Solidarity 252, 11 July 2012

Anti-capitalist, pro-what?

On 14 July activists meet for the first big public event of the “Anti-Capitalist Initiative” set up on 28 April and primarily initiated by a group of people who had just quit the Workers Power (WP) organisation. Ambiguities in the initiative could be harmful. There is a risk of botching it so as to function well neither as united front campaign, nor as broad forum, nor as party-type organisation Every battle in the working-class struggle, or for liberation, requires broad unity. If our aim is not just to fight immediate battles, but to replace capitalism altogether by a free cooperative...

Steel and call centre workers fight back in Greece

On 3 July, IMF chief Christine Lagarde said she was in “no mood for negotiations” over Greece’s enforced cuts programme. The ongoing strikes by Greek Steel and Phone Marketing workers show that Greek workers are in no mood for negotiations with national and international capitalism. A general meeting of the Greek Steel workers, on 29 June, decided to invite the Federation of Metal Workers and all the Trade Union Centres of Attica [the region around Athens] to open out the struggle to the whole metal industry, with a 24-hour solidarity strike as the first step. Dozens of workers’ associations...

Greece: the simmering revolt

Ed Maltby and Martin Thomas visited Thessaloniki and Athens between 4 and 9 July to find out more about what the Greek left is doing. This is their report. To build too much on quick impressions is foolish. Not to formulate impressions is worse than foolish. It leaves us guided only by generalisations and summaries which reach us only after being filtered by others’ preconceptions. Foolishness can lead to learning, by way of us formulating impressions and having them shown to be wrong (and why). Flat reliance on general formulas given in advance cannot. That said, here are our impressions of a...

Rendezvous in Northern Ireland?

In a hugely symbolic moment on 27 June, during a royal visit to Northern Ireland to mark her jubilee, the former commander of the IRA shook hands with the Queen. The man who commanded the force responsible for, amongst other things, the death of the Queen’s cousin Lord Mountbatten, exchanged a handshake with the woman whose armed forces murdered 14 innocent civil rights marchers in his hometown of Derry. This was, all proportions guarded, a real life instance of David Low’s famous cartoon “Rendezvous” in which Hitler (“the bloody assassin of the workers”) greets Stalin as “the scum of the...

Blame the teachers?

The figures for 16-18 year old who are not in education, employment or training — NEETs, as they are termed — have risen over the previous year (8.1% now compared to 7.5% in 2010). This must be good news for the coalition. NEETs are a fantastic opportunity for apportioning blame; if crime levels in particular area rise, find a correlation with NEET levels. If it is felt necessary to stir up the electorate by attacking the teaching profession (with its strong level of union activism) then suggest that this is all the fault of education and demand support for imminent reforms. The fact that one...

Unfair to First International

Eric Lee was unfair to the First International in his column, “Back to that first International” , ( Solidarity 251). He says, “The First International was Eurocentric, male-dominated and paralysed by in-fighting”. Yes, but so much more. The First International was founded in a genuine spirit of internationalism by working-class militants attempting to overcome national boundaries, to make solidarity and stop employers smashing up fragile organisation by scab labour. A little bit more “First Internationalism” would have been useful a few years ago when union bureaucrats and Labour leaders...

SWP's anti-banker populism

The response to the latest banking scandal from Britain’s biggest “revolutionary” group has been as uninspiring as it has been predictable. Rather than making any clear political demands around the crisis, or taking the opportunity to argue for social control, the Socialist Workers’ Party has opted for catch-cry populism and has made “jail the bankers” its sloganistic response. While the demand to bring people who are essentially corrupt thieves to some kind of justice (even bourgeois justice) has its place, to make this the encapsulation of one’s response is dismal. In fact, “sub-populist”...

PCS pick and mix

In the Guardian of 26 June, Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the PCS civil service union, declared that "Labour should be leading the defence of our welfare state... and arguing for... a real living wage, rent controls, a massive programme of housebuilding, and jobs. The unions have been doing this, but we shouldn't have to do it alone". The thought is reasonable, but out of kilter with what Serwotka, in unison with the Socialist Party which politically dominates his union's leadership, has argued for some time. The SP reckons that Labour became a through-and-through bourgeois party at...

The Labour Left at its worst

About a hundred people gathered in London on Saturday [7 July] to determine the future of Labour Briefing, whether it should remain an independent magazine or become the house journal of the Labour Representation Committee (LRC) of which John McDonnell is the chair. It decided, by 44 to 37 votes with a few abstentions, to go with the LRC. Although the debate was surprisingly cordial and everyone behaved well on the day, it was an old fashioned faction-fight with people on both sides seething with anger and bitterness. London Labour Briefing, as it was called at its inception, arose as the...

Help the AWL to raise £20,000

At Ideas for Freedom, we raised over £2,200 for our fundraising drive. If we raise the same again between now and September we will be on track to meet our target. The summer time offers many opportunities for raising funds. Why not organise a Workers’ Liberty BBQ in your area? £85 of the money we raised at IFF came from selling our specially produced “Liberty Ale”; now is the time to be as creative while raising the funds we need to keep the organisation fighting the battle for socialism. In the long summer evenings, as the weather improves (we hope), people may be more likely to stop and...

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