Middle East

Should the left say: "Let the Kurds die!"?

Over a thousand Kurdish people gathered in Trafalgar Square, London, on Saturday 1 November, taking part in a day of international solidarity for the Kurds fighting ISIS (Daesh, "Islamic State") in Kobane. Among the small number of people at the protest who were not Kurdish were a handful of representatives of the Socialist Party and SWP. Both these groups have a problem. Both campaign to stop the US bombing which is currently helping the Kurds resist IS. They do not just do as Solidarity and Workers' Liberty do - express no confidence in the US, refuse to endorse its campaign. They...

Support the Kurds! Resolution for trade union branches

The Central Line East branch of the RMT union has passed this motion in support of the Kurds. Could your union branch pass it too, or a version of it? Support the Kurds! 1. We strongly oppose "Islamic State" and its attack on the mainly-Kurdish city of Kobani, Syria. 2. We support the Kurds of Kobani - including the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and Women's Brigades - in their valiant fight; we support their right to resist attack and to ask for help in doing so. 3. We are appalled that the Turkish regime - which has a long history of oppressing the Kurdish people - is not helping...

Construction death traps in the Gulf

M worked as an architect on construction sites in Dubai. He told Solidarity what daily working life is like on those sites. The major difference between a construction site in Dubai and one in Europe is the number of hours that they work. The workers are present on site from 7am to 7pm — twelve hours a day for six days a week, sometimes seven. They usually only have short breaks. The formal site regulations are all normal by international standards, but the hours are not. And the wages are completely sub-standard. The workers get £600 or £700 a month for 70 or 80 hours a week. The workers are...

Syria, Egypt, Israel-Palestine: 2013 AWL conference resolution

Resolution passed by AWL conference 26-27 October 2013 on Syria, Egypt, and Israel-Palestine. Almost three years after the beginning of the 'Arab Spring', much of the scene is dominated by the rise of reactionary Islamist movements. The threat we identified as early as spring 2011, of the democratic upheavals being co-opted by Islamism, has to a large extent been realised. Nonetheless, the forces or potential forces of the Third Camp, the camp of workers and oppressed people opposed to both the Islamists and the old order, are still alive – particularly in Egypt and Tunisia, which have large...

Embassy protest begins solidarity campaign with migrant workers in Qatar

On 12 October members of the Nepali community in London and British labour movement and migrants' rights activists protested outside the Qatari embassy to protest against the treatment of migrant workers in Qatar. More than 700, mainly Nepali, workers have died in the last year, the majority as a result of heart failures or industrial accidents, as the Gulf dictatorship goes into a building overdrive in preparation for the 2022 World Cup. Protest organiser Shreya Paudel is on the right You can read more here . The protest was initiated by Shreya Paudel, a socialist student movement activist...

Political Islam, Christian Fundamentalism, Marxism and the Left Today

Click here for a range of articles that were part of the controversy sparked by the republication of this article *** (Adapted from the introduction to Workers' Liberty 3/1: Marxism and Religion - January 2006) In many countries, religion and disputes about, or expressed in terms of, religion have long been central to political life — in Christian Spain, Portugal, Ireland, or the USA; in Muslim Iran or Algeria; in Lebanon; in Israel-Palestine. Today, since Islamist terrorists attacked New York on 11 September 2001, religion, or concerns and interests expressed in religion, are at the centre of...

Political Islam, Christian Fundamentalism, Marxism and the Left Today

In many countries, religion and disputes about, or expressed in terms of, religion have long been central to political life — in Christian Spain, Portugal, Ireland, or the USA; in Muslim Iran or Algeria; in Lebanon; in Israel-Palestine. Today, since Islamist terrorists attacked New York on 11 September 2001, religion, or concerns and interests expressed in religion, are at the centre of international politics to a degree without parallel for hundreds of years. We have not, as in Francis Fukuyama’s thesis after the fall of the USSR, reached “the end of history”. We seem to be reprising long...

Understanding the Arab uprising

Unusually for a professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies, Gilbert Achcar has become the hate figure for parts of the left over recent months for his perceived support for big-power intervention in Libya. The nuances and complexities of Achcar’s real positions, rather than those attributed to him, have been lost on these commentators. There are real issues with both Achcar’s political understanding and his academic analysis. They are just not those thrown at him by those who see “imperialism” (that is, US imperialism) as the main (or only) problem, and have confused the debate by...

The SWP and the Iran-Iraq war: the sudden shift to super-anti-imperialism

In 1988 the SWP suddenly became very 'anti-imperialist'. It became a loud cheerleader for what it sees as progressive or revolutionary nationalisms. It still talks of socialism and class struggle, but now these are proposed as merely the best means to secure the greater nationalist end. It fiercely supports Iraq in the Gulf War. It insists fanatically that it is not even worth thinking about an appeal to the Israeli working class, that Israel must be destroyed, and that a 'two-state' solution in Palestine is worthless even as an interim measure. The war, which began in September 1980, is...

Nick Cohen: still smoking the opium-pipe of the "liberal-interventionists"

Assad's massacres in Syria make one wish for a benign world government that could prevent the horrors, or even for divine intervention. But neither will happen. Some on the left respond to the omission by "demanding" that the USA and other big powers act like a benign world government, or deity. They are smoking the "liberal-interventionist" opium pipe. Many of them, including Nick Cohen of the Observer , did that over Iraq. Reality trips them up. Aghast, Cohen in his Observer column of 28 May 2012 quoted an un-named kindred spirit: "If you want to know what price a great man will sell his...

This website uses cookies, you can find out more and set your preferences here.
By continuing to use this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.