Solidarity 3/162
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Download pdfs of the paper and of the accompanying posters for Ideas For Freedom winter 2009 and for solidarity with the postal workers (see "attachments").
Solidarity 3/162, 5 November 2009
Develop Support Committees
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The example of the 19th District in Paris.
A new campaign for migrant rights
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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.
The City Hall office road to socialism?
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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.
SWP crisis: Rot at the heart of “united front” work
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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.
Organise support for Leeds bin workers
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Opposing Islamism and the EDL
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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.
“The key is to struggle for equal rights for everyone.”
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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.
Re-promoting secular democracy
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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.
Berlusconi: some further questions
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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.