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This movement EDITORIAL
It is time to take the fight to the government. For too long politicians and the media have got away with the big lie that people accept austerity. In fact polls show more than 30% oppose all cuts and another 30% believe they are being imposed in the wrong way. Huge majorities oppose spending money on new missiles and more foreign wars. Most people, in other words, think this rich man’s government has got its priories all wrong. The massive turnout to the People’s Assembly shows that large numbers want to fight for a society with radically different values. This is hardly surprising. Far from restoring growth, austerity is deepening the recession and sharpening inequality. The crisis is being used as an excuse to break up the post-war welfare settlement and impose a US-style society in which public provision and basic safeguards are scrapped. We can stop this happening. The People’s Assembly is based on the principle that, as the cuts are being driven through at a
can win
national level, we need a co-ordinated, national response.
“We need a coordinated, national response. Nothing should be allowed to divide us.” Nothing should be allowed to divide us. For the movement to look serious to the millions suffering from cuts we need to be able to unite everyone who opposes austerity. That includes the majority who look to Labour for change. The point of the People’s Assembly is to launch a campaign of mass action that can draw more and more people into the fightback. Strike action is a vital component
of this strategy. But we have to call action that we can deliver on in order to build people’s confidence. Abstract calls for an immediate general strike mean little at the moment and risk demoralising activists. A day of civil disobedience and a massive national demonstration can change the terms of the debate, force the government onto the defensive and open the way to more militant and sustained struggle. To mobilise effectively for these actions we need People’s Assemblies in every town and city. They need to be broad and open, involving every section of the community, and not dominated by a handful of activists. We have to take this chance to transform our movement. And we have to take the initiative. If we do, the government will suddenly start to look as vulnerable as it is vicious. Then we can start to set the agenda.
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Young protestors march near Taksim Square in Istanbul
Taksim rising BY MARIENNA POPE-WEIDEMANN
represented the extension of work hours, a
The occupation of Gezi Park in Istanbul on 28 May has blossomed into the largest civil uprising in modern Turkish history.
and soaring inequality. Instead of
The immediate catalyst for the protest was the planned demolition of Gezi Park, one of the last public spaces in an increasingly gentrified Istanbul. The movement grew rapidly after an unprovoked attack by police killed three and injured thousands. Protests and occupations have since erupted in over 50 Turkish towns and cities. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), in power since 2002, built its initial support base by drawing together marginalised rural Muslims, a new Islamic bourgeoisie and urban Islamic community networks. Those networks had developed as a response to the social welfare failures of the secular Kemalist regime, which emulated Western capitalist economics. The AKP was meant to reclaim Turkey from Western interests. But following a split from the Islamic party, the AKP abandoned its anti-imperialist principles, as well as any opposition to neoliberalism, and clamoured to join the EU. It delivered the boom it had promised, but only at the expense of the poor. Turkey’s boom
Justice is not for sale BY Sam Dathi
growing informal sector, wage repression representing the poor, the Erdoğan regime demonised and alienated them. The official demands of the movement are restricted to the protection of public spaces and civil rights, the resignation of those who ordered the violence and the release of political prisoners. But the root causes of inequality and exploitation stretch far deeper. The Taksim movement is broad, featuring LGBT, socialist, environmentalist, religious and secular as well as numerous ethnic groups. It has the potential to generalise its aims and mount a meaningful challenge to the state. The Turkish uprising takes place in the context of growing international resistance to neoliberal policies, which are now being rammed home in the wake of the global economic crisis. Resistance must continue until the state bends to the will of the people, or is broken by it. In the meantime we should offer our solidarity to, and take inspiration from, the occupiers in Gezi Park.
We must these bloo BY LINDSEY GERMAN
As Tony Blair urges a repeat of his earlier crimes, this time in Syria, world leaders appear hell bent on launching another intervention in the Middle East. The meeting of the Western powers at June’s G8 summit backed direct arms provision to the Syrian opposition, amid talk of imposing a no-fly zone over part of the country. The pretext for this escalation is the supposed use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime. Yet there is no firm evidence for this apart from ‘CIA intelligence’, which also brought us the lies about WMD in Iraq. No wonder many are sceptical about this discovery now, months after it
was first rumoured, at a time when the opposition is losing ground militarily and when the Lebanese organisation Hezbollah has been involved in fighting on the side of Assad. The US, Britain and France see the possibility of regime change becoming more remote, hence the decision to send arms and directly intervene. It is beyond belief that the G8 leaders can act as though their previous interventions have in some way been successful. The bulk of Nato forces are leaving Afghanistan having failed to achieve their aim. They have not succeeded militarily or politically and predict further civil war when they leave. Iraq remains in a disastrous state, with dozens killed every day. Libya is now a centre of illegal arms sales, and fighting and instability continue in all
“We will sell to no man, we will not deny • The removal of suspects’ ability to choose their own solicitor. or defer to any man either Justice or • R estricting civil legal aid to cases with at least a 50% Right” (Clause 39, Magna Carta, 1215) chance of success, even if the case is of overwhelming Just eight days after legal aid cuts came into effect in April, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) announced plans to cut a further £220 million from legal aid. These proposals include: • Restricting legal fees for judicial review. This will make many such cases financially unviable for solicitors. (Judicial review is the court process by which citizens can challenge illegal or irrational decisions of state.) • Restricting access to civil legal aid so that it is only availale to those who can prove that they have been lawfully resident in the UK for 12 months. This means, for example, that a woman who has been trafficked to the UK would be without legal representation.
public importance. Given that these profoundly damaging proposals are intended to yield a paltry saving of £220 million per year it seems unlikely that this is really about the money. Instead the changes represent a concerted attempt by the Coalition to restrict access to justice. This will make government less accountable at a time when its behaviour grows increasingly oppressive. These cuts are part of a larger process to privatise the justice system. According to leaked reports, court buildings may soon be privatised and staff outsourced, ushering in a system where justice is designed for profit.
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Books from Counterfire
Enlightening and apocalyptic in equal measure.
Guardian
This book will make you stop and think. If you like your blood boiled, this is the history for you.
Guy de la Bédoyère, historian, co-presenter of Channel 4’s Time Team,
and author of Roman Britain: A New History (2006)
This magisterial analysis of human history – from ‘Lucy’, the first hominid, to the current global depression – combines the insights
these countries.
wars have become a cause of terrorism. A rise in Islamophobia and attacks on civil liberties have resulted from the war.
of earlier generations of Marxist historians with radical new ideas about the historical process.
Reading history against the grain, Neil Faulkner reveals that what
Today, Britain has been at war for nearly 12 years. The war in Afghanistan began in October 2001 and is still going on. That is longer than the First and Second World Wars put together. It is a war which is limping on, bloody and destructive. It is near universally acknowledged, even by the military, that this war has been lost. There is to be no victory for Western troops, only ignominious withdrawal at some stage, or a continued war of attrition that is taking thousands of lives each year. The war is deeply unpopular, with polls showing that as many as 4 out of 5 respondents see no point to it and consistent majorities wanting the troops out. Sending arms to the opposition is also unpopular in Britain, according to polls, which also show a large majority against intervention for regime change in Syria. The wars have led to atrocities by British and US troops in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Baha Mousa was killed in Iraq by British soldiers. Four US soldiers raped an Iraqi teenager and killed her and her family. A US soldier has pleaded guilty to the deaths of 18 Afghans, mainly women and children, when he went on a murderous assault in villages near his base, returning covered with blood. Far from reducing terrorism these
happened in the past was not predetermined. Choices were
numerous and different outcomes – liberation or barbarism – were often possible. Rejecting the top-down approach of conventional history, Faulkner contends that it is the mass action of ordinary people that drives great events.
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, humans face perhaps the greatest crisis in their history. The lesson of this book is that, since we created our past, we can also create a better future.
Neil Faulkner is a Research Fellow at the University of Bristol
While we face austerity and cuts in our daily lives, the money for war, weapons and intervention is always there. The same people who want to enforce this austerity also tell us that the wars are essential.
and author of numerous books including A Visitor’s Guide to the
By John Rees
Ancient Olympics (2012) and Rome: Empire of the Eagles (2008). He was a leading contributor to Sky Atlantic’s TV series The British.
Faulkner
The truth is that every intervention claimed to have saving lives as its goal, and every intervention has cost many more lives. But every failed intervention leads to another.
By Lindsey German
Strategy and tactics: how the left can organise to transform society
A MARXIST HISTORY OF THE WORLD
stop ody wars
How a Century of War Changed the Lives of Women
Cover design: Noel Douglas
PlutoPress
www.plutobooks.com
War and neoliberalism are connected. At its heart is a system of imperialism, which began with the old European colonial empires and has become an economic and military system which extends its strategic control and influence throughout the world.
A Marxist History of the World From Neanderthals to Neoliberals
Capitalism and Class Consciousness: the ideas of Georg Lukacs
By Neil Faulkner
By Chris Nineham
THE PEOPLE V TONY BLAIR
How to End Austerity
The war in Syria has already spread beyond its borders and threatens even greater war and instability across the region. The cost in lives and misery will be even greater than we have seen so far if the Western powers intervene. If we oppose what they are doing to us at home, we should also oppose their policies abroad. The anti-war movement has helped to create widespread antiwar opinion in Britain. Once again, we need to win this argument against Western intervention in Syria, in union branches, public meetings and out on the streets.
By Chris Nineham Buy online at www.counterfire.org
Selections from Counterfire 2013
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Confronting crisis Austerity is a disaster for millions. Counterfire aims for an opposition that is broad and radical. Only mass action can challenge the priorities of our rulers, and that action has to be organised and campaigned for. This is why we need open and dynamic revolutionary socialist organisation.
Our website and publications report and analyse the state of the struggle internationally and they have become an important resource for thousands, putting the case for a creative, revolutionary left with the confidence that our movement can change the world.
Counterfire has been central to launching the Coalition of Resistance and the People’s Assembly. We have been at the forefront of anti-cuts and anti-war protests up and down the country. We have relentlessly exposed our rulers’ addiction to war and the sexism and racism that thrives in the neoliberal hollowing of society.
We are now setting up Counterfire groups across the country. Please get in touch, come to your local meeting or set up a group where you are. Help us maximise resistance and update socialist politics for the 21st century - join us and get organised locally. We are stronger together.
Forthcoming Counterfire meetings... BRISTOL Why can’t our rulers kick the austerity habit?
DONCASTER The crisis of the British regime: how the left should respond
Tues 2 July, 6.30pm Speaker: James Meadway The Arts House, 108a Stokes Croft, Bristol BS1 3RU
Wed 3 July, 7pm Speaker: Henry Parkyn Smith Railway Hotel, West St, Doncaster, DN1 3AA
Contact: bristol@counterfire.org 07971 630335
Contact: doncaster@counterfire.org 07587 697028
NEWCASTLE Strategy and tactics: how the left should organise to change the world
NORWICH Why can’t our rulers kick the austerity habit?
Tues 25 June 6.30pm Speaker: Dan Poulton Settle Down Cafe, 62 Thornton Street, Newcastle NE1 4AW Contact: newcastle@counterfire.org 07792 591610
Wed 24 July, 7pm Speaker: James Meadway 16 Charing Cross City Centre, Norwich NR2 4AL Contact: norwich@counterfire.org 07828 099 132
KINGS LYNN A Marxist history of the world
LONDON Ukip, EDL: how do we stop the rise of the right?
MANCHESTER Fighting Sexism: why is it kicking off everywhere?
Mon 8 July, 7pm Thurs 11 July, 7pm Speaker: Neil Faulkner Yours Network, Bishop’s House, Speaker: TBC Firebox, 106 Cromer St, Kings Tuesday Market, PE30 Cross, WC1 8BZ Contact:
Thurs 4 July, 6.30pm Speaker: Kate Connelly Central Hall, Oldham St, M1 1JQ
kingslynn@counterfire.org
Contact: london@counterfire.org 07572 461 556
Contact: manchester@counterfire.org 07966 632027
SHEFFIELD Strategy and tactics: how the left should organise to change the world
YORK Ukip, EDL: how do we stop the rise of the right?
NATIONAL DAYSCHOOL Confronting Crisis Sessions include:
Thurs 4 July, 6.30pm Speaker: Lindsey German Sheffield Hallam University City Campus, S1 1WB Contact: sheffield@counterfire.org 07814 420 319
JOIN
The crisis of the british regime; Marxism in the 21st century; Syria and imperialism in a changing world; Revolutionaries and reformists Sun 21 July, 11am-5pm Firebox, 106 Cromer St, Kings Cross, WC1H 8BZ info@counterfire.org 07876 693096
Wed 3 July, 6.30pm Speaker: Dan Poulton Friends Meeting House, Friargate, YO1 9RL Contact: york@counterfire. org 07795 380595
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