Solidarity 253, 1 August 2012

Since South Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994 and the decisive victory of the African National Congress there have been several scandals involving the ruling party. But the ANC’s level of electoral success in post-apartheid South Africa has made the country, to all intents and purposes, a one-party state. It is a remote possibility that any other party could succeed to power unless the ANC itself splits into warring factions. Once perceived as the younger and more radical sister of the ANC, the Pan-Africanist Congress founded by Robert Sobukwe, and led by inspirational thinkers and...

“It’s so exotic, so homemade.” Paul Scofield narrating Patrick Keiller’s film “London”. I couldn’t stop myself from watching the Olympic opening ceremony. I predicted hours of torture as I tried to stifle my discomfort, but actually, the event was more interesting than I expected. Essentially, director Danny Boyle attempted a representation of Britain from the industrial revolution on up, via a romanticised, feudal pastoral scene, an unnatural “zero moment”. Phallic chimneys split the ground, replacing the phallic maypoles and jingoistic Oak tree, and planted the “dark satanic mills” of Blake...

On 19 July, Simon Harwood, the policeman who killed Ian Tomlinson, was found “not guilty”. No police officer has ever been brought to justice for the killings of Smiley Culture, Mark Duggan, Jean Charles de Menezes, or any of the other victims of police shootings. In America, Manuel Diaz and Joel Acevedo of Anaheim, California, recently became the latest additions to a long list of individuals — invariably black or Latin American — killed by the police in suspicious circumstances, sparking riots in response. Throughout the “liberal democratic” world, the police remain an often brutal...

On 15 July, the Daily Mail reported on the slum accommodation that has been provided for Olympic cleaners. A portable-cabin village, which has been likened to a prison or a slum by residents, has been erected away from public view near the Olympic Park in Newham. Cleaners are sleeping 10 to a room, there is one toilet between 25, and one shower between 75. Workers were promised employment immediately but were horrified to learn when they arrived that they would have to wait two weeks to start. Meanwhile, they still have to pay £18 a day (£550 a month) for the “accommodation”, many units of...

Most people on the left have greeted the London 2012 games with healthy cynicism or hostility. This is understandable, given the profiteering, the property development, and the exploitation that comes to town with the Olympics. In all the debates going on about the political nature and social effects of the games, are there any models for socialists to look to when it comes to staging big sporting events? Is there such a thing as “workers’ sport” or “socialist sport”? For a brief period in the 1920s and 1930s, the international workers’ movement was strong enough to organise and stage its own...

As Solidarity goes to press, fighting continues in the Syrian city of Aleppo. The BBC reports 200,000 people have fled the town as the thuggish state, backed by its Shabiah militia, attempts to retake the city from the Free Syrian Army (FSA). The US and UK governments say they fear a massacre. July has been the bloodiest month since the Syrian uprising began in March 2011 as the rebellion is increasingly arming itself against intransigent and murderous repression. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimates that well over 100 people a day are being killed. The total death toll is now...

This may be news to some, but what is today commonplace was once quite rare. I’m referring to anti-semitism on the far left — and am reminded of what some of us saw as a turning point back in 1972. For a quarter of a century following the defeat of Nazi Germany, anti-semites everywhere were laying low — especially in the west. The Soviet leadership was growing increasingly anti-Jewish and anti-Israel, and anti-semitism was rife in the Arab world, but in countries like the USA, it was quite rare for Jew-hatred to be expressed openly. And certainly not on the left. So while there were various...

With just one month to go before our deadline of 1 September we need to raise £2,200 to meet our target. Will we do it? Maybe not. However while we do not advocate fiddling our own the figures as bankers fiddle their own interest rates, we do intend to get pledges from AWL branches to make plans to raise money through into the autumn. In London for instance we plan to put on a fundraising gig in October. We will report on this and other plans in the next issue. You can continue to help us by: * Taking out a monthly standing order. There is a form at www.workersliberty.org/resources and below...

The Sun and the Daily Telegraph have continued their hysterical anti-union scaremongering with a couple of delightful pieces picking up on an interview that Dave Quayle, chair of the National Political Committee of the Unite union, gave to Solidarity in our last issue. In the interview , Dave explained the union’s recently ratified political strategy, an attempt to increase democracy and accountability within the Labour Party by giving members of Unite, and other trade union affiliates, more control over the political direction of the party and its work. From Workers’ Liberty’s point of view...

The labour movement should aim for public ownership of high finance, and for it to be run as a public banking, insurance, and pensions service, under democratic and workers’ control. Bankers and their apologists make a pretence and a virtue of vigorous swashbuckling individualism, but least of all is finance a sector where swashbuckling makes any social sense. Eliot Spitzer, former New York attorney-general who sought fame through campaigns against Wall Street misdeeds, puts it aptly: “Banking should be boring. When banking isn’t boring, you’re asking for trouble long-term”. So long as we use...