Solidarity 084, 17 November 2005

We need political feminism

ON 5 November, activists from Education Not for Sale Women attended FEM 05, the second “FEM” conference and pretty much the only large-scale event on feminist politics to have been organised in the last few years. Since the collapse of the women’s movement there has been a general lack of discussion and activity on the question of women's liberation. NUS Women’s Campaign has historically been a bastion of campaigning socialist feminist politics, but since its capture by Labour Students and “independent” right-wingers in the last two years, its activity has declined dramatically. FEM 05 was...

Activism after the G8

By Josh Robinson, People & Planet East Anglia regional rep LAST weekend, Oxford Brookes university hosted Shared Planet, the annual gathering of student activists from the campaigning network People & Planet. The mobilisations around the G8 seem to have radicalised large numbers of P&P members: for the first time, the event had sold out over a week in advance. But what was particularly encouraging wasn’t just the number of people present, but the fact that P&P members seem to be rethinking the way they see activism. People I spoke to were much quicker to criticise NGO-dominated campaigns like...

The omnibus alibi

We continue our discussion the issue of “left-wing anti-semitism”. For articles from Solidarity on this subject see: www.workersliberty.org/taxonomy/page /or/422 Solidarity should be congratulated for tackling a once festering, now blossoming problem on the left. I can vividly remember during the first Gulf War the Israeli anti-war/anti-occupation group, Women in Black, being jeered as “Zionist whores” at a Washington anti-war rally as Iraqi scuds were being hurled at Israel. Then, such sentiments could be dismissed perhaps as the voice of sectarian “crazies”. Now it simply no longer suffices...

Do these Islamists really care about Palestinians?

by Dan Randall On 7 November, Federation of Student Islamic Societies and Muslim Association of Britain-supporting National Union of Students Executive member Jamal El-Shayyal posted an entry on his blog entitled “The relativism of injustice”, defending the recent call by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad for Israel to be “wiped off the map”. This piece claimed that Ahmedinejad was only “saying what his people feel” and that in any case Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians made it impossible to condemn him. I replied with a posting entitled “The injustice of relativism” which you can...

Merger could atomise members

by stan crooke The approach of the AWL, and its predecessors, to union mergers has not always been one of support. There have been instances when we have opposed mergers on the grounds that it would represent a step backwards for the members of the unions concerned (e.g. the adoption of a more right-wing rule book than that which existed previously in one or more of the unions taking part in the merger). Having a general principle in favour of mergers, which seems to me to be fair enough, does not entail support for any and every proposed union merger. Although, admittedly, this is written...

Towards a super-union?

The proposed creation of a giant new union, made up of the TGWU, Amicus and (probably) the GMB has caused excitement and misgivings within the trade union movement. Solidarity has been debating the pros and cons of the merger which may take place as early as next year. Here we print discussion articles about the development — two by Tom Haslam, broadly in favour the merger, and by Stan Crooke which opposes the move. The rights and wrongs of mergers by tom Haslam “The fact that the workers in a single undertaking are divided amongst several unions weakens them in their struggle… the...

Defend worker activists in Iran!

from the worker-communist party of iran BORHAN Divangar, Mohsen Hakimi and Mohamad Abdipoor have been sentenced! The Revolutionary Court of the Islamic Republic of Iran has announced the prison sentences passed on these three remaining workers who were arrested after the 2004 May Day demonstrations in the city of Saqez. On 9 November, Mahmood Salehi and Jalal Hosseini were also sentenced to imprisonment. The court in Saqez passed these sentences for the “crime” of organising independent May Day commemorations in 2004. Borhan Divangar, chair of the National Organisation of the Unemployed still...

Zimbabwean hunger striker dies

from the national coalition of anti-deportation campaigns CAMPAIGNERS have reported that Lizwane Ndlovu, one of the original Zimbabwean detainees at Yarl’s Wood who went on hunger strike there over the summer, died last Thursday 10th November 2005. Lizwane Ndlovu is reported to have been not been well since being released from detention at the end of July. Campaigners say that she subsequently fell into a coma, and was hospitalised in Birmingham City Hospital who have confirmed Lizwane died there on Thursday last. We understand that Lizwane leaves two young children in Zimbabwe. Campaigners...

School students fight to reverse deportations

OVER 100 school children in Wigan took part in a rally last Saturday 5th November 2005 to demand five of their class-mates are brought back from Uganda. Sarah Hata and her children – Dennis, Hope, Maureen, Peace and Moris – were taken from their home, detained and finally, without warning, removed to Uganda on the 26 October. Teachers joined pupils from St Thomas More RC High School and St. Cuthbert's Primary School as read they out letters they have written to Prime Minister, Tony Blair. They are demanding that the Hata family are returned to their home in Wigan from Uganda whilst their...

Blair's "unpaid speech-writers"

There is something campy and parodic about the Labour Friends of Iraq, which I'm not sure I understand. Alan Johnson writes like someone engaged in self-mockery or self-caricature. For instance, in one of his internet efforts he made something very like a direct appeal to Blair. Let Blair be Blair! "The West Wing is a TV soap about a fictional Democrat US President, Jed Bartlett. In one scene his key aides decide that they have played defence long enough, creeping around a hostile Republican Congress and hyper-critical media, silencing their own better instincts. So someone scrawls on a piece...

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