Letters
NF fiasco
Anti-fascists are celebrating victory after the neo-Nazi National Front failed to hold a planned march in Dover. The NF had aimed to capitalise on hostility local racists have been whipping up against the 400 asylum-seekers currently housed in the area.
Twice before (in November 1997 and February 1998) the NF were bussed in from the West Midlands and elsewhere to march in the town. On both occasions they met strong resistance from anti-fascists. This time they were forced to abandon their march after anti-fascists got the NF’s coach from the West Midlands cancelled. Newbury Travel, the company which has twice before brought the NF to Dover, caved in under pressure from anti-fascists. Seven trade union branches in the Birmingham area had passed resolutions condemning the company for transporting the NF. The police said that the NF march was being cancelled, although they refused to tell journalists why.
Over 200 anti-fascists from London and the South East had gathered in Dover. In the early afternoon they marched along the seafront, where the NF had intended to hold their march. The banner of the London region Fire Brigades Union was carried on the march and the secretary of the local Rail, Maritime and Transport union was among the marchers. Anti-fascists also gathered in Dover town square and leafleted shoppers throughout the morning.
Several vanloads of police were present, but they kept a low profile and did not interfere with the anti-fascist march. The transport police were out in force with dogs at Dover Priory railway station, apparently in case the NF turned up by train. It was rumoured that a few fascists were roaming around the town in ones and twos, but this information has not been confirmed. One local racist turned up at the seafront apparently with the intention of supporting the NF, but after being challenged by anti-fascists he walked away.
Craig Hudson
Dover
IRSP ard fheis
On December 5 the Irish Republican Socialist Party held its ard fheis (national congress) in Dublin. Approximately 90 delegates attended, including two republican socialist prisoners of war from Long Kesh and two from Portlaoise (including Eddie Hogan, serving a 40-year sentence, the longest of any republican POW).
In addition to party delegates, two representatives of the Irish Republican Socialist Committees of North America (including the North American Coordinator) and nine representatives of the IRSP Britain were present. Also present were three observers from the Italian left, one from the German left, one from the Austrian left, and one from the British left.
The year 1998 will be remembered in Irish history as the year the ‘Good Friday Agreement’ emerged as an answer to the age-old conflict between Ireland and Britain.
The Good Friday Agreement is the latest in a long line of stalled ‘solutions’ that fail to address the core issues of the conflict. The IRSP reject the agreement. We believe that, far from offering the people of Ireland justice, equality, and peace, it is in fact a betrayal. Not a betrayal of nationalism or unionism, though some would argue that it betrays both, but a betrayal of the genuine hope of the people for a peaceful future.
We opposed the GFA in the joint referenda because it institutionalises sectarianism, fails to properly address the imperialist role that Britain has played in Ireland and locks the Irish people into a capitalist alliance that will benefit only the rich to the detriment of the Irish working class.
The IRSP has always taken the view that the conflict in Ireland was more than a struggle against British occupation. It remains our view that the removal of the British presence is a prerequisite to tackling sectarianism and addressing the capitalist system that continues to inflict poverty on the vast majority of the population in what is one of the richest economies in Europe.
The agreement has elevated sectarianism into an acceptable political philosophy, to which the continued sectarian murder and intimidation campaign by loyalists bears witness. For unionists the GFA is as much a weapon to oppose the nationalist working class as the rifle or grenade.
We also take this opportunity to condemn without reservation a number of sectarian attacks carried out by so-called nationalists on protestant homes in the Blacks Road area of West Belfast. To attempt forced evictions is to perpetuate the myth that sectarianism is the sole cause of our problems.
Committing ourselves to a republican socialist agenda, we also have to acknowledge that the agreement is a reality. It has changed the political climate in Ireland. Time will tell whether the changed political climate will benefit the Irish working class - it is our view that it will not. But it is imperative that the IRSP begins the programme of work, internal and external, alongside the debate and consultation relevant to the political climate in which we have to work.
The outgoing ard comhairle have provided the leadership and direction necessary to steer the party through the changed political climate in 1998. This has been achieved without compromising our republican socialist and working class politics. Our objective is the removal of the British presence, both political and economic, from Ireland and the establishment of a 32-county independent Irish Socialist Republic.
We take this opportunity to thank the members of the ard comhairle who resigned for personal reasons during the past year. We acknowledge the personal sacrifice these comrades have made over the years in pursuit of republican socialist politics. But for their contribution and sacrifices, the IRSP would not be in the healthy position that it is now. We wish them well in future endeavours in the knowledge of their continued support for the republican socialist movement.
However, having learned from the past, we now look to the future. As we enter the new millennium it is imperative that republican socialist politics remain relevant - that is the task for all of us. Let the 1998 ard fheis signal the beginning of that work.
Acting international secretary
IRSP
Defend Korean workers
On October 15, Ra Hun, vice-chairman of the Chiba branch of Chosen Soren (a pro-North Korea organisation in Japan), was brutally murdered. The context for this hideous crime is the climate of hysteria and fear whipped up by the Japanese bourgeoisie following North Korea’s launching of a satellite on August 31. The office of the Chiba branch was destroyed by fire.
More than 50 attacks against people of Korean ancestry have been reported in the last month, with schoolchildren being targeted the most.
Our political differences with the Stalinist Chosen Soren, which hails North Korea as the “great socialist fatherland” and promotes dangerous illusions in a “peaceful reunification” with South Korea, are many. As Trotskyists, we stand for the unconditional military defence of North Korea and other bureaucratically deformed workers’ states. We call for the revolutionary reunification of Korea through a proletarian socialist revolution in the South and a proletarian political revolution in the North to oust the Confucian Stalinist bureaucracy.
We place no reliance on this capitalist government, which is the enemy of the working class and oppressed. At a November 11 demonstration in Tokyo held by Chosen Soren, the organisers called on the Japanese government “to prosecute those responsible for the firebombing attacks, to end the harassment of Korean school students and to lift sanctions imposed on North Korea”. But the capitalist state is not a neutral power standing above classes. It is an armed body of men whose job it is to defend and protect the property and privileges of the bourgeoisie.
To defend the besieged Korean population and its organisations, one must look to an aroused and class conscious proletariat and its potential allies among all the oppressed, not to the government. Worker/minority defence guards should be formed to defend Chosen Soren. This requires an uncompromising fight against the poisonous racism which divides the working class.
The leaders of all three trade-union federations have criminally refused to organise non-Japanese workers into common unions with their Japanese brothers and sisters. The labour movement must demand an end to the exclusion of ethnic Koreans from employment at major corporations and must organise integrated industrial unions. It must also champion full citizenship rights for everyone who lives in this country, regardless of race or national origin.
Criminally, virtually the entire left has lined up behind its own bourgeoisie’s crusade to brand North Korea as a ‘rogue state’, thereby bearing some responsibility for the attacks on Koreans in this country. In its bid to join a capitalist coalition government, the mass reformist Communist Party has joined the bourgeoisie’s hysteria over the launching of the North Korean satellite. Within 24 hours, it had issued a press release denouncing North Korea for violating Japan’s ‘national sovereignty’. Their members of parliament then proceeded to vote unanimously for the government’s resolution condemning North Korea. This is the logical response of a party which refused to defend North Korea during the Korean War, and whose organisational rules border on outright racism, stipulating that only Japanese citizens can be members.
The Revolutionary Communist League was more concerned about the safety of Japanese boats and ships than the warmongering coming out of the mouths of the bourgeoisie. The Bund (another left group, formerly called Senkil) advised this racist government, which is attempting to starve North Korea into submission, that its “hysterical response was not in the interest of Japan”.
Spartacist Group Japan
Tokyo
Smirk
The Workers Power group habitually refers to most other revolutionary groups as irrelevant “micro-sects”. According to the sad self-delusions of this profoundly inert sect, its influence dwarfs all others. In its mind’s eye, there is just the Socialist Workers Party, New Labour and Workers Power itself competing for the allegiance of the working class.
Thus, I couldn’t resist a little smirk when I recently compared the ‘hits’ on the CPGB’s website and those on the League for a Revolutionary Communist International (WP’s international umbrella organisation). The two sites have been up for similar lengths of time.
The scores? CPGB - just under 13,000; LRCI - 400. Not only does Weekly Worker outsell the monthly Workers Power four to one, we outdo them on the net as well. What was that about irrelevant “micro-sects”, comrades?
Paul Williams
Sheffield