This is a publication of the Communist Youth Organization of the Workers Communist Party of Iran
Million Mask March in London Kiss of Love protest in India
2014
Novem
ber
Brussels: Biggest labour demonstration since WWII How to remember World War I Global Week of Action to reclaim education Walmart workers are planning the biggest Black Friday protest on November 28th International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women: a day to condemn the Islamic Republic of Iran! The International student movement: the spark to every revolution! Black Friday protest: “I don’t want to participate in a broken system!”
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Million Mask March in London “Remember remember the 5th of November”, the famous quote from the main character of the movie V for Vendetta has been engraved in the calendar every year. Annually people march to the parliament to voice their discontent of the exploitative and starvation system that is capitalism. This year thousands came to the streets to protest against austerity, social service cuts and low wages. Protestors also gathered outside the BBC and showed their anger and discontent of BBC’s corruption, a media channel that attempts through censure to choke protests and people’s voice by disconnecting the people on the streets from the working people around the world and at home. The group Anonymous has tried to claim credit for this march on the Parliament Square. The Islamic apologist, Russel Brand, has also tried to put his stamp on these protests and has tried to speak for the thousands of people there. However, starvation cuts made by the Cameron government as well as other governments around the world have put the working people against the wall and these working people are fighting to claim back their say in their own life: to have liveable wages and a higher standard of living than the one imposed upon them by the capitalism regime. Every November will be a crisis for capitalism. Protests will only get larger and the banners bigger. Every new person that joins a rally against austerity cuts and fights for better wages, by his/her presence casts a ballot against capitalism system as a whole. Every year the word “anti-capitalism” is written larger and larger on banners. Corporations, national and international, have been rightly demonized for being the kingmakers in the parliaments around the world and cutting the throats of working people with their large scale theft of wages and control of the mafia which we are told is our “government”. Today the working class, with the use of information technology has become far more organized, international, and sophisticated. The protests will continue as long as capitalism continues, and will only stop after a revolution!
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Kiss of Love protest in India When a local TV report showed a young couple kissing in a café it created uproar with the youth members of India’s ruling political party BJP and criticism from various religious and political groups. These groups claimed that the public display of affection violates the Indian culture and the law of the land under section 294 of the Indian Penal Code. The Kerala State Women’s Commission also stated that it opposes the Kiss of Love and that it is against the culture of Kerala. Following the television broadcasting of the kiss and hug at the parking space on the Jai Hind TV, a large group of people attacked and vandalized the café. This even followed a number of other incidents where “moral policing” has taken place in India, where young couples and women are detained, harassed and or assaulted. The “Kiss of Love” movement began on Facebook where a page called on youth across Kerala to take part in a protest against “moral policing” at Marine Drive, Cochin province. On Facebook this movement gained 90,000 likes. The “kiss of love” movement touches on one of the most prevalent and on-going concerns in India: women’s rights and freedoms. The heart of this matter is far more than a display of affection but the place of women in Indian society, the embedded patriarchy, and the inability of the government to protect the women in India from daily assault and harassment. According to the National Crime Records Bureau of India, there are crimes committed against women every 3 minutes, and a woman is raped every 29 minutes. In 2012 there was close to two and a half million reported incidents of crimes committed against women. The International Mena and Gender Equality Survey have reported that 24% of men in India have committed a sexual violence at one point in their life. The 2012 tragic case of Munirka in New Delhi, the 23 year old that was gang raped on a private bus is still fresh on the minds of people around the world. She died 13 days later and India witnessed widespread national and international protests. This current incident in Kerala is another example where the government of India only “protects” its citizens through paper proclamations and nothing more. A large majority of Indians are strongly against violence against women and want to shorten the hands of patriarchy. Indian people, with their far and wide participation in protests and rallies have shown that the so called “culture” of India is not that of gender violence, but of gender equality. They recognize that tentacles of religious misogyny must be stopped by the further empowerment of women through grass roots social movements, education, a material economic shift out of poverty and government accountability!
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Brussels: Biggest labour demonstration since WWII Over 120,000 workers gathered in the Belgian city of Brussels to protest against the cut-throat austerity measures imposed by the Prime Minister Charles Michel and his cabinet. The protesters were met with heavy police presence that used tear gas and water cannon to push back the protesters. 60 people were injured during the day and 24 of them required hospitalization. Among the workers were steel workers union, teachers, dockers from Antwerp and Zeebrugge as well as post office workers. This demonstration will be part of a series of strikes which will be followed by a general strike scheduled for December 15th. The Belgian government is following the social service cutting scheme of the rest of Europe. The pension age is set to be raised from 65 to 66 in 2025 and to 67 from 2030. Also, the government will no longer allow for wages to increase with inflation, which means that every year workers’ wages will only have less and less purchasing power. The crash of 2008, major economies in the EU have shifted the cost of the crash, and their debt to the working people. Instead of taxing the wealthy corporations in the country that generate the largest revenues, they have instead turned the knife on the working people, cutting their income through higher taxes, and privatizing their hard fought for social services. Starving the working people of Europe will only buy the European governments a short time before the shrinking disposable income of working people take the toll on the markets. The deepening crisis of capitalism, with its cuts and privatization, is now revealing a raw reality of capitalism system and a bold division between those who have and their representatives in the government and the have-nots.
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How to remember World War I One day, in a better world, Remembrance Day will have a different meaning. Today it is a memorial day observed by Commonwealth Nations for those who died in WWI. Memorial Day is a day when nationalism is glorified all over the Commonwealth Nations. It is a day when the Western bourgeoisie government representatives stand over the graves of the soldiers of the WWI that died for Imperialism’s colonial division of the world and pretends to honour them. The Commonwealth soldiers, mostly young men, who were brainwashed with the ideas of “freedom”, were sent off to war to kill the soldiers on the other side that had their heads filled with the similar propaganda. Ironically WWI which had 37 million casualties was once called the war to end all wars, and now, nearly 100 years later, bourgeoisie continues its plunder of the world. WWI was not the last war, and since then wars have gotten more global and more destructive and hundreds of times more expensive. The reason is simply that capitalism needs war to survive. War is a powerful way for capitalism to open new markets and to displace the accumulated surplus in order to avoid a crisis. War allows bourgeois governments to install leaders in different countries to support the expanding needs of their domestic markets. War is also used as a tool by the bourgeois to crush the working class movement and to rob them of their hard fought for wages, benefits, and social services. For example today many Western governments are using the high deficits as an excuse to cut wages, pensions and social services that include health care and education. The high deficit that exists in many Western nations was in part created by expensive wars: the plan is simple, spend billions in war to create a large deficit, and then use the deficit to attack the working class. Also war itself, via the military industrial complex, is a market to sell arms. Each year the United States’ industrial military complex sells 1.5 trillion dollars’ worth of arms. This is the result of years of compound growth of these arms corporations that need war to sell their products. Without these wars, these corporations, that are large enough to be the GDP of a country, will go bankrupt. Today nationalism and patriotism are used in important ways by the bourgeoisie to brainwash the masses to accept military interventions. Nationalism is used to paint an image of “the other” to justify the working people of one country to attack and kill the working people of another country only for the sake of corporate profit and bourgeois regional interests. The words “freedom” and “democracy” are used to create a picture of how surgical military strikes will create a better looking country. War has always been imposed on the working people by the bourgeois. Now, almost 100 years after the First World War, the working people know that their bourgeois governments are representing different interests to their own. The Queen of England and the Cameron government standing side by side putting poppies upon the graves of the soldiers that died in WWI are the same class of butchers that sent these soldiers to die for the sake of profit and world division nearly 100 years ago. These are the same people that are responsible for sending people to war today. The only way to end all wars is to end capitalism as a system that propagates war. As long as capitalism exists wars will continue and will only get larger and more destructive. One day perhaps, the people that died in WWI will be honoured by the true history of the world: the history of class struggle, the millions that died in a war for the interest of the few.
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Global Week of Action to reclaim education The International Student Movement is calling on all individuals and groups to join a coordinated worldwide action. The ISM recognizes that no matter where students live, they are faced with the same profit machine that does not represent their interests and has hold on their education. This action is to protest budget cuts, outsourcing, school closures, costs of living and tuition fees. Millions of students around the world are overwhelmed with the debt they have incurred in order to access their right to an education. These debts are a bourgeois tool to keep students out of the streets and submissive to their bosses. Debts are a political tool for the subordination of the most revolutionary age group in society. The concerns of students are everyone’s concern. Access to a free education is a human right. And not just any kind
of education, but an education that reflects the reality of our world, that generate emancipatory thinking and not the “education” that foster ideas of consumerism and submissiveness that only serve to propagate the capitalist system! Changing the education system can help change the world! By giving students access to emancipatory thinking and ideas, by breaking the student-debt slavery, and to create a strong anti-capitalism unity among students we can take a giant step towards a better world! Nov 17th to 22nd is the week to stand against the bourgeois and declare that “we are students not customers!”
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Walmart workers are planning the biggest Black Friday protest on November 28th Walmart earns 16 billion dollars a year in profits on the backs of its workers and continues to deny its workers an affordable pay, benefits, working conditions and hours of work. In response the workers at Walmart have staged large protests at Walmart locations around the United States every year. This year these protests are much larger and better organized. The protesters are rightly striking the Walmart Corporation on its most profitable day of the year: Black Friday! This year 1,600 stores are expected to join the protest. Everyday more and more workers are joining in the call from Los Angeles to all other metropolitan cities. Employees from 2,100 stores from across the United States have also signed the online petition that demands for better wages, hours, pay, benefits and working conditions. This is the third time that Walmart workers are going on strike and protesting on Black Friday. This time the workers are getting their message across with the help of thousands of community members in addition to the new stores that have joined their protests. The Walmart Corporation has been retaliating against the workers that organize and take part in the protests by firing them. Further, Walmart Corporation is compensating for the loss of potential profits by keeping stores open a day beforehand: Thanksgiving. Almost one million workers will be requested to stay on a national holiday to keep the stores open all day.
All corporations should be afraid of the gaining momentum of the workers. They should be fearful of their level of organization and the spread of protests as their message gets passed on across the country. The service industry as a whole is now being pressured by the workers. Service industry workers, including Walmart workers, have all come together now to demand a $15 minimum wage. The Corporate run US has been pushed to the ropes by service sector demands. If the state governments bend to the workers’ will, it will give the workers a massive incentive to maintain their movement which may likely spill over to all other sectors of the economy taking salami slices of other corporations’ profits. However the republicans as well as the democrats in government don’t have a choice in the matter. Both parties have dug their own graves with their hands in the cookie jar of continued austerity measures, bank bonuses, foreclosures, pension cuts, social service cuts and wage freezes. The service sector workers with their rock bottom wages, no health insurance, ridiculously expensive higher education, late retirement and low pensions, are in a desperate fight with nothing to lose. This fight, this large scale class struggle, now a massive sea of alienated and heavily exploited working people, is sending waves upon waves of protests towards the walls of corporate US until they win! The large scale war against corporate US has just begun to take on a different momentum and has shifted to higher gear!
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International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women: a day to condemn the Islamic Republic of Iran! The Islamic Republic of Iran denies women their most central human right to gender equality before the law. In Iranian courts women are not entitled to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which stipulates that “all persons shall be equal before the courts and tribunals” (Article 14). The Islamic Penal code which was enacted after the 1979 Revolution violates the principle of gender equality. Further, Iranian courts recognize women’s testimony, evidence, and compensation, as half of that of a man. The IRI violates women’s rights through compulsory hijab, forcing women to cover their whole bodies with the exception of their face and hands and feet and violations are severely punished with seventy four lashes, imprisonment and fines. A woman’s body is not taboo! The IRI uses these laws to legally control women’s body to subordinate and oppress her. The IRI also sanctions gender inequality in matters of marriage, such as making the male “guardians” (father, brothers and husband) the legal authority marriage matters. The IRI has also legalized the age of marriage to be as early as 9 years of age for girls. This law has effectively legalized paedophilia, destroying the lives of thousands of Iranian girls and putting thousands more at risk. Within the marriage, the IRI laws stipulates the “rights and duties” of women, which include sexual submission (unhampered sexual availability), which is in effect legalizing rape, allowing women no place or institution for protection when or if sexual violence occurs in a marriage. Recently the IRI has begun a campaign of acid attacks against Iranian women. Passing a law that gives further power to morality patrols (Basij) and protection in courts, the Basij has been witnessed throwing acid at Iranian woman not abiding by the Islamic dress code. Women have a revolutionary character in Iran. They have time and again resisted against the Islamic Republic’s continuous assaults on their rights and freedoms. When the IRI first introduced compulsory hijab after the 1979 revolution, women flooded the streets of Tehran in the millions. From 1979 until today, when women are fighting against the Basij patrols’ acid attacks, by holding protests across major cities in Iran, their struggle and resistance has never ceased and their revolutionary character has only been further accentuated. Despite the Islamic regime’s attempts to repress women, domesticated them, and treat them as second class citizens, women are using everyday life as a platform to voice their protest. Women in Iran defy the Islamic regime by wearing improper hijab, pursing higher education, seeking employment, listening to music, dancing, engaging in sporting activities and occupying public spheres wherever possible! The Islamic Republic of Iran must fear Iranian women for they are revolutionary in their demands for secularism, gender equality and life free of state sanctioned repression! On the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women we must condemn the Islamic regime for its acts of violence towards Iranian women. We must stand together with Iranian women to echo their voice and their cry for change to the outside world. Communist Youth Organization
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The International student movement: the spark to every revolution! This year the International Student Movement was successful in organizing a 10,000 people march in London and other cities around the world. The Free Education march attracted college students, school children, veterans, and many human rights activists from across the country. This was by no means a defensive protest to freeze tuition fees and other education costs, but rather an offensive action for a tuition-free education. This was a march on governments around the world to demand for the human right to education. Student debt is a political tool to dominate, subjugate and repress the most revolutionary group in society. Students who are in-debt are far less likely to be agitators in society. Debt forces youth to keep quiet and not to question working conditions, benefits, job security and to accept high levels of financial exploitation. Student debt discourages youth from joining and attempting to create labor unions to fight for better wages and working conditions. In other words, a student’s debt is the chains in which capitalism keeps him/her as “obedient” wage slaves in our society. Students around the world must also demand to change the content of education they are receiving. Fighting for a tuition free education is one important step forward, however if the content being taught in colleges and universities only supports the reproduction of a despotic system of exploitation, than it must be stopped! Universities must not be for-profit corporations that only function to increase their net profit value. Universities must be free institutions that teach emancipatory ideas that at the least challenge the statuesque and promote innovative thinking that upholds human rights and freedom at their core. Western countries such as Britain and US, with their high tuition, are only generating short-term surplus at the cost of a catastrophic long term dwindling demand in the markets. It has now become clear that by increasing tuition fees and consequently, student debt, it only works to reduce the purchasing power of a large section of consumers in society. Being in debt means that less goods and services are bought and in turn less revenue is generated by businesses across the country: the system shooting itself in the foot. Changes to education are introduced as “reform” by the governments around the world, which translate into more privatization of educational institutions in addition to higher tuition fees. However these failed government policies are by no means miscalculated out of short sightedness of capital accumulation formula that favors short-term profits: this is a gross misinterpretation of the current education policies by capitalist governments around the world. These “reforms” are in reality far less about the short-term so called “deficit reduction” economics of a nation, but rather they are highly politically motivated to choke the student movement at its most revolutionary time in human history. It is clear in history that youth are the group in society that create the biggest spark for revolution that other groups join. It is this revolutionary character that alarms capitalist regimes around the world and it is this spark they are so desperately trying to extinguish!
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Black Friday protest: “I don’t want to participate in a broken system!”
“People before profit”, was one of many chants at the anti-capitalism demonstration taking place in major cities around the world during Black Friday. Black Friday is one of the most profitable days for major retailers such as Wal-Mart. It is also a day that displays the desperation of working people who have lost all their disposable income to the continuing assault on their wages by the large retailers themselves. These workers storm the marketplace to purchase the product of their own exploited labour. Moreover, the price tags placed on products also reveal the level of exploitation of the workers. Prices are dropped at times to the tenth of what they normally were and the corporation are still able to generate a profit. However, this is easy to understand when considering the low wages paid to over sea sweatshop workers (places such as China, Cambodia, and Thailand) in addition to the raw materials bought in countries that have zero regard for the human beings living there or the environment. Further, the price tags on objects also hide one of the most systemic contradictions within the capitalist system: the contradiction between use-value, the social
labour embodied in products, and the exchange-value. In short, we live in an exchange-value driven system that has lost sight of the social labour that is embodied within the products being sold, and are sold at arbitrary prices that are mostly influenced by the supply and the demand of the market rather than their usevalue. The United States as well as most modern Western Economies, after years of increasing technological growth has effectively pushed millions of industrial workers into the low-paying, no job security, service sector employment. Workers living in the West today have been effectively cornered and are being forced to pay with their wages for the nonsensical compound growth of capitalism. “Putting people profit” is the call for the liquidation of the entire system, for capitalism cannot and will never be able to produce a human face due to its own internal contradictions. Facing immense despotic exploitation and forgoing the ability to buy products at a lower price: the workers protesting during Black Friday demonstrate a worker consciousness never witnessed before. The connection between poverty and corporate profit has now been cemented in the minds of the people! The most profitable day of the year for corporations has now been turned into the day of protest against the totality of the system! Corporations call out to the people to come out to buy their products and the people answer with chants against corporate profiteering and the systemic misery inherent in capitalism!
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International student protest against the murder of 43 Mexican students Demonstrators in Mexico are continuing their protest in support of the missing 43 students. Last September 43 students from the Teachers’ college of Ayotzinapa went missing in Iguala, Guerrero. These students were on their way to protest the government‘s hiring and firing practices when they were intercepted and detained by the police which handed them over to the “United Warriors” crime syndicate operating in the area. The 43 students are now considered by many to be murdered by the hands of the syndicate. These students were all attending a local teacher training college with a history of left-wing social activism and radicalism. Since the news of their disappearance the people of Mexico have come together in support of the 43 students. Further, the working people of Mexico know too well that crimes such as Murder are not exclusive to crime syndicates but are propagated by the actions and the inactions of the government and the state police force. Mexicans know well that the activity of drug cartels and syndicates are predicated on the collusion of the state police, and that such heinous crimes are blooding the hands of the police as well. This was not the first time that the state has blocked protest movements from rural areas. The current right-wing government wants nothing more than to crush all the germinating social movements in the country and is using all the corrupt infrastructure of the previous governments to aid him in his pursuits. Further, the United States under the Obama administration is waving the “freedom” and “justice” flag in the media while turning a complete blind eye to this issue, no doubt due to NAFTA and other inner house trade pacts. As more and more tortured and burnt bodies of these students are uncovered, it only adds fuel to the anger and rage of the Mexican people and students around the world. Over 50,000 people have been protesting in the streets of Mexico, and support rallies have been taking place in Venezuela, El Paso, London, Paris, Vienna, and Buenos Aires. The protest movement around the world has completely shamed the Mexican corrupt government. The protest movement has also underscored the people’s international unity and that attacks on the student movement is no longer isolated to the nation state! Pressured by the people, the governor of Guerrero has been forced to step down. However this is not enough, this attack on the student movement only further highlights the need for the people of Mexico to protect themselves. The so called “vigilante” groups in Mexico (groups of armed civilians against drug cartels) must take on a more prominent role in the struggle against police corruption and drug cartels. Only the people through their unity, both locally and internationally, can defend themselves against the right-wing assaults such as these.
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