Workers' Liberty

700 protesters gathered in the village of Codnor, in Derbyshire, on 16 August 2008, and put down an important marker for anti-fascism.

As General Pervez Musharraf announced his resignation — in an unscheduled nationally televised speech of one hour — private television channels showed an instant response of jubilation, welcoming the decision, in all four provinces.

As we go to press (20 August 2008) a 24-hour strike action by local government workers, members of UNISON, UNITE, and the GMB is taking place.

The TUC has responded to the economic crisis by demanding, “action to stop unemployment growing further still… Unions are looking for action to boost demand; we urge the Bank to cut interest rates and the Government to take the cap off public sector wage increases.”

To date Russian troops remain in Georgia very close to the capital Tbilisi. As western diplomatic pressure on Russia gets stronger, Russia appears to want a semi-permanent presence in the de facto mini-states within Georgia’s borders — South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

The Socialist Workers Party’s behaviour at last Saturday’s [16 August 2008] protest against the British National Party’s Red White and Blue festival was spectacularly crass. But nothing they did was odder than the text of the petition they were circulating to gather contact names.

CIVIL SERVICE JOB SECURITY

PCS members are currently being balloted on a job security agreement struck with the Civil Service. This agreement, called the protocols, is the result of long running union agitation over job security. Members should vote in favour, but be clear as to limitations and weaknesses.

Recently Jon Pike, chair of Engage (a group set up to defeat a boycott of Israeli academia), posted a critique of the University and Colleges Union (UCU) to its activist list. Jon is also a member of the UCU NEC. In this critique he assesses the union’s democratic credentials, its ability to stand up for academic freedom, and its willingness to fight all discrimination.

The chair of the Government's official medical drugs-regulating body, has said that “the drugs are so expensive” because of the pharmaceutical companies’ drive for profits.

Against the “National Challenge”

The National Challenge scheme, launched in June 2008, is supposed to push up school standards.

The contemporary urban landscape of Shanghai very much reflects China’s opening up policy since the 1980s. Glistening skyscrapers are juxtaposed with disappearing, working class residential districts.

Noel Washington, Senior Vice-President in Victoria of Australia’s big Construction, Forestry, Mining, and Energy Union (CFMEU) faces six months prison for refusing to talk to industrial police about what happened at a union meeting outside work hours.

Four months after a decisive election victory, Italy’s right-wing government has pushed through a series of racist anti-immigrant measures.

The “First International Labour Conference in Iraq”, called by a range of Iraqi trade-union organisations for February 2009 in Erbil (in Kurdish northern Iraq), has won support from Australian and US union organisations.

On 9 August thirteen refugees from Iraqi Kurdistan began a hunger strike at Campsfield detention centre with this statement: "[The British state is] trying to deport us to the most dangerous country in the world. We want people to listen to us. It is better to be dead than to return to Iraq."

A group of around one hundred Israeli academics and peace activists have initiated an appeal against military action by Israel against Iran. This the text of the appeal:

Interview with an Anti-BNP Organiser

Q: How did the Nottingham group come together?

A: Anti-fascist work in Nottingham had dwindled to near nothing up to a couple of years ago. A number of meetings were called after the BNP's electoral successes in Barking and Dagenham in 2006. These meetings attracted up to 25 people from most left groups, even the SWP at that stage, as well as some anarchists from or around Nottingham University.

The mid-to-late 1970s were something of a high point for organised fascists. The National Front could mobilise thousands of members for confrontational demonstrations. Their street stalls and paper sales littered the pavement, Their outspoken racism attracted sympathy, if not outright support. Violence, provocation and intimidation were the order of the day.

The 16 August demonstration against the BNP’s “Red, White and Blue" Festival was an important and politically instructive event. Important because it marked a departure from what has passed for anti-fascism over the last ten years. Instructive because it revealed the severe limitations and sectarian lunacy of the Socialist Workers Party and their “Unite Against Fascism” front group.

Something about the SWP’s recent behaviour smacks of more than the usual sectarianism. Desperation might be closer to the mark

Part 1 was in Solidarity 3/136. In this second part, the author traces the history of the German workers’ movement in the decade before Hitler consolidated power. It was published in the US Marxist journal Fourth International in February 1943.

The author traces the history of the German workers’ movement in the decade before Hitler consolidated power. It was published in the US Marxist journal Fourth International in February 1943. Sherry Mangan (writing under the name Terence Phelan) was a well-known US journalist and secretly, using his journalistic assignments as cover, a key organiser of the international Trotskyist movement of the time.

The Workers’ Climate Action network was launched in January 2008. Working within the camp, and with activists within the labour movement, WCA has helped this summer’s Climate Camp move on a long way.

The mixed bag of the anti-capitalist movement is a bewildering place for your average Trotskyist — but beyond all the political arguments it was an incredibly impressive, inclusive and participative exercise in collective living, self-organisation and fighting the state.

Who could not be impressed by the sight of the Jamaican Usain Bolt running faster than any human being in history? Or other awe-inspiring performances on the track, in the pool, in the veladrome or countless other venues? All that training, the coaching, the commitment, the dedication, the sacrifice, to go “citius altius fortius” — faster, higher, stronger.

As an excellent article in the French revolutionary weekly Rouge (31 July) documents, the Olympics have been a major political self-boosting operation for the Chinese regime.

This fascinating programme told the full story about the “black power” protest by Tommie Smith and John Carlos at a medal ceremony during the 1968 Mexico Olympics. Although the story is well known (and the image even more famous), especially in America, it was worth telling again, in this film, by the athletes themselves.

The Ottoman Empire existed from 1299 until its abolition by Mustafa Kemal’s Turkish nationalists in 1923. At the height of its power, during the 16th and 17th centuries, the Empire spread from the Atlantic coast of Morocco to the Persian Gulf and from southeastern Europe down to the Red Sea.

The latest issue of Solidarity contains two articles about the American presidential elections, offering two different perspectives with the aim of stimulating debate. That’s certainly positive, except for one thing. I can’t tell the difference between the two points of view.