Speakers: John Minto (guest speaker) and Bex Broad
6-7.30pm, Thursday October 18
Waikato Trade Union Centre, 34 Harwood Street, Hamilton
Koha or $10 solidarity entry to help fundraising efforts for the Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM)
Further information
On October 8 The Gaurdian reported on the intensifying struggle of mineworkers in Rustenburg, SA: “As strikes ripple beyond Rustenburg’s platinum belt to South Africa’s greater mining sector and allied industries, what comes next will have a significant impact on the economy. Mining capital has supported ANC elitism and created massive wealth for the few, and well-connected, while operations sustained living conditions that compare well with those under Apartheid, or earlier when there was no pretence at protecting workers rights.”
On October 5 twelve thousand workers were dismissed, workers have been evicted from living quarters, and the state continues with the types of murder committed in September.
The role of the DSM in this struggle can be seen in the following articles from the Times Live and the BBC.
We would also appreciate any donation transfers from those who wish to contribute but are unable to attend. For NZ donations please transfer to 03-0626-0136196-00 with code or reference ‘SA’, optional to leave name.
For further reading visit http://www.socialistworld.net/
Organised by NZ supporters of the Committee for a Workers’ International. Any enquiries to Jared Phillips, 029-4949-863 or thespark.nz@gmail.com (Facebook event page)
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FightBack 
So are the CWI supporters organising this fundraising event still members of the Workers Party/
Philip Ferguson
So are the “NZ Supporters of the CWI” organisng this event still members of the Workers Party?
Phil
No. We have dissolved into the CWI. Name change to come.
Yes still members of WP,
So, WPers have abandoned solidarity with the PFLP, but are doing fund-raising for the South African affiliate of the CWI?
What was the political rationale for that?
Phil
WP members who do not identify with CWI were amongst those who argued to depart from participation in that particular campaign in the format it was in, which could be objectively summarised as ‘dysfunctional’, and the dysfunctionality was not due to anyone in the WP. I’m not willing to go into the ins and outs of what became the significant problems of that campaign in an online forum.
As a separate matter those few of us who identify with the CWI, including myself, are eager to support the work of the CWI section in SA. The CWI is not only calling for funds for it’s own section, but as I understand it is calling for funds to support a strike committee as well. We endeavor to make at least NZ$200 NZ to support the work of the DSM this Thursday. Jared.
It still seems odd that WPers can claim it’s not possible to continue raising support for the PFLP but then can raise support for the South African affiliate of the CWI. There was nothing stopping WPers from continuing to campaign in support of the PFLP; for instance, WP had demanded (and gotten) all the t-shirts from the campaign. WP clearly made a political decision and it just doesn’t seem to stack up with raising funds for the CWI.
Phil
Not getting in to issues of the dysfunctionality of the PFLP Solidarity Campaign in an online debate.
For sympathetic readers:
WP website carried an advertisement for an event organised by CWI supporters who are in the WP. The modest event raised $300, $100 more than the modest $200 target. So we’re pretty pleased!
Jared wrote of the WP’s PFLP campaign that it: “could be objectively summarised as ‘dysfunctional’, and the dysfunctionality was not due to anyone in the WP.”
The math would suggest otherwise.
Everyone in WP who was assigned to PFLP work stayed with WP when a number of the leadership core resigned from WP in February 2011. Three months later. one of the two campaign co-ordinators left WP for Redline. The other campaign co-ordinator, along with all the original comrades assigned to PFLP work, stayed in WP. Were none of these people capable of continuing to do the work?
In any case, the math would tend to suggest where the chief responsibility rests for what Jared says was the ‘dysfunctionality’ of the campaign.
I also gather that when WP finally formally dropped the campaign in June, the other campaign co-ordinator resigned from WP in protest.
I actually think it’s a good thing that WP formally ended its solidarity campaign, because its solidarity work with the PFLP had long since ceased to exist. So I’m not at all criticising the decision itself. And, certainly, the last thing that a serious liberation force like the PFLP, (which has suffered hundreds of martyrs, and thousands of whose members have passed through Israeli jails), needs is being dicked around.
My query was how it was possible to fundraise for the CWI and not the PFLP. My other query would be, has WP informed the PFLP that it has ended the solidarity campaign? There is still a link to the WP Solidarity Campaign on the PFLP website, so I’m assuming you haven’t done them that courtesy.
Lastly, on a more positive note, I think it’s good that Jared has joined the CWI. It’s what I would call ‘a good fit’.
Phil
I’m not going into it online, it involves too much criticism of individuals etc and creates no benefit for the class struggle or any political projects. We are so far apart on what happened (holding opposite views of where blame should fall) that no productive discussion can be held here. Also there is too much spinning, i.e. stating what is ‘gathered’ about a resignation and which is wrong, making some sort of insult described as a ‘positive note’, factual incorrectness (I have not joined CWI). All this kind of total nonsense. If any readers etc want our view they are welcome to contact through the normal channels and have a phone discussion or a meeting.
I think the spinning began with references to ‘dysfunctionality’ not having anything to do with any WP members when WP members were the people supposedly doing the PFLP work and yet abandoned it at least 18 months ago in practice. But if you want to keep such spinning to your own private phone conversations and meetings, that certainly ends the discussion here.
Phil
Yeah in that setting we will say who abandoned what, who became uncontactable when, who failed to provide information about intentions for the campaign, how it became the WP was frozen out, how communications about the campaign went unanswered for months, how there was no communication that leaders of the campaign were or were not still leading or intending to lead the campaign, the problems of divesting all links, external campaign contacts, accounts, websites with one individual. Problems of amateur organisational norms, such not being a WP campaign but creating a joint WP_PFLP solidarity campaign website that no-one in the WP can take down. Younger comrades getting frustrated and politically burnt out cause they want to do the campaign but one of its leaders is MIA and hasn’t communicated whether still in the campaign or not – still to this day in our understanding. We’ll talk about all that stuff. All the best.
This.
But one of the two co-ordinators of the campaign was in WP up until the June conference and lived very close to the other one who had left WP.
“Younger comrades” had done very, very little in the first year or so of the campaign, when they had plenty of opportunity, so it’s hard to see how they could have got “burnt out”. Indeed, in Wellington, “young comrades”, instead of taking up the PFLP campaign, had gotten involved in the anti-embassy campaign where one of them became spokesperson for the group and the next thing was releasing a press statement quoting himself as supporting the existence of Israel!!!
Anyone can look at the Spark and see that it stopped even covering Palestine a long time before WP ditched PFLP work. We had similar contact problems, but it didn’t stop us from doing work around Palestine.
Phil