Political assassination accomplishes nothing

 

It appears that a second assassination attempt has been made on the life of American ex-president Donald Trump. Trump is the Republican Party’s nominee for the November election to install a new president.

From 1861 until 1961 four sitting American presidents have been assassinated. There have been attempts made to kill other presidents and presidential candidates. Robert F Kennedy, brother of assassinated president John F Kennedy was killed in 1968 when campaigning to become president.

Wikipedia provides a long list of leaders throughout world history who have suffered this fate. As the article below demonstrates, the supposed ‘benefits’ of these acts seldom achieve what they set out to accomplish.

The below is from the Socialist Standard February 2017.

‘The recent assassination of the Russian ambassador to Turkey reminds us that this particular form of political violence is still very much in use. Both states and those without states (‘terrorists’ or ‘freedom fighters’) believe this tactic still to be useful in furthering their political agendas. Perhaps a brief historical perspective on the phenomenon could help us decide whether they are correct in their continuing belief of its efficacy.

We begin with what is still, probably, the most infamous example of this form of homicide in western Europe’s history – the assassination of Julius Caesar. Fearful of losing their power as a class in Rome a gang of patricians including Brutus and Cassius decided to end the meteoric political career of Julius Caesar. Under the banner of ‘saving the republic’ from a tyrant they stabbed him to death en-masse on the senate floor. Subsequently they were hunted down by Caesar’s hatchet man Mark Anthony who himself was obliged to commit suicide by Caesar’s nephew, later his adopted son, Augustus. Rome was then in the power of such successive madmen as Tiberius, Caligula and Nero. This particular assassination, then, was an unmitigated failure and Rome became a totalitarian state dominated for centuries by megalomaniacs. Could they have been successful? Historically Rome followed many other cultures in evolving from some form of a republic into a monarchy and it would appear that they were defying economic and political necessity which, in the end, defines historical progression. Ironically, because of the assassination and the subsequent power achieved by his descendants, Caesar’s name was taken by the all of the rulers of Rome, and in its form of Czar and Kaiser together with the medieval title of ‘Holy Roman Emperor’ has been used ever since to designate political absolutism.

The term ‘assassin’ originated in Persia and later Syria and was used as a pejorative to describe a murderous Ismaili sect active in the middle ages. During the crusades the Franks encountered them and brought back the term to describe the similar internecine phenomenon in the West. The word may well have been used to describe our next victim of political murder in 1170 –Thomas Becket. Henry II of England had expected his friend to be an ally in the struggle for power with Rome when he made Becket archbishop of Canterbury. However this was not to be as Becket defended the autonomy of the church fiercely against his king’s political machinations. Upon hearing one of Henry’s most ferocious condemnations of his old friend four of his knights took it upon themselves to murder the ‘troublesome priest’. Henry maintained that he was shocked by the killing and did penance as did Beckett’s assassins who, ironically, ended up as crusaders attempting to find redemption for their sins. Thomas Becket was pronounced a martyr and canonised only two years after his death – giving valuable propaganda to the Pope and thus strengthening his power in England; yet another example of the failure of assassination to achieve the desired political aims.

It would appear that John Wilkes Booth’s assassination of American president Abraham Lincoln was motivated primarily by revenge. As a supporter of the Confederacy he was outraged by Lincoln’s support of voting rights for blacks and swore vengeance. Although the fifteenth amendment of 1870 did guarantee these rights it was repealed in 1894, something that would have delighted Booth. To the shame of the USA black people had to wait until 1965 before they again had the legal right to a vote in every State in the Union. Booth’s act, then, had no impact on the course of US history. Karl Marx, on behalf of the First International, had sent Lincoln a letter of congratulation on his re-election just before the assassination and was sincerely saddened by his death. No doubt this event featured in his fierce debate with Michael Bakunin and the anarchist element within the International who supported assassination as a valid political strategy. Marx won the debate but lost the International which split along an Anarchist/Socialist fault line. Since that time no socialist has seriously believed that assassination can change anything politically but it has remained something of an anarchist fantasy.

No historical assessment of assassination would be complete without a mention of the murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria by Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip in 1914. The decaying Austrian empire took advantage of this event to rattle its rusty sabre one last time. In doing so it provided the catalyst that sparked the First World War in which all of the European powers vied for supremacy. Princip was motivated by his knowledge that the Austrians sought to prevent the pan Slavic nation that he so desired and as part of the ‘Black Hand’ group he conspired to assassinate the Archduke. It could be argued that this event did contribute to the creation of Yugoslavia after the war in 1918. However the religious and cultural tensions within the peoples of that region led to its dissolution in 1991. A look at the ebb and flow of national borders in Europe during the twentieth century makes it obvious that nation states composed of federations of different ethnic and religious communities are often unstable and exist only courtesy of the strength or otherwise of the political illusions used to manipulate the populations by ruling classes. Princip’s anachronistic politics, and those who shared them, ensured the eventual doom of his dream.

In my own lifetime it was the assassination of President Kennedy that caused the most outrage. I remember, as a child, the sense of shock in my parents as they watched the drama unfold on TV. Without commenting on the numerous conspiracy theories that surround this event, it does seem possible it was more than the just act of one isolated ‘lone gunman’ in the shape of Lee Harvey Oswald. We will never be entirely sure of his motives as he was himself murdered soon after the killing of the President; it may have been revenge for the aborted invasion of Cuba or merely an act on behalf of what he saw as an ideological struggle between the USSR and the USA. We do know that it made no difference to the momentum of US militarism and imperialism across the globe.

We also know that none of the above acts of violence made any significant difference to the course of history; and that they will continue to be politically irrelevant. Only the ideologically naïve believe that individuals hold immense power and that to annihilate these people would change anything in the lives of the majority. In contrast if we can convince the majority of the illusion of this belief, in both the legitimacy of attempting to allocate power to single individuals and the possibility that they can wield it successfully, then we can assassinate one of the causes of political murder.’

Wez.

https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2017/02/a-history-of-assassination-2017.html

Eichmann: Who is Responsible?

The 15 year-long hunt for Adolf Eichmann, a former Gestapo chief, was successfully concluded on this day in 1960. The press at the time made much of the event. Socialists however regarded the capture of Eichmann as of no importance, understanding then as now that "..the inhumanities which man inflicts upon man are not the actions of people who were born monsters, but rather the consequence of inhuman policies and doctrines which a monstrous system conditions human beings into accepting as answers to its economic and political problems." They saw that "Eichmann was a product of German capitalism which made a scapegoat of the Jews for the failure of Germany to win the 1914-18 war and for the mass unemployment which followed. The massacre of the six million attributed to him was not the work of one 'evil genius.' History cannot be so simply explained. But there is significance in the fact that Eichmann is to be given the mockery of a 'trial'. What a perversion in the name of justice it is which allows the victors in the 1939-45 bloodbath, in which mass murder was committed by both sides, to condemn the leaders of the conquered for the same crimes they perpetuated themselves." This perspective was developed in a Socialist Standard Editorial of the time (July1960):

"It is impossible to condemn too strongly the terrible brutality of the killing of millions of people, Jews and others, of which Adolf Eichmann is accused. The majority of people have reacted to the press reports with a demand for his punishment. Learning of Eichmann's deeds, they take the short-sighted view that to deal with him as an individual is enough. But Eichmann is the end product of a vast process; he arose from the inhuman conditions of capitalist society. The very people who condemn him are content to leave those conditions untouched.

The working class, not only in Nazi Germany but in post-war Germany - and throughout the world - blindly support capitalism. None of them can escape responsibility for the consequences. For the power wielded by the rulers of world capitalism is a reflection of the political ignorance of the working class everywhere. It is absurd to blame one man, when he is only the instrument of a policy supported by millions.

After a war, the defeated leaders are vilified, some imprisoned and others executed. The victorious leaders are enshrined as heroes. It is fortunate for the leaders of the 1939-45 Allies that no cloak-and-dagger men are hunting for them. They, too, are responsible for terrible slaughter. President Truman gave the orders for the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Churchill, Attlee and Stalin supported this atrocity. In Hiroshima alone, 80,000 people were incinerated in a flash and hundreds more have since died - and are still dying - from various causes. Thousands of Germans were killed in the bombing of Hamburg and in the destruction of Dresden.

These are the vicious conditions which make possible the race hater and the mass exterminator. Although tens of millions of people have been butchered in the last two great wars, the world is not safe. The fear of war is still with us. Nowadays, many nations have vast armaments poised in readiness to exterminate each other. How many future Eichmann's wait to stalk upon the scene?

If only workers would find out why all this madness takes place! War is caused by the struggles between national capitalist Powers over markets and economic resources. This can only be cured by the abolition of capitalism. As long as workers support this system, so will they be vulnerable to the racial theorist who, on nationalist grounds, gets support for his programme of mass murder. The dictators of yesterday, and the dictators and leaders of today, with their frightening military machines, only reflect the preparedness of their workers to ignore the bloodshed of two world wars and still to die for capitalism.

It is futile to punish an individual whilst ignoring the vicious conditions which made him possible. Eichmann was involved in some terrible things - but the exterminations which he so methodically organised are only a part of the greatest atrocity of all - the capitalist system of society. As the movement for a classless world - for Socialism - takes root and spreads,so will the possibility of inhuman murderers like Adolf Eichmann decline and die."
[Eichmann's trial began April 1961. He was hanged in Israel at the end of May 1962]

Dream or Nightmare?

Once again the media is filled with stories about anti-semitism but also now with reports of yet shootings of unarmed protesters in Gaza so perhaps it is incumbent upon the blog to clarify the Socialist Party's position. Socialists are on the side of the oppressed against the oppressors and the massive use of overwhelming force by the state of Israel clearly exposes it as the oppressor. But just because we sympathise with the victims of Israeli oppression does not mean that we favour the solutions popular amongst them.

Members of the Socialist Party are saddened by the recurring violence of the Gaza conflict. We condemn both sides and denounce the senseless killing of our fellow workers. History shows that in times of war, working-class interests are never served by workers throwing in their lot with nationalist or other political leaders of capitalism, whether they are well-funded like the Israeli state, or weaker like Hamas. The killings in Gaza underlines yet again the urgent need to work for a world without nations and nationalism, bosses and workers. Peace is always better than war. Because wars are never fought in the interests of ordinary people. And because in wars it is always ordinary people who suffer. So, irrespective of the issues involved or the terms agreed, socialists can only welcome the ending of any war in any part of the world. Stop the killing is our permanent policy.

There are many who hold an image of Zionism as a movement of pioneering, progressive, pious, peace-loving nation-building. European anti-Semitism was responsible for creating a movement known as Zionism which aimed at creating a "Jewish homeland" free of persecution. The slogan was coined of “a land without people, for a people without land”, conveniently overlooking the existing Palestinian inhabitants. The Zionist goal of a Jewish state of Israel involved transforming Palestine into "a land without people" or as the Israeli Labour Party put it in 1944,  “Let the Arabs be encouraged to move out, as the Jews move in.” The creation of a “Jewish homeland” saw a new diaspora, that of the Palestinian inhabitants .

Zionism hasn’t established a workers’ paradise. The sole fruit of the decades of struggle and strife which Zionism has known has been - the establishment of yet another capitalist state. Which is an achievement the workers of the world, Jewish and Gentile, white and black, could well have done without. It is a hundred years since the first Zionist colonists “returned” from the diaspora to Palestine, and it has been succession of bloody conflicts. Since that time the dream of a “homeland” free from oppression and insecurity that led so many Jews to rally round their leaders in the name of Zionism, has been bitterly disappointed.

Socialists and Zionists have been opponents since the beginning. Inevitably, as they represented two incompatible views as to the solution workers of Jewish background should seek to the problem of anti-semitism. The Socialist Party attitude is that Jewish people should seek emancipation, not as Jews, but as human beings. To do this they should abandon their religion - just as Christians should abandon theirs - and become members of a secular human community in which money and the state should be abolished. The Zionist movement propounded the view that the Jews should not seek emancipation as human beings, but as Jews. Neither should they seek integration within the political states in which they found themselves, but separation in a state of their own.  The Socialist Party argues against the idea that the Jews were a nation or a race; most Jews were workers and should join with other workers to achieve socialism. The dreams of Jewish workers of a life free from persecution and oppression finds its echo today in the dreams of Palestinian workers. Jewish dreams have not been answered by the setting up of the state of Israel and Palestinian dreams will not be answered by the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Let it be clear that unlike certain anti-Zionists, socialists do not oppose the blinkered mentality of nationalism only when it is Jewish. To us, the flag-waving, trigger-happy Zionists are no more ignorant and abhorrent than those who have swallowed the diversionary, nationalist message of Hamas and Hizbullah. Socialists do not take sides in national conflicts because it is not our aim to support one or other of the competing capitalist or would-be capitalist factions, each of which seeks its own territories and exploitable populations. No socialist will ever fight to defend a border—we want to do away with the divisiveness of countries and states. The socialist solution to the Middle East conflict is not a piecemeal policy. We do not advocate re-drawing the border or the exchange of one ruling class for another one. These amount to mere rearrangements of the capitalist furniture. Our opposition to Zionism does not mean that we support the creation of a Palestinian state. Unlike some, we don’t single out Jewish nationalism for special condemnation. We condemn all nationalisms equally. The “Palestinian nation” is just as much a myth as the “Jewish nation”, or any other nation. Nationalism is the ideology which seeks to justify the capitalist division of the world into separate “nation-states”, each competing to gain a place in the sun for its ruling class and each with killing machines at its disposal. We utterly reject this view of the way humanity should organise itself.

The establishment of Israel did not end anti-semitism. In fact, it caused it to spread to where it had never existed before - to the Arab-speaking parts of the world. For centuries Jews had lived in peace and security, integrated and speaking Arabic, in these parts of the world. Now, as a direct result of the establishment of a Jewish State in Palestine,, they came to suffer the same persecution that the European Jews had. The result was that centuries of integration was undone in decades. Today there are virtually no Jews living in Arab countries: most Arab Jews are now in Israel where they form an underprivileged group.

Both Zionism and Palestinian nationalism hold back the growth of class consciousness among the working class in Israel and Palestine.  Only when Israeli and Palestinian workers join the worldwide movement for a society without nations will the strife finally cease. Neither Israeli nor Palestinian nationalism can serve the interest of the vast majority of the population. The workings of world capitalism show that peace and prosperity are only possible in a world-wide framework - socialism. The Socialist Party re-affirms that all peoples should seek their emancipation, not as members of nations or religions or ethnic groups, but as human beings, as members of the human race. They should unite to abolish the division of the world into so-called nation-states and to establish a World Cooperative Commonwealth of which we will all be free and equal members - citizens of the world, not subjects of nation-states. the cause of socialism is and must be universal. So long as you are living in a society that forces you to be a wage slave, you must, if you wish to be free, join hands with your fellow workers of all countries in the task of securing "the world for the workers."

One-State, Two-State or No-State Solution ?

The Palestinian Authority puts in a UN bid for statehood, in a few days time.The 66th UN General Assembly will vote on Palestinian state which would include the West Bank and Gaza, with East al-Quds (Jerusalem) as its capital. The Palestinian state alongside Israel will amount to little more than a string of ghettoes or bantustans, dissected by Israeli settlements. There is the other little discussed choice for the Palestinans and that is to accept the reality of Israel’s control over the whole of what used to be Palestine and demand citizenship and civil rights within a single secular state. This would be equivalent to the ending of apartheid in South Africa but would not solve the problems faced by the majority of the population. Not that the emergence of such a secular state is any more easy to envisage at present in view of the prevalence of ethnic-supremacist, sectarian and even racist outlooks in both Jewish-Israeli and Palestinian society. Palestinians have been replaced in menial jobs by workers from Thailand, the Philippines, and Africa. The number of unemployed among Israelis has also increased. So Palestinian workers are increasingly superfluous to the labour needs of Israel's capitalist economy. This gives even more cause for concern about their fate. It may be tempting to support the underdog and take sides with the Philistine David versus Israeli Goliath. But such thinking blinds us to the real causes of the particularly brutal history of the Middle East. Peace is always better than war. Because wars are never fought in the interests of ordinary people. And because in wars it is always ordinary people who suffer. 

So, irrespective of the issues involved or the terms agreed, Socialists can only welcome the ending of any war in any part of the world. Stop the killing is our permanent policy. Israel uses terror on a much larger scale than Hamas, though that is solely because it has much greater military capacity. In the insane world of global-politics the real winners are never the oppressed or their alleged champions, but the powerful who direct affairs from afar. One of the saddest and longest lasting examples of a working class divided against itself is the continuing factional struggle between Israeli and Palestinian workers. 

"The people" do not exist except as an ideological construct, an abstraction manipulated by defenders of a capitalist status quo (through government, media, schools) to cover up very real class divisions. The land, the factories, — none is owned by "the people", but by a small group of capitalists who profit very well, safe, many miles away from the violence. Hamas could probably have saved “their people” from the fury of the Israeli war machine by ceding power in Gaza to the Palestine Authority. 

SOYMB make this point not to diminish Israel’s direct responsibility for its atrocities, but rather to highlight how little the Palestinian (as well as Israeli leaders) really care about ordinary people. Socialists have always argued that the workers of all countries have more in common with each other than with those representing the interests of capital. The poor worker from Palestine face the same condition as the Israeli worker. Both are faced with the fundamental problem of capitalism which forces worker against worker not for their own interests, but for the interest of profit. Israeli workers have already given evidence with their recent mass protests of where their own chains rub them. The Israeli working class suffers as it surrenders its freedom and political power in exchange for the safety of the security state. The working class is left to do the dirty work for the owning class, the employing class and the officer class - working in their factories and dying in their armies. Both sides can only lose their lives and liberty, so long as they see their own interests lying in the suppression of each other, rather than in the destruction of the murderous armed elites that promote the war on both sides. 

 World socialists are revolted by the violence of the Palestinian conflict. We condemn both sides and denounce the senseless killing of our fellow workers. History shows that in times of war, working-class interests are never served by workers throwing in their lot with nationalist or other political leaders of capitalism, whether they are well-funded like the Israeli state, or weaker like Hamas. Unlike most on the Left, we don’t single out Jewish nationalism for special condemnation. We condemn all nationalisms equally. The Left argue that they support the struggles of the Palestinians because they are oppressed as a people, and their right to self-determination must be fought for. This illustrates the romantic/moralistic approach of the leftists – the oppression of Palestinian workers is made qualitatively worse by the denial of national rights, that is, the denial to the Palestinian capitalists of a free hand in exploiting their workers and conning them into believing that they share a common interest in defending a patch of land. The “Palestinian nation” is just as much a myth as the “Jewish nation”, or any other nation. Nationalism is the ideology which seeks to justify the capitalist division of the world into separate “nation-states”, each competing to gain a place in the sun for its ruling class and each with killing machines at its disposal.

 In the new nation, Palestinians would still be oppressed as workers, and the land would belong to a new set of owners. They would still be subject to poverty, to the tyranny of their rulers and to the chaos of capitalist existence. We utterly reject this view of the way humanity should organise itself. We ask that workers set aside the reaction of nationalism and religion to join together to root out the real problem itself—capitalism. Instead of a “two-state” solution, world socialists offer the “no-state” solution as the only one that can ever give the Middle East lasting peace. The Socialist Party re-affirm that all peoples should seek their emancipation, not as members of nations or religions or ethnic groups, but as human beings, as members of the human race, as citizens of the world, not subjects of nation-states.

Vote-lesser-evil-for-business-as-usual

“And there you all are tonight, glued to your TVs and your computers, your hearts swelled with pride because you belong to the strongest country on Earth, cheering on your Murderer President. Ignorant of the entire world’s repulsion. You kill and you kill and you kill, and still you remain proud. We are fools.” – Margot Kidder

Democrat and Republican leaders have always played Good Cop/Bad Cop. The first thing to note is when most political commentators advocate voting for the ‘lesser evil’, they rarely describe the lesser ‘evil’ but rather endow the ‘evil’ with numerous virtues. Find the positive things to praise; point out how scary the opponent is; find reasons to say that unlike the opponent a very rich powerful establishment figure is actually on the side of the common people and make sure not to  mention the voting record that shows your candidate is against the common people.

We are admonished by the experts and pundits that politics is the art of the possible and to be reasonable in our expectations of those we elect, who all campaign on the impossible – reforming capitalism into a humane system that acts in the interests of the majority and not for the protection of the interests of the minority. The pragmatists tell us you have to have a seat at the table to enact real change but the real decisions are not made at the tables of government offices but in the board-rooms of the corporations and the floors of the stock-exchanges.

Sanders endorsed Hillary because the liberals had bound her to the most progressive platform in the history of the Democratic Party – a hyperbolic claim, if there ever was one, although it is merely election promises. The rhetoric is still to be turned into deeds and we shall see, as with all manifesto pledges, they get quickly broken. Remember all those Obama promises of change?

Trump is a hypothetical threat. Clinton is a proven danger. The logic of the lesser evil ensures that each new election cycle will see both greater and lesser evils being more evil than the last time around. We might worry about what Trump might hypothetically do if he takes office, but we know what Clinton has done and it is still happening now. Supporting Clinton only strengthens the right-ward drift. Trump’s recent hint about “2nd amendment people” taking “action” against Clinton, will inspire an assassination, but let’s keep this in perspective: Trump may indeed inspire a lone nutcase, but Clinton fully supported the killing of foreign political leaders. Recall how Hilarity got that nickname: “We came, we saw, he died” as she chuckled over Gaddafi’s death. On the world stage some view Trump as the lesser evil and see Hillary Clinton is an undeniable war hawk and Trump as an advocate of détente. At the Democratic National Convention, a 4-star General marched out to a military drum-roll to proclaim Clinton’s credentials as a war leader and with a scowl announced for the world to heed: “To our enemies; we will pursue you as only America can. You will fear us!” Clinton has an undeniable track record of advocating, supporting, and committing international war crimes. As for Trump’s overt misogyny, have we so readily forgotten Bill Clinton’s behavior and Hillary Clinton “standing by her man” and most likely bringing him back into public office.

It is simply impossible to support either Clinton or Trump in good conscience. US voters are faced with a non-choice. Supporting Trump is an expression of hateful xenophobia or an act of delusional desperation, but supporting Clinton is a clear endorsement of neoliberal economics and American expansionism. Can anyone deny Clinton’s nationalistic and militaristic credentials? Clinton supported the invasion of Iraq, she initiated a war in Libya, provoked a devastating civil war in Syria and masterminded a coup in Honduras. The problem is that Hillary Clinton has spent her career poisoning the well so why should we take her word for anything.

A wasted vote is voting for somebody you don’t believe in. That’s a wasted vote. Vote for what you believe in – that’s how you bring about change. It is better to have the vote than not to have it. The workers in the Chartist movement were no fools in wanting their chance to determine who will rule. The wealthy who opposed votes for workers on the grounds that the working class is many and the property-owning rich parasites are few and therefore the many might end the social power of the few had a point. Sadly, the working- class franchise has not yet justified those fears of real democracy. The workers have been persuaded to play the game: bought off by reforms and conned by leaders, the potential power of the vote has been wasted in every single election.

The answer is not to abandon the vote and ignore elections, but to work to create a politically educated electorate of working men and women who understand where their interest lies. The battle, not just when the electoral whistle blows, but at all times, is to win workers’ minds; to make class-conscious workers. Such workers, currently only a small minority, will never waste their votes on electing leaders, nor will they support any policy designed to run the profit system which exploits and dominates them. Socialists enter into the electoral contest, using it as a means of putting our revolutionary case for socialism to the widest number of fellow workers.

“It is better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.” Eugene V. Debs

Transnational Plunder In Honduras

Just one more example of capitalism's ongoing onslaught on people and the environment for accumulation by resource control at whatever cost. All nations are complicit - the more powerful the more so. The capitalist system is the root of this and all similar global problems. Just like invasive weeds capitalism needs to be rooted out completely so together we can build a system that works for all.
JS 

Honduran authorities want Berta Cáceres in prison. Even more, they want her dead.

Berta, as she is fondly known by her many friends in Honduras and beyond, is a Lenca indigenous woman, and one of the founding directors of the National Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH). She is now the face of social movement resistance in Honduras, which in recent months has seen an escalation of state repression against social movement leaders, indigenous peoples’ organizations, environmentalists, and political dissenters. She went into hiding on September 20.

But as I write, against all odds, Berta Cáceres is still alive.


Resisting the Corporate State


COPINH, one of the strongest voices in Mesoamerica for the defense of indigenous peoples’ rights, was founded in the early 1990s to fight logging companies in the territories of the Lenca people. After decades of struggle, COPINH has expelled dozens of logging operations from Lenca territories, recovered over 100 indigenous communal land titles, and served as a critical voice in international forums advocating for the right of indigenous communities to give or withhold their binding consent to any megaprojects planned for their territories.

Today, COPINH is struggling against a mega-complex of four large dams in the Gualcarque River basin, called the Agua Zarca dam project, being undertaken by a Chinese corporation called Sinohydro and a Honduran company called Desarrollos Energéticos S.A. (DESA). For many months, Lenca communities have stiffly resisted the hydroelectric project in the region of Rio Blanco, the ancestral territory of the Lenca people. Amidst rumors that Sinohydro may pull out due to the complications of undertaking construction against the will of the majority of people in the region, DESA has gone to great lengths to attack and undermine the local resistance.


In an ongoing series of trials, Berta and two other leaders of COPINH—Aureliano Molina and Thomas Gomez—have been charged with inciting the communities of the region to cause material damage to DESA-Sinohydro worth nearly $3.5 million U.S. dollars. The defendants and Rio Blanco villagers have categorically rejected the accusations.

Victor Fernández, the defense lawyer for the three indigenous leaders, says the trials and the charges are all part of a strategy to force through unpopular megaprojects like dams, mines, and industrial monocultures.

“They want to terrorize and weaken the social movement leaders and criminalize the exercise of citizens’ rights,” Fernández said.

On September 20, Judge Lissien Lisseth Knight Reyes ordered Berta to be imprisoned immediately. She also ordered “alternatives to prison” for Aureliano Molina and Thomas Gomez. Berta, who has been required to report to a judge every week for months, failed to show up for the trial on September 20 and has not been seen since.


Fernández, in an interview with journalist Giorgio Trucchi, said the judge’s decision in favor of the prosecution signals the beginning of a new phase of widespread repression.

“Once again,” Fernández said, “this ruling demonstrates that, in Honduras, the system of justice is easily manipulated to defend the interests of corporations that have violated and trampled the dignity and the rights of the indigenous people of Río Blanco.”

The September 20^th ruling that called for the immediate detention of Berta Cáceres also called for the residents of Rio Blanco—who had been blocking the area where the dam construction is to take place—to immediately abandon the scene of the crime. Fernández calls the charge “totally incomprehensible and unacceptable. Are they going to evict the people from their communities and ancestral territories? This will imply greater militarization of the zone and increasing violence.”

“Unfortunately,” says Fernández, who is now at risk of arrest himself for expressing his views in the case, “the justice sector has become an instrument in the hands of these companies, and is operating as a hostage in the service of capital.”


Levels of Struggle


The struggle continues not only in community protests and in the courts, but in financial arenas as well. Banktrack is an international NGO network that pressures private and multilateral banks to apply robust social and environmental criteria to their projects. Having learned that the Netherlands Development Finance Company (FMO) is currently considering a request for financial support for the Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam project, Banktrack has challenged the Dutch finance company to live up to its own standards and refuse the project. FMO subscribes to the performance standards of the International Finance Corporation and the Equator Principles. Both call for broad stakeholder support and free, prior, and informed consent for megaprojects. If those criteria are to be upheld, Banktrack asserts, then FMO should suspend its loan.


On the ground, meanwhile, the struggle is visceral and violent. In July, the Honduran Army indiscriminately shot at demonstrators in Rio Blanco, killing Lenca leader Tomás Garcia and seriously injuring his son while they were walking with other community members to the facilities owned by DESA and Sinohydro. Uncounted others have been attacked, kidnapped, and threatened. The killing of Garcia coincided with the passage of a new law on development promotion that will facilitate the sale of public and natural resources for development purposes.

Dana Frank, writing for the Miami Herald, notes that the Honduran constitution explicitly forbids military participation in policing. Nonetheless, President Porfirio Lobo has gradually extended the “temporary” militarization of law enforcement since he took power in a military coup in 2009. Military personnel now routinely and randomly patrol neighborhoods in the large cities and control the country’s prisons. On August 22, the Congress created a new “hybrid” military police force that will have 5,000 new officers on the streets by early October—a month before the election that many believe could oust the coup-derived government.

In a 2012 New York Times opinion piece, Frank laid responsibility for the Honduran human rights crisis directly at the feet of the U.S. State Department and the Obama administration, which quickly recognized Lobo’s electoral victory, even when most of Latin America would not. Frank noted that “Mr. Lobo’s government is, in fact, a child of the coup.” The Lobo government, with the implicit support of the United States, has retained all of the military figures who perpetrated the coup. And yet, for defending their rights, Berta Cáceres and other community leaders are charged with crimes against the state.

Honduras has long served as a resource colony and a military base for the United States. Unlike in neighboring Central American republics, where open violence and repression galvanized solidarity efforts worldwide, the violence in Honduras has long been made invisible—ultimately serving the interests of the United States and the extractive industries that appear intent on wringing every last drop of blood from the impoverished nation.


Two months before the country’s national elections, set for November 24, 2013, Honduras is under siege. The U.S. State Department, an important player in the long and violent history of Honduras, has a clear role to play in quelling the violence and ensuring that Berta Cáceres remains alive—especially given the upcoming Honduran elections. But far from censuring the Honduran government and its security forces for the systematic repression of popular dissent, U.S. aid to the Honduran police and military has risen steadily since the 2009 coup.

The State Department reportedly withheld funds from the Honduran National Police last year under congressional pressure to implement the Leahy Act, which bans U.S. funding for security forces implicated in human rights violations, but today the money continues to flow. The Obama administration should stop funding Honduran security forces immediately, denounce the violence perpetrated by the Honduran police, and raise questions about the trumped up charges, harassment, and extra-judicial killings that have forced Berta Cáceres to go fugitive rather than submit to the fate of so many of her colleagues. In the absence of clear signals from Washington, there is no possibility of anything resembling a free and fair election in November.


With or without government action, international solidarity is essential to protect the human rights of Hondurans. In an attempt to raise the heat on authorities in both the United States and Honduras, organizations throughout the Americas have declared October 10-12 international days of action in support of Berta Càceres and the indigenous movements in Honduras. Groups from Amnesty International to School of the Americas Watch to Friends of the Earth International have called for solidarity, and an Avaaz petition is demanding that President Porfirio Lobo drop the charges against Berta and COPINH. It’s time that this little-regarded nation and its fierce indigenous-led resistance got some justice.


By Jeff Conant - the International Forests Campaigner for Friends of the Earth-U.S.

from here 
 

The Materialist Conception Of History

A contributor to the World Socialist Movement Discussion Forum has asked for simple explanation of the Materialist Conception of History. Read on.

The socialist is politically opposed to the system in which he finds himself; this opposition arises from an analysis of capitalism, and the realization that socialism will solve the majority of the economic and social problems that exist today. We further claim that a policy of reformation will do nothing to alter the basis of capitalism, and therefore no major social evil can ever be removed by any reform or group of reforms.

Socialists attempt to survey the historic development of society, to ascertain how society has evolved, and to discover the prime causes that have been responsible for the changes that have taken place. It is indisputable that society has passed from one system to another, but the underlying dynamics for this is not initially obvious, and has been a matter for conjecture and controversy. The answer to this question is of paramount importance, because armed with the correct scientific approach to the historic development of mankind it is reasonable to suppose that this same method will enable us to properly examine the system under which we now live, and by so doing create first, the theoretical sound solution to current social problerns, and second, the practical application of the theory.

The interpretation of history put forward by Karl Marx and supported by The World Socialist Party and its companion parties is referred to as The Materialist Conception Of History. The name itself implies that it is distinct from other approaches, and that there are contrary concepts.

The Materialist Conception Of History asserts as its funda­mental proposition that it is the economic basis of any society, and the way in which production and distribution of wealth is organized, that is the main determining factor of the social structure of society, and the foundation on which the outlooks, ideas, conduct, social relationships, legal and political structures rest. Further, that these conditions are never static, but are continuously in the process of change and development; that they constitute the main element of historic change, and are the predominate dynamic influence responsible for social evolution. This social evolution has been reflected in different systems of society with different economic basis that have evolved one from the other.

Since the advent of private property history has been a record of class struggles, and the control of the state machine has always been of prime importance to the ruling class of any era. Man acts within his environment and is conditioned accordingly. He affects and makes history but only within the scope of the material eonditions in which he lives. There is, therefore, an interplay between man and his surrounding material conditions that react one upon the other and out of which change and development occur. The Materialist Coneeption Of History does not preclude other influences upon historical development, such as geographical and climatic conditions, or, for example, tradi­tional social hangovers from the past, but the economic factor constitutes the main determining and dominating condition - the way people associate together in order to produce a livelihood.

We can now compare this materialist approach to history with other concepts and recognize the fundamental differences.

The socialist discards the "Great Man Theory", although we have already acknowledged that man plays an active part in reacting to his existing circumstances. But to view history as the record of the deeds of so-called great men, leaders, kings, and emperors is to ignore the fact that these historic figures were the result of the prevailing material conditions and not vice versa. Such an approach perverts historic truth, but nevertheless is taught openly, or implied covertly within the educational system, affording the ruling class with a technique for preserving their power position, by encouraging nationalistic and patriotic ideas, and propagandizing youth to accept misconceptions of leadership, and the glorification of war with its legalized vio­lence.

To the extent that one considers Divine Providence and God's will as the determining factor of historic developrnent we find ourselves in the realm of mental fantasy, becoming divorced from reality. A true working class materialist approach to the world is sabotaged and never given an opportunity to mature.

While the Materialist Conception accepts the influence of ideas upon history we at the same time relate the ideas to the material conditions from which they have developed. Ideas themselves are the result of the action of the brain, which is the phenomena of thinking matter. These ideas originate from their material surroundings and are the mental products resulting from an evolving society. The universe exists apart from man's consciousness, and ideas as we understand them have only existed since the advent of man, through the function of his brain. The materialist approach recognizes that man's awareness of the universe is registered through his thinking faculties, but that the totality of things existed before man, and that man is a compara­tive recent arrival upon the scene.

The socialist rejects all metaphysical and supernatural ap­proaches, and regards astrology, associated outlooks, and pre­dictions as having no scientific value or supportable proof.

Members of the working class should discard in their entirety these false approaches to history, because not only do they do an injustice to intelligence, but they create yet another intellectual barrier to the comprehension of the socialist case.

It is unreasonable to presume that capitalism represents the final cycle in social development. We contend that socialism is the next logical progression and that capitalism has long age fulfilled its historic purpose and has outlived its usefulness. Man has journeyed through changing and different systems of society. To contend that he has reached the pinnacle of economic development with a system that has produced poverty amidst plenty, and economic insecurity along with production techniques that have virtually unlimited potential capacities, is to close one's mind to the future and to ignore the historic facts of the past. Society has never been static, it is always on the move, forever changing; every past system has evolved into another. The advent of socialism, for the first time in history, will mark the conscious social and political effort of a majority establishing a new system of society, and being at the same time fully aware of the meaning, implications, and social justifications for this revolutionary act. The social consciousness of man will have arrived, somewhat belatedly, at a new, inspiring plateau.

Regressing to trace man's progress through organized society, we find a period wherein he lived in tribal groups, referred to as primitive communism. Everyone within the tribe had the right of access to whatever was owned by the tribe. In good times their simple needs were satisfied, and in periods of shortages there was hardship. Man lived by picking his food from the trees and vegetation, and by the killing of wild animals. Initially his tools were simple in construction. Fire was discovered, stone clubs and spears fashioned, the bow and arrow invented, and polished stone instruments were made. The art of pottery was developed, the taming and herding of animals, together with the use of bronze, and primitive agriculture and the cultivation of crops. Then, with the discovery of the process of smelting iron and the making of iron tools, together with the advances made in agriculture, man began producing in excess of the needs of the tribe. Private property made its appearance; with this there came a need for protection, and the authority of government.

A new society was developing which took the form of warrior chiefdoms that covered vast areas of the world, and which comprised the patriarchal warrior chief and the clansmen who owed allegiance to him. The main mode of production was agricultural. Chattel slave empires developed in Egypt, Babylon, Greece, and Rome. The economy was mainly agricultural, with some trading; the slaves forrned an economic basis in society and were owned outright by their masters. The city-state came into being and was an instrument of power used by the ruling class, and these states later grew into empires.

From this society feudalism evolved. Manorial estates were established; instead of the warrior chief there was the lord of the manor, with serfs who were tied to the land, but unlike the chattel slaves were not physically owned by their master. The serfs tilled a small portion of the land for themselves for a part of the week, and the balance of the week worked for the lord on his estates. All their rights were subordinate to the feudal lord. Within this feudal system merchant capitalism began to grow and small home manufacturing was started. Steam was utilized, harnessed to tools, and production was revolutionized.

With colonial expansion, commerce and trade prospered and feudalism, with its aristocracy, came into conflict with the new emerging capitalist class. The Industrial Revolution of 1760 in England, in France in 1789, brought with it large scale manu­facturing based upon wage labor, and the production of comn­modities for sale and profit in the market place. The handicraft, and the mode of individual production under feudalism, had undergone a transformation to social production based upon wage labor, with the private ownership of the means of produc­tion and distribution by a minority of the population - the new ruling class. Capitalism had arrived - and with it new forms of misery, inequality, and deprivation for the majority. To complete the picture, the 1917 Revolution in Russia marked the commence­ment of capitalism in the U.S.S.R. operated on a national basis through the state machine, with the so-called Communist Party in dictatorial control.

Socialists maintain that to properly understand the ideas of any period of social development it is essential to examine the economics of that era, and to realize that the prevailing ideas are co-related to the economic base.

With this approach as a political yardstick, and if it is understood that the capitalist system can only operate in the interests of the capitalist class, all overtures made by reformist and capitalist parties for continued support should be rejected. Social problems must be analyzed from a materialist standpoint and all promises made by so-called leaders regarded with profound skepticism. They function as agents representing the interests of the capitalist class - it can never be otherwise.

We have often been accused of possessing a cold approach towards humanity because of the connotation inaccurately applied to the term "materialism". But on the contrary, we state that in order to eliminate all the inhumanities of capitalisrn a materialist approach is mandatory. The application of materialism in the social sense means an investigation that leads unerringly to socialism as the logical next stage of man's organizational development.

Together with Karl Marx we say: "Our task is not only to understand the world but to change it!"

(This essay first appeared in 'World Without Wages (Money, Poverty and War!), a series of Tuscon Radio Broadcasts presented for the World Socialist Party of the United States by Samel Leight)


Further reading.

Ukraine. Just another war

 

Members of the working class are taught in schools from a very early age that the country they were born in is somehow special. We wave flags and sing patriotic songs. The owning class suffer from no such xenophobia. They are prepared to exploit workers of any nationality, creed or so-called race. To them, profit is much more important than patriotism. The Socialist Party is often pilloried because we look at the world from a class perspective. History shows that in times of war, working-class interests are never served by workers offering their support to nationalist political leaders of capitalism. The slaughter in Ukraine underlines yet again the urgent need to work for a world without nations and nationalism, without bosses and generals. 

 There is nothing natural about war. Modern war is inherently antithetical to the interests of the working class, involving, as it does, disruption to the complex and integrated system of production we depend on for our existence, and necessitating the imposition of the tyrannous political structures needed to govern a society in a period of total war. What is the “independence” the Ukrainians yearn after, if it means being trapped within borders – artificial constructs, no, prisons – inside of the bigger prison of capitalism? 

It’s understandable that the conflict in Ukraine should command such worldwide attention as genuine suffering is being incurred by innocent people. The World Socialist Movement is sickened  by the death and destruction caused by the Russian invasion. We condemn and denounce the senseless killing of our fellow workers. But, let’s not lose sight of the fact that the war in Ukraine is just one of a number of wars taking place around the world. The war in Ukraine isn’t an exception or an aberration but another unavoidable part of the economics of capitalism. The war war is a normal consequence of the international political tensions inherent within capitalism run by a ruling class comprising of dictators, oligarchs and gangsters. Each of whom funds governments to best protect its interests. The world owned by a small global minority and is divided up between them.  Working people are left to toil in their factories and die in their armies. 

Workers have no country. Without the ideology of nationalism, capitalist states would be unstable since, being based on minority class rule, they need a minimum allegiance from those they rule over. Nationalism serves to achieve this by teaching the ruled to be loyal to “their” so-called “nation-state”. Nationalism is based on the lie that workers have their own country; that the British have an obligation to Britain and likewise with the workers of Russia and Ukraine. Workers who do not own nor control have no obligation to the bosses who do own and control it. Our sole interest is in co-operating with our fellow workers across the world who similarly have no country. Why should we die defending what is not ours and which we will never benefit from? On the contrary, our objective is to obtain what is not now the possession of our class – the earth and its natural and industrial resources. The only war that need concern us is the class war between the parasites who possess and the workers who produce the wealth of the planet. Our war is waged on the battlefield of ideas for the hearts and minds of the world’s people. Socialism will allow humanity to co-exist in peace. We are not born with a desire to kill people who speak a different language. Peaceful cooperation is possible for human beings.

The Socialist Party has been consistent in its opposition to nationalism, in the belief that nationalism is a killer epidemic, creating conflict from which those with the least to gain have the most to lose. Whatever cause and victory the misinformed defenders of nationhood believe they are fighting for, it pales into insignificance when compared to the real war that needs to be waged against an elite who perpetuate the myth of nationhood for their own ends and always to our detriment.  there is more that unites Ukrainians and Russian than can ever divide them. Their real needs—needs people the world over identify with—can only ever be fulfilled in a world devoid of borders or frontiers. We can only hope it is not too long before they come to realise this.

Class consciousness was never more needed than now. Today mankind is under a dark shadow without precedent. The working people of the world have it in their hands to end poverty, fear, hatred and war. Nationalism is not their interest but their rulers. To free ourselves from the depredations of capitalism we need the World Commonwealth

Organisation is a weapon

“When spider webs unite, they can tie up a lion.” Ethiopian proverb

The current protests in Ferguson, Missouri, has initiated some discussion on political organisation. This article by Ajamu Nangwaya, of the Network for the Elimination of Police Violence and the Network for Pan-Afrikan Solidarity has some interesting points to consider.

It begins with a quotation from Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed:
 “Leaders who do not act dialogically, but insist on imposing their decisions, do not organize the people–they manipulate them. They do not liberate, nor are they liberated: they oppress.”

The author then goes on to ask:
 “Where are the tens of thousands of people who participated in the occupations in Canada and the United States? If I had to hazard a guess, I would argue that most of them are not in organizations that are committed to liquidating the various systems of oppression. They have gone back to doing the mundane activities of life that are not connected to movement-building. Essentially, they have been demobilized!”

He then makes the observation:
“Under the organizing model the people are the principal participants and decision-makers in the organizations and movements that are working for social change. The people are not seen as entities who are so ideologically underdeveloped that they need a revolutionary vanguard or dictatorship to lead them to the “New Jerusalem.” The supreme organizer and humanist Ella Baker took the position that the masses will figure out the path to freedom in her popular assertion, “Give people light and they will find a way.” This work of finding ‘a way’ is done in grassroots, participatory-democratic organizations...”

He contrasts this with the elitist strategy:
“The mobilizing or mobilization model of struggle seeks to bring the people out to support political actions that are conceived, planned, and executed by organizational or movement elite. The people are, essentially, extras in the drama of liberation with the leaders as the featured actors. The rank and file members or participants are without substantive voice and initiative. In the mainline trade unions of today as well as in much of the activities of other social movements, mobilization is the weapon of choice....There will even be the occasional rebellions or uprisings. But the passion for justice will predictably disappear in short order. The people’s attention will be distracted by routine, everyday activities until the next killing or episode of police brutality.”

Then he goes on to explain:
“When organizations and movements favour mobilization, it is all about bringing the rank and file out to mass actions (the spectacles of resistance) such as rallies, demonstrations, pickets, strikes, and voter registration drives. At the end of the event, the masses are sent back home to assume their stance as passive spectators in this elite management approach to liberation. The people’s will is represented by the leaders, because participatory democratic practices are not on the organizational menu. If the people’s bodies are needed, they will be summoned for the next action. The critical knowledge, skills and attitude that are used to effect resistance reside largely within the leadership. Even when the people are members of organizations, it is usually the elected leadership and a few people around it, and the paid staffers who do the bulk of the strategic and operational activities. They are the brain trust of the movement...Invariably the mobilizing or mobilization model comes with the reliance on a supreme leader or a few individuals at the top of the organizational or movement leadership food chain.”

The author then concludes:
“We need to create or join organizations that are committed to fighting the systems of oppression that are materially impacting our lives. It is impossible to fight capitalist exploitation, police violence, the oppression of women, white supremacy, homophobia and other forms of dehumanization outside of collective action and organized structures – organizations and movements....It is high time for the resistance to build effective and efficient organizations that are rooted in the needs and aspirations of the oppressed. Organizers ought to learn from the organizational or movement successes and mistakes of the past and the present in doing the monumental work of movement-building and creating the embryonic economic, political and social structures of the free, good, and just society (classless, stateless and self-managed). A prefigurative politics or building the road as we travel needs to be at the centre of social movement organizing in the 21st century.”

SOYMB blog has always tried to emphasise the importance of a structured organisation and a democracy  without the reliance of a formal or informal leadership. The above shows others too are endeavouring to address the question in their own way.

The full article by Nangwaya can be read on the Dissident Voice website

The Gaza War

In the 1967 classic movie “The Battle of Algiers,” a leader of the National Liberation Front (NLF), Ben M’Hidi, is brought before a group of French journalists. One of the journalists asks M’Hidi: “Don’t you think it is a bit cowardly to use women’s handbags and baskets to carry explosive devices that kill so many innocent people?” 
The Algerian insurgent replies: “And doesn’t it seem to you even more cowardly to drop napalm bombs on unarmed villages, so that there are a thousand times more innocent victims?” 
Then he delivers the punchline: “Of course, if we had your fighter planes, it would be a lot easier for us. Give us your bombers, and you can have our handbags and baskets.”

In the current conflict in Gaza, a role reversal would see Hamas armed with fighter planes, air-to-surface missiles and battle tanks, while the Israelis would be hitting back only with homemade rockets.

 The Palestinians have no chance whatsoever of militarily overcoming Israel. Modern war is waged by economic might, and Israel with its GDP of around $110 billion (in 2000), whereas the Palestinian territories have a GDP of $4.2 billion (in 2000): the former has the capacity to routinely outgun the latter.  Israel uses terror on a much larger scale than Hamas, because it has much greater military capacity.

Israeli, the recipient of a 10-year, 30-billion-dollar U.S. military aid package, 2009 through 2018, has state-of-the-art equipment  provided gratis – under so-called “Foreign Military Financing (FMF)” – by the United States. By 2015, these grants will account for about 55 percent of all U.S. disbursements worldwide, and represent about 23-25 percent of the annual Israeli military budget.

 The largely homemade Qassam rockets launched by Hamas, their ineffectiveness is apparent in the statistical results: over 2,000 launched, with only two very unlucky civilians killed on the Israeli side. That is less than the eight Americans killed accidentally last year by celebratory rockets on the 4th of July.

According to the latest figures, the two-week long conflict has claimed the lives of more than 620 Palestinians, mostly civilians, including over 230 women and children, and over 3,700 wounded, while the Israeli death toll is 27 soldiers and two civilians.

 The Israeli heavy handed approach will not end the problem. There is nothing exceptional or unique about the present crisis. For the Palestinian state-in-waiting, it is a familiar tale about conflict over land and resources between an "occupier" and a "subject people", an occupation deemed illegal by the United Nations under resolutions 242 and 338 which call upon Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories but sanctioned by the world's only superpower.

 So where do socialists stand in all of this?

Socialists are always spontaneously on the side of the oppressed against the oppressors and the massive use of overwhelming force by the state of Israel clearly exposes it as the oppressor. But just because we sympathise with the victims of Israeli oppression does not mean that we favour the solutions popular among the Palestinian people or their supporters. 

 When it comes to the nationalistic zeal of recent days, there is nothing at all with which we can identify. Nationalism has  imbued the workers of the region with a false consciousness that prevents them identifying their real interests. The labels Jew or Moslem, Palestinian or Israeli do not camouflage the bigger and more permanent label of "working class", a label most caught up in the present crisis could, if challenged, identify with. Both sides can only lose their lives and liberty, so long as they see their own interests lying in the suppression of each other, rather than in the destruction of the murderous armed elites that promote the war on both sides.  

As socialists we will welcome even a fragile peace that temporarily halts the horrors of occupation and terror. That is partly because we sympathise with the suffering of our fellow workers, whatever their ethnic origin. It is always they who suffer the brunt of their masters’ wars. The goal of the socialist movement is not to assist in the creation of even more states but to establish a real world community without frontiers where all states as they currently exist will be destroyed. Our message to the workers who call themselves Israeli and the workers who call themselves Palestinian is to cease the slaughter. Socialists have no hesitation in stating that this violence is in no way, shape or form in the interest of the working class. Socialists are revolted by the violence of the Gaza conflict. We condemn both sides and denounce the senseless killing of our fellow workers. History shows that in times of war, working-class interests are never served by workers throwing in their lot with nationalist or other political leaders of capitalism, whether they are well-funded like the Israeli state, or weaker like Hamas.

The slaughter in Gaza underlines yet again the urgent need to work for a world without nations and nationalism. Peace is always better than war.