Socialist Party USA joins global call to action for migrant rights
A new human rights movement is growing to address the needs of some 214
million migrants worldwide.1 Some migrate to escape political
repression while others seek better employment and a more prosperous
life. But the overwhelming majority of migrants leave their homes
because their old ways of living have become impossible under a global
market economy.
Most policy makers and advocates address the question of migration on
the national level as a matter of immigration and integration policy.
But the World Social Forum has begun to reframe the issue in terms of
universal human rights. A series of forums hosted in Quito, Ecuador in
2010, and Dakar, Senegal in 2011, has rallied migrant rights advocates
around the UN Convention for the Rights of Migrants. December 18th,
2011 will be the first day of action by groups seeking to call attention
to the rights of migrants and responsibilities of nations outlined by
this convention.
The English language website, globalmigrantaction.org, outlines the
message of the day as “against racism, for the rights, equality and
dignity of migrants, refugees and displaced people.”
The Socialist Party USA is one of the organizations planning for the day
of action in the US. Their platform states, “The Socialist Party works
to build a world in which everyone will be able to freely move across
borders, to visit and to live wherever they choose. We recognize the
central role global capitalism plays in forcing the immigration of
people from the less developed to the more industrialized countries,
often leading to further economic and social injustice.”2
Another recent development has been for the immigrant rights movement to
highlight its connections with other movements. “The struggle for
immigrant rights has always been at the forefront of civil rights and
the labor movement in the US,” explains SPUSA International Commission
Convener, Matthew Andrews. “On May 1st 2006 millions of immigrant
workers struck for one day to demonstrate their importance to the US
economy. We believe these workers have the potential to build a
movement for a more equitable economy and peaceful international
relations.” The statement approved at the World Social Forum in Dakar
speculates on “the fundamental role of migrants as political and social
actors to build a universal citizenship system.”
Events will be held around the world to mark this new day for migrant’s
rights including a dozen US cities3. The Occupy Wall Street movement
will buoy many of these actions. In New York protesters will march from
Foley Plaza, in front of City Hall, to Zuccotti Park where the Occupy
movement began4.
1. http://www.unmigration.org
2. http://socialistparty-usa.org/platform/civilrights.html
3. http://globalmigrantsaction.org/index.php?mysection=Dec.%2018%20Activities
4. http://www.occupywallst.org/
Contact:
Matthew Andrews, Convener
International Commission of the Socialist Party USA
http://spusainternational.wordpress.com/
international@socialistparty-usa.org
617-275-2525
Egypt’s rebellion inspires US socialists
Egypt’s rebellion inspires US socialists
Thursday, December 8th
by Matthew Andrews, Convener
International Commission of the Socialist Party USA
As 2011 draws to a close, the popular uprising in Egypt that overthrew the thirty year dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak is already being talked about as the top news story of the year. The most popular tag on twitter for 2011 was #egypt. But the story may not yet be over.
Egyptian activists say repression has only intensified despite their calls for freedom. Although Tahrir Square has not seen a mass protest in the last week during elections, street battles with government security forces continue.
The Egyptian military that was so popular last February, has now become the main target for protests. Military leaders have recycled bureaucrats from the old regime rather than appoint any women or young people to important posts. Furthermore, the most recent elections did not create a civilian government with power over the judiciary or military affairs. The legitimacy of these elections split public opinion as forty percent of Egyptians did not go to the polls.
“A sixty percent turnout might seem normal to US voters,” said Matthew Andrews, convener of the International Commission of the Socialist Party USA, “but considering that a popular uprising just overthrew a hated dictator, we should be surprised that voter turnout wasn’t a hundred percent. Clearly, many Egyptians feel the revolutionary process is not yet over.”
Whatever the outcome of that process may be, it has already invigorated protests around the world. Although US residents often think of themselves as insulated from world affairs, the parallels between Occupy Wall Street and the daily protests that brought down Egypt’s tyrant cannot be ignored. “The uprisings of the Middle East and North Africa have shown us that mass protests still work. The Occupy Wall Street movement has broken the silence over economic class in the US. Now a whole new generation of young people are taking a fresh look at socialism.”
The potential for coordinated relationships between protesters internationally is growing. Socialist Party Vice-Chair, Mimi Soltysik, explains, “With social networking as a tool, we have the ability to communicate in real time with those engaged in struggle worldwide. This presents an opportunity. Those intent on building a socialist movement must act on their commitment. The door is wide open.” One connection that has outraged many US observers has been how US-made tear gas is being used near Tahrir Square, even as Occupy protesters face tear gas from police here at home. “This is only the tip of the iceberg,” Andrews said. “The US has given Egypt $2 billion annually on average since 1979. Most of that has gone directly to the military. This money corrupts the Egyptian military and divides them from the Egyptian people.”
The Socialist Party USA platform envisions a radically different way for the US to relate to the rest of the world. It calls for an immediate 50% cut in military spending, the disbanding of NATO, the closure of foreign military bases, and the abolition of institutions of covert warfare.
Look for a growing socialist movement to build links of solidarity between the Occupy movement, the anti-war movement, and international protests raising similar demands, especially in the Middle East and North Africa where state power is being challenged.
Contact:
Matthew Andrews, Convener
International Commission of the Socialist Party USA
http://spusainternational.wordpress.com/
international@socialistparty-usa.org
617-275-2525
Statement on Norway
Statement on Norway
Socialist Party USA, International Commission August 18, 2011
http://socialistparty-usa.org/statements/norwayaug182011.html
The International Commission of the Socialist Party USA stands in sorrow and solidarity with the families of those killed in Oslo and Utøya on July 22nd. It is always unfortunate when families and friends must bury their loved ones, be them children or adults, as a result of heinous attacks such as this.
Details of the incident and the suspect, Anders Behring Breivik, are still being discovered and pieced together, but a disturbing picture is beginning to unfold. Breivik describes himself as a conservative Christian and a nationalist by his Facebook profile. Information from the Guardian newspaper fills in some additional information from him about “Hate Ideologies”, in which he lumps Islam, Communism, and Nazism together, as well as admonishments of the right-wing Progress Party for not being “idealistic” enough, admiration for the far right-wing English Defence League, and a general fear of “extreme Marxists” and Muslims taking over Norway. From this information, it would be wrong to simply call Breivik a neo-Nazi. However, it does put him well within the wave of “right wing” populism and nationalism that has been growing in strength in the United States and Europe over the last few years.
In America and abroad, many on the “right-wing” have worked to link Islam as a whole with terrorism, using this artificially-created fear as the fuel to drive their imperialist machine in the Middle East and Africa. From these acts of domestic terrorism in Norway, we must understand and realize that terrorism is not exclusive to any religion or ideology, and that the Islamaphobia must be fought against. Breivik’s hatred of Muslims overlaps with a deep hatred of immigrants and a desire to make Norway racially and culturally “pure.” This “right-wing” world view is gaining support among the ruling classes of Europe and the United States as an alternative explanation for working people who may blame corporations, banks, and corrupt government for the current economic crisis.
While it is not truly a socialist party, it is important to consider that both attacks targeted the social-democratic Norwegian Labour Party, which signifies a growing threat to the Norwegian Left. The bomb detonated in Oslo was in Regjeringskvartalet, or the executive government quarter, houses the office of Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, who is also the leader of the Norwegian Labour Party. The youth camp attacked at Utøya, where scores of innocent youths were gunned down, was organized by the Workers’ Youth League (AUF), which is the youth affiliate of the
Norwegian Labour Party.
This attack on the Norwegian Labour Party is a threat the left across the world. Breivik has proven that the murderous impulses of the far right are not choosy about their targets. We must combat their ideology with solidarity for immigrants and Muslims, and a revolutionary vision for a new society where the economic basis for far right politics no longer exists.
This declaration was agreed by a meeting of the European anticapitalist left, which took place in London on 11-12 June 2011.
The global economic crisis is now in its fourth year. It is evidently not a ‘normal’ cyclical recession but a systemic crisis on a comparable scale to and with the same disruptive potential as the Great Depression of the 1930s. Like that earlier crisis, the present one is protracted and goes through different stages – credit crunch, financial crash, global slump, and now a ‘recovery’ marked by mass unemployment, intensified competition among the leading capitalist powers, and the sovereign debt crisis. There is room for discussion on the left about the precise causes of the crisis – are they to be traced to the tendency of the rate of profit to fall or are they restricted to the more specific problems generated by neoliberalism? – but it is clear that overcoming the crisis will be difficult.
What prevented the ‘Great Recession’ of 2008-9 developing into a slump as deep as that of the 1930s is the willingness of the ruling classes of the advanced capitalist states substantially to increase public spending and borrowing: in 2009 budget deficits grew by five percent of national income in the advanced economies. But they have rejected calls to break with the neoliberal policies that helped to precipitate the crisis. Instead they have defined the increased government borrowing caused by the crisis as a problem that requires harsh austerity measures representing a radicalization of neoliberalism and threatening the survival of the welfare state. In Europe these policies are now being forced through by the bourgeois right, which is now in government almost everywhere.
But the crisis continues to pose an acute political danger to the ruling classes because of the intensification of the class struggle it can provoke. This danger has been realized in the Arab world with the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia. Here material privations intensified by the crisis – mass youth unemployment, rising food prices, etc – have fused with the accumulated hatreds of corrupt, brutal, and misogynistic regimes backed by the US and the EU. The result has been astonishing popular explosions whose future is uncertain but that have put revolution back on the political agenda.
But although the Arab revolutions are the most spectacular cases, there has been a more general upsurge in resistance. 2010 saw the struggle over pensions in France, general strikes in Portugal and Spain, multiple general strikes in Greece, student movements in Britain, France, and Italy, and the anti-precarity movement in Portugal. The 15th May movement in the Spanish state, beginning with a call for ‘real democracy’ and refusal to be ‘commodities in the hands of politicians and bankers’, has struck a chord with tens of thousands of mainly young people who have rushed to form their own ‘Tahrir squares’ all over the country, engaging in self-organized and increasingly self-confident civil disobedience, attracting a good deal of sympathy and with the prospect of spreading to other countries. A similar movement has developed in Greece with a dynamic that combines the squares and the strikes.
The recent movement to defend collective bargaining rights in Wisconsin shows that the austerity drive has now reached the United States, thanks especially to the victories won by the Republicans with the support of the Tea Party movement in the mid-term elections last November. But it also shows the persisting combativity of the American working class. The workers’ movement in the advanced economies has been weakened by the neoliberal offensive of the past generation, but the latest attacks risk stimulating a revival of militancy.
This big offensive can only be resisted through the cooperation of the anticapitalist left with a trade union movement that is combative, fully democratic, and based on the strong participation of the rank and file. This requires a break with the policies of class collaboration that too often dominate the trade unions, and which are rooted in the social pressures on trade-union officials both to express and contain workers’ struggles. The growth of the influence of the anticapitalist left in the unions, as well as the greater confidence and self-organization of rank-and-file workers, are the most powerful forces in achieving such a break.
More concretely, we must:
- Defend the democratic and social rights of the workers, the popular classes, and the youth against austerity, to be in all circumstances their spokesperson, to pursue in particular within the trade-union organizations a policy independent of the bosses, as well as of the state and of the government, whatever it might be.
- While starting from unconditional opposition to the parties of the bourgeois right, we pursue an unrelenting political critique of the so-called Socialist, Labour, and Social Democratic Parties for their capitulation to neoliberalism;
- Defend in mobilizations as well as on the electoral terrain, as in parliament, an anticapitalist alternative to offer a perspective of rupture with capitalist society, rupture that can only be achieved by a movement of the whole of the population challenging the absolute power that the capitalist oligarchy exercises over society and posing the question of a democratic government of the workers and the people.
- Persistently and creatively use the united front tactic in order to build the unity of the working class for the struggle and and cooperate in a critical way with all those political forces that are against neoliberal policy and with the movements/trade unions who resist neoliberal policy.
This approach is likely to most effective when it based on active involvement in building resistance to austerity. The very severity of the crisis means that this resistance will confront ideological questions: above all, what is the alternative to austerity? The Western ruling classes have rejected Keynesianism and social democracy has refused to take it up. The anticapitalist left must oppose cuts in public services and the privatization of public services and campaign for an audit of the debt. But it should also be willing to put forward an alternative programme that begins to break with the logic of profit – for example, the nationalization of the banks, energy, rail, and the main service industries under democratic workers’ control, progressive taxation of income and wealth, cancelling the debt that has been created by financial speculation, investment in ‘climate jobs’ that would simultaneously reduce CO2 emissions and unemployment. We support the people of Iceland in their determination to refuse to pay the debt of bankrupt banks.
Anti-capitalist politics must continue to go together with anti-imperialism. American imperialism, already weakened by the Iraq debacle, has been further undermined by the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia. But the United Nations Security Council resolution on Libya has given the green light to Western military intervention aimed at rebuilding the imperialist-dominated system of states in the Middle East. The radical and revolutionary left must combine support for the struggle against the Gaddafi regime with opposition to the continuing military intervention in Libya by the US, France, Britain, and NATO. It is also necessary to continue campaigning against the occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
One of the many negative consequences of the ‘war on terrorism’ is the impetus it has given to the development on racism and xenophobia in Europe and the US. Official attacks on multiculturalism by the likes of Merkel, Sarkozy, and Cameron lend respectability to the attempts by the far right – whether it is Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, Marine Le Pen in France, or the English Defence League and its allies in Britain – to make anti-Muslim racism the cutting edge of their attempts to build up a popular base. Elsewhere in Europe it is the Roma who are the main target of the racist offensive. Building broad opposition to racism and Islamophobia and countering the attempts of fascist organisations to build themselves electorally and on the streets are among our most important tasks.
This means resuming the offensive on the social and political fronts, putting to work a politics of solidarity of the exploited classes against the dominant classes, who seek to divide the better to impose their policies. The surrenders and retreats create a climate of demoralization that opens the way to the reactionary ideological offensive. To resume the offensive on the social terrain means also to build a new socialist class consciousness.
It is clear that the situation places many demands on the radical and revolutionary left. We have therefore to build our own organisations to increase our capability to meet these demands – to win new militants to our ranks and to deepen our roots in working-class communities. We can also strengthen ourselves through cooperating together more. The anti-capitalist left has to match the international organisation of capitalism. Our strength is limited, but it is greater when combined. Through meeting and discussing together we can arrive at common initiatives and actions and, we hope, to define the political basis of a European anticapitalist regroupment.
In this spirit, we support and, where possible, will intervene together in the following initiatives :
- July 16 : mobilization of the ENOUGH campaign against the IMF in Dublin
- October 1st : European conference against Austerity and Privatisation in London
- October 15th : call from indignatos movement for action against austerity throughout Europe
- November 1st : mobilization against the G20 summit in France
Belgium : Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire (LCR/SAP)
Croatia : Radnicka Borba
Denmark : Red-Green Alliance
France : Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste (NPA)
Great Britain : Counterfire – Socialist Resistance – Socialist Party – Socialist Workers Party (SWP)
Greece : Anticapitalist Political Group (APO) – Sosialistiko Ergatiko Komma (SEK)
Ireland : People Before Profit – Socialist Party – Socialist Workers Party (SWP)
Netherlands : Internationale Socialisten – Socialist Alternatieve Politics
Poland : Polish Labour Party (PPP)
Portugal : Bloco de Esquerda
Scotland : Scottish Socialist Party (SSP)
Spanish state : En Lucha – Izquierda Anticapitalista – Partido Obrero Revolucionario (POR)
Sweden : Socialist Party
Statement on Libya and the Wave of Popular Uprisings
March 17th, 2011
Although we are barely two months into 2011, tumultuous revolts have already made history in the Middle East and North Africa. Masses of people, from all walks of life, broke free from their respective authoritarian governments to protest and fight for freedom, democracy, and better living conditions. We have seen two of the region’s most entrenched dictators brought down from power: Ben Ali of Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt. The successful people’s revolts in Tunisia and Egypt, though nowhere near finished, inspired similar mass movements all across the region; from Morocco to Iran, Yemen to Syria, and even in U.S. occupied Iraq.
In Libya, a mass movement by the Libyan people to end the 41-year authoritarian rule of Colonel Muammar al-Qaddafi has seen murderous state-sponsored violence against unarmed protesters.
The United States, however, remains the greatest purveyor of violence in the world, conducting two wars in the Middle East and supplying many dictators, including Qaddafi, with the weapons to suppress their own people. The U.S. has no credibility to intervene in Libya on humanitarian grounds, nor can the international community credibly sit in judgment of Qaddafi while turning a blind eye to crimes of the United States.
The popular uprising in Libya began with a protest in Benghazi against the inhumane imprisonment of Fathi Terbil, a Libyan human rights activist. Within two days, on February 17th, a Day of Revolt resulted in the deaths of at least a dozen protesters. Within days, what was a small protest erupted into a mass movement against Colonel Qaddafi and the Libyan government. Despite Colonel Qaddafi’s statement that he would “die as a martyr,” and an onslaught from loyalist soldiers and war planes, the revolt only became more defiant and grew in strength and numbers. Now protesters control several key cities and regions, leading many to fear the outbreak of civil war. The International Commission of the Socialist Party USA stands in solidarity with the people’s movement for democratic rights in Libya.
While the international response should be one of unity and solidarity with the Libyan protesters, the response of western nations has instead been marred by underlying imperialist goals and tactics that blatantly do not work. Until now, Libyan oil has served as a bribe between the Libyan government and several European nations, most notably Great Britain, in exchange for peace with Colonel Qaddafi and indifference towards his authoritarian regime. Now, the imperialists in the United States and Europe have deemed that Colonel Qaddafi’s fall will benefit them more than continuing to support his authoritarian regime.
The United Nations Security Council decided unanimously to impose sanctions on Libya, a tactic that has found very little success elsewhere and has historically only increased the economic strain on the working class. More troubling is the fact that the United States has positioned naval war ships and Marines near Libya, in the event that they deem it in their best interest to invade Libya and forcibly remove Colonel Qaddafi from power. This was a blatantly wrong move in Iraq that only created widespread suffering for the Iraqi people in the interest of achieving larger oil profits, and it is a blatantly wrong move now. President Obama has refused to rule out military intervention, instead declaring that all options remain on the table. In reality, the United States has already intervened in Libya by arming the Qaddafi regime under the imperialist banner of the “War on Terror”. The blame for the bloodshed in Libya does not only fall on Muammar Qaddafi, but also on the American government. Imperialist military intervention is the exact opposite of what the Libyan people want and need.
As with protests in Tunisia, Egypt, all across the Middle East, North Africa, and the planet as a whole, the Socialist Party USA stands firm in our support for all mass movements that aim to better the lives of the working class and to create a more democratic society. We strongly condemn the use of violence by the authoritarian Qaddafi regime to prolong its inevitable collapse. We also strongly oppose any imperialist intrusion on the freedom or democratic rights of the Libyan people, both in the present and after Colonel Qaddafi is out of power. We call upon the compassionate people of the United States to join us in protest against war, imperialism, and militarism on April 9th and 10th.
Statement on Tunisia
January 31st, 2011
Tunisia has become the latest hot spot in a global wave of popular rebellion against failed economic policies, corruption, and despotism. Ongoing protests throughout the country – called the Sidi Bouzid intifada by Tunisians in reference to the city where the protests began – were sparked by the selfimmolation of Mohamed Bouazizi, a twenty-six year old street vendor. Like many, he suffered from underemployment and police violence. The rebellion went largely unnoticed by the international commercial media until the Tunisian dictator, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, fled to Saudi Arabia on January 14th, ending 23 years of autocracy.
The International Commission of the Socialist Party USA salutes the people of Tunisia in this important step toward liberation. The ousting of Ben Ali shows that tyrants cannot rule over a population that refuses consent. In particular, we recognize the central role played by working people. While students and the middle class also went into the streets, it was workers, organized by the General Union of TunisianWorkers that gave the emonstrations structure and tipped the balance of power toward the protests. Through concerted mass action, the working class of Tunisia proved to have the power to overthrow a seemingly invincible authoritarian regime and make history. The revolt has inspired popular struggles throughout the region and the world. Already protests have rocked Algeria, Jordan, Egypt, Yemen and other Arab states.
The Tunisian struggle continues over the nature of a new government. Mobilizations in the street are continuing in protest against a proposed “unity government” which maintains many officials from the old ruling party. Protesters are demanding a new democratic constitution before elections. Removing the dictator is not enough; the entire dictatorship must go.
Behind the scenes, economic power brokers are working to preserve neo-liberal relations with foreign interests, and insulate themselves from democratic forces. Recent revelations from Wikileaks have exposed how French and U.S. diplomats were well aware of the corruption and human rights violations of the Ben Ali regime, yet maintained uncritical friendly relations. A truly democratic alternative for the people of Tunisia that is independent of economic and diplomatic imperialism will be served best by connecting to the international socialist movement.
The International Commission of the Socialist Party USA pledges to share Tunisia’s story, and to pressure our government to respect Tunisian sovereignty. We extend our solidarity and seek greater ties with the movements in Tunisia of unionists, women, youth, and socialists. The liberation of Tunisia from Ben Ali’s personal dictatorship brings us one step closer to ending the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, warding off aggression against Iran, and ending the occupation of Palestine.
Statement on Israel
December 24th, 2010
The International Commission of the Socialist Party USA calls for an immediate end to the 43 year occupation of Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, during which Israel has repeatedly and blatantly violated the laws of the Geneva Convention by committing numerous acts of lethal and non-lethal ethnic cleansing; hoarding of resources and colonization of occupied land with distinction to both ethnicity and religion; not only failed to protect noncombatants but actively sought to harm them through collective punishment measures; and detained and publicly humiliated hostages. These violations are internationally recognized war crimes which should be tried at the International Court of Justice.Israel has been able to sustain its policy of aggression and occupation by the use of an enormous infusion of funds in the form of U.S. military aid. The International Commission of the Socialist Party USA calls for an immediate end to all military and economic aid to Israel from the United States government.
We demand an immediate end to the blockade of the Gaza Strip and a cessation of military aggression against civilians. However, we recognize that petitions for greater decorum on the part of Israel are not sufficient. Israel’s status as a Zionist state, promoting the welfare and interests of one particular group (the Jewish people) over all others determines its aggressive and divisive nature. Although every capitalist state is an apparatus for the oppression of one class by another, a religious state imposes a second layer of division and marginalization. We continue to call for the self-determination and freedom of the Palestinian people in all of the land collectively recognized as the state of Israel and the Occupied Territories, in which all the rights and welfare of all of its populace will be equally respected. As democratic socialists, we will work with all of those involved to achieve the above goals.”
The International Commission of the Socialist Party USA endorses the July 2005 call of 180 Palestinian organizations for a boycott of Israeli goods, as well as those produced by non-Israeli corporations that invest in Israel, and a divestment from Israeli corporations. Furthermore, the International Commission agrees with the Palestinian call that these “non-violent punitive measures” be maintained until Israel complies with international law by ending its siege of the Gaza Strip and its occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights;by recognizing the right to full equality of all its citizens; and by “respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated by UN Resolution 194.
