International Socialist Issue 3

Riots expose Britain’s looters Commentators on all sides agree that

the English riots are a disaster – for Britain’s global reputation, for social cohesion and race relations, but most

of all for Black working class communities themselves. Even on the Left, there has been no sign of positive support for community resistance or anything other than pessimistic warnings about a backlash that could benefit neo-Nazis and the Con-Dem coalition.

For a broad range of pundits, riots are symptomatic of the British malady, a disease of nihilism and moral decline, where the majority work until they die drop while minorities at the top and the bottom of the social pecking order pillage without conscience. The real Left-Right split centres on where to pin the blame.

Right-wing moralists sigh and groan about lax morals at the bottom of the heap – a ‘feral underclass’ of ‘chavs’ and ‘whites becoming blacks’ communicating in unutterable ‘Jamaican patois’. Where are the parents in all of this? they complain.

David Cameron has promised swift action to remedy Britain’s moral crisis. In his early pronouncements on the Big Society, ‘the community’ was seen as a bubbling cauldron of repressed enterprise and philanthropy. The Right now see this as wildly optimistic. The Big Society has become the Broken Society – the only ‘community’ they speak about today is a sewer of moral apathy. The only medicine they prescribe is more crackdowns, harsher sentences, tougher penal regimes to appease the hang ‘em and flog ‘em brigade.

The Left can only point to decades of neglectful central government, corruption, and police harassment. Undoubtedly, these are serious factors. But the orientation has been tepid and defensive – to ensure that the Right do not benefit substantially from the backlash, to urge caution and a ‘broader perspective’.

Unfortunately, there is considerable complacency on both sides, and neither the narrative of ‘moral laxity’ nor ‘social deprivation’ really fits the bill. The findings of the only independent academic study so far, conducted by researchers at Essex University and Royal Holloway University, has found that ‘although poverty and lax moral values played a part in people’s decision to join the disturbances, a stronger influence was their attitude towards politicians’, according to a leaked report in The Independent.

‘People’s dispositions towards state institutions weigh more heavily in shaping their propensity to obey the law than their belief systems and personal values’, the report concludes. ‘If people’s willingness to abide by laws laid down by the state is compromised by their jaundiced view of state institutions and their mistrust of political elites, an effective response will have to address political engagement in general and the perceived ‘looting’ of state resources by those at the top in particular. Breaches of trust by those at the top appear to have profound negative consequences for the health of the body politic.’

The riots, stemming from the unlawful killing of a Black man in one of London’s poorest districts, were a spontaneous declaration of War on conventional politics by the most unorganised and disenfranchised

elements of society. If these rioters, unlike their student predecessors, did not focus their looting on political targets, this is merely an expression of how far removed conventional politics is from the everyday lives of working class youth. This in itself is a sign of contempt for government institutions – the only state involvement in their lives takes the oppressive form of police surveillance, prisons, and the moralising contempt of educators.

No doubt, we could find numerous examples of moral laxity in the riots, just as people pointed to the fire extinguisher thrown from Millbank or the death by fire of bank workers caught up in the Athens riots several years ago. But armchair moralism is surely insufficient. A riot cannot be judged in the same terms as a planned exercise in political tactics. It is, at its most elemental level, an uncontrollable expression of repressed emotion, ‘letting off steam’ by the most put-upon elements of society.

As the saying goes, ‘The cry of the poor is not always just, but if you don’t listen to it, you will never know what justice is.’ But there is more to say than this. The Left has not only failed to listen. It has failed to lead and take advantage of the legitimacy crisis, to teach to young people the urgent need for political organisation to defend our communities from the real chaos – the Con-Dem austerity regime – and the real looters at the top of society.

Depraved, consumerist, feral…the kids may not be the role models or the vanguard we are looking for. But their ‘nihilistic’ riots have arguably dealt a greater blow to Con-Dem legitimacy than anything the Left has achieved in the crisis.

How do we prove that? It is quite elementary. The Con-Dems have staked their governmental legitimacy on one proposal – the cuts are the only way to avert a Eurozone-style catastrophe. So far, they have successfully won the respect of the global financial markets – without creating jobs or economic growth, they have stabilised footloose global investors.

But the riots sent shockwaves to the markets. ‘In the eyes of the financial markets, Britain was supposed to be a model of successful, sustainable austerity and a safe haven in which the world’s rich could buy houses and stash their savings,’ reports Reuters. ‘But this week’s events have undermined London’s safe haven appeal and some analysts expect louder calls for both tighter controls on unfettered wealth and a rethinking of planned cuts.’

The riots have exposed the fact that you cannot cutback and destroy jobs and communities without ‘blowback’ from the oppressed. The young people concerned may pay for this with prison terms. But the government has suffered a major wobble, and the crackdown has exposed simmering tensions in the regime.

Either we accept that the Con-Dems can bring stability, and settle in for a long ideological debate about whether cuts are ‘necessary’ or ‘ideological’. Or we move to action quickly. Any thought of replicating the riots would be lunacy. But we must harness their elemental power of spontaneous revolt against the establishment. Our message to the rulers must be simple: ‘no justice, no peace.’

Billionaires revolt?It’s official – the billionaires are revolting. This time, they are

revolting against themselves. Paradoxically, the mega-rich are demanding that they should pay more tax – but even then,

governments will not move.Warren Buffett, an American billionaire, complains that he

paid only 17.4 percent tax last year, compared to the 33 percent to 41 percent his office workers pay. In a sense, his honesty is admirable. Buffett is a rare breed among the plutocrats, because he actually plays by the rules and pays tax. Others seem to ‘forget’ tax altogether.

Wealthy individuals and large corporations avoid £95 billion in tax every year in Britain. Vodaphone was let away with £6 billion in unpaid tax. Meanwhile, the cost to the taxpayer of bailing out high street banks runs at over £1 trillion. This, in turn, is passed onto the poor, in the form of job losses, service cuts, and

wage freezes. The cliché is undeniable: the rich are making the poor pay for the crisis.

We should thus treat the billionaire tax revolt with scepticism. The blatant shabbiness of taxation policy is just the tip of the iceberg. Britain today is more unequal than at any time since the abolition of the slave trade.

Fighting to remedy these injustices is part of the battle. But we also need intellectual clarity. The immorality of certain individuals should not blind us to a more systemic problem, the chaos of the capitalist market system.

The demand for tax equality may redress the symptomatic injustices of this particular crisis. But our proposals for reforms must run much deeper. The real damage has been inflicted over decades, not months. Overarching social change does not come from good intentions, but from grassroots political struggle.

isEditorial 09.2011

Contents

18Cover: Riots, Racism & ResistanceShould we fear the riots? Actually they manifest global frustrations.

14The Student Movement in 2011

BEN WRAY

Last year students fought fees and cuts. This year they must take on austerity.

89/11 Tens Years On: American EmpireThe disastrous effects of the ‘War on Terror’.

Editorial 2News Review 5Accord, Dungavel, STUC, Hetherington...

FEATURES

9/11: The Twin Towers Ten Years On 8Bin Laden is dead, Bush is discredited. But the shadow of America’s imperial ambition still hangs over the Middle East and world politics. Are things different in the Obama age, asks Jonathon Shafi?

FRESHERS SPECIAL: The Student Movement this Year 14Student protests rocked the Con-Dem coalition last year, but fees were still imposed. With new fights coming up in Scotland, Ben Wray assesses the way forward.

COVER: Riots, Racism, and Resistance in Con-Dem Britain 18The riots last month has led many to call for a reactionary return to ‘law and order’. Aisling Gallagher looks at the real causes of the riots.

A Decade of Riots 20Riots weren’t invented yesterday. This form of popular protest has been about since time began. We look back at some pivotal political riots of the last decade.

COLUMNS

Free Hetherington Ends in Victory 7Liam Turbett and Alistair Davidson from the Free Hetherington occupation invoke the spirit of Jimmy Reid and the UCS work-in after ending their long-running occupation of the Postgraduate Research Building at Glasgow University.

SNP’s Ugly Streak: Gay Marriage 13The SNP is attempting to court right-wing voters by taking a tough stance on gay marriage. We must unite pro-LGBT forces to fight these attacks, argues Adam Frew.

REVIEWS

Television and Books: Chavs Special 21In an extended review, Chris Walsh gets to grips with Chavs by Owen Jones, a book which is redefining the meaning of working class identity in 21st century Britain. Plus, David Jamieson analyses The Man Who Crossed Hitler, an intelligent new drama on BBC2.

AISLING GALLAGHER

JONATHON SHAFI

International Socialist Magazine is the monthly publication of the International Socialist Group (Scotland). We welcome submissions and encourage debate and new ideas. Please get in touch with new articles and responses.

Editor: James FoleyWebsite:internationalsocialist.org.ukEmail:[email protected]: 12 MonthsBritain £20;Europe £25; Worldwide £35

INTERVIEW: OWEN JONES

11Chavs: Demonizing the Working ClassWe speak to the author of Chavs about the riots.

Issue 3 | International Socialist | September 2011 4

Dungavel Disgrace

The disgraceful Dungavel immigration removal centre that imprisons asylum seekers in Scotland has been handed over to the firm that runs parts of Guantanamo Bay prison camp. The GEO group has been given a £25million contract from the public purse. This is despite wide-ranging accusations of human rights abuses, sexual assault and negligence in the US. In Australia, the company has lost its contracts to run immigration centres after outrages including riots against racism and assault.

Gauntanamo Bay is an illegal US prison camp in Cuba that is widely known to have used torture methods as routine. President Obama said that he would shut it down before entering the White House but has failed to do so.

Dungavel immigration centre has allready been exposed by campaigning groups like Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees and Positive Action In Housing of the inhumane conditions in which people are imprisoned.

We should join Anas Sarwar MP in opposing the UK government’s decision to award them with this contract as nothing short of barbaric given the record of Gauntanamo Bay and the numerous accusations of severe human rights abuses. Alex Salmond and the SNP goverment should be pressured to campaign for the contract to be cancelled.

We should also demand that in the 10th year of the Dungavel immigration centre’s brutal history it is shut down, and asylum seekers are welcomed in Scotland rather than incarcerated.

Hetherington

The 7 month long occupation of the Hetherington club at Glasgow University has ended in victory. The occupation has been the longest in British history of any university building.

Anton Muscatelli, the Glasgow University principal, has conceded that there will be a new postgraduate club, no further cuts to courses and no compulsory redundancies at the University. In addition to this there will be no cuts to student services and a public meeting with Anton Muscatelli in October.

This is a dramatic turn around from his hard-line stance to the occupation when it began in February. In a high-profile blunder, Muscatelli gave the go ahead to Strathclyde police to evict the protesters from the ‘Free Hetherington’ on March 22nd. Approximately 80 police, canine units and a helicopter were involved in the eviction.

This provoked a massive backlash on campus when several hundred students marche on the principal’s office and occupied the senate building. Within 12 hours, Muscatelli was forced to give the occupiers the Hetherington building back, with renewed momentum and solidarity messages from Ken Loach, John Pilger and others.

All of the occupiers have vowed to continue building the anti-cuts movement on campus and beyond (see page 7).

Scottish Labour

Scottish Labour’s crisis continues to deepen as Tom Harris MP has thrown his name into the mix to be next Scottish Labour leader.

Iain Gray had led the Labour Party to a humiliating defeat at the Scottish elections in May. He was expected to hand over the reins at the start of September to a colleague in holyrood. However, the derth of leadership potential in Scottish Labour’s ranks has forced a rethink.

Grey looks set to continue for the time being whilst there will be an attempt to change the rules at the upcoming Labour Party conference so that Westminster MP’s can lead Scottish Labour. This has led Tom Harris, backbench MP for Glasgow South, to put himself forward for the role.

Harris is on the right of the Labour party and has said Scottish Labour must ‘reach out to disaffected Tory voters’ and ‘appeal across the board’, adding that they can no longer rely on Scottish working class heartlands for election victories.

It is rumoured that top Labour hacks favour Harris over previous favourite Johann Lamont MSP as, despite running Iain Gray’s right-wing election campaign in May, she is considered too radical.

This latest development will cast more doubt on the strength of Labour as the Referendum looms.

Accord reaches fever pitchPROTEST: Centre will be moved to make way for Commonwealth Games

Phil Neal

SATURDAY 27th August saw approximately 500 people take to the streets of the East End in opposition to council plans to demolish the Accord Centre to make room for a bus park for the velodrome of the 2014 Commonwealth Games.

Despite heavy rain carers and service users along with members of the local community turned out to demand a real legacy for the East End from the Commonwealth Games that puts local people, their homes and services before the creation of sporting arenas that once the games have been and gone will find no use amongst most Glaswegians. People were keen to point out that in order to use the velodrome highly specialised bikes running into the thousands of pounds are required

Throughout the march chants of ‘Glasgow City Council shame on you’, ‘save the accord right now’ and ‘commonwealth shame’ reverberated around the east end to thumbs up and cheers from motorists and shop owners. All female drummers Sheboom provided music and a local biking charity provided specialist bikes for service users of the accord centre throughout the demonstration free of charge, reflecting the community spirit encapsulated in the campaign.

The march ended with a rally at which Dave Moxham, deputy general secretary of the STUC called for inspiration to be drawn from the accord campaign in the run up to the STUC’s ‘there is a better way’ demonstration on October 1st in Glasgow. His

message was echoed amongst the speakers who included several local councillors, trade union activists and Margaret Jackonelli (who was evicted from her house to make room for the athletes village), showing the breadth of support the campaign has managed to garner.

The demonstration marks a high point in an ongoing campaign to save the centre which so far has seen service users and carers embarrass former Scottish Labour leader Iain Gray into a sandwich shop during election time causing Alex Salmond to seize the (populist) moment and back the campaign for a replacement centre. The campaign also embarrassed the supposed celebrations of the countdown to the games in George Square, handing out leaflets to murmurs of ‘can’t argue with that’ from staff and leaving the announcer unable to continue whilst chants of ‘commonwealth shame’ drowned him out.

Activists from the Save the Accord campaign stated that the march was not the end of the campaign and that was still a long way to go in fighting for a replacement centre, also pointing out that this was one in many attacks on the people of the east end which has seen it take the brunt of the government’s austerity agenda with schools and hospitals now also facing closure. The Coalition of Resistance in conjunction with activists from the Save the Accord campaign and the East End are due to hold a meeting entitled ‘East End Against The Cuts’ on Wednesday 11th September.

News Review:Dungavel, Accord...


Mass crackdownsPolice forces are planning major crackdowns on anyone involved in the riots in England. According to a police source close to the Sunday Times, they are planning to hunt-down 30,000 people involved with the spate of riots that broke out after the killing of Mark Duggan in Tottenham. The cops have already taken a high hand to student dissent, with more prosecutions planned. Local authorities have been especially brutal with families involved with rioting, with cases of mothers of rioters being evicted from council houses. Police sources say that raids will intensify in the coming months.

Britain’s depressionHousehold spending and consumer confidence continues to fall in the UK as the Con-Dem austerity measures and global economic chaos continue to drive the economy closer to ruin. Household finances have fallen below the level in early 2009, the height of the recession. Global investors are increasingly wary of Britain, as the riots show that there is likely to be more blowback, protests, and strikes to come in the coming months. Campaigners against austerity are looking to strikes in Winter.

Website updatesWe live in a time of global crisis and the situation is always evolving. Don’t forget that you can always keep in touch with the latest coverage and analysis in Scotland and beyond atinternationalsocialist.org.uk

News Review: People First

NEWS BRIEFS

Quarriers’ Strike

Quarriers management plan to sack all the staff and rehire them on new contracts with up to 23%cuts in their pay package, this is at a time of rising inflation and rising food and fuel prices.

On top of this they are proposing to cut sick pay, increase pension contribution and take away other protections.

In a disgusting attempt at a gesture, they have proposed to set-up a hardship fund for some staff who will be dragged into poverty because of the pay cuts out of other workers reduced salaries. 560 workers are set to suffer from the proposed cutbacks.

A union ballot has resulted in a 76% vote for strike action, with 85% in favour of action short of a strike.

Quarriers staff care for some of Scotland’s most vulnerable children and adults. But, Unison members argue, providing quality care will not be possible if they lose as much as 300 pound in their monthly wage.

First Minister Alex Salmond and Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon should be pressured to intervene in favour of the staff who deserve a decent wage for a vital service. Glasgow Coalition of Resistance will be at the picket lines to provide support and solidarity for the charity workers.

UNSION regional organiser Simon Macfarlane said: ‘No one wants to be taking strike action, but Quarriers have left us with no option.

‘The proposed cuts to pay and conditions will be absolutely devastating on staff, and in the longer term will impact on the service Quarriers provide to vulnerable adults and children.’

One month to build People First protest in GlasgowTONY BENN will be the key note speaker at the upcoming People First demonstration organised by the Scottish Trade Union Congress (STUC). Benn, the president of the Coalition of Resistance (CoR) and former Labour MP, will address the rally at the end of the march before attending a gala concert to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the work in at the Upper Clyde Shipyards (UCS).

The STUC demonstration on the 1st of October is set to be a significant gathering for the Labour movement in Scotland. According to Pete Ramand, secretary of the Coalition of Resistance in Glasgow:

‘This is an opportunity to bring together every trade unionist, student protester, community campaigner, and opponent of the Con-Dem agenda together in a massive show of defiance against austerity.’

‘The last anti-cuts demo in Edinburgh had 20,000 people on it. This one has been called in Glasgow – and we expect it to be much bigger. With your help, we can make this the biggest demonstration in Scottish history. This is no exaggeration - the TUC national protest on the 26th of March this year was the biggest trade union mobilisation in Britain’s history, and we should look to replicate this ambition.’

The timing of the march also amplifies its significance. It takes place on the same weekend as the Conservative Party annual conference in Manchester, and

approximately one month before the next expected round of coordinated strike action by public sector trade unions.

Ross Greenshields, secretary of South Lanakshire TUC and a member of the PCS, stated that ‘Our upcoming strike action requires the maximum possible solidarity to make it successful. That means that the People First demonstration on October 1st is extremely important. In the context of a new wave of financial crisis and increasing Government attacks on the vast majority of people, we need to mobilise everyone who is against the austerity agenda into a mass campaign against the cuts.’

Over the next month the Glasgow Coalition of Resistance will be trying to reach out to every part of Glasgow to let them know about the STUC demonstration, to encourage them to participate in building the protest by taking leaflets and posters and to get involved in the fightback by joining Coalition of Resistance.

Every Thursday evening in the run-up to the demonstration the STUC building on Woodlands Road will become a hub for getting materials and dispatching people across Glasgow to advertise the demonstration.

The Coalition of Resistance also has regular meetings to organise activity and discuss how to build the resistance. For details go to ‘Coalition of Resistance Glasgow’ on Facebook.


Liam Turbett and Alistair Davidson

IT WAS WITH the words ‘It’s not an eviction – it’s an upgrade’ that, in late March, Newsnight Scotland viewers learned of the resilience of the Free Hetherington – Glasgow University’s student occupation. Up to 80 police officers, the police helicopter and university security had tried to end an occupation that at that point had lasted 50 days. They dragged us out, but we later forced our way into the university’s administrative hub and occupied the historic Senate tower instead, before an agreement to re-occupy the Free Hetherington. Now, after seven months – the UK’s longest ever student occupation – we are finally leaving. And this time it’s not an eviction – it’s a victory parade.

Our protest has ended amid stunning concessions from university management. The planned axing of courses from nursing to archeology has been stalled, perhaps indefinitely – alongside a guarantee that no staff will be forced out of their jobs. Although some course cuts and a voluntary redundancy programme are going ahead, it still represents a massive climbdown from what was originally proposed in February. And while the occupied building won’t return to its original use as a postgraduate social club, a new club is in line to be opened in the next few months.

The occupation cannot take full credit for these gains. Students and staff, unions and politicians, people from across the political spectrum – they all came together to create something more powerful than any one group could hope to be. But there is no doubt that the occupation played a key role in building and sustaining this momentum, even after the end of term.

From day one, our occupation sought

to be more than just a protest. Through free lectures, debates and daily meals cooked in the building’s kitchens, we attempted to demonstrate that there was an alternative model of education – and an alternative model on which to base society – at the heart of a university descending into a neoliberal privatization nightmare. Our actions radicalised a whole new layer of students, and through practical support – hot drinks on the picket lines and banner-making sessions – for the lecturers’ strikes in March, we were able to turn the rhetoric of student-worker solidarity into action.

Owen Jones, author of Chavs, has called us ‘the students who took on management and won’; but those of us raised on the traditions of Red Clydeside see the seeds of much greater things. Over the last seven months we’ve experienced the kind of strength-through-solidarity that our rulers would rather remained buried in obscure history books. It is almost 40 years since Jimmy Reid began his rectorship at the University of Glasgow with a speech compared by the New York Times to Lincoln’s Gettysburg address: ‘Alienation is the precise and correctly applied word for describing the major social problem in Britain today … it is the cry of men who feel themselves the victims of blind economic forces beyond their control. It’s the frustration of ordinary people excluded from the processes of decision making.’

After a summer that saw an explosion of discontent on Britain’s streets, Reid’s rectorial address has lost none of its power. The country’s citizens, especially young people, have been disconnected from the country’s institutions. Our fates are decided by politicians and financiers away from the public eye. But Reid also pointed us toward solutions.

That year – 1972 – he would lead one of the most audacious struggles in British history.

Faced with the closure of their shipyards by blind economic forces and government cuts, Clydeside’s workers staged a work-in, outproducing the old management and forcing Ted Heath’s Conservatives into a climbdown. We would not seek to draw a direct comparison between the fight of the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders and our own, but we feel that by staying the course through to victory, by creating alternative institutions, by showing ourselves and those around us the power that we have when we all stand together, we have shown that Reid’s dream of a society free from alienation lives on.

We also believe that while the occupation is ending, the fight to win more power for the people of this country goes on. The Glasgow University court – which is composed of managers and has responsibility for financial decisions only – believes it has the right to over-rule the senate, which is a democratic body of academics. This is a perfect microcosm of our society today, where the financial rules the political. In our own small way we will work towards change by challenging those cuts that are still planned – both at our university, where staff pensions continue to come under attack, and across society. We are building towards a major ‘People First’ demonstration that the Scottish Trades Union Congress have planned for 1 October.

To the rest of the student movement, to working people and the unemployed, to families facing repossession, we say this: they will tell you that the decision has already been made, that you can’t fight and win. This is because they are scared of you, scared that you’ll band together. To borrow a popular chant from the student movement, there are many many more of us than them.

Liam Turbett and Alistair Davidson are members of the Free Hetherington

Free Hetherington victoryThe Free Hetherington occupation at Glasgow University was a beacon for the anti-cuts movement. After months of battling with university management, it has ended in victory.

Opinion: Free Hetherington Victory


International:9/11 Ten Year Anniversary 9/11


www.internationalsocialist.org.uk

9/11 ten years after the twin towers

The now-iconic image of two planes crashing into the World Trade Centre is etched on the collective memory of millions. Acres of newsprint as well as countless conspiracy theories, documentaries,

websites and films have been spawned, with the focus of analyzing the damage, response, and consequences of that day now widely known as “9/11”.

The response from the imperial powers was not just to wage war abroad and strengthen state power as well as intensifying racist propaganda: it was a calibrated attempt to alter the nature of American grand strategy. It was the ‘Pearl Harbour’ event that many in the neo-conservative movement had been waiting for; an opportunity to introduce a ‘New American Century’ where the US would not only retain sole superpower status, but would possess ‘full spectrum dominance’ in the fields of military, politics, and economics.

The ‘War on Terror’ was not just about oil, although this was a key factor, but about hegemony. Bush did not regard intervention as merely a war against an enemy; he was on a ‘crusade’ against the ‘axis of evil’. Tony Blair’s precipitous decision to add Britain to this project saw it quickly become the partner-in-crime of American foreign policy in the Middle East and the Muslim world more broadly.

The ‘War on Terror’ that followed 9/11 was the focus for a generation of protesters and anti-Imperialists. Almost immediately after the attacks on the Twin Towers, over a thousand such people met in London, a meeting that led to the foundation of the Stop the War Coalition. The opposition was not local or national, it was a global phenomenon – and it radicalized a generation.

Here, we chart the course of the last decade. The tenth anniversary takes place against a backdrop of twin crises for capitalism and imperialism. Now America finds itself in a weaker situation, and the oppressed Arab masses have stolen the initiative to reshape the entire Middle East in the interests of genuine democracy and national liberation. US strategy has been exposed as fundamentally flawed.

The Enemy is EverywhereMuslims quickly became the target of a society-wide smear campaign. Tabloids, academics and ‘terrorism experts’ worked to paint ‘Muslim culture’ as the root cause of the attacks. Any attempt to convey the complexity of geopolitics and history that led to 9/11 was deemed unpatriotic. For US strategy, the demonisation of Islam became an imperative, bound up with the expansion of US power. The references to the ‘axis of evil’ or the ‘arch of extremism’ spanning the whole of Europe lay the basis for the US offensive.

Subsequently, this build up of anti-Muslim racism in the West has been deliberately used to maintain support for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan despite their many failures. Huntington’s “clash of civilisations” was once again dusted off to create an enemy of the Middle East and its peoples. Islamophobia existed before the ‘War on Terror’ but after 9/11 the whole question of Muslim identity and of Islam as a religion was systematically integrated into imperial strategy.

Consequently, violent attacks on Muslims increased in virtually every Western country. More generally, depictions

of Muslims as potential terrorists, and the construction of the ‘Muslim problem’ grew exponentially post-9/11. The war was to be ideological, pitting freedom and democracy against extremism and fundamentalism. Afghanistan was to be the first of the invasions.

Operation Enduring FreedomFor the US this was meant to be the ‘good war’, an

opportunity to exert its power and influence in the Middle East and a triumphant success for US imperialism. However, as we approach the tenth anniversary of the occupation we are witnessing diminishing support for this unwinnable war as well as increasing resistance from the Taliban and ironically the weakening of US geopolitical dominance in the region.

The war in Afghanistan has lasted longer than the Vietnam War, with more fatalities of US soldiers and no end in sight. In early August 2011 thirty members of American Special

Forces were killed in Afghanistan after the Taliban shot down their helicopter, making it the deadliest day for US military personnel during the ten years of war.

A recent YouGov poll found public opinion for the war is at an all time low and only 21% of the people believe that Barack Obama has a clear strategy regarding Afghanistan. 38% believe the US made a mistake by sending troops to Afghanistan whilst 41% believe it was the right decision. With reports that the US are now considering joining the Taliban at the negotiating table we are witnessing the desperation of a US state which knows it is struggling in its battle against the Taliban but is well aware that it cannot not afford to lose.

Afghanistan has always been strategically important for Western powers. The invasions of Afghanistan, Iraq and the recent ‘humanitarian intervention’ in Libya provide opportunities for the US to enhance its global political power by increasing the number of military bases it has across the world. Although it is not clear how many secret bases the US may have in the Middle East, the figures suggest there are currently over 700 worldwide.

Along with its armed bulldog of the Israeli state, these military bases serve a wider purpose in American foreign policy. Whilst the US now wages war on the Taliban, it was not so long ago it found an ally in the “terrorist organisation” in order to secure access to oil pipelines in the 1990s. It is in this vein it continues today in order to control global resources for the wallets of American capitalism.

Operation Iraqi FreedomThe war on Iraq was a seismic issue in global politics which led to the largest ever mobilisation of worldwide protest. Many people have their personal story of walking out of school, attending a demonstration or going to their first ever political meeting. The movement brought in literally millions of people, disgusted at the impending Shock and Awe invasion,


The response was not just state power and racist propaganda, but a re-calibration of American strategy

The world watched in shock as planes flew into the Twin Towers on September 11th. But this event was the moment American rulers in general, and George Bush in particular, were waiting for to impose US power, argues Jonathon Shafi.

International: 9/11 Ten Year Anniversary


FEB 15 2003The biggest day of protest in history

LONDON

NEW YORK

1,000,000

375,000

GLASGOW

100,000

2,000,000

MADRID

500,000

BERLIN

3,000,000

ROME

100,000

SAN FRANCISCO

100,000

JAKARTA

25,000

TOKYO

1,300,000

BARCELONA

200,000

PARIS

Worldwide total:30,000,000

euphemically labelled ‘Operation Iraqi Freedom’.

Since then over one million Iraqi civilians have lost their lives as a direct result of the war and hundreds of thousands have been injured. The US sanctioned the use of illegal weapons such as white phosphorous in a war that hadn’t been endorsed by the United Nations. Kofi Annan, then UN Secretary General, would later declare the invasion illegal.

For the US, however, this was not just about Iraq. The ‘Shock and Awe’ bombings on the first night of the invasion were designed to send a message to the whole region – and to the world at large - that American power was unstoppable. This was to be a high technology war, using heavy air support. In order to avoid the fabled “Vietnam syndrome”, the US needed to prove that it could obliterate the enemy with few casualties and end intense fighting in short order.

As Bush landed on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln to declare ‘missions accomplished’ this was proven not to be the case. So far there have been 32,159 US personnel casualties and 4,792 additional personnel suffered fatal injuries, an incredible toll.

The Dirty WarThe quick, clean, humanitarian war American Foreign Policy hawks dreamt of was to come undone by the simple act of developing photographs. The exposure of the horrendous torture and humiliation forced upon Iraqis in Abu Ghraib began to crack at an already fragile level of public support.

Then there was the more everyday tactics used by the US army as prescribed by the Pentagon. A report detailed the deliberate humiliation of the population:

‘US soldiers driving bulldozers, with jazz blaring from loudspeakers, have uprooted ancient groves of date palms as well as orange and lemon trees in central Iraq as part of a new policy of collective punishment

of farmers who do not give information about guerrillas attacking US troops.’

Farmers said that US troops had told them over a loudspeaker in Arabic, that the fruit groves were being bulldozed to punish the farmers for not informing on the resistance which is very active in this Sunni Muslim district.

‘They made a sort of joke against us by playing jazz music while they were cutting down the trees,’ said one man.

This strategy was obvious to those who chose to look beneath the reportage offered from CentCom, the daily news brief delivered by the US to the worlds media, then duly reported.

Contemporary Iraqi history is taught in sixth, ninth and 12th grades. Now, in all three text books history suddenly comes to an end after the 1958 revolution. Fifty years are being erased from Iraq’s memory. “History is always affected by politics – and the winner gets his version into the text books”, said Ms Nadia, an Iraqi history teacher.

White phosphorus, a policy of subjugation, over a million dead civilians and a destroyed education system, but don’t think this was simply a result of the chaos of war: it is a deliberate strategy to completely dominate Iraq for business and geo-strategic interests by systematic terror.

The oil, Halliburton and BP is obvious. But did you know that Iraqi farmers are not allowed to plant their own seeds? Now they must buy them for a price, and from a list of vendors who have bid for the contracts.

One thing the US has spent money on is its own embassy. It is the largest embassy of any country in the world, the size of the Vatican City and visible from space. It has cinemas, restaurants and a gym and has offices for over 5000 staff and a plush function suite. It is known to locals as simply: George W Palace.

From domination to crisis and revolutionThe Bush era ended in failure: the neocon doctrine was thoroughly rejected with the election of Obama. Obama has continued to ramp up support for the war in Afghanistan, sending in more troops - but his election was a mandate from the American people to move beyond the hawkish neo con strategy.

But the real issue for US strategy, ten years after 9/11, is that many of the dictators which were armed militarily, financially and politically to provide decades of influence for the US, were brought down by people power.

The Egyptian revolution sent a shockwave - not just throughout Egypt - but the geopolitics of the global state system.

It showed the power of ordinary people to liberate themselves. Unlike the Iraqi’s, the Egyptians liberated themselves - free of occupation and war. The revolutionary process in Egypt and across the Arab world continues to deepen. The next military intervention for the US, Britain and this time NATO, was a war for position. The current intervention in Libya is an attempt to gain a foothold to reshape the emerging revolutions in the image of imperial power.

The revolutions, coupled with the economic crisis have made the world more unstable since 9/11. Now though, the force of the revolutions has the potential to dislodge imperialism and intensify the US crisis. It will require workers in the advanced capitalist economies to rise to the challenge too. That is why on this the tenth anniversary of 9/11, the backdrop of crisis and revolution means that the global order is in flux, offering an opportunity to all those who along the way have always opposed the wars - and capitalism.

The force of the Arab revolutions has the potential to dislodge imperialism and intensify the US crisis.

Interview: Owen Jones on ‘Chavs’


INTERVIEW: Owen Jones on ‘chavs’ and the riotsBW: Your book, Chavs, analyses the working class and tackles the inaccurate depictions of it from media and government. Do you see the backlash from the riots as a vindication of your argument?OJ: The right are very good at manipulating crises to further their political ends. The current economic crisis was caused by the banks; when Lehman Brothers collapsed, a window opened momentarily and there was a widespread questioning of neo-liberal economics. But in a stroke of political genius, the Tories and their allies transformed it into a crisis of public spending.

We’ve seen a similar process happen with the riots. There’s been an understandable backlash to what happened - those worst affected by the disorder were those living in some of the poorest working-class communities. But a furious backlash - promoted by right-wing

politicians and journalists - has seen the scapegoating of people on benefits, black people, and single parents. David Cameron has responded, in part, by calling for renewed determination to take on a

welfare state that promotes ‘idleness’. Above all, the riots have been used to back up

the idea that there’s an ‘underclass’ that’s not only feckless, but also violent and feral. For example, Richard Littlejohn described the rioters as a ‘wolfpack of feral inner-city waifs and strays’ and called for them to be clubbed ‘like baby seals’.

BW: Seumas Milne has described the backlash from the Con-Dem government, the police and the courts as ‘class justice’. Would you agree with that?OJ: Yes. David Cameron has publicly supported the eviction of council tenants found guilty of rioting (along with their families - a form of collective punishment) and the taking away of their benefits - in effect, establishing the principle that the poor should be punished twice if

they break the law. We’ve already seen a number of councils moving to evict those charged (let alone convicted) of rioting.

BW: The Tottenham riot was clearly instigated by police racism, what do you think was the motivation for the copycat riots across England?OJ: The causes of the riots were complex. We should separate the Tottenham riots - provoked by the police killing of Mark Duggan - and the unrest that took place elsewhere. A range of motivations for taking part in the riots have emerged: frustration, hedonism, opportunism, anger, and so on. But what united the majority of the rioters was the lack of a secure future to risk. Over one in five 18-to-24-year-olds are out of work; of course everyone responds differently to their circumstances, but it only takes a fraction to respond by rioting or looting to bring chaos to the streets.

BW: The role of gangs has been played up by the media and Cameron has blamed gang culture for the riots, how important are gangs to working class youth?OJ: Firstly, only a small minority of young working-class people are in what most would describe as ‘gangs’. But the Joseph Rowntree Foundation did a study of them a few years ago, and found that they were often about grouping together for protection, looking out for each other, and even avoiding trouble. They could provide some with fun, excitement and support they otherwise lacked. As well as being a ‘coping mechanism for young people living in poverty’, they were a ‘product of deprivation, a lack of opportunities and attractive activities, limited

As the backlash against ‘feral youth’ reaches fever pitch, Ben Wray asked Owen Jones, author of Chavs, about the recent riots across England and how the Left can provide an alternative to the Tories and neoliberalism.

NEW WORKING CLASS? Owen Jones (right) has appeared on Newsnight as a critic of the demonization of working class youth; and the view of ‘looters’ (right).

Interview: Owen Jones and ‘Chavs’


aspirations and an expression of identity.’

BW: Do you think there has been a rise in racism as a result of the riots?OJ: Yes. David Starkey attempted to scapegoat black people for the riots in a clever, insidious way - given the objective evidence that people of ethnic backgrounds were involved, he made the ludicrous (and racist) suggestion that black culture had somehow colonised white culture, and this was responsible for the violence. There was a heartening backlash against him, but also a disturbing amount of support for him - expressed in the media, on the internet, and in various radio phone-ins.

BW: What do you think the long-term legacy of the riots will be for the Con-Dem government: on the one hand it seems to give a green light to increased police repression but on the other hand it will surely make them fear vicious cuts on the poorest in society?OJ: Riots in the US in the 1960s tended to boost the populist right. The backlash to our own riots has boosted right-wing arguments on law-and-order, family values and welfare. So I’m afraid I’m pessimistic on that score. These riots show that the left needs to organise in working-class communities to attempt to channel understandable anger and disenchantment in a positive political direction. Only that will challenge the Government (and, more broadly, neo-liberalism) - we may regard riots as inevitable, but there is little reason to believe they will advance the left’s cause.

BW: Do you think there’s a particular generational divide in Britain today based on the specific development of young people in the neoliberal era (high unemployment, community deterioration, weakening of trade unions and the Labour Party, precarious work, etc)?OJ: The conditions facing young people growing up in the neo-liberal era are certainly different from those faced by people growing up in the post-1945 welfare capitalism era. In the post-war era, there was a sense that the conditions of the next generation would be better than those of the last. That’s not a case that can be made anymore. Young people face mass unemployment, a lack of job security, indebtedness, a lack of affordable housing, and stagnating or even declining living standards.

The future of a large number of young people is - to be brutally honest - bleak.

BW: How do you think an alternative to rioting can be built that can unite the working class against the Con-Dem government’s austerity agenda?OJ: The left and the labour movement need to organise young working-class people and give their anger and frustration a political direction. That will need to be creative - not all of the old forms of political organisation appeal to young people. Back in the 1920s and 1930s, the National Unemployed Workers’ Movement organised those without work - we need to rebuild that sort of model.

BW: In your book you write about the need for the Trade Union movement to build amongst the service sector, in particular call-centre workers, and in communities. Len McCluskey, the UNITE general secretary, has recently announced a reduced community and student membership rate to build Trade Union roots in the working class and make the union more activist orientated; he has also attempted to develop close links with anti-cuts campaigns like UK UNCUT and Coalition of Resistance. Do you think the Unions are moving in the right direction?OJ: Len McCluskey’s election as Unite general secretary was a big step forward for the labour movement and the left. These proposals are welcome step in the right direction, but nowhere near enough. We need a new model of trade unionism that’s adapted to the service sector - with its job insecurity, high turnover of staff and large number of temporary and part-time workers. Union membership in this sector is very low. But we also need community trade unionism, a specific strategy for young workers, and the unionisation of the unemployed.

BW: You are a member of the Labour Party but have been very critical of New Labour.

Do you see a future for the Left inside Labour?OJ: New Labour was the product of a perfect storm - the rise of the New Right, the defeats of the labour movement in the 1980s, the demoralisation caused by the repeated Tory electoral victories, and the capitalist triumphalism unleashed by the collapse of Stalinism. That’s why the left in the Labour Party - as outside it - remains so weak. The left hasn’t built a strong countervailing pressure within the Party and the affiliated trade union, which is why the Blairite faction at the top remains so strong. That’s the only way Labour can be dragged into a position of genuinely representing working-class people.

BW: The Con-Dem government has only been in power for just over a year and it has been rocked by mass protests, scandals, divisions and riots, with a double-dip recession looking ominous. Is this the time for the working class to be as ruthless as the Tories have in fighting class war, and bring the government down?OJ: To paraphrase George Bernard Shaw, one side preaches the class war while the other fights it. The Conservative Party has always fought the class war, even though its tactics had to dramatically change with the arrival of universal suffrage. This is a government of millionaires that is fighting a class war - whether it be through cuts, slashing corporation tax while hiking VAT, and even threatening to further weaken our already repressive anti-union laws. The left needs to build a broad-based movement, rooted in our communities, that can bring down this Government. But it’s not just about challenging the Tories - it’s about taking on the whole model of neo-liberalism. The next Labour government cannot be a re-run of the New Labour era - and only a mass movement bringing pressure on it can prevent that from happening.

The left needs to build a broad-based movement, rooted in our communities, that can bring down this Government

ULTRAVIOLENCE: Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange - Britain’s long obsession with controlling youth


ADAM FREW

AN ANTI-HOMOPHOBIA CAMPAIGN denounced as Nazi propaganda, asking MSPs to support gay and lesbian people deemed ‘Rubbish’, and a motion put before the Scottish Parliament stating that no person or organisation can be forced to approve of same-sex marriage. All this from a political party which has taken a million pounds in donations from the homophobic businessman that bankrolled the campaign against the repeal of Section 28. So why is First Minister Alex Salmond so quiet? Answer: It’s his own Scottish National Party espousing the vitriol.

Last month, New York became the latest state in the US to introduce marriage equality. Same-sex marriage is now legal in 19 countries and jurisdictions around the world, with a further two dozen countries exercising some form of civil partnerships. Here in Scotland, the debate around same-sex marriage has begun, with the first opening salvos of homophobic rhetoric fired from some surprising quarters.

The SNP, who have majority control of the Scottish Parliament, pledged to hold a consultation on same-sex marriage later this year in fulfilment of an election promise. But opposition to this has come from the ranks of the SNP itself, with a motion put before Parliament by MSP John Mason, and supported by fellow SNP MSPs Bill Walker, Dave Thomson and Richard Lyle, stating that ‘no person or organisation should be forced to be involved or to approve of same-sex marriage’.

Mason defended his motion, saying that he wanted to stop the debate flowing in one direction. However, more controversy emerged when co-signatory Bill Walker likened anti-homophobia literature to Nazi propaganda. Walker, who received an email sent to all MSPs asking them to support gay and lesbian Scots sent a single word reply back to equalities campaigner Jeff Duncan: ‘Rubbish’. The MSP later went on to say of the campaign logo, which featured the word ‘homophobia’ scored out as ‘quite intimidating actually because ... it reminded me of the pre-war Nazi-type stuff banning things.’ These bizarre comments demonstrate complete contempt for the thousands of people exterminated by the Nazis for their sexual orientation. However, they should not be unexpected.

The SNP has a long and contradictory history with gay rights and homophobia. Traditionally, the SNP has adopted a largely liberal and progressive stance on gay rights, with their voting record showing fairly consistent support. However, it was the endorsement of Brian Souter’s kinghood that stood in stark contrast to this modest commitment to equality. Souter, the millionaire

businessman who bankrolled the campaign against the repeal of Section 28 in Scotland, donated £500,000 to the SNP at both the 2007 and 2011 elections.

The question many campaigners are asking now is why does the SNP have such a conflicting relationship with the LGBT community?

To understand this, we must look at the deeper contradictions of the Scottish National Party, whose ultimate goal remains independence. The SNP has successfully modelled itself as a moderate social-democratic party, adopting small, but progressive, policies that have proved highly popular. The abolition of prescription charges, bridge tolls, tuition fees, the removal of private finance from the NHS, as well as opposing Trident and the war on Iraq have catapulted the SNP into majority rule in Parliament. But the issue of gay rights has come as a more difficult issue for the SNP to reconcile.

It was far easier for the SNP to oppose the Iraq war given the massive public opposition to it. Likewise, publicly opposing racism and islamophobia is not seen as a vote-losing principal, this was shown in November 2009 when Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon joined a march against the fascist Scottish Defence League in Glasgow. The SNP have chosen to take the neutral stance of supporting the current civil liberties afforded to gay and lesbian people, with First Minister, Alex Salmond dodging the question of his support for gay marriage in a recent interview.

Same-sex marriage has the SNP worried, however. Although a recent poll by the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey in 2010 showed that 61% of the public now support same-sex

marriage, compared to 41% support in 2002, the issue still has the potential to divide the party. On one hand they have the a small majority of the public generally in favour of same-sex marriage; on the other they have a large minority of religious people and socially conservative voters who back the party, but oppose marriage equality. Throw into the mix a homophobic businessman who is one of the party’s principal donors, and it is easy to see why the First Minister has remained largely silent on the issue.

The SNP’s whole purpose of being is the independence of Scotland. Those in its ranks range from social-democrats to free-marketeers, some with strong religious beliefs, others with none. Up until now the SNP have managed to appear as a coherent force, with mildly progressive popular policies that few can argue with. The issue of marriage equality is far more divisive for the party, and will test this alliance of social backgrounds in a way we may not have seen before. Maintaining the image of an all-Scotland party that represents every walk of life in Scotland is crucial for the SNP’s hopes of securing victory in the forthcoming independence referendum.

The SNP leadership does not wish to take sides in this argument; they know that this issue will alienate at least one side. But socialists must make the principled argument for marriage equality, it is the progressive side of the argument that the SNP should be pushed to adopt in the upcoming debate. We must work with all the progressive elements inside the SNP, whilst at the same time exposing the bigotry and homophobia of the John Masons and Bill Walkers of the Scottish National Party.

SNP’s Homophobia ShameThe SNP’s commitment to gay rights has come under fire from within its own ranks. Under the guise of ‘pluralism’, right-wing elements of the party want to roll-back reforms for LGBT people.

BIGOTRY: MSPs like John Mason are clearly not on the side of the LGBT community in Scotland

Scotland: SNP and Homophobia

‘The SNP has a long and contradictory history with gay rights and homophobia’

Freshers Special 2011:Student Movement Where Next?

Twelve months of student struggle: where next?Student protests against cuts and fees threatened to paralayse the Con-Dem government last year, as anger erupted on campuses across Britain. This year, having won some key victories, we need to push out and address the problems of the ‘lost generation’, argues Ben Wray.

As we embark on a new academic term, the way forward for the student movement is unclear. Rehashing the successes – and the defeats – of last

year will not work. In this article, I will argue that the recent riots should be an eye opener about the youth crisis in Britain today. The student movement must broaden its ambitions to take on the issue of the ‘lost generation’ and organising youth whether they are students or not. The specifics of the youth crisis have to be understood if it’s energy and militancy are to be directed towards rebuilding a dynamic, militant working class movement that can beat the Con-Dem government’s austerity agenda.

The youth crisis Under a Con-Dem government, the future for young people looks grim. The statistics tell their own story. One million 16-24 year olds are NEET (not in education, employment or training); youth unemployment is running

at one in five; graduate unemployment has doubled since the start of the recession from 10% to 20%; 682,367 have applied for a university place this term – of these only 57.6% have been accepted; in England & Wales the average undergraduate who started university last year can expect to finish with debts of £23,200: this will rise dramatically once the increase of up to £9,000 a year in fees is introduced; based on polling evidence, the scrapping of the EMA for FE and school students could prevent 70% of those who would have stayed in education from doing so.

In summary, Con-Dem policies have been a catastrophe for millions of young people. The housing crisis, poverty, long work hours whilst studying and much more could be added to this list of regressive results that have emerged out of the recession and the austerity agenda for young people. It amounts to a major youth crisis: the ambitions and prospects they were brought up to believe in if ‘they put the work in’ are being shattered from the beginning of

their adult life. Such a profound sense of futility

and rejection is exacerbated by the moral bankruptcy on display from the top of society: bankers’ bonuses, the MPs expenses scandal and hackgate stand as a trilogy of corruption that undermines their credibility to rule. The fragility of the Con-Dem government and the fury at Clegg’s betrayal of his voters only adds to the feeling of weakness and illegitimacy at the top and increased fury and resentment at the bottom – burning the candle at both ends.

Riots and Resistance This twin crisis forms the context for the two most significant events in Britain over the past twelve months: the student protests against fees in November-December last year and the riots in August this year. It should not be necessary to elaborate on the differences between the two in terms of their goals: the former was a conscious, organised attempt to


A YEAR IN THE LIFE OF THE STUDENT REVOLT

May 20, 2010200 Glasgow Uni students march against the closures in the Life Sciences Faculty.

Oct 23, 2010A sizeable student contingent joins the Scottish TUC anti-cuts march in Edinburgh

Oct 26, 2010Thousands of students across Britain march against the Browne Review proposals


defeat government policy whilst the later was an explosion of rage intent on carnage with no particular aims or ambitions.

What is of more interest is the socio-economic convergence between the student protests and the riots: both at their peak were lead by the poorest, most alienated sections of Britain’s youth angered by indiscriminate use of power against the most vulnerable; both spread rapidly across the country as young people in one area were inspired by those in another; both emerged spontaneously from mostly unorganised, inexperienced colleges, schools and communities; both were innovative in using new methods from a tactical and a technological point of view to resist the police.

Looked at together, the riot and the resistance are a confirmation of an intensifying youth crisis in Britain: a combination of alienation and rage that can spontaneously burst into revolt in any number of ways.

Students in the Class Struggle The conditions exist for spontaneous revolt – so how do we harness this to challenge the Con-Dem agenda? The student movement, as the most organised element of young people, will have to be central to leading working class youth. To understand the potential role students can play we have to rethink the role of students in the class struggle today.

Marxists have traditionally emphasised the weakness of student power: they can move into action quickly because they don’t have to rely on a majority of students to do so, but because they have little power to bring the capitalist system to a halt, their struggle tends to lose its vigour and momentum quickly as the reality of their economic weakness kicks in. This was

summed up in the phrase ‘up like a rocket, down like a stick’. Whilst this is of course true for the recent student revolt –whose high point lasted over a month before settling down – it is not a particularly useful phrase in looking at students in today’s context, for three reasons.

Firstly, in comparison with the youth riots the student movement’s influence over society at large and its organisational legacy is in a different league. The rioters were forced into a rapid retreat due to their isolation in society and the consequent police crackdowns, compounded by lack of political direction. Riots genuinely are ‘up like a rocket, down like a stick’.

The student movement achieved the sympathy of much of society at large, even at its most radical stage. It created student anti-cuts groups across the country, as well as creating new leaders in national anti-cuts campaigns like UK Uncut and Coalition of Resistance.

Victories and big demonstrations have continued to be achieved since then, Glasgow University being a case in point with a march of 3,000 near the end of February which led into a six-month long occupation that ended in victory. In fact, Scotland is a good example of how the student movement shifted the goalposts as far as political debate around education was concerned: in the run-up to the May Scottish Parliament election all of the main parties had to come out in support of free education in Scotland. Before the student revolt, such was the hegemony around the idea that education was unaffordable without a greater burden on students (a graduate tax was

sounded as a nicer version of fees) that even NUS Scotland had conceded this ground.

Secondly, students’ class background has fundamentally changed from the previous high points in 68’ and in the 1970’s. Working class youth today know that unless they achieve some qualification after school there prospects of a reasonably well-paid career is unlikely. This is why almost half of all young people are in further or higher education. Unlike the Sorbonne students in Paris 1968, student struggle’s primary motivation isn’t ideological: for a more liberated society or an emancipated education.

Student revolt today is inspired by the material realities of their generation: for access to education or to oppose their education being diminished, and consequently a path to decent jobs and a decent standard of living, desires that are fundamentally proletarian. Since the attacks on education will last for at least the next three or four years, we can expect student struggle to be more consistent than previous experience and motivated firstly by the material rather than the ideological.

Finally, the understanding that student struggle would quickly go up then down was an attempt to win a layer of students to understand the primacy of industrial struggle to the class struggle in the 1970’s. This was correct at the time as the workers movement in Britain had built up strength over the post-war boom, culminating in turning off the lights in Britain through the militancy and solidarity shown in the 1972 miners strike that brought down Heath’s Tory government. For socialists,


Oct 26, 2010Thousands of students across Britain march against the Browne Review proposals

Nov 10, 201050,000 students march in Central London. Thousands storm Tories’ Millbank headquarters.

Nov 11, 2010Official student bureaucrats, politicians, press condemn the rioters - wave of panic

Nov 24, 2010Day X1. Despite NUS etc warnings, 125,000 students protest, occupy, riots against cuts

Nov 24, 2010Day X is also the beginning of a wave of occupations, including Edinburgh (pictured).

The riot and the resistance are a confirmation of an intensifying youth crisis in Britain

Freshers Special: Student Movement 2011


Nov 30, 2010Day X2. Once again, thousands out on the streets, including school children, braving snow.

Dec 8, 2010Prior to the fees vote, first Glasgow Uni anti-cuts occupation, joining 1,000s across Britain.

Dec 9, 2010Day of fees vote. Police brutality. Riots in Central London. Solidarity actions/protests.

Dec 10, 2010Footage shows massive police brutality. Man in wheelchair beaten. One man left in coma by cops.

orientation on this strongest point in the class struggle was obvious.

Today, conditions are drastically different. The defeats of the labour movement in the 1980’s have not been overcome yet. Industrial action has continued to slide even since the recession and the cuts agenda has kicked in. However, if we go by Lenin’s understanding that ‘confrontation with the state is the highest form of class struggle’ then the picture is not all depressing. The level of political struggle since the rise of the anti-capitalist movement at the turn of the millenium has been very high. Millions marched against the war in Iraq and hundreds of thousands against Israeli aggression in Lebanon and Palestine, already 500,000 joined the TUC demonstration on March 26th, as well as of course the mass movement against fees. The public-sector strike of 750,000 workers on June 30th was an important step forward for industrial struggle, but the high point were the marches and demonstrations on that day, rather than the economic power of the action itself.

Struggles on the street have been much more important over the past decade in challenging the capitalist state in Britain than industrial action. If we compare workers and students on this basis, student organisation has stayed quite consistent from the anti-war movement to the student revolt to challenging austerity as a whole, and has at least matched

trade-unions in this respect. Of course trade unions have much more potential power politically and industrially than students ever could, but the idea that students must subordinate themselves to the industrial struggles of organised labour in the current context seems to bring organised student activists level of resistance down, rather than using students to build upon current resistance to raise the level of class struggle as a whole.

Re-run of 2010-11? The proposal to raise fees to a possible £9,000 gave the student movement a particular focus from the NUS demonstration on November 10th onwards- it had to kill the bill. The millbank riot galvanised students across Britain to take on the government, suddenly feeling a surge of power. After the infamous Westminster riot on December 9th, when the bill was narrowly passed through by a damaged and visibly stunned coalition government, with the winter break upon us, it was obvious it would be difficult to regain the momentum around the issue.

At this stage, to continue to orientate the movement on fees is to flog a dead horse. This isn’t to say it’s not vital to continue the arguments against fees (and in Scotland the introduction of fees for non-Scottish students must be challenged), nor that it is impossible

to reverse the decision through the anti-cuts struggle, but it can no longer be the driving force of a dynamic student movement.

Cuts seems like the obvious battleground: they will come in at regular intervals over the next few years across many, if not most, universities and colleges in Britain. They also create an obvious link between students and workers as both are facing attacks and therefore support and solidarity should come naturally. But there are serious limitations to this approach.

Firstly, because cuts are uneven across universities and colleges, it is hard to forge it into a national movement in the same way fees was or the issue of pensions is for workers. No movement can be powerful if it is divided college by college, university by university- it has to make a political challenge to the government. Secondly, at some universities cuts are not happening at all, or very little, but there is of course a mass of issues that students still face. If there is no coherent approach for these students passivity will set in. Finally, fighting cuts in and of itself is solely defensive and narrow in its prospects: it is defending what you’ve got at your college or university, or even more narrowly your course or member of staff.

A more ambitious alternative to the Con-Dem’s answers to the crisis and its vision (or lack of) for young people is neccessary. Of


OUR BOYS IN BLUE...

BOBBIES ON THE BEAT!

course every cut has to be fought as hard as possible, but it must be placed within the wider political context and a wider movement of the youth crisis and Con-Dem austerity.

Students need to Lead The youth riots should be the moment for the student movement to broaden its horizons and ambitions, and be the voice of the oppressed and demonised. The background of austerity, alienation and injustice that the riots emerged out of is only going to intensify. Raising demands for education and jobs for young people, rights at work, a living wage, social housing, student funding and more as well as challenging the criminalisation and demonisation of media, police, courts and government is vital.

All these points get to the heart of the austerity agenda: destroying the future of a generation to prop up a failing system. They also chime with the international youth consciousness which began with the self-immolation of a young, unemployed graduate in Tunisia against police oppression and the inability to make a future for himself and spread into a revolution lead by youth across the Arab world, and consciously to Europe through the ‘indignados’ in Spain and Greece, to the students of Britain.

Whether it be marches, occupations or rallies activity has to be called by the student movement alongside others over the issue of the ‘lost generation’. The NUS should be pressured into providing resources to make this happen. We don’t need particular youth organisation to do this- this can build barriers rather than bridges in the working class- but we do need to organise people locally and nationally to come together and discuss how we can mobilise around youth issues. Coalition of Resistance is currently the best tool we have to bring the resistance together and attract new people to get organised.

If this can bring a wide layer of young people into action against the system young people will be in a position to make an argument to the working class as a whole: that it needs to raise its activity, dynamism and unity to the level of the youth internationally if we are to build a working class movement that has the power to topple the Tories.

Feb 1, 2011Glasgow University students commence occupation of the Hetherington Building

Feb 9, 2011Plans leaked to the Herald for £20 million cuts and closures at Glasgow University

Feb 9, 2011Plans leaked to the Herald for £20 million cuts and closures at Glasgow University

Feb 12, 2011Mass meeting of 430 students in Queen Margaret Union at Glasgow University

Feb 16, 20113,000 students march on Glasgow University Principal Anton Muscatelli

‘The youth riots should be the moment for students to broaden their horizons and ambitions, be the voice of the oppressed’


Cover Feature: Riots, Racism and Resistance


Riots, Racism, & Resistance

The English riots have provoked mounting debate about the fate of young people in Britain. While the right-wing media depict the

rioters as lawless ‘feral’ youths running wild in a disparate society, more progressive commentators have urged us to remember the sociological reasons explaining these apparently ‘nihilistic’ behaviours.

However, there is a notable omission from both of these viewpoints. All pundits have a tendency to look at the riots in isolation from a wider tendency to youth agitation across the globe. Recent years have seen countless examples of violent protest, and the English riots are part of a geopolitical pattern of escalating expressions of rage by disgruntled and disengaged young people.

The City of LondonRiots and violent resistance clearly didn’t emerge from nowhere. London has a long history of similar disturbances, and the themes are entirely consistent with a pattern of community-led rebellions.

The riots in Brixton and Tottenham in the early to mid 1980s were directed, then as now, at the racist corruption of the Metropolitan Police. Tired of constant police harassment against black communities, young people reacted with the only tactics available to them: violent resistance.

Thirty years later, it is abundantly clear that neither the tactics nor the rhetoric of the Metropolitan Police has in any way evolved. The unlawful killing of Mark Duggan and the subsequent battering of a sixteen year old girl, which precipitated the riots last month, shows that the Metropolitan Police plays by its own rules of Neanderthal thuggery and racism.

The parallels between these riots and earlier British rebellions are painfully obvious. Tottenham, at the heart of the most unequal city in Europe, embodies the betrayal of working class people in Britain. All the social problems of the Thatcher era remain like a bad hangover.

Black youth unemployment stands at an unbelievable 40% in this country; Haringey constituency – Tottenham’s local authority

– has the highest unemployment rates in London. Its council, in a characteristic act of carelessness, cut the youth services budget by 75% just before the riots kicked off.

Tottenham has been cut off from any increase in prosperity in the boom years for the City of London and ‘casino capitalism’ in the 90s and noughties. Today, in an age of austerity, the Con-Dem message says we are ‘all in this together’. But elite politicians will never understand the devastating effects that the austerity package is having on a community still reeling from the vicious pro-market policies of the Thatcher-Blair era.

European ContextIt is equally impossible to understand the riots without drawing comparison with similar commotions in the Eurozone and the wider world in recent years.

In the past decade, simmering youth anger across the world has expressed itself in an increasingly violent manner because non-violent solutions to social problems (no housing, bad wages, unemployment,

Riots have polarised society on issues about young people, crime, and racism. Many have tried to paint this as a peculiarly British problem. Not so, argues Aisling Gallagher. While every riot is different, there is an emerging global pattern of violent youth resistance in the context of austerity.



education cuts) have failed. Voting clearly does not lead to meaningful change, ‘hard work’ and ‘social mobility’ gets you a dead-end to nowhere, and trade unions have failed to take effective action to reach young people.

The Paris banlieue riots of 2005, which resulted from the deaths of two African youths in Clichy-sous-Bois, a poor commune of Paris after months of mounting tensions between French youth and police, is one obvious comparison. These riots led President Jacques Chirac to call a three month state of emergency after the riots spread to various urban areas around France.

Like the English riots, it led to a lot of meaningless national moralising about the fate of youth, ‘bad parenting’, and cultural integration. Of course, it also meant a massive police crackdown: 2900 people were arrested in connection with rioting. Tensions stirred up by police violence against ethnic minorities have proven to be an integral cause of rioting in Europe in recent years.

December 2008 saw Greece erupt in violence after the fatal shooting of fifteen-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos by police. While the shooting of Grigoropoulos was the catalyst for the riots, more than 60% of responses to a survey by Greek newspaper Kathimerini stated that they believed the riots were part of a wider ‘social uprising’ directly linked to the economic crisis.

The reaction, or lack of it, by the Left became a significant issue in Greece. Elements of the Communist and trade union old guard either condemned or failed to support the protests, symptomatic of a pattern of disengagement. Instead of seizing the opportunity to appeal to a whole new generation of disenfranchised young people

whose lives were being devastated by an economic crisis not of their making, the Greek Left chose to call for ‘peaceful demonstrations’ in opposition to the rage that had been displayed by youth.

In doing so, the Left alienated themselves from a new generation in Greece, and left themselves looking weak at a time when they could have taken advantage of social unrest in order to build their base among the young. As ‘mindless’ youth rioting merged into a genuine movement for change when the Eurozone crisis started to hit, the Left was divided from elements of the youth, who continue to riot and fight the police alone – this time, with a much sharper political message – week after week. This could easily have been averted.

Out in the ColdGiving disaffected youth the cold shoulder is the worst mistake the Left could make. Certainly, the English Left and trade unions found themselves swamped and voiceless in the recent debate about the riots. Powerless to intervene, they preferred inaction or ‘safe’ propaganda, and were rudderless in the face of an establishment backlash.

However, the problems of the Left are arguably mild in comparison to legitimacy crisis of the Con-Dem coalition, which has systematically failed to build support even in a right-wing mood. David Cameron’s handling of the crisis is widely criticised, with 54% of people criticising his handling of the crisis and his decision to remain on a £6,000 luxury holiday in Tuscany while London burned.

Lost GenerationWhere now for the Con-Dem government

then? They precariously preside over a Parliament of MPs which has been rocked in recent years by an expenses scandal that caused outrage the world over; they impose austerity measures upon the poorest of this country while allowing their cronies in the financial sector to swindle the capitalist economy to a point of near-destruction.

Already, there are signs that the gung-ho response will backfire. Many people are angry at the rioters – but the same people are angry at the other looters that have brought the country to ruin, the bankers and the corrupt MPs. Increasingly, voices in the legal system voice concern about the legitimacy of the harsh and disproportionate sentences. The tide of opinion is turning and the youth remain angry.

As David Cameron’s cuts against public services begin to tighten their grip, people are already beginning to question why austerity measures must affect ‘essential services’ like the police and fire brigade. After the London riots, Cameron was forced to defend these cuts, despite the fact that the emergency services already give the impression of being under-staffed and over-worked, leading to the escalation of the riots.

Cameron and his Con-Dem coalition look set to reach a breaking point soon, where they will, most likely, push ahead with their increasingly unpopular austerity package in the face of mass resentment from those most affected by it. It is the job of the Left to organise properly and seize the opportunity to promote a message of resistance and change – this must be the time when the Left takes the reins where before it has failed to do so, and demonstrates properly that there is an alternative to global capitalism and its broken economic system.

‘People are angry at the other looters that have brought the country to ruin, the bankers and the corrupt MPs’

Cover Feature: Riots and Austerity


I Predict a RiotThe art of rioting wasn’t invented in 2011. Every year, the chaos of capitalism - war, poverty, unemployment, crisis, racism - generates hundreds of them across the globe. In this feature, we take a brief glance at some of the defining European political riots of the past few years, and their implications for contemporary struggles.

October/Nov 2005: French banlieues riotsFrench ruling class declares ‘state of emergency’ after violent protests

Unrest began on October 27th after the killing of two youths in a poor banlieue (suburb) of East Paris. By the beginning of November, the rioting had spread to many urban areas and some rural ones across France. Police responded with tear gas, clubs, and massive clampdowns, youth fought back by setting cars on fire and attacking police stations. The riots provoked considerable debate in France about the fate of its oppressed Muslim North African minorities.

Spring 2006: French youth erupt overt CPE reformSarkozy’s attempt to withdraw all youth employment rights backfires

The CPE reform was intended as the final piece in the neoliberal reform of France. It would mean that French employers could hire and fire young people at will, with no protection under the law. The mass protests of millions and strikes by students and workers were perhaps the most effective tactics. But riots certainly played a part in the eventual victory. The riots against CPE helped ensure that the struggles were constantly featured in international news coverage.

Winter 2008: The Greek BeginningJust as the economic crisis began, riots erupted across Greece against police brutaltiy

Fifteen year old Alexandros Grigoropoulos was killed by police in a poor suburb of Athens. In the context of a global crisis, it led to massive protests by young people. This escalated quickly to involve violent confrontations and riots, a pattern that would recur in Greece for years. An expression of youth revolt, it caught the imagination of millions across the world as young people were pumelled by austerity. There were hundreds of international solidarity protests.

January 2009: Anger and solidarity with GazaIsrael’s bloodthirsty bombing campaign in Gaza brought thousands onto the streets

Until recently, support for Palestine was a minority business. But that has changed, thanks to the anti-war street protests. As Israeli bombs shattered thousands of Palestinian lives, hundreds of thousands took to the streets in cities across the world. There were riots in Oslo, Copenhagen, Los Angeles, Toronto, and most especially London, where angry young people ran amuck in the city centre, leading to a terrifying police crackdown.

2010-11: Ongoing Eurozone unrestCapitalist crisis has generated escalating unrest among young people

The global crisis of capitalism has led to spectacular economic implosions, particularly in the Eurozone and America. Consequently, riots and violent protests have become part of daily life in capital cities across the world. There is an obvious explanation for this - the state has no response to the crisis, except more austerity and more violence for anyone who dares to protest. Thus, every peaceful protest can quickly turn violent in this context.

Reviews


Chavs: the Demonization of the Working ClassAuthor Owen Jones has made waves with his book on Chavs. In a world where middle class philistines freely mock and degrade the poor, class is Britain’s most acceptable prejudice.

STEREOTYPING: Author Owen Jones (pictured) critiques middle class attitudes towards the contemporary working class; and the stereotype portrayal (inset).

CHRIS WALSH

OWEN JONES’ debut publication Chavs: The Demonization of The Working Class, recently released by Verso, is far more than the sociological study of the so-called British ‘underclass’ that one might expect. Beyond concisely detailing the prevalent anti-working class bigotry in Britain today, Owen identifies the root causes of this stigma and offers a highly critical and accurate account of class inequality in 21st century Britain. He is even so bold as to present demands towards reversing this inequality and transforming society for the better.

Throughout Owen’s study he is never too far away from an attack on the Con-Dem coalition. There is an agitational tone to his writing and he skilfully manages to relate most of his examples back to the savagery of David Cameron’s government. He describes a scene in 2008 when Cameron came to Glasgow East to support the Tory candidate in the by-election. He charts the acute social deprivation of the area: high unemployment, huge poverty, drugs epidemic, frighteningly low life-expectancy and a housing crisis. Jones makes the obvious cause and effect link between the social problems of the area and the anti-working class policies of previous Tory administrations. Cameron made no such link. In a speech in the run-up to the election, Cameron had the gall to claim that ‘social problems are often the consequence of the choices people make.’ Cameron and his class refuse to believe that their privileged upbringings afford them privilege in later life.

Considering that Owen laments the lack of working class representation in politics, recognises that on its current trajectory

society’s class imbalance will only increase, and acknowledges that the traditional bastions of working class power, the trade unions, are a shadow of their former selves (in terms of both membership and influence) he is by no means pessimistic. Chavs is not a eulogy to the working class. Owen spends time exploring the shape a working class Britain today and is honest about the mountain that has to be climbed in order to gain meaningful organisation

Less concentrated and increasingly fragmented workforces, shift work, depleted union powers and a huge pool of unemployed labour are all factors that make working class organisation far more difficult than the heyday of the 1970s. However, this doesn’t mean that the class can’t be organised, but that we must constantly seek fresh and innovative ways to do it. Although more and more workers are finding themselves in precarious workplaces where job security is either low or non-existent, these are not issues that have gone unnoticed by the unions. It is no mean feat to organise in private sector workplaces like call centres and supermarkets (union membership in retail has never topped 12%) but it is by no means impossible. Jones interviews trade unionists specifically tasked with trying to penetrate the service economy. He thinks that, ‘If the trade union movement has a future, it needs a New Unionism that focuses specifically on organising the new service-sector working class’.

The working class is becoming ever more politicised as a result of the Tories’ austerity project, and the unions seem to be awakening from a 20 year slumber with a demonstration of half a million workers against cuts in March, coordinated strikes across the public sector in

June, and the prospect of broader industrial action including millions of workers in the fall. If the trade unions continue to fight in the interests of their members and of the working class as a whole, workers will be attracted to them once more as a force for resistance and change. They must also broaden their horizons to beyond the workplace. With so many working class people either unemployed, claiming benefits or not unionised; the fight against the cuts or any working class movement has to be far broader than the trade union movement if it is to be successful.

A return to class politics as it was practised and preached in, say, the 1970s, would not be appropriate. After all, the working class on which it was based has changed fundamentally. The old smokestack factory skyline has gone. With it has disappeared (or is rapidly disappearing) the largely male, industrial working class, with jobs-for-life passed on from generation to generation, and whole communities based around the workplace. A new movement has to speak to a more fragmented, largely non-unionised workforce marked by job insecurity and growing numbers of part-time and temporary workers…

Class-based movements of the past looked solely to the workplace. This is still important: after all, it is what defines the working class and, on a day-to-day basis, it is what shapes working class life. But, with people so much more likely to jump from job to job – which, in some cases, can happen more than once a year – progressive movements today have to establish roots in communities as well.

There is evidence of the trade unions doing just that. The most progressive unions like the RMT, PCS, Unite and the FBU among others have embraced broad campaigns against cuts. Campaigns like Coalition of Resistance seek to unite the organised labour movement with community campaigns, anti-cuts politicians, student activists, disability rights campaigners, tenants associations and pensioners groups. All of those who are affected by the cuts must unite together and fight them on both a national and local level. Local residents fighting to save a local community centre have to have the support of local trade unionists and other anti-cuts campaigners to stop cuts being implemented by community councils at a local level. At the same time the campaign must be fought nationally since it is the government at Westminster that sets local budgets and is driving through austerity nationwide.

Fighting individual cuts locally whilst challenging the government through mass strikes, demonstrations and civil disobedience nationally can stop the cuts, force the coalition from office and pave the way for a better society that addresses the needs of the working class instead of further enriching societies’ elites who are largely responsible for the crisis. Jones thinks that the most fundamental demand of the working class should be job security. He suggests that a new working class movement should call for decent, secure jobs for all; for investment in decent social housing; for a new strategy around industry – a return to production, making things again; and a cull of high paid jobs that contribute little or nothing to society: advertising executives, management consultants etc. With the growing disaffection with Cameron’s government that has seen the labour movement become an actor on the political stage again, students trashing Tory HQ at Millbank Tower last November, and most recently consecutive nights of rioting in the capital; the ground is fertile for the Left and the anti-cuts movement to organise among the newly politicised youth and channel their anger towards those responsible for their condition. We must make the links that Owen does throughout his study and demonstrate that the young working class people of Britain have no prospects, not through any fault of their own, but because for decades middle class politicians have engineered an inequality that makes it all but impossible to achieve anything in life.

There is an army of ‘chavs’ amassing. It has the potential to be everything that the cosy middle classes fear most. It needs only strong leadership to lead it to the gates of 10 Downing Street and kick in David Cameron’s door.

Chavs by Owen Jones is published by Verso (2011, £14.99)

Reviews: Ian Birchall, Owen Hatherley...

Nazi MenaceThe Man Who Crossed HitlerBBC 2

In 1931 a young Jewish lawyer, Hans Litten, attempted to halt Hitler’s popular advancement by exposing him in a trial. Litten’s bread and butter was the defence of Red Front anti-fascists and the prosecution of their SA adversaries. This film length BBC drama is an above par portrayal of the dramatic confrontation between the enigmatic leftist and the most ignominious tyrant in world history.

In 1931 the Nazi Movement had its roots in Bavaria, far removed from ‘Red Berlin’. Hitler new he must conquer the capital to achieve power. He appointed Joseph Goebbels, one of his closest acolytes to head up the party in the city. A storm of violence descended upon Berlin, with Nazi storm troopers attacking its powerful labour movement. The drama is refreshingly unabashed about the left wing and working class nature of the anti-fascist resistance.

Many of the conventions of court room drama are ignored with much of the film being spent on the streets of Berlin, where a battle for the soul of the capital is being waged between left and Right. We see communist clubs and pubs, the subject of regular fascist assault, and the dingy hideouts of the fascists, new but insurgent in the city.

From the cold, sinister revolutionary fascist whose faction fight with Hitler gives Litten the opening to call him as a witness to an SA massacre, to the comrades with whom Litten shares a curious love triangle, and Ian Hart’s demented Hitler the characters are compelling because they are drawn directly from history. Indeed reliance on the historical record is the wellspring of the drama’s quality – there is little opportunity for the prejudices of its writer and director to colour the story. The dialogue for the court room battles is harvested from the official transcripts – giving it the ring of authenticity. Only occasionally, from force of habit do hackneyed cliques of the portrayal of German anti-fascism slither in, with half hearted attempts to portray Litten as promoting an alternative to violent resistance.

Cleverly the value of the stunt is left an open question. Litten had hoped to expose the class contradictions of the Nazi party by forcing them to face one another in court. The mass base of the party was composed of some workers, unemployed or broken by war and a disintegrating middleclass who were engaged in a savage struggle for the streets of Germany. The Nazi’s were also gaining a following amongst capitalist who provided them with money and respectability. Litten and his comrades believed they could expose Nazism by providing it a highly controlled platform to discredit itself. Litten believed that civic institutions in Berlin would not allow Hitler to transform the court into a podium. He was wrong, and the drama deftly and subtly displays the acquiescence of the conservative establishment in the face of fascist agitation. Hitler was embarrassed by being upbraided by the Jewish lawyer, and his backers disquieted by the vulgarity of his politics. But they would prove themselves capable of ignoring far worse atrocity in pursuit of bringing the workers to heel.

David Jamieson

Issue 2 | International Socialist | August 2011 22

Our website is your reliable source for the latest socialist analysis of news and events in Scotland and worldwide. From live reporting from the

picket lines on June 30th, to videos of protests, it is an indispensible tool for activists. It also contains the latest reviews of the latest ideas in Marxist and socialist theory as the capitalist world system lurches from crisis to crisis.

On the website you will find a calendar of all the latest activist and socialist events happening in Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Dundee as well as information about events that affect the national and international movements, such as the European Wide Conference Against Austerity.

All of this reflects our case for a socialist society free from exploitation and oppression. This is pursued from a number of angles: anti-capitalist, anti-sexist, anti-racist, anti-LGBT discrimination.

If you like our politics, bookmark our website: internationalsocialist.org.uk and if you’re really keen, click on JOIN to get involved with the International Socialist Group, a new revolutionary group operating in Scotland.

Want to keep in touch? Our website has daily updates from Scotland and beyond

An interactive website:Visit www.internationalsocialist.org.uk because it is a tool for the movements. If you are running a campaign against cuts, war, racism, sexism, or homophobia in Scotland, we’ll publicise it. We want to hear views from the trade union movement on how we combat the employers’ offensive. You can also comment on our articles. [email protected]

GET CONNECTED

Date post:	22-Mar-2016
Category:	Documents
Upload:	james-foley
View:	219 times
Download:	0 times

International Socialist Issue 3

Documents