Socialist Challenge No. 73, No v, 1978
The scan: sc-n73-nov-23-1978.pdf (PDF, Marxists Internet Archive)
Uncorrected machine reading of the whole issue. This text was read by machine (Apple Vision OCR) from the scan and has not been corrected or cut into articles. Each page gives the headlines first, then the columns in order, so one article runs on into the next. Expect misread words. Use it to find things; quote from the scan.
Page 1 scan of this page
Socialist Challenge The wages battle... VICTORY
YES - BUT WANTED IT BACKDATED TO THE INVENTION OF THE WHEEL! ...IN THE NATIONAL INTEREST!!
WHEN I HEAR O O THE PHRASE 'NATIONAL INTEREST"
the issues are, importance.
for the National Union of Public Employees.
the radio and TV.
Although what prompted my resignation was the union's handling of a local dispute,
I believe, of
Here is what happened.
For four and a half years NUPE and the Transport and General Workers Union have been negotiating on behalf of ambulance workers in the West Midlands to obtain a financial settlement for a pay anomaly dating back before the re-organisation of the ambulance service in 1974.
I KNOW LOO SOMEONE. IS TRYING TO CRUSH ME!
CAN BE
OURS!
On Monday, 20 November I offered my resignation as full-time union official
You may have read of my resignation in the newspapers or heard about it on
national from sorting government pay policy.
Tess than
previously.
NUPE and official support.
resignation: truly reflecting the
our membership.
fundamental movement.'
BY
Chris Adamson,
area officer,
National Union of Public Employees.
Management claims that it is prevented
OUE this anolllaly
A 'final offer' was made by management at the end of October. This offer was even
some that had OCeR
It was rejected out of hand by both the
TGWU membership, sanctions were applied against management in pursuit of a just settlement.
Escalation of this action led to management decision to suspend ambulance workers without pay from 17 November. In other words, a lock-out.
Following this provocation the TGWU made the ambulance workers' official. But after arguing for most of the day on Monday, I was informed by our divisional officer that NUPE would not give
PROTEST
I immediately offered my resignation as a full-time official. As I said in my letter of
democratic organisation wishes of members could not have failed to support
•Failure to provide this backing reflected 1 believe, a betrayal of the socialist and democratic principles which must be the
basis
not an isolated incident.
strike a decent wage. by prepared to back
it.
made
Action is the key.
and
country.
all keep up that pressure.
dispute 700,000
labour
No. 73 23 November 1978 15p
This betrayal by the NUPE bureaucracy is
This week the leaders of the TUC plan once again to meet the Labour Government in an attempt to hammer out a deal over wage restraint.
At the same time the leaders of the TUC are doing nothing to support the bakers'
But the bakers' strike is in accordance with the policy of the TUC and the Labour Party — for free collective bargaining and against the 5 per cent limit. It is they who represent the wishes of working people.
UNIFICATION
Whether it be bakers, ambulance workers in the Midlands, or the Ford strikers, hundreds of thousands of trade unionists have shown their willingness to struggle for
When the leaders of the unions are not
and organise that struggle, then they become an obstacle to
They are not an irremovable obstacle.
The TUC have been unable to come up with a deal so far because of the pressure from trade unionists up and down the
After Ford's and for the bakers, let us
All out for the
Irish
Prisoners
Assemble 2.30pm Speakers Corner
Sunday
26 November
March in UTOM contingent
Page 2 scan of this page
OUR POLICIES 2E
EDITORIAL
ocialist Challenge, 328/9 Upper Street, London NI Editorial 01-359 8180/9. 01-359 8371.
Labour and
unemployment
special measures
measures to deal witn short-time working
consecutive days. In what is termed
financed equally
£230 million.
from the exchequer. InIS government joining the dole queues.
ELECTION IN MIND
the dole queuespermanent feature of British capitalism in crisis.
cost an estimated £1,000 million.
week.
LEYLAND JOBS
In the car industry,
Levland plant at speke in Merseyside.
Moreover, a central part of Phase 4 is for
situation.
house construction. With
teachers are unemploved.
PLAN FOR FIGHTBACK
production for profit.
direction.
VITAL TASK
autumn: by Ford workers.
allowed to happen any longer.
unions.
I you agree win inese principles and want
to be involved in activities by Socialist
Challenge supporters in your area, fill in
the form below and send it to us.
* I am Interestea in more intormation
about activities in my area.
* I would like additional literature and
enclose 50p to cover costs.
(Delete if not applicable]
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ADDRESS
Send to Socialist Challenge, 328/9 Upper St. London NT.
Socialist Challenge 23 November 1978 page 2
Distribution/ Advertisin THE Queen's Speech from the Labour government included
with unemployment. them are the beefing up of state training and retraining schemes and
The latter would entitle workers on short-time to a taxable 75 per cent of normal pay for each day lost up to a maximum of seven
'normal' times, employers could claim back half of the cost of short-time working from a fund
by an increase in neir National insurance contributions and by the Exchequer. This first "tier' of the new scheme is not intended save any jobs. It is estimated that it will cost
The second tier concerns what the Department of Employment calls periods of high unemployment' such as now. If employers can prove that they put workers on short-time as an alternative to making them redundant, then they can claim the rest of the cost back
will cost t260 million hopes that it could keep up to 150,000 workers from
The scheme is clearly introduced with election year in mind. But it will win few votes, for whilst a few workers will be kept away from
- and this is not to be scoffed at —the scheme does nothing to confront structural mass unemployment, which is a
The scheme is strictly cosmetic and is in line with existing government policy. The underlying principle is collaboration with the employers to save jobs through a variety of government subsidies. By the end of the next financial year, the policy will have
The government parades statistics claiming to show that, but for this policy, the number officially unemployed would be at least 172,000 higher than the present total of 1,430,000. However, the reality of government policy on unemployment is rather different.
Callaghan has indicated that any reduction in the working week must be "self-financing" and be considered in the light of Phase 4. The government backed the Post Office when it refused to concede the demand of the Post Office Engineering Union for a 35-hour
Callaghan has given full backing to the plans of Michel Edwardes, who has already closed the
The Edwardes plan ultimately involves the shedding of some 30,000 jobs in Leyland -which, inturn, will mean hundreds of thousands of jobs threatened in related industries and areas. And just the mention of steel and railwaysreminds us that Leyland is no exception in the public sector. productivity deals". Such deals can mean only one thing: further job loss. Industry Minister Varley's commitment to technological advance irrespective of whom it benefits can only worsen this
With hundreds of thousands of unemployed building workers, the Labour Government refuses to launch a crash programme of
grossly inadequate health hundreds of hospitals are being closed and staff laid off. With oversized classes, schools are being closed whilst more than 50,000
A trade union plan for a fightback is vital. This would not be based on collaboration with the employers through lavish subsidies. A firm declaring redundancies should not be given hand-outs but should be nationalised without compensation. By placing it under workers control, hours could be cut to save jobs. The Lucas plan has shown how socially useful products could take the place of wasteful
The TUC voted overwhelmingly in September to include the demand for the 35-hour week in pay and hours negotiations. Implementation of this policy would be an excellent step in the right
The demand has been included in all the major claims this
engineers, public sector workers, and so on. But the Ford settlement agreed by the unions includes no reduction in hours. This kind of thing must not be
The fight for action on the 35-hour week-including the call for government action—is a vital task now for the left wing in the
European
Among and the
continual crisis.
and the currency snake'.
One way out of the complete collapse of credit system if the decline of the dollar continues would be to find a substitute reserve CULCHCY
SUBSTITUTE
Today not a single national currency can play that role. But a European-wide currency, given that the weight of all the European world more significant than that of the United perhaps SUOSLILULC dollar for a certain period
Of course. in the long run they would probably pay an identical price to that paid by 'self-financing the dollar. continuous speculation that currency, intensification of inflation
correctly, in the long run they (not we) are all dead. services, lem in trying to una stopgap solutions which could last five, ten, micen years
say exactly how long, because this depends essentially on the class struggle what's economy looked ISOlaLIOn
attals currency. In has shown that you can't have a currency without a state.
DISMAL
the past. In the United States, in the 19th century, they tried to get currencies SLalC local currencies.
have failed dismally, and it's hard to visualise the procedure which the European
class.
Socialist Challenge revolutionary socialists are:
THE FIRST WORD
Monetary System
A stopgap
solution
in trouble
ERNESTMANDEL, the Marxist economist and leader of the Fourth International whose book "The Second Slump' has just been published, explained in the first part of an interview last week why the dollar is in
This week he looks at the relationship between the crisis of the dollar and the attempt to revitalise the European Monetary System
world
Europe.
In
banks, used just for foreign
and things of that sort In Deransus trade today is much operation.
States. could for the there are
rate of growth.
There would with 'SNAKE' 1300202118
Rut as Lord Kevnes said so
arrangement,
So there is a certain point for
- one can't the ket.
and not the very heavy
But there is a real difficulty
European currency reality, common
weaker countries
There have been attempts in impose on
make the jump. without They say — regional currencies, reduce operation,
But generally such attempts
opposite Capitalism is in crisis. The leaders of the Labour Party and the trades unions offer solutions that are in the interests, not of the workers, but of the capitalıs
believes that classrollaborations bin the tabour strement These should be nonsensive * To build broad-based class in character grouping together militants holding a wide range of political views. * To begin to fight for the creation of a unified and democratic revolutionary socialist organisation which can, through an application of united front tactics. begin to be seen as an alternative by thousands of workers engaged in struggles. such an organisation shoulo be baseu on me understanamg war
The struggle for socialism seeks to unite the fight of the workers agains
say, *we TeserVeS would
German government's Germans
marginal aid loans
capitalists now want to follow: first have a currency in order
up the process towards a federal state in
the best of cases, wouldn't be a real currency; it would be a semi-currency, a pseudo-currency, a currency of account between the central
covering or deficits in mutual balances of payments
So it would really be a very hybrid and transitory form of
The other difficulty is that
still very great differences between the main European imperialist countries as to their rate of inflation and
The Germans are in favour
enlarged 'snake' among other because they have the most stable economy and the most to lose by a collapse of world trade and a collapse of
European Common Mar-
But on the other hand, the German bankers, and finance capital, are not ready to pay a
price Tor una snake: they will only put a very small fraction of the German
reserves into the property of European monetary authority.
So if you end up giving the
France, and especially Italy and Britain
- very little in exchange for the additional constraints you
them, then of course they're very hesitant to
that that will their freedom without getting them out of the danger of a big balance of payments deficit.
Of course, if the German I capitalists were prepared to
two vital tasks confronting
•tencencies n ODDOSHION 10
organs of power and defeating with all
ERNEST MANDEL
will put all our common, be very big inducement to British capitalism because such a risk would But that's not Wildl the
are saying all. be They are just promising small,
semiand under these
Anniversary of the Fourth International
RALLY
ERNEST MANDEL will be one of the main platform speakers
Stalls, exhibitions, speakers on Zimbabwe, Ireland. Iran, Latin America, international youth struggles
Friday 24 November, Camden Town Hall, London
SKAN+ BLOT'+ SAFRICA+ H'BLOCK + HAdNEY GIRLS PROJECT+ POLICI OPPRESSION+ LETTERS + CLASH
OUT NOW!!!
REVOLUTION
do not take up arms against the socialist state, The stalinist modelen in the eyes of the millions of workers throughout the world. We are opposed " them and will offer full support to all those fighting for socialist democracy
imperialist regimes in the West and the brutal dictatorships thes vustain in Tatir America, Africa and Asia.
In Britain it implies demanding the immediate withdrawal of British troop from Ireland and letting the Irish people determine their own future
The Communist Parties in Europe
are more favourable than over the preceding three decades. But such parties car only be built by rejecting sectarianism and sering internal democraes not as usurs but as a vital necessa ms means fe near are tact
conditions the hesitations of the British and even the French capitalists are understandable.
So I think the project of German prime minister Helmut Schmidt is in trouble.
In the best of cases it will only : partially realised, and there will be no substitute for the dollar in the immediate future under the given circumstances.
Order from PO
OP London V. Box 50,
Our socialism will be infinitels more democratic than what existe in
'socialism' in the LISSR and Eastern Europe have discredited socialism
The interests of workers and capitalists are irreconcilable on a world
orld politics. Thus we fight for working class units on an internatior scale. This units will in the long run be decisive in defeating both the
are in crisis. Seither th "Euro-communist nor the pro-Moscow wings have ans meaningful strategy for the overthrow of the capitalist state. New revolutionary socialist parties are more necessary than ever hefore. Conditions todas
Page 3 scan of this page
National Front French Connection
HOME NEWS
by RICHARD CARVER
THE National Front is a Nazi Front. What's more it is an international Nazi Front. And here the photographic evidence.
The woman in each of the two illustrations on this page is ne same Derson we callor oc certain but it is probable that ner charme maic compannon is also one and the same.
One picture is of a National Front paper sale in Chapel Market, Islington, North London.
The other is a poster produced by an international Nazi organisation, the Federation d'Action Nationale Européenne (FANE - Federation of European National Action).
The slogan at the top of the poster means. ror Socialism. National Socialism is Nazism.
ARYANS
The exact way in which these Islington Aryans found their way onto a poster produced in France is anyone's guess. But the publication of this picture gives us a further indication of the sort of international company kept by Britain's fascists.
rune French poster photographed by the French Trotskyist paper Rouge along-
advertisements for side week's conference of the Front National (National Front).
One of the founders of the FANE, Hubert Kohler, became a Front National BICHUCHE 1973.
The Front National is one of
major French fascist LWU. organisations (the other is the Parti des Forces Nouvelles). It is the more right-wing of the two and the one with which the British NF has historically been linked.
UNIFORM
The acquaintance between the two organisations seems to have been forged through the annual neo-Nazi get together at Diksmuide, in Belgium unashamedly Hitlerian affair where the international stormtroopers SWILL -Deer. around in unitorm and sing the Horst Wessel
The political similarities between the British and French National Fronts are obvious.
Both blame their country's
Was
last
FANE
economic ills on an excess of black immigrants.
Both sponsor racist attacks support white South Africa and hanker after the good old days or mochia sarchcour
Been artiately one Front
WOLICH S LILIES National recently France's moderately abortion law as 'genocidal'. The occasion for this last an remark was ine
over ine publication interview with Darquier Pellepoix, a former minister of march
THe -Nanca regime.
De Pellepoix, now in exile in Spain, claims that the murder six million Jews in Nazi ermans ama The Front National and its
POUR LE
SOCIALISME - NATIONAL
rejoins tes camarades!
B.P. 48
leader Jean-Marie le Pen have been among his most enthusiastic defenders.
The FANE is thinking along the same lines. It has published pamphlet Mensonge d'Auschwitz (The Lie of Auschwitz).
Front
branded PHOTOGENIC
liberal This is the latest in a line of works of profound historical controversy scholarsmp wmen Includes Did
of an Six Million Really Die?, a nasty piece produced
journal Spearhead in 1974 he use of photogenic NH members on an international duver lay send a new blase in European co-operation.
75961 Paris
The European
into some
entitled Le want
The
joint election slate. pseudo-acaacula
press print the No
statements 'Yes'.
Benn
am TOr
Tony.
prepared
Common вигореат
and
Right on!
Behan British
агор an WICH
DIOSIVE
Tierney's
surprise,
if he
claimed that
which believed.
bomber
prospect of the Community elec- Tierney is INCHIUCE confusion. The probiem is unal tnese group
work together internationaliv but fascism i IS by definition a national creed.
THE *Euroright" which fortieth groups the French PFN, the Danisa cuerza vueva and int Italian MSI, met in Marseilles The central last week to discuss a possible
At the same time the Front broader, National congress was deciding
could only have European co-operation based on national patriotisms'.
That seems like a doctrine which will find favour in the bunker at Great Eastern Street.
News
nowhere
Shah Benn Tim SCam emitting ne Birmingham University. time: ten days ago. The main speaker is Tony Benn. Enter a
supporters. Benn is heckled on Laoour s poncy on tran, ne i embarrassed. But when asked
Challenge supporter Philip Hearse as to whether he supports Owen's
Benn
At this stage there is uproar.
and more HOIC heated. 'Yes', he shouts at one point, 1 am for the return of a Labour government.' "So we, shout the hecklers. But I
the return OT TERES Labour Cabinet', answers our
Ho, ho, very interesting. So
star is to argue against collec ive responsole ortle
Market and the Monetary System, but not on Iran.
Meanwhile Iranian students
other activists are encouraging supporters to give all Labour Ministers a warm
Boom, boom!
THE IKISH Writer • Brendan
once observed that democracy peculiar attitude to bombs first une bigger une Domo, une more respectable it is. Thus it's OK to
Japanese town, but if you plant
in a disused railway station you can expect to be locked up for 30 vears
A new twist to this rather odd set of values was displayed in Exeter Crown Court last week,
Tierney -Was charged with ex-
DOSSCOSILLE Police -SuDSLalICES found three tins of sodium chlorate, a bottle of sulphuric acid, packets of sugar, batteries and flashbulbs hidden away in
flat. diary contained the names of several Labour councillors and that of the local Labour agent.
He was found guilty. Then came the sentencing; to some rather lightly and given only three years. The judge said that
thought Tierney had intended to use the explosive. against any of the names in his the diary he would have received a heavier sentence. Tierney had
the explosives were for Guy Fawkes day,
apparently the judge
From the leniency of the
readers will have gathered that, despite his name Tierney was not a 'mad IRA
The names in the diary had all spoken out against the National Front, of which
upstanding
More power to our imagination
RALLY to mark the of the and Fourth International will be held on Friday 24 November.
speaker will be Ernest Mandel. We had hoped that the occasion could be made
and accordingly letter was written to Tony Cliff suggesting a debate. But, as usual, not even a reply to the invitation was received.
So the rally will be have speakers from different we parts of the world to talk about
from
the struggles which are going
Why is this item in NfN? You
well ask. Reason: We thought best mention on several pages rather than a big splurge on one page. Imaginative? Not really, but an improvement. Cheers for now. See you on Friday, OK?
To be continued THE SAGA of the refusal of LAD, une engineering umon white-collar - secuon, to back the Lucas Aerospace workers plan is set to run and run.
• Coolev. president of TASS, has been threatened with the sack by Lucas because of his cam
activities - On the corporate plan. And the union executive - far from telling the company to get lost - is still wheeling and dealing
The executive, dominated by the Broad Left, tells inquiring reporters that supports Cooley in his official union role at the Lucas Aerospace plant in Willesden, NW London. Terrific; this was doubt.
Now the union has agreed to send along Chris Dark, the
management.
The TASS office committee at Willesden has told him not to bother. . The normal procedure is for disputes to be dealt with by the office committee, in the
instance, and the committee says the company will have to deal with them or no one at all.
The meeting is expected to be cancelled.
Chris Dark would have been a very dynamic representative. A few months ago he told the Wembley South branch of TASS: If Cooley is sacked for working on the plan, he will not
To be continued...
Strike of the Year
THE STAFF at the International Monetary Fund Offices in washington DC, have voted for
SEEINGI They were rejecting a 6 per cent increase in wages. The average wage of an IMF staff member is £20,000 a year tax free
Our economic correspondent comments: This strike reveals
deep contradictions capitalism affecting the very heart of capitalist institutions. As Ernest Mandel writes on page 1178 of Late Capitalism
"This is great"
Xmas issue READERS are still invited to submit short stories for this • year's competition. The winner will be printed in our Xmas issue caree a secenoer unies none are judged to be of SUNCE CURSE
The judges will be Mervyn Jones. author of many novels
for New walesman. -Emma novelist and editor of Bananas; and Francis Mulhern, Marxist critic and member of the Socialist Challenge National Policy Committee
The maximum length of stories should be 3,500 words, and the absolute deadline for arrival at our ollice Is 29 November. Don't hold back, as
haven't received many entries yet.
Socialist Challenge 23 November 1978 page 3
Page 4 scan of this page
Bread barons start to
Unexplained death in Leyland
HOME NEWS
Joumalists' claim
JOURNALISTS on provincial and local newspapers began a campaign of industrial action on Monday to fight low pay, writes LANDAU, member of the NUJ's North London branch.
The NUJ claim-f20 a week across the board—is to bring provincial journalists nearer to the national average wage.
Until last week the only offer from the Newspaper Society the employers' association for the industry was five per cent, a mere £2 to £3 a week before tax on senior reporters pay 0r 200-/U.
It works out even less for
who start on 139.
Then the bosses came out with a
dishing out a nine per cent deal
trainees the least.
The four-to-one vote industrial action by NUJ members promises that provincial journalists are determined to pull themselves out of the low-paid bracket and confront the Government's five per cent.
Gamers action THE DAY of action in support of the long-running Garners strike for union recognition is on Friday 8 December, not on the Saturday as previously reported.
Pickets of Garners restauTans WiTUR TONI TOOT midnight and be co-ordinated from the Havmarket branch.
Trades council members should especially ensure that delegations come from their local affiliates as the day action is jointly called by the Greater London Association of Trades Councils and the strike committee.
Social Workers
SOCIAL WORKERS in over ten boroughs throughout the COUBLEY presently taking some form of industrial action over regrading claims, writes
BURN of Islington NALGO.
campaign followed a decision of the NALGO conterence last year. which demanded that social workers Cone off the restrictive national gradings and negotiate
with their employers,
But the problems involved in the present campaign have been illustrated graphically Islington branch of NALGO during the past couple of weeks.
On 1 November, the branch in North London approached the union's centralised Strike Operations Committee. wanted official support for strike action which had been approved overwhelmingly by a ballot of the membership.
Unhappy with this request for endorsement, the *Strike Operations Committee' another ballot had to place. When a second ballot produced the same result, the request for an immediate strike was again turned down.
This time branch members were OR TO wait December.
But when sineton social workers lobbied the NALGO headquarters last Thursday yet a further twist was added.
The lobbyists-who taking unofficial strike action
WIC told that before their strike date came up, the employers would come up with an acceptable offer.
Just what this offer will be and why it will be acceptable to social workers explained.
Attention now focuses on a conference of al: committees due to be held next
Monday. The demand for a rapid extension of strike action seems appropriate.
Socialist Challenge 23 November 1978 page 4
neurosis about their profits. There is doubting militancy of the delegates from the Bakers Union who met at a national conference for mingham on Saturday.
ACTION
The vote to continue inc strike for a £10 a week increase received unanimous support. The delegates called flying pickets to stop the flour mills which are still supplying Ine wo mam companics unt of local
Bine We
close in six months.
transferred to other parts of BL
said take
We've been told that the plant is not viable -the Marathon lorry we produce We've been told that the plant has made a £l½ million loss so far this year - although BL plan to spend £31 million on a new assembly hall for trucks and lorries in Lancashire.
HIDDEN
We've been told that we are to offered redundancy payments altnougn even us tional on accepting the 5 cent offer and a 10 per cent not productivity deal
We've been told all this, but we have no way of knowing strike how much is being hidden from
us.
One thing we do know is that unemployment is a growing problem in Southall. At 5.3 per
Support the bakers!
sweat
THE BREAD BARONS are beginning to squeal. With the decision of the Bakers Union last weekend to organise pickets of the flour mills, two giant firms of the bread industry are now showing distinct signs of
the strike aimed HOVIS Me OURal ang ASSO ciated British Foods—as well as In Віг- supplying companies which have stepped up incur bread producuon.
The conference also voted to expel 2,000 refused to join the 20.000 on strike. for expelled have agreed to rejoin the union.
Protesters resist an excavator working on the Torness site of
Britain's next nuclear power station. The demonstrators had CAR WORKERS at British Leyland's AEC plant in Southall, Middlesex, have been told their factory is to
Lorry assembly and engine plant production will be
ANDY LILLIE, an Engineering Union member at
AEC, delves into the latest crisis for Leyland workers.
cent of the workforce it's the although worst in outer London.
DISAPPEAR
So if we do get the sack jobs will not be easy to find. We also know that thousand jobs AEC over the past six years.
What adds to this crisis is that most of us who work on the shop floor are largely in the dark about what the union and its plant leaderrhip are up to.
Substantial For instance in September, condi- when BL announced its future per plans, union nounced they had an alterna tive plan. They even handed this plan to BL at a meeting in Preston.
RUMOURS It is rumoured that this plan I could save AEC -
at-Rank
"independent
members who
favourite Already 400 of those
ture description.
While the maintainee some 'Crumbling'-Fleet Street's | with managers and scab labour
shopfloor cnecking because we haven't plan!
INACTION
meeting
of the closure accepting definite.
we have seen offer.
disappear
possible.
ALTERNATIVE
AEC officials anthe workers.
plant is in trouble.
BL in but the
FRIENDS lend a hand on the picket line at Walthamstow.
WOre for strike-is a decidedly prema-
SATEK NE big two have DrOGUCHIOn previously occupied the site, were removed last week, and have now returned to prevent work going ahead.
has way these LULLOULS seen the jobs immediately
Whatever it says, at a mass
last Friday all discussion centred on the terms
almost that closure was
The only resolution was a call work on the stewards to ascertain the
ment • conen or management s company's
Because of such inaction. cent fight-back to save the jobs will not be easy. But a fight-back is string
HICKEY.
It can start by demanding that all available information
held by the It management is handed over to
men per
One thing we can be sure of - it is not the fault of those of us who work at AEC that the
Added to that, we need to link up with other workers at
other plants up and Wiet down the country to hammer meeting.
FFIC
TPI rolls
slowly
that their lucrative markets are
The two companies lost 5 per cent of their market share as a result of the bread workers' "scab'
have
vital. out a workers alternative to Leyland's crisis.
In the meantime the fight for
AEC Call start by promising management that not one piece
Drews Lane returns
THE DECISION by the Drews Lane plant of Leyland to return
without single concession from BL manage-
will strengthen the
stand firm on its pay offer of 5
producurit attached, writes PAT
The mass meeting on Friday voter sirto Touro reeds ning. shop stewards' recommendation to continue the strike.
was Malcolm Jack, Communist Party and distriet committee delegate who put the return to work resolution.
This allowed the compans
time to negotiate, and said He JUStO! should reconsidered on 1 December
BL plants
strike a year ago, and with the "independents' stepping in once
BIOHILS will battering
In many areas bread is in very limited supply, and generally only white unsliced loaves are available. Such items as bread%
and CEUTICLE have virtually disappeared.
SOLIDARITY
Solidarity with the strike is
building -UD Nottingham, for example, the trades council agreed last week to call for mass pickets of the Turners Sunblest bakery every Monday and Fader or
Production and delivery
bread is still being undertaken by members of the white-collar union ASTMS and the Transport Union
the callo TUC general secretary Len Murray for trade unionists to reuse to nandic bread produced by companies wnieh nave orrerca as per cell pay increase needs to be backed
leaders.
This is not just a fight about pay. The Bakers Federation has made it plain that it's out to wreck the Bakers Union, and the bosses have torn up the closed shop union agreement to emphasise their point.
SUPPORT
With the bosses, the police, and the press lined up against them, the bread workers will
the greatest difficulty winning on their own.
That's why support on the Photo: TAMIE TAVIOD
picket lines from every trades council Lane from branches preparing to take on the Government's pay policy is
If the bread strike is lost, the Labour leaders and the emplovers will be that muci more confident about taking on all those workers who don't happen to have the industrial muscle of those at Ford. of equipment will leave the plant unt alternalve work I. guaranteed.
AnG organising the workforce to ensure that such a promise is carried out.
Jack argued for unity with other BL plants and played on the isolation of Drews Lane to win the vote His efforts won him praise from the editorial columns of the ultra-right Birmingham Mail as 'the latest shop floor hero to stand out against the pressure of militants and call for moderation.
he grews sane sake wa mishandled from the begin.
decision was pushed through the mass meeting with no real effort membership what the decision explain
would mean.
*BL workers at Cowley will be called back to work by the
production COLLA Drews Lane resumes. The Cowley workers voted at a mass meeting earlier this month to strike for their pay claim once normal production resumes.
Page 5 scan of this page
militant advance
HOME NEWS
pass.
The government has already agreed on sanctions against Ford. These, they hope, will act as a deterrent against other firms settling outside the pay code.
But Todd's
claim 'realism' has not met complete approval from Ford workers. The union negotiators only voted 33 to 12 in favour of accepting the offer. secretary Bernie Passingham outside Dagenham plant. for renewed talks was shrouded in mystery.
announced to the press or the public.
explains.
The confusion it caused diverted attention from the fact
CaSE meeting O ne union side of the National Neronaung Committed decided not to approach the CoDay our clains.
That meeting took place on Ene Mondav. November. following the rejection by mass MCCLES or rores so-calice 'final offer'.
It decided that the unions were only prepared to discuss *the claim we submitted on August', as Todd put it. 'We are not going to discuss the ABC of the attendance allow-
said Reg Birch.
Within ten days, they were back negotiating.
Ford deal - a
to the rear'
'WE HAVE got to be realistic'. That's how Ron Todd | basic rates just to bring explained the unions' acceptance of Ford's latest offer. It is claimed the offer will add £12 or 17 per cent to the average earnings of a production worker.
It has driven a massive hole in the pay policy, through which other sections of workers will try to
The powerful shop stewards' which met on Tuesday morning endorsed the offer narrow margin of 97 votes for with 64 voting against and 4 for abstentions.
WITn Graham told us: "Todd's not Body plant steward Barry
realistic. It's not a clear 17 per cent rise *Our claim was for t20 on
Ford
RON TODD [foreground] waves to Ford national convenors
Talking to Ford -
behind closed doors
RON TODD's approach to the Ford Motor Company |
It had been prompted, it was announced, by a new and important development which could not be
This enigma was to serve a most useful function for Todd and Company. JONATHAN SILBERMAN
Company spokesperson Reg Wheatly made it clear that the subject of the negotiations was precisely the ABC nad attendance allowance.
Then came the 'explanation' of why Todd had apparently overturned his mandate and recommenced negotiations.
ARBITRATION
ACAS had been in touch win me company. nrougn une government's arbitration vice. une trade union executives were trying to intervene in the SuKC Over tHe caus or ne Negotiating Committee.
In the 1971 UHOI leaders engaged
living standards back to 19/4 The company's offer is worth th ht on the basic tae ors grade workers - the majority of production workers at Ford.
THREATS Dagenham
*The company has made committee great play in supposedly by the attendance allowance in favour
they supplementary lowance.
'Words don't change things. The penalty clauses are stil there in a watered down form. Particular v the threats to shor stewards organisation.
Every time stewards need to go to the membership over routine internal problems, such as health and safety, they will have to convince the workers that it is worth sacrificing 5 per cent of their weekly earnings for any action whatsoever.
*Ron Todd said at our last mass meeung mnar rord nave never given us anything, we've
this offer will make
"What's more the negotiators
pany's refusal to discuss the shorter working week. CONFIDENCE
But TGWU Murphy won the Dagenham stewards meeting. He appealed to the stewards to have concence negotiators and to maintain the unity unar nad ocen bunt up during the strike.
That meant unity behind the
steward said-parodying Murphy-"There's not going to be a retreat there'l be a miltant advance to the rear.' similar manoeuvres and evenmany secured a terarn to work
To avoid this
firmly under their control, the negonators had renewed talks
The powerful shop stewards committee on Thursday On hearing this explanation. they passed a resolution giving support to the action taken by their negotiators. the ANTICS
One might be forgiven for thinking that this was just the green light the negotiators were waiting for so that — because of the stewards' fear of the antics of ACAS - they might win ratification for tions on a money offer way short of the full claim. ser- she oter completely fails to mention any reduction of the working week.
There is, danger of a 1971-style sell-out Ford strike, by the union leaders.
They will be looking to play
our Ford WUINCES
meetings on Wednesday.
Press shop
and the union the press playing on this. dropping ENG
payments al-
Xmas.
STRONG
worth
that there will be
work
nearer to Xmas, it more action in the future. "This closer settlement date in France and Spain. accident.
official Mick
day at the whose
bulletins, record; activities, and lobbying
need onEs.
As - one
Donations on the increasing hardship happening approaches.
MASS Dagenham
16 November.
strikers. negotiahave counted RECALL moreover, still
however, some
recommendation
answer to Todd and Co.
Supporters of the left-wing
wert intending to fight the recom-
Hass
worker Rob McCrae said: "It will be very difficult to fight. Workers are feeling real financial hardship
leaders are negotiators:
Mick Murphy said he was sure we could win more money out of the company if we were prepared to stay out until after
Steware:
Coventry.
But we are strong and the company is weak. This strike Coventry has cost them nearly £450m in lost production, but this offer is decision
virtually no more than mented. the offer that we rejected at the Fellow mass meetings a fortnight ago.
"Moreover the company saic
back dating. She ofter will run from the day that we go back to
*They've moved the settle
from 21 October hoping weaken the possibility of strike
will bring Ford UK ena ol year Germany, This is no
*The Ford Workers Group
campaign during the strike has included producing
organising support
(here's the crunch) badly in
The Group's activities have heoun to win for it g res base among Ford workers, and it neeos cash to nep a contnue
Dearmer House, London SW2. CLU. FWG,
opening
was the ever writes
mainly financial
strikers, particularly as Xmas The
1975
But the only effective way of countering such sell-out moves
by involving the mass of
They have shown that they are prepared to take acton se long as they are fully aware of what's going on. From the very first day of strike action
completely WeCH dently of any recommendation
wage claim. overwhelming decision of the mass meetings. It's been the feelings of the rank and file that
La lightning England
A recall of the nationa stewards conference in Coven-
day, MakE
meetines would be a genuine
We need democracy
COLIN RYAN represents the majority of B-grade operators at Ford's Southampton plant.
Lobbying the talks at Ford's Bayswater House last Friday, he strongly criticised the union
*They shouldn't be discussing the attendance anowance
*The only thing they should be discussing is me run clann decided on by the national
conterence
*he vote was taken at the
conference that it
should - DE imple-
steward, CHUCK MARCZAK took up the theme that democratic control by the rank and file is vital.
Why Henry Ford
came to Valencia
HENRY FORD was well aware of all the good reasons for
new plant Almusafes, Valencia.
He liked to noint out that i
highest investment
ALBERTO MARTINEZ, who works there.
Ford's experts decided on Almusates after many months of searching for the perfect site.
- DODULAICE agricultural area with very little industry. A perfec source of cheap and weakly
plant, built between 1976, used high technology, with the aim of keeping the workforce small
was and boosting profits.
A workforce of 10,000 was producing 1,000 cars and 800 engines a day, within a month of the lines being opened.
Despite Ford's precautions, in January 1977 there was a two
strike in the Management refused to comply with any of the points in our
Initially they had agreed to some of our demands, but after
visit to HQ in they changed minds. We stopped work, and Then we were ocked out
We had mass meetings every
and although eventually had to return to work with very mue gamed our unity was unbroken; there were no dismissais
There should be forums where people could go
put positions. Everyone had their opportunity
their piece at the Sal Southampton mass meeting.
*If you had regular meetings, you wouldn't get these splinter groups fighting for secret ballots.
'At the moment, workers are forced to get information from
press media's biased.
Bill
Canes SHOU CAROU Dodds and his return-to-work crowd, and try to get the wives against the strikers.
But if they understood the issues through meetings want them to go back to work.' shop stewards organisation was untouched.
We had not achieved much, but we were not demoralised.
We were ready for future struggles and Ford management knew this. A few months later they set out to wreck our
In May 1977 management provoked a strike for which the workers were prepared Management's carefully planned provocations and lack of
on our side made CAUCIICHICC this possible.
For Ford this was a major victory. Fifty-six strikers wer dismissed, most of them
completely broken up. Since then there has been att resistance to speed-up and other penalties.
We are beginning to rebuild our forces now. In September of this year we had elections for
new Comite De Empresa (Works Committee) made up of 75 stewards representing al secuons or une plant.
Recently, worried by the lack of parts arriving from England Ford Valencia management Ineo the old tricks agam. ines attempted to provoke a strike to stop producuor time they did not succeed.
Now we have to prepare for the fights of the coming year. With
TENE government pay policy here the struggle of the British Ford workers is particularly interest-
Socialist Challenge 23 November 1978 page 5
Page 6 scan of this page
A work-in? I'm open to discussions" says NUJ leader
BRIEF
OVER £1,500 in fines has so far been imposed on anti-racists arrested during the defence of Brick Lane. Hackney & Tower
Defence Committee and the Anti Nazi League have now come together in a joint campaign *defend defenders'.
One of its first actions will be a picket of Knightsbridge Crown Court (1 Hans Crescent, SWI) next Monday, November, Juam, Where Stephen Wright is appealing after being arrested on 16 July and sentenced to two months in jail.
STUDENTS from as far away as Edinburgh and London joined thousand-strong demonstration at North Trafford College in Manchester last Friday to protest against racist
from t390 to £1,502 for all overseas students in classes with less than six British students.
NAN BAILEY, a leading black militant of the US SOCIS ISI Workers Party, will be among speakers at the
Day School Racism and Black Liberation on 3 December in London. Contact your local group for details or ring Colin on 01-359 8371.
*GET the Special Patrol Group out of Brixton' is the demand of demonsitanon Saturday 25 November called
the ANL
All-Lambeth Anti-Racist Movement after a number of SPG "exercises" aimed MaraSSine black people
Brixton 420pm
THE Campaign Against Immigration Laws (CAIL) is organising a day school
*Immigration Laws They Are and How to Fight
Them' on Saturday 9 Decem-
10.30am-5pm, Institute of Education, TOTU Way, London
Admission £1 (50p
Details from: CAIL,
earaers). c/o Box 133, 182 Upper Street,
London N1.
ESSEX students ended
picket of
university yesterday rent rises of 19.8 per
(grants only went up by 8.9 per
of the
cent). Sixty per
students are on rent strike and
further action is
discussed.
MORE nurseries are
demanded by the National
Union of Students, WHICH
organising a picket
Department of Education and
Science (Elizabeth
York Road, London SEI) on 25
November at 2pm.
But events in Leeds throw
doubt on the Broad
leadership's real commitment
issue. There
opposed calls for & hall-day
strike to demand the university
present BULOCIA S which faces closure. Then they * told a picket of the University
Finance Committee that it was
'pointless trying to
political points. -Kestle
'enquiry' after Xmas.
OVER 1,600 shopfloor wor-
kers in the AUEW and EEPTU
at Weir Engineering in Glasgow
nave been on strike since o
November: They are deman-
ding £12
management has offered an
average 19 increase including
productivity proposals which
MCal over
redundancies!
Pickets are making sure that
no goods enter or leave
factory. But the white collar
unions-APEX,
ASTMS-have refused to call
•their members out in sympathy.
Sofalist Challenge 23 November 1978 pagé 6
the
27
on
on
abortion this weekend.
SINC With so many
Oval, PENNY DUGGAN.
Over the past few women have sce! continuous attacks on their
the
rignito aborton Private Members have sougnt What reverse the gains women mact.
Admittedly, there was no such Bill last vear.
Bed- members with the right to bring WC1.
such Bills non- HoWard coming year includes
known anti-abortionists.
BONNETS Amongst them is James White, who tried to introduce
the restrictive legislation in the against past.
cent But the danger does not only
come from individual MPs with bees in their bonnets about a DOTTON being
of the
House.
Left
they
TERRY MARSLAND: "The 1967 Act is useless without the score facilities'
Callaghan's recent nouncements on the value of family life Thatcher and co - could easily lay the basis for attacks on women's rights to go out te work and
rise; fertility.
A woman's right to decide when or whether to have a child is an elementary democratic
400 right. Although many unions
have paper positions in support of a 'woman's right to choose',
the on the whole trade unionists
still see abortion as an issue of
and conscience rather than as
"class question.
Thus at the Labour Party's
HOME NEWS
Lock-out at The Times'
TU Conference on Abortion
Not a matter
of conscience
THE MINERS' union is the latest to join the long list of unions sponsoring the trade union conference on sponsoring monterence, mats at ugh the TU unions, paper policy of a woman's right to choose is about to become a real issue in the labour movement, writes
years | cons trace earth back almost votes trade nelpea ensure mat tne supports a 'free vote' of MPs Bills in that whether or not to support
Abortion Act. 'conscience"
This also goes against the but the list of meaning of the slogan 'for a Woman s MonE to choose. for the should be up to the individual three woman to cecice werner to have an abortion, Parliament. And it shouldn't be up to doctors either.
However. -LOI really control their fertility it is
embodied Marsland of Workers Union, who will be at the conterence. when she says:
It is pointless having stirring speeches and good policies aDorao we are nor diso fighting for the wherewithal to proviac taese services.
CUTBACKS *So while improving the '67 Abortion Act we have to realise this is useless without the facilities. 'We a So defending and extending the National Health fighting against the cutbacks, to ensure there are adequate abortion facilities, as well as the other aspects like contraception
nanana and childeare: Pres-
advice and
women are aware or the importance or these issues. But the unsympapro- thetic response of many male trade unionists to issues of and those Womers women reluctant to raise them in their union branches.
Women's caucuses in the control their have women's strength and darity, and forced male trade unionists to take issues seriously.
on abortion can be a real step forward especially if all the delegates are prepared to go back to their branches and workplaces to win support for activities to win a woman's right to choose.
THE CHANCES
the "Sunday
to quit for good.
told and the made a profit of £3.1m.
unions
party the composing - in other words
linotype operators. is a quesuon
COMPUTER The scheme
not MPs in
StOre.
law. Terry linotype operators.
the Tobacco
gos a nigi
on ment hopes CLOTHOUS nating NGA jobs.
able to
defending and
the accounts.
have be
Service, eliminate overstaffing in
[despatch] room. provision,
already TALKS
rights often makes
November is lifted.
helped build
SON-
'women's own jobs.
The trade union conference
process
of the *top appearing next Thursday are now remote. Along with
Times' and three management aims to stop publication by locking-out their 4,300 employees until a quarter of them agree
The unions are being asked to sign draconian agreements on the introduction of new technology which would severely weaken shopfloor organisation.
JAKE ECCLESTONE. father of the journalists' chapel on "The Times' and vice president of the NUJ,
GEOFFREY SHERIDAN involved and how the fightback is shaping up.
THE TIMES News papers plan has a very simbie mouve. mort profit. In the first nine months
The Times, the Sunday Times,
three
New technology. if brought in on management's terms, will reduce statting, particularly In
rooms where coDy is now set into metal D
involves the introduction of direct input by journalists, which would mean Inat a reporter types nis or nel copy into a central computer
This can then be recalled by
photo-composition machines, thus eliminating the
The main jobs that will be hit are those done by members of
ation, the main craft union. On
side to make an saving by elimilikelihood
The tele-ad staff who deal with the small ads would be
set them directly through the computer, which can also cost them and arrange
The company is taking the opportunity presented by the bust up over new technology to
what it considers other areas.
This mainly affects NATSOPA jobs in the machine room, and
in une publishing
eNd as position that
talks. It will not negotiate with management unless the threat to close the two national papers and the supplements on 30
We are following the NUJ's national policy, which is not to
negotiate on direct input until
me IvaA nas negonated on, It
Personally, I'm in favour of new technology, but not of
people's jobs unless they have agreed to pull
I'm also very much in favour
of a joint committee between
the various unions and chapels!
people's' paper years. supplements, about the issues JAKE ECCLESTONE: Great potential in new technology
10 0 at Times Newspapers. It's one of our great weaknesses that we
RaVE SUCH DOUY though the other unions don't seem to be very enthusiastic about setting one up.
This means there is not much
joint action, although it may develop. This wariness of each other among the unions is the product of elitist and hierarchical attitudes
TITS/ Star
LEGS Sun (BUMS TORSOS!
IMES THE TIMES
THE BOTTOM
PEOPIES
PAPER
in the industry over many
Without more liaison and trust, management will pick us off more easily. But for me to propose joint action would be a Dil impertinent wen were nol the ones primarily threatened and when the journalists have always been in a privileged position. always seen as management's soft option.
Fortunately, the NUJ chapel at The Times has never been more united and determined
UNANIMOUS
We had a two-hour chapel meeting last week attended by about 220 members, which is
Three motions were -nasser virus unanimousy. including an instruction that no
technology agreement put to
ment.
There has been a suggestion. from the NUJ's deputy general secretary among others, that in the event of closure we should all work-in under an elected board of management.
Of course, 1 am quite willing to think about this and t discuss it with anyone, but at
pressing things to get on with.
aner potential in the new technology. In theory it should make it possible for any group to have
Equality printing done cheaply, but I'm seeptical that this will come about.
CAPITAL
The capital required is so
enormous that to really open up
OTES. would require
something like national
printing corporation
as proposed by the
Labour Party.
THE TIMES
POWER TO/THE
WORKIN
Page 7 scan of this page
Root racism out of the workplaces
HOME NEWS
sections of the workplaces.
of buses,
conference on 2 December.
well.
Raghib Ahsan, steward al Kover Solihull, detailed in a recent issue of Socialist Challenge how racism is an everyday problem for black workers:
*It was in February 1976 that I told my friends in Sparkhill have had a must e Rovers. must joking", they said. "They don't employ blacks"?
Ahsan and his friends know at first hand what it means to be
nated against in employment training, and promonons.
is this systematic discrimination workers which anti-racists have to take up, fighting to achieve full equal rights for black people in reality, and not merely on paper.
UPROOTING
The price of failing to tackle these problems will escalating divisions between | impossible.
New Welsh
socialist paper
sells out
by left-wing members of Plaid Cymru.
discussion on conference.
STEVE BELL reports.
The left put motion defining wales as a colony of England, exploited by Anglo-American and overseas capital.
It went on to condemn the policies of the Labour government, characterise Wales Act as 'insults to the people of Wales, propose a
oycott of the Wales for the
campaign, outline a party campaign in the
The right won the support of the amendment to work to ensure
possible vote, while stressing the aim of full self-government.
The differences are not al first visible. But had the left's motion been unamended they would have hoped to see the ally Socialist campaigning Vales in for
referendum.
This Tine is both impractical and sectarian. The fight for the "Yes' vote could hardly be won by such means, and te cit was not about to try and commit the party to forming a Constituent Assembly regardless of the ree enoum.
The right won because they were eminently practical.
ANL trade union conference
THE LAST six months have seen a massive growth of
Anti Nazi League within
From the offices of the civil service to the platforms
workers have begun to organise against fascism. The ANL has now called a trade union
COLIN TALBOT argues that this is the time to go on the offensive against racism in the workplaces as
shop | black and white workers, and thus a growth in the influence
There are two ways of going about uprooting racism in the wOrk Diaccs.
PROSECUTION One is to rely on the state and call for 'strengthening the Race Relations Act. This non-starter, because the state has no real intention enforcing even its own liberal" policies against discrimination.
black vene the Race Relations Act every time they march or sel their filthy propaganda, thet almost prosecuted.
On the other hand, it is the easiest thing in the world for employers to avoid prosecution by going through motions. Pinning them down on individual cases is virtually NEARLY 3,000 copies have been sold of a new Welsh socialist paper, 'Y Faner Goch' [Red Flag], published
The left's position has important weaknesses, however. These were most clearly revealed in the
devolution at the recent
forward a In the words of Emrys Roberts, the devolution proposals allowed him to 'see the master hundred ear seven hundred tunnel"
The referendum will be used SEne not to campaign for socialism, but for Plaid's basically radical bourgeois sorunons work in the *Wales for and Assembly' Can Da 2.
Plaid MP Daffyd Ellis Thomas 121 INSISICU independence is not an issue Within this campaign the left will be unable to promote its Yes free and socialist Wales, as it is not prepared to break the 'unity' of the party.
This highlights the dilemma of the left in the Plaid. It is not programmo recons programme incompatible with the 'centrathe list government, but also with . major SOI Cymru. It can't live in the same party forever.
Either it prepares itself for the formation of a new united revolutionary organisation, it will remain powerless inside the Plaid.
NEXT WEEK: An interview with Toni Rees of theY Faner Goch editorial hoard.
the
UNC IS
of
At the end of the day there are still fewer whites who get the jobs, the high wages, the training and the
and promotions.
There is an method. That is to rely on our own strength, the strength of ne race unions. totake onine all the employers and force equality
for black workers When a factory has 10 per cent black workers and only a handful of blacks in the best jobs, then the obvious demand is that blacks must be promoted or transferred to give them the status their numbers warrant. This policy originated in the USA, where unions have fought for and won what is called affirmative action but also for other oppressed nationalities and for women.
AINE
conference is to begin to down to me senous confronting racism WOrKOlaCCs. LICH discuss investigating the extent
party
Socialist Challenge Fi Liho, Must Be year
Apper it, Ling For the 3-359
SOCIALIST FEMINIST CONFERENCE Shev wil the Camden Women s
where ode: Belsize Fart
en ven , Chaplan, London
that discussion.
Hall, Venn St Thurs 30 Nov 8pm. All welcome.
NEWHAM WOMEN'S VOICE presents:
Son on. 15 aring so London
E6. Adm 50p.
PARTY Ard Phels (members only) at
only
Plaid TO LET: Single Room (prefer woman
Green tube, London N22.
SPARTACIST rock carnivals or union/ biack defence .30pm Fri 1 formation ring 021-472772 WOMEN IN IRAN: an Iranian
London Swa
FRIAL IYPEWRITER
SLAVE
people a
0. -142 blacks than of racist taking up
The ANL alternative Conterence House,
credentials.
London WC2.
hundreds
not just for blacks,
union
Laskoi in the
WHAT'S LEFT
Lyndhurst Rd, London NW revolted from into English. st Anne starting
against racist Zionism.
St., London W1.
Line paDel
mittees, committee, ATKINSON.
fascist
had been set. ercont ges a decline in
I'ne
had
discrimination and policies like affirmative action to end it.
trade union -is at Congress Wear Hondon We. is open to Great Russell 'bona fide trade union bodies and workplace organisations*, and all readers should aim to
Registration [£1] from: ANL, PO Box 151,
NAN BAILEY a black revolutionary from Detroit will be speaking at the Cheques
Fourth International Rally
Fri 24 Nov, 7.30pm Camden Town Hall (Kings X)
She will also be speaking in Leeds, Bradford, Birmingham, Manchester, London colleges
and Hackney - phone Colin
on 01-359 8371 for details.
(including p&p).
SIGHT
the Latin American Fraction of the IMG
(Trom Latin American be Spanish/Portuguese material is comin
ip. Contact: LAF, PO Box 50
at the
anuries to 38 Chalcot. Rd. London
For London y ANT CONST seminar. Sis Ant Zionist Organisation and the struggle
Mitchell, 90 John St, Glasgow Gi
international
ICAR Nan Bailey (US
sevmour Man, snoucnam
State of the
anti-fascist
movement
THE anti-fascist and anti-racist conference in June, called by
CARF and National Coordinating Committee of Anti-Fascist Com-
elected steering writes JULIAN
The job of this committee was to arrange for the election of a national committee from be
bodies. The steering committee met recentiv but was unable to carry out the task it
In many areas, there has been
the regional organisation of anti-fascist and anti-racist groups the most regrettable reverse being suffered in London.
steering committee tion. discussed its inability to carry out is mangale nere were some doubts expressed as to the
been passed by the conference and a feeling that
conference itself had
TWO IN THE EYE
Wedge to Work. Anti-Racist
Fight Racism badge is
black on white.
Repeal All Immigration
Laws is black letters on
white with red star.
Both are 15p- plus 7p
postage, or 11p for bulk
orders (over 10)
including postage
payable to
Socialist Challenge
(Badges), PO Box 50
London N1 2XP
FOR RACISM!
7 Noy, 11 Dec. B Jan, at 374 Grays weeks:
1 WCT. 301 SOCIALIST CHALLENGE now has a stock of attractive hessian bags with
two designs; in black, fight racism; in
. Cost
RACISM' T-shirts. GOOC
quality white cotton with red design
sleeve
Medium or large (sizes are on the • 61.50 from our offices, or E1.75 inc.
fun November, 10.00am
Registration E1 in advance or E1.50 or
the day. Details from SERA, 9 Poland
NAHUNAL
CAMPAIGN needs a new office worke
the office, organise activities, demos
evening and weekend meetings, Salar
1оorox 2100 per mont aner le
Pok and oly reper to: 3
work and other exper
Camden Rd, London NW
produced some demoralisation.
But there was a general agreement that thes were secondary to the explosive
Anti Nazi "01 Ene The future of the SCCL tobI bound up with the ANL
The preferred option would
the emergence of democraticaliv structured ANIS with an elected leadership that coma take up all aspecis or th anti-fascist and anti-racist struggle and incide all group involved in that struggle.
A less happy variant would
the fragmentation and decline of the ANL, which would require totally restructured national organisa-
The steering committee decided to take a few modest initiatives, including producing a duplicated news-sheet, and decided to reconvene in the
of the anti-fascist movement. (office hours and Sundays) or Jor 01-986 4045 (evenings).
FANON and
American Black Thought by Lou Turne
La Dunayevskaya, £1. Bot!
Publications, Bo 182 Upper Street,
PEOPLE'S FESTIVAL 78 12 hours of culture, politics and
children's festival/ creche Sun. 26 Nov., 11am-11pm Belle Vue, Manchester Tickets f2 - reduced for non-earners Details: 28 Hathersage Road Manchester 13(061-224 5378) Organised by Manchester Area CPGB
nclude: Arthur Lathal AUEW or West London A Si
drink
23 November 1978 page 7
Page 8 scan of this page
IN DEFENCE O REPUBLICI
IRELAND
by
Paul Foot
THIRTEEN YEARS AGO, in his introduction to a collection of essays and reviews called Writers and Politics, Conor Cruise O'Brien issued a solemn warning to Western liberals:
*To those outside the rich countries who sickened by the "liberalism", the liberal voice excellence is that of Mr stevenson - inevoice narexozined to the world that the United States had notning to do with the Bay invasion: the voice that justified the exclusion of China from the United Nations on moral grounds; the voice Ulat reasons for supporting Belgian policy
*From this viewpoint Mr Stevenson's face, with his shiftily earnest advocate's expression, is the ingratiating moral mask which toughly. society wears before the world it robs: "Liberalism" is the ideology of the rich, the elevation into universal values of the codes which emergence, and favour the continuance of capitalist society.
Yes. Conor Cruise 'Brien mused he himself was liberal. He did owe a commitmentto trecdom or specon and
the press, academic independent iudgement dent judges'. Indeed, he felt he owed it to these freedoms to 'chip away" what he called the mendacity' - the
Photo: DEREK SPEIRS (IFL) hypocrisy and sycophancy
which Western liberalism often hid.
In this collection of essays there is one example of that 'chipping away'. It was written in 1967 as an introduction to a book on the Vietnam War. It is a sarcastic, furious attack American bombing of Vietnam.
Dr O' Brien denounces the exercise as "state terrorism'. No mucking about ten with a dennion or terrorism No problem inen about
(of and "legitimate force' (of the state). The bombing of Vietnam was "terrorism' justifiable on intellectual grounds only
protessors WHO KeD because children were being blown to bits in Vietnam
I cannot imagine why this essay was included in this book. It was written in
O'Brien', outspoken radical of the 1960s.
Everything else in this book is part of The 'new osrien the politician of the 1970s. In all of them he turns his mind to political violence not, as in the Vietnamese essay, to ponucal violence carried our by state: and governments, but to violence which is directed against wha he calls 'democratic states".
* Democratic states O'Brien argues, have the defend themselves against 'violent conspiracies' against them from within. Further, these "violent threaten uS with a reversion barbarism'.
The truth is that this book does not seek to lay down general rules principles about political violence. It is,
Socialist Challenge 23 November 1978 page 8
MDEA MON
HAGAN'ADLEY AN
1 YEARS
word
Adlai
of Pigs
auditatial
acquisitive
favoured the
freedom, and indepen-
- behind
on the
what Ireland, and from the IRA.
guerrillas)
jobs
peaceful settlement Ireland.
from the scene " (his emphasis).
responsible Why,
tough with them.
the language of blood.
political
Conor Cruise
right to debate on muggers.
conspiracies The colonel, however,
to O'Brien asks
and phoney
JURYRS
*EARS DUDDY SACRIAND almost entirely, about political violence i one place, and from one source: in
Members of the IRA are interested on 'in blood'. They have, his argument goes on, been chiefly responsible for inflaming Protestant and British army
in the North of Ireland. And they are, by th
the chief barrier to a in Northern
"An agreement', he writes, 'might be possible — if the IRA were to disappear
How can they be got off the scene? The
- DoCtOr repres, by They are men of blood. and theretore oniv understand
They have noting to negouate, so wily negoulate with them; nothing to say on television except to incite people to murder. so why allow them on the television?
At times, Dr O'Brien sounds like a colonel at a Tory Party conference in a
There's only one thing these bastards understand..."
is usually Falls satisfied with the crack of a whip. Dr
for more for imprisonment without trial or after a mockery of a trial; for phoney courts
convictions; for army
CuDIC CERALD DEERY 16 YEARS terror squads; for anything which will remove the IRA and thus pave the way to a so unon or tne asa quesuon
Dr O'Brien is so busy IRA-bashing that he almost forgets to tell us what he thinks about the central political questions in Ireland. Is he, for instance in favour of partition? His answer appears to be "yes', since again and again he reminds us that a majority of people in Northern Ireland do not want a united Ireland'.
But where does that argument end?
majority of the people Fermanagh, for instance, do want a united Ireland. So do the majority of people in Tyrone, in County Derry, and probably even in County Armagh
In short, there are only two counties in the whole of Ireland - Antrim and Down — where a clear majority want to be part of the United Kingdom. Even in these two counties, which include Belfast, there is a huge minority that wants the opposite
The majority of the people in the
Road, for instance, or Andersonstown want a united Ireland. Who ever asked all these people what they wanted? remembor Brough he doesn't botherse O'Brien
KEVIN CACAR
10°26 YEARS
remind anyone in any of these lectures or essays) that Northern Ireland was born against the will of an elected government as the direct result of a 'violent conspiracy'
This one was led by the Tory "democrat' Carson, ineral covernments cedaranor to Home armee me roles ans. are cncourasce British army officers not to obey the instructions of their elected government.
Carson won. The British government was eventually persuaded to parcel off a section of North East Ulster, lumping in Fermanagh and Tyrone with the Protestant counties just to make it 'viable', and to hand it over to the Protestants as a Protestant state for a Protestant people'
The whole squalid welcomed and subsidised by British businessmen whose wealth in Ireland at that time was mainly in the North.
James Connolly once warned that if partition was accepted there would be a
carnival of reaction' in North and in South until Ireland was united again The prediction has come grimly true
The single purpose of Northern Ireland was Protestant course, The raison d'être of the state was that Protestants were better treated than
PETER CAINION
TOM OWN
RS
MFEELY
SEAN 1 AVIRT Catholics,
Use dic who defied the Rule for all Ireland. Carson courts,
state, doomed. -voence deal was Civil ascendancy. civilians.
MARIE D YÉA
H3
All "democracy" in that state, therefore, has always been, and always will be a farce.
The Protestant majority elected its governments and its councils to
against the •Catholic minority. All the organs of that state -the police, the "B' Specials, the law
the civil service - were organised for the same purpose.
All hope for a non-sectarian labour movement was, inevitably in such a
Ten years ago, in the wake of the May events in France and the rising of the people of Czechoslovakia, a new, more powerful civil rights movement was launched in Northern Ireland. The • Protestants reacted as thev a wavs had They sought to crush the movement by
rights marchers were blud geoned at Burntollet. Protestant police in Catholic Derry organised a series of midnight terror raids. The 'B' Specials armed themselves for a decisive blow
prodigious inquiry, entirely Protestant violence. It was directed at Catholic
AnC something approaching genocide for the Catholic community.
Page 9 scan of this page
)KEVIN
CAMBELL
LI
6 GETHOM
| 12
In the event a pogrom was stopped by he arrival of the British troops. Many atholics, as Dr O' Brien rightly recalls, elcomed the troops as saviours. But the troops, and the government tho sent them, were onfronted with a bald alternative. hould they dismantle the Protestant scendancy, or snowd tney mamtamn it. most instinctively, they maintained it
expense or une camone ommunities.
When, some years later, gradually
hed ingerly these tish goverestant
defuse
be danver-shapid either aces,
"power-sharing executive hattered by a Protestant strike in 1974.
Ever since, the British "democracy' as ruled Northern Ireland directly lirectly, that is, in the interests of rotestant ascendancy. ne roops have played out their timelonoured role of crushing Republican esistance. Through all this, sectarianm ane violence m Norment reare ave not diminished one whit. The whole of this revolting exercise as been carried out ropaganda chorus which has united he rulers of Britain, of Northern
F IRISH
ANISM
FIEDWARD KFUM
12 YEHRS
MAT CAMBELLI
10 YEARS/
Ireland.
they who are responsible for the mess they have created, but the IRA,
quickly "gunmen', the 'men of violence'. This
chorus has now been joined, to the delight of the other singers, by Conor Cruise O'Brien.
word or tour nundred years or britisn government-inspired violence in Ireland; hardly a word of fifty years of violence by a Protestant government Protestant
The directs all his wit, sarcasm and majestic language against the IRA Yet at each stage in the story Ireland the IRA enters the stage not as the initiator of violence and oppression but as the response to it. by Dr O'Brien, the IRA did not, as he pretends, arise in magical or mystical means to destroy the gains of the civil rights movement. It grew in strength and influence in 1970 and 1971 as the British troops made it clear that their sentiment and bias was not in favour of the oppressed minority but against it. against
about "justifiable
Lian
are 'mendacity victory in a long
democracy
La separate state. 3CDaldIC State which ascendancy Ireland, and, in effect, of Southern | fighting, unaided even by a Carson, a
well lose.
The chorus proclaims that it is not
In his reflections' there is hardly a
by both churches
Ministers.
Minister himself.
and In the most recent phase, dealt with
Belfast by some
SJOI
Dr O'Brien's wordy philosophising Violence by
state force and (Hutchinson). "unjustifiable IRA violence allows him | appeared in Books and Bookmen (sic).
to duck the crucial question, the question which has to be asked in all such circumstances: which is the violence of the oppressed and which the violence of the oppressor?
Those who answer it does not matter; it is equally to blame'- those who describe the IRA or any other "terrorists' as though they were brutish animals without cause or explanation
guilty precisely with. which rich and corporations and governments shrug off their responsibilities
even than mendacity.
O' Brien indulges turns the reader or the
solution to Ireland's problems.
I wonder if Dr O' Brien really believes that, if the IRA were battered out of existence, the problems in the North of i Ireland would be any nearer solution. The truth is the opposite
The Protestant extremists would see the destruction of the IRA as another
series of victories.
They would demand not less from a "settlement but more. And if peace and
were restored to the province, it would be on terms even more disastrous for the minority than
There is no solution to Northern Ireland while Northern Ireland exists as
Its existence as a CarTICS with it ar automatic Protestant ascendancy, and with it eternal civil strife.
The Protestant ascendancy depends for its survival on British support. It is the British presence, and the confidence that the British troops will, in the last resort, always protect their Protestant
wins for the Protestant WRENITIV OF the Protestant people of the North.
If the British prop were withdrawr from that ascendancy, the Protestant extremists would lose their automat grip on the loyalties of the Protestant people. The Protestants would be faced for the first time with the prospect of
bitter war - a war which they might
In those circumstances there is at any Tae some nose ident masses Protestant working people would break away from ten extremists, and would respond to a call for a different sort of Ireland than the rotten parishes which have been held out to them for centuries
But by now I have left Conor Cruise O'Brien far behind. His business is no Ministers, expses the mendacious
is the mendacious
His liberalism is now the ideology of the rich, the elevation into universal values which favoured the emergence
favour ine continuance capitalist society'. He has become the Adlal sevenson of mis generation.
In some relief, 1 turn his book over,
SENG glamore pho graph of ring
COvEr SuIC reflection of 'Mr Stevenson's face, with its shiftily earnest advocate's expres
*Herod: Reflections on Political
Conor Cruise O'Brien This
soon.
Last month the Constabular raided Northern Ireland's department
They took details receiving unemployment security benefits. The details, said the RUC, were to be fed into their new computer.
This is only the latest stage in the
practically the population - are filed in computers operated by the security forces.
The British Army operating four main computer systems for a number of years.
in one svstem well over halt a million personal files are held. They contain the subject's age, description, jobs, habits, and details of movement. There are cross references to the person's relatives and friends. RECORDS
The second system operated by the Army contains street records. These list the name, outlook of each person living in the houses in question.
This computer even contains the names of local dogs. The theory is that someone's identity can be checked by asking them the name of a dog in the street where the suspect claims to live!
CAROLICI records of vehicle numbers, the colour ame make or une car establishing how the vehicle could be checked at a road block. contains the car-owner's religion.
The final computer section used by the Army is the VCP (Vehicle Check Point) Index which lists all cars stopped at road blocks.
With these four computers now joined by information on claimants fed into the new RUC computer, anyone with access to these systems now has on record the name, employment record, address, political view, religion, pastimes and friends of the majority of the population in the North of Ireland.
ANTI-RIOT
That is how near the British Army and the RUC have brought 1984 to the Six Counties.
As well as the sophisticated thought police, other recent developments in the organisation the reinforced the more practices of the North of Ireland's police.
With the growth of mass protest in the of Belfast, eisewnere, a special anu-not squad na. been established.
Showing a lack of originality, this force is known as the Special Patro Group. Like its London counterpart its personnel are trained on para-military lines.
In its armoury the SPG has riot helmets, visors, masks, plastic • bullet guns, pistols, pump action shotguns, Sterling submachine guns and American MI carbines.
It is known that the RUC SPG has had training sessions in England and, like the London SPG, in Army bases in Germany.
The arming of the RUC is in direct defiance of the recommendations of the Hunt Report on the RUC, which was
Coming to London soon
RUC -its new
technology
of repression
WHEN British troops first went in to the North of Ireland the story was that they were going to bring 'British democracy".
Instead the reverse has happened. The standards of "justice' long practised in the North of Ireland have come to Great Britain forms such as the Prevention of Terrorism Act.
GEOFF BELL looks at the latest developments in the technology of repression in the North of Ireland. They could be in your area
Royal Ulster files social security
of families social
million people entire working
have been
every recorded occupation, and political riots in 1968-9.
Specials,
10 percent of holds
code
The file
DISBAND
occupation, name.
DeCI
Constable
have traditional
Derry and
TIPPED
hand-picked and
shields, batons, gas Walther
infamous
For the
seen.
in SIR KENNETH NEWMAN established in the wake of the RUC
Hunt recommended the disarming of the RUC, the disbandment of the B
and the encouragement of Catholics to join the police
Ten years later there are still less than
Catholics in the RUC; and while the B Specials have gone they have been replaced by the Ulster Defence Regiment, hundreds of whose members and ex-members have been convictca or Loyanst terronst onences
The first Chief Constable after Hunt, Sir Arthur Young, also tried to disband the RUC Reserve Force, which had led the armed assault on the Catholic ghettoes of Belfast in August 1969. The name "Reserve Force has gone. But the SPG is the same group under a different
The hope of the British Government is that the RUC will eventually take over the role of the British Army. It is Tor unis reason mey are being wamee and equipped as the Army itself has
Certainly the head of the RUC, Chief
Kenneth Newman, qualifications for "anti-terrorism'
He began his police career in the Palestine Police Force, just after the Second World War. As a profile in the Observer put it recently, *after a short spell of clearing demonstrators from the Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem, he went to the Special Branch'
From Palestine Newman went to London and as Chief Superintendent in the Metropolitan Police he oversaw thi police attacks on the anti-Vietnam war demonstrators in 96%
To de Neommissonely tipped as
Commissioner Metropolitan Police.
Whether he will bring with him the
techniques of the Castlereagh barracks, the Sterling submachine guns of the RUC,
computer techniques learned from the British Army remains to be
But if you are on a file at your local social security office, start worrying.
Socialist Challenge 23 November 1978 page 9
Page 10 scan of this page
Joan Maynard on the Shah's reforms' "Too little and too late
Iran.
be doing about it.
How would you describe the government's present policy on
government appears lo thínk that the Iranian regime is a stabilising force in that part of the world. If that was true once, and it may have been true once,
certainly isn't true longer; and even if it were true it is not the kind of stabilising force which I as a socialist would wish to be supporting.
The view that I have is the view that the party has: if the Western had supported the Shah, we would not now have the military regime in power. We probably would have a more progressive and acmocrane government In Iran.
I think it is one of the most repressive regimes in the world, and that's saying something, for there are some repressive ones Indonesia, Chile, Argentina - but nevertheless don't think you would be able
anything repressive than the Shah's regime.
Owen has said that if the Shah falls there will either be right-wing takeover or communist takeover.
His argument is tnat ne s arraid that if the Shah goes there will be something even right-wing than the Shah. must say naTe
Corner, London.
Iran. needed it-the situation in neighbouring
in the region.
Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.
If Zulfigar Ali Bhutto is now regarded by the downtrodden
then the entire credit for this
acmevemen should go
General Zia-ul-Haq and
band of civilian sycophants
who now run the country.
The authors of the
Martial Law have transformed
the country into a pontical concentration and
cultural
influential of the right-wing
Cabinet are members of the
neo-fascist Jamaat-i-Islami. It
ecialist Che
JOAN MAYNARD, the Labour MP for Sheffield Brightside, was a member of the Labour National Executive Committee delegation that protested to the Foreign Secretary last week over government policy on
She talked to GEOFF BELL about what is wrong with that policy and what the labour movement should
visualise, but he argues that this MILL VOT well lead to communist development and
Well, I don't share his views, but even if it that was likely to happen I still don't think could bring myself to support the Shah and supply him with arms and tanks which he has been using against the there. I very much hope that the any Queen won't go to add turthe respectability.
I can only say that in this place Partied, on nin lobbied students who are in all kinds of trouble with not purple in some part of the people in some part of world who are going to be deported back to Iran executed.
So 1 and some other MPs have tried to help, sometimes successfully.
How much support House or Commons would you say your views have?
more I would think it has quite a lot of support, but I don't honestly know.
In the 20s or 30s?
Oh, 1 think it would be more than the 30s. Some of the MPs who are described as 'middle of the road' wouldn't more support a regime like Shah's.
Then, in the party itself the
LABOUR BREAK ALL LINKS WITH THE SHAH!
STOP ARMS SALES!
DOWN WITH THE SHAH!
OWEN OUT!
Demonstration: 17 December, 1.00pm, Speakers
Organised by the Committee Against Repression in JUST to add to the Shah of Iran's problems-as if he
threatens further to destabilise imperialism's interests
TARIQ ALI looks at the growing crisis of the military regime as the Supreme Court continues its deliberations on the fate of former prime minister
is they who determine social and cultural policies.
INTIMIDATION On the economic his denationalisations of essential
MOUSLEC. being motion and the third thousands of workers are under threat. The condition of the peasants is worse than it has been for two decades.
If one adds the imprisonment and flogging of journalists, Zia's public executions, cal arrests, the killing of workers strike
23 November 1978 e 10
• peopic
Iranian
Iranian
and
•INE policy is against the Shah. We
passed a resolution at the NEC against the regime and against World broadcast when Owen said that because we have supplied the Shah with arms that reason for backing the Shah. we in ine nec let tnal rather this was a reason for using our muscle in that he was dependent on us.
When we went to see Owen he made a great point of how much trade we did with Iran and the oil and so on. Well the WOUL the oil hasn't been coming through
recently because of the strike. But if we do do so much trade with Iran presumably they are dependent on us as well as we being dependent on them. It cuts both ways.
Owen has said that Irom nim responsible 'reforms' which place in Iran.
Well, any reforms that there have been have been negligible and I think they have been too
Zia digs Bhuttos grave
industrial township of Multan, Pakistan and the use of religion as an
instrument of intimidation and oppression, picture of Zia's Pakistan.
FORGOTTEN
But all these measures have only made Bhutto into a hero once again. His flagrant abuse democratic autocratic behaviour, and the vindictive style of his regime are all being rapidly forgotten.
front The Jamaat-i-Islami
spreading new discredit him. jobs of states that Bhutto's mother was
of Hindu stock.
A friend just back fron Karachi describes a conversa• non wiln a peasant woman. *After. I had exhausted all the regime s DENCI mass politi- against Bhutto I said
they're saying his mother was a Hindu."
Troops confront students at the gates of Tehran University.
little and too late
One
was
What should
unions?
Should question
very important.
USA is for some of the
taken
should be raised. ''So "what
inen one gets a was? A Muslim?"
of Pakistan.
tendencies
tan,
rights, his beginning
loyalties.
nalists ooserved are National Day'.
rumours One of these shocked by
response to his rather
OH ONE Bhutto's anesanons **But discontent.
that's borne out by the rioting which
unions.
There haven't just been a few people against the Shah, there's important. been massive opposition which does I think support the view that any reforms which he may have brought about were, as l say, too nue ana too late
people outside parliament be doing over Iran, in the Labour Party, in the
In the labour movement we
discussing of Iran whenever possible, because I think the question of foreign policy
Speakers: Iraniar
If we support a repressive 7.30pm. regime abroad. sooner or later we will have one at home. This is why, for example, our policy in Ireland is very important and
So we should try and discuss Iran whenever we can, as well as signing petitions and that
what", she replied, you think the Prophet Mohammed's mother
Zia is busy digging the grave
huo sexed. tion will spark off centrifugal
SERICE smaller provinces of Baluchis
Sneaneut to shift their
Recently the Baluchi natio-
*Baluchistan A moderate Raluchi leader. Bizenio. WYCh
the government mild statement that there were four role is. nationalities in Pakistan. The government claims that there is
productive execution could fuse the national struggle with logically
Bhutto alive. the growing social and political
Outside forces could then move in to ensure/a
male OUCHES
made 2pm.
sort of thing. We should also try and raise the issue in the
Pressure from the unions, could I think be very
Iranian Trotksyist speaks on
building the party in iran Rally to celebrate 40th Anniversary
of the Fourth International
Exhibition and film
5.30pm Film and Exhibition
Friday 24 Novembe Camden Town Hall, Euston Road
London NW1.
MANCHESTER
Socialist Challenge Public Meeting
Iran and Revolution (editor Socialist Challer UMISI Students -Unior
Wednesday 6 December
LEEDS
Socialist Challenge Public Meeting
Iran and Revolution Speakers: Iranian revolutionary
3.00pm, Leeds Trade Clu
aville Mount, Lee
Thursday 7 December 'new stability, which would mark the end of Pakistan.
The problem for the moment is that the Shah of Iran, who could have played a stabilising
fighting for his own political life. And any Indian intervention would be counter-
The United States should
be trying to keep But to do so means getting rid of Zia and the group of generals around him.
Soviet gays
'YOU are the first homosexual we have met; in the Union there are none, and even if there were any it would be necessary to eliminate them.
This is what the KGB told Angelo Pezzana, a militant of
gay movement. when he one-person demonstration in Moscow this year. That such a claim could
Illustrate: complete social oppression of
men and lesbians in the Soviet Union.
The Czarist laws against
homosexuality •wer! abolished In 1917, but reintroduced in an even more savage form by Stalin in 1934 as part of the strengthening of the "socialist family.
The law has also been used to victimise political activists such
UTCCLOT radjanov.
brutality with which homosexuals are treated in the
has been described by Gennady Trifonov, a poet imprisoned for four
writing love
Lack of democracy has also
it impossible for traditional prejudice to combatted.
Pickets are being held internationally this Saturday to demand an enc oppression: Soviet Embassy, Kensington alace ardens
(note change from previous ad)
Hong Kong
YOU have to be realistic and not ignore the economic successes of capitalism when they occur.' The speaker is Chi Feng, a representative of the New China press agency in Hong Kong.
This particular piece of revisionism not just academic, for Chi, on behalf of the Chinese bureaucracy. was
British colony and some of its equally charming SouthEast Asian neighbours: Singapore South Korea and Taiwan!
Chi also remarked that a re-evaluation of the • violent anti-colonial riots which shook the colony in 1967 was needed
Apparently the disturbances which marked the low point o Anglo-Chinese relations anc the high point of Maoist verbal radicalism toward. Hong Kong, were nothing more than a manoeuvre of the perfidious Lin Piao, designed to make life difficult for Chou En-lai.
The demonstrations and
Maoist leaders were
misled by this pro-imperialis running dog. whole affair was just a terrible misunderstanding!
In other words any political
operation today would be a
somewhat risky enterprise
A new Pakistani postage stamp proclaims the motto:
'Protect Wild Life'. It is a fitting symbol of the priorities of military Pakistan.
Human lives are expendable, but wild life is not.
This is the way the savage instincts of the generals and their semi-fascist friends are suitably expressed Defend democratic rights in SAKESEAT Release all political prisoners End martial law
All night vigil outside Pakistan Embassy, 35 Lowndes Square, London SW1 starting at 5.30pm, Saturday 25 November.
Organised by Action for a
Democratic Pakistan.
Page 11 scan of this page
*Brother soldiers, why do you kill your brothers?
history-making events in Iran? Monday, 23 October
aLLaK students of Vaseghi High School in Villa Street (an all female school) for no reason at all. They attack the students with clubs and water hoses, injuring thirteen.
The high-school principal intervenes, ICHing the police that they have no business there and that they should get lost. The principal also tells the students that they should all leave the school and go home OrerOWI SaICLY
The students leave — yelling, shouting, some crying. But they zo to franshare High School in Kakh Street (all male). students ( from both SCRoos then assemble in the schoolyard. There are about 2,000 in all.
The police attack gathering also. The students respond by throwing rocks and bricks. They win. The police have to back down and leave. Four students, Temnale ZO IWO male, injured.
VOLCANO
At about three or four in the afternoon the news gets around town inat one orme scudcals has died in the hospital.
ALTIORLaDOUL O. U DeIsons gather at the Grand Mosque of ine cuy. Everyone is angry ds hell. The crowd seems like one big volcano.
Everyone says, We are going to sit here until they give us the body'. At times in the past the covernmen! has murdered
protesters and refused to turn their bodies over to relatives
A delegation is formed to call the SAVAK, the police, and the gendarmerie to find out the fate
of Maryam Borna - the person that people think has been killed- and to inform them of the crowd's decision to sit at the
mosque until they learn what has happened to Maryam.
The government agencies do not give clear answers. They say
contradictory things as to the
whereabouts of Maryam.
HOSPITAL
By this time Maryam's sister
has come to the mosque.
says her sister was injured with
a club and taken to a hospital
HOLCaLCHU
But she has been looking for
her SIICC HO0H. It is
7.30pm and she has looked
CvCryWHICIC. but there is no
trace of Maryam.
Maryam's sister says that one
of the employees of the hospital
told her that a body was taken
to the morgue. It could very
well have been Maryam's body.
This news is announced over
the mosque loud-speaker.
People stegacryn by terigious
A delegation religious
leaders is formed to go and
confirm this report.
delegaton leaves and peopic
stay in the mosque to await the
results.
They are restless,
disgusted, and full of hatred for
this regime because of all of the
INTERNATIONAL
Diary of struggle in Iran
WHAT is it actually like to take part in the
This article is a political diary kept for a week in
October by an inhabitant of Gorgan, a town of about
50,000 some 200 miles north east of Tehran.
the The
this
two things that it does to people. sone cecrauon about 1.30am. They Maryam was injured and taken to the hospital.
She has just been released and is at her aunt's house. No one has died; the rumour was wrong.
But people are still angry. They decide to call a demonstration for tomorrow to protest police brutality.
Tuesday, 24 October The demonstrators march at about 9.20 morning. There are 30,000 of them.
Every class and layer of society represented students, teachers, people from She the 037aars. establishment, and peasants trom nearby villages The demonstrators chant, now DEOBICE SO UICIS. kill your brother?'; *Army, you are innocent: vour orticers art butchers'; and 'How long will remain in the sleep you unawareness?' Of course, the favourite chant is "Death to the Shah'.
RALLY Another popular slogan is *The Shah has recently turnec Moslem, he bathed in the blood The of the vouth'
Black Friday (the 8 September massacre in Tehran).
The procession marches for a angry, long LIme anes assembles in a large open space for a rally.
Demonstrators topple a statue of the Shah; the man himself will be next.
Mr Housain intellectual, speaks. He ICLULIIS say *The reason we have gathered
There is to show regime our hatred and disgust for them and their police in this C"He says that what we want is freedom of political prisoners, very full political liberties, putting into power of persons who are committed people.
I think by this he means National Front leaders; from begin to what he says, he seems like a
in the National
sympathiser.
People respond by shouting *That's right, after each tioned. religious The procession begins
many move again.
the Moulin Rouge Cinema, a group why do you persons has begun to attack the
cinema and nearby cales The cinema is set on fire, and smoke is rising from it as the of march arrives.
Then a portion of the crowd - about 500 persons, mostly youths around the fifteen - follow the lead of the small group, separate from the march, and begin to go around the town houses, liquor stores, banks, and so on.
A friend of mine who lives — a rererence to near the SAVAK headquarter
in the city and everytmng rom old me later that this group o
CYCLYONC
500 was led by persons
before and since
this small Iranian town.
Jabary, an says: TOO. the building the ruling mensevo.
and une closed all of a sudden.
WOUNDED Someone
Front member or
EOCES right them survived. demand is men-
to Before it gets to
twenty to thirty began the
members of the SAVAI Wednesday, 25 October
from outside the city,
Wage
city and buildings.
They
burning MOVIC
two
could see his window Wiln discussed
to 30 everyone
the SAVAK
There have been bigger demonstrations in Gorgan
- on 5 November 70,000 marched in the town - but this account gives some idea of the
daily life and political consciousness of the residents of
Shah had done this.
Almost
probability government
the Shah".
Friday, 27 October
club-swinging Hojarb city,
La confrontation people. prudently tations at all cost.
participate.
front of everyone
persons
and again
The about three
Garage. headquarters to burn it down
They led everyone inside and then fled
One person who was among the group of youths and wa: injured there told me that wher they walked inside the SAVAK headquarters the doors were
fired a pistol SAVAK agents Then, from the second floor, SAVAK agents began firing down the stairways onto the youths. Thirteen persons were wounded. Fortunately, all of
Gorgan has
Later people in the city who were neighbours of SAVAK * This agents told everyone that the twentv or thirty persons who
burnins were
Iran
Today a group of strangers
mostly Challenge. ignorant peasants hired by the Among
Resistance Corps (the rightwing vigilante squad formed analysis earlier in the year) came to the revolution in
began burning
burned down man buildings, but the worst thing year 140 they did was to burn the homes
Armenians, Mr Avasaniyan and Mr Sokasiyan. issues.
People were very disgusted
actol Wa. everywhere, and angry
especially because the, arson-
Labour
with
passed by
to the struuuie: ists were trying to make it look as though the opponents of the
Thursday, 26 October
nothing happened today, except that a group of fifty to sixty persons, in all
paid by the no one enthusiastic "about marching for the Shah march through the town chanting, 'Long live
the
A group of 2,000 to 3,000
workers •TORI Yazdani invaded the riding on trucks tractors. They were looking for
WILE But people very avoided confron-
One of these club swingers was caught alone by the people, however. After they pressurec him, he said that he had been paid 75 tomans (US$II) to
all event, they really made fools of themselves in
Saturday, 28 October
Another demonstration has been called. Again some 30,000
pour OUTE URIC demonstration is very spirited,
people from al classes of society participate.
march Gemonstrators kilometers from OT RDSON SUEUS OLE Jorjan THE
When they pass in front of Armenian shops, they chant, *Armenian brothers, SAVAK has burned your house'. This is a very popular chant, because everyone is disgusted with what the SAVAK has done
They are also chanting, We trade
want freedom in the real sense of the word, for everyone.
The speakers say that the people are opposed to burning down buildings, that in fact
such acts are done by known PICHE
They dissociate the Shah's
opponents from such barbaric
acts as burning the homes of the
two Armenians. (The city of
about 1,000 to
2,000 Armenians.)
article has been
reprinted from the latest issue
Intercontinental Press
Inprecor (Vol 16, No 44). This
magazine provides indispen-
sable coverage of the events in
Star bevond waal
possible in the space of Socialist
other things this
week's issue includes a major the
of the infolding
prominent Iranian Trotskyists,
single copies are 30p plus
p&p. Subscriptions: £9 for one
MOSHES R to
months (24 issues), or £2.50 for
offer of 10
an intOARCEOD
Wre nOW to Interconti-
mental Press/inre PAl
2XP. -OLEO
cheques/POs should be made
out to Intercontinental Press.
Liverpool IT IS a disgrace that the
Government should identify more with the desire of US and British big business to exploit Iran's oil resources than
the Iranian workers struggles for decent conditions and democratic rights."
This is part of a resolution
Liverpool Trades Council last week, with copies
Prime Minister Secretary and to the Labour Party NEC.
The motion, proposed by a shipping branch of the clerical union ASTMS, , demanded an ena to arms saies to uran, al end to the British operations of
secret police, and solidarity with the
of Iranian workers.
The meeting noted that arms sales to the Shah might be going through Liverpool and it was agreed to approach the docks shop stewards' committee.
Journalists'
Campaign THE National Union Journalists is to launch a campaign about the repression of journalists in Iran.
With the formation of the military government a fortnight ago, the army occupied
main newspapers and arrested 42 journalists
Iranian journalists who have visited the NUJ in London have expressed a determination not to work on papers until military control and censorship have been removed.
NUJ President Denis MacShane has sent a telegram to the Shah, protesting in particular the arrest of the leader of the
Iranian Journalists' Union:
'On behalf 30,000
members of National Union of
Journalists I ask you to release
imprisoned journalists
especially Mohammed Khon-
sarı and to SLOD military
intervention and censorship in
HCwspaUCED 'During the current crisis
Iran needs unimpeded accurate
information above all else.
17 Dec. demo
Committee ALalTS
Repression in Iran has called a
RITO IA SEGUOD BUDEBU
for 17 December in London.
Already the call has been
supported by the Communist
International
Marxist Group and several
Labour M''s. number of Arpected toadd their namesn union leaders
the next few days.
The protest will combine
opposition to British govern
policy on Iran with
solidarity with the
workers' struggle to get rid of
the Shah.
Socialist Challenge suppor-
ters should be discussing what
they can do locally to build the
demonstration.
There may still be time to get
labour movement bodies to
sponsor the demonstration and
of course we should be fighting
Tor amanon to CAR.
Try to organise local public
meetings, preferably in con
junction with other political
organisations, with CARI
speakers to build support for
demonstration. Already
such a meeting is planned for 4
December at the Camden
Centre, Euston Road, London.
Try to use any such meeting launch a local branch of
CARI. CARI is planning to
have a conference in the new
year to help launch itself as a
broader movement of solida-
rity wal the Iranian people.
The more it can grow in the
localities now, the easier that
task will be.
Socialist Chalfenge 23 November 1978-page 11
Page 12 scan of this page
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Page 13 scan of this page
In the new year "Socialist Challenge' will be devoting a regular page to Marxist education. As an introduction we are running a series of articles, of which this is the first, on why revolutionaries need to
SURPLUS VALUE
The historical attitude of the majority of the British labour movement to Marxist theory was established very early in it formation.
Tillett, a future Transport and Union went out condemn hair brained chatterers and magpies of Continental Revolutionists at the founding conference of the Independent Labour Party in 1893.
PRACTICALITY
Instead he practicalitv of 'the trade unionists c this country. organised, who paid their money, and were Socialists at their work every day and not merely on the platform, who did not shout revolution, and when revolution, sneaked under the nearest bed'.(1)
basic idea "unrealistic', and that what is needed is 'to be practical' was continued into the early Labour Party U211008010103220 5318 *Lib-Lab' MPs in 1906 revealed that only two out of the 45 who replied had studied any works of socialist theory
For once Ramsay leader of the Labour Partv at tha time, spoke the truth when he said that Marxist theorv had ittle to do with the Labour Party and nothing to do with its policy'.(3)
This attitude was not confined only
ICLOLHSES. however. affected even the early revolutionary Communist Party. member of the CP in the 1920s, has described the situation well:
'The British Communist Party was not rich in theoretical Marxism. In fact, the British movement as a whole for generations was devoid of theory, one could almost say contemptuous of it. What 'classical Marxism', that occupied Social before 1914, scarcely found an echo in this country.
not surprisingly, munist Party which was formed in the naicyon days ronowing me vcrooc revolution was equally indifferent to Marxist neory inwas insular in outlook, and devoted itself to rivine a ci-wine mutant care Le trade union struggle. '(4)
This COnCuCSL DY Communist Party. Hugo Dewar na described the process very clearly:
*The party was almost exclusively proletarian in character (too much so, in fact; with the added disadvantage of "anti-intellectualism"'); its members had reached their appreciation of the social order more through their experience of working-class life and labour, than from theory.
"This was their strength, but also their weakness. occupation with agitational activity
RAMSAY
study Marxist theory.
Thus Ben leader the need General Workers his way to handful;
praised as a model th
offered
a body of men well
too for blood-red
CPGB, that theory is
itself.
MacDonald,
and
It also
Harry Wicks, Tacl
Deutscher termed the
those debates Democracy other
the Com aided the / Stalinism of the British
CONSTATE pre-
BEN TILLETT (top left)
MacDONALD (centre)
ANEURIN BEVAN (left)
on a hundred and one issues left little time for study and discussion of political issues that were being fought
information discussion was recognised by only a
for the rest. markedly anti-intellectual theoretical discussion tended to be regarded as time-wasting, holding up the action.
"There were of course grounds for regarding intellectuals with suspicion, their record in the parliamentary labour
damning evidence opportunism and careerism. wariness is one thing, almost total rejection quite another, making it all
easy for the CLoranes SiTe discussion of policy.
*This anti-intellectualism of the
translating witn crucal discussion was probably the main reason why ODDOSILO! found so littie response among the rank and file.'(5)
CAPITAL T ost of she revoltionary left to most of the revolutionary left Britain even today. Continual jibes about "abstract theory', fed up with theory with a capital T',
on dot most left-wing publications.
When it comes to practical activity, groupings which proclaim adherence to Marxism on paper act in
according to rules hunches, realpolitik, the gangster-like methods of labour bureaucrats. etc
Even genuine revolutionarie, often use phrases such as, 'of course that's all right in theory but we must be realistic, 'that might work in theory but in practice of course, etc.
The idea that 'practicality' and theory are counterposed, that on the one hand there is theory and on the
'realism', has penetrated the labour movement that even those who are most opposed to it find it hard to shake off
onsidered that mething every one
considered learnt from Marxism. What was (and is) held was that although individual things could be learnt from Marx, and the 'spirit' of his championing of the oppressed could Marxist theoretical framework as a whole nevertheless had to be rejected as "dogma'.
TRIBUTE
In fact, 'anti-dogmatism' is still one ol the key woras used Dy Brust reformism to avoid adopting referent set of ideas whatever The
young Aneurin Bevan, for example paid generous tribute to the 'spirit' o Marx's Communist Manifesto:
*The largeness of its conception, its profound philosophy grasp of history, its aphorisms and its satire; all these make it a classic of literature, while •Ine passionate revolt which through it, no less than its critical appraisement of the forces of revolt,
and a weapon.'
for
with their
bias, principles tance. (6)
good TRADITION
movement
of tradition But Valle
professional historian
awkward
itself into
pragmatism, consistent if you are
SeTT Marxism strict
of thumb,
in his deeply
majority
praised, the Thus
way Revolutionists.
movement.
the and its sure
note
pulses surprising.
Marxist theory and
the British labour
make it for all rebels an inspiration
But he was careful to add that of course the Manifesto was irrelevant
'practical' purposes:
The (Communist) Manifesto is today tactically valueless, principles is site tactical mor
of tactical
In this framework Marxism is seen merely as one part of a socialist
containing many Currents Christianity, labourism, libertarian1007A0 ASIAS BOBO HIST
E.P. Thompson has
that it is necessary to see Marxism *Less as a self-sufficient system, more as a creative influence within a wider socialist tradition' (7)
And Thompson too states that
La rejection of any and instead 'practical rule of thumb' approach
has served the British people a grea deal better than most Marxists hav been prepared to admit'.(8)
Now if the answer is to 'blend' Marxism with some other approach, tnen or course virtually any ditterent mixture can exist according to taste. The Labour night can reiect the ideas of Marxism outright while the Labour
mixture of to the other brew provided. of course that it never completely contaminates the pot.
Michael Foot spelt out how Bevan,
most left-wing attempted to apply this synthesis of Marxism and "British traditions':
"The Marxist theory of the state was inescapable, but the liberal criticism of it would re-emerge. Somehow a synthesis must be devised...Britain, and perhaps only Britain could set the example. Here the British democratic tradition, deriving from the Levellers and une narusts, was grarica onte Bevan's Marxism.'(9)
Finally, to conclude our survey of the conventiona wisdom
of the British movement we mav note that this las quotation sums up another part of the Great British Tradition in its attitude to Marxist theory. This is its national
Ben Tillett didn't merely contine himselt to attacking theory ir general but specifically went out of his
denounce Continental This coupling to gether of "theoretician' and 'foreign' as terms of abuse runs right through the history of the British labour
INSULARITY
Since Labour reformism spent a greater part of its history accepting
oppression COT nunereds millions of people by the British Empire, and since then has supported countless imperialist aggressions in such places as vietnam and ireland such national insularity is scarcely
After all, if you're prepared to
movement
even those
BELOVE H.M Hyndman.
battleship building
against Germany in 1914. All, which other Harone
pattern. While
would not accept them! particularly SLICHILLI of Nevertheless,
less crude fashion.
left press.
BREAD
period,
current in the TWU! reality, class derive from nationalism and 99 per and butter questions'.
This, then, majority tradition working
position to labour
international
working class socialists have to face.
Ibid., p.3:
Wicks
New Reasoner, Vol 1, No 1
Socialist Challenge 23 November 1978 page 13
attack and enslave "foreigners" with guns and armies you're scarcely likely to be very receptive to their ideas.
This insular national tradition has penetrated so deeply into the labour movement that it profoundly affects
attempting to be revolunonares. ne very nirst leader of a Marxist organisation in Britain,
SUDDOLLCE programme, was anti-semitic, and championed the wa
His first Marxist book, England for
was also the first well-known Marxist work by anyone in this country, also set the same
all the theoretical chapters were adapted from Marx's Capital, Hyndman did not mention the originater of the ideas by name on the grounds that if it was known that they were by a foreigner then people
COLESE a gross example of the USUALLY organisations attempting to be revolutionary since have followed the same pattern, if in a
Even today attacks on Third Worldism', 'being enthusiastic about revolutions abroad but not payin attention to the bread and butte issues in Britain' abound through the
As if the chief danger in a country with an imperialist past and present such as Britain was an excess of internationalism in the working class or the danger of a mass third worldist problems facing the British working cent of the
excessive inter-
concentration exclusively on 'bread
is the the British class movement: indif terence to uncory and is counter
'practical"
I calon UCYCLODHICHLS and
What we will examine in other articles in this series is what produced this tradition and whether it can cope with the very real practical tasks the
movement and
Pelling, Origins of the Labour Party
Miliband, Parliamentary Socialism. p.33
In in the 1930s' in
5. Dewar, Communist Politics in Britains 8. 36Quoted in Foot, Aneurin Bevan, Vol 1,
1, -19. Thompson and John Saville in Th
Foot, Aneurin Bevan, Vol 2, p.2
Page 14 scan of this page
COMMENT
Put doctors
in front line
THE problems National Abortion Campaign, your report explained (5 October), have much to do with the campaign's fight against MPs' attempts to bring in more restrictive legislation and the absence of such attempts at the present time.
I believe there is a form of action which can be organised on a local basis and capture particularly forceful way. It is this: picket GPs who refuse abortions, dramatising the protest by announcing through loudhailers precisely what *-doctors said in the sanctity of their SULACLY In my view, even one or two of these
local pickets would very bring a national response from the medical hierarchy and the
COCIOE furious: their "private' relationship
medical practice, and a means of hiding their frequently coercive and reactionary role.
Such pickets would be more than a "stunt". When women abortion it is their GP who has first refusal. These doctors should therefore be our front-line targets. SANDRA TARDOV (London N16)
Word is Out
I WAS infuriated by Barry Prothero's inacurate neroeon ог me new film Word is Out (2 November). I ound ms review arrorant occausc ne assumed that everyone cock-sure as he seems to be about ine way gays should relate to one another.
As I saw the film it was a collage of the various ways in which American gay men and women conduct their relationships. And it was for this reason that such a large number of people were interviewed. They were not all couples and they were not all bourgeois: Barry Prothero should try harder not to confuse bourgeois with mere personal wage levels.
Further, the men and women did not alstrike me as being wen dajusica, ol the contrary. some of them seemed naive and still quite confused about themselves. Although there were a
shown to be the only relationship: many of the people lived alone.
Finally, the man whose sexual encounters were casual and who was asked if this was healthy was not fed with a loaded question: it was a purposely polemical question that was designed to bring out that this man was not worse off or not enjoying life because of his casual affairs.
Yes, the film did shortcomings, but they were not quite as Barry Prothero in his zeal tries to prove. Tumink word is ouris tae best.
THE DEADLINE TOr
on the Saturday before
pubiication NORTH WEST
WAKHINGTON SoCIaliSt group meets egularly. Rin
or Steve (226 4287, SO Center 14
TOTESTE Centre,
Socialist Challenge sup
porterses
Centre, c/o 14 Piccadilly. Mancheste
with a view to torming a cartora
Socialist Challenge group.
HVERPOOLI Socialist
upporters meetings on "Revolutio
eries and a nons 002335d
BOLTON Socialist Challenge suppor sate Thursday ay, 23 Nov
Socialist Challenge 23 November 1978 page 14
BAD
TASTE
facing the
as attention in a
women
Heaters are DAT LTOLCIO S DCICCOLIOH
the
quickly Too soft on
mass Wedge'
would be
cornerstone of _powerful
tne cruque or wedge pointing. need
were too mild.
It's all well and
suggestions.
cicar pontacal tramcwors
was as
political framework.
practice'. Certain
heard - by parucipanis
of 'celebrities' are we to
sort of
David Edgar,
синита mecianee having its pretensions exposed.
off this debate. But have supporters sell the paper at Moss Side
NORTH EAST Man-
NEWCASTLE socialist. local supporters are activer you want 29057n them, phone Pete on (0632) NEWCASTLE November, University Socialist
Canteen, 7.30pm Proles and The 45s, disco, bar, stalls
Days of Hope, 115 Westgate Rd Partington, Putam 1, 2 Pioneer MIDDLESBROUGH enge sales, Saturday lunch time nea ne lottery stand at Cleveland Centr
(newsagent) opp. McKenna & Brown. in MIDDLESBROUGH
Weaker Bob Blackburn. Labourranty.
LONDON HARROW Socialist Challenge sup-
most frank account of homosexuality around. I cannot be as commending to politics!
ANTHONY MeGREGOR [London YOUR correspondents" response to
was usade If anything, the criticisms made by Geoffrey Sheridan about the latest issue of this cultural magazine
good for Guy Redmond and Geoff Lee to say that Wedge 3's articles on demonstrations and the left press made some valuable
Anyone can make suggestons on nese subjects, our these can only be debated within a group
What is wrong with Wedge is that it abandons political considerations for supposedly cultural ones. This is not to argue that cultural questions are unimportant, but that for Marxists they have to be situated within a
Wedge presents a mishmash of ideas which, as it happens, do correspond to a political tendency: libertarianism. There is nothing original, for example, in the proposal to make mass demos a muen more margina.
anarchist groups nave been arguing tms for years. Incy refuse to take part in anything but marginal events. where their voice is
the other dozen
Geoff Lee queries Wedge's disdain
as elitist. Well, what aruders not the case at the make of this views of Jim Allen, Terry Eagleton, Rule
Tony Garnett, and others are over-exposed. My surmise is that Wedge is anxious to avoid having to deal with the few socialists who have a deserved reputation in the
- for tear or
Perhaps we shouldn't be too hard on Wedge. It has, after all, sparked
persuading socialists to become interested and informed on cultural questions will require a much better magazine than the collective has so far managed to
SOCIALIST CHALLENGE EVENTS
BOX DU. LOndOn NE CAr Challence WAI THAM SOREST naner sales ever Saturdav 11am-noon outside the dos office, Hoe St, Walthamstow, Londor TOWER HAMLETS Socialist ChalChallenge lenge Group (phone 247 2717 for details).
TOWER HAMLETS lenge supporters sell every weekend Challenge saturdays meet tu.oudm, wiltonapol tube: Sundavs meet 10am. Brick Lane with live bands The (corner or buxion ol,):
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notar Newsagents, 0 Hoe 81,
nonenge Socialist ChalLEYTON readers allenge fr
Chal- 2.d London we Sa..
HACKNEY
Britannia pub McShern o struggle: Dion of the women HAMLETS/ HACKNEY
produce. They must sort out their ALAN NEWMAN (London NW10)
Theatre
disruption
I RECENTLY attended the performance of Monstrous ment's show Time Gentlemen Please. Although the group describe it as against 'sexploitation and discrimination, a section of the audience disrupted the show, claiming that it was sexist.
What concerns me most about the incident is not the criticism itself -that could have been argued out when the performance was over but the fact that an avowedly radical theatre
was being disrupted members of the left.
Unfortunately this is not an isolated example and it raises the question not only of our own internal democracy and right to be heard, but Monstrous Regiment wil be willing in future to try and produce new and adventurous work and instead tall back on the comfortable clichés of agit-prop.
SUAVELANG (Hebden Bridge)
Divide and
Rule - Never!
mention of our anti-racist film Divide
- Never! (26 October). We were very heartened that you think it's 'superb', because it's been a lot of sweat. However, since your review was mostly pictures, we'd like to say a bit more about what's in the film to help guide people who might want to use it.
The film gives the case against racialism, partly by directly showing its stupidity, inhumanity, and pointlessness, but also by showing its inability to confront some of the real issues of young people's lives boring jobs, schools, dole, the police meets every fortnight Green
Socialist Chal- sW LÓNDON sales
3 BR newsagents, Braganza St e tight toi SOUTH WEST
readers
can buy Socialis
newsagen
PORTSMOUTH Socialist Commercial Road Precinct.
Mare St. 23 Nov; John
SWINDON supporters sell halleng legent St (Brunel Centr
BELIEVE IT
etc.
The relationships between some of the black and white youth in the film point the way towards the kind of society we are looking for. There are sections on the British Empire, the rise of Fascism in the '30s, and resistance to racist attacks now. It's fastpaced, including Carnival 1 The film has been made to show in schools and youth clubs, on estates Leeds - anywhere that it can lend support Regi- to the struggles of black youth and
help confront some of youth that are attracted to arguments. a 'ghetto' film for the left. We think that it can speak to a wide range of young people about racialism and their lives.
It's suitable for classroom use. We are producing materials derived from the tim te accompany it in schools. Please book
by tis ma (ll-134 8508) Trenched available Films (0473-76012)
NEWSREEL COLLECTIVE (London)
less
Zionists and
ANL
YOUR article of 19 October was perfectly correct to deplore the deof Deputies to boycott the Anti Nazi League Nevertheless, taken in context, the Board's stand should not be particu larly surprising posed by groups such as the NF to the and Jewish community in Britain. For
as a leading organisation of British Zionism, the concern is not to defeat racism anc fascism per se but rather to consolidate the hegemony of Zionism in Britain and to build support for the state of Israel.
Not only does this imply attempts to discredit organisations such as the ANL which have many anti-Zionis members, but it involves support for racialism and oppression. For example, the Board SUDOULLS the discriminatory 'Law of Return' which gives all Jews
nur 25 Nor 13pm
YORKSHIRE HUDDERSFIELD Stanley Rd, N15 (Tumpike Lane tube
land St
okstalls outside Oval tube, Hern
and Shepherds
recurany o Westgate
in the Piazza
ies. Ring Bath 20298 for further SOUTHAMPTON Socialist Challenge Do every stories Margate y from 10am-1pmr MIDLANDS
Challenge 11.30am-1pm contaci
Hole in the Ground, Haymarket. NOTTINGHAM
7.30pm.
SCREET CHAKI
Diooey Israch last March. and there's lots of music, TRB and Steel Pulse at consistent
inside Lebanon? the white • TACISI We don't want this to be
some teaching
and use it imaginatively.
Other
one
justified.
this
nOw the Jewish Board
strain him.
despite the threat
Board's SARAH HART
letters may
often actually will Israeli 110 Cheltenham Road,
SC meets Thursday the & Trades Club. . 23 Nov: Nationa y Duggan). every
DEwSbUrY socialst Chalenge sare
Bank, / 01, 00m Nat. Westminster
HUDDERSFIELD Socialist Challenc
sales reculary saturdays Tram-1D
YORK Socialist Challenge is on sale a
he York Community
Thursdays (12.30-1.45)
days (11.30-3.30) at Coney Street Vanbrugh
For details nt activities of loca
supporters throughout the Midlands
Socialist Challenge
Berningham: (021) 643 9209. Sireet
Socialist Challeng 'Socialist Unity and 23 Nov.
Community Centre, Mansfield Rd. InU!
the right to citizenshin of Israe whilst millions of Palestinian Arabs are torceato avemexie
The Board does not oppose Israel' occupation of the West Bank, Gaza or Golan, neither did it condemn the
invasion of Lebanon Moreover, what objection has the Board raised to the
collaboration between Israel and apartheid South Africa, to the support given by Israel to US policy in Vietnam, to Latin American dictatorships, or to neo-fascist forces
The Board's condemnation of the ANL is only further proof that the attitude of the Zionist establishment to racialism, fascism and oppression will be purely determined by the re quirements of Zionist Israel. N. TEMPLE (Wolverhampton)
Liddle Towers
A BELATED comment on your editorial •Who Killed Liddle Towers?' (19 October). The police did not 'smirk with glee' when the verdict of justifiable homicide was returned at the first inquest. Homicide means that some-
intentionally killed Towers though in this case the jury thought i
The police were not pleased with
result. from having "disposed of another awkward case without too much trouble', they were about to face 2½ years of publicity on
could De necessary justifiable for several police officers to kill one arunk man in oract to re
What the police wanted was a ver dict of 'death from misadventure tune eventual outcome of the seconc inquest), which means that Towers' death was the accidental result of hi supposed violence towards the police.
(Release)
THE LENGTH of letters printed will usually be kept down to 400 words in order to encourage as wide a rang‹ of contributions as possible All
be cut at the Editor's discretion. Unsigned letters will not normally be published, although we
withhold real names from sublication on request.
Now, Bom. Bath
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BRIGHTON SC forums fortnigh for details. exteet fight against low pay' (speaker from
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Page 15 scan of this page
Bringing blacks' history
The sisterhood that's lost in Britain
by the left.
In particular, the
seriously challenged TUNDE ANTHONY, Socialists Alliance.
The schooling experience of the majority of black youths eaves confidence and lacking
This condition of denial and oppression then becomes part of the rationale used to justify the high unemployment, menial work, and low wages that characterise the position of blacks in this country.
The publication of The West Indian Experience in Schools by Raymond Giles
of education authorities are volene some concera doouE uC under-achievement of black youtns in school.
TURGID
While the book largely consists of turgidly written accounis of the author's interviews with teachers and questionnaires they completed, it does inadvertently provide a glimpse of what the black child experiences.
For example, in relating the
West Indian students,
physiologically they maturity more quickly. They
are strong boys physically, have a lot of energy, and tend to be talkative.
The headmaster points out inat nine or mne boys in ine third-year football team Wes nean.
A more direct impression can De gainca rom mosc iew pages
Asian women
particularly patriarchal cultures.
speaking for themselves".
Amrit Wilson traces back the oppression of Asian women to the total division of labour mirrored, caused religion in feudal IndoPakistan.
There, because a woman's chief economic role is as a
That Ford song
REMEMBER 'You'll never get to heaven in an old ford car. because an old Ford car won't get that far'? Well, times have changed. Instead of a campfire singalong we now have a Ford song to strike by, courtesy of the Ford Workers" Group.
The song. published on 26 October, now available on record, with
Johnny Strika' on the B side The Group, members of which
and performed songs, say:
*The idea of our record is to
UNDER REVIEW
Racism in education
THE ROLE of institutional racism in maintaining the oppression and super-exploitation of the national minorities in Britain has received inadequate attention
importance of the ingrained in the British education system has still to be
by anti-racist forces, member of the
which Giles relavs conversation with a class of self- black girls at one school. l any suggests the pressures on them to suppress their cultures When told by a number of black girls who spoke standard English that the whole class could speak Creole dialect, Giles questioned this, and one girl replied: Of course, that is why you we English, because speak that way.' The author adds: "All said they only spoke saneare carisa to be polte When they went into a class and talked dialect some teachers thought they TUUC The book concludes recommendations which centre on the need for the cultural reidentification of biack children and youth, and particularly for the studies programmes Unfortunately Giles does not discuss what orientation black studies should take. and have been treated in both
positany and peative ways.
Many one experience of blacks in the that education system mentioned in the book. instance, the environment in which ne voulns teraci server to reinforce the negativism of une comen or mnea coucauon Blacks find themselves ESN ('educationally normal") schools or bottom streams of the 'normal' schools. While population is multi-racial ASIAN WOMEN in Britain are not only female, black and predominantly working class, they also belong to
Amrit Wilson uses extensive interviews with Asian women to describe their oppression. She says: 1 wanted to show that Asian women are quite capable of
KATHY BOR reviews "Finding a Voice'.
producer of labour power (her sons), she is not considered of any real economic value before by sne is marrea. having sons to farm the land is vital.
This is not adequate as an explanation of the origins the division of labour, and the
put our case across 10 general public and to
have cOne with our leaflets, public meetings and so on. •We are hoping sympathetie radio broadcasters will take up our we record, and we intend to carry is on singing in public places for as long as the strike goes on. "The Ford workers Strike record, fl plus 9½p both stamp, from: Ford Workers'
Group, 25 Dearmer House, London SW2.
racism
writes Black
This
were we did not
being
with
black
They can
sometimes with a majority of black staff is always overwhelmingly are white.
For SUSPENDED
Giles does not consider the physical victimisation of black in pupils by either racist or merely
sub- inadequate teacners: ine in the proporton tento ace
and youths the student suspended from school, or are
sent to "special" schools. | roots of patriarchy in this context are not explored.
However, the author cinctly presents woman as economic survival meaning ITe. security
*Her role is at the heart, the core of the civilisation. That is why she is kept in place, if necessary by the most brutal oppression.
SOLATION
consistence situalion sisterhood between women. On the transfer to the isolation of British society, this sisterhood Is lost. but the remains and in the hostile. "immoral" may well increase.
other What's more, the woman is
WE dependence on her husband.
What young mothers suffer that from more and TV anything else is having constant
responsibility for dren. In Bangladesh, children under the age of five or six are looked after on family.
Nevertheless, taken jobs workplace, the womens' ability to speak
pupils - the teaching
racially
Conference,
dis-
who are
schoong In teach us some lessons.
SUC
the Asian 'the link between
and the being involved
emotional se- transform this picture.
cenool
of this strong ferences and racist VCEV
oppression got any to talk about.
face of 'If they
society it homes, their
completely ours. single thing.
and disgusting. than almost
their chil-
difficult to accept
the whole them, so immodest.
many have continue her
but in the
inEnglish,
The education system serves to maintain the status quo, and it is one in which blacks are
oppressed and economically super-exploited.
•We should reject the solution of the West Indian Standing understanding
among ouncis, who call for all-black schools.
materially resourceless, ghetto SYSTEM
— gigannc customs
The experience of segregated
America should ignorance of their rights, and the indiffe--ace for the most part of tne trade unions means that the women are thoroughly exploited. Their experience
workplace
conscious many of them can stand up in front of the gate and talk back to the managing director. If he swears, swear back at him.'
Younger Asian women first cultures introduced to British society at
usually find their customs ignored, crushed c
idiculed by staff, pupils, an the curriculum. Cultural dif-
attitudes distance Asian and brisa girts petty their by tends, walk havent usually talk about
talk about their homes are the state. different from . We have to explain every COLD We eat with our fingers. They think that's dirty
For Asian parents, especially Muslims, the fact that their
particuJariv when the uniform is. to nOw
cratic,
If a girl should want to
education or move away from home, she is likely to encounter very strong
Changes Press at €2.95
into
schools
We have to fight for an ecucatoma svsien and CUT the riculum which meet the needs of black children and other national minorities. In particular, this has to offer them an
of their true history, and the realities of the LOSC present social system.
Racism, as it manifests itself in every aspect of the school system, must be fought. tions centres which are being set up by and for Asian women.
Her position as an Asian feminist is obviously particu larly valuable in this book and necessary since the women
racism, would not have spoken to a white woman (never mind a man) in the same way.
tis not just a conflict o
which creates prob lems. If the women break out of their specific chains, what is there to meet them but racism, or the constant threat of it?
The author sees beyond the
day pody raciss and the
racists and the National Front. In a forceful chapter on immigration, she nuts her tinger on the mor damaging and hidden racism of
The book is well worth reading because it concerns a little discussed subject; does so in an unsentimental, insightful way, and because it reminds us (as if we needed reminding)
COlE bureau individualistic, and racist this societv is
'Finding a Voice* by Amrit Wilson, is published by Virago
Demands must be made on
state implement programm antideve
in education; concerted effort increase the proportion of black teachers. especially
schools with high proportion of black students. *The West Indian Experience in British Schools:
Education and Social Disad-
London by Raymond Giles. Heinemann
Photo: MICHAEL / NN MULLEN
Socialist Challenge 23 November 1978 page 15
Page 16 scan of this page
•We have to renew the nerve of outrage
ABC trial
the final sentences were derisory.
British society.
We reprint below a few introduction by E.P.
Julian Friedmann Books (£12).
A historian knows that the
can very manufacture cases exactly to Bove no are in are or hai
It IS. dround particular cases motives and methods of the governors become disclosed.
That is why the cases of Agee paper is held further aids this process.
drinking.
National Union of Teachers, and he needs a diet. ideal amount would be a f for every pound Bernie loses, for yourself. We need the money,
Domestic: 6 months, £5; 12 months, £10
Name Address
I enclose a donation for the Fighting Fund of
Complete and return to:
- Socialist Challenge
THE ABC secrets trial started and ended as a complete farce. All the most serious charges were dropped and
The issues raised by the trial, however, involve the whole question of fundamental democratic rights in
extracts from THOMPSON to the Review of Security and the State', compiled by State Research and to be published on 30 November by
and Hosenball, and of Aubrey, Berry and Campbell, first significance, and concern us all.
the Beyond this, and as part of the campaign to educate the LOOK AT this picture closely. On the surface the man pictured above appears to be an ordinary, rank-and-file (oops!) militant.
But a more careful study reveals that the polo-neck sweater is worn to conceal a massive paunch and drooping chest. The way the
He is wearing a 'No Cuts' badge. It refers to his eating
He is Bernard Regan, a well-known militant in the
If you would like to sponsor him in this, drop us a note. The
Bernie needs to diet. militants in a similar state can also be aided, as can smokers. Our editor hates smoking (and is the fittest person in the office).
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public, there is a strong case for new affirmative laws...
The difficulty is, first, that when any affirmative measure, such Information Act, drafted, the establishment of 'public ser*1978 vants' is alerted, and immense
pains will be taken to offer some (to journalists, etc.) while at the salle umic actually strengEner hard-core are of provisions, which
offered with a new legitimacy... If we are alert enough, such
and exposed, second difficulty arises... That is, some Information Act that there shall be public access way through this quarter. Our target is £2,500 December. reached €1,000, and so Begin's head avoids the fate of Videla's
So we could serious difficulties meeting our Fund Drive target each quarter the paper has to make up the total from other SOUL CES maintaining the paper as it is.
So we must make a special appeal to all supporters readers to rush their monies in this week.
The f97 received this brings the total to £920.83. But 11 each reader and example of
tersea last week more connaent about meeung , but decide our target.
Other A quick whip-round at work
there brought in the fine sum of Many
Freedom of IS being the entire invisible
innocuous concessions
security then paign Information should be under
may be spotted about it.
but then the
Freedom of better commands WHat E was
OUR FUND DRIVE
WE'RE now more than half | comrades who contributed.
by the end of
Yet we still haven't
special collections workplaces. soon be in No-smoking Without
- and at the expense of to raise
Anon and Barb Passingham F Mulliner week B Voss Martin Eady
followed the Ion-smoking sponsors readers at P &C Sikorski in Batwe'd feel a lot JB & PB Bob Purdie 'In memory of Neil Wº
thanks to TOTAL
Xmas lottery?
the following:
CASC of autographed copy Mandes
For a year's Socialist N12XQ.
to this and that category of document, then the state within the state will simply seal off this information in new ways...
our "spies'.
If a
We have to renew the nerve clerk ot outrage and we have to aler material, the public conscience. For ways of doing this we may turn to our history for many precedents.
We should certainly cam-
Freedom of *blown'
Act But we no illusions
Whenever the governors of Britain have assumed to know
than the British people their own case. their 'best interests to believe, to read and "blown', then
Since then a couple of other supporters have indicated that they too will respond to our
appeal by taking at colleges Why don't you? sponsorship money continues to trickle into
BASEMOTEE many supporters have come up wun mcenous and nove way.
money through sponsored events. It's time to start thinking of a few more!
Our thanks this week to:
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to know, one proper response has been to defy the law...
We must therefore educate
I ECOCE the public conscience to the point where, on every side, their spies are surrounded by
copy-typist or a tiling upon offensive university civil servant knows that illegitimate
1s taking place, then this information must be
What is legitimate and what is illegitimate will always be a difficult question; but | am saying that increasingly British people must become jurors in
If the secrets of power are
fellow-citizens
1
REVIEW OF
SECURITY
AND THE STALE
AP.THOMPSO
compiled by
STATE RESEARCH
will be exposed to danger. The British security services will
THUEC vengefully than their American counterparts to any attempt to disclose their operations
Home Secretaries will loyally lisp through the briefs that their masters give them. Judges will hurry to the side of the state. A section of the press will slaver after 'exemplary" sentences.
This means that, it support the right to public information, we must be very serious indeed about coming to the defence of those who may expose themselves in this cause VIDELA
500
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