Solidarity 526, 27 November 2019

Building after 29 November climate strike

Millions of young people, in the UK and around the world, will take part in the 29 November global climate strike. In many workplaces workers will take actions, whether a lunchtime photo-shoot or delegations of workers joining city-wide climate protests. In the UK, particularly important this time are the UCU strikes, which coincide. We must build on the 29th for wider climate activism. Youth climate strikers should deepen our collective and democratic organisation on town-, city-, and region-wide bases. Youth strikers must work with workplace activists to build a clear programme of...

AEIP conference 14 December

Another Europe is Possible (AEIP) is holding its conference on 14 December. It has advertised “interactive and informative sessions and workshops, a thorough discussion of our strategy, and elections for [the] National Committee”. Some committee members argued that with the election on Thursday 12 December and conference on Saturday 14 December, we may not even know the make-up of the government on the day of the conference. It is difficult to submit thought-out strategy documents, because we do not know what the election result will be. The eventual compromise decision is that there will be a...

“Labour Transformed” launches

A new Labour left organisation is being launched from elements around Labour Campaigns Together. Labour Transformed has put out a launch statement and plans a conference on 14 December in London. It’s not clear why it has been scheduled to clash with the Another Europe Is Possible conference. Prime movers include James Meadway, formerly of Counterfire, and a former adviser to John McDonnell, and Seth Wheeler, formerly of Plan C. The statement contains much to agree with on anti-capitalism, socialism, internationalism and the importance of democracy in our movement. It says, rightly: “Whatever...

Israel-Palestine: potential for a future

By Daniel Randall At a recent meeting at the London School of Economics (14 November), hosted by the campaign group Yachad and others, Alon-Lee Green and Sally Abed from the Israeli Arab-Jewish socialist movement Standing Together were asked their views on the argument that the possibility of a two-state settlement is dead. Should progressives demand a “one-state solution”? This is an edited version of Alon-Lee’s response, published with his permission. “The idea of one state, as an immediate solution to the present situation, might sound nice, but how is it to be achieved? You have two...

Black Friday and the folly of anti-consumerism

In the US, Black Friday is the Friday following Thanksgiving (the fourth Thursday in November). The day revolves around large discounts in shops. Black Friday sales are notorious for the levels of chaos or even violence that occur as crowds pour into the shops and scramble for the discounted goods. To take an extreme example, in 2008 a stampede of shoppers on Long Island, New York, trampled a Walmart employee to death. Although Black Friday as a long-running annual tradition is specific to the United States because of its relationship to the holiday of Thanksgiving, retailers in other...

Another socialist for US president

Q: Tell us about your campaign for president A: My campaign is about putting forward ecosocialist solutions to the life and death issues we face: the climate emergency, growing inequality, the new nuclear arms race. All these crises flow from the structure of the capitalist system. My central campaign theme and program is an Ecosocialist Green New Deal. I am talking about socialising the energy, transportation, and manufacturing sectors of the economy in order to rapidly zero out greenhouse gas emissions and build 100% clean energy by 2030. During the World War 2 emergency, the US federal...

The hijab: “preventing common impositions”

Maryam Namazie is an activist with the Council of Ex-Muslims and other secularist groups . See here for wider debate in Solidarity on the ban of the hijab in schools . On the issue of child veiling, a state ban on conspicuous religious symbols for children is an important defence of children’s rights. Children are not parental property Children are not the property of their parents. They are individuals with rights and bodily integrity. And just because their parents believe in child veiling or FGM and male circumcision doesn’t mean they should be automatically entitled to impose their views...

Neurodiversity at work: a social model

Fatima’s autism makes her hypersensitive to bright lights, so she can’t work in our office, poor thing. Or: The bright lights in our office make Fatima distressed as she is autistic and unusually sensitive to light. She can work here if we turn them down. Ed’s dyspraxia makes him so clumsy that he is a danger at work. Or: The workplace is arranged in a way that is dangerous to Ed, who is dyspraxic, and to other workers. Faryal is dyscalculic and cannot be trusted with people’s money, so she cannot possibly work in the finance department. Or: Some ways of working in the finance department might...

The neurodiversity manifesto

Earlier this year, a group of Labour Party members launched an Autism and Neurodiversity Manifesto, after a steering group had spent three years consulting with various organisations. All of the members of the group are neurodivergent, as one of the key principles is to involve advice from the very people the policies would affect. The other key principles of the group are to follow the principles of the Labour Party, to use the social model of disability, to use the neurodiversity approach that recognises that humanity is neurologically diverse and that those differences should be accepted...

Diary of an engineer: Hot Ash

I’ve been following the operations assistants around the plant to get an understanding of their duties. The messiest and most routine job on the plant is dealing with what’s left over after the waste is burned. During shut-downs I’ve stood on the grate and tried not to slip on the slanting metal bars. It’s a steep incline of steps nicknamed “piano keys” which push up and down, rolling the waste “downhill” as it burns. Above my head is a huge space covered in racks of narrow metal tubes that curl back on themselves and hang down from the distant roof like chandeliers from a cathedral ceiling...

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