Solidarity 3/60, 21 October 2004
The “reactionary anti-imperialists”
Submitted on 2 April, 2007 - 15:45
“Reactionary socialism… half lamentation, half lampoon; half echo of the past, half menace of the future.”
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto
As you were saying - Tony Cliff against the Muslim Brotherhood
Submitted on 22 November, 2006 - 10:11
The Muslim Association of Britain (MAB) was prominent on the platforms at the European Social Forum on 15–17 October, and as a joint sponsor of the demonstration which closed the ESF, on 17 October.
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Haiti: “We are workers, not slaves”
Submitted on 22 October, 2004 - 11:06
Yannick Etienne is a member of Batay Ouvriye (Workers’ Fight), a militant trade union federation in Haiti. Yannick is on a speaking tour of Britain organised by No Sweat and the Haiti Support Group. Solidarity spoke to Yannick about the situation in Haiti today and about the work of Batay Ouvriye, particularly in the new Free Trade Zone that is being built at Ouanaminthe, on the border with the Dominican Republic
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We saved our school!
Submitted on 22 October, 2004 - 11:06
By Mathew Bailey
Parents, teachers and students of Northcliffe School, serving Conisbrough and Denaby near Doncaster, have recently stopped their school from being turned into an academy run by a religious organisation, the Emmanuel Schools Foundation (ESF). This is the first time proposals for an academy have been overturned. It is, as the Yorkshire Post put it, a “huge blow to Blair”.
The Other America: 27% of US workers fall below poverty line
Submitted on 22 October, 2004 - 11:06
More than a quarter of all working families in the United States, including 20 million children, are considered low-income or poor, an independent report has found.
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The writing on the wall
Submitted on 22 October, 2004 - 11:06
Prisoners committing suicide and pensioners left to freeze.
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Banning Monty Python?
Submitted on 22 October, 2004 - 11:06
By Dan Katz
The Home Secretary, David Blunkett, is considering abolishing Britain’s absurd blasphemy laws when legislating for a new offence of incitement to religious hatred. By so doing Blunkett hopes to split those opposed to the new incitement law.
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ESF 2004: downpours and debate
Submitted on 22 October, 2004 - 10:44
Nearly 25,000 people in London for two and a half days of debate, and tens of thousands on a Sunday afternoon closing demonstration — the European Social Forum 2004, on 15-17 October, was well worth attending, despite the rain!
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How activists were turned against the Iraqi unions
Submitted on 22 October, 2004 - 10:44
By Martin Thomas
The Socialist Workers Party, a major force in the organisation both of the European Social Forum and of the Stop The War Coalition, has condemned the shouting-down of Subhi al Mashadani, general secretary of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions, at the ESF on 15 October.
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Mick Rix leaves STWC committee
Submitted on 22 October, 2004 - 10:44
Former ASLEF general secretary Mick Rix has withdrawn from the Stop the War Coalition committee after its statement denouncing the IFTU. Excerpts from a statement he has circulated:
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IFTU: a genuine workers’ organisation
Submitted on 22 October, 2004 - 10:44
Alex Gordon, a member of the RMT rail union who visited Iraq in October 2003 and has been active in building support for the Iraqi unions, talked to Solidarity about the shouting-down of Subhi al Mashadani.
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Not the workers’ tradition, nor the workers’ flag
Submitted on 22 October, 2004 - 10:44
By Colin Foster
At the Respect fringe meeting at the European Social Forum (Saturday 16 October), George Galloway set out to define for Respect “the traditions in which we stand... the flag we seek to carry”.
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US hotel workers’ fight continues
Submitted on 22 October, 2004 - 10:44
Last week thousands of hotel workers and their allies flooded Union Square in San Francisco for a unity rally. Workers at four San Francisco hotels went on strike two weeks ago and hotel operators responded by locking out employees at 10 other locations last Friday. The lockout has been extended to the other four hotels. The union, Unite Here Local 2, represents about 8,000 workers at 60 San Francisco hotels. Some 4,000 cooks, room cleaners, dishwashers, bellmen, servers and switchboard operators are affected by the strike and lockout involving the 14 hotels.
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Open letter from Jo Wilding to British troops serving in Iraq
Submitted on 22 October, 2004 - 10:43
The US has asked the British government to send you north to free up forces for another offensive against Falluja. I’m writing to ask you to refuse any orders to deploy to Baghdad or other areas currently under US control.
General strike in Nigeria
Submitted on 22 October, 2004 - 10:43
Nigerian trade unions organised a four-day general strike against fuel price rises in October, and have vowed to call an indefinite stoppage if the government fails to lower the price of petrol.
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Briefing: How to solve the pensions crisis
Submitted on 22 October, 2004 - 10:43
Earlier this month the government’s Pensions Commission reported on the state of Britain’s pension provision.
Its main finding was that 11.3 million workers were not making any pension contributions, and that those who are making pension contributions are saving “too little”.
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Korean union federations prepare for general strike
Submitted on 22 October, 2004 - 10:43
The two major union federations in Korea — the Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU) and the more militant Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) — have formed joint headquarters for a proposed general strike.
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Appeals
Submitted on 22 October, 2004 - 10:43
Support the Basra oil union and a Workers' Conference
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Debate & discussion: A step towards equal rights?
Submitted on 22 October, 2004 - 10:40
Government proposals on the Civil Partnership Bill were amended in the House of Lords recently, ostensibly to extend the rights that the legislation will give to same-sex couples to other domestic arrangements, such as carers. The amendments were, according to the Government, wrecking tactics. Below Outrage gives a response and Maria Exall puts forward an alternative view.
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Debate & discussion: Solidarity?
Submitted on 22 October, 2004 - 10:29
Jane Ashworth (letters, Solidarity 3/59) complains about my comment on the “tilt... towards pro-war and pro-occupation elements in the labour movement” of the new and still somewhat mysterious “Labour Friends of Iraq” group.
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Debate & discussion: What future for the Socialist Alliance?
Submitted on 22 October, 2004 - 10:29
The Socialist Alliance Democracy Platform (SADP) emailed and posted a letter to the National Committee of the SWP on 27 September concerning the future of the Socialist Alliance (SA).
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Making refusal an option to win peace
Submitted on 22 October, 2004 - 10:28
Adam Maor and Matan Kaminer were among five young Israelis sentenced to two years in jail for refusing to serve in the Israeli army in the Occupied Territories — and possible further jail time if they continued to refuse.
An international campaign — as part of which Solidarity and Workers’ Liberty members in London picketed the Israeli Embassy regularly for a period of months — won early release for the five, on 15 September, and then, on 20 September, exemption for them from all further army service.
Adam and Matan were in London for the European Social Forum, and are now touring England to speak at meetings. They spoke to Martin Thomas.
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Don’t despair of a just solution
Submitted on 22 October, 2004 - 10:28
On 15 October the Israeli army began to wind up its latest incursion into Gaza — 16 days of military assaults against the Hamas militias who use home-made, but often lethal, rockets. The operation has killed around 100 Palestinians including civilians and some children.
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Debate & discussion: The meaning of multiculturalism
Submitted on 22 October, 2004 - 10:28
Of course it is good if schools teach children about a wide variety of cultures. But, contrary to Vicki Morris’s “defence of multiculturalism”, that is not what multiculturalism is about.
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No Sweat at the ESF
Submitted on 22 October, 2004 - 10:28
By Mark Osborn
On 15 October, at the same time as the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions leader, Subhi al Mashadani was being shouted down at Alexandra Palace, Conway Hall was packed for a benefit night with comedians Mark Thomas and Simon Munnery, to raise money for the Basra Unemployed Workers’ Centre, linked to the Union of the Unemployed of Iraq.
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Debate & discussion: “Good” and “bad” genocides
Submitted on 22 October, 2004 - 10:28
The media’s exclusive focus on the crisis on Sudan is no accident. When it’s an “Arab” militia involved it’s a bad genocide, when it’s puppet governments doing the genocide for the benefit of western corporations, no-one gets to know about it.
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Irish Republicans part 6: Republicanism and the left
Submitted on 22 October, 2004 - 10:11
By Thomas Carolan
In our survey of the history of Irish Republicanism we have reached the point beyond which the story is that of the emergence of the Provisional IRA/Sinn Fein in the last month of the 1960s and the first month of the 1970s — of the Catholic revolt in Northern Ireland which preceded that emergence and gave the Provisional IRA a mass base of support and sustenance for a war that would last 23 years (1971-94) and end with something like a deferred victory for the Provisional IRA.
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The Stalin-made “Trotskyist left”
Submitted on 22 October, 2004 - 10:11
In The Climate of Treason Andrew Boyle recounts a conversation which took place amongst a group of young communists in the summer of 1933, in Cambridge. Some of them would become the famous traitors who would be exposed in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, after having served the USSR as double agents within the British secret services for decades.
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Ramadan’s Islam
Submitted on 22 October, 2004 - 10:11
Rhodri Evans reviews To be a European Muslim, by Tariq Ramadan. (The Islamic Foundation, Leicester.)
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Royal blockbuster
Submitted on 22 October, 2004 - 10:11
Dan Nichols reviews The Monarchy, Channel Four
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