Workers' Liberty

Religious indoctrination and religious segregation has no place in schools. Children should be able to learn and work out their ideas without officially imposed or sponsored indoctrination from priests, imams, or rabbis. There should be no faith schools. Schools should deal in inquiry and reason, not faith.

A postscript to the discussion in Solidarity of the politics of our former comrades who now purvey a stupid right-wing caricature, a reductio ad absurdum, of AWL politics on Iraq.

In the Guardian on 15 January, Alan Milburn, Tony Blair’s chosen general election coordinator, set out New Labour’s prospectus for the general election likely in May.

The effective economic policy of the US occupation in Iraq has been: confiscate Iraq’s oil revenues; hand out the cash to the US administration’s American and Iraqi cronies, with minimal supervision; justify this in the name of the virtues of privatisation; and impose decrees mandating privatisation as the only way Iraq’s economy can develop in future.

On Sunday 9 January 1905 — according to the calendar that was then in use in Russia, which was 13 days behind that in use in Europe — troops in St Petersburg opened fire on a peaceful procession of workers, led by a priest, Father Gapon. The demonstration was marching to deliver a humble petition to the Russian aristocratic ruler, the Tsar.

Hundreds were killed.

Since November we have witnessed a marked increase in activities and the formation of a number of branches of FWCUI in many workplaces and factories.

Cathy Nugent reviews “Cocaine”, Channel Four, and “If… drugs were legal”, 12 January, BBC2

Dan Nichols reviews “Yasmine”, Channel 4

Sacha Ismail reviews “Are Muslims hated?”, Channel 4, 8 January

An AGM for the Socialist Alliance has been called for Saturday 5 February, 2pm, at ULU, Malet Street, London. If the SWP have their way it will be the last ever conference of the Socialist Alliance. They are proposing resolutions to wind up the Socialist Alliance and donate its remaining funds to Respect. Nine current or former members of the SA Executive have written a letter of protest.

On NUS NEC, the factions have started cross-dressing. Time was when you pretty much knew who was left and who was right. Now some of the lefties — self-styled revolutionaries, no less — are taking the lead in voting down anything which smacks of socialist principle.

SERIAL DEFENDER

Ex-Red Ken has done it again. He has reiterated his defence of fundamentalist religious leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi, whom he invited to speak in London last year, despite al-Qaradawi’s latest outburst, contending that the Indian Ocean tsunami was God’s punishment for “acts of abomination” committed by the victims.

The release of the four British citizens detained without trial by the US government at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba is not a sign of a new-found respect for human rights in the Bush regime. According to a senior official quoted in the New York Times, three-quarters of the 550 remaining prisoners in Guantanamo Bay have no intelligence to provide, but are being kept in prison “to keep them off the battlefield”. But there would appear to be no evidence that they were ever on the battlefield in the first place.

Since late 1999, there has been a strong movement in favour of holding a referendum to determine Aceh’s future status, as the peaceful way of solving the conflict.

On the initiative of former president Abdurrahman Wahid, negotiations were held between the Indonesian Government and GAM, leading to a “Humanitarian Pause” in June 2000, loosely supervised by the Henri Dunant Centre in Geneva. The armed forces were never happy about this accord and the Pause barely affected the level of killings, which steadily mounted. The talks have now been suspended indefinitely.

From a statement by the People’s Democratic Party (PRD) of Indonesia.

Promises of aid from richer countries to the countries hit by the Indian Ocean tsunami of 26 December 2004 have increased. Australia now heads the list, promising US$800 million. The USA has increased its initial offer of $35 million to $350 million, and on 6 January, embarrassed, dissolved its so-called “core group” of aid-giving US allies in favour of UN coordination.

The following extract is taken from Frederick Engels’ Condition of the Working Class in England.

Writing in 1845, Engels described the misery of life for English workers at this time, particularly in and around Manchester. The book is a passionate indictment of capitalism, and is well worth reading for that alone. But it is also full of ideas.
The nature of capitalism in the UK has changed in some respects — just as early industries were subject to many booms and slumps — but the imperatives of capitalist accumulation still rule our lives. The basic struggle between bosses, out to maximise profits, and workers, struggling to maintain a standard of living, remains in all essentials the same.

The run-up to Iraq’s elections on 30 January has seen an escalation of bombings and shootings by Sunni ultra-Islamist militias, groups whose leaders condemn polling stations as “centres of atheism” and the whole idea of elections as “pagan”.

One statement that must be corrected in Amina’s letter (Solidarity, 3/64) is Respect “takes no concrete stand in favour of abortion or homosexuality”.

I’m convinced by Paul Hampton’s argument about the ineffectiveness of Fairtrade as a way to tackle sweatshops (Solidarity, 3/64).

I also find the Fairtrade approach distasteful: it emphasises what is different between people in the developed world and people in the third world over what we have in common. From our end, it sounds like “what can I, who have so much (including a fearful chocolate addiction), do for you, who have so little (no shoes on your feet, no roof over your head, and dirty, illiterate children)?”

A Haitian court has ordered the Grupo M Free Trade Zone located on the Haitian-Dominican border to pay 1.5 million gourdes (approximately US$40,000) in damages for violations of workers’ rights.

All the latest news from No Sweat - the UK Campaign against sweatshop labour.

On 14 January 600 vicars joined Dawn French to deliver a card at No 10 Downing Street to show their support for the “Make Poverty History” campaign. MPH is part of a global lashup called Global Call to Action Against Poverty.

The Group of Eight (G8) is an alliance of the governments of the world’s richest seven industrialised countries PLUS RUSSIA, and IS DUE TO meet on 6–8 July at Gleneagles in Scotland. Paul Hampton explains why it is important to demonstrate against IT

A round-up of the latest news from working-class struggles around the world.

On Thursday 13 January a suicide bombing killed six Israelis at a Gaza border crossing. The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, formally tied to the Fatah movement, claimed responsibility. Afterwards, the Israeli government of Ariel Sharon broke off all contact with the newly-elected Palestinian government of Abu Mazen (Mahmud Abbas).

Cath Fletcher looks at two recent studies of Italy’s Prime Minister, and assesses the direction of Italian politics.

UNISON’s 1.3 million members begin voting on 25 January in the election for the union’s General Secretary. Current General Secretary Dave Prentis is expected to win — not least because there are two left challengers, who will split the vote for change.

Brighton and Hove Teaching Assistants, Michelin workers, UNISON activists in Walsall, BBC workers against job cuts.

The TUC has called a national day of campaigning over changes to public sector pensions on 18 February. The changes vary across the public sector but all public sector workers will face a higher retirement age, and some will lose final salary schemes.