Comrades
The latest issue of the Voice has just been published. Below are three
articles:
a) S11 analysis
b) Palestine: Eyewitness and analysis from the spot
c) Petrol Wars
S11
The two most powerful unions in Victoria (CFMEU and AMWU) effectively split
with the Trades Hall leadership over the latter's initial refusal to march
south of the Yarra to join the main body of protestors on S12.
This left Trades Hall high and dry, exposing its weakness in an era of
federal awards and a shift to the Left amongst their most powerful
affiliates. It was forced to pulp its original posters calling on unionists
to stop their march at Enterprise Park, north of the Yarra.
Nevertheless the opposition to the S11 blockade by Trades Hall meant that
before and after the S12 union rally, the young protestors were largely
alone. The State government and police felt S11 was politically isolated
from the trade unions. This led to the brutal baton charges on Tuesday
morning and especially on Tuesday night that saw over 400 injured and seven
ambulances being called to the CFMEU first aid marquee.
The Trades Hall leadership, therefore, have blood on their hands, despite
their current weeping over the police actions at the Crown Towers. Their
political stocks will be further demented as the legal case being pursued
by the injured protestors gradually exposes the links between the WEF,
State Labor government, police, federal security agencies and the police.
It is important to understand how and why key unions decided to ignore
Trades Hall over S11. The Workers First leadership of the AMWU-in
particular State Secretary Craig Johnston, a member of the Progressive
Labour Party-took a principled position from the start.
In the CFMEU (construction and general division), the work of rank and file
members of the union who were active in S11 (including but not exclusively
members of the Socialist Party) in raising the importance of the blockade
was important.
A marquee and first aid equipment and union volunteers were agreed to early
on. Then the decision was made to march to the Crown Towers on S12. It was
a combination of the objective pull of the S11 protest and growing
opposition to globalisation, and the subjective factor as well.
In the Labor Party, Premier Steve Bracks' comments in support of the police
baton charge and calling protestors "fascist" provoked a mini-revolt in
party branches including his own in Williamstown. Many members resigned and
wrote to the papers explaining why. Bracks was forced to cancel his BBQ for
police.
At the next state election there will be even more rank and file ALP
members secretly and openly backing left of Labor candidates, as seen when
we stood in Richmond last September.
S11 marked a re-entry into the political arena by thousands of young
people, including school students. For most of the 1990s, single issue and
identity politics dominated the political scene amongst the thin layer of
youth involved in struggle.
S11 changed all that, and a growing layer ofyouth are opposing capitalism
and groping in the direction of socialism.
Issues that dominated the left in the late 1960s/early 1970s are coming
back: socialism versus anarchism; the role of the working class and the
trade unions; peaceful protest and its limits and so on. After the baton
charges debates will develop about the new forms of peaceful protest
(gridlocks, mobile protests), and even the need to move beyond peaceful
action. Similar debates occurred in the US during the Civil Rights protests
in the 1960s between Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and later, the Black
Panthers.
The role of the mass media was disgraceful in it coverage of S11 and they
exposed themselves in the eyes of millions. Nevertheless through the mud
much of our message got through. For example the ABC-TV's Behind the News,
which broadcasts news stories into every Australian school, had an
excellent report on S11 outlining the arguments against capitalist
globalisation.
>From BBC World Service, to Channel 9, to community radio, S11 had
opportunities to talk to millions. This would never have happened if there
had been no blockade.
The blockade itself highlighted the importance of good,
democratically-based organisation. The marshals were all elected, active
members of S11-Alliance and had the confidence of many.
The played a key coordinating role. However, more thought needs to go into
greater involvement of picketers/blockaders themselves in the running of
pickets rather than relying solely on speeches on megaphone from marshals.
The first aid marquee and crew were absolutely crucial and were the unsung
heroes of the three days. The legal support crew were also crucial.
Those who had the privilege of attending S11 will be changed forever and
become ambassadors for activism amongst their peers. Australia will never
be the same again.
Weeks ago, Israeli and Palestinian leaders were on the verge of signing a
new peace agreement, and Yasser Arafat was joking and sipping tea with Ehud
Barak. Now, the Middle East teeters on the brink of a new, regional war,
and a Bosnia-type ethnic war threatens to explode within Israel itself.
MANDY RABIN of Maavak Sozialisti in Israel sends an eyewitness report to
the Voice.
LIKE A raging forest fire, an uprising that started in the West Bank and
Gaza has spread into Israel proper and ignited mass demonstrations
throughout the Arab world.
The subsequent kidnapping of three Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah has led to
Israel threatening to declare war on Lebanon and Syria, and on Palestine.
Meanwhile, a section of Israeli Jewish workers, whipped up by
reactionaries, have launched attacks on Palestinians living within Israel,
leading to the horrific prospect of a possible degeneration into an
inter-communal civil war.
The Palestinian masses are enraged at the brutal violence used against them
by the Israeli police and armed forces, with more than 70 Palestinians
dead, and over a thousand wounded; and ordinary Israelis, faced with the
prospect of both a regional and an internal war, fear for their very
existence, for the first time in decades.
The spark that ignited the current conflict was the provocative visit by
Ariel Sharon, the right-wing leader of the opposition Likud party, to the
Temple Mount, a disputed site, holy to both Muslims and Jews.
Many Palestinians feel extreme anger and frustration at a peace process
that has been dragging on for years, brought them nothing and is going
nowhere. After seven years of peace negotiations, the Israeli army is still
occupying most of the West Bank and parts of Gaza, and Israeli soldiers
still shoot at unarmed civilians.
The Palestinian masses see their would-be state taking the shape of a
brutal dictatorship: Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority is an
oppressive, dictatorial regime, with heavy press censorship, where
journalists, human rights activists and strike leaders are frequently
arrested without trial - with the active consent of Israeli and US leaders.
Palestinians have been humiliated time and again by Arafat's concessions
over refugees, Jerusalem, etc.
Palestinian workers and youth living within Israel have also been
disillusioned with the Oslo peace process. In addition to continuing to be
second-class citizens, they have borne the brunt of the four-year recession
in Israel, with unemployment in some towns and villages reaching 35%-40%.
Although 95% of Israeli Palestinians voted for Ehud Barak, his government
has turned a blind eye to their distress. The recession, has led to attacks
by the Israeli state on working-class Jews also.
This has led to extreme anger, bitterness and a sense of betrayal amongst
Israeli workers and youth and in the absence of a genuine, mass workers'
party to provide an alternative, a layer of workers have turned to the
ultra-orthodox party, Shas.
In 1993 the Committee for a Workers' International (the socialist
international organisation to which the Socialist Party is affiliated) and
its small forces then in Israel, were the solitary voice predicting that
the Oslo peace process, on a capitalist basis, would be incapable of
resolving the underlying causes of conflict, leading to future hostilities.
Unable to solve the fundamental problems of the national question, the
Israeli and Palestinian leaders - serving the interests of the capitalists
- drafted the Oslo accords to achieve 'stability' in the region by means of
oppression, with the Palestinian Authority playing the part of a puppet
regime, repressing the Palestinian masses on behalf of the Israeli state
and US imperialism.
The uprising, led by the Palestinian youth, shows the incredible potential
power of the masses when they move into action. The Israeli army, with all
its sophisticated weapons, could not suppress the anger, determination and
willingness to sacrifice of the Palestinian masses.
Tragically, this movement lacks a socialist leadership, with a clear
programme, strategy and set of demands, able to channel the mass energy
into challenging the rule of capitalism.
In the absence of a socialist leadership, the movement has taken on a
religious, anti-Jewish character, fuelled by the forces of Islamic
fundamentalism on the ground. In Israel, for example, Palestinian
demonstrators stoned buses carrying Jewish workers. This kind of action,
instead of uniting Jewish and Palestinian workers against their true enemy
- the capitalist system - only serves to deepen the divide, and has led to
an escalating spiral of violence within Israel.
Most recently, hundreds of Jewish youth have attacked Arabs in mixed, urban
centres within Israel, leading to injuries and death. The escalating
violence threatens to explode into a regional war, with a possible
Bosnia-type, ethnic war erupting between Arabs and Jews within Israel
itself.
Even if the capitalist leaders manage to calm the situation and stave off
an all-out war, any period of quiet will be temporary, because the
fundamental causes of the explosion will remain.
A genuine, socialist leadership, with roots in the Palestinian masses,
could explain that the real enemy and cause of the problems are the
capitalists and their system. Such a leadership could channel the mass
energy into a strategy to fight and defeat both Israeli and Palestinian
capitalism. The Palestinian masses could make a class appeal to the Israeli
working class to struggle for their own rights, against the Barak
government, which is hated by Jews, and for the establishment of socialism
in Israel. The only solution to the national question in the Middle East
lies in the establishment of a socialist society. Maavak Sozialisti (CWI -
Israel) is fighting for the establishment of a socialist Israel, alongside
a socialist Palestine, as part of a socialist federation of Middle Eastern
nations, on a free and voluntary basis.
Working people of the region could then use the region's vast resources and
technological know-how to eliminate poverty and unemployment, which are the
breeding ground for national and ethnic hatred.
Democratically elected committees of working people on both sides could
reach agreement on issues that are impossible to solve under capitalism,
such as the plight of Palestinian refugees, and Israeli settlers.
Capitalism offers the people of the Middle East nothing but a future of
bloodshed, terror and social degeneration. Only a mass struggle for
socialism can bring the peace, freedom and prosperity that all peoples of
the region so desperately long for.
By Neil Gray
While government coffers have balloned with A$1 bn more than they expected
from soaring petrol prices, ordinary commuters, owner-operator truck
drivers and farmers are bleeding at the bowser. Families living standards
fall through the poverty line as Howard desperately clings onto a Federal
Government surplus of $13.5 billion.
The escalating oil prices is bringing on a global crisis. Spontaneous
blockades have erupted both here and around the world by truckdrivers and
ordinary workers to force governments to cut petrol taxes. Two decades of
economic rationalism have built up deep anger in the community. Any attack
on living standards is bringing ordinary people out on the streets.
The blockades in Victoria were only called off after Premier Bracks
diverted the anger to the Premiers Conference declaring he would ask the
Federal Government to drop the 3% fuel excise increase expected in
Feburary. But blockaders say they will be back if they don't get
satisfaction.
The Transport Workers Union, like the trade union leaders in Britain, were
caught off-guard by the blockades. The Brisbane blockade was called off
because there was no support coming from the union. In WA, moves to
blockade have been cut across for the moment by opposition from the TWU.
These leaders have been exposed as ineffectual. They have been surprised at
the depth of opposition to rising prices. They have behaved as loyal
representatives of the capitalist system in the workers movement. They need
replacing by ordinary rank-and-file workers so a lead can once again be
provided by the trade unions.
The reduction in investment in new oil production during the Asian economic
meltdown in 1997, coupled with trade embargoes on Iran and Iraq and tight
reserves of cheaply accessible oil, has created a tight supply. As a
consequence global speculators have bid up the price of oil reaching US$32
a barrel. The recent release of 30 million barrels of oil from the
Strategic Petroleum Reserve by President Clinton is largely a symbolic
gesture, and has done little to reduce prices.
A tight global supply has been a boon for OPEC and the Oil companies. In
Britain the oil companies have doubled their profits in the last year.
Something is wrong when a system can't plan production of energy for it's
predicted needs. Something is also wrong when the high price of oil is
accelerating a currency free-fall in Europe and Australia because of it's
effect in knocking 0.5% off global growth, threatening the verystability of
the global economy. When short-term decision making by oil companies and
money markets sends prices soaring, destroying the livehoods of ordinary
workers and small business people while providing windfall profits for the
rich, you have to call into question theircompetency to rule.
We say there's a lot that the trade union leaders can do than to support
the bosses and the system. We call for the abolition of the fuel excise.
Socialists do not agree with a user-pays petrol excise or any other
indirect tax, like the GST, for instance. Indirect taxes tax people no on
what they can afford to pay, but on what they spend. Both the rich and poor
use cars to get to work, so we end up paying the same amount of petrol tax.
But workers pay far more as a percentage of income in taxes.
There has been a huge transfer of the taxation burden from rich to poor
over the last period. Petrol excise in Australia is 47.2% of the price of
fuel. " Not long after the government introduced a GST on ordinary
consumers they passed Ralph Review legislation allowing millionaries to cut
the capital gains taxes by up to half while the top corporate tax rate has
been reduced from 36 to 34%. The changes to capital gains tax are expected
to create new oppurtunities for dodging tax by the wealthy." We say the
lost revenue from abolishing petrol excise can be made up by increasing
corporate taxes and closing off loopholes in taxation law that allow the
bosses to dodge paying tax.
At the same time the oil companies should be nationalised and placed under
democratic workers control. The profits from the oil companies can then be
used to fund a massive expansion in public transport. Public Transport like
education and health is a democratic right. It should be free and
accessible to all and comprehensive across the country. Jobs should be
guaranteed to any worker displaced in the Auto industry through a reduced
working week and a guaranteed paid retraining for a job of their choice.
The Socialist Party calls for:
* Abolishment of all petrol taxes
* Opposition to all indirect tax,
for a progressive direct tax system
* For a massive boost to public transport
* For a boost to investment for alternative energy sources
* Nationalise the oil companies
--
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