honduras elections after the coup: for an active boycott

on the elections in Honduras, taking place six months after a military coup against centre-left president Manuel “Mel” Zelaya – by José Luis Rojo

What was bound to happen all along has now materialised: Mel Zelaya, the bourgeois leader of the resistance to the Honduran military coup, has ended up giving up everything in exchange for nothing. Signing the “Gaymuras-San José” accord (supervised by the Obama administration) he has capitulated. It is clear that the the US government proposed him a ‘double standard’ deal: Zelaya had to sign the deal, the other side only to make a vague promise eventually to “reinstall” him.

But the ‘letter’ of the deal does not oblige post-coup president Micheletti to reinstall him: this is at the mercy of the same pro-coup Congress which voted to depose Zelaya in late June. The Congress has no need to hurry either: “This crucial aspect (his supposed reinstallment) was placed as the fifth of seven items, not the first, and was drafted ambiguously, showing that Zelaya made too many concessions as he signed the accord”.[1]

people’s charter or charter for a democratic republic?

a guest piece by Steve Freeman

Last Saturday the organizers of the People’s Charter held a conference, at which about 150 people attended. It became clear the Charter is going to be used for agitation around the general election. It has the support of the Labour Representation Committee, various trade unions, and a section of the left in England. More worryingly it is endorsed by the TUC. The demands are sufficiently broad to span across the left and even go as far as New Labour.

I had the opportunity to speak and pointed out that although the original People’s Charter had six democratic demands this new Charter contains no democratic demands at all. We have a broken economy and a broken society. It was surely time for the left to recognize the broken democracy. The massive alienation from parliamentary democracy is both a threat and an opportunity.

maoism meets chavismo? a review of badiou workshop ‘subject and appearance’

by Nathan Coombs

Nowadays it is hard to find many examples of academic leftism crossing paths with real left wing politics. One could even argue that the former might have a negative effect on the latter – the UK is, after all, home to one of the strongest left wing publishing empires and conference circuits in the world, and yet its organised, political left is drearily weak by all continental comparisons.

There was something a bit edgy, then, about the recent workshop on the philosophy of Alain Badiou  taking place in the Venezuelan Embassy’s Bolivar Hall on 20th November. One half expected to be spending the day staring at an enormous portrait of Hugo Chavez hung at the back of the hall during the proceedings. Thankfully, the large hall was graced by a more tasteful/less piece of generic modern art and there was not a trace of Chavez propaganda in sight.

where is the labour party going? london forum, monday 23rd

The next of The Commune’s London public forums is on the subject of the social role, degeneration and future course of the Labour Party. The meeting takes place from 7pm on Monday 23rd November at the Lucas Arms, Grays Inn Road, near King’s Cross.

With some on the left turning back to Labour as the 2010 general election nears, and others predicting the party will turn ‘left’ in opposition to a David Cameron administration, it is important to understand the underlying characteristics of Labour in British capitalism and challenge the arguments that the workers’ movement should try and ‘reclaim’ it or create a Labour Party mark II.

paris undocumented workers on strike: so where next?

from Où va la CGT: see here for an interview with migrant worker reps and report on the occupation of the Pompidou centre’s restaurant

A month on strike for 5,000 undocumented workers in the Paris region: a month of mobilising people, strikes, pickets in the cold and in the rain. Their determination is unfailing, even if some are starting to tire.

But there is a problem with the direction of this massive, multi-site strike. Many reps are starting to question the manner in which the CGT union federation is guiding it.

voting labour is not a fall-back option

“Because if they didn’t vote for a lizard,” said Ford, “the wrong lizard might get in…”***

by David Broder

The bitter chill of winter is never more harshly felt than at a labour movement conference with grandiose ambitions but limited prospects. This was much in evidence at the Labour Representation Committee last weekend, which marked a step back from any meaningful idea of renewing working-class representation.

Of course, the joke that the left is so keen on unity that it has sprouted a dozen competing unity projects is no longer particularly funny. But this problem is political, not merely organisational. For even worse than factionalism is simple retreat into the Labour Party.

mixed reactions to cwu-royal mail deal

Interview with a communist post worker

How strong was the national post strike?

At a national level I would say the strike was very strong. It is hard to say the whole picture from the one location where I work, but judging by Royal Mail Chat [a web forum] — even if the people on there are more militant than average — there were no signs that it was losing momentum. In London there was perhaps a certain tiredness after eighteen weeks of strike action but not such that it was close to exhaustion. At no time did the union claim that they were calling off the action because they were losing people – Royal Mail management claimed that 25% of people were not on strike, but those were fiddled figures given that in that number they included managers and people on holiday, rest day or sick…

tom hurndall memorial lecture report

by Mark Harrison (originally written for Manchester Stop the War)

“What do I want from this life? What makes you happy is not enough. All the things that satisfy our instincts only satisfy the animal in us. I want to be proud of myself. I want more. I want to look up to myself and when I die, I want to smile because of the things I have done, not cry for the things I haven’t done.”
Tom Hurndall (2000)

Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, in the town of Qalandiya in the occupied West Bank, a group of masked activists used a lorry to pull down a two meter cement block from the Israeli separation barrier before Israeli security forces confronted them with tear gas grenades.(1)

obituary of chris harman

by Andy Wilson

Chris Harman, revolutionary socialist author and activist and a long-time member of the Central Committee of the Socialist Workers Party, died of a heart attack on Saturday night while speaking at the Socialist Days conference in Cairo.

From a working class background, Chris joined the Socialist Review Group (forerunner of the International Socialists and the SWP) in the early 60s while a student at Leeds University. He became one of the leading activists in the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign while at the London School of Economics, although he eventually abandoned his studies to become a full-time worker for the IS/SWP. Chris remained a constant among the leadership there until the day of his death.

goran markovic: twenty years after the wall fell

The second in a series of interviews with communists from the former Eastern Bloc on the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and your organisation?

My name is Goran Markovic and I come from Bosnia and Herzegovina. I am one of the co-editors of the socialist/Marxist regional magazine ‘The New Flame’ (Novi Plamen) which is published in the Croatian capital Zagreb. I am also the president of the Workers’ Communist Party of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Novi Plamen is a magazine which deals very much with the development of workers’ and leftist movements in former Yugoslav republics and worldwide and carries analyzes, mainly from a Marxist viewpoint, of current economic and political events in former Yugoslavia and worldwide. The Workers’ Communist Party of Bosnia and Herzegovina is a party established in the tradition of workers’ self-management and self-managing socialism.

‘full and democratic debate’: but when?

by David Broder

London’s Camden Centre was packed to the rafters on Saturday for the RMT conference on working-class political representation. The enthusiasm of its participants was, lamentably, much at odds with the dire initiative likely to be spawned by the event.

While RMT has conference policy to convene workers’ representation committees across the country to select candidates, this event, like a similar one in February, was a mere rally for the follow-up to the No2EU European election campaign. There were no resolutions or votes; there was minimal debate and no-one who had opposed or criticised No2EU was allowed to speak. As with the June election’s initiative, it seems that a small clique in the union around Bob Crow and Pat Sikorski, along with allies in the leadership of the Morning Star/Communist Party of Britain and the Socialist Party, will set the agenda for a General Election coalition.

post strike: solidarity strong amongst manchester students

by Mark Harrison

Manchester students are running a solidarity campaign to support the city’s postal workers. The campaign involves members of The Commune, Anarchist Federation, Communist Students, the SWP, AWL and individual leftist students.

Members of the ‘Manchester Students Support the Postal Strike’ group stood alongside workers on pickets this week and shall be returning for the next round of strikes. For many this has been their first time on a picket line and it has been a good opportunity to learn from the Royal Mail workers about the bullying practices of their management. Despite the right wing press demonising the CWU a ComRes survey for the BBC found that 50% of people sympathise most with the postal workers and only 25 per cent with the management. This was demonstrated by those passing by on their way to work, and even Tony Lloyd, the Labour MP for Manchester Central, came down to show his support (ironically he has been a supporter of plans for postal service privatisation).

scotland – the ruling class division over defending the british union

by Allan Armstrong

The latest talk amongst Scotland’s ‘chattering classes’ is that the SNP Scottish Government’s proposed bill for a referendum on Scottish independence, announced on September 3rd, is doomed. Why? – because a closed-door debate held by the Lib-Dems, last weekend in Dunfermline, finally agreed to uphold their former UK leader, Menzies Campbell’s and current Scottish leader, Tavish Scott’s earlier decision to oppose any such referendum.

There had been considerable opposition amongst the ranks of the federalist Lib-Dems to this stance. The party is committed to constitutional referenda on European Union and on electoral reform in the UK, so opposition to a referendum in Scotland seems somewhat hypocritical to many party members. Furthermore, back in 2007, immediately after the Holyrood election, there had been every likelihood that the Lib-Dems could have joined a coalition government with the SNP. They could have made the inclusion of their favoured federal option for the UK, in any future referendum, a condition of their support. However, as with Labour and the Conservatives, commitment to the Union is far more important for Lib-Dem leaders than any notion of democracy.

interview with austrian student occupation activist

Nathan Coombs interviews a participant in the university occupation movement in Vienna, Austria. See here for his previous article ‘The battle for free education begins’, featuring a video on one of the occupations.

Why did you decide to occupy? How and when did you occupy the building, and why did you choose the particular space that you did?

After years of exhausting fights between students, teachers and the rectorate there was evidently great discontent. One of the main reasons for this was a successive undemocratisation of the academy of fine arts going along with a structural empowerment of the rector. Even the election of the rector caused significant resentment and was followed by a state ruling that Clementine Deliss, who applied for the rector’s job, was sexually discriminated against, as she was not chosen although she had been the only candidate with a broad popularity amongst students, teachers and the senate.