Solidarity 126, 7 February 2008

Serbia's colony demands independence

The narrow victory of Boris Tadic in Serbia’s presidential election on 3 February slightly lessens the tensions over the independence of Kosova. But only slightly. Kosova’s elected government, currently operating under UN control, was likely to declare independence immediately if Tadic’s rival Tomislav Nikolic had won the presidency. Now it will delay a few weeks. Kosova, 90% Albanian in population, was conquered by Serbia in 1912, and again after World War Two. It was a “colony” of Serbia for most of the 20th century. Its people have a right to self-determination. From about 1974 to 1988...

How many more bubbles to burst?

When the scandal broke about a single trader running up £4.7 billion in losses for the French bank Société Général, the first response from financiers was shock because they thought Société Général was particularly well-regulated — “the gold standard”, one called it. Now France’s finance minister says that “internal control procedures didn’t work”. It is not a problem of Société Général. It is an endemic problem of capitalism, and especially of the highly “financialised” capitalism of the period since 1980. For all that the apologists of capitalism will tell you that the system fosters...

Kenya: thieves fall out

The December election was, by all accounts except the Kenyan government’s, rigged to ensure the “re-election” of president Mwai Kibaki. Since then Kenya has been plunged into ethnically-based violence. Many hundreds have been killed and many hundreds of thousands displaced — overwhelmingly from among the poor. The US, Britain and their allies saw Kenya as a relatively stable ally in the war on terror and a bulwark against Islamist threats from Somalia and Sudan. Now the threat to stability in East Africa is so great that the big capitalist powers, who at first in effect congratulated Kibaki on...

Union action wins legal status for migrants

In France, bosses have limited powers to regularise migrant workers; and in recent strikes in the Essonne region, this has been used against them. Last summer, at nine branches of the Buffalo Grill steakhouse chain, around 30 staff went on strike to demand that their bosses regularise them. They occupied one restaurant for several days, and most of them won legal status. Shortly after the Buffalo Grill strike, workers at an industrial laundrette called Modeluxe struck in solidarity with their undocumented co-workers’ demands for regularisation. The strikes have changed the way union activists...

King's students banned... from reading!

Students at King’s College London staged two “read-ins” in a cafeteria last month in protest at regulations which bar students from reading, writing or using laptops while eating their lunch. A few dozen students participated in the protests which took place at the Chapters cafeteria on the Strand Campus at lunchtime on 15 and 17 January, flouting the rules either by quietly sitting at the tables studying, leafleting other students about the read-in, or carrying out a survey about what people think of the rules. During the read-in the security guards seemed confused and carefully studied the...

Respect Renewal in NUS?

While the SWP lost dozens of its own members to Galloway’s populist, Stalinist split from Respect, Student Respect remained almost totally solid, with the vast majority of independents siding with SWSS. The positive consequence of this has been a left turn by Student Respect — in terms of a willingness to talk about women’s liberation and abortion rights, for instance — as well as a greater willingness to engage with other socialists like the AWL. Nonetheless, Respect/SWSS is still supporting Ruqayyah Collector, the very soft-left candidate put forward by Student Broad Left/Socialist Action...

For left unity in the student movement!

ENS has nominated four candidates for the full-time positions on National Union of Students National Executive. These are: • President: Daniel Randall, Sheffield University • National Secretary (and Block of 12): Heather Shaw, Sheffield College • National Treasurer: Koos Couvée, Sussex University • VP Further Education: Laura Simmons, Park Lane College, Leeds Our common statement outlines why we are standing: We are standing because we want a campaigning NUS that mobilises many thousands of students in mass action to win; because we want a democratic union controlled from below by its members...

The free-speech fight that shaped the New Left

There is a quotation from the ninth chapter of Moby Dick which I think is very appropriate, kind of our motto: ‘Woe unto him who would pour oil on the waters when God has brewed them into a gale.’ Mario Savio, a student leader of the Free Speech Movement [Berkeley] had everything in terms of American superlatives: the largest and longest mass blockade of a police operation ever seen … It was, in sum, by far the most gigantic student protest movement ever mounted in the United States on a single campus. Hal Draper, Berkeley: The New Student Revolt The momentous events that unfolded from...

Against the "Swedish Model"

The law on prostitution is about to change. Whether this will be for the better or the worse, however, remains to be seen. Former Home Office Minister Fiona MacTaggart is calling for new legislation based on that implemented in Sweden in 1999, which criminalises the men who buy sex rather than the women who sell it. The call for a review of prostitution laws has been supported by leading Labour MPs, while deputy leader Harriet Harman has defined prostitution as violence against women. At the moment, the buying and selling of sex is not illegal in the UK, only certain forms in which it is...

Workers' Climate Action Network

On 13 January 2007 the Workers’ Climate Action network had its first meeting. The initiative is about working for national unity between the labour movement and activists from the environmental milieu, to change current trade union policy, and create just transition plans for a future of sustainable industry. We are in the process of building a website which will serve as an educational resource. Our aims: To function as a grassroots campaign, joining picket lines rather than simply lobbying trade union or government hierarchy. Workers are demonised by some in the environmental movement as a...

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