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International ViewpointInternational ViewpointInternational Viewpoint———magazine of the Fourth International IV433 February 2011magazine of the Fourth International IV433 February 2011magazine of the Fourth International IV433 February 2011

International Viewpoint, the monthly English-language magazine of the Fourth

International, is a window to radical alternatives world-wide, carrying reports, analysis and debates from all corners of the globe. Correspondents in over 50 countries report

on popular struggles, and the debates that are shaping the left of tomorrow.

International Viewpoint—magazine of the Fourth International IV433 February 2011

CONTENTS

Algeria - Youth revolt shakes authoritarian order P1

Puerto Rico - The struggle for public education continues in the UPR P4

Indonesia - Domestic workers take to the streets P5

Greece - Statement of the assembly of migrant hunger strikers P5

Ireland - Vote for the United Left Alliance P6

Europe - Radicalisation of the financial, economic, social and political crises at

the European level P7

Palestine - Palestinians and the ever widening intifada across the Middle East and North Africa P10

Pakistan - Top judges’ anti-workers attitude: Now face the music of workers’ anger on 1st March P13

Egypt/Pakistan - Two great victories in one night P14

Egypt - Whither Egypt? P15

China - The Chinese equation P18

Fourth International - Tunisia, Egypt: a revolutionary process of world

scope P20

Climate - Climate chaos and the global ecological crisis P23

World Social Forum/ Dakar - Final declaration of the Assembly of the Social

Movements P24

We need your help to get our message across!

Send donations payable to International Viewpoint,

PO Box 62732 London SW2 9GQ, Britain

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INTERNATIONALVIEWPOINTAlgeria - Youth revolt shakesauthoritarian orderAfter a week, the riotous fires burnt out, leavinga feeling of bitterness, a taste of ashes. But thenational scope of the revolts and the virtuallytotal paralysis that resulted shook the existingauthoritarian order and opened the possibility ofqualitative changes in the political situation.

Beginning on January 5 in Algiers (Fouka, Staoueli,Bab el Oued), Oran and Djelfa, the youth revoltsextended to hundreds of neighbourhoods in everyregion of the country. There were neither slogans,nor demands nor structures. We are not talkingabout massive popular demonstrations whichdegenerated into looting. More often it was smallgroups of youths who emerged from peripheralneighbourhoods to take over central arteriesthat they closed down with burning tyres, lootingvehicles and violently confronting the police. Oncethe square was taken the surrounding shops werelooted. Haunted by several decades of riots, theauthorities immediately withdrew the numerouspolice officers spread across the town under thepretext of the anti-terrorist struggle and entrustedthe defence of the essential centres to the anti-riotbrigades. While awaiting reconquest operations,the street was abandoned to the rioters. Public orprivate establishments were attacked, town hall,hotels, telephone agencies, schools, professionaltraining centres. Public edifices were besieged,like the commissariat in Bab el Oued, while in thesame neighbourhood the showrooms of Renaultand Dacia and their inaccessible cars were looted.Public or private banking agencies the post officeswere the privileged targets with the manifestintention of taking the money they held. Thelooters also targeted jewellery shops, sportsstores, expensive cars, without sparing ordinarytraders and modest passers by who were robbedwithout consideration. This disordered violence,which did not spare the poor, led to an end for theinitially unanimous popular sympathy. High schoolstudents and the less precarious youth sectors losttheir sense of solidarity and instead organised theself-defence of their areas against looters.

In explaining the events some analysts evokedstruggles within the ruling clans and the military,

while others attributed the movement tospeculators, importers or wholesalers, accusedof having activated their informal networksof distributors to oppose the pressure of theadministration that demanded they pay tax.In fact these manipulations, if they exist, areanecdotal. The situation lends itself to explosion,it has exploded. The initial revolts are similarto the sporadic riots that have taken place foryears. Their privileged actors are the sameprecarious youth. Concretely, the events of January4 and 5 were very localised. The resonance ofthe private press gave them a national impact.Spokespersons of the resentment of the businessworld and the international capitalist communityagainst protectionist impulses, the private pressgenerously covered every protest. And it is all thebetter for our struggles. From the first incidents,at Bab el Oued and Oran, the dailies devoted theirfront pages to images of urban desolation withheadlines like “The riots of the end”, “Troublednight in Bab el Oued”, “Riots: the conflagration".

The movement has retrospectively been givena simultaneous nature that did not exist. Whenthe movement ended in the neighbourhoods ofJanuary 5, it had hardly begun in the towns ofthe East and the Kabyle Soummam. What existedon the contrary was a general anger of modestpeople against high prices at the beginning ofthe year. And these increases were no more thanunexpected collateral damage stemming fromthe government’s attempt to reduce the informalsector of the economy. In Algeria, you can buy acar or even a villa of a million Euros in cash. Fromthe end of March 2011, a ban on cash paymentsfor sums above 500,000 dinars or 5,000 euros(three years of minimum wage) was planned.With a view to this ban, the producers asked theirwholesale distributors to produce tax documentsso as to draw up invoices. That meant leavingthe informal sector, paying taxes, indeed socialsecurity contributions! Faced with this intolerablestate aggression against freedom of trade and theexploitation of employees, the wholesalers ceasedtheir deliveries of goods. The result was shortages,speculation, and immediate increases in the pricesof basic food products

. The adolescents and young people in revolt arenot concerned by the daily purchases of their

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parents who reject this intolerable pressure ontheir wallets. They are, rather, involved in smallinformal business. They share the generalisedpopular anger in relation to prices, but whatconcerns them more directly is the progressivedismantling of the informal markets that occupythe big shopping streets. Like the young Bouaziziwho set fire to himself in Sidi Bouzid in Tunisia,they are deprived of decent employment, forcedto occupy a street corner to sell cigarettes orvarious smuggled Chinese products avoiding tax.Like the young Harraguas who flee their countryon improvised boats to participate in the wageslavery of Spanish agriculture or minor precariousjobs in France, they express their unhappinessin a blocked society. The lack of housing leadsto the cramming of families and perpetuates ananachronistic patriarchy and a strict moral rigor.Without housing or stable income, marriage islate. This sharpens despair in a country thatEurope is recolonising, a country whose productiveenterprises are being destroyed along with jobs inthe name of the logic of the market, a country thatis invaded by the triumphant values of the West.

Popular angerThis general revolt is the expected outcome ofa popular anger which for some months hasbeen directed against Andelaziz Bouteflika andhis regime, associated with the emergence ofinsolent wealth which offends an egalitarianpopulist culture, a regime complicit in affairs ofcorruption, at astronomical amounts, which havebeen on the front pages of the big dailies. In themidst of an Algerian-French diplomatic crisis, theconstruction of a 1,200 km highway, the glory ofBouteflika’s programme, was attributed to theChinese by Mr Pierre Falcon, airplane manufactureand dealer in French weapons, himself responsiblefor redistributing the commission of 20% on theamount of 11 billion dollars. And so one discoverson this occasion a Franco-African network at theheart of a regime originating from the war ofliberation. In a gilded neighbourhood in upperAlgiers, where a square metre of land to buildon can fetch 5.000 euros, Bouteflika offered 760ha at a symbolic dinar per square metre to anEmirates group. The privileges accorded to the Gulfmagnates are regularly denounced by the pressand the elites, who lean rather in the direction ofFrance. These gifts are explained by the President’saffinities with his Emirate hosts during his periodof exile. The national oil company Sonatrach hasbeen robbed by its managers through overvaluedprivately negotiated contracts. This had alreadyhappened before, to the profit of BRC, a subsidiarylinked to former US vice president Dick Cheney.There lies one of the reasons for the firmness ofUS-Algerian relations.

These press revelations and the subsequentlegal cases sometimes lead to derisory sanctionsagainst members of the higher echelons, ratherof the second level, whereas the hand of classjustice strikes hard against the desperate youth

who revolt to obtain a tarmac road, a link to thedistribution network for potable water or gas, toprotest against a distribution of social housingdeemed to be unjust or to demand a job. Thereare also prison sentences against illegal emigrants,these harraguas who risk their lives on improvisedboats. The crackdown on informal traders andthe prosecution of small traders avoiding tax ledto popular resentment. The multinationals areexempted from tax by way of encouragementand all the private industrial and commercialenterprises more or less escape tax obligations,which finally only concern declared wage earnersand the enterprises of the public sector.

Paradoxically, the rehousing of the inhabitants ofthe shanty towns is also a source of discontent.Countries that distribute thousands of housingunits to poor people are pretty rare. But Algeriansare not completely resigned to class society. Theemergence of the bourgeoisie is very recent. Theright to housing was conquered at independencein the confused occupation of the towns desertedby French settlers. The Bouteflika regime, whichis responsible for the most aggressive neoliberaladvances, continues in some respects to follow apopulist approach based in its history. Thousandsof housing units have been distributed, though it isa drop of water in the ocean of needs. The housingoffered is not enough to hold a whole family, thenew arrivals in the shanty town are not affectedand the overpopulated urban neighbourhoodsresent an operation which ignores them, becausethe priority is to absorb the shacks which surroundthe towns. Corruption is also present. In asituation of penury, what is more predictable thanfavouritism and corruption?

Retreats of the regimeIt was the symbolic struggle around housing atDiar Echems in the heart of Algiers whose violenceconvinced the regime to renounce its policy oftough action on the streets and the crushing ofstrikes. The confrontations at Diar Echems, inOctober 2009, coincided with the revolt of theEl Ançar neighbourhood in the western city ofOran against the pollution of a quarry. At thesame time, rail workers launched a lightning strikethat disorganised the economy and threateneda total paralysis. The regime then decided on apolicy of conciliation. The rail workers receiveda pay increase. The inhabitants of Diar Echemswere promised early rehousing. From battle tobattle the government has made concessions.The big dailies denounce the “riot bonus” of thegovernment which promises hundreds of thousandsof social housing units instead of letting themarket regulate things. Despite severe legislationand legal persecution of the actors of the socialmovement, the government has always endedup giving way to each strike movement. Thus thebig movements of teachers and doctors and theirautonomous unions in struggle since 2003 havewon various provisional victories with a fairly bigincrease effective of January 2008 in the context of

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a general revalorisation of the public service. Butthe small wage earners, who are the majority, havenot much progress. There is a will to re-establishthe hierarchy of wages skewed by several decadesof uniform increases, to valorise the “middlelayers” according to the IMF recommendationsto better stabilise society. But these increases,obtained under the blows of strikes and so on arenot enough to give to the higher wage earners anincome comparable to that of their equivalentsin neighbouring countries. The counterpart tothese wage concessions is a new status of thecivil service which introduces casualisation, theprecarity of civil servants in short-term contractsbringing about a massive regression.

The strikes in the economic sector have had aconsiderable subjective impact. They have allowedan initial small wage catch up, after 15 years ofa freeze on wages. Rail workers, after severalwildcat strikes, have achieved an increase ofmore than 50%. Actions in the steel complex atAnnaba, on the rail, in the truck factory in Rouibaand the surrounding industrial zone, and in theport of Algiers have mobilised less workers thanthe big national strikes in the civil service, buttheir struggles have caught the imagination ofall employees and they function as a vanguard.They took place after a decade of demoralisationand rampant dismantling of public enterprises.The new politics of struggle against importsrehabilitates national production and fills orderbooks. We have gone from a situation punctuatedby voluntary redundancies and the compression ofthe workforce to massive hirings.

The struggles extend beyond the local trade unionleaderships and above all the national leadershipof the UGTA which since the general strike of2003 against privatisation has sunk into an evermore indecent servility. But these strikes takeplace always in the context of a UGTA that iscuriously back in the saddle despite an avoweddiscredit. Of around sixty existing unions, the UGTAfederation is the only generalist one. The morerepresentative autonomous unions concern specificcorporations in the public service: high schoolteachers, university lecturers, doctors and so on.Another reason for this survival and hegemonyof the UGTA is a relationship of forces that is stillunfavourable to the workers. In a public sectorofficially condemned to disappear, the room fornegotiation is non-existent, the capacity for strikeblackmail is reduced to nothing. Halt production?That is precisely what the IMF wants. In thesedisastrous conditions the UGTA, the complacentpartner of the authorities, functions as an umbrellaunion. The prestige of the autonomous unionsis immense despite the rapid bureaucratisationof most of them, but the reality of the tradeunion struggle remains for many the attempt toregain control of the UGTA. It is a question of therelationship of forces.

The private sector super-exploits in disastrousconditions the majority of the country’s wageearners. In 2007, the official figures indicated

78% of workers in private enterprises wereundeclared. These are legal enterprises that appearto pay their taxes. But the informal enterprisesescape any control and statistics whereas theyemploy a considerable part of the workforce.Labour law no longer exists. One can increase theminimum wage, discuss pensions, review tradeunion legislation, but that does not concern theoverwhelming majority of workers. Thus thereis no question of trade union law and the rightto strike. The struggles in the private sectorare rare and brutal. In a situation of scarcity ofjobs, recalcitrant workers can be immediatelyreplaced. Some big strikes have nonethelesstaken place in the private sector, at the Tonicgroup (packaging), on the sites of the Chineseenterprises building the highway, where theAlgerian workers denounce slavery and the Chineseworkers demand simply to be paid. And therewas of course the symbolic strike at the formerlystate owned steel complex sold to Arcelor Mittal inAnnaba. The workers succeeded in dislodging theunion mafia in the service of the multinational. Thenew team uncovered various rackets and revealedthe derisory performances of the world steel giantwhich did not equal the production of the complexunder public management. But above all theydefeated the plans to reduce the workforce andforced a wage increase. What allowed this victorywas the massive workers’ mobilisation but also theperspective of the renationalisation of the complexin the new economic course of the region.

Limits of authoritarianism and libertiesTeachers on a national general strike havedemanded retirement after 25 years at work anda wage increase of 100%, which they are notfar from having obtained. The announcementtwo years ago of the suppression of the optionalpension at age 50 led to an immediate revoltof the industrial zone of Rouiba, near Algiers,and a mobilisation of oil workers. It was all thesame decided a year ago and still has not beenapplied. A moratorium is spoken of, for fear ofsocial explosion. Those who riot for rehousingreject the new and free units offered to them.The suppression of free medicine in 2002 wasimmediately postponed after the riots of AinFakroun. It should be applied in the next fewmonths, though the January riots will havedeepened the thinking of the authorities aboutthat. University lecturers have demanded andobtain better wages but also their priority rightto social housing. Our comrade Daniel Bensaïd,visiting Algeria a few months before his death,compared this situation to that of Mexico whichalso has social gains inherited from a pastrevolutionary situation, gains which the neoliberalsteamroller is trying to erase.

For others concerns are linked to neoliberalglobalisation. The massive unemployment ofyouth is a consequence of the dismantling of thepublic sector and the unfettered opening up thatdelivers the market to the disloyal competition

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of the products of wage slavery in China or thesubsidised exports of the European Union. TheDraconian fall in purchasing power stems fromthe division by twenty of the value of the dinarsuccessively since the structural adjustment planof 1994. But although wages have been the lowestin the Mediterranean basin, the workforce is notdisciplined enough, not submissive. Investors onlycome for the oil rent or the telephone companyprofits. Capitalist exploitation is profitable inAlgeria, but apparently much less so than in China.

Another aspect to stress is that of the relativeliberties that remain under this authoritarianregime whose repression and arbitrariness weregularly denounce. The revolts of October 1988imposed a democratic opening, political and mediapluralism, the freedom to demonstrate, legalityof strike actions. From the beginning, successivegovernments have sought to hinder popularfreedoms and tolerate only salon activities andelectoral meetings. But popular lassitude, afterthe bloody decade that appeared as the fruit ofthe opening, has allowed the regime to take firmcontrol. Bouteflika professes publicly his allergyto pluralism and dreams of a US-style two partysystem. Associations, unions, parties are refusedapproval. Activities are rarely authorised expect inelectoral periods when the parties, prevented frombuilding themselves, appear derisory. Electoral lawhardens the conditions. And Bouteflika is comfortedby the discredit of the parties, all of them, and bytheir corruption. But October 1988 is not totallyforgotten, far from it. It is not restrictions thatlimit popular expression so much as populardisenchantment with respect to democracy and thediscrediting of politics.

Bouteflika’s patriotic turnBouteflika’s first term, from 1999 to 2003, wasone of professions of ultra neoliberal faith buthis promises to his imperialist tutors have notmaterialised. His projects were hindered bythe resistance of the civil and military statebureaucracy, and the irritation of the privateemployers faced with the preference given tomultinationals. Above all the hostility of thetrade union apparatus to neoliberalism alloweda significant mobilisation. Popular resistanceobliged Bouteflika to reconsider his projects. Oilstrikes blocked the hydrocarbons law. The popularmovement in Kabylie imposed a return to big stateprojects to the disgust of the orthodox neoliberals.The revolt of Ain Fekroun in the Aurès postponedthe suppression of free medicine, the nationalstrike by UGTA forced back total privatisation, theautonomous unions of teacher, doctors, challengedthe wage freeze.

The re-election of Bouteflika in 2004, against AliBenflis, the candidate of the FLN and the head ofthe army, gave him the necessary legitimacy togo further. The law on hydrocarbons was votedthrough. He privileged outrageously foreigncompanies allowed to benefit from concessions.An indecent programme of total privatisation

was adopted. Then Bouteflika fell ill. The regimepositioned itself for succession struggles buta physically weakened Bouteflika continued todominate all areas. In June 2006, a new toneappeared, more concerned to preserve the nationalinterests, the law on hydrocarbons was frozenbefore being amended to favour the nationalcompany. In 2008, the price per barrel collapsed,while imports which had tripled over a few yearsconsumed all the oil income. Privatisation appearsat a stalemate. Supplementary finance laws haveinvolved Draconian measures to re-establishbalances. Taxes and administrative measuresreduce imports, while foreign enterprises areobliged to find a majority Algerian partner. This isthe background which explains the change of toneof the Western governments despite the attractionof 150 billion dollars of public investment and juicycontracts. It is this which is at stake in the battle togive a political direction to the popular discontent,the workers’ strikes and the youth revolts.

Chawki Salhi is spokesman of the AlgerianSocialist Workers Party (PST), an organisationof the revolutionary left whose activists areparticularly active within the popular committees.

Puerto Rico - The struggle for publiceducation continues in the UPR

San Juan, Puerto Rico- After 70 days of strikeand hours of deliberation under the unmercifulCaribbean sun, the students of the Rio PiedrasCampus, of the University of Puerto Rico (UPR)approved a plan of action to continue wielding theirstruggle for public education.

The plan of action approved by about 2000students in a general assembly not only includesa 48 hour strike that is to shut down the campusbeginning today, and a 24 hour work stoppage thatis to affect the UPR administration directly. Butalso a National March Against Tuition Hikes, the11th of March, that is also the day of InternationalSolidarity with the UPR, in which simultaneousdemonstrations in solidarity with the UPR willbe held in cities around the world includingAmsterdam, Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester,New York, Chicago and Boston, among others.The students also approved cultural activitieswhich include an uninterrupted reading andrepresentation of Gabriel García Marquez’s novel,Cien Años de Soledad. After all of this is done,students will evaluate the situation in order todecide about future actions in another assembly.

Last Spring UPR students won a two-month strikeagainst fee hikes, budget cuts and privatization.They went on strike again on December 14, 2010against an $800 tuition increase that has forcedthousands of students out of school. Universityofficials tried to stop the strike by calling inriot police to occupy UPR’s campuses and by

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expelling student leaders. This resulted in policebrutality and more than two hundred arrests.Demonstrators have been forced off campus andhave faced tear gas, police beatings.

Still, the student movement defied these police-state tactics boycotting their classes, organizingroadblocks and massive protests in the streets, inmalls and commercial areas. They also mobilizedstudent rallies in nearby barrios armed with music,information and the simple message “Our struggleis your struggle!”.

A week ago, amidst massive studentdemonstrations, along with the support of laborunions, religious, and communitarian groups, thePresident of the UPR Administration presented hisresignation, and the police had to be removed fromuniversity grounds.

This has been the second strike in less than a yearto defend public education for the working class.

Gamelyn Orduardo is a student activist in PuertoRico.

Indonesia - Domestic workers take tothe streetsScores of demonstrators from the YogyakartaDomestic Worker Protection Network (JPPRT) tookto the streets on Monday February 14 demandingdecent wages and protection for domestic workers.According to action coordinator Henny, thedomestic workers’ demands are totally reasonablebecause in reality domestic workers are stillvulnerable to physical, psychological, social andeconomic violence.

Domestic workers (PRT) represent the largestgroup of working women, which in global termstotal more than 100 million around the world, with4 million in Indonesia and more than 6 millionothers working overseas. In the special Yogyakartaprovince of Central Java alone there are morethan 36,000 domestic workers.Domestic workers’living and working conditions are still inadequateand they often experience rights violations, beingpaid extremely low wages, are vulnerable toexploitation and have no labour guarantees.

Domestic workers are still not acknowledged aspart of the work force and legal protection, bothat the national as well as international level, is stillvery low. This situation provides more and moreroom for the violation of domestic workers’ rights.The government meanwhile gives the impressionof simply waiting for a new case of abuse to occurand only then does it takes steps. "Because ofthis we are demanding that immediate wageimprovements be made, the immediate enactmentof a domestic workers’ protection law and theimmediate establishment of a legal protectionsystem for domestic workers at the municipal andregency level", said Henny in a speech. [bw]

Domestic workers turn Hotel Indonesia into "giantlaundry"Despite the drizzle, scores of domestic workers(PRT) remained indifferent to the falling rain andcontinued washing their bosses’ clothing. Afterbeing washed, it was then dried and ironed. Soit was that on February 14 the Hotel Indonesia(HI) traffic circle in Central Jakarta became a giantlaundry encircling the entire roundabout.

During the action the protesters also hung up T-shirts with "Bosses prosperous because of domesticworkers" and "Recognition, rights and decent workfor domestic workers" written on them along witha giant billboard with the message "100 pieces ofdomestic workers’ washing drying so the bossescan wear neat and clean clothes".

The demonstrators, who came from the DomesticWorkers Action Committee (KAPRT), also helda theatrical action depicting their demands andsymbolising the labour performed by domesticworkers.

"When Indonesia commemorates NationalDomestic Workers Day on February 15, around2.6 million domestic workers will still lack legalprotection", said one of the speakers, Umi (26), atthe Hotel Indonesia traffic circle on Jl. MH Thamrinon Monday.

"We are demanding the immediate enactmentof the Domestic Workers’ Law. This domesticworkers’ day [falls against] the backdrop of a 14year-old domestic worker Sunarsih who died afterbeing mistreated by their employer in 2001. Theemployer repeated this again with four of theirdomestic workers in 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2005.However they were never punished", asserted Umi.

The action attracted the attention of drivers racingpast the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle with severalopening their car windows to watch the comicaltheatrical action. One road user who also has adomestic worker said they were greatly assisted bythe presence of a domestic worker in the home.

"In my case, everything is discussed with thedomestic worker. If my domestic worker appearstired, okay enough, they’re not made to workany more. There’s also a washing machine in thehouse right, a vacuum cleaner and so on. So yes,it’s quite light work for the domestic worker",commented Bayu (46), a resident of Pondok Labuin South Jakarta as they passed through the HotelIndonesia traffic circle. (asp/nwk)

Greece - Statement of the assembly ofmigrant hunger strikersWe are migrant men and women from allover Greece. We came here due to poverty,unemployment, wars and dictatorships. Themultinational companies and their political servantsdid not leave another choice for us than risking 10times our lives to arrive in Europe’s door.

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The West that is depriving our countries whilehaving much better living conditions is our onlychance to live as humans. We came (either withregular entry or not) in Greece and we are workingto support ourselves and our families. We livewithout dignity, in the darkness of illegalness inorder to benefit employers and state’s servicesfrom the harsh exploitation of our labor. We livefrom our sweat and with the dream, some day, tohave equal rights with our Greek fellow workers.

During the last period our life has become evenmore unbearable. As salaries and pensions arecut and everything is getting more expensive, themigrants are presented as those to blame, as thosewhose fault is the abjection and harsh exploitationof greek workers and small businessman. Thepropaganda of fascist and racist parties andgroups is nowadays the official state discoursefor issues of migration. The far right discourseis reproduced through media when they talkabout us. The “proposals” of the far right areannounced as governmental policies: wall in Evros,floating detention centers and European armyin the Aegean, repression in the cities, massivedeportations. They want to convince greek workersthat, all in a sudden, we are a threat to them, thatwe are to blame for the unprecedented attack fromtheir own governments.

The answer to the lies and the cruelty has to begiven now and it will come from us, from migrantmen and women. We are going in the front line,with our own lives to stop this injustice. We askthe legalization of all migrant men and women,we ask for equal political and social rights andobligations with greek workers. We ask from ourgreek fellow workers, from every person sufferingfrom exploitation to stand next to us. We askthem to support our struggle. Not to let the lie,the injustice, the fascism and the autarchy of thepolitical and economic elites to be dominant intheir own places too; all these conditions that aredominant in our countries and led us to migrate,us and our children, in order to be able to live withdignity.

We don’t have another way to make our voicesheard, to make you learn about our rights. Threehundred (300) of us will start a Hunger Strike inAthens and in Thessaloniki, in the 25th of January.We risk our lives, as, one way or another, this is nolife for people with dignity. We prefer to die hererather our children to suffer what we have beenthrough.

January 2011

Assembly of migrant hunger strikers

Ireland - Vote for the United Left Alliance

Statement by Socialist Democracy

The situation in Ireland highlights the effectsof the crisis. Bankers and financial institutionsare discredited. Even more discredited is thegovernment of Fianna Fail leader Brian Cowen.After a disastrous by-election loss in Donegal,normally a strong Fianna Fail base, he called earlyelections. He has now been forced to step down asleader, and the elections brought forward to 25thFebruary

Fianna Fail, historically the party of the lukewarmly

nationalist rural population, has been at its lowestlevel ever in the opinion polls. Sinn Féin, the longtime political wing of the IRA, which has up tonow only gained very low scores in the Republic,won the Donegal seat and now its leader, Belfast-based Gerry Adams, is resigning his seat in theWestminster parliament to stand in the South.The Greens have chosen to ally with the

governmental party. Fine Gael, the main oppositionand usually classified as centre-right, seems well-placed but some if its members are arguing for afusion with Fianna Fail to "save the nation".In this situation, the United Left Alliance including

the “People before profit” alliance, and otherradical left groups is standing on an actionprogramme against the crisis. This is a siginficantevent it is hoped can given an expression to socialanger and fightback.The following is a statement by Socialist

Democracy. P.D.

We have been lied to, we have been cheatedand we have been treated as fools. We have hadour salaries cut, our pension money stolen, ourtaxes increased and social welfare cut. Our youngpeople are emigrating and hundreds of thousandsare unemployed. Social welfare is being slashedand our health and education services are beingdecimated.

And we are only into the first year of a four yearplan to make all these things even worse!

We are being told that we must pay for theeconomic crisis even though we had nothing todo with creating it. In fact salt is being rubbedinto our wounds because all the sacrifices we arebeing ordered to make are to save those reallyresponsible for the crisis. The money that is taken

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off us is being handed over to the bankers anddevelopers who created this mess in the first place.The bankers continue to pay themselves bonusesand NAMA hands our money over to propertydevelopers to finish their projects.

Why?It is not only the bankers who created this mess.The Government encouraged the speculationand wants us to pay to save the banks. TheDepartment of Finance and the Regulator failedto prevent the speculation. Every part of theestablishment and the Irish State failed theordinary people of Ireland.

Those who are supposed to defend us failedus. The Irish Congress of Trade Unions was inpartnership with this Government every yearFianna Fail was in power. David Begg, the leader ofICTU, sat on the Board of the Central Bank whenit failed to regulate the banks and failed to doanything to prevent the disaster.

The whole elite and their economic system havefailed us. Their entire political system is rottenand corrupt and now we are told we must dothe bidding of unelected bureaucrats from theEuropean Union and IMF. We don’t just need achange of Government. We need an entirely newState and an entirely new social and economicsystem.

We need a new Republic, a second Republic,a WORKERS REPUBLIC! We need to return tothe promise of James Connolly and the fight forour independence in 1916. It promised that theownership of Ireland would belong to the peopleof Ireland and that all the children of Irelandwould be cherished equally. This promise has beenbetrayed. The economic crisis has torn away theveil of lies from all the main parties who want theordinary people to pay for this crisis. From FiannaFail to the leadership of ICTU they differ only overhow long they want the cuts to be implementedand what precise cuts we will have to endure.

The alternativeThere is only one group of candidates who opposeall cuts. One group that opposes us paying for thebanks mistakes and who oppose sacrificing ourfutures and that of our children for the EU and IMF.Only the candidates of the United Left Alliance offerthis. As supporters of the ULA:

* We are opposed to all cuts. All the main partiessay that there is no money but this is not the realproblem. All these parties supported borrowingbillions to bail out the banks. We never heard anytalk of a lack of money then. If they wanted toraise money to defend working people they couldpropose taxing the rich, the big corporations anduse the wealth from the Corrib gas field. Insteadthey want to protect the big corporations and savethe richest in our society such as the bankers andproperty developers.

* We stand for total repudiation of the debt. Wecannot pay it and we will not pay it! We did not

borrow this money; the bankers did and FiannaFail did. At this election we will show what we thinkof both of them. After the election we should notmeekly pay their bills.

The next step in the EU/IMF deal is to restructurethe banks but these rotten institutions should notbe saved with workers’ money. We need a newbank that not only is funded by working people butis owned and run by them; a workers co-operativedesigned not to fund property speculation but tofund real economic and social development.

* We stand for complete rejection of the EU andIMF deal. The EU and IMF are ordering the Irishpeople to bail out British and German bankers whostupidly lent to the Irish banks.

In every country workers are asked to undercuteach other’s wages, services and welfare in a raceto the bottom from which only the rich can win.We should not compete with other workers. Weshould unite with them. Our solidarity should bewith those facing the same situation as us - notIrish bankers. For this we need a new Europe. AEurope of the workers not a Europe of the bankers.

We have waited a long time for this election. Weall want to punish those who have threatenedour future but we will be no further forward ifwe vote for parties which want to continue thesame policies as Fianna Fail. These parties haveconspired with Fianna Fail to force the Finance Billthrough the Dail and impose crippling cuts. Afterthe election they will soon tell you that the FiannaFail way is the only way.

This is your chance to vote for an alternative. Butyour vote will not be enough. Just as we cannotrely on the Dail parties during the election wewill have to rely on ourselves after it. We mustorganise in our unions and our communities todefend our livelihoods and give our children afuture.

Only ONE group stands opposed to ALL cuts, topaying the debts of the BANKERS and opposing thebullying of the EU and IMF. Vote for and sign up tothe United Left Alliance!

This leaflet has been produced by supporters ofthe United Left Alliance who are members andsupporters of Socialist Democracy. You can contactus at Socialist Democracy and contact the UnitedLeft Alliance.

February 2011

Socialist Democracy is the sympathisingorganisation of the Fourth International in Ireland.It is an all-Ireland organisation, active North andSouth of the border.

Europe - Radicalisation of the financial,economic, social and political crises atthe European levelOn Sunday November 21, 2010 Irish primeminister Brian Cowen formally requested

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international assistance from the European Union(EU) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).Subsequently, EU finance ministers gave theiragreement in principle on condition that a drasticausterity plan was implemented. Throughout theweek speculative attacks against not just Irelandbut also Portugal - in spite of the announcementof a new austerity plan - and Spain intensified.Five months after Greece, the "rescue" of Irelandmarked the beginning of Act II of the Euro crisisand opened a social-political sequence which looksparticularly agitated.

Liberalised finance – which is nothing other thanthe power of capital magnified by its centralization– is unleashed against the peoples of Europe. Therickety institutional arrangements of Europeanconstruction are cracking, giving credibility tothe scenario of a dislocation of Economic andMonetary Union. Among employees, the structuraldeterioration of the relationship of forces in favourof capital prevents any adequate reaction to theattacks. However, the synchronization and brutalityof anti-social measures across the continent openthe possibility of a wave of European mobilisation,opening a small window of political opportunity.

Ireland, Portugal, Spain, seemingly dissimilarsituations

Ireland was the teacher’s pet of the neoliberalschool: champion of fiscal dumping, it was faradvanced in terms of liberalisation of the labourand investment markets and very rigorous in itspublic budgets - it had a budgetary surplus in2007! Following this model, the country’s economyexperienced a real boom for two decades, bringingit up to second place - behind Luxembourg - interms of GDP per capita. This performance wasobviously misleading: in 2007, the country fellto fifth place in terms of GNI (Gross NationalIncome) i.e. when the profits exported by themultinationals were subtracted and it fell to tenthplace in terms of standard of living (medianincome). Nevertheless, this illusionary growthreflected a real economic dynamism. The recipe?Attracting multinational companies – particularlyU.S. companies in the IT sector - by providinga gateway to European markets on extremelyfavourable terms. Secondly, the rate of householdand banking debt favoured the establishment ofa housing bubble following a similar logic to thatof the subprime mortgages in the United States.With the international financial crisis of 2008, thebubble was brutally deflated. The country was thenweighed down by a large private debt leading itsbanks to bankruptcy. And if Irish public financeswere affected at a staggering level - a deficit of32% of GDP in 2010, as against the threshold of3% set by the Maastricht Treaty - it was becausethe State assumed responsibility for the bad debtsof its banks in order to guarantee the repaymentof their creditors who are mainly large Europeanbanks, first and foremost British ones. In short,

Irish citizens must pay for undue risks taken byprivate actors.

The situations of Portugal and Spain are different.These two countries have not yet had recourse tothe EU and IMF, but might do so very soon. In thecase of Portugal, the country has low growth andtrade deficits indicating low competitiveness. Thepre-existing public deficits have grown quickly withthe crisis without any prospect of being rapidlyfilled. In Spain as in Ireland, the managementof public finances has been very rigorous butprivate debt has exploded and fed a growth mainlyled by a housing bubble. Now that the latter hasburst, activity and therefore public finances haveplunged into the red while the Spanish banks areundermined.

Beyond these circumstances, the “rescues” whichhave either taken place (Ireland) - or are predicted(Portugal, Spain) - are part of a broader story:the shockwaves of the global crisis striking againstan incoherent European institutional architecture;while imbalances sharpen, to the point where theycrack the edifice, governments - paralyzed by theircompeting interests - submitting their peoples toa dictatorship of finance whose social violence isunleashed by the losses ahead.

Public finances strangled by the financial markets

The crisis of the public debt inside the Euro zoneis of course a replica of the financial explosion thatshook the world economy starting from September2008. By bringing about a rapid contraction ofcredit, this initially financial crisis stifled economicactivity in most countries. With the resultantdecline in tax revenues, the fragility of publicfinances in the European peripheral countriesappeared in broad daylight. Likewise, the banksof the countries hardest hit also saw their baddebts explode. In anticipation of the possibility ofa default, the markets then demanded to be paidstill more to accept lending to these countries.In addition, many investment funds profited bygambling on these defaults, including via thesecurities insuring these debts, the Credit DefaultSwaps. The game of speculation thus feeds byitself the increases in interest rates... and thus therisk of payment default.

Since they are forced to finance themselves on theinternational financial markets - European treatiesprohibiting the European Central Bank fromfinancing them directly - countries are requiredto pay ever higher interest which encumbers stillfurther their public finances. Thus, on November26 markets demanded a return of 11.89% topurchase Greek securities, 9.37% for Irishsecurities, 7.317% for Portugal and 5.21% forSpain compared to 2.74% for German publicdebt securities, considered the safest. Such ratesimply that already over-indebted governmentsare in practice unable to finance themselves onthe markets. In fact, since the rate of increase ininterest rates is higher than the rate of inflation,

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debt increases mechanically. This is what mightbe called the snowball effect. From this point ofview “rescue” plans are a poor recourse: the aidto Ireland will be at a rate of about 6%, comparedwith 5.2% for Greece in May. Such a rate is allthe more shocking when at the same time theEuropean Central Bank provides liquidity to banksat a rate of approximately 1%!

The generalization of austerity

To please the markets and to attempt to reachless extravagant levels of borrowing, governmentsfirst on the periphery and then across the EUadopted policies of austerity during 2010. Therecipes are always the same: sharp cuts in publicbudgets and increases in the most unfair taxes,such as VAT where everyone pays the same rateon consumption regardless of income. In thecase of Ireland, the plan announced on Tuesday,November 23 (the third since the beginning of thecrisis) provides for a reduction of 10% in familyallowances, the abolition of 25,000 civil serviceposts, a one euro cut in the minimum hourlywage, and increased VAT and income tax. Onlytaxes on corporate profits remain unchanged atthe scandalously low level of 12.5% (comparedwith 33% in France and 27.5% on average inthe EU). It must be said that on the eve of theannouncement of austerity measures, the directorsof Microsoft, HP, Google, Intel, and Bank ofAmerica Merrill Lynch addressed the government tooppose any such possibility, making barely veiledthreats of relocation [1] . In Portugal, public sectorwages will be reduced by 5% on average, withpensions frozen, while taxes will be increased andsocial benefits reduced.

The generalisation of austerity across Europe - andnot only in the countries of the periphery - marksa sharp reversal of economic policy in 2009 whenrecovery was the theme. This synchronization isstill worse in that each state depresses its owndemand when external demand for its productsis also undermined by austerity in neighbouringcountries. Thus, Ireland, Greece and Spain as wellas Latvia and the Lithuania experienced in 2010a continuation of depression. At the same timeunemployment spreads. In September 2010, itstood at 9.6% for the EU as a whole (10.1% forthe Euro zone) - but it reached 10.6% in Portugal,14/1% in Ireland, 12.2% in Greece and 20.8% inSpain - and everything indicates that it will worsenin 2011.

The inconsistency of European institutionalarchitecture

The European governments’ untenable bet isthat the most fragile countries will succeed inpaying their debt. The transitional mechanismdesigned immediately after the rescue of Greece toreassure the markets – we see with what success!- provided a single solution to potential crisesthrough which European countries would provide

emergency funding in connection with the IMFin exchange for a deficit reduction program. OnNovember 28th EU finance ministers outlined anew mechanism which provides that countriesin difficulty should renegotiate their debt via arescheduling or a partial cancellation. Clearly,their creditors should bear a portion of the losses.This new mechanism, however, does not changemuch in terms of the current crisis because itconcerns only debt securities issued from 2013 andtherefore repayments which could be renegotiatedwill not take place before 2016.

Yet the prospect of such an eventuality pouredoil on the flames in recent weeks. The markets,which do not intend to concede a penny, haveanticipated that if they were to get paid atany time, they might just as well do so earlier.Therefore, they have demanded higher returns.This market reaction also shows that they donot believe in the fables of governments on theability of vulnerable countries to pay current debts.From a strictly economic standpoint, and withoutchanging the existing institutional framework,things are squalidly simple: without the possibilityof devaluing their currency – which would endtheir participation in the Euro - and without anyEuropean tax redistribution mechanism as existsin nation states or federal states, these countrieshave no opportunity to adjust other than bygeneralized lower salaries and expenditures; andeven in this case, it is not very probable that thegains in competitiveness they could thus achievewill arrive in time to enable them to maintainthemselves in the neo-liberal yoke of Economic andMonetary Union. As a fund manager bluntly put itin relation to Ireland: "the question is knowing howlong the people will endure being burnt alive likethis" [2].

Synchronization of social and political crises acrossthe continent

The week of November 22-28 probably givesa taste of what 2011 might look like whenwidespread austerity wreaks its effects onthe continent. A general strike in Portugal onWednesday 24, student demonstrations in Britainand Italy, a huge protest in Dublin on Saturday 26.Mass mobilizations accompanied by spectacularactions such as the occupation of the ConservativeParty headquarters in London, an attempt toenter the Italian Senate and the intrusion on theresidence of the Prime Minister in Dublin. Barely afew weeks after the great movements of autumn2010 in France, resistance develops at a Europeanlevel. Given the magnitude of the attacks of whicha detailed inventory should be drawn up country bycountry, there is nothing surprising about this. Butthe hardest part is to come: most of the measuresadopted in 2010 will make their effects felt only in2011. In most countries, governments, whetherthey are right wing or social-liberals (if this is stillhas a meaning), are politically very weakened,and it does not seem unreasonable to imagine

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that they will not be able to cope with the broadsocial shocks that these attacks might cause. Itis not certain that they are in a position to reachagreement on the inevitable restructuring of theEuropean Union that any institutional responsewould require.

In such a context, one can imagine that left ornationalist social forces could come to the forein peripheral countries and decide to break withthe single currency in order to facilitate theiradjustment by devaluation. There are howevermany obstacles and inconveniences to thisscenario, not the slightest being that nothingof this kind is provided for in the treaties, andthat a gigantic banking mess will ensue. Anotherscenario, envisioned by a columnist for the“Financial Times”, is that Germany renouncesthe single currency [3]. This could result in themultiplication of financial crises in the euro areawhose outcome could be massive fiscal transferswhich are for the moment, politically impossible.Another option, more likely, would be that thenew treaty, which is demanded by Germany tostiffen budgetary orthodoxy in each State, is notratified in all countries. The excuse would be thenfound to disengage from a Euro zone consideredas unmanageable. Staggering as these optionsappear, it could well that a status quo of the EU inits present form is no more realistic a scenario.

For the anti-capitalist forces these speculationshave no other interest than to grasp the magnitudeof the changes that lie ahead. The first issue isof course to promote coordination of resistanceand the emergence of an internationalistmovement to demand at the continental level thediscontinuation of the austerity plans, suspensionof debt repayments and the establishmentof an audit under democratic control of thelatter, the challenging of the independence ofthe ECB, the financing by the Central Bankof the states, the socialisation of the banks,control over capital flows, the launching of amassive investment and job creation plan forecological transition and European public services,a coordination of redistributive tax policies.But do not underestimate the fact that theseresponses can be borne by the social movementsalone. In the absence of political perspectives ineach country and at the European level, thesemovements might collapse and leave roomfor nationalist forces of the most violent andreactionary kind which are reinforcing themselvesalready everywhere in Europe. The dislocation ofneoliberal Europe could then become a nightmare.

NOTES

[1] “Us Firms warn Irish over tax move”,November 20 2010, “Daily Telegraph”, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/8148882/US-firms-warn-Irish-over-tax-move.html

[2] 2. Cited in Frédéric Lordon, “Lacrise européenne, deuxième service(partie1)”, November 8, 2010. http://

blog.mondediplo.net/2010-11-08-Crise-europeenne-deuxieme-service-partie-1#nb11

[3] 3. Gideon Rachman, “How Germanycould come to kill the Euro”, November 22,2010, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/85b62490-f66e-11df-846a-00144feab49a.html#axzz16306HSUi

Palestine - Palestinians and the ever-widening intifada across the MiddleEast and North AfricaAn eye-witness report from GazaKeith Darwin

The mass upsurges that drove out Ben Ali fromTunisia and Mubarak from Egypt have electrifiedpeople everywhere, but nowhere more than in theOccupied Palestinian Territories, where people arestill glued to al-Jazeera television, suspiciouslyevaluating the military “undertaker” regime inCairo and alternatively excited and agonized bymass protests and brutal repression in Jordan,Bahrain, Iraq, Yemen, Oman, Algeria, Libya,Djibouti, Kuwait, Morocco and Iran. Keith Darwin,an Australian FI supporter, sent us this report.

Ramallah February 5th, 2011

For Palestinians who are every day humiliated bothby Israel and by their own “regime”, the reassertion

of dignity by the Tunisian, Egyptian and MiddleEastern masses has been a great inspiration.

On the evening of Friday 11 February —coincidentally the anniversary of the overthrow ofthe hated Shah of Iran in 1979 — as people sawthe fall of Mubarak, spontaneous (or mobile phonemessage-announced) marches began in SalaheddinStreet in East Jerusalem, and in Palestinian citieswithin 1948 Israel.

In the Gaza Strip where 1.6 million people aresuffering not only from the tightened Israeli siege,but also from Egypt’s complete closure of theRafah border, celebration marches took place thatevening in Gaza and Khan Younis cities, and inthe larger refugee camps. The people wantedto congratulate the people of Egypt, so close-byacross the border, and some fired guns into the skyas if marking a wedding. The Hamas administrationwas quick to welcome the downfall of Mubarak,not only because they are historically associated

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with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, but alsothey voiced optimism that the border wouldquickly open, and Egypt would massively aid post-Operation Cast Lead reconstruction. Hamas rarelyallows rallies other than its own; previous Egyptsolidarity protests had been stopped. Politicalrepression is directed mainly at Fateh, while theflags of the Democratic Front and Popular Frontfly in the streets alongside Hamas flags. Hamas’television is more professional and democratic thanthat of the PA in Ramallah, but people also respectal Manar from Lebanon, and above all al-Jazeerafrom Qatar, whose ruling family is the main funderof the Hamas government. When the Egyptiansatellite cut Jazeera, viewers were desperate untilit was re-routed.

Whether Hamas can still command a strong voteis unknowable. Although their administrationis regarded as clean, and their performance inservice-delivery, such as in health and schools ismarkedly better than the PA, the life-line of thetunnel imports is wearing thin, and their strategiclimitations are showing: the 40% of Gaza Stripland left by the Israeli settlers is underutilized,even though the population is short of freshfood, and fishing is forbidden by the Israelis. Theonly construction thus far on the former Israelisettlements has been a prison.

In Nablus, the biggest city of the West Bank,people could only celebrate in mosque, churchand home. But in Ramallah, the PalestinianNGOs, after many refusals, had been able to calla demonstration in solidarity with the Egyptianpeople of 1,000 participants in the Manara centreon 5 February. Protests have been forbidden bythe Palestinian National Authority (PA) in recentyears, and this rally was only approved at thelast minute. Some Fateh and PA leaders had evenunsuccessfully tried to call a pro-Mubarak rally inprevious days. Trade union activists and peoplefrom the progressive political parties took part inthis first rally but there were no party or unionflags or banners at the demonstration. Participantscarried small Egyptian flags, and one USA flagwas burned on the lions of the Manara monument.There were no religious chants, and slogans fromone group initially focussed on bringing backNasser, and then the chants were about solidaritywith those in Tahrir square and in Alexandria, suchas “the people will not be humiliated”, Mubarak isCIA”, “the people want to get rid of the regime”,“first to go Mubarak, second is King Abdullah (ofJordan), third is…” (Abbas of the PA?), then latersome dared to change the chants: “the PA is CIA”and “the people want to get rid of Oslo”. Later,seven of the young men who led chants againstMubarak, America, the PA and Oslo at the marchon 5 February were arrested and beaten up by thePA’s USA-trained security forces.

On the evening of Friday 11 February, on hearingthe victory, people spontaneously came backinto the streets of Ramallah. There were moreunionists, inspired by the decisive entry of workersinto action in Egypt. One chant was that “Ben

Ali has called Mubarak to join him and the otherthieves in Jeddah (Saudi Arabia). Another wasthat “after Egypt, the dictators in nearby placeswill fall”. People joked about Israel’s oft-repeatedclaim to be the only democracy in the region,since now so many Israeli and Western leaders areback-tracking rhetoric about democracy in Arabcountries.

A further demonstration was able to be called byPalestinian NGOs on 17 February, this with severalthousands in Ramallah. Ostensibly this was aboutcalling on Fateh and Hamas to stop conflict and re-forge national unity, but its underlying dynamicwas anti-PA. Meanwhile, the authorities in Gazasaid that if people attempted such a rally, theywould “break their bones”.

Palestinians are most conscious of the situationin Jordan, where police allowed a large andunprecedented demonstration in Amman on29 January in support of Egypt and calling fordemocracy in Jordan, though not explicitly callingfor the ouster of King Abdullah. Scared of eventsin Egypt, he had gone on hasty tour of Bedouinclan leaders in the south, cut fuel and food prices,raised public service salaries, and dismissed yetanother government. A much larger demonstrationon 18 February shows the dynamic of struggle isfar from over.

With Lebanon still in political crisis, and the overallpositive relationship of forces for the Hizbullahbloc, the possibility of a democratic Egypt,and the nightmare potential of a Palestinian-majority democracy in Jordan, the Israeli leadersare quietly panicking. It is rumoured they areplanning Bahrain-style or Libyan-style massacresof Palestinian youth if a third intifada, as is likely,breaks out.

The life expectancy of Israel’s collaboratorPalestinian Administration seems seriouslythreatened. The PA administers disconnectedPalestinian cities and towns on 40% of the WestBank, and exercises limited security control overthe cities on 17% of West Bank. The majority ofthe West Bank land, 80% of the water resources,the economy, and all borders and checkpointsremains under Israeli control.

Fateh and the PLO have atrophied and meldedinto the PA , representing 20 business families, asmall comprador class based in Ramallah, and theinterests of Israel and the USA. The CIA-trainedsecurity services cannot protect Palestinians,but manage resistance for Israel, in increasinglyrepressive ways, receiving 32% of the budget fromdonors.

The electoral mandate of President Abbas andPM Salam Fayyad, to the extent they had any,having been beaten by Hamas, and the PalestinianLegislative Council having never really met, withIsrael having arrested a third of the132 electedrepresentatives, expired in January 2009. Shockedby the downfall of his friend Mubarak, and takinga cue from king Abdullah, Abbas sacked the PA

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Council of Ministers, retaining the neo-liberaltechnocrat Fayyad, whose party received on 2.5%of the votes in the 2006 elections. But dismissingthe government doesn’t build any credibility amongPalestinians in the West Bank, it only exacerbatescompetition between the Fateh gerontocracy.Abbas has no obvious successor. Security chiefsMohammed Dahlan and Jibril Rajoub are toodiscredited. Marwan Barghouthi from Fateh andPopular Front (PFLP) leader Ahmed Sa’adat arein Israeli gaols. There is some speculation aboutNasser al-Qidwa, but Abbas is hostile to him.

The negotiations leaks publicized by al-Jazeerahave removed any doubts Palestinians hadin the treachery of the PA, who faced withcomplete intransigence by the Israeli negotiatorsand squeezed every day by expanding illegalsettlements, begged for some “fig-leaf” or tokento distract attention from their surrender ofJerusalem, the refugees, the prisoners, and anindependent state on enclaves of land in the WestBank. PLO Negotiator Sa’eb Erekat from Jerichohad to resign.

The PA, through its collaboration, through co-option, and through outright repression, hasensured a depoliticized public life in the West Bank.People are just trying to survive and relying ontheir families. The great leaders have gone: Arafatas a national symbol seems better in hindsightthe longer he is dead; Gaza’s respected Dr HaidarAbdel-Shafi, who led the Madrid talks in 1991, butwalked out in 1997 when undermined by Arafat,and angered by corruption, died in 2007. GeorgeHabash died in 2008 after leaving leadership ofPFLP, the second-largest party in the PLO, in 2000;his successor Abu Ali Mustafa was assassinatedin 2001 by the Israelis, and in turn his successor,Sa’adat was imprisoned by the PA and then Israel.

The left parties remain marginal, unable to offer analternative to the PA and lacking any traction withthe rural or urban poor or people in the crowdedrefugee camps They are compromised by theirinvolvement in the PA and the Olso process, whichhas only brought more settlements. In the 2006elections the Popular Front gained 4% of the vote,the Democratic Front gained one seat, running inan Alternative front, with the Palestine People’sParty (formerly the Palestinian Communist Party).The Mubadara, or national initiative, formed in2002 by left leaders Mustafa Barghouthi and HaidarAbdel-Shafi, gained only 2.7%.

The left parties retain their mass serviceorganisations for agriculture, health, youth andwomen, in both Gaza and the West Bank. ThePalestine General Federation of Trade Unions(PGFTU), formed in 1994 out of the merger of thepreviously external Fateh workers’ front and Fateh,PFLP, Democratic Front and Communist unions,with thirteen affiliate unions in the Palestinianprivate sector, is surviving with extensive fundingfrom Norway and other European unions, throughthe International Trade Union Confederation,which makes support conditional on pretending

there can still be some peace rhetoric with Israel’sHistadrut which never criticizes its governmentfor the occupation or for bombing or besiegingGaza. Like the PA, PGFTU leader Shaher Sa’edcalls for a boycott of settlement products, buthesitates, in deference to his funders, in callingfor boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS)on Israel. With few workers crossing the Wallinto settlements and Israel for day work, veryhigh unemployment rates, and most Palestiniansworking in family businesses, farming, NGO orinformal sectors, PGFTU faces serious constraints.The new Federation of Independent Unions, andthe unions of the public sector workers, providean alternative, one which is generally more ableto campaign against the PA and clearly all for BDSagainst Israel.

The vast scale of the expansion of illegal Israelisettlements, in and around Jerusalem, in theJordan Valley, and in on the hilltops of the WestBank, and the USA veto in the UN Security Councilon a resolution opposing settlements on 18February, at a time when USA-allied regimesacross the region are under popular attack, poses acrisis for the only remaining negotiation strategy ofthe PA. On news of the veto, a hundred or so youthseized the opportunity of newly re-won freedomto protest in Ramallah, but the demonstratorswere soon swamped with Fateh loyalists carryingpictures of President Abbas, and PM Fayyad issueda tweet saying it was not the right time for the UNmotion.

As in past years, Abbas has called for municipaland then Legislative Council elections inSeptember, but the conditions for free and fairelections, such as in 2006, no longer exist for the4 million people in the PA or Hamas administeredenclaves, nor in Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem.Hamas says there can be no new electionswithout national political unity, and points to theneed to reforge an inclusive PLO as a legitimatenational leadership, presumably with electionsthat enfranchise Palestinians inside Israel, in theOccupied Territories, and in the refugee campsin neighbouring countries for a new PalestinianNational Council, which hasn’t met in anyone’smemory.

In as much as the Oslo process and “two-state”solution has reached its natural dead end with aBantustan led by a discredited Quisling clique inRamallah, and there is a paradigm-shift towards aglobal boycott campaign against Israeli Apartheid,and for an egalitarian bi-national state, many seean ideological leadership shift towards Palestinianswithin the 1948 borders, especially the left secularnationalist Tajamu/Balad, and its now-exiledleader Azmi Bishara. This shift is underlined by thechanging demographics, with 5.8 million JewishIsraelis no longer constituting a majority of peopleunder Israel’s control between the Jordan Riverand the Sea.

In the context of solidarity actions with the pan-Arab or pan-Middle East democratic intifada,

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international grassroots and trade union efforts forboycott, disinvestment and sanctions against Israelas called for by Palestinian civil society, need to bereinforced. With people-power putting the fear ofdeath into the tyrants from Rabat to Teheran, andthe decades-long pax Americana in tatters as long-invested allies fall, Palestine remains the fault-linebetween the Arab masses and colonialism.

Gaza February 19th , 2011

Keith Darwin is an Australian FI supporter whowas in Gaza in February 2011

Pakistan - Top judges’ anti-workersattitude: Now face the music of workers’anger on 1st MarchLabour Party Pakistan to organize a day of protestFarooq Tariq

There is a growing trend among the higher courtsof Pakistan to show their anti-workers’ angerwhenever there is a case being heard on the issueof strikes, demonstrations, rallies and other meansof peaceful protests. There is a different attitudeof the higher courts about the protests of lawyersand other sections of the middle classes. There is avery clear discriminatory attitude towards working-class struggle in Pakistan by the top judges.

Top judges are happy to take individual cases ofviolation of human rights and we are happy withthat, however, whenever there is a collective actionby a section for the working class in Pakistan, theattitude seems always to favour of the bosses. Ithas been shown in declaring the workers’ strikes asillegal, rejecting the bail application of the arrestedworkers during strikes, not taking notices of grossviolations of labour laws, no implementation ofminimum wages, no remedies for those workerslosing jobs in violation of labour laws and so on.

Labour Party Pakistan has decided to organizea day of action for workers’ right to protest andagainst the top judges’ discriminatory attitudetowards the struggle of the working class. OnTuesday 1st of March, thousands of workers acrossPakistan will organize rallies, demonstrations andstrikes to assert their rights of organizing peacefulmeans of struggle.

There will be a complete strike of power loomsand textile workers in Faisalabad, Jhang, Gojra,Toba Tek Singh and Kamalia. Hundreds of textilefactories and power looms factories will be shutdown during this strike. In Faisalabad, thousandsof workers will come to Ghanta Ghar, the center ofFaisalabad and will organize a sit in. Over 250,000workers will take part in strikes and rallies on theday in Fiaslabad division.

Four leaders of the Faisalabad power loom workers,Fazal Ilahi, Akbar Kamboh, Rana Riaz and BabarRandhawa have been behind bars since 21st July2010. They were arrested during a power loom

workers’ strike for a wage increase and wereframed under anti terrorist laws. Despite all theassurances by the police and local administrationsduring several protest rallies to remove the antiterrorist charges against them, they are still facingthe terrorist charges and are behind bars. Theirbail application was rejected last week by thereactionary chief justice of Lahore High Courtwithout looking at the file of the case.

We have decided enough is enough; now facethe music of Pakistani working class on 1st Marchacross Pakistan.

Over 600 Pakistan Telecommunication (PTCL)workers have been suspended or removed fromtheir jobs by the administration of the privatizedPTCL. Their crime: to organize protest for wageincrease. Most of the 600 workers of PTCL are theleaders of different unions of PTCL and there isa whole sale attack on the unions in PTCL. Thetop judges are quite on the issue and no actiontaken by the courts or even by the PPP governmentabout the fate of these very senior leaders of thetrade union movement.

They are now organized in a united front of all thePTCL unions and will start their mass campaign forthe reinstatement from 23th February by erectinga protest camp in Islamabad and then from 1st ofMarch will join the national campaign for workers’rights.

Despite the stay order of the National IndustrialRelation Commission (NIRC), 17 union leadershave been kicked out of their jobs when theyformed a union. Nishat Textile Mills is owned bythe richest man in Pakistan, Mian Mansha, thanksto the privatization of MCB Bank under Nawazgovernment that Mian Mansha has become therichest man and has become a very anti workerboss. The union in MCB was thrown out and nowall the textile factories of Mian Mansha are withoutany union.

Most of the union members of The Inter Woodfurniture factory lost their job after they formedthe first ever union in Lahore factory of InterWood. It is known to labour deprtment of Punjabthat Mian Nawaz Sharif family took special interestin this case to favor the boss who is a close friendof the family. No action was taken by any court ofPakistan for this gross violation of human rights ofthe labour for their constitutional right of formingassociations.

New Khan Metro Bus Service is owned by a leaderof Muslim League (the boss changes the MuslimLeague frequently, now a leader of PMLN andearlier was in PMLQ). The first ever union inthe company was suppressed by the boss byterminating the jobs of the union leaders. The casehas been in labour courts for over two years andno grievances of the union is been addressed bythe courts.

No labour department officer can enter anyindustrial units in Punjab. This was the order ofPervaiz Ilahi in 2003 (the Punjab chief minister

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under Musharaf), a complete unity is shown byMian Shahbaz Sharif on this issue with him, thisban is still intact despite a very clear order ofLahore High Court and courts seem impotentafter they have decided in favour of workers toimplement their order.

There are at least 14 other cases of top judges’discriminatory attitude towards the workers’ effortto form new trade unions.

There will be demonstrations in at least 50 citiesof Pakistan on 1st March 2011, we will issue thelist of the cities and place and timing of thesedemonstrations and rallies.

Our demands Release the four textile workers facing terroristcharges immediately;

Reinstate all PTCL suspended workers withimmediate effect;

The courts must take action against those bossesviolating labour laws;

Lift labour inspection from the factories;

A guarantee of implementation of Rupees 7000wages for all unskilled workers according to thenotification of the government all over Pakistanand just in Islamabad , (Chief Justice IftikharChoudry issued an order of implementing this inIslamabad while taking a sue moto notice of asecurity guard);

Respect workers right to strike, organize unionsand demand a respectable working condition,environment and wages for all workers;

Increase the minimum wage to Rupees 15000monthly for all workers.

We expect all friends and supporters of workers toparticipate in these rallies. We also call on otherpolitical parties and trade unions to endorse thiscall of action.

Farooq Tariq is the national spokespersonof Labour Party Pakistan, http://www.laborpakistan.org/.

Egypt/Pakistan - Two great victories inone nightAs people around the world celebrated the fall ofMubarak, the Pakistan working class had anothercause for celebration too. Farooq Tariq reports.

Egypt: A Great Victory.After 18 days of very brave protests and people’suprising in the streets of Cairo, Alexandria andall over Egypt, Husni Mubarik, the dictator whooppressed and plundered the people and thecountry for more than thirty years, was forced toresign. It is a great victory of peoples power. Tilllast night, the dictator was not ready to go away,however, within 24 hours, the massive pressure ofthe movement, much greater than drone attacks,bullets and suicidal attacks, he had to go.

We salute the heroic people of Egypt in this hourof their great victory. It is the opening of a newchapter in the history of peoples power.

We congratulate the heroic struggle of the youthwho came out in the streets and compelled thedictator to resign. It was them that made thehistory.

The people of the whole world join hands with theEgyptian people in celebrating this great victory. Atthe same time we hope the revolutionary peopleshall carry forward the great struggle so that themilitary which has taken over will not be allowed totake away this great victory from their hands.

Labour Party Pakistan extends revolutionarygreetings and solidarity to the people of Egypt andassures them that we shall be with you in the greatstruggle for a people’s Egypt.

Pakistan: a great victory of PIA workersThe four days of heroic struggle by the PIA workersmade the Pakistan Peoples Party governmenthad to accept all the demands of the strikingworkers. [1] Over 250 flights were cancelledduring the four days strike of PIA workers. It was astruggle by PIA workers to save PIA and their jobs.

The victory came with blood, sweat and tearsof many thousands of workers including womenworkers of PIA. The brutal attack of the police thisevening in Karachi with the help of the thugs ofPPP Senator Abidy (misnamed as Peoples Unity)on PIA striking workers was one of the last act ofdesperation to defeat the strike.

The four day of strike of PIA workers was aclassical example of unity among the differentsections of one institution. It was this great unityof manual workers, engineers, pilots, air hostesses,booking officers, and administrative officers thatdefeated the PPP government strategy to runthe PIA. All the efforts to split the movement byPPP government by creating new "Peoples Unity"were foiled by the sheer pressure of the real unityamong the working class.

The Managing Director is gone. He was aprofessional pilot and his only qualification tobecome the manging director of PIA was hisassociation with President Zardari. He acted as thehench man of the PPP leadership. If the Turkishdeal had not been challenged by the workers, thePIA would have been lost for ever.

And what a hypocracy of Ahmad Mukhtar, thedefense minister while accepting the demands ofthe workers, he told the journalist that Turkish dealwas brought into notice of defense ministry. Hewas the one who said the floor of the assemblythat this is deal that PIA will benefit.

Why does the PPP always take bad decisions andthen, under the immense power of the workers,change their mind? The answer is very simple. "Ifit works, we will take the benefit otherwise we willbe flexible" is the philosophy behind many suchanti-workers anti-people decisions.

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The PPP government took back the decision ofprivatization of coal and gas fields in Sindh aftermassive protests, it reinstated the judges whenthere was a mass movement that was not ready toback down till the acceptance of the demands.

The example of Karachi Electric Supply Corporation(KESC) 4000 workers was an another incidentwhere PPP and MQM leadership were making newlists of their cronies to give them jobs once these4000 gone. Then the occupation of the officesforced all the parties to change their mind andwithdrew their decision of termination.

ON PIA workers strike, no political party apartfrom Labour Party Pakistan took any practicalstep to show their solidarity with them. All thereligious parties were making hue and cry oftheir "anti Americanism" while forgetting thereal fight of the workers against the friendsof the Americans. When LPP activists went forGherao of PIA headquarters in Lahore yesterday, amassive police presence was ensured by the localadministration to harass the activists. It was theonly demonstration in Pakistan by any politicalparty in solidarity with the striking workers.

This victory will set a new mood among theworking class in Pakistan. It is another victory ofpeaceful mass militant struggle. IT is reply to thosewho argue for bomb blasts, suicidal attacks, droneattacks and other military means to achieve theirgoals.

The victory of PIA workers will change the courseof history in Pakistan as well. It is not an isolatedincident. It has won the minds and souls of millionsin Pakistan. It will set the trends of future struggle.It will be even more difficult for PPP governmentto implement on any portion of their neo liberalagenda of privatisation and other aspects.

Farooq Tariq is the national spokespersonof Labour Party Pakistan, http://www.laborpakistan.org/.

NOTES

[1] Employees of the national airline, PakistanInternational Airlines had been on strike sinceTuesday 8th Feburary against a code-sharingagreement with the Turkish airlines that wouldhave lost a number of profitable European andAmerican destinations for the PIA.

Egypt - Whither Egypt?

To help explain the thrilling developments in Egypt,Farooq Sulehnia interviewed leading Arab scholar-activist Gilbert Achcar on February 4.

Do you think that Mubarak’s pledge on February1st not to contest the next election representeda victory for the movement, or was it just a trickto calm down the masses as on the very next daydemonstrators in Al-Tahrir Square were brutallyattacked by pro-Mubarak forces?

The Egyptian popular anti-regime uprising reacheda first peak on February 1st, prodding Mubarakto announce concessions in the evening. It wasan acknowledgement of the force of the popularprotest and a clear retreat on the autocrat’spart, coming on top of the announcement of thegovernment’s willingness to negotiate with theopposition. These were significant concessionsindeed coming from such an authoritarian regime,and a testimony to the importance of the popularmobilisation. Mubarak even pledged to speed upongoing judicial actions against fraud perpetratedduring the previous parliamentary elections.

He made it clear, however, that he was notwilling to go beyond that. With the army firmlyon his side, he was trying to appease the massmovement, as well as the Western powers thatwere urging him to reform the political system.Short of resignation, he granted some of the keydemands that the Egyptian protest movementhad formulated initially, when it launched itscampaign on January 25. However, the movementhas radicalized since that day to a point whereanything short of Mubarak’s resignation won’t beenough to satisfy it, with many in the movementeven demanding that he gets tried in court.

Moreover, all the regime’s key institutions are nowdenounced by the movement as illegitimate––the executive as well as the legislative, i.e. theparliament. As a result, part of the opposition isdemanding that the head of the constitutionalcourt be appointed as interim president, to presideover the election of a constituent assembly. Otherseven want a national committee of oppositionforces to supervise the transition. Of course,these demands constitute a radical democraticperspective. In order to impose such a thoroughchange, the mass movement would need to break

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or destabilise the regime’s backbone, that is theEgyptian army.

Do you mean that the Egyptian army is backingMubarak?

Egypt––even more than comparable countries suchas Pakistan or Turkey––is in essence a militarydictatorship with a civilian façade that is itselfstuffed with men originating in the military. Theproblem is that most of the Egyptian opposition,starting with the Muslim Brotherhood, have beensowing illusions about the army and its purported"neutrality," if not "benevolence." They have beendepicting the army as an honest broker, whilethe truth is that the army as an institution is not"neutral" at all. If it has not been used yet torepress the movement, it is only because Mubarakand the general staff did not see it appropriateto resort to such a move, probably because theyfear that the soldiers would be reluctant to carryout a repression. That is why the regime resortedinstead to orchestrating counter-demonstrationsand attacks by thugs on the protest movement.The regime tried to set up a semblance of civilstrife, showing Egypt as torn apart between twocamps, thus creating a justification for the army’sintervention as the "arbiter" of the situation.

If the regime managed to mobilise a significantcounter-movement and provoke clashes on a largerscale, the army could step in, saying: "Game over,everybody must go home now," while promisingthat the pledges made by Mubarak would beimplemented. Like many observers, I feared theselast two days that this stratagem might succeedin weakening the protest movement, but thehuge mobilization of today’s "day of departure" isreassuring. The army will need to make furtherand more significant concessions to the popularuprising.

When you talk of the opposition, what forces doesit include? Of course, we hear about the MuslimBrotherhood and El Baradei. Are there are otherplayers too like left wing forces, trade unions, etc?

The Egyptian opposition includes a vast array offorces. There are parties like the Wafd, which arelegal parties and constitute what may be calledthe liberal opposition. Then there is a grey zoneoccupied by the Muslim Brotherhood. It doesnot have a legal status but is tolerated by theregime. Its whole structure is visible; it is notan underground force. The Muslim Brotherhoodis certainly, and by far, the largest force in theopposition. When Mubarak’s regime, under USpressure, granted some space to the oppositionin the 2005 parliamentary elections, the MuslimBrotherhood––running as "independents"––managed to get 88 MPs, i.e. 20 percent of theparliamentary seats, despite all obstacles. In thelast elections held last November and December,after the Mubarak regime had decided to closedown the limited space that it had opened in 2005,the Muslim Brotherhood almost vanished fromparliament, losing all its seats but one.

Among the forces on the left, the largest is theTagammu party, which enjoys a legal statusand has 5 MPs. It refers to the Nasserite legacy.Communists have been prominent within its ranks.It is basically a reformist left party, which is notconsidered a threat to the regime. On the contrary,it has been quite compliant with it on severaloccasions. There are also leftwing Nasserite andradical left groups in Egypt––small but vibrant, andvery much involved in the mass movement.

Then there are "civil society" movements, likeKefaya, a coalition of activists from variousopposition forces initiated in solidarity with theSecond Palestinian Intifada in 2000. It opposedthe invasion of Iraq later on, and became famousafterwards as a democratic campaign movementagainst Mubarak’s regime. From 2006 to 2009,Egypt saw the unfolding of a wave of industrialactions, including a few impressively massiveworkers strikes. There are no independentworkers unions in Egypt, with one or two veryrecent exceptions born as a result of the socialradicalisation. The bulk of the working class doesnot have the benefit of autonomous representationand organization. An attempt at convening ageneral strike on April 6, 2008 in solidarity withthe workers led to the creation of the April 6 YouthMovement. Associations like this one and Kefayaare campaign-focused groups, not political parties,and they include people of different politicalaffiliations along with unaffiliated activists.

When Mohamed El Baradei returned to Egyptin 2009 after his third term at the head of theIAEA, his personal prestige enhanced by the2005 Nobel Peace Prize, a liberal and left coalitiongathered around him, with the Muslim Brotherhoodadopting a lukewarm reserved position. Manyin the opposition saw El Baradei as a powerfulcandidate enjoying international reputation andconnections, and constituting therefore a crediblepresidential candidate against Mubarak or hisson. El Baradei thus became a rallying figure for alarge section of the opposition, regrouping politicalforces as well as personalities. They formed theNational Association for Change.

This whole array of forces is very much involved inthe present uprising. However, the overwhelmingmajority of the people on the streets are withoutany sort of political affiliation. It is a huge massoutpouring of resentment at living under a despoticregime, fed by worsening economic conditions,as prices of basic necessities, like food, fuel, andelectricity, have been sharply on the rise amidstaggering joblessness. This is the case not only inEgypt but in most of the region as well, and that iswhy the fire of revolt that started in Tunisia spreadso quickly to many Arab countries.

Is El Baradei genuinely popular, or is he in someway the Mir-Hossein Mousavi of the Egyptianmovement, trying to change some faces whilepreserving the regime?

I would disagree with this characterisation ofMousavi in the first place. To be sure, Mir-Hossein

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Mousavi did not want to "change the regime" ifone mean by that a social revolution. But therewas definitely a clash between authoritariansocial forces, spearheaded by the Pasdaran andrepresented by Ahmedinejad, and others coalescedaround a liberal reformist perspective representedby Mousavi. It was indeed a clash about the kindof "regime" in the sense of the pattern of politicalrule.

Mohamed El Baradei is a genuine liberal whowishes his country to move from the presentdictatorship to a liberal democratic regime, withfree elections and political freedoms. If such avast array of political forces is willing to cooperatewith him, it is because they see in him the mostcredible liberal alternative to the existing regime,a man who does not command an organisedconstituency of his own, and is therefore anappropriate figurehead for a democratic change.

Going back to your analogy, you can’t compare himwith Mousavi who was a member of the Iranianregime, one of the men who led the 1979 Islamicrevolution. Mousavi had his own followers in Iran,before he emerged as the leader of the 2009 massprotest movement. In Egypt, El Baradei cannotplay, and does not pretend to play a similar role.He is supported by a vast array of forces, but noneof them see him as its leader.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s initial reserved attitudetowards El Baradei is partly related to the fact thathe does not have a religious bent and is too secularfor their taste. Moreover, the Muslim Brotherhoodhad cultivated an ambiguous relationship with theregime over the years. Had they fully backed ElBaradei, they would have narrowed their margin ofnegotiation with the Mubarak regime, with whichthey have been bargaining for quite a long time.The regime conceded a lot to them in the socio-cultural sphere, increasing Islamic censorship inthe cultural field being but one example. That wasthe easiest thing the regime could do to appeasethe Brotherhood. As a result, Egypt made hugesteps backward from the secularisation that wasconsolidated under Gamal Abdul-Nasser in the1950s and 1960s.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s goal is to secure ademocratic change that would grant them thepossibility to take part in free elections, bothparliamentary and presidential. The model theyaspire to reproduce in Egypt is that of Turkey,where the democratisation process was controlledby the military with the army remaining a key pillarof the political system. This process nonethelesscreated a space which allowed the AKP, an Islamicconservative party, to win elections. They arenot bent on overthrowing the state, hence theircourting of the military and their care to avoidany gesture that could antagonize the army. Theyadhere to a strategy of gradual conquest of power:they are gradualists, not radicals.

The Western media are hinting at the fact thatdemocracy in the Middle East would lead to anIslamic fundamentalist takeover. We have seen the

triumphal return of Rached Ghannouchi to Tunisiaafter long years in exile. The Muslim Brotherhoodis likely to win fair elections in Egypt. What is yourcomment on that?

I would turn the whole question around. I wouldsay that it is the lack of democracy that ledreligious fundamentalist forces to occupy sucha space. Repression and the lack of politicalfreedoms reduced considerably the possibility forleft-wing, working-class and feminist movementsto develop in an environment of worsening socialinjustice and economic degradation. In suchconditions, the easiest venue for the expressionof mass protest turns out to be the one that usesthe most readily and openly available channels.That’s how the opposition got dominated by forcesadhering to religious ideologies and programmes.

We aspire to a society where such forces arefree to defend their views, but in an open anddemocratic ideological competition between allpolitical currents. In order for Middle Easternsocieties to get back on the track of politicalsecularisation, back to the popular critical distrustof the political exploitation of religion that prevailedin the 1950s and 1960s, they need to acquire thekind of political education that can be achievedonly through a long-term practise of democracy.

Having said this, the role of religious parties isdifferent in different countries. True, RachedGhannouchi has been welcomed by a few thousandpeople on his arrival at Tunis airport. But his Nahdamovement has much less influence in Tunisia thanthe Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Of course, thisis in part because Al-Nahda suffered from harshrepression since the 1990s. But it is also becausethe Tunisian society is less prone than the Egyptianto religious fundamentalist ideas, due to its higherdegree of Westernisation and education, and thecountry’s history.

But there is no doubt that Islamic parties havebecome the major forces in the opposition toexisting regimes over the whole region. It will takea protracted democratic experience to changethe direction of winds from that which has beenprevailing for more than three decades. Thealternative is the Algerian scenario where anelectoral process was blocked by the army by wayof a military coup in 1992, leading to a devastatingcivil war for which Algeria is still paying the price.

The amazing surge of democratic aspirationsamong Arab peoples of these last few weeksis very encouraging indeed. Neither in Tunisia,nor in Egypt or anywhere else, were popularprotests waged for religious programs, or evenled principally by religious forces. These aredemocratic movements, displaying a stronglonging for democracy. Polls have been showingfor many years that democracy as a value is ratedvery highly in Middle Eastern countries, contraryto common "Orientalist" prejudices about thecultural "incompatibility" of Muslim countries withdemocracy. The ongoing events prove one moretime that any population deprived of freedom

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will eventually stand up for democracy, whatever"cultural sphere" it belongs to.

Whoever runs and wins future free electionsin the Middle East will have to face a societywhere the demand for democracy has becomevery strong indeed. It will be quite difficult forany party––whatever its programme––to hijackthese aspirations. I am not saying that it willbe impossible. But one major outcome of theongoing events is that popular aspirations todemocracy have been hugely boosted. They createideal conditions for the left to rebuild itself as analternative.

Farooq Sulehria is a prominent radical journalistand a leading member of Labour Party Pakistan.He is the author of the LPP’s booklet, ’Rise ofPolitical Islam’, and translator into Urdu of ’Clash ofFundamentalisms’ by Tariq Ali.

Gilbert Achcar grew up in Lebanon and teachespolitical science at London’s School of Oriental andAfrican Studies. His best-selling book ’The Clashof Barbarisms’ came out in a second expandededition in 2006, alongside a book of his dialogueswith Noam Chomsky on the Middle East, “PerilousPower“. He is co-author of “The 33-Day War:Israel’s War on Hezbollah in Lebanon and It’sConsequences“. His most recent book is “TheArabs and the Holocaust: the Arab-Israeli War ofNarratives“, Metropolitan Books, New York, 2010.

China - The Chinese equationDiscussion with Gilbert Achcar, professor at theSchool of Oriental and African studies of theUniversity of London (SOAS).

How should we judge the rise to power of China,positively or negatively?

That depends on the point of view that you startfrom. The rise to power of China will be judgedin a different way according to whether you lookat it from the point of view of the United States,of Europe, or the Third World. It will take on adifferent significance according to the perspectiveadopted, economic or politico-military. From ananti-imperialist point of view, one can say that therise to power of China, insofar as it contributes torebalancing a world that had become unipolar afterthe fall of the USSR, is unquestionably positive.From an economic standpoint, China, from theconsiderable weight that it has acquired in theworld economy, plays an incontestably positiverole. This could be verified again at the time of thelast world economic crisis. The big question is toknow whether this rise to power of China is likelyto exacerbate a cold war dynamic which alreadyexists, but which could be aggravated and lead tostrong political and military tensions that would bedangerous for humanity.

Some experts envisage that in 2025 the Americanand Chinese economic curves will intersect. Isthere not a risk of cold war and confrontation?

Some people envisage that it will happen evenearlier than that. The Chinese economy onceagain experienced a very high growth rate in2010, almost 10 per cent, provoking fresh fearsof overheating. If this strong growth lasts, theintersection could thus take place very soon.We can see on this subject, on the Westernside, a certain anguish, caused by seeing - forthe first time since the emergence of industrialcapitalism - a country with a political system thatis different from that of the Western democraciesbecoming the leading economy in the world.This is something completely new, in a worldwhere this status was held by Great Britain inthe nineteenth century and the United Statessince then, and up until today. Does this riseto power of China automatically imply a risk ofcold war? From the point of view in internationalrelations that is known as structuralist, the riseof a new power inevitably creates tension withthe power that exists, within the framework ofrelationships of forces that are conceived of asa “zero sum game”. I think however that it isnot a question of structural inevitability, but ofa political decision. In the last analysis, what isdecisive is the attitude adopted by the power of themoment, namely the United States. The attitude ofWashington is decisive: it has been up to now, andit is increasingly the case The United States, todayas yesterday, tries to thwart this rise of China.They have put in place what is perceived, seenfrom Beijing, as a strategic encirclement. If theymaintain this behaviour, the cold war dynamic,which already exists, will certainly become sharper.I entitled my 1999 book, published just after thewar in Kosovo, “The New Cold War”. This formulaof “new cold war” designated the increasingtensions between Moscow and Beijing on theone hand and Washington on the other. Theevolution of the international situation seemsme to have confirmed this prognosis on thetendency of politico-military relations betweenthese powers. With what was called the “unipolarmoment”, the triumphalism of the United Statesinspired a hegemonic policy not only towardsthe traditional vassals of Washington, but alsotowards Moscow and Beijing, and not only underthe administration of George W. Bush, but since1990-91. The conduct of this imperial policy byGeorge W. Bush led to the disastrous balance-sheet that we know, even putting into question thecredibility of the United States as a “superpower”.The economic crisis has further reinforced thisloss of prestige. Today Washington is proceedingto a re-examination of its policy, with the Obamaadministration inclined to adopt a more conciliatoryattitude with regard to Moscow and Beijing. Inthe long term, either Washington succeeds, inthe interest of the whole world as well as that ofthe population of the United States, in adaptingto an international modus vivendi on the basis ofcollective institutions, of the UN and internationallaw, and the dynamics of cold war could bestopped; or else Washington, in particular after achange of personnel at the top (which is possible in

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the short term), continues to follow an aggressivepolicy on the borders of China and Russia, inwhich case it is obvious that the dynamics ofcold war will intensify. For the moment, Chinais far from parity with the United States on themilitary level. The latter remains the leading worldmilitary power, and by a long chalk, spending inthis field the equivalent of the expenditure of therest of the world. Chinese military expenditureis very modest compared to American militaryexpenditure. It is nevertheless progressing quickly,in parallel with the economic position of China. Inthis respect, it is the total volume of GDP which isdecisive, and not GDP per capita, on which levelChina will remain for a long time yet far from theUnited States. US military expenditure amountsto almost 5 per cent of GDP, which is enormous.With China’s GDP tending to catch up with, andsoon surpass that of the United States, Beijing willbe able soon to increase its military expenditureto the equivalent of Washington’s, and evenbeyond. A new planetary arms race would increaseconsiderably the already enormous volume ofworld military expenditure, to the detriment of thedevelopment and the wellbeing of populations,without forgetting that you do not accumulatearmaments without that not leading to wars, director by proxy, in a climate of confrontation suchas that which opposed the United States and theUSSR.

Would a Chinese desire for hegemony berealizable, beyond a simple rebalancing with theUnited States?

The first question which should be posed is toknow whether there really exists a Chinese desirefor hegemony. Obviously for the hawks of theWestern world, this desire is given as a startingpostulate. But if we observe China’s behaviour in amore neutral, more objective way, we really do notfind evidence to support such a characterization.Admittedly the behaviour of China includes anunstoppable logic of economic expansion, in thesense that the dynamism of its economy and itsexports provide it with an immense monetaryreserve. And it needs fructify this reserve, nolonger- or less and less - by acquiring Americantreasury bills, as it has done on a large scale overthe last few years. China has in fact subsidizedthe deficit of the American budget. It has thus,to some extent, subsidized the armaments andthe wars of the United States. The foreign-exchange reserves of Beijing are very close to3000 billion dollars today, which is gigantic. Chinais doing today what the capitalist economies atthe end of the nineteenth century did, in their“imperialist” mutation. As it has an enormousamount of money to invest, it is no longer satisfiedto export goods, but increasingly exports capital,whether towards developing countries or towardsWestern economies, and even offers to re-inflatecountries like Greece and Portugal. It hopes inreturn for better access to international markets,the development of commercial exchanges,privileged access to raw materials, and the political

influence that goes with that. The loans for aidto development lavished by China today exceedthose of the World Bank. On the military levelhowever, that has not, or not yet, been expressedin the manner of the imperialism of the end of thenineteenth century, by militarism and gunboatdiplomacy aimed at extending politico-militarydomination. There is not yet anything comparablein the attitude of China. China’s priorities inthe military sphere are primarily of a defensivenature: China’s obsession today is encirclementby America. The United States controls the energysources of China, in particular the Middle East onwhich China is much more dependent for its oilthan is the United States. It is a striking paradoxthat China is the principal customer of the Saudikingdom, which is an American protectorate onthe politico-military level. The United States hasits hands on most of the taps which feed oil toChina. It controls the maritime routes of China’strade. That obviously worries Beijing. China issurrounded by American military bases, fromCentral Asia and Afghanistan to Japan. It fearsthat the United States is seeking to compensatefor or slow down its loss of economic supremacyby economic or other forms of obstruction, basedon its military supremacy. American blackmailcould thus affect energy sources, trade and manyother aspects (technology, etc). In the field ofnaval power, the United States has an enormousforce of projection: it has eleven aircraft carriers,whereas China does not have any. America’snaval strength is a force of projection of power.T hat is not the case for China, whose logic isdefensive. The Chinese are developing their fleet ofsubmarines, which is the naval arm in which theycome closest to parity, at least on the quantitativelevel, with what the United States has. Theyare in the course of developing a ground-to-seaballistic missile against the US aircraft carriers.This is a way for them of avoiding American navaldomination. I go back to the starting point of myargument: the ball is in the court of the UnitedStates, and the Americans are still able “to fashionthe world” as they affirmed in their strategicdocuments of the 1990s. They still have theinitiative; they are the ones who, up until now, setthe rules of the game. Either they choose to adopta new attitude, understanding that the “unipolarmoment” was only an ephemeral “moment”, andthat it is advisable to build a framework of peacefulinternational relations on the basis of collectiveinstitutions, with the rules of the game applicableto everyone. Or else they continue their foolishattempt to prevent any emergence of a strategicequal. In that case, the dynamics of cold war canonly worsen and even degenerate.

Can’t Europeans maintain closer relations withChina, which could make it possible to loosen thegrip of the United States?

This is in any case what Beijing wants. Itsintervention to contribute to re-inflating the euro ispart of its desire to promote a multipolar world, adesire that Moscow shares. Strategic multipolarity

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flows from economic multipolarity. China’s currencyis starting its mutation into an internationalcurrency. This economic approach shows thatBeijing is well-disposed towards Europe, and thatit wants to develop with it a partnership based onmutual interests. It is up to Europe to know how tograsp this outstretched hand. That implies callinginto question its alignment behind the UnitedStates, which has lasted for decades. Europecould turn the page on this alignment behindWashington, and understand that another policyis essential in order to build a twenty-first centurywhich cannot be a “new American century”. Itis a question of political choice, because thereis no structural automatism. We are all directlyconcerned.

Interview conducted by Jacques Le Dauphin,January 2011

Gilbert Achcar grew up in Lebanon and teachespolitical science at London’s School of Oriental andAfrican Studies. His best-selling book ’The Clashof Barbarisms’ came out in a second expandededition in 2006, alongside a book of his dialogueswith Noam Chomsky on the Middle East, “PerilousPower“. He is co-author of “The 33-Day War:Israel’s War on Hezbollah in Lebanon and It’sConsequences“. His most recent book is “TheArabs and the Holocaust: the Arab-Israeli War ofNarratives“, Metropolitan Books, New York, 2010.

Fourth International - Tunisia, Egypt: arevolutionary process of world scope

The International Committee of the FourthInternational at its annual meeting in lateFebruary 2011 unanimously adopted the followingstatement.

1. The extraordinary victory of the Egyptian peopleagainst Mubarak steps up the historical range ofthe Tunisian revolution that cut down the BenAli regime. In just a few days, the shock waveof these popular victories extended to the entireArab region and beyond that, influencing theclass struggle across the world. Demonstrations,strikes, assemblies, self-defence committees,mobilizations of trade unions, high-school pupils,democratic associations clashed with absolutedetermination against state apparatuses, mostparticularly the police. Millions of Tunisians andEgyptians came into activity to bring down the

dictators, and continue to mobilize to keep controlof their revolutions.

2. This is a process of permanent revolution, whichcombines social, democratic, national sovereigntydimensions, and is spreading internationally. Theeffects of the world economic crisis, combined withsavage oppression and the shameless corruptionof the dictatorships, brought together the mostdisadvantaged popular layers, the organizedworking class and the middle classes, youngpeople and old, women and men. The Tunisian andEgyptian masses could no longer accept economicsystems that marginalized them. As in manyneighbouring countries, integration with capitalistglobalization led to economic growth that did notcreate employment but rather an unprecedentedconcentration of wealth, an unequal developmentof the country and a general degradation of livingand working conditions.

One of the main reasons for these revolutions hasbeen the explosion of food prices in the last fewyears. The rapid process of climate change hasled to the current world food crisis, particularly incountries like Tunisia. The economic liberalizationimposed by the IMF, WTO and the EU has ledto increased casualization of workers, drasticcuts in public services and mass unemploymentparticularly hitting young graduates. With theadditional closing of the borders of the EuropeanUnion to the possibilities of emigration, and thecontraction of the labour market in the Gulf States,any prospect of escaping poverty has disappeared.

At the same time there was a drastic smotheringof freedoms and democratic rights by policestates which imposed generalized social control.The fact that the parliamentary representativesof the “opposition” parties were tolerated bythe Tunisian and Egyptian dictatorships only asphantoms while civil associations were reducedto shells or prevented from functioning led to animpossibility of countervailing powers. This createda situation where, between the dictatorshipsand the populations, there was only the figure ofan autocratic leader and a devoted and savagerepressive apparatus. And the gangster-stylefunctioning of the clans in power completed theirdelegitimization.

Lastly, these two regimes were characterized bytheir collaboration with the Zionist Israeli state,which exasperated their populations, who identifywith the sufferings of the Palestinian people, evenmore.

Faced with all these injustices, strikes and socialexplosions had multiplied in recent years, allowingan accumulation of experience without howevermanaging to break down the wall of fear forthe majority of the populations. This wall wassubmerged in a few weeks, and in spite of the verymany victims, the Tunisian people, then with theirexample in mind the Egyptian people, carried outan uninterrupted fight until the departure of thedictators Ben Ali and Mubarak.

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3. With these victories, the people of the Arabarea show their immense dignity, through theirirruption onto the political scene of democracyand class struggle, no longer locked in the deathlyalternative (or combination) of autocracies orIslamism in which they had been trapped for thirtyyears. The popular classes and, in first place, theworking class of this region have won the meansof asserting all democratic freedoms, women toassert their rights and equality with men. Theworkers have won the means of fighting backon a much higher level against the neoliberalprogrammes of overexploitation, and to profoundlydestabilize the means by which both Americanand European imperialist maintain their hold onthe region, articulated in the State of Israel. TheIsraeli regime, and all currents within it, made nomistake when it demanded Western support for thedictators up to the very end.

The revolutions in the Arab region show thepotential for social emancipation of all massstruggles against injustice. The active role ofwomen in these mobilizations is an unmistakablesign. It makes it possible to combat the racist andIslamophobic campaigns on the so-called “clash ofcivilizations” that try to make us believe that themobilization of Arabic-Muslim peoples paves theway to fundamentalism.

This dynamic will have effects in the whole world.It has already immediately in Jordan, with Yemen,with Bahrain, in Syria, in Libya, in Algeria, withMorocco and in Mauritania, even if one cannotforetell the exact rhythm and in which order theregimes will fall, given that each struggle has itsown specificities. Especially in Libya where theregime has attacked the population with militaryjets and helicopters and already killed more than500 people there is a rapid escalation of thesituation, which demands our full solidarity.

These revolutions create new more favourableconditions for the struggle of the Palestinians, astruggle that the Fourth International encouragesand supports. The Egyptian revolution putsconcretely onto the agenda an end to that crimeagainst humanity known as the blockade ofGaza. Faced with this, the response of the Zioniststate could become harsher and more brutal.Mobilizations to stop this should be stepped up.

The dynamic of these revolutions encourages alsothe fights against the dictatorships in Iran andas far as China, where the oppositions take asa starting point methods of coordination used inTunisia and Egypt, like the use of social networks.It will inevitably encourage the mobilizations ofmigrant communities from the Arab region, whoare overexploited and oppressed in the advancedcapitalist countries. More than ever we have tostand shoulder to shoulder with these populations.

But these processes could have still more globalconsequences in the same imperialist countrieswhere the workers and the young people clashmore and more massively with austerity plans,without finding the way of success: they show

that a revolution from the bottom up is possiblein the 21st century, that it can cut down anapparently impregnable political regime and winconquests that appeared inaccessible as recentlyas yesterday!

4. The gains of these processes are certainlyfragile in both Tunisia and Egypt, but essentialfor what follows. Being based on recent popularexperiences, and the longstanding implantationof the radical left in the trade unions, self-organization developed massively when it wasnecessary for demonstrators and the inhabitantsof popular districts to protect themselves frompolice exactions and the regimes’ militias, inTunisia de Sidi Bouzid to the popular quarters ofthe big cities and the Kasbah in Tunis; in Egyptfrom Tahrir Square in Cairo to the popular districtsof Suez, Mansourah or Alexandria. Unimaginablescenes a few days before, Muslims and Coptsmutually protected their prayers; blue-collarworkers and young Net surfers, women and clerics,writers and taxi drivers stood side by side at thepoints attacked by the henchmen of Mubarak. Thepeople succeeded in destabilizing the army whilesystematically trying to fraternize with the soldiers.

The dictators fled, the leaderships of the partiesin power were forced out under the pressure ofthe mobilizations, and the popular mobilizationscontinue. In Tunisia, the most corrupt leadersare being prosecuted, the funds and the goods ofthe RCD have been seized, and its buildings havebecome peoples’ houses. Most political prisonershave been released. Though they have not beendismantled, the police apparatuses of the twocountries are disorganized. The ministry employeesare starting to exert control on their leaders, likethose in the Tunisian Ministry for Foreign Affairswho forced the resignation of their minister whohad praised the French Foreign Minister Alliot-Marie. Many Tunisian governors, mayors and publicofficials have had to resign. The Tunisian massesare even demanding the departure of the newly-arrived French ambassador after his antagonisticstatement! Many temporary employees in the civilservice have been given permanent posts; thecapital of the most corrupted enterprise leadersof Tunisia has been nationalized. In Egypt, theseprocesses are also underway. Civil servants haveobtained pay rises of 15%; many workers’ strikesare developing in spite of the threats of the newregime.

5. Of course, the dominant classes did not remaininert and will be increasingly active faced with therevolutionary processes. In Tunisia, the “neutrality”of the army and the departure of Ben Ali werecounterbalanced by the maintenance in power ofhis Prime Minister Ghannouchi and many leaders ofthe RCD, which was to be legitimated by the arrivalin the government of several opposition parties andmajor trade union UGTT. The refusal of this and thepopular mobilization imposed a second governmentwhere only the Prime Minister remains among theexecutives of the RCD. But the new regimes isadvised by executives of French imperialism, and it

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is putting all its energy to convincing, alongside theTunisian capitalists and the army, the workers toresume work “like before”. It would be a questionof closing a parenthesis… while simply announcinggeneral elections in 6 months.

In Egypt, it is the army that is directly ensuringthe “transition”, with the menacing Suleimanas Minister of the Interior, a proven torturer,friend of Israel and agent of the CIA of publicnotoriety. There too, the people are called uponto be reasonable, to allow the continuation oftourism and foreign investments, with the promiseof elections in a few months… and threats of aresumption of repression.

The Sarkozy and Berlusconi governments, whichdid not see what was coming and made mattersworse in their support to the bitter end for BenAli, are at the forefront of the European Unionin now requesting the revival of business anda return to police blockings of migrants. TheObama administration is much more flexible:not having foreseen controlled the movementin Egypt, it pretends to overlap with it. But itsclose links with the army command weighs as apermanent threat on the Egyptian revolutionaryprocess, and will require keeping the Palestinianborder in Gaza closed. Above all the internationalinstitutions will demand guarantees concerningthe traffic in the Suez canal and respect of thefundamentals of modern capitalism: payment ofthe national debt, however iniquitous; respectof total opening to foreign capital and products,continuing deregulation.

6. In this process, the whole system has to beeradicated in order to establish all democraticrights and freedoms: right to free speech, rightto strike, right to demonstrate, pluralism ofassociations, trade unions and parties, liquidationof the presidential institution and introduction ofa revolutionary provisional government. Todaythe opening of a process of free elections for aconstituent assembly is necessary.

In order for this not to be halted by a new regimeof the oligarchies, this process must be basedon the organization of the popular committees,coordinations and councils that emerged in thepopulation. In this process, the anticapitalists willdefend the key demands of a programme breakingwith imperialism and capitalist logic: satisfactionof the vital needs of the popular classes - bread,wages, jobs; reorganization of the economyon the basis of fundamental social needs, freeand adequate public services (schools, health),women’s rights, broadening social protection forunemployment, health and retirement, radical landreform, socialization of the banks and key sectorsof the economy, cancellation of the debt, nationaland popular sovereignty. This programme of agovernment that would be at the service of theworkers and the population is proposed in Tunisiaby the League of the Workers’ Left (Ligue de laGauche Ouvrière). This is a component of the 14thof January Front which brings together the left

forces rejecting the Ghannouchi government andfighting for all democratic freedoms, a ConstituentAssembly and the satisfaction of fundamentalneeds. This programme is also defended in Egyptby the regroupment of revolutionaries that is inprocess.

7. The Tunisian and Egyptian peoples, and all thepeople of the Arab region still need our solidarityin the fight for democratic freedoms. They needeven more our mobilization to loosen the grip ofimperialism: non payment of the foreign debtsof the former regimes, restitution of the goodsand financial assets of the dictators, protection ofthe national sovereignty of the people against thepressures of international capitalism; cancelling ofthe international agreements signed by the formerregime in the military, security and migrationsectors. Revolutionaries throughout the world alsohave the essential task of making all possible linkswith the trade unions, people’s organizations andassociations and anticapitalist organizations ofthese countries, to help with the consolidationof the revolutionary processes in progress, andto support the self-organization of the peopleconcerned. The revolution underway in the Arabregion is our combat!

We already support the following initiatives:

the appeal of the Assembly of Social Movementmeeting at the World Social Forum in Dakar for aworldwide of solidarity with the revolution in theArab region on the 20th March of (anniversary ofthe invasion of Iraq in 2003);

the conference of revolutionary organizations inthe Arab region in Tunis called by the LGO from25th to 27th March;

the Mediterranean anti-capitalist conferencecalled by the NPA which will take place in Marseilleson the 7th and 8th of May.

Amsterdam

22nd February 2011

The Fourth International - an internationalorganisation struggling for the socialist revolution- is composed of sections, of militants who acceptand apply its principles and programme. Organisedin separate national sections, they are united in asingle worldwide organisation acting together onthe main political questions, and discussing freelywhile respecting the rules of democracy.

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Climate - Climate chaos and the globalecological crisis

One year after the resolution adopted at the 16thWorld Congress of the Fourth International, theInternational Committee adopted the followingstatement.

Since the World Congress of the FourthInternational in February 2010, the consequencesof climate chaos have become even more obvious.The worst floods in history in Pakistan, an intenseheat wave and burning forests in Russia, chaos inAustralia, floods in Sri Lanka, heavy rains and mudflows in Brazil… the summer of 2010 witnesseda record number of disasters caused by humanmade climate change or rather by the capitalistmode of production. What is more, the victimsof those disasters are mainly the poor, womenand indigenous people as in Pakistan, Brazil,Bangladesh, Sri Lanka,… and more largely in thecountries of the South.

The enormous oil spill in the Mexican gulf, causedby the greed of BP, new plans for exploiting shalegas in the never stopping race for fossil fuels andprofits, clearly show that we are facing a growingecological crisis. The ongoing struggle by theEcuadorian people to keep the oil resources in thesoil and thus to defend the integrity of the Yasuniterritory, protecting its biodiversity, indicates theonly way to a real solution.

We are faced with the reappearance of the foodcrisis which erupted in 2007-2008. This has ledto a new increase in food prices and financialspeculation on raw materials. This is one of themany causes of the explosion of the revolts andrevolutionary process in the Arab world. Wesupport the struggles of peasant movementsand rural communities against agribusinessand GMO’s , in defence of local seeds and agro-ecological farming. We also support movementsinvolved in local food production and distribution,including food production in urban ‘food deserts’ inthe poor districts of cities in rich countries.

In 2009, greenhouse gas emissions amounted toa total of a little more the 48 billion tons. In orderto keep global warming beneath the dangerousthreshold of a 2°C rise, the peak of emissions mustbe reached in 2015 and emissions should diminishto 40-44 billion tons before 2020.

The climate plans of the developing countriesare in line with the IPCC proposals but this is notthe case for the rich developed countries! Japan,Russia, Canada are opposed to any extension ofthe Kyoto protocol beyond 2012. The USA, whichis the largest emitter of greenhouse gases percapita, and whose emissions increased by 30%between 1990 and 2005, have not adopted anyplan for reductions. The “energy package” of theEuropean Union is totally insufficient and continuesto rely on market mechanisms, the promotion ofagrofuels and nuclear energy, and the privatisationof tropical forests.

After the Cancún summit , climate negotiationswill resume in Durban (COP17) at the end of 2011,followed by the RIO +20 summit in 2012. Theagreement concluded between the USA and thelarge emerging countries during the Copenhagensummit, (an agreement supported by the EuropeanUnion) means that global climate negotiations arenow conducted jointly by the USA and China. Theso called “green fund” promises financial supportfor the investment in green technologies in thedeveloping countries; this money will be managedby the World Bank and will partly consist of loans.

Against the logic of speculation, privatisation andcommodification of food, we must counterposeanother logic, namely the defence of foodsovereignty, regaining control over agriculturaland food policies, keeping access to naturalresources (water, seeds, land) and fightingagainst the multinationals and the internationalinstitutions as well as the governments who aretheir accomplices.

The mobilisations of Copenhagen, the alternativesummit at Cochabamba and the actions duringthe Cancún conference have shown that radicalmobilisations against the capitalist answer to theclimate crisis are possible. The urgency to buildworldwide social mobilisations against the ongoingdestruction of the climate and against capitalistproductivism with its insatiable hunger for fossilfuels, is obvious.

The members of the Fourth International willcontinue to work towards the building of a unitarymass campaign ,together with the activists andthe social movements, in the framework of theClimate and Social Justice campaign. This in theperspective of the organisation of counter summitsduring the Durban (COP17) negotiations and atthe summit of Rio 20+. Only an ecosocialist andanticapitalist alternative constitute a real answer tothis global crisis.

Amsterdam

23rd February 2011

The Fourth International - an internationalorganisation struggling for the socialist revolution- is composed of sections, of militants who acceptand apply its principles and programme. Organisedin separate national sections, they are united in asingle worldwide organisation acting together on

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the main political questions, and discussing freelywhile respecting the rules of democracy.

World Social Forum/ Dakar - Finaldeclaration of the Assembly of theSocial Movements

PhotoPambazuka News

As the Social Movements Assembly of the WorldSocial Forum of Dakar, 2011, we are gatheredhere to affirm the fundamental contributionof Africa and its peoples in the construction ofhuman civilisation. Together, the peoples of allthe continents are struggling mightily to opposethe domination of capital, hidden behind illusorypromises of economic progress and politicalstability. Complete decolonization for oppressedpeoples remains for us, the social movements ofthe world, a challenge of the greatest importance.

We affirm our support for and our active solidaritywith the people of Tunisia, Egypt and the Arabworld who have risen up to demand a truedemocracy and build the people´s power. Theirstruggles are lighting the path to another world,free from oppression and exploitation.

We strongly affirm our support for the Ivory Coast,African and world peoples in their struggles forsovereign and participatory democracy. We defendthe right to self-determination for all peoples.

Through the WSF process, the Social MovementsAssembly is the place where we come togetherthrough our diversity, in order to forge commonstruggles and a collective agenda to fight againstcapitalism, patriarchy, racism and all forms ofdiscrimination.

We are celebrating the tenth anniversary of theSocial Forum, which was first held in Porto Alegrein 2001. Since that time, we have built a commonhistory of work which led to some progress,particularly in Latin America, where we have beenable to intervene in neoliberal alliances and tocreate several alternatives for just developmentthat truly honor nature.

In these ten years, we have also witnessed theeruption of a systemic crisis that has expanded intoa food crisis, an environmental crisis, and financialand economic crises, and has led to an increase in

migrations and forced displacement, exploitation,debt levels and social inequities.

We denounce the part played by the main actors inthe system (banks, transnational companies, themass media, international institutions, …) who, intheir constant quest for maximum profits, continuewith their interventionist politics of war, militaryoccupation, so-called humanitarian missions,new military bases, plundering natural resources,exploitation of entire peoples, and ideologicalmanipulation. We also denounce their attempts toco-opt our movements through their funding ofsocial sectors that serve their interests, and wereject their methods of assistance which generatedependence.

Capitalism´s destructive force impacts everyaspect of life itself, for all the peoples of theworld. Yet each day we see new movements rise,struggling to reverse the ravages of colonialismand to achieve well-being and dignity for all. Wedeclare that we, the people, will no longer bearthe costs of their crisis and that, within capitalism,there is no escape from this crisis. This onlyreaffirms the need for us, as social movements,to come together to forge a common strategy toguide our struggles against capitalism.

We fight against transnational corporationsbecause they support the capitalist system,privatize life, public services and common goodssuch as water, air, land, seeds and mineralresources. Transnational corporations promotewars through their contracts with privatecorporations and mercenaries ; their extractionistpractices endanger life and nature, expropriatingour land and developing genetically modified seedsand food, taking away the peoples’ right to foodand destroying biodiversity.

We demand that all people should enjoy fullsoverignty in choosing their way of life. Wedemand the implementation of policies to protectlocal production, to give dignity to agriculturalwork and to protect the ancestral values of life.We denounce neoliberal free-trade treaties anddemand freedom of movement for all the humanbeings.

We will continue to mobilize to ask for theunconditional abolition of public debt in all thecountries in the South. We also denounce, in thecountries of the North, the use of public debt toimpose to unfair policies that degrade the socialwelfare state.

When the G8 and G20 hold their meetings, let usmobilize across the world to tell them, No ! We arenot commodities! We will not be traded ! We fightfor climate justice and food sovereignty. Globalclimate change is a product of the capitalist systemof production, distribution and consumption.Transnational corporations, international financialinstitutions and governments serving them do notwant to reduce greenhouse gases. We denounce¨green capitalism ¨ and refuse false solutionsto the climate crisis such as biofuels, genetically

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modified organisms and mechanisms of the carbonmarket like REDD, which ensnare impoverishedpeoples with false promises of progress whileprivatizing and commodifying the forests andterritories where these peoples have been living forthousands of years.

We defend the food sovereignty and the agreementreached during the Peoples’ Summit againstClimate Change, held in Cochabamba, where truealternatives to face the climate crisis were builtwith the social movements and organisations fromworldwide.

Let’s mobilize, all of us, especially on the Africancontinent, during the COP 17 in Durban in SouthAfrica and in « Rio +20 » in 2012, to reassertthe peoples’ and nature’s rights and block theillegitimate Cancun Agreement.

We support sustainable peasant agriculture ;it is the true solution to the food and climatecrises and includes access to land for all whowork on it. Because of this, we call for a massmobilisation to stop the landgrab and support localpeasants struggles. ´ We fight against violenceagainst women, often conducted in militarilyoccupied territories, but also violence affectingwomen who are criminalized for taking part insocial struggles. We fight against domestic andsexual violence perpetrated on women becausethey are considered objects or goods, becausethe sovereignty of their bodies and minds isnot acknowledged. We fight against the tradein women, girls and boys. We call on everyoneto mobilize together, everywhere in the world,against violence against women. We defend sexualdiversity, the right to gender self-determinationand we oppose all homophobia and sexist violence.We fight for peace and against war, colonialism,occupations and the militarization of our lands.

The imperialist powers use military bases to triggerconflicts, control and plunder natural resources,and support anti-democratic initiatives, as theydid with the coup in Honduras and the militaryoccupation of Haiti. They promote wars andconflicts as in Afghanistan, Iraq, the DemocraticRepublic of the Congo and many others.

We must intensify the fight against repression andthe criminalisation of the people’s struggles andstrengthen the solidarity and initiatives betweenpeoples, such as the Global Boycott Disinvestmentand Sanctions Movement against Israel. Ourstruggle also aims at NATO and to ban all nuclearweapons.

Each of these struggles implies a battle of ideas inwhich we cannot progress without democraticizingcommunication. We affirm that it is possible tobuild another kind of globalization, made from andby the people, and with the essential participationof the youth, the women, the peasants andindigenous peoples.

The Assembly of the Social Movements calls theforces and popular actors from all countries todevelop two major mobilisations, coordinated

on the international level, to participate in theemancipation and selfdetermination of the peopleand strengthen the struggle against capitalism.

Inspired by the struggles of the peoples ofTunisia and Egypt, we call for March 20th tobe made a day of international solidarity withthe uprisings of the Arab and African people,whose every advance supports the strugglesof all peoples: the resistance of the Palestinianand Saharian peoples ; European, Asian andAfrican mobilisations against debt and structuraladjusment plans ; and all the processes of changeunderway in Latin America.

We also call for a Global Day of Action AgainstCapitalism on October 12th, when we expressin myriad ways our rejection of a system that isdestroying everything in its path.

Social movements of the world, let us advancetowards a global unity to shatter the capitalistsystem ! We shall prevail!