Barack Obama – another Martin Luther King?

January 25, 2009 by

– Don Franks

The son of murdered black civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. has often been asked: did you think you’d ever live to see a black US president?

“People are surprised when I say yes”, says Martin Luther King III. “But I’m sure my father would have said the same if he was alive today. Without that faith and that sense of possibility he would have had no reason to fight in the first place.”

A spirit of faith and hope has accompanied Obama’s election campaign. A Gallup poll on announcement of Obama’s victory shows that a massive 70% of Americans believe they will be better off by the time the new president finishes his term in four years time.

Seldom has the election of a capitalist politician aroused such euphoric public celebration. Obama’s inaugural speech drew a record crowd of close on two million. In the afterglow of the inauguration ceremonies floods of Obama memorabilia continue to be snapped up at three times the volume of the previous record setter Bill Clinton. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Imperialism, United States

Stop the use of lèse-majesté in Thailand – Defend freedom of speech

January 24, 2009 by

giles12

John Moore from the Workers Party, who has lived and worked in Thailand, gives details of an international campaign to stop the use of lèse-majesté in Thailand.

The Thai government is currently cracking down on dissent, and is using laws to ‘protect’ the monarchy to squash critical voices in Thai society. Such laws are known as lèse-majesté and frame criticism or insulting of a monarch as treason. Thai Marxist and academic Giles Ji Ungpakorn is facing lèse-majesté charges for the writing of his book A Coup for the Rich. A pdf version of this book can be found here.

A petition/open letter has been initiated by Thai activists calling for the scrapping of lèse-majesté laws and that the Thai government drop all proceedings in lèse-majesté cases.

Giles Ji Ungpakorn has been a ceaseless critic of the military’s intervention into politics in Thailand. He has accused the current government of gaining power through a coup. The elected Peoples Power Party government was recently deposed through a court order. The current Democratic Party led government was put together with the aid of the head of the military, and has full military backing.

Giles has been a consistent critic of authoritarian measures used by Thai state forces. He has championed the cause of workers and the rural poor in Thailand. He has also campaigned against the brutal military intervention against ethnic Malay insurgents in the South of Thailand.

The Workers Party is happy to play a part in offering solidarity to Giles and to help with the international campaign against the use of lèse-majesté in Thailand.

Below is the open letter/petition which Giles Ungpakorn is asking people to sign:

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Civil Liberties, Thailand Tagged With: ,

Two states no solution for Palestine

January 22, 2009 by

-Philip Ferguson

 The current brutal invasion and occupation of Gaza have raised, yet again, the question of the nature of the Israeli state.  For us in the Workers Party the horrors rained down on the people of Gaza are the logical result of an exclusivist-Zionist state set up at the expense, and through the dispossession, of the Palestinian people.  Campaigning for an immediate Israeli withdrawal is the chief priority right now, but such a withdrawal does not even begin to address the wider denial of the rights of the Palestinians as a people – the very thing which ensures that actions like the attacks on Gaza will continue. 

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Imperialism, Israel, Palestine

A look at the opposition inside Israel

January 22, 2009 by

-Mike Kay

The carnage rained down on Gaza has had a profound effect on the activism of Arabs within Israel. Around 1.5 million Arabs remain living within Israel’s pre-1967 borders. They constitute about 20% of the population, but are treated as second-class citizens. The past few weeks have seen large anti-war demos by Palestinians and some Jews. Not surprisingly, these acts of defiance have been met with clamp-downs by the Israeli state. As Karl Marx put it, “a nation that enslaves another forges its own chains.”

At least 100,000 in people demonstrated in the northern Arab town of Sakhnin and in Tel Aviv against the assault on Gaza on 3 January. According to organisers, Sakhnin was the largest protest held by the Palestinians in Israel in many years. During the first two weeks of “Operation Cast Lead”, 471 protesters were arrested in Israel, including 149 minors. Almost all of those detained were Arabs.saknin

The Tel Aviv protest took place in the face of opposition from far-right Zionists and the police. Among other things, the police demanded that the organisers undertake to prevent the hoisting of Palestinian flags. The organisers petitioned the High Court of Justice, which decided that the Palestinian flag is legal and ordered the police to protect the demonstration from rioters. However, according to Israeli peace group Gush Shalom, the police disappeared towards the end of the march, allowing the far right to attack and disperse the protesters, preventing a planned rally from going ahead.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Israel, Palestine

Workers Party activist speaks at Dunedin Gaza protest

January 20, 2009 by

John Moore from the Workers Party spoke at a Gaza protest in Dunedin last Saturday.

About 100 protesters were present, with representatives from the Alliance, International Socialists, Workers Party and the local Muslim community. The following speech was given by John at the rally:

This protest and many others that are being held throughout the world serve two purposes. We are here to express our condemnation of the Israeli state’s attacks on Gaza and to express our solidarity with the Palestinian people.

This protest should not just be about calling for peace. There is a side to choose in this conflict. We should welcome the defeat of Israeli forces that are currently at war with Hamas and the Palestinian people.

Overall we need to start thinking about what tactics we use to oppose Israeli state aggression. Who is the enemy in this conflict, who should we be campaigning against, and what forms of solidarity should we give? Seeing this conflict through the prism of the Palestinian/Jewish divide offers no hope for a resolution. Painting all Jews as the enemy and all Arabs as the victims is both counterproductive and pointless.

A small but growing number of Jewish Israelis and larger numbers of Arabs in Israel have recently taken to the streets to show their opposition to the attacks on Gaza. This small but significant example offers hope for joint Jewish/Palestinian action. Seeing the Israeli/Palestinian conflict in ethnic terms leads to misguided tactics.

Campaigns against Israeli Jews, whether in Kebab shops or at Western universities, will only be counterproductive and distracts us from who is the real enemy. The enemy is the Israeli state, not Israeli Jews. All working class people in the Middle East are oppressed by despotic regimes, from Saudi Arabia, through to Iran and including the Zionist Israeli state. All Middle East workers have an interest in a fight for the destruction of these states.

Filed Under: Imperialism, Palestine Tagged With:
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