International

In the Horn of Africa, a famine is raging that has claimed the lives of
tens of thousands of people. For the first time in 30 years, the UN has
officially declared a famine. The drought in East Africa has resulted in
a food crisis across Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya that has affected over
12 million people; hundreds of thousands of refugees from Somalia have
fled to neighbouring Kenya and Ethiopia, where unsanitary and crowded
conditions await, leading to thousands more deaths. But this seems to go
almost unreported in the media, which is dominated by stories of
rioting, phone hacking and the economic crisis.

One recent evening, whilst fumbling through a collection of
documentaries by acclaimed journalist and film maker John Pilger, I came
across ‘Heroes’. This short film, produced in 1981, shone a spotlight
on the treatment of Vietnam veterans in the aftermath of the conflict by
an administration that had sent them to war.

The recent
brutal and outrageous attack in Norway on the Scandinavian and
international workers’ movement was a huge shock, not only for those
members of the Norwegian Labour Party Youth (AUF) who were at the summer
cap at the island of Utøya, but also for the whole population of
Scandinavia.

As the
earthquake of economic crisis sweeps across the globe, the political
establishment in country after country is being shaken to the core.
“Strong” governments have been exposed as, in fact, being extremely
weak, both at the ballot box and on the streets. The ruling class is
beginning to lose its political grip on society and people are beginning
to question the traditional pillars that society has rested upon for
centuries.

The world has been shocked by the
news of the bloody massacre in Norway. At least 91 people have been
killed, including 84 members of the Labour Youth Organization (AUF) in a
summer camp.

  Socialist Appeal joins others in the British Labour and trade union movement in sending condolences and solidarity to the friends and families of those killed and injured in the horrific attack in Norway yesterday. In particular we mourn the loss of so many young members of the Labour youth group and wish a speedy and full recovery to those injured or otherwise affected.

The
classical view of how capitalism develops is that within feudal society a
class emerges made up of merchants, bankers, early industrialists, i.e.
the bourgeoisie, and that for this class to be able to develop its full
potential a bourgeois revolution is required to break the limits
imposed by the landed feudal aristocracy. That is how things developed,
more or less, in countries like France and England, but not in Japan.