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Month: September 2024

Intifada revolution

Our responsibility to the cause and to each other


08/09/2024

“Is there any death other than one that smashes your face with a massive concrete block? Or dying slowly, trapped under the rubble, hearing them trying to reach you but failing?

God, people usually die in their beds, warm or as elders tired of life and its pleasures. But we die before we live, we die as children who remember nothing of the world but hunger, siege, and panic.”

This is a snapshot of the Gaza genocide through the eyes and words of Marah Shamali, my dear friend from Gaza, who is currently living through the horrors inflicted by the Zionist entity and its criminal army. A recent dental graduate, she was in the process of crafting a life in the medical profession, driven by her immense compassion and care for others.

After seven displacements since the genocide began in October, she now wakes up in a “room” in the sand, covered by only a thin tarp above her head, which she shares with her parents and brothers. There is no bathroom. There is no secure source of food. The sound of bombs is the ruthless backdrop to an unfathomable, bloody hell that drags on with no sign of ending. 

“We teach life, sir,” Marah tells me often, a line by Palestinian poet and activist Rafeef Ziadah. It rings and resonates in my ears when I hear it from her. Her steadfastness, bravery, humor, brilliance and unrelenting humanity radiate through the darkness of her circumstances, a warrior shaped by a necessary heritage of resistance against occupation. She now treks through evacuation zones under the threat of bombardment to volunteer dental services and care in camps housing children orphaned by the genocide.

The value of what she has taught me about sacrifice and principles is immeasurable. It has altered my worldview entirely. It has marinated and evolved in my consciousness as we speak each day and I consider how to most effectively and collectively fight alongside my comrades within a system defined by the violence of the oppressor. It has molded my perspective in thinking about our true responsibility, living in the west, watching a live-streamed genocide funded by our governments taking place before our eyes for almost a year. Above all, it has led me to a critical view and understanding of the phrase, “there is only one solution: intifada revolution.”

We shout our support for intifada and revolution, week after week at protests for Palestine in the police state of Germany, where we are beaten for it by the cops charged with upholding the German “Staatsräson” and protecting western imperialism. But truly orienting around them requires something more of us. When we look at a system that not just enables, but funds, supports, justifies and defends the actions of settler colonial violence, ethnic cleansing and a genocidal ethnostate that has perpetrated 76 years of ongoing Nakba, we must be clear with ourselves that this is not a system that can be reformed.

We must understand that as we sit in Berlin, Oslo, New York, Paris, with varying degrees of freedom of speech and freedom of assembly shrouded in the thin cloak of “democracy,” that we are demonstrating against the same system that holds us all captive. We are fighting the same forces of oppression and exploitation under western imperialism and capitalism that will come for every single one of us if and when we rise against it. And as such, we must internalize that our fighting for Palestinians and all other oppressed people is our fighting for our own people, our own families, our own comrades, ourselves – literally and figuratively, past and present, in the struggle of the masses against injustice over the vast expanse of time. 

The threat of our unity, the realization of our responsibility to each other in uprising, is the reason why Germany raids our homes in the early morning to intimidate us into silence, drags us through the media for fabricated antisemitism, deflects its historical atrocities onto the shoulders of an unrelated group of people in its obsessive attempt to achieve its status as an economic and world power once again. It is the reason why Norway, where I have also spent time within the movement for Palestine, makes superficial concessions to pacify its society and hinder momentum from within the nest of riches earned off of 110 billion krones of oil fund money invested in the criminal Zionist entity. Fueled by the effectiveness and organization of the respective ruling classes in stifling and eradicating dissent, the system revs with gusto, aiming to quash and capture us in its entrapments of violence and bigotry. 

Our solidarity from the belly of the beast requires of us that we heed the calls of the Palestinian resistance — for global disruption, for macro mobilization, and by orienting our organizing around a refusal to be distracted. It has been one year and 76 years of genocide, and it is our responsibility to be nothing short of consumed by a commitment to our principles in supporting the Palestinian people.

Eat and think of the people of Gaza. Drink and think of the brave resistance fighters struggling until their last breaths for justice and to liberate their land. Sleep with the knowledge that the fuel of rest is a privilege that we have a responsibility to use in organizing for Palestine and for all oppressed people around the world. Allow yourself to be changed and taught life by a people who understands what it means to live and to die for a cause.

And wake up with the understanding that organizing must begin with full clarity around the necessity of dismantling and composting the entire system, from Washington to Berlin to “Tel Aviv,” comprising the genocidal capitalist world order we live under. It must continue with unequivocal, uncompromising and unconditional support for the resistance by any means necessary. And it must ultimately lead to our answering the call of revolution from all corners of the globe, to say together in one voice: 

There is only one solution,

Intifada revolution.

 

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Photo Gallery: Demonstration against Macron in Paris

Place de la Bastille, September 7th 2024


                                                                                                                                                                                                      

France: Resistance takes off as Macron ignores elections

Emmanuel Macron has named a Prime Minister from the right-wing party that came fourth in June’s elections.


Just like Trump, Macron has little respect for democracy. After the victory of the Left against the Right and against the fascists in June, and faced with a parliament where the Left alliance,  the New Popular Front, won the biggest grouping of MPs at the elections, the president has appointed a Prime Minister from the losing side! This is because the Left had promised to reverse his attacks on pensions, and raise the minimum wage, among many other things.

After eight weeks of refusing to name  a Prime Minister, the French president has chosen an old, right-wing hack, Michel Barnier. The fact that he is advanced in age (73) is no real surprise. The job is a bit of a poisoned chalice, so it required someone who no longer had a career to risk (the previous PM, Gabriel Attal, was a youthful 35).

Barnier is known for having voted against the legalization of male homosexuality in 1981, and having been top negotiator with the UK over some treaty a few years back. He was also minister of Agriculture and Foreign Secretary in the time of conservative president Nicolas Sarkozy. A few years ago, his proposal for draconian racist immigration control surprised those who had thought of him as a moderate. He comes from a party, Les Républicains, which got 6.6% of the votes in the first round of the June elections, and has 50 MPs in the National Assembly (the New Popular Front has 160).

Sophie Binet, leader of the influential trade union confederation, the CGT, said that Barnier’s appointment showed “contempt for the choice of the voters”. Thomas Portes, Member of Parliament of the France Insoumise, a railway worker well-known for his involvement in the Palestine solidarity movement, commented: “the political compass of Michel Barnier is his hatred of the people”. Barnier seemed to confirm his elitism today claiming he would take into account “the people below”.

He was not Macron’s first choice by a long way. If the Left alliance had split and a social-liberal Socialist Party PM had got enough support from the right to manage to survive, this would have been easier for Macron. But the divided Socialist Party leadership narrowly voted last week against accepting a government led by Bernard Cazeneuve, who had left the Socialist Party two years ago but remained within its traditions. Without an immediate prospect of splitting the Left Alliance, Macron has preferred to go for an openly right-wing character. Barnier immediately announced his priorities were law and order, and cutting immigration. He also said there would be “changes and breaks”, but whether to the Left or to the far Right he did not specify.

The appointment opens up a  new phase in the deep political crisis here, but this is far from the last one. Barnier will have tremendous difficulty getting a majority in parliament for any legislation, and may rapidly lose a vote of confidence once parliament reassembles on the third of October.

The media are presenting him as having “the politics of consensus”. In fact, he will be hoping that the votes of the 140 or so far-right MPs will help him survive, so he is bound to be brandishing fantasies about French identity being under threat from immigration, etc. This may well not work: Marine Le Pen is not ready to play junior partner to a discredited president, though for the moment she is declaring a “wait and see” attitude. All the components of the New Popular Front have declared they will propose a motion of no confidence as soon as parliament reassembles.

Departing Macronite Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, commented “French politics is sick, but there is a cure, providing we move away from sectarianism”. By “sectarianism” he means wanting real change, higher wages, taxes for the wealthy and fighting racism and Islamophobia.

The resistance is getting organized. La France Insoumise (France in Revolt) and a series of youth organizations have called over 150 demonstrations across the country to defend democracy, Saturday September 7th. After Barnier’s appointment, the Green Party has also called to join these demonstrations, although the Socialist Party has refused to join the mobilization.

It is impossible to characterize the politics and priorities of the New Popular Front without looking at the parties which make it up, which have in no way merged. The France Insoumise is the most radical, dynamic and determined of the four parties in the NPF. It has launched a campaign to have Macron impeached because he has not respected the results of the elections. The Communist Party, Socialist Party and the Greens are not supporting this.

The French constitution forbids repeat parliamentary elections before next June, so this will be a long crisis. Encouraged by the massive vote in June for the NPF programme – which included reversing attacks on pensions and unemployment benefits, papers for undocumented migrant workers, and wage rises for low-paid workers – trade union leaders are announcing days of action for the beginning of October. To force the implementation of the dozens of excellent reforms in the NFP programme, however, workers’ resistance will have to go far beyond what the national union leaders have in mind.

There is no need to artificially oppose electoral and parliamentary activity with resistance in the streets and workplaces. Of course, in the final analysis, the latter is more crucial. But it is because of the electoral alliance and the massive people’s campaign against voting Le Pen that we do not have a fascist government in France today. And parliamentary activity can matter. The success of the parliamentary left in keeping fascists off the House Affairs committee has its importance. The left-dominated House Affairs committee will not be suspending MPs for displaying Palestinian flags in the assembly, as was the case last year. The fewer fascists in institutional positions, the better.

If Macron gets away with ignoring the election results without a mass fightback, Le Pen will be much reinforced in her struggle to replace democracy with something much more sinister. Anti-capitalists must vigorously defend the very limited democracy parliament gives us. We must demand a Left government, since the Left came out first in the elections. And the campaign to impeach Macron because of his contempt for democratic procedures must be supported.

“It looks awfully like a race agenda about who are acceptable refugees, and who are not”

Interview with former British Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn


06/09/2024

Could you say something about your organisation, the Peace and Justice Project?

There are 60,000 people who’ve signed up for the Peace and Justice Project. Some of them contribute financially. Others receive information. We are working with and supporting trade unions on arguments about living standards, wage disputes and trade union rights.

A very important part of our work is increasing solidarity. We are also coordinating a lot of the independent left organisations around Britain after the 2024 general election, and developing a coherent left political voice in the country. It’s not yet a party, but it is a development that brings people together, essentially all based around grassroots organisation within communities.

Five members of parliament were elected as independents, four others and I, and we are united on the issue of grassroots campaigning and the voice of people being the one that drives politics.

We are holding the second of our international conferences on September 14th, and we are working closely with the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation and Progressive International on this. It’s a combination of physical and online conference. We’re expecting to have about 400 people attending the conference, and a very large number participating online.

The conference is about peaceful alternatives to war, which I’ll be talking about when I speak later today. This involves disarmament and spending resources on social needs. We’ve just produced a book called Monstrous Anger of the Guns, which is an analysis of the arms industry and its power of lobbying, which corrupts politics in all countries, but particularly Europe and the United States.

We also try to mobilise people through cultural and artistic endeavours. We have a program called Music for the Many. I think we have organised about 20 music concerts around the country in support of young people, live music and the creative endeavour of that.

We’ve also produced a poetry book called Poetry for the Many, which is now on its third edition. The first edition sold out in a month. The second edition is now sold out. A third edition has been printed, and we’ve been hosting discussion meetings around imagination and history and poetry. This brings in a whole new raft of people into political discussion. I’ve done about 15 of these events, mostly around Britain and Ireland.

So we’re very active in a lot of ways, and we are hopefully developing an inclusive place and a voice for the politically homeless.

What do you think about the recent military agreement between the United States and Germany?

In our book, we’ve exposed the power of the arms trade. But we all have got to recognize that the military alliances that dominate political thinking were from Europe through NATO. Now the main driver of foreign policy and economic policy is that all countries are increasing arms expenditure to at least two and a half percent of their gross domestic product.

In the case of Britain, this will mean another 30 billion pounds per year on armaments. That is a 700 million pounds weekly increase in arms expenditure. At the same time, like all countries in Europe, social spending is being cut.

The agreements with the US over access to bases and military are in part negotiated through NATO, and in part with Germany. In Britain, these agreements are called the Visiting Forces Act of 1952. Now the European Union under the leadership of Ursula von der Leyen is trying to develop itself into a military bloc as well.

A considerable number of countries have given up on neutrality. Now only Ireland and Switzerland maintain a neutral position on international conflict. I think the dangers of increased militarization of the economy and societies in the West is huge. But also the opportunity for the arms industries in Russia, India and China is huge.

So there is an economy based on a continuation of a war in the Ukraine that one day will have to end by negotiation. I don’t know the total number of dead yet, but it’s certainly well over half a million people that have already died in that conflict. And then you look at other conflicts, like Palestine, Sudan, Congo, and Yemen. You’re talking about a massive death toll all over the world from current wars, which is all being fuelled by the arms industry.

And when you’re talking about Gaza and Palestine, the weapons are being sent directly from the West

Yes, indeed. We work closely with the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and many other organisations in Britain. We’ve mobilised up to a million people at one go in support of Palestinian people, demanding not just a ceasefire, but an end to the arms trade between Britain and the Israeli government, and also the withdrawal of the Israeli occupying forces from both Gaza and the West Bank.

The news this week is terrible. Israel has now increased its military activity in the West Bank, and it looks to me as though the extreme right in Israeli politics is winning, and they want the complete annexation of the whole of what we recognize as Palestine.

Do you see a connection between these wars and what’s happening in Venezuela at the moment?

Yes. The connections are that the NATO Alliance, going back to the Lisbon conference in 2006, which is now 18 years ago, decided that NATO should have a global role. So NATO’s involvement in Afghanistan became a norm. NATO’s involvement in military consulting and activities all around the world, including in West Africa, is huge. Quite clearly, they want to attack the symbols of a different economic way of doing things in Latin America.

Hence the attacks on Bolivia, on Peru when it had a left President, on President Lula in Brazil, and, of course, on Cuba and Venezuela. So the question is one of solidarity we can mount in opposition to this economic and military expansionism by the West.

What does it mean that the German government is now sending refugees back to Afghanistan?

The European governments as a whole have an increasingly very bad record on the treatment of refugees and asylum seekers. I’m a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and of the migration committee. A small number of us are constantly speaking up on the rights of refugees. They’re victims of war.

The people in Calais who try to cross the channel to go to Britain, the people in Libya trying to get into Italy, the people in Turkey trying to get into Greece, are nearly all victims of war or environmental disaster. The deportations that have now begun to Afghanistan is extraordinary.

Afghanistan does not fulfil any of the global humanitarian requirements – the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, the Conventions on the Rights of the Child, the Beijing rulings or the Istanbul Convention on the Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence. There is no basis for removing anybody to Afghanistan unless it is just an act of aggression against people who are desperately seeking asylum.

Quite rightly, Ukrainian refugees have been supported and welcomed all across Western Europe. They’re welcomed into my own community, and they’re playing a great role within the community. The same welcome does not seem to apply to Palestinian refugees, to Afghan refugees, or people coming from Libya or Syria or any other place of conflict, including Eritrea, Ethiopia and West Africa.

It looks awfully like a race agenda by Western Europe about who are acceptable refugees, and who are not. This, of course, plays into the hands of the rise of the far right in Europe – the AfD in Germany, the equivalents in the Netherlands, France, Italy, and now the Reform Party in the UK.

Why were there recently racist riots in Britain and what can we do to stop them?

The racist riots were very frightening and very bad. The immediate issue was that three children were murdered in a dance class in the North-West of England, in a place called Southport. Social media then went into overdrive claiming that the person who had committed the murder was an asylum seeker. He was actually born in Britain. This doesn’t make the crime any less but it’s simply not the case that he’s an asylum seeker.

That provoked Tommy Robinson and the far right to go out on the streets and attack mosques and particularly covered Muslim women on the streets. It was bitter and violent and vicious.

The response of the anti-racist movement was very quick and very good. They offered practical help to the mosques that had been attacked with repainting, rebuilding, finance and so on. That happened straight away. It wasn’t organised by the government; it was organised by people.

Secondly, there was a big demonstration of support. I organised one in my own constituency as a solidarity rally outside our biggest mosque. It was huge. A very large number of people came.

But – and this is the important part – it isn’t just about declaring against racism. It is about looking at the ground on which the far right feed their anger. They blame refugees for the shortages of housing, for the shortages of school places, for the waiting lists in the hospitals, and the increasing levels of poverty in working class communities, where austerity has cut their living standards by 20% in the last decade. At the same time, the wealthiest have grown wealthier.

The far right do not address the political causes of poverty. They try to blame it on minorities, as the Nazis did in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s. It’s a carbon copy of the methods of the Brownshirts at the time the Nazis were coming to power in Germany.

The important thing is that there be a political answer from the left. This means challenging the economic power and the inequality within our society on the basis of working class solidarity. And the working class is class, not colour. It’s all colours.

And that is capitalism. Do you see an alternative to capitalism?

Yes, I’m a socialist. Of course you have an alternative. This alternative is the demands of universal supply of health, of housing, of education. The alternative is recognizing every child in school is a valuable person with the same humanity as the rest of us and not to have a competitive education that discards the ambitions of a large number of working class youngsters.

It’s about class. It’s also about trade union membership, trade union powers and rights, and about public ownership of crucial services. In Britain, our project, the Peace and Justice Project, strongly supports public ownership of water, rail, mail and energy companies.

Lots of left people worldwide say Kamala Harris is now the alternative in the US

Well, I’m not a supporter of Trump and I’m not an admirer of the US Democrats either. They have presided over the most appalling attacks on refugees and migrants within the USA. More people have been deported under Biden and Obama than done under any other president, such as working class Mexicans, Guatemalans and so on.

I can see why a defeat of Donald Trump is something that would make me and a lot of other people very happy, but I’d rather see some much stronger working class alternative in the USA, not two corporate parties that are essentially offering much the same economic message.

What challenges do you think face Claudia Sheinbaum in Mexico?

She has enormous challenges ahead of her. She was a very effective mayor of Mexico City. I know her. I’ve met her, had long discussions with her, and I think she will continue on the path of social justice within Mexico.

The MORENA party has managed to win a huge parliamentary majority, as well as a vote majority for her. It has a nationwide organisation in every town and village. I hope it gets even stronger, but above all, I hope it challenges what are grotesque levels of inequality in Mexico. A lot of progress has been made, particularly education and health, but there’s a long way to go in Mexico.

It’s less than two months after the British election. Everybody was happy that a hated Conservative government has gone. What’s your assessment of the new Labour government under Keir Starmer?

The election was an interesting experience for me. I stood as an independent for the first time ever because the Labour Party refused to even allow my name to be considered as a candidate. I stood as an independent, and we won. My election manifesto was about ending nuclear weapons. It was about peace, about ending arms supplies to Israel, about public ownership and the redistribution of wealth and power.

These are principles that I managed to put into our previous Labour Party manifesto. We won with 50% of the vote in my constituency. I’m very proud of that result. It was a popular result of people coming out to campaign.

The Labour Party’s national vote was lower in this election than it was in 2019 and three million less than we achieved in 2017. Because of the British electoral system, it still became a big majority because of the growth and support for Farage and the Reform Party at the expense of Conservatives.

Since coming into office, the government has done a number of things. It has promised that there’s going to be more austerity. It has refused to remove the disgusting prevention of large families getting the same benefits for all their children as everybody else. Benefits only apply to the first two children. The others get nothing, which is immoral, in my view.

And they have also promised to increase defence expenditure to 2.5%. it’s not a good start, and I suspect this is going to be the source of huge conflict. I would like to sit here and say I’m hopeful. Sadly, I’m not.

Questions: Carmela Negrete, Phil Butland