The Next Step: No. 7, 19 February 1988

VICTORY TO THE PALESTINIANS! SEE PAGE 2

No to divisive deals at Ford's Yes to national action in the NHS

UNITY

OR BUST

the next step -7 Revolutionary Communist Party Weekly The action by workers at Ford and in the health service has given the government and employers a fright.

But both struggles are in danger of being knocked back by management's manipulation of divisions in the workforce. And the union leaders involved are guilty of going along with the bosses' splitting tactics. The national strike at Ford closed the company down precisely because it was national. The skilled engineers and assembly line workers at all plants came together to reject a three-year pay and productivity deal. As we go to press, ins however, Ford managers are talking about a new deal designed to break the strikers' unity. Ford seems set to make concessions on work practices to the engineering craftsmen, in a bid to exploit the old divide between its skilled and semi-skilled employees. Action against low pay and cuts by nurses and other health workers has shown the potential for uniting them in a national initiative. The Tories are now working overtime to ensure that this potential is not realised. Their propaganda offensive and their divisive pay proposals seek to split 'caring, professional' fighting fund pay 19 February 1988 health workers. advantage. Support our crusade El 8 and 9 for your tns 40p nurses away from the rest of the We need firm unity in action to counter these tactics. That must mean focusing the struggles at Ford and in the health service on the one need which all workers have in common - the need for a job at a living wage. If we are sidetracked into debates about which workers are most productive or efficient, or which ones deserve skilled status or professional standing, It will undermine such unity and give the employers the Continued on page 2 Thatcher edits the news: behind the Tory censorship -see pages Inkatha: Botha's stooge army see page 10 US elections: nobody for president see page 12 Waldheim's critics are war criminals too see page 11 Tory moralism means misery for us see page 13

for self-determination hey came to my house and dragged me outside. One solder kicked me in the testicles, anther hit me on the shoulders with a wooden stick. Abdel Latif is a 19-year old Palestinian from the village of Salim, on the Israelioccupied West Bank. An Israell patrol dragged Latif and three other youths from their homes and told them to clear the barricades of burning tyres trom surrounding *Then they took us to the streets. front of the village. A bulldozer was waiting there. They made us lie down on our stomachs by the side of the road. I could hear the bulldozer, but I couldn't see it. I couldn't move because my arms and legs hurt too much." The buried the tour STaes Palestinians alive. Villagers had to dig them out with their bare hands and smuggle them to hospital, where they were given oxygen for injected with hours and bronchial dilators. Issam Shtaiyeh is still in hospital with a fracture below his left hip, fissures in both wrists and wollen knee-caps.

other three discharged themselves, afraid that the army would find them and inflict more punishment.

SAVAGERY

This piece of savagery is the atest in a catalogue of torture which the Palestinian people have endured at the hands of the Israeli occupation force. sraell soldiers were terrorising Palestinians long before the recent upising in the occupied territores Decame ue focus of media attention. But 10 weeks of fierce fighting in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have shown that Israel is prepared to use every Palestinian force to crush resistance. On Monday the Israell secret service bombed the PLO boat which was preparing to take Palestinian deportees on a protest voyage to Israel. The upsurge of Israeli violence makes a mockery of the 'peace' moves promoted by Ronald Reagan and Israel's other Western allies.

They know that the survival of Israel means nere CalB -De on the Palestinian CONS DrOHISC self-determination. demaneo! But diplomatic manoeuvres useful in distracting attention from brutal subjugation of the Palestinian people.

SHOT

For the Paléstinians there can be no peace so long as the state of Israel exists. According to official figures more than 50 Palestinians have been shot dead or bludgeoned to death by Israeli troops since the uprising began on 9 December. The real death toll is well over a hundred. Thousands more have suffered broken bones battered boeles. InGer Iron Fist policy. Up to 250 000 Palestinians at a time have been put InGeT CIneM Ine securit forces have shunted thousands of youthful resistance fighters through interned

DUT LOC TCLCNS DOLC

not snoDed toe L2 2S0TMD W 2 • 19 February 1988

VICTORY TO THE

PALESTINIANS!

The assassination of three Palestine Liberation Organisation officers in a bomb explosion this week shows how far the Israeli regime will go to crush the Palestinian struggle resist. Men, women and children armed with nothing more than

SLOTCS

firing automatic rifles. thousands of Palestinian workers have refused to go to work on construction sites, in citrus groves and factories. Israeli troops have forced Palestinian store-keepers on the West Bank to open their shops to break the commercial strike, but they simply pull the shutters down once the soldiers have passed.

UNREST

The authorities are worried by the spread of unrest traditionally peaceful areas Jerusalem. Palestinians such as from inside the "Green Line' pre-1967 Israel against Israel's terror protested taches in tne west bank and aza The official reaction to uprising in Israel confirms that there possibility IS no diplomatic the conflict. The vast majority of Israelis believe that violent repression is The the only way security of the Zionist state. A poll the Israeli dally showed 63 per cent in favour of the government's military Anther 27 per cent advocated still tougher measures. The USA has been critical of Israeli terror, diplomatic solution. Last week launched yet Reagan peace initiative by calling for a Lace-o-ace Arab leaders. Israeli and the time the sallie in creasee al annual aid package to Israel. Israel already gets $3 billion a year from no are THE draining board fetus hit the headlines again last week.

the The media told the story of a 21-week old fetus which allegeay surviveu vor three hours in a metal dish after it was aborted in a Carlse hospital. Police have been called in to investigate. Liberal MP David Alton, author of a paramentary bill to reduce the abortion time-limit from 28 to 18 weeks, has called for an inquest and for the fetus to be issued with birth and death certificates. and The anti-abortion groups STaes Spuc and Life, which leaked the story, have known about the case since last July when the operation took place. So why have they chosen this moment to publicise the story? The media splash has been timed to coincide with the start of the committee stage of Alton's bill. By spreading scare stories about late abortions, the procontronted troops Tens of

HOSE

have also the of settlement to to guarantee the Hadasnot policy. and called for a anoles

USA.

meeting between the At

USA

has multi-billion dollar total and child in Israel. The return of the draining board fetus fetus the focus of public deiane me anato oms hope to bury the issue of women's rights. Almost every attempt to amend the abortion law has been accompanied by a Labour MP James White's abortions by half in 1974. A for Burning by Michael Litchfield and Sue Kentish doctor as a self-confessed

UNITY OR BUST

Ford workers can win their wage claim if they reject all attempts to involve them in divisive productivity deals. Far from turing inwards to argue about skilled and unskiiled status, they need to turn outwards to unite with workers from other motor manufacturers in Britain many of whom are now involved in similar pay and productivity disputes (see page 5). Health workers can win a decent wage rise if they organise national industrial action. A campaign involving one million nurses and ancillary workers in the NHS would be a powerful counter to Tory attempts to divide and rule (see page 4). The first step towards building and maintaining such unity in action is to overcome the influence of the trade union officials who help to keep us apart. Leaders of the transport workers" and engineers' unions act to reinforce

THE BEATING STARTS HERE: ISRAELI 'PEACE-KEEPERS' IN ACTION

The Now a refinancing agreement on Israel's debt means an extra $2 billion handout - a to American subsidy of well over $1000 for every man, woman life lobby aims to strengthen the case for more restrictions on women's abortion rights. By making the desecration of the draining board fetus story. It first appeared in the run-up to attempt to cut the number of for three days. scurrilous book called Babies alleged that aborted fetuses were being made into soap, left screaming on draining boards and thrown into buckets. The authors crucified an abortion fascist with rooms full of books about Hitler, and claimed that doctors were aborting women workers. every worker involved. West's diplomatic games are a charade. Their only purpose conceal the continued oppression of the Palestinian people. A genuine peace can only come through a victory for the who were already in labour.

The Sunday Times revealed the book to be a pack of lies.

The 'fascist doctor turned out to be a Jew, who had lost his wife and son in Auschwitz and was himself imprisoned in Dachau. But this did not stop Ene antt abortion lobby using the book or the press from quoting from it. James White named it as his main source of knowledge. The same stories were circulated in 1979 when Tory MP John Corrie introduced anther private member's bill to change the time-limit on abortion. The press printed hysterical stories about a 20.

week old fetus which 'struggled for life' after an abortion, a 'living' 20-week old fetus which was baptised by a trainee Roman Catholic priest, and a 26-week old fetus which lived on a life support machine We have to expose the hypocrisy of a system which makes a fuss about the unvlable product or d lalt abortion, but which allows wanted premature babies to die daily because of inadequate facilities. The medical stan who carried out the Carlisle abortion have no case to answer. The current time-limit accepted for abortions is 28 weeks: this abortion was well the divisions between craftsmen and assembly line workers, and between carworkers In dispute at different firms.

Health union officials have kept action in the NHS confined to token local protests. And they have echoed the Tories' ideas about the difference between nurses and other health The Tory government will act as one national force gainst the health workers. The car capitalists take a similarly united approach to dealing with disputes. To win, we will have to match their attitude. Activists from Ford and the NHS need to take control of their own struggles, to be vigilant against all management/union attempts to divide them, and to organise national all-out action until they win decent pay and conditions for Palestinian people the and destruction of the Zionist state lies the of WACa

1OUU

their oppression. Daniel Nassim eLS NoS HO vage o Ter: has survived at 21 weeks Hecase ne unes aeo formed. The abortion was carried out on clear medical grounds: there was a serious risk that the baby would be born with a severe congenital abnormality. The fact that women and doctors involved ir perfectly legal late abortions Cal Dee Sees we shows that the establishment has succeeded in creating a climate in which abortion is considered a criminal act.

We have to expose the hypocrisy of those who uphold the absolute right to life of the fetus in the womb, but who deny women facing an unwanted pregnancy the right to control their lives in society.

When asked about the Carlisle abortion. Alton declared that if his bill is passed 'babies like this would be saved. If Alton's bill is passed thousands of women will be damned. They will be forced to have a baby they do not want, forced to throw in their jobs, forced to forsake their independence.

Faced with low-life propaganda about draining board fetuses our aim should be to re-focus the debate on the issue of WHeES TETS. Anne Burton the next step

the next step

WHO WILL

LEAD THE

HEALTH

beat the government and win a decent wage increase and improved conditions is a short, sharp burst of all-out industrial action under their own control.

What they are getting instead is a long, limp campaign of ineffective protests under the control of the trade union officialdom. The only thing which these leaders are likely Here is the agenda of forthcoming protest action planned by the leaders of the TUC, the health unions Cohse and Nupe, and the Royal College of Nursing: 24 February: Scottish TUC day

OT ACOR

5 March: TUC national rally 9 March: RCN lobby of MPs 14 March: Cohse national day of action 13 April: RCN national rally May: RCN petition requesting more funds for NHS The union officials will also call vantous low key local actions, like the weekly two-hour London. This 'plan of action' is even more pathetic than the protests organised by the TUC during the 1982 dispute over health workers' pay. Between Ar and september Lood, te TUC called a total of 12 days or protest described as involving action'. Today, the union officias don't even dare to call their one-day protests "industrial action, never mind "intensive nationwide'. All they can manage are 'protest lines' and feeble gestures, most of which the professional RCN without infringing its 'no-strike' constitution. At the end of their drawn-out, demoralising campaign of 24hour stoppages in 1982 the union leaders signed a deal which left the majority of health workers with a gain of nothing. Going by that precedent, the present dispute the next step Revolutionary Communist Party weekly

WORKERS?

will end with most nurses and ancilary workers winnis less than nothing union officials to control the campaign. The trade union leaders are organising these derisory protests, not to put real pressure on une government, but to try to pull their members back into line. They want to prevent any more outbreaks of unsanctioned strike action by angry health workers. The union bureaucrats are having a varying degree of sucess with this in different parts of the country. The spread of action in the health service, like the strikes in the car industry, has shown how narrow is the much-hyped North-South divide within the British working class. The experience which all workers have in common - that of being exploited by the capitalist class - means that any of them can be forced into conflict with their employer, regardless of where they live.

The health dispute has, weve e pesca neces North-South divide within the movement. The union bureaucrats retain most influence in their traditional strongholds of Scotland and the North. Thus they have been able to bring many near service protests in these areas under their control.

in places where they have no mistory, like London and the South. Thus the health campaign in these areas has been marked by some of the most militant displays of rank and file action. But where the union bureaucracy is weak, those calling for all-out rank and file action have come up against another barrier: the influence of estabilsnea tert-wing organisations. The left is filling in the gaps in the bureaucrats •if we allow the defences, insisting that the only way anead les trough The most militant suggestion left wingers are also ecnoing the union officials' timid the poor NHS, rather than fight for a living wage and Improved working conditions.

to the TUC and health union leaders today seems a far cry that the 'self-activity of the to all industrial disputes. It adapted to the mood of the Thatcherite times. This trend has been evident for a few years now. But the health in the left's descent into defeatism, as it goes down with the sinking ship of the trade union bureaucracy. In the miners' strike of 1984campaign for rank and file control and fully supported Arthur Scargill's leadership.

This proved disastrous, as falled to bridge the divisions among the miners or to win wider solidarity. But at least was easily the most radical No 7 Nuces

SIRIKE!

more days of action under the control of the union machines.

the left has come up with is for a 'one-day general strike' to be organised by the TUC. Leading appeals for public sympathy for campaigning for working class support for the health workers The old left's servile attitude from the past, when it claimed • working class' was the answer indicates how far the left has dispute marks a new low-point argument. 85, left-wing groups refused to Scargil's bureaucratic methods then left-wing activists had the excuse of saying that Scargill Publisher Revolutionary Communist Party, BM RCP, London WC1N 3XX ® copyright Printer Morning Litho Printers Ltd (TU), 439 North Woolwich Road, London E16 Annual suoscripton rates britain and Northern reland E2o• europe and irish Republic 134 e North Atrica and Middle Eas (airmail) £34 • Americas. Asia Central and Southern Africa (airmail) £37 • Australasia, Japan (airmail) £40 • Outside Europe — Al destinations (surface mail) £33.

All cheques navable to Junius Publications ltd Circulation 01-729 3771. Newsdesk 01-729 3771. Correspondence to The Editor, the next step, BCM JPLTD, London WC1N 3XX ISSN 0144 350 X 19 February 1988. Registered as a newspaper at the Post Office

HEALTH WORKERS

OUR FIGHT

For decent pay For better condition trade union leader in Britain.

They can hardly use that one today. The health union officials whose leadership the left is backing are out-and-out bureaucrats without one fighting instinct among them.

They are moderate machine men like Tom Sawyer of Nupe, who has condemned calls for strike action as 'insulting to his union. And the idea that we should look to bumbling TUC chief Norman Willis to organise a 24-hour general strike is a truly grotesque insult to health workers' intelligence. The left's explanation of Its own role as the last outpost of the union bureacracy shows how little It understands about the way to win the health dispute. Leading radicals say that we have to look to the trade union officials to organise action, because there militants or socialists among une near workers to ger independent rank and file initlatives off the ground. There are two big holes in this In purely trade union terms, it is contradictory. If there really are no rank and file activists to put the pressure on. then the union bureaucrats will organise nothing. In which case, the left's argument amounts to advising health workers that nothing can be done. Is that the best we can offer those who have already shown their willingness to hit back at the Tory government?

Editor: Mick Hume In political terms, the left's emphasis on officlal union bodles Is equally misplaced. It may well be the case that there are few traditional trade union militants in the health service today. But a struggle like the current dispute Inevitably throws up new potential leaders, like the workers who have Initiated local protests under their own steam. These people will not spontaneously become the active socialists for whom the left is waiting. That depends on the influence brought to bear on them by the organised left.

Telling them to sit back, stop thinking for themselves and look up to the trade union bureaucrats is the surest guarantee that they will never develop into a new leadership for the health workers. The success of the health workers' struggle depends on their ability to break tree trom the stifling influence of the trade union bureaucracy. They need their own leaders, who are prepared to mount the allout action - with emereenci cover under workers' control which can bring decisive pressure to bear on the Tory government. That will require a political outlook which can cone with all of the Tor propaganda about nurses' patients and so on. It will also require a strategy for uniting all levels of health workers, from nurses to cleaners, in a coordinated challenge to the authorities. The basis for such unity in action lies through emphasising that which all health workers have in common: the need for a basic pay rise and improved conditions, which will allow them to lead a decent life.

Appealing for sympathy for particular NHS services or depicting a group of nurses as an especially deserving case is no substitute. It will cut no ice with the hundreds of thousands of ancillary workers who don't figure in this special pleading, but whose involvement in industrial action is of vital Importance. The one way to eive every NHS emplovee a stake in winning the struggle is by putting the demand for a living wage and better working conditions tor all on top of the list. The task of left-wing activists in the health dispute is not to provide protection for the weaksoots of the unior officials. Instead, we should seek to exprolE Enose weakspots and drive a working class wedge into the wall of bureacracy. We need to politicise the struggle and encourage the emergence of a rank and file leadership through a campaign for all-out action centred on the Issues of jobs, pay and conditions. That should be obvious by now to those wnd have had as much experience of the machinating trade union leadership as has the British left. But it seems that many left wingers are too set in the outdated ways of the official labour movement to make the break. If they insist on lining up behind the useless bureaucrats and defending their hopeless campaign, then health workers will have to view these left wingers as another hurdle to be overcome.

19 February 1988 • 3

W hile nurses have taken militant action better wages and conditions in the health their leading Service. representatives have tried to avoid the issue of living standards in favour of displaying their commitment to a caring NHS. Trevor Clay of the Royal College of Nursing dispute says

CU CIL

nothing to do with pay. Rodney Bickerstaffe of Nupe has renamed "protest lines" lines PICkel called for silent vigils, candlelight rallies and petitions as alternatives to industrial action. The health union Cohse has appeared to take a more aggressive line on nurses" behalf. It was the tirst union to back 24-hour strike action by nurses - al une Maudsley Hospital in London - Q. Is Scotland different in the health dispute? Steward: As well as the attack on wages and conditions we privatisation looming. We've known that domestic catering and laundry services were under threat but we didn't know where the first blow would fall. In January, with 24 hours' notice it leaked out that the union leaders were planning a lobby of token Greatet Health Glasgow Board. reaction of

WOTKCS

Was Uyewhelming. A thousand turned up all privatisation. oppose notice was served not only to the bosses but to the union officials that they won't get things all their own way. •We passed a motion that if one hospital was attacked and took action all other hospitals would take solidarity action. Many of us understood this to mean that if one hospital came out everyone else would. But now lt s interoreted

SUIC

limited form of solidarity action.

So the consequences keeping control and following up the lobby is that divisions may be re-established between hospitals."

Q. Scottish planning? Steward: 'The Joint Trade Union 24-hour Committee proposed action for 24 February. Beyond that they have refused to give any lead sayıng it 1s up to individual hospitals to take what action they want. Angry stewards tried to put forward a coordinated plan for as many hospitals as possible.

recognised that we had to act together. But some only wanted to Drg or certal secuens *In my own hospital, Western, I could see that selective wasi l colse lo wor Beaceewas a joke. We had the mailroom out — two workers! Management did the work and the two men stood like lemons outside with a banner.

One of them phoned in sick, they couldn't see the point and neither could many others. I decided that 4 • 19 February 1988

HEALTH UNIONS' APPEAL TO THE TORIES

HOW NOT TO FIGHT

FOR NURSES' PAY

The evidence submitted by the health workers' union Cohse to the review body on nurses' pay reveals a feeble defeatist strategy start of the al tne The Cohse leadership for walkouts. has outflanked the other health unions by calling a day of action on 14 March. Yet Cohse's submission to the pay review body for nursing staff, midwives and health visitors is fully in line with the approach of the RCN and the unions. It *has apologetic requests, special pleading and dangerous concessions to the divisive policy and Tory government. Cohse follows the other organisations representing opening its case for higher pay with the claim that this is necessary to overcome the employers' problems of recruiting nursing staff and keeping them in the NHS. The union submission details national and regional staff shortages, high Scottish health struggles Alan Harding spoke to a shop steward from Glasgow about the fight for all-out action in the health service in Scotland we had to argue for all-out action and get out as many sections as possible.*, We would get everyone have represented on an action committee with the expertise CICEeCHCy

COVCE

control. And we would stand firm principle on the of olvalsaliol. 110 house tenders. Q. That seems reasonable. what happened? Steward: *The stewards wanted to stick to just bringing out a handful of people. I said that at the next So meeting I would be arguing for allout action, and was told that I would have to stand aside from the stewards' table. Fair enough. Then it was said I shouldn't argue that at all. No way. The mass meeting was scheduled for Tuesday 9 February.

On Monday the Greater Glasgow Health BoaTe teleaseds privatisation plans. Tenders were invited to being services at the Victoria, Stobhill, Gartloch and at all health centres *As soon as the news came out not hospital

WOCCS

Glasgow began to respond. News that strike action was going to be

TUC

taken at stobnill and shifted the discussion

OUT

NOW!

We action £3.95 plus 80p p&p Avallable from Junius Publications, BCM JPLtd, London WCIN 3XX. Cheques payable to Junius Publications Ltd spate of of agency staff. other TUC mixture of the ing paid enough to live on.

NHS

FOT

in HuIses below it. Europe "decency grades of sister average wage organise under motion -Welt no to immediate to all in- So organise! We private contractors. it was a great publicity move.'

Q. What happens next? Steward: D ODICHs.

-LESI

privatise domestic Saske hard at the next action an Victoria will be seting up communication and organisation.

at the

SCOTTISH

SOLUTION?

The working class and the assembly debate Mick Hume and Derek Owen C rates of overtime working to cover vacancies and the widespread use Low staffing levels are a problem for nurses because they end up doing all the extra work. But Cohse's approach confuses the nurses' problem of low pay with management's administrative difficulties. As far as nurses are concerned the starting point of any argument for higher pay must be the fact that they are not bethe big nurses, worry is how to survive on pay levels that are rarely much above Eneow-Dav me ae oreo wes Nearly 40 per cent of nurses earn less than the Council of threshold' €135 a week. Only the higher-paid take home the for non-manual auxiliaries

CO SC

Western. At our mass meeting of comparability, 300 on Tuesday a proposal was put for two-hour action or a day, with the emphasis on the more token action. But when I argued for allother occupations: out action it went down well. A forward for an one-day strike. of qualified hundred people, mostly domestics, formed a picket line. It was so rapid that we left no emergency have cover at all and had to go back and knew that some union bureaucrats had plans to go private POSSIbIC contractors to ask them not to be So we went down to demand no negotiations.

the job they do. Over a hundred workers went and Cohse You can still see the unIons Call The fact that Astms Surale members didn't come out could reinforce divisions. The domestics are less sure now that it's worth coming out because it was mostly them on the picket line. It made it clear to me how important it is to have rank and file control of the by We will now be pushing meeting for committee and WC the necessary feebleness

IS THERE A

are so badly paid.

DEFENSIVE

The unions' Tories whelmingly South-east, to discontent and липку0 LinnkTO

MA SYOL

COHSE'S BALLOONS AND PUBLICITY STUNTS WILL NOT DEFLATE THATCHER workers - around f220. All other nursing grades fall well below this average, with most students and and getting considerably less than half this rate.

Cohse is reluctant to specity the sort of flat rate increase that would be necessary to provide nurses with a living wage and the measures necessary to win it. But it is keen to the that gverttent nurses deserve more money. It tries to do this through external nar that by showing nurses and auxiliaries are being Dae ess man wo kers wine simla levels of skill and responsibility in •Cohse...believes that a proper evaluation of what the whole range and non-qualified nursing staff jobs entail.. will clearly indicate that nurses' jobs been considerably undervalued when compared with jobs with similar job profiles."

Cohse believes that providing such information about nurses to the review body 'should lead to them being paid a fair remuneration for to belleve that

SCCTUS

wage bargaining is an intellectual exercise or a game of cricket. If the convincingly demon- The to the review body that nurses have had a raw deal, then Cohse expects that the bosses will do the decent thing and pay up. In the real world, bosses pay up when they are threatened with industrial action, not when they are swayed sentimental The dl CUHCHLS naivete of the union leaders about the elementary laws of the class struggle is almost pathetic: 'Cohse can see nothing in the nature of the job nursing auxiliaries do which warrants in absolute terms such a low remuneration.' It is not so 1. A much the nature of their job as the of their union that explains why nursing auxiliaries response to the divisive tactics being used by the also reveals their overand defensive Tory health minister John Moore has proposed regional pay rates for nurses, with higher rewards in the make it easier to attract staff where shortages and highest. Cohse run replies that this will "be inefficient because the costs of administering WOrK monitoring will

TISE

substantially'. They also argue that G000 LucK GC regional differentials would not solve the problems of recruitment retention'. But we should reject Moore's attempt to deepen divisions in the nurses' ranks, not because il migul cause problem for the employers, but because it would further undermine the unity ot the nurses The unions apologetic arguments and their failure to counter divisive Tory ploys concedes the propaganda advantage to the government.

Cohse's response to management threats to remove "special duty payments' - the issue thai provoked the night-shift protest in Manchester last month equally feeble. This mighty union *sincerely hopes that the review body will dismiss these proposals from management. Cohse follows up with a grim warning that if the review body accepts the proposals, then we might be faced by a major within the revolt nursing profession.' The use of the word 'we' is signiticant - it indicates that any eruption of militancy among the nurses would not be initiated by the union leaders and that it would them well as management.

DIRECTION

leaders of the health unions and their policies are a serious obstacle to the fight for better pay and conditions for nurses and all health workers Activists in al unions in the health service need to get together at hospital, regional and national level, to work out a give political strategy that can direction to the spirit of militancy demonstrated in recent weeks.

Two basic issues need to be resolved: demand, ilat rate pay calculated not according to spurious comparability or job evaluation criteria, but according to what health workers need to ensure a decent living in 1988; 2. A plan for nationwide all-out indefinite industrial action, with full emergency cover under rank until the contro!, government pays up. The current drawn-out programme of fragmented regional protests suits the needs of the union leaders low-key, controllable but puts no real callsalell pressure on the Tories. We need to out tactics that hit the government and maximise working class support for the health workers.

the next step

s we go to press rumours A abound about secret talks and shady deals at Ford. While strikers have been taking turns to man picket outside 22 Ford plants throughout Britain, their union leaders have been holding secret talks with management. On Monday the media leaked details of two concessions which transport union Todd (TGWU) chief Ron engineering union leader Bill Jordan (AEU) were set to pursue at negotiations starting on Tuesday.

These developments threaten to divide the workforce the strike. The first compromise revealed by the media was management's announcement that it was pared to discuss a two-year deal.

Ford strikers have been unanimous company's the opposing demand for a three-year pay and productivity package. Many might • do significant advance for the union side. Some will even be tempted to accept it. But they should remind themselves of the conditions of the previous two-year deal agreed leaders to

UHOH

January 1986.

POLICE

The 1986 pay deal outlawed unofficial action and tied the unions sustaining uninterrupted production'. District union officials' stewards taking unofficial action matched management's determination to out trouble-makers warnings and dock bonuses. The 1986 two-year deal had the effect of turning the unions shopfloor police accountable the employers rather than their members don't want to repeat this experience. Ford workers rejected their union leaders' recommendation to accept a three-year deal, and they must do the same with any two-year offer. Any pay deal must be based on what we need now, and we should decide when we need more.

The second concession which the unveiled was commitment by the company to review proposals for further flexible working. Ford's original proposals would have meant skilled maintenance men (grades four and five in the company's pay structure working part of their shift on the assembly line, under semi-skilled the supervision of "team leaders' (grade three). One reason way skilea workers went strike was to preserve the demarcation between 'time-served craftsmen' engineers - mainly and electricians and workers. Grade two semi-skilled production workers whom belong to the TGWU were equally unwilling to work alongside higher grade operatives who would receive more pay for doing the same sort of work.

RANK and file activists must take advantace of the general unrest in the motor industry to work out a plattorn ou demands and a programme of action to unite all workers across the industry. Apart from the 32 500 Ford strikers, 6000 workers at the Land Rover factory in Solihull have voted to take strike action from Sunday against productivity package. Workers at Renault's van plant in Dunstable are set for action. At the vauxhal car plant in Luton.

the situation is more confused.

one against a strike, while transport workers voted by a narrow margin to come out.

the next step and split prewhich in shop force We Striking workers cannot afford to trust their union leaders and their employers to reach a deal that satisfies everybody. Management have suspended its appears to attempt to blur the demarcation between skilled workers, but it is still keen to wrest further flexibility and speed-ups from semi-skilled workers. means that skilled workers will be under more pressure to accept the new deal than semi-skilled grades.

The employers are out to split the strike wide open by stirring up sectional conflicts among workforce. Not one striker has anything other gain management to divide our forces.

of The known that productivity strings would add to sectional divisions.

Linking Wadd working is their tried and tested method of exploiting such tensions.

Spread the action Since Vauxhall's other car plant at lesmere Port has voted to accept the company's offer, union officials may claim there has been a majority decision against strike action. Activists must reject their attempts to put a block on strike action, and set about swaying moderate workers to their side.

They should also try to bring out the Bedford van plant in Vauxhall's GM-Isuzu subsidiary.

industry has surged back into prout over me past two years: the employers are under pressure from the expanding hitech Nissan plant in the Northeast. Firms competing with Nissan's total flexibility outfit Whatever shabby deal their union leaders work out with management behind the scenes, Ford workers need to take decisive action to hold their strike together for the full claim

STRING

No suan

3 YEAR DEN

MURPHY

No MORE TALKS

•RMS

AS STRENTH

STRIKERS STARTED OUT ANGRY AND EAGER FOR ACTION...

To restate their refusal to consider any productivity strings. Instead they should make the issue of low pay, which affects employees, a unitying focus.

and semi-skilea threat of redundancies, confirmed by Ford last week, also hangs over This every worker. pay for every worker is the only une employers. The union the any deal they do in secret talks by allowing awavs prolonged struggle to win acceptance for a compromise settlement.

flexible Their disorganisation of the strike makes succeeding in securing a return to cannot afford to relax their drive to hold down wages and revolutionise work practices.

But nor can workers in these firms afford to give an inch on wages and conditions. This clash of wills has led to the current showdown in the motor industry. Just because their employers are in fierce competition for control of the market in motors does not mean that carworkers should securing decent wages and working conditions. The outbreak of unrest across the industry provides the best opportunity for them to unite their forces.

SECRET TALKS COULD SPLIT FORD'S STRIKE

HOLD

work andrew Calcutt the twin avoid falling into this trap strikers must stick together and all hourly paid Fighting for every job and decent a dull routine.

SIDELINED

basis for uniting our ranks against leaders hope persuade rank and file strikers that behind the scenes is the best that caravans and can be expected. They are counting on their members fighting shy of a with police the prospect of them making the and communication. Activists meetings aired and see each other as competitors.

committee an interest in mechanism. House.

THE LINE

.BUT BUREAUCRATIC ORGANISATION HAS LED

TO PASSIVITY AND ISOLATION

management's terms more likely with each passing day.

To hold the strike together and to hold out for the full claim, rank and file strikers have to confront problems of fragmentation and demoralisation. The vast majority of workers have no active involvement in the dispute and most strikers have no means finding out what is going on.

Two weeks ago rank and file WorKers were eated ate ow WeLL action in forcing union leaders to call a national stoppage and in closing down every factory in the country. Since then, union officials have managed to dampen workers' enthusiasm and turn the strike into At Dagenham union officials soon established a pecking order among the pickets. Convenors spend most of their time inside ramshackle the factory gates. Shop stewards check the passes of staff and apprentices entering the plant, and chit-chat enforcing the

*SIX

picket rule. A handful of rank and file strikers chop wood for the braziers. This sort of organisation has the effect of consigning the majority of strikers to the sidelines, spreading demoralisation among activists and reinforcing bureaucratic control over the dispute If the strike is to achieve the result that rank and file workers need it must involve every worker the decisions and organising the action. Carworkers do not live together in close-knit communities like the miners, and dangers of isolation are so much stronger. This makes it all the more important to find some means of bringing strikers together the improving must press for mass Where problems can be action agreed by the largest possible number of strikers.

official

TG WU

another control IS On Friday 12 Febfile ruary Todd called national officers and plant convenors to Transport Their get-together turned out to be the inaugural meeting of the self-styled strike committee.

• OFFICIAL

PICKEY

Rank and file strikers were not invited. Most of them did not even it had happened. The job of the this exclusive club will be to sell any secret union-mangement deal to the majority of Ford strikers These committee-men are responsible for the sale of 13 000 jobs Dagenham during the las accade. and uncy are the samt people who just three weeks ago telling Ford workers accept management's first offer.

These wheeler-dealers have exercised too much control already.

Rank and file workers cannot let them stay in the driving seat any We should elect our own strike committee and make its members accountable to us.

DANGERS

Local trade union leaders have endorsed the divisive containment of their strategy

SUSCIOIS

Convenors have blocked requests for a meeting of all shop stewards from the various plants (body, knock-down. and paint, trim and assembly) which make up the Dagenham estate. Picketing is along sectional lines organised (body plant at one entrance, engine Dant at another. and so on and there has been no opportunity for direct contact among strikers from various sections. er-wing con Gordon Joe did give venor permission for a mass meeting of assembly plant workers on Monday, it was badly but organised and few strikers turned up. Even wordon Is unwilling to step outside his own patch and call an estate-wide mass meeting. Meanwhile, the danger of a split in the strike grows every day Many strike activists are aware of dangers fragmentation and demoralisation. Some said they are prepared to 'make waves and start talking directly to other sections even if it means being thrown off picket lines by convenors.

They making Must waste no ume m unofficial contact with rank and militants in neighbouring Ford sites and oldlits throughout Britain. The only way to keep the strike solid is to give the strikers a stake in it Andrew Calcutt 19 February 1988 • 5

A DARK ROOM TO ME'

'm Bernie, I'm 23 and I'm an immigrant. I came over with €200, which soon ran when I couldn't get work. I spent tour weeks in a trend's beasil, ten i lound a room In Neasden. There's no hot water, and the kitchen is closed at five o'clock every night. I want to go home to Ireland, but where would I go? My father's not working and my mother only scrapes bv on her part-time job. This is the only place where I've a chance of working."

Bernadette 50000 young estimated immigrants who arrived London last year. She came ir search of work. A few years ago, when foreign-owned assembly plants seemed to be springing ur all over Ireland, she might have got a job at home. But now the big are pulling out. anc nearly 60 percent of all Irish youth aged 15-24 are opting to leave what one called acaa-ena, airty, areary Ireland' for 'glamorous London' It could have been New York for all I knew. I didn't know acists have hounded Mervin suburban Redbridge, on the outskirts of East London. A vear of continual harassment forced the Mitchells to give up their home and move to Mervin's mother's flat in Hacknev.

In March 1987, tns reported that 14 neighbours were taking Mervin to court for 'causing a nuisance' by playing his tiny 9.5 watt portable radio-cassette. When the the prosecution implied that Mitchell's house and car were too good for a black man.

The magistrates

SSUCC

against Mitchell

UTCLION

ordered him to pay £300 costs.

here was chaence against Mitchell. His neighbours ganged up on him because he was a black man lving i an all-wite suburb and the courts were happy to enforce their respectable of racism. "The injunction was always said Mervin's hanging over us, wife Leona. 'I got so paranoid that i our son Joe was out the tront enjoying himself. I would go out and tell him "shush, you've got to be quiet." In the end, we just felt we couldn't go on living there.

"My boy is just three years old," added Mervin. 'But they wouldn't even look at him, never mind say "hello". It was always a worry. Il the took us back to court. there was no telling what we might have to pay. And there didn't seem to be of getting the in- Way junction withdrawn.*

SUBURBAN BIGOTS GAVE MERVIN AND LEONA MITCHELL

A RACIST RECEPTION IN REDBRIDGE

6 • 19 February 1988

YOUNG IRISH

OUT

IMMIGRANTS

anyone. London was like a dark Irish room to me. Kevin arrived from in Cork at 8am September. His first London left him wide-eyed.

the search for soon brought him down to earth. I asked how to get to Kilburn High Road, and eventually I found a Chapter There were two of us in a room not big enough to stand up in. You wouldn't put a cow in there to bear a calf. Kevin refused to be treated like an animal. He moved on, but only to another hostel.

HOUNDED BACK

TO HACKNEY

The Mitchells were forced to withdraw to Hackney. their Redbridge. house night, Mervin noticed a neighbour spying on him as he was about to Heave Cove turned back and parked nearby with his headlights off. He saw his and two others walk over to his house, carrying what looked like Calls. Mervin turned on his headlights, Case they ran away.

PROWLERS

Nobody *can inand three prowlers were doing that night. But the police don't want to prove anything anyway. "They are not interested in what I have to say,' said Mervin. "They only want to arrest me. even when another (white) neighbour brand behalf, the police did not want to know. 'He said "It's all because the man is black." looked at him as if to say, up, don't want we about that" The Mitchells have not given up hope of returning to Redbridge.

"Our home Is our home. Leona. 'And we don't want to give it up.' For the time being, however, thev are bumping into their owr packed floor-to-ceiling furniture, Mervin's mother's flat, In paving the mortgage on a house which the respectable racists of Redbridge have morning But accommodation conducted by the Road hostel. were *in. temporary Housing associations there,' while regularly offer the best une But they 'glamorous London'. One accommodation, Irish recognised get to the

YOU

as wome Cal cleaning or prove what the lump'

RUNAROUND

Short-term, spoke on his and-go. young And they just "Shut to hear said of the new Social Security Bill.

and stopped them Cross last Friday. Detectives turned the college into a interviewing more students, most of them from West Africa. Several were to appear in court to face immigration charges. The raid shows how the police have stepped up their surveillance of the black community. It also demonstrates the use of new immigrants. under police watch for six months. The names of over 40 000 forelen nationals were fed into the home office and matched against information about resident permits, visa applications and passport data. routinely use Holmes in Kevin will be lucky to get off the hostel circuit. In a recent survey Kilburn Irish Youth Action Group, nearly 70 percent of respondents said they accommodation, or homeless'. Council tenants and home owners together accounted for less than five per cent of replies. Only four percent were renting from housing associations. And the proportion of these 'lucky ones' is declining.

are now telling young Irish people to go home and put your name on the list London boroughs travel warrants home to keep them out of the queue for council accommodation.

'Single bedsit, no cooking facilities can get Jobs are not as scarce as decent especially districts like Kilburn, Acton and Hammersmith.

If your fit ng man and Crown Hotel in Cricklewood for 6am, chances are you'll be offered a labouring job on a building site for £25 a day. Young shop work, bar jobs. But jobs which pay a decent, secure wage are few and far between. All the work on offer is low-paid. Most jobs are temporary and on the cash in hand without insurance stamps or sickness cover.

temporary contacts inevitably lead to long lay-offs. But obtaining state benefit is touch- Social security officials Irish through a runaround which makes immigrants ordinary three to four-week delays up under seem like an instant response by Hurther restrictions are due in April, when statutory rights to benefit for 16-18 year olds will be withdrawn under the terms over Ireland. Computerised racism POLICE and immigration officers International Business in King's temporary interrogation centre, immigrants. than 200 detained overnight and are due technology in their war against investigations.

PRESSED

The business school was one of 20 colleges which have been called Holmes monitorine

'LONDON WAS LIKE

Thousands have come in search of jobs, homes and a chance to enjoy themselves. But London has little to offer Irish youth except disappointment. Andrew Calcutt reports from Kilburn IRISH EMIGRES QUEUE FOR JOBS AT 6.30am IN KILBURN young Irish immigrants to cope with poor accommodation, casual low-paid and jobs, and hostility from the state welfare system, they still face the prospect of police intimidation.

'On a Saturday night outside the National Club in Kilburn, you'll find 50 policemen waiting for the boys to come out at 2am. "I don't like you" they say, and put you straight into the van. I've been stopped almost everywhere, just because I'm Irish.' And there is always the threat of being locked the Prevention of Terrorism Act, which allows police to hold Irish people for a week without charge or evidence.

London's young Irish immigrants are victims of Britain's domination investigating murders, rapes and other serious crimes. The King's Cross raid shows that it is also at the forefront of the authorities' drive against black The state has vastly increased its store of information on black people.

Much of this has been obtained through covert snooping "fishing raids' on black workplaces and housing estates, checks on passports and national insurance and medical cards, and information obtained during routine But the authorities also receive information openly, through their 'ethnic monitorine procedures. in the past few years, anti-racists have pressed for the introduction of 'ethnic race checks as a means of combating discrimination. many local councils and government andrew baicun The British establishment has turned the North into a war zone.

held back the economic development of the South. North and South of the Border, Irish youth turn to emigration as a means of escape. Yet when they Britain, they face 1n combined onslaught of slate harassment ahe anu-irish pre judice fuelled by the media.

The thousands of young Irish people now living in the heart of London, with direct experience of the Irish War, are a living reminder to us of what British imperialism has done to the Irish people. But they are also a potentially explosive force to be the fight mobilised in for Irish freedom. departments like the civil service now monitor the racial composition of their workforce.

The government is also trying to check up on the race of Jobcentre users. The Commission for Racial Equality is pushing for the introduction of such monitoring in the next national census. The King's Cross raid shows that any information which the state collects on black people will be used against them. The home office does not discriminate between information obtained covertly and information gathered openly by anti-racists every scrap gets fed into the computer. Far from alding the government in its harassment of the black community, antiracists must oppose any attempt by the state to snoop on black people from ethnic monitoring in council offices to passport checks in dole offices. the next step

TEACHERS: NO

CUTS, NO BANS

THE Tory government has decided to abolish the

MACT LORGOT COUCHE

Authority, but not before Ilea's Labour bosses announced their own 12 per colt cuts prostamme for 1988-89. This will mean the loss of at least 9000 jobs. There will also be less equipment, and a severe reduction in nonstatutory education. These cuts will affect all Ilea workers. Yet last Tuesday's official one-day strike against the cuts involved 5000 people in a virtually silent march. Attempts to vocalise the call for 'no cuts' met with apathy, born out of a real failure of leadership on the part of the Inner London Teachers Association executive. The lita executive have

ABORTION IN CANADA

SHELLEY (letters, 12 February) asks whether recent alterations to Canadian abortion law can be regarded as a positive development. On 28 January the Supreme Court declared that section 251 of the criminal code, dealing with abortion, was in violation of section seven, the charter of rights and freedoms. As a result, the federal state of Canada no longer nas te legal means to regulate abortion. In theory, there is nothing in federal law that says you can't walk into a clinic and get an abortion. In reality, however, little has changed. The constitution allow each province some jurisdiction over the interpretation of federal laws. So, for instance, Ontario has decided that it will pay for some abortions through Write to tus ?

BCM JPLTD,

WCIN 3XX

the next step given in on the issue of no cover for vacant posts, despite real rank and file opposition to the high level of vacant posts. Yet instead of fighting for their members jobs and conditions, they are fighting for their employer, llea, in the face of its abolition; an employer, incidentally, which has implemented proposals the Baker hesitation. A further day of action has been called for 8 March. It is now abundantly clear that we ourselves will have to mobilise llea workers to take strike action and call upon other rank and file activists to support our fight. We need local

CAMDEN

SCHOOL

FOR GIRLS-

its equivalent of the NHS, while British Columbia says that abortion committees (a panel of doctors who decide on eligibility) will be retained, and that doctors can only perform the operation in specially designated hospitals. In Prince Edward Island you cannot cool anywhee for love or money. The consensus is that some form of regulation is necessary. The old law may nave nave been too blatant about denying women's rights. But the rights of fetuses' is the question that concerns everyone now. It is likely that before the year is out the establishment will have formulated law that will reinforce restrictions on abortion, without giving offence to legal academics. Janice Bryan East London letters page picket lines, leaflets and petitions to advance the campaign. But most importantly, we need to 8 March. NUT members Hackney EARLIER this year, myself and some other teachers got a motion passed at our trade union branch in support of our Fight Alton's Bill campaign activities, calling for free abortion on demand, and donating £40 to the group. I am disgusted to find out that the National Union of Teachers has issued a circular which bans motions on funding groups 'not directly related to education and the professional interests of teachers. All NUT members must fight to ensure that their branch opposes this ruling. A good way to win support against the ruling would be to ask colleagues to read the centre page article in tas 6 (12 February), which shows how essential it is for trade union members to discuss and act on political issues whether related to the workplace or not. Adrian Southwark

STOP THE

'QUEER-

BASHERS'

A FRIEND of mine was leaving the New York club to visit the gay centre in Manchester. It was cold and pouring with rain. But one bigot had braved the bad weather to act as a policeman for the Tories' attack on lesbian and gay 'You dirty poof rights. bastard, wait till I get my nands on vou he screamed. People like him think they are doing society a favour by beating up queers'. Anyone who feels like it can go out and enforce the moral laws of this society. Coming up against the silence of the authorities has brought it home to me that the government wants to label me as an outsider. I'm not keen on politics. but can see have to fight. Manchester I ATTENDED the National Union of Students' lesbian and gay conference at Newcastle University in January. It seemed as if the organisers had done a double-booking with Tory because queer-bashers while we were in the bat on Saturday night, we were verbally and physically abused by rugby club types who hurled bottles and chanted the sort of things that we have come to expect from bigots With Clause 28 hanging over us, the incidents at Newcastle show the sort of climate and attitudes which lesbians and gay men are subjected to, even within the 'trendy' student milieu. Dave Newcastle ALTHOUGH a lot of workers joined the health Liverpool, the majority did so m her own time, oy taking sick leave or a school, eight teachers took pereavemen eave for the afternoon! that workers cover their backs in this way, when union leaders have such low horizons. Local Nalgo chiefs called for a one hour strike at lunchtime because they did not consult management However, they did not workforce either. As a result, many counci SARAH (letters, 12 February) implies that health workers should go on strike without providing emergency cover.

After years of slavery wages followed by talks and more talks, I can identify with her sense of frustration. But I disagree with the conclusions she has drawn. Our union leaders have got together with management to arrange 'emergency cover' which is far more extensive than the usual nurse-patient ratios. This manoeuvre is part of their attempt to reduce our action to a series of adverts for nurses professionalism' and 'commitment. It all adds up to a disgraceful strategy which will produce nothing but a series of belly-laughs for the Tories. Yet this does not mean we should abandon the whole idea of emergency cover. Our aim must be to put maximum pressure on the

SOLIDARITY WITH HEALTH WORKERS

workers never even knew they were 'on strike Against this background of evasion, the news that Vauhall carworkers at Ellesmere Port had taken strike action for the day was enthusiastically received by demonstrators. The carworkers' action showed the potential for militancy. It also, by implication, highlighted some of the widespread doubts as to the effectiveness of strike action. One Vauxhall militant told me he was buoyant about getting his brothers out for the health workers, and maintaining the plant's record of coming out in solidarity

EMERGENCY COVER:

UNDER OUR CONTROL

Tracy with other workers, eg, the miners. But he was pessimistic about fighting his own bosses over day and pensions at Ellesmere have just voted to accept conditions deal. He says they were forced into 'good industrial relations' so as to enable Vauxhall to compete with Nissan's new factory in the Northeast. Nevertheless, Vauxhall carworkers should be congratulated for the action the took it showe other workers what can be Ralph Liverpool For decent pay For better conditions government by asserting our right to decent pay and conditions, and winning active support for our fight from other workers. We will not achieve this by pretending that all hospitals are like car factories which should be shut down altogether in the event of strike action. What we need to do is get ourselves into a position where we create as much disruption as we see fit.

In other words, we want to make sure that rank and file workers, not health authority managers or trade union officials, make the decisions on what constitutes emergency cover and how to organise it.

Like every other question in connection with health workers strikes, it's all about 'who is in control?' If we get that right, nothing can stop us, Bloomsbury health worker 19 February 1988 • 7

the propaganda

MAGGIE, NEIL

AND DIRTY DEN

A NEW soap opera is about to hit our screens. Joining Dirty Den and Angle, JR and Sue Ellen and Des and Daphne will be Nell and Maggie. Last week, after having said "No' 10 times since 1966, MPs voted to televise the house of commons.

The cameras should be rolling by October. Of the major industrialised countries, only Britain, Ireland and New Zealand still keep cameras out of parliament. In Britain regular radio broadcasts of the house of commons began in 1978. The house of lords has been sending television viewers to sleep since 1985. So why the fuss about cameras in the commons?

SULLIED

Labour MP Joe Ashton is would misrepresent the work of Nirs. Consuluents Will say, "I've sat here watching television for seven hours and I've never seen our local MP 'he claimed. "They won't once, understand that the poor bloody sod has been upstairs in committee or leading a delegation to ministers. Ashton's defence of the overworked MP Is moving. But for anyone naive enough to believe that absent MPs with fat expense accounts are really stewing away in a committee room or debating the finer points with ministers, there could hardly be a better cure than watching seven hours of parliament daily. Ashton is also worried that the hallowed traditions of the house could be sullied by *lesbian Vikings coming over the balcony four times a week' if cameras were present. It's a concern shared by Norman Tebbit, worried that television will introduce bias into the proceedings. The Chingford Skinhead showed he was not a man to tolerate bias when he went to great lengths to expose the supposed anti- American and anti-British bias of the BBC coverage of the joint US-British air raid on Libya in 1986.

NAIVE

The idea that television has the power to misrepresent the government is as big a myth as the notion of a hard-working MP. There has rarely been a period when the government has had such control over the media. The real difference opponents of cameras in the house is not about misrepresentation or manipulation. It concerns their understanding of the British political process. The guardians of British democracy on the left belleve that television can democratise Thatcher's Britain. The Morning Star argued that television would 'make parllament more responsive to the needs of British people'. "Too often,' it claimed, members of the house of commons have been Incined to see temselves as an exclusive club, wedded to anachronistic rituals and an even more outdated contempt 8 • 19 February 1988 war for the public. Thatcher and Tebbit have a more cynical understanding of the inner workines of democracy. They recognise that the house of commons is an exclusive club — the 'gentlemen of England' as Tor MP John Stokes described it during the debate last week.

Parliament's arcane traditions are not the result of a lack of accountability. Parliament plays no role in the real decision-making process in British society. Its sole function is to carry out the 'anachronistic rituals' that pass for democracy.

REDUNDANT

The Tories have always recognised that parliament is a redundant institution when it comes to decision-making. AS Tory MP John Biffen pointed out: The prime minister chose Panorama, not parliament, for the announcement of the wide review of the NHS. This might have been 'good tactical judgement', he added, but it did not reflect a generous judgement on the status of the The establishment fears that televising the house of commons would reveal it for an empty talking what It IS shop. It would expose British democracy as a set of "anachronistic rituals covering up the fact that real power lies not in parliament but in a centra ised oureaucracy watched over by the executive and an increasingly milltarised state apparatus. Decisions are made not through reasoned debate in the house of commons but according to what is necessary for the ruling class and what is possible given the prevailing balance of class forces.

CHIMPS

My concern is for the reputation of the house,' Thatcher told parliament last week. Well might she be worried. For more than 50 years stability in British politics has been maintained through the working class accepting the fiction that parliament gives the public a say in the running of the country. It's a myth that maintain control largely through consent and with the minimum use of force. The more people sec parliament da just a 'chimps' tea party without the charm', as the Sun delicately put it, the more they will question the assumptions on which their consent rests. It is this that terrifies the establishment. This is a development that we wholeheartedly welcome.

We want to see cameras in the house of commons because we measure that support any exposes British democracy for the sham It Is. The sooner that workers recognise that members of parlament have no more say over policy than do the regulars in the Queen Vic the sooner they will turn to the can determine only arena that their future - the class struggle. Kenan Malik hese place for respectable figures in the media and the establishment to accuse the government of "bullying censorship becomes an everyday occurrence. Some daring critics of Thatcher's style ventured to use The Italian there is something irrational about government's the unites activities ponents right and left. While it is undoubtedly the case that the Tories' Spycatcher has gained a momentum of its own, this view obscures the rational kernel of Thatcher's policies.

The of

CECCE

clampdown on the media has been

CLOSLCI

restraint and conformity in British society. From the point of view of the establishment this is essential prepare the ground exercise of open censorship and repression which will be necessary to silence the real opponents of the system in the future.

CHERISHED

It is not difficult to see why the Tories have upset the sensibilities of such committed defenders of the status quo as Marmaduke Hussey Richard backsences The past 12 months are littered with examples of the government riding roughshod over privileges and prerogatives which they have long cherished solicitor's office sends out letters to newspaper editors almost weekly requesting an undertaking not to publish if action no forthcoming. The restraints and injunctions against the media as a matter of course.

The police conduct raids on the offices of the BBC and the homes journalists of disregard for the lofty ideal of of speech. freedom home office watchdog committee monitors the violence on the small screen.

age of permissiveness is surely over.

MOTIVES

The Spycatcher saga, by virtue of its scope and longevity, is the most blatant example of The clampdown. argued all along that their concern safeguard But services. government's legal action, after the Spycatcher become public knowledge, raises questions about its motives.

For Sale

SPY

CATCHER

days it is no longer of spectacle considered a sign of lefttravelling wing lunacy to ask if Britain is becoming a police state.

It has become common- 'authoritarianism" as senior judges have even the label totalthat presumption arrogance. apparently censorious against Thatcher's oplords is crusade to ban of dementia. Countless the Tories' atmosphere sustained by logic. for the that appeal tribution BBC chairman rationale for and Tory Shepherd.

STRICTURES

Thatcher's The treasury suppress ceptional stories and threatening undertaking courts issue that it can measures with such a threat. with casual And a new more censorship. extent of sex and last week's the the government's endorsed the official Tories have had been But the security world. the timing of the allegations had both the security The ministers senten half-way around the world to suppress a book whose story has become as familiar as the plot of EastEnders has earned the government a reputation for pigheadedness. The fact that Thatcher has dismissed the opinions of seven two in the high court, two law lords in informal session and three in the appeal court - who have overruled the censors is cited as evidence of her After week's last ruling conclusive the government in the appeal court, Thatcher's insistence on taking the case to the house of adduced as a sign editors, judges and politicians have argued that the government's case for doggedly pursuing a permanent injunction against newspapers divulging the contents of the book cannot be They profess puzzlement at the argument that will Spycatcher's revelations damage the security forces, given its contents have becom common currency. Indeed this was the import of last week's court of judgement. John Donaldson, the master of the rolls, argued that the worldwide dis- Spycatcher had destroyed all secrecy in the book's contents and had thus removed all Unbanning deterred, the government sought and was granted leave to appeal to the lords against the decision.

It should be obvious by now that not to

CONCCI H

Peter Wright's unexobservations operation of the security forces.

Her intention is rather to establish the principle that the state has the a threat to national security, and take extraordinary of censorship to dea The Tories might have lost the Spycatcher case in the courts, but they have strengthened the case for Thus the important thing about should court appeal O1 judgement was not that it rejected request

LOT

permanent injunction, but that it Thatcher's call for to restraint. The judges made a purely pragmatic decision that Spycatcher could not be suppressed since it published around the upheld the they principle of tighter state censorship Sir John Donaldson issued strictures against services and the media. He ruled that members and year Pandora Anderson ment - of London December defence, repression, public Chrle Beresford

THATCHER HASNT STOPPED PEOPLE READIN

FROM

ZIRCON TO

SPYCATCHER

CE Many people reg to suppress Spyc that there former members of MIS and MI6 succumb to the

HOL

temptation to break their vow of silence, and that the media must ponder the needs of the nation' before printing material pertaining security service which indeed secret. The upshot of the Spycatcher saga has been to foster an acceptance of censorship and repression among wide sections of British society.

RECASTING

The climate of censorship began to be established during the Tories second term of office after the 1983 general election. In October that Sarah the courts jailed Tisdall, a clerk at the foreign office, for giving information to missiles. Cruise December 1983 an MIS inquiry led to the dismissal of employment department official Ian Willmore who divulged information to the listings Time magazine Out. In January 1984 the Tories announced their intention to outlaw trade union membership at GCHQ, the government spy centre at Cheltenham, amid allegations of leaks of top-secret information. In 1984 the government prosecuted Clive Ponting, a senior civil servant at the minıstry after details the Belgrano affair were leaked to MP Tam Dalyell. These episodes were important test cases for the government in its step-by-step approach to recasting the political climate. Over the past Tories two years, however, the have accelerated the pace of change Today acts of censorship and which SeEI exceptional a few years ago, are now accepted as par for the course.

The key to the Tories' success lies in their redefinition of the 'the interest to mean

SPYCATCHER, BUT SHE HAS STRENGTHENED THE CASE FOR CENSORSHIP

THE AGE OF

SORSHIP

rd Margaret Thatcher's concerted efforts tcher as irrational - Joan Phillips argues is method in the Tories' madness

RAIDED: DUNCAN CAMPBELL

national interest'. In the past it was seen as the task of newspapers to publish what the public wanted to Today it appears that the task of newspapers is to publish what the state wants the public to know. result ne Has been growing clampdown on press and television coverage of remotely pertaining to defence and security matters, and the definition of 'the national interest' has been extended to cover issues of sex and morality too. in October 1986 government obtained an injunction to stop the broadcast of the BBC Secret Society which series included a programme on the Zircon spy satellite project.

Zircon project was far from being secret, but this did not deter the Tories who were keen to use the issue as a lever to open the door to more censorship. The Zircon controversy raged into 1987 and culminated in Special Branch raids headquarters Scotland, the home of journalist Duncan Campbell and the offices of the New Statesman. The BBC has been the main target of the Tory clampdown on the news. In June 1986 Tory Party chairman Norman Tebbit launched an unprecedented corporation for its coverage of the joint US-British air raid on Libya.

Tebbit accused the *uncritical carriage of Libyan propaganda, disloval conduct tolerated in future. If anything the BBC coverage was more blatantly bro-American and than ITV's, but this was of no concern to a government which wanted to set a precedent for stricter controls on TV broadcasting. The Tories pressed home their advantage later in the year by BBC's accusing. the programme of persistent wing bias. At the height of the Spycatcher controversy in December 1987 the government was injunction against BBC to prevent the broadcast of My Country: Right or Wrong, featuring interviews with three former members of MI5, three former MI6 agents ana two tormer The injunction were draconian, effectively revenugue broadcasting any programme the containing interviews with past or present members of the security and intelligence services, or even including information about them.

The programme had been given The go-ancad by Committee, the system of voluntary self-censorship by the media allows minister to veto a story if it is believed to endanger The Tories

SCUTELY.

aware of the plans to broadcast the programme but bided their time before issuing an injunction in a calculated to promanner voke uproar. Yet made an issue out of a programme which contained harmless material but mentioned tighten its control over the media.

In similar government created a stink about Tory backbencher the Official Secrets January. that she would not tolerate any attempt to revise the terms of the act. should withdraw his bill until the government itself drew lation Shepherd's year. Information Bill was presented as a legitimate attempt to preserve national security, but it was given the ton-of-bricks treatment nonetheless. The ordered a full Tory turn-out under a three-line whip to kill the bill.

Thatcher's provoked one to the atmosphere of censorship which the Tories have cultivated so assiduously.

REGIMENTATION

Warner, trade and industry investigating dealing by civil servants.

which reports predicted the journalist divulge to the government formation given of laws. number authorities could 18 C the on

BBC

Day Speech warning that such would not be pro-British clever ploy the Sun. But the regimentation of the press.

Panorama left- Another act granted an Radio Four Armagh in 1982. into inquiry revealed that terms of the BBC trom

JOHN STALKER'S

SHOOT-TO-KILL INQUIRY

WAS SHELVED IN THE

PUBLIC INTEREST

the D-Notice government national were well again the government had integral part buzz-word 'national security, as a device to fashion the advantage Richard Shepherd's bill to reform Section 2 in Ireland. Act Thatcher made it clear and insisted that Shepherd up legisstop later in the. parliamentary Protection of television. new prime minister screening

SLUE POS

of the biggest backbench revolts in her nine-year

SERVILE

rule, but it had the effect of adding The impact There are countless examples of how the government has widened the scope of censorship. At the end of last year the courts fined Jeremy the business correspondent of the Independent, for refusing to identify his sources to officers from the department of who were enough insider alleged Warner was asked to reveal sources for two

CO CELY

outcome of City takeover bids. It now appears that official who refuses inconfidence government's lies. could risk prosecution under any While the stopped short of regime at the BBC. making a martyr out of Warner by sending him to prison, they scored a success by making editors think twice about printing information construed contrary to the 'national interest.

The new The Tories have twisted every Hussey, leak by press and television to their advantage. The government seized on leaks by the Sun about the the government. content of the Queen's Christmas and the recipients of New Year honours to launch a panic about breaches of confidentiality by the press. This had the desired effect of making every newspaper editor round on the Sun for bringing the good name of the press into disrepute. It was a more by the government because everybody loves to hate of the consequence scandals controversy will be an even harsher of censorship perpetrated in 'the public interest' was the recent decision to shelve the Stalker-Sampson report on the deaths of six unarmed Irishmen in The prolonged the Royal Ulster Constabulary's shoot-to-kill policy against nationalists and republicans the killings were sanctioned at the highest level. The inquiry itself turned out to be an of the When attorney general Sir Patrick Mayhew announced that it would not be 'in the public interest' to publish the result of the inquiry, he meant that it would not be to the of the state for the British people to learn the truth their rulers' dirty wal The grip of the censors stretches beyond the sphere of state security to cover the arena of morality too.

In September 1987 home secretary Douglas Hurd declared the need to descent into slovenliness' in response to an the outcry about sex and violence on The government set up Standarcis Broadcasting Council to do the job. Last week the council said it would give the BBC and ITV six months to clamp down on sex and violence before considering legislation to make the sex or violence warnings mandatory. Tories' of the the campaign to enforce conformity is evidenced by the fact that all four television channels openly admit that they now engage Even extensive self-censorship.

Channel 4, which still retains a reputation for radicalism, is not immune. On the same night as the courts dismissed the appeal by the Channel Birmingham Six, dropped its scheduled programme Acceptable Levels, which ironically was dealing with the question of censorship and the Irish issue. This was the crowning achievement for a broadcasting which has doctored the version events and censored controversial plays and films so as not to challenge the The government crackdown has produced a particularly servile new The controversies over its Libya reporting and the Zircon affair led to the forced departure of director general Alisdair Milne and others who would not toe the Tory line.

team of Marmaduke Michael Checkland and John Birt have pursued a craven policy of bowing to every whim of On the occasion of Thatcher's celebration as the longest-serving prime minister this century, the producers of Panorama repented of their sins by turning over the programme to the Tory leader to make an hour-long party political broadcast. Nowhere is the Tories' success apparent than on the opposition benches. Labour leader Neil Kinnock's response to the Zircon, Spycatcher and Stalker was to call on the government to be more consistent

STALKER

STALKE

in its censorship. The logic of the Labour Party's position is that the Tories should have taken action against Chapman Pincher wrote Their Trade Is Treachery in 1981 based on conversations with Wright, hounded Duncan Peter Campbell who first revealed details of the Zircon project, and Stalker prosecuted John for breaking the Official Secrets Act by publishing inside information about his shoot-to-kill inquiry. A leadership Labour bending over backwards to prove its commitment to state security cannot be expected to challenge of censorship and emate repression which now prevails.

MOUTHPIECE

There is nothing irrational about Thatcher's policies. The growth of censorship and repression runs parallel to the breakdown of consensus and stability in British period of relative society. ina prosperity and social peace such as te macs and sixues the estadasnment did not need to use the media.

and the police as courts political tools in the service of the government. In an era of recession and revolt the ruling class is compelled to use all the means at its disposal to enforce the interests of the capitalist class, against exploited

TERE

Une and oppressed. Thatcher wants to make the media the mouthpiece the and the employers, government the courts must wield their power against strikers and dissidents, and down resistance to the system. Her campaign of creeping censorship aims people to the

LU ALLUSLO

exercise of repression against the real threat to state security working class 19 February 1988 • 9

en-year old Skumbuzi Shezi was playing in his house in Edendale, a rural shanty town just outside the small city of Pietermaritzburg in when supporters of Zulu Natal, Chief Gatsha Buthelezi's Inkatha movement burst in. They were for Shezi's father, looking prominent supporter of the United Democratic Front. They seized the little boy instead, took him outside and beheaded him. Helmina Inkatha member grand- Shange, a 61-year old mother, was at home with her children and grandchildren when a group of young United Democratic Front supporters came for her.

The youths told the children to get out because they only wanted her, poured petrol over her and set her alight. Helmina Shange was badly burned, but lived to tell her story to the press. In recent months the Western media have revelled in such grisly incidences of the violence in Natal.

STOOGES

More than 400 people have been killed and thousands more have been maimed in fighting between Zulu followers Burne eas moderate Inkatha movement and supporters of the radical nationalist United Democratic Front. According to Western media commentators the violence is the result of "tribal conflict between different black groups. In reality it is part of a political struggle between president PW Botha's stooges in the black community and opponents of the apartheid regime.

Buthelezi has always protested his opposition to apartheid and 'independent" refused to accept status for his KwaZulu homeland.

But ne nas played an uportan role in helping the Botha regime to maintain control. Inkatha is the most successful example of the of using government's strategy black stooges to replace the police and the army within the townships.

Unlike the stooge leaders of South Africa's other "homelands', Buthelezi can claim some support in the Here jobs KwaZulu countryside. are few, the land is overcrowded and overgrazed, and membership of the Inkatha patronage machine is essential for survival.

poverty-stricken rural areas 'warlords" Inkatha's have long ruled the roost, extorting membership dues from local people and anybody who can

COS RE

show an Inkatha membership card.

RIVALS

The recent upsurge of violence is predominantly urban around Natal's major cities. Inkatha supporters frequently terrorise the local townships; their aim is to drive United Democratic rivals out of the area around the city of Pietermaritzburg. Last week after a mass Inkatha meeting, well-armed thugs swept into the township of Ashdown, attacking residents and The following day their property. busloads of armed men arrived in Pietermaritzburg city centre and people in the streets attacked around the local headquarters of the Cosatu union federation. Claiming were looking that they 10 • 19 February 1988 Western pundits blame 'tribal conflict for the recent upsurge of violence in South Africa's Natal province - Russell Osborne explains what's really at stake

APARTHEID'S YOUTHFUL OPPONENTS

amaqabane (comrades), the thugs laid into passers-by spears and knives.

CONTEMPT

Residents of townships all around Pietermaritzburg have laid criminal charges against Inkalna responsible for the killings and in some cases have even obtained court restraining undertaking further attacks. Local In the warlord Sichizo Zuma showed his contempt for such legal niceties by going out and snooung two mel who had just obtained injunctions against him. Witnesses who went off to the police to themselves promptly while Zuma is still at large.

Buthelezi's thugs terrorise the townships, Inkatha's trade union struggle front organisation Uwusa is involved in smashing black unions.

Uwusa is notorious for its sterling Front service on busting British company reign of terror at BTR's Sarmcol factory near assassinating two union activists while local police stood by. This scab union outfit is now assisting the companies attempts to smash the National Union of Mineworkers. A gang of 400 Uwusa thugs killed four NUM members and injured 67 in what for

BUTHELEZI'S ZULU HERITAGE HAS NO APPEAL FOR

faction fight' with clubs, Mine management has returning leaders NUM and join the scab Uwusa.

them from Come airl

WCIC

coup in last week, they paid to dependent homeland. I thank the behalf of the union-

BTR.

week. Mangope, conducted a "independent" Pietermaritzburg, helicopter armoured vehicles in their apartheid regime

ENRE

INKATHA vS UDF

THE TRIBAL

CONFLICT' LIE

community based Inkatha

WILLCIS

joined TOrCes

FETED

In an opposition support for makes him native to the Congress organisations.

AFL-CIO,

Western sentiments him rights in 1982.

POLARISED

with KwaZulu itself. capitalist increasing followers mine management described as a violent Randfontein Estates gold mine a fortnight ago.

divergence tried Natal now. drive home the defeat of last year's national miners' strike by forcing workers to leave the hen South African forces attempted tre Bophuthatswana also myth skei "Inand South African mire Defence Force for helping me get back to power to serve my people, Lucas Mangope told the press last president of the black homeland of Bophuthatswana, was held prisoner gunpoint for 15 hours as his another soldiers staged a coup. Then three gunships and a dozen Transkei. South from Africa came roaring to his rescue.

By returning Mangope to power, the the destroyed any ruled over Buthelezi's efforts to smash the opponents of apartheid have won smash it him the support of the business both inside and 'national outside South Africa. His Durban- Institute is became sophisticated operation of speechanalysts and publicist: financed by big business. In 1986 Inkatha and Natal sugar barons so-called the KwaNatal Indaba, a conference designed to pave the way for a multi-racial capitalist Natal with a power-sharing executive ingly increasingly strife-torn South Africa, Buthelezi is seen by likes to apartheid leaders as a guarantor of capitalist order. He is feted by Western leaders like Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. His to sanctions and his capitalism as liberating force in South Africa bloody an acceptable alter- African National and more The right-wing American labour federation, the rewarded his proby naming of its annual co-winner George Meaney Award for human mass While Buthelezi has forged links Western Nelson governments and South African bosses, he is losing his grip on young blacks within Buthelezi's prohas alienated stance of his numoers

OWE

who now look to the radical UDF to lead the struggle chief's against apartheid. His compromising approach has less and less purchase on the youth who have grown up under the radicalising impact of the past few years of apartheid resistance This growing political why the violence has come to a head in The upsurge of violence in recent months is a power struggle between those who want to make a deal with Botha rescues puppet chief 'independent country. The Botha regime has tried to present the four black 'homelands' of Bophuthatswana, Ciskei, Tran- Venda as independent nations. But the whole system is a nepotism,

COCOLOR.

coercion and murder held together by apartheid terror.

CONCILIATORY

South Africa's suppression of the attempted coup in Bophuthatswana given recent events in close "independent homeland' *first WU Hall prime minister' Stella Sigcau was purged in a coup and succeeded by African-trained anc supported General Bantu Holomisa.

Sigcau herself came to power after apartheid and those who want to Buthelezi founded Inkatha as a cultural liberation movement in 1975 and it quickly the dominant black organisation in KwaZulu. Initially Inkatha tapped into much of the popular nationalist tradition that is common to the African National Buthelezi Congress was African National Congress youth league activist and Inkatha shares the movement's black, green and gold flag and uniform. Increas- Buthelezi has however, relied on appeals to a narrow Zulu chauvinism to rally support. He identify with past Zulu heroes and particularly the Zulu King Shaka who united disparate clans and established an empire before the coming of the whites.

Inkatha impis (armed vigilantes) commonly chant the ritual battle cry 'Usuthu' before launching their attacks on opponents. proudly claims direct Buthelezi descent from the chief who was Shaka's prime minister.

IRONIC

But King Shaka has little appeal for the increasingly militant and sophisticated youth of Natal. There has been a rapid growth of popular resistance to apartheid since 1983. Many young people feel more affinity with Mandela and imprisoned leaders. Opinion polls show that support for the African Nelson National Congress and Mandela, even among Zulus, is far greater than. allegiance to Buthelezi's Inkatha movement. The Zulu conciliatory stance apartheid has led many former supporters to change their loyalties, in favour of the more militant nationalist organisations.

Western politicians and pressthe keen cl C fighting in Natal as a tribal conflict between two warring factions. This obscures the real conflict that is South taking place in between the apartheid oppressors and those fighting for freedom.

former prime minister Chief George Mantanzima had Africa 'on sick leave', following the arrival of a detachment of Transkei soldiers investigating the embezzlement of government funds.

Such increasingly are embarrassing for Botha. The ragbag placed collection

SLOOLE

positions of power in the nominally independent apartheid homelands are in serious danger of losing control.

They are so corrupt that even their supporters find it difficult to stand in the face of popular revulsion and resistance. The 'independence' of homelands is maintained only South through force of African arms. the next step

M any Nazis tried after the war claimed that they did not know anything about deportations, death camps and mass executions. Austrian president Kurt Waldheim has a novel plea: he knew about the dirty work, but did not do any of it.

•Knowledge crime, nota Waldheim claimed after an international

COSSOB

historians revealed the following facts about his war record: • Waldheim passed on transcripts of interrogations captured Allied commandos which, because meant their of Hitler's orders, certain execution; the 'immediate was of criminal actions" vicinity especially in Banja Luka, Yugoslavia. Bosnia, alouc 'there is no concrete evidence of how he was involved in deportations and camps*; • While in Greece, he 'knew of the deporting Italian practice of prisoners and internees to Germany in September 1943' and of "countless executions', although as a liaison officer' he had little practical possibility of influencing events' • Waldheim turned a blind eye to the 'merciless deportation of entire Jewish communities and the extermination of men, women and enterer muecosccuuauon cartos took five The 200-page report months to complete. Although the commission left a good stones studiously unturned (one member apparently spent just two and a half hours leafing through the huge Yugoslavian collection of war crime files), it could not help Waldheim. commission members were struck by Waldheim's capacity for lying about his war

TECOTE

concluded that, although there is no firm evidence of Waldheim pulling he was guilty of involvement in 'human violations" rights and vious injustice'.

COMPLICITY

Whatever excuses the commission invented for the president, there is no doubting his complicity in Nazi war crimes. It should be clear that when the next step of West Waldheim, the elder statesman of the Austrian establishment, was a young intelligence officer in the German army, he acted as a willing agent of Nazism. Yet Waldheim's war record is exceptional. far from German and Austrian Nazis who played a more senior role in the holocaust survived to pursue post-war Many STOmLCHl public life. And there remains a body of support for substantial Waldheim which reaches to the top of Austrian society. When Waldheim's Nazi past was first exposed during his presidential The election campaien In allegations provoked a They nationalist support which carried him into office. The scandal has been rumbling 'morally along ever since; meanwhile, the president's popularity home has risen by 20 per cent.

'ob- When the Waldheim affair began to make headlines again in Europe and the USA last month, most Austrians seemed more concerned with the lack of snow in their ski resorts. Only last week in Austria, 72 per cent of respondents told an

THE WALDHEIM AFFAIR

AUSTRIA'S

ANSCHLUSS

FACTOR

Fenna King looks at the war crimes of Austrian president Kurt Waldheim - and at the hypocrisy of the other Western war criminals now calling for his head opinion should stay in office regardless of whether or not he had lied.

the president express reluctance to confront its past. The Many country has a history of chauvinist violence and victimisation which stretches much further back than Austria's integration into the Nazi Reich in 1938 careers In

PREJUDICE

From the end of the nineteenth century, Austria's rulers held their weak state together by mobilising public prejudices against Jews and 1986, the Serbs and Czechs, Magyars and surge of When Slovenes Hungarian collapsed in 1918, minorities gained independence in the new states LaLle dr Bulgaria, dominantly young 'German Austria German Republic.' into Austria virtually banner Anschluss of annexation, dispersed 89 countries).

CONTINUITY

swastikas. the Nazis activate the Austrian society. sweeping the country. insults and

LUC CILY

rant workforces right-wing also popular rian nationalism.

SHAKEN

The coalition' president's more right-wing pollster that Waldheim Franz Vranitzky These displays of solidarity with Austria's country international Friday Gruber, reaction historians 'socialists the many national minorities like as Jewish stock'. Austrothe Habsburg empire most of these Hungary, within Czechoslovakia and This left the German-speaking population in Austria. The ruling class used Great Austro-German chauvinism, directed against their anniversary roaches in March. former subject peoples and the Jews, as a way of cohering the In Austrian republic. November 1918, the new state's founding document asserted that is part of the Plebiscites in 1921 in Tyrol and in Salzburg produced overwhelming majorities for annexation by Germany. Hitler's forces marched on 11 March 1938 unopposed, under the 'One People, One Reich, One Fuehrer'. The annexation — - unleashed a fiercer anti-semitism within Austria. Hitler's chief of propaganda, Goebbels, complained that Jews ran everything up to and the famous Salzburg Festival. Austria's role in Nazism was clear: within one year of the Vienna's Jewish population had fallen from over 200 000 to less than 70 000 (they by emigrating into in The chauvinist consensus Austria did not disappear with the marked There Is a continuity between the support for ou vears ago and the acceptance of racist ideas today.

The Waldheim affair has helped to antı-toreign DILLeH sentiments which were slumbering just below the civilised surface of A new wave of nationalism is now Anti-semitism is not the central focus of this resurgent chauvinism.

Austria's past persecution of the Jews has meant that only a few thousand remain in Vienna. They still face physical threats, especially in the Leopold district of But the more numerous minority communities and immigtaken the nave place of the Jews as the number one targets. The Slovene community in the southern province of Carinthia (power base of Joerg Haider, new leader of the extreme Austrian Freedom Party) faces segregation in schools and elsewhere. Turkish, Yugoslav and other immigrant workers are of Aust- Largels Waldheim affair has embarrassed Austria internationally and shaken the ruling 'grand between the socialist SPO and the conservative OVP.

But it has also brought the ruling class chauvinists running to the defence. The

OVP

leadership, which picked Waldheim as presidential candidate in 1986, threatened to dissolve the coalition and form a new one with the even Freedom Party, unless the SPO dropped the call for Waldheim's resignation. In a crisis cabinet session socialist chancellor the bowed pressure from the right, but has since threatened to resign unless the Waldheim affair is resolved.

Waldheim has insisted that he will serve his term till 1992. He retains the firm support of the powerful right wing in Austrian politics, which is portraying him as the martyred figurehead of a small blackmailed by an On Jewish

PIOL

one of Waldheim's top allies, former foreign minister Karl rallied torce. by the denouncing commission members of and people Even if Waldheim is forced out of office, it will not be by any popular rejection of his Nazi past or his present right-wing stance His resignation Austria. would mean only that the Austrian authorities had bowed to international pressure. It would nothing to alter the chauvinist climate in Austria as the fiftieth Anschluss app- OI What about the British war criminals? THE Waldheim affair has made 'Austria-bashing' a popular sport, especlally in Britain and America. The media and politicians have made outraged statements demanding his resignation, and encouraged attacks on all things Austrian.

The Reagan administration has banned Waldheim from entering America. And Tor home secretary Douglas Hurd has joined in by announcing an Inquiry Into the facts about alleged war criminals living in Britain. The anti-Waldheim outbursts from establishment spokesmen on both sides of the Atlantic are a gross display of Waldheim is a war

VSOCHIS

criminal. But the British and Americans helped many worse criminals (like Klaus Barbie) escape at the end of the war, put other ex-Nazis in power, and knew about Waldheim's war record when they backed his successful bid to become United Nations secretarygeneral. Indeed, many of the Western politiclans now posing as democrats to denounce Waldheim are war criminals in their own right. And they serve in much more senior positions than he ever did during the war. Demanding punishment for war crimes committed 40 years ago provides them with a convenient distraction from those being carried out today.

What about Douglas Hurd himself? As Northern reland secretary from 1984-85, he was in charge of Britain's continuing shoot-to-kill campaign against Irish nationalists. Now, as home secretary, he happily deports Tamil and other refugees to face persecution and possible death. Is he innocent? Or take Margaret Thatcher, who was directly responsible for the cold-blooded sinking of the Argentine cruiser Belgrano, with the loss of hundreds of lives. Where is the line which separates her crimes from Waldheim's? The Americans, too are harbouring scores of homegrown war criminals. Among them is Oliver North - like Waldheim a persistent liar, but now a national hero for his terrorist activities. President Reagan has sponsored Contra murder-gangs in Nicaragua, sent his CIA to plant car-bombs in Beirut and, with British help, blasted Libyan civilians into early graves. The rulers of the Western world all have blood on their hands. But there are no commissions digging into the war crimes of these hypocrites.

They have latched on to Waldheim as a convenient scapegoat against which to prove their democratic credentials. If we want to put an end to oppression around the world today, these are the guilty men and women we must bring to book. 19 February 1988 • 11

B efore last week's lowa caucuses, few commentators were prepared to put their on any othe hopefuls for the White House. After the caucuses, the first major media event in the campaign for the Republican and Democratic Party nominations, things looked even less certain. The Reagan adminioutgoing stration may have run out of steam, but the collection of nonentities running for president aren't exactly power-houses either. raised serious doubts •OWa Reagan's vice-president 20OB George Bush, the one candidate who previously seemed closest (though not very close) to being a the Republican statesman. Bush only managed a caucuses poor third behind senator Robert Dole and Pat Robertson, Christian evangelist. Bush cannot shake off his 'wimp' tag. His lame claim that he just cannot remember whether or not he was at the key White House meetings during the Irangate attair has not helped his attempt to play the macho man in the media. In the run-up to this week s Hampshire Bush primary, being hounded again over accusations of collusion with Panama s notorious military dictator General Noriega.

CHARLATANS

The biggest embarrassment for Bush was placing behind Robertson, the preacher who claims to stop hurricanes with just a word to his 'employer in heaven. You've got to give the credit to God,' remarked Robertson after the Iowa result. His success gives a boost to the moral right after the fall from grace of his fellow Christian tundamentalist charlatans and millionaires, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, in an adultery and financial fraud scandal. No doubt Robertson's result helped him overcome the humiliation he faced an underwear factory days before poll, where attempted lecture on moral fortitude was interrupted women workers saving We make naughty black lingerie, the kind Madonna likes." However, he still much chance Has reaching the White House as he has of stopping that hurricane. The short-term success of Robertson's crusade only goes to show how lacklustre the other candidates must be.

ROBERTSON: GOD'S CANDIDATE

On the Democrats' side, Japanbashing Richard Gephardt beat senator Paul Simon (no, not the Paul Simon) governor of Massachusetts Michael Dukakis. But the result was hardly conclusive. Gephardt's lowa victory will no doubt be seen as a vindication of the important change of direction he made two caucuses: decided to darken his eyebrows for the TV cameras. Black candidate Jesse Jackson received nine per 12 • 19 February 1988 the New was cent in a 99 percent white state, but hope has Gary Hart's dismal nomination. return of less than one percent suggests that he should have stayed at home in Troublesome Gulch and made his headlines in the gossip columns. It is not fair to place too much weight on the Iowa caucuses.

lowa is a rural, virtually allwhite state, representing a fraction of the electorate. Only a minority of lowans brave the snow and freezing temperatures to sit in someone's kitchen, living room or barn on a winter's evening and chat about such faceless characters The Iowa caucus poll was first deemed a 'crucial" starting test in resIacnual race unknown named Jimmy Carter by came top of the Democratic poll 1976, launching successful drive to House. But Bush winnine in lowa is not decisive. in 1980 he beat Ronald Reagan there, proclaimed that he now had Big Mo' (momentum) on his side, and then went on to be easily trounced by Reagan in subsequent primaries.

SLOG

The Iowa and New Hampshire polls will narrow the field candidates from the starting total of 13; General Alexander Haig has already retreated from the fray.

But an array of boring men still remain to slog it out until the party conventions in the summer. If the New Hampshire primary produces different winners, as is likely, the confusion will continue. The campaign money spent by all the candidates exceeds $100m, a figure larger than the many third world countries - and remember, these, are only primaries. Mega-bucks can bring usua surrounds American elections, but they cannot buy personalities for the COLLeCs. USA are not noted for depth of analysis or incisive programmes. But the 1988 campaign is exceptionally vacuous.

The pretenders to the crown, each trailed by their personal entourage of charisma advisers and hairdressers, shake hands bemused os aneers recognise them and familiar refrains: "The time is now, we stand al ine Drink, we must challenge destiny, •We must find the future. The most oft-repeated onse canes leadership!", seems a convincing argument against voting for any he of them. The fact that this year's campaign features numerous nobodies vying with each other to cut the least

NOBODY FOR

Everybody says that the race to succeed president certain: American politicians don't have to be in the James Malone reports

CLIC

an

BUSH: "WIMP'

his White pathetic figure is a true reflection of knows that the state of American politics.

mounting economic and political problems facing the USA. American politicians face when they are confronted with the hard questions USA's decline. They are all keen to avoid the issue of the approaching economic recession in a country where a monthly trade deficit of $12 billion is now seen as a success story. The candidates, like the rest of the US establishment, haven't got an idea between them about how to deal with the American capıtalism.

PEANUT

The decline of US power has the sixties flop presidential

GNP

American Ol bemoaned the the stature of the presidency for years.

Sections in the political with and echo the America needs

AMERICAN ELECTIONS

PRESIDENT

Reagan is 'up for grabs'. But one thing is already White House to be lame ducks.

(1933-45) failures. Ford was president who Reagan few years been due Nobody has any answers to the

HOCK

difficulties real the contenders concerning These to lose. crisis of for office. since produced

OIC

after another commentators have dynamic decline in and Japan.

GARY HART IN TROUBLESOME GULCH

CrISiS. Many claim that Franklin Roosevelt was the last president. The men who took the helm after John Kennedy's assassin 1963 notable were Lyndon Johnson was linked with the defeat in Vietnam; Richard Nixon was disgraced by the Watergate bugging scandal; Gerald remembered the couldn't fart and chew gum at the same time. and Jimmy Carter was an ineffectual peanut farmer with a crook for a brother and the humiliating Iranian hostage crisis for a legacy.

promised to restore confidence in the presidency, but after getting away with murder for a has now suffered the ignominy of the Irangate affair and the shock of the stock market crash.

He ends his term as another loser.

These presidential failures have not much the •LO (undeniable) character flaws of the incumbents, as to America's fall from unrivalled world dominance.

The present crop of presidential hardly gives the American ruling class much hope for a turnaround in its fortunes.

stand-ins bring back memories of notoriously inept pre- Roosevelt characters like Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge. But in 1988 the USA has much more Today American capitalism faces how intractable problems which must appear daunting to those standing Gore The us economv is stagnant.

and it has enormous difficulties trying to compete with its more tan West Germany rivals, The federal budget Aids deficit has ballooned to a record Incy the allies amount, and in order to finance it USA has gone into hock to Now the foreign financiers. world's largest debtor nation, with its economy macreasingly renant or world trade, the USA is feeling more at the mercy of foreign powers than ever before. What US capitalism needs just to keep ticking over are harsh austerity measures But the candidates recognise that promises of belt-tightening won't inspire the voters. So they stick to platitudes any and hope embarrassing questions. Their armies of marketing analysts match the challenge of America's

XENOPHOBIA

All of the candidates stress that they have important ideas, because president needs "ideas. good Hart said that he came back into the race because the USA needed "power of ideas: his flimsy policy document turned out to be a rehash of his empty 1984 platform.

Simon, who has tried to turn his folksy anti-image - complete with horn-rimmed glasses and bow tie - into an image, says he is an oldfashioned Roosevelt-style 'caring' liberal. But he hasn't a clue about how to finance his promised public works programme while balancing Despite the incoherence of the campaign, two main themes can be indentified: an affirmation moral and xenophobia. The hostile response to Gary Hart's shenanigans reflects the way in which the establishment has clean living endorsed and punished those who stray. Democratic senator Albert Gore stayed up one night trying to work out reply the burning question asked of all the candidates 'Have you ever smoked pot?'

The next morning a shame-faced admitted he tried marijuana in college. The loudest of traditional morality Robertson, who would like to see quarantined and

VICHES

abortion outlawed. Bush and Dole may think Robertson is a nut, but too pander to the moral rearmers.

VOICE

Producing. anti-foreign filth is department where this one election might outdo its predecessors.

The targeted threats' from abroad include everybody from Western who are 'not doing their share to the Asian 'yellow peril" Gephardt's TV commercials against Korean cars are just one of many attempts to blame foreigners for America's problems he one force that could have something meaningful to say in this election is the working class But American workers have no voice of their own. Only a quarter of them bothered to vote in 1984, and the present field of nobodies is unlikely to tempt many to go to the polling booths. the next step

ddressing a fringe meeting A of the General Synod of the Church of England last week, Тогу cabinet Douglas Hurd called for a partnership between church and state to reverse the national fall from moral grace.

'We need to work together,' urged the home secretary, to rebuild the moral standards and values which should form the sure foundations of a cohesive and united nation.' In a speech at Tamworth to celebrate bicentenary of the birth of nineteenth-century Conservative prime minister Sir Robert Peel the week before, Hurd had issued a manifesto for moral regeneration. The Tories' nostalgic appeal for a return to the moral values of the past reflects their growing fears for the future Hurd concerned traditional moral values have less and less purchase in the Britain of eighties. his In Tne aLLE speech he bicentenary remarked Victorian Tory that the header would have been disturbed by the decline in religious worship, the lack of discipline and the loss of for the 1a w characterises the Thatcher era. He church cited attendances juvenile delinquency and soaring indices of nationa crime as degeneration.

COHESION

In stirring fashion Hurd appealed lor a crusade to revive tne moral values which had worked to hold society together in the last century.

amazing socia cohesion ol she England, formed under Peel and the Victorians, is in need of repair.

remainder of the During Le C twentieth century we have set ourselves the task of knitting it together again.? Hurd's speech to the synod last week was an attempt to whip the Church of England This new book sets the revival of capitalist decline and offers a Marxist challenge to the official orthodoxy £3.95 plus 80p p&p

WC1N 3XX.

Cheques payable to Junius Publications Ltd the next step Last week Douglas Hurd called for a restoration of Victorian values — Joan Phillips explains what's behind the Tories' moral revivalism that Peel that line behind the Tories' InTO moralising mission. While he was of bizarre occasionally

POLICING

Torchers Brin THE

FAMILY

Thatcher's Britain Joan Philips

OUT SOON!

traditional morality in the context of British Available from Junius Publications, BCM JPLtd, London

AND OURS

HURD PRAYS FOR THE NATION AT LAST WEEK'S GENERAL SYNOD

priorities for discussion', was careful to distance from fellow Tory John Gummer the church's of who laid into choice refusing to challenge the condom culture. strict mits to coercive power the state can wield on moral matters, and the church must play a much more positive spreading the in role according to Margaret Thatcher. premium on morality have they chosen this moment to Taunch their revival crusade?

DIVISION

To understand the central role of morality today we have to examine the issue in the context of a society divided into antagonistic social Capitalism classes. based on oppression enforced by the rule of a small minority over the rest of society. Modern capitalist society entails the traditional communities and the break-up of conventions. uprooting of individuals and the rupture of family life. Capitalism divides society into exploiters and exploited. Some individuals - a small class of capitalists — own the means materials, factories. Others class work. This system not only divides society into two major classes, it also and capitalist against capitalist.

society In a profound divisions and conflicts,

TORIES CHAMPION

VICTORIAN VALUES

THEIR MORALS

increasingly Conventional morality

IDEOLOGUES

as Margaret The ruling heathen rates, dislocations based on family and connection propaganda today, The

BOTHES

and the

LINES

establishment rallying the nation Hurd family himself flag Today, economic the synod for keen to He argued that there are of control. As gospel Robert Peel and moral code Why do the Tories put such a possibility of revolt. and why

CLOAK

that the is a system exploitation destruction of established It leads to the society conventional morality. ruling of production, land, raw machinery and the working own only their ability to their sets worker against worker based on such and oppression. norms which were once obligatory upon all lose their force. The old values which once acted to hold together appear Modern

ECCALL

capitalist society individualises and atomises people, and makes them less susceptible to universal codes of behaviour. The question who of how to maintain social control thus confronts the capitalist class - this is where morality comes in.

was), helps the ruling class to disguise the evils of and to make these appear inevitable and inescapable to the majority who suffer them.

Robert Peel was just as obsessed Thatcher with the immorality of the working class.

class the early nineteenth century was concerned too about signs of incohesion such as family breakdown, rising crime ignorance and general lawlessness. The capitalist class instinctively recognised that it had to establish a new set of social norms in response to the early industrial society. Its leading ideologues set about constructing a new morality of the the elevation The the nation. between family morality and national well-being, which is a key theme of Tory lished early in the Victorian era social need to re-create which uphold the family particularly IS important in a period of upheaval.

of social CrISIS the has sought to strengthen its grip over society by around the hearth and the national in conditions of decline and social unrest, the ruling class is especially ment re-assert conventional This is the meaning of Hurd's demand for a campaign of moral renewal. The chief function of the official morality is social British society slips further into recession its rulers are forced to resort to a more coercive head off TO The key theme of Hurd's speech to the General Synod last week was churches, parents teachers and the individual must take responsibility for sowing the seeds of moral rejuvenation. The effect of the Tories' emphasis on personal morality is to encourage ordinary people to forget about the evils of a system which consigns them to poverty and oppression, and to think about the family, the nation, and the 'common good.

Victorian espousal of values is an attempt to cover up the growing divisions and conflicts in the cloak We should have nothing but contempt for Tory morality. The class preaches the responsibility of the individual to conform to its values because the capitalist system would have no future if ordinary people began to act together as a class according to own view of how society should be organised. Our task is to expose the official moral creed as a cynical apology for exploitation the other side ANYBODY who doubts that British society is still divided along class lines should have watched last week's 40 Minutes on BB2 What are the politics of this paper?' asked the teacher, holding up a copy of the Guardian to A-level students at Ruffwood and to the pupils from Rugby public school visiting her Kirkby were classroom. One Rugby boy, whose first name sounded like Jongler (and a proper little Jongler he insisted that was distastefully 'centre-left. 'No, it's centre-right said Kirkbi Why do you say that student. asked the Guardian-reading 'Because," snorted the teacher. disgusted young scouser, it has pictures of the monarchy in it.

On hearing this, Jongler's face took on the look of a man who has done something which will spoil his hang His education in the trousers. world of wide lawns and narrow minds had not prepared him to hear people object to seeing photographs of the royal para sites on skis. These must be the wearers whom the school regimental sergeant major back at Rugby had warned him to steer clear of during his visit to Liverpool.

The BBC sent the 10 brightest sixth formers from Ruffwood to spend a week at Rugby, and then took 10 jaunty Jonglers back up to Kirkby for a week. The exchange was described as 'a culture clash But it was more than that. Each side was stepping over the class line, into the enemy camp The students working class from Ruffwood proved to be more articulate and insightful than the Rugby team. They had no problem what the military working out parades, school house rituals and of authority at Rugby worship were all about. The Rugby system teaches you to win no, to rule reckoned Steve. But the apprentice members of the establishfrom Rugby were too blinded by class prejudice to see the reality of life for the Ruffwood students and their families. couldn't see what the Jongler people of Kirkby, one of the most depressed areas in Britain, were allain a albtain standarth ot all have a certain standard living here, nobody's starving. He had just come back from the Kirkby chip shop, picking his way benches. A week earlier he had been day Goreerine It arearre caviare serving waitresses at the Rugby May Bal The Rugby students said that the Ruffwood people couldn't fit in at public school because 'they don't understand discipline. But me young Nirkeyites understooc the discipline of the system which too well. They explained it in terms • responsionties: parents are you unemployed, cant go to university, you ve got to get out to work and earn.' The Rugby pupils parents didn t work either. But they had no trouble finding £7000 a year school fees - 'that's more than most families live on in Kirkby. At the end of this Bash St Kids meet Lord Snooty experiment Jongler and pals couldn't wait to to Rugby in their luxury get back coach. we stayed here, concluded one, 'we'd lose all our morale and be converted... voice trailed off into a horrified whisper ..into left-wing people. And what would the sergeant major say about that? Eddie Veale 19 February 1988 • 13

JAMES BALDWIN

THE FIRE

THIS TIME?

Creation for Liberation: A Tribute to James Baldwin, 3 February, Lambeth town hall A town hall more famous for hyped political notoriety than for radical literary figures may seem an unlikely setting for a tribute to one of the great writers of the century, a man who, when not in America, was usually found in the South of France. Nevertheless, over 1000 people came to Brixton on 3 February to pack into the main hall and the overflow rooms just to be turned away. James Baldwin, who died at the end of last year, was born in Harlem in 1924 and grew up through some very hard times. Poor, black and gay he left the States in 1948 to live in France; less, he always insisted, as an escape from the oppression of his homeland, than as a means of achieving the distance he needed to assess it more objectively and describe it more fully.

Baldwin made his mark on the literary world with Giovanni's novels like Room, Another Country and Go Tell It on the Mountain, which explored with great poignancy and precision what it was like to be black in America in the fifties and sixties, and what it was like to be a homosexual too. It was nowever as a social commentator and no tica essavist that Baldwin really made his presence felt. Notes of a Native Son, Nobody especially The Fire Next Time were seminal works in the articulation of black anger and frustration. They spelt out 14 • 19 February 1988 with clarity and urgency the necessity of black liberation. Creation for Liberation was organised by the Race Today Collective to provide a forum, for friends and critics and those simply inspired by to James Baldwin. Among them were writers Mava Angelou, Caryl Phillips and riorence aiexis, poet Linton Kwesi Johnson, caua Barcus Howe, musician Steve Williamson and half the cast of Amen Corner. There can also have been few present, listening to the tales of Baldwin's involvement in the civil rights movement, of Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Kwame

HC SCHIESLUI

Hughes and sixties radicalism. who were not sobered by the thought of how little proeress we have made. The irrepressible Angelou asserted Baldwin's belief that the most noble cause was 'the liberation or tne numan mino dre spirit, but liberation of any sort was a ghost at this feast. In the States the racists of Howard Beach are on the rampage, for the second vear runnine the Martin Luther King march has been attacked and black poverty increases daily: The anti-gay backlash is reaching new heights of savagery and bigotry. In Britain the situation is no

BEUC

James Baldwin was an outstanding chronicler of black life who wrote unflinchingly against the prevalling ideas of his time. The writers who followed him have yet to reach his best, and the rest of us have yet to light the fire for which he yearned. Kunle Oluremi reviews page

TWO FILMS ON KENYA

White Mischief, Mike Radford (director) The Kitchen Toto, Harry Hook (director) Two films now doing the rounds provide an opportunity to explore the murky history of Britain's relationship with one of its most important African colonies, Kenya. White Mischief is basea on a real scandal among havasoe usauay Valley set, a degenerate colony of high society settlers blamed for letting me bus sce cowa. Debutante Diana Broughton (Greta Scacchi) marries rich old Kenyan CeTe ocK oss Ackland) only to fall in love with uniformed hunk, the Earl of Erroll (Charles Dance). In January 1941 Erroll was found dead outside Nairobi, and Sir Jock was me ovous suspect. kaatora inorougnly disapproves of this lot sitting out the war in dissolute luxury while everyone else was back in Blighty sweating out the Blitz. He can take it no further than that, and gives us a glossy, sexy soao opera. When ner lover's death opens Diana's eyes to the depravity of this circle she Minas consecuol witt Gilbert Colville (John Hurt), he renes seue orne lot and a decent sort who thinks his Masai farmhands are 'the best people in the world. Gesturing at some cattle he tells Diana that the Masai 'believe they belong to God..Actually, they' re mine.' Just another bit of harmless British 'mischief, I suppose. The final frame features the smouldering glance of a black servant boy at a grisly cocktail party. He is played by Edward Mahindi, the young star of The Kitchen Toto, a much better film which centres on Kenya's colonial war of the fifties. Director Harry Hook, a Kenyan expat himself, subjects a more typical section of the settler community to a eredlng exdnlauu. He also brings the native Atricans into une foreground. Mwangi iEdward Mahindi) is the son of a preacher executed by forest guerrillas for refusing to help the Mau Mau rebellion. The local district commissioner hires him as 'toto' or scullion. From below stairs Mwangi learns ot the whites' * weird ways their tush toilets and flash cars, their sexual hypocrisy and easy brutality. And all the while, the understated racial antagonisms are mounung to a crescendo. Hook seems convinced unat the pelty tacisin or the settlers spoilt things, and set off the revolt. But this explains little, least of

WHITEWASH

all the differing African responses to the struggle.

Some Africans, like Mwangi's father, die in blind loyalty to the British.

Others, like the insurgents, die fighting the British. And some like the Kikuyu who once formed this district commissioner's police are the victims of both sides.

No doubt all of them suffered from petty acoll After the war, Britain planted thousands of new settlers on the best farming land in Kenya's fertile White Highlands. The Kikuyu became Soletel oRtew land and were pushed back into reserves. Intense competition for land divided the Kikuyu between comparatively well-off farmers with a stake in law and order and embittered squatters.

The 'emergency' began when the British rallied to the rescue of their "Loyalist' African allies.

Thereafter, the land war took on an anti-colonial aspect and every Kikuyu was confronted with the necessity to choose sides.

This is the true John Benyon and John Solomos (eds), The Roots of Urban Unrest 67 95 Pergamon Press, Policing against Black People, Institute of £3.95 Race Relations, Policing in Hackney, Roach Family Support Committee/Karia Press, £6.95 The Roots of Urban Unrest is a collection of papers from a conference held at Warwick University in 1986. It begins inauspiciously. 'I have a reluctance caulalls sociologist Stuart Hall in about entering once again into what seems to me a terribly familiar and recurring cycle...There is a problem followed by a conference; the conference is followed by research: the research reinforces what we already know, but in elegant and scholarly language. Then nothing dooclls. For once I find myself in full agreement with Professor Hall, up to the point that he overcomes his reluctance. The book brings together the usual Hall, Celeorucs- Scarman and Richard Wells (deputy assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police). If the names are familiar, so too are the argumentsmore money for inner cities, greater police accountability, more black They brought so much to Atrica.

Glamour. Decadence.Murder.

WHITE

background to the dilemma which faces Mwangi in the film, and if Hook fails to bring it out sufficiently, he does at least succeed in

ANTI-RACIST SOCIOLOGY

A CYCLE OF DESPAIR

policemen, more black MPs, etc. The only note of reality is injected by an anonymous black participant: Academics, we ocoluett professors and university oasaes comme chutc! us that we should join this very police force that is shooting our people down.

How can we join a force whose mentality is violence, whose whole mentality is racism, whose whole aim is to eliminate black people?' Policing against Black People shows that the same problems dog the radical end of the race relations industry. The Institute of Race Relations prides itself on its militancy and opposition to liberal anti-racism. Yet its conclusions here would barely raise one of Hall's or Scarman's eyebrows. The book presents a wealth of information about police attacks on black people since 1979. It describes swamp and 'sus operations, police raids on black homes, and violence in police stations.

Having established that the police are racist to the core and could not be expected to defend the black community, the IRR then calls for 'the full democratic accountability of the police' and a commitment demonstrated by the top ranks or the ponce leadership through the ranks downwards to eradicate oppressive and racist policing. It seems

ISCHIEF

A True Story establisning d sensitive portrait of a youth who is trying to find his way in a very unforgiving environment. Jackie Reynolds as if whoever wrote the conclusion somehow failed to read the previous 91 pages. One incident highlighted is the death of Colin Roach, a black youth from East London. According to police he shot himself through the mouth in the foyer of Stoke Newington police station, and although the official inquiry agreed, the black people of Hackney did not. To diffuse the anger which they were venting on the police, Hackney council set up an inquiry. Five years on, Policing in Hackney, the report o1 that inquiry, points to the holes in the police case.

Roach's hold-all was too small to carry the shotgun which killed him, there were no fingerprints on the gun and it was found at the opposite end of the foyer from Colin's body. The report tells us what we knew five years ago that the police are liars. In the meantime they have continued to wage war on the black community in Hackney, counting Trevor Monerville and lunal Hassan among their victims. The ubiquitous Professor Hall wrote the introduction to this report.

He calls on the home secretary to 'immediately institute a public inquiry Presumably to be followed by another report, and then a conference and then some research... Kenan Malik the next step

SUPPORTERS'

Pandora Andersor IF you're a Revolutionary Communist Party supporter you should have a note in your diary to be in London on 27 and 28 February. That's the weekend we're holding our supporters' conference and it's one of the most important events in our political calendar. As we want to discuss the implementation of our perspectives and the problems facing our activists today, the conference will only be open to signed-up RCP supporters. Recently party supporters have come to London for a variety of events, like the conference against the

LIVING MARXISM

the next step

CONFERENCE

1988 Alton Bill and the Bloody Sunday commemoration march. We appreciate that many comrades, particularly those of you from the North and Scotland, may be a bit tired of travelling. But this is one event you cannot afford to miss. The supporters' conference is important for you, and it's important for the party. It's an opportunity for you to find out more about where the party's going. It's an opportunity for us to thrash out the problems you're having in your dayto-day work. At the conference. leading members of the RCP will explain our analysis of the current political period. We'll discuss what our role ir the current class struggle must be. We'll also look at what we can expect to achieve over the coming months. The conference Will provide the opportunity to explain our national and branch level, so you'll be able to understand how the work you're doing fits into the big petare We want all the sess ons tooe 'workshops' in the true sense or ue word places where problems get worked out. To allow this, it's important that you raise problems in an informed and considered way. All supporters should A series of discussions in London, examining how the world works - and how to change it. The discussions are held on Tuesday evenings at 7.30pm.

The last two in the current series are: 23 February: The arms race and the problem of peace 1 March: Reform and revolution The venue is the University of London Union, Malet Street.

London WC1. The tickets are £1.50/E1 unwaged per session.

party page Revoluti spend time before the conference thinking about the difficulties you come Plan in advance which workshops you'll attend. If you're undecided, discuss the options with your branch organiser and with comrades in your supporters' group. If possible, organise things so that different supporters in your group go to different workshops • at way vul call dil report back on the various meeting after the Conteense The more you put into the conference before you arrive, the more you'll get out of it. The best way to

AGENDA

Saturday 27 February 9.30 Registration 12.30 Lunch 1.45 Workshops: Fighting Alton's BIll Campaigning against Clause 28 Irish solidarity 3.45 Tea break 4.15 Workshops: A guide to the British left Health workers' struggles The problem of economism Evening disco Sunday 28 February 10.30 Workshops: Selling and using tns A gulde to state repression 12.45 Lunch and student caucus 2pm Plenary: Where do we go from here?

prepare is to make sure you know what's going on in the world, by studying the next step, the quality daily papers and the left-wing press. Familiarise yourself with the political issues and compare their explanations and analysis to our own. Look critically at the next step. Ash yourself, 'Are these arguments convincing?' This is a good opportunity to get to know the RCP inside out. Make sure you don't miss it. The conference will be held in London. Transport from all our branches is available. Childcare and be provided - but let us know in devance. A oooled fare system will operate.

Admission will be o supporters' card only. The registration fee is £5 and should be paid in advance to your branch organiser.

If you cannot register in advance for any reason, please contact our office (phone Fenna on (01) 729 0414) and let us know that you'll be coming. Anne Burton in building support for the struggle for Irish freedom in Britain's Colonies Room S53, St Clements Building, London School of Economics, Houghton St. (off Aldwych), WC2 (Holborn tube). Tickets cost f1/50o unwaged Leeds: Tuesday 23 February, 7.30pm. Is There a Loyalist Veto? Committee Room C, Leeds University Students' Union 10.30 Plenary: British politics and the Party today

BECOME AN

RCP

SUPPORTER

Name Address Tel Postcode Public Meeting Stop Clause 28, No bans on lesbian and gay rights!

Thursday 25 February, ICC, Mansfield Road, 7.30pm Nottingham Irish Freedom Movement

IRISH FORUMS

A series of fortnightly discussions on the issues that count London: Wednesday 2 March, 7.30pm. Counter-Insurgency 19 February 1988 • 15

STOP THE CLAUSE

The backlash against lesbians and gays is growing, and so is the urgency of standing up for homosexual rights,

EQUAL RIGHTS FOR ALL

THE Church of England is now committed to the proposition that it is less sintul for a man to sleep with his neighbour than with his neighbour's wife.' This was Tory John Gummer speaking out against Anglican bishops for their failure to challenge the 'condom culture' last week. He was speaking at the House of Laity of the General Synod - the parliament of the Church of eng and - on a motion seeking ways to uphold the traditional teaching of the church. The fact that the minister for agriculture now considers that it is his task to tell the church to crack down on homosexuality is a sign of the growing climate of reaction against lesbians and gays.

Gummer slammed the Church of England for refusing to give the clear and unambiguous moral lead which the nation demands. in other words the church is failing in its Christian duty by not outlawing homosexuality altogether.

Gummer condemned the bishops' decision not to act against the gay clergy, and backed the stand taken by the Bishop of Ripon, David Young, who priests. In response to the criticisms that greeted his outbursts, Gummer protested that intolerance was only right and proper since homosexuals after all are a 'disabled minority. He took to task the Archbishop of York, Dr John Habgood, for refusing to oppose the promotion of homosexuality on the rates'. The Tory minister was referring to Clause 28 of the Local Government Bill which seeks to prevent local councils from intentionally promoting homosexuality. Once it reaches the Statute books It could De used to outlaw anything construed as 'promoting homosexuality'. The sponsors of the clause have denied that they want to promote a backlash against lesbians and gays. Yet the reaction it has provoked so far shows that this is Indeed the effect of Clause 28.

The debates on the clause in parliament have broken open a dam of prejudice against lesbians and gays.

Supporters of the clause have argued that homosexuals nave oniy tnemselves to blame for the rising tide of intolerance. They claim that lesbians and gays who keep themselves to themselves have nothing to fear from the law. The implication is that those who are open about their sexuality will risk persecution. As the editor of the Sun put it, 'Homosexuals who say that they are normal and society is perverse are risking a terrible backlash. The message is that homosexuals must quietly accept the stigma that society attaches to them if they want to keep out of trouble. Those who protest will be blamed for their own oppression.

Since December when Tory backbencher David Wilshire introduced the next step

FIGHT FOR LESBIAN AND GAY RIGHTS

the new clause, the press have had a field day stirring up a backlash against argues Don Milligan evolutionar Coramunist Part Stop the Tory bigots

FIGHT FOR

LESBIAN

AND GAY

RIGHTS

01-729 0014

MARCH

Saturday 20 February Assemble 12 noon All Saints, Oxford Road Manchester lesbians and gays. The effect of the tabloids' homosexual-hunt is to create the impression that gay men are sex crazed perverts who threaten the fibre of the nation. The tragic death of 14year old paperboy Stuart Gough, who was sexually assaulted and murdered became the occasion for a concertec attack on homosexuals. The media worked in unison to promote the message that all gay men are child molesters, who, given the opportunity, will corrupt or assault small boys. 'Once it was our daughters we had to worry about,' declared Terry Dicks MP echoing fellow Tory John Gummer. 'Now it seems our sons aren't safe either.' The Sun claimed that 'once such anxieties were more or less limited to young girls,' but *today the graph of attacks on boys is moving upwards.' What graph? The abduction, rape and murder of young boys by homosexual men is rare, and there is no evidence that these crimes are on the increase.

Following the murder of Stuart Gough the gutter press printed a handful o stories about paperboys beating off sex fiends. The Sun told its readers of an attack launched by 'a man with oddcoloured eyes' and announced that it was the latest in a series against youngsters delivering papers'. Even the sun's expert smear scouts could noi track down more than a couple of such stories to substantiate its claim. There is no trend towards an increase in homosexual attacks on young boys There is, however, a well-orchestrated campaign to brand all gay men as child molesters. In an editorial declaring 'WHEN THE

GAYS HAVE TO SHUT UP'

the Sun argued that no reasonable person could possibly blame the homosexual community for what happened to Stuart Gough, Just as no reasonable woman could possibly blame all heterosexual men for an act of rape or murder. But it then declared that 'people are not always reasoning' (especially not if the Sun can help it), and homosexuals about inequality and pecution The about inequality and persecution.

response to the murder of Stuart Gough crystallised the mood of reaction against homosexuals that now prevails.

In this climate of bigotry we are faced with a stark choice. We can give up the struggle for equality or we can fight for our rights. In reality we have no choice. To retreat would mean accepting the arguments of the bigots that we are diseased and perverted. H would mean accepting the closet and We have no alternative 'queer-bashing. but to take on the bigots and challenge We have no alternative their prejudices. but to fight for the decriminalisation of homosexuality and for equal rights for lesbians and gays. Everybody who is concerned about the growth of reaction and committed to the cause of liberation should be in Manchester on Saturday, marching to stop Clause 28.