An understanding of society (theory) and a way of uniting to change it (organisation) are the two things that we need to make a socialist revolution. Ordinary people in Britain have everything to gain by getting involved in this process sooner rather than later. This world isn’t working for us and we deserve better!
Not only do we need to campaign against the bad conditions and lack of prospects for working-class people in Britain today, but we need to work for a completely different type of society – one where people’s needs decide everything.
So many problems face this world: environmental catastrophe, poverty, disease, racism and war. They’ll never be solved while capitalism remains, but they could all be sorted if society was set up for the benefit of the majority rather than the private gain of a few billionaires.
Our party is different because we consistently apply Marxist science to all areas of our work, and we’re not scared to tell it how it is. We refuse to be intimidated by the barrage of lying propaganda that fills Britain’s mainstream media. It is the capitalists’ job to try to stop us from building a socialist society; it is our job to do it anyway!
Challenge your ideas – challenge their propaganda – seek the truth – serve the people – change the world! Contact the CPGB-ML to find out more!
Django Unchained is a beguiling film. ‘Beguiling’ may seem an odd adjective for a Tarantino blood-fest, but despite that director’s well-known penchant for violence being well to the fore in this tale of the pre-civil-war southern states of America, the film does charm the viewer. This is chiefly because of the engaging story, which grips from the opening shots, the clever, witty and often laugh-out-loud funny script and, above all, the stand-out performance of the supporting lead, German actor Christoph Waltz.
Only lately come to US films and international stardom (and until now mainly playing villains), Waltz plays a German immigrant doctor travelling as an itinerant dentist (we are never sure of his true qualifications, if any) but in reality operating as a bounty hunter, duly authorised, we are given to understand, by the US courts to capture wanted criminals “dead or alive”.
This being a Tarantino film, the Doctor (thus we will call him, as he is called this by all in the film) never bothers even to try to catch them alive. A corpse, duly produced and identified, is sufficient to claim the bounty, and no doubt less bother to transport to show the authorities than a living prisoner, and each ‘capture’ provides an opportunity for a display of crack shooting.
The Doctor character is handsome and erudite; a funny, charming and convincing con-man (as all con-men have to be, or they would never succeed). He fools everyone until the moment after the killing, when he produces the wanted poster/warrant from his inside coat pocket.
Slavery is the backdrop against which the story of the film plays out. The film is hyped by some critics as a serious exposé of the brutal reality of the slave system in the USA, which existed, and was the basis for much of the wealth of that country, from the late 17th century until the second half of the 19th century. Is that assessment of the film justified? We would have to say that no, it is not.
The film starts with a pair of travelling slave merchants, who are moving Django and a half-dozen other slaves along a remote woodland track in rural Texas. The Doctor, in his character of itinerant dentist in a horse-drawn closed wagon complete with a large model of a molar bouncing on a spring on the wagon’s roof, hoves into view.
It appears he has been looking for these particular slavers with the object of buying Django from them. He parries the slavers’ curious enquiries and concludes the deal after he has questioned Django to confirm that he knows and could identify three brothers who were the overseers at the last plantation he worked on before being sold away by the owner.
Once the purchase is completed and verified by a signed bill of sale, at the Doctor’s insistence, an altercation arises which is resolved, Tarantino-style, by the Doctor shooting and wounding one slaver and killing the other, tossing the remaining slaves the keys to their shackles and a rifle and giving them the choice of taking the injured and helpless surviving slaver back to the nearest town (in the hope that they might get their freedom as a reward), or shooting him and escaping to “a more enlightened part of this country” where they might be free.
The opening scene sets the tone for the rest of the film: comedy, irony, wit, with the doctor usually getting the better of everyone he meets through his quicker wits and greater intelligence, but with every dispute being settled summarily with casual, lethal violence.
Django, played by Jamie Foxx, is needed by the Doctor because the three overseer brothers are wanted ‘dead or alive’ and are the objects of his latest bounty hunt; the Doctor does not know what they look like, but Django does. The pair find the overseer brothers working under different names at a new slave plantation.
Django turns out to be a naturally accurate marksman with pistol and rifle. Having been given his freedom as his reward for his contribution to the success of the hunt, he agrees to the Doctor’s proposal that they work together as a team as bounty hunters in the mountains of the far West for the duration of the winter, with Django taking a third of the rewards earned. The Doctor trains him and Django practises until he is a perfect shot. They spend a ‘profitable’ winter together.
The story then changes gear and becomes almost a different film. Django has told the Doctor that he and his wife were sold separately (by express order of their owner) after they had tried to run away from the plantation together. He wants to find and free his wife so they can run away together again.
The Doctor has promised to help Django after the winter, although that means going back to Mississippi, where they were sold at slave auction, in order to discover his wife’s buyer and present whereabouts. This is a mission and a place that will be very dangerous for Django as an African American (‘Nigger’ in contemporary parlance), even one now a free man and with papers to prove his new status.
There is a stand-out performance by Leonardo di Caprio as the new owner of Django’s wife, ‘Monsieur’ Candie, owner of one of Mississippi’s largest plantations, ‘Candieland’, and scion of an old, rich slave-owning family. ‘Monsieur’ Candie (his title of preference) owns a string of slaves kept specifically to fight, bare-knuckled, to the death if required, the slaves of other plantation owners in a ‘sport’ called ‘Mandingo fighting’. It is through this pastime that our heroes make contact with him.
The Doctor is shown to view with distaste the violence of a bout he witnesses with ‘Monsieur’ Candie, and also the result of the latter’s subsequent command to an overseer that the dogs be let loose to kill a Mandingo fighter slave of his caught while running away in order to avoid having to fight further bouts. Django reminds the Doctor that months before he had told Django to shoot a wanted criminal “in cold blood in front of his own son” from a safe and hidden vantage point, afterwards giving the poster to Django as a keepsake (“You never forget your first bounty”).
The twists and turns of the plot thereafter we will not reveal. It is enough to say that there is an explosion of violence and killing before Django can ride off into the sunset together with his companion.
Why do we say that this film is not a serious exposé of slavery? Because essentially it just presents the same, dominant (if not sole) message of modern American cinema in another setting: which is that any wrong can be righted by individual, vigilante-type violence.
There is no reference, even in passing, to the economic basis of slavery as a system, or of the economic basis for its eventual abolition; it just seems to be the result of wicked, callous and ‘unenlightened’ men, with the way out therefore being through ‘enlightened’ men or individual gunfights.
The organised ‘Freedom Railroad’ is not mentioned even when the context invites it, as when the doctor suggests the slaves escape from Texas (an awful long way without help from the ‘more enlightened’ parts of the country he referred to as their possible destination), or when Django recounts the story of his and his wife’s failed attempt to run away.
Django refers to his lost love as his ‘wife’ throughout, though slaves in fact had no right to marry; they might be made or allowed to breed, or used (often) by their owners for sex, but if they formed relationships of their own choice these could be and often were broken at will by their owners, as the slaves were regarded as livestock, like cattle, not fully human.
Django and his wife are shown as rare exceptions to the rule of cowed and obedient slaves. He gives no clue to the feelings of his fellow slaves, even though the brutality of the system is shown.
The ‘solution’ to slavery is totally misrepresented in Django Unchained, and not by accident. The truth, however, is that slavery became uneconomic partly because of the development of technology (which meant brute strength was no longer the prime requirement for cultivation on the plantation), and partly because of the increasing cost and difficulty of controlling the slaves and putting down their repeated uprisings.
Slavery was (and still is) a class question – in its modern manifestations, it is a feature of imperialist exploitation, which was and will be defeated only by collective action by the oppressed people themselves, who in the current conditions of imperialism can only succeed if led by the revolutionary proletariat.
Slavery in Tibet was only ended when the region was liberated following the success of the Chinese revolution and the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Bonded labour in India (slavery by another name) and outright slavery in a number of African countries have not been affected by the ‘independence’ of those countries from direct colonial rule, since their local leaders still govern on behalf of the imperialists.
So long as surplus value can be extracted from another’s labour, there will be every form of exploitation, including slavery, even in the heartlands of imperialism.
See and enjoy the film, but do not be beguiled into buying into its ‘solution’.
In order to make sense of what goes on in the Middle East, we need to understand that today’s 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 19th century, Arabia was dismissed as being a barren wasteland, but in the early 20th century, vast oil deposits were discovered under the desert — just around the time that oil was becoming the fuel of choice for many modern machines (including warships!) and industries.
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, ther 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. As every agreement and concession on the part of Palestinians is greeted with fresh Israeli crimes, it has become 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.
Solidarity and resistance
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.
If Israel was defeated, British and US imperialism’s ability to grab the region’s oil would be fatally undermined — and with that wealth would go some of the ruling class’s ability to keep us in our ‘place’.
So 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 is certainly causing embarrassment to Israel, but no such boycott has ever brought down a state that had such powerful military, financial and diplomatic backers as Israel does.
British workers can actually do a lot more, if we are prepared to use our collective power over the country’s economy. The ruling class might give orders, but it is we who are expected to carry them out. If we all refuse, there is not that much they can do.
Neither the capitalists themselves, nor their careerist spivs in Whitehall are about to send their own kids to work in arms factories, to drive trains, to crew cargo ships, to enlist as cannon fodder, or even to print and broadcast their pro-Israel propaganda.
A striking example of such solidarity in action is the case of the Jolly George, a ship that was supposed to be taking arms and soldiers to Russia in 1918, when the new socialist republic was facing attack by 14 capitalist powers. Dockers in east London refused to load the ship, undermining the war effort and setting an infectious example to workers elsewhere.
In 1920, pushed by the ‘Hands off Russia’ campaign, the TUC threatened a general strike if Britain persisted in its criminal warmongering. Lloyd George’s government had to pull out and the war of intervention collapsed.
The ruling class emerged weaker and the working class stronger from this confrontation.
Today, we are part of the same battle against British imperialism on whose front line the Palestinians have been fighting so heroically for 65 years.
Today, they are joined by the Syrian and Iranian anti-imperialist governments and the Lebanese resistance movement Hizbollah — all forces that have refused to reach any accommodation with Israel; have refused to accept the imperialists’ right to dictate how they should live; and have refused to allow imperialist corporations to loot their resources at will.
Recognising their common struggle, Syria and Iran have consistently supported each other, and given money, arms, refugee asylum and diplomatic support to both the Palestinian struggle and the Lebanese resistance movement. A defeat for any of these forces would give a massive boost to imperialism and its zionist stooges and would be a major set-back for the cause of freedom in the Middle East — and especially to the cause of the Palestinian people.
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.
Red Youth enjoys excellent relations with our comrades organised in the Kim il Sung Socialist Youth League, in the same way that the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist) enjoys warm relations with the Korean Workers Party. As part of our ongoing solidarity work, we’ll keep trying to publish The Pyongyang Times and Korean Today, here online at redyouth.org.
Download the latest edition of the Pyongyang Times here Issue number 03 PT
Why not also read, Korea Today, here’s February’s edition Korea Today
What are North Korean’s really like? Watch one here:
As thousands demonstrate regularly across Turkey, follow the stories on the youtube site of the TKP and the daily newspaper Sol.
Scene from the port of Iskenderun where patriot missiles are being brought into the country
The TKP (Communist Party of Turkey) has organised a series of militant demonstrations opposing the arrival of patriot missiles and the escalation of Turkey’s aggressive stance towards Syria these last few weeks. The photograph above shows workers at the port of Iskenderun where patriot missiles were arriving over the weekend. The first video which we post below is from one of the first major demonstrations which was reported by Iran’s PressTv and the subsequent video’s are of TKP activists rallying in Istanbul and other places.
After Syria comes Iran
In 2007, retired US general Wesley Clarke revealed details of a secret Pentagon ‘Redirection strategy’ document, which proposed using 9/11 to justify launching unprovoked wars (the highest international crime) on Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Iran and Lebanon – all countries seen as obstacles to US world domination and obstacles to the raking in of maximum profits by British and US corporations.
It is clear that if the Syrian government is toppled, the attacks against Iran will be escalated into a full war – and the inevitable endgame if the juggernaut is not stopped will be a catastrophic conflagration against Russia and China. Meanwhile, those who tell us to support the Syrian ‘opposition’ are blocking our ability to effectively mobilise and sabotage the war effort, which means objectively (whether or not they mean to) they are weakening not only Syria’s chances of survival but also Iran’s.
For imperialism, Syria is a stepping stone, a gateway to Iran. And so the best defence for Iran will naturally be a victory for the Syrian government. Which means the most urgent question for the British anti-war movement today is the defence of Syria.
Iran’s envoy, Saeed Jalili, says that Iran and Syria are part of an unbreakable “axis of resistance”. We workers in Britain need to join this ‘axis of resistance’ by refusing to cooperate with the criminal war against Syria. We must refuse to fight; refuse to make or transport arms and supplies; refuse to create or broadcast war propaganda that demonises Syria’s leaders and justifies the war. And we must give full support to the Syrian and Iranian governments in defending their people against imperialism.
Unlike our political opponents the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist Leninist) and Red Youth do not sneak about behind the backs of other groups who profess to be communist but with whom we have differences; we do not seek to hide our differences (like the Communist Party of Britain) but rather we wish to have them out in the open so the points can be debated. Nor do we reduce our political differences with others into personal gossip and rumour mongering. So many on the so-called ‘left’ retreat to the safety of the chat room and online forums to spread gossip and rumour, unable to deal in an honest and upfront manner with political disagreements. Where differences of opinion exist, we aim to deal with the political aspect openly and forthrightly. It is in this spirit that the friendly journal Lalkar has written a critique of the RCG position on Syria which can be read below. We are sure that this open polemic with those who genuinely seek to chart an anti-imperialist path for the revolutionary forces in Britain will be welcomed by all sincere communists and anti-imperialists:
Revolutionary Communist Group: sitting on the Syrian fence
From the very start of the turmoil in Syria, Lalkar, and its sister publication, Proletarian, have been crystal clear in their exposition of the realities of the situation – namely that what the country was facing was not primarily the result of any internal contradictions within Syrian society, but rather an externally directed campaign of aggression and terrorism waged by imperialism, both directly and through its regional surrogates, Turkey, the reactionary Arab states and statelets and the zionist colonial settler state of Israel, against practically the last remaining independent, anti-imperialist state in the Arab region, which, moreover, adheres to a broadly socialist orientation.
Everything that has transpired over the last nearly two years has borne out the accuracy of our analysis all too clearly. As a result, whilst our line of calling for ‘Hands off Syria’ and ‘Victory to Assad’ has remained consistent, and consistently correct, our political opponents in the anti-war and working class movements have had to slither and slide hither and thither as the inexorable unfolding of events has inevitably served to expose and highlight their opportunism.
Thus, for example, the Trotskyites of Counterfire, the main, but not only, source of misleadership and demobilisation in the Stop the War Coalition, took more than a year (not to mention the additional time they had already spent cheering on counter-revolution in Libya) to get off the imperialist fence and concede that the anti-government violence in Syria is essentially reactionary.
Even now, they refuse to prioritise the Syrian crisis in their organised inactivity of pointless protest, rather claiming to focus on a possible future war against Iran, despite the fact that the actual war being waged by imperialism in Syria is not least directed at opening the road to Tehran and, needless to say, reserving their greatest venom for those who draw the logical and correct conclusion that if one is to call for the defeat of imperialist war, one must also call for the victory of those fighting against imperialism – and in Syria this must mean the government and armed forces led by President Assad.
Within the constellation of opportunist trends that refuse to take a clear cut anti-imperialist stand, a particularly crafty and disingenuous role is being played by the Revolutionary Communist group (RCG) and its newspaper Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! (FRFI).
An article in the current (December 2012/January 2013) issue of FRFI contains some useful information on the dirty role of British imperialism in fomenting the war against Syria and correctly concludes: “For communists in Britain, it is essential to expose and oppose the role of British imperialism. We cannot let there be a repeat of 2011’s imperialist slaughter with no real domestic opposition.”
Yet what is the RCG’s reason for opposing David Cameron’s plans to overtly arm the terrorists in Syria? With a sanctimonious air worthy of a country parson, the comrades inform us:
“Syria’s battlegrounds are already awash with foreign weapons: the Syrian army killing with Russian and Iranian products, and the rebels armed by more than three dozen countries including more than half of the membership of NATO.” (‘Syria: British imperialism takes the centre stage’)
Yet, for Marxists, it should be axiomatic that weapons, and even “killing”, per se, are not the issue. The issue is who is wielding the guns, who is killing and who is being killed and, to sum up it all up, which class interests are being served? As Lenin rightly put it:
“We would cease to be Marxists, we would cease to be socialists in general, if we confined ourselves to the Christian, so to speak, contemplation of the benignity of benign general phrases and refrained from exposing their real political significance.” (‘Bourgeois pacifism and socialist pacifism’, Collected Works, Vol. 23)
Such pious phrases as the above quoted one from the pages of FRFI would, frankly, generally pass almost without notice in the pages of mushy liberalism produced by the various Trotskyite and revisionist groups in Britain.
But the RCG made a name for itself by claiming to stand for the militant defence of national liberation movements and all those fighting imperialism – as the very name of its newspaper seeks to convey.
In particular, this organisation staked out its political territory by excoriating almost the entire British left for its shameful failure to wholeheartedly support the Irish people’s national liberation struggle. And it took solidarity with the Irish and South African struggles onto the streets in a generally militant and dynamic way. Today, it seeks to mark out similar terrain for itself with its campaigning in solidarity with socialist Cuba.
Why then does the RCG allow itself to slip into this sort of ‘plague on both your houses’ agnosticism, so characteristic of the petit bourgeoisie, in the case of Syria?
An article by the same author, Comrade Toby Harbertson, in the previous (October/November 2012) issue of FRFI sheds some more light on this.
Again, the article contains much that is correct and useful, both in terms of outlining facts concerning imperialist aggression against Syria, as well as in exposing the hopelessly reactionary position of the Trotskyite Socialist Workers’ Party (SWP), the organisation from which the RCG originally emerged. Comrade Harbertson also correctly notes that:
“ When considering Syria, the bottom line for imperialism, given the increasing capitalist crisis, is that it will not allow a politically independent country, which has not fully opened its borders to imperialist capital, and retains a strong military, to remain at the heart of the Middle East .”
Pretty clear one might think. Alas, the analysis of imperialism, and its opponents, goes downhill from that starting point. Having exposed the SWP (largely out of its own mouth) for its reactionary positions down through the decades, from Hungary, through Czechoslovakia, to Poland, Afghanistan and Ireland, the RCG asks: “In the case of Syria, are the SWP supporting reactionary forces once again?”
Alas, the RCG’s answer is not the clear-cut one that one might reasonably expect. In the blink of an eye, this “politically independent country, which has not fully opened its borders to imperialist capital” is transformed into a “ repressive government”, as Comrade Halbertson declares:
“ Popular resistance to the Ba’athist state no doubt exists and it is clear that some Syrian people were, and are, demonstrating against the repressive government .”
Like numerous other opportunist currents, although not the incorrigibly reactionary SWP, which does not even bother, the RCG has to try to square the circle of how these supposed demonstrations against a repressive government have mysteriously mutated into an imperialist war of aggression. Shamefully, the RCG’s contortions on this point lead them to even give partial absolution to the terrorist Free Syrian Army (FSA), which is guilty of countless atrocities:
“ Any popular uprising has been hijacked. In Syria, this process has accelerated in the last few months as earlier attempts such as the Free Syrian Army (FSA) lacked structure and gave too much room for hostile and unreliable Salafist and Wahabist groups to challenge for influence .”
The article also asserts that: “The repressive government of Assad and the Ba’athists was complicit with the suffering of the Palestinian people, [and] supported the imperialist invasion of Iraq.” (‘Syria: covert intervention and the failure of the British left’)
In raising such issues, the RCG is revisiting the events of decades ago (which arose from the deep splits among anti-imperialist forces in the Middle East as well as the bourgeois national limitations of the Ba’ath Party) and, in a quite dishonest manner, is presenting them as though they happened only yesterday. Even if they had, what purpose would be served by dwelling on them now, when the country is in a life-and-death fight for its very existence? But in referring to the cases of Palestine and Iraq, the RCG refers to events respectively in the mid to late 1970s and at the beginning of the 1990s, events which our comrades rightly criticised at the time – a time, incidentally, long before the present President Assad came to power.
However, it is one-sided, to say the least, to focus on these (unexplained in the article) events of long ago, without any reference to more recent and more relevant facts concerning Syria’s stance and actions with regard to both Palestine and Iraq.
At least until the last few months, Syria has been home to 11 Palestinian resistance movements. Unlike any of the other Arab countries bordering Palestine, Syria is the one country where the Palestinian population has enjoyed full economic and social rights, including to live where they choose, to build their own homes, to freely choose their occupation or profession, and to enjoy free education and medical care. Syria has been, and remains, an honourable member of the ‘axis of resistance’, providing vital aid to the Lebanese Hezbollah movement, which inflicted the greatest military defeat on the Israeli aggressors.
With regard to the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, not only was this firmly opposed by Syria – Damascus opened its borders both to Iraqi refugees and to resistance fighters entering Iraq to fight the occupation.
As all of this is doubtless well known to the writers and editors of FRFI, and to the leaders of the RCG, their above quoted formulation is both reactionary and dishonest.
We make these points not because the RCG enjoys any great influence in the movement, but rather because its stubborn refusal to fully settle accounts with its Trotskyite origins leads it again and again to smuggle reactionary ideas into its ostensibly militant and anti-imperialist propaganda and practice, thereby promoting the very opportunism that it so vociferously claims to decry. Such a stance can only serve to misguide honest people and hinder the building of a genuine, strong and united anti-imperialist and communist movement. The good comrades in and around the RCG, and the whole working class movement, deserve better.
The following statement is issued by the International Department of Red Youth in connection with the recent demonstrations in China; not the demo’s promoted in Western media concerning “censorship” [censorship of anti-socialist propaganda] – BUT the really massive, militant and anti-imperialist rallies against at Japanese and US imperialism!
This past year China has seen huge demonstrations against the increasingly aggressive and bellicose behaviour of Japanese imperialism. These protests have gripped every region and major city across the country, with protestors shouting “Down with Japanese imperialism!” and “1.3 billion Chinese can smash little Japan!” At a recent protest, Chinese students surrounded the US ambassador’s motorcade in Beijing, shouting at him to answer for his country’s support for Japan.
People from all sections of Chinese society, from middle-school students to the elderly, have participated in the protests holding placards denouncing imperialism, waving red banners and the flag of the People’s Republic of China – and many proudly raising portraits of Chairman Mao.
One of the largest days of protest coincided with the 80th anniversary of the Mukden incident, which marked the beginning of Japan’s invasion of China. Many Chinese are angry that Japan still refuses to acknowledge or apologise for its slaughter of many millions of Chinese. This unrepentant attitude towards its imperial past, as well as its ongoing colonial delusions, disgusts the people of China, who know the price they paid for their freedom from colonialism.
The background to these protests begins in 1895, when Japan forced China to relinquish control over many of its island territories – the Taiwan and the Diaoyu islands to name just two. This was only three years before Britain was able to occupy all of Hong Kong. In this era, China was characterised as ‘the weak man of Asia’, and seen as an easy target by both European and Japanese imperialists. Many European countries controlled swathes of China and their colonial puppets could operate outside of Chinese law.
Even when the Chinese communist party was founded in 1921, European empires dominated Shanghai and the French colonial police attempted to break up the first congress of the CPC. The era of colonial subjugation in China didn’t truly end until the victory of the communist forces in 1949, when Jiang Jieshi’s (Chiang Kai-shek’s) surrogate regime (which was entirely dependent on US capital and weapons) was finally defeated by the People’s Liberation Army.
At the Potsdam Conference of 1945, the USA promised freedom to Japan’s colonial subjects, but, as we know from the case of Korea, the people of Japan’s former colonies in fact just swapped one master for another.
These recent China protests have also highlighted the way the alliance between Japanese and US imperialism. The USA stands with Japan against China and other nations in Asia, including the DPRK. The USA’s backing of Japan is important in its so-called ‘Asia pivot’ of international relations, as it seeks to encircle, contain and weaken an ever-stronger and more confident China. This strategy is reminiscent of the US approach in the late 1940s, when President Harry Truman talked about “containment” of communism. It is clear that the US is as determined as ever to undermine socialism in Asia.
The USA’s ‘pivot towards Asia’ shows that imperialism is preparing military aggression in Asia. The governments of Japan and Taiwan are upgrading and expanding their militaries with huge US help, and large numbers of US troops and bases are being deployed to countries such as Australia in a definite trend towards increased militarisation of the region.
The new right-wing Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe said there would be no negotiation or compromise by Japan over the disputed islands and that he is prepared to send more ‘permanent staff’ to the islands. At the same time, the Japanese right wing are calling for a scrapping of a clause in the Japanese constitution which says Japan’s military can only be used in self-defence.
On 6 January this year, Japan’s prime minister ordered the military to consider deploying fighter jets to the Diaoyu islands to prevent Chinese planes flying through the island’s airspace. Meanwhile, as this article is being written, and in another act of unprovoked and unjustified aggression, Japan has boarded Chinese ships near the islands.
Progressive people everywhere must oppose the designs of Japanese and US imperialism in China and throughout Asia.
Down with Japanese imperialism! Down with US imperialism! Hands off China!
For more information on this dispute and Chinese socialism, visit:
Red Youth, standing shoulder to shoulder with our comrades in the Syrian Communist Youth Union reproduce the statement of the revolutionary Syrian youth who stand with the legitimate government of the Syrian people and the President Bashar al-Assad against the imperialist-backed forces of reaction and obscurantism.
Dear comrades and friends:
Nowadays, Syria is facing one of the most serious position in its modern history, when the world imperialist attack is increased using most reactionary forces with full support and funding of the Arab reactionary regimes who they are Imperialist agents.
Today the Syrian people and youth are facing the terrorist operations, massacres and incitement on the various components of the Syrian people, where the terrorist operations targeting civilians, soldiers, academics and active youth. These operations are carried out by terrorist groups and extremist reactionary forces especially its obscurantist Muslim Brotherhood organization with direct support by weapons and through media campaigns which are led, funded and fabricated by treason and reactionary Arab regimes especially oil Arab Gulf countries in addition to NATO interference in the region by Turkey. The treason forces who are called themselves ″The Syrian opposition″ are asking for external intervention on Syria by NATO, which means to invade our country depending upon the criminal imperialist model that we witnessed in Libya and Iraq, which means to allow NATO to invade and occupy Syria, this what the Syrian people and youth are against it and will fight it by all means and forms. In this occasion, the Syrian Communist Party and Syrian Communist Youth Union – Khaled Bagdash Youth have organized many demonstrations and sit-ins in various parts of Syria rejecting the imperialist interventions in the country affairs and supporting the Syrian national steadfastness, and our comrades is working in many region to relief and help the refugees.
Despite everything that is happening, the Syrian national steadfastness continues to face the Zionist and imperialist pressures and blackmails and still insists to restore the occupied Syrian Golan and rejecting imperialist domination plans such as the imperialist plan that so called “the new greater middle east”. This national steadfastness is the cornerstone in the victories which achieved by the national resistance in the East Mediterranean region. Syria is the stronghold facing the imperialist plans and projects in the region, and it is the main supporter to national resistance in the region, this caused it to won the hostility of imperialists, Zionists, reactionaries and their traitors.
But the neoliberal economic policies that have been applied in recent years led to impoverish the masses of people and led to increasing the unemployment status among young people and gave a strong blow to the national production, which create a breeding ground for the work and activities of reactionary forces, and established for the unfortunate events that taking place in the country. This is what Syrian communists have warned and struggled against everywhere and with various shapes.
Syrian Communist Youth Union – Khaled Bagdash Youth confirms the full commitment with the policy of Syrian Communist Party, which was adopted in his 11th Congress, and the essential orientations of the struggle of the Party in the current stage which was adopted in the last meeting of the Central Committee of the Party. As following:
1. Defending for the national independence and sovereignty, keeping back the imperialist plots and the attempts of Arab and local reactionary forces , and mobilizing the people mass under the great national slogan: “Syria will not Kneel down! “.
2. Struggling against the neo-liberal economic policies, with all its shapes and characters, defending for the national production and interests of producers, and proposing the tangible alternatives with confirming the general orientation, that adopted by th 11th congress of SCP about reinforcing the public sector and the interfering role of the state in the frame of national state capitalism that has a social character and tasks.
3. Defending firmly for the toiling popular mass and escalation the class struggle.
Dear comrades and friends:
The Syrian communist youth union – Khaled Bagdash youth struggles through the direct mass activity, demand petitions, trade unions, students union and through all fields of work and study to maintain the Syrian national steadfastness against the plans and conspiracies of imperialism, Zionism and reactionary Forces. And also against the neoliberal economic policies, to support the national production and to maintain the social rights of Syrian people and youth especially free education, free health care, and to find work opportunities, adequate housing of youth, to widen the democratic freedoms, and to achieve the students and workers youth demands.
Dear comrades:
Nowadays, when we are confronting the terrorist groups, massacres and sabotage actions that are organized by the mercenaries and supported by imperialism, we confirm our firm position:
No revolution with world imperialism. No revolution with NATO. No revolution with the reactionary regimes of mercenary and national treachery of rulers of gulf who steal the wealth of the people of Arab peninsula. No revolution with reactionary and treachery forces. Because a revolution that its first slogan is not the liberation of the land and face the imperialism and Zionism is not a revolution. A revolution who does not raise the banner of national independence and prevent external intervention is not a revolution.
We shall struggle against the terrorist groups and imperialist death machines, for independence and sovereignty, for the freedom of homeland and good life of people.
Our battle is long and hard, but we progress in the path of honorable struggle and we’ll win..
Homeland or Death!
Syrian Communist Youth Union
– Khaled Bagdash Youth-
A 14 year old cadre of Red Youth has written and posted the following letter to his school who have instituted an Amnesty International club for the students. Our comrade, in a short and precise letter exposes the sheer hypocrisy of AI and delivers a challenge to his school, peers and the local AI Club to justify their peddling of imperialist propaganda. The letter is reproduced exactly as it was composed save the name of the school and comrade:
“Dear TGS Amnesty International Club,
I am writing this letter in sheer disgust at the ignorance of xxxx Schools Amnesty International club portrays. Presentations were carried out throughout the school promoting the club and issuing out awareness material to other students. Students were intimidated into signing cards and letters expressing their support for the supposed ‘political prisoners’ locked up in certain nations across the world. The information given to the students about the prisoners was extremely limited and bias. However, my argument is for the millions of oppressed people across the world suffering at the behest of the rich and powerful nations on whose behalf A. I. operates and from where it is based. Why focus on a few individuals and then ignore all the crimes committed by these powerful states? I will be expressing points which will hopefully be answered by the group.
I have no doubt that Amnesty International contains a great number of well-meaning supporters, people with genuine compassion. It is from this standpoint that I express my outrage at the continual stream of lies, hypocrisy and war propaganda that emanates from publications and spokespersons of Amnesty International, hood-winking its members, volunteers and the general public alike into supporting acts of genocide, ethnic cleansing and regime change throughout the world.
We all remember the horrendous war on Libya which resulted in thousands of innocent civilians being killed, beautiful infrastructure being smashed (including the Sahara Aquifers) and blown up and a secular and progressive regime being expunged. And let’s not forget how we all witnessed the rape and lynching by mercenaries and foreign terrorists of the much loved Leader of that country, Colonel Gaddafi, on our computers, mobiles and television screens like some kind of sadistic game that would be familiar to see on horror films like Saw and Hostel. And which ‘Human Rights’ organization really pushed for regime change in that country? Of course, Amnesty International.
Now, several months on, cases are emerging of Libyan cities and towns such as Tawergha, Bani Waled and Sirte being persecuted and violently terrorised due to the fact that the majority of people living there were black. In one town, Tawergha, some 40,000 plus black people were force to flee in one day as they were butchered and terrorised by the rebel militias and gangs provided with NATO air cover. On the 25th February this year, a man was reported on the BBC news saying:
“We had 70-80 people from Chad working for our company. They were cut dead with pruning shears and axes, attackers saying: ‘You are providing troops for Gaddafi.’ The Sudanese were also massacred. We saw it for ourselves.”
This is just one of the hundreds of cases being released clearly showing, with great and detailed evidence, that the rebels, supported by Amnesty International, NATO, etc, were human rights abusers on a massive scale. Surely that can’t be right? A Human Rights defender siding with NATO, a Military Alliance which has killed, massacred and terrorised millions in its time, to help bring about regime change for a handful of racist thugs. So exposed was the stance of Amnesty on the Libyan massacre that its spokesperson retracted her earlier statements about Gadaffi using foreign mercenaries to fight for him. However this confession of course was never broadcasted by the mass media which is in the service of this same NATO war machine. But the lies spouted at the time about the Libyan army were enough to provide the cover and false legitimacy for the NATO saturation bombing which brought the war lords and racist terrorist gangs to power and massacred thousands of Libyan troops and civilians. You might argue that this is just one lonely example which can’t prove anything but try telling millions of Libyans that. Moving on.
Now, the organisation has moved onto Syria, another target of the West. What a coincidence. Amnesty International is constantly promoting the rebels there (which have very close links to Al-Qaida and other Islamic extremist groups) to topple another progressive, developing and secular state. Their excuse, very much like the excuse they used in Libya, is that the President, Basher Al Assad, is a ‘dictator murdering his own people’. Is Assad just meant to let a group of local and foreign terrorists, funded and armed by real dictators in the region, namely Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Bahrain, to come and attack his people? And if Assad was such an evil tyrant with no desire but wealth and exploitation of his people, why would over 15 million Syrians, over 90% of the electorate, vote for his new reform plans earlier this year? The Bathe party in Syria heads a broad coalition of all the very many ethnic groups and confessions of the nation, defending them all against an array of extremist Sunni terrorist gangs seeking succour from rich and powerful foreign nations.
Many human rights abuses are being carried out slyly right here under our noses in Britain and other Western ‘democratic’ countries.
Many Muslim immigrants and asylum seekers, escaping from the very war zones created by western military interventions, are inhumanely harassed and molested as soon as they pass through the border crossings, on spurious claims of suspicion of terrorism or other crimes even though most are women and young children. They are made to live in very harsh conditions, including internment camps, insufficient for raising a family. They are given ill-paid jobs which require long hours of work for a minimum wage. They often resort to crime to survive, which lands them in jail.
Can it be just that 50% of the USA’s prison population is black, and that Native Americans have never been compensated for the massive genocide perpetrated against them? Can it be just that the US, the richest nation in the World, has a bigger prison population than any other country, both proportionately and absolutely? The American penal system incarcerated over 5 million of its citizens during the 1930’s and over 2.5 million today. Why were there no cards for these victims? Why were there no cards for today’s tens of millions of the descendents of tens of millions of African slaves who form the vast majority of the impoverished in the USA and to this day have no rights to medicare and many of whom end up languishing in the Jails of the USA?
Police brutality and oppression is a regular experience for black people in the US, as well as national minorities throughout Europe. Earlier last week, on December 13th, Chicago police killed 38 year old Phillip Coleman, who was, according to family members and neighbours, having a nervous breakdown and behaving erratically. Police subdued him with a taser when he was arrested and again after he arrived at Roseland Hospital. He died later on that day in Roseland. Phillip Coleman’s sister, Jacqueline, told the Sun-Times,
“Phillip was not treated justly, he was treated like an insect!”
This is just one example of the cruel acts the American state perpetrates on its own citizens, whilst claiming to be a father figure of democracy and freedom.
I recall that one of the cards which was given to us to sign, was for a prisoner in China called Chen Guangcheng, who was locked up for being too ‘outspoken’ in his beliefs. It is now reported that he has fled to the USA with his family. Say no more. However, my point is that even after all the evidence lying on the table, proving how the West, namely the USA and its puppets or lap dogs including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Israel, etc commit the most atrocious crimes against humanity and act like ‘police of the world’, Amnesty International still points its longest finger at the People’s Republic of China for being an abuser of human rights. But as I already explained, it is the USA that has the largest prison population in the world, both absolutely and as a percentage of its population. Where’s the card for Bradley Manning? Wheres the card for Mumia Abu Jamal? Where’s the card for Julian Assange? Where are all the cards for the inmates of Guantanamo Bay? Where all the cards for the thousands of black people being imprisoned in America and being lynched in Libya as we speak by these supposed ‘Freedom Fighters’?
China is one of the two nations to veto a war on Syria at the UN Security council. It can see how regime change there will lead to a catastrophe even greater than the one in Libya. And for this reason and others it is attacked extensively by the West, using any means necessary, including Human Rights organisations like Amnesty International to pick out mole hills there and to make them into mountains.
At the Nuremburg Trials after World War 2, it was made very clear that the highest crime of all was an unprovoked war waged by one country against another. For good reason you might say. There can be no greater denial of human rights than War itself: millions are terrorised, displaced, killed violently or by secondary causes, wrongfully imprisoned, denied the means of sustenance and any security. Yet it is Western countries that have been the main instigators and protagonists of these wars yet all the claimed justifications for them from holding WMD’s to humanitarian intervention, stopping massacres, fighting terrorism, supporting democracy, removing dictators, protecting women, fighting drugs etc etc etc etc have all been exposed to progressive humanity as massive lies: Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Gaza, Libya, Syria, the Congo are the most well known and deadly. Where are the cards for the millions of the victims of these wars, the millions who have been denied the most basic human rights of all? To Life? To Peace? To Security? To a Home? To Food? To the very basic needs for sustaining life? Surely, if Amnesty International was a real fighter for human rights these matters would be at the top of the agenda and determine the cards we would be signing? Instead, so as to prepare the unsuspecting public for the next criminal war, it selectively chooses only the countries to be targeted, demonising their systems so that the public at worse will turn their heads the other way after the start of the military aggression. It is no surprise therefore that the “human rights” victims highlighted by A. I. are those working under the auspices of Western powers, selling out their countries’ independence to them. However, in the West we have no qualms about locking up and throwing away the key in those cases of betrayal to foreign countries.
As a student who researches extensively on world events trying to see society’s big picture, I cannot help but be infuriated at how openly supporters of Amnesty International operate within the school community, spreading bias propaganda and promoting ill-minded teachings, without being adequately challenged. They ignore the fact that A.I. promotes a cruel system, providing it with the legitimacy required for its criminal wars, global economic inequality and for the exploitation of 99% of world’s people. Surely the largest denial of human rights is that over 2 billion people (1/3 of the world’s population) have to survive on less than $2 a day? As a consequence the World health Organisation has stated that over 5 million children below the age of 5 die every year from malnutrition alone. Where are the cards for these lost souls?
I really do hope you can come back on the points I have raised.
Reflections on the tragic death of nurse Jacintha Saldanha, the media’s attempts to blame to hapless Australian DJ’s for the death, and Morrissey’s insistence that blame lies rather with Kate Middleton and the Windsor family.
The moment i heard about the prank i thought “Oh God, the hospital will clearly now fire the poor nurse who they will deem responsible for what they will see as an unacceptable breach of client confidentiality”. The next thing, i hear the poor nurse has indeed killed herself. It now seems with the revelations from her suicide note that things probably did unfold as i for one had suspected they would.
What this whole sorry tale speaks of more than anything else is the rotten culture of corporate bullying in this country. The hospital will have gone to town on the nurse because they will have prized their reputation for being able to maintain the confidentiality of their rich prestigious layabout clients way way way ahead of the welfare of their skilled hardworking staff, whom they will view as being no better than vermin and completely expendable.
Blame, therefore, lies with this rotten system that grovels around the rich and views working class people simply as resources to be exploited. If we’re talking about guilty parties in this tragic tale, it therefore pretty common-sensically falls with richest and most powerful first:
1. The royals themselves – for even existing. This band of pampered talentless selfish unfeeling parasites have bled the people of this country and this world dry for too long. If they and the system of extreme inequality over which they preside did not exist, Jacintha Saldanha would highly likely still be alive today.
2. The scumbag corporate media – who, like the snivelling slimeball toads they are, blamed the nurse after the prank, and then backtracked and pretended they cared about her after they found out she had then hanged herself, now instead blaming the Aussie pranksters who quite frankly were peripheral characters in the story. As usual the media scumbags, throughout the whole affair, applied their standard principle of blaming the poorest and weakest, and bending over backwards to protect the rich and powerful: the royals, the hospital, and most of all themselves. Utterly shameless.
3. The disgraceful hospital corporate management, who likely effectively sacrificed the life of one of their own highly skilled workers to save their own highly lucrative reputation and therefore their bumper profit margins.
Morrissey is absolutely correct to point out where blame should be properly attributed in this case; he is one of the few famous people who actually does come out and speak the truth about the disgusting Windsor family dictatorship rather than toadying up to them like 99% of celebrities do. And so it’s utterly unsurprising that all the scumbag careerist journos are yet again lining up to take potshots at him – for telling the truth, basically. The man is a hero.
