Workers' Liberty

While Hugh Edwards’ article (Solidarity 161) gives a useful account of Berlusconi’s history, there are a few further points that should be made about the current state of Italian politics.

Much of the current furore around Berlusconi, at least in the British press, has centred on the sex scandal. He has been criticised for an alleged affair with a much younger woman and over whether or not he paid for sex.

Redmond O’Neill, a leader of the Socialist Action group, has died aged 55 of cancer. Because O’Neill was an official in Ken Livingstone’s London mayoral administration, his death has received wide attention, for instance in the Guardian.

Ken Livingstone’s obituary describes him as a “lifelong revolutionary socialist and leading figure on the left for three decades”. In fact, for many years it has been an abuse of language to call O’Neill and his organisation socialist, or even really part of the left.

Students all over Europe — and, indeed, the world — are planning a wave of high-level direct action as part of the Global Week of Action, called by the “International Students Movement”.

Bruce Robinson reviews Race and Intelligence: Science's Last Taboo, 26 October, Channel 4. (Still viewable on Channel 4’s website).

Somali-born Rageh Omaar’s programme entered the “dangerous territory” of the purported relationship between race and intelligence. Every few years it reappears in the form of the assertion that IQ tests show black people to be less intelligent than whites and that this is caused by genetic differences.

On Saturday 31 October, “Islam4UK” — a hardline Islamist organisation descended from Al-Muhajiroun — was due to hold a demonstration through central London in which it would demand the unilateral imposition of religious Sharia law on the UK.

Badiaga, Camara, Doukouré, Dramé, Gakou, Kouyaté, Siby, Sylla are delegates from the Seni strikers, industrial cleaners at Kremlin-Bicêtre (Val-de-Marne). They are members of the CGT.

On the weekend of 31 October, British Muslims for Secular Democracy organised a demonstration against the (cancelled) Islam4UK march in central London. Its vice-chair, Dr Shaaz Mahboob, spoke to Solidarity, about their aims and political views.

British Muslims for Secular Democracy (BMSD) began in 2006. It was felt that the concept of democracy was being slowly eroded within the British Muslim community. More and more Muslims had the idea that politics is entirely about foreign policy — the Iraq war, Palestine and so on — and confidence in democratic forces and the governing principles of democracy were fading.

Bob Sutton reports on the Hands Off My Workmate conference.

On 17 October around 140 activists and trade unionists met in London for the first “Hands Off my Workmate” conference — a launch pad for a wider trade-union based campaign to defend migrant workers against checks and raids in the workplace.

The event, held at the School of African and Oriental Studies, had been set up by members of the Socialist Workers’ Party through SOAS Unison and UCU branches. In June this year, nine cleaners working at the university were grabbed in a brutal dawn raid by immigration services armed in full riot gear. All but one were later deported.

Since 22 October around two thousand students and university staff have been occupying several parts of the main university in Vienna, demanding an end to restrictive admissions practices, tuition fees, and the marketisation of education. Their action has swept across Austria, with seven universities now occupied around the country.

Very many people are revolted at the state of the world. Whether it be in reaction to war, racism, exploitation, oppression or the sickening displays of meanness and hypocrisy that effuse from the bowels of government, we have all experienced that visceral urge to tear the head off this system and those who marshal it.

We feel this way every day. But unlike those who either sink into despair or comfort themselves with a purely academic understanding of capitalism and its degradations, we — the socialists, revolutionaries, Marxists — aim to change things. We agitate, educate and organise to transform the world.

Paul Hampton reviews Stalin’s Nemesis: The Exile and Murder of Leon Trotsky by Bertrand Patenaude

In the early hours of 24 May 1940, twenty men in uniform led burst into the last refuge of Leon Trotsky. The muralist David Siqueiros and his Stalinist cohort riddled Trotsky’s Mexican sanctuary with over 300 shots.

Since 12 October, a new wave of strikes by around 4,000 undocumented migrant workers (sans-papiers, “without papers”) has swept France. At the time of writing, over 40 workplaces have been occupied by the workers, who are demanding “regularisation” (legal status), employment rights, and changes in immigration law to make life easier for France's hyper-exploited immigrant workforce.

Nasrin Parvaz is a member of the Worker-Communist Party of Iran (Hekmatist), one of the organisations involved in the protest against March4Sharia and the EDL. She spoke to Solidarity.

The example of the 19th District in Paris.

The Scottish Defence League (SDL), an offshoot of the English Defence League which has staged anti-Muslim demonstrations in several cities, plans an event in Glasgow on Saturday, 14 November.

South Yorkshire Stop the BNP was launched from a meeting of trade unionists, anti-fascists and residents of the city in July to mobilise working-class anti-fascism on the basis of “Real Problems, BN

Mike and Dave report from the Leeds demonstration against the English Defence League on 31 October

A picket at the Cubie Street Delivery Office in Glasgow on 31 October told Solidarity:

Tell us a little bit about the work you do.

Two big and important industrial disputes — on the buses and in the fire service — are currently going on in Sheffield.

The tiny island of Jersey may be about to host some major class struggle.

Picket out the scab centres

Large numbers of casuals are being employed in an attempt to break the strike. Under UK employment law, the use of agency staff as strikebreakers is illegal.

Paul Hampton reviews "Stalin's Nemesis: The Exile and Murder of Leon Trotsky", by Bertrand Patenaude.

On 1 December the Lisbon Treaty will come into force. The new European Union of 27 member states will acquire a more or less workable political structure, and one in many ways more unified than the old structures for six, ten, or fifteen states.

Back in January, John McFall, a mainstream New Labour MP and chair of Parliament's Treasury select committee, called for the complete nationalisation of Lloyds Bank and the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Dear comrade,

On 31 October, hundreds of supporters of the English Defence League marched through Leeds, despite the nearby presence of up to 1,000 anti-fascists. They were able to do so because of the misleadership of the anti-fascist movement by Unite Against Fascism and by your organisation, the SWP.

If they win the election, the Tories want to privatise the whole of Royal Mail. They also want to change the law to ban many of even those strikes still legal under the current anti-union laws.