Venezuela: The right-wing on the streets

February 27, 2014 by
Maduro supporters march in Caracas

Maduro supporters march in Caracas

By Bronwen Beechey, Fightback (Auckland).

Venezuela has experienced a wave of protests over the past few weeks. Demonstrations against the government, largely by university students, began after the hard-line opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez called for supporters to go onto the streets and demand the exit of President Nicolas Maduro. Food shortages, corruption and crime have been frequently mentioned as reasons for dissatisfaction. While many of the protests have been peaceful, others have resulted in violent clashes with security forces, and on occasion with supporters of the government. A violent element within the opposition has been setting up street barricades, rioting and attacking property and civilians.

The Venezuelanalysis.com website reported on February 11 that in the Andean city of Merida, protestors in balaclavas were forcibly stopping vehicles at one of the main intersections, forcing passengers off buses at gunpoint, and throwing shrapnel at motorists passing through the intersection. Venezualanalysis.com journalist Tamara Pearson was attacked by three protestors, who pushed her to the ground and held her at gunpoint, demanding “Give us your camera or we’ll kill you”. Opposition demonstrators at one barricade told Venezuelanalysis’s Ewan Robertson that they were fighting a war of “attrition” against the government.

On February 22, the government announced that it was sending two army battalions to Tachira state, which borders Colombia, after reports that the state capital San Christobal had been brought to a standstill by street blockades. Press reports stated that almost no transport has been able to circulate, while the great majority of shops and businesses had closed. Authorities warned that the street blockades had blocked the delivery of food and gasoline, and claimed that transport workers had been threatened. The government suspected that “paramilitaries and criminal gangs” were involved in the action, with the complicity of the local mayor, an opposition member.

A British traveller, Jack Johnston, told Venezuelanalysis.com that he had spent nine days in San Christobal. He said that the bus terminal had been closed and he had been lucky to get a bus out. “From Monday morning there were no taxis operating, no public transport, and the city’s bus terminal was closed…on Monday one of the main squares in the city was completely deserted by nightfall, and the only thing open was a Wendy’s restaurant,” he said.

Asked about the authorities’ response to the situation, he said:  “Inexplicably non-existent. It’s far from a repressive crackdown, the exact opposite. They’ve allowed a small number of students to occupy a main crossroads and dozens of blocks without any opposition…I explained to them [opposition activists] that there’s no way this would be allowed to continue for more than one day in my country”.  

As of February 25, 13 people had died as a direct result of the violence, and at least 137 injured.

The government and opposition have blamed each other for the violence. “Venezuela is victim of an attack by the extreme-right to destabilise us, to take us into civil war,” said Maduro on February 21. He also alleged that the opposition has paid youths from “criminal gangs” to participate in the violent street actions. At the same time, he warned government supporters that they must not use violence against the protestors.

“I want to say clearly: someone puts on a red t-shirt with Chavez’s face and takes out a pistol to attack, isn’t a Chavista or a revolutionary. I don’t accept violent groups within the camp of Chavismo and the Bolivarian revolution,” Maduro stated at a pro-government rally on February 16.

However the opposition says the violence is being perpetrated by security forces and pro-government “paramilitaries”.

“State security forces, accompanied by paramilitary groups, have cruelly attacked peaceful and defenceless protesters…leaving a lamentable tally of citizens assassinated, seriously wounded, tortured and disappeared,” claimed the opposition’s Democratic Unity Table (MUD) coalition in a statement on 21 February.

Following the expulsion of three US consular officials for allegedly conspiring with the opposition, US president Barack Obama said, “In Venezuela, rather than trying to distract from its own failings by making up false accusations against diplomats from the United States, the government ought to focus on addressing the legitimate grievances of the Venezuelan people.”

The internet has become another battleground, with numerous posts on social media such as Facebook, You Tube and Twitter from supporters of the opposition alleging police brutality and persecution of protestors. Even celebrities have joined in: Cher, Madonna and Paris Hilton being just some who have tweeted protests against the “dictator” Maduro.

Mainstream media has also joined in condemning the government. In fact, as shown by an expose by Dawg’s Blawg of fake images circulating social media portraying the Venezuelan government as repressing peaceful protesters, mainstream outlets such as CNN sometimes took such faked images for its coverage.

So what is really happening in Venezuela? The simple answer: it’s class war.

Is Venezuela worse off under Maduro?

Much of the mainstream and social media coverage of Venezuela is based on what English academic Lee Salter calls the “exceptionalism thesis” – that Venezuela is historically different from the rest of Latin America in that it was stable and democratic. In fact, a large number of Latin American scholars have pointed out that prior to Chavez, in the words of Princeton University’s Kelly Hoffman and Miguel Centeno: ‘Venezuela was marked by extreme poverty set against a narrowly constituted elite of 5-10% of the population’. 

According to Julia Buxton of Bradford University, between 1975 and 1995 poverty increased dramatically, with the percentage of persons living in poverty rising from 33% to 70% during that period, the number of households in poverty increased from 15% to 45% between 1975 and 1995, by 2000 wages had dropped 40% from their 1980 levels, and by 1997 67% of Venezuelans earned less than $2 a day. The main difference between Venezuela and other Latin American countries was that Venezuela had oil, but although the petroleum industry was nominally state-owned, the wealth from the oil went to the elite and the successive governments that ruled on their behalf. While the wealthy lived in exclusive gated communities and went on shopping trips to Miami, millions of the poor lived in shantytowns without access to electricity, water and other basic services.

In 1989, neo-liberal reforms introduced by President Carlos Andrés Perez caused sharp increases in costs of basic items and public transport. This led to massive rioting in the capital of Caracas and a subsequent crack-down by the military and the police, which came to be known as the Caracazo. It is estimated that state security forces ended up killing between 300 and 3,000 Venezuelans following the riots, between February 27 and March 5 of 1989. Following the Caracazo a number of progressive military officers, including Hugo Chavez, a paratrooper from a poor working-class family, began organising to overthrow the government. An attempted coup in 1992 failed and Chavez was imprisoned.

After his release from prison in 1994, Chavez began organising a base of support among the poor. His charismatic personality and uncompromising support for social justice gained a massive following, and in 1998, he was elected president and launched the “Bolivarian revolution”, named after the 19th century independence fighter Simon Bolivar. One of his first actions was to call a Constituent Assembly in 1999, with a broad representation from all sectors of the working class and poor, to rewrite the country’s constitution. The new Constitution stressed the values of equality, independence, human rights and the ultimate sovereignty of the people.

In April 2002, Chavez was briefly ousted by a coup organised by his opponents. Following massive demonstrations by his supporters and actions by the military to defend him, he was returned to power after 2 days. In December of the same year, the state oil industry PDVSA was shut down by its management in another attempt to overthrow Chavez. Despite the economic chaos caused, the sabotage was defeated by a mass movement of the poor, oil workers and loyal soldiers. As a result, the elite managers were sacked and the industry was brought fully under control of the elected government. Chavez used the revenue to fund an ever-growing array of “social missions” which brought free health care, education, cheap food, housing and much more to the poor majority.

Since then, more laws affecting corporate interests have been passed, including laws strengthening workers’ rights, the renationalisation of strategic industries privatised by past governments, and introducing price controls.

As a result, poverty has more than halved since 2003 and extreme poverty gone from 16.6% in 1999 to 7% in 2011. The number of doctors increased from 20 per 100,000 population in 1999 to 80 per 100,000 in 2010, or an increase of 400%, and infant mortality dropped by 49% between 1999 and 2012. Massive education programs increased the number of primary school enrolments from 6 million in 1998 to 13 million in 2011, and provided free education to at least secondary level to all adults. Illiteracy has been eliminated, hundreds of thousands of new homes built, and the minimum wage has risen by 2000% since 1998.

Of course, there are still problems – corruption and crime are often cited by the opposition. But both of these issues existed before Chavez, and have been frequently acknowledged by the PSUV. Measures taken against crime have included the setting up of a new police force, as well as the obvious measures of combatting poverty and promoting solidarity. There have been a number of cases where “Chavista” officials found to be corrupt have been sacked and jailed.

The opposition has been unable to defeat the Chavista forces at the ballot box, despite all the backing from their wealthy supporters. Chavez and his party, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) were elected again in 2006 and for a third term in 2012. Each election was conducted with international observers and declared to be fair. Former US president Jimmy Carter described Venezueala’s electoral system as “the best in the world”.

Following the death of Chavez in March 2013, vice-president Nicolas Maduro, a former bus driver and trade union leader, narrowly won the election held in April. In December, the PSUV and its allies won a convincing majority of municipal elections. Following the victory, Maduro announced the government’s political priorities for 2014, including : developing the housing mission and the community renovation program Barrio Nuevo, the improvement of public hospitals, the guarantee of drinking water supply to all homes, and the spreading of the anti-crime Safe Homeland Plan.

In the circumstances, the government is seeking political stability. It has no interest in promoting violence; however, the opposition, having failed once again at the ballot box, does.

Who is the opposition?

The main opposition, the MUD, is a coalition of parties ranging from nominally socialist to the extreme right. Its main spokeperson, Henrique Capriles, stood as presidential candidate against Maduro in the 2013 election. Caprilies represents the more moderate wing of the opposition, which has called for peaceful demonstrations against the government. However, the main forces behind the street protests are from the extreme right. They include Lopez, the leader of the extremist Popular Will party, member of parliament Maria Machado and Caracas mayor Antonio Ledezma.

 Both Machado and Lopez were involved in the 2002 attempted coup, signing the Carmona Decree, which temporarily dissolved the Chávez government. López, meanwhile, orchestrated the violent clashes in front of the Presidential Palace, which led to dozens of deaths and provided the pretext for the coup. The acclaimed Irish documentary The Revolution Will Not be Televised shows how faked news footage was used to claim that Chavistas had fired on a peaceful demonstration, much as faked photos have been circulated on social media to portray the government as repressing opposition protestors.

While Capriles has in the past expressed willingness to work with the government, Lopez and Machado have made it clear that their aim is to force Maduro to resign. The term “salida” (exit) has been used to express the aim of the protestors – to overthrow the “illegitimate” government which has won 18 elections.

The real aim of the opposition, both “moderate” and extreme right, is to restore the privileges of the former ruling class who benefited from the old regime. What really angers them is not crime, corruption or food shortages, but the expansion of participatory democracy.

The social missions are run by communities in which they operate. The government has established grassroots communal councils that group between 200 to 400 families. These are expanding into communes which are based on elected representatives from the communal councils and make decisions over a larger area. Previously marginalised groups such as women, youth, indigenous and LGBT people have been bought into political life. And workers have been empowered to form cooperatives, play an equal role in management of nationalised industries and in some cases, to take over enterprises which have been abandoned or closed by their owners.

As Salter says, “the ‘opposition’ is as concerned with poverty as its leaders were when they presided over massive levels of poverty. They are as concerned with human rights as they were during the Caracazo Massacre. They are as concerned with democracy as they were when there was de facto exclusion of most of the population from political life. The big fear is the change in this latter. And it is this fear of the ‘plebs’ that drives the ‘opposition’.”

Lopez and other opposition figures have also been receiving funding from the US government. As Venezuelan journalist Eva Golinger explains: “Through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a congressionally created entity funded by the State Department, and the US Agency for International Development (USAID), Washington has channelled more than $100 million to anti-Chavez groups in Venezuela since 2002. A majority of those substantial funds have been used to run opposition candidates’ campaigns, as well as finance those well crafted media campaigns against the Chavez government that flood the national and international press. 

“In February 2011, President Barack Obama requested $5 million for opposition groups in Venezuela in his 2012 National Budget. It marked the first time a sitting US president openly requested money in the national budget to fund Chavez’s opposition, especially during a time when domestic funding is being cut. Apparently, Obama prefers to spend US taxpayer dollars on efforts to oust the Venezuelan President – elected democratically and supported by the majority – instead of investing in the health and wellbeing of the US people.”

The opposition, and much of the mainstream reporting, has blamed shortages of some basic goods on government policies, but the government says capitalists are sabotaging the economy to destabilise the country. This has been dismissed as an excuse, or “conspiracy theory”, but there is a clear precedent.

Chile

In 1970, Chile elected a government headed by left-wing president Salvador Allende. Declassified documents later showed that then-president Richard Nixon instructed the CIA to “make the economy scream”. The US and Chilean capitalists conspired to manufacture shortages and sabotage the economy. The resulting economic chaos laid the groundwork for the 1973 military coup that installed the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, which killed thousands of people and imposed extreme neoliberal policies.

A coup of the Chilean type does not seem likely in the short term. The army has so far remained loyal. The right-wing officers who took power in 2002 have been removed, and the government has sought to incorporate the army into the process of change.

The government has also taken measures to combat hoarding and speculation. Early in February, the Law for the Control of Fair Costs, Prices and Profits aims to prevent price speculation, product hoarding and other activities deemed to be “destabilising” the economy. It also established a maximum profit margin of 30% to prevent companies from overcharging.

It is not surprising that the latest round of right-wing violence began after these new steps in what Maduro has called an “economic revolution.”

Where is the news coming from?

The predominance of opposition views on both social and mainstream media reflect the fact that those with greatest access to social media and more likely to speak English are the middle and upper classes. They also have more contacts with mainstream media – in fact, three of the major television stations in Venezuela are owned by private companies hostile to the government. The Venezuelan state television station VTV has been targeted by opposition demonstrators who have surrounded it with blockades and attacked the building with firebombs. Three of the four major newspapers in Caracas are also privately owned and two of them, El Nacional and El Universal are strongly anti-government.

It is also important to note that the students involved in the protests make up a small minority of Venezuelan students. As commentator Jorge Martin points out, “There are 2.6 million university students in Venezuela, a massive increase from less than 800.000 in 1998, as a direct result of the social programs of the Bolivarian revolution. Only a small minority of students have been involved in protesting, mainly from private and “old” state universities, which tend to be elitist. None of the new Bolivarian Universities have been involved in protests and there are a number of student organisations in the traditional institutions which openly reject the opposition campaign.”

Thousands march in support of the government

Large marches in support of the government have generally been ignored by mainstream media. On February 18, thousands of oil workers, with other workers and the poor, marched through Caracas to oppose the right-wing protests and defend the elected government. At another large “march for peace” in Caracas on February 22, Maduro repeated his call for dialogue between the government and opposition, calling for a “National Peace Conference” to resolve the ongoing violence. He also said that he was prepared to talk to the US government, who he has accused of supporting the protests.

However Maduro also told supporters that, “If due to the circumstances of fascist violence [the opposition] take power, I authorise you to go onto the streets and defend the nation, to rescue every millimetre of the homeland”.

At a pro-opposition rally on the same day, Capriles presented a list of “demands” to be resolved before dialogue could begin. They included the release of Lopez and all “students and youth” arrested during the protests. At the same time, Capriles was critical of the violent protests, saying that they “make it easy for the government”. “What do you achieve closing yourselves in within your own street? It’s in the government’s interest that the protests are in Altamira [a wealthy area of Caracas] and not Catia [a working class area of Caracas]”.

Capriles’ remarks, as well as showing the divisions in the opposition itself, reflect the reality that the protests are not supported by the working class and poor. In a recent poll undertaken by a private consultancy firm with a sample of 1,400, only 29% of Venezuelans feel that the government should be forced from office through street actions.

Meanwhile 29% feel a recall referendum on Maduro’s presidency should be organised in 2016, and 42% feel that Maduro should be allowed to serve out his full mandate uninterrupted, until 2019.

It is clear, though, that the desperate elite and its US backers will not give up and accept the democratic decisions of the majority. The challenge for the government and its supporters is to strengthen the organisations of the poor and working class, to build a movement that will defend and extend the ongoing socialist revolution in Venezuela. For supporters of the Bolivarian revolution in countries like NZ, the best response is to counter the lies and distortions of the right-wing, and be prepared to organise in solidarity against any attempts by the US to interfere in Venezuela’s affairs.

Join the 2014 solidarity tour to Venezuela

Tour dates: December 2 – 13, 2014

Registrations are now open for the Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network’s 2014 solidarity tour to revolutionary Venezuela. Participants from all countries are welcome to apply to join the tour.

The solidarity tour – to run from Tuesday December 2nd to Saturday December 13th (inclusive) – will be a unique an opportunity to observe first-hand, learn about and be inspired by a grassroots movement that is transforming not only Venezuela, but all of Latin America, and is challenging the greed and destructiveness of global capitalism by showing that a better world is possible.

Since 1998, Venezuela’s Bolivarian revolution has achieved remarkable things by putting control of the nation’s politics and economy back into the hands of the poor majority. Despite the challenges created by the United States-backed opposition’s campaign to stall and destroy the revolution, this people-powered process of change continues to flourish.

The 2014 study tour is the 15th international delegation to Venezuela organised by the Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network. The detailed itinerary will be planned over coming months, but the 12-day tour will include visits to social missions, communal councils and communes, as well as production cooperatives, agro-ecology projects, public health and education services, community controlled media, and women’s and Indigenous organisations and projects.

A report on last December’s AVSN tour is attached for your information.

The 2014 delegation will meet with a wide range of grassroots organisations, community activists and government representatives to learn more about the participatory democracy and “socialism of the 21st century” being created by the Venezuelan people.

Accommodation and transport within Venezuela, and English-Spanish translation throughout the brigade, will be organised for all participants by the AVSN. Participants will need to book their own international flights to and from Venezuela. 

In addition to your international airfare, you will need to budget for approximately $1200. This will cover your brigade registration fee ($500 for waged workers or $350 for students/pensioners), and your food, transport and accommodation for the 12 days in Venezuela.

The registration deadline is October 3, 2014.

For a registration form or more information, please email: info@venezuelasolidarity.org.

http://www.venezuelasolidarity.org

Filed Under: South America

The Labour Party and popular participation

February 27, 2014 by

mccarten labour

By Ian Anderson, Fightback (Wellington).

Mainstream media coverage in the lead-up to the General Election tends to focus on fluctuations in polling, most recently an apparent growth in support for National. Left-wing critics of mainstream electoral polling sometimes note that polling relies on landlines, while many poor & disenfranchised people do not have landlines.

That said, many of the same people least likely to have landlines are also least likely to participate in elections. Broadly speaking tangata whenua, young people, poor people, and recent migrants are the least likely to vote (and have landlines). This effectively means that low turnout is bad for the electoral ‘left.’

The 2011 General Election saw the lowest voter turnout (by percentage) since the 19th century, when women first won the right to vote in this country. Voter turnout in general has declined over the last half-century.

Statistics New Zealand have surveyed non-voters’ stated reasons for not voting. In 2011, 43% of non-voters felt disengaged from the whole process (“not interested,” “didn’t think it was worth voting,” “makes no difference”), while 30% of non-voters cited perceived practical barriers (“overseas,” “couldn’t get to a polling both”). The largest proportion were simply “not interested.”

For those of us who want to see a truly democratic society, one based on popular participation and self-determination, this all raises a question of strategy. Should we ‘rebuild’ the Labour Party? Should we weave together new organisations? Should we ignore elections entirely?

In 2013 during the contest for the Labour leadership, pro-Labour commentator Martyn Bradbury described the three major candidates as “to the right of Marx – just.” Winner David Cunliffe was particularly touted as representing a “true red” Labour Party. Now some see Cunliffe’s appointment of Matt McCarten, former Unite Union General Secretary, as a confirmation of this move leftwards.

Matt McCarten has a formidable record. Aswell as playing key roles in the Alliance, the Maori Party and the MANA Movement – McCarten also helped build Unite Union into a fighting force that has waged successful campaigns to raise the minimum wage, end youth rates (a reform since snatched back), and militantly organise the growing casualised sectors that the established union movement had neglected.

Party leader Cunliffe’s record is less flash. Cunliffe was a vocal advocate of public-private partnerships in the fifth Labour government. As Minister of Immigration, he oversaw the unjust detention of several Iranian men, fought through a hunger strike and protest campaign. Cunliffe did not oppose sending troops to Iraq or Afghtanistan.

So what does this pairing of Cunliffe and McCarten mean for the party? Is Cunliffe radicalising? Is McCarten moving right? What could it mean for a future government? John Key and others described McCarten’s appointment as a lurch to the ‘far-left.’ As with accusations that Obama is a socialist, radical socialists can only respond ‘if only.’

Pro-Labour commentator Chris Trotter has noted that as Chief of Staff, McCarten will not be mainly involved in formulating policy. Rather, McCarten will act as a “direct and unequivocal promoter of the party’s already agreed goals.”

Pro-Labour commentators argue McCarten’s strength lies partly in his potential to forge unity behind a future Labour-led coalition government. Trotter notes:

“McCarten’s history with the Greens (once part of his old party, the Alliance), the Maori Party and Mana will be of enormous value to Labour should they find themselves in a position to forge a governing coalition.”

Martyn Bradbury also suggests McCarten could extend an olive branch to potential supporters of a Labour-led coalition:

“What Matt can do is reach across to other progressive parties and seriously discuss using MMP tactically so that the entire Left are united in fighting the Government come election day… If you are a MANA voter, vote MANA tactically. If you are a Green voter, vote Green tactically and if you are a Labour voter, vote Labour tactically.”

Fightback will back the MANA Movement in the upcoming General Elections. With a stated mission of bringing rangatiratanga to the poor and powerless, MANA represents the most progressive section of the working and oppressed majority. MANA maintains the link between indigenous sovereignty and the wider struggle for an egalitarian society.

MANA has not ruled out entering a government with the Labour Party. There is a spectrum of opinion within MANA on entering a government, whether through a coalition or confidence-and-supply agreement.

McCarten for a long time has advocated a strategy of pushing Labour leftwards. Whether this meant building organisations outside the Labour Party, or directly entering a Labour Party government, the orientation was always towards pressuring Labour, with no horizons beyond the two-party system. Taking a job as Chief of Staff within the Labour Party is a continuation of this strategy. This begs the question of whether pushing Labour left, from inside a government, is a viable strategy.

The Labour Party remains a pro-capitalist party. They have some mild differences with National over how to manage capitalism; more socially liberal, more experienced with the public sector, former union bureaucrats rather than former currency traders. However, big business remains the largest donor to Labour; cut the head off the hydra, and another will spring up in its place.

Both Labour and National governments presided over a three-decade decline in real wages. The Labour Party initiated this project of robbing the working majority; neoliberalism, or ‘Rogernomics.’ It’s no wonder that poor, young and marginal people are simply not interested in voting.

Chris Trotter argues that “radical constitutional reforms” in the Labour Party over 2012 and 2013 will keep the party leadership honest. These reforms require new policies to fit with the party’s long-established “Policy Platform.”

However, signs at the Labour Party conference in November 2013 were not promising. Moves for transparency on the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) were defeated. The Labour Party also maintains the policy of a $15/hr minimum wage, as a major flagship policy.

In 2009, Unite Union campaigned for a $15/hr minimum wage immediately. In 2009, a $15 minimum wage would have been a step forward for working people. However, inflation quickly wipes out short-term rises in wages. Real wages (wages adjusted for prices and inflation) have declined over the past 30 years.

Unite also demanded that the minimum wage be set to 2/3 of the average wage in future. Labour has not taken up the policy of tying the minimum wage to the average wage. The Campaign for a Living Wage, backed by the Service and Food Workers’ Union, argues for a living wage of $18.80/hr.

Now, five years after Unite’s campaign for a $15 minimum wage, the demand is a lot more conservative. With the minimum wage recently raised to $14.25/hr by the National government, a wage raise of 75 cents (without any tie to the average wage) would do nothing to reverse the trend of declining real wages. Politicians are often accused of over-promising and under-delivering, but even this promise is woefully inadequate.

A popular meme says that “if voting changed anything, they would make it illegal.” This is a half-truth. Democracy is a product of struggle; including for example women’s struggle for suffrage. When electoral work, combined with popular struggle, has challenged capitalism and imperialism – ‘they’ have done their best to make it illegal (Chile’s coup in 1973, Venezuela’s attempted coup in 2002). Elections can work as important sites of class struggle, but most of the time, the ruling class is winning.

Fightback has no illusions that socialism can simply be voted in. Our participation in capitalist elections is oppositional. Even when radicals such as MANA’s Hone Harawira win seats, their role is to support the wider community movement, not to go into coalition with pro-capitalists.

Sue Bradford, of MANA and formerly the Greens, holds the record for most successful Private Members’ Bills while outside a coalition government. Many of these necessary reforms, such as raising the minimum wage and abolishing youth rates, were backed by community movements. Workers can win the reforms we need, without entering government and sacrificing our independence.

We need transformative strategies, not strategies that simply reproduce the system that got us here. We need to weave together new organisations that can move beyond the existing political structure, from the scraps we currently have.

The Council of Trade Unions remains the largest formally democratic organisation in the country. Although the CTU is currently unwilling to take risks, unions of workers are a necessary part of forging the new movement we need.

Organisations of the people cannot rely on big business, or parliament. We need our own finances, our own democracy, our own structures organised in opposition to the capitalist system. Support for the Labour Party undermines the possibility of liberation for the working and oppressed majority.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

There’s pride in resistance, not apartheid

February 26, 2014 by

After the disruption of Israeli pinkwashing at Pride 2014, GayNZ asked activists involved to submit an article. This contribution comes from Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (Aotearoa), an online network including members of Fightback.

We are Arabs, Jews, Māori, Pākehā, Asians. We are queer. We value the work that LGBTI activists before us have done to improve the lives of queers in Aotearoa and the world over. We value Pride for creating a queer-positive space where our community can come together and celebrate who we are.

But we are not proud that queer struggles are hijacked by the state of Israel in order to ‘pinkwash’ its colonial violence towards Palestinians. We were not proud to see the Embassy of Israel included in Auckland Pride. This is why we had to take a stand, to protect queer spaces from being complicit in Israeli apartheid.

Pride_Israeli_Protest_2_-_John_Darroch.jpg

For many, our protest came as a surprise. The Israeli embassy, however, had anticipated the presence of protesters. In a press release just days before the event, the embassy was clear that their participation in Pride was motivated, not by a desire to support LGBTI rights, but as a PR exercise in response to Wellington protests against an Israeli Embassy-sponsored dance show.

The cynical use of queer rights as a publicity strategy to create a positive, humane image for Israel is not new, nor is it exclusive to New Zealand. In 2011 the Jewish lesbian writer Sarah Schulman published an op-ed in the New York Times criticising Israel’s ‘strategy to conceal the continuing violations of Palestinians’ human rights behind an image of modernity signified by Israeli gay life’. Other prominent queer Jews have echoed Schulman’s criticism of pinkwashing, including Judith Butler and Aeyal Gross.

The pinkwashing narrative presents a familiar racist trope: Arab societies are conservative, gender normative and homophobic. Israel is the only Middle-Eastern country where gays have equal rights. Queer Palestinians escaping persecution in their own communities relocate to Israel for asylum.

Pride_Israeli_Protest_3_-_John_Darroch.jpg

A 2008 report on gay Palestinian asylum seekers in Israel, published by Tel Aviv University’s Public Interest Law Program, presents a very different picture. The report found that gay Palestinians who escape to Israel live in the country illegally—since Palestinians are barred from applying for refugee status in Israel. This means that they are in constant danger of being deported back to communities where they will be subject to homophobic violence. Israeli security services have been known to exploit this vulnerability, and blackmail Palestinian gays into becoming informants.

Even for Jewish-Israelis, the country is not a queer-loving utopia. Two months ago a trans woman was viciously attacked on the streets of Tel Aviv. A gang of 11 men assaulted her with pepper spray and tasers. Israeli police were quick to dismiss the attack as a ‘prank’ and denied that it was motivated by transmisogyny. Her attackers, it turns out, were off-duty officers in Israel’s Border Police.

It’s not surprising that the same young men who spends weekdays shooting and tear-gassing Palestinians also spend their weekends assaulting trans women. This is the intersection of militarism and homophobia in which Palestinian and Israeli queers exist.

Palestinian queer organisations like al-Qaws, Aswat and Palestinian Queers for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions have called on the global queer community to support their struggle against both Israeli apartheid and queerphobia. That call has been answered around the world, by groups like Queers Against Israeli Apartheid in Canada, No Pride in Israeli Apartheid in the UK, and Black Laundry in Israel.

Pride_Israeli_Protest_4_-_John_Darroch.jpg

It’s out of a desire to support Palestinian queers, and in the tradition of intersectional queer politics, that we decided to take a public stand against the Israeli Embassy’s float at Auckland Pride. We know that some of our fellow queers think that Pride is not the appropriate time or place to make a political statement about Middle East politics. The argument that we shouldn’t mix pride parades with global politics sounds an awful lot like the 1980s argument that anti-apartheid protesters shouldn’t mix rugby with politics. We were not the ones who chose to use Pride as a platform for discussing Israel. The Israeli Embassy are the ones who decided to hijack a gay pride event and exploit to uphold a progressive image of a state that subjects its Indigenous inhabitants to apartheid.

Our queer politics are rooted in the principle of ‘no one left behind’. We do not accept the advancement of gay men at the expense of lesbians, or of cis queers at the expense of trans people. We also cannot accept the advancement of any queers at the expense of Palestinians.

Pride_Israeli_Protest_5_-_John_Darroch.jpg

We recognise the link between colonisation of Palestine, and colonisation of Oceania and Aotearoa. Tagata Pasifika and tangata whenua gender and sexual diversity were violently displaced through the colonisation of this region. We celebrate the first ever Pasefika LGBT Youth float at Pride 2014. The hijacking of Pride to promote apartheid detracts from this celebration of diversity and solidarity.

We urge Auckland Pride—and all LGBT organisations in Aotearoa—to take a stand in solidarity with queer Palestinians and refuse to help Israel pinkwash its human rights abuses. There is no pride in being complicit with Israeli apartheid.

All pictures by John Darroch

Filed Under: Palestine, Queer

Auckland & Wellington: Actions against Israeli whitewashing & pinkwashing

February 23, 2014 by

In solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for self-determination, Fightback (Aotearoa/NZ) endorses the Palestinian-led call for Boycotts, Divestments and Sanctions (BDS) on Israel.

Cultural boycotts are a part of BDS. These boycotts target cultural products & activities designed to promote Israel, and supported by Israeli institutions.

On the 22nd of February 2014, two actions in different cities in Aotearoa/NZ promoted the cultural boycott of Israel.

Wellington: Don’t dance with Israeli apartheid!
In the capital, Aotearoa BDS Network challenged a performance by Israeli dance troupe Batsheva (touring an event entitled Deca Dance as part of the NZ Festival). Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs describes Batsheva as “perhaps the best known global ambassador of Israeli culture,” and their performance in Aotearoa/NZ was sponsored by the Israeli embassy.

After letters to the NZ Festival and the Minister of Foreign Affairs curiously failed to produce results, Palestine solidarity activists organised an action outside the performance.

Chants of “Boycott Israel/Boycott Batsheva,” “Shame” and “Free Palestine” accompanied banners & placards including “Queers against Israeli apartheid” and “Jews for a free Palestine.” Demonstrators also handed out informational leaflets and discouraged patrons from attending.

Zionists mobilised a counter-demonstration to support Batsheva. This counter-demonstration appeared to be mainly stacked with evangelical Christians from out of town, although notable Wellington Zionists including David Zwartz were also in attendance.

Counter-demonstrators affirmed the message of Aotearoa BDS Network, that supporting Batsheva means supporting Israel. In 1981, the peak of the Aotearoa/NZ movement to “halt all racist tours” from apartheid South Africa, supporters of the Springbok tour called to separate sports from politics (impossible, as politics always shape sports). By contrast in 2014, evangelicals supporting Batsheva wielded placards declaring Israel “the only democracy in the Middle East.”

The combination of Christian Zionists on one side of the entrance, and Palestine solidarity activists opposite, certainly worked to disrupt the event.

On Facebook, a staff member at the venue commented:

“This is beyond stupid, they actually ended up obstructing the performance they’re trying to support, we had to send patrons down the disgusting fire escapes so they could leave the building.”

15 patrons decided to forego their tickets, to applause from demonstrators. The Aotearoa BDS Network will maintain the pressure discouraging NZ Festival, and other organisations, from supporting Israeli apartheid in future.

Photo by John Paul.

Photo by John Paul.

Auckland: Queers Against Israeli Apartheid
While protesters and counterprotesters clashed at the Batsheva Dance recital in Wellington, Israeli pinkwashers1 tried to pull a fast one at the Auckland Pride Parade on Ponsonby Road.

The night before the parade, the Israeli embassy put out a bizarre, gloating press release announcing that they would have a float in the parade, “whilst BDS Campaigners have fled in their minivan to Wellington”.

This is all part of the “Brand Israel” campaign, aiming to portray Israel as a progressive, diverse Western democracy – and Palestinians and other Arabs as backwards, homophobic savages.

Thankfully, Queers against Israeli Apartheid weren’t going to let them get away with it. When the Israeli “float” – actually four men on a car with rainbow and Star of David flags – drove up Ponsonby Road, about 10 peaceful activists disrupted the parade to block them.

The activists unfurled banners and placards saying “No Rainbow Big Enough To Cover The Shame of Israeli Apartheid” and “Pride in Resistance, Not in Oppression”.

One Israeli participant ended up yelling at a protestor “You should go and live in Tel Aviv, it’s the gay capital of the Middle East”. The protestor she was yelling at was of Palestinian origin herself – the people who were cleared out of what is now the State of Israel in al-Nakba (the Catastrophe) of 1948.

After a few minutes, police and security dragged the protesters out of the way and let the Israeli float proceed. But hopefully this made enough of an impression that next year’s Pride organisers will think twice before letting “pinkwashers” use our parade for their propaganda.

1“pinkwashing” means using an image of gay and lesbian rights to conceal abuses, such as the ongoing brutality of the Israeli occupation

Filed Under: Activism, International

Wellington event: Socialist-feminist day school

February 22, 2014 by

socfem day school1-7pm, March 8th, 19 Tory St

[Facebook event]

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Obituary: Mike Kyriazopoulos

February 21, 2014 by

Last month Fightback lost one of its leading members, Michael Kyriazopoulos. In Aotearoa he was known in the workers movement as Mike Kay. Mike came to us from England but he had a strong Greek heritage, and had close family living in both Israel and South Africa. So he had a very broad culture. Tragically, he was diagnosed with motor neurone disease in January 2013.

He brought a lot to Fightback. His international knowledge, his knowledge of issues within Marxism, and his measured consistent approach to practice meant that he was a leading member of the organisation.

At Mike’s funeral a tribute by one of Mike’s Alliance for Workers Liberty comrades in the UK was read. It pointed out that Mike was ‘comfortable leading from the middle’. This was a great way to put it; In our view Mike led really well but he never sought to be out at the front and never got in the way of the political growth of others who he developed.

His industrial work in the UK was in the rank-and-file of the posties union. In Aotearoa he worked as an organiser for Northern AWUNZ. His finest moment was during the struggle of I-Kiribati workers against redundancies and to establish union rights with an agricultural employer. He turned this in to a political struggle by involving his local Mana Party branch and Mana leaders. In that struggle he also led a case for reinstatement and was successful. This had lasting importance in terms of case law, as the government had recently changed reinstatement laws, so they were up for interpretation. At a different workplace a discussion has just been started about a members’ education scholarship being made under his name. Of course he supported workers in many other struggles being waged by other unions.

Theoretically Mike’s main contributions were on the issue of the relationship between Maori liberation and socialism. He has asked us all, particularly in the Mana movement and in the socialist left, to keep pushing on this question. Fightback has endorsed the idea of compiling some of his work on these issues in to pamphlet form. Some people are surprised that this was an area where Mike focussed a lot of his theoretical work. But it makes sense. He was able to come at the question with less predetermination than others and with the sharp clarity for which he was known.

Mike and his wife Jo became citizens of Aotearoa in the first half of 2013 and Mike swore his citizenship oath in the presence of Hone Harawira. Mike rebelliously followed that with a commitment to the Treaty of Waitangi. Hone threw one of his tongue-in-cheek jokes by noting “and he’ll be one of the first people we’ve welcomed in to the country!”

Amongst all his friends – activists and non-activists – Mike was also inspirational because of the way he was during his illness and because of his accomplishments when he was sick. This included continuing to pay socialist membership dues, writing and publishing his Grandmother’s memoirs of the Russian revolution, and of course publishing his fiction piece A Cloudy Sunday. We thank him for leaving us with A Cloudy Sunday which provides many insights into his views and thoughts on life.

We will miss him dearly as a comrade. For many of us we’ll also miss him as a friend. We’ll never forget him, his contribution, or the work he has asked us to continue.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Global round-up

February 20, 2014 by
Venezuelan people mobilise in support of the Bolivarian revolution.

Venezuelan people mobilise in support of the Bolivarian revolution.

Round-up of recent global struggles by Daphne Lawless, Fightback (Auckland).

Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H), formerly a part of Yugoslavia, has seen massive anti-government workers’ protests. A protest by unemployed workers in the town of Tuzla against privatisation of local factories ended up with the town’s government building on fire and police using water cannon against protestors in Sarajevo, B&H’s capital. Workers in Tuzla also demanded defence of their pensions, and arrests of those who have corruptly benefited from privatisation.

Since the end of the Yugoslavian wars in 1995, B&H has been split into a Serb state and a Croat/Muslim state who share the national government between them. Their constant squabbling causes permanent government deadlock, leaving real power in the hands of the United Nations High Representative, who acts as a tool of NATO, the European Union and the IMF.

The uprising in Tuzla raised slogans not only against privatisation, but against “nationalism” – which, in B&H, means the two ethnic states stirring up hatred against each other while neglecting the real problems of working people. One miner in Tuzla told the crowd: “The only identity we have is as miners”. “We are hungry in three languages” explained a banner on a demonstration in the town of Zenica.

Workers’ protests have often been the beginning of regime change in this region – for example, the 2000 uprising against the Serbian nationalist warmonger Slobodan Milosevic was sparked by a coal miners’ uprising.

Meanwhile, anti-government protests in Ukraine have turned deadly. More than 60 deaths are after police stormed a protest camp in the capital, Kiev.

Ukraine’s politics have been divided for years between pro-Russian and pro-European factions. The latest protests broke out after President Viktor Yanukovych unexpectedly cancelled a deal with the EU to make one with Russia instead.

Many of the protesters are legitimately opposed to their government’s embrace of the autocratic Putin regime. But others are linked with the neo-fascist Svoboda party, who attack Russian-speakers and anarchists. And working people in Greece or Spain would be quick to tell Ukrainian protesters that the EU is no defender of human rights or democracy.

Venezuela has also seen violent protests, this time by the right-wing opposition against the socialist government of President Nicolás Maduro. Two deaths were reported after a commemorative demonstration turned into attacks on government buildings, police cars and pro-government TV stations.

The opposition blames Maduro and his United Socialist Party (PSUV), founded by the late president Hugo Chavéz, for rising crime and high inflation. The government, in turn, blames price rises on businesses deliberately hoarding food to sabotage the economy and increase opposition support.

It’s thought that the violent protests may indicate a split in the opposition, between moderate forces who wish to fight the PSUV within the current constitution, and a far-right or even fascist tendency who want to provoke a coup. PSUV leaders have called on workers and students not to fall for right-wing provocations.

France sent troops into its former colony, the Central African Republic (CAR) in January to reinforce its government. The CAR is one of the world’s poorest countries, even though it sits on large reserves of diamonds, oil and uranium. It has been ruled by a series of military dictators since 1966, all of which have been supported by France.

French troops were already involved in the neighbouring country of Mali, fighting an Islamic separatist movement in the north of that country. In the background of all of this is China’s increasing economic influence over former Western allies in Africa.

The CAR had no problem with ethnic or religious conflict in the past. But 2003 coup leader François Bozizé led persecutions of the Muslim minority. After he was overthrown by the mainly Muslim Seleka movement last year, Christian militias have led a murderous revenge campaign, which the new leadership seems powerless to stop.

It’s not surprising that French Minister of Defence Jean-Yves Le Drian announced on February 15 that the French intervention in the CAR will last “longer than expected”. But France’s interests aren’t the people of the CAR – it’s their own commercial exploitation, and keeping China out of the picture, that they worry about. French military occupation will only make things worse.

Tensions are clearly growing between the USA and Israel, with US Secretary of State John Kerry attempting to negotiate an end to continued Israeli settlement in Occupied Palestine. The Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has flatly rejected US proposals for even the most minor concessions. Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon described Kerry’s peace plan as “not worth the paper it was written on”.

The USA and Israel have been the closest of allies over the last 40 years, with US aid to Israel projected to reach more than $US3 billion dollars in the coming year. This is mostly military aid, which frees the Israeli government to spend large amounts on its core supporters.

Netanyahu and his allies are determined to destroy the growing power of Iran, if necessary by direct military action. But the mess left by the 2003 invasion of Iraq has led to an Iran-friendly government in that country, which US forces must prop up to prevent a new outbreak of war. Netanyahu slammed the recent US-brokered deal for Iran to dismantle its nuclear weapons capability as “an historic mistake.”

The growing Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement shows that people worldwide understand the Israeli state’s real agenda – becoming a regional superpower on the backs of oppression of the Palestinians. Any interruption of support for this from the US can only be a good thing for the people of the Middle East.

 

Filed Under: International

Mainstream racism and white power groups

February 17, 2014 by

protest free news nz herald waitangi day

By Ian Anderson, with contributions by Joel Cosgrove (Fightback Wellington).

“When fascism comes to America, it will not be in brown and black shirts. It will not be with jackboots. It will be Nike sneakers and smiley shirts.”

-George Carlin, comedian

 On Waitangi Day 2014, the NZ Herald ran a “protest-free” edition, proudly announcing this editorial decision with an image of a raised fist.

The Facebook page Wake Up NZ (with around 10,000 likes) reported the fist as a “white power” symbol, associated with far-right groups including Right Wing Resistance and the National Front. UK leftist tabloid the Morning Star echoed this assertion, in an article reprinted by popular Australian paper Green Left Weekly.

Some responded that the raised fist is a broader symbol, also used by black power and leftist groups. Socialist Aotearoa is probably the most known group in Aotearoa/NZ to use the fist as their main logo, albeit in yellow. It’s entirely possible that the editors of the Herald intended the fist to symbolise dreaded ‘protest,’ by indigenous and radical forces.

Whatever their intention, the message was racist. By filtering out militant anti-colonisation politics, the Herald editorial team endorsed a colonial vision of Waitangi Day.

In fact, editorial choices made by the Herald in part reflect the difference between liberal racism and the straight-up fascism of white power groups.

The National Front deny that Māori are the tangata whenua, the indigenous people of Aotearoa/NZ, instead relying on pseudo-history to argue that Celts came first. By contrast, the Herald coverage accepted a kind of tokenised, ceremonial Māori indigeneity.

Instead of protest action, the Herald’s Waitangi Day photo gallery depicted the militarist dawn service on Waitangi grounds, a celebration of the Pākehā treaty – the treaty that guarantees Crown ownership, not the legitimate (dishonoured) treaty which guarantees absolute chieftanship to tangata whenua. Ultimately, the NZ Herald does more to advance white power than some bonehead1 with a swastika.

While groups like Right Wing Resistance insist on ‘white pride’ and ‘white power,’ using separatist language, politicians and opinion-makers largely insist on ‘one law for all’ and ‘one nation,’ hiding the domination of one nation by another (see Grant Brookes, Waitangi Day, Te Ra o Waitangi – What does it mean today?). This capitalist domination is legitimised by a layer of corporate iwi leaders (see Annette Sykes, The Politics of the Brown Table).

In light of this liberal racism, fascist and white power groups can appear as a relic, a reminder of politics that were supposedly defeated last century. In Spain and Germany, the 20th century growth of fascism was initially supported or tolerated by much of the international ruling class, particularly because fascists were willing to get their hands dirty killing communists. Nowadays in Aotearoa/NZ, white power groups are considered unfashionable in polite company.

In some ways this historical irrelevance is an illusion; fascism may be unfashionable when liberal democracy is serving capitalism just fine, but when the ruling class are threatened by the spectre of communism, the liberal mask comes off.

In Europe in the 21st century, since the global financial crisis, fascist groups have grown. In the UK, the British National Party (BNP) made a bid for respectability, winning seats in elections, while the English Defence League (EDL) remain street-thugs. Greece’s Golden Dawn openly assaults migrants, leftists and queers, with backing from much of the police. In a situation of economic and ideological crisis, the battle between the far-right and the left can play a major determining role.

However, the situation is different in Aotearoa/NZ. Although we have experienced a decades-long growth in inequality, this country was relatively sheltered from the shock of the global financial crisis. There is also no substantial left or radical workers’ movement to defeat (something Fightback, and other groups, aim to change). There is no sign that white power groups are growing substantially here, in part because the ruling class currently has no need to support their growth.

This is not to say we should tolerate white power groups. In Ōtautahi/Christchurch, Right Wing Resistance (headed by Kyle Chapman, former head of the National Front) have a tangible presence in the community, leafleting houses and intimidating people of colour. In 2012, their annual White Pride Worldwide rally attracted a reported 90 people, marching unchallenged. In this context, it is absolutely necessary to confront fascists in the streets and stop them marching; in 2013, counter-protestors easily outnumbered the White Pride Worldwide rally. Anti-fascist rallies resonate widely in Christchurch precisely because Right Wing Resistance has a tangible presence.

It’s also necessary to clarify that fascism is unwelcome in progressive spaces. In 2013, media revealed that a youth who vandalised Jewish gravestones had previously marched with Occupy Auckland, bearing a skateboard marked with swastikas. In Occupy Wellington, the (successful) struggle to get consensus on banning the National Front initiated a more general debate over ensuring that Occupy was an anti-oppressive space. For any kind of progressive politics to flourish, intolerance of white power groups must be an agreed bottom line.

However, confronting white power groups can become a ritual for the left, disconnected from wider reality.

From 2003-2008, the National Front attempted to march on the cenotaph in Poneke/Wellington, annually on Labour weekend. Each year progressives resisted this march.

The largest mobilisation was in 2004, after attacks on Jewish gravestones (and NF support for a church led anti-gay march). Hundreds of counter-protesters mobilised and chased the NF out of parliament grounds, led by a large contingent of ‘anarcho-fairies’, dressed in pink tutus, chasing the scattered NF remnants back to the railway station. From then on the annual mobilisations became much more formulaic and predictable, with a slowly dwindling number of counter-protesters, and an organised police presence keeping the NF apart from the counter-protestors.

In 2009, the following comment was posted by ‘annoymous’ on indymedia.org.nz:

“[Counter-demonstrations against the National Front have] become nothing more than a annual ritual… I would very much doubt if many of the Anti-Fa crew would travel to say the Hutt Valley and protest outside the Hutt Park Motor Camp and do something useful and put pressure on the owners of the Motor Camp not to take bookings from these guys.

The time has come to re-evaluate the way we react to the Nationalist Flag Day protest and come up with fresh ideas rather than another pointless protest with more embarrassing arrests.”

In the end, the Hutt Valley Motor Camp cancelled the NF booking, forcing them to find other accommodation. However, with the annual confrontations fizzling out, there was no reassessment of anti-fascist strategy and tactics. As futurist Alvin Toffler is often quoted as saying, “if you don’t have a strategy, you become part of someone else’s.”

For Pākehā, anti-fascism can work to alleviate guilt. On the Facebook event for the Christchurch Rally Against Racism 2014, suggested chants include “Adolf Hitler was a d**k, fascist bigots make me sick.” The cathartic ritual of confronting an unpopular group of boneheads can underline how deviant, how marginal white power groups currently are. However, racism is embedded throughout our society.

Our ‘justice’ system is a case in point. Māori make up about 14% of the general population, and 50% of the prison population. Tagata Pasifika are also overrepresented in prisons. Criminalisation is not simply a matter of oppressed groups perpetrating more offences; Māori and Pasifika are more likely to be targeted for drug offences than Pākehā. Although Europeans make up the majority of overstayers, Tagata Pasifika are also more likely to be targeted for overstaying.

This is not a country run by Kyle Chapman’s mob. Aotearoa/NZ is a country run by (mainly) Pākehā who overwhelmingly support marriage equality, who work with the Māori Party and selected iwi leaders, who say they value the content of a man’s character (read; bank account) over the colour of his skin. The racism that keeps capitalism running here is a liberal racism, repulsed both by swastikas and Black Power patches.

In The People’s History of the United States, Howard Zinn notes that early in the colonisation of North America, the capitalist state deliberately drew the ‘colour line’ to undermine working-class solidarity. In Aotearoa/NZ, Māori workers were the first to take strike action, in the Bay of Islands 1821, demanding to be paid ‘for their labour in Money, as was the case in England, or else in Gun Powder.’ In keeping with the racist pseudo-science of the day, Māori were portrayed as genetically inferior to Europeans.

By demonising tangata whenua – the most dispossessed, militant workers – capitalists undermine working-class unity. Bigoted Pākehā, most obviously those in Right Wing Resistance, play into this divide-and-conquer strategy. By clinging to meagre privileges, racist Pākehā workers prolong the system that exploits them. Racism is ultimately a structural matter, not just a matter of prejudice.

White power groups cannot be tolerated. However, confronting mainstream racism is also a necessary project. This project demands that we amplify voices ignored by the NZ Herald (one reason liberation movements need our own media). This project demands that we actively support and participate in struggles for self-determination, including the MANA Movement. This project demands that we weave our struggles together, recognise that all forms of liberation rely on eachother. Liberation demands that we recognise, in the words of Civil Rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer, that “nobody’s free until everybody’s free.”

***

1‘Bonehead’ refers to white power skinheads; not all skinheads are fascists.

See also

Filed Under: Racism

Wellington action: Don’t dance with Israeli apartheid

February 15, 2014 by

batsheva israeli apartheid wellington

This year’s NZ Festival includes four performances by the Israeli Batsheva dance company.

Batsheva is an integral part of Israel’s Brand Israel public relations campaign. The dance company receives funding from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which has described Batsheva as ‘the best known global ambassador of Israeli culture’.

Batsheva’s performance at NZ Festival is sponsored by the Embassy of Israel in New Zealand. One of the embassy’s roles is to enhance Israel’s public image in New Zealand by sponsoring Israeli cultural events such as this one. This is part of a deliberate strategy of using arts and culture to whitewash over Israel’s human rights abuses and violations of international law.

We will be outside Batsheva’s performance to protest Batsheva’s role in whitewashing Israeli apartheid. This is part of the global campaign of BDS (boycott, divestments, and sanctions) initiated by Palestinian civil society.

Organised by BDS Wellington.

7:30pm, Saturday 22nd February, St James Theatre

[Facebook event]

Filed Under: Events, International, Palestine

February issue of Fightback online

February 8, 2014 by

Fightback February 2014 cover - mandela

Welcome to the February 2014 issue of Fightback, monthly magazine of Fightback (Aotearoa/NZ).

Established in February 2013, Fightback is now entering its second year. While the group may seem modest, we believe that a combination of community and working-class forces is necessary to overturning this system. With our publication, and with our wider work, we aim to play a critical role in these struggles.

Mike Treen, Unite Union General Secretary, argued in a special feature on the Daily Blog (now Aotearoa/NZ’s most read left-wing blog) that “inequality will be the key issue for 2014” (reprinted p21-24). Treen argues, “there can be no lasting attack on inequality without also attacking its source,” an exploitative capitalist system. While also conducting education, debate and reflection, Fightback will continue to play an active role in class struggle over the next year.

Over a protracted capitalist crisis, in the wake of global upsurges in Europe, North America and the Arab world, with even many capitalist thinkers reflecting on the failure of economic orthodoxy, and with a Pope emphasising the social justice aspects of Catholic doctrine, (p18-20) the ground may be shifting for revolutionary socialists and others who want to see an egalitarian world.

Inequality is inseparable from struggles against oppression, and for liberation, generally; feminist struggles, queer struggles, the struggle for self-determination. Nelson Mandela, a leader and symbol of the struggle against apartheid, died late last year. Fightback covers his complex and contradictory legacy from p13-17.

In Aotearoa/NZ, 2014 is an election year. Fightback has no illusions that we can simply vote socialism in, or that going into coalition with capitalist governments will provide a short-cut for socialists. However, by bringing wider community struggles to parliament, we aim to play an oppositional role that can point the way to a democratic socialist world.

Fightback will be supporting the MANA Movement in the general elections. MANA has a proven leadership, both in community struggles and in democratically bringing the voice of the movement to parliament. We aim to take every opportunity in 2014 to advance the struggle for a new, just society.

2014 February Fightback pdf

Filed Under: Print edition PDFs
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