Nationalism in an imperialist country can never be a progressive force
Yan Yongsheng, Unite for Greater Victory! (1974)
I’m not going to repeat all the work done by my party in proving that Scotland is not actually a separate nation, but part of the British one. The work is detailed and scientifically based.
I’m not going to repeat the work done by my party in pointing out that the illusions propagated by left-wing supporters of Scottish nationalism are mere wishes, based on nothing but the electoral promises of the SNP (not worth the paper they’re written on, like all bourgeois election promises) and on the hopes and desires of the many progressive people who have become demoralised at the scale of the task that faces revolutionaries in Britain.
Although socialism is in the interests of all British workers, those of us who openly advocate for it are few in number, disunited, disorganised and very often lacking in any real understanding of what socialism really is and how we might get from here to there.
In the face of these difficulties, all too many of us have simply given up on the revolution altogether. Instead of working harder to overcome our theoretical and organisational weakness, some of us have decided that maybe we could get somewhere at least a bit better by pursuing just a part of our goal in a smaller part of Britain, against what we fondly imagine will be a weaker and easier-to-defeat enemy.
But let us consider this: when the Nottinghamshire miners and the pit deputies settled with the government in 1984, they must have followed similar reasoning. They couldn’t bring themselves to believe in the possibility of winning if they joined or maintained the strike, and they thought that they could at least preserve their own jobs and communities if they stayed at or went back to work.
Thirty years on, how has history judged this decision?
It is clear to all of us now that the pit deputies’ and Notts miners’ actions played a significant part in defeating the strike, thus selling out the rest of the miners nationwide. Moreover, this defeat ultimately led to the closure of all their pits too, and the loss of all their jobs.
They tried to go for a solution that would protect a smaller group and ended up losing everything for everyone.
Scotland is a part of Britain. Scottish workers are a part of the British working class. If we allow our exploiters to divide us, all we succeed in doing is making it easier for them to pick us off bit by bit and defeat us.
We have a single struggle against a single ruling class, and we need the maximum possible unity if we are to have any hope of winning. Our rulers know this. That is why they constantly tell the people living in Scotland that they are a separate nation, and why they give so much help to the nationalists in spreading the illusion that the ills of capitalism can be solved by voting SNP.
But Scottish workers are not going to get a socialist paradise if they vote for the fake ‘independence’ that is being offered. They will get a smaller, weaker force against the same united, strong and very cunning ruling class of British exploiters.
Meanwhile, encouraging workers in an imperialist country (which Britain undoubtedly is) to identify with their ‘own’ national bourgeoisie (which is what nationalism does) means asking them to take the side of and identify their interests with imperialism. No-one has offered any meaningful proof that the Scotland-based section of the British ruling class is going to give up looting the world the day after ‘independence’. It will continue to be what it is now — a ruthless group of imperialist billionaire exploiters. Yet Scottish nationalism tells British workers living in Scotland to identify with these exploiters and to blame ‘the English’ for all their problems.
What on earth is progressive about that?
Resistance to oppression is a UN-recognised human right
I wrote this on Facebook at the end of July as a general sounding-off against all those war pimps who try to equate the violence of the oppressed with the violence of the oppressor in Gaza.
I am so sick of listening to people slating the Palestinian resistance (‘Hamas’) for trying to fight back against the genocide being perpetrated against their people.
To deny people their right to resist is to deny them their humanity. It is a right that is actually enshrined in international law. Not that you’d know it from watching or reading the corporate media coverage.
How do you feel about the French resistance who fought Nazi occupation? If you think this is different, ask yourself why? Because the people fighting this particular occupation are brown and not white? Because some of them are muslim and not christian? Because your own ruling class has demonised them?
No doubt Goebbels’ nazi media accused the French and other European resistance fighters of all sorts of dreadful crimes and motivations. That was their job. It didn’t make them right. And the western demonisation of ‘Hamas’ (Palestinian resistance) doesn’t make those lies true either.
If we really want peace in the Middle East, we should be calling for the odds to be evened up. Give the Palestinians some tanks, fighter jets and a nuclear weapon or two, and I bet you anything the Israelis would be all about the peace talks … so easy for them to be brave when they’re massacring babies like fish in a barrel from uncontested skies.
And this a week or so later in response to the most disgusting bit of BBC war propaganda I’ve yet had the misfortune to read:
The British people need to know what the BBC won’t tell them: a. that the occupation is illegal, b. that the siege is a crime, c. that the massacre is a war crime, and d. that resistance, including ARMED resistance, is a UN-recognised human right.
Senior BBC journalists should be facing a war crimes tribunal. This kind of disinformation campaign is exactly what the Nuremberg judges were talking about when they looked at the role of propaganda in facilitating war crimes. Journalists actually got executed after WW2 for their role in enabling the Nazis’ crimes.
Hamas were elected by the Palestinian people. The resistance is the resistance of the Palestinian people. Wishing resistance to an illegal occupation would stop is NOT a justification for war crimes.
If the Israelis want the oppressed to stop resisting, there is a simple solution. They need to stop the occupation, end the siege, dismantle their apartheid state and allow the refugees to return home. In short, they are going to have to stop acting as stooges for imperialism in the Middle East and give up their fascist dreams of a jewish-only supremacist state in Palestine.
Check out the video below for confirmation of this view from a humanitarian doctor who could in no way be described as a communist or a communist sympathiser. Just an objective observer who refuses to be cowed by the weight of the imperialist propaganda offensive about ‘Hamas violence’.
“This is not a battle between terrorism and democracy. Hamas is not the enemy Israel is fighting. Israel is fighting a war against the Palestinian people’s will to resist. The unbending determination not to submit to the occupation!
“It is the Palestinian people’s dignity and humanity that will not accept that they are treated as third-, fourth, fifth-ranking people.
“In 1938, the Nazis called the jews ‘untermensch’, subhuman. Today, Palestinians in the West Bank, in Gaza, in the diaspora are treated as untermensch — as subhumans who can be bombed, killed, slaughtered by the thousands — without any of those in power reacting …
“It’s stated in international law. You are permitted to fight the occupier, even with weapons …
“Nobody wants to be oppressed! Nobody wants to be occupied! Therefore it is actually rooted in international law — that an occupied nation can resist — also with armed struggle.”
— Dr Mads Gilbert of Norway, who has been serving in Al-Shifa hospital Gaza during the latest massacre
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Yes, it’s good not to buy Israeli peppers, but wouldn’t it be even better if we had mobilised the shop workers not to put the peppers on the shelves in the first place?
We as British workers have a huge amount of power over the Israeli project, and we mustn’t be led to believe that all we can do is go to a demonstration and write to an MP, sign a petition and go back home and feel cross. We have power together, and we must be spreading that awareness.
We as communists are nothing if we aren’t trying to spread the awareness that workers have a collective power. We need to be mobilising for no cooperation completely.
That means do not stock Israeli products on the shelves. That means do not supply Israel with war materials or help of any kind. That means do not help the settlements to be built, the infrastructure to be built, the telecommunications to operate.
That means do not put out, help to put out, write, transmit, broadcast or put on a website any propaganda that supports this illegal, genocidal war. These are war crimes.
That’s the message that we need to take into the British working-class movement. That is the message that is lacking. That stops the anger that I felt in the street today outside the Israeli embassy from turning into a power that will frighten the living daylights out of our ruling class and force them to drop their support for this disgusting project.
[Outtake from a short speech I gave at the weekend. Full speech in the video above.]
Resistance is the key to defeating zionism
The lines which do not blur and which have become more focused are the absolute obligation to support Resistance, who are fighting against foreigners, occupiers, and for the very lives of Palestinians.
And in Syria, Syrians, against largely foreign insurgents whose ‘revolutionary’ tactics include: car-bombing civilian areas, mortaring (with insidious mortars packed with bits of jagged metal, glass … whatever will inflict as much pain and damage as possible upon their civilian targets), cutting — often sawing, not enough the luxury of a swift stroke, but instead a jagged blade, a slow and brutal death — and stoning to death, using chemical weapons, and if not murdering flogging, cutting off hands …
It’s time to really bring Resistance to the forefront and erode the stigma corporate media and western governments have tagged them with. They have a legitimate and legally-lauded right to resist.
The countless Syrians I met in Syria, Lebanon and Canada were uniform in their unwavering support of Palestine. Hizbollah has again come out with statements of unwavering support for Palestine.
These, the Resistance, and the medics/rescuers, and the Palestinians resisting in so many ways throughout occupied Palestine and proxy-warred Syria are my heroes and inspiration.
— Eva Bartlett, In Gaza blog
Eva is absolutely right in her conclusion about the need to support the resistance.
It is resistance that is the key to defeating zionism. The resistance of the Palestinians is what has forced the rest of the world to take notice of what is happening there. It is what has steadily destroyed Israel’s moral standing in the world.
There is also our own resistance to think of.
Here in the imperialist countries, there is more we can do than simply ask our imperialist politicians politely not to take Israel’s side — not to send weapons, money or supplies to the zionist state that commits such heinous crimes. We can actually force our governments to drop support if we are prepared to ACT.
What we really need to be calling for in all our respective countries — and especially in those with close ties to Israel like Britain and the USA — is a mass campaign of non-cooperation with Israeli war crimes.
I know that British people are sick of the crimes being committed in Palestine. They are sick of their government’s complicity. They feel powerless. It is the Palestine solidarity movement’s job to point out that they are not as powerless as they think.
Not only the media needs to be held to account and those firms that profit from the war and occupation singled out and boycotted (something our own Palestine Solidarity Campaign does work at), but all parts of the war machine need to be actively stopped from functioning.
We are not only consumers but workers. Media workers should refuse to write war propaganda or to publish or broadcast them. They should be reminded that taking any part in creating such propaganda makes them war criminals too, according to what was established at Nuremberg.
Those who are making munitions for Israel need to refuse to continue with such work. Those who ship them likewise. Those who provide any goods or services to Israel and to the settlements need to withdraw their labour from such work and explain exactly why they are doing so to the rest of the British public. Supermarket workers should refuse to put Israeli products on the shelves. Transport workers should refuse to carry them.
Collectively, as workers, we do have a lot more power over the situation than the ineffectual lobbying of MPs would lead us to believe. The role of Palestine solidarity movements everywhere should be to lead the campaign to raise that awareness and mobilise workers in every area of productive life to get behind such a campaign and bring their co-workers with them.
The whole zionist enterprise would collapse pretty quickly if we put our money where our mouth is and used our collective power. It’s the one thing that could terrify our own ruling class into dropping its support for the Israeli project.
The battle for Yarmouk is Syria’s Stalingrad
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The camp at Yarmouk – the largest centre of Palestinian refugees in Syria – is more of a small town than a refugee camp. There are no tents to be seen, but instead streets of houses that are home to every strata of Palestinian society and complete with all the necessary infrastructure and amenities, from hospitals and schools to internet cafes and beauty parlours.
Given its pivotal location as a gateway to Damascus city, the capture of Yarmouk has long been a strategic goal for the takfiri terrorists, who succeeded in completely taking control of the camp towards the end of 2012.
As a result of two years of fierce fighting, the camp’s former population of 250,000 has now dwindled to 18,000, creating many thousands of new refugees, and leaving those who remain to suffer severe hardships. Women in labour have died, the wounded cannot be treated, and malnutrition is rising as food supplies sink dangerously low.
Much has been made of the siege of Yarmouk in western and comprador Arab media outlets, with imperialist-aligned politicians and commentators shedding crocodile tears over the fate of the Palestinians of the camp.
What is not reported, however, is that despite the tragic fact that some Palestinians have been persuaded to side with the rampaging western-backed militias, many more have volunteered to join the Syrian Arab Army in fighting the terrorists.
The Press TV report linked to above makes it clear that the battle for Yarmouk is pivotal in the battle for Syria, and, since both sides know this, the fighting to recapture every house and building is intense. The retreating terrorists are looting, burning and destroying houses as they go, in what has been described as a ‘scorched-earth policy‘.
The battle for Yarmouk is not only one to save the remaining refugees in the camp – it could well be described as Syria’s Stalingrad.
Meanwhile, as western NGOs try to blame the Syrian government for the suffering of civilians, Palestinian activists from inside the camp told Ma’an news agency last week that PLO supply trucks loaded with medicine and food have been prevented from entering the camp by ‘rebels’ firing shells at them from inside.
Our aid convoys have been fired on by Jabhat al-Nusra, Ahrar al-Sham and Suqur al-Golan. All these groups are known for their terrorist links and methodology. Palestinians everywhere know that those who have taken Yarmouk hostage are these groups, not the Syrian authorities.
More from Ahmad Majdalani’s press conference (cited above).
As a small contribution to countering the imperialist media’s narrative surrounding the siege, I am reproducing here some useful insights from comrades in the Arab world with direct connections to present and former residents of the camp:
With the suffering of the Palestinian and Syrian people in Yarmouk reaching a fever pitch, let it never be forgotten that this entire tragedy began with the takfiri scourge entering the once vibrant city in December 2012.
Due to its geographical location as a strategic gateway into Damascus, Yarmouk is being held hostage by various terrorist groups which are also blocking all humanitarian aid delivery attempts by the Syrian Arab Army and the PLO.
As is the case with the destruction of the nation as a whole, this catastrophe falls on the rebels and their zionist-imperialist backers that inflicted this ‘uprising’ on Syria to begin with, not those defending their country from it.
It should also be noted that unlike the rest of the Arab world, where denigration, indignity and even outright racism have befallen them, the Palestinian people are well treated in Syria; they are citizens of Syria and equals.
They are given the same access to the nation’s top-notch education and healthcare programmes, the region’s best before the ‘uprising’, as well as social security benefits, and there are Palestinians who serve in the government, the nation’s armed forces and other important institutions throughout the country.
Yet another reason why the Syrian Arab Republic has been targeted with this conspiracy: because it refused to abandon the Palestinian cause and treat the Palestinian people in the same disgraceful manner that the zionists’ treacherous Arab allies have since the Nakba.
Before the takfiris arrived, Yarmouk was a beautiful place, inhabited by Syria’s best: doctors, engineers, lawyers, professors, writers and resistant youth full of promise and hope. The zionists couldn’t be happier with what is taking place there today.
Via Sarah Abdallah in Lebanon
The PFLP have constantly blamed the takfiris for the siege. They said they have taken over the camp, and they won’t leave. They now shoot at anyone trying to bring in food.
The Saudis want them to starve the Palestinians so they can use their photos on social media and western papers to demonise Al-Assad; that’s the sick mentality they have. They had no problem slaughtering people in the past and blaming Syrian troops.
Sometimes I listen to some Saudi ‘intellectuals’ on TV expressing their ‘sorrow’ for the fate of the Palestinians in the Yarmouk camp and my jaw just drops.
Really??? The Palestinians were dying under F16s, Apaches and bombs and you never lifted a finger, nor showed any outrage on your sick media. Nor did you write an article showing support. You stood by America when bombs fell on both Lebanon and Gaza and you did not give a damn. Hypocrites.
Via Fatima Madani
I have witnessed the [formerly] thriving Palestinian Yarmouk refugee camp in Syria. I’ve been there and it was as if it was a piece of sovereign Palestinian soil.
I want to agree with Sarah again in regards to how the Palestinians have been treated in Syria.
I haven’t been to Yarmouk but some of my closest comrades whom I’ve been close to for years and Palestinians from Yarmouk can definitely confirm that.
It’s important to note that Syria sent food and weapons to Gaza when the violence broke out by the hands of the zionists.
I also agree with Fatima’s comments on the PFLP. This is true. They’ve been the main force trying to protect the Palestinians.
Via Samia Saleh
Butcher dies, struggle continues. On the death of Ariel Sharon
Originally posted on Facebook, 12 January 2014
As when that other murdering tool of imperialism Margaret Thatcher died last year, I can’t feel any particular triumph at the death of Ariel Sharon.
He is one more blood-soaked war criminal who will never be brought to justice – having lived to a ripe old age and received the best possible medical care for years. Care that is routinely denied to those Palestinians who have survived the many attempts to wipe them out by imperialist-backed zionism.
There will be no justice for Sharon’s victims – or for any of those other millions who have been killed and pushed off their land and out of their homes across the Middle East – until imperialism is defeated and its hideous creation Israel is relegated to the dustbin of history.
The struggle continues. And right now the front line of that struggle is in Syria, with tentacles spreading across Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq and elsewhere.
If you truly want to see imperialism and zionism defeated in the Middle East, if you want to see freedom for Palestine and an end to the reign of all the murdering Sharons, make sure you are doing everything possible to support the national-unity government of Bashar al-Assad against the jihadi death squads.
The Syrian people don’t need ‘aid’ for orphans, they need Saudi, Israel, Qatar and Turkey, who are all acting as proxies for Britain, the US and France, to stop sending money, weapons and mercenaries to tear their country apart.
Everyone who falls for the propaganda lies about Syria and gives support to the takfiri scum – or even to the west-backed ‘humanitarian NGOs’ – in Syria is holding back the chances of victory for Palestine and freedom for the people of the entire Arab world. They are prolonging the life of this terrible system and allowing the body count to rise.
I’m sorry Sharon died in a hospital bed and not in a hangman’s noose. Let our revenge be the laughter of our children … or our children’s children … or our children’s children’s children. The struggle continues for as long as it takes.
Hasta la victoria siempre!
Dr Swee Chai Ang: The children of Sabra and Shatila
Soon I was surrounded by a whole lot of children. Kids without homes, without parents, without futures. But they were the children of Sabra and the children of Shatila. One of them spotted my pocket camera, and wanted a picture taken. Then they all stood together, wanting their pictures taken. They wanted me to show their picture to the people of the world.
Even if they were killed and the camps were demolished, the world would know that they were the children of Sabra and Shatila, and were not afraid. As I focused my camera, they all held up their hands and made victory signs, right in front of their destroyed homes, where many had been killed. Dear little friends, you taught me what courage and struggle are about …
I looked into the face of death and have seen its power and ugliness, but I have also looked into its eyes, and seen its fear. For our children are coming, and they are not afraid.
Ariel Sharon: his Sabra and Shatila legacy – an eye-witness account
Remembering Nelson Mandela
A small selection of reactions to the death of Nelson Mandela, along with some quotes from the man himself.
Only through hardship, sacrifice and militant action can freedom be won. The struggle is my life. I will continue fighting for freedom until the end of my days.
— Nelson Mandela, Letter from underground, 26 June 1961
Our long walk to freedom will continue until oppression and exploitation, war and hunger, ignorance and poverty are a thing of the past.
To this end, let us celebrate the life of Nelson Mandela, defend his revolutionary legacy in the face of distortions and lies and intensify the struggle against imperialism. There is no better way we can honour this outstanding son of the African soil!
— Tribute to Nelson Mandela by Khwezi Kadalie of the Marxist Workers School of South Africa, 15 December 2013
During my lifetime I have dedicated my life to the struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities.
It is an ideal which I hope to live for, and see realised. But my Lord, if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.
— Nelson Mandela at his trial for sabotage and treason in Rivonia, 20 April 1964
In the life of every nation there arise men who leave an indelible and eternal stamp on the history of their peoples; men who are both products and makers of history.
And when they pass they leave a vision of a new and better life and the tools with which to win and build it.
— This tribute to South African Communist Party leader Moses Kotane by Dr Yusuf Dadoo in 1978 was used as the opening lines in the ANC’s tribute to Nelson Mandela.
The people of Asia and Africa have seen through the slanderous campaign conducted by the USA against the socialist countries. They know that their independence is threatened not by any of the countries in the socialist camp but by the USA, which has surrounded their continent with military bases.
The communist bogey is an American stunt to distract the attention of the people of Africa from the real issue facing them, namely, American imperialism.
— Nelson Mandela, The Struggle Is My Life
If you supported the war against the Libyan Jamahiriyah and called Gaddafi a “dictator”, then shut up about Mandela.
If you don’t support socialist Cuba, then shut up about Mandela.
If you don’t support the struggle of the Palestinian people for national liberation, then shut up about Mandela.
If you don’t support President Robert Mugabe and Zanu-PF, if you think he’s a dictator and you don’t support the struggle to free the land, then shut up about Mandela.
If you don’t think that armed struggle is a legitimate tool in the hands of the oppressed to free themselves, then shut up about Mandela.
— Erich Struch, Chicago, via Facebook
Some say that it is impossible to acquire the great qualities of revolutionary geniuses like Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin and that it is impossible to raise our own qualities to the same level as theirs.
But as long as party members work hard and earnestly, never allow themselves to be isolated for one single moment from the day-to-day struggle of the people, and make serious efforts to study Marxist literature, learn from the experiences of other comrades and the masses of the people, and constantly strive to steel and cultivate themselves, they will be perfectly able to raise their qualities to the same level as that of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin.
— Nelson Mandela, How To Be a Good Communist
When Cameron latches on the Mandela bandwagon this week remember that in 1985 he was a top member of the Federation of Conservative Students, who produced the “Hang Mandela” posters.
In 1989 Cameron worked in the Tory Policy Unit at Central Office and went on a anti-sanctions fact-finding mission to South Africa with a pro-apartheid lobby firm that was sponsored by Botha.
Remember this when he tells the world he was inspired by Madiba.
— Unknown author, via Tori Rae, West Yorkshire on Facebook
Fifty years of non-violence had brought the African people nothing but more and more repressive legislation, and fewer and fewer rights.
— Nelson Mandela, statement from the dock during the Riviona trial
I had no epiphany, no singular revelation, no moment of truth. But a steady accumulation of a thousand slights, a thousand indignities and a thousand unremembered moments produced in me an anger, a rebelliousness, a desire to fight the system that imprisoned my people.
— Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom
Maybe the simplest demonstration of the hypocrisy and crocodile tears here is that Mandela and Gaddafi were close friends, and while Obama is declaring a day of prayer for one, he killed the other.
Or maybe it’s that British prime minister David Cameron, who is so saddened by Mandela’s death, spent much of 1985 distributing “Hang Mandela” posters. They’re mourning Mandela because they don’t dare not to, not because they want to.
— Daniel Sullivan, Dallas, via Facebook
Long live the Cuban Revolution. Long live comrade Fidel Castro … Cuban internationalists have done so much for African independence, freedom, and justice.
We admire the sacrifices of the Cuban people in maintaining their independence and sovereignty in the face of a vicious imperialist campaign designed to destroy the advances of the Cuban revolution. We too want to control our destiny …
There can be no surrender. It is a case of freedom or death. The Cuban revolution has been a source of inspiration to all freedom-loving people.
— Nelson Mandela, Speech at the celebration of the start of the Cuban revolution, 26 July 1991, Havana
During the conflict there was a close working relationship between Irish republicans and the ANC … the IRA provided practical training and advice and assistance with military operations to MK [Umkhonto we Sizwe, or Spear of the Nation, the ANC’s military wing, founded by Nelson Mandela and others].
… the famous attack of 31 May 1980 on Sasal Oil Refinery near J’Burg was carried out with the assistance of the Irish Republican Army …
The British government at the time [1995] lobbied hard for Madiba not to meet me. And when it was clear that the ANC was determined and Madiba was determined that the visit should go ahead the British lobbied for no handshake or photograph. He ignored them.
— Gerry Adams pays tribute to a comrade-in-arms in the Irish Dáil
If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America.
We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.
— Nelson Mandela, Address at the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People in Pretoria, 4 December 1997
4 December 1997, Pretoria
Tata Madiba, no matter how much they try to use your name, no matter how much they want to bathe in your glory, we know that none of your gentleness, none of your humanity, and none of your integrity will rub off onto them, for they don’t possess gentleness, humanity nor integrity.
We know that you are on the side of the downtrodden, the oppressed and exploited.
We know that you will never abandon a single political prisoner, nor will you ever abandon a single fighter for justice and freedom.
— From Tata Madiba, we are ONE with you by ZK Kubu, South Africa
No country can claim to be the policeman of the world and no state can dictate to another what it should do.
Those that yesterday were friends of our enemies have the gall today to tell me not to visit my brother Gaddafi. They are advising us to be ungrateful and forget our friends of the past.
— Nelson Mandela on his visit to Libya, which he made as soon as he was released from prison in 1990
The truth is that Mandela was above all else a freedom fighter and a leader of armed struggle against the apartheid regime and its imperialist backers.
He supported and in turn was supported by other freedom fighters the world over, from the IRA, Yasser Arafat’s PLO, Muammer Gaddafi’s Libya, to Fidel Castro of Cuba, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Agostino Neto of the MPLA, etc. – all of whom were branded as terrorists by the representatives of imperialism and its gigantic propaganda machine.
It is to the great credit and integrity of Mandela that he refused to turn his back on any of them, in spite of the pressure brought to bear upon him by imperialism.
— Lalkar tribute to Mandela, January 2013
The ANC has a proud record of struggle and resistance to the efforts of successive white minority regimes to entrench this system and make it an everlasting reality defining the nature and functioning of South African society.
It is precisely that struggle which has changed the balance of forces to such an extent that the apartheid system is now under retreat. Through the struggles of our people the ban on the ANC has been lifted and we are able to meet in our own country today.
A regime whose ideology is based on a virulent anti-communism has been forced to unban our ally the South African Communist Party, and remove provisions from the law prohibiting the propagation of communist ideals …
We have suspended armed action, but we have not terminated the armed struggle. Whether it is deployed inside the country or outside, the Umkhonto we Sizwe has therefore a responsibility to keep itself in a state of readiness in case the forces of counter-revolution once more block the path of peaceful transition to a democratic society.
— Nelson Mandela, speech to the ANC Congress in Durban, 2 July 1991
Hamba Kahle, Madiba. Qhawe la ma Qhawe! (Go well, rest in peace, Madiba, hero among heroes!)
— Gerry Adams, using the words originally used by Mandela to salute his friend and comrade Walter Sisulu
The goal of communism is a classless society based on the principle: from each according to his ability and to each according to his needs. The aim is to change the present world into a communist world where there will be no exploiters and no exploited, no oppressor and oppressed, no rich and no poor.
Communists fight for a world where there will be no unemployment, no poverty and starvation, disease and ignorance. In such a world there will be no capitalists, no imperialists, no fascists. There will be neither colonies nor wars.
— Nelson Mandela, How To Be a Good Communist
Long live Nelson Mandela, anti-imperialist freedom fighter
6 December 2013, via Facebook.
In the next days and weeks when all the bourgeois politicians and media whores are pretending they loved Mandela, and are doing their damnedest to turn him into the next Gandhi — into an advert for ‘peaceful protest’, ‘non-violence’ and all things respectable (ie, harmless to imperialism) — I will be remembering that our Madiba was a FREEDOM FIGHTER first and foremost.
He was a leader of the armed struggle against apartheid and imperialism. He supported and was supported by other freedom fighters all over the world, including the IRA, Yasser Arafat’s PLO, Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya, Fidel Castro’s Cuba, Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe … and the list goes on.
Like Mandela and the ANC, these have all been vilified and branded as ‘terrorists’ by the corporate media when they dared to stand up for themselves and their peoples. And even after the imperialists tried to turn Mandela into a poster boy for the ‘third way’, he refused to turn his back on his old friends.
Because the truth is that capitalists don’t do reason and debate. They understand only one language: FORCE. People get freedom only if they take it; it is never given.
So let Mandela’s example and his victory against apartheid teach us that if we are prepared to make sacrifices, if we are prepared to organise and if we are prepared to fight, we too can win.
La luta continua! Madiba zindabad!
Hackney Council censor resident from speaking against corporation complicit in war crimes in Palestine
Hackney council is intent on giving a massive contract to a company that profits from Israeli war crimes. And they don’t care what rules they break in the process – either locally or internationally.
Who are these people who persist in imagining we live in a ‘democracy’? It’s democracy for the ruling class and dictatorship over the rest of us. The rules are for us idiots to waste our time over trying to make sense out of and follow. When the rules don’t suit the interests of our rulers, they’ve no qualms about ignoring them and just getting on with whatever is most expedient!
As far as I can see, the lesson is: forget about trying to beat them through ‘legal’ and ‘democratic’ channels. Do what they do: use your collective power to do what needs to be done!
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Thanks to Caroline Day on the ONN website for the article that follows:
Yesterday (Wednesday) I was meant to speak at a Hackney Council meeting about the potential selection of the multinational Veolia for a colossal multi-billion pound waste management contract, an issue I wrote about last week for the ONN.
Veolia is guilty of grave misconduct in the course of its business in providing vital services to the Israeli settlements therefore abetting Israeli war crimes in occupied Palestine. It also has a perilous financial standing and appalling health, safety and environmental record that should concern any resident of north London.
As I arrived at the council an hour before I was due to give my speech to the Council, I was heartened to see a large gathering of local people from the No 2 Veolia action group protesting at the shortlisting and possible selection of Veolia. In contrast, just two Zionists appeared to wave Israeli flags and shout ‘Support Israel! Support Veolia!’
The speaker of the council introduced the deputation as planned but whilst I was sat ready to give my speech inside the Council chamber, at this very late stage, an unprecedented cross-party procedural motion was tabled by Conservative Cllr. Linda Kelly of Haifa Twinning and seconded by Labour Mayor Jules Pipe. Mayor Pipe gave a speech, which I have since heard is aberrant in the case of seconders of procedural motions, claiming that my deputation should not be heard at council.
Jules Pipe claimed there was no ‘freedom of speech’ issue but I regard this as a clear act of political censorship. I was forced to leave the chamber without having uttered a single word, despite having submitted a delegation that was approved at every level of council procedure. The legal officer for Hackney Council advised the councillors that the delegation WAS legitimate.
The councillors chose to ignore this and voted for the motion, although it must be stated that all Labour councillors were whipped, meaning that to vote against the motion would have resulted in suspension from the party. Because of this we’ll never know how many were able to vote with their conscience.
The Council have since issued a joint statement which I would like to respond to here. I will also publish here the full text of my censored speech which I will also send to all the 57 councillors who were prevented from hearing it last night.
The Council statement statement begins “at Wednesday night’s Full Council meeting, the Mayor and councillors of all three political groups voted not to receive a deputation from a group wishing to raise issues concerning NLWA.”
The North London Waste Authority is made up of elected representatives from each of the seven north London boroughs. Those councillors are responsible for representing the interests and concerns of their constituents. Their voting decision on the huge £4.7bn waste management contract being considered should be guided by what is best for the people of their boroughs. The constituents of the boroughs concerned should have a right to address their elected representatives on matters that affect them, such as who handles their waste and how £600m of taxpayers money, including their own, is spent by each borough on such an undertaking.
“Elected members felt that to receive the deputation could give the incorrect appearance that they were open to lobbying on procurement issues and would be in turn be prepared to lobby an external organisation about its procurement.”
My response: it is important to distinguish between secretive lobbying, which regularly has detrimental consequences for the public interest, takes place behind closed doors, often on behalf of powerful vested interest groups who seek to gain financially from the result of decisions, and the right of a local constituent to put forward views on important ethical, environmental and financial matters in a public forum and on behalf of concerned residents from the borough who signed the deputation.
“Elected members also said that it was inappropriate for Full Council to debate what is intrinsically an international political issue which the local authority is in no position to resolve.”
Can the councillors and mayor Jules Pipe explain to me how Veolia’s dire financial situation and the risk this poses to the taxpayer who will foot the bill in the event that the company goes into administration “intrinsically an international political issue”?
How is Veolia’s dire health and safety record (including a notorious industrial accident which closed both the M5 and M6 motorways) and the risk this poses to their employees and the public “intrinsically an international political issue”?
How is Veolia’s lack of an environmentally friendly CHP solution (which the NLWA itself regards as best practice), and the apparent lack of the necessary capacity to carry out recycling for the area the NWLA covers, “intrinsically an international political issue”?
“Representatives of all three party groups issued a statement that said: We are here to represent residents and do not shy away from difficult debates on local issues, about services and issues that directly affect out borough.”
Fundamentally, this IS an issue that affects all residents of the borough as it regards the use of THEIR money. The issue being considered IS a local service, that of local waste management. It is hard to see how there could be an issue that affects residents less since all residents are affected by the issue of waste management. Veolia’s bid trebles the amount Hackney is currently paying for waste disposal, and this will clearly impact other services, cutbacks will presumably have to be made elsewhere.
“We believe, however, that although technically acceptable, to have received this deputation would not have observed the spirit of the Council’s constitution and went beyond what was reasonable for Members to consider.”
In other word’s a political decision was taken by Jules Pipe not to hear a deputation that conformed to the letter of the Council’s constitution and a whip which would have seem members voting against suspended from the Labour Party was required to enforce this political decision. What is ‘reasonable for the Council to consider” seems not be determined by the fair and reasonable council procedure but by the political beliefs of the mayor and others. Since many Labour councillors were under the intimidation of being suspended from the party we don’t know how many voted according to their beliefs and how many were forced into this embarrassing and unnecessary censorship of a local resident.
Here is the full text of my censored speech for you to read. Why was Hackney so scared to even hear the following?
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NLWA Waste Management Contract
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak about this very important issue.
It is vital that Hackney coucillors are aware, and that it is on public record that selecting Veolia will treble the current costs of waste disposal and expose the taxpayer to significant risks. This contract is likely to last over 25 years and represents a £4.7bn investment of taxpayers’ money.
Today I will outline 5 reasons why Hackney Council should not select Veolia.
1) Grave Misconduct
The Jerusalem Light Railway connects West Jerusalem with Israeli settlements in the occupied territories. By connecting West Jerusalem to the settlements, the JLR violates article 49 of the fourth Geneva Convention which prohibits an occupying power from transferring its own civilian population into occupied territory. By confiscating and destroying Palestinian property on the route of the JLR, it contravenes Article 53, which prohibits an occupying power from destroying property in the occupied territory. In November 2012 Foreign Office Minister Alistair Burt affirmed that: “The UK has been consistently clear that Israeli settlements are illegal under international law”.
Veolia Transport Israel also operates bus routes 7, 19, 109, 110, 422, and 425 connecting communities in Israel to illegal settlements in the West Bank. A subsidiary company, the Israeli Veolia group, owns and operates the Tovlan landfill in the occupied Jordan Valley.
The NLWA have advised in communications that activities of Veolia’s subsidiary companies cannot be taken into account. This is incorrect according to both EU and UK law. Veolia’s revenues and profits are calculated as a whole and are listed as such on the Paris and New York stock exchanges. In reporting results, Veolia considers subsidiaries to be divisions of itself, and its subsidiaries’ contracts as its own contracts. Legally Veolia and its subsidiaries in the UK, Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories should be treated as a single entity.
The NLWA have also advised that they cannot consider the location of a company’s activities. But this is irrelevant, as it not the location per se that is the issue, but the fact that Veolia’s business activities in that location violate international law.
Richard Falk, United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories and numerous experts in international law stress that any decision by the NLWA to provide access to public funds to Veolia may contravene the UK’s international legal obligation not to facilitate violations of international law.
2) Discriminatory Practices
Racist recruitment: Veolia advertised jobs on the JLR requiring both Hebrew to a “mother tongue” standard and military service, a discriminatory requirement that excludes Palestinians.
Gender segregation: Veolia operates a segregated bus service on route 322 from Ashdod to Tel Aviv. Women enter through the rear of the vehicle and the men from the front. They cannot touch each other or sit next to one another.
3) Environmental
Veolia’s proposal is limited to incineration, competing bids offer the more environmentally friendly Combined Heat and Power solution which emits less Co2 into the atmosphere.
Despite claiming to be ‘CHP ready’, Veolia have made no provision for a CHP solution and no obvious potential for this exists in the site they have selected.
Most Councils, including Hackney, wish to increase the amount of waste they recycle. For this reason it would be perverse to select Veolia to handle waste management since its strength and technical capabilities are in incineration. At present the UK capacity of Veolia’s co-mingled recycling plants is less than 20% of that required for north London.
Competing companies in the bidding process are operating recycling facilities that can process around 250,000 tonnes a year, close to the amount required for north London and around 5 times larger than any plant operated at present by Veolia in the UK.
The incinerator proposed by Veolia has an electrical output of 50 MW, over 25% higher than that of rival bidder E.On, and an indication of Veolia’s prioritisation of incineration over recycling.
4) Health and Safety
Veolia have an appalling health and safety record.
In 2005 they pleaded guilty to breaching Regulations 6 and 9 of the Dangerous and Explosive Atmospheres Regulations Act 2002, after a huge chemical explosion at a Veolia facility resulted in the closure of the M6 and M5 motorways.
In May 2009 an explosion at waste recycling plant in Ohio injured two workers and damaged adjacent buildings.
In April 2011 the collapse of a sewage holding wall at a Veolia plant in Tennesse, spilled 1.5 million gallons of polluted water into a river and killed two workers.
In November 2011, a Veolia plant discharged raw and toxic digester gas into the atmosphere in Point Richmond California.
5) Financial concerns
The NLWA currently operates the EcoPark at Edmonton, recycling some waste, with the rest either incinerated to generate electricity or sent to landfill. Current costs for disposal and treatment are around £75 a tonne.
Veolia will almost triple this, charging close to £200 per tonne. Harrow Council actually make a profit by operating their waste and recycling services in-house, conversely Brent is prevented from doing the same by being locked into a contract with Veolia.
Veolia faces serious financial problems. Its share price has dropped below 8 Euros — compared with above 60 Euros five years ago — while debt has risen to above 15 billion Euros. Veolia is facing a major lawsuit from competitor EDF over the ownership of Dalkia. Veolia has pledged to sell billions of euros of assets and pull out of dozens of countries in a bid to lower debt and reverse losses.
The risk posed by outsourcing contractors going into administration is amply demonstrated by the case of Barnet Homes, where taxpayers subsequently picked up the bill. This is even more pertinent in the case of the north London waste contract as the duration and financial value of the contract are so considerable.
At a time of unprecedented cuts to Council budgets, selecting Veolia is not a gamble any Council can afford to make with taxpayers’ money.
Palestine solidarity activists will be demonstrating at the Globe today, London’s Shakespearean theatre. They will be letting Habima, the Israeli National Theatre, know that performing for colonists illegally settled on Palestinian land makes them complicit in Israel’s breaches of international law and that art may not be used to whitewash human rights abuses.
Please use the poem and video below to spread the word about the cultural boycott of Israel – and let the Globe know that hosting those who collude with war crimes is to join in their collusion.
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SONNET
by Sue Blackwell
If all the world’s a stage – why then, the stage
Must play its part if we would change the world.
Whence this commotion? Why such howls of rage
The moment that our banners are unfurled?
In Shakespeare’s time, an audience was moved
By speeches about justice and compassion.
The Bard, methinks, could only have approved
Of protests carried out in such a fashion.
We’ll take no lessons from those fools who claim
That politics can’t mix with the theatre.
If actors break the law, they are to blame.
Perform in settlements? They should know better!
Attempts to whitewash Israel just got harder:
Now “Globe to Globe” meets global Intifada.
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WATCH THIS: Why we say ‘no’ to Habima at the Globe: Miriam Margolyes
Joti's journey to Gaza 