Bristol Socialist Party meeting - Syria and the Crisis in the Middle East

Bristol Socialist Party Meeting - Syria and the Crisis in the Middle East

Tuesday 5th July 

7.30pm 

Cheltenham Road Library, Bristol, BS6 5QX

The discussion at this joint meeting of the three Bristol Branches will introduced by Joe Fathallah from the Socialist Party Wales. The insurrection which has swept the Arab World has now ignited Syria. Three months of brutal repression by the Baath regime has failed to quell the revolt. The attempts to break down the border with Israel, and embarrassment caused to the capitalist regime in Turkey by the influx of show the of the Socialist Party’s demand for a Socialist Federation of the Middle East. But how can workers and the other oppressed people in the Arab states, Turkey, Iran and Kurdistan ensure that victory is theirs? What is the role of Israeli workers? And what attitude to should Socialists have to intervention by capitalist powers?


Below are links to documents and articles that are relevant for this discussion.


Reports and Analysis from the Socialist Party and our sister parties in the Committee for a Workers' International (CWI)


• CWI website recent Articles on Syria: http://www.socialistworld.net/view/158


• And more widely on the Middle East: http://www.socialistworld.net/?m=15&sk=100


• Socialism Today has had a number of important articles on the Middle East since the beginning of the year: http://www.socialismtoday.org/back.html


Reports and Analysis from the mainstream press and other Sources


• Al Jazeera Interview with Robert Fisk of the Independent on youtube (22nd April): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSpeHVFPd8g


• Report by Fisk from Independent (29th April): http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-out-of-syrias-darkness-come-tales-of-terror-2276392.html


• And from Belfast Telegraph (8th June): http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/columnists/robert-fisk/syria-in-turmoil-as-resistance-turns-to-insurrection-16009281.html


• This portal, maintained by University of Colorado, leads you to a variety Government resources from Syria and reports from state and non-governmental bodies internationally: http://ucblibraries.colorado.edu/govpubs/for/syria.htm


• Particularly useful is the BBC website: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/country_profiles/801669.stm


• Human Rights Watch Report on protests and repression in Daraa: http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2011/06/01/we-ve-never-seen-such-horror-0

Solidarity with the Egyptian Revolution

Below is an English translation from the original Arabic (translated by CWI China) of a leaflet distributed in Cairo by the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI) following the departure of dictator Hosni Mubarak on Friday 11 February. This leaflet raises important issues about how the revolution can go forward and defeat the old regime, which through the army tops and Vice President Omar Suleiman is clinging to power. It also poses the need for struggle against capitalism and imperialism if the democratic aspirations of the Egyptian people are to be fulfilled. I do not have access to the Arabic version. Events continue to be momentous and inspiring - but who will draft the new constitution? - For a revolutionary constituent assembly of the workers and poor!
In defence of the revolution:

• For a government of representatives of workers, the youth and the poor
• For the immediate elections of a revolutionary constituent assembly supervised by committees of working people, the poor and the youth!

Less than 24 hours after he declared he would stay until September, Mubarak has been forced to resign as Egyptian president. The increasing size of the demonstrations, and especially the working class’s collective entry into the struggle through a nationwide strike wave, marked a decisive new stage in the revolution. Mubarak’s last TV broadcast enraged the more than six million who were then protesting on Egypt’s streets and the indignation spread to the military, as reports came in of soldiers going over to the side of the demonstrators.
Egypt’s revolution won the support of working people around the world. Tens of millions followed on TV and the internet every move. The hopes that the movement that started in Tunisia will win a victory in Egypt have been met. This victory will encourage every struggle around the world against dictatorship, oppression and misery. Many are now asking, who is the next ruler to fall?
This turning point is a tremendous victory for all those who courageously fought Mubarak’s police state - the youth, the working class and the activists in Tahrir Square. It is a huge example to workers and the oppressed around the world that determined mass action can defeat governments and rulers no matter how strong they appear to be.
However the battle is not over yet, dangers still remain. The military leaders, with the backing of US imperialism, removed Mubarak in the hope of preventing the revolution challenging the power of the elite. The new head of state, Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, has been defence minister and the armed forces Commander-in Chief since 1991, nearly two-thirds of the time that Mubarak was in power. As a BBC correspondent commented: “The army takeover looks very much like a military coup … because officially it should be the speaker of parliament who takes over, not the army leadership”.
The mass of the Egyptian people must assert their right to decide the country’s future. Many may have hopes in the army, but there is a difference between the rank and file and the top commanders. No trust should be put in figures from the old regime to run the country or run elections. There must be immediate, fully free elections, safeguarded by mass committees of the workers and poor, to a revolutionary constituent assembly that can decide the country’s future.
Now the steps already taken to form local committees and genuine independent workers’ organisations should be speeded up, spread wider and linked up. A clear call for the formation of democratically elected and run committees in all workplaces, communities and amongst the military rank and file would get a wide response.
These bodies would co-ordinate the removal of the remnants of the old regime, and maintain order and supplies and, most importantly, be the basis for a government of workers’ and poor representatives that would crush the remnants of the dictatorship, defend democratic rights and start to meet the economic and social needs of the mass of Egyptians.
The revolution and its demands pose a decisive challenge to the old order and capitalism, but they cannot be completely won without breaking with imperialism and overthrowing capitalism. The Helwan iron and steel workers have called for “People’s revolution for the people!”, but this can only be realised through the mass movement bringing to power a government of workers’ and poor representatives that implements a democratic socialist programme. To achieve such a government workers, the poor and oppressed need their own political weapon. Workers and the poor need to create their own alternative - a new mass party of the working class attracting small farmers and the oppressed to a socialist banner.
Today there is naturally great support for unity to defend the revolution. Yes we need unity in struggle, but calls for unity do not answer the question of what sort of Egypt needs to be built?
Correctly there is great suspicion of all those who held top positions in the Mubarak regime. Now the ruling class will attempt to involve and trap the workers’ movement and the Left in joint work with the military rulers or in some kind of “unity” government of all classes. But any government involving capitalists would naturally attempt to safeguard capitalism in Egypt. This would be true of any government whose stated main role was “only” the organisation of elections as it would have to govern the country in the run-up to any elections. It is the lesson of many other revolutions – like Russia after February 1917 or Spain 1936 – that such governments cannot meet the demands of working people and are used by the ruling class as a means of trying to break the revolution and ensure the continuation of their rule.
The demands of the workers, poor and youth cannot be met unless all the elements of the old regime are completely removed. Capitalism cannot offer a way forward for Egyptian society. The Left must not join any coalition government with pro-capitalists; for a government of the representatives of workers, small farmers and the poor that carries out a genuine socialist transformation of Egypt.
The Committee for a Workers International is an international socialist organisation struggling in 40 countries against the rule of big business and for democratic international socialism.

cwi.lebanon@gmail.com
www.socialistworld.net

Lebanon: Hezbollah-led opposition takes majority in government

For the building of a mass workers alternative against sectarianism, war and poverty

Aysha Zaki, Beirut, CWI Lebanon

Yesterday (25th Jan), Najib Mikati was appointed new prime minister by the Hezbollah-led opposition which has taken majority in parliament.

Meanwhile Sunni-sectarian protests are being held by thousands of supporters of outgoing Prime Minister Saad Hariri in Tripoli, Beirut and elsewhere.

The opposition led by the Iran-backed Shia Islamist Resistance Hezbollah had pulled out of the pro-Western government earlier in January. This followed a row over a UN tribunal investigating the 2005 murder of Rafik Hariri, the father of Western-backed caretaker Saad Hariri.

Hezbollah gained support from parliamentary deputies to allow Mikati, a billionaire Sunni businessman, to form the next government. Druze leader, Walid Jumblatt and six members of his party went over to the opposition parties, allowing Hezbollah to form the core of a future government.

While a power-struggle takes place amongst sectarian-based parties, many Lebanese workers and youth are disenchanted with politics while some look to the inspiring developments in Tunisia as a way forward. 

In the aftermath of the toppling of the Saad Hariri government by the opposition, which pulled out its ministers from the governing cabinet, the crisis has been renewed with tensions building up daily in society. The opposition and pro-government bloc have each been flexing their muscles, by threatening to take to the streets in an attempt to re-mobilize mass support around the same issues which crippled the country after the assassination of Saad Hariri’s father, Rafik Hariri, the former prime minister, in 2005. Working people will pay the price, just as they did for the political stalemate over the past few months, for the sectarian strife that may result. The Lebanese ruling class presides over a society polarised along sectarian, political and especially class lines, as a result of the brutal poverty conditions faced by workers and the unemployed...

Read more: http://www.socialistworld.net/doc/4804