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EDITORIALThe political impact of the early June arrests of 17 men in

Toronto was felt within but a few hours. Anti-Muslim racismhas risen, with vandalism at a Toronto mosque and anattempted assault on a Montreal imam among the reportedincidents.

Nowhere is anti-Muslim racism more apparent than in themainstream media. While dutifully inserting “allegedly” intotheir articles journalists have been treating the accused asguilty-until-proven-innocent.

For example, in a racist tirade against Muslims in theGlobe and Mail Christie Blatchford wrote “The accused menare mostly young and bearded in the Taliban fashion. Theyhave first names like Mohamed, middle names like Mohamedand last names like Mohamed.”

The implications are clear: fear your Muslim neighbours,and therefore hate your Muslim neighbours.

Journalist Robert Fisk noted how the press has taken tocalling the accused “Canadian-born,” or “home-grown”rather than “Canadian.” The vicious insinuation is thatMuslim-Canadians are not really citizens.

Stephen Harper’s Conservative government is almostgiddy, seizing the opportunity these arrests have served up ona platter. Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day announcedthat the Canadian state will be beefing-up its foreign intelli-gence-gathering capabilities. The debate is whether to createa new Canadian espionage service or simply transform CSISinto something resembling a small-scale version of the USCIA. The Conservatives have also revived an old Liberalinitiative to force telecommunications companies to make iteasier to conduct wiretaps on phones and monitor the activ-ities of internet users.

Together, the responses of the Tory government, the otherparties (the NDP included) and the media to the arrestsbolster support for Canadian involvement in the US-led“War on Terror” (including in Afghanistan, analyzed in thisissue). They also fuel racism, directing people’s attention tosomething supposedly uniquely bad within the Muslim faithand away from both what Canada and other Western statesare doing abroad and what people of colour experiencewithin Canada. This will affect all who face racism, not justMuslims.

While we need to be very clear that those charged inToronto must be presumed innocent, it would be foolish todeny that handfuls of people in Canada – as in other Westerncountries – are attracted to a kind of Muslim fundamentalistpolitical ideology that is willing to engage in terrorist attackson civilians like the bombings in London in July 2005. Why?

Saying that it’s a matter of a few “bad people” is nonsense,and often racist. The Globe and Mail blames “the power of theromantic ideal of resistance to the oppression of Muslims”while claiming that “Muslims are not oppressed worldwide”or in Canada.

All this is a smokescreen that obscures realities that areextremely awkward for right-wing politicians and mediatypes: the occupations of Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine, andanti-Muslim racism internationally.

Afghanistan is ruled by a puppet government supported byWestern states, Canada included. Iraq is under a brutal USmilitary occupation that has carried out murderous atrocities.The Israeli state discriminates against its Arab citizens, and withits settlements, checkpoints, apartheid wall and other hostilepolicies has made a meaningful Palestinian state impossible.

These occupations and the rhetoric used by the leaders ofthe US and other states to justify the “War on Terror” haveintensified the anti-Muslim racism (Islamophobia) that haslong existed in the West as a result of Western imperial domi-nation of the Middle East.

Faced with these realities – and with the weakness of left-wing anti-racist and anti-imperialist forces – some Muslims aredrawn to religious fundamentalism that puts the blame onWestern culture rather than the racist and imperialist capitalistsystem.

To explain why a few people are attracted to the version ofsuch politics that’s willing to engage in terrorism is not tosupport it. As we wrote in the September-October 2005 issueof New Socialist, “Terrorism doesn’t help the struggle againstwar and occupation… Sowing mass fear by attacks on civilianshas predictable consequences. It leads to state repression andthe rise of racism.”

As we can see now, even the arrest of alleged terrorists hasthe same effect on a smaller scale.

Now, more than ever, there is a need for anti-racist, anti-occupation mobilization. The demonstrations for Status forAll! in several cities on May 27 need to be built on. The deci-sion to support the global campaign against Israeli apartheidmade by the convention of the Ontario Division of theCanadian Union of Public Employees needs to be defended.

We need to build more effective protest against the occupa-tion of Afghanistan. We need to expose the Harper govern-ment’s cut-off of aid to Palestine under the Hamas governmentfor what it is: a campaign against suffering Palestinians, manynow unpaid or unemployed, others starving. And we need toresist increasing surveillance and security measures, anddenounce all signs of anti-Muslim racism. ★

Racism, the Right and the Toronto “Terrorism”

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NEW SOCIALIST offers radicalanalysis of politics, socialmovements and culture in theCanadian state and internationally.Our magazine is a forum for peoplewho want to strengthen today’sactivism and for those who wish toreplace global capitalism with agenuinely democratic socialism. Webelieve that the liberation of theworking class and oppressed peoplescan be won only through their ownstruggles. For more informationabout the publisher of this magazine,the New Socialist Group, please seethe inside back cover.

EDITORSTodd GordonSebastian LambHarold LavenderJeff Webber

EDITORIAL INTERNSDave BrophyClarice KuhlingKeith O’Regan

EDITORIAL ASSOCIATESShannon BadcockRichard BannerNeil BraganzaJackie EsmondeSusan FergusonDenise HammondAlex LevantMorgan MacLeodDavid McNallySandra SarnerHamid SodeifiNathaniel ThomasTony Tracy

DESIGN & COVERSGreg Sharzer (Front cover image)Sandra Sarner (Design/Layout).

Signed articles do not necessarilyrepresent the views of the Editors ormembers of the New SocialistGroup.

New Socialist is a member of the CMPA.Printed at JT Printing, a union shop

Box 167, 253 College St.Toronto, ON M5T 1R5

(416) 955-1581magazine@newsocialist.orgwww.newsocia l i s t .org

Issue #57: July-August 2006

★ THE NEW RIGHT IN CANADA ★

The Conservatives & canadian capital: a new alliance? . . . . . . .Murray Cooke 4

Canada signs up for permanent war . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Harold Lavender 9

Harper’s attack on women, workers & children . . . . . . . . . . . .Mark Connery 12

The new health morality & privatization . .Ethan Meyers & Deborah Simmons 14

★ HOMEFRONT ★

Reclaiming the land at Six Nations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Kahentinetha Horn 16

Inside the CAW jacket . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Bruce Allen 18

★ INTERNATIONAL ★

Argentina’s worker-recovered Enterprise Movement . . . . . . . . . .Marcelo Vieta 21

Will US attack Iran? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Hamid Sodeifi 24

Imperialism, neoliberalism& “democracy in the Global South . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Charlie Post 26

Haiti: new phase of struggle. . . . . . . . . . . . . .Kabir Joshi & Isabel Macdonald 28

Mexico at the brink . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Dick Roman & Edur Velasco Arregui 30

Mass movement in France . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Murray Smith 32

Immigrant rights in the US . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Brian Kwoba 34

★ REVIEWS ★

“24”: state torture and popular culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Jackie Esmonde 36

★ TIME TO ORGANIZE ★ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

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THE CONSERVATIVES AND CANADIAN CAPITAL

A new alliance?BY MURRAY COOKE

The Liberal government led by Jean Chrétien wasthe most conservative federal government ofthe postwar period in terms of its economic and

fiscal policy. However, the Conservative governmentled by Stephen Harper represents an even greaterthreat to the working class and oppressed groups.While limited by its position as a minority govern-ment, the Conservative Party is led by hardcoreeconomic and social conservatives. Harper will be care-fully attempting to forge a Conservative coalition thatcan produce a majority government which will bemuch more aggressive in pursuing its agenda.

One must be cautious in describing the 2006 elec-tion as a shift to the right. It would be more accurateto say the Liberals lost the election than to say theConservatives won. Paul Martin’s Liberals were reduced tominority status in 2004 and then shunted to the oppositionbenches in 2006. The sponsorship scandal and the revela-tions from the Gomery Commission led to the Liberals’defeat. By the 2006 election, the Liberals had alienated notonly many voters but also many of their traditional allies inthe capitalist class.

THE LIBERAL MINORITY AND CORPORATE CANADA

In February 2005, when the British magazine TheEconomist dubbed Paul Martin “Mr. Dithers,” it gave voiceto a common perception among Canadian business leaders.As Finance Minister, Martin had been heralded by the busi-ness elite, but his tenure as Prime Minister was being viewedwith increasing disappointment from the same circles.

Ironically, Martin’s downfall was largely due to the area inwhich he had built his reputation: fiscal prudence. Thefinancial scandals of the sponsorship program started whilehe was Finance Minister. Ultimately, Martin’s minoritygovernment would be seen from the business perspective asreckless with spending and insufficiently aggressive with taxcuts. Before and during the 2005-06 election campaign, theLiberals were accused of being on a spending spree.

After being reduced to a minority government in 2004,

Martin reached a $41 billion, ten-year deal with theprovinces for healthcare. In December 2004, Jack Mintz, thehead of the right -wing C.D. Howe Institute, complained inCanadian Business magazine about a Liberal “spending orgy.”Mintz suggested that we were seeing “the return of govern-ment to the 1980s: lots of misdirected social spending,accompanied by subsidies geared to save politically favouredindustries from international competition.” He was especiallycritical of federal activity in areas of provincial jurisdictionsuch as cities and childcare.

Then in early 2005, Martin signed a deal withNewfoundland over the relationship between equalizationpayments and the province’s offshore oil and gas revenues.This deal led to a similar deal with Nova Scotia and demandsfrom Saskatchewan. The Conference Board of Canada,among others, complained that Martin appeared to be agree-ing to expensive ad hoc arrangements with little concern forthe overall coherence of the equalization payments system.

Business concerns about the minority government weremagnified by the Liberal-NDP partnership over the 2005budget. The NDP amendment included a $4.6 billionspending increase and cancelled corporate tax cuts. NancyHughes-Anthony, the president of the Canadian Chamber ofCommerce complained that “it puts Mr. Martin’s credibilityin doubt and Mr. Goodale’s credibility in doubt…Canada’sreputation as a place to do business will be tarnished by this

Murray Cooke is a PhD student in political science at YorkUniversity.

Canada’s Prime Minister: Stephen Harper

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decision.” Tom d’Aquino, the president of the CanadianCouncil of Chief Executives (CCCE), described the rollbackof tax cuts to be “bad policy that does not serve the interestsof Canadians.”

The CCCE is the peak organization of Canadian business,comprised of the chief executive officers of 150 of the largestcorporations in the country. In June 2005, the ExecutiveCommittee of the CCCE issued a highly critical statementon the direction of the federal government. Overall, itdeclared that “as a political entity, Canada is a nation adrift.A minority federal government is frittering away the fruits ofyears of sacrifice…In the political arena, the very idea ofstrategic policy-making is drowning in the swirling search formomentary tactical advantage.”

Specifically, they warned that “The country’s fiscal baseremains strong, but is threatened by runaway spendinggrowth.” On foreign affairs, the CCCE warned that: “Themost direct threat to Canada’s interests lies in terrorism’spotential to undermine the efficient flow of goods and peopleacross our border with our largest trading partner, the UnitedStates. But the more fundamental threat is to the open globaleconomy on which our prosperity is based and to the valuesthat lie at the heart of oursociety.” Therefore, theCCCE applauded the expan-sion of military spending inthe budget. According to aseparate press release, “TheCCCE has argued for manyyears that an effective militaryis essential to protectCanada’s sovereignty, do ourshare in defending NorthAmerica and make a mean-ingful contribution to global peace and security.” The CCCEhas also been very critical of the Kyoto Accord: “We remaindeeply concerned…with the government’s public commit-ment to the costly and unattainable target set by the KyotoProtocol.”

Business leaders blamed the Liberals for souring Canada’srelationship with the United States. In 2005, Tom d’Aquinoof the CCCE went on a speaking tour of the US calling for aNorth American customs union, energy pact and securityperimeter. On missile defence, he told American audiencesthat “like many Canadians, I am greatly disappointed by thedecision of my government to reject a course of action somanifestly in our national interest and so consistent with ourlong-standing commitment to the defence of North America.It is my hope that this decision will be reversed by a futureParliament…that will recognize the logic and wisdom of fullCanadian participation and that will vigorously make thecase for involvement to the electorate.” In December 2005 inanother issue of Canadian Business, Jack Mintz worried that

if trends continue, “Our relations with the U.S. shall bestrained: a protectionist Congress will be in a surly mood tonegotiate trade issues with a marijuana-exporting, missile-defence-opposing country that criticizes US policy.”

At a public forum shortly after the 2006 election and in asubsequent article for the Globe and Mail, Canada’s formerambassador to the United States Allan Gotlieb suggested thatthe Martin government offered lessons on how not to manageCanada-US relations. From this vantage point, even theminutely independent stance taken by the Liberal govern-ment on foreign policy is too much. Gotlieb suggested that,“Surely it’s time to tone down our rhetoric and handle ourdifferences with greater regard for US sensitivities.”

On fiscal policy, foreign policy and the Kyoto Accord, theLiberals were offside with the leadership of the Canadiancapitalist class.

BUSINESS TURNS TO THE CONSERVATIVES

Historically, Canadian capitalists have hedged their bets byfinancially backing the two main political parties, the Liberalsand Conservatives. The collapse of Mulroney’s coalition ofwestern conservatives, Bay Street and Quebec nationalists

created a dilemma for busi-ness. They succeeded inensuring that the ChrétienLiberals followed the neolib-eral path, but the collapse ofthe Progressive Conservatives(PCs) and the emergence ofthe Reform Party split theright-wing opposition.Business embraced andbankrolled the Liberalgovernment but was unsure

about the opposition parties.The Reform Party was spawned by western disappointment

with the Mulroney government. Formed as a regional protestparty, Reform received support from members of the Albertaoil patch. The formation of the Reform Party was alsosupported and promoted by Ted Byfield, the owner/publisherof the hard-right, Christian fundamentalist Alberta Reportand BC Report magazines. Stephen Harper was among theformer Progressive Conservatives who supported the forma-tion of a new more solidly right-wing option. At the found-ing convention of the Reform Party in 1987, Harpercomplained that “the Mulroney government has shown itselffar too willing to back down on the issues that matter to itspolitical base.”

The Reform Party achieved its electoral breakthrough inthe 1993 election. The party’s main electoral pledge was toeliminate the deficit in three years, which garnered approvalfrom the Globe and Mail and other media. Still, Reform didnot have the widespread support of Canadian business. In

Martin had been heralded by

the business elite, but was

viewed with increasing

disappointment.

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1993, Reform received a little over $100,000 from corpora-tions compared to $13.2 million for the PCs and $8.3million for the Liberals. Even after 1993, the Canadian busi-ness elite didn’t know what to make of the Reform Party.

Reform’s financial support from business was limitedbecause it didn’t appear as a legitimate contender for powerand it was confined to the west. Headquartered primarily inthe Toronto-Montreal corridor, corporate Canada was nervousabout Reform’s populism and its anti-French, anti-Quebecstance. Corporate Canada always saw Reform as too unpre-dictable and divisive. During the election year of 1997, corpo-rations gave just over $3 million to Reform and its candidates,while the PCs received close to $9 million and the Liberalsscored over $16 million. Large corporations were now fundingthree political parties. For example, the chartered banks weremaking roughly equal contributions to the Liberals and PCswhile donating smaller, but sizable amounts to Reform.

It wasn’t until 2000 and the transformation of Reform intothe Canadian Alliance (CA) that the party was able to tapinto large sources of corporate funds. Buoyed by a leadershiprace that included TomLong, an Ontario candi-date and one of the archi-tect’s of the Mike Harrisregime, the CA and itscandidates received over $9million from corporationsin the election year of2000, compared to only$3.8 million for the PCs(the Liberals cruised alongwith over $17 million).However, Stockwell Dayand the CA failed to “unitethe right,” break intoOntario or seriously chal-lenge the Liberals. These failures and the dysfunctionalnature of Day’s leadership led to increased pressure frombusiness upon the CA and PCs to get their act together.

Stephen Harper defeated Day for the leadership of the CAin 2002. Though extremely critical of Joe Clark and other“red Tories,” Harper had spent years calling for a coalition ofconservative forces from across the country. By 2003, withManning and Day out of the way, the door was opened to amerger on the Right once Peter McKay replaced Joe Clark.The merger was pushed externally by the capitalist class, andinternally by fears of being crushed by Paul Martin.

On his way out the door, Prime Minister Chrétiendropped two bombs on his successor: the sponsorshipscandal and a new election finance law that severely limits theability of corporations and unions to finance political parties.Individuals can donate up to $5,000 per party, while unionsand corporations are limited to $1,000 per candidate. Over

the previous ten years, the Liberals had raised huge sums ofmoney from the corporate sector while struggling to generatesmall donations from individuals. Therefore, it’s not surpris-ing that Liberal Party president Stephen LeDrew describedthe new law as “dumb as a bag of hammers.”

THE NEW CONSERVATIVE PARTY OF CANADA

The new Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) was offi-cially created in December 2003. During the last three and ahalf weeks of the year (the last year under the old rules), theparty received $3.3 million from corporations including$380,000 from Magna International. During the 2004 CPCleadership campaign, Harper raised $2.7 million, a large sumof money that included many corporate donations, but it ispaltry compared to Martin’s $12 million war chest.

The Liberals have been slow to adapt to the new partyfinance regime. In 2005, the Conservatives were able to raisemore than twice as much money (close to $18 million) as theLiberals (close to $8 million) and more than three times asmuch money as the NDP (slightly more than $5 million).

While 70% of the contribu-tions received by theConservatives were under$200 only 59% of NDP and24% of Liberal contribu-tions fell into this category.The Liberals appear to bereliant on a relatively smallbase of wealthy individuals,while the Conservatives havea much larger number ofcontributors, many of themdonating small amounts.

The Conservatives havegrassroots support butHarper has also positioned

the party to strengthen its ties to the corporate elite. Two daysafter the 2006 election victory, the Globe and Mail reportedthat, “a small group of Ontario-based business leaders haveheld meetings with Mr. Harper at Stornoway [the officialresidence of the Leader of the Opposition] over the past twoyears to build bridges to the new party.” An unnamed bankofficial was quoted as saying, “Every large business with regis-tered lobbyists would have had people talking to StephenHarper and his caucus for several years.”

Bay Street gave positive reviews to Harper’s cabinet choices,including the appointment of Jim Flaherty as FinanceMinister. Perrin Beatty, a former cabinet minister underMulroney, and now the president of the CanadianManufacturers and Exporters, told the National Post that“Mr. Flaherty is well-known to the business community inToronto. I found him an excellent person to deal withbecause he’s open, businesslike and effective.” Garth Whyte

On fiscal policy, foreign policy

and the Kyoto Accord, the

Liberals were offside with the

leadership of the Canadian

capitalist class.

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of the Canadian Federation ofIndependent Business describedFlaherty as a “thoughtful guy…Hereads everything that’s put beforehim. We want a multi-year tax anddebt-reduction plan – and I think weare going to get it.” Tom d’Aquino ofthe CCCE suggested that “We see itas a government that will governfrom conviction. We see it as agovernment that will be bold, eventhough it is constrained by itsminority status.” An unnamed BayStreet executive was quoted in theGlobe as saying that “These are trueblue Conservatives, not pink Tories.”

Yet, a few reservations emergedfrom business circles. For example,the Globe described Gary Lunn, theNatural Resources Minister, astypical of the Conservative cabinet inthat “he has first-hand experience insmall business, but little connection to Corporate Canada.”Aware of this limitation, Harper sought out ministers moredirectly connected with the corporate elite. The two surpriseadditions to the cabinet, former Liberal David Emerson andthe unelected Michael Fortier, were presented as additions torepresent major cities, Vancouver and Montreal respectively.They should perhaps be more accurately seen as representa-tives of corporate Canada. Along with stints as a high-levelcivil servant in the BC government, Emerson was previouslythe CEO of forestry giant Canfor Corp. He was also one ofthe few Liberals to have endorsed bank mergers, anotherbone of contention between sections of business and theLiberals. As the minister responsible for the VancouverOlympics, Emerson will be working to ensure that publicfunds enrich corporate interests.

Fortier is an investment banker formerly with Crédit SuisseFirst Boston and then TD Securities. Previously he practicedlaw with Ogilvy Renault, the same firm as Brian Mulroney.He also has vast experience as a corporate fundraiser for thePCs and the new CPC. An unnamed investment banker wasquoted in the Globe as pointing out that “For all of Flaherty’sexperience, he’s not a Bay Street guy, while Fortier is a realplayer…[he] can give a sense of how the capital markets willreact to their plans.” As a banker and lawyer, Fortier is seenas having the skills to handle privatizations and public-private partnerships.

The new government is following the agenda set by theCCCE. Conservative priorities include tax cuts, reigning infederal government spending, gutting Canada’s commitmentto the Kyoto Accord and improving relations with the US.The Harper government’s first budget presented a wide range

of tax cuts, including cuts to corporate taxes and capital taxes.The promise to address the fiscal imbalance with theprovinces will involve significantly downsizing the federalgovernment.

The Conservative Party’s ties to the oil patch are demon-strated by the new government’s approach to the KyotoAccord. The new Environment Minister is Rona Ambrose, anAlberta MP who previously worked for the Klein govern-ment. One of the government’s first actions was eliminatingthe funding for 15 projects related to climate change.Canada’s commitment to Kyoto, which was tenuous at bestunder the Liberals, is now effectively dead.

The Conservatives have acted quickly to improve relationswith the US. Michael Wilson, formerly Brian Mulroney’sFinance Minister, was appointed as ambassador to the US. In2003 he criticized the Liberal government for not supportingthe American war against Iraq. The Harper governmentquickly finalized a controversial deal with the Americans onsoftwood lumber. They also reached an agreement to renewNORAD and extend it to marine surveillance.

The election of 2006 was in many ways a repeat of 2004.The results were actually not very different. One of the clear-est differences, however, was the media treatment of therespective parties and leaders. In 2006, Harper was portrayedin a more positive fashion and Martin in a less flatteringmanner compared to the previous election. Obviously thecontinuing revelations about the sponsorship scandal hadsomething to do with this, but perhaps it also reflects a widersense among the business elite and the corporate media thatit was time for a change.

Former Prime Minister Mr. Dithers/Paul Martin

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ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL CONSERVATIVES

Stephen Harper has a BA and MA in Economics from theUniversity of Calgary. Throughout his years in partisan poli-tics and his tenure as president of the National CitizensCoalition, Harper’s main focus has been taxation, govern-ment finance and reducing state intervention in the marketeconomy. Harper has consistently attacked federal interven-tion in provincial areas of jurisdiction, including health andsocial policy. In January 2001, Harper co-wrote the Alberta“firewall” letter, calling on Ralph Klein to create an AlbertaPension Plan, an Alberta personal income tax system, anAlberta Provincial Police force, and to ignore the CanadaHealth Act and hold a provincial referendum on Senatereform.

Although Harper is an evangelical Christian and a memberof the Christian and Missionary Alliance, he has rarelyappeared as an enthusiastic supporter of social conservatism.For years, he has advised his party not to take policy positionson so-called moral issues, but to leave this to the individualMP. On various social issues (including same-sex marriage,abortion, bilingualism, multiculturalism and immigration),he has warned of the dangers of extremism and their potentialto damage the party image. The success of the Conservativesin keeping a tight lid on their candidates was a key aspect oftheir success in the 2006 election.

Still, Harper has been well aware of the importance of socialconservatives to the party as voters but even more importantlyas the activist and financial base. Harper has frequentlycourted the social conservative vote and insisted upon thecompatibility of social and economic conservatism. In anApril 2003 speech that was revised for publication in Reportmagazine, Harper made an unusually outspoken pitch for theimportance of social conservatism. He pointed out that fiscalconservatives have been so successful that liberal and socialdemocratic parties have enacted neoliberal policies. “The realchallenge is therefore not economic, but the social agenda ofthe modern Left…while retaining a focus on economic issues,we must give greater place to social values and social conser-vatism.” Accusing the Left of “moral nihilism,” he suggestedthat, “On a wide range of public-policy questions, includingforeign affairs and defence, criminal justice and corrections,family and child care, and healthcare and social services, socialvalues are increasingly the really big issues.”

Furthermore, “the emerging debates on foreign affairsshould be fought on moral grounds…Conservatives musttake the moral stand, with our allies, in favour of the funda-mental values of our society, including democracy, free enter-prise and individual freedom.” Whether this was an attemptto shore up social conservative support for his leadership or asincere indication of his views on the direction of the party,this speech indicates that it would be a mistake to underesti-mate the strength of social conservatism of the CPC underHarper’s leadership.

The 26 member Conservative cabinet includes at leastnine ministers that are prominent social conservatives. Themost notable and highly placed are Stockwell Day, theMinister for Public Safety, Vic Toews, the Justice Ministerand Attorney General and Monte Solberg, the ImmigrationMinister. Unlike recent Immigration Ministers who havehailed from Canada’s largest cities, Solberg is the MP fromMedicine Hat, a riding in which less than 9% of the popu-lation is comprised of immigrants. Obviously this reducesthe incentive for the minister to be sensitive to the concernsof immigrants. Solberg is unlikely to feel any direct politicalheat for the recent crackdown and deportations.

CONCLUSION

None of the opposition parties are in a rush to bringdown the government, which provides the Conservativeswith a window of opportunity to try and broaden theirsupport before the next election. The underlying preoccu-pations of the Liberal leadership race are likely to be patch-ing up relations with business and searching for a leaderwho has the ability to attract funds both from business andindividual Canadians. The government of Stephen Harperwill be actively pursuing the agenda of the capitalist classand trying to appease the social conservatives from the partybase, while hoping that tax cuts and addressing the fiscalimbalance with the provinces can attract the voters that heneeds, especially in Quebec, to take the next step to amajority government.★

The Alberta report: was an ideology tool for the Right.

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Canada’s foreign policyis marching down the road towar.

The past Liberal governmentpioneered an aggressive “responsibility toprotect” doctrine (with a beefed up mili-tary component) in so-called “failedstates” such as Afghanistan and Haiti.Stephen Harper’s new Conservativegovernment has sharply accelerated thisinterventionist trend.

Afghanistan has become the symbol ofCanada’s new military and foreign policy,and a centerpiece of the Harper agenda.

On May 17, the minority Conservativegovernment, with only hours notice,pushed a motion through the House ofCommons to extend Canada’s combatmission in Afghanistan for two moreyears until 2009. The motion came at atime of strong public scepticism aboutCanada’s military intervention inAfghanistan. Polls even suggested a slightmajority opposed.

The motion narrowly passed by 149 to145, with the Liberal party splittingover the issue. The NDP and BlocQuebecois, citing mission changes,voted No. Previously, they had donenothing to oppose the Canadian presencein Afghanistan.

The mainstream peace movement hasdone somewhat better, but they have notengaged in mass mobilization calling onCanada to bring its troops home.Harper’s quick vote forestalled any possi-bility of mass demonstrations in Ottawa.

The Liberal government was politicallyunable to send troops to Iraq. By

contrast, the Afghan mission extensionrepresents a defeat for the anti-war move-ment. However, Afghanistan will remaina central issue over the next few years andcould come back to haunt Harper. TheUS has Iraq. Canada has Afghanistan.

The Canadian Forces are currentlyengaged in their biggest military missionsince the Korean War, in which thou-sands of Canadian troops fought andhundreds died in the service of westernimperialism.

The myth of Canadian troops asbenign UN blue-helmeted peacekeepersremains widespread. But the reality ofrecent years is very much otherwise. 68per cent of Canada’s international mili-tary spending is Afghan-related whileonly 3 per cent is devoted to UN peace-keeping operations.

Currently 2,300 Canadian troops areparticipating in counter-insurgencywarfare in the Kandahar province insoutheastern Afghanistan. They areengaged in “Operation Archer,” which istightly linked to the US “OperationEnduring Freedom.” The mission is not

currently under NATO command,though it may be in future. The Harpergovernment’s successful extension voteopens the door for Canada to lead NATOoperations in Afghanistan in 2008.

THE AFGHAN QUAGMIRE

In the wake of September 2001, theUS unleashed its military machine onAfghanistan, chiefly in the form ofmassive bombardments. OverwhelmingUS military firepower and the well armedforces of the Northern Alliance forced theoppressive Islamic-fundamentalist Tali-ban regime to melt away. US forces occu-pied Afghanistan and helped installWashington’s friends in power.

But nearly five years after the occupa-tion of Afghanistan, the country remainsfar from “stabilized.” Instead, the Talibanand others opposed to the pro-Washington government of HamidKarzai have considerably stepped up theirmilitary operations.

Some 8,000 US troops remain engagedin offensive operations in Afghanistan,including indiscriminate bombing. Theyare sustaining steady losses, with theyearly death toll reaching new heights in2005.

Canada signs upfor permanent warBY HAROLD LAVENDER

Harold Lavender is an editor of New Socialist and long time anti-war activist in Vancouver.

Chief of Defence Staff Rick Hillier calls for more money for military spending.

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But Washington is far more preoccu-pied with Iraq, where victory is not insight. The US military is overextended,so it has sought to transfer part of theresponsibility for Afghanistan to NATOand a “coalition of the willing” thatincludes Canada.

On July 11 2005, Canada’s Chief ofDefence Staff General Rick Hillier rantedabout the forces arrayed against NATOin Afghanistan: “These are detestablemurderers and scumbags. They detest ourfreedoms, they detest our society, theydetest our liberties.”

Hillier has also sought to dispelnotions of the Canadian military as apeaceful humanitarian force in worldaffairs: “We are the Canadian Forces andour job is to be able to kill people.”

In August 2005, Major GeneralAndrew Leslie said, “Afghanistan is a 20-year venture. There are things worthfighting for. There are things worth dyingfor. There are things worth killing for.” Inexplaining why Canada had to be inAfghanistan for the long term, Lesliesaid, “Every time you kill an angry youngman overseas you’re creating 15 morewho will come after you.”

Stephen Harper, evoking the spirit andrhetoric of George W. Bush, has pledgedhis government will not “cut and run.”And, like Bush in Iraq, he wants to stayuntil “the job is done.”

No one believes the job will be donesoon, including Afghan President Karzai,who appealed for an extended Canadiancommitment.

JUSTIFYING WAR

Stephen Harper has framed Canada’srole in Afghanistan in terms of nationalsecurity and the war on terrorism. Harperdoes not hesitate to invoke the ghosts of9-11, Al Qaeda and the World TradeCentre.

However, such motivations are uncon-vincing to millions. At the beginning ofthe year, public opinion surveyssuggested weak support for Canada’smission in Afghanistan. Since then, wehave been treated to a steady diet of warpropaganda in the corporate media andthe CBC.

Much of this propaganda seeks to getthe public to identify with the military –“our troops.”

The military is portrayed as part of a

balanced “3-D approach” (defence,diplomacy and developmental assistance)to a democratic Afghan government.Soldiers’ humanitarian role is magnified.

The government claims to be defend-ing human rights, women’s rights,freedom, democracy and the rule of lawin Afghanistan.

It says Canada is playing a vital role inassisting with the reconstruction ofAfghanistan. This much is true:Afghanistan has now become the largestsingle recipient of bilateral Canadian aid.By 2009, the Canadian government willhave contributed $1 billion. But this aidis far less than the military costs: $4billion and rising.

HARSH REALITIES

Life expectancy in Afghanistan is 42years. The large majority of the popula-tion lives in desperate poverty. Theeconomy has been shattered by years ofwar. The people, seeing themselves asvictims of war from many sides, yearn forpeace. With the Taliban gone, tribalwarlords and the drug trade have flour-ished.

Opium seems to be the main source ofready wealth. Afghanistan is now esti-mated to produce 90 per cent of theworld’s supply. Up to 2 million poorfarmers, lacking other alternatives tosurvive, are now growing poppies.

Afghanistan held US-style elections,and thus passed the test of formal democ-racy. However, the process has beencorrupted. Drug lords not only buy thesupport of candidates, in some cases theyare candidates.

Canadian forces are working inProvincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs),pioneered by US troops to show that theUS was helping the Afghan people.Teams of soldiers engage in a strange mixof providing security, carrying out smallreconstruction and humanitarian aidprojects and gathering intelligence infor-mation.

Aid groups like Doctors WithoutBorders have sharply objected to mixingmilitary and humanitarian projects. Theysay this process jeopardizes the safety ofaid workers, who are no longer seen asneutral, and that the PRTs effectivelyhold the receiving population hostage tomilitary demands.

The Bush administration claims thatmillions of Afghan girls are now attend-ing school. But there are very few schoolsin rural areas, and those in operation havevery limited and non-secular curriculumsfocusing on Islamic studies. In 2005,Amnesty International released adamning report titled “Women StillUnder Attack.” It says violence againstwomen and girls in Afghanistan is perva-sive, including abductions, rapes byarmed individuals, forced marriages andsale to settle disputes and debts. Womenface discrimination from strict religioustraditions and state officials.

The Canadian government claims it issupporting human rights. Yet, ordinaryAfghan civilians arrested in military oper-ations cannot challenge the basis of theirdetention, and have no access to legalcounsel.

The economic stakes for control ofIraqi oil are self-evident, but global geo-

11SOCIALISTnew

political considerations and economicinterests are also in play in Afghanistan.There are large and untapped reserves ofoil and gas in the Central Asian republicseast of the Caspian Sea. Corporationswant to build a pipeline throughAfghanistan (bypassing Iran and Russia).The US is trying to bolster its presence incentral Asia. The Pentagon is obsessedwith the growing power of China and itspotential alliance with Russia.

The US serves as the main militaryprotector of the new world order.Canadian imperialism has benefited fromthis without getting too deeply impli-cated.

STAKE IN GLOBALIZATION

Canadian capital has a huge stake inthe globalization process. It wants itsinterests protected. It wants freedom toinvest and it wants access to globalresources.

Canadian corporations profit from warproduction but Canada successfullyportrays itself as more multilateral andless militaristic than the US.

Nonetheless, Canada spends a lot ofmoney on the military. This is projectedto rise to $25 billion annually in the nextfew years, well over 10 per cent of federalprogram spending. This reflects the newimperialist mentality of protecting thepeople of the world from failed states (inreality a recycled version of the racistnotion of the “white man’s burden”).

The Martin government, whilemouthing occasional rhetorical criticismof US policy, took the lead in allocatingbillions to a new military build up. Butthey were not alone. NDP leader JackLayton insisted his party was not anti-military, pointing to the NDP’s supportfor the last Liberal government budget,which included large increases in militaryspending.

The Conservative budget has offeredthe military another billion dollars a year,both to purchase new equipment and toexpand regular and reserve armed forces.The military has gone on an aggressiverecruiting drive, even targetting highschools.

This drive to boost military spendingwas fuelled by the generals and a power-ful military corporate complex. Canadahas a substantial war industry, largelycontrolled by a small number of giant

corporations. They stand to profit fromopen access to US government andglobal arms contracts, as well as increasedCanadian government orders.

The Afghanistan mission is very muchin line with Corporate Canada’s pursuitof “deep integration” with the US.Canadian corporations see unfetteredaccess to the US market as vital to theireconomic interests. To get it, they favourincreasing harmonization with US poli-cies on defence, border security, immi-gration, energy supply, etc. This process,initiated by the Liberals, is being fasttracked by the new Harper government

But we should not focus solely onHarper or Bush. It was Liberal interven-tionists who entangled us in Afghanistan.The Liberals are choosing a new leader. IfMichael Ignatieff or someone of similarilk wins, Canadians will have thefreedom to choose their poison – eitherhard-line Bush-style neo-conservativeinterventionism or more two-facedmorality-laced liberal interventionism.Meanwhile, NDP Leader Jack Laytonhas suggested that Darfur is the rightmission for Canadian troops. It’s a mootpoint, since Harper and the Canadianmilitary are totally locked intoAfghanistan. But it does reflect a hungerfor “Canada the Good,” in whichCanadian peacekeepers help build abetter world. But in a world dominatedby imperialist military and economicpower it is naive and diverts energy frombuilding a movement opposed to mili-tary interventionism and occupation.

CHALLENGES AND OBSTACLES

The Canadian people are not stupid.People are capable of learning fromhistory, including the US government’sdishonest and ruinous war in Iraq. Manysense that our political leaders are takingCanada down the garden path to warand don’t want to go there.

But no one should underestimate thetask of building the kind of mass move-ment necessary to force the Canadiangovernment to withdraw its troops fromAfghanistan.

Wars, even on a small scale, generatevirulently patriotic forces. This in turndampens political courage and feedspolitical opportunism.

The NDP and Bloc Quebecois hadpreviously acted with utter spinelessness

on Afghanistan. When they opposed theextension of Canada’s mission inAfghanistan, Harper came out swingingwith a smear campaign saying they don’tsupport our troops.

Will the labour bureaucracy and othersocial forces show political courage andtake a clear political stance opposing thewar in Afghanistan? Or will oppositionhave to be built from the grassroots up?

Over the last year, a Haiti solidaritymovement picked up steam and played amodest but effective role in unmaskingCanadian alignment with the coup forcesthat ousted former president Aristide.

The movement succeeded in identify-ing with the aspirations of the Haitianpeople and their determined struggleagainst a repressive new regime.

DIFFICULT PROBLEMS

But Afghanistan is not Haiti, and itposes many difficult problems. As aresult, there is no Afghan solidaritymovement.

The Afghan people have beenentombed by what Gilbert Achcar hasdescribed as the “Clash of Barbarisms.”The oppressive rule of the Taliban hasended, only to be replaced by foreignimperialist occupation while mass miserycontinues.

Some Canadians, like former Liberalhealth minister Ujjal Dosanjh, claim thepeople are now better off than under theheel of “clerical fascism” and Canadaneeds to stop the return of the Taliban.

But this misses the point. People in theMuslim world have many reasons todistrust and hate the West. Occupationsare never well received. They inevitablygenerate resistance. In the case ofAfghanistan, this has largely been led byIslamic fundamentalist forces with a veryreactionary social agenda. But this shouldnot blind us to the primary responsibilityof imperialism.

It is folly to believe that Canada, actingas a representative of “the civilizedworld,” can help liberate Afghanistan.Unlike the generals and gung-ho inter-ventionists like Harper, many Canadiansdon’t see a legitimate reason to wage war,kill and be killed in Afghanistan. Thankgoodness! If fully mobilized, these senti-ments have the potential to stop Ottawafrom plunging us into an unending seriesof permanent imperialist wars. ★

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Three cheers for the best directaction of 2006 thus far! Inmid-April in Burnaby, BC,

while announcing his plan of inaction forchildren, Stephen Harper had his nosesqueezed by a six month old child,Solomon Buster Sitar.

Amongst the most stressful things wedo are raise children and work for pay.Stephen Harper is clearly trying to makeboth harder and more unpleasant to do.The Conservatives’ cancellation of anattempt at a national child care plan andtheir proposed $1200 children’sallowance is a vicious attack on workingwomen. It helps to shore up supportfrom both social and fiscal conservatives,undermine confidence and support fornon-profit child care and public educa-tion from kindergarten to grad school,and create hazards for people dependenton existing programs.

In the lead up to the last federal elec-tion, there were numerous instancesreported in the mainstream media ofstudents considering dropping theirstudies in Early Childhood Education(ECE) and of working mothers lookingto move because there wouldn’t be suffi-cient child care options to allow them adecent living. Pragmatically, these deci-sions may not be bad ones.Overwhelmingly, women provide care,both in the family home and as paidworkers.

Statistics Canada reported in April thatmore than half of the children under five

were being cared for outside thefamily home, in licensed non-profit or for-profit centers,nanny services, non-licensedneighbourhood homes or byextended family. This reflects thedeeper integration of womeninto the Canadian labour pool.

WHAT KIND OF CARE?

While many neighbours orfamily members may do a finejob of caring for a child, theirability to do so is often unreli-able. Along with extendedfamily, for-profit child care serv-ices and non-licensed babysit-ting services come greater possibilities forabuse, unsanitary conditions, poor nutri-tion, lack of access to public support andlousy (or no) earnings for the people whoare doing this difficult work. This ishardly the way children or their familiesdeserve to be treated. I have heard of one“center” (really someone’s basement)where children were having fruit takenfrom them because their caregiver couldnot afford to buy fruit or vegetables forthemselves.

Canceling support for public child careis another way of reinforcing key ideolog-ical tenets of neo-conservatism: there isno society, only individuals and families;we get what we deserve; market forceswill solve problems; women are meant tobe kept in their place.

Is expanding child care dead? No. Basictendencies of liberal capitalism drivewomen (and the occasional would-bestay at home dad) to work out of thehome for wages. Women in Quebec with

access to less expensive and more (but notenough) child care spaces are able toparticipate in the work force in a moreconsistent way, helping to ensure theirsocial and economic rights. Alberta, onthe other hand, is facing particular labourshortages due in no small part to theerosion of social services under the KleinConservatives. About 70% of Canadianmothers of children five and under workoutside the home; only about 15% ofCanadian children 12 and under haveaccess to a regulated childcare spot. Pleasenote the disparity of ages! Young childrenneed much more care and attention thanchildren a few years older. This penny-pinching is just one more attack onwomen and children.

THE AUSTRALIAN MODEL

A recent Globe and Mail editorialargued for “Aussie-rules daycare.”Australia has been offering relativelygenerous subsidies for parents to encour-

CHILD CARE

Harper’s attack on women,workers and childrenBY MARK CONNERY

Mark Connery is a sometimesoveremployed sometimes underemployedchildcare worker living in Toronto.

Kids don’t like Harper.

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age a neo-liberal venture capital approachto childcare. Two-thirds of child carespaces in Australia are in for-profitcenters. This represents a Walmartizationof child care where, yes, the basic servicesare there, but questions of human rightsand equity, living wages and basic socialrationality are out the window. Childrearing is state-subsidized, with parents asshoppers and children as problems to bedealt with.

In light of the April 2006 federalbudget and the drive towards privatiza-tion, it is entirely possible that Canadianchild care could be moving in this direc-tion. The tax cuts being offered in thecurrent budget only apply to organiza-tions which are taxed. This excludes thenon-profit centers which have beenproven to be the best for children, theirfamilies and for workers. Small federalgrants and tax cuts would be start-upmoney rather than sustained funding.Capital investments in infrastructure –providing adequate funding to make oradapt centers to be child care friendly –are a relatively small part of the overallcost of quality child care. The primarycost is labour.

Feeding, cleaning, toileting, providingcreative activities, reading, negotiatingconflicts and difficult emotions, teachinghow to wash hands and tie shoes – doingall this with and for young children takesa lot of work. The burnout rate in ECE isquite high. With federal and provincialcuts to post-secondary education, thedebt burden for graduates of ECE andrelated fields grows higher and higher,while in general wages and benefits in thecare field stagnate.

CHILD CARE AND THE LEFT

So where is the Left in all this? Anumber of important campaigns havebeen developing. The best has beencoming from the Canadian Union ofPublic Employees, which has been pres-suring different governments on theseissues in coalition with community andintellectual allies. The Canadian AutoWorkers has also been strong on childcare and has been part of developinginnovative strategies for childcare. TheCanadian Labour Congress (CLC) hastaken up the fight as well with publicadvertising demanding a decent childcare plan. Despite the conservatism of the

CLC, it does appear to support this issueand may be an area that it could bepushed further on. The federal NDP islackluster on this issue. While it has astrong women’s caucus, and their criticon this issue, Olivia Chow, actuallyknows about childcare, the party’s plat-form is weak and is timidly reformist,well to the right of center-left advocacygroups.

However, sectarian rejections ofmodest reforms are no way forward.Caring for children can have a conserva-tive influence on caregivers. Worryingabout how much milk Lucy drank, orhow Ahmed scraped his knee and why, orwill Benjamin grow up to be an axemurderer because he was hugged at thewrong time and on and on, makesworking people shut down at certainpoints. Paying attention to all thesedetails and attending to an overwhelm-ing number of needs while keeping one’ssanity discourages involvement inbroader forms of social, cultural andpolitical life. The organization of childcare centers and the training of child careworkers is most often rigidly authoritar-ian and intellectually disengaging. WhileI worked towards my own diploma I wasnot required to read anything but partsof textbooks and endless numbers ofloose photocopied handouts.

NEGLIGENT ON CHILDREN’S ISSUES

The Right has had a strong grasp onfamilies and children (and wishes toretain it) while the Left has been negli-gent on children’s issues. The moreradical Left has been weak on children’sissues for many different reasons. Ultra-left critiques of the family, once popularamongst segments of the sexual libera-tion movements of the 70s and 80s, anda base conservatism around childhoodand actual children haunt us. Popularimages of childhood and children areladen with saccharine sentimentality. Inreality, children are disempowered,denied basic needs and desires and

frequent victims of violence at the handsof adults and other children. TheHarper government wishes to both raisethe age for sexual consent from 14 to 16years, while allowing 14 year olds to betried as adults.

WHERE CAN WE GO FROM HERE?

The parents as consumers model ofchildcare will help reinforce the oppres-sion of children, and may lead to thecovering up of abuses and lack of supportfor families as wholes. The kind of childcare that socialists need to fight for isfree, universal and democratically-runcenters and agencies with an explicitlypro-child perspective. When I firstvolunteered with infants and toddlers Ihad flags raised about the possible abuseof a child. A woman who mentored mesaid, “When it comes to picking a side Ialways side with the child.” Caregivers,whether paid or unpaid, need to be giventhat mandate, along with adequateopportunities for education, dialogueand social support and without fear ofviolence or poverty.

A number of positive steps can betaken. Many child care centers run onthe sweat of part-time casual womenworkers, who often work more than full-time. These women are often immigrantsor the children of immigrants. Alliancesbetween anti-poverty groups, immigrantand refugee rights groups, communityorganizations, arts and cultural groupsand labour unions will be crucial.Expanding licensed child care is neces-sary, but so are other spaces for children,like parks, community centers andsports, library and recreation programs.

Support is also needed for existingorganizations and campaigns. In politicalterms, the best of these are essentiallysocial democratic. Proponents ofgenuine socialism need to support themodest improvements in child care thatsuch organizations and campaignsdemand while also proposing more effec-tive and creative strategies and tactics.★

By far the best single research resource is the Childcare Canada ResourceUnit’s site at http://www.childcarecanada.org/ It features up-to-date newsstories, research papers, and loads of background information. Readers willalso want to look to http://www.childcareadvocacy.ca/ for information onprogressive advocacy work.

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During his campaign in the recentfederal election, Prime MinisterStephen Harper made an

astounding reversal of his earlier positionon health care.

Right up until last year, Harper hadasserted his support for a two-tier healthcare system. In 1998, he called for scrap-ping the Canada Health Act. In 2002,Harper told the Toronto Star that“Moving toward alternatives, includingthose provided by the private sector, is anatural development of our health caresystem.”

The election race forced Harper topush this perspective into the closet,claiming that he is opposed to a two-tiersystem. However, this doesn’t negateongoing federal efforts to dismantle ourMedicare system.

We’ve come a long way since the strug-gles of the 1930s Depression that led tocalls for universal health care. Pioneeredin Saskatchewan, it was not until 1966that the national health care system wasestablished. Since that time, Canada hasbeen recognized internationally as acentre for innovative thinking abouthealth care. However, this thinking hasbeen invariably co-opted to underpinfederal and provincial efforts to cuthealth care costs. The current perspectiveof the Conservative government is alogical extension of this history.

A central axis in debates among healthcare theorists in this country has beenabout the relative importance of cureversus prevention, distilled in the oldadage “an apple a day keeps the doctoraway.” Though the value of preventing

human suffering and injury in the firstplace may seem commonsense, only asmall percentage of total health expendi-ture (5% of the $142 billion spent in2005) goes toward prevention and publichealth programs.

Even the nature of prevention has beensubject to debate, since it raises the ques-tion of how health is affected by socialfactors. If the dimensions of health arenot limited to physical disease, to whatextent should the health care system beresponsible for addressing social causes ofill-health?

MEDICAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

Canada’s health care system is foundedon a biomedical model that narrowlyfocuses on the physical causes andprocesses of disease. In this model, diseaseis prevented by using medications andvaccines, or reducing exposure to knownrisk factors. Health policies based on thismodel involve health and safety regula-tions or health education campaigns topersuade people to avoid risk factors orencourage them to seek regular healthscreening.

The biomedical model is stronglylinked to clinical practice. Access toclinics and hospitals, medical technolo-gies and pharmaceuticals are seen as thekey to quality health care. As a result, byfar the largest component of health careexpenditures has historically been in

physicians, new buildings, medicalmachinery, and drugs.

Despite new theories and policiesaccounting for the non-medical aspects ofhealth, the biomedical model continues tobe the dominant influence in our healthcare system. A powerful lobby includingthe Canadian Medical Association and thepharmaceutical industry continues toassert the primacy of this model in healthcare. Research based on this modelreceives the greatest share of funding.

Non-governmental organizations, mostnotably a variety of cancer prevention andtreatment associations, have successfullylobbied governments and health careproviders to introduce screening tests andpreventive interventions – at times evenbefore their effectiveness was established.

These biomedical interventions arewidely marketed as effective methods fornot only reducing risk, but also reducingthe economic burden of disease. Thus thismodel remains the highly profitablebedrock of the so-called “medical indus-trial complex.”

BLAMING THE VICTIMS

At the other end of the spectrum,disease prevention has been seen assecondary to or even irrelevant to levels ofhealth in society. In the 1970s, a healthpromotion ideology emerged advocatingpublic education programs to encourage“healthy lifestyle choices.”

Health promotion policies were criti-cized for disregarding the broader socialand environmental context of humanbehaviour and for overemphasizing

NEW HEALTH MORALITY AND PRIVATISATION

An apple a day?BY ETHAN MEYERS AND DEBORAH SIMMONS

Ethan Meyers is a student in public health policy. Deborah Simmons teaches at theUniversity of Manitoba and is a member of the New Socialist Group.

Alhough the value of preventing human suffering and injury may seem commonsense, only a small percentage of

health expenditure goes toward prevention.

15SOCIALISTnew

personal responsibility for illness.Concerns were raised about a “victim-blaming” mentality that absolves societyfrom its responsibility to the sick andneedy. These policies have also arguablyled to the establishment of health as theNew Morality and thus paradoxically havecontributed to the overmedicalization ofsociety.

Failures in the first phase of healthpromotion led to a focus on social —determinants of health, and a stress on theimportance of creating healthy living andworking environments. The language ofholism, community development, partici-pation, and empowerment was added tothe health promotion vocabulary. In 1987,national strategies to combat AIDS, heartdisease, impaired driving and drug abusewere established.

But both variants of the health promo-tion agenda failed to reduce healthinequalities because the messages andprograms remained less effective amongthose most at risk: poor, immigrant, andaboriginal people. Health promotiondiscourse was vague, and allowed conser-vative policy-makers to undermine notonly Medicare but even the health promo-tion agenda itself. For instance, in the1990s the relatively low cost Active Livingand ParticipACTION awarenessprograms justified shifting resources awayfrom public fitness and sport programs.

The concept of empowerment wasparticularly paradoxical: Is it really possi-ble for a bureaucrat to “empower” individ-uals or communities while continuing toset the agenda? The concept of empower-ment was used to return responsibility forhealth to provincial and municipalgovernments, and eventually to individu-als. This meant privatisation and downsiz-ing of public health care.

A NECESSARY EVIL?

The most recent paradigm shift inCanadian health care took place in theearly 1990s with the introduction of the“population health” perspective.Population health advocates identify pros-perity as the most important determinantof health. However, structural inequalitiesare not seen to be the problem. Rather, thetheory is that socio-economic gradients inhealth affect everyone and therefore thesolutions should target everyone – “arising tide lifting all boats.”

The population health model is highlycomplicated, involving numerous factorsand feedback loops. The health caresystem is viewed as a necessary evil, andspending on it is just like spending on themilitary: “a regrettable use of resources.”Since a more wealthy society is a morehealthy society, supposedly the mosteffective policy is to shift resources awayfrom health care and toward economicdevelopment.

The new health morality thus involvesan imperative to accept federal cuts tosocial spending and work hard in theservice of corporate profits. The popula-tion health model turns out to be drawnfrom a neo-liberal market ideology.

HEALTH INEQUALITIES

The several turns in health care ideol-ogy over the past four decades have led toessentially the same policy outcomes. Themajor health policy proposals thatfollowed the creation of Medicare inCanada have invariably assigned a promi-nent position to prevention, while callingfor a reduced role for the health caresystem.

The slogan that prevention is betterthan cure was interpreted to mean thatprevention is better than the illness-obsessed health care (or “sickness-care”)system. As a result, the arguments forprevention have been construed as argu-ments against Medicare. Adoption ofboth the health promotion and popula-tion health models in policy coincidedwith cuts to Medicare.

Clearly, universal access to health carehas not eliminated inequalities in health.Indeed, there is evidence thathealth inequalities have actu-ally increased following theintroduction of market-oriented policies resulting inreduced public spending onhealth. This happened des-pite a 45% expansion in thedollar value of the Canadianeconomy over the past twodecades. In fact, indiscrimi-nate cuts to health care spend-ing have disproportionatelyaffected the poor because oftheir higher health needs andtheir inability to pay forprivate health care.

The new health promotion

and population health ideologies coincidedwith the rise of neo-conservative politicsand neo-liberal economics in NorthAmerica, along with a weakening of thelabour union and women’s movements.Health care cuts have impacted theworking conditions of the lowest paidhealth care workers, who are mostlywomen, and have shifted more responsibil-ity for health care onto unpaid “informal”health providers, also mainly women.

The end result of the new policies hasbeen a weakened, chronically under-funded and under-staffed Medicare systemwith eroded public support. This hasopened the door to calls for privatizationand deregulation. The medical professionhas facilitated this trend by persistentlyrefusing to take into consideration anyhealth factors that cannot be addressedwithin hospital walls, and by advocatinghigh tech care even when it is immenselyexpensive and minimally beneficial.

Clearly, erosion of the social welfaresystem and attacks on living standards canhave disastrous effects on the health of thepoorest and most vulnerable people in oursociety. Despite major advances in healthtechnology and correspondingly hugeprofits for the medical- industrialcomplex, we are now seeing a resurgenceof largely preventable diseases in Canada– including a number of diseases such astuberculosis that were once thought to beeliminated.

This grim reality only reinforces theimportance of defending the universalhealth care system. Now is the time torenew the old slogan, “Health care is aright!”★

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Peace is in the peopleRECLAIMING THE LAND AT SIX NATIONS

BY KAHENTINETHA HORN

This article originally appeared on Mohawk Nation News May 27,2006 and is reprinted with permission. As New Socialist went to press,the Six Nations occupation in Caledonia was continuing. Despitetaking down their blockade on Highway 6, Six Nations negotiationswith Ontario and the province’s mediator, former premier DavidPeterson, remained stalled. Peterson in fact has demanded all otherbarricades come down and the occupation end, while the judge whoissued the injunction against Six Nations (leading to the OntarioProvincial Police’s failed attack on the occupation on April 20th) isdemanding the OPP carry it out.

During the past 88 days of SixNations activism to reclaim ourland near Caledonia, we have

received thousands of emails and callsfrom people all over the world. Therewere days when we just could not answerthem. The support and ideas that we’vereceived have been tremendously gratify-ing and helpful. We thank you all.Without this solidarity from natives andnon-natives, the Ontario ProvincialPolice would have had their way. Bloodwould have been spilt. Never mind thereturn of our land, though we are stillwaiting on that one.

This solidarity that we are experienc-ing between natives and non-nativepeople is a revival. The British promise toprotect the Six Nations on theHaldimand Tract that our people aredefending began with this solidarity. TheSix Nations were allies of the British. Itwas this alliance that lead to the forma-tion of modern Canada. Because of thisalliance we were pushed out of theMohawk Valley in what is now New York

State where our people had lived sincethe beginning of time. The Mohawkswere valiant allies of the British duringthe American Revolution. Mohawkshave always been on the front line everytime Britain needed defending – in theBattle of Queenston Heights 1813, inWorld I and World War II and otheractions.

The Haldimand Tract is on traditionalRotino’shon:ni/Iroquois territory. It wasguaranteed to the Mohawks in 1784.The Six Nations have always been willingto put ourselves on the line for ourCanadian allies. It is gratifying to see thatthe majority of people support thisalliance and are willing to stand up forus.

CANADIAN GOVERNMENT BETRAYAL

Our tradition has been to worktogether. Unfortunately, the Canadiangovernment, particularly Indian Affairs,was taken over by people who did notwant us to work together. They wantedto be boss, kings of the castle. So theybetrayed us and the Canadian people.

Instead of treating us honourably likeallies, they abused us. They stole our landand resources and schemed to kill us off.They pretended that we were childrenwho could not look after ourselves. Theydepleted our trust funds with illegalinvestments in flaky financial schemesrun by their friends.

Instead of treating us like allies, theypretended that we were British subjects.You may wonder why we did not protestover our lack of rights in Canada. That’sbecause we aren’t Canadians. We wereminding our own business. We organizedeverything on our territory and paid forit ourselves.

We thought the problem was just thepeople in Indian Affairs and that ourrelationship with the Queen remained onan honourable footing. We were wrong.

The original Haldimand promise wasthat there was to be no encroachmentever. In the end the Canadian govern-ment, not the Canadian people, was thesource of our beef.

Ontario, and the rest of Canada forthat matter, is intent on diminishingIndigenous land holdings not only onthe Haldimand Tract but everywhere. Itis being diminished through outrighttheft. The aim of not giving one inch ofland back is not for the benefit of thepeople of Ontario. It’s to support thebusiness interests that are intent onexploiting our resources with no regardto the environment or the present andfuture generations of the people whomust live on it. It is the billionaires whoreally run the governments. Welcome tothe pretend democracy of Canada.

We now assume stewardshipover our illegally occupied lands. Untilnow we have invested a lot of resourcesinto historical and legal research andactions for the last 200 years. Anytimethe facts were put on the table, Canadianofficials were shown to have mismanagedCanada and mistreated Indigenouspeople. We’ve borne the brunt of it. It is

Kahentinetha Horn is on the Elders Council in her community of Kahnawake. She hastaught history of Indigenous women at Concordia. She currently runs the MNN MohawkNation News daily news service of what’s going on in Kanion’ke:haka territory. She hasalmost 15 grandchildren. Horn has been retired for almost 16 years from Indian Affairswhere she worked for 20 years and learned too much. She has a Masters in CanadianStudies from Carleton University.

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over now! This rot also affects theCanadian people. They do not have agovernment that looks out for them andthe future generations. That’s the heart ofthe problem.

What is government and what are theirfunctions? Is it a vehicle that allows a fewgreedy individuals to live parasitic livesoff the work and possessions of others?Or should government bring peopletogether so that we can put our mindstogether, solve problems and make abetter life for everyone? The basic rift isbetween our Indigenous philosophycoming from our constitution, theKaianereh’ko:wa/Great Law, and thephilosophy of the people running thegovernment. We’ve learned in dealingwith the Canadian government that theCanadian government does not representthe Canadian people.

We never lost jurisdiction over ourancestral lands. We’ve had a deep sense of

betrayal and anger over our horrifichistoric experience with the colonizers.Would giving us back our illegally occu-pied land be “too disruptive’’ to the para-sites lodged in the Canadian government?Never mind that the government allowedand encouraged its own citizens toencroach on our land and gained privateand institutional land titles in violation ofthe laws. They let Americans come upand take our land too! It’s all part of their100 year plan to get rid of the “Indianproblem”, as described by that complete

maniac, Duncan Campbell Scott, ofIndian Affairs. A lot of the early settlerson our land were Americans who hadtaken part in pushing us off our land inthe Mohawk Valley. They came up hereand liked what they saw here too andbegan squatting!

It’s also interesting that a large percent-age of Canadians consider that we gotrobbed and that we deserve our territo-ries free of colonial jurisdiction. Thepublic in Canada, the United States andworldwide have given Six Nations strongsupport. We hope, for the sake of MotherEarth, it is because many in Canadarealize how important our philosophy ofcaring for the land is.

CORPORATE “PROGRESS”Unless, of course, we are in the way of

corporate “progress”, that is, exploitationof our lands and resources by a fewcorporate interests. They operate with noobligations to anyone but themselves and

no concern for the people, native andnon-native. We are all just pawns in theirschemes. The way to overcome all this isto assert our title to Turtle Island and toturn it back to its proper role as a “cornu-copia” for the people.

Even though there is wide support forus, there is tremendous opposition by thecorporate interests which functionthrough the governmental quagmire.They put pressure on any of their insti-tutions that could give us justice. Theseinterests manage to brainwash and

manipulate their “flag-waving” super-nationalists to make a lot of noise in themedia and to attack us. This is whathappened at the “Bread and CheeseFight” in Caledonia on May 22nd 2006when government instigated rioters cameand tried to attack us. But the generalpublic isn’t buying it.

The main anti-Indian argument to stopIndigenous jurisdiction from beingasserted is because they don’t want us togrow, expand and become independent.Why do they think that expandedIndigenous jurisdictions would be disrup-tive? Would it be a problem if Indianaffairs would no longer be getting a cut?They’d have to take their feet off theirdesks and do a day’s work. Are they afraidthat it would be environmentally andeconomically stimulating and rewardingnot just for us but for everyone else?

NEED FOR UNITY

We all need to take a unified approach,native and non-native. We are all beingabused. We need to work together. But weneed to be wary of those who try to shutus up in the name of unity. We need torespect our laws and adhere to the originalarrangements that were made between us.Let us assert our jurisdiction. Don’t keepus mired in legalistic strategies which takeup our time and money. We need to befree from the shackles of useless diver-sions.

Maybe what’s needed is a massive“Condolence Ceremony” in which wewipe our eyes with a soft leather so thatwe can see clearly and have a good look atthe issues; then we need to take an eaglefeather to clean out our ears so that wecan hear each other; and then we need todrink a glass of water so that we can speaktruthfully and as clearly as the purestwater. Sometimes the solutions to diffi-cult problems are simple. Sometimes allthat’s needed is to show respect.

In the end, there’s no need to give usback the Henco Industries land. It’s oursalready. It always was. All Ontario needsto do is to respect that. We need to assertthe legal government-to-government rela-tionship. We do have broad support fromthe public to do this. We must bring outthe truth. We must stop Canada fromcontinuing to live in sin. Grow upCanada! Colonialism is over! We’re nevergoing back!★

Six Nation activists at the land reclamation in Caledonia.

18 SOCIALISTnew

Inside the CAW jacketBY BRUCE ALLEN

Perhaps no other event in the history of the Canadian Auto-workers(CAW) has evoked more of a reaction than the spectacle in December2005 of CAW National President Buzz Hargrove gleefully giving then

Prime Minister Paul Martin a CAW jacket to wear while Martin was campaign-ing for re-election. New Democratic Party (NDP) members and supporters wereinfuriated. The Liberals were ecstatic. The Left outside of the NDP cringed.

But “Jacketgate” is really misunder-stood. It is misunderstood because it didnot actually mark a sudden or dramaticshift in the political or class orientation ofthe CAW. The CAW’s right turn hasactually been taking shape since shortlyafter the Ontario Days of Action (theseries of mass protests from 1995 to 1999against the Mike Harris Tory govern-ment, some of which included politicalstrike action) were deliberately wounddown after the leaders of the right-wing“pink paper” group of mostly privatesector unions achieved supremacy in theOntario Federation of Labour (OFL).

ONTARIO 1999

The demise of the extra-parliamentarysocial movement that was mobilizedduring the Ontario Days of Action wenthand in hand with a deliberate andgeneral retreat by organized labour inOntario, where the CAW’s membership isconcentrated, into electoral politics.Defeating the province’s Tory governmentat the polls in 1999 became the soleobjective of Ontario labour.

While there was unity with regard tothe objective, there was disagreement overthe electoral tactic for achieving it.Essentially two distinct tactics werepursued. One focused on exclusivelysupporting the NDP. The other focusedon voting for those candidates most likelyto defeat a Tory, meaning, in most cases,a Liberal (“strategic voting”). The CAW

made a decisive political turn to the rightby embracing the latter tactic. Thismarked a sea change for the CAW, whichhad been a bulwark of support for theNDP since the party’s formation in1961.

In 1995, the CAW leadership hadpunished the Ontario NDP for its anti-worker Social Contract legislation whilecontinuing to support the NDP in therest of English Canada. The CAW didthis by adopting a policy in the 1995Ontario provincial election of onlysupporting NDP candidates who defiedthe NDP government of Premier BobRae by openly opposing the Social

Contract. This meant the CAW adopteda political position decisively to the leftof both the NDP and every otherpredominantly private sector union.This political orientation to the left ofthe NDP remained clearly in force forthe next couple of years while the Days ofAction were taking place.

Nonetheless, the planned demise ofthe Days of Action and the collapse ofthe movement associated with themfacilitated the CAW’s subsequent rightturn. It set the stage for the abandon-ment by the CAW of its tradition ofunwavering support for the NDP infavour of “strategic voting.” Many CAWactivists and local leaders opposed thisright turn, wanting to remain loyal to theNDP. Others on the far left opposed it,seeing it as a clear opening to the Liberalsand an abandonment of working-classpolitics.

These developments went hand inhand with an extensive survey of theCAW rank and file about the union’s

Bruce Allen is the Vice-President of CAWLocal 199 in St. Catharines, Ontario. Hefounded the CAW Left Caucus.

Buzz Hargrove welcomes Paul Martin on stage for an election speech to CAWmembers in Windsor (www.liberal.ca)

19SOCIALISTnew

involvement in politics. The leadershipanalyzed the results and concluded theCAW would be more politically effectiveif it focused its political work on keyissues, rather than just on buildingsupport for the NDP. A new “non-parti-san” political course could now be justi-fied. This new course proved to beconducive to strategic voting becomingan entrenched CAW policy.

Beyond this, the collapse of the socialmovement, embodied in the OntarioDays of Action, set the stage for muchmore than just a measured degree of elec-toral support for the Liberals. It simulta-neously led to a significant change in theway the CAW addressed issues that wentalong with strategic voting, and hadsimilar political effects. Specifically,extra-parliamentary political actionceased to be a central feature of theCAW’s mobilization around politicalissues. With this the CAW’s advocacy ofwhat it claims is “social movement union-ism” started to ring increasingly hollow.More and more effort was channeled intolobbying politicians and timid postcardand letter writing campaigns. It was as ifthe CAW had disavowed militant massprotest and the politics of the street.

QUEBEC CITY 2001

Indeed, the final gasp of the CAW’scommitment to the latter was vividly ondisplay in Quebec City in April 2001during the mass protests against the FreeTrade Area of the Americas. That waswhen most of organized labour turned itsback on the youth who constituted thevanguard of the then thriving movementagainst capitalist globalization and whopersonify the future of the Left. Duringthe two days of mass confrontation inQuebec City between riot police andthese inspiring youth and their genuineallies, including some CAW activists andlocal leaders, the few prominent CAWmembers present largely stayed clear ofthe main events. They took part in theorganized labour’s hapless march to anempty parking lot on the outskirts ofQuebec City instead.

On the same weekend, the large major-ity of the CAW leadership met at CAWCouncil far away in Port Elgin, Ontario(top CAW leaders had refused to movethe meeting to Montreal in order to facil-itate maximum participation in the

mobilizations in Quebec City). In retro-spect, what happened that weekend inApril 2001 was a telling indication ofhow much things had changed in theCAW after the demise of the OntarioDays of Action, and how much theystood in contrast to electrifying eventslike the occupation of the OshawaFabrication Plant during the 1996 CAWstrike against GM, as well as the one daymass strike in Toronto as part of the Daysof Action.

April 2001 revealed how much of a gapthere now was between the CAW’s occa-sionally militant rhetoric and practicalreality. The chilling political fallout from9/11 subsequently accentuated thismarked shift away from militancy.

The new emphasis on political tacticslike lobbying coupled with the embraceof strategic voting combined to give addi-tional momentum to building a closerrelationship with the Liberals. Lines ofcommunication with the Liberals grewstronger. Bridges were being builtbetween the CAW and the Liberals, espe-cially under Paul Martin’s federal govern-ment and Ontario’s Liberal government,to the obvious pleasure of the Liberals,who are ever-eager to undercut laboursupport for the NDP. This, in largemeasure, set the stage for “Jacketgate.”

But another critically importantdynamic was at work with a very similartrajectory. The development of the autoand auto parts industry in Ontario withinthe context of the North American FreeTrade Agreement and capitalist globaliza-tion prompted a significant shift in therelationship between the CAW and theauto corporations it collectively bargainswith. Developments over the past decadeand a half within this industry have led toa continuous downsizing of the work-force, especially at the “Big 3” autocompany operations in Canada. Worsestill, this downsizing of the CAW’s auto

and auto parts workforce has occurred atthe same time as non-union auto manu-facturing operations at Toyota andHonda have expanded. This expansionhas been prompted mainly by increasedsales by these corporations and growingmarket share. This is resulting in thevery ominous growth of a non-unionworkforce in the Canadian auto industrythat directly threatens the future ofpattern or industry-wide CAW collectiveagreements.

OSHAWA 2006

These developments have resulted infierce competition for a diminishingnumber of jobs at GM, Ford and DaimlerChrysler, prompting those corporationsto step up their pressure for both contractconcessions by the CAW and massivegovernment subsidies with the blessing ofa CAW desperate to stop the relentless joblosses. Confronted with this increasinglydire situation the CAW has become lessand less adversarial in its relationship tothese employers and more and morewilling to accommodate their demandsfor more “flexible” collective agreements.Top CAW leaders are seemingly obliviousto the harsh impact of this on rank andfile CAW members, the people who haveto work under these flexible agreementsand who experience daily the effects ofthe relentless restructuring of operationsand the speed-up that flexible agreements(like the recently negotiated GM Oshawa“shelf agreement”) are designed to facili-tate.

The end result is yet another develop-ment that goes hand in hand with devel-oping a closer relationship to the Liberalswho are usually best positioned to deliverthe government subsidies to these corpo-rations in exchange for new investments.Such investments are also tied to theacceptance of local contract concessionsthat give the corporations more flexibility

The CAW’s advocacy of what itclaims is “social movementunionism” started to ring

increasingly hollow.

20 SOCIALISTnew

in managing their workplaces and facili-tating corresponding reductions inproduction costs at our members’expense. In effect, consent to a reorgani-zation of the work process on the shopfloor has coincided with a realignment ofthe CAW’s political orientation, makingfor a broad realignment of the union’sclass orientation inside and outside theworkplace.

In contrast to the Liberals, the NDP islargely left out in the cold. Being out ofpower, the NDP cannot deliver govern-ment subsidies, and can only be veryuseful to the CAW in the auto and autoparts industries if and when it holds thebalance of power while a minority Liberalgovernment is in office.

The CAW’s subsequent break from theNDP cannot be fully understood withoutgrasping these things. Indeed, the contextthey define also goes a long way towardsexplaining the CAW leadership’s recentfury at the NDP over the federal party’sdecision late last year to not continue toprop up Paul Martin’s federal Liberalgovernment in order to extract legislationthe CAW desired. This context alsolargely explains the depth of their current,deepened disillusionment with the NDP.

This begs the question of what can bedone in the wake of the CAW’s pre-deter-mined decision, at a CAW Council

For the first time in the history of theCAW there will be a contestedelection for CAW National President.Willie Lambert is running againstBuzz Hargrove. Willie is a bus driverand CAW local leader in Oakville,Ontario, and the President of theOakville & District Labour Council.He previously ran twice againstWayne Samuelson for President ofthe Ontario Federation of Labour(OFL). Willie has been an outspokencritic of many of Hargrove’s policiesand vigorously opposed the CAW’srecent decision to withdraw allsupport for the NDP. He wants tosee the CAW restore its relationshipto both the NDP and the OFL andhelp to move both organizations tothe left with a workers’ agenda. Willie is a member of the revivedCAW Left Caucus. His campaign hasattracted a considerable amount ofpublicity and a growing degree ofinterest. The CAW hierarchy is nottaking his candidacy lightly. Alreadyvotes have been engineered atmeetings of many bodies within theCAW to endorse the re-election ofHargrove and other current top CAWofficers. Clearly the CAWbureaucracy wants to rig theoutcome before the votes for CAWNational President are cast at theCAW Constitutional Conventionscheduled for the week of August 14in Vancouver. It knows there isconsiderable discontent withHargrove at the base of the CAW thatcould surface in the secret ballotvote. The CAW bureaucracy no doubtremembers upstart Carol Wall’sstunning result when she drew 37%of the delegate vote in the electionfor Canadian Labour Congress (CLC)President last June in Montreal andput the future of Ken Georgetti asCLC President on thin ice.

meeting in April, to terminate its rela-tionship to the NDP and opt for a redou-bling of its less-than-consistent supportfor its social movement partners as anostensibly viable political alternative.

It is a political dead end to demand anunlikely, but not inconceivable, restora-tion of the CAW’s relationship with theNDP. There is no reason at all to believe arestored relationship would be followedby a determined CAW effort to challengeboth the NDP leadership and the increas-ingly right-wing drift of the NDP. Theeffective absence of any such effortthroughout all the years the CAW was inthe NDP precludes any credible hope thatthis would be attempted. Even if thecurrent top leadership of the CAW wasswept from power and its army of fulltime officers suddenly embraced anti-capitalist politics in a truly meaningful (asopposed to a rhetorical and momentary)way, the rightward drift of social demo-cratic parties globally in the context of21st century capitalism would doom anattempt to turn the NDP decisively to theleft to failure.

POLITICAL ALTERNATIVE

Working towards the formation of apolitical alternative decisively to the left ofthe NDP is a more plausible option. Butit has little support currently within theCAW. In the absence of more supportthis must be considered a distant goal.Nonetheless, ongoing advocacy of a polit-ical alternative to the left of the NDP isstill critically necessary in order tomethodically build support for its even-tual formation.

In the meantime, there is a compellingneed for an immediate political strategywhich combines sustained attacks oncontinued CAW electoral support for theLiberals, and strategic voting with relent-less demands that the CAW leadershipreturn to an adversarial and meaningfulanti-concessions stance towards employ-ers, fully cognizant of how succumbing tocorporate demands for flexibility is ulti-mately suicidal for a workers’ organiza-tion.

Finally, the CAW leadership must alsobe relentlessly pressed to effectively prac-tice what they are now preaching in rela-tion to our social partners. They must becompelled to forge a renewed, sustainedand consistent commitment to militant,

Willie Lambert is challenging BuzzHargrove for CAW President(www.willielambert.org)

extra-parliamentary political action ofthe kind we saw during the Ontario Daysof Action whose demise largely set the stage for the current, muddled political mess highlighted in Decemberby “Jacketgate.”★

21SOCIALISTnew

Over the past decade Argentinahas witnessed the struggle ofgrassroots social justice groups

against the encroachment of neoliberal-ism on everyday life. One of the mosttalked about groups has been the move-ment of worker-recovered enterprises(movimiento de empresas recuperadaspor sus trabajadores, or ERT). Emergingout of Argentina’s recent socio-economicand -political turmoil, the ERT move-ment, which began tentatively circa1998, surged in the months that followedthe country’s monetary, political, andeconomic crisis of Dec. 19/20 2001. Inearly 2006, it is still continuing to craftpromising alternatives for the workinglives of thousands of Argentines.

Argentine labour expert HéctorPalomino writes that the political andeconomic impacts of the ERT movementare more “related to its symbolic dimen-sion” than the strength of its size since, todate, the movement involves roughly 170to 180 mostly small- and medium-sizedenterprises and between 8,000and12,000 workers (less than one percentof officially active participants in theurban-based economy). While thisreflects only a fraction of the potentialeconomic output of the country, theERTs have inspired “new expectations forsocial change” in Argentina, showinginnovative and viable alternatives tochronic unemployment and underem-ployment that move beyond the stagnantsolutions offered by traditional stateinstitutions and unions.

The impetus for workspace recupera-tions in Argentina has its political rootsin the social mobilizations that beganaround 1996 with the movement of

unemployed workers (movimiento detrabajadores desocupados, or MTD) –popularly known as the piqueteros. Bythe mid-1990s, the radical liberalizationof the national economy saw hundreds ofmultinationals take over Argentina’sindustrial base. Together with the chronicexport deficit that ensued due to an over-valued peso, the government’s extreme

neoliberal policies relegated millions ofworkers to the ranks of the unemployedand the impoverished. But as Toni Negriobserves, responses such as the MTDmovement bore witness to a new “energyof universal conviction and of egalitariansocial recomposition.” Common to theseearly mobilizations by the growing andincreasingly militant population of theunemployed was a renewed sense ofcollective purpose against a callous,exploitative, and socially alienating capi-talist system, and a growing ethos ofdemocracy from below. Since then, asMaristella Svampa and Sebastían Pereyraassert in a recent book on the experiences

of the newest social movements inArgentina, the country has seen a consid-erable “reactivation” of “communitariansocial experience” that grew out of thecalamitous socio-economic situation ofthe country throughout the mid-to-late1990s and early 2000s.

SELF-MANAGEMENT

For many workers in Argentina,participation in direct action to recovertheir workspaces, driven by dire necessityand modelled after the new social trans-formations taking shape around them,seemed the only alternative. Gradually,through workers’ struggles to recoverworkspaces and their subsequent prac-tices of autogestión (self-management),ERT protagonists began to discover thatit is possible to change their own circum-stances despite a political system thatremains unresponsive to their needs.

In workspaces spanning sectors asvaried as education, printing andpublishing, shipbuilding, oil refining,metallurgy, and tourism, workers’ storiesreveal similar struggles: after years ofsuffering under economic hardship,broken institutional promises, threat ofor outright closure of firms due to legalor illegal bankruptcies, and the inepti-tude and greed of business owners,workers were pushed into risky work-space takeovers, leading to long periodsof round-the-clock occupation andresistance. Hence, the slogan adopted bythe National Movement of RecoveredEnterprises (Movimiento Nacional deEmpresas Recuperadas, or MNER), theautonomist ERT collective of roughlyone-third of worker-recovered firms:“occupy, resist, produce.” This sloganalso captures the three distinctive stagesof struggle that many ERTs must gothrough on their way towards auto-gestión.

ARGENTINA’S WORKER-RECOVERED ENTERPRISES MOVEMENT (ERT)

Reconstituting working livesBY MARCELO VIETA

Marcelo Vieta is a Ph.D candidate in Social and Political Thought at Y ork University inToronto. Vieta spent five weeks in Buenos Aires in the summer of 2005 interning with theworker-recovered printing house, Artes Gráficas Chilavert.

“Occupy, resist,

produce”:

This slogan captures

the three distinctive

stages of struggle that

many of the ERTs

must go through.

22 SOCIALISTnew

“OCCUPY…”

As business owners contemplate aban-doning their firms, workers realize thepossibility that machinery and inventory– and, thus, their jobs – will disappear,and that they will most likely never seewages, salaries, and benefits they areowed. Often with the help of supportiveneighbours, sometimes by themselves,workers mobilize; they seize and occupytheir workspaces to prevent the oftenillegal vaciamento, “emptying,” of thefirm by returning owners, court trustees,or owner-hired thugs, using their ownbodies as living blockades against therepression from police or thugs thatcould follow.

Next, militant workers begin thearduous task of lobbying local politiciansand judges for formal recognition asworker-controlled cooperatives. At thesame time, they begin production runs oroffer services as quickly as possible sothey can start earning a living once again.During these early days of militancy,ERT protagonists might even take theirstruggle to the streets or occupy locallegislatures and courts as pressure tacticswhile their cases are being deliberated.MNER calls these tactics of occupationand protest “the war of bodies.”

“… RESIST…”

After the turmoil of the occupation,the resistance stage sets in as workerssquat their reclaimed workspace forperiods ranging from weeks to well over ayear. During the early days of this period,when the risk of eviction is greatest,workers usually receive no incomebecause they are not producing. They relyon families and neighbours to bring thembedding, food, and clothing. Workersmay begin small production runs duringthe later stages of occupation, sometimesusing the help of supportive neighboursto bring their products to market. Moreoften, though, substantial productionruns must wait until regional legislaturesdecide to grant the workers the right tooperate as a cooperative and declare theley de expropiación (expropriation law) ontheir behalf.

The expropriation law is vitally impor-tant to the movement because it preventsthe auctioning off of the company’s assetsor further repression while giving theworkers’ cooperative control of the plant

for up to 20 years. Eventually, but notalways, the workers are allowed to legallyuse the machines under the auspices of a“temporary” law of expropriation thatusually lasts two to five years while theirrequest for the more permanent law isheard in regional legislatures. During thefirst months of operation, most ERTscontinue to struggle under burdensomecourt-ordered conditions. In some unfor-tunate cases the workers are ordered totake on the debt of the previous owner orto rent back the firm’s assets from formerowners or the state.

The seemingly straightforward goal ofrecovering jobs in Argentina, forgedinitially by necessity, is thus hampered bycontinuous material, legal, and politicalhardships for the ERT movement.

“…PRODUCE”

If all goes well with the occupation, theearly months of production under self-management, and the first year or so oftemporary control, then the process ofworker recovery culminates in the work-space becoming an official, worker-runcooperative, fully controlled by itsworkers. The University of Buenos Aires’ERT Documentation Centre reveals thatmost ERTs decide to become coopera-tives, with over one-half practising payequity under the democratic auspices ofworkers’ assemblies and councils. OtherERTs practise slightly more hierarchicalforms of remuneration tied to specificskill sets, seniority, or whether or notworkers were present during the initialmoments of occupation.

According to Palomino, although the“egalitarian income structure prevails”with most ERTs, the issue of pay equity isthe topic of continued discussion within

individual ERTs and across the move-ment as a whole. While not all ERT firmspractice egalitarian salary schemes, thestrong tendency amongst ERTs is to prac-tise far more egalitarian forms of remu-neration than when they were under thecontrol of proprietors. Struggle, coopera-tion, and workers’ own sense of thecommunal value of their living andcollective labour, not exploitative powerhierarchies, tend to dictate the measureof worker compensation and reward inthe ERT movement.

Additionally, most ERT cooperativesattempt to engage in production prac-tices that aspire to minimize capitalistforms of surplus value and wealth accu-mulation. Where possible, ERT coopera-tives try to distribute the major part oftheir revenues equally between workers’salaries, the material needs of workers,and pensions for retired members of thecooperative. Most prefer to redirect anyremaining revenue into the needs ofproduction and the maintenance of thefirm after these individual workers’ needsare met. Since ERTs tend to privilegeworkers’ necessities over capitalist accu-mulation and the profit motive, thesepractices of remuneration and revenueallocation can be seen as experiments informs of work that move beyond some ofthe exploitative practices inherent incapital-labour social relations.

CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS

Because ERTs must compete withinthe greater capitalist economic form, theyare constantly affected by the tensionsthat inevitably arise between the quotid-ian needs of workers and the productionand marketing challenges of the firm.While each ERT’s daily struggles are differ-

Workers’

Cooperative of

Hotel Baven

protest for law of

appropriation

(www.flickr.com)

23SOCIALISTnew

ent, the most commonly shared challengesare underproduction, difficulties in reach-ing new markets, and the continuedprecarious life conditions of workers. ManyERT cooperatives operate with theconstant awareness that revenues might notbe sufficient to pay salaries, pushing themto begin to engage in less cooperativist,more capitalistic forms of management andproduction preoccupied with the maxi-mization of revenue. These tensions temptsome ERTs to engage in practices of self-exploitation and self-bureaucratization,illustrating one of the contradictionsimplicit in self-management within agreater capitalist system: when stayingafloat becomes the primary focus of aworker-run cooperative, workers risk losingsight of the collective spirit and democraticideals that drove them to become aworkers’ cooperative in the first place.

When one considers ERTs’ longperiods of struggle for self-management,the technical and productive limitationsthey face due to the paucity of officialoutlets for loans or subsidies available tothem, and the general lack of governmen-tal and union support for the movement,it is not surprising that most ERTsproduce at between 30 percent and 60percent of their original output capacity.compared to production runs underowner management. As of the summer of2005, only 12 percent of all ERTs operat-ing for over three years under workermanagement were producing at morethan 60 percent of capacity.

Most ERT cooperatives have had toresort to the individual and collectiveingenuity and determination of itsworkers to ensure the ongoing operationof the firm. Worker-operators repair theirown machines and mediate structuralbarriers to production by engaging injust-in-time or small-batch productionpractices, or requesting that customerspay for raw materials. ERT workers havealso had to learn and share accountingand marketing skills and tasks. ManyERT workers are constantly developingnew skills and capacities that remaineduntapped under owner control, showingnot only alternative ways that labourerscan re-skill and self-actualize themselves,but also pointing to ways of improvingArgentina’s national productivity andperhaps even cooperatively reconstitutinglabour processes in general.

Another response to these structuraldifficulties is the inter-ERT networks ofsolidarity and mutual assistance that arebeginning to form. These alternative,social economic models include practicesof inter-ERT support during workspaceoccupations and legal battles and, attimes, sharing of customers, orders, primematerials, technological know-how,administrative duties, legal assistance, andeven machinery and labour processesbetween ERTs. While these socialeconomic networks remain underdevel-oped, they show promise for assistingnewer ERTs that are just starting toproduce under self-management and forthose firms that belong to more precari-ous economic sectors. They also begin toproblematize the competitive businesspractices of capitalism.

WORK TO COMMUNITY SPACES

Jobs, machinery, and labour processesare not the only things recovered by ERTs;some ERTs engrain themselves in thecommunities and neighbourhoods thatsurround them; doubling as cultural andeducational centres, community diningrooms and free medical clinics run byworkers, neighbours, or volunteers.Worker-recovered print house ArtesGráficas Chilavert has a vibrant commu-nity centre called Chilavert Recupera(Chilavert Recovers), hosting plays, musicconcerts, and community events everySaturday night. Chilavert also converts itsmain shop floor into an art workshop onweekends. During one of my visits to theprint shop over the summer of 2005,volunteers from the community weregiving a class on the dying Buenos Airessignage art called fileto, while workers andvisitors from the community played ping-pong in the cultural centre. IMPA, amidsized metallurgic cooperative locatedin Buenos Aires’s western neighbourhoodof Cabal-lito, dedicates space to an artschool, silkscreen shop and theatre. ArtesGráficas Patricios, in the economicallydepressed southern Buenos Aires neigh-bourhood of Barracas, houses a primaryschool and a medical clinic that is run bylocal community volunteers. Cefomar, apublishing cooperative in the historicalneighbourhood of Monserrat, runs anearly childhood education centre on itspremises.

Hosting cultural and community

spaces is not just a way of giving back tothe neighbourhood out of self-interest orcorporate “goodwill.” Instead, thecultural spaces within the worker-recov-ered enterprises are continuations of theneighbourhoods’ needs. With manyERTs, workspace walls do not demarcateenclosures that protect the work insidefrom the community outside. Rather,recovered workspaces are deeply rooted inthe needs of the local community sincework life is an integral part of theeconomic and social life of the commu-nity. Argentina’s ERT protagonists arerecovering more than jobs, they are alsoreturning workspaces to the neighbour-hoods and communities that surroundthem by creating inventive ways ofdestroying the walls that divide workfrom the rest of life.

TOWARDS A NEW FUTURE?

For ERT protagonists, the politiciza-tion and reconstitution of their subjectiv-ities from employees to self-managedworkers and activists emerge slowlywithin their conjunctures of economicand political crisis. Their hope growsfrom creative and collective responses totheir difficulties rather than from anenlightened vanguard; from below andwithin their moments of struggle.Cándido González, ERT activist andlong-time Chilavert worker, eloquentlyarticulates his own change in subjectivity:

“Now I know, looking back on ourstruggle three years on…where thechange in me started, because it beginsduring your struggles. First, you fight fornot being left out on the street withnothing. And then, suddenly, you see thatyou’ve formed a cooperative and you startgetting involved in the struggle of otherenterprises.”

Out of socio-economic and -politicalcrisis, Argentine workers in the ERTmovement are beginning to show newand promising roads out of situations ofexploitation, alienation, and immisera-tion not only for themselves but perhapsalso for Argentina as a whole. Rather thanfall prey to chronic situations of unem-ployment, poverty and despair, they are,through their emergent practices of self-management, deciding instead to re-organize their world around morehumane, more socially aware, and moredemocratic forms of work and life.★

24 SOCIALISTnew

Recent reports, from a variety ofwell-connected sources in the US andinternationally, point to the real possibil-ity of a US attack against Iran. Thiscomes as no surprise since Iran has alwaysbeen the centrepiece of the Bush admin-istration’s Middle East policy. Moreover,while ostensibly pursuing “diplomatic”channels, the US has always kept themilitary option openly on the table.

The pretext for the recent escalation intensions is Iran’s nuclear technology andits Uranium enrichment program.Washington has warned that it will nottolerate a nuclear Iran because it fearsthat Iran will use its nuclear technologyfor military purposes.

But Iran’s nuclear technology, as I willargue in this article, is merely a smoke-screen behind which lies the Bush admin-istration’s real intentions. To understandthe situation, we need to have a broaderperspective that goes beyond the currentIran-US standoff and looks at the regionas a whole and the ambitions of GeorgeBush and his gang of thugs in the WhiteHouse.

First, however, let’s deal with the issueof Iran’s nuclear technology.

Contrary to media reports, whichsimply relay US State Department disin-formation as facts, Iran has not violatedits obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Like anyother signatory to NPT, Iran has the rightto develop and employ nuclear technol-ogy for civilian use. The Iranian govern-ment has stated, time and again, that ithas no intention of developing nuclearweapons and has given the inspectors of

the International Atomic Energy Agency(IAEA) intrusive access to its nuclearsites. As the physicist Gordon Pratherhas put it, “after two years of go-anywhere, see-anything inspections,[IAEA] has found no indication that anyspecial nuclear materials or activitiesinvolving them are being—or havebeen—used in furtherance of militarypurpose.”

Even if Iran were to begin developingnuclear arms, most analysts believe that itis at least about 10 years away fromreaching that goal. Referring to theconsensus estimates of the US intelli-gence agencies, the Washington Postrecently reported that “Iran is about a

decade away from manufacturing the keyingredients for a nuclear weapon”.

The warlords in the White House,however, have never been stopped bymere facts. They continue to insist, asRumsfeld had put it prior to the invasionof Iraq, that “absence of evidence is notevidence of absence” and that Iran’sintention is to develop nuclear weapons.

US ENERGY GOALS

It is hard to ignore the obvious similar-ities between Washington’s claim nowabout Iran and that used before the inva-sion of Iraq regarding its supposedweapons of mass destruction which UNinspectors could not find anywhere. The

Will US attack Iran?BY HAMID SODEIFI

Hamid Sodeifi is a member of the Torontobranch of the New Socialist Group.

25SOCIALISTnew

parallels with Iraq do not end here,however. The US administration hasalso charged Iran with supporting inter-national terrorism and having ties to Al-Qaeda. In other words, the White Houseis recycling all the same lies it used in thelead up to its invasion and occupation ofIraq.

As with Iraq, US objectives in Iranhave nothing to do with any potentialthreat posed by Iran either to its neigh-bours or the US. On the contrary, theonly credible threat in the region comesfrom the US which has a bloody historyof wars of aggression around the globe inthe interest of its corporations, mostrecently in Afghanistan and Iran. So,why is the US government so focused onthis region?

The policy of the Bush administrationhas been to use the unparalleled militarysuperiority of the US to dominate theglobe and thwart potential competitors(particularly EU and China) by wrestingcontrol of the global carbon fuel deposits.Aside from the political leverage that suchcontrol affords the US vis-à-vis itscompetitors and adversaries, there arealso tremendous profits to be made. Thisis why the first major act of the Bushadministration in office, and Cheney’sfirst assignment as the US Vice President,was to pull together the major players inthe energy sector in the US to develop aconcrete action plan.

As I have argued in the pages of thismagazine, the invasion of Afghanistanand Iraq had nothing to do with theattacks of September 11. The 9/11attacks were used by the Bush adminis-tration to build support for its wars forcontrol of the key centres of globalcarbon fuel deposits. Afghanistan was animportant (and economical) pipelineroute for moving the significant oildeposits of Central Asian countries toports in Pakistan for global distribution.The invasion and occupation of Iraq wasabout taking control of one of the richestoil deposits in the world.

Since the fall of the Shah of Iran in1979, US policy-makers have re-orientedtheir approach to the Middle East and itsoil and gas supplies. Instead of depend-ing on strong but ultimately unstableregimes, like that of the Shah, they havedetermined that they need to control theregion directly. The Carter doctrine was

basically the articulation of this newapproach. Since then, it has been theprimary function of Centcom (USCentral Command) to protect US oilinterests in that part of the world.

Those who see the invasion ofAfghanistan, Iraq and now possibly Iran,as actions by the imperial guardian tomerely force “rogue” nations into compli-ance with international norms fail tounderstand the importance of energyresources and the agenda of the neo-conservatives in the White House. Giventhe existence of numerous “rogue”nations around the world, why are theyso fascinated with the “rogue” forces inthis part of the globe? Why would theirpolicy, long before September 11, focusso heavily on the Middle East as a prior-

ity area (I refer here not only to theProject for a New American Centuryreport of 2000 but also its precursor, the1992 Defence Policy Guidance)? Whywould the opening shots of the NewWorld Order, immediately after thecollapse of USSR, be fired over the oilfields of Iraq? There is certainly some-thing to be said about the enforcement ofrules governing the global economy infavour of the imperialist nations of theNorth, resulting in systematic transfer ofwealth and resources from the workingclasses of the South to the capitalists ofthe global north. But, at least in the caseof the Middle East, that analysis needs tobe augmented with considerationspertaining to energy deposits.

DOLLARS OR EUROS?

Another dimension to the conflict inthe region is whether the global trade inoil and gas will continue to be denomi-nated in dollars or change to Euros. Oneof Saddam Hussein’s cardinal sins prior tohis overthrow was to demand paymentfor oil exports in Euros instead of dollars.The control of the revenues generated by

oil (petro-dollars), and the fact that allimporting nations need to maintainsubstantial amounts of dollar reserves fortheir petroleum purchase, has been criti-cal to the US’s financial dominance of theglobe. It has also allowed it to operate asno other nation can by virtue of its dollardominance. This is how the US can runsuch balance of trade and current accountdeficits without major repercussions forits economy. This is another reason theUS will have to act against Iran. Startingthis year, Iran will open its Euro-based oilstock market (Bourse). This will removeone of the key impediments to globaltrading of oil and gas in Euros, openingthe door not only for Iran to sell its oil forEuros, but also for many other countriesto do the same. The US will not simplystand by and watch this happen.

A MILITARY STRIKE?

Given all this, how likely is the threatof a military strike against Iran? Not verylikely, at least in the short run.

There are significant divisions withinthe American ruling class and the capital-ist class globally. Within the US, aninfluential group oppose a military strikeagainst Iran. There are several reasons forthis. First, they argue, quite rightly, thatthere is no such a thing as a limited mili-tary strike against a few suspected nuclearfacilities. Any attack must also take outIran’s missile launching capabilities, itsnumerous air bases (military andcommercial) and fighter planes, itscommunication networks and keygovernment buildings in addition tosuspected nuclear facilities. Many ofIran’s nuclear development sites are 12-15feet under concrete re-enforced ground.To effectively destroy these sites, the USwill have to use its nuclear weapons. Notonly will this cause the immediate deathof tens of thousands of people, but theresultant radioactive dust will have adevastating effect on countries as far asIndia and China.

Also, contrary to the fanciful expecta-tions of the neo-cons, the more sophisti-cated elements within US establishmentdismiss the idea that a series of US strikesagainst Iran will lead to the down fall ofthe Islamic Republic and its replacementwith a pro-US government. Indeed, one

See Iran: Page 38

The only credible threatin the region comes from

the US which has abloody history of wars

of aggression.

26 SOCIALISTnew

In the past few years, there has been a marked shift to the left in LatinAmerican politics. Alongside the re-emergence of militant direct actionamong urban workers, the unemployed and the rural landless, we have seen

the election of governments led by left wing politicians in Brazil, Argentina,Chile and Bolivia. These Left-led governments pose many issues for socialists. Inparticular, the renewed ability of the Left to use the electoral process wasunthinkable in most of Latin America and the global south only twenty-fiveyears ago.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, mostsocieties in the “third world” were ruledby military or civilian dictatorships. Notonly were representative legislative insti-tutions lacking, but any and all attemptsto form unions, peasant associations andother organizations of working peoplewere brutally repressed. Dictatorshipsthroughout the global south routinelyjailed, tortured and murdered their oppo-nents.

The imperialist powers—first of all theUS, but also the Europeans, Japanese andCanadians—armed and supported theseregimes. Most revolutionaries and radi-cals in that period believed that imperial-ist domination and capitalist rule in theperiphery of the capitalist worldeconomy required brutal repression ofworkers’ and popular organizations.Democracy, even of the most limited,liberal variety with contested elections,free press and free assembly, appeared tobe incompatible with the needs of bothforeign and domestic capitalists in theglobal south.

IMPERIALIST TURN TO DEMOCRACY

Today, the situation is very different.Since the late 1980s, pro-capitalist,parliamentary democracies have replacedmilitary and civilian dictatorships inmany parts of the global south. Massstruggles in South Africa, the Philippines,Indonesia and Brazil demanded free elec-tions and democratic rights. While theUS, Canadians and Europeans oftenmaneuvered to bail out the military andcivilian dictatorships until the last possi-ble moment, the imperialist powersquickly embraced the new democraticregimes. In some cases, the imperialistpowers have gone beyond accepting andencouraging pro-capitalist “democratic”forces. Through the auspices of the UNand NATO, the imperialist powerslaunched numerous “humanitarian inter-ventions” (Haiti, the Balkans, EastTimor) that have undermined dictatorialregimes and attempted to stabilize newcapitalist democracies.

Clearly, the imperialist powers’commitment to the most tepid forms of

capitalist parliamentary democracy is farfrom universal. In much of the MiddleEast and south Asia, the US, Canadiansand Europeans continue to finance andsupport brutal dictatorships. ThePakistani, Saudi and Egyptian govern-ments, despite their repression of evenpro-capitalist opposition groups,continue to enjoy the support of theruling classes of the global north. Nor arethe imperialists willing to respect theresults of democratic elections when theychallenge their economic and politicalinterests. The willingness of the US,Canadian and European regimes tosupport military coups in Venezuela andHaiti against democratically electedgovernments; and their removal of all aidto the elected Hammas government ofPalestine illustrate the limits of imperial-ism’s commitment to democracy.

The imperialist powers’ abandonmentof military and civilian dictatorships inAfrica, Asia and Latin America has disori-ented much of the Left radicalized in the1960s and 1970s. On the one hand, amajority of former radicals and progres-sives have supported imperialist “human-itarian interventions” in the 1990s. Manyformer anti-war activists from the 1960sendorsed UN and NATO military adven-tures in Haiti, the Balkans and EastTimor. On the other, a minority of anti-imperialists have adopted the attitudethat the “enemy of my enemy is myfriend,”defending dictatorial regimesagainst domestic movements for demo-cratic reform. Some on the Left haverallied to defend Mugabe’s regime inZimbabwe, which has routinely repressedindependent unions and peasant organi-zations against the Movement forDemocratic Change.

Why have the imperialists generally

Imperialism, neo-liberalismand “democracy” in the

GLOBAL SOUTHBY CHARLIE POST

Charlie Post is active in the faculty union at the City University of New York and is amember of the National Committee of Solidarity, a US revolutionary socialist organization.

27SOCIALISTnew

embraced parliamentary democracy asthe preferred mode of capitalist rule inmuch of the global south? The answerlies in the economic and political restruc-turing of capitalism and imperialism, andthe changed political situation since thecollapse of the bureaucratic regimes after1989.

LEAN PRODUCTION

At the heart of the restructuring ofcapitalism in the past two decades is thespread of lean production, a combinationof speed-up, deskilling, technologicalinnovation, outsourcing, privatization,etc., throughout the economies of theglobal north. This reorganization ofproduction in the imperialist centersbrought profound changes in the struc-ture of capitalist production in the globalsouth. Under the aegis of the gianttransnational corporations, differentregions of Africa, Asia and Latin Americahave been integrated into tightlysynchronized, global production chainsas the low-wage suppliers of parts andassembly labor. The final product often isassembled and sold in the more prosper-ous newly industrialized countries(Mexico, Brazil, South Korea, SouthAfrica, etc.), or is re-exported to theimperialist countries. In other casescomponents alone are produced invarious parts of the global south forassembly in the advanced countries. Nomatter what form the production chaintakes, transnational capital requiresfreedom of movement and politicalstability to make this global system oflean production work.

Neoliberalism - the deregulation ofcapital, labor and commodity markets;and the imposition of fiscal austerityglobally - is the political expression of theglobalization of lean production since the1980s. Whether instituted through freetrade agreements or IMF and WorldBank structural adjustment programs(often implemented by military dictator-ships in Chile and elsewhere in the 1970sand 1980s), the goals are the same -ending all restrictions on the free move-ment of transnational capital acrossborders, and creating the best possibleenvironment for profitable capital accu-mulation. Together with “political stabil-ity” or the “rule of law” that ensures nodisruptions in global capitalist produc-

tion chains, free trade is the order of theday for imperialism today.

THIRD WORLD DICTATORSHIPS

These new goals altered the US andother imperialist powers’ relationship tovarious dictatorial and repressive regimesin the global south. Most of these regimesnot only brutally suppressed workingclass and popular organizations, but usedcapitalist state institutions to promotecapitalist economic development in themid and late 20th century. Among the“statist” policies these dictatorshipspursued were a variety of restrictions onforeign investment and imports, and theuse of public funds to subsidize invest-ment in national capitalist industries. Inmost cases, these national capitalists havebeen the direct products of the capitaliststate - with the most important beingstate owned. Supporters of the rulingcliques in these dictatorships receivedpreferential access to government loansand subsidies, promoting a system ofcrony capitalism across the global south.

The US and other imperialist powers

tolerated the statist policies of these dicta-torships in the global south because theseregimes were crucial allies in the globalstruggle against anti-capitalist socialmovements during the Cold War.Although most of the anti-capitalistmovements since the second world warwere based in the peasantry and led bybureaucratic political currents (China,Vietnam, some of the Latin Americanguerilla groupings), they did pose asignificant threat to capitalist stability inlarge sections of Africa, Asia and LatinAmerica. The statist policies of theseregimes were combined with a willing-ness both to use the most brutal andbloodthirsty repression against workersand peasants movements in their owncountries, and to support imperialist See Imperialism: Page 38

intervention in their regions. As a result,the US and the rest of the imperialistpowers gladly armed these regimes formost of the late twentieth century.

IMPERIALISM POST ‘89

The global political situation haschanged radically since 1989. Not onlyhave we seen the collapse of the bureau-cratic regimes in the east, but almost allof the mass anti-capitalist movements inthe global south went into sharp declinethrough most of the 1990s. Whetherbased in the peasantry (the variousnational liberation movements andguerilla armies) or the rural and urbanworking class (COSATU (Congress ofSouth African Trade Unions) in SouthAfrica and the PT (Workers’ Party) andCUT (Central Workers’ Union) inBrazil), third world anti-capitalist move-ments have either disappeared or havemade their peace with capitalism andneo-liberalism around the world.

The absence of any serious mass anti-capitalist social movements in Africa,Asia and Latin America gave the US and

other imperialist powers more room tomaneuver in relationship to their clientregimes in the 1990s. The US and otherimperialist powers no longer had to toler-ate these regimes’ statist economic poli-cies. The imperialists increasingly threwtheir financial and political support topro-capitalist opposition movements inthe global south. Often based amongthose capitalists who provide componentparts and sub-assembly services to thetransnational corporations, these opposi-tion currents wanted to end the use ofstate resources to subsidize state enter-prises and businesses owned by support-ers of the regime. Although unwilling todismantle completely statist economic

The expansion of freedom of the press,assembly and association, combined with thesocial crisis induced by neoliberal policies,has provided a fertile environment for therebirth of mass anti-capitalist struggles.

28 SOCIALISTnew

The recent Haitian elections, inwhich the poor majority ofHaitians overcame massive

fraud and repression to elect a Presidentof their choosing - Rene Preval - open anew phase of Haitians’ 200-year oldstruggle against racist imperialism.

Haiti won its independence fromFrance in 1804 in a successful slave revo-lution, and managed to stave off power-ful imperial armies of the day. However,France extorted 22 billion dollars fromHaiti for the former colonial masters’ lossof their property (which included thefreed black slaves), and the US enforced asixty-year-long embargo against thefledgling nation which helped to estab-lish Haiti as the most impoverishedcountry in the western hemisphere. Haitiremains the most singled out region forUS intervention – the most notorious ofwhich was the 1915-1942 occupationwhich restored a system of virtual slaveryand left behind a brutal proxy armyemployed for years to come by a host offoreign supported dictators.

Haitians rose up again to expel theNixon-financed dictator Jean-ClaudeDuvalier in 1986, in a grassroots politicalmovement called Lavalas. This move-ment subsequently swept Haiti’s firstdemocratically elected president, JeanBertrand Aristide, to power onDecember 16,1990. However, withinnine months, the populist Aristidegovernment was overthrown by a CIA-backed military coup headed by GeneralRaoul Cedras. Over the next few years,brutal oppression and rampant humanrights violations by the Haitian army anda CIA-backed death squad resulted in thedeath of 4000-5000 Haitians.

The military junta also brought in

large profits for nearly 60 multinationals,including Canadian businesses thatincreased their imports from Haiti duringthe ruthless Cedras years. Internationaloutrage and the flood of Haitian refugeesseeking asylum in the US put enoughpressure on the Clinton and Chretienadministrations to reinstate Aristide onSeptember 19, 1994. However, the grass-roots movements had been crushed, withmany of Aristide’s supporters killed or“disappeared.” The President’s hands werenow tightly bound by the neo-liberalregulations that the US imposed as acondition of his return. Nevertheless,Aristide completed his term, disbandingthe notorious Haitian army and doublingthe minimum wage. In early 1996, thefirst democratic transfer of power inHaiti’s history took place with the electionof Rene Garcia Preval, Aristide’s formerPrime Minister.

DESTABILIZATION OF HAITIAN DEMOCRACY

Constitutional law permitted Arisitide

to run again in the 2000 elections, andhe won with a 91% majority. Almostimmediately the Haitian elite, workingwith the elite in the US, France andCanada, conspired to undermine theelected government. An economicembargo was immediately placed againstthe newly formed government, whichwithheld crucial funds for education,housing and water sanitation andresulted in untold suffering.

At the same time, the CanadianInternational Development Agency(CIDA) and the US Agency forInternational Development (USAID)funneled aid to non-governmentalorganizations (NGOs) – the very sameNGOs that were tied to companies andwealthy individuals working in Haiti todestabilize the Aristide government. Therole of this destabilization was to removeAristide from power and systematicallyeliminate his huge political support topave the way for the elite in the nextelection.

On January 31, 2003, the Canadiangovernment hosted a round table secretmeeting at Meech Lake code-named “theOttawa initiative on Haiti”. As Anthony

HAITI

A new phase of struggleBY ISABEL MCDONALD &KABIR JOSHI

Rally in support of René Preval in Port-au-Prince.

Kabir Joshi is an activist with Toronto Haiti Action Committee and the Students AgainstImperialist Network as well as community radio talk show host. Isabel Macdonald is amember of the Toronto Haiti Action Committee and a graduate student at York University.

29SOCIALISTnew

Fenton pointed out recently in an articlein Znet, invitees included high-levelNorth American, European and LatinAmerican diplomats such as OAS assis-tant secretary of state Luigi Einaudi, whohad stated only weeks before that: “thereal problem with Haiti is that the inter-national community is so screwed up thatthey’re actually letting Haitians run theplace.” Not a single Haitian representa-tive was present. The conclusion was thatAristide had to go, the notorious Haitianarmy was to be re-banded and Haiti wasto become a Kosovo-like protectorate ofthe United Nations. Furthermore, it wasthe Canadian Responsibility to ProtectDocument (the racist doctrine that legit-imizes and legalizes imperial interven-tions under the guise of humanitarianassistance to “failed states”) that was usedto sanction the entire operation.

CANADA AND THE 2004 COUP

As Haitians celebrated the bi-centen-nial of their freedom from colonial domi-nation, another terror group with links tothe US government, stationed in theDominican Republic, began a slow andmurderous march towards Port-au-Prince-- armed with M-16s loaded withCanadian bullets. The armed group failedto capture the capital, however USMarines completed the coup by kidnap-ping Aristide and depositing him in theCentral Republic of Africa while theCanadian Joint Task Force 2 secured theHaitian airport.

What followed was the dismantling ofthe entire government structure (some7000 elected officials) and the foreigninstallation of the illegal government ofGerard LaTortue - a government thatCARICOM, 52 nations of the AfricanUnion, the Black Caucus of the AmericanCongress, Cuba and Venezuela all refusedto recognize. Canada, however, helpeddraft the World Bank’s neo-liberal planfor the LaTortue administration whichincluded a reduction of the minimumwage and privatization of state ownedcompanies and institutions. The docu-ment, known as the Interim CooperationFramework, for which Canada donated147 million dollar, stated that: “The tran-sition period… provide[s] a window ofopportunity for implementing economicgovernance reforms…that may be hardfor a future government to undo.”

Canada also helped to re-integrate themuch-reviled former death squad soldiersfrom the disbanded Haitian ArmedForces into the Haitian National Police(HNP), and with the assistance of 100RCMP officers, 25 police expertscontinue to train the HNP. In the after-math of the coup, masked HNP officersconducted almost daily raids in the slums,assassinating and illegally arrestingAristide supporters.

The coup has meant huge profits forCanada’s business elite. Canadian corpora-tions have doubled imports from Haitiunder the coup government. GildanActivewear has recorded record profits; asits CEO, Glen Chamandy, proudlydeclared “…(Gildan’s) labor costs in coun-tries such as Haiti are actually cheaperthan in China….” The ubiquitous SNCLavalin is involved in numerous projectsin Haiti. Canadian mining companies,including KWG and St. GenevieveResources have negotiated and expandedcontracts worth millions of dollars withthe interim government. Tecsult Inc., aCanadian engineering firm, obtained $3.5 million in contracts and Canadianengineering and construction firmGenivar provided support structures forHaiti’s corrupt justice system for a cost of5 million dollars. For Haiti’s poor major-ity, the coup has meant 10,000 dead,20,000 in exile, 100,000 internal refugees,over 1000 political prisoners, and a suffer-ing that cannot be quantified.

THE 2006 HAITIAN ELECTIONS

While heralded as the best Haitianelection ever by Canada’s Chief ElectionsOfficer Jean Pierre Kingsley, the 2006elections were held as over 1000 politicalprisoners languished in jail (over 90percent of them without charges), Haiti’selected President remained in exile, andrepression continued in the slums. Inaddition, the election’s design madevoting inaccessible for many Haitians inrural areas and in urban slums. Thenumber of voting stations had beenreduced from almost 12, 000 in the lastHaitian election in 2000 to just over 800,and voting stations were completely elim-inated in Haiti’s largest slum, Cite Soleil.

Despite these abysmal conditions, amassive popular mobilization led to over60 percent of registered voters turningout to cast ballots in the first round of the

elections on February 7. From the time ofthe first announcement of electionresults, it was clear that Preval had wonover fifty percent of the vote. However,blatant fraud by the Haitian provisionalelectoral council (CEP), an institutioncreated by the illegal LaTortue regime,sought to thwart Preval’s victory.

Tens of thousands of unmarked ballotsmysteriously turned up in the CEP’sfigures, inflating the total figure of votes,and the CEP counted them againstPreval’s percentage of the total vote.Thousands of burned ballots, many ofthem marked for Preval, were discoveredin a dump in a Port-au-Prince shanty-town. It was only as a result of massivepopular protests that the CEP finallyrecognized Preval’s victory as being 51.15percent in what it termed a “politicalcompromise.”

The run-off election on April 21, whichdetermined the composition of the Senateand the Chamber of Deputies, saw a muchsmaller turnout, arguably as a consequenceof ongoing political repression that made itmore difficult for candidates to campaign.European Union observers estimated thatno more than 15 percent of the populationparticipated. In addition, Preval’s partyLespwa (which means “Hope” in Creole)did not secure a majority in either theSenate or the Chamber of Deputies, whichmeans that Preval will have to form a coali-tion government.

In light of the US and Canadiangovernments’ unrelenting push tostraightjacket Haiti into a neoliberalmodel, longtime Haiti democracy activistPatrick Elie, in a recent interview in theSan Francisco Bay Area IndependentMedia Center, argues that there will be agreat need for grassroots organizations inHaiti to pressure Preval to represent theinterests of the poor who elected him.Also critical will be the additional ques-tions of whether grassroots mobilizationin Haiti will succeed, and whether themain actors that undermined Haiti’s lastelected government -- such as theCanadian government -- will heed thecalls of Haitian activists such as Elie to“work with the Haitian people and itselected leadership, rather than try, onceagain, to disrupt the country’s progress.”★

With files from Znet, Counterpunch, TheIndependent and the San Francisco BayArea Independent Media Center.

30 SOCIALISTnew

Richard Roman is a fellow of the Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean. Edur Velasco

Arregui is an economics professor at the Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana in Mexico and a leading

trade union dissident. They are completing two books on the Mexican working class.

The Mexican government hasshown its bloody fist. On April20, it sent a large contingent of

paramilitary police to break a steelwork-ers’ strike, killing two workers andwounding many. On May 3-4, policecarried out an assault on the militanttown of Atenco, killing one teenager,brutally beating and torturing manypeople, ransacking houses, raping womenand arresting 200 with even more “disap-peared.”

These brutal shows of force – andlikely more to come – are taking place atthe same time as a very bitter presidentialelection campaign. The right-wing PAN(National Action Party) government ismanaging the election in the corruptmanner of the old one-party regime ofthe PRI. The right-wing PRI (Party ofthe Institutionalized Revolution) and the“centre-left” PRD (Party of theDemocratic Revolution) have beendecrying what they see as a fraud beingplanned for the presidential and congres-sional elections on July 2.

The PAN is the most right-wing of thethree parties, both socially and economi-cally. The authoritarian PRI ruled forover 70 years. Both the PRI and the PANare stressing law and order and wouldcontinue the neoliberal destruction ofMexican society and economy. Neitherhave any commitment to democracy andhuman rights. After the assault onAtenco, the PRI’s presidential candidateaccused the PAN government of beingtoo soft on rebels and the Zapatistas.

PRD: HOPE FOR THE LEFT?

The PRD arose from a democraticelectoral insurgency in 1988 with greatpopular support and energy. It has artic-ulated a defence of democratic rights,nationalized industries and concernabout growing inequality and poverty.Most of the Left and many social move-ments joined the PRD in the hope ofbuilding a left-wing alternative to thePAN and the PRI.

While many progressive sectors of thepopulation had great hopes for the PRD,both the Left and insurgent social move-ments were marginalized or coopted bythe former PRI leaders who dominatedthe PRD from the beginning. The PRDnever became the democratic and leftparty that was hoped for by much of theLeft. The authoritarian and opportunist

political culture of the old PRI as well asof some of the Left has made the PRD anarena of competing factions, leaving noroom for democratic and popular partic-ipation. The PRD leadership views inde-pendent social and workers movementswith suspicion. And the popular classesare viewed as voters and no more. ThePRD has been careful to distance itselffrom insurgent movements, such as theZapatistas and the people of Atenco.While the PRD presidential candidate,Andrés López Obrador, uses the slogan“For the benefit of all Mexicans….thePoor First,” he is at great pains to reassurecapital and the US and to distancehimself from the Latin American Left.

The victory of either the PAN or thePRI will keep Mexico on its tragic path ofneoliberal destruction, massive emigra-tion and brutal repression. The victory ofthe PRD would open up more ambigu-ous possibilities. Certainly, the neoliberaldirection of the economy would

BY DICK ROMAN ANDEDUR VELASCO ARREGUI

Mexico at the brink

mexico.indym

edia.org

31SOCIALISTnew

continue, although with certain limita-tions. But popular forces inside, aroundand outside the PRD would push for adeepening of democracy, workers’ andtrade union rights, defence of publicownership of natural resources (oil andpower), and solidarity with the LatinAmerican Left. López Obrador wouldseek to contain these demands and cooptleaders in order to reassure capital andrenew Mexican economic growth.

ELECTION AND REPRESSION

In spite of his moderation, LópezObrador is viewed by the Mexican Right,most of Mexican capital, and powerfulforces in the US as a threat to US hege-mony and neoliberalism. They are deter-mined to prevent him from winning.Many observers feel that the election isalready being cooked by the PAN.

This is where the very sharp escalationof state repression fits in. The repression(which goes beyond Atenco and the steel-workers’ strike) has been concentrated inareas of either PRD support or strongopposition to neoliberal policies and thegovernment. These are areas that wouldbe most explosive if people felt, as manyalready, do, that the election was stolen.These would also likely be areas of majorresistance to the deepening of neoliberalattacks that would follow a PAN or PRIvictory. The wave of repression is aimedat terrorizing and weakening areas ofpotential resistance while, at the sametime, creating a climate of fear that willturn voters away from the PRD.

MOBILIZATIONS

There are two very important mobi-lizations taking place alongside the elec-toral campaign. The first is the campaignfor union autonomy that developed afterthe government’s heavy-handed removalof the leadership of the miners’ and steel-workers’ union.

This campaign has gained momentumand the support of democratic unions,semi-authoritarian unions, and evensome of the old corrupt, state-linked andclass-collaborationist unions. The coali-tion for union autonomy is a grab-bag ofdifferent elements, some defendingautonomy for the purposes of maintain-ing union leaders’ power and privileges,others for the sake of defending demo-cratic unionism for workers. This coali-

tion held by far the largest May Daydemonstration this year and is showing astrong capacity of mobilization. It stageda one-hour general strike and threatensan open-ended general strike if itsdemands for the restoration of the electedleadership of the miners’ and steelworkersunion and the dismissal of the Secretaryof Labour are not met. While this is sheerbluff on the part of many of the leaders,it is tough talk and members are beingmobilized.

The other significant mobilization isthe “Other Campaign” (OC) of theZapatistas.

The Zapatista leadership has engagedin a national tour of rallies and meetingsin many parts of the country with thegoal of developing a program and plan ofstruggle through listening and discussing.Subcommandante Marcos of theZapatistas and other speakers havedenounced all three parties and presiden-tial candidates, reserving their mostsevere denunciations for López Obradorand the PRD. The character of the meet-ings has varied widely depending on thelocations and the local organizers. Insome cases, it has involved indigenouscommunities expressing their concernsand describing their struggles. In others,it involved an array of Left groupspresenting their positions, with no spacefor audience participation.

The OC has had very uneven levels ofsupport in different parts of the country.Its social composition is very differentthan that of the movement for unionautonomy, being composed more ofindigenous people, students, small far leftgroups, and the very, very poor. Its MayDay march and rally was very spirited butby far the smallest of the three that tookplace in Mexico City (the third being thatof the “official” union federation, theCTM).

The attack on Atenco has created anew and volatile situation. The OC putthe rest of its tour on hold and, alongwith its allies, has organized a nationalcampaign against repression that isplanned to gradually escalate.

TWO SOLITUDES OF STRUGGLE

The campaign for union autonomyand the campaign against repression arefighting the same enemy, the capitalistclass and state. But at present they repre-

sent two solitudes. There are no real link-ages and a good deal of antagonism.While a unified struggle is essential tofight the repression happening now aswell as the intensified neoliberal assaultthat would follow an electoral victory bythe PAN or PRI, it would also be essen-tial to withstand the coopting strategiesthat would follow a López Obradorvictory, strategies that would attempt toturn independent movements into alliesof the state once again, this time in aneffort to give neoliberalism a human face.

Such unity would require importantchanges in both the workers’ movementand the OC. Rank and file workers andthe Left need to support the union auton-omy movement while fighting to turn itinto a movement for union democracy,autonomy and militancy. The limits ofthe contained mobilization by unionoligarchs need to be challenged fromwithin the union movement. At the sametime, the Zapatistas and their allies haveto take a more nuanced approach toworking with forces with which theydisagree. Had they participated in theMay Day march and rally for unionautonomy – instead of holding a separatemarch and rally – they could have electri-fied the rank and file in the crowd andraised an agenda that challenged thelimited one of the leadership of the unionautonomy movement.

The lack of legitimacy of all branchesof government, the accumulated bitter-ness of years of neoliberal hardship, thelikelihood of a very narrow and suspi-cious election outcome and the escalatingrepression make the post-election periodlikely to be very volatile as the Right andthe capitalist class mobilize to destroyLópez Obrador or the people mobilize tofight back against a PAN electoral fraud.

Both the Zapatistas and the frontagainst repression as well as the unionmovement for autonomy will face crucialchoices about allies and strategy after theelection. Political clarity and principledunity will be all the more important.Mexico has entered a very dangerous andfluid period. The Left, the democraticworkers’ movement and the “OtherCampaign” have to develop strategiesthat are non-sectarian, nuanced, princi-pled and combative at the same time. Ifnot the prospects for Mexico are indeedgrim.★

32 SOCIALISTnew

After two months of a masscampaign against the CPE(First Employment

Contract), on the morning of April 10 theFrench government finally caved in andwithdrew the measure. The CPE wouldhave enabled employers to sack youngworkers under the age of 26 in the firsttwo years of their employment, withouthaving to give a reason. Its defeat was thefirst time a mass movement had blockedone of the government’s neoliberal meas-ures since the Right came back to power in2002. The government forced through areform of pensions in 2003 in spite ofmonths of demonstrations and strikes.The following year it imposed a reform ofhealth insurance. Why did it fail this time?

In the first place, the CPE was aimed ata very specific part of the population,young people. And those young peoplewho would have been directly affected,university and high school students, mobi-lized massively against it. There is a tradi-tion of powerful student mobilizations inFrance, and this is not the first time onehas been successful. In 1986 the govern-ment was forced to withdraw an educationreform and in 1994 a measure similar tothe CPE was defeated. Last year there wasa four-month long movement of highschool students, not always massive butvery militant. The fact that there are regu-larly movements among students, some-times national, sometimes just local,means that there is a frequently renewedlayer of activists.

Secondly, there was broad unity againstthe CPE. The trade unions - all of them -supported the movement from start tofinish. One reason for the defeat in 2003was that one of the main unions, theCFDT, defected early on and accepted thegovernment measure in exchange forinsignificant concessions. It lost manymembers as a result. This time everyonestayed on board throughout the move-ment. Only a few months ago a measuresimilar to the CPE, the CNE, wentthrough with little opposition. The CNE(New Employment Contract) allowsemployers in companies with les than 20employees to sack workers in the first two

years of their employment without givinga reason. A day of strikes and massdemonstrations against the CNE lastOctober 4 was not followed up and themeasure went through. The workers mostdirectly affected, those working in smallcompanies, are poorly organised and in anunfavourable relationship of forces withtheir employers. Only a nationalcampaign by the unions that mobilisedstronger sectors could compensate forthat, and it wasn’t forthcoming.

STUDENT-LED PROTESTS

What was different this time was thatthe initiative did not come from the unionleaderships but rather from the students.And the student mobilization steadilyexpanded. By the end of the movementthree-quarters of universities were occu-pied or blockaded and over a quarter ofhigh schools. It is worth noting that manyof the most militant contingents of thehigh school movement came from schoolsin the suburbs which had seen the revoltof mainly immigrant youth lastNovember.

The support of the unions was a keyfactor in the victory – there was through-out the movement a united front, theIntersyndicale, of eight trade union organ-isations and four student unions. But itwas the youth who were the locomotive.The student unions were actively involvedin the movement but its leadership wasthe Student Coordination, comprisingrepresentatives elected by mass meetings,which met every weekend in a differentuniversity and which was dominated byleft-wing militants. The movement wassupported by the entire French Left, fromthe reformist Socialist Party to revolution-ary organizations like the RevolutionaryCommunist League (LCR) and LutteOuvrière.

Thirdly, the demand for the withdrawalof the CPE had mass support. As peopleunderstood what was at stake, oppositionto it rose to around 70 per cent of thepopulation. And more and more of themwere ready to take to the streets. The firstday of action on February 7 mobilised400,000 demonstrators. The next one amonth later had a million, then 1.5million on March 18, three million onMarch 28 and even more on April 4.Particularly on the last two days the

Mass movement forcesgovernment climbdownBY MURRAY SMITH

FRANCE

Murray Smith is an active member of the Revolutionary Communist League, the Frenchsection of the Fourth International.

The support of the

unions was a key

factor in the victory ...

but it was the youth

who were the

locomotive.

33SOCIALISTnew

number of those on strike was significantbut not really massive – not as big as thelargest strikes in 2003. And the experi-ence three years ago demonstrated that aseries of one-day strikes was not enoughto make the government back down. Thistime the victory was brought about viathe combination of massive protests andthe fact that the higher education systemwas progressively paralysed. As the move-ment grew, university presidents calledfor the CPE to be withdrawn and splitsdeveloped in the governing UMP party,with Prime Minister Dominique deVillepin, who had introduced the CPE,becoming more and more isolated.

NEOLIBERALISM NOT INEVITABLE

Underlying the whole movement is anongoing refusal of French public opinionto accept the inevitability of neoliberalcapitalism. In an editorial in its March 31edition, the London-based Economistinformed its readers, in a tone of exasper-ation, that only 36 per cent of Frenchpeople thought the “free market” was thebest possible economic system, as againstaround two-thirds of people in Britain,Germany and the US. This is a reflectionof a deep-rooted attachment to the ideasof equality and solidarity among widelayers in French society.

The degree of resistance to the neo-liberal agenda was demonstrated at thepolls when the projected EuropeanConstitution was defeated in the referen-dum on May 29 last year after a dynamic

‘No’ campaign from the left. The activistswho built the mass mobilisations earlierthis year were often the same whocampaigned against the EuropeanConstitution and were obviously encour-aged from the recent victory.

Some politicians and commentators inFrance and abroad have argued it is “unde-mocratic” for mass protests to be able toover-rule the decisions of elected represen-tatives, revealing a touching faith inFrance’s democratic institutions. It isworth recalling that the UMP, whichthanks to the peculiarities of the Frenchelectoral system has an absolute andindeed substantial majority in Parliament,won just 33 per cent of the vote in the2002 elections - a figure that goes down to22 per cent of registered voters when youtake into account the 35 per cent of elec-tors who abstained. Representativeselected under those conditions andsubject to no kind of control or recall bytheir electors are ill placed to give lessonsin democracy.

The victory over the CPE has left anarrogant right-wing government in disar-ray a year before next year’s presidentialand legislative elections. Calls for DeVillepin’s resignation are mounting andhe is becoming mired in the Clearstreamscandal, where it appears that there wasan elaborate conspiracy to smear leadingpoliticians, including the main right-wingcontender (and De Villepin’s rival) fornext year’s presidential elections, NicolasSarkozy, with accusations of corruption.

The victory over the CPE is worth cele-brating, but there is no room fortriumphalism. In spite of often wide-spread opposition to their policies,successive governments of the Right andLeft over the past fifteen years have beensteadily pushing forward the neoliberalagenda – privatisations, labour flexibility,counter-reforms in health, pensions,education and environmental standards.Periodically mass mobilisations slow theprocess or block particular measures butthey do not stop it – and sometimes evenmassive mobilisations are defeated, as in2003. The union leaderships bear consid-erable responsibility for defeats. In 2003in particular, it was their refusal to call anall-out general strike that gave victory tothe government. The experience of 2003has made many workers sceptical aboutthe utility of repeated days of action andif opposition to the CPE had beenlimited to that, victory would have beenunlikely. What made the difference wasthe permanent mass mobilisation of thestudents.

Unfortunately, France still lacks a cred-ible political alternative. A defeat of theRight in the 2007 presidential and legisla-tive elections is possible, though notcertain. As has been repeatedly shownover the last 25 years, however, a return topower by the Socialist Party would notmean the end of neoliberal policies. Thatpresents the anti-capitalist Left with achallenge. It has to move from campaignsand even victories on single issues toproviding a political alternative.Following on the victories over theEuropean Constitution and the CPE, thenext step could be united candidacies ofthe forces to the left of the Socialist Partyin next year’s elections. Both theCommunist Party and the LCR havecome out in favour of such candidacies.The basis of such unification could be aprogramme that breaks with the left-rightneoliberal consensus and a refusal toparticipate in an SP-led government – apoint on which the Communist Party stillhas to clarify its position. If the obstaclescan be overcome and agreement reached,a united campaign could begin to givedirect political expression to the wide-spread rejection of neoliberalism andmobilise many activists from the socialmovements.★

Students block rail traffic at the Gare de Lyon, Paris on March 30, 2006.

LIB

CO

M.O

RG

/BLO

G

34 SOCIALISTnew

other parts the world, North and Southfrom Bolivia to France. The beginningsof that revolt have now come home, inpart because the radical labour experi-ences that immigrant communities oftenbring with them. Although we couldn’thave predicted our revolt would comefrom immigrant workers, it makes sense.Which is why the liberal argument thatcautions a “backlash” is so ridiculous: themass movement for immigrant rights ISthe backlash. And hopefully only thebeginnings of it.

HISTORICAL TURNING POINT?

The fault lines in US politics are shift-ing. On May Day, up to 700,000 peoplemarched in Chicago. Over a millionmarched in Los Angeles, 75,000 peoplein Denver—about one-sixth of the city’spopulation—all participated in a marchon the state capitol. In New York City,over 100,000 (following 300,000 twodays earlier for a march against the war inIraq). 72,000 students (around one infour) walked out of classes in the LAschool district alone. Untold millionsparticipated in a boycott of buying andselling anything. Across the country,businesses that rely on immigrant laborwere forced to scale back or close downcompletely, including major food

production and processing corporationslike Cargill. Meanwhile, in Los Angeles,truckers stayed away from the country’slargest shipping port, and an estimatedone-third of the city’s small businesseswere shuttered.

May Day 2006 was the biggest andmost inspiring resurgence of labour (andcivil rights) militancy that this countryhas seen in a generation. More generally,the immigrant rights movement holdsthe possibility of reviving a vibrant left inthe US of the kind that we haven’t hadsince the 1960s.

The demonstrations, walk-outs, boycotts, marches, work-stoppages, andprotests of the past few weeks are more than just an inspiring example ofresistance to reactionary government legislation; they may signal the birth

of a new left. In response to the ominous portend of an immigration bill soextreme that it alienated the Catholic church, millions of people have partici-pated in recent weeks in the beginnings of a mass movement for immigrantrights. Far from just a flash in the pan, this movement will have long-reachingeffects on the balance of class and political forces in the US, so as leftists we haveto wrap our heads around it.

CAUSING A BACKLASH?

Sensenbrenner’s bill is only the sharpestedge of a brazen and arrogant Republicanparty, who (thanks to the good will of theDemocrats) have gotten away with theinvasion and occupation of Iraq, exposureof an international archipelago of torturecamps, multiple high-level corruptionscandals, criminal negligence ofHurricane Katrina’s victims, vast expan-sion of powers for the surveillance-indus-trial complex, two fresh far-right “judges”for the supreme court, and on and on.

If the Democrats’ response to all of thishas been predominantly collaborative, theresponse of the broader left hasn’t beenmuch better. The antiwar movement hasbeen anemic for months, with nonational demonstration on the 3rdanniversary of the invasion of Iraq andcontinued marginalization of Arabs,Muslims, and Palestine in the politics ofthe movement. South Dakota’s abortionban has been met with stultifying silenceand demobilization from liberal feministorganizations. Widespread outrage at

Hurricane Katrina’s exposure of the depthof poverty and racism in America foundno expression in a national movementaround justice for Katrina survivors. Andon and on.

Unfortunate as these failings of the leftmay be, they’re rooted in our historicalcircumstances. The American elite havebeen on the offensive for the last 30 yearsin an effort to roll back the social andpolitical gains of the social movements ofthe 60s and 70s and to repair the relativeeconomic damage to the US economywrought by the Vietnam war. Attacks onwages and living standards, rollbacks ofcivil rights, diminished access to healthcare, chipping away at abortion rights,and the era of NAFTA-style “free trade”programs for US-based transnationalcorporations have all come at the expenseof one or another sector of the workingpopulation in this country.

No surprise then that at some pointpeople would push back; especially withthe mass revolts against the effects ofneoliberalism taking root in so many

Birth of a New Left?

Immigrant rights in the USBY BRIAN KWOBA

Brian Kwoba, a member of the International Socialist Organization, lives in Ithaca, N.Y.. Thisarticle originally appeared on Znet.

The fault lines

in US politics

are shifting.

35SOCIALISTnew

THE NEW CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

The civil rights movement of the1960s was a turning point in US history.Starting more or less in the mid 1950swith Brown v. Board, Emmett Till, andRosa Parks, and continuing for nearly thenext two decades, the civil rights move-ment inspired the beginnings of a resur-gence in political activism on a massivescale in the US. It ripped open thestraight jacket of McCarthyism, creatingpolitical space and inspiration for thestudent movement and the movementagainst the Vietnam war, which in turninspired the feminist movement and thegay liberation movement, which thengave rise to later environmental andanti-nuclear movements. In short, itmarked the birth of a new left.

Like the last civil rights movement, theimmigrant rights movement can revive theUS left of today – it can initiate a periodof wider and wider resistance to Jim Crow-level segregation and racism (againstmigrant workers), rejection of imperialistwar half way around the world, reversingthe attacks on women’s rights, and so on.But there is one key difference: the strug-gle this time includes massive working-class and labor-based action, which was

basically the main ingredient missing from“the fire last time.”

Because the immigrant rights move-ment is so predominantly working-class,it can provide an even wider basis forstruggle around key political questions.For example, it can be linked to thestruggle against the war in Iraq, whosevictims (Iraqi and American alike) arepredominantly working-class, and thrustinto combat because of the economic andmilitary consequences of the US-domi-nated world order. It can also be linked tothe struggle for reproductive rights,whose beneficiaries are predominantlypoor and working-class women, particu-larly Latinas (among other minorities). Itcan be linked to the African-Americanstruggle for justice on the basis of unityagainst racism and resistance to prison-industrial-complex-style militarization,which attempts to control both popula-tions. If the immigrant rights movementis also indeed a revolt against the effectsof “free trade” NAFTA-style policies,then it could conceivably develop into astruggle against corporate globalizationand neoliberalism itself-in the primaryoffending country, for that matter.

Significantly, these ideas are not lost on

Immigrant rights

May Day rally in

San Francisco,

2006

the migrant workers in the streets. In LA,for example, despite the media’s focus onflag-wavers to the exclusion of politicalmessages, there were home-made signssaying “Are our troops in Iraq illegal too?”and “Your Foreign Policy Brought MeHere.” If those workers don’t representthe inspiring potential for a radical chal-lenge to neoliberalism and imperialisminside the movement, we’d have to bepolitically impotent. Or DemocraticParty enthusiasts.

The masses of undocumented workersin the streets can lead the revival of a newleft, and one that is even broader andmore labour-radical than what came outof this country in the 1960s. For the firsttime in decades, millions of people cele-brated May Day in the US, for heaven’ssake! Of course the political, economic,and social conditions today are verydifferent from 40 years ago. For example,global warming now threatens life as weknow it, so the stakes are far higher. Butthe immigrant workers movement takingto the streets has shown that the once-in-a-long-time opportunity for transforma-tive change is returning. We need tothrow ourselves into it with all the energywe can muster. ★

36 SOCIALISTnew

The graphic images of torture byU.S. military personnel at theAbu Graihb prison in Iraq were

a horrifying confirmation of the wide-spread use of torture in the war. Theobvious enjoyment on the faces of thetorturers as they posed and smiled for thecamera contributed to the unsettlingnature of the photographs.

This torture for pleasure was clearlynot the face that the Bush administrationwished to put forward to the world.Although the US government publiclycondemned these abuses and claims tohave held more than 250 people“accountable” for what took place at AbuGraihb, it has refused to back awaycompletely from the use of torture.Instead, the Bush administration haspublicly justified its use of torture as agrim but necessary task to make theworld a safer place.

You could be excused for havingthought that there was no debate to behad about the use of torture. After all, theUnited Nations Convention AgainstTorture, created in 1984, makes the useof torture in any circumstances a viola-tion of international law. It also outlaws“cruel and unusual treatment.” TheUnited States Senate ratified theConvention in 1994. Canada is also asignatory.

However, in the years since the terror-ist attacks of September 11, 2001 and theensuing wars in the Middle East, the use

of torture has increasingly become a topicfor public debate. Although the extent ofthe use of torture by the US governmentis unknown, the Bush administration haspublicly argued that the use of torture isnot only legal, but justified. For example,the US has argued “torture” only appliesto acts that result in “organ failure ordeath.”

While the emerging evidence of the USgovernment’s use of torture and itsattempts to justify its use have sparkedinternational debate and condemnation,in the world of popular culture, the use oftorture against terrorists is not onlycommon-place, it is often carried outwith no significant questioning of thepractice on either moral or legal grounds.For example, Sydney Bristow, the CIAagent heroine of TV’s Alias, regularlymurders “terrorists” while operatingcovertly in countries throughout theworld.

By far the most noteworthy in this tele-vision trend is the Fox network’s 24, atelevision series that is nothing less than apop cultural justification for the methodsof the United States in its war on terror.

JACK BAUER AND 0THE “TICKING BOMB”

The hero of 24 is Jack Bauer. Played byKiefer Sutherland, Bauer is a highranking agent in the Counter-TerrorismUnit (CTU), a fictional agency within theUS government that deals with domesticterrorism threats. The shows gimmick is

that it takes place in “real time” over thecourse of 24 hours. A clock ticking by theseconds regularly flashes across the screenas Jack Bauer and his colleagues deal withan extreme terrorist threat on US soil overthe course of one day. The constant refer-ences to time reinforce the urgency to act(eg. the terrorists will set off nerve gas in15 minutes if we don’t stop them, etc.).

As his superiors in command wellknow, Jack Bauer will break any rule inorder to stop a terrorist threat. He regu-larly engages in torture. Over the courseof five seasons, Bauer has shot a suspect inthe leg while interrogating him; subjectedthe son of the defense secretary to high-tech sensory disorientation; stun-gunneda suspected but innocent colleague; andused a lamp cord to shock informationfrom a businessman. In this season’sfinale, Bauer kidnapped the president ofthe United States and threatened to killthe president if he did not confess to hiswrong-doing.

A frequently cited justification for theuse of torture is the “ticking bomb”scenario, a scenario in which a majorterrorist atrocity could be prevented byusing torture to extract information fromsomeone with the knowledge necessary tostop the threat. Canada’s own PrimeMinisterial hopeful, Michael Ignatieff,recently published an article in Britain’sProspect purporting to oppose the use oftorture while actually arguing the oppo-site. Says Ignatieff, torture obviouslyworks or it would not be used so often. He

TV: 24

REVIEW BYJACKIE ESMONDE

THE STATE AND POPULAR CULTURE

24 hours of tortureFIRST LADY: Will he hurt him [the President]?

WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF, MIKE NOVICK: Jack Bauer will dowhatever it takes to compel your husband to confess the truth.He is the only one I know who can do this.

From Episode 24, Season 5 of TV’s 24

Jackie Esmonde is a member of the Torontobranch of the New Socialist Group and is aNew Socialist editorial associate.

37SOCIALISTnew

argues that prohibiting torture completelywill inevitably allow some “interrogationsuspects” to resist divulging informationthat is necessary to save lives. Ignatieff sayshe can live with that cost, but he musesthat “the majority of fellow citizens isunlikely to concur.”

Joel Surnow, an executive producer for24 explicitly acknowledged his intent tojustify the use of torture. In an interviewfor the Washington Times, Surnow toldthe paper that “If there’s a bomb about tohit a major US city and you have a personwith information… if you don’t torturethat person, that would be one of themost immoral acts you could imagine.”

However, the “ticking bomb” justifica-tion is based on the false premise thattorture is effective in obtaining reliableinformation. Information extractedthrough torture has repeatedly beenshown to be unreliable, as “sources” areinduced to say whatever they think ismost likely to stop the pain. Moreover, ascenario in which it is known withcertainty that a bomb threat is imminentand that a particular person is not onlyavailable for questioning and has theprecise information needed to stop thethreat is pure fantasy. Despite what maybe shown on 24, torture does not work.

DE-POLITICIZING TERRORISM

Each season of 24 has featured a differ-ent terrorist threat. The “terrorists” havebeen a Kosovar family, an Arab terroristcell called “Second Wave”, a Mexican

crime family, a sleeper cell of middle-classTurkish immigrants, and “Russian sepa-ratists.”

These “terrorists”, as they are frequentlycalled on 24, are completely removedfrom any political context. Their politicalmotivations are murky at best; theyappear to follow only a peronal agenda.However, the terrorist threats we facetoday did not come out of nowhere andcannot be reduced solely to individualpathology. For example, the network ofcells associated with Al Qaeda emergedout of legitimate anger and frustrationwith the imperialist actions of Westerngovernments in the Middle East over thecourse of at least the last sixty years. Bypropping up corrupt dictatorships invarious Middle Eastern countries, theUnited States contributed to the crushingof opposition groups. The strongest oppo-sitional forces that have survived haveorganized themselves around a particularform of Islam. In fact, the United Stateshistorically supported many Islamicgroups that it now places on its terror lists.

Without this political, economic andhistorical context it is easier to arguesimplistically, as 24 does, that stoppingterrorism is about getting the right intelli-gence (through torture) and using violenceto stop terrorists. A more nuanced under-standing of global politics suggests that theuse of force to fight terrorism will onlyincrease the likelihood of future terroristattacks and will simply continue aspiralling cycle of death and violence.

GETTING USED TO TORTURE

24’s justification of torture is not a friv-olous matter to be dismissed. 24 is anextremely popular show, watched bymillions of viewers. The show’s consistentportrayal of torture as necessary andeffective accustoms viewers to its use.Jack Bauer is never disciplined for hisactions. In fact, he earns the grudgingrespect of those around him – includingthe “terrorists”. The complete failure toeven acknowledge that torture is a viola-tion of international law assists in gettingviewers used to the idea of torture as alegitimate option in the war on terror.

It is easier for viewers to accept thelegitimacy of torture when it appears sopainless and short-term in effect. Theutterly shallow treatment of the causes ofterrorism, and the portrayal of terroristsas non-European immigrants within USborders can only contribute to racism,xenophobia and the equation of migra-tion with terrorism.

International laws such as theConvention Against Torture and theGeneva Convention are strongly wordeddefences of the human rights of prison-ers. It is true that in practice, these instru-ments have been enforced only againstweaker countries for the benefit of thestrong. Notwithstanding the lack of teethin these documents, the United States hasbegun an aggressive attempt to push theboundaries of international law to justifyits practices. The Bush administrationhas introduced the concept of a “human-itarian war” (i.e. to bring democracy) andcharacterized “prisoners of war” as“enemy combattants” thereby avoidingthe requirements of the GenevaConvention. Now, with US attempts tocreate an opening for the permissible useof torture, we are witnessing nothing lessthan the reworking of the rules of war.

More important than convincing theinternational community, the US govern-ment must garner the support of its owncitizens. By normalizing torture and byportraying terrorist threats on Americansoil by “foreigners” as constantly possibleand imminent, television shows like 24assist in this expansion of state power.★

Jack Bauer defending our freedoms - by any means necessary.

38 SOCIALISTnew

institutions, these opposition movements’programs are much more in tune withthat of global capital than the old dicta-torships. While such movements in thePhilippines, South Africa, Indonesia andelsewhere were democratic, wanting toestablish the rudiments of capitalist repre-sentative government and basic politicalliberties, they were not in any way anti-imperialist or anti-capitalist.

The growing tension between the USand the other imperialist powers and theirformer client regimes became acute whenthe dictatorships launched repressiveoperations against their own populationsor went to war with neighboring regimes.The “humanitarian interventions” of the1990s were the logical result of thechanged economic and political situation.Mass repression and warfare created insta-bility that imperialism was no longercompelled to tolerate in most of theglobal south.

In the past few years, we are seeing thelimits of pro-neo-liberal capitalist democ-ratization in the global south. As Marxargued in the Communist Manifesto, “the

first step in the revolution by the workingclass is to raise the proletariat to the posi-tion of ruling class to win the battle ofdemocracy.” Put simply, the developmentof democratic openings under capitalismcreates the space for the growth of inde-pendent working class and popularorganizations. The imperialists’ hoped toreplicate the liberal, parliamentarydemocracy of the global north in theglobal south - a political system where thepopulation gets to choose between differ-ent pro-capitalist alternatives every two tofour years. However, the expansion offreedom of the press, assembly and associ-ation, combined with the social crisisinduced by neo-liberal policies, hasprovided a fertile environment for therebirth of mass anti-capitalist struggles.

Nowhere is this more evident thanLatin America. Over the past four years,mass struggles of workers and otherpopular forces against neo-liberalism haveswept across Latin America, overthrowingpro-imperialist regimes in Bolivia andArgentina. Even in occupied Iraq, theoverthrow of the Saddam Hussein dicta-torship has created the space for massmobilization and organization - of bothunions and religious-led military and

of the biggest problems for the US is thatthere is no viable pro-US force in Iran tocompete for power. Consequently, rulingclass opponents of Bush’s plans argue thatthe US needs to acknowledge the failureof its 25 year sanctions policy and,instead, begin a process of limited re-engagement with Iran. This policy willgive US corporations access to Iranianmarkets and resources and, in the longrun, put the US in a better position topress Iran to comply with its demands.There will also be a period of time inwhich the US can redevelop internal alliesand military intelligence should it need toconsider a military engagement.

Globally, there is very little appetite foranother US led invasion while the fiascoin Iraq continues. Even the British dogsdon’t seem all that keen to follow theirmasters into Iran. The rest of theEuropean Union insists on finding a

negotiated solution, and Russia, increas-ingly uncomfortable with US actions inthe region, has firmly stated its opposi-tion to a US military attack against Iran.

But, perhaps most importantly, Iran isa significantly more powerful nation thanIraq was after a decade of crippling USsanctions. As well, Iran has considerableinfluence on the Shiite majority in Iraq,the Hezbollah in Lebanon and factions inAfghanistan. An attack on Iran couldresult in what is described as asymmetri-cal retaliation by its supporters in theseareas. This could spell disaster for the USin Iraq and Afghanistan, draw in Israelinto a wider regional conflict, and lead toeither a major human catastrophe if theUS and Israel employ their nuclearweapons, or revolt and revolutionsagainst US puppets in the region.Globally, a major hike in the price of oil,as a result of either an attack on Iran orIranian disruption to flow of oil in thePersian Gulf, will send the globaleconomy into a potentially severe reces-

sion. The outcome of an attack on Iran,whichever way viewed, is disastrous. Inshort, the military option is extremelyrisky.

On the other hand, unless Iran isbrought into the US orbit of influence,the Bush administration’s plans to domi-nate the global capitalist system throughcontrol of energy resources will beseverely curtailed. Iran has already signedmajor oil and gas treaties with China,India and Pakistan and is exploring acloser working relationship with Russiato supply Western Europe with naturalgas. There are also agreements for oilswapping between Iran and some of theCaspian region nations. These types ofdeals and arrangements and Iran’s Euro-based stock exchange leave the US withlittle option but to exercise its ultimatetrump card. So, while the possibility of amilitary attack is limited by its significanthazards, it cannot be completely ruledout, especially while Bush and his gang ofwar criminals are in charge.★

IMPERIALISMContinued from Page 27

IRANContinued from Page 25

political opposition to the US/UK occu-pation.

Whether or not the imperialist powerswill maintain their commitment toparliamentary democracy in the globalSouth will depend on the independenceand radicalism of these mass movements.If the newly elected left governments inBolivia and Argentina follow the path ofthe PT (Workers’ Party) in Brazil and theANC (African National Congress) inSouth Africa and demobilize the massmovements and follow the neoliberaldictates of the IMF and World Bank,liberal capitalist democracy will survive.However, if these left governments chal-lenge neoliberalism through nationaliza-tions and other forms of statist economicpolicies or cannot contain the mass move-ment, the imperialists may well revert totheir traditional allies in the military andcivilian bureaucracies. At that point, theability of the mass movements tocontinue to mobilize independently of —and possibly in opposition to - the Leftgovernments, will determine whether ornot a new, more radical workers’ andpopular democracy will emerge or theolder capitalist dictatorships will againbecome the norm in the global South.★

39SOCIALISTnew

THE NEW SOCIALIST GROUP is an organization of

activists working to renew socialism from below as part

of today’s struggles. Our socialism is revolutionary and

democratic, committed to working-class self-

emancipation, internationalism and opposition to all

forms of oppression. We reject bureaucratic and

authoritarian notions of socialism and look instead to

the radical tradition of socialism from below, which

believes that liberation can only be achieved through

the activity and mobilization of the oppressed

themselves. Ideas need to be put into action. So if you

like what you read, get in touch with us.

Branches and members of the New Socialist Group are active in a number of cities. Call for information about our activities.

VANCOUVER Box 4955, Vancouver, V6B 4A6 vancouver@newsocialist.org

HAMILTON hamilton@newsocialist.org

EDMONTON (780) 451-3103, or edmonton@newsocialist.org

KINGSTON (613) 542-8462 (Contact Toby), kingston@newsocialist.org

TORONTO (416) 955-1581 toronto@newsocialist.org

WINNIPEG (204) 775-0265winnipeg@newsocialist.org

FOR ALL OTHER AREAS nsg@newsocialist.org

(416) 955-1581Box 167 253 College St Toronto Ontario M5T 1R5www.newsocialist.org

The NSG works with the Québec

organization GAUCHE SOCIALISTE

MONTRÉAL montreal@lagauche.com

QUÉBEC CITY quebec@lagauche.com

and the OUTAOUAIS hull@lagauche.com

GAUCHE SOCIALISTE

CP 52131, Succ, St-Fidele, Québec, G1L 5A4

www.lagauche.com

Rally in support of René Preval in Port-au-Prince. Seearticle by Joshi and McDonald on page 28.

TIME TO ORGANIZE