Socialist Challenge No. 89, 29 March 1979
The scan: sc-n89-mar-29-1979.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 Labour in crisis —throw out Callaghan's dirty deals WHAT WE WANT 1. Kill the Concordat 2. Troops out of Ireland 3. A Scottish Assembly now 4. Full rights for women
That's the way to stop the Tories
5. Smash racism
For an Immediate Assembly, page 2 How the ANL Can Go into the Election, page 3 Troops Out of Ireland, pages 4 and 5
contraception, abortion & no forced sterilisation
women decide! international day of action march 31st 79 Assemble Hyde Park 1•30 march to Trafalgar Square for Rally
No 89 29 March 1979 15p Challenge the TUC-Government Pact, page 6 Women Decide, pages 8 and 9
Page 2 scan of this page
Devolution - still
EDITORIAL
Editorial 01-359 8180/9. 91-359 8371.
Countdown
impose any similar policy.
increased repression.
implement the Scotland Act.
laws; support for butchers like the Shah of Iran.
months. 1972. The potential to build the
developed as a new
relating to women's rights has expanded. If Labour was returned.
revolutionary alternative is not being presented. inherently more right-wing than Callaghan's. Nazis argue.
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AFTER FIVE years of office, the Labour government is on the way out. Several major issues are finally breaking its back.
* The 5 per cent pay policy has been broken, and there is little short term prospect of the trade union bureaucracy being able to
* The continuing resistance of the Catholic masses to Unionist and imperialist rule has prevented any political solution in Northern Ireland. The Labour government has responded with
* Despite a clear working class vote in favour of a Scottish Assembly, the Labour government has refused to go ahead and
If the Labour government falls, it will be for one reason only — its attacks on the interests of the working class. The working class have seen wages drop under the Social Contract; hospitals, schools, nurseries, and social services slashed; unemployment double; the maintenance and extension of the racist immigration
The way has been paved for Tory policies by the TUC General Council's stamp of approval on the Concordat. The Labour lefts remained scandalously silent on this vital issue, but the potential still exists for a determined resistance, even if the Tories are elected. That much is evident from the fightback seen in recent
Nevertheless, we shouldn't dismiss the serious implications of a Tory victory even if the confidence of the working class is maintained. A Tory victory will be a setback for the working class. Furthermore, it will make conditions for building a real class struggle alternative in the working class that much more difficult. It is just not the case that political conditions under a Tory government speed up working class radicalisation. Quite the reverse. The conditions are then laid for all the lefts to attempt to polish up their radical image through anti-Tory demagogy.
Moreover, although a credible alternative has not emerged during five years of Labour rule, a Labour government still provides the best basis to push forward the fight for an alternative. For in these years we have seen a mass fightback against austerity
strike figures have reached the post-war high years of 1971 and
"Troops Out' movement has undoubtedly opened up enormously. Youth radicalisation has
factor in British politics. A real mass movement against racism exists. And the breadth of struggles
This hasn't been translated into a powerful class struggle movement. However, this failure has as much to do with the problems of the left as with objective circumstances. Outside the promising beginnings of the Anti Nazi League, the revolutionary left has not been able to give a clear lead in the fight against the beresucracy. The recent struggles of the working class have helped to cranty une basis or suca a ngat ano tais couro accererate ruruner
For all these reasons, socialists should be organising to ensure the return of a Labour government. Socialist Challenge will be calling on all its supporters and readers to vote Labour where a
Under no circumstances should such a call be translated into the view that Labour's present policies are any closer to working class Interests than those of the Tories. If there is one thing in which Callaghan has excelled, it is his ability to steal Thatcher's clothes. It's true that a victory of the Tories will make it easier to impose right-wing policies. But the reasons for this can be found in the
gative effects on the working class that any such victory wou
fect, rather than in the incorrect view that Tory policies a
There is only one guarantee of a Labour victory. That is the continuation and initiation of struggles for policies in the interests of the mass movement. The presentation of a global alternative is a vital element in this. Support for mass action for such alternative policies will be part and parcel of Socialist Unity's electoral campaign. And with the National Front intent on standing in over 300 constituencies, a massive Anti Nazi League campaign is called TOr. DUE SOCIaTSES aIso nave me broader tasks Or expialmmg just who is responsible for the crisis, that it's not the blacks as the
Presumably the International Marxist Group and the Socialist
CECI continuing struggles in the pre-election period. We would ask these comrades one simple, yet urgent question. Who will gain from your refusal to make a strong united electoral intervention? The working class, or Callaghan? For us the answer is obvious.
NO MATTER what
assembly.
Now
By Des Tierney
The referendum and the subsequent denial of demo•cratic people in Scotland represent a setback for all sections of the British working class.
The antics of the Labour encers prevent the setting up of an Assembly feed British nationalism and will help the Tories in their aim of strengthening the centralised British state. British state.
In Scotland, where thirds of working ciass voters are estimated to have voted for decisions of nee abenr decisions government and the Labour Party in Scotland are sowing disillusion in the organisations of the labour movement. and at the same time threatening the unity of working class.
Not least, precedent has been created by the acceptance of the 40 per cent rule.
Would it be surprising if the Tories attempt to legislate for a 40 or 50 per cent vote in favour of strike action from a union's total membership before such action could be taken?
The Scottish working class, in their majority, Assembly as exercise more direct control over the institutions British state in Scotland, and to a limited extent to begin to overcome the problems they experience.
This was explosive for the ruling class, who through sections of the mass and the British Industry weighed in for a No vote. other in the Now the Tory and Liberal parties — in spite of the latter's long-standing commitment to a federated British state lalllal
class.
revolutionary socialists are:
LABOUR IN CRISIS
a live issue
parliamentary Labour winds its way into in the coming month, one thing is certain: the interests of Scottish working people are not at heart, The devolution issue is settled
- working class constituencies have solidly backed an
broad labour movement throughout Britain needs to organise support for the democratic rights of Scottish people — despite the antics of the Tory and Labour leaders.
dead.
from CIOT working working class.
attempting to
government's which led that TZe OUE And while two- Party's held alter almost nrmea ls Labour conference
of the Assembly.
with emergency the British
La dangerous He HTC eSS oruny LES RSO Scottish
saw an means to
of the British labour
government's policies. obviously too the present time.
Tories, media, Confederation of sions among
What is campaign
that devolution
OUR POLC ES 2
Capitalism is in crisis. The leaders of the Labour Party and the trades union.
offer solutions that are in the interests, not of the workers, but of the capitalist
Socialist Challenge believes that the two vital tasks confronting
* To build broad-based class struggle tendencies in
class-collaborationism in the labour movement. These should be non-exclusive
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 should be based on the understanding that:
The struggle for socialism seeks to unite the fight of the workers against the bosses with that of other oppressed lavers of society black people, gays — struggling for their liberation. This socialism can only be achieved by creating new organs of power and defeating with all isarv means tne power or ine capuaust stare
manoeuvres campaign
They want the link with Westminster to protect them
united, militant
It was the failure of the Scottish TUC and the Labour Party's Scottish executive link their Yes campaign with the projection of an Assembly to be used as a launching pad for an offensive against the
Tory policies campaign to
the Labour Scottish conference, Telerenom unanimously 'reafcommitment devolution', the mood of the
Was to allow Westminster to decide the fate
The unions which had come
resolutions calling for the Assembly to be set up immediately were easily persuaded to withdraw them in
The likelihood, therefore, that we will see the growth of a populist, nationalist movement in Scotland, with the SNP now energetically re-orienting itself towards the working class.
possible that the Labour Party will manage to resurrect itself.
The two main planks of its Only programme alter the split from Assembly the Labour Party were that the
HIOVCHEICHIL is incapable of giving home rule to Scotland, and opposition to
right-wing meet In
So the SLP is well placed at rights
But its "separatist' socialist solution, ments. dressed in left-wing demagogy, would create disastrous divi-
the British working class as a whole.
needed is throughout the challenge British labour movement to authority. support the democratic rights of the Scottish people. The 52
3
opposition to
YOUR FUTURE
-YOU DECIDE
YEEC
In fact he decides - that's the problem!
per cent Yes vote has to be recognised, with the immediate setting up of an Assembly.
directly-elected would begin to satisfy those rights.
The present talk in Westminster of allowing Parliament's Scottish Grand Committee to
Edinburgh is quite simply a denial of democratic
and an attempt to CRSS head off "home rule' senti-
too CommTLee which includes English MPs, has its constitution and agenda fixed by the House of Commons averting any possibility of a
to Parliament's
A campaign for an immediate Assembly is the only way
Our socialism will be infinitely more democratic than what exists in rOw wiuSes Or a onCa Darues noelTenEs Ce do not take up arms against the socialist state. The Stalinist models of "socialism' in the UISSR and Eastern Europe have discredited socialism in the eves of the munons oi workers inrougnoul the woro. we are opposcd te them and will offer full support to all those fighting for socialist democracs
The interests of workers and capitalists are irreconcilable on a world scale. Capitalism has not only created a world market, it has created world politics. Thus we fight for working class unity on an international scale. This unity will in the long run be decisive in defeating both the imperialist regimes in the West and the brutal dietatorships they sustain in Latin America, Africa and Asia.
In Britain it implies demanding the immediate withdrawal of British troops from Ireland and letting the Irish people determine their own future.
The Communist Parties in Europe are in crisis.
Euro-communist" nor the pro-Moscow wings have any meaningful strateoy for the overthrow of the capitalist state. New revolutionsr E socialist parties are more necessary than ever before. Conditions todas are more favourable than over the preceding three decades. But such parties can ons he huat hy retectine secarianism ano seeme meraar ocmocraca nobas: luxury but as a vital necessity. This means the right to organise factions and
that the strength, unity, and confidence MENE British working class can be maintained.
Socialists should take the opportunity of fighting for this demand at the Scottish TUC, which meets next month must aim to win the STUC as a champion of the democratic rights of the Scottish working
Without being able to expect
much from within the Labour Party, unity between all the forces who support the immediate setting up of ar Assembly is all the more vital.
These include Militant and Workers Action supporters in the Labour Party, the Socialist Workers Party, and the International Marxist Group
Page 3 scan of this page
Promoting the socialist
takes place on 29 March.
Edge Hill.
Its campaign has raised issues
and would not consider.
the bigger, national battles ahead.
By Rich Palser
Last week shop stewards at Liverpool's Dunlop plant ASSECU an ultimatum to the Labour Party. They threatened that if the Labour government had not responded to
Ford worker issue of Socialist Challenge.
LABOUR IN CRISIS
Edge Hill by-election
alternative
POLLING in the Edge Hill by-election in Liverpool
Socialist Unity does not expect to win, but it has achieved a kind of victory in
and pointed to solutions that the major parties have not mentioned
With the prospect of an imminent General Election, the Edge Hill campaign has proved a useful test run for
campaign to keep the plant open, then the stewards would be urging abstention in the by-election.
Disillusionment with government's policies TOURICS Labour the campaign. One sign was at its
SOCIALIST UNITY Public Meeting *Low Pay and Labour in the Election'
Speakers: Janet Maguire (SU candidate, Deptford)
Ray Varnes (NUPE London Div. Council)
Sunday 1 April, 3pm Toynbee Hall, Commercial Road, London E1
Joint IMG/ISA School "The Labour Party and the socialist alternative'
Sunday, 22 April 1pm-6pm Creche facilities if booked in advance The second in a series of schools based on the appeal for revolutionary unity published in 4 January 1979
Call Dall meeting ployment Minister Booth last Friday, platform speakers bered the audience.
Outside the meeting was 60-strong picket called by the Socialist Unity election paign.
Socialist Unity is having little trouble finding among its supporters - at the BSES campaign people discussed out how the campaign
The the contrasting picture is simple. As Socialist Unity said in its SurParty leaflet to a mass meeting Dunlop, their threat to abstain was result government's own policies.
The Dunlop betrayed, and But. argued abstaining in the election was no alternative, because it was no solution.
Socialist Unity the best way of fighting for a socialist alternative launch an immediate occupation for nationalisation under workers control and in the Edge Hill election to vote for Socialist Unity because its candidate Alan Walker was standing to fightback.
*Over cialist Unity supporters joined a sit-down demonstration by Dunlop workers on 20 March, which stopped the Liverpool's Lime Street, and the occupation of the so-called *Job Centre' on the same day.
Alan Walker has argued that the candidates of the bosses parties offer no alternative to
Labour's betrayals: "Liberal Alton sheds the
with 3EmAlbert *Over where the
biggest possible demonstration camthis Saturday rights.
CHIUSESH nised
London
meeting
events to should be waged
for this
at
of the By Dennis Richards
workers felt justifiably sO.
Socialist Unity,
spread
argued that During the
was to
of Dunlop;
an unprecedented scale.
that DOLORE
unemployment: So-
tive.
traffic in capable of impact.
campaign of May 1978
candidate David building, crocodile tears Street, an- 10.30am. nounced at Plessey, at least 800 *Over people, but it is no more than a rights: vote catching exercise given the beatleted Liberal council's threats to cut 1,350 of its own council jobs.
women's rights: In a campaign leaflet devoted to When the fight for women's rights, Socialist Unity is calling for the the leaflets,
turn-out at a in Liverpool for abortion
The Liverpool march, orga-
to coincide with the and international demand *Women 'IN these months before the general election the Nazis will seize on every opportunity to
propaganda. cent. election itself, National Front candidates will because be entitled to equal TV and radio time to the major parties. tion
"The British electorate will be exposed to Nazi propaganda on
This the must not go unopposed. thunder.
These are the words of the founding statement of the Anti people 10 Nazi League. A mass propaganda campaign of leaflets and posters during the election was the League's immediate objec-
CASSS
The events after the first ANL Carnival showed it was
making real *Nazi'.
Carnival One took The place during the local election
- and when it came to the poll there was a significant fall in the
decide!', begins at
Cine KaiTe Upper Parliament Liverpool
school students'
Two schools WeTC Thursday encourage students to join the lobby outside the Albert Booth of
the headmaster of Paddington school condemned
Socialist Unity declared it would continue to leaflet the schools as "school students should have the right
*Along with prison inmates, and members of the armed forces, they are one of the only sections of society to be denied
Is the ANL ready?
National Front's vote.
They slumped from 5 per cent in the GLC elections (May 1977), and 5.7 percent in the Ladywood by-election, to 3 per
Of course this was not just
ANL. The rightward lurch on immigra-
marked by Thatcher's the Select Committee Report stole some
National Front's
And the resistance of black
symbolised by the struggle to
forced many Labour and trade union leaders to speak out against the successfully la behed the Was But it was the ANL
ANL had a plan of action to beat the NF then, but it is surely lacking one now. Octobertine ANt conference Expecting election last
right to participate in politics."
*Over Britain's presence in Ireland: David Alton, the Liberal candidate, has backed a call for British withdrawal from Alan Evans secretary of Merseyside branch
the United Troops Out Movement, says
"Both Tory and Labour governments have been frightened of allowing Northern Ireland to become an election issue because they know that a growing majority of people in
country want a British withdrawal from Northern Ireland.
Socialist Unity is doing its best to make it an election issue. had planned a major Carnival and demonstration for September. A trade union conference was planned for the autumn.
Every ANL branch and supporter had clear nationa focuses around which the local leafleting and postering could take place. There is no such focus now.
A plan of action is needed:
* There should be a national mass demonstration on the weekend before the general election.
We should ask every Labour and working class candidate to allocate some of their election spending entitlement to the ANL to leaflet againsi the Nazis
* We should also ask them to join the AN in sponsoring local rallies involving all labour movement organisations to put
against NF's policies.
Time is short — the ANL must be ready!
Socialist Challenge 29 March 1979 page 3
Page 4 scan of this page
ON the appointment of Roy Mason as Northern Ireland Secretary:
'This is the best bit of news the people of Northern Ireland have had for the past two years.
— Ian Paisley, 1976.
ON Mason's rule while office:
"At every level of political activity from routine day-to-day representations to inter-party discussions Northern Ireland Office has shown an arrogant indifference to the real problems facing Northern Ireland?
Seamus Mallon, Social Democratic and Labour Party, 3 January 1979.
ON the effects of Labour in office:
*The union with Britain is now in less danger and more secure than at any time since Too and probably since rurter back still.
- Enoch Powell, April 1976.
*On the basis of information available to it, Amnesty International believes that maltreatment of suspected terrorists by the RUC has taken place with sufficient frequency to warrant the establishment of
public inquiry to investigate
Amnesty International, June 1978.
ON H Block:
*A visiting radio journalist from America got in touch with the Northern Ireland Office to see if he could ask Mr Roy Mason about the controversy over conditions in Bleck.
*He was told, reasonably, that Mr Mason was too busy to see him. But instead of answering the questions the Northern Ireland Office gested that the journalist get in touch with Mr Norman Hatton, the chief of the Official Unionists who, the official said, would be able to put the government view quite adequately.'
from the Guardian, 14 March 1979.
*The fact that a man refuses to wear prison uniforms or to do prison work should not entail the loss of physical exercise, association with his fellow prisoners, or contact with the outside world.
*These are basic human needs for physical and mental health, not privileges to be granted or withheld punishments.
*To deprive anyone of them over a long period is surely a grave injustice and cannot be justified in any circumstances.
Dr Tomas O Fiaich, Catholic Primate of Ireland, 1 August 1978.
ON Labour and the Unionists:
*It's like this: Roy Mason is giving us sheer bloody good
Socialist Challenge 29 March 1979 page 4
LABOUR IN CRISIS
By their friends
-and enemies-
shall ye know them
government politically, economically and militarily. - anonymous Unionist Party official, quoted in Irish Times, 10 September 1977.
"All the lives in Ireland are negotiable another day office."
Hugh Logue, in Democratic and Labour Party,
September 1977.
ON the passing the Prevention of Terrorism Act:
"You may rely on our support for the speedy passage of the proposed Bill.
William Craig, Unionist MP, November 1974.
*The only comparison that 1 know of is the practice in South Africa where citizens can moved out of areas where they have always lived and sent off by administrative 100-200 miles away, wherever please authorities to send because they are considered a
•We are lation which is comparable with the legislation existing in South Africa."
Frank Hooley, MP, November 1974. quite
JACK LYNCH
ON the unification of Ireland: sug- In March 1978 Irish Premier
Jack Lynch said: *I do not believe there can ever be a permanent peace in Ireland while the British remains.'
Roy Mason savagely attacked Lynch for this evoking the following praise for Mason: *The words which fell from the Secretary of afternoon were the impressive which been used from the government front bench on the subject.
Enoch Powell, 10 March 1977.
IN summary: *Direct rule is positive, is compassionate and Roy Mason, October 1977.
It's difficult, roughly 150-160 prisoners have shown themselves to me with injuries which I would not be satisfied were self-inflicted. All — Dr Robert Irwin, 11 March
1979. *Building new prisons seems to be the only growth area in Northern Ireland.'
Joan Maynard, Labour MP, August 1977.
Northern
for impotent
Social
of the
Ulster
be
action,
them,
House of Commons.
government has
By Geoff Bell
A flashback to the eve of the
Rance of premier Harold Wilson on the 4 August edition of Weekend World.
There are rumours then that the Tory Party is negotiating with the Specifically, suggested that in return for Unionist backing the Tories would increase the number of
presence seats for the North of Ireland at
Westminster Wilson is asked to comment statement,
by the television interviewer.
He says: 'If they are extremists (the Unionist MPs)
State this they would not have been seen
most dead with when Mr Whitelaw nave evel
was there ex-Ministers said this in the past 48 hours — it would be a grave dereliction of their duty to the country, to Northern Ireland and to the people of Northern Ireland. 'It would be done to get a few doubtful votes for a future it cares." Conservative government."
but How strangely those words of Harold Wilson now seem. For today Wilson's fears of extremists' have proved only LOO LEUC But it was not the Tories who denvered up the Unionists demanded way back in August 1974. Rather, it was Wilson's heirs who in their last parliamentary session rushed
Labour and Ireland
home to roost
THE LIFE of the Callaghan government now hangs by the Orange thread of Ulster Unionist MPs in the
If that thread has been snapped by the time these words are read, it will not be because the
done anything Unionists, but rather because the Unionists will have decided that they have sucked all the blood available from the rotting corpse of Labour's Irish policy.
payment for continued support in ment. appear-
lisgustin! heeler-dealing
Official Unionists. has been
MPs.
the most
stonehe in ireland
dealing with Northern
and one of their that demands
community.'
5 April 1974: principled *To talk
"dealing with any circumstances in
seats the
January 1976:
The chickens come
Labour to offend the
were through the extra-seats Bill in Party
the Unionists'
Parlia-
There is no disguising this Molyneaux,
piece of political The arguments against what in effect July will be an increase in Loyalısı representation in Westminster have been stated many times before, on occasion by Labour
For instance, there was Roy Mason on 2 December 1976:
'Northern Ireland is numerically under-represented in this House, but I firmly believe that
effective way of democracy in The is for agreement to be reached on a form of developed government
widespread acceptance in both parts of the
Or there was Merlyn Rees, on parliamentary
pressure is
*Many people in Northern Ireland, whatever we may think with Labour. about it, look to the South and not this country. The problem that we all face is to bring these two communities together...
of increased representation in this House in that context is not facing up to the facts of life..I do not see
which extra representation of Northern Ireland, with its history, would be a means of bringing reading of the peace that we all want."
Or Merlyn Rees again, on 12
*The government do not feel
able to recommend re-examination of the question of the number of Northern Ireland constituencies returning Members to the United Kingdom Parliament in advance of an agreement on a system of government commanding the most widespread acceptance."
But since these sentiments
expressca unc Labour has lost few by-elections and the pact with the Liberal Party has ended.
And so it was that Jim
the Unionist MPs at Westminster, held a press conference on e
which confirmed that the six or seven nionists under his command had agreed to a parliamentary pact with the government
They would not vote to bring it down in return for an increase in the number of Northern Ireland seats at Westminster.
The main Unionist behind this deal was Enoch Powell
problem for the Unionists was that Powell and Molyneaux faced opposition within the Loyalist camp from Ian Paisley and others of his ilk. Accordingly, now that the extra-seats Bill has passed all its
stages, the Powell and Molyneaux to ditch the pact
Having got the Bill passed, it is also a convenient time for the Official Unionists to return to their voters and boast of what they have achieved.
Even by their own standards of parliamentary opportunism, it is fair to ask what Labour has achieved by the pact.
The second and crucial
the House of Commons Redistribution of Seats Bill, as the Unionists' pay-off was called, was held last November - just two
months after Callaghan told his television audience that intended postponing the election.
Can anyone now suggest that Callaghan would not have been better advised to go to the country in October rather than clinging to power on coat-tails of HERe Unionist bigots?
The truth is that the Labour government has even been outmanoeuvred by the Loyalists in the Westminster game of power politics.
There have been few attempts by the Labour
the Labour YOVCH ICHL Party to justify their pact with the Unionists. But last week Labour Weekly attempted such an explanation.
*The new breed of Ulster Unionists are not all Tories Some of them are working class and strongly interventionist -that was their reasoning.
fact there are more 'working class Lovalists Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party which has always refused any deal with Labour
But leaving that point aside, just how low can the Labour Party get in giving such cover to what Wilson called 'the extremists' of Ulster Loyalism?
Let a final comment go to the Young Conservatives, who recently returned from fact-finding tour of the North of Ireland.
In the dog days of this Labour government it is fitting that such a body can be quoted against it
The YCs commented: In talking Official Unionists...one gets the im UNCOSIOHE that whatever suggested to them or whatever is offered they will push for something more.
Page 5 scan of this page
And now - make Ireland an issue
Civil servants ready for action
needs grasping.
By Tom Marlowe
After 35 MPs showed their opposition to the Prevention of Terrorism Act last Wednesday (two acted as tellers, 33 voted against - including one Tory) SDLP member Gerry Fitt was
*33 democrats."
The opposition against the PT A was, in terms of numbers, greater than ever before. Only 143 voted in favour of the PTA, so the majority of Labour MPs either voted against, abstained
For simply stayed OI DUl DUSC.
Thus only a minority of the Parliamentary Labour Party voted in favour of the PTA.
In sense that encouraging. But Fitt's remark
33 democrats' reminder of how comparatively TeW Labour MPs prepared to make an issue of
It also stresses the urgent need for socialists outside the cosy confines of Westminster to do what the Labour MPs are refusing to do: kick up hell about Labour's policy in the North of Ireland.
The nature of that policy is best illustrated by a quote from the Crossman Diaries 1968-70. Crossman recalls the decision by the Labour government in August 1969 to send in troops to the North of Ireland:
"Callaghan Was to work through the Protestant government. une rrotestants are tc majority and we can't afford to alienate them.?
At the time Callaghan was Home Secretary, and responsiole TOI Une government s policy in the North of Ireland. By Stewart McLennan CPSA Chairperson, Glasgow North DHSS
THE 200,000-strong strike by civil servants on 21 March, which followed the 90 per cent solid one-day strike to launch our pay campaign, proves that the membership are willing to take action over pay.
The leadership of the Civil and Public Services Associa332 02 SAPASES 103 membership would rather have others do the work for them. They did think that way, but more and more members are now being convinced that it is their actions which count.
At first they thought pay research which our last conference endorsed despite the opposition of the lett would allow us to cash in on increases won in the private SCCLOR
Now it is clear that the government intends to limit any immediate increase to something like the public service workers have won, with
LABOURIN CRISIS
WHENEVER the election occurs, socialists will have a better opportunity to make Ireland an issue than at any other election since 1918. It is an opportunity that
He was greeted in August 1969 by many Catholics something of a hero SaVIOu! TTOM the intolerance of Unionist rule.
That judgement is one that many would revise Indeed, so far as Callaghan being a defender of the rights of Catholics goes, it is judgement he has revised.
In a recent interview Observer, he remarked: "I think it would be fair to say that I overestimated the Civil Rights
It seems that since then Callaghan and the rest of the Labour government have gone out their way to 'correct" that overestimate"
The introduction PTA, the abolition of political status, the official introduction of the SAS into the North of Ireland, the re-arming of the RUC, the increase in membership of the RUC, the growth of the UDR — all are results of the Labour government's last five years in office.
Accordingly, while it is true that some government's decisions Treland have been motivated by its desire to win Unionist MPs in Parliament, it is not true that this is what is at the root of its North of Ireland policy.
The introduction of the PTA, the decision to abolish political status, many tortures highlighted nesty International - all took place when Labour reasonably comfortable majority in Parliament.
And in denying the right of the Irish people themselves, the Labour governthe rest of what's due in stages - perhaps going through to April 1980.
It's becoming clear that we have to act now to force the full increases under pay research with no delay.
Then the union members were told that this could be done by selective involving only 1,300 placed workers token one-day strikes to show
Now, when Lord Peart and the government say that they are going to suspend those who refuse to do the work of those on strike, the membership are realising that the action has to be escalated.
Thirty thousand were out in Scotland last week; and despite Ene weather 2,000 in Edinburgh, while Glasgow rally was packed out.
the Department National Savings Glasgow, the number of scabs fell from 80 (out of 5,000) in the first one-day strike to 20 this
as
- their bigoted
today.
in the of the
ment has ideology C01EIO1 North of Ireland At long SEST human costs are beginning to be seen by the Labour society who didn't want to, or
on weren't allowed to, see before. Castlereagh is now headline the votes of news, a number of newspapers
have called for the resignation Mason, American politicians (for their own opportunist reasons) have again called for the unification of Ireland and the withdrawal of the of Britain. by Am- What all this means is that
nada to have shouted
wilderness about no longer YCars alc wilderness. The potential for a rule growing movement for British withdrawal is now real and is When the membership found out last Thursday that scabs had been sent home early but still paid, they came out again. Many members now want to Seewcasne ongoing National Giro HQ carried the strike through to the end of the
action week.
well- The problem is that the union and a few leadership does not want
involve the
Headquarters Edinburgh and Glasgow coming out, but told other branches to have meetings.
CPSA branches cross picket lines set up cros prof the Society or civil
marched ana ruone servants wno were
the coming out in West Scotland, and the NEC last week decided of against supporting the regional here in one-day strikes
members.
Ken secretary, is strengthening the government's wages limits by
always shared discernible
with the Unionists. that policy's best opportunity
many in British Ireland an issue.
SU Brendan standing against Roy Pat Arrowsmith against Callaghan. number of Their should
this.
address any in the he should Ireland for hounded. Indeed, every in the ernment speaker
sanctioned. action DHSS and Bootle
to
whole of the
supported
workplace protest
members in some were instructed
supporting
denying us a decent wage.
SCPS hands of the rank and file.
Thomas, our general
AFOR THE E LAST TINE - OCALLAGRAN *HEN THE GENERAL ELECTION
Whether the election is held in the next few weeks or in the to next few months, it offers the
make
There are many ways to do
Gallagher horrors they Mason, sustain. is standing DICS election campaigns Provisionals be a focus for all activists on Ireland, but raising the issue need not be limited to In all
If, for example, the Labour Party dares to have Roy Mason
election meeting, issues be heckled and Ireland. govshould be reminded during the election period of the tortures they have
them.
STEWART MeLENNAN
the Concordat, rather than isolating them for
It is vital that control over the campaign is put firmly in the
The union area committees must take the lead in convening area action committees to link from the NEC.
on the
Similarly, the 'lefts' in the Labour Party who have refused
minimal acts of criticism of the perform CYCH the most government's policy - such as voting against the PTA — neec to be reminded of the Irish
have helped to
Sections of the bourgeois
have said that the will launch bombing campaign during the with general election.
probability this is of "black propaganda' intended to direct autenuon away trom me real
of Britain's policy in
Certainly the chances are that in the coming election bombs will not be necessary. Ireland will be an issue without
an up the strike leaderships in each office and branch.
Most importantly, a national conference of area committees is vital to provide the national lead that can reject any staged deal and escalate action because that lead wil not come
On
the
picket
ine
Edinburgh THE mass rally in Edinburgh
March braved the weather to endorse a declaration calling for 'the executives of both our unions to escalate
whatever stage is necessary to stop in its tracks this unprecedented attack on our right to freely withdraw our labour
in particular we pledge to our colleagues in the Scottish courts all physical, financial and moral support necessary to Fully. maintain the efficacy
•We assure our colleagues in
Scottish Office that we stand ready to take all action necessary force a LULE withdrawal of all suspensions.
East London
CLIVE MARTIN, of Newham and Waltham Forest DHSS. told us:
*There are five offices in the branch, and each office has one or two people on the branch committee.
the campaign leadership,
its members reporting back to their offices and all minutes of meetings being circulated, and we have genera meetings to decide on what action to take.
omorrow, for example the SCPS is taking action, and two or three of our office will be out with them.
*The four London area co-ordinating committees are beginning to meet together to develop the action, and there is
unofficial body called the All-London Civil Service Strike Committees which just getting off the ground - that's an inter-union body.
*I think this co-ordination is very necessary, but it's difficult because it's all come to a head rather suddenly.'
North London
PAM SHEPHERD, of Haringey and Islington DHSS, told
"The NEC has got to be forced to do something now. Forty more suspensions are on
scotland - thi government is calling Thomas's bluff of selective action and testing us to see if we are serious.
45-minute stoppage, but most of our members wanted to go out for the day. If there was a clear call for escalation from the NEC, for everyone out, they would get the response.
*All the branch secretaries in North London have been meeting to plan action, and we have to extend that to fully involving all the members in deciding what action to take.
Socialist Challenge 29 March 1979 page 5
Page 6 scan of this page
THE CONCORDAT
In its own words
THE RIGHT TO STRIKE The nation is facing immense problems... But some things are clear. There is no answer in confrontation. Solutions to our problems have to be found in agreement...
*...where unofficial action has taken place unions should take energetic steps to get a return to normal work...
"Strike action should only be taken in the last resort...Unions Bcca to nave regaro to viability of the employing @tablishment, to the effect on employment and earnings, on other workers and
*The TUC emphasises the vital necessity of maintaining supplies and services essential to the health and safety of the communa. of maintaining
and equipment, sestaining livestock during Industrial disputes.'
UNION ORGANISATION
anion rules should provide
or strike ballots...
'democracy
By Rich Palser
HOSPITAL ancillary workers have just been given a bitter lesson in what *democracy means to their union leaders.
At Monday's meeting of the Ancillary Council union side, the decision was taken to accept the offer of 9 per cent, plus £ in advance of comparability.
They did this even though the majority of ancillary workers had voted to reject the deal.
The 123,000 majority against the deal amongst members of the National Union of Public Employees, added to minority of votes against in each of the other unions, comes to more than half of the total 270,000 ancillary workers.
But although half of all ancillaries are NUPE, it only has four of the sixteen seats on the union side of the Ancillary Council.
So the other unions have given the NUPE executive little choice about whether continue the fight, even though action by NUPE members was escalating.
But the NUPE leadership have hardly done all they could to prevent these manoeuvres First they went along with the procedure which divided up the water workers from the loca government workers, and the local government workers from the ancillaries.
Now, when the other union leaders divide ancillaries in one union from those in another, and use their votes to isolate the
on by NUPE members, the NUPE executive is left high and
Although it recommended rejection of the offer, it failed to make a call at the same time
Socialist Challenge 29 March 1979 page 6
LABOUR IN CRISIS
*..the closed shop need not be a rigid arrangement."
PICKETING ..confine picketing to premises of the parties to the dispute..Badges or armbands should be carried or worn bs pickets so that they are clearly identifiable pickets...any request for members of another union not to cross picket lines directed to the the official or body of the other
union... *(Pickets must) act in a anU the disciplined and peaceful man-
ner ever they provoked by non-unionists or others...any person who joins a picket line must instructions from the person wno is in caarge... and *It will help to ensure that
picketing is peaceful if experienced member, ably a union charge....He (sic)
pickets is no larger than is necessary....
It is also important that
Ancillaries' lesson in leaders'
the
over to
for all-out national -the only way that members of other unions could convinced that continuing the struggle could gains.
Nurses equally have cause for concern over representation on the Nurses and Midwives Council. The no Royal College Nursing, along with professional bodies, majority of votes over NUPE and the health union COHSE Whilst NUPE CALL claim that any offer from the government will be the result of the action by local government
memoers nave sent in sionatures. iney
President. Hull Trades Council Gurevitch NUT Council executive; Jan Brooke
Trades Council executive: George Nix FTAT, Hull Trades Council exe Pauline Stanton, delegate ASTMS Div
authorised
APEX (British Al
should be appropriate demonstrations of this kind
(mass pickets) do not convey the impression that the object is
are WAGES *..there can be no doubt that a 2CCCUL general rise in the level of
money incomes walce signin cantly outstripped the rate of output growth an incompatible with our objecprefer- tive... official, is in *...we must set ourselves the
should task..of getting our inflation rate, now, down below 5 percent... each year, SHOUTE
LADING HOSPITALS
THE
action and ancillary than the RCN's begging bowl be tactics, it is only possible to prevent their sabotage of the bring further pay campaign when all nurses
can see an alternative.
One small example of that their alternative strategy is offered by COHSE members in Leamington.
other At the local
has hospital nurses
staging regular strikes, provision of emergency cover and then picketing the hospital and leafleting the public.
They now plan to hold a strike and a march through the
More Anti-Concordat Signatures
shing I Trades Councile Hard,
recker
Education Joint Union Citee would be
within three years from
before Easter, mine pay settlements)..."
HALTH SERVICE
workers, rather claim, and
time and join the march.
the private being
OBES psychiatric staffing have been facilities. with Unfortunately
but the approaching
march,
THE
headquarters CPSA the hundreds copies
File Local ASSn.
everything.
CO 200
the
Anti
YOUT stewards
tunity
CONCORDAT
assessment by Government and Dasning. both sides of industry of our economic prospects (to deter-
By Tierney ALMOST
pay demand.
caused SAWSOWE sector.
Scottish
English Their
1974
holidays, selective
indicated
town in support of their pay
are approaching workers in the private sector to stage a stoppage at the sami
In approaching workers in
sector they are stressing that their march is not Trades only in support of decent pay for nurses, but also against the
underand inadequate on Saturday Hyde Park.
NUPE
taking no action in that area,
nurses will be ambulance workers to make it a joint
The fightback
campaign for the Concordat is taking off. Union
are dispatching Concordat's of thousands The latest copy of the Record the Concordat on its front page.
There's no doubt that, come the election, Callaghan, Murray and Co. will be presenting the Concordat as the answer to
Meanwhile the Tories are using the Concordat to further their anti-union aims.
That makes the campaign for
AnI-Concordal all - the more urgent. So..
*Put down a resolution in
branch, shop COTTICE etc.,
Tories Seize Concordat Oppor- "The
'In talking about picketing, the They closed shop and strike ballots we can no longer be accused of
scaremongering union
Tory employment spokesperson Leon Brittan.
Scottish teachers
begin to move
Mike Anderson and Des
50,000 teachers throughout Scotland came out on a one day national strike on 22 March in support of their
strike, called by the Educational Institute of Scotland which represents about 75 per cent of the teaching force,
an almost total cane
This showed the anger of
teachers at the insulting offer of eight per cent - me same as mas ween maue Lo
and Welsh teachers. living standards have been cut by 42 per cent since
The EIS leadership, which has always supported incomes policy, is not waging a serious campaign. They delayed action until two weeks before the
propose action in a small number of schools.
They have even offered to accept a nine per cent increase if *cast iron guarantees' of phased increases are given, and have
will accept reference of the claim to the comparability commission.
Garners
DELEGATES from Yarrow shipyard in Glasgow, Liverpool
Council, and Rover Solihull were among the 700
marched past Garner steakhouses in Central London
after a rally in
strike by immigrant workers for union recognition with is now in its 15th month, with little practical help from the Transport Union.
calling for rejection of the Concordat and the immediate recall of the TUC and. Labour Party conferences to throw out Tory policies like the Concordat and forge a socialisi solution to the crisis.
muel me branch, stewards committee, etc., to order copies
the Anti-Concordat for distribution.
*Organise Anti-Concordat meetings your involving the widest possible forces.
*Take the campaign for sponsors for the Anti-
into the labour movement. Send names of sponsors, details of resolutions and local activities to Socialist Challenge.
Tories Will introduce legislation on "the who, the when and where" of picketing
will encourage through providing government money union secret ballots on strikes, CICCuOns and other
Tory employment spokes person James Prior.
In contrast Rank and Fle Teacher in Scotland, which
groups together all the far left
independents and members of
the Labour Party, have been
energetically campaigning for a
minimum flat rate increase of
€20 for all teachers, and for all out strike claim.
At rallies throughout Scotland the Rank and File position got broad support, and the
executive is under considerable pressure to organise more than
the selective action scheduled to begin on 27 March.
Two things are crucial in
developing fight back. Firstly, the actions proposed by the executive must be widened into an all out strike. Secondly and equally importantly, unless the demands of English and
Welsh teachers are pushed forward the Scottish teachers
may be isolated and cereated as they were in 1974.
Rank and File and thi Socialist Teachers Alliance in
their pay claim CEOH and attempts must be made to co-ordinate north and south of the border.
The 15 Garners workers who remain on strike most of those who originally joined the picket lines have now been forced to take jobs elsewhere — are determined to win the right to union representation. invited a Garners speaker yet? organisation see what's Ler for derals or daily pickets. A series of film benefits starts sunday,
Dread Beat and Blood and Dark Star at the Gate Cinema, Notting Hill, W11, at 1pm. Tickets f1.
Page 7 scan of this page
New stewards' report
With friends like these...
HOME NEWS
In the labour
organisation.
their Corporate Plan to
labour movement.
now producing their own alternative plans. Union Initiative'.
By Jonathan Silberman
THE Lucas Corporate Plan has won support from incredibly wide range of people and organisations.
So persuasive is its message — the right to work on socially
products Industry Minister Gerald Kaufman was forced to say in the House of Commons on 12 June last year that 'Ministers have consistently welcomed the initiative of the Lucas Aerospace stewards.
Yet Kaufman made this remark In the LOUISC announcing government aid of E8m to Lucas Aerospace (LA)
• a mere tree monens arter the company had decided to make 2,000 workers redundant.
Since the early 1970s, workforce in what known as the Engine Mangement Division has been more or less halved. The new proposals, including the closure of the Liverpool tactory. nearly halve this again.
government's cash hand-out effectively aims to help smoothe the towards eliminating the jobs of highly skilled and able workers.
his is iust one item in a brilliant exposure of Kaufman and the Labour government carried out in the 400-page report produced by the Lucas stewards.
This points out that in the period 1971-77, LA awarded €10.15m of govern-
NATIONAL TRADE
UNION CONFERENCE
* UNDER WORKERS
CONTROLE
Workers' Plans and
Workers'
Control
28 April, Ha.m.
Digbeth Civic Hall,
BIRMINGHAM
Fighting for jobs at Lucas
THE NAME Lucas Aerospace has become associated
movement both with multinational management and powerful shop floor
The initiative of the Lucas Aerospace Combine Shop Stewards Committee (LACSSC) in producing
counter the redundancies has evoked widespread support in the
Last year the Labour Party conference unanimously endorsed the plan's central message — defending jobs through asserting 'the right to work on socially useful products'. Workers in other plants and industries are
Initiatives like these will be the subject of discussion at the second trade union conference organised by Socialist Challenge on Saturday 28 April. Meanwhile the Lucas stewards have produced a further report *Turning Industrial Decline Into Expansion: A Trade
ment money through investment grants, regional development grants and so on - during which time the workforce was cut from 18,000 to 13,000.
Like other major companies, Lucas also receives substantial tax deferrals which amounted that to £75m in 1977-78, £54m in 1976-77, and £31m in 1975-76.
Benevolent as ever, Healey announced in his 1978 Budget speech that most or all of these deferrals will be written off!
This is just part of a close relationship between LA and of the Labour government which goes financial field.
Thus John Williams has been seconded for two vears from his present post of chairperson the Murphy's side-kick at the NEB; HOW while Anthony former Permanent Secretary at the Department of Industry, is BOW on une directors. would Co-operation does not end here. The National Turbine Research ment, a government insurunon, way is now going to take on research work for LA. formerly done entirely at the LA Shipley factory.
For obvious reasons there is also bound to be a significant degree of co-operation between Lucas Defence Systems and the Ministry of Defence, sadly the stewards have not was managed to open these books.
Another aspect of the report is its excellent exposure of LA mus anarchical. one can only conclude that workers management be highly superior present outfit.
Furthermore, the contrast between the hand-outs to the company and its refusal to give a firm commitment to achieve even the same number of new kidney machines head population as European capitalist countries underpins the combine's conclusion in the original plan that it represents a challenge to many and assumpaons or our society.
It is when the report begins to investigate the whole area of alternatives to job loss that it becomes criticially paving the way for the rhetoric of people like Kaufman. This is because it takes into account the question viability.
ruthless
threat of
GOOD Financial capitalism thing — the ability to make a
At the instance, the stewards counter the company's assertion that a shrinking market is forcing it to undertake the present rationalisation exercise' by saying that, on the contrary, 'there will be
great bas stop res
Lucas
Dennis viding,
management has the will and capability to seize them.
Talking about the heat pump project currently under way at Burnley, the report calls for its acceleration and recommends the establishment of a product support, commercial sales and
SUICLY
engineering back-up team'.
An immediate problem with such positions is that they tend LA deputy to play into the hands of the he Sir eche company's original reply to the
Part,
Gas Establish- THE militant
organisation adopted by the Lucas Combine Committee has
job was had a completely raw deal from
the trade union leadership.
On 2 September 1976, the combine received a message of support from general secretary of TASS, the
though white collar section of
AUEW engineering This stated that the decision of the Executive Committee was to accept the general concept of Reading it, the Plan'.
But when the
would announced 2,000 redundancies
to une in March last year, with the
CLOSUrE Liverpool, government's Coventry, TASS general secre-
tary Ken Gill laid it on the line: *Contrary to statements widely circulated, Plan" is not the official policy of of TASS.' other The company had in fact discussed the closure plans with Confederation building and *fundamental Unions, but refused to meet the
of the combine because, ideological company representative put it,
the national officials of the trade unions would rap me very firmly over the knuckles'.
weak, Ernie Scarbrow combine commented in a letter to the CSEU last July: "You will know that for the past five of financial years the Lucas workers have
succeeded in preventing the
FACTORY
FOR SALE
viabilty under Corporate
only one
beginning, for
producing profitably. You end
and profitable.
Aerospace, pro-
course. that tion
cites the
this field.
safeguard share of the market?
This latest therefore moved some rank and file
position...
These
the deputy
March,
company loss as participation
factories working Bradford and
that the "Corporate
ongoing
of ShipEngineering internal and external. as one
of the
for collaboration
within Lucas Aerospace.
HEY PAL WHAT'S THIS /CART /FoR
SCRAP
Plan. when_A stated: "The only way to secure jobs in the market economy is to manufacture the products which the company is best at
efficiently and up by arguing what is most efficient
islands of
A second danger is that this COUCCEE can divide LA workers from those in other companies. The section proposing the produc
non-aerospace fuel control systems, for instance,
growth OI Rolls Royce's share of the market as a justification for LA activity in
committed.
But if it's in the interests of Lucas workers for LA to enter on the market, isn't it also in the interests of RR workers to
their company's of how necessary report has way management from carrying out one single direct sacking. It would be a sad reflection if, now that the CSEU is involved, it is going to undermine that
fears well founded. At a company-wide meeting of the full 72 CSEC stewards a fortnight ago, on 15
CSEU leaders Roy Grantham (APEX) and Alex Ferry (TGWU) manoeuvred to water down proposals from the LA committee of the CSEU.
These were to insist on no job
condition for in any new that the delegates to this working party be responsible to the committee and subject to instant recall;
delegates b
Cooley and Phil Asquith; an that the CSEU committee be
'with monitor every aspect of the company's restructuring activities, including the monitoring of all sub-contract work both
The proposals were eventually endorsed with no-one against, however, despite the antics of Ferry and Grantham. It is this emphasis on militant
uggle and organisation s
t on the CSEU leaders' des
with the employers which has been the basis of all the achievements
THAT'S FOI
YOu LOT
from the position consistently advanced by the combine in the past, that 'it is certainly not the assumption of this Corporate Plan that Lucas Aerospace can and
transformed into a trailblazer to change this situation in isolation. There can be no
responsibility and in the sea irresponsibility and depravity."
Implicit in this was the need for a national plan which could transform the 'sea'. Hence the demand for the nationalisation of LA without compensation and under workers control, to which the LACSSC is formally
In formulating its demands
SEDONE government however, the report starts from the narrower technical question
the finance to get production going.
It concludes this section by ROY GRANTHAM, general secretary of APEX: attacked the no-job loss basis of participation in the joint working party.
• STUPID QUES
pointing out the various sections of the Industry Act, Local Employment Act, temporary employment subsidies
regional development grants through which a *job security package of aid for a period of up to two years' can be granted.
But ultimately the decisive question is that it is the capitalist system which has created the problems of the Lucas workers. That's the importance of organising the fight for socialist policies in the
*The Lucas stewards' 400page report is available from CAITS, North East London Polytechnic, Longbridge Road, Dagenham, Essex RM8 2AS, at £4.50 STOl shop stewards committees -and trade union branches, £10 for individuals and £40 for educational and other institutions.
WIARD (Report
Socialist Challenge 29 March 1979 page 7
Page 8 scan of this page
raising the same demand.
over their own fertility.
Governments control WORCES defining their place in society.
unwanted denied the
women across the world.
instruments
conduct their own lite
Health
available.
Campaign is already aware
of 19 local campaigns for
day-care
Judy Watson, a member of
the International
Group on NAC's steering
committee, explains that the
new campaign will strength-
en this local
providing a national orien-
All photos: G.M. COOKSON [Socialist Challenael tation.
WOLET EVE SEEDONEOT
at some time in their life -
and half of them are forced
to pay privately - there is
an overriding need for safe,
early, and easy
which day-care
offer,' says Judy.
in the law it will only come
about through a vigorous,
campaign. But it's not much
use changing the law if we
then find
aren't fortheoming.'
debate within the pro-choice
Socialist Challenge 29 March 1979 page 8
fertility. reasons vary, It may be to boost or cut population; to keep women in the home or draw them into the labour market; or to assert the sanctity of the family as a sateguard against social rebellion.
Whatever the reasons that satisfy the interests of particular regimes, result for women is the same. The state continues to play a dominant role in
Being forced to go through with an
opportunity children spells misery for countless
And having their bodies used as
some policies denies them another fundamental right: to decide how they should
In Britain, the fight for free abortion on demand has been at the forefront of the campaign for women's right to decide over their fertility. But black women within the campaign posed a different question. That for them, as
Service
adequate abortion facilities in every area was
launched in Britain earlier this week.
The National Abortion Campaign
up the campaign - wants health authorities to be
The National Abortion
Marxist
activity by
•With one in every ten
abortions units can
'If we are to win a change
co-ordinated
that facilities
The need to amend the
been a point
Abortion, con
31 MAR
WOME
INTERNATIONALISM is a word that crops up frequently in tl textbooks of revolutionaries. But rarely does a march from Hy Park find itself in solidarity with similar events in 17 countries:
'Women decide!" is the slogan which is uniting hundreds thousands of women across the world in the struggle to gain contr
Their
MOIC the
forcibly to have
government's
illegal
The day-care way to aborti
A NEW campaign aimed at making the National
responsible for
required to provide these facilities in the same
way that today they must make contraceptives
movement since its inception.
SECUTEE anti-abortionists since 1975, and while all agreed on the need to resist these attacks, many consider campaign needs to do more than respond
anti-abortion forces such as SPUC and Life.
positive statement what entailed woman's right to choose.
everywhere seek to well as for white working class won
with a large number abortions were often only too reac available
This race and class bias takes on e sinister neo-colonial world, sterilisation is a common instrument black population control It has been the ability International Campaign for Abort Rights, which has inspired and hel to organise the co-ordination of eve in 17 countries this Saturday, to ur the demands for abortion, contrac tion, and no forced sterilisation t has given the campaign its internatio dimension On 8 March, International Wome Day, there were important devel ments all over the world.
In Barcelona, 5,000 women held demonstration attacked by the police.
In Iran, it was the withdrawal birth control pills from chemists sho together with the Khomeini gove ment's confirmation of the ban
providing
- which set The movement has had its
INTERNATIONA
DEMONSTRATK
• LONDON MARCH 31
HYDEPARK meet at 1.30 to TRAFALGAR SQUARE RA
that ine
the efforts of
What is also needed is a
about for a
proportions in
where for
…of and
One idea th discussed in ti ALDOSHOT Cam draft Bill to interference by women's fertil But thanks to t the British const doesn't exist impossible to rights.
Without a co a Bill of Right: changes in the amendments number of exist which hardly len campaign see support.
The aim of NHS responsib viding abortion therefore par broader goal of legal restriction
control over the
- day-car
Page 9 scan of this page
raception and no sterilisation CH WORLDWIDE: I MUST DECIDE!
abortions and its declarations that veils were compulsory, which brought many thousands of women onto the streets on 8 March and the following days.
They declared: "We didn't make a revolution to get a worse situation.'
The growth of women's movements in numerous countries over the past 10 years has undoubtedly helped to forge and strengthen the determination Iranian women to make the fight for their liberation part revolutionary struggle.
The forces ranged against these revolutionary developments same forces wnose matenar interests dictate that women control of their fertility practised in international organisation.
One of the
examples of this co-ordination has been
uncovered In Ine course Muldergate revelations.
African Department of Information
last year financed remove the liberal US Senator,
Clark, chairperson of the Senate Africa Committee.
It did this not by openly challenging Clark's positions on apartheid but by pouring money into the 'Right to Life'
challenged Clark's
pro-choice stand! He was defeated.
This further underlines significance of the demonstrations and meetings which will be taking place
been has mapped out its work for ational the next year. It wants to is work closely with
all pro-choice activists in the
feminist and labour moveontrol. ments, including women ture of and health groups, anti-cuts in it campaigns, and the Labour
it's Abortion Rights Campaign. ite for
Regional meetings will help prepare for events such as the Fight Back conference mend, evolve scheduled for May
discuss cuts and closures in large the health service. The idea atutes, elf to a of a Women and Health
mass Tribunal, raised at the
recent Women and Health Conference, is also being discussed.
It is hoped to national trade union conference on abortion facilities by spring 1980.
More immediately, campaigners will be confronting prospective candidates the General Election demand that they actively fight for changes legislation, as well as for more facilities now. ng the NAC will be holding a
pro- meeting for people willing to ities is support the day-care cam-
the paign at the ring all Garrett Anderson Hospital it pre- in London - itself at the reising centre of a struggle for
women's health rights — on npaign 27 April.
the countries involved:
the criminal code,
the police.
The abortion
of the
- the
must not take rally, why - are well
sensational
of the ago, The South initially blocked
abortion remained illegal. campaign LU
Dick
which introduced abortion rights, and 94 per
Rome to ensure that abortions CACCOHE
passed in 1977. the before government
the present government has
other
to
TONI GORTON, convenor of the
planned this Saturday's events. hold a
happens next.
to
is trying
are internationally.
Elizabeth The Church,
agencies, the international drug companies
La united
kind.
across large sections of the globe this Saturday. Here is a checklist of some of granted
grounds.
In Belgium, where abortion is part of
women's centres which give advice about abortion and contraception are regularly harassed by
issue caused governmental crisis in Italy three years
April 28, Hyde Park ANTI-SPUC PICNIC abortion
The anti-abortionists are holding a
not celebrate the International Day of the Wanted Child with the National Abortion Campaign.
when the Communist Party with the ruling Spain Christian Democrats to ensure that
The Catholic Church and the medical profession fiercely oppose the 1978 law
extremely limited cent of doctors refuse to carry it out. Women are occupying hospitals in Turin and
are
Israel's abortion law reform was
Women have to go committees to obtain permission for an abortion, and
been BAN THEJAB! That's the slogan of the campaign against Depo-Provera, a birth control drug containing massive doses of a synthetic hormone associated with cancer risks ane omner severe nean disorders Internationally, the majority of the three to five million women on Depo frequently without their knowledge or consent - live in neo-colonial countries. In She is used man on Deck no wore CEss women Contact the campaign c/o ICAR, 374 Gray's Inn Road, London WCI. H88018 Labour Abortion Rights Campaign, has attended most of the international meetings which have
She spoke to Socialist Challenge about how the collaboration come about and what
How did the international coordination reach its present impressive level?
there
The beginnings were tentative, but the need was obvious. Everywhere the state
exert its control over women's fertility, and the anti-abort-
highly organised
population control Right to Lifers, all Havctaken oracuca measures to noun
offensive against women's interests. So women have to respond in
attempting to rule OU!
on social and economic
Abortion in Peru is outlawed by both the civil and criminal codes. Many women die as a result of backstreet abortions, estimated at 140,000 a year.
Although abortion is a crime in Holland, it has been tolerated for the past 10 years because of a militant campaign by the women's movement. Events on Saturday will include a cycle demonstration passing the embassies of countries with particularly restrictive
laws. selling contraceptives will be set up outside the Irish embassy in The Hague.
In Australia, sterilisation is practised on Aboriginal women without their full knowledge, and in all but one state -South Australia — abortion is illegal. pain one run conte women's
run women's movement in Barcelona and Madrid. Contraception was recently legalised, but is not widely available. Abortion remains a crime, and 3,000 women a year are estimated to die from back street abortions.
Although abortion is legal in West Germany, women must give consent to the removal of their uterus where complications arise. With such "complications' occurring in 20 to 30
per cent of abortions at a number of
hospitals, the women's movement has
What next for the international campaign
The need for collaboration was also evident at the practical level in cases where women are unable to obtain
their ownl country because of restrictive laws.
In Britain, abortions have been easier to obtain than in Spain or Italy, so links were often first established through these channels.
And once abortion campaigns got off the ground in different countries,
was need exchange information and experiences.
Will the internationalist co-ordination extend beyond 31 March?
Most definitely. One major proposal to
GISCUSSEE next planning meeting to be held Amsterdam next month, for example Is an appeal 10l an internatonal conference on fertility control.
concluded that forced being carried out.
France's abortion law comes up for review next January. limited rights to abortion, and there are few state facilities. have recently gone on the offensive in Switzerland, where most cantons only allow abortion when there is danger to health'
Between a thousand women die each year in Colombia from backstreet abortions, and the quarter of a million women who obtain these annually are liable to prison sentences prior of between one and six years. United States has invested $3m in the Colombian Family Planning Institutes, which carry out sterilisation programme.
Eve of Demo Benefit
National Abortion Campaign International Campaign for Abortion Rights
Barry Forde, Pam Nestor, and Liz Christian
Friday, 30 March. 7pm to 11.45
Tickets £2 at the door, £1.50 in advance
Porchester Hall, Porchester Road,
Bayswater, London W2.
Some of the debates which needed at such a conference have already become clear from the planning meetings. For instance, some Maoists have argued that it's necessary to build the abortion movement women's movement before taking up the broader fight.
I don't think we can envisage the campaign as developing "stages. feminist movement and ensure it takes the lead, but that doesn't preclude winning support in movement.
This is just one example. But it points to the need for a thorough international debate on strateev for an internationa campaign.
Amsterdam discussing an abortion manifesto for the Common Market in June. We want a united offensive to put candidates on the spot about their commitment to women's tertility control.
meetine to reports -
new.
that
British I sterilisation is
It gives only
Anti-abortionists
"grave
and 1,500
The
included an extensive
worth it.
politics. workshops on
We
are that
CONSCHSUS
inside the
our label?
these We want to involve the
capitalism labour
report
we will asc be organise
elections in
for venue).
your
Socialist
feminists
call for
delegation
to lran
By Penny Duggan SUPPORT for women internationally was one of the major themes of the socialist feminist national conference held in London last weekend.
Over 300 women packed into a
hear Azar Tabari, just returned from Iran, recount event there. We decided to send a message of support from the conference to our sisters in Iran and to hold future meetines to organise solidarity action
The main aim will be to organise a delegation of British women to gain a first hand experience of the struggle in Iran, so that they can bring back
particularly to combat the distortions in the press. Azar stresser that the women in Iran very much need our support as their movement is ver In other workshops women argued
next year's conference should concentrate on discussing Britain's role as one of the major imperialist power and what responsibilities that gave us ar
feminists in building international women's movement
Some women felt that this would mean that the conference would be seen as a 'specialist conference, but in many workshops the idea was well received.
It was also argued that Internationa Women's Day has never been properly celebrated in Britain. The focus has been on our own particular struggles. rather than celebrating the multiplicits of women's struggles around the world This needs to be rectified next year.
The conference, attended by 1,500
marked yet step forward in the development of socialist feminism. The workshops on Saturday
lively discussions pornography and censorship, and on the development of workers' plans and workers control, particularly over the development of new technology.
Some women were disappointed that their workshops did not make any big steps forward, and it seemed to be the same old discussion. But the efforts by the planning group to get papers and workshop leaders so that all the workshops were well prepared for the most part seemed to have been well
Many women were disappointed that there was no plenary session, where we could all come together and have an idea of how far the socialist feminist current had reached in developing its
This was taken up in the Sunday, which all discussed strategy
discussed why wanted plenaries. Could we decide things there
really change women's activities? Were we trying to develop a
was that even possible?
What, in fact, did we mean by socialist feminism, and how much was there contradiction between the two halves ol
None of these questions could be resolved, but the discussions which ranged over many other issues - from what we would do in the General Election to whether it is possible to make a free choice on childbirth under
- seemed to many of us to be a step forward from our previous conferences, despite the unevenness.
*Follow up meeting to produce a
from this year's socialist feminist conference and begin to
next year's. Sanna Hall 21 April 1.30pm-6рm St Ann's Venn St, London SW4 (check WIRES
If you can't come but want to send
comments, please write to: 27 Villa Road, Brixton. London SWI1.
Socialist Challenge 29 March 1979 page
Page 10 scan of this page
Oldham marches against
My acquittal proves what we said about
WHAT'S
LEFT
word. Display £2 per column Weagline. som baturday before
Proucaton. rayment in aavance
ency. Last in a series or tour ouDli
rols. No. 4. crisis: workers versu
Line MoBouck, 10o.
REVOLUTIONARY Communist
-ine Lavoul hacisi Smash All
Pub.
Hackney Town Hall), Friday 6
4. neoretical loumar or nine
ique of Eurocommunism and in
Critque of
by Fran
policy the irish republican 50p TO RCT BM RCT(4), London
socialist unity social, rnoay c Further details from
- Admission 20p. Holborn tube.
PEOPLES News Service benefit: film by Red Sisters Collective, Take it like a
ma'am. 1 April, St Wi. E1.50 at
0OYNG.1399096 Y
Art racis ano tantasies. boltics
esperience- amalorineme. Fius. -Des in Haly: geon Moocson alive cconomic strategy, Ten
wass, Le ware, AN STUTUre
can fid, London Nt. SUD MALGO Campaign Against Low Pay
Sat 7 Aril. 11.30an Mabledon
London WC1. All NALGO members
RAR GIG with Crisis and Hard Core
ame Clet House, Ben Jonson
PICKET GARNERS: Main pickets
noon to 3pm and 5.30 to 11 399 Oxford St. Sa3 London Wi London i
dord Circus): 40-41 Haymarket: 56
teSt Leicester sal. Mass saturday at noon.399
we pay is only 2o. All donations whers sinke rund. clo TowU. 12•13 mennena si.. London
FLEET STREET Branch of the
League — new badge in three Print Workers Against the he NE is Bad News 20p plus 20 Tor 2.
say in advance to s Yanowitz. 11t
• Green Ho London Nwo
TRENCH comrade (LCR) looking for
mining ot
HOUSE to let in North London to 3/4
flexible). Phone 01-985 6942 MAY DAY GREETINGS: would your
stewards or trade union branch put greetings of the secretary and me
DESIGNER
required to work for
Socialist Challenge/ Fl Litho.
Apply in writing
to Fl Litho, 328/9 Upper St, London N1
mmigration Act forces abortion By Alan Theasby
SHEMIN Mohammed pregnant and wants to have her baby. But she has arranged to have an abortion because her Pakistant husband Astal is to be deported in a few weeks time.
My family will be broken up and my children will have no father', Shemin explained.
Socialist Challenge 29 March 1979 page 10
Ten-
By Pete Clifford
THREE HUNDRED people marched through Oldham on Saturday calling withdrawal of the deportation order on Oldham youth Abdul Azad, and the scrapping of the racist immigration laws.
Bengalis and other from Oldham led the march. They were followed contingents from the Bradford Asian Youth Manchester overseas students, the Anti Nazi League, Socialist Challenge, and the Workers Party, as well people from Rochdale, Huddersfield and Tameside.
Over half the demonstrators then went on to picket the Risley detention Cheshire, to be joined there by Sheffield Bengalis and the Edge Hill Socialist Unity Campaign.
demonstration ahead despite the fact that Abdul Azad had temporarily released the previous Monday 1123US0O303U330DSU3IE Anti •Worse is that my unborn child will not have any fatherly love. I do not think I could bear that' - which is why she wants an
Astal has overstayed visitor's entry, permit and has not been allowed to become a permanent British resident like Shemin, who lives in Sleights, near Whitby, Yorkshire.
HOME NEWS
detentions
original detention in October.
The Home Office, obviously worried by the pickets of Risley on
for the temporarily lifted the deporta-
tion order, and released some of their forensic through which they claim Azad is not the son of his father and A SETTS his mother. The response of the Joint
by Council for the Immigrants,
Movement, deshi High Commission,
been to say that this evidence is not Socialist deportation. Therefore they are conducting their own inquiries and tests to parentage.
In other words they are not openly challenging the brutality
centre in Azad faced for ten days in
Oldham police •Ine USE undemocratic and racist immiwent gration laws.
In contrast the majority been the demonstrators at
- the third time who called for continued action
to secure nis relesse on the oasis
police'- Stevens
Socialist
NO BANS O
Challenge
ANTI-FASCIST
END ALL DEMONSTRATIO
IMMICRATION
CONTPOLS
NO Br Socialist
ANTI-F
Challenge
DEMONS
END ALL
IMMICPATION
CONTROL
NO BANS ON
ANTI-FASCIST
DEMONSTRATIO
Demonstrators picket Risley detention centre on 17 March
CAIL Newsletter THE anti-racist movement has always needed good publications to put information at its finger-tips.
One well known example is Searchlight, which keeps us up to date on the activities of the fascists.
A new and scarcely known example is the Newsletter of the North Campaign Against the Immigration Laws [CALL).
March,
evidence
Welfare and the
grounds •101 gration laws.
ascertain his
lor deportation.
end,
station,
of the
of Risley applauded speakers At the Risley
proof that there is.
defence succeeded.
way the conducted?
legal defence
its effect. S
the trial. happened.
this?
support, ranging from
anti-racist ANLs. 'prisoners
refugees,
laws
Asian Youth Movement.
'Asians on the march in Wolverhampton against racist attacks and
police harassment, 11 March 1978.
of opposition to the immi-
Since the 1971 Immigration Act became law, over five thousand people have been held and
denied the right to trial by jury or an appeal, held for several months
and subjected to permanent intimidation by the police. self-defence
Indeed six other people are at present being held in Riley,
to calls at the picket for all "prisoners of race' to be freed.
rally speakers from Socialist Challenge and
Black Socialist ANARCE IS there any defence for victims of state harassment? DAVE STEVENS, recently acquitted on charges of assaulting police officers during a demonstration against racism, is living tion,
In this interview, he says why he thinks the campaign in his
growth What did you think about the
trial itself WaS Nazi League
with MPs.
The need for a well organised
was taken seriously from the beginning.
But the defence campaign WISE outside the legal arena also had
The lobbying of the Home Secretary, especially by MPs, meant that we got a judge who was going to make sure that against there could be no complaints from us about the conduct of
This what The
*Support the Wolverhampton anti-racists' has been one of the most successful defence campaigns in recent years. How is
I agree with that in two senses. My First, in that we won very broad what we
MPs, trade union leaders, and black and immigrant organisations to the
committees and What
The first issue now out contains reports on how the 1971 Immigration Act results in what's
of race, the government's Green Paper on nationality law, and how the cal refuge as ate polas by campaign activities against the country.
such as the call for a conference by the Bradford
organisation
called for an inquiry organised by black and labour movement
police brutality against Azad
all other cases of harassment by the police and racists in Oldham.
Ins could new encourage
organisation of by black community. The Abdul Azad Defence Committee will now be going out to build more suppor in the black community and labour movement.
The absence of the Allied Textile Workers Union [Azad 63 himself is a textile worker],
But it's also been seen in terms of the outcome in court. Of the twelve charges brought against the five people arrested on the 11 March demonstra-
only two have so far resulted in conviction - both on minor charges. Not a high
It's important to view this against the background of the
of the anti-fascist movement, especially the Anti
This made much easier for us to take up the issue in trade unions, and
Part of this, of course, has to do with the growing concert
defence against racist attacks and police harassment.
It should not be forgotten that my arrest occurred because the Anti-Racist Committee was in the forefront of a campaign
police harassment.
The arrests on 11 March very seriously affected our cam paign on police harassment.
demonstration was intended to cal attention to s dossier of complaints against the police, and the demand for an investigation into the police was growing stronger. But the
completely demobilised this campaign.
acquittal proves that were saying about police behaviour is true. As my defence lawyer put it in court,
police concocted the charges against me.
Is this if not
CAlL told us: 'We want the newsletter to not only explain
with the immigration laws. We also want to show how these laws are being challenged in action
different campaigns and organisations up and down the
*To do this effectively we need our affiliates, and any
individual
Oldham Trades Council and the Labour Party from the maren neeos to be chanenged in particular by rank and file textile workers.
The Bradford Asian Youth Movement has called for a national conference on immigration. This can provide a focus for the campaign to defend
Abdul Azad and all the other struggles against detentions.
Messages of support and further details from the Abdul Azad Defence Committee, c/o
Sylvan St. Chadderton, Oldham. 061 624 8421. harassment? We intend to use my acquittal to revitalise the issue of police harassment in general in the town.
How will this be done?
We intend to use the video used in my defence to make a film of DOnce Harass Ci Wolverhampton for showing locally and nationally
Renée Short MP. has already
tim House Commons, as part of her campaign to get a Home Office inquiry into the police evidence concocted against me.
We also considering organising a further labour movement inquiry into police harassment using my case and lany complaints we've received in the last year. As part of this we are considering legal achon agams te ponce
Would you like to say anything
Only to thank everybody who supported the campaign, especially the Indian Workers Association of Great Britain and its president, N.S. Noor. Without this support I might be sitting i prison today
Can I also add that the defence campaign not finished. Dave Hines still has to be tried, and we must not let him become a scapegoat for the police.
active on this issue, to send us reports and spread their experience.'
Why not get your ANL branch, anti-racist committee, union branch or Labour Party ward to take copies? Better still affiliate to CAIL
The Newsletter costs 5p and is available from: CAIL, Box 133, Rising Free Bookshop, 182 Upper St, London N1.
Page 11 scan of this page
How Labour fuels
southern Africa is eminently practical.
in occupied Namibia.
Africa to-develop nuclear weapons.
By Richard Carver
CO-OPERATION between trade "unionists and apartheid campaigners in the North West has uncovered the route by which uranium from South African-occupied Namibia reaches the British government's nuclear
le bas basA agency.
Secrecy has surrounded the traffic in the past because it is in violation of the United Nations' decisions on protection of Namibian natural resources. The uranium could theoretically be seized and the British government would find itself liable to pay damages to a SWAPO leader Sam Nujoma future independent Namibian government
More practically the governBICHL is worried that exposure of the trade will make it vulnerable to action by trade unionists who see the deal as a tacit recognition of the South African occupation of Nami-
But research and solidarity activity has now established that:
*The uranium OIC leaves Namibia by air from Walvis Bay and arrives in Europe at the Charles de Gaulle airport, Paris;
*Edmundson's of Morecambe transport the Liverpool to the British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL) plant at Springfields, Preston, for extraction;
*Edmundson's then take the uranium to Almelo in Netherlands (for commercial purposes) Capenhurst Britain (for military use) purification and thence back to BNFL;
*Haulage companies take the fully processed uranium to the nuclear plants where it is to be used. Two companies involved in this are Pacific Nuclear Transport and Nuclear Transport Ltd, both of which are largely owned by the BNFL
The uranium starts its life in the Rossing mine in Namibia, one of the largest in the world. The mine is partly owned by Rio Tinto Zinc (RTZ),
INTERNATIONAL
apartheid
SOLIDARITY all too often seems like a pious hope rather than a practical possibility. But trade unionists in North West England are proving that assistance to the trade unionists and liberation movements of
The have uncovered the route used by the British government to import uranium mined by South Africa
The decision of a Labour government to buy Namibian uranium as long ago as 1970 has been an important factor in allowing South
British-based But the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC), anti- owned by the South African government, also has a large stake.
At first glance the equity holding reveals that RTZ has about a half share in Rossing -fuels easily a controlling interest. But in fact there are two categories of shares with disproportionate voting powers. It seems that IDC holds most of the more the potent shares, giving it effective control.
Certainly the South African Atomic Energy Act of 1967 2IYCS the South government sole direct or restrict the mining and sport or uranium.
Thus the pattern is that South Africa controls policymaking, while mining companies like RTZ provide respectability, expertise and, most importantly, the ability to sell uranium overseas. ine OULA West People's Organisation, Namibia's main liberation ment, explains: 'It is our view that foreign investment Namibia is one of the maior factors contributing continuing presence of South Africa's illegal forces...
Foreign companies taking advantage immediate political situation in Namibia and it is necessary to the emphasise that all mining titles and temporary rights granted after 1966 are illegal, and constitute moreover, a criminal exploitation of irreplaceable natural resources, which rightfully belong to the people of Namibia."
It is in this context that the contract between RTZ BNFL should be seen. The deal was made as long ago as 1968 and this advance contract was an important factor in allowing RTZ to go ahead with development of Rossing and hence the regular uranium to South Africa.
Uranium, of course, is an essential ingredient production of nuclear weapons.
The UK Atomic the Authority (UKAEA), under the jurisdiction Ministry of Technology, signed for contract WILD Canadian subsidiary for supply of uranium in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
The deal, which specified that the uranium would come from Canada, was approved at Cabinet level. was agreed that if the contract had to be switched to South Africa the Cabinet should informed.
In 1970 it was accidentally discovered that the UKAEA was about to sign contracts for the the supply of uranium from
ONE of the Rossing uranium known as the Wedgwood Benn shaft. "to the Labour Minister who has done most to promote British multinational. support for the South African
nuclear project. wholly Tony Benn was the Minister
of Technology in the late 1960s who originally approved the conse Derween Energy Authority and RTZ.
But was acquired his present left-wing credentials. 1973 he admitted he had been wrong to approve the deal, in a letter to the Guardian: •We have already decided to terminate the contract. That particular case, in which neither the AEA nor RTZ were altogether African with powers to ment,
even greater vigilance than has been shown in the past. As the Minister time, I certainly learned that lesson.
But did he? The that the deceived in 1970 will only last for so long. In five
Africa Labour government since 1974
the contract has still not been move- cancelled.
In a letter to the Namibia Support Committee in January
Government decided not to the change the arrangements and although proposals occupying
were made are of the
prospecting
and
the
supply of
in the
Energy
then
RTZ's
the
also
Rossing. Civil servants at the be Ministry of Technology dently made no between Namibia, and anyway appeared to have no intention of telling
Has Benn learned
his lesson?
shafts in the mine
It is a fitting tribute
Atomic
before
In opposition in
AEA-RTZ
candid for the cancellation the last Labour Govern- contract
points to the need for accepted.
and l still argument government was
years of
imperialist mining in the country.
The 1974 that the evidistinction Africa
was
ATLANTIC
BENN: thinks he knows best
of the Council they
He continues: Since then we last have been working in the belief that the best course was to get independance (sic) for Namibia
believe that probably the best thing we can do in the circumstances.
This is regardless of the fact that countless statements from the Namibian liberation move-
representatives ments have demanded an end to
investment and African
But perhaps Benn believes
British government the SHOWS for the Namibian the people.
happened.
uranium
tion
contact
They had oxide
OVE attitude.
On LOVCENCHE
occupation
They need not have worried.
When the Cabinet did come to discuss the contract it ignored a memorandum from the Attor- Whitehall. ney General saying that there
force majeure clause Secretary which allowed either party to
ANGOLA
OVAMBOLAND
• Tsumeb
NAMIBIA
(SOUTH WEST AFRICA)
Swakopmund Windhoek
Walvis Bay (S. AFRICA)
OCEAN Oranjemund
100 ml
Joint action can
stop uranium
By John Parkinson Secretary, Preston Trades
AT its annual general meeting
month SLATE SUITE Association of Trades Councils and agreed to investigate the import of Rossing uranium througt Edmundson's of Morecambe.
At the same time it endorsed the decision of the North West Anti-Apartheid trade union conference last November to sponsor a tour of the region by
of southern trade unions and liberation movements.
It was at that conference that
campaign against the uranium imports got underway
North West. The Anti-Apartheid Movement nationally had previously been aware that the traffic had been taking place but nothing had
Collaboration between Preston Trades Council and North West Anti-Apartheid Move-
established that the wal going to Springfields and that Edmundson's were transporting it.
At the Lancashire Associa-
Trades Councils meeting we were able to make
with stewards from British Nuclear Fuels Limited.
been under the Impression mal te urantum was from Australia!
Despite this - and despite the fact that there were plenty of other sources of uranium
- the Labour Cabinet decided to go ahead with the
for
There is a massive divergence between Britain's stated policy
Namibia SCal
paper the Labour supports the United Nations in its condemnation of the South
as "illegal". This position is far from adequate, but the uranium deal shows that it is still too radical for
At the same time as Foreign
owen con demns South Africa's 'internal
ZAMBIA CAPRIVI STRIP BOTSWANA SOUTH AFRICA
TIME Map by Paul J. Pugliese
What we need now is to translate the information have gained into action to stop the traffic. This means building a campaign inside the unions involved such as the TGWU
AUEW, to stop the handling of the uranium and to isolate and black Edmundson's or any other firm carrying the stuff.
Out last November's conference was set up a Trade Union BLISSOT Committee which has organised the current tour of the North West by
Trom the South African Congress of Trade Unions, African National Union, Zimbabwe African People's Union and South West African People's Organisation.
The tour, sponsored by the North West TUC, excellent way of taking the issue of southern African solidarity
workplaces and
The dates for the tour are as follows:
Traction Preston
stewards Tameside Trades Council Accrington Trades Council, 7 Apr Blackburn Action Against Racisn Blackburn Trades Council. 8 April Preston Trades Council, Preston Pol students Unior at 7pm 10 April Liverpool, AUEW Hall, Mountpleasant street 1Z ADrIE •Helens rade: Council. 14 ADrI. LrTs conterence blackood
settlement' elections in Namibia, his government is in tact giving material aid to the South African mining industry in the country
This holds a salutory lesson
Zimbabwe too. Internal settlement' elections are to be held there next month. There are those in the British labour movement who call on the
out its 'colonial responsibilities dealing with the 'illegal' Smith PICKIC
If we are to learn anything from the Namibian experience it is that British governments -Labour Or Тогу can nothing in Africa except serve imperialist interests
We only demand that they do one thing. Get out!
Socialist Challenge 29 March 1979 page 11
Page 12 scan of this page
Kurds dely 'Red Mullah'
Iran conference can build links
THE ceasefire agreed between the Iranian government and Kurdish nationalist leaders at the weekend_
The most accurate gauge of Kurdish sentiment came from the two thousand pesh mergas
fighters) galnered outside the negotiations.
They shouted: We want an autonomous Kurdistan and a democratic Iran. We are not afraid of dying.' And then, in a play on the Kurdish word for cemetery: 'Kurdistan or kabrestan!"
The pesh mergas in Kurdish capital of Sanandaj had been laying siege to the army garrison for the best part of week. The Kurdish nationalist movement played a central (and ICTECIV UTHC ported) role in the movement w nien brougat down ine suan s regime.
As troops were moved from outlying provinces to deal with toupsurge in Tehran the
tage of the enemy's weaknesses to attack the occupying army.
The part played oppressed nationalities - half
unrecognised by the religious Icaders. Instead since the fall of the Shah the Kurds have had to
up with Khomeini's
unity of the Iranian state and the reinforcement of the hated garrisons.
A group of pesh mergas commented ironically on this last week, the Iranian New Year, as they wandered among a supply of mortar shells destined for the Sanandaj By Steve Potter
IRANIAN WORECH. Kurdish militants and Liverpool dockers will be among the speakers at a delegate conference on Iran this weekend in London. And there will be discussion on a proposal
support women's delegation from Britain to Iran.
The Committee Against
government
By Tariq Ali RIGHT-WING Muslim rebels have seized parts of the city of Herat Afghanistan reaction has accelerated propaganda campaign against the Taraki government.
Even if they survive
Mohammed Noor Taraki and his colleagues will have some crucial decisions to make in the coming months.
Afghanistan did
There were no major mass mobilisations leading to a seizure of power by a party committed to fundamental social change.
What LOOK place was radical coup which disintegrated important sections of the state apparatus, but did not destroy it.
Socialist Challenge 29 March 1979 page 12
INTERNATIONAL
the New Year presents offered by the revolutionary government to the Kurdish people.*
The pesh mergas outside the negotiations directed comments against the popular army, which must be destroyed and replaced by a people's army.'
As the negotiations were in progress an Iranian air force Phantom flew low over the city. A militia spokesperson went to the Interior Minister: Even if you bomb half Kurdistan, we wont give up the struggle for our legitimate rights? the The government's represen-
Sanandaj moment the Lalegnan - chosen, no douot both because he is a religious leader and because supposedly has record (he used to be known as
But any radical pretensions had gone by the time he came to address the Kurdish crowd in Sanandaj. He recognised the Kurds "right to determine their own future' but went on: "If 1 order General Gharani to recall his soldiers would you be able to govern your country on your own. No. don't think so.
Immediately the cry went up: 'Yes, yes we can! We don't want the army here! It should be destroyed!"
A Kurdish militant got hold et a megaphone and interrupted the Ayatollah's speech: We are adults. We want to make our own decisions; we want to elect our own leaders and form a democratic federation; we
radio and television and the right to free expression. Repression in Iran
conference. For CARI fought inside the British labour and student movements to give a voice to those fighting against the Shah's empire of repression.
This fight won the sponsorship of Labour MPs, over 60 labour movement bodies and
National Union
Afghani rebels threaten
The regime that followed the overthrow the dictatorship was a hybrid. The old state was not its destroyed, but a pro-Moscow Communist
Party total governmentai power. the It instituted a wide-ranging set of social and economic reforms and the basis existed for an al-out orrensive agams! reactionary social forces. pass But this could only have been carried through audacious policy of mobilisations and the formation of mass democratic bodies.
the opposite. He instituted a classic Stalinist-type police state. He purged opponents and the Minister of Defence, Abdul Qadir, was one
their anti-
the Ayatollah
The left-wing
•We have for freedom, but what we have not the treedom wanted. We want a federal state and a federal government for Iran.
These sentiments of most militants and probably the bulk of the Kurdish population too: autonomy within a federal, multinational state.
But the crucial point is that the Kurds, along with all the OLICI should be freely determine their relation to the press, central state.
It also raises the question of treedom has called Students. Now,
years of
movement are different.
The first theme conference will be Imperialist Hands Off Iran'.
The Western press is full of propaganda *retreat into the Middle Ages'. But this is not what concerns Carter and Callaghan. They are of many who 'confessed" to Daud their 'crimes'. curious At the same time the press
became even more monolithic than under the previous regime CACrOISCU and the cult of
Taraki' dominated the media. Mass enthusiasm for regime began to decline and the Hizb-e-Islam [Party of Islam] backed by friends Pakistan and Saudi launched a counter-offensive. by an Ine only way to resist tnis
mass offensive is to
full-scale social and political revolution.
exact Moscow Radio
appealing to the masses in the name of the Koran.
The problem here is that the genuine believers adept at that particular tactic!
Kurdish pesh mergas (militia fighters)
suffered heavily
republic' them little. to be the Kurdish the best
Iraq, Turkey and Syria
oppressca nanonannes
able to Kurdish
Iraq-based
WOrSIP
happily, the worried
of the DeST imperialism movement is action in against Iran's
pay political sabotage.
Thousands
people our
determination
*comrade
the
in Iran, Arabia
embark on a
But Taraki and
are instead
are more
minority religions. Most Kurds are Sunni Muslims, as opposed to the Shi'a majority in Iran, led by Khomeini. The 'Islamic
has so far offered
The Kurds have tended to be
organised of the demands. minorities, primarily because In the
Kurdish national movements in the
But the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI) has no
with the other movements an independence that is jealously guarded since the leaders of the The
Kurdish Democratic Party did a deal with the
about the mass movement which threatens to overturn capitalism in Iran.
stop derailing that sending to take mass delegation the imperialist countries to show that they 1500-strong
big domestic price for such
of people lost their lives in the fight to bring down the Pahlavi regime. Now we should lend the Iranian courageous
full support to equality, it consolidate their freedom.
This means supporting the bench MPs. fight for complete freedom of expression and organisation for political parties, trade union rights, equality for women, self
for national
COMMITTEE AGAINST REPRESSION IN IRAN
Saturday 31 March, 1lam, University CONFERENCE
College, Gower Street, London WCI
from CARI, Box 4, 182 Upper Street, London N1. Delegates' credentials £2, observers' €1,
Shah and collaborated Witt Tehran in hunting down those KDPI militants who carried on the armed struggle
Stall of the old regime the Kurds have been joined by a clamour of national
oil province of Khuzestan 10,000 members of
Arab majority demonstrated on 10 March. They were peer demanding a larger share in oil
for the province, preferential hiring of Arabs and the adoption of Arabic as the main language. tial
following day in Gonbad-e Qabus Turkmeni workers carried out a genera minorities, and full rights for religious minorities.
The conference will be asked
give full support to
of women's to Tran. The proposal was raised at the
socialist feminist
Six women Labour MPs put down an early day motion in the House of Commons last week. Expressing its support for ranian women in thei
struggle for commanded the signatures of over 40 back-
This approach needs to be extended to the struggle for workers' rights in Iran, and a resolution to the conference will be calling for a labour
strike! Türkmenis too demand increased status for their language and greater finance for their region
And on 12 March 4,000 Baluchis rallied in Zahedan. There were similar meetings in other Baluchi cities
The situation in Baluchistan is more complicated. since the population has traditionally
sympathetic the Pahlavi regime. But the nationalist movement now seems to be gaining ground
The impact on the substan
Baluchi minorities neighbouring Pakistan and Afghanistan could be plosive. movement delegation to visit Iran.
It would see how the fight for waue umon ana poncal rigue is being waged in Iran and how the British labour movement can help in overcoming the current obstacles to working class organisation.
Finally the CARI executive will ask the conference to adopt a new name to reflect its new tasks - the Campaign for Solidarity with Iran.
AFRICAN
STUDY GROUP
L.I Nº3
NORMAN- CLASS STRUGGLE IN AFRICA E
NEW issue of African Study Group bulletin now• out. Available from most socialist
ASG, c/0 Housmans Bookshop, Caledonian Road, London N1. 40p + 20p.
Page 13 scan of this page
Major test faces French CP dissidents ??
Communist Party members who
disagreements within the party.
a year ago.
By Martin Meteyard
The growth of opposition inside the French Communist Party (PCF) dates from the split in the Union of the Left September 1977 with the PCF on one side and the Socialist (PS) and bourgeois Left the other.
The apparent reason for the split was the PS's refusal to accept the PF's proposals on nationalisation. It also reflected the fact that the PCF, which has always claimed to be the party of the working class, was rapidly being overtaken by the PS in electoral terms.
In this situation the party leadership nad a choice: break fundamentally with its past practices, launching political fight for unity based on the struggles of the working class ratner simply negotiations between apparatuses; or to try stabilise its own forces through a retreat into sectarianism.
Not surprisingly, in view of its whole history, it chose the latter.
Hence the PCF leadership placed the entire responsibility for the election defeat on the PS, even though its refusal to pledge in advance that it would withdraw in favour of betterplaced PS candidates in the second round was a major factor in breaking working class unity.
Since then its repeated attacks on the PS have reached
beginning to echo the Period" denunciations of the social-democratic parties "social-fascist' in the 1930s.
There is a small problem with
Resolution on Eastern
Europe
THE following is the text of a resolution on Eastern Europe which is being circulated in the PCF by the journal Luttes et debats.
struggles democratic rights are presently developing In the countries which call themselves socialist. The 23rd congress decides to give tem active support. m consequence, it declares itself for:
*1. The withdrawal Warsaw Pact troops from Czechoslovakia, as demanded at the time of their intervention in August 1968 by communique of our political bureau.
relations with the Czechoslovak CP.
*3. Active solidarity and the establishment of fraternal
INTERNATIONAL
FRANCE has a new growth industry: the production | 1978 issue of the British CP of articles, pamphlets, books, even TV programmes
oppose leadership's line but have no means of expressing their
With a party congress less than two months off, things are now coming to a head in the opposition which has simmered since the left's election defeat
this, however: half its members joined the party after 1972 during the time when the PCF placed emphasis on the need for the Union of the Left with the PS. The rapid switch leadership i has left confused, angry and moralised.
So the retreat into sectarianism has been coupled with an internal crackdown on all who question this policy.
Oppositionists have
ousted from positions responsibility, and denied the possibility of through party channels.
The 23rd congress PCF, to be held from 9 to 13 May, is intended to mark a further stage in this process of consolidating the and leadership at all levels, and weeding out the dissidents. party The way that the congress is
being organised leadership means that the outcome conclusion.
One main text has submitted for discussior the leadership. No other texts are allowed, although Pablo-Picasso In mandy had the temerity to put one forward.
Gaston Plissonnier from the party secretariat wrote to them to explain why it would not be distributed to the membership: *The method which consists of preparing a congress on the basis of several texts is a blow to the right of each member to participate separately in determining the policy of the party.
as What does, this
actually amount to? Grahame Lock described in the August Poland], Charter Czechoslovakia], and the free trade unions of Europe. for *4. The release
political prisoners countries calling socialist. *5. The rehabilitation of all the victims of Stalinism and, among others, of Bukharin and Trotsky
of *6. The rehabilitation
Marty, of Tillon, numerous comrades woo nave been victims of Stalinism the France.
We call on all militants who think that our 23rd congress should adopt such a text to sign it. We call on all the cells, all the section and federation ferences to adopt it and submit it to the congress."
monthly Marxism Today how the policy the determined at its 22nd congress
which volca, things, to drop all references to the dictatorship proletariat: *Plissonnier l Humanite, 31 *4,968 amendments presented by the sections to the federal conferences, of which 828 were transmitted to the National Congress"... entire 'He forgets to add, however,
La small but not insignificant point: that not one of these by the amendments was adopted! The them final Resolution accepted by
de- the Congress was precisely the
Draft Resolution, word word, comma for comma. And unanimously: course it was …OI The rigid control over the been pre-congress discussion has put
the dissidents in a quandary. Not only do they have a variety discussion of different
of the mount an open challenge to the
leadership.
This came out clearly at a dissident meeting apparatus February called by supporters
of Louis Althusser to discuss Eastern Europe.
Discussion inevitably spilled over onto the broader questions involved in the party debate. foregone The Althusserian
urged caution: "We aren't here been either prepare - bi congress
tendency.'
the But as Hélène Parmelin, a Nor- member of the PF for 35 years
and a tormer lournalist l'Humanité, pointed out: 'You don't have the courage of your logic, to offer an alternative, a reason why all those in the party who are ready to leave it should remain
Parmelin is among those who have signed a motion circulated by a new Luttes et debats (Struggles and 'right' Debates), which puts forward
an alternative to the leadership text's globally ance-sheet on Eastern Europe by proposing immediate actions to be taken by the party (see box).
Luttes published a further text signed by 15 worker militants which challenges the overall orientation of the party, calling for a plan achon Eastern workers'
perspective of a general strike jeading to the establishment of of all
La PCF/PS government.
the
The leadership has equally themselves
refused to publish this claiming that it is manifestly factional' because it is signed by militants sections and federations!
This only
of
of necessary it openly against the divide-and-
in rule tactics of the leadership,
with the right of tendencies so that the differences can find a clear political expression before the whole membership.
Such a struggle may in the long run be unable to change con- the bureaucratised PCF in any
significant way, but it can play an important part in transforming the left as a whole.
of the PCF was
among other
of the
tells us [in
May 1978]:
were for
adopted
viewpoints, but
prepared tc
on 24 chairperson
the 23rd - form
on
as militants By Redmond O'Neill
THE
opposition journal, delegates
Communistes naires
positive" bal-
series of
around the et debats has also BarCales
Revolutionary League [LCR]
with a membership
of French youth -struggles with the
university stadents.
sections of youth working text, revolution.
from different
shows how and is to organise
paigns.
International an
youth.
Delegates
launched in France
International Marxist Group was represented by five
the founding conference of the Jeunesses
Revolution[Revolutionary Com- in Mexico. munist Youth] in Paris over the weekend of 17-18 March. conference
The conference followed a year of organising supporters
youth paper launched by the Communist independent
The new organisation starts
of over 1,000, representing all sections
- workers and school, technical college and
Its declared aim is to unite all
with the class for socialist
This will involve the JCR fighting to organise unions which independently organise the different sections of youth,
central political cam-
The conference decided on two campaigns to establish the JCR as a national organisation:
March Against Youth Unemployment
and contraception rights for
also voted to campaign in defence of youth prosecuted under the French
1'Hunianite
Revolutionary youth group
age of consent laws and to send a telegram demanding that the United States government give political asylum to Hector Marroquin, a Mexican Trotskyist who faces the threat of deportation and imprisonment
The main debate at the
concerned the
Fourth International. At the vote, it was overwhelmingly agreed that the JCR, itself an
organisation, should affiliate to the Fourth International.
As one speaker put it: The youth are not a class, we choose a class to ment with: the
Intercontinental Pres:
WORKERS UPSURGE DEMANDS HALT TO FRENCH COL STEEL LAYOFFS
working class. In choosing a
class we must also choose
programme and a banner. We choose the programme of
socialist revolution and world
socialism. We choose to build
an organisation which prac
tically embodies that pro-
gramme the Fourth
International.*
Revolutionary youth organ-
isations from Portugal to the USA were represented at the
conference, and we left feeling
that an important step had been
taken not simply in building a
revolutionary organisation of French youth, but also towards
re-building a Revolutionary
Youth International.
THE struggle against cutbacks in the French steel industry is the lead story in this week's Intercontinental Press/Inprecor (Vol 17, No 11). Also featured are articles on the Middle East "peace plan' and, in the weeks leading up to the European elections, the Euro pean Monetary System.
Single copies are 30p. Subscriptions are f9 for one year, £5 for six months or €2.50 for an introductory offer of 10 issues. Write now to Intercontinental Press/Inprecor PO Box 50, London N1 2XP Cheques payable to Intercontinental Press.
Socialist Challenge 29 March 1979 page 1.
Page 14 scan of this page
SOCIALIST CHALLENGE EVENTS
LETTERS
RAR bows to
sectarianism?
IT is with bitter disappointment that many in Belfast read the adverts for the *RAR Militant tour'. The tour is not coming to Belfast because Rock Against Racism has given in to the sectarianism of one of its groups, Stiff Little Fingers.
KAk supporters attempted to get a city centre venue for the tour in spite of the fact that RAR bringing the Stiffs, refuse to endorse RAR's "troops out' policy. When no city centre venue was
available, RAR booked a
centre in a West Belfast working class
area. In this entertainment starved
area (particularly for punk and rock), the hall would have been packed out
in spite of the Stiffs' sut the seif said olo, st wasn't "mixed enough'. venue was found, on the edge of East Belfast, next to the central station. But it's also next to Catholic Short Strand, and once again the Stiffs said no, 'it's not safe enough'! And RAR cancelled the whole tour.
We can only wonder how RAR can claim to be fighting racism when it gave Into scclananis within its own group. And we must question those socialists who support RAR, but won't do much to fight racialism and repression when it comes to Northern Ireland.
JOAN KELLY (Belfast)
Socialist Unity suggestions
AS A regular reader of Socialist Challenge 1i fully sundin Sat the Unity candidates standing at peeral clection. But in view of the small numbers that are likely to stand among the 635 seats in Scotland, Wales and Ireland, may I make the following suggestions?
(a) Avoid the situation where several candidates putting socialist alternatives (SU, CP, SPGB, WRP) contest the same seat does nothing to further socialism.
(b) Launch an SU Election Appeal as soon as possible and publish those seats where a candidate has already been selected:
(c) Fight seats where the present MP is a Tory with a large majority -in this type of area (such as Sussex, the South Coast, etc.) there must be many Labour voters who are looking for an alternative and in no way would they
COlUmn
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rolved in anti-fascist activity, pleas lanchester SC Centre, 14 Piccadilly. SALFORD Socialist Challenge sup porters can ontacted Centre c/o 14 Piccadilly, Manchester with a view to forming a Salford SC
ULDHAM Socialist Challenge grou
second
MOSS Socialist Socialist Challenge 29 March 1979 page 14
Entertainment insisted on
publicly
leisure
times!
D W EVANS (Eastbourne)
the area So another
Women in Iran
tokenism. You WONCE
Pahlavi regime'
such particularly with their fellow England, Northern
streets? forward
- IS
the dvnamic
Tran is an
be handing the seat to the Tory - a | You obviously fail to understand
NORTH EAST NEWCASTLE Socialist local supporters are active! If you want 2905in them, phone Pete on (0632) DURHAM Socialist Challenge Su •or details contad Dave Brown, Pittincton. Durham MIDDLESBROUGH
Linthorpe Road
STOCKTON-ON-TEES readers can buy oucidist chanenge rom areen books upstairs in the spencer nail shopping
SCOTLAND For intormation about ine paper or its acuivities please contact wilanenee alasgow. open wea. nurs. rn and oal diernoons
EDINBURGH Socialist
details.
DUNDee intormation about socialist Challence activites tom o4 queen st
charge that is likely to be heard many YOUR editorial on Solidarity with Iranian women' (15 March) smacks of
support Iranian demonstrating for their democratic rights; yet you argue that 'in retrospect they made a mistake when they donned veils to join the mass mobilisations which toppled the
You have failed to grasp both the dynamic and contradictory aspects in
revolutionary situanon, respect to any oppressed section involved in such struggles. You also seem unaware that many women at that time donned the veil specifically to demonstrate their opposition to the Shah's regime.
They clearly understood that the existence of the Pahlavi regime was an obstacle to their freedom. You were full of praise when they were in the front line of fire; would you also have had them fired on from the rear by
demonstrators? Or perhaps you would Talmer lney nad spent their energies arguing why they should go unveiled instead of on the
Your reply to the obscurantists should not be that they are right, 'all those women on those marches wore veils', but that through the struggle they have waged they have obviously come to see the necessity of fighting their oppression on all fronts. That is
revolutionary situation: those involved begin to see the possibilities for society as a whole and for themselves in particular.
Finally, the position of women in
acid test for the development of the struggle in Iran.
output.
Challenge Saturday 11am-2pm
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LABOUR, that, hence your call for women in this country to solidarise with their sisters in Iran on the ICAR demonstration. Do you call only for gays or blacks to solidarise with other gays or blacks fighting their oppression?
Perhaps the women in this country could solidarise with their sisters the world over better fighting overcome the sexism and paternalism that still exists in the left press. TESSA VAN GELDEREN (London NW10)
Media racism
MALE feminists, if they are clearheaded, recognise that to be opposed to sexism is not the same thing as to rid themselves of sexism.
Mike comments CARM (8 March) are valuable for spelling out the analogous message for white anti-racists. To be an antiracist does not free one from racism. Because racism is not primarily a set of attitudes. It is an objective network or social re atons wiien we canno escape until we destroy it in the real world, and not merely in our wishes or
So no amount of reading the right books, joining the right organisation, going to powerful socialist plays, or insightful discussion meetings, wash whites free of their objective involvement in racism this side of socialism.
However I don't think Phillips proved all his criticisms of CARM The question surely is whether or not CARM, in addition to tackling attitudes in EneT Open programme, are also fighting against Whether or not they are dealing with discrimination in objective racist relations within media organisations, as well subjective racist contents in media
NOTINGHAM SocialiSt lusnroom books. heatncote. the LEAMINGTON -ontact 311772
Gralence I election e rosulation control and ine General electior
7.30pm
SOUTH WEST
details.
salve bary Sat otice. Saturda above ba ISLE
44 Union St, Ryde.
Saturday:
Commercial Road Precinc WINDON supporters sel Congeet Si (Brunel Centre).
York Datur the South-West
Bristol 6 BRISTOL And at Elland Road
SOUTH EAST
MOVEMENT Neither Phillips nor John Thackara gave any information as to whether or not CARM has been active in this field. I wait to hear more.
RIP BULKELEY
(Chairperson, Oxford ANL)
to Exiles in their own land
UPON what evidence does Colin Smith base his biased view that 'no British poet could write like this when referring to Erich Fried's work (22 February)?
Furthermore, to suggest that it almost seems that it needs repressio or one of its results produce good imaginative writing' is like seeing through rotten fish eye: floating in a sewer and believing that on you're seeing straight.
There is enough repression here to make a nation of geniuses and also a
British working class are exiles in their own land. All their creative talents are suppressed, bullied and beaten out of them at an early age What chance do socialist writers ever have of getting work published in this countrv when we all know it? dominated by the capitalist press and publishing houses? many, many poets and writers in this can country whose work is strong and talent growing and efforts unceasing, and they need encouragement from comrades.
D. HOWE (Chester-le-Street)
Almost all imperialist Door
media.
LIVIO Maitan (15 March) follows the with tortuous route dictated by Trotskyist ideology to arrive at the obvious point that behind the current conflicts of
in the Wedge cafe/bookshop, High St
readers -car regularly
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LA BOLVOTE 'Communist' powers in Asia lies *the logic of competing interests... the defence or extension of spheres of interest, the maintenance of control by one country over another... etc
But still he fails to call a spade a
The imposition by military means of one competing "national'
- i.e. interest of a ruling national bureaucracy - on another is a most naked form of imperialism. Among the 'Communist' powers we find a hierarchy of greater and lesser
increasingly interconnected with that which exists in the
writers in Socialis Course naditually referto as though it were a unified enemy. This theoretically false (the very existence of imperialism presupposes antagon-
318HO12 capitalisms and competition of states) and historically ludicrous (every phase of capitalist
has involved sharp, eventually armed conflicts between
Today we no longer see a small number of great imperialisms dominating the rest of the world. Instead every state but the weakest seeks to become a mini- or midi-imperialism,
lesser its states In immediate or wider region, while itself under the domination of larger
The Warsaw Pact states, China Vietnam, etc., in fighting for thei
interests, are utterly involved in this system. It is therefore pious nonsense to call, as the Fourth
does. unem to 'return to the principles of proletarian internationalism'. But it is not good enough to call a plague on all their
What we need is a sliding scale' of anti-imperialist demands - Vietnam out of Kampuchea, China out of Vietnam, and, in the not improbable
Russian action against China, Russia out of China! MARTIN SHAW (Hull)
BRENT Socialist Challenge oper forums are held on the first Tuesday of Hall, Chichele Road Room Ansor VIVE TOODI April: Give Turbull on the situation ir
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Page 15 scan of this page
Put your money into print
Workers' radio
Are we
FM 88
MW 'THE RADIO is
Guevara.
use and potential
missing out.
Since just before Christmas, a pirate radio station with a difference has been transmitting spasmodically in Midlands. No easy listening' here. Radio Enoch is the first overtly right-wing, racist pirate station to appear in Britain.
Run by an organisation called People Against Marxism, Radio Enoch transmits for an hour on Sundays on the 41 metre band, and because it is By Bob Pennington EVERY TIME a revolutionary organisation wants to produce a leaflet, do a poster, or turn out a pamphlet it can run into a lot of trouble. Unless it has its own equipment and trained staff, plans and deadlines are liable to confront a blank wall.
Unsympathetic print managers concerned money and politics SCreH you up.
They decide when you the final copy. They decide HOW much they will charge you. They even decide whether
not your material 'acceptable'.
Shortly after its launch, Socialist Challenge decided it woud re-print Ene so-called blasphemous poem from Gay News. When the paper came back from the printers there
UNDER REVIEW
overlooking
the airwaves?
FRAMESTE REL INVALP
-ALPHA
90 92 TELSTAR SOUTH a factor of extraordinary importance... It explains, teaches, fires, and fixes the future positions of both friends and enemies' — Che
Are socialists in Britain sufficiently tuned in to the
of the airwaves?
GARDNER, who writes on TV and radio for the London magazine Time Out, argues that we are
using transmitter kilowatt, is potentially receivable all over Britain. This event the -the breakthrough of extraparliamentary politics into the airwaves (albeit politics of the wrong sort -the organised left sharply up against a glaring inadequacy in its programme.
It also ought to give the first trade union sponsored conference on the media, organised was a blank space on the back page.
The Editorial Board workers offended' and had therefore refused to print it.
Capitalist firms will always be like that. They have a deepseated - and perfectly understandable objection about doing well produced jobs on papers or leaflets that advocate ending a system on which they get depend for men existence.
That is why the International Marxist Group is devoting part of its development fund drive to building apparatus.
We have to be independent of capitalist firms. We have to make sure that equipment that strikes and struggles; and help to build the
WEST LONDON
96 98 99
EDGE CITY -80° все 1000
*Democratic • the Media" debating point.
How deal
CARL development?
answer of social democracy will be to use the state and the law to suppress Radio Enoch, in the same way that stations are periodically closed
of down.
But this is no solution revolutionary should be in favour of breaking state-licensed duopoly on broadcasting, and ought to bring such legalistic demands only
strengthen it.
As we've learnt in other contexts, reliance on the state to deal with the right almost inevitably rebounds on the left. The only answer for the leftanti-racist movement and the autonomous women's movewas ment.
were We also have to make sure
that the typesetters, designers, and printers are about the work that they are doing.
The only people who will be to keen to do such work are the ones who they are in favour socialist revolution. the ones who will put in the time beyond the hours 'normal duty'.
They are the ones who will printing put their energies into doing
work. who will 300K we have equipment, because they know can service that it is, like their skills,
weapon the overthrow capitalism.
10° LEBRATION MHZ
1201 1400 KHz
RADIO CITY TELSTAR JACKE
Co the Institute We kendkers fighs tole ply in kind — is to
weekend fight to reply in kind. Accountability a real that COUMECS with this music stations The obvious the day.
other pirate
CUTTCHE socialists. We ideal forms of media BBC/IBA post-capitalist society.
programme:
otherwise, here and stepping-stones enthusiastic You will spending
have decided
of the They are in the next few years.
Vol publish pamphlet
creative days. That They are also the ones possibte.
that.
STREE the Send IMG fight to Drive, NI.
one of the crucial means
Even
class struggle.
trade
co-ordinating
During
radios
Office.
cation — A-M.Y.
Mcals
of workers.
LONDON Unlike
limited nature
jealously,
Some people have suggested Secrets Act!
as there are now apolitical left-wing allocation stations should be the order of national"
The main problem isn't technical, but political. The left doesn't seem to have a clear position on radio and TV, and appears de facto to accept the more
position. The only discussion revolves about the
Whitehall. in a
Certainly, none of the left's
dial in New Unity's included - incorporate any demands, transitional or
for radio and TV now and as compared socialism. measly
The working class movement elsewhere.
You can back up their work
and make sure that your class interests are served - D digging into your pockets to
typesetters, cameras, design equipment, and so on.
not only be YOUT money well.
You will also be freeing us
some capitalist print boss, as well as saving us thousands of pounds
Remember our last buy an A2 press — made it possible
Brian Grogan's Insurrection in Tehran. We did this in two
shows what So let us build on
your donations to:
Development Fund PO Box 50, London
is still fixated by the printed word, with a nominal use of films as 'sugar on the pill' at political meetings.
This is a sadly significant with silence as the mass media are radio'
most important resources for the ruling class, to, as Guevara put it, 'fix' the positions of the working class - or as Enzensberger phrases it "sell the existing order
The mass media today are a
by which 'the reproduction of the relations of production' is secured.
some small-scale control of these media could be an equally crucial resource for the working class, affecting the have whole style and content of the
As a means of organising
union struggles, SHOTE wave radio could be a stunning innovation, for example for
and directing flying pickets during strikes.
the fire fighters' strike in late 1977, strikers in South London began to use the the
in their engines for precisely this purpose, until they were jammed by the Post
But possibly more impor tantly, radio in particular could be a local or national means of political discussion and edu-
- a mass caucalor maximising trade of union democracy, and a way of linking together isolated groups
•newspaper. the audience isn't self-selecting and
ScEne commodity of the newspaper.
Potentially everyone can spin
of the dial, and tune in.
It is not surprising then that the state defends its duopoly
even keeping information about the exact
of bits ot the frequency-spectrum guarded from the public by the Official
Its ostensible ECOSULLS are technical - to allow a rational
of limited resource the
Tran, theain discussion te,
open discussion broadcasting needs, on a local basis at least would be a much
democratic way of resolving the problems, rather than behind the closed doors of
Besides, saturation point has nowhere been reached. Spin the
York City and and you'll pick up something in the region of 40 stations, satisfying a wide range of social needs,
with seven and fewer lage
ON VOUS INTOXIQUE!
RABIO MaUTON A poster from May '68 announces "They are brainwashing you' and suggests that the capitalist-controlled TV and radio are turning us into sheep (mouton).
'Free radio' in Italy operates about so stanons in a city unt size of Rome. Recently the BBC, as well as experimenting
mobile 'neighbourhood South Wales, commissioned *feasibility study' for community radio in London.
This SCUICH unpublished document tentatively explore the idea of 25 such stations for the capital alone!
These moves by the BBC are clearly a response to both a widespread dissatisfaction with the large, unwieldy, alien local stations and the second wave of land-based pirates which
emerged recently described by some as "elec tronic squatting'!
Spasmodic, mostly operating on Sundays and still mainly the preserve of wide-eyed radio hams or frustrated, would-b dee-jays, they di T still an important development.
Only Corsair and Skyport in
south-west are vaguely left-wing, between the records And if outfits like Radio Enoch are not to have a clear field, we too must join the battle for the airwaves.
Initial costs are low little as E50 for a transmitter with a radius of several miles. • And unlike newspapers, overheads are virtually nil. A costly "hobby" for the present pirates could be a cheap investment for any national or community organisation.
While some sections of the labour movement are still vainly discussing the re-launch
labour movement newspaper costing millions, a network of radio -stations would probably cost a tenth of that for decent coverage.
But individual, illegal The tures are not enough. should be linked to a national campaign to defend and extend the pirates and to break the present oppressive, undemocratic restrictions on control and ownership of the electronic
Trade unions should demand their own stations and help open the airwaves for the rest of society.
Socialists should join the Community Communications Group (ComCom) - for all its political weaknesses still the only nationally organised body which has begun to research
tackle the present restrictive system.
Their knowledge and experience could be invaluable in the struggle for the left and trade unions to enter the electronic
MOUTON
TELEVISION
MOUTON
RABIB
TELEMEN Socialist Challenge 29 March 1979 page 15
Page 16 scan of this page
Socialist Challenge RETURN LABOUR: BUT FIGHT ON
Registered with the Post Office as a newspaper. Published by Relgocrest. Ltd. for Socialist Challenge, 328/9 Upper St, London N1. Printed by Feb Edge Litho Ltd (TU),
general election — whenever it is called.
Statistic One WaS Financial Times share index for Friday 23 March. How did the bowler-hatted parasites spond to the prospect of an
probable Tory victory? The FT index jumped 20 points, biggest single day rise since July
Statistic two was figures issued on Monday by the Child Poverty Action Group. They showed that between 1974 and 1976 the number of children lving in families below the officially recognised poverty line grew from 260,000 to 500,000.
The rise in the FT index showed just how important the
Evelyn Reed
IT was with deep regret that we heard this week of the death of Evelyn Reed, well-known feminist anthropologist. died of cancer in New York on
Thursday 22 March.
Her major work - Woman's
Evolution - will probably be
best known to British readers.
It was to mark its publication
that Evelyn Reed toured Britain
just one year ago.
Evelyn was a long-standing
member of the Socialist co-thinkers ty the Fourth
co-thinkers
International. A future issue of
socialst Cnanenge will carr
appreciation
pioneering Marxist research for
which she has become known.
THERE's nothing like impending General Election to boost newspaper circulation, on the left and the right, and there's no better way gauging Fleet Street's bias.
In February election, Labour and the Tories took an almost equal share of the poll: 37 and 38 per cent respectively.
But the line up of the 'popular" daily and Sunday papers reveals more about press freedom than dozens of Royal
TWO SETS of statistics issued in the past few days spelt out what attitude socialists should adopt in the
the leading capitalists in
country judge a defeat for the Labour Party in the coming election. Accordingly, it also shows how important for the working class a victory Labour would be the But the figures issued by the
Child Poverty Action Group take the argument about what working class militants should do in a general election one stage further. They indicate that it is not enough just to act as Labour Party coat-trailers during the election campaign. The message can be summed up in the slogan, 'For a Labour Build socialist alternative.
In practical terms this means: *For a Labour Government. There is no disguising the
She Fourth
the
OUR FUND DRIVE
an Commissions.
The Tories had the support of 71 percent of the popular press in terms of circulation,
of while only 29per percent called for
La Labour vote. 1974 If anything,
further shift to the right in the next General Election, and we can be certain that any backing for Labour that comes from Fleet Street will be strictly for Callaghan-Healey policies.
We don't think that Socialist Challenge will make a large
fact that the 1974/9 Labour Government has a disgraceful record. On the economic front unemployment has this since 1974, real wages have fallen, and the low paid have been hit especially hard.
On the social front, hundreds of hospitals and schools have for been or are being threatened with closure. As far as women are concerned, since 1975 the gap between their gross weekly earnings and men's has risen from £13.70 to £32.70.
Of all those hit by Labour's social and economic policies it is probably workers who have most; injury the racist Immigration Acts remain on the statute the book.
On the international front Labour has supported rightwing repression wherever it Call find it, trom policies in Ireland to those of une snan of iran.
If elected, the continue with these policies. And because their would reflect demoralisation in the working class they would be able to go further. Thatcher has promised legal attacks on the rights of trade unions, yet more massive public spending cuts and the withdrawal of subsidies which have had at least a small unemployment figures.
Various Tory leaders have threatened to internment in the Ireland, there would be a strong chance of renewed attacks on abortion rights, proposals of Committee on Immigration identity cards and all — would stand good becoming law.
There is no doubt that many militants will
dent that barrage pro-Tory propaganda, but we do consider that our coverage of Socialist Unity's campaign will concentrate some thousands of we will see a minds on how the working class can fight back.
Which brings us to money. A fight back requires hard cash rather than hot air, mailbag for the fund drive has had a surfeit of the latter over the past week.
Next week sees the close of
doubled young black
suffered but adding insult to
WILS OWI
Tories would
election certain
abstaining
grants and policies.
thinking inat
effect on
re-introduce
North of
1930s.
the racist the Select
chance of spot.
opportunities for
feel like ism become
of
election
help to make out a cheque.
been checked
and our
that means.
Number of families below poverty line doubles - share index jumps 20 points!
because of Labour's right-wing
Those who are Cass way should *Build remember they would also be abstaining on a potential Tory Government which threatens to launch the most vicious attack ponacs.
working people since the
More importantly, it should not be forgotten that under a Labour Government the leaders of the labour movement are continously tested and put on
Accordingly, raising political alternative to Labour- mOYCHCHS
greater
this financial quarter, with over £300 to go in order to meet the £2,500 target. So take a deep breath, pick up a pen, and
Name
STOP PRESS: The fund drive Address figure for this week has just
we didn't believe it to begin with - but the fact of the matter is that you've sent in a total of £4
We don't think we need to spell out to our readers what
election | something which can only be in | seeds of a socialist opposition the interests of the working
the Socialist Alternative. The election period gives socialists a real opportunity to intervene in national
This means fighting will for real socialist policies on the door-steps, at factory gates, in election meetings. The election can be used for campaigning against the concordat, against closures, against all the rightwing policies of Labour.
The election also means a chance to build the various
and campaigns which already have in them the
SUBSCRIBE!
Domestic: 6 months, £5; 12 months, £10 Abroad: Airmail, £16.50. Surface, £10 per annum. Multi-reader institutions: double individual rate
I enclose a donation for the Fighting Fund of ! Cheques, POs and Money Orders should be made payable to 'Socialist Challenge'. Complete and return to: Socialist Challenge, 328/9 Upper Street, London N1.
- the Anti Nazi League, the Anti-Concordat Campaign, the United Troops Out Movement, are just three examples.
In some instances, in safe Labour seats. Socialist Unity
standing on programme that unites these various strands of opposition. It is vital that working class militants are offered at least in a few areas a chance to reject Labour's anti-working class policies in favour of a tota alternative
Sum it all up this way — vote Labour, but continue the fight for socialist policies. 3-4 The Oval, London E2.
← Socialist Challenge No. 88, 22 March 1979Socialist Challenge No. 90, 5 April 1979 →