Solidarity 388, 6 January 2016

On 1 January Saudi Arabia put to death Sheikh Nimr Al-Nimr, a Shia cleric and leader of reformist opposition. 46 other prisoners were killed on the same day. Saudi Arabia carried out a total of 157 death sentences in 2015, putting it third in the world behind Iran (more than 289 judicial killings in 2014) and China (figures secret, but Amnesty’s last estimate was 1718-plus in 2008). Saudi authorities said that most of the 46 were Al Qaeda or other Sunni dissidents. But some were Shia. The executions have further sharpened Shia-Sunni polarisation in the whole region. Iran may now pull out of...

The horrors of the past months shouldn’t stop us from remembering that 2015 was a year of polarization in US society — with the increasing confidence of right-wing forces taking place at the same time as a less-remarked-upon growth in those looking for an alternative on the left. At a time when the airwaves are filled with ridiculous police theories about the “radicalization” of Muslims, we need to locate and encourage the genuine and healthy process of left-wing radicalisation wherever it’s taking place. In the days before the ISIS attacks in Paris, US headlines were dominated by the wave of...

After 102 days of bitter struggle, Hutchison port workers in Brisbane and Sydney, members of the Maritime Union of Australia, voted on 16 November to rescind their previous Enterprise Bargaining Agreement and to vote in another EBA for the next three years. The dispute started on 6 August, when 97 workers, about half the workforce, were sacked overnight by text message and email. The sacked workers ran a 24/7 protest line at the Brisbane and Sydney terminals, with the support of the workers not sacked, who were called in for minimal working hours but handled very little traffic. In the...

“Is sex dirty? Only when it's being done right”, Woody Allen On Tuesday 22 December, the Greek Parliament ratified the Civil Union Agreement for Same-Sex Couples. The new legal framework for co-habiting couples is also a limited step (forward towards the abolition of discrimination for the LGBTQI community. The legislation makes the termination of civil partnership more difficult and provides rights to “civil partners” over inheritance, social security rights (pensions), and taxation. The government has yet to move to legislate for political marriage between persons of the same sex or the...

With the publication of two fat volumes of documents under the heading “The Fate of the Russian Revolution,” under the editorship of Sean Matgamna, the Workers’ Liberty current in Britain has performed a genuine service for scholars and activists. Something of Value In a sense, we are presented with three books in the guise of two, with the editor producing introductions of 156 pages in the first volume and 125 pages (including timeline and glossary) in the second. This “book” of 281 pages advances a line of argument that champions the perspectives of Max Shachtman, a U.S. associate of Leon...