reassert control over they could do better with an elected president than with the Parliament should be re-elected every year, not left in of - the Labour Party, and a left Labour majority which the rul - wretched Windsor family. But for now most of them pin fice for four or five years so that it is hard to call govern - their hopes on William Windsor and Kate Middleton to re - ments to account for their deeds with any reasonable store the mystique. promptness. Between general elections, it should be possi - The workers’ government which we need in order to re - ble for a sufficiently large body of opinion in each con - scind the cuts and establish a decent livelihood for all can - stituency to “recall” its MP and demand a new poll there. not come into existence without democracy and cannot “First Past the Post” should be replaced by some form of sustain itself without extending democracy. proportional representation. We need, first of all, freedom of action for the trade On top of those improvements in procedure, the build - unions. We need a federal republic in which public decisions ing-up of political parties really rooted in and accountable are taken by accountable, recallable representatives, subject to the organised working-class, and the creation of a mass to frequent election on a fair system of proportional repre - working-class press to counter the bourgeois media, are sentation. vital to make a reality of formal democracy. We need freedom of public information and entrenched The referendum on 5 May offers no scope for progress legal rights for all citizens. We need rights of guaranteed ac - on any of those fronts. Neither of the AV political camps cess to the means of mass publicity for all substantial and se - are putting any of these arguments. AV is not a democratic rious bodies of opinion, not only those with wealth. improvement. In fact, it may be worse than the present We need to force the giant corporations and banks to open system. theDirowbonokwsittho twhoermkinogn-acrlcashsys!cUruptitnhye. republic! No voting system is perfect. First Past The Post has three big problems. • It grossly underrepresents minorities, especially minori - ties spread across the country rather than localised. It thus A note about our schedules introduces a bias into the electoral system in favour of the Solidarity 202 will be dated 4 May. We’re skipping a currently-dominant parties remaining dominant. It will take more than a bit of tat to distract us from their cuts week because of the Easter holidays. • It corrupts political choice by pushing people into tac - tical voting, as for example with the large number of Labour supporters in the south-east who tactically vote Lib-Dem. • It focuses the major parties’ political efforts on a small minority of voters — floating voters in marginal seats — which means, sociologically, on a middle-class and upper- IDEAS FOR FREEDOM 2011 working-class minority. AV helps none of those problems except the tactical-vot - ing one. The improvement it gives on tactical voting has to A weekend of socialist discussion and debate hosted by Workers’ Liberty. be weighed against the new pressure it adds on parties to Friday 8-Sunday 10 July focus their electoral efforts on haggling for second-prefer - ence transfers from other parties. Highgate Newtown Community Centre, Archway, North London The general bias of AV is to polarise politics into two large blocs, each bloc clustered round one main party and tied to - gether by agreements to transfer preferences. It makes it • The rise of the Egyptian working class • The fight against cuts: where even more difficult than FPTP for radical left candidates to win elections, because of the tendency of second-prefer - does Labour fit in? • Celebrating the Paris Commune • Imperialism and ences to gravitate towards the centre of politics. Islamism a decade after 9/11 • Owen Jones on his book Chavs: the There are other reasons to vote “no” on 5 May. AV means that the Lib Dems “win” — decide the governmental out - demonisation of the working class • Are socialists “multiculturalists”? come of — the next general election, more or less however • The strengths and weaknesses of anarcho-syndicalism • The 1880s: we vote. To some extent the referendum is a referendum on the coalition government. A “no” victory will damage the the first British Marxists and the rise of the mass labour movement • An alternative coalition. In Northern Ireland AV means pressure on parties to po - history of the Second World War larise into two blocs, tied together by agreements to trans - fer preferences, which will inevitably be Catholic and Includes a Saturday night social, free creche and accommodation and cheap food. Protestant blocs. It adds a further pressure towards bureau - Tickets bought before the end of May are £18 waged, £10 low-waged/students, £6 unwaged/school students. craTthiseedinstercotadruiacntiosmn ionfpAoVlitiwcsil. l probably “gazump” all Book online at www.workersliberty.org/ideas. Email [email protected] or call 07796 690 874. other proposals for electoral reform for a while, at least until it has been tried out over several general elections.

SOLIDARITY 5 BRIEFING Unison: don’t break ties with the Histadrut

one of its vice presidents. raeli NGOs are or have been critical of the Histadrut in the But in some unions, there are those who call for a sever - past for various reasons. However, they all stressed that ing of relations with the Histadrut. One of those unions has the Histadrut was a legitimate trade union and with over been Unison. 700,000 members was clearly the dominant trade union in At its National Delegate Conference in 2009, a resolution terms of members and collective bargaining coverage. Eric Lee was passed calling for “a review of our relationship with “Even the new Israeli unions accepted that the Histadrut the Israeli trade union centre and our sister Israeli unions”. had been responsible for Israel’s strong labour and employ - One litmus test of whether one is engaged in reason - In early 2010, a Unison delegation was scheduled to visit ment protection legislation. They also recognised that the the region to follow up on this. The trip was delayed until able criticism of Israel or simple anti-Semitism is Histadrut remained influential, although less so than in the the end of November and only now, in April 2011, has the past, with the Israeli government. whether you think anyone in the Jewish state is a legit - union published the report of that trip. “Neither did any of them call on Unison to sever its re - imate partner for discussions. It's a long report, full of information about the various lations with the Histadrut, in fact the opposite. The PGFTU If you think everyone in Israel is somehow complicit in Israeli and Palestinian workers' groups, highly critical of in particular said that Unison should maintain links with the occupation, that every Zionist is a racist, and so on, you Israel and so on, but the bottom line is that the delegation the Histadrut so that we could specifically put pressure on recommends that Unison keep up its relationship with the will not want to have anything to do with Israeli peace or - them to take a more vocal public stance against the occupa - Histadrut. tion and the settlements. ganisations or the left. And that's because despite their very best efforts, the “Kav laOved, Koach laOvdim and WAC/Ma’an all felt In the trade union movement, this is expressed through Unison delegates could find no one, Israeli or Palestinian, that international trade union influence on the Histadrut the question of relations with the Histadrut, Israel's na - who supported the severing of relations. was essential in moving it towards more progressive poli - tional trade union centre. In fact, it was the Palestinians who were most adamant cies in relation to migrant workers and discrimination Most unions in most countries have no problem with the on this point. agEaivnesrtyPuanleisotnininanthIseraUelKi wanordkerls.e” where that has con - Histadrut. In fact, at its congress last year the International Here is what the Unison report says in full: templated severing its ties with the Israeli trade unions Trade Union Confederation representing some 176 million “All the organisations we met during the delegation in - should be compelled to read that passage. organised workers elected Histadrut leader Ofer Eini as cluding the PGFTU, the new Israeli trade unions, and Is -

to encourage complacency or let other Marxist groups off easily. This puts us on a better footing to critique each other as comrades, serves us in setting reformists straight when we Letters enter into dialogue them, allows a better grasp of our strat - egy and tactics to the people we work with in broader coali - tions, and finally forces us to come to grips with a relationship that is important even just for the sake of us de - After the March 26 TUC demonstration, we began a dis - veloping the right approach and realistically assessing our cussion around tactics, politics and organisation with an ideas. “open letter to a direct-action activist”. In future issues of You have to wonder, for instance, if other left groups Solidarity we will feature further comment, from mem - would be as keen to fetishise general strikes if they had to bers of Workers’ Liberty and others, on the issues in - explain how a one-day stoppage in the public sector would volved. The piece below is from an activist who blogs at relate to stopping the cuts, bringing down the government, The Great Unrest (www.thegreatunrest.net). or whatever it is they seem to think this would be an inte - gral part of — could it be detrimental to this goal if it was a flop, for instance? Anne Archist Ends and means King Mswati III The relationship between our political goals and the means we use to achieve them is fraught with difficulty. AV: spoil your ballot tainous African state a little smaller than Wales, with a pop - There’s good evidence of this in the recent debates ulation of about a million people. A former British colony, it about “direct action” and the “black bloc” (which has I think I disagree with the action advocated in Solidar - remains an absolute monarchy. Political parties have been largely been conflated with the act of rioting itself). ity 3-200 for the Alternative Vote referendum. banned since the suspension of the constitution in 1973. Three-quarters of the country’s population are subsistence On the one hand, we can fixate on one particular way of While it would not be an appropriate or constructive view farmers. Almost 70% live in poverty. doing things to the exclusion of better possibilities; on the to take in an election I think we should advocate a spoiled Swaziland has the highest HIV infection-rate in the world, other hand, we can valorise “diversity of tactics” as if it were ballot in the upcoming referendum. with more than one in four of the adult population (those an end in itself. When people have forgotten what should be While I agree with the political reasoning, line and head - aged 15-49) infected. In the past decade life-expectancy has self-evident truths it’s often necessary to straighten them line of the article (“No to AV, no to status quo”) I think a no collapsed from about 60 years of age to around 45 (Amnesty out by reminding them of seemingly banal ways of looking vote also carries a risk akin to a yes vote being a barrier to International). at the topic. more serious reform. Opposition activists and trade union leaders face arbi - With that in mind, we need to stop thinking in terms of If the no vote wins too convincingly those opposed to all trary arrest, beatings and torture by police and security tactics as a singular — or else infinitely diverse — way of reform will be able to say “The people had their say and re - forces. Some have been charged under anti-terrorism legis - achieving a singular goal. The left needs to incorporate ap - jected change when pressed for a fairer voting system”. lation. Mxolisi Mbata, treasurer of the Swaziland Federation propriate tactics depending on the challenge that we face in Similarly a poor turnout will allow nay-sayers to say of Trade Unions, died after being beaten by police. a particular situation. We need to ensure that our line of “People don’t care for electoral reform”, hence making ab - A contingent from COSATU, the South African Trade march on one front doesn’t contradict our line of march on stention a poor choice. Union Congress, rallied in solidarity at the border between another front. Activists need to think in terms of winning Obviously we can make the political argument against the two countries and helped ensure wider media coverage immediate struggles and in terms of their long-term politi - First Past the Post and AV — indeed many people have of the latest demonstrations. cal objectives (be they bringing down the current govern - asked for my view. But I feel this is one occasion where it is My daughter is working in Swaziland on a community ment, ensuring socialist revolution, smashing the state, or not enough to argue for a critical vote either way. project. Project-managers told her not to attend work on the whatever). I also question why in a situation such as the Labour lead - day of the recent demonstrations. She heard police sirens All of this should hopefully mean more dialogue about ership vote we say a critical yes vote (i.e yes to Abbott but throughout the day. Road-blocks and checkpoints remain in ends, rather than the recent fixation on means. I get the im - McDonnell would have been better/she’s not left enough) place. pression that a lot of political friction derives from a misun - but here we advocate a critical no vote because the positive As the Swazi king and his circle prepare to attend another derstanding of the relationship between means and ends isn’t far enough. extravagantly-self-regarding exercise in royal pomp and cir - and the nature of those means and ends. I understand the general reasoning and we cannot bull - cumstance here, orphaned children in his country go with - Take the example of good-hearted workers or students ishly say the same thing every time, ignoring context or spe - out food, the TB wards are full, and poverty, inequality and who ask class-struggle militants why they don’t take up a cific politics. But this seems inconsistent. preventable disease take their daily toll. career in politics; the naïve assumption is that the official Will Lodge, Essex For further information, including the Founding State - political channels can be turned to whatever ends one ment of the newly-formed Swaziland Communist Party: would desire, that they don’t contain built-in biases and lim - http://swazilandcommentary.blogspot.com/ itations. The question sounds faintly absurd to those of us Swaziland: epitome of http://swazimedia.blogspot.com who think that the problems of British politics are systemic Patrick Yarker, Norwich and class-based, and that the state serves largely to further the interests of the capitalist class, because it is this perspec - monarchy tive that reveals the misfit between intentions and methods in this instance. King Mswati III of Swaziland and his entourage (he has Cliff and Libya The problem is to explain our political objectives in the 13 wives) are expected to be honoured guests at the The SWP’s line on Libya contrasts with the arguments long and short term, and our understanding of the relation - Royal Wedding, and will stay in a hotel whose rooms of its founder Tony Cliff. ship between different available means and the ends we cost over £400 a night. seek, to those who don’t share our perspective in the anti- While outlining our principled opposition to the police as Back in Swaziland, demonstrations against the king’s au - cuts movement, the student movement, or whatever. It the arm of the capitalist state, he would say that, faced with tocratic rule by trade unionists and opposition activists have would be fair to say that the AWL have a good record on a sizeable fascist mob, it would be unwise for a small band been broken up by police. this relationship (and I speak as a non-member), and they’re of socialists to shout “Police out!” The Kingdom of Swaziland is a landlocked largely-moun - not the only political organisation who do, but I don’t want Les Hearn, north London 6 SOLIDARITY ARAB SPRING Inside the Tunisian revolution

From 3 to 9 April, Workers’ Liberty activist Edward Maltby went to Tunis to meet and hear from left activists there. On this and the following two pages he reports. More and longer interviews can be found at www.workersliberty.org/world/tunisia Thank you, Facebook

Graffiti on walls in Tunis say: “Thank you, Facebook”. Maher, a Facebook activist and blogger, explained why to Ed Maltby. For people in Tunisia, Facebook is a fundamental part of life. The majority of people use it daily. When the dicta - torship censored Facebook, that touched everyone in Tunisia. Everyone felt it. In 2008 we organised we organised a collective online called “anti-ZBA” [ZBA are the initials of Zinedine Ben Ali]. now been given a high-ranking post in the ministry of ing posts in the new establishment, and so on. We used pseudonyms and proxy servers. Internet techni - youth. After the revolution, many bloggers, like Aziz, have We have carried on fighting against the remnants of the cians found other ways of connecting us to the internet after got a little something for themselves and they’ve dropped regime. My friend runs a radio station called Kalima, which connections were shut down. Facebook was the only plat - out of activity. But we have carried on. struggled against the dictatorship, and he doesn’t have the form for expressing yourself, sharing information, as all the Just after the 14 January, plenty of Americans came to right visa to get a radio frequency, so he is still confined to media were controlled by the state and oppositional news - Tunis to set up organisations and they enlisted journalists the internet. Various sites are still being taken down. We papers suppressed. and bloggers who were active among us. Now these jour - want freedom of expression and freedom to organise. Our method was to attack Ben Ali and his family, distrib - nalists and bloggers are not with us any more, because they There are bloggers who right now are being beaten by the uting information about their corrupt practices and are busy setting up these stupid associations on American secret police after participating in agitation around the Cas - hypocrisies. It was an organised attack. We could only use money. I view this as a form of colonisation. It is not an apo - bah. Facebook, as YouTube and Dailymotion were blocked. litical or an innocent move. There is now a page called “Front of Progressive Pages Our page was attacked by censors. The joke name for in - As a blogger, if you are not with the people, behind the for the Protection of the Revolution”, which unites the ad - ternet censors in Tunisia is “Ammar 404”. When a page is people, what are you doing? There is a revolution going on, mins of all pro-revolutionary websites — we want them to censored, it brings up the 404 Page Not Found error mes - and these people are setting up politically naive festivals, all be united with the same demands and slogans. sage; and 404 is a kind of van. The stereotypical image in naive events and groups, instead of taking part in the strug - We will work to be on the same wavelength as the people. Tunisia of this van is that it’s driven by a guy called Ammar. gles of the people. The internet was useful in the fight against Ben Ali, but it So the internet censor’s name is Ammar. In 2009-2010, we Anti-ZBA started with five or six of us in 2008-9. But the must not stop on the internet. The role of Facebook is to or - organised an event on Facebook called “Sayyib Salah Ya “404 Not Found” demo, with white t-shirts, in 2010 was just ganise real life events. It is a media support for real-life ac - Ammar” — meaning “let Salah go, Ammar”. That slogan normal students. We anti-ZBA were fighting against Ben tioDni.sPineofoprlme gaotiotontheexiisnttse,rnseutrteo—getbruetalitinisfodrmisaptrionv.ed by meant “let us use the internet freely”. Ali; they just wanted freedom of expression. The fight for the videos and photos that people take on demonstra - We used the internet to organise a demonstration in sum - free expression was then a part of the fight against Ben Ali, tions. We send activists onto demonstrations with cam - mer 2010, where hundreds of people marched in the streets so we worked together. eras, who stream footage of events. It’s the in white T-shirts to symbolise our anonymity. Whereas for us, freedom of speech was only one part of collaboration between internet and real-world activists The police terrorised the demonstrators and there were the struggle, for many of them, it was the whole deal, mis - which is on the order of the day now. arrests. One blogger, Aziz Amemou, was arrested. He has sion accomplished. So now they are dropping out, some tak - Timeline

17 December 2010: Mohammed Bouazizi burns himself to death in protest against police harassment of his work On the streets of Tunis selling fruit and vegetables. This sparks waves of protest across Tunisia. 14 January 2011: President Ben Ali flees the country. His prime minister, Mohammed Ghannouchi, declares he will Ed Maltby describes his visit to Tunis of the Fourth International (the international network clus - take over as interim president. Tunisia’s constitutional tered around the New Anti-capitalist Party (NPA) in court rules that the speaker of parliament must be interim I arrived in Tunis just after the army had prevented a France). president, but Ghannouchi continues as prime minister third Casbah sit-in, aimed at extracting fundamental The group was made up of young workers and intellec - and forms a new coalition government including many democratic reforms from the third government, under tuals. The foundation of the OCR took place in the context figures from the RCD (Ben Ali’s party) and the old regime. the octogenarian Sebsi. of the implementation of the IMF’s Structural Adjustment 17 January: Ghannouchi promises wide reforms, press Programme, an assault on working class living standards freedom, the release of political prisoners. The movement was in something of a lull, but there were which was the spark for bread riots in 1984. 20 January: All the ministers in the interim government tanks and razorwire all over the city centre, periodic clashes quit Ben Ali’s RCD party; the central committee of RCD is The IMF programme came with a higher level of political with the police, and new graffiti appearing every day: dissolved. repression, orchestrated by the new President Ben Ali; he “Down with repression”; “The women of Tunisia are free”; 21-26 January: Demonstrations in the old city, or cas - created a police state. The OCR had to start operating un - “Down with Sebsi”; “Secularism”; “Free at last”. bah, of Tunis, and strikes elsewhere by the UGTT union, derground. For a period, they produced a newspaper, Al- The revolutionary movement in Tunisia is still ongoing. demand the new government be dissolved. Ghannouchi Chararam (The Spark ); their militants went to work in Despite the fact that press freedom has not yet been fully replaces 12 ministers, but remains prime minister. different sectors of industry, and organised dissident cul - 7 February: RCD officially “suspended”. won, the Tunisian press carried stories every day of strikes tural milieux, and oppositional political associations. 11 February: Creation of “National Council for the Safe - in the interior of the country. There were large street meet - In 1992, 40 comrades were arrested and tried. The group guarding of the Revolution”, involving the UGTT and all ings and demonstrations in the city centre most days. was able to continue its activity, but some were jailed, and the left groups. Since 14 January, there have been three governments. The others were forced to live underground. 24-27 February: New demonstrations to demand Ghan - first two, under Ghannouchi, were brought down by sit-ins nouchi go. He resigns on 27 February, and Beji Caid-Es - In the midst of the revolution of January 2011, the com - in the Casbah, the square in front of the governmental sebsi becomes prime minister. rades organised a re-groupment, launching a new organisa - palace. 3 March: Government announces that elections for a tion, the Workers’ Left League (LGO). I’d come to Tunis mainly to find out what Tunisian revo - Constituent Assembly will be held on 24 July. The LGO bases itself around the need to push the revolu - lutionary socialists are doing and saying. 17 March: “Higher Committee for the Realisation of the tion forward to working-class power, but it is broader in its The recent history of Trotskyism in Tunisia goes back to Objectives of the Revolution” (ISPLROR), set up by gov - make-up than the old OCR. ernment with participation of the UGTT and the left, the mid-1980s, when a group called the Revolutionary Its political basis will be clarified when it has its first holds its first meeting. Communist Organisation (OCR) was founded as a section conference this spring.

SOLIDARITY 7 ARAB SPRING A view of Bahrain The government’s By Sayed Majid Hannachi, a member of the Gauche Indépendante, a happy accident: it was the result of the better inroads made group of critical ex-members of the Communist Party of People in Bahrain are expecting the worst every mo - Tunisia, and Osama, a member of the Workers’ Left League into the movement by the political parties. ment. The military crackdown on protesters led by (LGO), spoke to Ed Maltby There was a gap between the movement and the parties: Saudi troops has unleashed an ugly racist face. has it been fully bridged? I still think we are not at that level yet, there remains much to do. Bahrain was always a liberal country and the ruling Majid: The Tunisian revolution was not guided by a polit - ical party or leadership. It was spontaneous. The revolutionaries of my generation must renew them - regime itself is a secular tribe. But as a tribe, it had a prob - selves and address the youth and bring them to place them - lem with equality and justice. Other citizens, not in tribes, There are advantages in its spontaneity and its not being selves in political organisations, in order to take charge of found themselves lost as they were treated as second or organised through parties, but there is the problem that it their destiny. third class citizens. leaves the ruling regime with great room for manoeuvre in The question of regional development is not fully under - The ruling regime has always monopolised the nation’s order to reorganise, keep hold of power, and “save the furni - stood. Many people think it’s just a question of a better bal - natural resources and wealth — citizens who founded ture”. That is what the regime is doing now. ance between regions. But it is more complex than that, it is Bahrain Petroleum Company (Bapco) and other compa - The counterrevolutionary forces are sufficiently organised an issue that binds up political, economic, cultural, scientific nies found themselves deprived of their real rights. to usurp and steal the revolution. The governments put in and historical questions. It was no surprise that Bahrainis were one of the first to place since 14 January have all had one common origin — We must have regional power, so that those regions which rise against their regime. They maintained a peaceful tone the RCD and the state apparatus in the hands of the political were the home of the revolution can impose changes — not throughout; but what happens when Bahrain becomes a class. demand or beg for them, but actually impose them. They Saudi protectorate? But, very quickly, the two Ghannouchi governments and need real power to do that. RACISM the new Sebsi government were put to a harsh test, of popu - The separation of powers and the spirit of democracy do Bahrainis are made up of four main ethnicities: Ba - lar revolutionary demands, driven by a massive popular de - not just mean the separation of power between the legislative harna (Arab Shia 60%), Howala (Iranian Sunnis 20%), termination. The masses demanded the dissolution of the and executive branches: it means a separation of powers be - Ajam (Iranian Shias 10%) and finally tribes (Arab Sun - RCD. They rejected the nomination of high-level administra - tween the centre and the regions. For example: on some is - nis 10%). tors. They demanded the dissolution of the secret police. sues, in France, local mayors have more say than ministers in They demanded more freedom of association and more Paris. This must be addressed in the leftwing political par - In the aftermath of the crackdown, the military led gov - media freedom. ties’ programmes. ernmental bodies have stepped towards discrimination Finally, they demanded the creation of the the Constituent The Constituent Assembly must look at all the laws relat - against Shias of Arab and Iranian ethnicities. It’s clear that Assembly, which summarises the whole programme of de - ing to questions of political democracy, social democracy and the Saudi troops want to pull Bahraini people towards a mands, and which will create the constitution. At the same separation of powers. The debates in the Constituent Assem - sectarian swamp where hatred predominates. time the social demands of the movement — jobs, pay, con - bly must be rich and profound. They are decisive! In one interview on a Wahabi TV channel a Saudi gen - ditions, and regional development, show the substance and That is why we are launching an unprecedented mobilisa - eral said: “It’s our land, we the Sunnis, no place here for the content of the revolution. tion for the elections and it is why we are calling for the elec - Christians, Jews or Majoos.” (Majoos is an old religion Successive provisional governments have continued to tions to be moved back so we can have a real debate, not a which was prominent in Iran before Islam spread. Some manoeuvre to grant demands in form, but not in content. parody of a debate, on the most crucial questions relating to sectarian people use the word Majoos to derogate Shias They grant demands in a way that allows them to wriggle the fruits of the 14 January revolution. and link them with Iran). These chants can result in a call back. to ethnically cleanse Shias. At the beginning the revolutionary movement had a spon - COUNCILS MEDIA taneous character, independent of all the political parties. The creation of Councils to Safeguard the Revolution was at the outset an almost spontaneous initiative. Im - Bahrain TV (BTV) and Facebook regime pages have The first reaction to the Ghannouchi government was the mediately after 14 January the old regime started organ - broadcast about protesters describing them as trai - first Casbah sit-in. At that first sit-in, the protestors who ising terror and sabotage. tors. On BTV, the names and pictures of protesters camped in front of the governmental palace refused even to were broadcasted before arrests. 112 teachers and discuss with political militants who were trying to get de - Inhabitants of working-class neighbourhoods armed school staff were sacked. bates going. themselves and got organised in order to defend their streets The second sit-in had a better communication between the and lives and their revolution. Men and women, young and The prime minister has explained, “We won’t forgive militants and the masses. It was at that moment that the slo - old, acted as one body, took up arms and formed commit - anyone any more, no matter how many apologies they gan of the Constituent Assembly was first seriously raised. tees. It took hold among the youth and the trade unionists. present”. Nooh Najaf, the captain of Bahrain’s national On 25 February, a historic date, there were 200,000 protes - These Councils to Safeguard the Revolution (CSRs) were basketball team, was investigated on BTV, and then ar - tors with those two slogans: the fall of the second Ghan - set up in every region and crowned by the creation of the Na - rested. To everyone’s surprise he had his Bahraini nation - nouchi government and the Constituent Assembly. That is to tional Council to Safeguard the Revolution (SCSR). The Na - ality withdrawn! The regime is so desperate it will lead a say that between the two sit-ins there was a great political tional Council was an initiative of the UGTT, the Front of 14 land with no national citizens! advance made by the masses. This did not happen by a PRISONS In recent weeks four detainees passed away in prison with their corpses covered in bruises and evidence of torture. The Home Office has always denied any tor - ture or sometimes the imprisonment of prisoners until deaths are announced. Among the prisoners are 14 women. Fundamentalist threat Interestingly, 12 hospital doctors were arrested for being active and helping injured people, when the casualties couldn’t reach the hospital without being stopped and in - Mounjia Hadfi, a women’s rights activist and Also, after 14 January we have seen a huge expansion in vestigated at the hospital entrance. Marxist based in Tunis, spoke to Ed Maltby the political presence and confidence of fundamentalist STUDENTS groups. We are fighting for a secular constitution but they are As many as 90 Bahraini students abroad are not safe Under the dictatorship, and today, we see patriarchal at - making it harder. You see these groups in the street and they have absolutely no political programme to offer — except on from Bahrain’s regime. They had their funding to uni - titudes every day. Part of that has to do with our culture here in Tunisia, even in spite of our legal victories such as the question of whether or not the constitution should be sec - versities stopped because some evidence shows they the banning of polygamy in 1950 and laws guaranteeing ular! supported calls for reforms and democracy! the right to abortion and so on, which were passed in the So we must fight for secularism and democracy. In the elec - tions for the Constituent Assembly, we must guard against The verdict has been already announced; they are all 1970s as part of the population planning policy. any drift — away from secularism but also away from rights plotting with Iran against Bahrain’s regime! Iran seemed But sexist mentalities and oppression persist. Many women which we have already won. The old RCDists who are re-or - to be a good enough excuse to excuse all the anti-human have even internalised these attitudes! We must unveil all the ganising are not the only counter-revolutionaries. There are acts led by Saudi troops. forms of oppression and all the sexist attitudes which exist. also the fundamentalists, even through they fake and claim to Without Saudi army troops, the Bahraini regime could - We see political and economic violence against women. be for the revolution and human rights. This will be a great Unemployment is one such form — and the criminalisation n’t get back any control over Bahrain. Yet the question re - baTtthleeasntdruwgeglneeegdoeasll tohne. dWeemoncereadticafocrocnesttiotuttaikoenptaortp. ro - of poverty. And the feminisation of poverty. mains whether the Bahraini regime could make a deal tect our rights. Patriarchal attitudes are deeply rooted Poverty has a woman’s face. Why? Because of their precar - with any opposition party or group. There is a huge polit - and have grown up with capitalism, which is why patriar - ious status. In underdeveloped countries women are not pro - ical gap that couldn’t be filled even by opportunistic par - chal politics and pro-capitalist politics go so closely to - tected by laws which could guarantee a level of quality of gether. It will be a long fight — and for me, the fight tieTshoer peethonpilce.cleansing that is currently going on will life. So since the business closures came in 2000 the crushing against sexist oppression has to be a fight against cap - majority of victims have been women. result in a civil war in future, even without the army italism. being part of it. Women are discriminated against in the realm of inheri - tance law. 8 SOLIDARITY s manoeuvres Art in revolution

Atef Ben Hassine, a stage and cinema actor in Tunisia, spoke to Ed Maltby

My new play, “Intox”, is split up into two parts. The first part is set before the revolution and the second part is about our fears for the future of the revolu - tion. We’re afraid of the revolution being derailed and turned back into the old regime. We don’t trust the old regime. In the play, we put a president in place who is a famous public figure, his face is in all the primers in the schools: “Abi [papa] Mabrouk”. The point is, we should refuse a president who is a “father to the people” — we should just have a President who is employed by the state. We don’t want a father: that is the essential mes - sage of the play. Under Ben Ali, there were two types of art: official art, empty and tacky; and another art, unofficial, under cen - sorship. But in the theatre, we were cleverer than the censor: we had ways of expressing ideas that the censor could not understand. We would treat social themes — the problem of the - atre was the problem of the citizen in Tunisia. We could - n’t talk about politics. But we could put on productions which spoke about social conditions. The army is still a presence on the streets Plays were not eliminated, but it worked like this: the state was both producer and distributor. When you January, the International Federation for Human Rights It has been a black period in the Arab world. Pro-democ - were censored, your play didn’t get bought. But that (FIDH), and pro-revolutionary lawyers. The idea was that a racy forces had lost the historical initiative. People counselled doesn’t mean your play was banned. They didn’t di - provisional government would emerge from that council. despair, saying the Arab world was out of history and only rectly ban plays. That posed the problem of power. possibly foreign intervention could shake things up. Well: Will censorship continue? Let’s say that this latest The government started to manoeuvre to supplant the Na - history has surprised everyone! play is the first time I have performed without having to tional Council with a parachuted-in committee. There were Osama: We cannot dissociate these movements in the Arab go before the “commission” and obtain a “visa”. many protests, but in the end it was created, this spectral world from the economic crisis of neo-liberalism. I think that The revolution has opened horizons. It’s a question of committee [the Higher Committee, ISPLROR]. This commit - in dictatorial countries in the world, neo-liberalism shows us what’s in people’s heads. The thing with this freedom tee was charged with preparing the electoral law to set up its most atrocious face. So, see for example, here and in China is that we now have to educate Tunisians to be free and elections to the Constituent Assembly and in a formal sense too. I think the revolutionary wave will have echoes else - accept difference: it’s a matter of democratic culture. I to supervise the provisional government. where in Africa and Asia as well as the Arab world. Those believe artists are responsible for educating people in We are struggling in part against the legitimacy of this places where neo-liberalism expresses itself in the most atro - accepting new ideas. We must see the importance of the committee, and seeking to re-establish the legitimacy of the cious forms cannot remain in place in the face of these move - artist if we want to really teach people to speak freely. National Council and its project of a government based on ments. Regime theatre was very populistic. There was no consensus, in order to provide a more legitimate basis and Majid: The precise terminology used is “voyoucracy” — message, political or social, it was empty. Just jokes, no conditions for elections to the Constituent Assembly. mafia states. These revolutions have laid bare the mafia prac - substance, nothing noble. It was grotesque — but mal - When I say “a government based on consensus”, obviously tices of Mubarak, Ben Ali. It’s not just neo-liberalism, it’s also formed, there is at least art in the grotesque but there pro-RCD and obsolete, counter-revolutionary parties would their mafia system. was none here. It was boudouro — real cheap. be excluded from that consensus. Osama: A few years ago, George W Bush said approvingly There is no theatre in the working-class neighbour - The National Council is composed of the UGTT (trade of China that it was an exemplary vision of neo-liberalism hoods. We have not had that experience. It is something union federation), the 14 January Front, and local and re - working perfectly. we have dreamed of, a people’s theatre, but it hasn’t gional delegates from local and regional CSRs — but FIDH, Majid: From this wave I do not exclude the industrialised happened. If I went now and did a play in a working- Ennahda [the main Islamist group] and some other liberal countries, which globalisation has made interdependent — class neighbourhood, got dressed up, it would turn peo - parties have left the SCSR to join the government’s commit - economically but also on the level of information — with the ple’s heads around: and the state did not like the tee [and many parties are represented in both]. rest of the world. A greater level of communication between thought of that. It would be great to see an infrastructure the oppressed is the result of the information revolution. which would allow theatre in these neighbourhoods — SURPRISE It is not out of the question that the exploited classes will but that takes preparation and resources. For 200 years, thinkers have talked about the “Arab ex - make a chain reaction. For example, Sarkozy was very clearly What you see in the streets in the way of popular cul - ception”. That means that at a time when democracy ex - the accomplice of Ben Ali. It is such links that create an inter - ture is music, because it’s easier for a musician to just ists in many countries, self-determination of nations and dependence of oppressed classes. come up and play in the street. If I went into a café now so on, including in many countries which are similar to From these revolutions and these links, we can con - and put on a spectacle, people wouldn’t accept it. the Arab world, such as for example Latin America, the clude more firmly than ever before that society revolves We talk a lot about the social and political aspect of Arab world has stood apart, under dictatorships, despo - around the struggle of class against class and not of na - the revolution — work, money, dignity. That’s true. But tisms, totalitarian and even theocratic regimes. tion against nation. we must not forget the cultural aspect. If we want to win this revolution, it will come via ideas, via people’s heIatdesa. cThhatht’esathtreer,oalnedofteaartcahnindgatrotistthsi.nk differently is part of that work for me. We must educate people, and theatre, art is a part of that.

More on AWL website

Interview with Jalel Ben Brik Zoghlami, Ligue de la Gauche Ouvrière (Workers’ Left League/LGO) http://alturl.com/rzhuj “The women of Tunisia are free”

SOLIDARITY 9 BRIEFING Keeping Bambery quits SWP

Since Bambery’s removal from the position of National your head Secretary and the subsequent reign of first Martin Smith — who was himself removed from the post under a cloud — and then Charlie Kimber, the SWP has taken a turn towards The left “party building”. One would expect “party building” (i.e. recruitment and By Tom Unterrainer the “promotion” of revolutionary ideas) to be part-and-par - cel of any normal revolutionary organisation’s functioning. On 10 April, long-time leading member Chris Bambery Not so for the SWP, it seems. First Rees and German and resigned from the Socialist Workers Party, complaining now Bambery and the Scottish group have accused the cur - Dave Osler about “factionalism”. Chris Bambery has been secretary rent Party leadership of abandoning the “successful” model of the SWP’s front anti-cuts campaign, Right to Work. On of “united front work”, tried and tested through the zenith Critics often accuse revolutionary socialists of being 12 April, 38 Scottish SWP members followed. Tom Unter - of Stop the War and Respect, in favour of blunt and inward “out of touch with reality”. Usually, what they mean is rainer analyses the background. looking recruitment exercises. something like “well to the left of Brendan Barber”. But let me offer a sobering thought to anybody who locates According to Chris Bambery there is a “cancer eating ANTI-CUTS themselves in the Marxist political tradition: the claim away” at the SWP’s “heart”. The name of this cancer Accordingly — so the criticism runs — the party has isn’t always wrong, is it? is “factionalism”. neglected anti-cuts work, instead intervening from the outside at local and national anti-cuts events and ini - This claim is repeated in a joint letter of resignation signed Some of the more celebrated idiocies have passed into tiatives. by a significant number of SWP members in Glasgow. leftie folklore. There have been Trotskyist sects who be - Bambery claims that the “party has been afflicted by fac - lieved that flying saucers were emissaries of Bolshevik civil - But from close observation and first-hand experience, one tionalism for four years and grips the leading group on the isations on other planets, that the Second World War did not of the few admirable qualities possessed by each and every CC [Central Committee] who seem addicted to it.” “really” end in 1945, that the USSR should have strength - active SWP member is their tenacity when it comes to re - The “factionalism” found expression at a recent meeting ened proletarian property relations by launching an all-out cruitment. No opportunity is wasted to sell the paper or where Bambery’s fellow CC member Martin Smith vari - nuclear first strike on the West, or that the world was in for wave the recruitment form. This is good and normal prac - ously described him as having played a “filthy”, “disgrace - centuries of degenerated workers’ states. tice for revolutionary socialists and especially in a period of ful” and “foul” role within the party. Along with the vast I have even heard rumours that one sizeable bunch of relative upturn in political activity in the working class. The majority of SWP members, we have no idea if this is a fair differences, then, do not arise from a new found distaste for British Trots was once crazy enough to insist that Respect summary of his recent activity. or opposition to rigorous recruitment. was a viable electoral project. Personally, I would discount His robust treatment at the hands of the leading commit - The problem, it seems, is that the SWP has accentuated that one — it strikes me as just too far-fetched to be believ - tee of the SWP — including the abusive language — should “party building” as an abstract exercise to cover an inability able. not encourage any pity for the man. Bambery has all the to present a coherent strategy or to cohere and dominate an There is also a wide range of slightly less fantastic misap - charm and savoir faire of a sledge hammer and meted out anti-cuts “united front” around itself. It took a swift initia - prehensions. There are plenty of cases where two or three similar invective to SWP members when serving as Na - tive in setting up the Right to Work campaign, but the tried- people have declared themselves to be a boldly-named tional Secretary over many years. and-tested front building model embodied in the Stop the “group” or “league”. Nevertheless, and like John Rees and Lindsey German be - War Coalition was soon overtaken by real initiatives by That’s understandable from a marketing perspective, I fore him, Bambery has taken a sizeable number out of the working class organisations and working class communi - suppose. A more accurate description, such as “Johnny and organisation with him. All indications suggest that this ties the length-and-breadth of the country. Surprisingly his Revolutionary Marxist Trio”, would make them sound grouping will now join Rees’s and German’s Counterfire or - enough — for the SWP at least — most of these trade union like some ghastly semi-professional club turn featuring key - ganisation. backed, democratic and accountable local groups saw no boards, bass and drums. Once again the political lines forcing an SWP split are far reason to affiliate to a SWP front group. Outfits with a few dozen adherents, if that, describe them - from clear. Very little of political significance is revealed in Worse still for the SWP was the initiative taken by former selves “the party of October” in direct apostolic succession the statements from either Bambery or the Scottish com - SWP leaders in Counterfire who managed to set up a to Lenin himself. They routinely call for general strikes and rades who left with him. slightly more attractive looking and more successful front the building of soviets every couple of weeks or so, raise the group of their own — the Coalition of Resistance. slogan of “a workers’ and farmers’ government” in Britain, FACTIONALISM What this amounts to is yet another clear demonstration Any organisation in which democratic accountability and hope to see Qaddafi win the current conflict in Libya. of the wrongness of SWP “theory” around the issues of and debate is suffocated and preserved for a small, Sorry, but these are not the actions of sane people. party, class and united fronts. The bottom line for the SWP self-selecting and self-reproducing “elite” is liable to I say all this not to disparage hard-working activists, but is the interest of the party itself, which they substitute for undisciplined factionalism. The risk is even greater in genuine bewilderment that anybody basing themselves the real labour movement and working class organisations. when the only democratic tradition in the organisation on an intrinsically rational problematic such as Marxism can As such, they insist on organisationally dominating what is the systematic suppression of democracy. actually end up reaching patently whacky conclusions. they call “united fronts” and dilute working class politics After all, the vast majority of Trots are clearly not stupid. Factionalism in and of itself is not necessarily an un - out of the equation in order to pose as the “left” within a Sometimes they have impressive academic qualifications healthy or destructive feature of revolutionary organisa - large, populist grouping. from elite universities, and almost always the walls of their tions. In normal democratically functioning groups, Real united fronts are combinations of working class or - homes are lined with books. members have the right, and even, where there are sharp ganisations which unite the various wings of the movement However endearing some of their foibles look to others disagreements beyond the usual, the duty, to form factions. and do so democratically. Within these united fronts, revo - on the left, they can also be seen as collective delusions that Where no such democratic norms function, the only feasible lutionaries democratically and vigorously battle for political would in other contexts be indicative of mental health con - routes for dissenters is to remain quiet or leave the organi - leadership — the “leadership” is not granted in advance. cerns. sation — en masse or individually. The alarming thing is that even the most extreme posi - WHAT NEXT? In response to the resignations of Bambery and company, tions are reached, step by step, starting from a belief system By any account, the SWP is a much diminished organi - the leadership have accused him of failing to follow “tradi - that I broadly share, and culminating in Unidentified Fly - sation. According to Bambery’s letter, there is now only tion” in his refusal to mount a political fight at the National ing Object spotting and revolutionary socialists forming al - one person on the leadership body with any significant Committee and among the members. history in the group — Alex Callinicos. With Bambery, liances with the religious right. They’re right, aren’t they? Well, only up to a point. One of One partial explanation is that Marxism explicitly postu - the SWP has lost a leading comrade who — whatever the most revealing things about the “debate” in the SWP is his personal qualities — is a proven political force. lates a difference between things as they appear, and things the distinct lack of written polemic and clear differentiation as they really are. This is a recurrent theme in Marx’s writ - There is no clear direction from the leadership, other from either side. than a new call to “build for June 30” when united na - ings, from his analysis of alienation in Economic and Philo - For sure there are reams of articles from the pages of So - sophical Manuscripts to his description of commodity tional strike action is likely in some public sector cialist Worker , the party magazine and journal spelling out unions. The SWP is politically and organisationally fetishism in Capital . “how they see things”. None of it is related to the specific is - Arguing that there is a divergence between essence and adrift, and there is no-one and no group of people set to sues resulting in the “factionalising” of the party. turn this situation around. appearance has been a mainstream position in western Likewise, documents produced by the party leadership thought, from Plato onwards. To reject this stance is to reject in the run-up to conferences throughout the “four years of This much is clear: there has been no promised demo - some of the central tenets of Marxism, and I am not ques - factionalising” have contained not a single substantial the - cratic renewal in the SWP and ordinary party members are tioning its validity. oretical contribution explaining or analysing the differences. unable to express dissent or be organised into a democratic But the obvious danger is that the way is open for all man - Search the website of the Counterfire organisation and minority. As long as the SWP continues to function in such ner of preposterous charlatans and self-proclaimed dialecti - there’s really nothing explaining where they came from and a way, it will be susceptible to more such defections. cians to present all sorts of gobbledegook as the Marxist why they’re no longer in the SWP. If, as some have suggested, Bambery remained in the truth, brushing aside obvious objections by dismissing the These features make clear not just an unwillingness but SWP after the previous round of resignations in order to questioner’s lack of Marxist understanding. an inability to coherently articulate the political differences. carry through another damaging split at a later date, this To point out that collapse into cultdom is always an in - So why the inability to explain? Could it really be the case speaks of a majority of the leadership who are — to put it herent risk for small Marxist tendencies is not the same as that there are no real differences? Or is it the case that an or - bluntly — politically witless. arguing that it must inevitably happen. It is instead to insist Witless not because they failed to “deal with” Bam - ganisation which strives to suppress real debate and discus - bery and his activity bureaucratically, but because they on the need for constant reality checks on small group lead - sion cannot do other than crush the ability to theorise and erships, based on scrutiny from politically worked-out rank had neither the wit, ideas or organisational will to con - explain political differences and ideas? duct a thorough and open political counter-attack. Such and file comrades capable of recognising bullshit when they The few political morsels in the letters from Bambery and see it. facts cannot be anything other than discouraging for Either that, or maybe those Bolshevik aliens could do the Scottish group indicate a continued dissatisfaction with the majority of SWP members. us all a favour and abduct the central committees of the organisational direction taken by the SWP in recent Trot outfits that have absolutely lost the plot. years.

10 SOLIDARITY DISCUSSION Libya and the no-fly zone: precedents for socialists

Perhaps I am being overly generous here. Most of those who make the demand to halt the bombings, but who also claim to support the rebels, have not spelled out why pre - cisely they find one form of imperial intervention and in - trusion acceptable — the delivery of arms, while Barry Finger condemning another — the no fly zone. Both forms of intervention are limited. They do not in - The basic issue for socialists in confronting the Libyan volve an imperialist invasion and the displacement of the situation is this: we wish Qaddafi to be defeated, but we rebels to auxiliary status. It is still the rebels who are doing are not indifferent to who defeats him. That is because the fighting and dying. The distinction is therefore only ra - who defeats Qaddafi involves how the regime is tional under the unspoken assumption, unwarranted on its brought down and the consequences of that downfall. face, that an elimination of the arms embargo alone would We are not in support of capitalist imperialism being the have signaled a “no strings attached” policy, while the NFZ agent of that defeat, even though almost any conceiv - able regime that replaces Qaddafi would most likely be is indicative of something else entirely. a “lesser evil” to this, one of the world’s most horrific Misrata, western Libya, under siege from Qaddafi’s forces They have in any case confused themselves with the police states. rebels. Socialists, having complete distrust in the motiva - tions and designs of this intervention, did not call for a no around which they were willing to premise their aid. Need - It follows that any alternative that imperialism would fly zone and did not ask the imperialists to intervene. They summarily impose on the Libyan people would subordinate less to say, we socialists would have advised the revolution - ists, that unless they — like the Irish rebels of 1916 — could are not implicated by the fact that an insurgency that they the ability of that nation to fully exercise their freedom to support did. They — and by that I mean, we — are similarly develop to the needs of capitalist accumulation. That is also accept such aid as democratic imperialism was willing to under no political obligation to call an immediate halt to ac - why we refuse to endorse any imperialist lashup, such as offer without making a political deal in exchange, they resulted in Iraq or Afghanistan or which imperialists may would have our full support. tivities that we did not call for, but which as things now be cooking up for Iran. The regimes in question were ob - But what if an insurgency is unable to satisfy these terms? stand permit the rebels to regroup, to consolidate and to ex - scene, but we cannot condone actions which would replace How then would we gauge our response? What if “an tend their national alliances. And this is doubly so, if we one exploiter with another under the guise of “promoting enemy of our enemy” basis is insufficient and imperialism have no viable alternative to offer. democracy” or “humanitarian interests.” We do not, in more seeks concrete concessions, or seeks to shape outcomes or general terms, recognize — much less endorse — the moral exploits openings to burnish its image? ARMS EMBARGO or political legitimacy of one set of exploiters and oppres - This is the crux of our dilemma with the Libyan situation. We would not of necessity call a halt to the delivery of sors to selectively displace another under whatever clever Up until now we have been successfully spared this conun - arms if the embargo had been lifted and imperialism packaging imperialists currently employ to market their drum. But that is also our problem. There are no obvious had exercised its leverage through means of extortion ambitions. historical precedents to guide us, no historical lessons upon on that basis, as it might equally have. And we need not How then do we apply these principles to a situation in which we can draw. The imperial powers stated, in essence, do so now. which freedom fighters, heavily outgunned and struggling that they would not release Qaddafi’s funds to the rebels, simply to survive, ask — in desperation — for a limited im - nor would they relax the arms embargo to the advantage of The rebels have opened the door to the imperialists to perialist intervention on an “enemy of my enemy” basis, as the democrats. They refused, in effect, to engage the rebels shape the conflict, but not wide enough to determine and opposed to offering a quid pro quo? How do we distinguish on an “enemy of our enemy” basis. dictate the outcome. If we accept that proposition, as I do, our response when imperialists are asked by a legitimate then we are under no obligation to politically sabotage ac - leadership group for limited assistance from those unilat - LEFT RESPONSES tions, from whatever source, that may permit the rebels a eral interventions in which these same imperialists simply What have been left responses? Among anti-imperialist slim chance of military victory, and therefore, the hope for arrogate to themselves the unquestioned right to impose fundamentalists, Western aid in the form of direct mili - democracy. If we do not accept that proposition, if we be - their will, unchecked and unqualified, by a legitimate op - tary intervention at any level, either clarifies or redefines lieve that imperialism is now in complete control, we have positional democratic force? the dynamic. no further justification for continuing to support the rebel - Historically, socialists have distinguished between calling upon their own capitalist governments to give arms and aid For that camp, it is Qaddafi who is seen as fighting an lion. Political choices seldom conveniently present them - to insurgencies that we support and the right of these insur - anti-imperialist war. And it is very difficult to understand selves in black and white. It is through the murky grayness gencies to arm themselves through whatever channels they why this conclusion would have been markedly different that we have to feel our way to creative alternatives. can establish, even with imperialist powers. We reject the had imperialism simply lifted the embargo and either That does not compel us to deny the real dangers that vic - first alternative because it entails taking responsibility for armed or allowed the insurgency to arm itself. It is not the tory under such circumstances portends. This may be un - involving imperialism in the conflict. Were we to do that, nature of the intervention but the fact of intervention that is chartered territory, but it is also the terrain in which the we would also have to accede in how imperialism chooses crucial to this position. issue of revolutionary solidarity — of socialist internation - to provide this aid and to accept as legitimate the advan - There are those who actively politicking for Qaddafi as a alism — is decisive. We need, first, to forthrightly denounce tages imperialism seeks to attain through its involvement. genuine face of Arab independence and dignity and those the pretensions under which this intervention was under - Conversely, we accept the latter proposition in deference who, recognize the repugnant nature of the regime and taken. We must be clear that it has nothing to do with hu - to the unchallenged right of all embattled democratic forces would extend military, but not political support to the manitarian interests and everything to do with establishing — including those fighting under authoritarian or bourgeois Libyan police state. leaderships whose victory nevertheless does not foreclose A somewhat weaker response along the same lines is the some level of imperialist credibility with the Arab masses broader democratic openings — to seek an edge wherever assertion that socialists no longer have a stake in this fight. in revolt. they can find it. Neither side, they argue, can any longer be relied upon to Beyond that, it is our duty to proclaim that any conces - advance interests aligned to the needs of the Libyan people. sions made to imperialism in exchange for the no fly zone, IRISH REBELS All factions of this anti-imperialist fundamentalism were made under duress and cannot be seen as a binding The Irish rebels of 1916, according to third camp lore, would raise the demand for an immediate halt to the impe - quid pro quo on any future Libyan government. We will do accepted aid from German imperialism. If that were rialist intervention. our best to expose these conditions as we become aware of true, no revolutionist would have questioned the right These responses are distant enough from the traditions of them and will fight along with honest Libyan democrats of the Irish rebels to accept such arms, which the Ger - third camp socialism as to not require any extended re - man government offered for its own reasons. and socialists to nullify them. If economic concessions were sponse here. This is not to claim that there are no self-iden - demanded, we will fight our ruling class, with whatever tified third campists who lobby for these positions; only that That is, it would have been unchallenged as long as no meager political resources we can muster, to annul them. If they are no longer arguing within a tradition that we clearly strings were attached. Needless to say, this did not mean political concessions in the form of future alliances or mili - that Liebknecht and Luxemburg were called upon to re - recognize as our own. More pertinent are those who do not withhold their sup - tary bases are expected, we will dedicate our assistance in quest this aid from the Kaiser. The point is not our attitude breaking them. If imperialism seeks to raise the Karzais and towards the revolution, but our attitude toward our own port for the insurgency, but would also, and above all else, the Chalabis from the nether ranks of the insurgency and imperialist government. We cannot raise demands that we actively intervene to demand an immediate halt to the im - cannot support. perialist enforced no fly zone. They have balled themselves impose them on the Libyan nation, we will mount a cam - Along these lines, American socialists supported the call into a knot, insisting incoherently that actions which would paign to expose this for the democratic fraud it is and mo - to lift the arms embargo on the Spanish loyalists during the cleanse the perceived political stain from the rebels, that re - bilWizheadtoImaedsvtoiccaantde hinetreernisattihonaatlsoopciinailoisntsagsahionwst iot.ur sup - stores their unchallenged revolutionary “agency” — even if civil war, while refusing to ask our government to send port for the Libyan insurgency by actively fighting for arms to the republicans. it results in their certain demise — is an act, not of treachery, but of unvarnished even unparalleled solidarity. the conditions under which a democratic foreign policy The capitalist democracies famously refused to answer can be domestically understood and raise these issues the call from the Spanish democracy. Had they done so, the I think there is no escaping the conclusion that more cru - in a way that clearly distinguished our position from the capitalists would have been free to choose who among the cial than the success of the rebels, from this vantage, is deny - simple isolationism and the confused anti-imperialism rebels to privilege, what arms to furnish, the schedule of de - ing imperialism a platform to influence outcomes or liveries they would adhere to, as well as the political terms repackage its image. of the “halt the bombings now” stripe. SOLIDARITY 11 REVIEW The many sides of Malcolm X

Manning Marable, US academic and longstanding mem - the ongoing struggle. This was one factor behind Malcolm’s ber of Democratic Socialists of America, died on 1 April, expulsion from the NoI at the end of 1963/start of 1964. three days before the release of his book Malcolm X: A Life However, there were other factors too. The NoI tithed its of Reinvention . Dan Katz looks at Marable’s account. membership and made money from investments, and sell - Malcolm X was gunned down by former comrades of ing its newspaper, Muhammad Speaks . As a result, Elijah the Nation of Islam (NoI) on 21 February 1965, aged 39. Muhammad and his family became very well off, living in luxury. Malcolm also became aware that Elijah Muhammad When Malcolm died, his murder made headlines across was a sexual predator, who had fathered children with a the world. In the US he divided opinion sharply: for the ma - number of young women, while enforcing a conservative jority he represented a threat of black violence and retribu - sexual code on his followers. tion; for a many black activists he was an intransigent, Malcolm — famous across the US and beyond — was liv - unbending opponent of white supremacy and advocate of ing with his young family on modest NoI funding and ap - black pride. Having been pushed out of the NoI a year pre - peared as a threat to those around Elijah Muhammad at his viously, and beginning to turn his back on the NoI’s rigid Chicago headquarters. At the end of 1963, in the aftermath black separatism, Malcolm X also died in a state of ideolog - of the assassination of president J F Kennedy, Malcolm com - ical flux. This political and religious uncertainty and devel - mented that Kennedy’s killing was an instance of “chickens opment at the end of his life has allowed many competing coming home to roost,” something that, “never did make organisations — from Trotskyist groups to orthodox Sunni me sad; they’ve always made me glad.” Malcolm was de - Muslims — to attempt to claim Malcolm X’s legacy. nounced in the press and the NoI leadership used the inci - Manning Marable’s aim was to present a rounded picture dent to freeze Malcolm out of the organisation. of Malcolm’s life and his “reinventions” of himself. In par - ticular, he argues that Malcolm’s image and legacy has been THE SPLIT shaped (and distorted) by his widely-read Autobiography , Malcolm took a small number out of the NoI and formed which was in fact written by Alex Haley (who was later to a new Islamic organisation Muslim Mosque Incorpo - write the enormously popular TV series Roots ). Marable ar - rated (MMI). He then took two long trips abroad which gues that Haley — a Republican — had his own agenda, helped to alter his worldview. and had little interest in presenting a clear account of Mal - First, he visited Mecca, where he was sponsored by the colm’s views in the final year of his life. Haley wrote the Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X concluding section of the Autobiography after Malcolm’s Saudi authorities, and adopted a more orthodox form of death. Islam. Bound up with this religious shift was a political one: with Marcus Garvey’s philosophy… they didn’t have to he had discovered that there were many perfectly good GARVEY convince us we were black and should be proud…” Muslims who were white, which brought him flatly up Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little in Omaha, Ne - What is clear is that Malcolm converted to the strange against the NoI idea that all white people were “devils”. braska, on 19 April 1925. black sect — whose beliefs included that the white race had Second, he toured many newly-independent African been created by an evil black scientist called Yacub — and states. He began to place more emphasis on the black strug - His father and mother, Earl and Louise, were militant sup - when he left jail, in August 1952, he gave more and more of gle in the US as a part of a global anti-racist, anti-colonial porters of Marcus Garvey and his Universal Negro Im - his time to building the NoI. fight. He praised the Cuban state and, worse, the develop - provement Association (UNIA). Garvey built a mass At the end of 1953 the group’s leader, Elijah Muhammad, ment of a Chinese nuclear bomb. movement by appealing to the black workers and poor. His made Malcolm X, as he was now known, a minister and as - Back in the US he founded the secular Organisation of message was black pride, self-improvement and racial sep - signed him the task of building a temple in Boston. He Afro-American Unity (OAAU) as an American compliment aration, seeing the struggle of black people in the US as proved to be a highly effective organiser and speaker, and in to the recently formed Organisation of African Unity being bound up with the fight against white colonialism in June 1954 he was assigned to build up Temple No. 7 in (OAU). The OAAU had a vague platform and its immediate Africa. Garvey was also enthusiastically pro-capitalist. Harlem, New York. At this time the NoI had less than 1000 political emphasis was to bring charges against the US’s The more conservative elements of Garvey’s programme supporters, and Temple No. 7 was badly run with less than treatment of black Americans to the United Nations. built directly on the previous work of leaders like Booker T a few dozen members. At the end of his life he began to pose the question of Washington, and represented a series of concessions to Malcolm found it difficult to make progress in Harlem. fighting racism in a way that contrasted radically to the NoI: white racism and acceptance of it. However in the US an - The area — the cultural and political centre of black Amer - “We declare our right on this earth to be a man, to be a other distinct tradition had emerged: integrationism. ica — was not receptive to the NoI’s anti-political message. human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given Among the black middle class this current was represented The NoI opposed its members registering to vote or being the rights of a human being in this society, on this earth, in by W E B DuBois and the National Association for the Ad - involved in campaigning on political matters. this day, which we intend to bring into existence by any vancement of Colored People (NAACP). This divide — be - The Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott of 1955-6 pushed means necessary.” tween those that fought for equal rights for black people in the civil rights movement demanding black equality to the The words “by any means necessary” have often been the US, and those that effectively accepted the inevitability centre of American politics. In fact the pressure for this po - read as a call to arms (they were that, at least in the sense of of white hostility and sought to escape the US — would re - litical explosion had been building for some time (as de - advocating the right to self-defence) but “by any means” main the key to understanding Malcolm X’s political choices tailed, for example, by Marable in his excellent Race, Reform had also come to mean political activity. And just as impor - and development. and Rebellion ) and produced a white backlash. tant was the fact that Malcolm X was now situating the By the mid-40s Malcolm was drifting and became in - The NoI began to grow quickly. From 1953-5 its member - struggle within the framework of a general fight for human volved in petty crime and drug use. ship quadrupled to 6,000. And from 1956 to ’61 it expanded equality. His gang was rounded up after committing a series of “tenfold to between 50 and 75 thousand,” now recruiting robberies. In 1946 he got a long sentence, probably because middle class black people and skilled workers as well as THE MURDER his associates included white women. He began his sentence prisoners and the urban poor. However, Malcolm’s new political movement was ham - in the notorious Charlestown State prison. However, the NoI was essentially parasitic on the up - pered at every turn by a campaign of harassment and According to Marable the version of Malcolm’s conver - heaval among black Americans. Its appeal to a minority lay violence by the NoI. The future leader of the NoI, Louis sion to the NoI that appears in, for example, Spike Lee’s in its passivity and pessimism. It used the white suprema - Farrakhan (then Louis X) stated than Malcolm was 1993 film of Malcolm’s life is inaccurate. Marable states that cists who fought to maintain the racist system of Jim Crow “worthy of death”. the pressure to join the sect came from family members. segregation that existed in the southern states to illustrate its The NoI was an authoritarian sect which had a powerful What the family found in the NoI sounded similar to their message that black people would never be granted equal paramilitary wing, the Fruit of Islam (FoI). Ironically, al - father’s Garveyite Christianity: a message of black sepa - rights. Advances were denied, and leaders like Martin though Malcolm and the NoI had a reputation as an organ - ratism, self-reliance and a black god. Malcolm’s brother, Wil - Luther King were denounced as “Uncle Toms”. isation willing to meet racist and police violence with their fred, later recalled: “We had already been indoctrinated The NoI’s stand led it to some strange political alliances. In the 1920s Marcus Garvey had met the leader of the Ku own, mostly the FoI was used against NoI members or dis - Klux Klan, Edward Young Clarke, reasoning that as they sidents. The FoI regularly beat — and occasionally killed — both opposed racial intermarriage and favoured the sepa - those NoI members who had crossed the organisation. ration of the races, they had common ground. The NoI re - On Sunday 21 February a group of five NoI members shot peated Garvey’s craziness — for similar reasons — by and killed Malcolm in front of his wife, Betty, and children inviting American Nazi Party leader George Lincoln Rock - at a rally at the Audubon Ballroom. It was a tragic, stupid well to its rallies. In 1962, in front of 12 000 NoI members killing. Rockwell declared, “You know we call you niggers. But During the last phase of his life Malcolm spoke at a num - wouldn’t you rather be confronted by honest white men ber of meetings organised by the US Trotskyist group, the who tell you to your face what others say behind your Socialist Workers Party (no relation to the British SWP), who back?” The NoI presented Rockwell as the authentic voice of believed that Malcolm’s ideas were “growing over” towards white America. Marxism. In fact Malcolm would have needed a sharp, con - scious break with black nationalism and a general ill-de - A PUBLIC FIGURE fined “anti-imperialism” to come over to Marxism. During the massive growth of the NoI Malcolm X was If he had developed in a “straight line” he would have its public face, speaking regularly at NoI rallies, as well found himself with a lot in common with the Black Panthers as on university campuses and to the media. —Mfoaulcnodlemd iXnr1e9m66a. ins an important, even iconic, figure. As a consequence he came under political pressure from He was a brave, dedicated and honest opponent of the mainstream civil rights movement, occasionally openly racism and injustice. That is how we should remember Marcus Garvey bending towards the need for black people to participate in him. 12 SOLIDARITY HISTORY Glorious Dublin, 1913

The Dublin Labour War was one of the great battles of the working class. In 1913, under the leadership of Jim Larkin, the working class of Dublin was making Dublin one of the best organised cities in the world. Dublin’s slums were officially admitted to be among the worst in the British Empire. Infant mortality was higher there than in Calcutta. During the 1914-18 war, a British Army recruiting leaflet would tell the workers of Dublin that the war trenches of France were healthier than the slums of Dublin! But now the workers were on the move. The workers had discovered the power of the sympa - thetic, solidarity strike. Where necessary they brought their weight as a class to bear on each individual employer on behalf of his employees. Wages were pushed up. Conditions began to improve. The workers, long downtrodden, became everywhere as - sertive and confident. A tremendous growth of working class dignity ad self respect began to make Dublin uncom - fortable for the upper classes. So the bosses organised themselves in a cartel and 1913: Jim Larkin and James Connolly (back row) with Mrs Bamber, Liverpool locked out every worker who would not leave or promise Young Dublin women, c.1900 Trades Council, and Bill Haywood, Industrial Workers of the World never to join “Larkin’s union”. This week we print two articles by James Connolly, praising them and exulting in their supposed acquiescence with all their resources to safeguard the rights of every in - “Glorious Dublin” and “A titanic struggle”. in his plans. Remember also that they were a dividing soci - dividual member. ety, dividing their funds at the end of each year, and there - The adoption of such a principle, followed by a few years By James Connolly fore without any strike funds. When the members of their of fighting on such lines to convince the world of our union were asked to sign the agreement, promising never earnestness, would not only transform the industrial arena, To the readers of Forward possibly some sort of apol - to join or help the Irish Transport and General Workers’ but would revolutionise politics. Each side would necessar - ogy is due for the non-appearance of my notes for the Union, not one man consented — but all over Dublin their ily seek to grasp the power of the state to reinforce its posi - past few weeks, but I am sure that they quite well un - 2,500 members marched out “to help the I.T.&G.W.U. boys.” tion, and politics would thus become what they ought to be, derstand that I was, so to speak, otherwise engaged. Long ere these lines are written, they have experienced all a reflex of the industrial battle, and lose the power to mas - On the day I generally write my little screed, I was en - the horrors of starvation, but with grim resolve they have querade as a neutral power detached from economic pas - gaged on the 31st of August in learning how to walk tightened their belts and presented an unyielding front to sions or motives. around in a ring with about forty other unfortunates the enemy. At present I regret to say labour politicians seem to be los - kept six paces apart, and yet slip in a word or two to the It is a pleasure to me to recall that I was a member of their ing all reality as effective aids to our struggles on the indus - poor devil in front of or behind me without being noticed Union before I went to America, and that they twice ran me trial battlefield, are becoming more and more absorbed in by the watchful prison warders. as their candidate for Dublin City Council before the Irish questions of administration, or taxation, and only occasion - The first question I asked was generally “say, what are Transport and General Workers’ Union was dreamed of. ally, as in the miners’ national strike, really rise to a realisa - you in for?” Then the rest of the conversation ran thus: What is true of that union is also true of most of the tion of their true role of parliamentary outposts of the “For throwing stones at the police.” tradesmen. All are showing wonderful loyalty to their class. industrial army. The parliamentary tail in Britain still persist in wagging “Well, I hope you did throw them and hit.” Coachbuilders, sawyers, engineers, bricklayers, each trade the British industrial dog. Once the dog really begins to as - “No, by God, that’s the worst of it. I was pulled coming that is served by general labourers, walks out along with sert his true position, we will be troubled no more by carp - out of my own house.” the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union boys; re - ing critics of labour politics, nor yet with labour politicians’ “Pulled” is the Dublin word for arrested. It was some - fuses to even promise to work with any one who signs the confessions of their own impotence in such great crises as what mortifying to me to know that I was the only person employers’ agreement, and, cheering, lines up along with that of the railway strike or the Johannesburg massacres. apparently in prison who had really committed the crime their class. Nor yet would we see that awful spectacle we have seen for which I was arrested. It gave me a sort of feeling that I WOMEN lately of labour politicians writing to the capitalist press to was lowering the moral tone of the prison by coming Or think of the heroic women and girls. Did they care to denounce the methods of a union which, with 20,000 men amongst such a crowd of blameless citizens. evade the issue, they might have remained at work, for and women locked out in one city, is facing an attempt of But the concluding part of our colloquy was a little more the first part of the agreement asks them to merely re - 400 employers to starve its members back into slavery. encouraging. It usually finished in this way: And thou, Brutus, that you should play the enemy’s pudiate the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union, game at such a crisis! Every drop of ink you spilled in “Are you in the Irish Transport and General Workers’ and as women they are members of the Irish Women Union?” such an act stopped a loaf of bread on its way to some Workers’ Union, not of the Irish Transport and General starving family. “Of course I am.” Workers’ Union. “Good. Well if they filled all the prisons in Ireland they From Forward , 4 October 1913 can’t beat us, my boy.” But the second part pledges them to refuse to “help” the “No, thank God, they can’t; we’ll fight all the better when Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union — and in every we get out.” shop, factory and sweating hell-hole in Dublin, as the agree - And there you have the true spirit. Baton charges, prison ment is presented, they march out with pinched faces, cells, untimely death and acute starvation — all were faced threadbare clothes, and miserable footgear, but with high without a murmur, and in face of them all, the brave Dublin hopes, undaunted spirit, and glorious resolve shining out workers never lost faith in their ultimate triumph, never of their eyes. Happy the men who will secure such wives; doubted but that their organisation would emerge victori - thrice blessed the nation which has such girls as the future ous from the struggle. This is the great fact that many of our mothers of the race! Ah, comrades, it is good to have lived critics amongst the British labour leaders seem to lose sight in Dublin in these days! of. The Dublin fight is more than a trade union fight; it is a And then our friends write deprecatingly to the British great class struggle, and recognised as such by all sides. We press of the “dislocation of trade” involved in sympathetic in Ireland feel that to doubt our victory would be to lose strikes, of the “perpetual conflicts” in which they would in - faith in the destiny of our class. volve great trade unions. To those arguments, if we can call I heard of one case where a labourer was asked to sign the them such, our answer is sufficient. It is this: If the capital - agreement forswearing the Irish Transport and General ist class knew that any outrages upon a worker, any attack Workers’ Union, and he told his employer, a small capital - upon labour, would result in a prompt dislocation of trade, ist builder, that he refused to sign. The employer, knowing perhaps national in its extent; that the unions were prepared the man’s circumstances, reminded him that he had a wife to spend their last copper if necessary rather than permit a and six children who would be starving within a week. The brother or sister to be injured, then the knowledge would reply of this humble labourer rose to the heights of sublim - not only ensure a long cessation from industrial skirmishing ity. “It is true, sir,” he said, “they will starve; but I would such as the unions are harassed by today, it would not only rather see them go out one by one in their coffins than that ensure peace to the unions, but what is of vastly more im - I should disgrace them by signing that.” And with head portance, it would ensure to the individual worker a peace erect he walked out to share hunger and privation with his from slave-driving and harassing at his work such as the loved ones. Hunger and privation — and honour. largest unions are apparently unable to guarantee under Defeat, bah! How can such a people be defeated? His case present methods. is typical of thousands more. Take the case of the United Mark, when I say “prepared to spend their last copper if Builders Labourers’ Trade Union, for instance. This was a necessary,” I am not employing merely a rhetorical flourish, rival union to the Irish Transport and General Workers’ I am using the words literally. As we believe that in the so - Union. Many sharp passages had occurred between them, cialist society of the future the entire resources of the nation and the employers counted confidently upon their cooper - must stand behind every individual, guaranteeing him William Martin Murphy led the bosses in the 1913 lockout ation in the struggle; Mr William Martin Murphy especially against want, so today our unions must be prepared to fight SOLIDARITY 13 HISTORY A titanic struggle

By James Connolly battle for the Seamen and Firemen — who are now asked to repudiate it. What is the truth about the Dublin dispute? What was These things well understood explain the next act in the the origin of the Dublin dispute? These are at present unfolding of the drama. Desiring to make secure what had the most discussed questions in the labour world of been gained, Mr. Larkin formulated a scheme for a Concili - these islands, and I have been invited by the editor of ation Board. the Daily Herald to try and shed a little light upon them This was adopted by the Trades Council, at least in for the benefit of its readers. I will try and be brief and essence, and eventually came before the Employers’ Execu - to the point, whilst striving to be also clear. tive, or whatever the governing committee of that body is named. After a hot discussion it was put to the vote. Eight - In the year 1911 the National Seamen’s and Firemen’s een employers voted to accept a Conciliation Board, three Union, as a last desperate expedient to avoid extinction, re - voted against. solved upon calling a general strike in all the home ports. At Scab-herding paper The Toiler accuses Jim Larkin of being Of that three, William Martin Murphy was one. On find - that time the said Union as the lawyers would say, was, the son of a British spy ing himself in the minority he rose and vowed that in spite more or less, an Ishmael among trade unions. It was not reg - of them he would “smash the Conciliation Board.” istered, in most places it was not even affiliated to the local and General Workers’ Union took over all the labourers, Within three days he kept his word by discharging two Trades Union Councils, and its national officials had always paid them strike pay, and kept them out until the coachmak - hundred of his tramway traffic employees for being mem - been hostile to the advanced labour movement. They be - ers won. The latter body are now repaying us by doing scab bers of the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union, and lieved, seemingly, in playing a lone hand. work while we are out. thus forced on the strike of the tramway men. Immediately Perhaps the general discredit into which it had been The mill-sawyers existed for 20 years in Dublin without he appealed to all the Dublin employers who had been brought by the curiously inconsistent action of its leaders in recognition. The sympathetic strike by our union won them forced into a semblance of decency by Larkin and his col - closely identifying themselves with one of the orthodox po - recognition and an increase of pay. leagues, called to their memory the increases of wages they litical parties, and at the same time calling for the aid in in - The stationary engine drivers, the cabinetmakers, the were compelled to pay, and lured them on to a desperate ef - dustrial conflicts of the labour men whom they fought and sheet metal workers, the carpenters, and, following them all fort to combine and destroy the one labour force they feared. slandered in political contests, had something to do with the the building trades got an increase through our control of The employers, mad with hatred of the power that had general weakness and impending bankruptcy of the Na - the carting industry. As did also the girls and men employed wrested from them the improved conditions, a few of which tional Seamen’s and Firemen’s Union, at the time it issued in Jacob’s biscuit factory. I have named, rallied round Murphy, and from being one its call in 1911. In addition to this work for others, we won for our own in a minority of three he became the leader and organising At all events the call was in danger of falling upon deaf members the following increases within the last two years: spirit of a band of four hundred. ears, and was, in fact, but little heeded until the Irish Trans - cross channel dockers got, since the strike in the City of I have always told our friends in Great Britain that our port and General Workers’ Union began to take a hand in Dublin Steam Packet Company, an increase of wages of 3s. fight in Ireland was neither inspired nor swayed by theo - the game. As ships came into the Port of Dublin, after the per week. In the case of the British and Irish Company the ries nor theorists. It grew and was hammered out of the issue of the call, each ship was held up by the dockers under increase, levelling it up with the other firms, meant a rise of hard necessities of our situation. the orders of James Larkin until its crew joined the union, 6s. per week. For men working for the Merchants’ Ware - Here, in this brief synopsis, you can trace its growth for and signed on under union conditions and rates of pay. housing Company 3s. per week, general carriers 2s. to 3s., yourselves. First a fierce desire to save our brothers of the Naturally, this did not please the shipowners and mer - coal fillers halfpenny per ton, grain bushellers 1d. per ton, sea, a desire leading to us risking our own existence in their chants of Dublin. But the delegates of the Irish Transport men and boys in the bottle-blowing works from 2s. to 10s. cause. Developing from that an extension of the principle of and General Workers’ Union up and down the docks per week of an increase, mineral water operatives 4s. to 6s. sympathetic action until we took the fierce beast of capital preached most energetically the doctrine of the sympathetic per week, and a long list of warehouses in which girls were by the throat all over Dublin, and loosened its hold on the strike, and the doctrine was readily assimilated by the dock - exploited were compelled to give some slight modification vitals of thousands of our class. ers and carters. It brought the union into a long and bitter of the inhuman conditions under which their employees Then a rally of the forces of capital to recover their hold, struggle along the quays, a struggle which cost it thousands were labouring. and eventually a titanic struggle, in which the forces of of pounds, imperilled its very existence, and earned for it As Mr Havelock Wilson, General Secretary, National Sea - labour in Britain openly, and the forces of capital secretly, the bitterest hatred of every employer and sweater in the men’s and Firemen’s Union, has mentioned the strike on the became participants. city, every one of whom swore they would wait their chance That is where we stand to-day. The struggle forming City of Dublin Steam Packet Company as an instance of our to “get even with Larkin and his crew.” our theories and shaping the policy, not only for us, but erratic methods, it may be worth while to note that as a re - The sympathetic strike having worked so well for the sea - for our class. To those who criticise us we can only sult of that strike some of his sailors got an increase of 5s. 6d. men and firemen, the Irish Transport and General Workers’ reply: we fight as conditions dictate; we meet new con - per week. Union began to apply it ruthlessly in every labour dispute. ditions with new policies. Those who choose may keep In addition to the cases enumerated I might also mention A record of the victories it has won for other trade unions old policies to meet new conditions. We cannot and will that the labourers on the Dublin and South-Eastern Railway would surprise a good many of its critics. A few cases will not try. got increases of 6s. per week, and those in the Kingstown indicate what, in the hands of Larkin and the Irish Trans - Gas Works got increases varying from 3s. to 10s. per week port and General Workers’ Union, it has won for some of per man. First published in the Daily Herald , December 6, 1913 the skilled trades. All of these increases were the result of the sympathetic Transcribed for the Internet by the Workers’ Web ASCII When the coachmakers went on strike the Irish Transport strike policy, first popularised by its success in winning the Pamphlet project, September 1997

Early September: British TUC meets, hears pleas for sol - workers to seek reinstatement. Murphy claims that he has Timeline idarity from Dublin, but responds only by organising food “smashed Larkinism”, but in fact the ITGWU survives and aid for the locked-out workers. grows in the following years.

Between 1911 and 1913: By use of sympathy strikes, the 26 September: British government appoints George Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union (ITGWU), led Askwith to head an inquiry into the dispute. by Jim Larkin and James Connolly, wins improved condi - Who’s who tions and organisation for Dublin workers. 27 September: A ship arrives in Dublin, bringing 40 tons of food that was raised by British trade unionists to feed the Jim Larkin: a Liverpool Irishman who moved to Belfast in From 15 August 1913: William Martin Murphy sacks locked-out workers and their families. 1902 as an organiser for the National Dock Labourers’ more than 200 workers from the Dublin trams, which he Union, and then started the Irish Transport and General owns, for being ITGWU members. 6 October: Askwith’s inquiry reports, recommending a Workers’ Union (1908). He moved to the USA in 1914, after Conciliation Committee be set up to resolve the dispute the Dublin lockout, but returned to Ireland in 1923 and was 26 August: The ITGWU responds by a strike on the trams, without lock-outs or strikes. Bosses reject the report. active on the left until his death in 1947. and other sympathy action, for example, a boycott of the James Connolly: an Edinburgh Irishman who moved to distribution of the Irish Independent newspaper, also owned 17 October: Dora Montefiore and other British socialists Dublin in 1896 and founded the Irish Socialist Republican by Murphy. and trade unionists arrive in Dublin with plans to help the Party. He was in the USA between 1903 and 1910; returned workers by having their children looked after by British to Ireland in 1910; became an organiser for the ITGWU in 30 August: Police issue a warrant for Larkin’s arrest on trade unionists’ families during the lock-out. The Catholic Belfast; was the main leader of the workers in the Dublin charges of “seditious language”. Church and the bosses raise a hue and cry against this as a lockout while Larkin was in jail or in Britain; led the Irish threat to the faith and morals of “Catholic children”. Citizen Army into the Easter Rising in April 1916 and was 31 August: Police baton-charge a workers’ rally in Dublin shot by the British Government after the defeat of the Ris - city centre banned by the government, injuring more than From 13 November: Larkin, released from jail, tours ing. 400. Larkin appears at a city-centre balcony to speak to the Britain calling for workers’ solidarity. William Martin Murphy: Dublin businessman, owner of workers, and is then arrested. the Dublin trams, the Irish Independent newspaper, and other November: The union launches the Irish Citizen Army, a enterprises. Irish Nationalist MP in the British Parliament, 3 September: William Martin Murphy organises a meet - workers’ militia, to counter further police violence like that 1885-1892 and prominent figure in nationalist politics after ing of 400 employers who pledge to lock out all workers on 31 August. that. Led the bosses in the 1913 lockout. His Irish Independ - who continue to be members of the ITGWU. Thousands of ent called for the execution of James Connolly after the 1916 workers attend the funeral of James Nolan, a worker killed 18 January 1914: ITGWU concedes defeat and advises Rising. Died in 1919. by police batons in protests on 30 August. 14 SOLIDARITY REPORTS BA strikes on hold Students shifting left? By Darren Bedford customers.” The overly- “established changes” and conciliatory language does hoping only for “concerns” By Ed Maltby has receded. Most student ganising within the na - Unite has put the brakes not bode well. to be “addressed”. The unions involve only small tional union, and perhaps on potential industrial ac - Workers are already in a union’s statement may At the 2011 National numbers of students, and growing ones. tion as it enters into new worse position now than leave some cabin crew Union of Students con - have opaque, bureaucra - To take advantage, the “exploratory” talks with when the dispute began, workers wondering why ference, 12-14 April, the tised structures which left needs to be better or - British Airways manage - with the latest ballot focus - they’ve been in dispute for minority votes against make this difficult to ganised. Much of the left ment. ing on attacks suffered dur - two years (and on strike the leadership on a na - change. NUS itself is much intervention at this confer - ing earlier strikes. several times) without win - In late March, workers tional demo and on uni - less open and democratic ence was shambolic. The Unite says it wants to re - ning a single crumb (and voted by 83% (on a 72% versal grants were very than it used to be; the con - slate put together for the solve three key issues, two indeed being markedly turnout) to take further strong. ference is about half the full-time executive posi - of which pertain to the at - worse-off in many cases). strike action in a dispute size it was a decade ago. tions was a sectarian tacks and victimisations. There has also been some NCAFC supporters which has stretched over And there were some stitch-up dominated by the The final one calls for backsliding in terms of Michael Chessum and two years. That most recent danger signs for the future. SWP and running on a not “measures to address con - member-control and Sean Rillo Raczka scored ballot gave Unite a man - A small minority of right- very radical program; cerns on earnings and democracy in the dispute. well in the elections for VP date to call action by 15 The BA cabin crew wing delegates got up to there was not enough left lifestyle associated with the Education and VP Welfare. April, but according to a workers, who have stood oppose even very moder - text submitted; and many established changes in on - The results for the part- union statement BA bosses resolute under severe at - ate motions as too radical. “left-wing” speeches were board crew numbers and time section of the execu - have agreed to grant the tacks from an extremely A motion from Birming - dire, making no attempt to the introduction of Mixed tive, where AWL member union a month’s extension anti-union management, ham University which seriously challenge the Fleet.” This implies fairly and Royal Holloway presi - while talks take place. deserve better than to hinted that NUS should ac - right’s arguments. strongly that the union has dent-elect Daniel Cooper The union has declared have their dispute wound cept £9,000 fees and move None of this is just an or - now given up on defeating withdrew in favour of that “a lasting peace is es - up from above in return on was passed over left op - ganisational matter, how - the introduction of the cuts Michael Chessum, were sential for the well-being of for some phony “peace position. ever. It is linked to the lack which sparked the initial not out when we went to all cabin crew and for the talks” with BA bosses. of a properly functioning dispute, seeing them as press. In the election for ORGANISE benefit of British Airways’ rank-and-file network in President, the leadership But both the fringe meet - the student movement was split, after incumbent ings AWL members were cut by 18% as the Lon - which can link up anti-cuts them there was no more Aaron Porter’s decision to involved in organising — don Ambulance Service groups, left-wing student work available. The move stand down following his one in solidarity with the looks to axe 900 jobs as union officers and other In brief is widely believed to be a humiliation by student Newcastle College strike part of a £53 million left activists into a force ca - ploy to replace the work - protesters. against jobs cuts taking “savings” plan. pable of seriously chal - NOTTS COUNTY ers, who work under the The more left-leaning of place as the conference lenging the NUS The 900 posts include terms of the National the two leadership candi - opened, and one joint leadership. At the confer - COUNCIL NCAFC-SWP meeting on GMB members at Not - 560 “front line” staff, in - Agreement for the Engi - dates, Liam Burns, was ence, the NCAFC was the the way forward for anti- tinghamshire County cluding paramedics and neering and Construction ahead of Porter’s hand - only group that even at - cuts activists — were Council have voted 6 to 1 medical technicians. With Industry (NAECI), with picked successor Shane tempted to play such a well-attended. in favour of industrial ac - ambulance call-outs cur - lower-paid workers not Chowen in the first round role; the SWP made no at - covered by the agreement. tion in an indicative bal - rently increasing at a rate and won easily after three The strike got an enthu - tempt to organise anyone GMB general secretary lot. A full ballot for strike of around 4% per year, the quarters of left candidate siastic response and set a beyond themselves. But for Paul Kenny said “It is rep - action will now follow. increased workload on re - Mark Bergfeld’s votes tone for the left at the con - reasons discussed previ - rehensible that neither the maining workers will be transferred to him. As ference. There were more ously, the NCAFC is not Workers at the council contractors nor the site’s enormous. Unions organis - President of NUS Scotland, people around than in pre - adWeqhuaatteh. appens at the are facing a pay cut equiv - owners, BP, seem to care ing at LAS are consulting Burns has led a somewhat vious years dissatisfied next NUS conference de - alent to 12%, comprised of about these 430 workers their members on how to more active campaign than with the NUS leadership pends not only on several individual cuts. who have been locked out. respond to the cuts. NUS UK; the day before and looking for something whether there is a new Many of these cuts are al - GMB does care and will es - the vote he was at the better. upsurge of student activ - ready in place. SALTEND SIT-IN calate the campaign for Newcastle College picket While last year’s strug - ity, but how effectively Unison members at the Workers have staged a justice.” GMB shop stew - lines and argued in favour gles show the necessity the already growing council have already taken sit-in at the Saltend bio- ards were due to meet on of a national demo. fuels plant as the GMB, and possibility of organis - number of activists can strike action, and although Monday 18 April to dis - However, overall the one of the unions which ing action outside the organise ourselves into a it comes later than might cuss taking the campaign student movement bureau - organises them, put itself framework of NUS, there rank-and-file movement be hoped, the GMB’s deci - forward. cracy remained firmly in on a war-footing by cre - are also possibilities for or - inside and outside NUS. sion to move towards ac - Solidarity at the site has control. The leadership ating a £100,000 strike tion as well may contribute already begun to develop, beat the left in the elections fund. towards breaking the per - with other groups of work - for every full-time position • Sign the call for a National Demonstration! ception of the GMB as the ers refusing to cross pick - 430 engineering con - by a big margin. We were “no-strike” union in many ets put on by the See www.anticuts.com or email struction workers have defeated narrowly even on public sector workplaces. locked-out engineering- been locked for almost a the demand for another [email protected] construction workers. month after their employ - first term national demon - LONDON Protests at the gates of the ers – companies contracted stration. AMBULANCES site, near Hull, have al - • The AWL was involved in a debate about by Vivergo (a consortium Though it has left behind The number of emer - ready stopped traffic. Unite Against Fascism at the conference. See made up for BP, British a sediment of increased gency vehicles on Lon - Vivergo has said it is “ap - Sugar and Du Pont) to student activism, the high www.workersliberty.org/nusanduaf don’s streets could be palled” by the protests. work on the plant — told tide of struggle last winter “Forward to the past” is no answer for Labour

nual Conference of the challenging the idea of a thralled to myth. Jonathan Rutherford. It UPW upheld the decision “golden age” of trade Then, as now, solidarity has little to do with main - of the Executive and im - unionism that we can re - was a dangerous idea stream Labour traditions posed sanctions on the turn to. when put into practice. and a lot more to do with London activists, includ - The idea of class, and Then, as now, collective the left communitarianism Maria Exall ing substantial fines. (For the cutting edge of class class consciousness was of a Christian “third way”. the record, a certain dele - struggle, changes along fragile. Then, as now, the These ideas have only gate from Slough called with changes in the modes conservatism of apolitical ever had minor political “Family, faith and flag” is tive Council meeting of the Alan Johnson spoke up in of production, distribution trade unionism was de - purchase in the UK, being promoted as CWU recently. The meet - support of the LDC ac - and exchange. structive. Building practi - though the influence of Labour’s new big idea. ing formally agreed to tivists.) A large part of the per - cal solidarity, developing similar ideas in the US Nostalgia for a time wipe out the discipline The picture painted by ception of the “militant class consciousness and such as that of Jim (“God’s when men were men, the charges made by the previ - many socialists of the 70s” or “true blue collar” opposing apolitical trade Politics”) Wallis has been church had more social ous Union of Postal Work - strong organisation, mili - trade unionism is unhelp - unionism are worthwhile much greater, mainly be - control, and England used ers (UPW) Executive tancy and class conscious - ful nostalgia that covers priorities for trade union - cause they don’t have a to win World Cups is against members of the ness of the trade union up real history. It does us ists today. LaBbuout revPeanrtyif. “blue patently ridiculous. But London Divisional Com - movement in the 1970s no favours to present a A short footnote on Labour” was fully in the nostalgia can be a strong mittee (LDC) who took often hides much more cartoon story of workers’ “blue Labour” — it is a mainstream of traditional political force — a nega - solidarity action for the complex and interesting struggle when the real his - mix of social conservatism “old Labour” we should tive one. Grunwick strikers. stories. I am not disputing tory is contradictory and and relatively progressive still reject it — for rea - I was pondering the neg - Everyone lauds the the relatively weak situa - uneven. We cannot learn political economics, pro - sons that the Grunwick ative power of nostalgia brave Grunwick strikers tion of the trade union the important lessons of moted by Jon Cruddas, strikers know. after the National Execu - now but in 1977 the An - movement now but rather history if we live en - Maurice Glasman and SOLIDARITY 15 Teachers set to strike on 30 S&oWloirkdersa’ Lirbeirtty y June

Misrata: our Guernica, By Patrick Murphy, short, to consign teachers National Union of to an old age lived out in Teachers Executive, poverty. If one of the most organ - (pc) ised, highly-trained and our Srebrenica better-paid sections of the If all goes to plan the working class can be forced conference of the Na - By Martyn Hudson to accept those conditions ist forces. Some humanitar - tional Union of Teachers the outlook for the rest of ian access has been granted (22-26 April) will vote to the public sector will be On 18 April anti-Qaddafi ballot union members on in theory by the regime but bleak indeed. rebels in Misrata — so far only the Red Cross taking strike action to de - Libya's third-largest city, has been allowed in — and fend pension rights. WE NEED: and the main city held by their report is absolutely • A national strike day rebels in the west of the damning in terms of the at - If they do there is every co-ordinated with as chance that they will be country — were reported tacks on the civilian popu - many other unions as joined by college lecturers’ as saying that without lation of the city. possible. It looks like this union UCU and civil ser - outside aid the city would Cluster bombs are being will be 30 June. soon fall to its month- rained down on the streets vants’ union in co-ordi - long siege by Qaddafi's and houses of Misrata and nated strike action. The If it can be earlier we army. loyalist militias, sometimes NUT may also be joined by should continue to keep uniformed, sometimes not other teaching unions, ATL that option open. They said that there had ber of French would go to are doing — is to get our have been trying to take the and NASUWT. • Name in advance at been no NATO air strikes Libya to advise the rebels. priorities entirely wrong. city street by street. They We will have put in place least one further national on the siege troops for three The EU, like NATO, talks In the same way that are using mosques, schools the beginnings of a trade strike day before the end of days. of helping the rebels only Guernica, and Srebrenica in and hospitals as forward union coalition prepared to the summer term. Having The European Union has because they want to “live more recent years, hold a posts. Civilians, including take action. We will need, done all the careful and dif - a plan to send up to one down” their past links with place in the awful annals of women and children, are however, to move onto the ficult work of building the thousand ground troops to Qaddafi and lay the basis tyrant history, so will rebel being used as human next hurdles very quickly. momentum for action it is Misrata “to secure the de - for good relations with the Misrata, now and for the shields. The first is to deliver a livery of aid supplies”, and post-Qaddafi regime in oil- decades to come. crucial to maintain it at a NATO commander huge vote for action and to fight only in self-defence. rich Libya. Whilst the majority of the high level. Charles Bouchard has ar - build up confidence and EU officials say they are Socialists must oppose UK left wavers or does • To use selective action gued that it is like watching militancy amongst the waiting for UN endorse - any trust in or endorsement what it can to stop NATO to maintain momentum a knife fight in a telephone membership. The second is and keep the pressure on ment of the plan. On 19 of the EU and NATO. But action against Qaddafi, 300 to develop a strategy that stop booth. And that is what government. If that can April the British govern - positively to try to EU 000 people are being left to can win. NATO is doing — watch - also be co-ordinated with ment said that ten British and NATO aid for the their fate in a murderous Delegates from our ing. other public sector unions, officers and a similar num - rebels — as some on the left onslaught by Qaddafi loyal - Continued on page 3 union will need to go back that is good. and immediately organise • To take control of ac - briefings for school reps to cess to schools by, for ex - put the case for action. We ample, providing Cameron slaps Lib Dems, woos racist vote will get a big yes vote for action — the survey work “emergency cover”. This will give us more control of By Gerry Bates policy only”. lem as “the largest influx knowingly playing with done by the union shows that to be the case. The real our dispute and help main - Cameron seems to have of people Britain has ever racist fire. challenge will be to achieve tain parental and public On 14 April, David got away with a calculated had” creating “discomfort Labour leader Ed a strong turnout. If other support. Cameron tried to firm up slap at the Lib Dems. The Miliband, however, com - and disjointedness in some teachers’ unions decide to • To convene regular the Tory vote for 5 May media were allowed to re - mented only: “The next neighbourhoods”. take action, the prospects school reps’ councils for the with a hardline speech port that “many Lib He would know that the time he makes a speech duration of the dispute. on immigration and on of a good turnout and over - Dems” were annoyed at press would translate that why don't they get a grip, • To encourage local as - welfare cuts. have a proper discussion whelming yes vote will be Cable's reaction, and Cable into such terms as “Britain massively increased. semblies of workplace reps himself softened his criti - has been torn apart by the in government, get an from all unions involved in The speech was made to agreed policy, because an invited audience of cism in later comments. biggest influx of immi - FIGHT TO WIN the action to ensure the The conflict will not go that's the right way to run We cannot enter into this maximum effectiveness of Tory activists in a small grants in history” (opening a government”. town, but pushed to the away. Lib-Dem opposition words of the Daily Mail The fight against wel - battle with the idea that all joint action. we are simply “making a press so that it would get to the Tories on this is stiff - front page). fare cuts and the fight The Coalition has set ened by substantial dis - valiant stand”. This is not front-page headlines. In the midst of economic for open borders go about attacking the welfare content with the Tories' hand in hand. And if demonstrative protest ac - (Daily Mail : “PM savages crisis where people will state using the tactic of Labour's open-door pol - curbs on immigration pushed hard enough, tion in the way that, for “shock and awe”. We can want to find easy targets to the most part, the 2008 icy”). among big business and they can crack this coali - learn from this. Most suc - blame for loss of jobs and pay strike was. We need Lib-Dem leader and among university chiefs. tion apart. cessful industrial disputes services, Cameron is to win. deputy prime minister Cable did not mention win quickly — most long Cameron's linking of his Nick Clegg said he saw the If the government get drawn out disputes lose. anti-migrant stand with a speech in advance and away with increasing the The Coalition need to be hard welfare-cuts line. “noted rather than ap - retirement age on a sliding reeling from the effect of “The real issue is this: proved” it. Lib-Dem busi - scale (65, 66, 68 then 70), our action on pensions as ness minister Vince Cable, migrants are filling gaps in making us pay more even soon as possible. more irritably, told the the labour market left though the pension scheme If we are serious about BBC that the speech was wide open by a welfare is in not financial difficulty this action we can win. “very unwise”. system that for years has and reducing the value of And if we win the attempt “I do understand there is paid British people not to our income in retirement. to make public sector an election coming but talk work. the impact on the living workers pay for the eco - of mass immigration risks “That's where the blame standards of teachers will nomic crisis with more inflaming extremism”. lies — at the door of our be unprecedented. years of wage slavery and In his speech Cameron woeful welfare system... Tens of thousands of lower pay followed by repeated the Tories' pre- That's another powerful pounds lost during retire - poverty in retirement will election plan to cut net im - reason why this govern - ment, a huge levy taken be in tatters. If we organise migration to tens of ment is undertaking the from our wages and we this fight seriously we send thousands. This plan was biggest shake-up of the Justice for Smiley Culture will spend most of our six - a signal to the rest of the widely reckoned to be welfare system for genera - ties in the classroom. But labour movement that the Around 3,00 people attended the 16 April protest about the demagogic flam and im - tions…” we all know, as do the gov - government’s austerity death in police custody of reggae singer David Emmanuel, practical short of economic Cameron stressed that ernment, that most teachers agenda does not have to be better known as Smiley Culture. slump which would en - he is not against rich immi - will not really be able to re - accepted and isn’t in - The Campaign for Justice for Smiley Culture is demanding courage mass emigration. grants. He will “roll out main in schools until 65-70. evitable — collective action a genuinely independent inquiry in place of the one by the Cable noted: “The refer - the red carpet for anyone Instead they will retire can still defend our condi - so-called Independent Police Complaints Commission. ence to [reducing numbers who has a great business early, either on much re - tions and our rights. The mood of the demo was militant. The police kept a low That’s a prize worthy of to] tens of thousands of idea and serious invest - duced pensions or on no profile — they evidently prefer to keep their racist violence our maximum effort. Let’s immigrants rather than ment”. income, while they wait to for more private occasions. go about it with a deter - hundreds of thousands is To rally the Tory base, collect their pensions at the • Facebook: “Campaign for Justice for Smiley Culture” mination worthy of the not part of the coalition and spook the Lib Dems, increased normal pension cause. agreement, it is Tory party Cameron defined the prob - age. To lose this battle is, in