In spite of a
massive mobilisation of the workers and youth, a movement of
revolutionary dimensions, the PASOK government managed to push through
parliament its austerity measures. This comes at a price, however, for
now the masses have had a taste of their own strength and have been
deeply politicised. The Greek Marxists of Marxisti Foni and Revolution provide here a balance sheet of the situation.
Saturday the 9th of July saw the arrival of the EDL (English Defence
League) to the centre of Cambridge to protest against the proposal to
build a new mosque on Mill Road, a vibrant and multi-cultural part of
the city. The events in Cambridge were part of a national day of action
by the EDL that saw around 150 members of the EDL march through Plymouth
only to find them met by around 300 anti-fascist demonstrators,
alongside a demonstration in Middlesbrough that saw around 200 EDL
protestors met by 400 anti-fascists and a demonstration in Halifax that
numbered around 450 EDL demonstrators and 200 anti-fascists. Various
other EDL divisions were also planning on marching through Liverpool,
Dagenham and Derby however these marches were cancelled due to the high
level of opposition by the local community.
Friday 8th
July saw the largest protests since the departure of Hosni Mubarak as
tens of thousands took to the streets of Cairo, and thousands more came
out to protest in other cities across Egypt, such as Alexandria and
Suez. Material conditions have not improved for the workers and youth of
Egypt, and Tahrir Square has once again become a visible epicentre of
the revolution.
The
authors of this article visited Egypt last month to see the state of
the country after the fall of Mubarak and to get a first hand view of
the revolution. What they saw was a society still fraught with
contradictions that were barely concealed. All these contradictions have
now burst to the surface once more.
The phone-hacking scandal that has led to the closure of the News of the
World newspaper has brought to the surface the real state of things
within the British establishment. The rottenness of a regime,
that prides itself at being a model of “democracy,” is now out in the
open for all to see. What has now been revealed is that a powerful media
empire that for years has played a key role in British politics, making
and unmaking political leaders, has been buying police officers, using
influence with politicians, and all this peppered with out and out
criminal activity.
For all of us working at Lloyds, the announcement that the bosses would
be throwing 15,000 (or 14% of the 104,000 strong work force) people onto
the street came not from our employer but from the press release that
was made to appease the stock markets – they were only too happy to hear
we’d be bearing the brunt of the effort, as ever, to drag Lloyds out of
the mess the bosses got it into in the first place.
The phone-hacking scandal that has rocked the British establishment in the past week is not only bad news for Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World and its parents NewsCorp and News International,
who have now had to sacrifice their main paper, it is bad news for the
politicians, the police and the capitalist class as a whole.
Over
the recent period, splits and divisions have opened up within sections of the
ruling class, which reflect a deepening unease over the crisis and the effects it
is having on British society. The
outspoken attack in the New Statesmen on the Coalition government by the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan
Williams, was an indication in some quarters of the effects of the austerity
programme.
As I write these lines the destinies of Greece are being decided in a
titanic struggle in which the Greek working class is confronting the big
banks and capitalists of all Europe. The EU is subjecting Greece to the
most shameless blackmail. They say: either accept draconian cuts in
your living standards, or else we will refuse to hand over the next
tranche of 12 billion euros.
Cambridge saw all the four striking unions out in the city,
with PCS members on strike at the job centre and the local HMRC offices, the
UCU out at Anglia Ruskin University and the Cambridge Regional College, and NUT
and ATL members shutting down a number of schools in the area. Armed with our
solidarity chocolate, we visited a number of picket lines to chat to workers
and offer our support.
PSNI sources as saying that
there was no “paramilitary” involvement in Friday night’s rioting in
Belfast’s Castlereagh Street and Albertbridge Road, but it’s
clear also that events a couple of weeks ago in the Short Strand have
contributed to what looks like an explosive situation moving into the
marching season, no matter whether the loyalists were there or not.
On
the ninetieth anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist
Party, we begin the publication of a series of articles that trace the
origins and subsequent development of this party, which has played a key
role in world history. In this first part Dan Morley outlines the
conditions in China that led to the foundation of the party as part of
the Communist International. The founders of the party looked to the
October revolution in Russia as their model, with the working class
playing the leading role.
The scathing remarks of Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against Barak Obama for suggesting that the
‘two state solution’ should be based upon the pre-1967 borders, just
before boarding the plane to Washington for a state visit, exposed the
diplomatic weakness of the imperialist leaders.