[Marxism] Ireland's Marxist guerrillas: the story of Saor Eire, 1967-73
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * "The 1960s was a time of upheaval and change in conservative Irish society; social attitudes, fashion and music, for instance, all changed dramatically. New social movements reflected the thinking of a new generation that, in particular, wanted more freedom. The huge student-worker protests of May-June 1968 in France, the Vietnamese struggle to remove the US States, its allies and their Vietnamese toadies, the US civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements, and the national liberation struggles in Latin America and Africa galvanised opposition to the existing order. In Ireland, these events inspired people, especially the new generation, into action. This was especially the case around the civil rights movement in the north of Ireland. Among the new organisations which emerged here as a result of this new ferment and revolutionary idealism was the Dublin-based Saor Éire (SE) or, to give it its full name, the Saor Eire Action Group. "Saor Éire Acton Group was established in the late 1960s by former members of the Republican Movement and newer young Irish political left activists coming together. As an organisation they claimed to have their roots. . . full at: https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2020/03/02/the-story-of-the-saor-eire-acton-group-1967-73/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] GUIDE FOR UK-BASED FOLK ON LIKELY PROSPECTIVE CAMPAIGN TO OPPOSE TURKEY'S GROUNDING OF ASSAD'S AIRFORCE
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * (From Omar Sabbour on FB.) - GUIDE FOR UK-BASED FOLK ON LIKELY PROSPECTIVE CAMPAIGN TO OPPOSE TURKEY'S GROUNDING OF ASSAD'S AIRFORCE THE SHOE-RAISING PROTEST There is a strong possibility that some Labour/STW figure now wakes up *again* from their Syria slumber, which they do every few years to try and deny that chemical attacks were 'real', or when the Kurdish YPG asks them for support (who for some reason seem to be excluded from the 'we don't offer solidarity to imperialist-backed forces' clause - but they sound and look like us and don't have beards like the other guys so it's cool) - in order to try and condemn Turkey launching the first (so far highly-successful) aerial offensive on Assad's forces by anyone in the war. The Turkish offensive has so far subjected a regime which has been using its airforce inside its borders for a *record* eight years to bomb its citizens from above to a tiny taste of their own medicine - an ongoing series of dehibilitative strikes which have ground Assad's airforce and made a mockery of Obama's desperate defence of Assad that military intervention against the regime was impossible because of 'air defence systems and/or would have led to war with Russia - one which is preventing hundreds more dying and millions more having to flee their homes, please do me a favour and give them a George W Bush moment, and stick your shoes in the air when you see them (an Arabic signal showing your utter rejection/disrespect of them). Give them a moment they'll never forget. Make sure to let them fully know, that them calling for Turkey to stop its current grounding of Assad's airforce (and no, not with the aim of 'regime change' even if that would be jusfitied, but just to save some time in case some idiots bring it up - the regime has no armed opposition near Damascus) will place the blood of hundreds of Syrians who otherwise would be getting blown up by the regime and hundreds of thousands more who are relying on Turkey to stop them being forced to flee their homes, in many cases not for the first time, fully on their consciences. To them to do so on the utterly flimsy nominal justification of 'Turkey's a part of NATO' - when NATO has very publicly refused to come to Turkey's aid in Syria, and when everyone knows relations between Turkey and West has deteriorated massively in past few years, would simply be utter sadism. It would be *completely* about trying to bully the Syrian opposition which they so hate (not only for 'soliciting Western intervention', which clearly didn't matter in the YPG's case - but also for causing them a major headache at home, embarassing their leaderships at conferences and in the media etc; a lot of these folks view the opposition as effectively the same as the Israeli acolytes, including for their 'demonization' of Corbyn's utterly shitty positions on Syria which they would claim would be exploited by the 'establishment media'). To put further proof of the fact that this is *personal*, and that their position is not based in 'anti-[Western]imperialist opposition' at all, STW actually mobilised *against* the Turkish/FSA offensives on Afrin and later NE Syria, even though both operations actually aimed to expel US special forces from the area of operations (in the former case, while there were no US forces in Afrin, the plan was to go beyond Afrin to Manbij, where there are US Special Forces who Erdogan repeatedly publicly called on to leave, but Turkey ultimately stood down) - something which actually was achieved in the 2019 offensive in NE Syria. In other words, STW *opposed* military offensives not only against a US-backed group (that they routinely praise and support because of its 'leftist' credentials), but also mobilized against a campaign *aimed at expelling US Special Forces* (which ultimately was achieved in the Tel Abyad/2019 case). Imagine therefore how ridiculous the pretext that they will offer of "them opposing Turkey because it's part of NATO" will be. And if they ignore all that and try and say 'our job is oppose what our governments/their allies do, regardless', ask them if they protested against the Western-Iranian campaigns of destruction against Mosul, or Raqqa, or Manbij, in the name of the 'War against ISIS' - or the thousands of civilians that were killed by the combined efforts of the US from the air and their favoured "Kurds"/YPG (in Syria) or Iranians (in Iraq) on the ground. Make a mockery of their 'anti imperialist' credentials (feel free to read more here: https://www.alaraby.co.uk/…/stop-the-war-coalition-is-not-a…). And in case
[Marxism] China compels Uighurs to work in shoe factory that supplies Nike
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Washington Post, March 1, 2020 China compels Uighurs to work in shoe factory that supplies Nike By Anna Fifield LAIXI, China — The workers in standard-issue blue jackets stitch and glue and press together about 8 million pairs of Nikes each year at Qingdao Taekwang Shoes Co., a Nike supplier for more than 30 years and one of the American brand's largest factories. They churn out pair after pair of Shox, with their springy shock absorbers in the heels, and the signature Air Max, plus seven other lines of sports shoes. But hundreds of these workers did not choose to be here: They are ethnic Uighurs from China’s western Xinjiang region, sent here by local authorities in groups of 50 to toil far from home. After intense international criticism of the Communist Party’s campaign to forcibly assimilate the mostly Muslim Uighur minority by detaining more than a million people in reeducation camps, party officials said last year that most have “graduated” and been released. But there is new evidence to show that the Chinese authorities are moving Uighurs into government-directed labor around the country as part of the central government’s “Xinjiang Aid” initiative. For the party, this would help meet its poverty-alleviation goals but also allow it to further control the Uighur population and break familial bonds. The menu at the local Muslim restaurant, which steaming bowls of noodles and meat in soup, has had the Arabic writing taped over, in accordance with government directives. The word “halal” in particular has been scrubbed out across China. (Anna Fifield/The Washington Post) The menu at the local Muslim restaurant, which steaming bowls of noodles and meat in soup, has had the Arabic writing taped over, in accordance with government directives. The word “halal” in particular has been scrubbed out across China. (Anna Fifield/The Washington Post) “We can walk around, but we can’t go back [to Xinjiang] on our own,” said one Uighur woman in broken Mandarin as she browsed the street stalls at the factory gate on a recent afternoon. Nervous about being seen talking to a reporter, she quickly scurried away. When their shifts end, the Uighur workers — almost all women in their 20s or younger — use hand gestures and rudimentary Mandarin to buy dried fruit, socks and sanitary pads at the stalls. Then they walk around the corner, past the factory’s police station — adorned with Uighur writing telling them to “stay loyal to the party” and “have clear-cut discipline” — to dormitories where they live under constant supervision. The Uighur workers are afraid or unable to interact with anyone in this town, north of Qingdao, beyond the most superficial of transactions at the stalls or in local stores, vendors say. But the catalyst for their arrival here is well understood. “Everyone knows they didn’t come here of their own free will. They were brought here,” said one fruit-seller as she set up her stall. “The Uighurs had to come because they didn’t have an option. The government sent them here,” another vendor told The Washington Post. The Post did not ask for their names, out of concern for their safety and so they could discuss an issue that is highly sensitive in China. (While visiting Laixi, this Post reporter was surrounded by seven police officers, questioned, and ordered to leave town.) She survived a Chinese internment camp and made it to Virginia. Will the U.S. let her stay? The Taekwang factory is one of many where Uighurs are working “under conditions that strongly suggest forced labor” to make goods for more than 80 established global brands, according to a forthcoming report from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, a Canberra-based think tank. “The Chinese government is now exporting the punitive culture and ethos of Xinjiang’s ‘reeducation camps’ to factories across China,” said Vicky Xiuzhong Xu, the study’s lead author. In some cases, they found evidence that Uighurs were transferred directly from internment camps to factories. “For the Chinese state, the goal is to ‘sinicize’ the Uighurs; for local governments, private brokers and factories, they get a sum of money per head in these labor transfers,” Xu said. Asked about Uighur workers in the factory, Nike said that “we respect human rights in our extended value chain, and always strive to conduct business ethically and responsibly.” “We are committed to upholding international labor standards globally,” said Nike spokeswoman Sandra Carreon-John, adding that its suppliers are “strictly prohibited from using any type of prison, forced, bonded or indentured
[Marxism] Turkey shoots down two Syrian government warplanes over Idlib | Syria News | Al Jazeera
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[Marxism] Did Palestine divide ‘the Movement’?: How activists in the 60s and 70s grappled with the question of Palestine – Mondoweiss
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[Marxism] Syria: On the Turkish-Russian Confrontation in Idlib
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Syria: On the Turkish-Russian Confrontation in Idlib Continue supporting the heroic Syrian resistance! Kick out the Russian-Iranian-Assadist occupiers! But don’t trust Ankara’s political games! Open Europe’s borders for Syrian refugees! https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/syria-on-the-turkish-russian-confrontation-in-idlib/ -- Revolutionär-Kommunistische Organisation BEFREIUNG (Österreichische Sektion der RCIT, www.thecommunists.net) www.rkob.net ak...@rkob.net Tel./SMS/WhatsApp/Telegram: +43-650-4068314 -- Diese E-Mail wurde von Avast Antivirus-Software auf Viren geprüft. https://www.avast.com/antivirus _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
