greek revolt haunts the rulers of europe

by Mark Ellingsen

A class war has broken out in Greece, and there is a palpable fear amongst the international ruling class that workers will not submit to paying for the bailout of financial institutions. Stock markets tumbled during a week in which public and private sector workers in Greece went on strike and only recovered when the EU agreed an emergency fund to defend the euro. But even now doubts still linger amongst investors as to whether this will actually resolve the underlying problem of state debt.

The turmoil in Greece has seen protestors storm the Acropolis unfurling banners appealing to Europe to rise up; teachers interrupting an interview with the Education Minister on state television; and a general strike on 5th May with a demonstration of at least 100,000 in which some workers tried to storm the Greek parliament.

general strike in bolivia

The last two weeks have seen a series of general strikes in Bolivia, both called by the ‘official’ union federation COB and organised on the impulse of manufacturing workers and teachers. The workers are demanding a pay increase above the 5% figure advanced by Evo Morales’ left-populist government.

With occupations and some workers going on hunger strike for over a week, and police repression which has seen two deaths and thirty injuries (as well as the arrest of fifteen people occupying the Ministry of Work), the struggle is hard-fought. In this article Martín Camacho of Socialismo o Barbarie looks at the background to the struggle.

who votes for the BNP?

by Oisín Mac Giollamóir

The standard media portrayal of a BNP voter is of a poor, unskilled to semi-skilled white worker, who used to vote Labour, is worried about rising crime, unemployment and the rise in immigration. But is this really who votes BNP? Two recent studies suggest otherwise.

According to the BNP itself, the primary reason for its growing support is that the political elite is out of touch with working class people’s real concerns about immigration. A report by the Institute for Public Policy Research published last month finds little evidence for this. Indeed the report finds that higher immigration lowers the vote for the BNP. Likewise, the higher the number of non-white people in an area, the less likely people were to vote BNP. (The one and only exception to this was in Barking and Dagenham.) Intuitively, we can understand why this is the case. The more interaction people have with migrant groups the less concerned about immigration they are.

stop demonising the unemployed

by Duncan Smith

Unemployment figures were up to 2.5 million by the end of March, and there’s no reason to think they won’t get any higher: some estimates put them as high as 3.3 million by the end of the year.

As well as rises in unemployment over the past few years, there have been increased attempts on the part of capital to project an image of criminality onto the unemployed, with high-level campaigns targeting “benefit thieves”. Such campaigns have the basic effect of portraying the unemployed as lazy, scrounging criminals, in what seems like a more-or-less conscious campaign to undermine solidarity on the part of the rest of the working class.

end of the middlesex uni occupation

by Sebastian Wright

Today was meant to be a talk by Tariq Ali at the ‘Transversal Space’ of occupied Mansion House, Middlesex University. Instead of a lecture, however, people arrived to discover that the whole building had been surrounded by security guards. An injunction had been served to the occupiers by university management, and individual students had been named in the document.

These tactics obviously worked, because after holding the entire building for a week, the occupiers decided to leave as a group—using Ali’s talk outside on the lawn as the focus for a post-occupation rally.

only solidarity can stop their attacks

editorial of The Commune

The General Election did not provide the ruling class with a mandate to slash public services. In the Prime Ministerial TV debates the party leaders shied away from outlining plans for cuts, knowing that doing so would risk electoral disaster. The result of the election was itself inconclusive.

Yet the new coalition government is confident in its offensive against the working class. As David  Cameron arrived in Number 10 on 11th May, he announced that Tory-Lib Dem Britain would be one where “we do not just ask ‘what are my entitlements?’, but ‘what are my responsibilities?'”. This masks an ideological war against our living standards.

the general election: the view from scotland

by Allan Armstrong

The General Election results on 6th May came as somewhat of a surprise. This did not lie in the failure of the Tories to win an overall majority; the Lib-Dems inability to make their much-heralded breakthrough; the collapse of the SNP surge; nor even in New Labour making a limited recovery, especially in their London, Scottish and northern English heartlands. What was surprising to most was the increased level of voter participation, especially after the mounting anger and public disgust over Westminster sleaze.

Can the increase in electoral participation be put down to the wider interest created by televised debates between the three main party leaders? Quite clearly, despite all the media hype, especially around the ‘Clegg phenomenon’, the final division of votes, between the mainstream parties, bore little relationship to the initial opinion polls.

is ecological struggle class struggle? london forum 24th may

The next of The Commune’s public forums in London will be a debate on the question ‘is ecological struggle class struggle?’ The meeting takes place from 7pm on Monday 24th May at the Horse & Groom, Curtain Road, near Old Street tube.

The discussion will be led off by Rob Kirby, and members of Notes from Below. All welcome: email uncaptiveminds@gmail.com for more details.

the commune issue 14

The May issue of our monthly paper The Commune is now available. Click the image below to see the PDF or see individual articles as they are posted online in the list below.

To purchase a printed copy for £1 + 50p postage, use the ‘donate’ feature here. You can also subscribe (£12 a year UK/£16 EU/£20 international) or order 5 copies a month to sell (£4) online here. If you want to pay by cheque, contact uncaptiveminds@gmail.com.

updated draft agenda for 19th june ‘beyond resistance’ summer school

A day of communist discussion and debate. From 11am-6pm on Sat 19th June at 96-100 Clifton St, London EC2. All welcome. Download double-sided A5 leaflet or A3 poster.

The latest draft agenda appears below. Click here to buy ticket – pay £5 if waged or £3 for concessions, and click here for map of venue

and the struggle continues… women’s liberation 40 years on

Sharon Borthwick reports on the recent Feminist Fightback event in London

In 1970, 560 women came together at Ruskin College, Oxford for the first UK women’s liberation conference. The activist network Feminist Fightback met in London on 2nd May to look at how far we have come 40 years on, inviting all genders to “consider what feminism looks like today, how the struggle continues, and put the battles women fight today in the context of the history of the women’s movement.”

To aid comparisons of the women’s movement then and now the programme included two films: A Woman’s Place (Journeyman Pictures, 1970) and an episode of the BBC4 series on women, Activists (broadcast, March, 2010). Post introductions, the Feminist Fightback meeting continued with screening the 1970 film, which included footage of the Ruskin conference and The International Women’s Day March held in London in 1971.

despite ’empowerment’… people still have power

by Leo Singer

” The College principal says cuts will hit adult education”
“Services have been streamlined and centralised to curb duplication”
” increasing its council tax precept by 4.8 per cent”
“… plans to end funding for elite swimming, switch off street lights at night, cut two recycling centres and close crèches at leisure centres”
“… cutting around 70 jobs, with more to come in future years”

This is just a limited selection of headlines from the local papers all over Merseyside and Wallasey, collected this spring. Local governments are preparing us for a new era, a tightening of belts, expected after the national elections. Similar headlines are easy to find in papers all over the country. No wonder… as shit runs down.

anti-fascism and the BNP in barking and dagenham

by Glyn Harries

At the May 2010 Barking and Dagenham council elections, the BNP lost all their 12 Councillors, all previously elected in 2006. And their national party leader Nick Griffin, who it was suggested would take the Parliamentary seat, only came 3rd, and petulantly walked away declaring Barking and London ‘finished’.

But away from the headlines the actual results in Barking and Dagenham show the BNP nearly doubled their vote from 2006 to 2010, though where they had stood previously their vote did decline slightly. I have used their highest votes in each ward. While it is good news to see the Councillor parasites of the BNP wiped out, the Hope not Hate victory claims are as ever deeply flawed.

middlesex occupation escalates

Sebastian Wright reports on the occupation of Middlesex University in the fight against the closure of its Philosophy Department

Yesterday marked the second day of the Middlesex occupation at Trent Park. Some stayed at the occupation of the Dean’s boardroom, whilst others fanned out across the other campuses at Hendon and Cathill to canvass support. At Hendon there was a surprising amount of security. It was not clear whether this had anything to do specifically with our campaign, or not, but there was certainly a degree of paranoia there. Reception refused to point us in the direction of the Dean’s office, and security guards (about 8 of them in one building!) were checking every ID.

When we finally found what appeared the directorate’s corridor, it was not, then, shocking to discover that it not only had a keypad entry security system in place, but also a privately contracted security guard permanently positioned on the door. If nothing else it goes to show the estrangement of management in universities from their own students and staff when they feel the need to lock themselves away behind multiple levels of security provision.