INTERNATIONAL PAPER
It was Lenin who amended Marx’s dictum ‘workers of all lands unite’ to ‘workers and oppressed peoples of all lands unite’. He did so on the understanding that with imperialism capitalism had entered a new stage in its development with the exportation of capital and the carving out of new markets for manufactured goods. This brutal process of colonisation, both economic and military, continues today, though now with more emphasis on securing sources of cheap labour and production costs rather than markets. The result has been a human catastrophe for the developing world and an increase in poverty in the developed world.
AFRICA
In the Darfur region of Sudan ethnic cleansing continues while the UN and the West wring their hands. The racism implicit in the inaction in the face of this ongoing catastrophe mirrors the inaction which resulted in the Rwandan genocide of 1994. We call upon the UN to fund a robust African Union presence in Sudan to stop the violence, followed by the immediate arrest of members of the incumbent Sudanese government responsible for the violence in the region to face charges of crimes against humanity in an all-African court.
Ultimately, the cause of the conflict in Darfur is the devastating legacy of colonialism, which has retarded the natural economic development of the entire African continent. Where there is poverty there is tension as tribes, ethnic and/or religious groups, struggle to gain control over what little resources are available. This has resulted in a neverneding series of civil wars throughout the African continent.
In addition, six million children under the age of 5 perish yearly in sub-Saharan Africa through hunger and preventable diseases such as malaria. Through international institutions such as the World Bank, World Health Organisation (WHO), and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the West continues to keep Africa in a perennial state of under development.
As such, Solidarity rejects completely the idea that initiatives promulgated by campaigns like Make Poverty History, involving fair trade, the cancelling of the debt, and trade liberalisation, can ever offer a way forward for the peoples of the African continent. We do so on the understanding that the solution to poverty in Africa simply cannot be supplied by the cause of that poverty: namely capitalism and its need to continually generate profit or else stagnate and die. We demand, instead, an end to the super exploitation of the African continent by multinational corporations with the aid of the IMF and World Bank; an end to Western interference in African affairs, especially US covert and overt military operations, and the return of both economic and political sovereignty to the African peoples.
MIDDLE EAST
As the twin occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq continue, Solidarity holds to the inviolability of the right of self determination. As such, we call for the immediate withdrawal of all occupying troops from both nations. The Iraqi and Afghan people have the right to resist the military occupation of their respective countries, and Solidarity recognises that right without equivocation. Whilst lamenting the sectarian violence in Iraq, we apportion the blame for the violence to the occupation. Over 650,000 Iraqis have died in this imperialist adventure and we charge the British and US governments with war crimes and crimes against humanity in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Moreover, the likelihood of the conflict widening to involve Iran has increased, and the resulting tension has served to destabilise the entire region.
Further, this imperialist war and occupation has impacted negatively on the working class here at home. The £1.4 billion pounds the twin occupations will cost this financial year is money denied the NHS, our schools, communities and pensions. As with all wars under capitalism, the premise involved in the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan is simple: poor people being sent to a foreign land by rich people to fight and kill other poor people in order to make those rich people richer.
We view the troops as victims in this war too, and we call upon them to return home to stand with their class in the struggle against their real enemy: the millionaires, the corporations and a government which governs on their behalf.
Understanding the Middle East as constituting the front line in the international struggle against the spread of the Free Market, understanding the desire by the US ruling class to control the energy supplies of the competing and emerging economies of China, India and the EU, as well as maintaining the currency hegemony of the dollar, Solidarity desires the defeat of US-led efforts to pacify the region in their own economic and strategic interests. We do so rejecting any and all propaganda which attempts to justify US and British military presence as an attempt to democratise the region.
Solidarity acknowledges the work of the Stop the War Coalition (STWC) and Military Families against the War and we resolve to continue to support both campaigns in the coming period.
In Palestine, a brutal and bloody programme of ethnic cleansing continues to be resisted by the Palestinian people. The apartheid state of Israel, a strategic asset of the US, must be brought to its knees in the interests not only of peace in the region, but also in the interests if human progress. In its actions, its repeated violations of international law, its continued acts of aggression against its neighbours, Israel has revealed itself to be a lawless state, intent on a policy of perpetual war and the formation of a greater Israel. We pay tribute to the heroic resistance of the Lebanese people in repelling an invasion of Southern Lebanon in August, 2006, and we demand an end to Israel’s occupation of Palestine and the Golan Heights in violation of UN resolution 242. In solidarity with the Palestinian people, we support the right of return of all Palestinian refugees, demand the release of the 10,000 prisoners currently being held in Israeli prisons, and recognise the 1948 Naqba as a crime against humanity.
Just as the apartheid state of South Africa was brought to its knees through a combination of domestic resistance and an international solidarity campaign to isolate it economically, politically and socially, Solidarity supports the ongoing efforts of activists around the world to carry out a similar campaign against the state of Israel in solidarity with the Palestinian people. As such, we recognise and endorse the work of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (SPSC).
LATIN AMERICA
The leftward shift which has taken place in this region of the world provides hope for the world’s poor and for working class people in every nation.
The Cuban revolution continues to inspire and act as a beacon of hope for the world’s poor in its ability to harness the human capital of its people in the cause of socialism. Despite a low intensity war being waged against them by the US, in the form of an economic embargo, in the continued occupation of its territory by US forces at Guantanamo, in the pernicious attempts by successive US governments to fund and foment internal dissent, the Cuban people continue to astound the world with their resolve, resilience and commitment to the cause of social and economic justice. The internationalism demonstrated repeatedly by the Cuban government in sending medical aid and personnel to countries throughout the developing world is testament to Cuba’s determination to advance the cause of human progress globally. Solidarity salutes the Cuban government and the Cuban people, and we support their ongoing resistance to the concerted efforts by the US government to isolate and destabilise the Cuban revolution.
Solidarity supports the work of the Cuba Solidarity Campaign (CSC) in raising awareness and educating the working class at home and abroad on the outstanding achievements of the Cuban revolution.
In Venezuela, the Bolivarian revolutionary process, headed by Hugo Chavez, has literally transformed the lives of the nation’s poor. Just under a million children in Venezuela from the shanty towns and poorest villages now receive free education; 1.2 million illiterate adults have been taught to read and write; secondary education has been made available to 250,000 children previously excluded by their social status. As for healthcare, the 14,000 Cuban doctors sent to help the country have transformed the situation in poor communities, where 11,000 neighbourhood clinics have been established and the health budget has tripled. New homes have been and are being built, agrarian reform has redistributed large swathes of land to the poor, and an entire generation are being politicised in the process.
Internationally, Chavez has shown courage in confronting US imperialism, denouncing Bush and his administration at the UN, as well as demonstrating his solidarity with the Palestinian, Iraqi and Lebanese people in their respective struggles against US and US-sponsored imperialism in the Middle East. At time of writing, Chavez, buoyed by yet another landslide victory at the polls, has announced his intention of moving Venezuela towards socialism in the coming years. In this he enjoys the support of the overwhelming majority of the Venezuelan people, the same people that overturned a US backed coup attempt in 2002, the same people who are helping to change the course of history across the whole of Latin America.
Solidarity supports the efforts of Hugo Chavez to rid Latin America of US economic penetration and his ongoing efforts to effect, where possible, economic, political and cultural ties throughout the region in the interests of working class, poor and indigenuous peoples. We applaud the continuing shift towards the complete socialist transformation of Venezuelan society, and we view with hope the general leftward trajectory currently taking place across Latin America as a whole.
We support the efforts of the Hands Off Venezuela Campaign (HOV) in forging links between the Bolivarian Revolution and the trade union movement and working class here at home.
SOUTHEAST ASIA
The effect of the economic crisis which beset the so-called Asian tiger economies of the Pacific Rim in the late-nineties has been an increase in the penetration of the region by the US, through the IMF. This economic penetration is reinforced by a huge military presence in the region, with US military bases in Japan, Thailand, South Korea and Indonesia. The ongoing tension in the region involving the DPRK is the direct result of over 30,000 US troops stationed in South Korea and the presence of nuclear-strike aircraft carriers and submarines. This military encirclement, married to an economic embargo, married to the awful memory of a war (1950-1953) in which over 3 million Koreans were slaughtered, has led directly to the isolation of the DPRK and the continuing hardship suffered by its people.
Where the material conditions for bureaucratic degeneration exist – i.e. economic privation and military threat – then we, as socialists, view our task as effecting a change in those material conditions, rather than attacking their symptoms. We therefore demand the removal of all US military personnel from the Korean peninsula and a lifting of the economic embargo against the DPRK.
EUROPE
The expansion and enlargement of the EU, to include countries of the former Soviet Bloc, has made available an increased supply of cheap labour and offered cheaper production costs to multinational corporations. All across Europe wages have been depressed, and working conditions and the social wage are under assault in what has been the most regressive period in post-war European history. As European capitalist economies strive to compete with the US, China and India globally, European workers have found themselves at the sharp end of a rightward shift as social democratic formations in France, Germany and Italy have come under the influence and control of big business. As a result of increasing and unrelenting competition for market share European workers have found themselves involved in a race to the bottom against workers in China, India and southeast Asia, as profits are squeezed.
As for small nations, such as Ireland, the Baltic and Scandinavian states, neoliberalism has been embraced by all the mainstream political parties, with the resulting deepening of inequality and increase in poverty. The so-called Celtic tiger of Ireland has seen child poverty increase to a third, the highest rate in Western Europe, with a concomitant increase in poverty indicators amongst other sectors of society. With corporation tax at 13 percent, Ireland is now a haven for global corporations; the Irish ruling class having shamelessly offered up their working class for exploitation.
Sadly, Sinn Fein has also embraced neoliberalism throughout the island of Ireland, having cleverly been led down the political cul de sac which is the Good Friday Agreement by both the Irish and British governments.
Across the whole of Europe the need for a socialist alternative is greater than ever, and Solidarity expresses the hope that those flashes of resistance to neoliberalism which have taken place in recent years, such as the exemplary action taken by French youth in beating back regressive reform of the employment legislation, can and do develop into movements of sustained resistance.
We offer solidarity with the working class and socialists throughout Europe, pledging our determination to stand with them in resisting a rise in anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim racism unleashed by governments intent on fomenting division amongst the working class; this in order to more easily implement regressive economic policies designed to transfer increased wealth to the rich.
NORTH AMERICA
Here, in the belly of the beast, we view with hope the rise of an immigrants’ rights movements from below in recent years, and we support the continuing struggle against racist and regressive anti-immigrant laws. We call upon the US antiwar movement to join forces with this movement in an attempt to draw the links between the social and economic injustice which lies at the core of US society, the foundation upon which US imperialism rests, and the US war machine.
With just 5 % of the world’s population, the US uses 25 % of the world’s resources and wealth. Over 45 million Americans have no healthcare provision whatsoever, over 30 million live below the poverty line, 8 million of which are children; this despite the US being by far the wealthiest economy in the world with a GDP of 9 trillion dollars.
The US criminal justice system is the harshest and most brutal in the industrialized world, with a full quarter of the entire world’s prison population – just over 2 million people – being held in the US. Sixty percent of this figure are ethnic minorities. Hurricane Katrina left no doubt as to the racism which lies at the heart of the US government, and with further attacks on civil liberties, and as the working class continues to suffer at the sharp end of a virtual economy based on consumer credit, armaments production, and financial speculation, and with a national debt spiralling ever upwards towards, 40% of which is held in international reserve banks overseas, we see the potential for an economic crisis which could lead to social convulsion.
CONCLUSION
The common enemy of humanity in the current epoch is US imperialism and its various allies. Intent on spreading that extreme variant of capitalism – the Free Market – to every part of the planet, a process accelerated after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the US ruling class has demonstrated a brutality and barbarity virtually unparalleled in human history.
In simple terms, they have unleashed war without end on the poor and working class in every land, of every religion and every ethnicity. No respecter of borders, culture or democracy, a major violator of international law, subverter of democracy and human rights, and with over 700 military bases around the world, this is a juggernaut of death and destruction that must be resisted.
Solidarity, Scotland’s Socialist Movement, stands with the working class and the oppressed of all lands currently engaged in this resistance. Along with the rest of the world, especially the developing world, we look forward to the day when US imperialism is defeated on all fronts.
END.
It was Lenin who amended Marx’s dictum ‘workers of all lands unite’ to ‘workers and oppressed peoples of all lands unite’. He did so on the understanding that with imperialism capitalism had entered a new stage in its development with the exportation of capital and the carving out of new markets for manufactured goods. This brutal process of colonisation, both economic and military, continues today, though now with more emphasis on securing sources of cheap labour and production costs rather than markets. The result has been a human catastrophe for the developing world and an increase in poverty in the developed world.
AFRICA
In the Darfur region of Sudan ethnic cleansing continues while the UN and the West wring their hands. The racism implicit in the inaction in the face of this ongoing catastrophe mirrors the inaction which resulted in the Rwandan genocide of 1994. We call upon the UN to fund a robust African Union presence in Sudan to stop the violence, followed by the immediate arrest of members of the incumbent Sudanese government responsible for the violence in the region to face charges of crimes against humanity in an all-African court.
Ultimately, the cause of the conflict in Darfur is the devastating legacy of colonialism, which has retarded the natural economic development of the entire African continent. Where there is poverty there is tension as tribes, ethnic and/or religious groups, struggle to gain control over what little resources are available. This has resulted in a neverneding series of civil wars throughout the African continent.
In addition, six million children under the age of 5 perish yearly in sub-Saharan Africa through hunger and preventable diseases such as malaria. Through international institutions such as the World Bank, World Health Organisation (WHO), and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the West continues to keep Africa in a perennial state of under development.
As such, Solidarity rejects completely the idea that initiatives promulgated by campaigns like Make Poverty History, involving fair trade, the cancelling of the debt, and trade liberalisation, can ever offer a way forward for the peoples of the African continent. We do so on the understanding that the solution to poverty in Africa simply cannot be supplied by the cause of that poverty: namely capitalism and its need to continually generate profit or else stagnate and die. We demand, instead, an end to the super exploitation of the African continent by multinational corporations with the aid of the IMF and World Bank; an end to Western interference in African affairs, especially US covert and overt military operations, and the return of both economic and political sovereignty to the African peoples.
MIDDLE EAST
As the twin occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq continue, Solidarity holds to the inviolability of the right of self determination. As such, we call for the immediate withdrawal of all occupying troops from both nations. The Iraqi and Afghan people have the right to resist the military occupation of their respective countries, and Solidarity recognises that right without equivocation. Whilst lamenting the sectarian violence in Iraq, we apportion the blame for the violence to the occupation. Over 650,000 Iraqis have died in this imperialist adventure and we charge the British and US governments with war crimes and crimes against humanity in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Moreover, the likelihood of the conflict widening to involve Iran has increased, and the resulting tension has served to destabilise the entire region.
Further, this imperialist war and occupation has impacted negatively on the working class here at home. The £1.4 billion pounds the twin occupations will cost this financial year is money denied the NHS, our schools, communities and pensions. As with all wars under capitalism, the premise involved in the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan is simple: poor people being sent to a foreign land by rich people to fight and kill other poor people in order to make those rich people richer.
We view the troops as victims in this war too, and we call upon them to return home to stand with their class in the struggle against their real enemy: the millionaires, the corporations and a government which governs on their behalf.
Understanding the Middle East as constituting the front line in the international struggle against the spread of the Free Market, understanding the desire by the US ruling class to control the energy supplies of the competing and emerging economies of China, India and the EU, as well as maintaining the currency hegemony of the dollar, Solidarity desires the defeat of US-led efforts to pacify the region in their own economic and strategic interests. We do so rejecting any and all propaganda which attempts to justify US and British military presence as an attempt to democratise the region.
Solidarity acknowledges the work of the Stop the War Coalition (STWC) and Military Families against the War and we resolve to continue to support both campaigns in the coming period.
In Palestine, a brutal and bloody programme of ethnic cleansing continues to be resisted by the Palestinian people. The apartheid state of Israel, a strategic asset of the US, must be brought to its knees in the interests not only of peace in the region, but also in the interests if human progress. In its actions, its repeated violations of international law, its continued acts of aggression against its neighbours, Israel has revealed itself to be a lawless state, intent on a policy of perpetual war and the formation of a greater Israel. We pay tribute to the heroic resistance of the Lebanese people in repelling an invasion of Southern Lebanon in August, 2006, and we demand an end to Israel’s occupation of Palestine and the Golan Heights in violation of UN resolution 242. In solidarity with the Palestinian people, we support the right of return of all Palestinian refugees, demand the release of the 10,000 prisoners currently being held in Israeli prisons, and recognise the 1948 Naqba as a crime against humanity.
Just as the apartheid state of South Africa was brought to its knees through a combination of domestic resistance and an international solidarity campaign to isolate it economically, politically and socially, Solidarity supports the ongoing efforts of activists around the world to carry out a similar campaign against the state of Israel in solidarity with the Palestinian people. As such, we recognise and endorse the work of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (SPSC).
LATIN AMERICA
The leftward shift which has taken place in this region of the world provides hope for the world’s poor and for working class people in every nation.
The Cuban revolution continues to inspire and act as a beacon of hope for the world’s poor in its ability to harness the human capital of its people in the cause of socialism. Despite a low intensity war being waged against them by the US, in the form of an economic embargo, in the continued occupation of its territory by US forces at Guantanamo, in the pernicious attempts by successive US governments to fund and foment internal dissent, the Cuban people continue to astound the world with their resolve, resilience and commitment to the cause of social and economic justice. The internationalism demonstrated repeatedly by the Cuban government in sending medical aid and personnel to countries throughout the developing world is testament to Cuba’s determination to advance the cause of human progress globally. Solidarity salutes the Cuban government and the Cuban people, and we support their ongoing resistance to the concerted efforts by the US government to isolate and destabilise the Cuban revolution.
Solidarity supports the work of the Cuba Solidarity Campaign (CSC) in raising awareness and educating the working class at home and abroad on the outstanding achievements of the Cuban revolution.
In Venezuela, the Bolivarian revolutionary process, headed by Hugo Chavez, has literally transformed the lives of the nation’s poor. Just under a million children in Venezuela from the shanty towns and poorest villages now receive free education; 1.2 million illiterate adults have been taught to read and write; secondary education has been made available to 250,000 children previously excluded by their social status. As for healthcare, the 14,000 Cuban doctors sent to help the country have transformed the situation in poor communities, where 11,000 neighbourhood clinics have been established and the health budget has tripled. New homes have been and are being built, agrarian reform has redistributed large swathes of land to the poor, and an entire generation are being politicised in the process.
Internationally, Chavez has shown courage in confronting US imperialism, denouncing Bush and his administration at the UN, as well as demonstrating his solidarity with the Palestinian, Iraqi and Lebanese people in their respective struggles against US and US-sponsored imperialism in the Middle East. At time of writing, Chavez, buoyed by yet another landslide victory at the polls, has announced his intention of moving Venezuela towards socialism in the coming years. In this he enjoys the support of the overwhelming majority of the Venezuelan people, the same people that overturned a US backed coup attempt in 2002, the same people who are helping to change the course of history across the whole of Latin America.
Solidarity supports the efforts of Hugo Chavez to rid Latin America of US economic penetration and his ongoing efforts to effect, where possible, economic, political and cultural ties throughout the region in the interests of working class, poor and indigenuous peoples. We applaud the continuing shift towards the complete socialist transformation of Venezuelan society, and we view with hope the general leftward trajectory currently taking place across Latin America as a whole.
We support the efforts of the Hands Off Venezuela Campaign (HOV) in forging links between the Bolivarian Revolution and the trade union movement and working class here at home.
SOUTHEAST ASIA
The effect of the economic crisis which beset the so-called Asian tiger economies of the Pacific Rim in the late-nineties has been an increase in the penetration of the region by the US, through the IMF. This economic penetration is reinforced by a huge military presence in the region, with US military bases in Japan, Thailand, South Korea and Indonesia. The ongoing tension in the region involving the DPRK is the direct result of over 30,000 US troops stationed in South Korea and the presence of nuclear-strike aircraft carriers and submarines. This military encirclement, married to an economic embargo, married to the awful memory of a war (1950-1953) in which over 3 million Koreans were slaughtered, has led directly to the isolation of the DPRK and the continuing hardship suffered by its people.
Where the material conditions for bureaucratic degeneration exist – i.e. economic privation and military threat – then we, as socialists, view our task as effecting a change in those material conditions, rather than attacking their symptoms. We therefore demand the removal of all US military personnel from the Korean peninsula and a lifting of the economic embargo against the DPRK.
EUROPE
The expansion and enlargement of the EU, to include countries of the former Soviet Bloc, has made available an increased supply of cheap labour and offered cheaper production costs to multinational corporations. All across Europe wages have been depressed, and working conditions and the social wage are under assault in what has been the most regressive period in post-war European history. As European capitalist economies strive to compete with the US, China and India globally, European workers have found themselves at the sharp end of a rightward shift as social democratic formations in France, Germany and Italy have come under the influence and control of big business. As a result of increasing and unrelenting competition for market share European workers have found themselves involved in a race to the bottom against workers in China, India and southeast Asia, as profits are squeezed.
As for small nations, such as Ireland, the Baltic and Scandinavian states, neoliberalism has been embraced by all the mainstream political parties, with the resulting deepening of inequality and increase in poverty. The so-called Celtic tiger of Ireland has seen child poverty increase to a third, the highest rate in Western Europe, with a concomitant increase in poverty indicators amongst other sectors of society. With corporation tax at 13 percent, Ireland is now a haven for global corporations; the Irish ruling class having shamelessly offered up their working class for exploitation.
Sadly, Sinn Fein has also embraced neoliberalism throughout the island of Ireland, having cleverly been led down the political cul de sac which is the Good Friday Agreement by both the Irish and British governments.
Across the whole of Europe the need for a socialist alternative is greater than ever, and Solidarity expresses the hope that those flashes of resistance to neoliberalism which have taken place in recent years, such as the exemplary action taken by French youth in beating back regressive reform of the employment legislation, can and do develop into movements of sustained resistance.
We offer solidarity with the working class and socialists throughout Europe, pledging our determination to stand with them in resisting a rise in anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim racism unleashed by governments intent on fomenting division amongst the working class; this in order to more easily implement regressive economic policies designed to transfer increased wealth to the rich.
NORTH AMERICA
Here, in the belly of the beast, we view with hope the rise of an immigrants’ rights movements from below in recent years, and we support the continuing struggle against racist and regressive anti-immigrant laws. We call upon the US antiwar movement to join forces with this movement in an attempt to draw the links between the social and economic injustice which lies at the core of US society, the foundation upon which US imperialism rests, and the US war machine.
With just 5 % of the world’s population, the US uses 25 % of the world’s resources and wealth. Over 45 million Americans have no healthcare provision whatsoever, over 30 million live below the poverty line, 8 million of which are children; this despite the US being by far the wealthiest economy in the world with a GDP of 9 trillion dollars.
The US criminal justice system is the harshest and most brutal in the industrialized world, with a full quarter of the entire world’s prison population – just over 2 million people – being held in the US. Sixty percent of this figure are ethnic minorities. Hurricane Katrina left no doubt as to the racism which lies at the heart of the US government, and with further attacks on civil liberties, and as the working class continues to suffer at the sharp end of a virtual economy based on consumer credit, armaments production, and financial speculation, and with a national debt spiralling ever upwards towards, 40% of which is held in international reserve banks overseas, we see the potential for an economic crisis which could lead to social convulsion.
CONCLUSION
The common enemy of humanity in the current epoch is US imperialism and its various allies. Intent on spreading that extreme variant of capitalism – the Free Market – to every part of the planet, a process accelerated after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the US ruling class has demonstrated a brutality and barbarity virtually unparalleled in human history.
In simple terms, they have unleashed war without end on the poor and working class in every land, of every religion and every ethnicity. No respecter of borders, culture or democracy, a major violator of international law, subverter of democracy and human rights, and with over 700 military bases around the world, this is a juggernaut of death and destruction that must be resisted.
Solidarity, Scotland’s Socialist Movement, stands with the working class and the oppressed of all lands currently engaged in this resistance. Along with the rest of the world, especially the developing world, we look forward to the day when US imperialism is defeated on all fronts.
END.
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