Solidarity 350, 21 January 2015

On the Monday following the massacres at Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket in Paris, tens of thousands marched in German cities against Germany’s new right-wing anti-Muslim movement, Pegida (“Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the West”, or, more precisely, “of the Occident”). In Pegida’s stronghold, Dresden, 35,000 turned out against them. In Munich, 20,000. In Hanover, 17,000. In Leipzig, 30,000. In most places, Pegida demonstrations (which are always on Mondays) were much smaller. Pegida’s turnout in Dresden was big — 25,000 — but still smaller than the counter...

The left-wing National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts network (NCAFC) has initiated a left slate of candidates to stand for President and the five Vice President positions in the National Union of Students (NUS). Workers’ Liberty member Beth Redmond from City & Islington College is standing for President, and RS21 member Barnaby Raine of Oxford University for Vice President (Union Development). Both are also standing for the part-time Block of 15 section of NUS National Executive. Unaffiliated socialist Hattie Craig, former Birmingham Guild of Students Vice President, is standing for VP...

I had been interested in politics from a young age, but I thought being political meant watching the news and paying attention in history lessons. It wasn’t until the Tories were elected in summer 2010 that I began to think about politics in a serious way. I was horrified by the cuts. When I heard that a few people were setting up an anti-cuts group at my university, I was hesitant about going along, but I did, and and really enjoyed meeting like-minded people. It started small — having debates, writing articles for our blog and the college paper, leafleting for meetings. But these are the...

The Tories are threatening the NHS. But they register that people are bothered about the issue, and they must step carefully. And some people in the ruling class have “internalised” the pressure on them from the labour movement enough that they themselves cherish the NHS. How do the ruling class explain themselves, and what do they think they must look out for? I was given some insight on this recently when a business “grandee”, chair of many companies and member of many official committees and working groups, visited our school for an “inspirational address” to years 12 and 13. He framed his...

Two books about Islamism, Ed Husain’s The Islamist and Maajid Nawaz’s Radical , have an obvious relevance after Charlie Hebdo. There’s some crossover: the two writers knew each other in Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT) (indeed Nawaz, who’s a bit younger, was Husain’s protege), and then, a decade later, set up the Quilliam Foundation together. Interestingly, at the time Husain wrote The Islamist , Nawaz was yet to leave HT, and he figures in the book as a possibly-dissident yet still-loyal member. Husain’s book is more informative on how Islamist movements more generally operate in “Muslim communities”...

Ioanna Gaitani is a supporter of the Greek socialist group Internationalist Workers’ Left (DEA) and a Syriza member of the Greek parliament. The people tried to overthrow the memoranda between 2010-13, but they couldn’t overcome the state’s reaction, the brutality of the police and legal system, the betrayals or lack of planning from their own trade union leaders. It was natural that they started moving away from their political and trade union leaders (from the neo-liberal parties) and place their hopes on Syriza. Their interest was elevated towards the question of power, even in a “distorted...

If a left, or left-led, government takes office in Greece after 25 January, then what are the prospects for it winning concessions on debt from the EU leaders? French finance minister Michel Sapin says “it is absolutely fair and legitimate that discussions should take place between the EU and the new Greek government”, trying to secure “the stability of the eurozone”. Yet Germany's finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, says “there is no alternative” to the current programme. Finland's prime minister, Alexander Stubb, promises “a resounding no” to concessions. Franceso Saraceno, an economist who...

On 19 January Oxfam reported that the richest one per cent own 48% of the whole world's wealth. Their super-domination has increased in the economic depression, from 44 per cent in 2009. At this rate it will be more than 50 per cent in 2016. The top one per cent had an average wealth of US$2.7m per adult in 2014. The bottom 80% have, between them, just 5.5% of global wealth, an average US$3,851 per adult. Just 80 ultra-billionaires have the same wealth as the poorest 50 per cent. This economic inequality is a different thing from a few having much more musical or scientific talent than the...

Percy Bysshe Shelley is known as a romantic poet. He was also a radical, militant atheist, campaigner for women’s rights and Catholic emancipation in Ireland. His first poem Queen Mab, written when he was only 20 years old, was used by the Chartists as an educational text (they may well have been unaware of who wrote it). In Queen Mab, Shelley uses the literary device of a fantasy fairy taking a child away from Earth to gain a perspective upon it. It looks at how seemingly permanent and strong systems from the beginning of time have collapsed and fallen. It looks at tyranny and injustice...

Colin Foster ( Solidarity 349) still seems to be struggling to understand what I am driving at in my “stream of letters of complaint about John Lansman’s article in Solidarity 343”. I am sorry if I am being unclear. Let me try and clarify. I objected to the article not because it was wrong (it wasn’t) or because it was right wing (which it was by dint of what it didn’t say) but because it was pointless. It was not a programme for action, it didn’t raise any points that would be contentious or even interesting to Solidarity readers and it didn’t inform. So why am I concerned by it? Because, it...