Fightback 2013 conference schedule

April 19, 2013 by

A weekend of discussion and planning for struggle, solidarity and socialism. Queens Birthday Weekend (May 31st-June 2nd). FREE ENTRY.

Friday May 31st: Newtown Community & Cultural Centre

6:30-8pm – Global situation: Crisis, Imperialism, Fightback

  • Joel Cosgrove, Fightback
  • Liam Flenady, Socialist Alliance (Australia)
  • Mel Gregson, Socialist Party of Australia

Saturday June 1st: Newtown Community & Cultural Centre

10-10:50am – Eco-Socialism or Barbarism
Daphne Lawless

11-11:50am – Workers, Unions and class struggle today
Grant Brookes, Heleyni Pratley

12-2pm: Lunch break

2-3pm – What is Marxism?
Ian Anderson

3:10-4pm – Tino rangatiratanga and socialism
Jared Phillips

4:10-5pm – Marxism, Feminism and Gender Liberation
Marika Pratley

5:10-6:30pm – Building an anti-capitalist movement in Australasia

  • Rebecca Broad, Fightback
  • Liam Flenady, Socialist Alliance (Australia)
  • Mel Gregson, Socialist Party of Australia
  • Shomi Yun, International Socialist Organisation (Aotearoa)

Sunday June 2nd
Writing workshop for Fightback members, and those who want to write for Fightback. Text 022 3841917 for details.

Filed Under: Events

Wellington event: Power to the People? A socialist analysis of asset sales and “public assets”

April 17, 2013 by

FB Asset Sales talk

How would you like to see power companies run? Why do the people have no say? What’s the alternative?

A socialist analysis of asset sales led by Ian Anderson, Fightback member.

6pm, Tuesday 30th of April
19 Tory St, Wellington
Facebook event here

Filed Under: Events

Margaret Thatcher dies

April 14, 2013 by

street party

Byron Clark

On April the 8th former British Prime Minister Maragret Thatcher died at the age of 87. Described by media as a “controversial figure” Thatcher was possibly Britain’s most loathed politician. Her death was celebrated with street parties and Glasgow and Brixton, and following a social media campaign Brits purchased the song “Ding Dong The Witch is Dead” in an effort for it to be the number one hit on the charts the week of her death.

While she left office in 1990, few have forgotten her decade in power. The Thatcher led government enacted a series of neoliberal economic reforms, the likes to which soon became vogue around the world as the end of the long economic boom following World War II meant that capitalism was no longer productive enough to provide a welfare state. The tax burden was shifted from the rich to the poor, state assets were privatised- including social housing, and the labour movement was crushed.

Before Thatcher and the conservatives came to power in 1979, 13.4% of the British population lived below the poverty line. By 1990, it had gone up to 22.2%. Unemployment hit levels not seen since the Great Depression, inequality rose and health outcomes became worse after cuts to the Nation Health Service and the deregulation of school meals. Famously she also ended a scheme that gave free milk to children, earning her the moniker “the milk snatcher” [Read more…]

Filed Under: Events

France’s occupation in Mali: Past and present

April 11, 2013 by

mali france

Joel Cosgrove

Most mainstream reporting on events in Mali included various tropes, such as that Europe is under threat from Islamic fundamentalism, that the invasion of French troops was about freeing the local people, and the involvement of French troops was defended as being an undesirable but necessary outcome resulting from a bad situation. The defence for the invasion has been remarkably similar to that made for the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq at the time.

As with Iraq and Afghanistan the reality is that the occupation of Mali has come about as part of an imperialist contest for political power and resources. Although the French government may be assuaged by the ease of its military’s entry into Mali, in operations such as these the invasionary period is one of the less difficult phases of an occupation.

During the first phase airpower was used effectively against fixed and clear rebel positions. Now the situation has developed. Already recent kidnap victims have reported of hideouts hacked into the side of caves, as well as petrol and ammunition dumps hidden in various parts of the north. There is now a transition to the type of irregular guerilla warfare that has proven so hard for the occupiers to deal with in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In a recent article on the French adventure, long-term Middle East/North African correspondent Patrick Cockburn made a similar point:

This was one of the many lessons of the US takeover of Iraq and Afghanistan. Most Iraqis and Afghans were glad to see the departure of the previous regimes. Iraqis wanted an end to Saddam Hussein’s rule, but this did not mean that they welcomed foreign occupation. Similarly, in Afghanistan, foreign forces were initially popular and the Taliban discredited. But in both cases foreign forces soon behaved like colonial occupiers, and were resented as such. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Imperialism

Wellington conference: Fightback 2013

April 2, 2013 by

In 2012, Fightback (then the Workers Party) held a conference in Wellington with over 120 attending. Over the weekend comrades discussed topics including tino rangatiratanga and socialism, safer spaces in political organising, industrial struggles, and the student movement.

This year’s conference will be held on Queens Birthday Weekend, 31st of May to 2nd June, at Newtown Community Centre in Wellington.

The conference will open with a Friday night panel on the international situation. Saturday’s schedule features discussions of youth fightback, industrial perspectives, gender liberation, and building an anti-capitalist movement in Australasia, among other topics. On Sunday June the 2nd there will be a writing workshop for Fightback members and others who want to contribute to our monthly magazine. Further details to come. For more information please contact 022 0351077

Filed Under: Events
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