As part of the ongoing work this year to mark the 70th anniversary of the victory over fascism, the CPGB-ML and Red Youth organised two well attended party functions in Glasgow and Birmingham at which Party Chairman Harpal Brar gave his presentation on the subject. Both functions were chaired by young cadres of the Party.
Drew introduces Harpal in GlasgowAustin speaks for Red Youth in Birmingham
Much is written and spoken about WW1 and WW2 – yet it is truly staggering how few people, and particularly how few British workers, really understand the causes and significance of this struggle, in which 60 million workers gave their lives.
The imperialists (Britain, France, USA, Germany, Japan…) fought, and many millions died to preserve and enforce the wage and colonial slavery of the capitalist class. They fought for slaves and booty and nothing more.
On 18th September 2014 the people of Scotland will vote in a referendum to decide whether they will remain part of the Great British Nation.
Read “THE NATIONAL QUESTION IN SCOTLAND” here: http://www.lalkar.org/issues/contents/sep2012/scotland.html
It is undeniable that the Scots have a Scottish Culture and national consciousness – but it is our contention that the poeple of Scotland developed all the characteristics of nationhood in the late 18th and early 19th century – and precisely at that time elected to throw their lot in with the people of England and Wales to join in the creation of a British Nation.
The Scottish and English – British – ruling capitalist class cooperated fully in their quest for industrial development, conquering colonial markets and creaeting a fully fledged empire, characterised by the systematic export of capital, the exploitation and domination of millions of clonial peoples.
Morever the British working class came together, including the poeple of the highlands, islands and lowlands of Scotland, to either make their fortune in assisting the British project, or to cooperate in their quest for chartism, and for either reform of the exploitative capitalist syustem, or its revolutionary overthrow.
Adherants of left nationalism make all sorts of claims regarding the prospect of an independent Scotland – that it will bring world equality (at least one step nearer), that it will give rise to a fair and just (albeit monarchist, capitalist and imperialsit!) society; that it will rid scotalnd of nuclear weapons, or aggressive armies (although Scotland will remain part of the most aggressive warmongering imperial alliance ever assembled – namely NATO -, and will seek to become a member of the EU imperialist club), etc, etc.
Rest assured, that the British monopoly capitalist class are not offering the dismemberment of their exploitative machine, or marauding armies. The State will not be broken by an independant Scotland as envisaged by the SNP, SSP, or any other member of this alliance.
These parties can win at best a little more personal influence and power. They will not bring the British people – be they English, Welsh or Scotch – one step closer to meaningful freedom. Rather they can achieve only the sowing of greater discord, and disorganisation, among British workers, with the diversion and false poanacea of ‘independence’.
The truth is that the only fight that can bring equality and justice to the working beople of Britain, is the fight against capitalism and for socialism – that must place decisoin-making power in the hands of workers.
What is urgently required is not more divisive nationalism, but the wide adoption of an internationalist outlook and approach to our problems: Workers are better together; stronger united. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XD687At2NvU
In this excellent presentation, Harpal Brar, speaking in 2012 in (the semi-autonomous republic of) Southall, explains “what is a nation?”, and goes on to adderss the specific question “Is Scotland a nation”.
Excellent introductory and explanatory fotage – Don’t vote before you watch!
Jot Brar speaks following the London demonstration to oppose the latest atrocities committed by Israel against the Palestinian people in Gaza. More contributions from the CPGB-ML international solidarity meeting will follow.
Arguably there are no civilians in Israel. It is such a militarised armed camp for the oppression of the Palestinians and facilitating the looting of the Middle East by US, EU, NATO and UK imperialism. Israel has become integral to a colonial system in which the world is dominated by a handful of superrich countries, which have become wealthy by looting resources and exploiting people all over the world.
Britain, the first country to develop capitalism was also the first to grab a modern empire. In the early 20th century, vast oil deposits were discovered under the desert. Suddenly, the rush to secure plentiful and cheap supplies of ‘black gold’ became a key strategic imperative for all imperialists, leading to a cut-throat competition for control of the region.
Zionism and Palestine
Seeing their chance, the early zionists asked Britain’s rulers to let them set up a jewish state in Palestine in exchange for helping to keep the region under British domination.
With Arab nationalism on the rise, the imperialists accepted the offer, looking forward to the creation of a “loyal jewish Ulster in a sea of potentially hostile Arabism”.
And, although British masters were later pushed aside by American ones, a ‘loyal jewish Ulster’ is exactly what Israel has remained to this day.
The zionist stooges who destroy Palestinian homes, drop bombs on Palestinian schools, plough up Palestinian crops and poison Palestinian water are bribed by US and British governments and corporations to do imperialism’s dirty work.
In return for helping corporations like BP and Texaco to carry on looting the oil and dominating the people of the whole Middle East, the zionists are given military support and hardware, financial aid, diplomatic immunity, and a campaign of lies and disinformation in the imperialist-controlled media.
Israel was established in an orgy of ethnic cleansing, and has been illegally occupying further Palestinian lands and displacing and wiping out Palestinian families ever since.
War crimes are a daily event in this, the most militarised state in the world. In fact, rather than viewing Israel as a state with a huge military, it is more helpful to realise that Israel is in fact a massive army base that also happens to have some schools. Israeli children are brought up to be Nazi-like stormtroopers, their heads filled with supremacist hatred of all Arab peoples.
The imperialists made one serious miscalculation, though. It was assumed that in the face of Israel’s might, Palestinians would accept underclass status or leave, but the days when colonialists could evict a people from their land and get away with it were over.
In a century of socialist revolution and national liberation, the racist dismissal of local peoples as ‘uncivilised barbarians’ or merely ‘irrelevant’ was no longer possible.
Instead of politely disappearing, the Palestinians stood their ground – refusing to submit no matter how barbarous their oppressors became. Instead of passively joining the long list of imperialist victims, the Palestinians became a beacon of resistance and an inspiration to oppressed people globally.
Gradually, the wellspring of sympathy that Israel shamelessly exploited following the Nazis’ mass extermination of jews in WW2 has run dry. It is now clear to all that it is the zionists, and not the Palestinians, who stand in the way of peace.
So brazen has its war machine become that, today, Israel is the number one creator of anti-jewish feeling in the world.
So what has all this got to do with workers in Britain?
We need to recognise that the same ruling class that is waging war on our living standards (trying to force us to pay the price of the economic crisis of capitalism) gains much of its power from looting the world. Since oil is such a vital resource, the British state is still one of Israel’s main backers.
It’s in our interest to support the Palestinians against imperialism and zionism. But if we want to give effective solidarity to their struggle, we need to learn from past experience.
A consumer boycott may embarrass to Israel, but British workers can do a lot more, if we are prepared to use our collective power over the country’s economy. British workers need to join this axis of resistance and give full support to all parts of it, taking their place in the unifying and indivisible struggle against imperialism.
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Cde Khwezi Kadalie, veteran of the Anti-Apartheid struggle in South Africa, toured England in February 2012, explaining the achievements and failures of the Liberation struggle and the ANC government.
Khwezi speaks in Birmingham in February
The principle contradiction during the anti-apartheid struggle was between the white racist apartheid state and the black, indian and coloured masses of South Africa, he says. It is now between workers and capitalists.
Since the ANC did not follow the armed struggle to the point of the revolutionary overthrow of Aparthied, but negotiated the transfer of power from the Afrikaaner state to the ANC led government, bourgeois democracy has become more secure, but the principle beneficiaries of capitalist exploitation of the workers of South Africa remain firmly in place. In effect, Economic Apartheid remains in tact.
Khwezi with members from Leeds Red Youth group
The all important demands of the masses, namely re-distribution of the land, and the transfer of South Africa’s mining, financial and industrial wealth to the masses who fought for the end of apartheid, as laid down in the Freedom Charter, the seminal platform of the liberation struggle, remain totally unfulfilled
Khwezi’s deep knowledge brings insight into the failings of 17 years of the ‘rainbow nation’ to address the crying needs of the masses, and why capitalist free-market fundamentalism continues to heap misery on the people of one of the world’s richest countries.
South Africans today languish under the burden of the capitalist crisis, and a crippling poverty – with an astounding 47% unemployment rate – that they have not before known even during the oppression of the apartheid years.
A new mass struggle is needed, he says, outside of the opportunist confines of the ANC-SACP-COSATO stranglehold, that channels the really revolutionary energy and aspirations of the workers towards achieving their still fervently held desire to achieve a socialist system that brings peace, prosperity, education, culture and civilization to all.
