Solidarity - articles before 22 November 2002

How Nike treats its Vietnamese workers

28 cents an hour, 78 hours a week. Nike owners have become very rich from the exploitation of workers - Chief Exec, Phil Knight, has a personal fortune of almost $4 billion. Meanwhile, in Vietnam, the average Nike worker earns $47 a month. Sewers making Nike clothes in factories in Dhaker, Bangladesh, earn between 11 and 20 cents an hour for a 78 hour week; workers are prevented for talking to each other and are often abused by supervisors. Nike makes massive profits on its shoes and clothes. Christian Aid estimated (1995) that the labour costs involved in making one pair of Nike trainers is...

Women fighting fundamentalism

It took an atrocity thousands of miles away to draw the world's attention to the plight of women under the Taliban. The most extreme anti-woman regime in the world was helped to power by US arms and training, and tolerated for 5 years. When it came into conflict with the US, suddenly its treatment of women was condemned. The danger is, with Afghanistan 'sorted', women's rights fall off the agenda, and vicious anti-women regimes, on which the Taliban modelled themselves, flourish. Women of Afghanistan were not 'liberated' by the fall of the Taliban. The interim government contains jihadi...

Racism, fundamentalism and the anti-war movement

Who are the real racists here? One of the arguments raised in the anti-war movement against condemning the Taliban and fundamentalism's abuse of women has been that any criticism of islamism, fuels racism. This has the effect of confusing and silencing honest anti-racists. But who are the racists in this argument? It is true that racists used Sept 11th as an excuse to attack Muslims here (and not just Muslims, anyone with a brown face - racists aren't fussy) and that Muslim women wearing the hijab made a visible target. But how do you get from there, to not criticising fundamentalism? Unless...

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