Solidarity 198, 23 March 2011

Libya: memories of despotism

My experience of Libya from the 1970s to the 1990s defined what would become my third-camp politics. My parents were migrant workers in Libya — working in the central oil fields region around Brega, part of a community of expatriate workers from all around the globe including Filipino, Sudanese, Palestinian and American workers. The Brega camp where both migrant and Libyan workers lived was the site of an old Italian concentration camp and there were many monuments to the old Italian occupation which was remembered with anger by many Libyans — so much so that many of the Italian migrant...

Brixton: us and them in 1981

The Reunion brought together people from both sides of the “Brixton riots” of April 1981. And, as the programme made very clear, there were just two sides in this event. It was cops versus the black and white — but mainly black — youth. The people who had been systematically bullied, discriminated against and physically injured by police over many years, were taking a spontaneous, messy, but perfectly logical and well-understood stand. The running street battles of Saturday 11 April 1981 followed a Friday day and night of massive police presence on the streets: stopping and searching hundreds...

Japan: there should be a fight for renewables

Japan is prone to major earthquakes and buildings and other structures are designed accordingly. As was well demonstrated with this massive magnitude 9 quake, they had done very well in this regard, with few major building collapses. Otherwise the death and injury toll, bad enough as it was, would have been far worse. However, the tsunami added an extra dimension for structures on the coast, which is where most of Japan’s nuclear plants are located. The plants at Fukushima clearly didn’t fare so well — precipitating the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. There were warnings about nuclear...

Japan: earthquake, tsunami..and meltdown?

Get nuclear power’s risks in perspective The terrible events recently in Japan have resulted in at least 15,000 deaths, of which those attributable to the overheating cores and hydrogen explosions at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant amount to… zero. However, the situation at the power plant is potentially more serious if it is not controlled. What has been happening? Some time ago, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) decided to build nuclear power plants in an earthquake zone. They judged that their design was robust enough to withstand a powerful earthquake. They judged that...

After 26 March: build industrial and political action

We are facing the most generalised attack on the working class for 20 years. The government is waging class war to impose its cuts. It is setting up a special unit to identify areas of likely working-class resistance. This is open preparation for strike-breaking. Where the Tory and Lib-Dem enemies of the working class movement are fighting the class war, what are our union leaders doing? They are sleep walking towards the abyss! The labour movement response is hugely inadequate. The “March for the Alternative” on 26 March looks set, as we write this, to be very big. But it is not enough...

26 March is just the start

The TUC “March for the Alternative” is an attempt to put pressure on the Conservative led coalition Government to change the direction of their economic policy. It is good that labour movement bodies as well as voluntary sector and community organisations are marching together. Realistically, though, the aim of defeating Government policies can only be achieved by a greater level of industrial resistance and much more focused political campaigning. The Tory led Coalition Government is pursuing an ideological agenda — keeping lax arrangements for bank regulation, cutting back workers’ rights...

Making time for Marx

Say what you want about life-threatening illness, but at least an extended spell of convalescence provides a chance to catch up on some serious reading. It is largely thanks to a summer spent in a sick bed that I got an uninterrupted shot at reading volume one of Marx’s Capital , cover to cover. It almost made a particularly virulent infection seem worthwhile. I like to think that what I accomplished in those weeks was a real, if modest, achievement. Even though I subsequently petered out half way through volume two, I am reliably informed that I progressed further than the man who leads one...

Users must defend the NHS

The criticism by the British Medical Association (BMA) to the government’s plans for the NHS ( Solidarity 3-196 ) is worth publicising. Doctors know better than most concerted laypersons what is wrong with the plans. But we shouldn’t be surprised either that they backed away from outright opposition. Unions involved in the health service, particularly Unison and Unite, are woefully failing to fight healthcare privatisation and huge cuts. In these circumstances, it is tempting to get too over-excited about middle-class professionals speaking truth to the upper-classes. There was a debate at the...

In praise of health workers

According to the Sunday Mirror , two city bankers working for the German Deutsche Bank in London laughed at and mocked protesters who were demonstrating in support of the NHS (9 March). One banker waved a £10 note in front of protesters from their high rise secure building while demonstrators looked on in disbelief. 1,000 or so had congregated outside the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel, and proceeded through the streets of London until they reached St Bart’s hospital. The bankers’ disgusting act of mockery was met by chants and boos. What gives these bankers the right to act in such a...

Defend Zimbabwe socialists

Forty-five socialists, trade unionists and students in Zimbabwe were arrested on 19 February and charged with treason for attending a meeting about the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia. They were accused of plotting to overthrow the government in the manner of the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions. Treason carries a death sentence in Zimbabwe. Charges were dropped against most of those detained. However, six people, including the general coordinator of the International Socialist Organisation (ISO) Munyaradzi Gwisai and five other ISO members, still await trial. They have posted bail, must stay...

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