The Labour Relief Camp first camp was organized in Lahore on 1st August 2010 at Regal Chouck Lahore. Earlier on 25th July 2010, we decided to launch a Baluchistan appeal. 

It stated, “Torrential rains have unleashed flash floods in different parts of Baluchistan over the few days.? Water levies broke leaving the people exposed to flood water.?At least three villages in district Sibi have been destroyed.?Houses, live-stock such as cattle’s and goats, household goods, clothes, shoes and other items have been destroyed.?Residents of villages are currently without drinkable water, food, shelter and in need of clothes.??In particular, the situation is dire for children and women and they are in desperate need of food and clothing.?Disease is spreading fast in the areas affected due to lack of drinkable water.?In particular, flu, fever, diarrhea, cholera have been noted and are spreading.??The government’s response has made matters worse.?They failed to act immediately, leaving tens of thousands of people unaided.? They came after twenty four hours to the make-shift camps with paltry amount of food bags to distribute.?The gap between the food being distributed and the large number of people desperate to eat led to fighting breaking out making matters even worse for these desperate people. Rubina Baluch, Women Secretary LPP Baluchistan, who is a resident of one of the affected villages said, ‘there is absolutely nothing left here – food, water, and clothing – and we are in desperate need of these’.??At least, 10, 000 people are said to be in suffering in these grave conditions”.?? 

Perhaps this was the first appeal by any political group in Pakistan to ask people to help the victims of torrential rains in Baluchistan. 

After an informal consultation with several social and political groups in Lahore, we decided to set up the first camp. Already a group of 42 activists including 35 women belonging to Labour Education Foundation were trapped in Kalam, Swat valley. The flood in river Swat had flooded away all the bridges and the road links were delinked from the rest of the country. They were eventually evacuated by a military helicopter after 8 days of ordeal.  

The camp in Lahore was supported by many activists and on the first day, we collected nearly 18,000 Rupees within two hours. Next day, it went up to nearly 50,000. 

A LRC committee was reestablished with 8 members from eight different organizations. They included, Cindy Kariaper, Pakistan For Palestine, Farooq Tariq Pakistan Kissan Rabita Committee, Qalandar Memon Labour Party Pakistan, Bushra Khaliq Women Workers Help Line, Khalid Malik Labour Education Foundation, Ammar Jan Progressive Youth Front, Khaliq Shah CADTM Pakistan and Niaz Khan National Trade Union Federation. The committee decided to meet at least twice in a week to discuss all aspect of the campaign. 

The LRC committee agreed to campaign on two fronts, collecting funds for the immediate relief and to change the priorities of the national budget demanding a total no to repayment of foreign debts and reduce the military budget, no cuts in development budget and no new taxes, no new loan, but grants and aid.  

On 7th August, we issued a new appeal and here is a part that we wrote,  

“Please donate to Labour Relief Campaign to help people of Pakistan is facing worst ever floods of its history. Torrential rains have unleashed flash floods in different parts of the country since last three weeks. Water levies broke leaving the people exposed to flood water.?More than 12 million people have suffered due to these floods. More than 650,000 houses have collapsed, mainly in villages.?Thousands of acres of crops have been destroyed due to flood water. Houses, live-stock such as cattle’s and goats, household goods, clothes, shoes and other items have been destroyed.? Residents of villages are currently without drinkable water, food, shelter and in need of clothes”.?? 

Five days later, the situation has even more worsened and it was estimated that over 20 million people are affected by the flood by then,

We wrote on 12 August,  

“The flood is still on dangerous levels in several parts of Pakistan. The numbers of people affected by the flood have crossed 20 million. More torrential rains are forecast by the weather department. This is been considered one of the most devastating flood in world history. The UN has once again appealed for donations for Pakistan. But there has been a very slow response internationally to help Pakistan in this period of great devastation. After destroying most of Khaiber Pukhtoonkhawa and Southern Punjab, the water has now washed down the Indus River Valley, causing a deluge in Sindh. The water has been powered by unusually fierce monsoon rains that began in country’s northern areas some three weeks ago.?Roads, bridges and other infrastructure have given way, overwhelming the government’s ability to cope. At this point an estimated 1,600 have been killed with another 5 million left homeless”. 

Camps were set up in different parts of Pakistan including Rawalpindi, Mardan, Hyderabad, Moro, Karachi, Sanghar, Layya and Sibbi. 

We send the appeal to all our international friends and by then, the world was awakening to the most catastrophic incident of Pakistan history. 

In one month, we have raised the following 

Lahore                                                       Rs. 654587 (cash) 

Lahore                                                       Rs. 45000   (goods) 

Rawalpindi                                                 Rs.   5000   (cash) 

Hyderabad                                                 Rs. 184100 (cash) 

Hyderabad                                                 Rs. 299550 Goods and medicine 

Moro                                                         Rs. 766,190 (cash)

Karachi                                                      Rs. 450,000 (cash) 

Karachi                                                      Rs. 250,000 (goods) 

Mardan                                                      Rs. 70,000   (cash)

Sibbi                                                         did not have information 

Sanghar                                                    no information yet 

Layya                                                        no information yet 

International appeal                                   Rs. 371784 

Confirmed commitments and information received  

SAP Netherlands                                        Euro 5000 (Rs. 550,000) 

Olof Palme International Center Sweden      SEK 50,000 (Rs. 589,500) 

Cultural Life Buoy campaign NOK 10,000     (Rs. 138,000) 

Yasmeen USA                                            US$ 2000 (Rs.172,000) 

Pakistanies in Denmark                              US $ 1000 (Rs. 85000) 

A total in cash raised from Pakistan:           Rs.  2,129,877 

International                                            Rs.     371,784 

Commitments                                          Rs.   1,534,500 

Goods:                                                    Rs.       594550 

Total cash, goods and commitments on 3 September 2010, 4,630,711 (US$ 54478) 

Apart from the relief campaign, we have also launched a political campaign for non payment of foreign debts of Pakistan. We held our first press conference in first week of August in Lahore and we said, “Pakistan must refuse to pay the foreign debts and divert the amount into the relief and rehabilitation of the flood affectees. It is high time to change the priorities of the national budget and all those suggestions to cut the development budget and spend on flood affectees be stopped. There is an easy way out. Stop paying the debts owed to International Finance Institutions. donor countries and clubs.  

The press conference was the first voice in Pakistan on the issue. we contacted like minded groups and parties to raise the issue and the idea was well received. Social and political groups in Islamabad met and decided to take on the issue. In Lahore, on 29th August, LRC organized a multi party conference to oppose the debt retirement and 28 political parties, trade unions and social movements agreed to participate in this campaign. on second September several hundreds marched to Islamabad to demand non payment of foreign debts. One of the largest private television channel Dunia took up the issue on a prime time talk show, “Dunia Mery Aaghey” and invited one of the organizer of the demonstration to put up the case. There is now a beginning of the awakening of some main stream political parties to take up the isse.  

Three more rallies will be organized to press for this demand. One such rally will be held in Lahore on 19th September from GPO Chouck to Punjab Assembly demanding an end of payments of debts while people are in danger of dying in the aftermath of the flood.  In this campaign, we have got the material support of OXFAM. 

Where the money spent? 

We  had decided to spend the amount on flood victims on selected areas where we have local teams to deal the question of distribution in more organsied manner and also to the most needy ones. The initial three areas selected were Union Council Tully in Sibbi district of Baluchistan, Pir Sabaq union council of district Noshehra of Khaber Pukhtoonkhawa and Southern part of Punjab. We held in food items, kitchen items and construction material in two areas, while we were unable to do anything in Saraiki area. Lately, LRC has send amount to Hyderabad jamshoro, Moro and Thatha area of Sindh through Sindh Labour Relief Committee. The local teams in Baluchistan reported wide spread disruption in food item distribution and they had to take special measures to avoid that. they issue tokens of particular food basket after conducting surveys of three villages and then asked them to collect food from a special place designated for collection the food items. Same process was carried out in Pir Sabaq area where distribution of food items and construction material was done with a very disciplined manner. The main reason of smooth distribution was our local committees which included political and trade unions activists.  

In Hyderabad jamshoro, we set up medical camps and distributed medicines through our doctors association. Here in Hyderabad, we were jointly working with Communist Party Pakistan, Aadersh, A Sindhi literary magazine. In Moro, our local relief committee was formed in association with local traders and trade unions. There were the most successful in collecting amount and good from an area which was itself effected. Through joint effort, they have won the sympathies of many in the city and are the main distribution group of the area. Several other organizations have contacted and asked help in distribution to the flood affectees of Moro and Dadu district.  In Karachi, SRLC set up four camps and sent four trucks of good to Moro and at present busy in Thatha district to help the flood victims who are sleeping on roads and schools.  

The International Response to LRC appeal 

This was to give you some idea of our activity during the first month of our relief work. Most of the amount collected in Pakistan are from ordinary people. They have donated us generously. BY setting up camps and distributing aid to flood victims in some selected areas, we have tried to counter the influence of the right wing forces particularly the religious fundamentalists groups. Several hundreds activists of LRC are busy in collecting funds locally and we are also encouraged by different responses from abroad. Political groups associated with Fourth International in several countries particularly in Netherlands and England have send us amount already, while several individual and Left groups efforts in US have brought some cash to the relief. From Sweden, we have already received information of 50,000 Swedish SKR and in Norway, an initiative by actor Toni Usman for a theater show on 19 September has already won support of Norway artist association with leading actors of Norway taking part voluntarily to help the campaign. In Australia, Socialist Alliance is helping to collect funds and APHEDA, the official Australian trade unions international assistance is collecting funds for LRC.  

We had the great arrival of South Asians at Lahore relief camp to collect funds from Pakistanis. Social and peace activists from India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka came to Lahore and brought some amount from their own countries and contributed to LRC funds. They have brought with this a consciousness of South Asian solidarity in real terms. 

We appeal to all our international friends to continue collecting funds for our future planned  aid and political activities. Apart from the campaign on debts, we have decided to organize peasant rallies in Sindh and Punjab to demand land rights and end of feudalism.

for more information,

please visit www.lef.org.pk

If you wish to donate from Europe  this is one of  two websites  who will direct money given via their donate buttons to this fund if you include the word Pakistan on the donation message.  By donating through these accounts the cost of the transfer of money to Pakistan is reduced.

If you wish to transfer funds directly, below are details of the account for sending money to the LRC.
A/C Title: Labour Education Foundation
A/C Number: 01801876
Route:
Please advise and pay to Citi Bank, New York, USA Swift CITI US 33 for onward transfer to BANK ALFALAH LTD., KARACHI, PAKISTAN A/C No. 36087144 and for final transfer to BANK ALFALAH LTD., LDA PLAZA, KASHMIR ROAD, LAHORE, PAKISTAN Swift: ALFHPKKALDA for A/C No. 01801876 OF LABOUR EDUCATION FOUNDATION

Three members of Home Based Women Workers Federation Zehra Khan,
Irfana Jabbar and Shahla Rizwan visited 15 flood relief camps and
distributed dry food and cloths among women and men in Moro 28 to 30th
August 2010 where they visited and met with women and other in the
camps.

Total 40 camps sets in Moro and most of the flood victims get shelter
in government schools and living in very bad condition. 3 to 4 kins
live in a one room and total 80 to 200 people living in one school.
They were not getting proper food for their family. No clean drinking
water they have and latrine condition is very bad and unhygienic.
Majority of the people suffer from gastro, diarrhea, eye allergy and
skin diseases. Most affectees form flood is women and children. Women
still confine in their camps just like their homes! And busy in their
house hold activities and look after her whole family.

Majority of them are agriculture workers who plucking the cotton from
field and get less then men like women told us in three camps that for
plucking the cotton women get 70 to 80 rupees on 40 kilo grams while
men gets 200 rupees on that. Majority of them also engaged in
stitching cloths (60 to 80 rupees for adult suits and 35 rupees on
children cloths) , embroidery (150 to 200) and making rilly (100 to
300) work but now they all are jobless! They said that they had no
single thing left behind them they have to build all things from
start.

Majority of complaints were same in each camps like

Ø Their children were suffer from gastro, diarrhea, vomiting, skin allergy

Ø They have no access to health facilities like majority of them said
that government hospital had no medicines they give slip of medicine
from market and they have no money to buy it.

Ø No clean water

Ø No proper latrine facilities

Ø Less utensils and having problem in preparing food

Ø No gas facilities: in some camps people contributed and get gas from
their neighbors and majority of the people said that for cooking they
have to buy the wood which was 150 to 250 rupees on per 40 kg.

Ø No jobs or work

Ø Pregnant women facing problems like no lady doctor were visited
them. In one camp we met with one lady whose pregnancy was exceed from
9th month but due to no proper health faculty she is not getting
treatment.

Ø Cloths

Ø Load shedding and

Ø Proper cleanness in the area

Ø No proper place to live: in some camps people said that the school
management told them to vacant the place for starting the session.
They need place and tent to leave the school place. (majority of the
victims were settled in schools)

People in the camp also complained that the government officer is from
Kohrai tribe (mentioned by majority of people in different camps) so
he provided all things, UN distributed on 28th August 2010, to his
tribe. Majority of permanent people getting all aid but people from
suburb were not facilitating properly. They also said that aid
provided to family but not according to the size of the family which
not fulfill their needs. Government giving them 20000 thousand rupees
but it is not enough for them they lost all the things like their
home, cattle’s and crops. They need place to live, tent and work to
survive them selves. Three people (1 men and two women) said that they
have hand to work they will stand on their foot in few months.

Moro Labour Relief Committee is also the part of Sindh Labour Relief
committee (SLRC) has collected Rs. 900000 in kind and cash till date
and SLRC collected 650000 (cash, medicine, food, water and cloths). In
Hyderabad LPP, Adresh Sath with CPP collected nearly 5 hundred
thousand in kind and cash. At the movement we have been doing our
relief work in Karachi, Hyderabad, Thatta, Moro and Hub Balochistan.

If you wish to donate from Europe  this is one of  two websites  who will direct money given via their donate buttons to this fund if you include the word Pakistan on the donation message.  By donating through these accounts the cost of the transfer of money to Pakistan is reduced.

If you wish to transfer funds directly, below are details of the account for sending money to the LRC.
A/C Title: Labour Education Foundation
A/C Number: 01801876
Route:
Please advise and pay to Citi Bank, New York, USA Swift CITI US 33 for onward transfer to BANK ALFALAH LTD., KARACHI, PAKISTAN A/C No. 36087144 and for final transfer to BANK ALFALAH LTD., LDA PLAZA, KASHMIR ROAD, LAHORE, PAKISTAN Swift: ALFHPKKALDA for A/C No. 01801876 OF LABOUR EDUCATION FOUNDATION

The education industry represents the largest market opportunity for private sector involvement…. In the USA spending on 5-12 education is as large as the domestic auto industry. It is the largest segment of the education and the one almost entirely in the public sector. Clearly education offers new and lucrative opportunities…”

Merrill Lynch Annual Report - 1999

We have to select: to ration the educational opportunities so that society can cope with the output of education… We are in a period of considerable social change. There may be social unrest… But if we have a highly educated and idle population, we may possibly anticipate more serious social conflict. People must be educated once more to know their place.”

Unnamed Tory education minister - 1985

The coalition government has wasted no time in pushing ahead with their plans for the dissolution of state education. Using parliamentary procedures usually reserved for times of national crisis the Education Act, allowing all schools to become academies and the establishment of “free schools, received Royal Assent and passed into legislation on July 27^th.

The Education Act has correctly been described as, “Thatcher’s unfinished business” on the education service. The plans crystallise Tory party ideology in a number of ways:

· It’s an attack on a section of workers with high union density – 750,000 teachers represent the largest single collection of workers after nurses; if they were in one union it would be the third biggest union in this country;

· It shows their hatred for local government, that they have carried with them for years and completes the circle they started with the introduction of Local Management of Schools;

· It highlights their burning ambition to get money that is trapped in town halls out of there into private pockets, to privatise further the education service.

But above all these considerations it is a class issue and what lies hidden, but not very well, beneath this is an attempt by the Tories to protect their own, and dampen down the expectations of the rest as we enter a period of cutbacks.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the big divide in education is still social class and in considering the latest government policy I think it is worth taking a step sideways and looking at their agenda from a class perspective and in that respect to place it firmly within the context of the development of education in this country but also what is happening in the economy, the attacks on public spending, benefits and so on.

For many decades education around the world has been of public concern and a site of struggle. That is because education under capital is set up to replicate class divisions, to mirror society, but it is also riddled with contradictions and it is these contradictions that enable our side to push back and to fight for reforms.

The great struggles have been around the right to education and to challenge the way education was used to establish and maintain privileges.

The right to free education, the abolition of child labour, the fight for comprehensive education, the raising of the school leaving age and so on have pushed back the restrictions placed particularly on working class children.

But the fact that private schools continue to exist and that in 2010 there are more children sitting entrance exams of one form or another for secondary school than there were in 1997 confirm that class privilege is still embedded deep within education in this country.

Guardian journalist, Nick Davies, drew this conclusion in 2000, “education policy since 1944 is a triumph for class politics, for the power of the middle class to corner what is best for its children, much of it disguised as parental choice.”

Michael Gove’s stated intentions are to empower parents and to provide them with more choice. However, parental choice is a fallacy that has nothing to do with the government’s plans. I think Michael Gove’s aim is to recreate the stratified, differentiated education system of the 1950s and to drive this down into primary education.

They dare not say they want to do this; but I want to argue that this is a deliberate policy to increase the differences between schools and so widen the gap between successful schools and the rest.

Gove is also lying when he talks about raising standards and closing the attainment gap – the gap in achievement between the highest and lowest achievers. All research shows that this gap actually widens as children move through the school years. Some research suggests that this gap narrowed in the heyday of comprehensive education but has widened again in the time it has been under attack and undermined.

For all the previous Labour government’s talk about raising standards the attainment gap between highest and lowest achievers has remained the same in the last thirteen years.

Gove’s free schools and academies will exacerbate these differences and create division, inequality, and failure. They will neither raise standards nor close the achievement gap.

All the evidence from Sweden, the principal model for Gove’s free schools, points to this; the evidence is the exact opposite of politicians’ claims.

Sweden now has more than 1,000 free schools, introduced by a right-wing government in the 1990s, and the country has slipped down the international league table for pupil performance in the period since. Evidence also shows that the introduction of ‘free’ schools has led to increased social segregation.

The director general of the Swedish National Agency for Education recently, “The students in the new schools have, in general, better standards, but it has to do with their parents and backgrounds. They come from well-educated families. We have had increasing segregation and decreasing results, so we can’t say that increasing competition between schools has led to better results”.

Michael Gove is not stupid, he has read the same research as us, so there must be something more to these plans, it can’t be an accident that they are pursuing polices that will do this.

In order to understand why the Tories might be pursuing an ideologically driven policy, intended to make our system more unfair one has to consider the way in which education under capitalism is riddled with contradictions.

Capital needs an educated workforce but it needs that workforce to know where it will go when it leaves school and to know its place. In times of expansion expectations are raised and in times of contraction they have to be dampened down.

Looked at it in this way the bleak prospect is that in the third millennium, if the forces of reaction are unchecked, the only future is one in which education will worsen – in which education will fuel rather than tackle social differentiation and where education will regiment rather than enlighten.

Of course, they cannot openly say that they want to hold back working-class advancement through education, so they wrap this up in the language of raising standards, tackling underachievement and improving life chances.

But you have to look no further than this quote from a Tory education minister in 1985 to understand what they really think about the purpose of compulsory education – an attitude which could equally apply in 2010.

“There has to be selection because we are beginning to create aspirations which society cannot match. In some ways, this points to the success of education, in contrast to the public mythology we’ve created.

When young people drop off the education production-line and cannot find work at all, or work which meets their abilities and expectations, then we are creating frustrations with perhaps disturbing consequences.

He goes on:

We have to select: to ration the educational opportunities so that society can cope with the output of education… We are in a period of considerable social change. There may be social unrest… But if we have a highly educated and idle population, we may possibly anticipate more serious social conflict. People must be educated once more to know their place.”

And there you have it…. you can see why the growth in the number of working class children attending university has to be slowed – first by tuition fees then by cutting the number of places and perhaps now by further embedding segregation by class within the system. There are too many of us going to university and competing for jobs.

Already a shortage of university places will mean thousands of school leavers will not get a place this year; it is expected that around 200,000 students will fail to get places despite having good qualifications. Reasons given include the twin problems of a rise in applications and a ban on over recruiting. A lack of job opportunities for school leavers has also contributed to the problem; BT has reported that it received 24,000 applications for 211 apprenticeships, up 60% on last year.

This explains the ruling class hatred for comprehensive education, and the demonization of mixed ability teaching, attacks on the development of a curriculum based on race, gender and class, the abolition of the ILEA, the removal of discussions on pedagogy from many training courses.

It also explains why education is now so regulated through testing, league tables, targets, performance pay and Ofsted – all of these reduce parents, teachers, governors to thinking about what is best for my child, my classroom, my school rather than looking at the whole process as part of a collective endeavour - and all of these are being kept in place by the Coalition.

But there are already signs that the government plans could be derailed and that they are showing signs of weakness. To date only 153 schools have applied for academy status, hardly the ‘overwhelming’ response Michael Gove bragged about.

It is less than 10% of the 1,907 schools that ‘expressed an interest’. Given that there are about 24,000 schools in England & Wales, it does not amount to the ’schools revolution’ that the Tories heralded before the election and which required such a quick passage through parliament.

Coming so soon after the government’s embarrassment over the cuts in the Building Schools for the Future programme, Michael Gove has quickly been placed on the defensive.

In conclusion, we are in a fight for the very soul of comprehensive education, and there are many very good campaigns up and running all over the country.

Urgent campaigning, mobilising the widest possible forces, can stop schools becoming academies. It is interesting to note that a number of Tory councils have come out against the government plans – no doubt wise to the fact that there will be little left for them if they lose responsibility for schools.

In the current situation

· We have to fight rearguard actions – fight every academy, every free school, build alliances with parents, governors etc. that cut against the atomisation of schools, teachers and parents;

· We have to build anti-cuts alliances not just to defend jobs but to defend vital services and benefits;

· We have to be unashamed defenders of local education authorities, no matter how imperfect they may be in our eyes, because of what their existence represents for us;

· We have to build progressive campaigns – for anti-racism, anti sexism and equality using the spaces created within the curriculum; and there are plenty of good examples of this;

· Finally we also have to have a vision of transforming society, so that education truly does become a lifelong experience that can really liberate the full scale of human potential;

The choice ahead of us is summed up very well by Sean Vernell from the UCU in a pamphlet, Don’t Get Young in the Third Millenimum:

The fight we are engaged in now takes place within a bigger picture where two paths for humanity are signposted.

The first, signposted “business as usual” will lead to a worsening of young people’s conditions of life, where millions languish on the dole, further alienated from the potentially liberating experience of education, or be forced into soul-destroying and meaningless jobs.

The other path is one that holds out hope for the whole of humanity, where working people unite across industries and communities to fight against the attacks on their jobs and services and put forward a vision of society based on their collective values.

It is this path that lays the potential for the liberation of the young working class to unleash their creativity and energy to build a more equal and productive society.

I doubt we’ll be seeing them again anytime soon.

The fascists arrived at Brighton station and many of them seemed more intent on drinking than marching.

The anti-fascists kept them penned at the station before reluctantly agreeing to march away after the police threatened mass arrests if we didn’t go to our “designated protest point” at Victoria Gardens.

The police played their “usual” role in situations like this.  The EDL march was only possible under their protection, and they “kettled” the anti-fascists in a cordoned area - even though there were soon just as many anti-fascists outside the “kettle” as were in it.  Many local people who had not been part of the anti-fascist march nevertheless stopped by the EDL “rally” to offer a rich variety of verbal abuse.  Just for an encore the police arrested a number of anti-fascists - one for possession of an airhorn, and the other for talking to the demonstration!  They also stole a quantity of video film from a photographer - way to go!

A number of speakers at the anti-fascist gathering drew links between the economic crisis and the cuts, and the superficial appeal of groups such as the EDL, who try to make scapegoats to blame for inadequate services and lack of jobs.

Andy Richards

(see some video from the day at http://hoverepublic.blogspot.com/2010/08/edl-humiliated-in-brighton.html)

Brazil is not just one of the world’s most unequal and fast-growing economies. It’s also a country where a Marxist-influenced  Workers’ Party (PT) united the whole working class and was elected to power. During the presidency of Lula da Silva, a former metalworker and trade union leader, the PT has turned from a radical alternative into a safe pair of hands for capitalism.

In the 1990s the party won popularity for advocating immediate land reform and a default on the external debt. In the campaign for the presidential elections in 2002, Lula looked set to win because of huge disillusionment with Brazil’s corrupt politicians. However, the stock markets and capitalist newspapers started to panic at the idea of a trade unionist president rather. Foreign investment threatened to dry up. Lula switched to wearing suits, moved right and began courting more conservative allies.

In the middle of the election campaign he supported a record deal with the IMF which boosted the stock market and promised spending cuts. He started talking about fiscal responsibility and the need to pay back the country’s huge debts, which had risen from 30% to 55% of GDP under president Cardoso, of the social-democratic PSDB, despite a huge privatisation programme. That swung enough of the capitalist class and conservative voters to bring Lula to power.

Taking office in 2003, Lula’s government started a series of attacks on pensions, education and workers; rights. Pensioners over the age of 90 had to reapply personally for their pensions. The retirement age was increased and pensions were limited, especially for civil servants, saving £12bn.

The stock market soared with the good news for capitalism, until a huge strike wave developed and a left wing group of PT MPs formed in the senate which refused to vote for these attacks. They were expelled by Lula, who then continued with neoliberal policies similar to those of Cardoso. To prevent further rebellions in congress, the PT started a secret multi-million programme to bribe opposition MPs, starting with a tax reform in September 2003.

After raising over 400,000 signatures, the expelled MPs were able to register a new party: the Party of Socialism and Liberty (PSOL). In the 2006 election campaign they won 6.5 million votes, and got three MPs elected into the parliament. The party has now grown to 11,000 members.

In the 2010 presidential election, the PSOL is running Plínio Arruda Sampaio, an 80-year old veteran socialist, alongside Hamilton Assis, the first-ever black candidate for vice-president. The two front-runners, Dilma Rousseff from the PT and José Serra from the PSDB, are both social-democratic economists committed to neoliberal policies. Because the party is represented in the senate, Plínio has been able to take part August’s televised presidential debates. According to The Economist’s review of the presidential debate, “Plinio Soares de Arruda Sampaio of the Socialism and Freedom Party, was the only one to throw caution to the wind.”

Left vice-presidential candidate Hamilton Assis

Despite the PT’s collapse into neoliberal social democracy, most workers in Brazil think there is no alternative to the PT or PSDB. In the 2006 elections, support for socialists in other countries was vital in showing the credibility of the PSOL’s campaign. Socialists from every continent have endorsed a statement backing the campaign, including supporters of Counterfire, Socialist Resistance and the SWP here in Britain. To see the statement and signatories, go to http://bit.ly/plinio. Add your name to the statement by emailing apoiopliniopresidente@yahoo.com.br.

Duncan Chapel is a member of the Socialist Resistance editorial board. This article first appeared at Counterfire.

Over 50 antifascist activists were arrested. Many fewer were charged though the national and local organisers face potential charges of conspiracy to incite violent disorder. This attempt to use conspiracy laws is a highly unusual and very worrying step, which threatens both anti-racist activity and wider civil liberties. More details are given on the website: www.justice4bolton.org .

The aim of the justice4bolton campaign, launched nationally at the House of Commons last June with MPs Peter Hain and Jeremy Corbyn, is to stop the use of conspiracy laws to de-legitimise protests against the rise of fascism and the right to any public protest.

In a message to the justice4bolton national launch Yasmin Qureshi MP, who was elected to the Bolton South East parliamentary seat in May, said: “I supported the aims of the protest against the English Defence League in Bolton on 20th March and I was at the demonstration. I did not see or hear any activity amongst the protestors that I would have described as ‘violent disorder’, though there were some police officers who, in my view, were being heavy-handed in some cases.”

In his message to the Bolton launch of justice4bolton last Friday its national president, Shadow Cabinet Minister Peter Hain, said: “This is our next step on the road to justice for Bolton people and all the anti-fascists and trade unionists who showed such great solidarity against the racist EDL on 20th March. justice4bolton’s determination to expose and stop this attempt to criminalise protests and protestors is absolute. Our unity will defend the right to protest against and, ultimately, stop the fascists.”

justice4bolton already includes trade unionists, anti fascist organisations, and members of the local communities in Bolton. Now justice4bolton is asking for as wide ranging solidarity and financial support as possible. Campaign spokesperson Paul Macney explains:

We urgently need your help to raise funds for our legal and campaigning work. We welcome donations from individuals or organisations, such as trade union branches or community groups.We need to raise over £35,000 in donations to:

* Support Weyman Bennett and Rhetta Moran, the two organisers of the Unite Against Fascism demonstration in Bolton who face very serious conspiracy charges (details below);
* support others arrested on the day (20 March 2010); and, thereby,
* defend our democratic right to protest and demonstrate.

Please send cheques, payable to AFDC (Anti-Fascist Defence Campaign) to: AFDC, PO Box 56959, London N10 9AZ

If you prefer, pay your donation into our bank account at Lloyds TSB Bank, Sort code 30-94-74; Account name: AFDC; Account no. 16666368.

If you are suffering from the credit crunch, lots of five pound donations can mount up too.

The campaign has the support of prominent MPs including Margaret Hodge, Peter Hain and Jeremy Corbyn.

To be clear: in the Netherlands today Islamophobia is the main form taken by racism. It has nothing to do with criticism of Islam as a religion. If Wilders and his followers say that not one more Muslim should be allowed into the country, they don’t mean that Moroccan and Turkish Christians and atheists are welcome. ‘Muslim’ is for them simply a convenient epithet for ‘those other people’.

And it has proved to be an extremely effective epithet. Without Islamophobia, Fortuyn would never have succeeded in becoming the champion of resistance to the coalition of the Labour Party and the liberal parties that governed the Netherlands from 1994 to 2002. Without the assassination of filmmaker Theo van Gogh, just after the big trade-union demonstration on Amsterdam’s Museum Square in 2004, it would have been harder to make the unions accept a poor compromise on the issue of early retirement. Without his rabid attacks on Muslims, Wilders would never have managed to become the main voice of resistance to the EU. There is almost nothing the left can achieve in this country any more without settling accounts with Islamophobia.

At the same time we have to acknowledge that Islamic fundamentalism exists and is a problem – although the danger it poses to the Netherlands is being ridiculously exaggerated. The millions of Dutch people who say they are afraid an Islamic state will be established in Europe have completely lost their sense of proportion. Fundamentalism doesn’t even have much support among people of Muslim immigrant origin. Every survey shows that Dutch Muslims are hardly any more religious than Dutch Christians, that the rate of mosque attendance is low and declining, and that the number of ex-Muslims and non-practising Muslims is increasing.

However terrible Islamic fundamentalism may be for its individual victims – above all women – it is a fallacy to treat right-wing Islamophobes and Islamic fundamentalists as equivalent threats in the Netherlands today. Both qualitatively and quantitatively, the Dutch far right is the greater danger. No fundamentalist imam is ever going to become Dutch prime minister; unfortunately we can’t be sure that the same is true of Wilders!

The left may even sometimes join in a demonstration – in solidarity with Palestine, for example – where Islamic fundamentalists are also present. We shouldn’t be afraid to do that, though we should take care that our slogans don’t get mixed up with theirs. But we should avoid demonstrating alongside Wilders supporters at any price.

The ‘Muslim threat’ is in fact the equivalent in the Netherlands today of what the ‘Communist threat’ was about 50 years ago: a bogeyman that serves as a pretext for a right-wing, repressive political climate.

Hegemony

What we mustn’t lose sight of, however, is the fact that left wing and Islamic currents are competing for hegemony among radicalizing youth of non-Dutch origin. Even though people of Muslim origin will never become a majority of the Dutch population, they are a growing proportion of young people, of the population of the big cities and of the working class. If the left is to climb out of the deep pit it’s in now and win a majority of society – and that must remain our goal – we need a base under people of non-Dutch origin as well as among people of Dutch origin.

Unfortunately the left is not doing well among young people of Muslim origin. Left-wing immigrant currents like DIDF (Federation of Turkish Workers in the Netherlands) and KMAN (Committee of Moroccan Workers in the Netherlands) are significantly weaker than they were 20 years ago. These groups did not play a prominent role in the protests against the Israeli attack on Gaza, for example. An Islamic current like the PPMS, by contrast, did.

There are people on the left who don’t think this is so terrible. Those young Muslims are against the government, against Wilders and against Zionism, just as we are, they say, so we can perfectly well be allies. But that’s sophistry. Our differences with fundamentalists about women’s and LGBT emancipation are not secondary issues. No just society is possible if over half the population is denied equal rights or if people aren’t free to love as they choose.

And there are other areas where we have unbridgeable differences with fundamentalists. Islamic politics offers no future to people in the Netherlands. An Islamic state is impossible in this country (fortunately); a return to the ‘pillarized’ politics in which Dutch politics and society were divided along religious lines is a recipe for division and stagnation; and a Salafist withdrawal from secular democracy would rob a big share of the Netherlands’ working and poorest people of their political voice and their social rights.

In short, a politics based on religion leads nowhere…

Ramadan

… as the controversy in Rotterdam around Tariq Ramadan made clear.

From the moment the city signed its contract hiring Ramadan as a consultant on immigrant affairs, failure was guaranteed. Because in doing so the city government was simply turning the Islamophobic positions of the previous administration, dominated by the right-wing Liveable Rotterdam party, upside down. Both Liveable Rotterdam and its centre-left successors viewed Rotterdammers of Moroccan and Turkish origin above all as Muslims. For Liveable Rotterdam they are as such suspect; for the Labour Party and Green Left they have to be ‘integrated’ as Muslims.

You don’t have to be an enemy of Tariq Ramadan, still less of his religion, to conclude that someone who doesn’t speak Dutch and has no profound knowledge of the Netherlands is not qualified to help people become fully equal citizens of a Dutch city.

The upshot is that virtually every political current in Rotterdam has managed to alienate Rotterdammers of Muslim origin. The Labour Party and Green Left managed to do it by acting as if Ramadan represented all those Rotterdammers, and then sacking Ramadan in a humiliating way when they became convinced that he was an electoral liability. The fact that these two parties of neoliberal business-as-usual still win many votes among immigrants is a reflection of the lack of self-respect among political figures and organizations representing people of non-Dutch origin. As for the SP, which as the only anti-neoliberal party has more to offer, it has been repeatedly equated in this affair with Liveable Rotterdam.

This image of the SP is in part the fault of the media. A year ago, when Ramadan’s contract was renewed, the SP city council delegation made clear that they didn’t give much weight to the charges of sexism and homophobia against Ramadan; they simply didn’t think his fee was a useful investment of taxpayers’ money. And again when Ramadan was sacked, the SP said it didn’t think that his connection with the Iranian government-funded PressTV was so terrible. By ignoring the SP’s statements, the media gave a distorted picture of the political landscape.

The SP can however be reproached with not expressing more repugnance at the Islamophobia of Liveable Rotterdam and the right-wing liberal VVD and at the opportunism of the centre-left parties in city government. Unfortunately, the SP’s low profile against Islamophobia is not surprising from a party that expresses such vehement objections to ‘ethnic politics’. It was also simply negligent of the SP not to say that sacking Ramadan from his chair at the Erasmus University (which he was given at the same time the city hired him as a consultant) was an impermissible assault on academic freedom.

The Erasmus University faculty members who took a public stand against the university’s breach of its contract deserve high praise, all the more because they made clear that they did not necessarily share Ramadan’s opinions. Would that all of Ramadan’s defenders on the left had been as sensible. Even if the man has been treated unjustly, that is no reason to treat him as a progressive hero. Yes, he’s smart, eloquent, elegant, an effective critic of Israel and of the war in Afghanistan, a proponent of Muslim participation in democratic politics, and a legitimate interlocutor within the global justice movement – but he’s not part of the left.

A glance at his website shows that in France in 2007, despite his justified criticisms of the presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy, he had hardly anything good to say about any of the candidates of the left (and he commented on them all). The only candidate he expressed admiration for was the centrist François Bayrou. Moreover, Ramadan’s criticisms of Sarkozy didn’t stop him from later dedicating one of his books to the right-wing politician. And we don’t even need to mention his negative opinions on homosexuality.

Lessons

This tragic business shows that the left is still at a loss in dealing with Dutch people of Muslim origin. It is time to go back to first principles.

There needs to be room on the left for people of every religion and no religion, for people who do and don’t wear crosses, for women who do or don’t wear headscarves. And the left should be more open to spirituality in general – an area in which we have something to learn from believers. With the general atomization of society, the Dutch left has too often forgotten that transforming society requires sacrifices and a willingness to put oneself at the service of one’s fellow human beings. People who have a spiritual motivation for their political commitment should be able to be open about it.

In that case, however, believers and non-believers need to have a common basis for discussion and action. Once arguments like ‘I believe because God says it’ or ‘I do it because God commands it’ – about abortion, poverty or anything else – are admitted in politics, rational debate becomes impossible. Discussions on the left should be about interests, values, facts and analyses, not about theology.

This doesn’t mean that the left should be a space of uniformity, in which we are all citizens and perhaps workers and nothing else. The left needs to be as diverse as society at large – and we have a long way to go in this respect. Like women and men, people of non-Dutch origin and people of Dutch origin, gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, queers and many others, believers should be at home on the left.

Peter Drucker gave this introduction at the recent youth school organised by the Fourth International.

In “Building Unity Against Fascism: Classic Marxist Writings” you can read:
* German socialist Clara Zetkin, Bolshevik leader Karl Radek and Italian communist Antonio Gramsci on the birth on fascism in the early 1920s
* Leon Trotsky’s article, including“Fascism: What It Is and How To Fight It”, explaining why neither capitalist nor Stalinist parties were able to stop fascism in Italy, Germany and Spain in the 1930s.
* Maurice Spector’s detailed analysis of German fascism in power
* Daniel Guérin’s 1939 “Fascism and Big Business” and his 1945 preface to its French edition
* Ted Grant’s booklet, “The Menace of Fascism”, which discussed British fascism, the second World War and the Jewish community in Britain
* Analysis by Felix Morrow, James P Cannon and Farrell Dobbs of the rise and fall of fascist organisations in the USA in the 20th century.

Order from/Pay to: Resistance, PO Box 62732 London SW2 9GQ. £6 UK; £7 Europe; £8 Rest of World. Pay by UK cheque, post order or by paypal.com to resistance@sent.com

Please allow up to three weeks for delivery. The book will be published on September 18, and shipped out as soon as we have it.

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Download the middle pages: www.discourseunit.com/cc2forwebpages2&3.jpg
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A timely conference just took place in Canada on ‘Marxism and Psychology’. The connection between Marxism and ‘psychology’ is not often made by activists or academics, but the connection is crucial to our understanding of how individual subjectivity comes to be caught up in economic processes under capitalism. We only have to take the banking crisis to see how important this is.

The current political economic crisis makes people feel afraid. This fear is quite understandable, for many people may lose their jobs and they have certainly lost their trust in politicians. But today we need to notice the role of an academic and professional discipline that operates as part of capitalism and that prevents people from taking political economic action to tackle the crisis. This discipline is psychology. Psychology in the colleges and clinics will tell you how you need to correct your faulty thoughts and change your behaviour so you can be happy again. But what is the agenda here?

There are three aspects to this agenda. The first is the individualism that psychology is based on. This individualism strips out relational aspects of human action, and those aspects are then only reintroduced later as if they are ‘variables’. In this way the very individuality of human experience, which derives its significance and value from histories of interaction with others, is betrayed. The second aspect is essentialism, in which qualities of human activity are separated from each other so they can be categorised and refined within a psychological model of the person. This essentialism then organises explanations of what people can do and cannot do in terms of fixed mechanisms or procedures.

The third aspect is normalisation, which operates through universalising representations of human beings, usually with the effect of confirming the superiority of the culture from which the representations emanate. Today that usually also confirms the superiority of Anglo-American culture in which psychology is so strong, and it is then globalised. It then defines who is abnormal. Psychology operates alongside psychiatry and even in some places in the world with psychoanalysis as part of an apparatus, the psy complex, and as part of a process of psychologisation.

Psychologisation works through an experiential commitment to psychological explanations, not only of what happens to each individual but also what happens to society. Advice and makeover programmes on television feed these explanations and encourage people to feel them as if they are deep within themselves. Then the language of psychology comes to replace political explanations, and this language limits the room for manoeuvre and, even more so, limits social change.

When you speculate about what made the banker have a crisis of confidence and when you imagine that you should change the way you think and feel as a solution to this crisis, you are sharing in this psychologisation. It is a powerful ideological con-trick, and an alternative to capitalism must also include an alternative to psychology.

The conference was an academic conference with a variety of different psychological theories jostling for prominence (ranging from Freudian and post-Freudian psychoanalysis to Soviet-style ‘activity theory’), but there were some activists there, and different kinds of Marxism clashed alongside the theoretical debates. Joel Kovel, former radical shrink who is now a leading ecosocialist, was there, as was Raquel Guzzo, a developmental and educational psychologist who is currently standing for Partido Socialismo e Liberdade (PSOL) in the Brazilian elections. Other speakers, including from Belgium, Mexico, Romania, Serbia, the UK and the US, intervened in discussions about practical political links between conceptual and revolutionary activity. The Marxism and Psychology conference team are still at work in the form of the Marxism and Psychology Research Group (http://discoveryspace.upei.ca/mprg/), led by Mike Arfken at Prince Edward Island. This is a space for critical work, already planning for another conference that will broaden the scope of discussion beyond the themes of ‘alienation’, ‘ideology’ and ‘methodology’ addressed in this first conference to address questions of gender, race and ecological destruction that have now become key aspects of Marxist politics.

Ian Parker, Manchester