Solidarity 332, 28 July 2014

Where now for Brazil?

The World Cup has just ended in Brazil. Contrary to what we might expect the political situation remains, with the exception of the struggles of normally active groups, very calm and steady. This is, however, definitely not due to a lack of good reasons to protest. In the social media the changes were quick to be noted: the most common hashtags went from #NÃOVAITERCOPA (There will not be a World Cup) and #COPAPRAQUEM? (World Cup for whom?) to #VAITERCOPASIM (There will be a World Cup). Bit-by-bit, both the leftists and the conservative elite who insisted there would not be a World Cup, got...

Half the UK targeted for fracking

By Michael Johnson On Monday 28 July, the Government announced that about half of the UK was now ripe for fracking, with energy firms encouraged to bid for on-shore oil and gas licenses for the first time in six years. National parks, world heritage sites and areas of outstanding natural beauty are included in the sites advertised for exploration, though the government has said that such applications would be granted only “exceptional circumstances and in the public interest.” It is worrying that such sites would be considered for fracking at all — and the oversight is little consolation when...

“Trojan Horse”: the official reports

“Trojan Horse” has become journalistic shorthand for an apparent attempt by a small group in East Birmingham to secure control of local non-faith schools and impose policies and practices in keeping with the very conservative (Salafist/Wahhabi) version of Islam which they hold. In November 2013 a copy of an incomplete, unsigned and unaddressed letter was brought to the attention of officers at Birmingham City Council (BCC). This document describes a five-step strategy to take over governance of a number of schools in Birmingham as a prelude to changing their ethos, curriculum and practices...

Lessons from Birmingham

There have been two reports into Birmingham schools; one commissioned by Birmingham Council, written by Ian Kershaw, a former Head Teacher from Coventry, the other by Peter Clarke, former counter-terrorism chief at the Met. Both reports relied on similar sources: comments from people who had worked at the schools in various capacities, including head teachers and teachers who had been forced out because they objected to the way the schools were being run. Clarke’s report was heavily influenced by the testimony of over 50 people he interviewed. Both reports came to similar, shocking...

Discovering what socialism should really mean

Socialism has always been a bit of an odd word for me. Growing up, reading about history I could never really understand what it meant. The Labour Party called itself a “democratic socialist party”, the totalitarian dictatorship that ruled Russia was known as the “Union of Soviet Socialist Republics” and Saddam Hussein’s thuggish ruling party in Iraq was known as the “Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party”. So in what sense could it mean anything? At the same time it was becoming clearer and clearer to me, the older I got, that society was laid out in a certain way and that socialism was an alternative...

We all belong to Glasgow

The Glasgow girls, are a group of school students from Drumchapel High School in Glasgow, who in 2005 took it upon themselves to campaign for the release of their friend Agnesa Murselaj, a Roma girl from Kosovo who was detained by immigration police in a dawn raid. Agnesa’s whole family were placed in Yarls Wood detention centre and faced deportation back to a country where Roma people faced persecution. The area of Glasgow where she lived housed a large number of asylum seekers from across the globe, and many went to Drumchapel High. It was not uncommon for students at the school to disappear...

How the working-class party was built

The German Social-Democratic Party (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, SPD) was the largest working class party built so far by Marxists, yet it is mostly remembered today with infamy for the great betrayal of 1914. When its Reichstag deputies voted for war credits, Lenin was so shocked by a copy of the party’s paper Vorwärts justifying the decision he thought it was forgery. How could a party with over a million members, that garnered over four million votes (a third of the electorate) and 110 MPs, capitulate to its own government and throw sand in the face of international solidarity...

Opposing the war inside Israel

Two and a half weeks into the horror in Gaza. Netanyahu convenes the Inner Cabinet. According to the radio news, the agenda will include both a possible ceasefire and “expanding the operation”. Reportedly, some IDF generals have become tired of “pussyfooting at the margins of Gaza” and prepared plans for penetrating deeper. The number of fatalities in the Gaza Strip passed the eight hundred mark. As long as the State of Israel employed in Gaza only its airforce, the number of dead was making double-digit increments. Since the artillery came on the scene, the jumps are in three digits. After...

Israel: stop the war on the people of Gaza!

As we publish (29 July) over 1,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 6,000 injured since Israel began its assault on Gaza on 8 July. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has just stated Israel’s military campaign will continue for some time, and that he has no intention of heeding calls for a ceasefire. The UN says 73% of the Palestinian fatalities are civilian, and over 200 are children. Some neighbourhoods have been destroyed, homes have been turned to rubble. Much of Gaza is now without electricity. Before the conflict Gaza was poor and isolated with over 40% living below the...

The Portuguese Revolution of 1974-5: “The left had no strategy and the right did”

Miguel Perez, a Lisbon-based socialist activist and historian who delivered a talk on the Portuguese Revolution of 1974-5, spoke to Solidarity about his view of events. Why was there so much left-wing ferment in the Portuguese officer corps in the 1970s? Why did Portugal’s colonial war have such a big effect on the officer corps, the army and society? The colonial wars in Africa exhausted the state. People found themselves pushed into a war they didn’t want. The officers knew, by looking at the experience that French colonialism had been through in Algeria, that the war could not be won. So...

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