Solidarity 033, 26 June 2003

Iraqi union demands jobs or cash for jobless

On Wednesday 25 June six British soldiers and 80 Iraqis were killed in during two ambushes south of Amara in southern Iraq. The press could not say who — Ba’ath Party militia or its Shia opponents — was involved. The US-UK “liberation” of Iraq has required a lot of heavy policing. It is now coming under fierce attack... An unemployed workers’ group has been set up in Iraq. Here is their statement: In the aftermath of the US devastating war on Iraq and on the following May Day, we, a group of activists in the labour movement, have founded the Union of the Unemployed in Iraq-UUI. Our decision to...

George Orwell: documenting the Spanish civil war

Chris Hickey begins a two-part feature about the politics and work of George Orwell. Part two here . Born 100 years ago and dying in 1950, it is difficult to think of an English writer in the last 100 years who has aroused stronger feelings and been the subject of more political dispute than George Orwell. Yet the fame and controversy that surround Orwell’s name essentially derive from just two books, Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, produced in the last 6 or 7 years of his life. It is impossible, however, to understand either Orwell or these two particular works outside of the tumultuous...

Letters

Two pleas for unity in action Protestant autonomy: imperialist prop? A plea for unity in action A bother, upset and disappointment I have is to see the continuing 'spat' between the many 'left'/Marxist groups. All seem to concentrate not on a main enemy, capitalism, but on each other. The analysis of the present situation seem pretty sound in the myriad of these groups but they are all obsessed with what was the Soviet Union. Do they all realise it's gone? Marx and Engels were right in their time, and even more right, were they here today. Would have been just as right if the Soviet Union had...

Ideas for freedom

By Duncan Morrison More than 160 activists gathered for Workers’ Liberty’s annual Ideas for Freedom summer school, 21–22 June. The event gathers socialists to discuss both contemporary and historical issues. Saturday began with a discussion on Iraq and Iran after the Gulf war, led by Clive Bradley from Workers’ Liberty and Maryam from Workers’ Left Unity Iran. It’s parallel was a contentious session on anti-Semitism and the left, addressed by the Guardian journalist Linda Grant. Whilst the vast majority of people in the audience accepted Linda’s assessment of the worrying cross-over between...

Is the AWL headed down the Shachtman road?

Not all our supporters agreed with Solidarity’s emphasis and use of slogans during the recent war on Iraq. The following contribution is by Mark Sandell. It was written in May. We will print responses in the next issue. We welcome other short contributions on this topic. Our paper when Bush’s war on Iraq started (Solidarity 3/27) was inadequate and weak; it failed the test in the time of war. It also highlighted a drift in the politics of the AWL in the direction of lesser-evilism that has echoes of Shachtman’s political suicide. The slogan “No to war, no to Saddam” was an excellent...

Platform: What is a Muslim?

In this comment, an Algerian socialist, Chedid Khairy , takes issue with the attitude to Islamic fundamentalism in the anti-war movement of the British SWP and its international co-thinkers. The comment is translated from no.3 of Solidal, the newsletter of the French movement Solidarités Alternatives Algérie, in which a leading part is played by members resident in France of the Algerian PST [Socialist Workers' Party, no relation to the British SWP, but connected with the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire in France]. The journal L'Étincelle for January 2003 gave over much space to the anti-war...

Frontline poetry: The Diggers' Song

You noble Diggers all, stand up now, stand up now, You noble Diggers all, stand up now, The waste land to maintain, seeing Cavaliers by name Your digging does disdain, and persons all defame Stand up now, Stand up now. Your houses they pulldown, stand up now, stand up now, Your houses they pull down, stand up now. Your houses they pull down to fight poor men in town, But the gentry must come down, and the poor shall wear the crown. Stand up now, Diggers all. With spades and hoes and ploughs, stand up now, stand up now, With spades and hoes and ploughs, stand up now, Your freedom to uphold...

The 1983 Heresy Hunt: 2

This is article three in the four part series as originally published in 2003. For an edited version of all four articles click here Heresy Hunted 1 Heresy Hunted 2 Heresy Hunted 3 Heresy Hunted 4 Sean Matgamna continues his article on 'The last time we were heresy-hunted', dealing with the campaign against us in 1983 by the Workers’ Revolutionary Party — then a high-profile group with a daily paper, Newsline — for pointing to circumstantial evidence that they were being funded by the Libyan and Iraqi dictatorships. They were — the truth came out soon after, in 1985, when the WRP imploded —...

Firefighters: cuts for pay. A bitter pill to swallow

The FBU pay dispute ended on 12 June. Worn down by government and media propaganda, and government threats to impose a settlement, and demoralised by their executive's refusal to fight, firefighters and control operators around the country had reluctantly accepted the employers' latest offer. At a conference in Glasgow on 12 June their reps, most with great bitterness, respected their mandates and voted 3:1 for the executive's 'accept' motion. Here we print the motion and those put up in opposition to it, and assessments by firefighters of the dispute and the future. Executive Council motion...

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