MAJIDA SALMAN, a leading member of the RCG [Revolutionary Communist Group, Lebanese section of the Fourth International], is currently on a speaking tour of Britain. She was forced to leave the Lebanon because of her political activity, after losing an eye in the fighting. Majida Salman is co-author of a book on the Lebanese crisis recently published in France.
The RCG has played an important role in the struggle against the Phalangist and Syrian forces. In the military struggle this has meant active participation in the defence of the popular neighbourhoods, while refusing to support the reactionary bourgeois neighbourhoods the RCG attempted to organise the provision of food and supplies through the control of workers and peasants assemblies, sometimes with success. In one neighbourhood it operated a hospital. One of the comrades working there was murdered by the reactionary militias during the Varantina massacre earlier inis year Majida Salman will be speaking at the following meetings in the coming week:
Friday 3 Dee. - Manchester, lunchtime and evening.
Monday 6 Dec. — Brunel University, evening.
Tuesday 7 Dec. Sussex University, lunchtime; LSE [Old SMASH THE
Last January the Northern Ireland Committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions launched the 'Better Life For All Campaign, with the following demands: discrimination;
* the right to security of employment and well paid work;
peaceful means:
* the right to good housing conditions;
* the right of equality of educational opportunity; living standards of the aged, the sick, the unemployed and the socially deprived. * the right to live free from violence, sectarianism, intimidation and * the right to associate freely and to advocate political change by * the richt to adequate social services to protect the well-being and record in challenging the sectarianism of the Six County statelet. Neve daring to be seen as taking sides on te national question, the trad union leadership has generally found it impossible to steer any sort of credible path between the Loyalist bloc on the one hand and the national aspirations of the northern minority on the other.
They gave verbal support to the opposed internment on paper, and they still call for an end to repression in the six Countes. but never nave tney encourageo the sighest tom of industrial militancy around the basic questions of democratic rights. The excuse they give is that it would split the workforce Indictment of their failure to recognise the real sectarianism of the Six County statelet. doing they alienate a large section of the workforce who are engaged in struggle on that very question. In practice it is a capitulation to the prejudices and sectarianism of the Protestant working class. maintaining the British link and sustaining the illusion that it is quite possible to win more jobs and democratic rights within the framework of bruisn rule. support the "Peace People'.
was planned November. Throughout the preceding European Trade Union Confederation had been touring the Six Counties trying to build support for the rally. I will do all I can to help the North by telling people that life is going contribution of Mathias Hinterchild, while another leader, Peter Goldrick, promised that 'when we meet Since the partition of Ireland in 1921, Irish labour has had a sorry Civil Rights movement in 1968, they — a massive So instead they deny that a national question really exists; and in so The 'Better Life' campaign is no exception. Its programme is based or That is one reason why the trade union bureaucracy fully It thus came as no surprise when only 500 workers turned up to what as a massive Better Life For All rally in Belfast on W00X8 06 002 01 von normal nere was sanal General Secretary of the ETUC businessmen in the EEC we will tell them about the great potential in the North' rally. For whatever the bureaucrats mignt beneve, the workers of the so Counties are clear in their own minds about the implications and real meaning of mass unemployment, low wages and atrocious housing conditions. poverty since partition and before, the crisis reinforces their determina tion to break the British link. For Protestant workers, after seven years o seeing their Unionist politicians and British ministers incapable o stabilising *their withdrawal and sell-out. For all workers, from whichever angle they look at it, British link is the key acknowledge this, which is why the Better Life' demands are at the bes pie in the sky and at tne worst televan both the national question and the economic and social crisis. These shoule include state and Loyalist intimidation; industrial plan for the structurally deprived regions of the Six Counties:
* End all repressive legislation needs of each area and implemented and controlled by those who live in the area; meet the crisis in the 32 Counties as a whole.
MIKE PINTER RED WEEKLY 2 December 1976 Such statements provide one explanation for the mass boycott of the For anti-Unionists who have suffered structural unemployment and crisis adds to their fears of Britist Butthe • bureaucrats reluse to Instead, socialists must put forward their own demands which link up - disband the UDR and RUC, self-defence against *Open the books for all factories declaring redundancies; for an * For a programme of public works, organised on the basis of the * For an economic plan, drawn up by the trade union movement, to