France in Mali: The longue durée of imperial blowback

The present intervention in Mali, however necessary and well-intentioned it is, may produce its own blowback [Reuters]

The current crisis in Mali is a product of French colonialism, and their intervention will sadly create more blowback.

The dispatching of French soldiers to beat back rapidly advancing Salafi militants in northern Mali represents the convergence of multiple circles of blowback from two centuries of French policies in Africa. Some date back to the beginning of the 19th century, others to policies put in place during the last few years. Together, they spell potential disaster for France and the United States (the two primary external Western actors in Mali today), and even more so for Mali and the surrounding countries.

Only two outcomes, together, can prevent the nightmare scenario of a huge failed state in the heart of Africa spreading violence across the continent. First, the French-led assault on the north must manage to force most of the Salafi fighters out of the populated areas presently under their control and install a viable African-led security force that can hold the population centres for several years. If that weren’t difficult enough, French and international diplomats must create space for the establishment of a much more representative and less corrupt Malian government, one which can and will negotiate an equitable resolution to the decades long conflict with the Touareg peoples of the North, whose latest attempt violently to carve out a quasi-independent zone in the north early last year helped create the political and security vacuum so expertly, if ruthlessly, exploited by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghrib (AQIM) and its allied radical groups.

The first and largest circle of blowback returns to French colonial policy in North and West Africa, which was responsible for the creation of most of the states that are involved in the present conflict. France began deliberately to colonise large swaths of West Africa at the start of the 19th century, gaining control of what today is Mauritania and Senegal by 1815, followed by the invasion of Algeria in 1830, Tunisia in 1881, French Guinea, the Ivory Coast, and the French Sudan (which would become Mali) – in the 1890s, Niger in 1903-4 and Morocco in 1912.

Carved from colonialism

It is impossible to know how the map of Africa would have evolved without European colonialism to shape it. What is sure, however, is that the European “scramble for Africa” that dominated the 19th century – and in which local rulers played a willing part whenever it served their interests – ensured that European powers would create the territorial foundation for modern nation-states whose borders bore little correspondence to the ethnic and religious geography of the continent. Mali in particular was composed of several distinct ethnic, linguistic and what today are considered “racial” groups. Its brief and ill-fated union with Senegal at the time of independence in 1960 highlights the artificial foundation of the region’s states and their borders.

The lack of consideration for local ethnic, religious and cultural dynamics and the colonial imperative to arrogate as much territory under one rule as possible created a situation in which states with areas over twice the size of France and population groups which had little historical or cultural reason to live under one sovereignty and had few natural resources of comparative advantages to support themselves, were nevertheless forced to do just that; first, under foreign rule, whose main goal – whatever the “civilising mission” proclaimed by Paris – was to extract as much wealth and resources as possible and enforce control by whatever means necessary, then under postcolonial indigenous governments whose policies towards their people often differed little on the ground from their colonial predecessors.

Indeed, even those countries which secured independence peacefully were structurally deformed by foreign rule and the establishment of states with borders that did not naturally correspond to the political and cultural ecologies of the regions in which they were created. As epitomised by the plight of the Mali’s Touareg communities (who are spread across the Sahel much like Kurds are spread across the countries of the Fertile Crescent), most states in West, North and Central Africa wound up including significant populations who were different from, and thus disadvantaged by, the group who assumed power. At the same time, post-independence governments were riven by corruption and narrow loyalties, with leaders who were most often unwilling to pursue or incapable of pursuing a truly national, democratic vision of development.

In such a situation, religion, which might have played a positive role in shaping morally grounded public spheres and economies, became marginalised from governance, while slowly taking hold in a toxic form among many of the region’s most marginalised peoples.

Supporting the wrong team

If France’s colonial history created the structures in which the present crisis inevitably has unfolded, a more recent set of policies constitutes the second circle of blowback; namely, France’s unreserved support for the Algerian government in its repression of the democratic transition that began in 1988 and was crushed in 1992. As is well known, rather than allow the Islamic Salvation Front – a Muslim Brotherhood-inspired group not that different in its roots and outlook than its Egyptian or Tunisian mainstream Islamist counterparts – to take power after its clear electoral victory in the first round of the 1991-92 parliamentary elections, the Algerian military cancelled the next round and began a crackdown that quickly exploded into a civil war between the military government and radical Islamist groups.

Faced with the choice of allowing a new, Islamist political actor take the reigns of power, France, joined by the US, chose to support the Algerian military, with whom it had retained close relations. In allying with an authoritarian, brutal and corrupt government the French, and the West more broadly, became party to a vicious conflict that saw the emergence of a dangerous terrorist group, the GIA (Armed Islamic Group), quite possibly controlled at least in part by the military itself, and the subsequent bloody decade-long civil war that cost the lives of well over 100,000 civilians.

The GIA in turn was the kernel out of which another group, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, and then al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghbrib, emerged. These groups focused their attention on North Africa for much of the last decade, but gradually moved more deeply into the Sahelian regions linking Algeria to Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Morocco.

Had France and the West not given unreserved support to the Algerian military, it is highly unlikely that these groups would have been created, never mind grown to their present position (a similar argument could of course be made about the main branch of al-Qaeda, which is so many ways was a direct product of unceasing US support for some of the most corrupt and brutal regimes in the world, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan).

As in so many other cases, France and its Western allies chose stability over democracy. In so doing it inevitably, if ironically, set the stage for the present chaos in which its troops are being forced to fight.

Supporting the wrong team… again

The third and most recent circle of blowback stems from France’s longstanding support for Tunisian dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Specifically, French President Nicolas Sarkozy offered strong support for Ben Ali at the start of the crisis, specifically including, as foreign affairs minister Michèle Alliot-Marie described it, “the savoir-faire, recognised throughout the world of [French] security forces in order to settle security situations of this type”. The French president’s words embarrassed his government once the protests picked up steam to the point of creating a “crisis of credibility” that necessitated Sarkozy’s “admission of mistakes” in supporting Ben Ali against the revolutionaries.

So strong was Sarkozy’s embarrassment that when the Libyan crisis erupted, France took the lead in pressing for Western military intervention to force Gaddafi from power in order to absolve itself of its Tunisian sins. Yet it was precisely the launching of NATO’s air war and military support for the Libyan rebels that led to the exodus of well-trained fighters and significant weapons stocks from Libya into Niger, Mali and other parts of the Sahel in the wake of the crumbling of Gaddafi’s state. The chaos and spread of weapons generated by the Libya war put crucial numbers of men and arms into play in northern Mali at a particularly dangerous moment in the country’s history, when long oppressed Touaregs, who’d been recipients of Gaddafi’s largesse in the past (and some of whom in fact fought for Gaddafi), were once again primed to rebel against the central government.

This situation became even more ripe for chaos with the unexpected and apparently unintended military coup against the country’s soon to be retired president, Amadou Toumani Touré, in March, 2012, which created an even bigger power vacuum throughout the country.

The blowback’s blowback

Here we see decades, and indeed centuries, of French and broader European and American policies coming together to produce maximum chaos. This in turn was strengthened by the blowback from longstanding local conflicts, from the hostility of Mali’s military leadership to the extremely poor rank and file conscripts (which prompted the protests that sent the President to flight in March, 2012) to the inability of the broader Touareg rebel movement to set aside its tradition of violent resistance and embrace a younger generation of activists, who were advocating a revolutionary movement that was much closer to the soon to erupt Arab Spring than to the violent insurrection for which Touaregs had long been known. Almost a year later, the army has lost control over the majority of the country, while Touaregs have been largely sidelined from the revolt they started by Salafi groups aligned with al-Qaeda.

What is most interesting in this regard is that the present blowback had significant advance warning and should in fact have been anticipated by French and Western policymakers in the planning of the Libyan war. North Africa experts, such as Sciences Po political scientist Jean-Pierre Filiu, were pointing out already in 2010 that al-Qaeda in the Maghrib and other salafi fighting groups were moving away from their focus on Algeria and towards developing a strategic presence, and even “new theatre” in the Sahel, with the ultimate aim of destabilising those countries.

These jihadis “now represent a serious security threat in northern parts of Mali and Niger”, Filiu explained, because of numerous kidnappings, smuggling and other illicit activities the recruitment of a “new generation” of fighters from the many poor communities of the region. This reality of clearly increased operations by radical Islamist groups in northern Mali, coupled with the increase in Touareg agitation and Gaddafi’s well-known use of various nomadic groups as mercenaries, should have raised loud alarms among French and Western policymakers in the lead up to the decision to enter for Libyan civil war.

Indeed, on the US side, the American Ambassador to Mali warned already in 2004 that Mali is a “remote, tribal and barely governed swath of Africa… a potential new staging ground for religious extremism and terrorism similar to Afghanistan under the Taliban… If Mali goes, the rest goes”. This warning was made just as the US military was deepening its military presence across the continent, culminating in the creation of AFRICOM in 2008.

Given the clear attention being paid to the Sahel in the last decade by French and US policymakers, we can only assume that either they were utterly incompetent in failing to understand the inevitable results of Western military intervention in Libya, or saw that as a win-win situation, providing a new theatre in a strategically rising area of the world in which US, French and Western militaries could become increasingly engaged (and in so doing, keep rivals such as China further at bay).

Either way, just as previous African interventions generated the blowback that helped create the present Malian crisis, the present intervention in Mali, however necessary, well-intentioned and even wished for by the majority of Malians (to the extent the wishes of Malians can even be determined that clearly), will no doubt produce its own blowback, which will claim the lives of many more Africans, French, American and other Western citizens.

Source

International Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organizations (ICMLPO): On the International Situation

The most significant development in the world capitalist economy, since the last meeting of our Conference is undoubtedly the intensification of the symptoms that prove the trend toward a new recession in all fields, after a certain rise in the second quarter of 2009, followed by a period of stagnation. Despite the trend towards a rise in the second quarter, world industrial production shrank 6.6% in 2009 and rose 10% in 2010. The industrial production of June 2010 exceeded its previous level before the crisis of 2008. But starting from the first quarter of 2011, the growth lost momentum and fell to 0.4% in the last quarter of that year. In 2011, world industrial production declined by half (5.4%) compared to the previous year. In the first quarter of 2012, after a weak rise, the growth declined. The growth was 1.8% in the first quarter, 0% in the second and 4% in the last quarter of 20l2. All the data show that, despite fluctuations, a decline persists that began in the first quarter of 2011, which led to zero level in the middle of this year [2012] and is heading for a new period of decline.

Industrial production in the European Union, which is a larger economic power than the U.S.; in Japan, which is third largest world economic power; in India, one of the largest economies in Asia, have had consecutive declines in the third quarter of 2011 and in the first two quarters of 2012 compared to the same period last year. Industrial production in Brazil, the largest economy in Latin America, has also entered into decline in the last two quarters. North African countries like Tunisia and Egypt, and other countries such as Argentina, Colombia and Peru, are in similar situations.

The rate of growth of industrial production in China, in the first and second quarters of 2012, was 11.6% and 9.5%, while it was 14.4% in 2010 and 13.8% in 2011. The downward trend continued in July, 9.2% and in August, 8.9%. China, which grew by 12.9% and 12.3% in the crisis years (2008 and 2009), was, along with India, one of the factors that prevented a further sharpening of the crisis and that allowed the world economy to enter into a new period of growth. The situation in that country has changed considerably. Now it is a country that is accumulating stockpiles in the steel industry, which is facing a slowdown in the construction sector, which has important holes in the financial sector. Those countries that saw lower growth rates despite the stimulus measures to revive the domestic market, are now unable to play the same role as before. The industrial production of Mexico and the Confederation of Independent States (CIS), including Russia, continues to grow. However, while the industrial production in the major countries and the volume of international trade are falling, for these countries also, a decrease is expected.

Unlike simple commodity production, a more rapid growth in the production of the means of production, compared to consumer goods, is a condition for expanded reproduction. But with the capitalist mode of production producing for an unknown market, with the sole purpose of obtaining profits, a consistent development of the two sectors is impossible and this is one of the factors that makes crises inevitable. In the last three years, as well as before, these two sectors have not developed consistently. In the first sector, demand has fallen, the volume of growth has fallen, stockpiles are accumulating and capacity utilization has fallen. In 2010 and 2011 the steel industry, an important component of the production of means of production, grew faster than the consumer goods sector. According to data from the World Steel Union, the growth rate in production was 15% in 2010 compared to the previous year, but in 2011 the figure fell to 6.2%. In January raw steel production saw a sharp drop to 8%, and it has stayed at 0.8% in the period from January to May of 2012. In August of 2012 raw steel production fell 1% in relation to 2011. In the same period, raw steel production rose 3.3% in Japan (a significant increase if one takes into account the major fall due to the tsunami) and 2.6% in India. It has fallen by 1.7% in China, 3.8% in the U.S., 4.4% in the EU, 7.1% in Germany, 15.5% in Italy and 3.8% in the Confederation of Independent States (CIS). The iron stockpiles in Chinese ports reached 98.15 million tons (an increase of 2.9%) belonging to the steel complexes. And stockpiles of Chinese coal are at their highest level in the last three years.

In manufacturing, a very important element of the production of the means of production, production and demand have declined in many countries. This decline has been one of the reasons for the cooling of industrial production in Germany, for example. In the capitalist mode of production, the agricultural sector, by its level of development and its technical basis, is always behind industry. Agricultural production is largely affected by the natural conditions, climate changes, droughts, storms and other natural catastrophes. Agricultural production is increasingly under the control of the monopolies and the speculative maneuvers of finance capital. In 2010 world agricultural production, including the production of cereals, has shrunk due to various factors such as bad weather or the expansion of plots reserved for bio-fuel production. On the other hand, in 2011, agricultural production has progressed thanks to better weather conditions, and also to increased demand and higher prices due to speculation. For example, wheat production increased by about 6%.

In 2009 the volume of world trade has declined 12.7%. According to data from the World Trade Organization (WTO), that volume registered a growth of 13.8% in 2010, and only 5% in 2011 (according to figures from the CPL, the growth was 15.2% in 2010, and 5.8% in 2011). The volume of world trade has grown by 0.5% in the final quarter of last year, and by 0.9% and 0.5% in the first and second quarter of 2012 respectively. During the first two months of the third quarter (June and July), the volume of world trade recorded a negative growth of -1.5% and -0.2% compared to the previous months.

World industrial production reached and surpassed the pre-crisis level of 2008, in June 2010, while the volume of international trade did not surpass this until November 2011. If we compare the data of July 2012 with the level reached before the crisis of 2008 (that is, April 2008), we see an increase of 9.5% in world industrial production and an increase of 5% in the total volume of growth in world trade.

The data on the increase of the volume of world trade is one of the most important that shows an evolutionary trend, although it does not exactly reflect the volume of growth of world trade. These data show that for the last three years, the world capitalist production has increased rapidly and that the capitalist world is once again facing the problem of overproduction, which is the source of all its crises. Decreased production, closing or reduction in work capacity of enterprises, rising unemployment and poverty; needs in abundance and the restriction of markets are the inevitable consequences of overproduction. The sharp slowdown in world industrial production has been shown above. The events in North Africa and the austerity measures taken in countries like Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal, etc., are factors that are aggravating this process and its consequences.

Towards a New Financial Crisis

The crisis of 2008 broke out as a financial crisis, at the same time as the crisis deepened in other sectors, such as industry and trade, it developed with contacts in the finance sector with serious consequences for the following period. The most destructive consequences for the monopolies and the eventual collapse of the financial sector were avoided by transferring of billions of dollars into the coffers of the monopolies by the capitalist States. This rescue operation was only possible by accepting a debt to financial markets with very high interest rates, and the issuance of money into the markets. The end result is an extreme State debt, an increase in the debt and interest burden, a rise in the price of gold and the loss of value (devaluation) of almost all currencies.

Countries at different levels have entered a vicious circle that has elements of new currency and financial crises, in which they can finance their budget deficit, their debts and interests, having to borrow again. The capitalist world began a period of growth starting in the second quarter of 2009, with the weight inherited from the 2008 crisis. However, this period of growth has enabled recipient countries to breathe a little, turn the wheel that was on the verge of suffocating them. The growth of the world economy stopped and even lowered the price of gold for a moment. In some countries, such as China that had a significant growth rate, the ratio of the public debt to GDP decreased. But in other countries, such as Japan and the U.S., a substantial debt has continued, even during the period of growth of the capitalist world economy. The U.S. public debt represents the sum of $16 billion (the debt of Germany, which grew until the second half of this year, is 8 billion). Other capitalist countries are in a similar situation. The increasing debt is almost the condition of financial sustainability and economic growth. And this is the path that is leading directly to a new financial crisis that may profoundly affect all sectors of the economy.

The highly indebted countries have not been able to achieve a period of growth after the financial crisis and the fall in world industrial production that took place between the second quarter of 2008 and the second quarter of 2009; this period has led to a financial crisis that has affected the other sectors of the economy that has led them to bankruptcy. The first example of this process was in Greece, where the weakness was such that the industry, very weak, was largely liquidated when it joined the EU. After the 2008 crisis, in 2009, the economy of this country did not grow, and by the end of the year it was on the verge of bankruptcy. This country, followed by others such as Portugal, Spain, Hungary, etc., has not been able to get out of the crisis and stagnation. However, important differences should be noted in its debt in relation to the GDP.

Austerity measures never seen before, except in times of war or crisis as deep as 1929, have been imposed on the indebted countries. The result of these measures has been to impoverish the people, destroy the economy and reduce the internal market and foreign trade. These austerity plans have been applied (despite the opposition and struggle of the working class and peoples) under the control of the creditor imperialist powers, the international institutions such as the IMF, World Bank and European Union, and above all with the support of the collaborator monopoly bourgeoisie and its representatives, these enemies of the people. They have transferred billions of dollars to foreign banks, completely betraying the national interests. The national pride of the people, their right to sovereignty and independence have been trampled upon. A country like Britain that had a strong financial sector, but since mid-2011 has seen its industrial production and its economy reduced, has been forced to march along with the countries implementing austerity measures.

The significant decrease in the volume of growth of world industrial production, which began in the second quarter of 2011, is developing the elements of a new international financial crisis and is contributing to the degradation of the situation of the highly indebted countries. They failed to enter a period of growth parallel to the process of growth of the world capitalist economy following the crisis of 2008-2009. While the debate over the future of the Euro and the European Union is sharpening, the communiqués on the economic trends of the advanced capitalist countries and the indebted countries have sown confusion in the stock markets, barometers of the capitalist economy. Although world industrial and agricultural production and the volume of international -trade have exceeded the highest level before the crisis of 2008, the indices of the most influential stock markets remain below that level.

Although we are not yet experiencing the outbreak of a financial crisis of major proportions, everything makes it appear that the process is advancing towards such an eventuality. The U.S. Federal Reserve Bank (FED) has announced that it will not raise interest rates and that it will start a process of purchasing bonds for an amount of $2,000 billion dollars, at the rate of $40 billion per month. Japan has announced a similar measure and has begun a program of buying bonds to the tune of $695 billion.

Germany has had to relax its rigid policy towards the indebted countries and the European fund for the intervention in countries facing difficulties has increased. China, along with measures of revival that it has already applied, announced a new investment package to renovate its infrastructure. The price of gold is rising again. In 2008, the intense intervention of the capitalist States began after the outbreak of the crisis. Now, however, the capitalist States have gone into action before the shocks and bankruptcies at the same level as in 2008 start in the major capitalist countries and worldwide. However, these interventions, which can have some influence on the process of development, cannot change the orientation and the inevitable outcome.

The Sharpening of the Inter-Imperialist Contradictions and the Growing Danger of Conflicts

Uneven, unbalanced development is the absolute law of capitalist development. This process after the crisis of 2008 was not balanced, it deepened the antagonistic contradictions in the evolution and development of the relations between sectors, countries, regions, production and markets, etc. The industrial production of the advanced capitalist countries, including the U.S. and Japan, except Germany (ignoring the high level of 2008), did not reach the level of 2005. Germany, which has exceeded the pre-crisis level and has had a growth in industrial production of 11.5% in 2010 and 9% in 2011, has consolidated its position within the European Union and the Euro zone. Without separating itself from the bloc led by the United States, it has penetrated into new markets, new fields of investment, sources of raw materials, basing itself on its economic and financial strength, and above all, on its technical superiority in the industry of machine construction.

As in previous years, China, both because of its industrial production and its economy in general, was the country that had the most significant growth among major economies. It has modernized and increased the technical basis of its industry, and it continues to reduce the difference in its level of development with the other imperialist powers. Russia is going through a similar process. For the United States and its allies, these two countries, one considered as a vast market and production area with a trained and cheap work force, and the other a solid country, appear today as their main rivals to fight against.

The inevitable result of the change in the balance of power is the great demand for a piece of the pie by the emerging forces, using all means to get it and a new redivision of the world according the new balance of power. The recent development of the world economy is another factor that exacerbates the contradictions and the struggles among the major imperialist powers. Last year in the Middle East, in Africa and the whole world, the rivalry and struggle to expand their sphere of influence has accelerated. The production of weapons, the arms race is intensifying. China and Russia have renewed the technical basis of their arms industry. According to a report by the Congress of the United States, arms sales by these countries have tripled in 2011.

China, which increasingly needs more raw materials, energy and fields of investment for its growing economy, and Russia, which is slowly recovering, are intensifying their expansionist desires and their efforts to get their piece of the pie. Therefore, it is a top priority for the U.S. and its allies to prevent China, a young imperialist power in full development, and Russia, from achieving new markets in the field of energy and raw materials. When the Obama administration states that beginning next year the priority strategic objective for the United States will be Asia, and that the deployment of the U.S. military will be renewed according to the new situation, this is merely affirming that reality. The crisis of the archipelagos shows the level of tension between Japan and China; Japan has declared its intention to improve its military capability. The military maneuvers in the region have intensified.

The consequences of the change in the balance of power in the world have been clearly visible since last year. Russia and China were forced to accept Western imperialist intervention in Libya, even though that intervention was contrary to their interests. The intervention ended with the overthrow of the Gaddafi regime, the near collapse of the country, the destruction of its economy, the degradation of working and living conditions, the transfer of the country’s wealth into the hands of the Western imperialist States, etc. Russia and China lost a good part of their positions, including their oil agreements. After the fall of the Gaddafi regime, Mali has been dragged into war and divided. But the main objective is Syria. The attempts by the Western imperialist powers to topple the Syrian regime and put in a puppet government to fully control the country are intensifying. The United States and its allies have mobilized all their forces within Syria and outside of it in Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. They are stirring up the religious contradictions, they use and manipulate the popular discontent towards the regime and they try to prepare the ground for a military intervention as in Libya. Meanwhile Russia is arming Syria, strengthening its military base located in that country and sending more warships to the Mediterranean.

To bring down the Syrian regime, put in place a puppet government, dominate the oil-rich Middle East, control the eastern Mediterranean, block the expansion of China and Russia in the region and expel them as they did in Libya, to encircle Iran, weaken its influence and liquidate its closest allies, are very important objectives. Syria is the only country in the Middle East and the eastern Mediterranean where Russia has a military base. This small country has become a place of intense struggle between Russia and China on the one hand, and the United States and its allies on the other. The Middle East is a powder keg on the verge of religious conflicts.

Contrary to what they did in Libya, Russia and China are opposing a military intervention that would alter the balance in the Middle East and result in the domination of the United States and its allies over Syria. But they have left the door open for a possible compromise that would guarantee their interests and renew the Syrian regime which is having more and more difficulties to survive.

As the case of Afghanistan, former Yugoslavia, Iraq, Ivory Coast and Libya show, the imperialist interventions that have had the support of the liberal “defenders” of freedom and democracy, of the pseudo-socialist parties that emerged from the former revisionist parties, have resulted in increased military budgets at the expense of the workers, in the destruction of the productive forces of those countries, in many disasters, the impoverishment and decline in all social aspects. The aspiration of the peoples for the right to sovereignty and national independence, democracy and freedom has never been the concern of the occupiers. Their objective was to further prolong their system maintained by the defeat inflicted on the working class in the middle of the last century, a defeat that guaranteed their super-profits, the expansion of their spheres of influence and the weakening of their rivals. The imperialist powers, which are using all means to achieve this goal, do not lack in demagoguery and low maneuvers to disorient the people’s anger.

Now a period of sharpening of inter-imperialist contradictions is beginning, which economic-financial and political-military interventions will multiply. It is increasingly important to fight against such intervention, to develop the united fight of the workers and peoples, in both the advanced and backward countries,.

Organize the Resistance of the Workers in the New Stormy Period

The army of unemployed is growing on the world level, especially in countries in total-debt crisis, in the countries in which the economy is declining, stagnating or is in crisis. In Greece and Spain, unemployment has reached 25%. In these countries, unemployment among the youths, including college graduates, reached 50%. In the Euro zone in the second quarter of 2012, the level of unemployment reached 11.2%, according to official figures. In countries such as Egypt and Tunisia, where manufacturing has fallen from 9.6% to 7.5% in the first quarter of this year (2012), the number of unemployed continues to grow. In South Africa, the most developed country on the continent, the unemployment rate exceeds 25%.

In the current period, in almost all fields, from education to health care, drastic measures have been taken, the retirement age has been delayed and pensions have fallen. The gains of the working class worldwide are targeted for cuts or elimination. While direct taxes on the workers are increasing, no measures are taken to disturb the local and international monopolies, when even within the framework of this system one could increase taxes on the banks and the local and foreign monopolies. Wages continue to fall, etc. Many countries are suffering from a process of absolute impoverishment.

In recent years practices have been imposed worldwide such as sub-contracting labor, precarious and part-time work, an increase in the age for retirement, etc. In Germany, for example, one of the most developed countries in the world that has had significant growth rates in industrial production, according to the Federal Administration of Statistics, 15.6% of the population lives below the poverty line, a figure that rises to 26% among the immigrant population.

Last year, on a world scale and in each country, the workers and peoples movement has developed with various demands, in different forms and also at different levels. The struggles carried out in those countries with a “debt crisis” have been outstanding for their broad social base, for their responses and the experiences gained. The miners’ strike in South Africa, the youth movement and the strikes in Chile, the popular movements in Tunisia and Egypt, etc. are powerful examples of the workers and peoples struggles.

Starting with Greece, Spain and Italy, in various countries with a “debt crisis,” strikes, general strikes and huge demonstrations have taken place. In Greece and Spain, hundreds of thousands of people have expressed their anger in front of the parliaments on the days when these were voting for austerity measures. But the workers and peoples movement, despite some more advanced attempts, has remained within the framework of peaceful demonstrations, general strikes of one or two days and limited resistance. The strikes of long duration, the resistance or occupation of factories, have been limited to one enterprise or one sector.

The austerity measures have affected not only the proletariat and semi-proletarian masses of the cities and countryside; they have also affected the petty bourgeoisie and non-monopoly bourgeois strata. Even the less dynamic strata, the traditional base of the bourgeois parties, have been mobilized given the current situation. The social base of the struggle against the bourgeoisie in Power and against imperialism has expanded, to the point where in some dependent countries the mobilization has taken the character of a movement of the whole nation, except for a handful of monopolists. The conditions are maturing for the working class and its revolutionary parties, as representatives and the vanguard of the nation, to decide to organize and advance the movement and the united front of the people.

But despite the great movement, the groups of international finance capital and the local monopoly bourgeoisies have not given in (except in the recent delay of the austerity measures in Portugal). They have decided to implement these measures even at the cost of demeaning the image of the parliaments and weakening their social base. However, the masses are realizing through their own experience the impossibility of repelling the attacks with one or two day strikes or through peaceful demonstrations. Sharper forms of struggle and unlimited general strike are beginning to be considered by the more advanced strata.

It is clear that the bourgeoisie in Power, with their hostile character towards the people, is assuming a position of national betrayal. The traditional parties of the bourgeoisie and parliaments have lost credibility and the mass support for those parties is weakening (especially toward those in government that are implementing austerity measures). The social basis of monopoly capital is weakening. Among the masses who have felt their national pride hurt by the imperialists, the discontent, anger and will to struggle against the major imperialist powers, beginning with the United States and Germany, against institutions like the IMF or the EU, and against the local monopoly bourgeoisie that is collaborating with them, is developing.

The trade union bureaucracy and reformist parties and social trends are following a backward line of “least resistance,” not only in their forms of organization and struggle, but also at the level of political demands and platform. Clearly, this attitude is contributing to weakening their influence among the workers. The attacks and harshness of the social conditions are also affecting the lower strata of the labor bureaucracy and aristocracy and are sharpening the contradictions within their ranks.

The struggles in the countries with “debt crisis” are being developed on a program of protest against the bourgeois governments and parties, against institutions such as the IMF and the EU that are imposing draconian measures and they are demanding their withdrawal. At first this was natural and understandable in the context of a spontaneous movement. But the inability to go beyond those narrow limits is one of the major weaknesses of the movement. This weakness can be overcome with the work of agitation that shows the masses the way out of this difficult situation in which the people and the country find themselves, denouncing the social forces that are an obstacle to that way out. This work of agitation is reinforced by putting forward appropriate demands, slogans and forms of struggle among the masses.

Especially in Greece, certain small groups (that also have weaknesses) have proposed relatively advanced demands and platforms. But the forces capable of influencing the movement are not even concerned with organizing the work necessary to promote the fight on all fronts. The absence or great weakness of a revolutionary class party, has been felt strongly, as it cannot influence the movement.

Linked to the evolution of the world economy, the period that is beginning will be one of further degradation of the living and working conditions for the workers and peoples, a period of intense economic and political attacks, of discontent, anger and militancy among workers, as well as sharpening of inter-imperialist contradictions and conflicts. We must draw lessons and conclusions from the recent developments and the historical experience of the working class and peoples; we must advance, renewing our work and reorganizing our parties.

Tunisia, November 2012

Source

Party of Labour of Iran (Toufan): Condemn the Despicable Assassination of Chokri Belaid in Tunisia!

Chokri Belaid, a popular, prominent, and tireless fighter for the freedom and independence of Tunisia was assassinated in front of his house on the morning of February 6, 2013. Comrade Chokri was the general secretary of the United Party of Patriotic Democrats (PUPD) of Tunisia and a leading member of the Popular Front, a coalition of democratic and left wing forces including the Workers’ Party (PT) of Tunisia.

The criminal assassination of Chokri Belaid is one among a series of repressive acts and barbaric attacks against the activists of the Popular Front that have been carried out for a while with the backing and support of the Tunisian government led by Ennahda Islamic Party. As Comrade Hemma Hemmami, the spokesperson of the Front and the leading figure of PT stated: “The government as a whole is responsible for this crime”.

The barbaric assassination of Comrade Chokri Belaid reminds us of the gradually increasing offensive acts of the reactionary forces of the regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran, soon after they took power, against the advancement of the Iranian Revolution and against the secular and radical left forces in Iran.

Chokri Belaid strongly opposed the “elected” government of Tunisia dominated by the Ennahda Islamic Party, the Party that was put in power through conspiracy, deception, election rigging, and imperialist backing.

The assassination of Chokri Belaid is a vile act that stems from, on the one hand, the weakness and sagging power of the present reactionary rulers in Tunisia and, on the other hand, the advances of the Popular Front. The democratic and revolutionary forces in Tunisia are extending and deepening their influence among the labourers, toilers, deprived masses, and intellectuals. They are holding high the banner of their national-democratic revolution. This has frightened the regime and decaying forces. The assassins not only have targeted Comrade Chokri and PUPD, but also have targeted all democratic and left forces, the trade unions, the women organizations, all secular and progressive institutions. All these forces were and are under the offenses of the dark and reactionary forces backed by the Ennahda movement.

The Party of Labour of Iran (Toufan) strongly condemns the assassination of Chokri Belaid and expresses solidarity with his immediate family, with the United Party of Patriotic Democrats, and with the United Front. We call on all revolutionary and progressive forces of all lands to condemn the reactionary regime of Tunisia for this despicable act and other ongoing criminal offenses against the people of Tunisia.

The Party of Labour of Iran (Toufan) supports the struggle of the Tunisian people for the continuation of their revolution. We support the Popular Front, the force that is fighting for deepening the revolution and establishing a national and democratic order. We continue to expose the criminal Islamic regime of Tunisia headed by Ennahda, a regime that is backed by imperialists and the remnants of Ben Ali regime.

The Party of Labour of Iran (Toufan) supports the call by trade unions and the Popular Front for general strikes, for dissolution of the government, and for the formation of a new democratic constitutional assembly.

Long Live the Tunisian Revolution!
Down with Imperialism and Reaction!
Long Live International Solidarity!

The Party of Labour of Iran (Toufan)
February 7, 2013

WWW.Toufan.org
Toufan@toufan.org

Source

Tunisia’s ‘unfinished revolution’ — interview with Workers’ Party militant

By Peter Boyle

November 16, 2012 – Green Left Weekly – Abdel Jabbar Madouri (pictured above) has been a militant in Tunisia since his early secondary school days. He was jailed three times (in 1987,1993 and 2002) because of his political activism. After every arrest, he was tortured and then sentenced to more then 12 years in jail. Madouri spent four years in hiding during the Ben Ali regime. He was also deprived of the right to work or to obtain a passport.

Madouri is also novelist and member of the League of Free Writers and some of his novels were banned by the dictatorship. Today he is member of the national committee of the Tunisian Worker’s Party and is editor of its newspaper Sawt Echaab(People’s Voice).

Green Left Weekly interviewed Madouri by internet with with the assistance of and translation from Arabic by Tunisian journalist Haithem Mahjoubi.

* * *

The sacrifice of the young Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi opened a new wave of popular revolt across the Arabic countries and beyond to Spain and eventually the whole world through the Occupy movement. But how much has been gained by the revolution in Tunisia? Is the democratic space still opening up?

We can say that this revolution has achieved certain aims such as the abolition of the ex-ruling party (though elements of it still operate freely but with little public support), freedom of expression and media and also the dissolution of the hated secret police, if only in a formal way.

The revolution also achieved for the first time a democratic election despite some failures and lack of transparency and equal opportunity in the election campaigns. The election of the constituent assembly was one of the goals that people fought to achieve, unfortunately, the Islamic Ennahdha coalition exploited the revolution win a majority in those elections.

Many of the tasks of the revolution remain unfinished because of the strength of the forces of counter revolution seeking to circumvent the revolution. Among these unfinished tasks are the enforcement of accountability; an investigation and end to corruption in government institutions; a purge state agencies, bringing those responsible to account for crimes against the people – especially putting on trial those who murdered the martyrs of the struggle – and redress for their victims.

What has been achieved by the one-year-old Constituent Assembly? And did the workers’ movement and the left have much input into its decisions?

More then a year after the election, the Constituent Assembly has still not drafted laws that reflecting the demands of the revolution. With the majority of assembly members, of representatives, Ennahdha is able to pass laws for its own benefit. This has made it clear to the people that this is no revolutionary government but a government of a new dictatorship working against the completion of the tasks of the revolution.

The people’s rejection of this government can be seen in the growing demonstrations and sit-ins in public squares and in the streets in front of government offices.

So the revolutionary process is moving slowly along with the transitional to equality.

Amnesty International says there have been some reversals of the democratisation. Protesters, activists and journalists have been attacked. What is the situation for freedom of political expression and organisation?

The Ennahda government has used the Islamic fundamentalist Salafist militias to attack independent journalists so that it dominate public media and put its loyal supporters and allies in charge of the main media institutions. It has refused to put to into practice laws guaranteeing media freedom and establishing an independent commission for information.

So, journalists are still fighting for independence and freedom.

What is the state of the trade union movement? How strong is your party in the trade union movement? Is there a problem with corruption and co-option of trade union leaders by the capitalist parties and the state?

The General Union of Tunisian Workers (UGTT) is the biggest union in Tunisia. The UGTT has been organised since 1952 and is playing a very important role in fighting the government’s plans.

It is true that this union suffered from corruption during the Ben Ali regime, but after the revolution it has regained its integrity, energy and a leading role social and political struggles in cooperation all with other popular organisations.

The Worker’s Party is is very strong in the UGTT. The trade union movement is working with the newly formed Popular Front, which was launched in October by 12 political parties that are all active in the UGTT.

The constituent parties of the Popular Front are left-wing parties and progressive nationalists that participated in the revolution and suffered repression under former dictatorship.

The Popular Front is the now largest political force apart from the ruling Ennahda and the “Tunisia Appeal” party, which represents the remnants of the old regime.

How much danger does Tunisia face from the religious fundamentalists?

Islamic fundamentalism remains part of the political landscape of Tunisia and occasionally expresses itself through attacks on bars, artists and police. Some fundamentalists have been killed in clashes with the police.

But the popular resistance has led to the isolation and decline of the influence of the fundamentalists. The recent manifestations of Salafist violence is due to growing government complicity with these groups.

There have been some recent significant strikes in Tunisia. Can you explain what this was about?

We’ve been organising several workers’ campaigns to claim three main things. First, the passing and implementation of the laws to regulate working conditions which remain precarious for most workers. Second, wage increases to keep up with the rising cost of living and better working conditions, especially working hours and occupational safety. Third, regulation of employment and dismissal of workers in public institutions.

Can you explain the recent protests about women’s rights in Tunisia?

Since it came to power the current government has tried to circumvent the demand for women’s rights, especially in relation to polygamy, the regulation of the minimum age of marriage and gender equality in rights and duties. But its attempts have failed because of the resistance from civil society, including the women’s associations which are very strongly engaged. Still the struggle women’s rights in Tunisia remains strong challenge.

Will the elections promised for June 2013 satisfy the popular will in Tunisia? How well do you expect the left to do in this elections? What are the prospects of a new revolutionary upsurge?

The revolutionary forces are aiming to be influential in next June’s election and to use these elections as an opportunity to achieve the demands for which the people revolted.

Our most important goal is providing employment, freedom and ending our country’s dependency on the great imperialist powers.

It is certain that the left led by the Popular Front will be active and influential in this election. According the last opinion poll, the Workers Party had 6% of the vote and is in the fourth place. But it is expected that the Popular Front would get more than 15% of the vote in the coming elections.

Because of the deterioration of the living conditions of the Tunisian people and the government’s inability to deal with these situations, a second revolution in Tunisia is also expected. The Popular Front is ready for this eventuality and prepared to lead such a revolution to achieve its goals.

What is your party’s view of the developments in Libya and Syria? Are the imperialist powers beginning to successfully manipulate the “Arab Spring”?

The imperialist powers are collaboration with reactionary regimes in the Arabic region especially Qatar and Saudi Arabia and they have succeeded in thwarting revolution in Syria by converting it from a popular uprising to a devastating and dirty civil war.

In Libya, the situation looks somewhat different, especially since the Libyans began rebuilding state institutions. But the Libyan revolution needs to make a lot more struggle to achieve Libyan people’s demands.

The imperialist powers are working hard to control the situation in the countries of the so-called “Arab spring” so they are aiming to find help customers in the area especially after the coming to power of Islamist parties in Tunisia and Egypt and their collaboration with the imperialist-Zionist agenda. In the other side, there are the ongoing revolutionary processes and the parties that lead them in both these countries.

Source

Fighting the Bigger Oppressor First

A Syrian detainee, who was arrested over participation in the protests against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, is seen in a prison vehicle at Damascus police leadership building to sign his release papers 11 July 2012. (Photo: Reuters – Khaled al- Hariri)

By: Amal Saad-Ghorayeb

In March 2011, a commentator for al-Jazeera wrote: “Events in Egypt and Tunisia have revealed that Arab unity against internal repression is stronger than that against foreign threat.” While this may have been an over-generalization at the time, events in Syria have borne out this assumption. This is due to the deep polarization between Arabs who place primacy on opposition to the Syria regime’s authoritarianism and Arabs who view such opposition as secondary to Assad’s struggle against imperialism and Zionism.

In this essay, I will outline the main moral and intellectual considerations informing the resistance or anti-imperialist camp’s (known as mumanaists in Arabic) prioritization of confronting imperialism over other forms of domination.

The Violence in Syria is Misrepresented

Although supporters of the Syrian opposition often accuse this camp of being ready to countenance any type of violence, no matter how heinous, in the interests of the resistance priority, this accusation ignores the fact that the seeming consensus on the nature and scope of the violence in Syria is a purely manufactured one. Mumanaists do not view the current violence engulfing Syria as a dictatorial regime’s one-sided brutal suppression of peaceful protesters, as is commonly misrepresented in mainstream media, but rather, as a civil war by proxy that the Syrian army was dragged into as it sought to stamp out a US-NATO-GCC-backed armed insurrection.

While supporters of the Syrian uprising contend that this perception of the conflict is designed to reduce the cognitive dissonance produced by the regime’s brutality, few mumanaists harbor the illusion that the regime is not repressive. What they do believe, however, is that the extent of this repression has been grossly distorted by mainstream media. To bolster their argument, they point to a growing number of mainstream media reports which have admitted to the existence a singular master-narrative that is widely used to frame the conflict.

As acknowledged by the BBC in its recent self-study on its coverage of the “Arab Spring”, “journalism is not an exercise in simply relaying raw and untreated facts to the audience…This cannot be done without some sort of framework – if you will, a “narrative” – and therefore the construction of such a narrative by journalists should not be treated as if it were a sin in itself.”

Writing on Syria in the Sunday Times, Peter McKay contends that “It’s not simply uprisings by ground-down peasants against tyrants who repress them. It’s about a transfer of power to rival clans and/or religious groups. About a continuation of the old US-Russia Cold War stand-off.” In a similar vein, the BBC’s world news editor, Jon Williams, has recently admitted in a blog post on Syria that “stories are never black and white – often shades of grey.”

But such admissions are the exception rather than the norm in a psych-ops campaign that is stage-managed by US-NATO-GCC information warlords to bring about a military victory for proxy forces. At the helm of this campaign are politically embedded journalists, political activists and human rights representatives who work in concert to ensure that all coverage of the Syrian crisis remains confined within a carefully guarded body of self-referential “evidence.”

The effectiveness of this information warfare in enlisting public opinion in support of military intervention is substantiated by the aforementioned BBC report: “No doubt these reports…helped stimulate empathy for the [Libyan] rebel cause among the British public, and thereby to facilitate, if not actually bring about the NATO intervention – as similar reports had done in northern Iraq as long ago as 1991.”

Imperialism Cannot Be Equated with Authoritarianism

The second premise guiding the resistance camp’s position on Syria is that imperialism cannot be equated either morally or politically with authoritarianism, let alone demoted to a secondary rank. By contrast, the liberal democratic impulse driving the “Arab Spring” has led some to declare the obsolescence of anti-imperialism as a unifying force in the region. Al-Jazeera commentator Lamis Andoni epitomizes this view with her assertion that “The old ‘wisdom’ of past revolutionaries that liberation from foreign domination precedes the struggle for democracy has fallen.” In the new Arab Spring vernacular, revolutionary struggle is no longer synonymous with resisting US-NATO interventions and Israeli aggression, but has come to mean confronting internal repression even when that confrontation benefits the Empire and its colonial outpost, Israel.

Furthermore, this new liberal political discourse and the preeminent status accorded to securing internal freedoms has served to effectively remove Palestine from the forefront of Arab concerns. In effect, Palestine has been relegated to just another Arab nation which is responsible for freeing itself from its own domestic, i.e. intra-Palestinian, authoritarian rulers, over and above its Israeli oppressors. The mumanaists’ response to this logic is multi-pronged.

As a matter of principle, neither Palestine nor questions of national self-determination in general are viewed as fashions; justice doesn’t go out of style for truly conscientized and committed intellectuals and activists for whom Palestine remains the cornerstone of Arab political identity. What is more, the resistance camp sees this new trend of reducing Palestine to a national cause that belongs exclusively to the Palestinians as a very dangerous development that requires Arabs to unlearn generations of political socialization in order to expunge Palestine from their political consciousness.

Some supporters of the Syrian opposition have argued that the insistence on maintaining the primacy of the Palestinian cause over the concern with authoritarianism, and the concomitant precedence given to Israeli violence over the Assad regime’s repression, is tantamount to claiming that Syrian blood is cheaper than Palestinian blood. But this charge misunderstands the extent of Israel’s iniquity by locating it solely in Zionist aggression, human rights violations or in the circumstances of the occupation. The resistance camp conceives of Israel as the greatest injustice because of its very existence and the unprecedented nature of its oppression, which renders it not merely a human rights cause, but humanity’s cause.

As detailed by the Never Before Campaign for Palestine: “What happened in Palestine since 1947 has never happened before, in terms of the combination of the elements: brutality and racism of the occupier, the injustice of granting one peoples land to others, duration of this injustice, complicity and apathy of the civilized world as well as Palestinian people’s will to resist all that against all odds.”

Even on the level of violence alone, Israel’s violence by far exceeds any domestic repression in so far as it is systematic and genocidal violence that is deeply embedded in its military ethos and strategic culture. Indeed, the celebration of violence is part of its collective consciousness as illustrated by a number of recent examples on social media where many Israelis celebrated the killing of Palestinian children. More importantly for mumanaists, any parallels drawn with Israel are Zionist-enabling in so far as comparing Israel’s violence with that practiced by repressive Arab regimes, legitimizes Israel’s existence as just another authoritarian regime in the region.

Not only are such comparisons with Israel morally and ideologically indefensible, but the very equivalence between imperialism and authoritarianism is an intellectually flawed one that is rooted in a liberal-leftist tradition that conceives of all deployments of power as being equally coercive and oppressive, irrespective of the global hierarchy of power.

In the mumanaists’ conceptual hierarchy of oppression, imperialism and authoritarianism are situated in two entirely different levels of domination. This rank-ordering is not based on an ideological abstraction that is divorced from political reality or on the rhetorical value of anti-imperialist sentiment, but on immediate, practical concerns. Imperialism is not evil because it is practiced by the West, but because it harms people’s lives and interests. Empire kills; it kills vast amounts of people, whether it occupies countries directly or intervenes militarily, economically or politically, it is responsible for innumerable deaths, destruction and impoverishment of all those in its wake.

Thus, viewed from a purely utilitarian perspective, or according to a basic cost-benefit calculus, there is no comparison between the type of violence autocratic regimes exercise when they repress dissent and the death and devastation wreaked by Empire. This moral logic would still hold even if we were to set aside the Assad regime’s anti-imperialist and resistance credentials and assume it was neutral on Palestine; when faced with a choice between the Assad regime’s repression on the one hand and the threat of NATO invasion, coupled with the externally-instigated sectarian civil war and terrorism on the other, anti-imperialists and the majority of Syrians alike will choose the former, especially when they don’t have the luxury of rejecting both.

Resisting Regimes Safeguard Collective Rights and Freedom

If anti-imperialists place far greater political and moral value on resisting the Empire than on unseating autocratic regimes, then surely that is even more so the case when those regimes themselves resist imperialism. As in the case of Syria, anti-imperialist leaders are identified with a set of rights and a concept of freedom that is considered far more conducive to democracy, justice and dignity than the western liberal discourse of “human rights” which is informed by the “negative freedom” from authority.

While not rejecting liberal freedoms outright, anti-imperialists view liberal freedoms that stress the individual’s right to be free from government interference and coercion as being secondary to positive and liberationist conceptions of freedom which affirm human agency and self-determination. As critiqued by political theorist, Anthony Bogues, “when freedom morphs only into rights, then the very question of freedom itself is delinked from other forms of domination other than political authority.” Indeed, it could be argued that the universalization of the Euro-American-centric human rights doctrine that has come to dominate the Arab Spring freedom discourses, serves to obscure imperialism and foreign domination.

The great anti-colonialist thinker, Franz Fanon, anticipated this intellectual colonization by liberal rights discourses when he wrote: “History teaches us clearly that the battle against colonialism does not run straight away along the lines of nationalism. For a very long time the native devotes his energies to ending certain definite abuses: forced labour, corporal punishment, inequality of salaries, limitation of political rights, etc. This fight for democracy against the oppression of mankind will slowly leave the confusion of neo-liberal universalism to emerge, sometimes laboriously, as a claim to nationhood. It so happens that the unpreparedness of the educated classes, the lack of practical links between them and the mass of the people, their laziness, and, let it be said, their cowardice at the decisive moment of the struggle will give rise to tragic mishaps.”

Clearly cognizant of their deviation from the anti-imperialist struggle, Arab Spring intellectuals attempt to reconcile this disconnect between liberal freedoms and liberationist freedom by arguing that liberation from western hegemony and Israeli occupation can only be achieved once freedom from internal tyranny is won. Andoni contends that “combating internal injustice – whether practiced by Fatah or Hamas – is a prerequisite for the struggle to end Israeli occupation and not something to be endured for the sake of that struggle.”

But this logic operates in a geo-political intellectual void which elides any kind of world systems analysis’ recognition of the hegemony exercised by core nations over peripheral ones. In a world order characterized by an uneven division of labour, the notion of achieving any kind of comprehensive and far-reaching internal change without a commensurate change in the global balance of power, is futile.

If there cannot be genuine revolutionary change from within, given prevailing power disparities on the international level, then the expectation that domestic change will inevitably balance out global power asymmetries is nothing short of liberal self-delusion. It is precisely this reasoning which undergirds mumanaists’ claim that liberation from foreign domination is a prerequisite to genuine democratic change.

Furthermore, resistance intellectuals and activists maintain that there can be no progress or democracy in the Arab world so long as a colonial implant like Israel continues to exist in our midst, perpetually threatening our security. Viewed from this lens, liberating Palestine is the prerequisite for the democratization of the region.

As such, mumanaists prioritize a collectivist notion of rights that emphasizes people’s rights as opposed to human rights. In this collectivist understanding of the term, freedom is conceived as liberation from foreign domination and oppression and the pursuit of self-determination. In effect, to be free is not to be left alone, unencumbered by external constraints and hindrances, but to struggle for justice. Seyyid Hassan Nasrallah provides the clearest definition of what this freedom entails: “[it is] not just the blood of a man, the fate of a woman, the crushed bones of a child, or a piece of bread stolen from the mouth of a poor or hungry person. It is the issue of a people, a nation, a fate, holy places, history, and the future.”

In other words, the ultimate purpose of freedom for Arab mumanaists is not merely the protection of various civil and political rights of the individual, but the trans-historical collective right of the umma in its past, present and future manifestations. In this dispensation, freedom and democracy are not reduced to procedural aspects like elections and political reforms as they are in western liberal thought, but more substantially, the ability of peoples enjoying popular sovereignty to shape their own political identity, control their national resources and participate in determining their national destiny.

Amal Saad-Ghorayeb is a Lebanese academic and political analyst. She is author of the book, “Hizbullah: Politics and Religion”, and blogger at ASG’s Counter-Hegemony Unit.

Source

EMEP: Tunisian Workers Communist Party Changes Its Name

The leader of the Communist Party of Tunisian Workers (PCOT) Hamma Hammami gestures during a press conference on March 19, 2012 in Tunis. Tunisia is in a state of immobility five months after the election of members of the National Constituent Assembly (ANC) and three months after the appointment of a new transitional authority “, said Mr Hammami. AFP PHOTO/ FETHI BELAID (Photo credit should read FETHI BELAID/AFP/Getty Images)

Please note that this is a computer translation from Turkish and is not entirely accurate.

— Espresso Stalinist

Tunisian Workers’ Communist Party (PCOT) resulted in an on-site-standing name change debate. Party, the Workers’ Party of Tunisia as a way to continue after that.

Secretary-General of the party that Hamma Hammami, a tactical move in order to reach a wider audience, he said. Hammami, communism, religion, or that their decision is effective in keeping identical hostility, he said.

Hammami, change the name of the party does not mean that changes in the political line, Tunisian Workers’ Party, a Marxist-Leninist party would continue to fight, he said. There were no changes in the party’s program and constitution.

Hammami, “Tactical had to make a choice, or Islamists communism ‘is anti-religion,’ the propaganda would spend the time or the strength to tell you that’s not true, people use it to unite around the Party program, and thus the workers, the youth, the other sections of the struggle for socialism kazanabilecektik” he said.

Hammami who launched a propaganda campaign in this direction, distributing press party program stated that 500 thousand units.

Workers’ Party of Tunisia opened 60 new party organization in the region, the next step is planning to open dozens more recording Hammami, this process strengthened the party’s youth organization said. (FOREIGN NEWS)

Source

Tunisian Workers Communist Party Changes Name to Tunisian Workers Party

Tunisia’s eminent communist political party, the Tunisian Communist Workers Party (POCT), has officially changed its name to Tunisian Workers Party (POT). POT decided to omit the word “communist” from their title following a series of discussions that have been ongoing since February that concluded with a general referendum within the party.

“Our goal is to avoid the stereotype most Tunisians would think of when hearing the word ‘communist’,” said Mohamed Mzam, a representative of POT. Mzam stated that the name change came as a response to, “numerous admirers of the party who were suspicious about our ideology.”

Mzam explained that programs and agendas of political parties are more important than their ideologies. “Tunisians should focus on what a political party is committed to offer them on political, social, and economic levels,” he said.

Additionally, POT has participated in discussions concerning the formation of a coalition of progressive, leftist, political parties and independent politicians. “We held a meeting on Sunday during which nine parties announced that they’ll join the front. We, the coalition, aim at representing a political alternative to the two major political poles: Ennahdha and ‘pro-Dostouri’s [supporters of ideology the party of Tunisia's first president Habib Bourguiba],” Mzam added.

Hama Hammami, the secretary general of POT, told Mosaique FM radio that the Wafa movement – consisting of former members of the Congress of the Republic (CPR) – might join the coalition as well. “Both POT and the Wafa movement have a lot in common. We share similar political history with opposition and oppression by the previous regime,” Mzam reiterated.

Source

Tunisian Youth Arrested in Morocco to be Released

Nineteen year old Tunisian, Aymen Bhiri, will be released today from Moroccan police custody reported Radio Kalima. He was arrested for participating in an unemployment protest on Saturday in Casablanca.

Bhiri, a member of the Tunisian Communist Workers Party (POCT), was in Morocco to meet with friends and activists there, according to Mohamed Mzem, a representative from POCT.

Mzem was concerned about Bhiri’s status in Morocco, as the Moroccan authorities had promised to release him yesterday. “They had promised they were going to release him ,but nothing happened,” said Mzem.

POCT members have been active in calling for Bhiri’s return to Tunisia. “Some members of the party protested in front of the Moroccan embassy in Tunis over the kidnapping of Bhiri,” added Mzem. It was only this afternoon that Moroccan authorities finally announced their decision to release Bhiri.

Source

Young Tunisian comrade kidnapped and expelled by the Moroccan secret services

On 1 July, the young Tunisian Ayman Elbahri, a member of our party PCOT was kidnapped by the Moroccan secret services outside the headquarters of the Democratic Way, in the heart of Casablanca. Ayman, who had participated in Sunday’s march called by the Movement February 20, regularly visits Morocco to support the struggles at home and in solidarity with the movement of unemployed graduates.

This Monday morning, the Democratic Way comrades still no news of Ayman. The night before, many young people the February 20 Movement of Democratic Path of PADS … gathered outside the Wilaya At Amne to demand the release of militant young Tunisian.

Finally, on Tuesday we learned that our comrade was eventually released and expelled from the country, although there is free movement agreements between Morocco and Tunisia. Our fellow Moroccans are reporting these facts, based on these agreements.

Tunisian Communist Workers’ Party: Statement

Please note this translation is done by Google from the original Arabic and will not be of high quality.

— E.S.

Statement
June 12 (June)

Found in recent acts of violence and vandalism, arson and intimidation of citizens carried out by groups of bearded announces affiliation of the current Salafi in different regions of the country of Tunisia, and targeting these criminal acts, public and private property and caused a state of terror and chaos, especially areas of Sidi Bouzid, Jendouba … All under the pretext of “defending Islam and the holy places” and as “addressing the law violators.”

Has handled the “troika” of the ruling with this business, despite the condemnation of the immense popularity with what caused disruption and confusion on the interests and demands of citizens, Petrakh blatantly depth of discontent in the political circles and civil society, despite the language of intimidation used by some authority figures (such as: “Has space “- Noureddine Beheiri -,” We will implement the law on any act of violence “- broad -,” We will come who are involved in the atonement “- President equitable Marzouqi) in order to ward off and remove the charge of complicity of power with this trend, which has become loose hands and completely out of law unchecked and that the testimony of all.

Having taken these actions oriented Ascending serious since yesterday under the pretext of “defending the sanctities” and “fight the unbelievers” in reference to the incident exhibition fees to “Alabdlah,” This has coincided escalation with the lawsuit inflammatory explicit launched by “Ayman al-Zawahiri,” the fighting and the Declaration of Jihad against the whoever does not accept application of Shariah espoused by al-Qaeda.

Has started since the time of burning and destruction of many institutions, each of the “Mr. Hussein”, and “Jendouba” and “Marina” and “neighborhood solidarity” to affect the headquarters of political parties (Communist Workers Party of Tunisia, the movement of national Democrats, the Republican Party …) and the headquarters of the General Union of Tunisian Workers, centers and areas of security (Alsajuma, Sousse, Hay Riad, dizziness Hicher …).

And the Tunisian Communist Workers’ Party condemns explicitly acts of violence and vandalism, looting, arson and expresses its solidarity with all affected parties and citizens and institutions, to assure care for the general national public opinion as follows:

- To stir up the call to the fighting between the Tunisian whatever Motaha Whatever the cover and the subsequent acts of violence, arson and sabotage can not in any way serve the interests of the Tunisian people, representing a serious threat to unity, but can only serve the interests of constituencies and parties hostile to the revolution , you want to pay the people of Tunisia in the maze of violence and fighting and serving foreign agendas that stand against the people’s liberation from all forms of plunder, exploitation and subordination.

- These repeated actions which are based most often on the pretext of “defending the religion and sanctities,” has been associated with – always suspiciously – a growing popular movement and the social and the escalation of the licit movement demanding goals of the revolution in dignity and social justice, taking on dimensions most dangerous as it is located employment religion and manipulate the feelings of Muslims and the involvement of Bmekdsat people in the conflict raging between the forces of the government to circumvent the Revolution, both within and outside the government.

- Held responsible head of the government, which seeks in all shapes to impose its hegemony and to continue to circumvent the demands of the revolution, seeking to criminalize all motionless my demand and certified speech inciting against all opposers opinion employee which in many cases, religion and religious institutions, deliberate inaction in dealing with this file and in the truth of the Tunisian about the fact that these groups are suspicious outlaw Almsemsrh and religion to justify acts of terrorism and criminal in the right of citizens.

- Open calls for serious and independent investigation on the violence and vandalism, arson and perpetrators held accountable and reveal their links and their funding sources. (Financiers).

- Calls on all democratic forces and civil to unite in the face of this blatant threat to the security and freedom of citizens of the country and the unity of real substance to achieve the objectives of the revolution.

It also goes the Labour Party to the general public including young people Salafi and invite them to not to be drawn behind these calls for fighting and rivalry between the sons of one people, because the interest of the Tunisian people in his unit on the basis of completion of tasks the revolution and against all the forces of counter-revolution internal and external that you want to return the country to the rule tyranny.

Tunisian Communist Workers’ Party
Tunisia 12 June 2012

Free Libya is Green Libya: Supporting the Real Libyan Revolution

by W. Yusef Doucet

“Will they now stand up and assume the real leadership necessary to make themselves relevant, or is overcoming their class allegiance to the Western bourgeoisie just too much to fathom? That’s probably too much to expect from a class trained to protect the interests of its benefactors in order to protect its own narrow interests. I guess this great task is up to the world’s African workers and peasants.”

For eight months now, NATO has executed an open crime against a sovereign African state and called it a democratic revolution. Libya was a stable, prosperous, debt-free country in Africa until it came under attack in February. The United States and the European Union cynically seized the opportunity provided by the genuine people’s movements in Tunisia and Egypt where the Western backed administrations were forced to remove their heads of state in attempts to manage the popular democratic movements in the streets. The U.S. and E.U. rapidly exploited the monarchist and “Islamist” resentment long present in Benghazi. The democratic aspirations of this opposition in Libya was dubious from the beginning, and within days of the actual opposition demonstrations that were not unusual in Benghazi, the “peaceful demonstrators” attacked a police station and suddenly emerged as a full-fledged armed faction. That U.S. and E.U. country Special Forces and intelligence forces had been on the ground from the very beginning arming and guiding what has become the National Transitional Council has become clear, and who denies the fact?

Even now, as this coalition claims to be the true and legal representatives of the wishes of the Libyan people, they represent maybe 5 percent of Libyans. They are an illegitimate entity thrust upon Libya by the force of NATO military power, and still they have not defeated the Jamahiriyah, the People’s Government of Libya. Through their actions, NATO has declared once again that no country can impart upon an independent path of development and an indigenous, culturally specific experiment with democracy. The West claims a monopoly on the meaning, form and practice of democracy, and the intellectuals, journalists and pundits in the West have shown themselves unable to remove the prejudices that convince them that democracy must look like and smell like the elite bourgeois democracy of the imperial countries. These are the same liberal bourgeois republics and constitutional monarchies that have perpetrated more than two hundred years of slavery, colonialism, and genocide attendant to capitalist production over the centuries. That doesn’t smell very good!

Through mainstream media, these professional talkers and writers made and continue to make the ground and air war palatable. Mainstream capitalist media rarely break with the official story offered by government. However on Libya, they have aggressively disseminated misinformation about Libyan society and the character of the uprising. Not every rebellion is a revolution. The media’s uncritical representation of the factions that would become the NTC cast them as democratic freedom fighters rather than investigate their reactionary monarchism and fundamentalism. Moreover, the media all but ignore the aggressive genocide taking place against the native Black population and migrant worker population. Early in the conflict, media spread the lie of “African mercenaries,” thus facilitating attacks against dark skinned Libyans and other Africans. Again, mainstream media reproduce the official story as a matter of course.

Unfortunately, the mainstream, corporate, pentagon friendly media were joined in the demonization of Gaddafi and the misrepresentation of the Jamahiriyah by the standard of progressive and liberal media in the United States, Democracy Now! and the Pacifica Network. Progressive/liberal media characterized the rebellion that began in Benghazi as a revolution rather than the counter revolution that it is. They provided airtime for opposition spokespersons and their supportive progressive and liberal analysts and pundits, which betrayed an antipathy to African and Arab revolutionary nationalism. They offered little to no air to voices in support of the Jamahiriyah; neither did they report on its democratic processes, again reproducing the government narrative. Those voices that make it onto Pacifica stations are brought on by independent producers like Dedon Kimathi at KPFK in Los Angeles and J.R. Valrey of Block Reportin’ at KPFK in Berkeley. Progressive/liberal media has been consistent in its unity with the mainstream on the question of Libya, revolutionary nationalist governments like Zimbabwe, and war in Africa, assuming their place in the continuum of the hegemonic narrative of empire. Much of the establishment Black press was only slightly better, refusing to criticize Obama directly, or doing so only obtusely, even when covering the anti-black violence of the NTC brigades. Tied to the two-party system, and especially the Democratic Party, the imperative to re-elect the undeserving Obama supersedes the duty to defend what was the most advanced country in Africa in regard to the human development of the population and a government that reached out to African Americans as members of the Pan-African nation. The Nation of Islam’s The Final Call’s coverage has been, on the other hand, exemplary.

Libya is the northern front in the re-assault on Africa. NATO countries engage in proxy war in Somalia while French troops continue muscularly to prop up the imposed government of Alassane Ouattara in Cote Ivoire, and now with troops on the ground in Central Africa, the U.S and Europe through AFRICOM has increasingly militarized their activities on the continent. These powers cannot abide African independence, nor will they allow China to continue to pursue its agenda in Africa unchallenged. As during the Cold War of the Twentieth Century, the US and EU again show their willingness to use African and Asian bodies in hot war to frustrate the interests of their competitors, this time capitalist-communist China. Where ever the U.S. and Europe are present in Africa, the countries are destabilized and in debt, and the people suffer. Despite their democratic rhetoric, their humanitarian rationalizations, and promises of economic growth, the Western presence in Africa, whether through diplomacy, covert and overt military intervention, economic investment, or settler channels, remains toxic. Now the poison flows through Libya, literally, as NATO has bombed both land and water with depleted uranium.

During the 1960s and 1970s, socialist and progressive sectors around the world recognized the heroism and thecorrectness of the Vietnamese people in their struggle against the U.S. inheritors of the French colonial project in Southeast Asia. The Vietnamese fought the most powerful military in the world and won the victory. Their struggle inspired revolutionaries across the Global South and among internal colonies in the Global North. Today Vietnam is a sovereign country.

Despite a number of independent journalists’ (e.g. Lizzie Phelan, Webster Tarpley, Stephen Lendmen, Gerald Perreira, and Thierry Meyssan) challenges to the dominant narrative on Libya, easily accessible on the internet and sometimes on cable news outlets like RT News, Libya still suffers from gross misrepresentations of the experiment in direct democracy and socialism embodied in the People’s Committees of the Jamahiriyah. Western professional progressives rarely take the vision expressed in the Green Book seriously, routinely falling into the “eccentric, flamboyant” Gaddafi” lazy reporting trap. The failure of what passes for leftist analysis in much of the U.S. and Europe to recognize the progressive and genuinely popular character of the Jamahiriyah makes them complicit in the disaster called the NTC that has befallen Libya. Nonetheless, the Libyan people continue to fight against the most powerful military alliance in the world, NATO. The NTC is nothing without NATO. The Green Resistance continues to fight. Libya is Vietnam. Can the Green Resistance rely on international support?

Libya is also Spain in the 1930s. During that struggle, the capitalist governments of the West stood by and watched the fascists bleed Republican Spain, despite material support from the Soviet Union, because in fact, they cared more about capitalist social relations and profits than they cared about democracy and the will of the Spanish people who elected the popular government. Today, they have destroyed the infrastructure of the most stable African country outside of Southern Africa, bombing them incessantly in support of racist, fascist and monarchist forces in the NTC who would have been defeated months ago if not for NATO air war. This time Russia failed to veto the key vote in the UN Security Council and can’t offer the same kind of material support, despite their distrust and defensive position vis-à-vis NATO. Their criticism of NATO since then, even as it helps challenge NATO’s narrative, still rings somewhat hollow. During the Spanish Civil War, progressive forces around the world organized themselves into international brigades to support the Spanish Republican and Loyalists forces materially and as brothers and sisters in arms. Can the international brigades today fly to Libya’s aid? Can African revolutionaries fight in Libya, knowing that the fight for Libya is the fight for Africa, and not care if they’re called mercenaries? What national African military will join the Green Resistance in its battle against a virulently anti-black, racist force in the NATO/NTC and the mercenaries they are now flying into Libya, like Xe (formerly Blackwater)?

Of course, now it is not so easy to offer material support or even ideological support to revolutionary movements. In the world of the Patriot Act, heightened security measures and full spectrum surveillance, one can quite quickly be arrested and disappeared for aiding and abetting “terrorism” if the group or movement one supports has been classified as a terrorist organization. Power has been very careful to police the degree to which groups and movements engaged in anti-imperialist and revolutionary struggle can be helped by exile and solidarity formations. The kind of fund raising and support that the ANC, the PAC, the PAIGC, the PLO, the IRA, the FMLN and similar movements enjoyed in the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s into the ‘90s is mostly illegal now. The governments of the NATO countries will not likely look easily on activists among their own citizens and residents dedicated to restoring the people’s government they have spent so much money and time bombing. The formation of a group like C.I.S.P.E.S. (Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador) or Witnesses for Peace who worked to support citizens and revolutionary parties in El Salvador and Nicaragua during the 1980s grows increasingly difficult in the current surveillance climate. Even so, those of us committed to African sovereignty, African continental and diasporic integration, to socialism and people’s democracy, and to a brighter future for humanity need to find ways to support the Green Resistance in Libya. We need to find ways to be international brigades for Libya. Free Libya is Green Libya.

More than two hundred years of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie is long enough. Liberation struggles and revolutionary governments must be supported despite differences on some ideological points. The fate of an individual is not what is at stake. Despite his defamation in the mainstream Western press, Gaddafi is being mourned by millions in Africa and around the world. This attack has short-circuited the move toward African continental integration that Gaddafi championed. He acted independently in the interests of Libya and Africa, and offered real material support for the integration of Africa under one, gold standard currency, one army, and continental governing institutions. He supported revolutionary and national liberation struggles around the world. He was a genuine anti-imperialist. For many of us, the opinions of Minister Louis Farrakhan, Ms. Cynthia KcKinney and Warrior Woman of the Dine Nation matter more than the opinions expressed by the U.S. State Department and 10 Downing Street and disseminated by the New York Times, Le Figaro, CNN, AL Jazeera, et al. The Jamahiriyah is a genuinely popular government that has come under attack by the most powerful and advanced militaries in the world, yet they continue to hold out despite the loss of the revolutionary leader. Who speaks out? Who can help restore Libya and a united Africa? NATO, the UN and the NTC trivialized the African Union during this debacle, rendering the body all but ceremonial. Will they now stand up and assume the real leadership necessary to make themselves relevant, or is overcoming their class allegiance to the Western bourgeoisie just too much to fathom? That’s probably too much to expect from a class trained to protect the interests of its benefactors in order to protect its own narrow interests. I guess this great task is up to the world’s African workers and peasants.

W. Yusef Doucet is a faculty member of the Santa Monica College English Department. He co-founded and facilitated the Dyamsay Writers’ Workshop in Santa Monica, CA, the Third Root Writers’ Workshop in Pomona, CA, and a poetry reading series at the Velocity Café in Santa Monica, CA. Yusef is currently working on a Ph.D. in Cultural Studies at Claremont Graduate University. His research interests include Fanonian analysis, the policing effect of integrationist/post-racialist ideology and anti-blackness in the modern symbolic order. Yusef keeps a blog at freeignace.wordpress.com.

Source

VI Congress of Emek Partisi

From En Marcha
# 1562 January 5 to 13, 2012

Resolution

We support the peoples who have rebelled for their rights and their freedom; we condemn the imperialist conspiracies against Syria and Iran.

Throughout 2011, the Arab peoples of North Africa and the Near East have risen one after another. They do not want to be victims of the consequences of the hegemony of monopoly capitalism nor to be subjected to poverty and unemployment, and they rejected the repression of the autocratic dictatorships that safeguarded such hegemony. The despotic regimes that have lasted for 30 to 40 years have been the main reason for the disorganization of the oppressed masses and have served as an obstacle to their attaining consciousness. The peoples who have risen up have achieved some victories but they have not been able to reap important fruits of this struggle, such as for example to achieve their own political power. Therefore, these reactionary bourgeois forces supported by Western imperialism have maintained or have tried to maintain their hegemony through the strengthening of their pillars with new collaborators, seeing that their hegemony was in difficulty.

The Arab peoples, who have risen up, have realized their potential and have tasted certain victories, which is why their struggles have still not been repressed in any country except for Libya. Despite their low level of consciousness and organization, the peoples are carrying forward their uprisings with an effort to try to overcome their weakness, and they insist on opposing the attacks by reactionary forces that have been organized especially by elements of political Islam, which has become more moderate and pro-American in almost all those countries.

We understand that the communist parties and organizations that are signing this document, gathered at the Sixth Congress of the Party of Labor of Turkey, express our pride and solidarity with the struggles of the masses of the people, not only in the Arab countries of North Africa and the Near East, but also in Europe, from Spain to Greece, and in Latin America, from Venezuela to Ecuador, for their social and popular rights and freedoms; as well we proclaim our support for the just struggle of the Palestinian people against the Zionist imperialism of Israel.

However, we are aware of the fact that our main weakness is the inadequate level of consciousness and organization of the peoples of the world, with a view to any process of struggle. The imperialists and their collaborators take advantage of this weakness in their efforts to renovate the weakened bases of their hegemony and to repress those struggles through ideological penetration and infiltration in those struggles of the peoples that imperialism claims to support, manipulating these struggles towards their own interests and eliminating the popular features of these struggles.

Western imperialism, which maintains hegemony in its hands and tries to strengthen its position in relation to the ascending imperialist powers, not only aims to reinforce its hegemony in the countries under its influence through the repression of the popular struggles, but also tries to establish its hegemony by extending its influence on the peoples and their struggles and using them as a tool in countries such as Syria and Iran, which have not yet been subjugated.

We do not support the regimes of either Assad or Khamenei. However, we stress the fact that the imperialist powers are intervening with the support of the reactionary forces in the region such as Turkey and the Saudis, in the name of support for the so-called “opposition” in Syria and Iran under the pretext of the struggle for “democracy” and “repression of the dictators”; these policies have nothing to do with the right of self-determination of the peoples or the democratic and social aspirations of peoples. We are opposed to imperialist interventions – economic as well as political and military – for whatever reason, whether they are called by their obliging collaborators or not, and we condemn such policies that only lead to war, bloodshed and suffering.

We call on the peoples of the world, especially the peoples of Syria and Iran, to be alert to the interventions and imperialist tricks such as those that have taken place in Libya, to show solidarity with the struggles of the peoples of the region and to support the fight against imperialism and its reactionary forces.

Ankara, December 2011

Communist Party of Albania
Communist Party of Benin
Party of Labor of Belgium
New Party of Cyprus
Marxist Leninist Communist Party of Ecuador
Communist Party of Spain (ML)
Organization for the Reconstruction of the Communist Party of Greece
Communist Party of the Workers of Tunisia
Emek Partisi of Turkey

Source

PCMLE: 2011 – A Year of Youth Mobilization & Struggle

En Marcha, January 5, 2012

The crisis of capitalism and its effects on the world worsened in the 2011, the demonstrations, protests and launched shots of places young people and made them key players in an intense struggle against unpopular regimes and policies demanding democracy, freedom and better living conditions.

The first country to move was Tunisia, which together with the leftist movement led to the overthrow of dictator Ben Ali Zine el Abidinee, for the January 14 fight was the center of Egypt against Mubarak’s government, who left office in spite of the help they received from U.S. imperialism, under pressure from workers, youth and workers in the streets demanding his departure.

As a Sunday May 15 young men called themselves the “outraged” completely filled Puerta del Sol in Spain and 150 seats, meeting under the cry of “real democracy now.” Despite trying to be evicted by the police, the youth confessed to have no more fear, “The voice of the people is not illegal,” shouted the protesters after hearing this news. They realized that failure is not the economy, is not corruption, is the capitalist system that unleashes the infamous dictatorship download the crisis on the shoulders of the people sparking outrage in Spain.

Education was the right on to South America, high school students in Argentina were the first at the Southern Cone ignited massive mobilizations in Buenos Aries expanding to the rest of the country, they ceased not put on alert the government of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.

The Chile government repression stirred the minds of students and workers who were brutally suppressed, the style Pinochet, the student movement called for a national day of action twice for 18 and 19 October, and demonstrated in different cities, to demand a free, quality education, looking at new measures as “cacerolazo” already reaching 7 months of continuous protest.

By September hundreds of young Americans filled the area of​Trinity Place in New York, meeting under the slogans “Enough of corruption,” “curb cuts” and “do not market our future.” Despite the police evicted the outskirts of the Wall Street Center. There is no force to press the voice of young people and so many fans of all ages acted on behalf of “a new society that gives priority to people over the economic and political interests.”

The youth became in 2011 an example of combat. Threats and other attacks on freedom not undermined the rebellious spirit of youth, much less have failed to intimidate his liberating power. Spain, Greece, Libya, England, Chile and the U.S. were built and continue to ignite the flame of youth protest and the workers and peoples and give added strength to continue fighting for higher wins.

Source

On the occasion of 26 anniversary of establishment of the Workers Party: Continue the struggle to achieve the goals of the revolution for freedom, social justice & national dignity

January 2

Today salutes the Tunisian Workers’ Communist Party of the 26 anniversary of its founding. On 3 January 1986, corresponding to the second anniversary of the uprising of the glorious bread, the Labour Party was born from the womb of political and social struggle against the system of employment and tyranny and persecution, as enshrined in the Constitution Party defunct on our people for decades.

The cessation of the Labour Party since its inception to the workers and the working and the people at large in the face of dictatorship. And was due to various types of oppression that cost him the martyrdom of one of the best of its militants, Comrade Nabil Prcaa, and dozens of trials and hundreds of prisoners, men and women who have been subjected to the worst kind of torture, displacement and deprivation of basic rights including the right to work, whether in the era of Bourguiba’s or Ben Ali. But that did not deter the Labour Party for steadfastness and not to compromise the interests of the people refused to recognize the coup, November 7, 1987 with blessing the majority of political forces at that time and continued defamation Bcanutatorath and Amalth circuits colonial and antagonism to the interests of the people of flagrant corruption and violation of the blatant liberties and human rights and participants from advanced positions in all political moves, popular and social to overthrow him and honor of the initial position of the MDC is not appeasement of tyranny and to cooperate with him or “try to repair it,” but the struggle revolutionary against him and the building of democracy on the ruins and not to bet on foreign powers to get rid of it but to go to the Tunisian people and work in the ranks for the uprising popular braided to overthrow the regime and the repressive apparatus and solve the election of a constituent assembly enact a new constitution lays the foundation for a democratic system for the people to achieve freedom and social justice and national dignity.

The events have confirmed the positions of the Labour Party. Have resulted in accumulations that have been achieved through the struggle of generations of Tunisian men and women, which was among the plants major student uprising and youth in February 1972 and the uprising unions on 26 January 1978 and bread riots in January 1984 and the uprising of the mining basin in 2008 and the uprisings of young people and families Jbeniana and Skhira Ben Guerdane in the summer of 2010, to the outbreak of a general popular uprising, triggered the first of Sidi Bouzid in the December 17 2010 and swept all the regions of the country and forced Ben Ali to flee on 14 January 2011. Attended the Labour Party and his youth (the Union of Communist Youth of Tunisia) and his current union (left associative democracy) in the revolution of the Tunisian people from advanced positions and contributed Manadilath and its militants in the framing of popular movements and sectoral various actors in the armed political slogans rooted and consolidated and the mouthpiece of the substantive demands of the people and draw plans devoted to the field. Has cost the party tens of detainees – including the Secretary-General – who were not released until after the flight of Ben Ali.

The Labour Party continued to struggle after the fall of Ben Ali was at the forefront of political and social movements and popular in order to complete the tasks of the revolution (trachea 1 and 2, a sit-Pardo, 1 …).

The revolution is not over, despite the election of a constituent national assembly and the appointment of a new government, the popular demands brought by the revolution has not been achieved mostly private and social and economic demands on the operator and the regional balance and social justice. The new coalition government continues to emphasize to continue the same economic and social choices of the former regime will not be eager only to send messages reassurance of the Chambers of capitalism foreign and domestic has not received from the working class and segments of the working poor and only call for austerity and threatening letters to deal Space with its actions legitimate for operating and improving the conditions of working and living. Instead of declaring that the “coalition” concrete actions to improve people’s conditions and its purchasing power and operation of his youth and the protection of Chgalih inactivated forms of precarious work and the collective expulsion he wants to download the implications of the economic crisis and protect the interests of the community Almstthreyh local and foreign.

Work on progress in achieving the goals of the revolution through the formulation of a progressive democratic constitution and the alleviation of the crisis on the social strata and classes of people need to fight for the immediate and concrete demands the following:

1 – approved minimum wage industrial and agricultural standard is 400 dinars a month.

2 – age grant unemployment estimated two-thirds of the minimum wage per month for each act out of work until receiving a job with the treatment and free movement.

3 – to freeze prices of basic consumer goods (cereals and their derivatives, vegetables, milk, medicines …) and the cost of electricity, water, gas and communications for two consecutive years at least.

4 – state intervention directly to the investment in order to create new jobs and the continent, especially in those that are disadvantaged and more unemployment.

5 – Increasing the grant university to 100 dinars, dissemination and enable all needy students, both girls and boys from the public right of residence at least three years of the study period.

6 – Review of the labor laws and control mechanisms in the direction of Cgalin protection from arbitrary eviction and precarious forms of work and the violation of their professional and social.

7 – to protect individual and public freedoms of every violation, whether state or groups of satisfaction and other pending enactment of a new constitution which guarantees and protects these freedoms.

8 – freeze the payment of external debt and its services for 3 years to ease the debt burden on the state budget and revenue guidance for the public investment.

9 – Adoption of a special tax on large fortunes and recover Fees Almtkhaldh tax owed by companies and institutions and the reduction in state expenditures and control the imports of luxury.

10 – the foundations for the rapid development of transitional justice and accountability of the killers of the martyrs and symbols of tyranny and corruption in the former regime and to ensure the immediate treatment of the wounded in order to preserve their lives and maintain their dignity.

11 – stand in front of all forms of prejudice to national independence and whatever emanating from the address of each direct foreign intervention, or by (Qatar …) in the affairs of the Tunisian people and their revolution.

The Labour Party will continue, as it was for six and twenty years have gone by, with the Tunisian people and to his part in defending the revolution and move it forward until a full investigation of its objectives.

Long live the Communist Workers Party of Tunisia
Long live the Revolution of Tunisia

Tunisian Communist Workers’ Party
3 January 2012

Source

Tunisia: Interview with Communist Workers’ Party (PCOT) leaders

Ted Walker interviews Samir Taamallah, Chrif Khraief and Jilani Hamemi

November 26, 2011 — Al-Thawra Eyewitness, posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with the author’s permission — I first met with Samir Taamallah, a former political prisoner and member of the central committee of the Communist Worker’s Party of Tunisia (PCOT), in Tunis on October 4, 2011, to discuss the October 23 Constituent Assembly election and Tunisia’s ongoing revolutionary struggle. The first part of the interview took place before the election. The follow-up interview part took place after the results were known.

* * *

How is the election campaign going?

Samir Taamallah: We are still in the beginning of the campaign – opening offices in all regions, getting together the essential means of a campaign; these things are not easy for a party without major financial support like ours! We are working in communities, printing flyers and posters, distributing as much of our material as we can with few resources. In addition, we are also profiling ourselves on the internet – through Facebook, Twitter, our website.

What issues have you been campaigning on?

We’ve mainly been campaigning on three fronts – the political, the social and the economic.

On the political side, the issue is how to write the constitution and how the new parliament will be formed. We are struggling for the new constitution to defend freedom of thought and belief, individual liberty, gender equality and the right of employment. On this front, we are also looking for a change with Tunisia’s foreign relations, especially its relationship with Israel.

On the social front, we are fighting for essential services to be made available to all citizens – free health care, free education, free housing – as well as for fairer income levels to address inequality. Right now we are calling for an increase in the minimum wage to around 400 dinars a month to keep up with inflation.

On economic issues, we are part of the campaign to suspend debt service payments, and to channel this money towards investmentment in Tunisia. At least in the short term, we need to cancel these payments if we are to develop our economy. We are also encouragining Tunisian investment for the needs of our country, not for profit – we are not against investment, but we want it to be done in a reasonable way that benefits the people. Under Ben Ali, all capital was directed and exploited by the regime – everyone who wanted to start a business competing with the regime’s favoured monopolies would have problems with the government.

Do you think the election will address the problems facing Tunisia?

That depends on what happens after the election. There are two possible outcomes from this election – either the government of interim president al-Baji al-Sebsi will stay in power and continue working as it has, or we will build a new government chosen by the Constituent Assembly. The PCOT is fighting for the latter course. We believe that only a new government can make real immediate inroads into the structure of the old regime. We believe that the Sebsi government is putting obstacles in front of the process of democratic transition, for example, the possibility of referenda, which are being discussed right now, which will take more time to organise and delay a real transition to democracy.

The PCOT stands for a transitional justice. We believe that there can be no democracy without getting rid of the structures of corruption and all figures from the former regime being judged in a fair way. For this to happen, we need a new government to form.

What were your personal experiences of repression under Ben Ali?

I am a member of the national leadership within PCOT. In 1994, I was sentenced to five years and three months in prison – but I was not imprisoned. I remained underground, constantly moving from place to place, and in that way I stayed safe from the regime.

Then in February 1998, I was again judged and this time sentenced to nine years and three months. As with the first time, I lived underground; I was eventually imprisoned in 2002, along with [PCOT leader] Hamma Hammami and Abdel Jabbar Mandouri. In the same year, we were released from prison, and we continued the struggle.

We never changed our minds or made concessions to the regime, despite the Ben Ali regime’s persecution. We faced beating, threats, everyday fighting with the police – this was the common experience for every communist militant in Tunisia before the revolution.

In your opinion, will the revolution of January 14, 2011, keep going?

The PCOT sees a revolution not just as a moment but a progression of events over time. We consider the election as just a crossroads between revolutionary forces, which want to pursue the revolution until it creates the popular awareness of the meaning and value of freedoms as a right, and the counter-revolutionary powers, which include the former members of [Ben Ali's] Democratic Constitutional Rally (RCD). Each member of the central committee of the RCD has formed their own party; they are working in the same way to go back to the past and renew their power.

Other counter-revolutionary powers include the transitional government, which has made fictitious concessions to calm down the population. For example, the decision was made to dissolve the political police of the State Security Department; yet it is well known that all members of the bureau were found new jobs one by one and are still working.

We believe that the Sebsi government is struggling against the revolution – putting obstacles in the way of justice, undermining our independance, maintaining the regime’s media. The government is ruling beyond its mandate and is illegitimate. For example, the old judicial files for the Trabelsi family or other regime figures are not being pursued and they are being allowed to flee the country one by one or only pursued for small crimes – but not for murders or drug trafficking.

Parties using money to buy votes are also acting as counter-revolutionary powers; they can lead the revolution in the wrong path by using its slogans, for example, “Give your vote to the revolution”. Those who buy your vote today will sell you tomorrow.

We believe that the counter-revolutionary powers are negotiating with the population, giving some rights against security and political stability. But they are not making the kind of deep social and economic change the revolution was fighting for, change that we need in order to start on a new basis. For example, the violent conflicts between the clans in the south are being empowered by the counter-revolution giving them political capital, with help of the political police, as a way of undermining the revolution. People’s energy is being channelled into fighting a fake problem which has never existed in Tunisia in order to push the revolution from its path.

Tunisians are very aware of this situation, but still have a peaceful temper, and are willing to give the interim government a chance to step down and for the Constituent Assembly to move the democratic transition forward; but if the election doesn’t deliver real change they are ready to make another revolution. The consciousness of Tunisians is strong; so far, all these attempts against the revolution have failed.

Are elections the only way forward for Tunisia’s revolution?

From the beginning, we wanted to form a national revolutionary government made up of parties, associations, independents – but other powers refused. The Higher Independent Election Committee is a fake body set up to counter this idea and instead channel the revolution into protecting the status quo.

We’ve reached the point where elections, if transparent, honest and fair can really help the success of a democratic transition. The PCOT is willing to give the elections a chance and see the outcome.

We are willing to not return to the beginning point of the January 14 uprising, but to look forward to the revolutionary struggle. The new generation of Tunisians are no longer afraid of anything. Fear was the main way by which Ben Ali stayed in power, but that is now useless.

* * *

The following questions were answered by Chrif Khraief and Jilani Hamemi after the October 23, 2011 election. The response to the first question comes from a statement by Hamma Hammami. A more detailed statement by the PCOT on the election result was released on October 29 (the original Arabic can be read here. It has been translated into English by The Moor Next Door). For more details on the results of the Constituent Assembly election, see the infographic here.

* * *

How do you feel about PCOT’s results in the election? Do you feel the campaign was successful in raising the issues that you wanted to?

Hamma Hammami: Some newspapers consider that the election of October 23 was extraordinary and unique, furthermore, perfect; this is clearly an exaggeration. We have to avoid blind optimism for the election’s results, and instead consider it with more criticism.

There were many complaints against some lists, and I don’t think the judiciary system would be rude in taking positions in their affairs. But despite our criticism, the PCOT isn’t asking to re-run the election or to cancel it, however we have some remarks.

First, the reduced number of participants in the elections: according to the ISIE, only 48.9% have voted! Such statistics are worrying and their impact on the political future of the Constituent Assembly would be important, because the constitution doesn’t reflect the opinion of the majority. To heal this problem, the PCOT is calling for the constitution, once it is drafted, to be presented to the people in a referendum. Thus, the Tunisian population can accept it or not.

Second, political money (money invested by parties in their electoral campaign) was a significant factor in the results. No one can deny that there obvious differences between spending an average 25 dinars per elector and spending 500 dinars.

Third, the use of religious rhetoric in mosques and public areas directly and indirectly influenced people. The biggest failure is that people who should have reacted against such attempts to influence voters didn’t, and behaved just as passively as they did under Ben Ali regime. It’s just like there were hidden powers that wanted to divide atheists and religious people.

Fourth, the poor role played by the media, especially the public media, meant that it didn’t help people distinguish, choose and understand what the constitution does and its content means.

Fifth, there were mutual attacks between parties which sometimes reached a very pitiful level.

Sixth, many infractions of electoral rules were noticed in polling stations, confirmed by a wide number of observers.

To conclude: no one can deny that the Tunisian election was manipulated by international actors (most notably US and European ones) which are aiming to limit the Tunisian revolution to minor reforms and modifications and want to sustain the former system, and maintain former pro-capitalist economic, political and social policies. This foreign intervention was facilitated by the transitonal government and some parties, because during the election campaign there were many people travelling in and out Tunisia and we there were many assurances from different parties that Tunisia would maintain the old political and economic policies.

How does PCOT evaluate its own participation in the election?

Chrif Khraief: We estimate that our participation was very weak, and we’re not satisfied because three seats in the assembly doesn’t reflect the real weight of the PCOT on the streets. No one can deny the historic role, the historic activism and the big impact of the PCOT in building the revolution. We are looking critically at ourselves all the time for the purpose of going forward and overcoming our weaknesses and improving ourselves.

It’s true that the PCOT has learnt revolutionary activism and have always done it very well, but we’ve never learnt or experienced electoral campaigning. We conducted a clean electoral campaign in which we focused on our program and proposals for the constitution and the transitional government and we relied on our activists’ energy and motivation, mainly young ones, but we’ve suffered from our weak implantation in cities and countryside, which negatively impacted on transforming our political reputation into an electoral power. And we lost many voices by changing our name “PCOT” to “Al Badil (Revolutionary Alternative)”; many people didn’t recognise us on polling day.

We made a big mistake when we didn’t organise a supervisor for each polling station, which allowed some parties to use the opportunity to influence people. We’ve also faced the electoral campaign with very modest material means and we relied on campaign funding given by the authorities, which reached us very late in the campaign. Additionally, our candidates were the target of a very rude campaign of attacks because of our principles and integrity; some parties spread many rumours against us which didn’t allow us reach our target result of 10%.

Although our results are not satisfying, we’ve learnt a lot from this experience, we actually know our weaknesses and we are more convinced than ever of our principles.

Do you feel like the new government will make any deep social or economic changes? Will it pursue real justice against the former regime?

Chrif Khraief: We don’t believe that the new government, with its current composition, is willing to make radical and real changes on the social and economic fronts. Even before the first sitting of the Constituent Assembly, government members are reassuring the world that they would carry on the same way as the former regime. This is especially true regarding economic policy; they have stated they will pay foreign debts and they still sustaining the market economy that led to political dictatorship, economic regression and social inequality.

On the social front, the Constituent Assembly has shown no interest in poor people and disadvantaged interior of Tunisia, which were neglected for a long time under Ben Ali, and that was one of the reasons behind the protests and strikes. And given the lack of judicial reform, even if the government makes decisions, they would be fake because we can’t exercise real democracy when the agents of the former regime are still active, the judiciary system is still not fair or free, the media is still not free, the administration is still corrupt and people involved in torture and corruption are still free. We can’t talk about real justice without talking about accountability and giving back esteem to the victims of Ben Ali.

There have been major strikes in the tourism, transport and other industries since the election. Have PCOT members been involved in or supporting these actions? What role is the General Union of Tunisian Workers (UGTT) taking in the revolutionary struggle?

Chrif Khraief: The PCOT was not behind those protests, but it’s supporting them and forever will! We will insist that the government realise the promises it gave just after the revolution — like cancelling interim work wages, subsidising those worked on a fixed wage, adopting transparent standards of recruitment.

Workers are, at present, split into two groups. There are revolutionaries who aim to concretise internal democracy within the General Union of Tunisian Workers, and defend workers against capitalists and bosses. This includes democrats, left, syndicalists and others. This was always present in the brightest moment of the UGTT: the strike of January 26, 1978; the bread revolution of 1984; legitimacy fights of 1985; support for Iraq in Gulf War of 1990; the Redeyef and Oum Laarayes uprising of 2008. But mainly and above all, these workers were involved in the revolutionary movements that led to the downfall of Ben Ali on January 14, 2011.

All activists of this kind are going to have an assembly in December to pursue the path of revolution and to install a real democracy and to pursue defending workers’ rights.

[The second kind of workers] are the bureaucrats who represent the counter-revolutionary power (bosses’ syndicate) that wants negotiations to fail … rather than making the union a tool of worker’s independence and power. These bureaucrats are the ones who supported Ben Ali until the last moment and treated revolutionaries as troublemakers.

What do you think about the #Occupy protest movement that has been growing around the world and which saw an Occupy Tunis protest on November 11?

Jilani Hamemi: The #Occupy protest movement that began in Wall Street is a logical consequence of the collapsing capitalist system. In fact, the capitalist system has passed through many crises through its history, but they are getting closer and closer … And now, the Occupy protest movement is giving hope that we can change this capitalist system to a communist one. This movement is tagging its origin to the “Arab spring” and it’s materialising into a similar revolutionary struggle against miserable life conditions.

The capitalist system is now making every effort to absorb the street’s anger and make frequent interventions – but these have not worked so far, because the people want real change: a minimum guaranteed industrial wage, a guaranteed yearly income, the right of work, the right to free education, of public health care, the cancelling of debts, and even the cancelling of many countries foreign debt, such as Tunisia’s. They are demanding a new society based on democracy, equality and freedom.

That’s the real way of struggle. We have to hold on to reach our objective. The struggle won’t be easy, but it’s not impossible for us to win. But we must remain critically aware of the movement’s weaknesses.

Source

Turkey: Sixth Congress of the Labour Party (EMEP) Resolution

We support people who have rebelled for their rights and freedoms, condemn the imperialist conspiracies against Syria and Iran.

During 2011, the Arab peoples of North Africa and the Middle East have raised a after another. They did not want to be reported to the consequences of the hegemony of monopoly capitalism, nor voted on unemployment and poverty, and have rejected the repression of autocratic dictatorships that preserved this hegemony. The regimes despotic that lasted for 30 or 40 years have been the main reason for disorganization of the oppressed masses and have served as obstacles to the realization. The people who have raised have won some victories, but failed to collect the real fruits of their struggle, such as risucire to conquer their own political power. Therefore, the bourgeois reactionary forces backed by Western imperialism have maintained or are trying to maintain their hegemony, which has been questioned, strengthening their bases with new workers.

The Arab peoples that have been raised, have realized their potential and have tasted some victories, their struggles have not yet been crushed in any part, except Libya. Despite the low level of consciousness and organization, people have brought continue their uprising with an effort that aims to overcome the weaknesses, and continue to against the attacks of the reactionary forces that have reorganized especially through of political support, which has become a force moderate and pro-U.S. based in almost all countries.

We, the communist and workers parties and organizations have signed this document, meeting in VI Congress of the Workers’ Party of Turkey, we express our pride and solidarity with the mass struggles of the peoples, not only of the Arab countries of North Africa and the Middle East, but also of Europe, from Greece to Spain, Latin America, Venezuela and Ecuador, for the rights and social freedoms and national, as we proclaim our support for the Palestinian people’s just struggle against imperialism and Zionism in Israel.

Nevertheless, we are aware of the fact that our main weakness is the inadequate level of consciousness and organization of the peoples of the world, both during the uprisings in other processes. The imperialists and their accomplices take advantage of this weakness in their efforts to restore the decaying bases of their sovereignty and punish these struggles by ideological penetration and infiltration into the ranks of the people who claim to want to support, exploiting the struggle for their interests and by eliminating popular features.

The Western imperialism, which keeps the global hegemony in his hands and tries to strengthen its position in competition with the imperialist powers on the rise, not only aims to strengthen its hegemony in countries traditionally under its influence of suppressing popular struggles, but also attempts to establish its hegemony influencing people and their struggles, using them as levers to countries like Syria and Iran, which have not yet been subdued.

We do not support schemes and Assad | Ahmadinejad. However, we stress the fact that when the imperialist powers involved with the support of the reactionary forces of region such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia, in the name dell’apoggio the so-called “opposition” Syria and Iran under the pretext of fighting for “democracy” and “suppression of dictators, “these policies have nothing to do with rights to self-determination and their democratic aspirations and social. We oppose all actions imperialist – both economic and political and military – whatever their reason, they are desired by their accommodating staff or not, and condemn these policies only bring war, bloodshed and suffering.

We appeal to the peoples of the world, especially the peoples of Syria and Iran, to be in guard against the traps and imperialist interventions like those that occurred in Libya, show solidarity with the struggles of the peoples of the region and to support the fight against imperialism and the reactionary forces.

Ankara, December 2011

Communist Party of Albania
Communist Party of Benin
Workers’ Party of Belgium
New Cyprus Party
Marxist Leninist Communist Party of Ecuador
Spanish Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist)
Movement for the Reorganization of the Communist Party of Greece (1918-55)
Communist Party of Workers of Tunisia
Turkish Labour Party

Source

PCOT: On the first anniversary of the outbreak of the revolution: Continuous process to achieve the goals of the revolution

December 16, 2011

On this day of the year Alvart spark off the revolution sparked by the Tunisian Martyr Mohammed Bouazizi of Sidi Bouzid. The flames spread quickly this revolution to include all areas of the country and ends to drop Ben Ali on 14 January 2011, forcing him to escape unscathed after a dictatorship as long as 23 years.

Have revolted the Tunisian people, and fell from the ranks of hundreds of martyrs and wounded, in order to put an end to suffering from the tyranny and exploitation of obscene, unemployment, poverty and marginalization, corruption and dependency, for Tunisia a new state where sons and daughters their freedom and their rights and dignity in a democratic system reflects their will.

Here it is after a year of the outbreak of the revolution is still an ongoing process to achieve the goals of the revolution and to confront all attempts to circumvent them by successive governments since the overthrow of Ben Ali. These governments associated with the old regime did not achieve the fundamental reforms of political, economic, social and cultural rights, which people want to get out of more than half a century of tyranny.

While the election, such as the National Constituent Assembly to demand an investigation of the demands of the revolution, the results of these elections did not dispel fears of large segments of the population. The ruling coalition led by the new “Renaissance Movement” has given so far, through his conduct in the Constituent Assembly and outside, signs do not confirm that we are moving towards the final pieces of totalitarianism, but threaten his return with a new service to the interests of minorities reactionary foreign and domestic.

The Tunisian people the freedom While most deadly of economic and social conditions have not changed, but worsened in recent months, which explains the proliferation of protests and sit-ins, which are sometimes taken violent forms and sometimes exploited by some elements of the deviant acts of sabotage and commit robberies.

Nothing in the statements of the leaders of the ruling coalition’s new, who kept the program on the same choices of the former regime of unbridled capitalism and subsidiaries, which promises to address a serious and deep for this situation but there are intentions to load the people once again the consequences of crises did not create the title “austerity” or “sacrifice” to save the country without prejudice to the interests of the owners of large wealth who Ngoloa in the era of Ben Ali.

The Communist Workers Party of Tunisia, who occupied since its inception in 1986, front row in the resistance to dictatorship and to defend the interests of classes and groups toiling and poor, and participated actively in the revolution and confronted, and still all attempts to circumvent them, and meet him for the blood of the martyrs, announcing this momentous occasion to continue struggle in order to:

1 complete functions and a state of revolution, civil law, democracy and modern investigated by the Tunisian people in which the political and social liberation and national levels.

2 – Adoption of a new constitution guarantees individual liberties, public and dedicated gender equality and the sovereignty of the people on the state and resources of the country and its resources.

3 – achieve dignity for all citizens and enable them to work right in the tar, health, education and coverage of social and environmental sound.

4 – try the killers of the martyrs and accounting symbols of tyranny and corruption and the establishment of transitional justice which offers all guarantees of a fair trial.

5 – Edit the national decision of the dependence of the colonial and Zionist circles and reactionary.

6 – to work directly on the freezing of prices of basic materials and the reduction in the prices of other materials is considered to antitrust Belkma and manipulation of people and interests.

7 – Adoption of a formal grant of the idle to work and enable them to transport and treatment gratis.

8 – Adoption of the programs of the immediate areas of impoverished and marginalized groups within the country and the capital (neighborhoods).

9 – dissemination of the grant (with lift in value) and housing for the children of university classes and the poor.

10 – suspension of payment of the debt for three years.

11 – recovery of the looted money from home and abroad.

12 – Adoption of a special tax on large fortunes.

13 – the reduction in state expenditures and control the imports of luxury and unnecessary.

Long live the Revolution
Long live the people of Tunisia

Tunisian Communist Workers’ Party
December 17, 2011

Source

Qatari Regime “An Enemy to Tunisia and Arab World”: Hama Hamami Communist Workers Party of Tunisia (PCOT)

Hama Hamami Leader of Communist Workers Party of Tunisia (POCT) , claimed yesterday (i.e 19th October 2011 –editor OA) that ”The Qatari regime is an enemy to Tunisia and the Arab World,” referring to Qatar’s alleged involvement in the guiding of democratic uprisings of 2011 in North Africa and the Middle East.

Qatar’s role in the “Arab Spring” has been a source of controversy among politicians and citizens across the Arabic-speaking world.

Many have claimed that the tiny Gulf emirate has been promoting its agenda through its television channel Al Jazeera, while others have claimed that Qatar has broader motives for backing and supporting Islamist parties.

The Tunisian Islamist Party Ennahda, whose historic election victory solidified its hold on the largest share of seats in the Constituent Assembly, was accused of having affiliations with, and accepting financial aid from, Qatar.

The extent of political and economic Qatari involvement in Tunisia’s affairs has been a large point of contention in Tunisia since the revolution. Hamma Hamami, leader of POCT, stated that Qatar is playing a dangerous game, and is only serving its own agenda. He also added that Qatar is an agent of USA and Israel.

“Qatar is playing a dangerous role under the umbrella of USA; it is a government that serves America’s agenda, and also has direct relations with Israel. Qatar’s intentions are not patriotic,” Hamami said.

Hamami also asserted that Qatar is attempting to guide moderate Islamic parties, which are popular in Qatar, toward the political choices of the USA.

“Qatar is conditioning popular Islamic parties to serve American and Western interests, and they are managing to achieve that end through the messages that Ennahda is sending to America and Western society. Ennahda is basically assuring the west that the relationship between Tunisia and the West will not change. I do not have concrete proof but this is my political analysis.”

Hamami also referred specifically to Al Jazeera, claiming that during the electoral campaign the network was 90% pro-Ennahda.

When asked about Qatar’s support for Tunisia economically, he said that Tunisia does not need financial aid as much as it needs a, “political economy.”

“Tunisia is a self-sufficient country that is rich with natural resources – it is not about having money. A good example is Libya: The country was rich but they were living in awful conditions,” he added.

“The revolutions were authentic, but the USA wants to orient these new democratic movements in their own direction,” he added.

Samir Dilou, an Ennahda member who is rumored to hold the post of the Human Rights and Transitional Justice Minister (and to be spokesperson of the upcoming Government) disagreed with Hamami.

“I respect what he said, but I do not agree with him. It is his political opinion and it lacks any concrete proof.”

He added that Tunisia’s relations with Qatar are no different from Tunisia’s relations with other Arab countries.

“Our relations with Qatar are nothing but friendly, just like any other Arab country. We want what’s in our nation’s best interest, and if that involves having economic relations with Qatar, or any other Arab country, then we will not be against it. We welcome all Arab investors.”

When asked about Al Jazeera being Pro-Ennahda, he replied,”We actually protested against Al Jazeera before because some of its broadcasts were anti-Ennahda. We respect media but Al Jazeera is sometimes right and sometimes wrong.”

Source

Message from Brazil from the Revolutionary Communist Party (PCR) to the 7th Congress of the PCT

Comrades, we have no doubt in saying that the Communist Party of Labour of the Dominican Republic represents a front trench of the international communist movement and is, in fact, the Dominican Workers’ Party.

While many in the world and in particular in Latin America, bowed their heads against the ideological offensive of the bourgeoisie and imperialism that propagated the lie of the end of socialism, the PCT remained raised the red flag of the working class in this country and the world and with more force, followed by working revolution to end capitalism and build a world without exploiters and without exploited.

We have no doubt also say that much of the growth and development of the International Conference of Parties and Organisations Marxist-Leninist (CIPOML) due to the proletarian internationalism of the comrades of the PCT, as witness the death of comrade Mauricio Baez.

But beyond this dedication to the cause of world revolution, the PCT acquired the respect among the international revolutionary for his honesty and firmness of principles, qualities that only true communists can view.

Comrades, your congress comes at a time of change in the correlation of forces in the world. The same mass media of the bourgeoisie than twenty years ago celebrated the fall of the Berlin Wall and the revisionist governments in Eastern Europe, the end of history and the working class, now adorn headlines about workers’ strikes, student demonstrations, uprisings and the overthrow pro-imperialist governments in several countries.

The riots in Tunisia and Egypt became a wildfire that spread to dozens of countries. Vigorous protests calling for changes in Bahrain, Morocco, Libya, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Sudan and Algeria.

However, as we know, for the proletarian revolution, not just popular indignation and revolt, it is necessary first of all, a revolutionary theory and an organized vanguard. This lesson was synthesized by VI Lenin, the great leader of the Soviet socialist revolution of 1917, the phrase “without revolutionary theory there is no revolutionary movement.”

It is the theory that gives security, mentor and guide the movement to achieve their goals more profound. Without this revolutionary theory, Marxism-Leninism, the movements end up settling for minor reforms and fail to strike deep into the enemy or attack the real cause of oppression and exploitation: the economic system, political and social. Therefore, the role and importance of the PCT are now even greater.

Finally, we are fully convinced that this 7th Congress will bring more light and, especially, will be one step ahead on the path of the revolutionary class to win a Dominican Republic independent, sovereign and deploy popular and communism in the world.

Long live the VII Congress of the PCT!

Long live the proletarian revolution and socialism!

Live Conference of Parties and Organisations Marxist-Leninist (CIPOML)

Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin Live!

March 19, 2011

Central Committee of the Revolutionary Communist Party (PCR)
Brazil

PCOT: Money and religion were used to manipulate elections in Tunisia

The election result “gives a misleading picture and do not reflect the party’s role and influence through their participation in the Tunisian revolution.” Hamma Hammami, secretary general of PCOT the press conference in Tunis on 29 in October.

TUNIS (TAP) – “Violations and infringements committed in the election campaign and on the day of the Constituent Assembly election impacted considerably on the credibility and transparency of elections,” said Secretary-General of the Tunisian Workers’ Communist Party (PCOT) Hamma Hammami.

Speaking at a news conference held on Saturday in Tunis, Mr. Hammami said the PCOT won three seats in the precincts of Sfax 1, Kairouan and Siliana, adding that the results “are deceiving and do not reflect the weight of the party and the level of its participation in the Tunisian Revolution.”

He also believed necessary to review the first multi-party elections in Tunisia and shed light on shortcomings and infringements recorded so as to “draw lessons and make sure they will not take place in the next elections.”

“Poor turn-out, suspicious funding of some candidate tickets in the elections and the partiality of several public media impacted considerably on the results of the election,” he underlined.

Moreover, the Secretary-General of PCOT denounced the use of religion in mosques and public spaces for political purposes and the launch of large-scale smear campaigns against several revolutionary forces including the PCOT.

These acts, he said, were aimed to “divert the public opinion from fundamental issues and direct its attention to ideological conflicts to break its unity.”

In this regard, Mr. Hammami expressed hope that the progressive and left forces in Tunisia draw lessons from this experience and close ranks to prepare for the next events, denying that his party had received any request for coalition in the Constituent Assembly.

The chairman of the legal committee of the party’s election campaign Habib Ziyadi said the PCOT filed appeals in the precincts of Zaghouan and Gafsa, mainly for violations committed by Al-Aridha (Popular Petition) and the “Free Patriotic Party,” infringement in counting in the precinct of Ariana and mistakes made in counting votes in Sidi Bouzid.

Source

Revolutionary Communist Party of Côte d’Ivoire: The PCRCI denounces the attack against the Libyan People and the Assassination of Qaddafi by NATO

The intervention of the hawkish coalition led by France, Britain and the United States of America has just led to the assassination of Qaddafi October 20, 2011 after the overthrow of his regime. Following this plan, the authors pretend to be embarrassed. Neither the NATO command, nor the French, English, American, or their creation, the National Transitional Council (CNT) dare take on the assassination. After Jubilee October 20, 2011 with the announcement of the death of the former Libyan leader, French President Sarkozy made ​​step back in October 21, 2011 stating that no one can rejoice in the death of another . The Secretary General of the UN, meanwhile, hailed a “historic transition for Libya,” October 20, 2011. The story will assess the “history” of such an act of aggression.

The High Commissioner for Human Rights of the UN, the October 21 request for an investigation. Why this seeming embarrassment? The imperialist powers want to reduce the general feeling of disgust widespread among African people, shedding crocodile tears. Yet it is impossible to hide the fact that a mission intended to protect human lives ended in a flood of blood with a bonus, an act against the person of Gaddafi akin to a war crime. Every reason to believe that Gaddafi was captured and then coldly shot. Although people were afraid of compromising revelations certainly Gaddafi court. The Libyan people he had undertaken to get rid of its dictator, Qadhafi? This is possible, but the seizure of power by the CNT focused at arm’s length by NATO that led from start to finish the battle for the Libyan regime change is far from embodying the interests of the Libyan people who will soon not realizing it.

It is clear that the NATO intervention aimed to prevent the contagion of revolution Tunisia to Libya. If the Libyan people had really begun to take steps to make the revolution, it comes from him being stolen. The revolutionary struggle of the Libyan people is just beginning because it is misleading to call the coup revolution of NATO and the CNT, which has served as an alibi. The Revolutionary Communist Party of Côte d’Ivoire is engaged with the Ivorian people for the democratic revolution against imperialism and is ready to provide support to similar initiatives elsewhere in Africa and the world. He denounces so this imperialist aggression against the Libyan people and condemns the cowardly assassination of Muammar Gaddafi.

Abidjan
October 23, 2011
The Central Committee

PCE (M-L) Hamma Hammami Interview

PCOT headquarters

March 5, 2011. Tunisia

HAMM: About the events in my country we say we are half way to the revolution, that is, the revolution continues. On January 14 the people overthrew the dictator after a month of heroic struggle, we got rid of the dictator, but not the dictatorship that remains in reconstitution in the judicial bodies in the puppet parliament and the Senate, the state apparatus and all police, in short, all the bureaucratic apparatus. The Tunisian people have not been spared the social and economic suffocation exercised by a minority of comprador. That is, after the removal of Ben Ali, the government continued composed of elements of the apparatus and the party of the dictator, the government was extended with some reformist and liberal members of the opposition essentially two games, the former party revisionist had become a reformist party and came to work with Ben Ali and the other a pseudo-liberal party called the Progressive Democratic Party (PDP).

Members of the two parties involved in the self-styled government of “National Union.” That government tried to sabotage the revolution and reduced to a mere liberalization of the regime, by patching of some reforms. Faced with this situation, the town continued with the revolution, the fight continued with slogans like “do not want just to” large ” [2] Ben Ali, but is also awarded the dictatorship, we want to change the political system, build a new democratic regime … “

So the struggle continued against the government of “National Union” led by former Prime Minister Ben Ali, Gannouchi. But the government could not resist the pull of popular struggle and fell about two weeks after the escape of Ben Ali.

The prime minister himself, Gannouchi, formed a new government, which were not part of some members of the old regime, and were replaced by other secondary. It was essentially a reactionary government tried to cover up with some reforms. A level of popular struggles, it made some areas of freedom of expression, assembly and demonstration. It was possible to bring down several officers, both national and local and regional, and across the country are succeeding in establishing people’s power centers, the “Assembly to safeguard the revolution.” These new powers are popular organizing more and more, and managed to impose some demands to the government. But real power remained in the hands of the reaction, responsible for Ben Ali regime. But, as Lenin said, in the revolution the key issue is power. Therefore, while the power is not in the hands of people can not say that this phase of the revolution is over.

And indeed, as you have seen, the continuous struggle against reaction that seeks to preserve the old regime “liberalizing.” In this maneuver, it must be said loud and clear, involving U.S. government, France, the European Union itself, trying to stop the movement, so that, as Sarkozy’s government, this movement does not exceed the bourgeois framework.

Moreover, the revolutionary movement, popular, radical and wants a democratic republic, in this context, the confrontation between popular movements and the provisional Government was accentuated, and launched the slogan “dégage, government, dégage” shouted slogan until the last corner of the country. The objectives of this phase of the struggle, were threefold: To overthrow the interim government, convening a constituent assembly, and move the democratic republic, parliament. These concentrations were multiplied slogans and rallies. The government was forced to make concessions, but managed to stay. It should be stressed that the reaction has tried to exploit weaknesses. If the revolution has not yet completed, has been due to lack of awareness and decision, which left us half way, with a weak government and a popular movement that drags weaknesses. We are in a more or less influenced by power. It’s a situation as you have pointed out, Comrade Marco, reminds us a bit 1917.

There is a political unit within the popular movement, they shout the same slogans, which can be summarized as “freedom and national dignity.” Unit slogans are left Tunisia, unity among our party, the TCO, and other leftist forces. It should be emphasized that the actions undertaken, there has been no sectarian slogans, religious, for example, or of a partisan nature. Always seek unitary political slogans, socio-economic and anti-imperialist.

I must say that the efforts of our Party and other opposition parties, for more than six years, have created a Committee for Freedom and Rights. Is a group in which there are liberals, Islamists, independents, and of course our party. Until late 2005, when the left was proposing something, Islamists boycotted it, and when the proposals came from the Islamists, it was the left that boycotted. That is, there was a clear division. After 2005, we achieved a common work around the axis of freedom for the political forces work together to reflect on the differences with the Islamists, women’s rights, freedom of conscience, on the design of a system democratic, or a regime based on popular sovereignty.

With the Islamists came to a very important result with commonalities that led to a democratic platform on the right of women, freedom of conscience, and created an intellectual and political climate favorable.

Since 2008, with the demonstrations in the mining area of ​​Gafza, ideological tensions subsided within Tunisian political opposition, to make way for agreements on political and socio-economic problems, in the revolt in the mining, all left opposition, all, including Islamists, supported the motion. From then on all issues of the Tunisian political scene, were reached with the Islamists, the liberal reformers, and so on., Which helped create a favorable climate.

A weak point has been the lack of a nationally unique address. It has been much speculation about the spontaneous nature of the revolution, but it was really something spontaneous in the sense of a lack of awareness or a total lack of organization. This revolution took a very broad popular character, and in each region and locality were political activists, trade unionists, human rights fighters … who have led and participated in the fighting, as did our party. There was a degree of awareness, organization, which has enabled the movement to resist repression, which has enabled the movement to find each time the appropriate instructions and forms needed. But again, at the national level that has been on the lack of a firmly established political force, and this applies to us and the other forces, as we are concerned by the severe repression suffered in recent years that we were hit hard.

Despite the efforts that our party has done to bring together the democratic opposition, there was a lack of will to achieve a common work in the country, a gap that has remained almost until the fall of Ben Ali. They were people of liberal and reformist forces, which relied more on measures to reform the Ben Ali regime in the revolutionary movement. The two most representative of the reformist parties continued until the last day without reporting to Ben Ali and continued to refuse to reform the penal code, which led to the democratic opposition forces not to sign the petition.

At the same time the revolution began to overcome their own weaknesses, for example, on the initiative of our party to launch from the first day the slogan of “constitution of a National Assembly,” for all local and regional parts of the system were escaped, the police fled, the National Guard as well. So we have launched the slogan be everywhere Popular Committee, and these assemblies, committees, etc. They took the security in their hands to deal with criminals and bandits, and the forces of counterrevolution.

In another area, the revolutionary movement has forced in practice left to join. With the collapse of Ben Ali, the revolutionary forces of the nationalist left and join in the “Front January 14.” Front brings together the forces that confront the Government, in varying degrees, political parties, nationalists, trade unions, then join us for the creation of the National Council for the Preservation of the Revolution. Since then, despite many problems, concessions had to be done, discussions, etc.., Discouraging the common work, it was possible to combine the forces of revolution and progress was made together and brought down the second provisional government. The government first called itself the “national unity” and it was not, was a government of Ben Ali a, so to speak. The 2 nd government, provisional, was an attempt to preserve, through reforms, essential aspects of former Prime Minister of that government, Mohamed Gannouchi, was against the creation of the Constituent Assembly, to the claim of the Constitution, but just about moments before he resigned, Gannouchi said: “This country needs a constitutional assembly” … He resigned after making a reaction save time to regroup, which they have done in the last month, those active forces of the counterrevolution, consist essentially of old party members Ben Ali, the political police and militia in the pay of the oligarchy, who have committed terrorist acts against civilians, acts of vandalism to terrorize the people and let them know that “or us or anarchy.”

This provisional government showed tolerance towards those counterrevolutionary groups, and when he had the arrests of some of his men, did the police let them go. They wanted to terrorize the population, suggested that there was a danger of military intervention, even from abroad, or beaten by Islamist or leftist forces … all with the purpose of terrorizing the people. That government had the clear support of the United States, whose representatives have come to Tunisia several times, also was supported by the European Union promised a large aid material, and particularly the government of Sarkozy, in addition to the governments of Spain, Zapatero, and Italy with Berlusconi. All of them supported Ben Ali to the last day.

The United States, perhaps more intelligent, they began to express some reluctance when captured that government could not maintain that his time was short. As I said, that government did allow time to reorganize counter-revolutionary forces again, despite this, the popular forces we get rid of the 2 nd interim government.

We are now in a new phase in which the forces of revolution we eliminate all vestiges of the dictatorship. This new phase has just begun with the appointment of another Prime Minister Beji Kaied Sebsi, who has promised to submit to the will of the Tunisian people, to elect a Constituent Assembly elections to be held on 26 July this year.

Ben Ali’s party has been legally dissolved, which is also a victory of the people. The Constitution no longer applies, have been recognized, authenticated, legalized political parties and organizations, and hopefully it is the TCO [3] in the coming days. Many of the former officials will be judged. The government is forced to make concessions, but remain elements of the dictatorship are still there, as the political police, administration, judiciary, which must be radically changed.

The  Sebsi Government is rushing to prepare for the elections to the Constituent Assembly, but not in a democratic setting, away from people without the direct involvement of the forces of revolution. The fight now, then, will deliver in this area. The revolutionary forces must prepare for the elections to the Constituent Assembly in a truly democratic environment, for which there is to dissolve the political police [4] , to repeal the existing laws, and when provisionally, pending a new structure for the country, determined the Constituent Assembly to take concrete action on the administration of justice, also on the media apparatus, to ensure democratize the process to the Constituent Assembly.

As to the disposition of forces, we can say that the revolutionary are mobilized, it is very important. The revolutionary forces are united, but we fear, though still unclear, a split within the National Committee for the Safeguarding of the Revolution, between the revolutionary forces and democratic and reformist forces that seek a compromise with the current government . Anyway, we will continue with our tactics to conserve and advocacy, to strengthen the structures that emerged from the revolution, both nationally and in the face January 14 and in the towns and regions with the revolutionary Assemblies, to strengthen them while popular, and prepare for elections to the Constituent Assembly.

En Marcha on Libya

Gaddafi’s murder puts an end to its contradictory policy

After the siege of Sirte by rebel forces and the continuous support of the NATO bombing, dropped the last bastion of resistance to Gaddafi and with it came his lynching and death.

At the closing chapter of this macabre American imperialist intervention and its European allies, which began in Tunisia, Yemen and Egypt, the brunt of the savagery of NATO, which fell to Libya UN resolution 1973 gave the green light for murder of thousands of children, youth, women and elderly innocent and the destruction of hospitals, schools and homes of poor people by planes from the U.S., France, England, Italy, Canada, Qatar and Spain 14 000 attacks carried out under the cynical pretext to protect civilians.

War of aggression that took advantage of the discontent of the masses secular and Islamist Libyan mobilized to demand the resignation of Gaddafi for his corrupt and repressive dictatorial policy in 42 years of dictatorship submitted to the people and their political opponents, the miserable conditions of life, prison and exile.

This does not justify the genocidal actions of the U.S. and its followers against the Libyan people, other than by oil, gas and water, for their benefit; impede the flow of oil to China and strategic control of northern Africa and the Near East.

Muammar Gaddafi was characterized by contradictory political and ideological position and winding with democratic reforms undertaken as dictator from 1969 to overthrow the King Idrissi, presented as experiences and examples of the third way (or socialism or capitalism), but history of the transformation of Libyan economy popular capitalism, privatization of public enterprises and foreign oil producers and distributors, such as Italy’s ENI, Austria’s OMV, Repsol of Spain, Total of France, BP of the UK, Petrobras of Brazil, more the U.S. Marathon Oil, Amerada Hess, Conoco-PHLLIPS, OCCIDENTAL PETROLEUM, EXXON-MOBIL and the China National Petroleum, and the opening up and encouraging foreign investment.

The open door policy to the highest bidder and its weight would encourage authoritarian dictatorial corrupt economic ambition that would lead to rapid personal enrichment and family, with the acquisition of a fortune as gold reserves, foreign exchange and investment exceeding 200 billion dollars (Los Angeles Times), which doubles annual industrial production over Libya before the U.S. intervention.

In this position fro the imperialist governments of England and Italy and of Spain fought to curry favor with Gaddafi for their investments and oil business. He was invited to the treat-as did Berlusconi, or were “official visit” with the list of prayers and investment proposals.

All under the supervision and consent of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) neoliberal recipes applied against the economy of poor households and workers, that paid for the first turns of the Libyan people.

Muammar Gaddafi humble home in the Bedouin, formed by the English with an anti-political conception, governed, enriched and betrayed his people and from 1986 he was a partner of Fiat, the Italian companies and Infinvest, Swiss and French and strut NATO in the region.

The story of betrayal does not forget that most computers, weapons and equipment of repression that Gaddafi had at his disposal were supplied by the U.S., Britain, France and Spain, whose members, with his murder, was charged dearly for his politics and ideology contradiction in which he embarked and which he died.

Libya, imposed arbitrary arrests and torture

In Libya, things have not changed at all, at present there are cases of torture to extract confessions or simply as a punitive measure, risking that the practices of the past be repeated in the present, when the arbitrary arrest and torture was marked the whole Gaddafi.

Amnesty International (AI) accused the interim government of Libya, coordinated by the National Transitional Council (CNT), making arbitrary arrests and practices of torture and abuse against soldiers and followers of Muammar Qaddafi.

The organization claims that the majority of detainees are imprisoned without the respective orders of the prosecutor and executed by military authorities or non-competitive.

Sub-Saharan African suspected mercenaries constitute between one third and half of those arrested are also vulnerable Libyan Tawargha region, which was the basis of gadafistas troops. On the other hand a number of children are detained together with adults and women arrested in this process and put under surveillance of men who play the role of guards.

PCMLE: “The real emancipation of the peoples is the revolution and socialism”

From En Marcha, #1545
Organ of the Central Committee of the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Ecuador
August 19 to 25, 2011

As part of the work that the International Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organizations is carrying out, last July a meeting of the Latin American parties took place. At the meeting were the Revolutionary Communist Party of Brazil, the Communist Party of Colombia (Marxist-Leninist), the Communist Party of Labor of the Dominican Republic, the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Ecuador, the Communist Party of Mexico (Marxist-Leninist) and the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Venezuela.

After evaluating the work that these parties are carrying out in each of the countries and discussing the most important events that are taking place in the region and the world, the meeting approved a Political Declaration that we reproduce below.

U.S. imperialism and its European allies: France, England, Spain, Italy, are trying to manipulate the just struggle of the Arab peoples, to channel the indignation of the working masses and the youth towards a change of names, maintaining the economic and social structures and the weight of dependency.

After reviewing the latest events in our countries, in Latin America and the world we declare:

1. The stories told by imperialism claiming that there is a recovery from the crisis are falling apart every day, with the increasing numbers of unemployed, the decrease in production, the worsening of the fiscal deficits and the increase in the foreign debt in most of the countries of Europe, in Japan and the U.S.A., which seriously affect the supposed stability of the capitalist system and sharpening its inherent contradictions. This prolonged crisis that is affecting all the countries of the world shows not only the failure of the recovery policies implemented by imperialism, but also the decay of the system, which is mortally wounded and incapable of guaranteeing the well-being and freedom for which humanity is struggling.

2. The struggle of the working class, the working people, the youth and the peoples is spreading all over the world. Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Jordan, Syria, Yemen and other countries of North Africa and Asia Minor are an example of the struggle against the reactionary dictatorships and governments, who with the applause of the bourgeoisies and the imperialist powers have sunk these peoples into the deepest crisis, hunger and the cruelest misery, despite the immense wealth generated by the exploitation of oil, gas and other natural resources. In addition, with the complicity of the UN they resort to military intervention, to the bombing of the civilian population in Libya, using the pretext of the fight against tyranny, all with the aim of guaranteeing the established order and the continuity of all its profits that are the product of colonization and exploitation of these peoples. We completely reject the foreign intervention in Libya. It is up to the Libyan people themselves to resolve the problems of their country. No more military aggression and intervention in Afghanistan and Palestine! We Communists raise the banner of self-determination, sovereignty, well-being and freedom!

3. Active and valiant opposition to imperialism and the reactionary governments is also alive in Europe. In Greece, Turkey, Italy, Spain, Ireland, France, England and other countries of Europe there has been a general rejection of the reduction in wages, the pension reforms, the increase in taxes, privatizations and the reduction of the budgets for health care, education, housing and in general of all the legislative programs by which the crisis is being placed on the shoulders of the working masses. Numerous strikes and mobilizations are showing an important revival of the working class and youth that is again speaking out for unity and the political initiative to confront the recovery policies and to reject the reactionary governments. The great mobilizations of youths that are taking place in Spain and other European countries deserve particular mention, which show the exhaustion of bourgeois democracy and the search for roads to social liberation.

4. In Latin America the struggle continues, it is showing a greater advance and development. The structural adjustment policies implemented by most of the governments in the last years have not achieved their expected objectives, much less do they represent measures aimed at the well-being of the masses. The different struggles that are developing in our countries calling for higher wages, labor stability, respect for the right to association, negotiation, collective contracts and strikes, the rejection of outsourcing, the demands for health care and education, greater rights and liberties are arousing the ever greater participation of numerous organizations on the continent that do not kneel before the measures of the bourgeois governments and that struggle for political freedom for the people. The student youth in Chile together with the working masses and the Mapuche people are carrying out large mobilizations in defense of freedom, public education and democracy. The desire for change is breaking through in our various countries, large contingents of the masses are participating in the political struggle and are taking up the banner of working for the victory of democratic and progressive governments that really promote the defense of sovereignty, respect of human rights, well-being and political freedom. The democratic and anti-imperialist tendency in Latin America is an unquestionable fact that is opening the way, is growing and offering numerous possibilities for the advance of the revolution.

5. The rise through elections of several democratic and progressive governments in Latin America constitute important steps in that direction. Nevertheless today, the existence and continuity of these governments is threatened by the rightist offensive of imperialism and the local bourgeoisies that have not given up the privileges that they have enjoyed in our countries for centuries. The offensive of imperialism and the oligarchies has reversed the direction of several of those governments, which have been transformed into open defenders of the capitalist system, of foreign domination; into a form of the old ways of governing, into those who carry out repression against the working masses and the youth, into prettifiers of representative democracy and promoters of developmentalist and reformist measures. In fact, these governments and history show that real change, the social revolution and national liberation cannot be carried through to the end under the leadership of bourgeois and petty bourgeois classes and parties. That responsibility belongs to the working class, the working masses, the peoples and the youth, to the revolutionary party of the proletariat, to the genuinely revolutionary organizations and parties.

6. Imperialism, its allies and servants, the local bourgeoisies in all the countries are persisting in their reactionary policies of repressing the struggle of the working masses, of the indigenous peoples and the youth by fire and sword, at the time that they try to co-opt the social movement by means of social welfare policies and one reform or another. One expression of those policies is the presence of U.S. imperialist troops and those of their Latin American servants in Haiti. In the same way it is continuing the trade embargo against Cuba and actions aimed at subverting the Venezuelan process. The persecution, jailing and assassination of social fighters and revolutionaries are irrefutable testimony of the fact that the struggle continues and that repression, however harsh and bloodthirsty it may be, cannot do away with the ideals and the determination to fight for social and national liberation. We emphatically express our solidarity with the comrades who are suffering repression and torture in Honduras, Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia, Paraguay and Peru. In particular we demand the freedom of the Ecuadorean student leader Marcelo Rivera, who remains in prison, accused and condemned as a terrorist by the Correa government, for defending university autonomy.

7. The betrayal by the government of Rafael Correa and the struggle of the Bolivian workers against “the gasolinazo” in Bolivia are making clear not only the real limitation of these governments, but also the need to make clear to the working class and the social and mass organizations what is the real road to social change. Experience shows that neither reformism nor class conciliation can lead to change. Real change, the genuine emancipation of our peoples is the revolution and socialism, which is only possible if there is a revolutionary political vanguard capable of pushing through a genuinely revolutionary program at the head of the struggles of the working class, the working masses and the peoples.

8. The continuity and development of the struggle of the workers, the peoples and the youth in the countries of Latin America is guaranteed by historical tradition and the present combats, the perspective is the developing along the road of the social revolution. Our Continent is and will be the scene of great liberating struggles and we Marxist-Leninist communists will fulfill and affirm our position as shock troops of the revolution and socialism.

9. The strengthening of the right-wing, corporatist and social welfare policies in most of the governments of Latin America will not make us back down from the search for true social and national emancipation. We Marxist-Leninist parties of Latin America reiterate our commitment to link ourselves boldly and decisively to the struggles that the working class, the working people, the peasantry, the youth, the women and the peoples in general are developing, as well as our irrevocable decision to advance in the unity and leadership of their struggles, winning them for the revolution and socialism.

10. We make the words of Lenin ours: “If in the course of the struggle we win the majority of the workers to our side – not only the majority of the exploited, but the majority of the exploited and oppressed – we will really win”.

July, 2011

Meeting to Commemorate 94th Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution Held in New Delhi

Sitting from left: comrades Vijay Singh, Nirmalangshu Mukherjee, Kuldeep Singh, Jaya Mehta

The Workers’ Unity Trade Union (WUTU) organised a meeting to commemorate the 94th Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution on 6th November, 2011 at the Gandhi Peace Foundation, New Delhi. The meeting was well attended by a large number of participants including representatives from Janpaksh, New Trade Union Initiative (NTUI), Marxist Communist Party of India-United (MCPI-U), Youth for Social Justice, Campaign for Peace and Democracy, Manipur (CPDM), Nirman Mazdoor Shakti Sangathan and the journal Revolutionary Democracy. Many members of Workers’ Unity Trade Union were compelled by the management not to attend the meeting, by forcefully putting their name into those doing overtime.

The meeting was chaired by Professor Nirmalangshu Mukherjee of Delhi University. In his welcome note Prof. Mukherjee gave an outline of the contemporary world economic crisis which began in 2008 and spread from the developed countries to developing countries. He stressed the role of revolutionary organisations to lead the working class to mobilise the masses and expose the present crisis ridden system.

In his welcome address, Comrade Padam, General Secretary WUTU, gave the overview of trade union activity and its role in raising the consciousness of the working class. The October Revolution showed the oppressed people a new way of life and a socio-economic system free from the exploitation of man by man. He compared the present economic crisis with a disease that affects human beings which was difficult to diagnose. Comrade Padam further elaborated Lenin’s teaching on Trade Unions. The primary purpose of a Marxist trade union is to work to introduce revolutionary political awareness into the actions of the proletarian movement and for its transition to the next and higher stage. Lenin gave priority to the political demands sand forms of proletariat’s struggle but did not belittle economic struggle. Citing the situation in the Maruti Suzuki strike, he traced the root of betrayal by the leadership to a lack of political and ideological consciousness in the working class leadership and the confining of the struggle only to economic demands. About WUTU he elaborated that though the union membership is numerically relatively small but it has a tremendous impact in its area of work.

Comrade Shamsul Islam from Nishant Natya Manch, mentioned that the October Revolution was not only a change of regime, but represented a complete transformation of the socio-economic system which had never happened in the history of mankind. This event ended the exploitation of man by man. The capitalist system maintains its rule through the barrel of a gun. This system is not only confined to exploitation but the enslavement of women. The institution of marriage in bourgeois society sees the exploitation of women through the dowry system and lacks the free choice of partners. He exposed the CPI-CPI (M) rule in West Bengal for three decades that did not differ from the Congress-BJP rule and which implemented neo-liberal economic policies.

Comrade Gautam Modi, Secretary NTUI, congratulated WUTU for celebrating the Russian Revolution in the heart of the Indian state. He highlighted the role of Lenin and the Bolshevik Party in the October Revolution. He stressed the need for the formation of a united front of the various trade unions, including the bourgeois trade unions, to fight against capitalism. The day to day struggle of working class should be seen as a tactic and not the strategy of the workers movement. He considered the economic struggle as being also a political struggle. The working class should also raise the demand of higher wages during the this period of high level of inflation. Comrade Modi regretted the reduction of membership in the trade unions though the number of organisations increased. The working class should utilise all the privileges provided by the bourgeois system. He stressed the WUTU should consider all possibilities in organising the workers in Gurgaon. Different trade unions, particularly those carrying the Red flag, have to be united on a common minimum programme.

Comrade Jaya Mehta, Economist, analysed the contemporary economic crisis and the various resistance movements in the world. She said that the Arab Spring from Tunisia to Egypt toppled the dictators but not the dictatorship which still prevails in their respective countries. Unlike the October Revolution, the Arab Spring though it mobilised hundreds of thousands of people but it still lacks a concrete political and economic programme. Since the fall of the USSR and the Eastern Bloc, there was a setback to the working class movement. The ruling class declared the end of history and ideology, and the victory of market democracy under capitalism. This capitalism failed to provide real democracy and freedom which is only possible in Socialism. The development under capitalism is based on exploitation, forced displacement and the annihilation of indigenous people from their own lands whereas development under socialism is based on the people’s interest.

Dr. Mehta stressed the need for unity between the workers and peasants as propounded by Lenin. This unity includes the petty-bourgeoisie and all oppressed sections of the society under the leadership of the working class. She highlighted the need of small-scale industries and cooperatives wherever possible through voluntary means to organise and defend the attacks from Multinationals and the Special Economic Zones.

Comrade Kuldeep Singh, MCPI-U, congratulated WUTU for remembering and celebrating the Great October Socialist Revolution, he said that it is necessary to understand the significance of this revolution for mankind. Comrade Singh further stated that this revolution was the victory of workers, peasants and the oppressed nationalities in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party under the leadership of Lenin. The Great October Revolution succeeded in building a socialist society and its victory over fascism had an immense significance. In the latter period after the demise of J.V.Stalin the revisionist forces under the leadership of Khrushchev, Brezhnev and Gorbachov distorted the basic fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism and succeeded in the restoration of capitalism in the USSR.

The world today is in deep crisis and it is the duty of trade union and other revolutionary mass organisations to mobilise and induce revolutionary consciousness among the masses and to establish close links between people and the party in their day to day struggles.

Comrade Shakir, Secretary WUTU, shared his experiences in organising and mobilising different sections of workers in Gurgaon and how the workers and WUTU are waging a struggle on behalf of the workers.

Comrade Vijay Singh, Revolutionary Democracy, concluded the meeting by summing up the views of all the speakers. He highlighted the model of socialist construction in the USSR under Lenin and Stalin and showed how they overcame the difficulties which the new Soviet society faced during invasion by imperialist aggression and fascist occupation. He pointed out that after the Paris Commune of 1871 it was the major example of working class rule. He highlighted the level of social security provided by the USSR which included health, education, pensions and the high standard of living under the Socialist system.

The meeting concluded by keeping a one minute silence in memory of the veteran dramatist Comrade Gursharan Singh who passed away on 27 September 2011.

The cultural group Nishant’s revolutionary songs spellbound the entire audience. The meeting ended with a screening of Charlie Chaplin’s movie Modern Times.

Message to the Congress of the Workers’ Communist party of Tunisia by M-L group “Revolution”

Dear comrades of the Workers’ Communist Party of Tunisia (PCOT)

After years of suppression, imprisonments, torture and martyrdoms of many courageous cadres, the PCOT has won ever more respect and authority among the Tunisian workers and youth. The party and its leadership, where comrade Hamma must be mentioned in particular, has played an important role in the Tunisian uprising and the ousting of dictator Ben Ali last winter. We are proud to belong to the same international movement as the PCOT.

Your Congress is taking place at a time when the Tunisian uprising is at a serious crossroad. The internal and external cronies of Ben Ali, the imperialists who backed the old regime, are desperately working to put an end to the revolutionary process and to bring things back to the imperialist and neocolonial «normality». The cowardly NATO-bombing of neighbouring Libya and the imperialists’ active infiltration and utilization of the Benghazi «rebels» is for sure a warning to the other peoples in Northern Africa, threatening them to obey the imperialist «New world order».

We hope and believe that the Tunisian workers, youth, women and peasants will not yield to the imperialist plots, and that they will continue and fulfil the revolutionary national and democratic process they have embarked upon. The stronger the influence and leadership of the PCOT, the more certain the victory will be.

If there is anything we can do in our country in the way of practical solidarity with the PCOT and the Tunisian revolt, we will respond as best we can with our very limited resources.

Wishing you all success in the proceedings of the congress, which most certainly will give new energy and mature guidance to the working peoples of Tunisia.

Long live the Tunisian example!
Long live the PCOT!
Long live proletarian internationalism!

Our revolutionary fraternal greetings,

Marxist-Leninist Organization Revolusjon – Norway

Oslo, July 22nd 2011

Studies X: ‘Ethics’ & Performance

The translation below is an excerpt from the Tunisian Communist Workers Party pamphlet “On Secularism,” by Hamma Hammami other sections of which has been translated elsewhere on this blog. This excerpt was posted on the PCOT’s website on 27 October, 2011.

It is interesting that this was posted so close to the election; it appears to reinforce convictions in the rightness of the leftist perspective as non-communist forces gained on the party, especially in the Islamist tendency (who are mentioned explicitly; in PCOT literature الظلاميون ’obscurantists’ is often a euphemism for Islamists). The re-publication of this excerpt on the site can be seen as a part of the party’s reaction to the electoral environment in general; communist tendencies in most Arab countries today are non-conformist in that they are the opposite of dominant opposition and political forces which are accommodating of political Islam and religious views (which are vastly more popular), the market liberal economic consensus (especially among non-Islamist factions) and the predominant view of religion in society which is usually conservative and comfortable with having religion used as a core pillar of collective (including national) identity. It focuses on the changing nature of socially acceptable behavior and political ideas.

‘Ethics’ from ‘On Secularism’

LINK: http://www.albadil.org/spip.php?article3938

From: PCOT

Date: 27 October, 2011 (Originally 18 March, 1988)

History demonstrates the fact that there are many ethics. Ethics are sophisticated and their contents change across ages. There is a morality about slavery, feudalism, capitalism and socialism. It is the pattern of production that changes values such that what was acceptable yesterday is rejected today and what was ‘good’ yesterday is ‘evil’ today and so on. To simplify the matter and bring it closer to the mind of the reader let us cite examples from daily life.

An informed worker knows very well that a worker that breaks strikes and demonstrations his accomplices, ‘honest’ and ‘fair’ and his high moral character by some while in the eyes of his colleagues he is a traitor and a ‘pimp.’ The worker who participates and is active in strikes is known as ‘confusing’ and of ‘of a miserable sect’ to authorities but is seen as a bold and brave defender of justice in the eyes of his comrades.

On the other hand, women who are submissive, humiliated, docile and who accept for themselves all order of injustice is a righteous woman and ‘a daughter of the family’ in eyes of the patriarchal mentality of the reactionaries while a smart, liberal woman who lifts her head and struggles relentlessly for her rights is seen as ‘reckless’ and ‘bad’ and ‘poorly educated.’

Thirdly, we all know as well that many of the bearded ones who demonstrate piety and devotion are loons and thieves in hiding.

These three examples show that moral precepts are not just held by the community but vary according to class locations. Overall, a sound moral victor is always one with ethical precepts of justice, freedom and solidarity and the rejection of exploitation and oppression which are held by the downtrodden classes who do not have interests they need to defend by means of misinformation and fabrications.

The importance of secularism in relation to ethics is to remove the veil of the religious who hide behind them more than just thieves and wickedness and aggression and exploiters and subject morality to criticism and change in accordance with the requirements of economic, social and political progress. And this is the greatest fear of the obscurantists and other reactionaries, who are always in need of stereotypes especially ones taken from the menu of the unknown, in order to terrorize the poor and the oppressed.

This site is a good incentive for progressive forces to move forward, unafraid of difficulties, as a beacon in the constant search for truth because the truth alone is revolutionary.

– From the pamphlet ‘On Secularism,’ by Hamma Hammami, Tunis, 18 March, 1988

Source

Studies IX: The PCOT and Electoral Performance

Below are translations of two communiques (originally in Arabic) from the Tunisian Communist Workers Party (PCOT). The first is a campaign statement in advance of the Constituent Assembly election in October, the second is a post-election statement explaining the party’s view of the elections and its performance. This is a ‘far left’ party which won three seats in the Constituent Assembly.

The PCOT was certainly in the ‘secular’ column insofar as the polarization between religious and secular parties was concerned and the party probably suffered, as has been noted, from its atheism/secularism and generally unabashed communism. Its rhetoric on religious issues has been laid out on this blog previously.

The party has historically had a hardline on religious matters and one can see this even in the translations below where campaign tactics involving houses of worship used by its opponents are compared to the behavior of the old Ben Ali regime. Its ideological tracts include harsh invectives against Rachid Ghannouchi and Islamist political philosophy and personalities in general. Some of these are rather nuanced, for instance its stance on the hijab (it ran candidates for the constituent assembly who themselves wore hijab). It also made an effort to appeal to religious voters by distancing itself from a stance against religious practice and religious people during this past summer. Being a communist party of the Enver Hoxha variety calls up certain connotations for many Tunisians and others. (they ran candidates under the name al-badil ath-thawri or Revolutionary Alternative, leaving out ‘communist’).

A party that declares itself committed to democracy and human rights but also has to explain its view of the dictatorship of the proletariat and its opinion of Marx or atheism is bound to face challenges in a country where many people are observant Muslims (it is worth mentioning that the PCOT was relatively less hostile toward the religious set during the campaign than the PDP, for example).

But there is a constituency for such a party in Tunisia and its members have gained some credibility from non-communists for having been rather harshly treated and detained under Ben Ali. Hard secularism proved less advantageous in October’s election and the overall results do not point to an Islamist take over and it is likely Nahdha and the center left and left wing parties in the new Constituent Assembly will have to compromise rather than impose narrowness on one another.

“Statement of the electoral list of the Revolutionary Alternative”

LINK: http://www.albadil.org/spip.php?article3875

AUTHOR: PCOT

DATE: 1 October, 2011

Oh Voters! Oh Voters!

Facing the 23 October polls to elect the National Constituent Assembly which was called for by the people’s rebellion and imposed by the transitional authorities in order to make a final break with dictatorship and lay the foundations for a democratic republic to be achieve the goals of the revolution and launch a new phase in Tunisian history, enriched with the blood of the martyrs.

The founding team of the National Council will be the sole legitimate authority in the country after 23 October and its first task will be the drafting of a new constitution for Tunisia and secondly the appointment of a new government for the conduct of the affairs of the county until the election of new governing institutions and accordance with the provisions of the new constitution, terminating after the transitional period and should not in any case go beyond that.

Your voices will be crucial in this election to the NAtional Constituent Assembly and its members must be in the service of the revolution and work to meet the expectations of the Tunisian people and so that enemies of the revolution, from the leftovers of Ben Ali and his “mafia” to the reactionary parties and forces hanging around the authorities, will not be able to control the Council and use it to circumvent the revolution.

Oh Voters! Oh Voters!

The Workers Party, which has struggled since its inception in 1986 for the people to have a free and democratic Tunisia and participated in the overthrow of Ben Ali and continues to struggle to complete the tasks of the revolution, leads you in this carrying along with this name the name of ‘The Revolutionary Alternative’ and as its logo the hammer (the symbol of Worker) and sickle (the symbol of the Farmer).

The Workers Party promises you if you choose from its lists it will act as custodians of the blood of the martyrs and steadfast defenders of your interests in the Constituent Assembly and will work to translate into the new constitution your hopes and ambitions and to speed up the Council’s appointment of a new government to take the necessary actions to response to your urgent demands.

Oh Voters! Oh Voters!

The Workers Party wants to bring you a democratic republic based on:

• The principle of citizenship and equality among members of society;
• Full and effective equality between the sexes in the family, society and public life;
• Ensuring individual and public liberties and protection from abuse, whether from the State or any other group;
• Respect for the inviolability of the human self from the inviolability of his home and his private life and the criminalization of any violation of it;
• The principle of elections to set up all governing institutions;
• The referendum as an instrument of direct democracy;
• Respect for Islam as the faith of the major of the people and all other beliefs and convictions and ensuring the appropriate conditions for their free exercise and peace of mind without the intervention of the police and administration and without the use of the State by any party or group to justify oppression, exploitation or segregation between citizens and to undermine the unity of the people;
• A civil state in the State and its legislation and authority;
• The political system best suited to our country, at this stage, is the parliamentary system, the adoption of proportional representation, blocking the door to control by an individual or party yet again, where the community has a regime of “governors” and “authorized” and “deliberate” should end up with tyranny being replaced by regionalized councils and village assemblies subject to accounting and control;
• Justice and the independence of the judiciary can be achieved only if the conditions are set according to international standards, and that management cannot work unless it is eased in by the community and subject to the control of citizens and elected officials assure its neutrality from the parties;
• Security and stability rely not on repression but on respect for people’s freedom, rights and dignity and the security forces must work in service of the citizenry and the soldiers in service of the country and the people, not in service to the rulers;
• A Constitutional Court is necessary to monitor the law and respond to abuse;
• The foreign policy of the Tunisian revolution should be based on: resistance to colonialism, Zionism and reaction and should support the just cause of the Arab peoples and of the peoples of the world as a whole and the criminalization of normalization with the Zionist Entity by the National Constituent Council;

Oh Voters! Oh Voters!

Political democracy is meaningless without social democracy as the Tunisian people revolted against poverty, unemployment, marginalization, exploitation, corruption and regional inequality while raising the banner of social justice. And the Workers Party does not see a way to achieve this justice without out a radical economic change toward an economy in the service of the people and not in the service of local and foreign minorities whose only objective is the accumulation of profits.

The essential goods of the country should be, under the constitution, the property of the people with investments in improving training methods and individuals, hand-in-hand, without discrimination and the land of Tunisia should not be relinquished to any foreign company and that private property should have a social function.

The right to employment and education and fair and human treatment for the children of the working class and the poor free of charge and the right to adequate housing and transportation and culture and sports in a healthy environment and to social security should be constitutional rights. Care for those with special needs (disabilities) and for the needy and the elderly should be a made a constitutional duty of the state and society in order to avoid discrimination.

The strength of youth should take pride in their community and provide it with all the material and moral conditions to achieve this.

The family is the fundamental nucleus of society and the state should work to release it from physical burdens and change it into a morality based on love and mutual respect.

The Tunisian emigres are a part of Tunisia and should refrain from dealing with them as a source for the provision of hard currency and the state should pick up their cases and defend their moral and material interests and strengthen their ties to their country of origin.

Oh Voters! Oh Voters!

The founding National Council will appoint a new government to handle the affairs of the country until the election of the governing institutions. The Workers Party will, if it wins your trust and its candidates are elected, push the government to proceed with the processing of files in all seriousness on the political and social emergency:

• To establish transitional justice and accountability for the former regime and killers of the martyrs;
• Purge the security services, judiciary, administration and media and re-organize it on a democratic basis;
• Take urgent action for the benefit of disadvantaged areas;
• Activate a general amnesty and accelerate the compensation of families of the martyrs and victims of repression;
• Take concrete actions for the benefit of the people, bring down prices on basic consumer goods, increase private-sector wages and raise the minimum wage;
• Adopt the granting of unemployment benefits and the free movement of labor and the bringing the idle to work and removing …
• Retrieve money smuggled by Ben Ali and his gangs during the fascist era;

Oh Voters! Oh Voters!

The revolution proceeds towards completing its tasks and putting an end to decades — even centuries — of oppression and humiliation. Take your future in your hands and do not give an opportunity to the enemies of the revolution and know that the Workers Party and its comrades are with you on your journey until the final victory!

“Statement on the Constituent Assembly Elections”

LINK: http://www.albadil.org/spip.php?article3882

AUTHOR: PCOT National Leadership

DATE: 29 October, 2011

This evening, Thursday 27 October, 2011 the “Election Commission” announced the preliminary results of the National Constituent Assembly elections. The Nahdah Movement came in first place, followed by the Congress for the Republic, Ettakatol, and al-Aridha . . . and the Tunisian Communist Workers Party received only three seats in Sfax, Kairouan and Siliana.

The Workers Party has gone to the door to participate in these elections, the first of their kind after the revolution that is open to all parties, intellectual and political currents, but it cannot on the on hand record that this election despite being marked by several impurities should stand defended by the truth and move away from the wooden language inherited from the era of Ben Ali and know only the glorification of ‘standing’ while hiding the facts from the people.

1. The turnout did not exceed, according to official figures provided by the Supreme Body for Elections, 48.9 per cent, which means that the majority of voters (3,867,197 of 7,569,824 voters) did not participate, which represents a major weakness and the causes of this should be sought for in the political and social climate during the year of the elections.
2. Money played a dangerous and dirty role in these elections, starting with the work the all too familiar “publicity policy” and acts of bribery, which was widespread in the form of “gifts” and “charitable and social services” which continued until the day of voting without an effort to put a stop to it by the Supreme Body.
3. Because media, including the public media, has remained in the hands of agents of the former regime, the disposal of bias for the benefit of some parties at the expense of the others did not help the general public understand the stakes raised by the Constituent Assembly election and sometimes marginalized or blocked off issues in an ideological maze.
4. The recruitment in mosques and public places made the election not free, for example, most of the speeches on Friday 21 October, 2011, only two days before election day led to tacit or open calls to vote for certain parties over others which it was claimed represented “religion” or that its followers “prayed” . . . which reminds us of the same methods used by Ben Ali.
5. The tactics associated with some campaigns led to excessive distortions — despicable and backward — against the forces of revolutionary democracy, including our party, using accusations of blasphemy, swearing and cursing, and the various reactionary, anti-revolutionary forces participated against the interests of the Tunisian people, for the the bases of these campaigns was the goal of distracting attention from the real axes of political, economic, social and cultural conflict, tearing at the unity of the people on the basis of ideological fabrications.
6. The many violations committed against the ballot, including by many workers at polling stations, included violations in the use of cars and buses to transport voters, especially those not “registered voluntarily”, the continuation of the campaign on polling day in front of stations in various ways, and incitement of voters toward one party or another, and [parties] providing voters with food and drinks at poling stations . . . These violations violated the principles of an electoral democracy, a certification of several monitoring bodies, observers and independent reports, affecting the integrity of the Constituent Assembly election and its transparency and they influenced the results in one way or another. The attempt by the Supreme Body to minimize their importance is not at all convincing in hiding the deficiency of this body in addressing these violations and abuses.
7. The lack of an announcement of the results on time and the postponement of this more than once raises more questions about the transparency of these elections. Over the next few days we need to be shown some of the reasons for these delays.
8. The Tunisian Communist Workers Party contributed to the election and was the first to advocate the election of a Constituent Assembly to break with the regime of tyranny. The Workers Party ran a clean campaign financially, morally and politically by focusing on programs and proposals and relied on the dependability of the energy of its activists who were faced with smear campaigns on a large scale in the media and brushed it off. The results the party obtained are weak, and do not reflect its influence and presence in the field and its history of struggle and its contribution to the sites of progress in the Tunisian people’s revolution against tyranny and dictatorship. While these results are important due to the climate of the year in which the elections took place, which we discussed, and the organs of the party will assess the reasons related to this [performance] and ways to overcome.
9. The Workers Party, regardless of these results will continue to fight relentlessly for the workers and the working class and for other classes of people in order to complete the tasks of the revolution and bring about national, democratic and popular change. The Workers Party gained supporters and convinced them of its program, positions and credibility, which will be a solid base for launching a new and winning bets in the future.

The Workers Party salutes all those who stood by its side on the occasion of this election and who voted for the party, the people and their children, and promises them that its representatives in the Constituent Assembly will defend them will all its strength and the message they carry with them!

– The Tunisian Communist Workers Party National Leadership, Tunis 29 October, 2011

Source

Studies VIII: The 14 January Front

This page includes a series of posts which will consist of translations and excerpts from the communiques, statements, pamphlets and other literature from left-wing political parties in the Arab world, especially Tunisia (others as well, Egypt, Algeria and Mauritania in particular). The selections will focus on foreign policy, women’s issues, relations with other political factions (mainly Islamists and other leftist tendencies), ideology, rhetoric and general worldview. The purpose of this series is to put into English elements of the contemporary Arab political discourse which are generally neglected in western and English-language reportage and analysis while the of Islamist tendency receives extensive, if not excessive coverage. The translations in this series should not be taken as this blogger endorsing or promoting the content of particular materials: the objective is to increase access to and understanding of the contemporary Arab left by making its perspectives known, especially in areas of interest and relevance to English-speakers. This series will include both leftist and Arab nationalist [party] documents, statements, communiques, articles and so on. The series will attempt to touch on as many of the main (and interesting) leftist parties as possible.

Below is an English translation of the founding statement of the 14 January Front (an alternative English translation can be read here), a coalition of Tunisian leftist parties formed after the overthrow of Zine al-Abdine Ben Ali (14 January was the day Ben Ali stepped down from office).

The statement lays out the groups’ intentions to continue demonstrations until the “objectives of the revolution” are met, including the removal of Ben Ali-era officials and the overthrow of the interim Ghannouchi government. It appeals to the Tunisian people to continue protesting — “especially in the street” — to keep the interim authorities on their toes and politics in a constant state of play, lest elements of the old regime move things revert back to the way they were before the uprising. [....]

[T]he 14 January Front’s statement is widely available on the Internet on various party sites, forums and Facebook pages (it has its own website: http://front14janvier.net/). Since its formation, the front has gone through many changes of course and by now its collective strength has heavily eroded. It nevertheless remains a key element in understanding the evolution of the Tunisian left’s political development after the fall of Ben Ali. Understanding its objective also helps contextualize the ongoing protests by those described as the “far left”.

“The Founding of the 14 January Front”

LINK: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=179104395467783

DATE: 20 January, 2011

Confirming our involvement in the revolution of our people who fought for their right to freedom and national dignity and made sacrifices, represented by dozens of martyr and the thousands of wounded and detainees, in order to reach victory over its enemies, internal and external, and in response to attempts at chaos and plundering those sacrifices, we form the 14 January Front as a policy framework to work for the advance of our people’s revolution, to achieve its aims and respond to counter-revolutionary forces, this framework includes parties, forces and national, progressive and democratic organizations in its foundations.

Its urgent tasks are:

1. The overthrow of the current Ghannouchi government and any government that includes symbols of the former regime, who applied a policy that was neither national nor popular and served the interests of the ousted president.
2. Dissolving the RCD and its headquarters, confiscating its property and financial assets, considering them to belong to the people.
3. The formation of an interim government that enjoys the confidence of the people and progressive forces, political activists, trade unions and youth.
4. The dismissal of parliament, advisors and all sham bodies and the Supreme Judicial Council and the dismantling of the political structure of the former regime and preparations for elections to a constituent assembly in no more than a year in order to draft a new democratic constitution and legal system and a new framework for public life to ensure the political, economic and cultural rights of the people.
5. The dissolving of the political police and the enactment of a new security policy with respect for human rights and the rule of law.
6. Holding accountable all those proven to have looted the people’s money and committed crimes in their duties like imprisonment, torture and murder, from decisions to execution, as well as all those proven in cases of bribery and misconduct in dealing with public properties.
7. The confiscation of properties of the former ruling family and their close associates and the associates of all officials who used their position to enrich themselves at the people’s expense.
8. Providing jobs for the unemployed and taking urgent action to approve granting them coverage by unemployment, social and health benefits and increasing their purchasing power.
9. Building a national economy that serves the people and places the vital and strategic sectors under state supervision and the nationalization of privatized institutions and the creation of an economic and social policy that breaks with the liberal capitalist approach.
10. Guaranteeing public and individual freedoms, especially the freedom of demonstrate, the freedom to organize, the freedom of expression and the press, freedom of information and freedom of onscience and the release of detainees and the enactment of a general amnesty law.
11. The Front salutes the support of the popular masses and progress forces in the Arab region and the world for the revolution in Tunisia and invites them to continue be seized by all possible means.
12. Rejecting normalization with the Zionist Entity, criminalizing it and supporting liberation movements in the Arab region and the world.
13. The Front calls for the popular masses and nationalist and progressive forces to continue mobilizing and struggling by all means of legitimate protest, especially in the street, until you have achieved the proposed objectives.
14. The Front salutes all committees, associations and self-organization for the masses and invites them to expand their involvement in all areas of public affairs and managing various aspects of daily life.

Glory to the martyrs of the intifadhah and victory to the rebellious masses of our people!

– Tunis, 20 January, 2011

Association of Left Workers

The Movement of Nasserist Unionists

The Movement of Nationalist Democrats

Nationalist Democrats (al-Witad)

The Ba’thist Current

Independent Leftists

The Tunisian Communist Workers Party

National Democratic Action Party (PTPD)

Source

Studies VII: The PCOT & Religion and the State (II)

This post is a part of a new series of posts which will consist of translations and excerpts from the communiques, statements, pamphlets and other literature from left-wing political parties in the Arab world, especially Tunisia (others as well, Egypt, Algeria and Mauritania in particular). The selections will focus on foreign policy, women’s issues, relations with other political factions (mainly Islamists and other leftist tendencies), ideology, rhetoric and general worldview. The purpose of this series is to put into English elements of the contemporary Arab political discourse which are generally neglected in western and English-language reportage and analysis while the of Islamist tendency receives extensive, if not excessive coverage. The translations in this series should not be taken as this blogger endorsing or promoting the content of particular materials: the objective is to increase access to and understanding of the contemporary Arab left by making its perspectives known, especially in areas of interest and relevance to English-speakers. This series will include both leftist and Arab nationalist [party] documents, statements, communiques, articles and so on. The series will attempt to touch on as many of the main (and interesting) leftist parties as possible.

Below is a translation of an essay (“Marxism and the relationship between religion and state: State secularism”) included in a pamphlet released by the Tunisian Communist Workers Party titled في اللائكية ”On Secularism”.

The essay is itself an excerpt from a longer piece dealing with similar issues. The title of the pamphlet and this essay use the term اللائكية (al-la’ikiyya) derived from laïcité/laïque rather than علمانية (al-’ilmaniyya), the the standard Arabic term for secularism. The implications of this have been discussed earlier in this series. Most of the essays/polemics in “On Secularism” are aggressive and loud critiques of Islamist political thought and leaders like Rachid Ghannouchi. More than one of the essays come from the late 1980s but others are not dated, like “Marxism and the relationship between religion and the state”.

The essay lays out the author’s view of the corrosive influence of religious and religious partisans on science, freedom of conscience, women, class and the most effective means of dealing with the religious problem from a leftist perspective. It makes a strong effort to avoid targeting Islam as a religion and to cast its criticism of religious politics firmly in the realm of materialist political discourse (drawing heavily on Leninist themes), criticizing “Islamism” and “Islamists” as a system of political philosophy and activism, explicitly admitting that the party and the left cannot attempt to ban or eradicate religion from society. The author clearly hopes to avoid conflating opposition to Islamist politics to Islam as practiced by ordinary people (which might alienate potential followers) while at the same time arguing for open-mindedness on religious thought (note that the essay mentions the right to atheism, for example). The forceful arguments on education and minority rights are notable as well. These come in support of the piece’s three main problems with religious government (its negative impact on”scientific renaissance, its suppression of free thought and its restrictions on political freedom).

“Marxism and the relationship between religion and the state” was selected for translation because it represents a relatively brief and straightforward introduction to the party’s ideological and practical stance on religion and politics, in the general sense. It does not deal specifically with Tunisian rivals of the PCOT or secularism in general by name; it discusses the subject in social and historical terms. Thus it gives readers a general idea of the party’s overall stance which is fleshed out further in other (longer) and more specific essays. Additionally it reveals important elements of the party’s attitude toward education in general.

“Marxism and the relationship between religion and the state: State secularism”

LINK: http://www.albadil.org/spip.php?article2338

Date: 12 June, 2011

The issue of the relationship between religion and state is an important point in the controversy between the Tunisian Communist Party and some Islamists on the pages of the newspapers and this is normal given the sensitive nature of this issue. As usual, the party sought to find a formula harmonizing Marxism and religion and through its most rational members expresses its position in an article, which is referred to at the beginning of the text:

“We do not hide the fact that we as Marxists differ with the Islamist trend in vision, philosophy and in our assessment of the benefits of rationality, but we do not ask for the symbols of a secular state, as put forth in Europe where the labor movement that raised this slogan [of secularism] was not alone in resisting the tyranny of the Church and its power over the fate of the people. The matter for us Tunisian communists an abuse of just that. We consider the state to be in the interests of the masses and within these interests is to take care of religious affairs in all that it takes to provide Islamic knowledge in schools and the [state-owned] media, attending to the building of mosques and providing the right atmosphere so that citizens can attend to their religious duties. But what we reject is the religious bullying of anyone on state agencies and deriving leverage from authorizing the classification of citizens as Muslims and heretics of Islam.”

This is the position of the Tunisian Communist Party toward the relationship between religion and the state, the relationship between religion and schools, indeed it is the case that with religion and schools the schools have a religious character to some extent and are only against extremism. I took care of Marxism in the subject of the relationship between religion and schools, and stood clearly and unambiguously for a secular state as well, which means the separation of religion from the state and the separation of the schools from religion, but what does this mean? It means that the state must refrain from interfering in religious issues directly or indirectly, such as by being a religious association or by funding them, refraining from establishing distinctions between citizens on the basis of their religion or limiting their freedom on the same basis, and ensuring their [citizens’] right to believe in any religion while guaranteeing their right to atheism, too.

The separation of school from religion means to make school a place for the emergence of community and the reception of scientific, technical and cultural knowledge without imposing consciousness of this or that religious belief and without taking into account in the teaching of science by considering the position of religions concerning this or that discovery. But does this mean that in the eyes of Marxism to try to prevent the existence of religious beliefs, religious groups, religious practices and religious celebrations and seasons? Never. All that remains but without the state intervening and imposing some patter of believe. [. . .]

A secular state rejects oppression and persecution

Having begun to adopt the banner of communism in a secular state in which the basis of the “bourgeois” banner raised by the bourgeoisie during the revolutionary eighteenth century, from historical fact and theory it is evident, that linking religion and the state inevitably leads to the worst manifestations of oppression and persecution. How?

First: Linking religion and the state stands as a barrier to scientific renaissance because each discovery contradicts the position of religion[s] — how many religions contradict scientific findings — and are considered unbelief, blasphemy and heresy with their authors’ fate being oppression. And everyone knows the fate of “Galileo” which came as a result of his discovery that the earth revolves [around the sun], whereas the Christian Church considered it the center of the universe and that the other planets revolved around it; everyone also knows the positions of the various religious institutions , Christian or Islamic, on the theory of Darwinian evolution, which showed with evidence that humans evolved from anthropoid organisms, even in America the teaching of Darwin and his scientific theory is prevented from being taught in schools and institutions subject to the religious establishment! These are but a few examples of religious opposition to scientific knowledge.

Second: Linking religion to the state also leads to the suppression of freedom of thought because all thinking incompatible with religion, in whole or in part, is regarded by the owner as abuse, thought and knowledge do not leave religious practice and repeat and confirm what is in the “Bible” which turns out to be the sole source of human knowledge. In this is the denial of the evolution of human thought, and sentencing to stagnation and regression. For us in the history of many different religion so many people suffered for their boldness in expressing rational ideas contrary to religious “knowledge”. (e.g., The Arab Ibn Rushd whose books were burned and who was exiled as a result of his ideas introducing materialism to Arab thought.)

Third: The linking of religion and state leads inevitably to the suppression of political freedoms. Why? Because in religion God is the source of legislation and legislation is considered over and done and identifies for the people the principles of economic, social, political and moral behavior, and they need only to follow these principles by following the successor of God on earth, the kind or the Khalif or the Imam whose governance is the rule of God. It thus robs the people of their right in the exercise of legislation in regard to all affairs of their lives, because the status of legislator applies only to God. As Abu Alaa al-Mawdudi, one of the leading intellectuals for the Ikhwan after Sayyid Qutb says regarding the theory of political Islam which is centered on “removing all authority and command from the hands of men [. . .] because God alone is competent [. . .] and since democracy is the rule of the people [. . .] it is not correct to unleash the word democracy on the Islamic state system rather the sincere expression of the word of holy government or theocracy.

It is not therefore surprising to see that, historically, all existing regimes based on the Christian or Islamic religions, participation in its being as an individual is broken. Thus every contradiction to the King or Khalif turns into a contradiction of God and contradiction to God is doomed to painful suffering [. . .]

In the case of a country with multiple religions, the establishment of the state on the basis of religion damages harshly those from minority religions since political rights are distributed on a sectarian basis. It then turns differences in religion, like differences in race and gender and class into the basis for political persecution.

Thus raising the banner of a secular state for humanity (this was done initially in Europe) was the product of a long and arduous struggle between freedom and tyranny, a struggle for which humanity paid a dear price. If this banner is not raised throughout the Arab countries, it is not because the institution of Islam is democratic or because there is no need for the Arabs to separate religion and state but because of backwardness in their countries and the failure of democratic revolutions, bourgeoisie in the eighteenth and nineteenth century until colonization sought to maintain the situation and exploit it for its own uses.

Secularism is a test for political forces

The position on the relationship between religion and the state is a test for democracy or any political force, and it is a true democracy that defends the secular state, and communism, if adhering to this banner, which has been put away by the bourgeoisie in more than one place because it is based on respect for the will of the masses, on democracy and on building the state on a secular basis totally for political liberties and political energies of the people turning them into the master of their fate. What is strange is that the Tunisian Communist Party, which claims to be the standard bearer of Marxism in Tunisia, did not quite live up to the level of the bourgeoisie in the eighteenth century, rebelling in defense of the need for the separation of religious institutions and the state. So then it claims communism and a firm strictness in this situation. But how do you stop Marxism at the limit of raising the banner of a secular state, and that’s enough? No, communism considers the separation of religion from the state as a necessary condition to enable the toiling workers to overcome the illusions of religion because that separation will bring them to the launching of freedom of the thought, will allow the possibility for debate, the possibility for addressing the issue religion and disbelief as purely intellectual weapons as in the saying of Lenin after he had to go into hiding, having been subjected to the worst forms of abuse at the hands of the dominant religious institution of the state.

So as Marxism is concerned religion is considered a private matter for the state but this does not mean it is the duty of communists to refrain from the theoretical struggle against religious thought rather that it must be continued. If Marxism raises the separation of religion and the state as its banner it is easy to understand that a socialist state cannot exist except for as a non-religious state, a secular one.

On this basis it can be said that Marxism stands against positions on the left and among anarchists that want to resolve the issue of religion by means of coercion and considers [. . .] that attacks the freedom of toiling workers and their feelings jeopardizes the their ability to freely debate or be educated, it also stands against the arguments of right-wing opportunists who call for appeasing religion calling it a special issue, and refrain from publishing intellectual material, in this regard Lenin says:

Religion for the Party of proletarian socialism is not a special case. Our party is an association of conscious activists and pioneers fighting for the liberation of the working class. This association (the party) cannot and should not remain without interest in the absence of awareness, ignorance and obscurantism coloring religious belief. We demand the complete separation of church and state in order to fight the fog of religious weapons and purely intellectual weapons alone [. . .]

Source