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In this issue >>> » Rape in India: Paper proclamations are not enough » Healthcare protests » Education protests » A letter from Zaniar Moradi
This is a publication of the Communist Youth Organization of the Workers Communist Party of Iran
We are the 99% January 15th 2013
» Rape in India: Paper proclamations are not enough Across India people are calling out for a real change that would prevent the culture of sexual assault that has over the years become imbedded and infused into the Indian society. The recent brutal rape and murder of a medical student living in Delhi by six men was only one case out of hundreds that occur in major cities in India. In 2011, 568 cases were reported in Delhi alone (National Crime Reports Bureau). Despite the calamity of this incident it is important to consider the many other horrific crimes made against women including acid throwing, child marriage, female infanticides, domestic violence, childhood sexual abuse (over 50% of children of India, UNISEF), dowry related crimes, widow immolation, and sexual trafficking (forced prostitution, domestic work and or child labour). Despite the Indian constitution declaring the equality of men and women by the state, equal opportunity, equal pay, prevention of derogatory practices made against women, humane work condition and maternity relief: these all remain to be paper proclamations and only show not the aspiration of a society but the blindness and the large gap between the reality on the streets of India and its governance. Even considering the participation of women in sports, politics, education, art, culture and technology, a single incident of sexual abuse (of which there are thousands every year) highlights the symptoms of a malignant patriarchal culture that has become deeply rooted in India. Also this proves that change and safety for women is not made by simple constitutional guarantees but by grass roots efforts from the streets of India. These “advances” in the legal system were the by-products of the third phase of the feminist mid twentieth century post-colonial movement that targeted economic equality between men and women in India. However these paper proclamations are almost always in conflict with centuries of religious patriarchy that has gripped India. In addition, the government of India does not interfere with the religious and traditions in India making the constitutional guarantees fought for by feminist movement even more hollow. For example in the Hinduism religion from the very birth of a child she is already mandated to be devoted to god and her husband in terms of duties and services. In the hierarchy of Hinduism from birth girls are taught and treated to learn that they are entitled to less: playtime, food, education, and economics. Further, men in the households, such as fathers and husbands, control inheritance and distribution of wealth. These religious elements, and many more, have impacted women’s rights to free choice,
safety, economic security, political involvement, and education, higher pay employment, and much more. These traditions in India have been on-going for so long that have become the life style that women in India have come to expect and accept. Considering the above, it is not surprising that human rights violations such as sexual assaults are common practice in India when important necessary ingredients are present: a patriarchal society festering in religious dogma, low literacy rates (74% (lower than the worldwide average)), and a governance that has put itself at arm’s length from all religious and traditional practices. In the same week that young medical student was brutally raped and murdered by six men, the government of India was in bed with the Russian military making a two billion dollar deal. When the entire Indian society was outraged and protesting this human tragedy, the government of India highlights inane solutions such as: “Women should not go out late at night” or “Women going out late night should be accompanied by a male.” If there is any hope of a real change in India to protect women and women’s rights, it has to start from protecting children from all traces of patriarchal dogma rooted in religion and tradition, and a secular system of education that actively engages and tackles inequality between the genders and its relations to cultural practices. Taking six men to court and taking away their human right to a legal defence by a policing institution that has itself has history of mass rape (Jammu and Kashmir 1991), and then using this incident to lobby for laws that subjugate women to men even more, thus widening the gender inequality even further, is not the solution .
Spain Spain’s working class movement has proved it is capable of strong coordinated united action against unemployment. From 2011 until today Spain was shook with close to a hundred protests spread over 58 of its cities creating the 15-M movement that was named after the original May 15th demonstration in 2011. This month the main labour unions and different organizations demonstrated their discontent with the state of unemployment, education and healthcare. On December 27th the government of Spain successfully allowed corporations to take control of the Spanish social services through “externalization of the management” in various hospitals. This change is a trek towards a medical system where people need to pay up front for services and or be obliged to purchase medical insurance (similar to the United States.) This is at a time where the neoliberal government led by Mariano Rajoy has increased public taxes which usually should include such basic social services as healthcare as practice. All this to pay for a debt crisis caused and facilitated banks and corporations. In July of last year the EU gave the Spanish government a bailout worth $123 Billion in US dollars in exchange for austerity cuts to social spending. In addition to healthcare privatization these austerity measures have also translated to foreclosures of homes, continued rise in unemployment, impunity for most bankers and police brutality. Even though the government of Spain needed less than 1 Billion to save the countries healthcare from privatization instead it used the financial crisis as a platform to further its capitalist agenda to buy and sell virtually anything in the market place: including human physical and psychological health. This shows the priority of the Spanish state during times of financial crisis: it is not to protect the basic human right to an affordable healthcare, education and homes, but instead to insure and further the growth of profit at any human cost necessary.
Healthcare protests Despite being the 3rd largest economy in Europe, Italians today are hard-pressed to find security in their healthcare, education and employment to support their families. The Italian workforce is approximately 40% unionized between three major confederations (CGIL, CISL, and the UIL), however these unions have not shown strong impact in stopping or even delaying any of the austerity measures from being put through to the senate. Further, the Italian Socialist Party, as well as the Italian Communist Party have both lost their support in the working class associations during the time when these alliances may have been the key to gaining enough support to make these two parties contenders in elections.
The Italian working class, including the unions and any worker associations, having limited trust in the communist party of Italy can be contributed in part to this party lacking real answers for the current economic crisis of capitalism in Italy. In order to overthrow capitalism and its austerity in Italy, this exploitative economic machine needs to be confronted with a well rooted and well trusted working class party that has a local and well detailed route not only out of austerity and crisis, but from capitalism that reproduces the crisis periodically. Since being founded by Livorno in 1921, the communist party of Italy has not been the visionary leaders of the working class, but only another remnant of soviet style state-capitalism that sees no further into communism than the nationalization of industry. A true workers’ party needs to have answers and solutions to everyday local issues, build alliances with all worker associations, and also be able to culminate day to day local struggles towards a larger goal: Italy without wage slavery.
Italy During December in Rome thousands of demonstrators assembled outside the ministry of treasury all day to express their outrage about the new austerity measures that will cut nearly 1.2 billion dollars from Rome’s healthcare sector. Despite the people’s protest and demonstration the Italy’s Senate passed the budget for 2013. This will effectively remove 1000 hospital beds in Rome’s hospitals. The government of Italy complains of a 124 billion dollar deficit and is using a social services as a vehicle to cut back on spending rather than increasing taxes for the 1% property and capital owning sector of the country.
“The basis of Socialism is the human being, Socialism is the movement to restore man’s conscious will.” MANSOOR HEKMAT
Education protests Paraguay The students in two universities in Paraguay (Paraguayan National University and a private Catholic University), protested this month against the new law of higher education (LES). This law has an aim to privatize education to such a degree where students are no longer offered courses that would expose and educate them about scientific research, their history, and culture, but instead courses that strictly training for work in multinational companies to generate profit, i.e. Monsanto and Rio Tinto. Further, not only these course only work to further the profits of these two corporation, they also come with a student debt price of $100-300 US dollars for each course. Currently in Paraguay only 6% of the population attends universities, of which 96% is privatized which has been continuously become more and more exclusive to a small population in the country and offering skills and knowledge that directly benefits the profit of corporations rather the long term growth of a country both socially and economically. Britain Meanwhile the teachers in the Britain are heading towards an imminent strike. The National Union of Teachers and NASUWT union that collectively represent 9 out of 10 teachers are taking part in a work to rule action. This is the plan of action against the government’s decision to freeze pay and changes to pension resulting in longer work and much more expensive pension. Canada In an open attack on teachers’ pay and teachers’ unions in Ontario, Canada, the Liberal government with the support of the Progressive Conservative party passed Bill 115 called the Putting Students Frist Act. In essence this bill was designed to ensure school contracts fit the government’s financial and policy priorities and to prevent so called “labour disruption” also known as workers strike and action, effectively for two years. This Bill allows the provincial government to set rules on local school boards, and the employees of the board. In addition it limits the legality of the teachers’ union and support staff going on strike. It also includes teachers’ pay freeze for two years, no salary increase, and a pay cut of 1.5% on professional development days. This Bill effectively saves the government $2 Billion and prevents spending of $473 million. Despite the teachers’, support staff, and students demonstrating against this Bill with strikes, “pauses” at work, and refusal to coordinate after school activities, this did nothing to stop the Bill from being passed (85-15 votes). It is important to consider that this Bill effects thousands of teachers and at least 55, 000 members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees. For this reason and more it must be seen for what it really is: an attack on workers’ associations and unity and an attack on workers’ rights and ability to fight for a dignified salary and pension. This is a demonstration of conservative right wing ideology at its best: workers with low pay and long hours and with no legal rights to fight back for change. Bill 115 is by no means a surprisingly new development in the workers’ struggle in Ontario. The trend so far, for many decades now, has been that as soon as any strong unionized group (teachers, doctors, nurses, bus drivers, etc…) decides to take industrial wide
action to fight for a dignified pay, benefits and rights, the government uses the provincial court to make the workers strike “illegal” within a few days into the strike, this is followed by designating the group as “essential services” thus removing their right to strike in the future all together. This government course of action happens simultaneously with the right wing media bombarding the public with anti-union and workers propaganda that frame every strike as a tear in the fabric of society, as chaos, disruptive, inconveniences, and as greed of workers’. A letter to the editor: “While I am disgusted that the McGuinty government once again suspended the rights of Ontarians and temporarily changed the law to impose the contracts on the teachers, someone had to stand up and protect the rights of our children to get a proper education. Speaking as a former student who lost almost all of his OAC year extra-curricular activities and went through several other school closures due to one union or another’s job actions, teachers need to realize that strikes and working-to-rule has a huge effect on student’s educational experience. I respect a union’s right to collective bargaining, but tools like that should be used as a last-resort only. Fight these battles in the summer if you are so damned committed to your cause; you will find you have a lot more support from parents and students alike. What was today and next Wednesday really supposed to be? What was it going to accomplish? The only reason you were going to picket today was because you thought you could. Is thumbing your nose at the government really more important than the children getting a full day of education? By all means continue your fight, because if the government is going to do it to you, they will do it to others, but stop using the children as pawns. One of the main lessons teachers should be instilling to their students is that two wrongs don’t make a right; in this case, that lesson can be demonstrated, not just lectured.”
ing students that once they enter the workforce there are massive social forces against workers that wants to drive wages and benefits down and that it is far more effective to make change as group than as individuals. 3) Also it is critical to look at the bigger picture here, the teachers are not the only people under pressure during cut backs, cut backs are being implemented in almost all the social services, not only in Canada, but across the world. Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, the U.S and numerous other countries are making similar cuts to the social services. The point is that when it comes to cut backs, (which Bill 115 is saving the government 2 billion dollars) it is always in the social services towards privatization: in essence tailoring a world where the HAVES will get the best education and the HAVE-NOTS will be the ones that will be left with a broken-down and underfunded education system. 4) A successful attack on even one workers' association is an attack on all the workers. This is why it is paramount for all workers from all industries and services to come together in protecting each other from right wing pressures such as Bill 115. By standing aside and even doing nothing is playing right into the hands of the people who designed Bills such as Bill 115. 5) Canada may have saved 2 Billion by tearing apart the education system in Ontario, how much did they spend on war and military? How much will they spend to protect the salaries of the very people that created the crisis to begin with? Why is profit time and time again being put ahead of the people?
The reply: 1) There are not many options open to teachers to protect their salaries (which is being decreased, they government calls it a “freeze” on wages, but if wages do not increase with inflation it is effectively a decrease in spending power). Even strikes, which you consider a drastic measure, is not always productive in producing change, but effective in keeping a united front and keeping the pressure on the government (these are defensive measures so far, not many strikes are happening currently to fight for better wages and benefits, but only keep what is already there) 2) As a disruption to student learning: you may want to consider that there is a lot to learn from in a strike, demonstrations and protests that is not always taught in school and is forbidden to teach. I.e. strikes, industrial actions and protests are effective in teach-
“Revolutions are the locomotives of history.” KARL MARX Class Struggle in France (1850)
Letter from Zaniar Moradi from prison To all the people of the world in my age group: I despise thinking about my death; I do want to take my life aspiration to the grave with me. My name is Zaneyar Moradi. Currently, I am sitting in a death cell, my prison cell in Karaj in Iran, and I want to talk to you young people in Europe and America, I want to speak to people, who are my age, who are living in Japan, Australia, France, and Africa and all over the globe. Please DO NOT LET THEM HANG ME! Is this world so cruel, to watch both my cousin and I hang in public from a crane on the street? And not say anything? And not do anything? I realize that it is only through the Internet that I am voicing to you my fear and my plea to you. So please be patient with me and give me few minutes and seconds of your time and hear me. It is hard to be twenty-one and to face my death. To live everyday with the nightmare of death, to shiver every time I hear their footsteps coming to take me to my death. It has been three years since I have been imprisoned. I am Zaneyar Moradi and my codefendant is Loghman Moradi, we were tortured for nine months. They would beat us so hard that we could not walk, even today I still suffer from side effects of torture—my back is hurting and I have two-fractured vertebrate. The torturers told us that if we did not confess to everything they told us that they would rape us and we just signed whatever they put in front of us. And now we are waiting for the hanging rope of death while standing or hanging on the streets of Tehran or Oromeyeh (where we were born). They told us plans are being set for our execution, and the hang man has been sick for the past four days and I can't sleep at nights. So I decided to help myself by writing this letter. Whatever you can do, please don't let them execute us. Please use your youth, your creativity, and let this regime know that we are not alone. Please voice your protest to this verdict. If you protest, if you complain to them we will hear it! I am waiting to hear YOUR voices of protest. Zenyar Moradi Raja-e-shar Prison January 4, 2013
Editors: Chia Barsen Co-editor: Siavash Shahabi chiabarsen@googlemail.com iran.cyo@gmail.com http://cyo-iran.blogspot.se youtube.com/user/sjknews facebook.com/cyoiran