Socialist Challenge No. 187, 5 March 1981
The scan: sc-n187-mar-05-1981.pdf (PDF, Marxists Internet Archive)
Uncorrected machine reading of the whole issue. This text was read by machine (Apple Vision OCR) from the scan and has not been corrected or cut into articles. Each page gives the headlines first, then the columns in order, so one article runs on into the next. Expect misread words. Use it to find things; quote from the scan.
Page 1 scan of this page
Challenge
No. 187 5 March 1981 20p
COLLINS
1963
STO MAY- BLI ¡ROYOUR AH GO RUN DIES BUT FIRITS •OUR
Photo: JOANNE O'BRIEN
Unemployed and strikers 10p
Socialist
JUSTICE
MI DER •JUST STOPS NACO THE PRESSI COVER UP
DEAD WUMPHREY BRONN AGED 18
FREEDOM
21.8
them.
TAKE
THE
FOR one and a half hours on Monday, black demonstrators took over the streets of rush-hour London.
In a display of black militancy rarely witnessed in London's West End, demonstrators walked, marched, and ran at will, with the police incapable of doing anything to stop
Amid chants of 'Freedom. Justice', the black demonstrators swept aside anything that came in their way, be it police horses, 'city gents', or jewellery stores.
This was the climax to a remarkable protest which began in South-east London just before noon and ended, six hours later, in the darkness of Hyde Park.
The 'Black Peoples Day of Action' was over police inaction and the media cover-up of the arson attack on a black party six weeks ago. Thirteen young blacks were murdered in the house in the New Cross district of London.
Between 10-15,000 men and women, mostly young and black, took part in the protest. The tone for the day was set right at the start when a black steward declared:
'There has never been a gathering like this of black people in the history of this country. March with pride brothers and sisters, march with dignity, we will not be diverted.
The capture of Central London, page 3
JoBS
NOT
BOMBS BLACKS
STREETS
INSIDE INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY 8MARCH 198
ANWAR DITTA
The story of her five year struggle to bring her children to this
country, p 8&9
WOMAN'S
RIGHT
TO WORK
Greenock women
enter fifth week of occupation for jobs,
Mps
8 MARCH
WOMEN'S
CAY Cathy Porter outlines the history of this day of struggle, pl3
ARMAGH
WOMEN As a new hunger strike begins we review a new
book on the Armagh
Page 2 scan of this page
Teachers' union fights its members, not the cuts
Editorial
Socialist Challenge
328/9 Upper St, London N1 Editorial and distribution, tel. 01-359 8180/9. Accounts, tel.
01-359 8371 Cricket's racist crisis 'KEEP politics out of sport' is the cry of all those who have opposed the decision of the Guyanese government to kick out English cricketer because of his sporting links with South Africa.
Many of the people who support Jackman were the very ones urging a boycott of the Olympics in Moscow.
The truth is that it is South Africa which has brought politics into sport -not just by enforcing apartheid in South African sport, but English cricketer Basil D'Oliveira and by excluding Maori rugby players from the touring New Zeland side in 1971.
According to the Gleneagles agreement drawn up by the Commonwealth heads of state, agreed to 'discourage' with South Africa.
The problem is that Britain hasn't done any such thing. The upper and middle class men (yes, they're all men) who run the cricket and rugby authorities in this country have players going to play for South African teams. Last year the British rugby Lions went on an official tour of South Africa.
Sporting authorities moves are being South African cricket; but when black youngsters can't even afford the basic equipment of the game, and the leading clubs are for whites only, integration is a myth, as the article on page 11 shows.
The tension between England and the West Indies is undoubteldly heightened by the fact aren't just beaten by the West Indies, they are ruthlessly ground — to the evident delight of Caribbean cricket lovers both in Britain and in the West Indies.
This is primarily because of the extremely fast, which wizzes round batsmen's heads. Cricket traditionalists call this 'unsporting' and 'intimidatory' The irony is that these tactics vented in the 1930s by the aristocratic English captain Douglas Jardine, to try to curb another couldn't deal with, Australian Don Bradman.
No when English fast bowler Fred Trueman sO furiously struck batsman Norman chest and groin, that he deposited his breakfast on the Old Trafford pitch.
In 1981, as opposed to 1931 or 1951, all the best players in the world are black. If the cricket authorities want England to play them again, all they have to do is instruct English players not to go to South Africa.
If present results are anything to go by, the English breathing a massive sigh of relief at the prospect of not having to play the West Indies for some time to come. Socialist Challenge ' 5 March 1981
Robin Jackman, by banning black
member countries sporting links
winked at British
claim that made to 'integrate' that English teams today
smashed into the
short-pitched bowling the English
were in-
colonial the English
one considered it 'unsporting'
Australian O'Neill around the team is probably Page 2.
By Tessa van Gelderen
CUTS in education, teachers made redundant, a 15 per cent pay demand these are the issues that should be the concern ot the ex ecutive of the National Union of Teachers.
Photo: GM COOKSON (Socialist Challenge
Yet it is preoccupied with suspending members and making them face disciplinary Clial ses
Crime
Their 'crime' was to support the strike against the cuts by council workers in Lambeth last month. I nree or lnose suspended were candidates in the recent Inner London Teachers
and the others are ofTeachers* Associatio ficers Lambeth
At the disciplinary
Saturday, Stuart Holland, MP for Vauxhall, gave evidence on behalf of the
teachers •Unless education fought ls own corner. he told the hearing, 'it would be hit bv the Tories' need to wring Concess uls following the successes of the miners and water WUIKCIS. contillues.
Suspend
The 'Reinstate the ILTA Eight' campaign has been mobilising support in the labour movement. Tony Benn and Jo Richardson are among a number of MPs who are requesting that the charges be dropped and the members reinstated.
Support also
come trom led Knight. leader of Lambeth council. well from members Greater London Council. The president or lie ulcalci
London of
Associationl Councils (GLATC), Dennis Coles, and Tom GLATC are giving support Ill persolla. capacity.
trade IVanly MOTe unionists and Labour Party members DIU testing to the NUT eculive.
The left-wing members who were standing in the ILTA elections came within a couple of hundred votes of
Defend the ILTA 8
Public meeting, Friday 6 March, at
5.30pm
Polytechnic of Central London, Large lecture
Theatre, 115 New Cavendish St, London W1
Speakers include Stewart Maclennan (CPSA) and Bernard Connolly (Steelworkers' Convenor)
The ILTA 8. Back Row: (Lambeth NUT membership Esterson (General secretary Lambeth NUT), Dick one neone ecouve ILTA candidate). Front row: Jackie North (assis-
How not to run a union election
By kind permission of the Inner London
Teachers Association
• Don't count the total votes cast.
• Do allow retired members to vote and to
validate the votes.
• Do allow past presidents to count the
votes, particularly the same people who ask
the executive to suspend union members
three of whom should be candidates in the
election.
Do allow 370 of the votes not to be
validated by a new system that has never
been used before and that is not in the rule
book.
• Do take three and a half days to count
5,000 votes.
• Do not allow a recount, which is 'custom
and practice' for national elections when re-
quested.
being elected. Not only were they suspended betore the elections. but more than 300 votes were disallowed UcLause membership certificates 'could not be found'
suspension ot militants from a union is a serious matter at any time But when such militants are in the front line of defending jobs, education and living standards, it's green light for the employers to victimise them.
-Home News.
Vanessa Wiseman
secretary), John
, Lambeth treasurer and
The NUT executive should be asked by the whole labour movement: Who are you fighting the Tories who are trying to hold back living standards those union members who are strug gling to maintain them
As ka Kay, organs ing secretary the
all all Teachers, put it: It simply extraordinary for the executive to suspend members following: union policy.
FIGHT THE CUTS
REINSTATE
The EIGHT
president Lambeth (secretary East London NUT & ILTA candidate), Gary Jones (Lambeth NUT president), Dave Pic ton (Lambeth NUT treasurer and ILTA candidate). Stewart Maclennan, CPSA militant Also under threat...
against union militant, Stewart Maclennan.
school in St. Andrews last year.
The two right
have reasons for wanting to victimise Maclennan
Broad Left when Maclennar was its secretary.
servants in Brixton
non will be laken against me.
policy.
OF DOM tant secretary Lambeth NUT), Hilary Tarr (Vice
NUT), Bernard Regan AS the civil servants start their campaign of action for higher wages the Civil and Public Servants Association (CPSA) is busily engaged in... disciplinary proceedings
He was charged with conduct 'detrimental to the association' following an alleged incident at a union
wing union officials bringing the charges, Charlie Elliott and Barry Reamsbottom, both
Flliott was shown to have links with Truemid. the bosses' front organisation in the unions, by the CPSA
And both officials were ejected from a Scottish region social by Maclennan after gatecrashing at 3 o'clock in the morning, and refusing to pay on the grounds that the money was going to victimised civil
Maclennan told Socialist Challenge: '1 am confident that if an honest report is drawn up no further ac-
• hen we can get down to fighting the real enemy - the Tories and their pay
Page 3 scan of this page
Photo: JOANNE O'BRIEN
By Geoff Bell
Action began near
For over
from the megaphones.
at times like a carnival, at Ounce most of all there was a sense of confidence and enthusiasm that this time black people were orga-
for and bv themselves that nothing allowed to get in their way.
The only faces were those of the police.
As the marchers, now nearly strong, pproachec
entre of London the e citement accelerated.
Justice' were the chants;
want number i go marching in' was one of the most Choruses
The placards gave the alessar mination: Come may we are here to stay'; 'We'll bury our dead and then..'; 'New burn, more learn'; 'Let's turn table, we know able'; petrol bomb'.
The first hint of trouble came in Blackfriars Road, an approach the city centre.
Indian con anneared on
three or a barely the
Lalecl abuse. He was eventually led away, limping, to a nearby hospital.
'he police
intil then had been keer ing the lowest of low pro-
files, used the incident to try and impose
EWCROSS
THE MARCH on the Black People's Day of
been the target of the arson attack.
three demonstrators made their way to London's city centre, walking on the pavements, on the streets, stopping outside work places and schools to pick up more protesters.
'We're on the move'
People's Day of Action, Babylon must fall.'
but broke hand
themselves and OUL
would be
gloomy
long. 10,000 an Freedom, mılitancy open
in that when the blacks
popular
of deter what
Cross people the We are 'White spirit is a
wall
A West youth
La variety
who up
some
Black People's Day of Action
'We'll bury our
the house which had
hours on Monday the
was the message
'This is the Black
Outside post office in Blackfriars Koduscus of ignis
vuL. boot-to-boot fighting.
police brought their riot missiles started to over them. The
But it was not for
Al lne entrance lo Blackfriars Bridge
cops occupied the entire
oad. It was an attemp
stop ine march,
provocation.
Licic was nu march was going to be halted.
Here and there the police line was broken. Arrests were made, some of those held by the
soles of black ed
black SCULCO descended on the who had dared their brothers and sisters.
But still the police line held. That was until the lorry carrying cians, singers, and drummers was called up. The lorry crashed through the police line and the entire
of blue was breached.
A nhalany of black
stormed through, and the police fell away, defeated.
The marchers had Blackfriars Bridge to themselves. Then chant 'Freedom, Freedom' became louder and louder - this time though it was not so much a demand, more a cry of celebration over the victory against
BAREK PEUPLESD
dead and then....
been won.
Fleet HICCS the press Telegraph. hand-to-
stood borough's
shields;
sail
police Bottles
as a rushed
youth. the The Lines of continued,
Street, and on to But started way this
Thatcher
but
youth
cops within to seize
The
musi-
LIBe
uniforms
length
now march Street that
As
OCTION
the police that had just
The crowd rushed inStreet. Individuals in the demonstration put their arms round each other, others waved clenched fists in the air; the songs and the chants increased in tempo.
The police were hardly to be seen. What few there were guarded stra tegic buildings — the of-
right-wing press like the Daily Ex-
and the Daily
cops outside Attenjewellery sho The shop half-way up Fleet
and the police became targets
and stones flew few black youth the jewellers. 'We're just taking back our gold,' said one black
demonstrators out of Fleet alon Shaftesbury Holborn Avenue. Bands of youth want Thatcher ge want 'We
But the march organisers had agreed with the police beforehand not to on near westminster Downing St. Under an ancient aw demonstra tions are not permitted
one mile Westminster while parliament is in session.
demonstrators conunuca to marco, run and walk at will. Police horses were brushed onto the pavements, and
marcher occupied and controlled the entire
and breadth London's most famous
It was only when the
reached Regent some semblance or ponce autonl was reasserted.
the march ceeded to Oxford Circus and up Cavendish Stree and Wigmore Street
police chers destination, Corner.
phant
in the end.
What
militancy anger seen before
fear in the faces
inhabitants
sion.
It was
The against system of
This the National whose
behind of
in Deptford.
The League is ing protest.
station.
series of battles with the
broke out. The heated was in Wigmore St, where bottles fells like a hail storm on cops and horses. In
of these incidents did the police emerge vic-
Eventually the mar-
reached their Hyde Park The demonstration had taken some six hours but like a trium-
here they wanted to got
happened on Monday in the centre of London was exceptional. It was a display of black
and black different anything that had been
The confusion in the faces of the cops, and the
: of many of the richer, older white
of Central London testified to the uniqueness of the occa-
about blacks going on the offensive.
As the placard put it:
'We are on the move'
black rebellion the racist, ploitative, unjust British
under way.
Long may it prosper.
Saturday Front, supporters may well have been
the New Cross arson attack,
is planning to march
Anti Nazi organiscounterAssemble 10.30am on 7 March at New Cross Gate
Socialist Challenge 5 Mar=- •36
Page 4 scan of this page
Chapple's delegates
FRANK Chapple,
Electricians Union (EETPU). openly supports the Council for Social Democracy.
He doesn't think they should leave the Labour Party
whi they alc. 'They're tea up with the hypocrisy, double-dealing and double-talk that go on in the Labour Party. '
Chapple could well be referring to the antics
own EETPU branches are beIng 'encouraged' to atfiliate to local Labour Parties and send right-wing delegates. In fact, in case they are slow on the uptake branches are being affiliated and delegates appointed to GMCs by the union head office often without the knowledge of the branch.
Rules
This practice is The EETPUS rules, and the union has a full-time official, Southwark councillor Eadie, to carry out the task.
Bermondsey and Dulwich, South London, have been made
doubt because the left has recently gained a narrow majority in these constiniencies.
Some of the EETPU delegates have jobs that scarcely qualify them for membership the union. Southwark
chief whip, Frank Brean, for example, owns and runs a local chemist shop, the Chall Deisull of housing in Southwark, Charlie Sawyer, the tenant
By Bob Pennington
TONY Perrin's play The
Union shown on BBC-1
on Tuesday of last
week had two aims.
First it exposed the
crooked role of the
Stalinist leaders in the
Electrical Trades Union
which led to the ballot
rigging scandal of the early '60s. Conclusion:
keep the reds out of
power.
Aim number two was to make us grateful to the crusaders who saved democracy in the union. Thank God for Les Cannon, Woodrow Wyatt, Catholle Action, the British media and of course Frank Chapple.
Conclusion: Frank knows what he is doing when he defends his union against Commies and Trots and fights the Bennite hordes in the Labour Party.
However, It is nol enough to dismiss Perrin's play as nothing more than red-baiting.
The Communist Party ran the ETU virtually as an aditions got short shot. adjunct of the party.
Socialist Challenge 5 March 1981
By Carol Turner Labour councillor, Southwark
liaison officer for Lewisham council.
the past IWO months, 14 new EETPU
affiliations oracles
Frank Chapple, general secretary of EETPU
The electrical storm which brought
The union journal extolled official union policy, revered the CP officials, and read like a party house-journal.
For those standing for office in the union lust a party card was worth a few thousand votes.
Like all bureaucrats, the Stalinists used the union funds as a means of buying and selling people.
When Cannon got out of line he found he did not get on committees and nis lcome from union expenses took a sharp dive. was Dack in favour he was offered the plum turing at the ETU college at Esher.
There he taught lay officials how correct union policy was, and how wise and virtuous was comrade Stalin.
In 1956 everything blew up. Kruscher spilled the neans or all. rioted at Poznan. heroic davs ine Hungarlan masses stored the heavens, only to be crushed by Rusi he cracked and splintered.
Les Cannon and others
Page 4
have been renewed in this
constituency.
year ago delegates DELWICH GMC
were 'approved' by the
Chapple to power
in the ETU left the party.
His job at the college disapneared. Battle was joined between the dissidents and the Haxell-Foulkes leadership.
At first Cannon flirted with a small group or leis wne had been fighting the
and Cannon stayed with me n Liverpool. We talked int the early hours, about Stalinism, Trotskyism, the When he kind of opposition that was
needed in the union, job of lec- whether the Labour Party
could be won to
did not remain with the left for long. ( not have much power and
ly with such the right-wing and even Catholic Action.
The Poles For a few school of Stalinism,
nanoeuvring comes easily and it did not take long to these ETU officials to come British CP to terms win inel new
allies
Home News
Labour Party at regional level and accepted for the purpose of selecting the Greater London candidate. NOW is reselecting its MP, the changed Its mind and has 'frozen' the GMC. No new deleCannon, pany took over.
Choices had to be made.
their jobs, their cars, their expenses.
I was in the ETU then, new masters.
and
Cannon and his mates Marxism Stalinism ruled.
Trotskyists did show us Chapple's democracy. there were other forces to al-
as the media, leaders, easy to swop one For those trained in the
another.
The courts decided that electricians' union.
gates can be elected on to Perhaps the regional Commutict discovered what the EETPU was up LO I In fact it was ward delegate. who were disenfranchised, nOT. TOSe from the trade unions, thus leaving Frank Chaphas evi tiencies to be stacked tuencies stacked with Chapple-approved delegates. Such measures Involve ot countability which reminiscent feudalism.
There certainly needs to be full participation in the Labour Partv bv the branches of affiliated And their delegates should behave precıselv as their ule sug. gests: to present the view the branch to the GMC; to argue for Labour Party views the union - and to be eecieu ov those mem bers they will represent.
SO THE LEVELLE
As part of the celebrations of its 50th issue, Leveller magazine is holding a TEACH -IN ON THE STATE an he Polate chaic of Central London, New Cavendish St, London W1 with bates. rod, he drink. subversion i de or hid the ballot for the general secretary's job had been rigged. Haxell and Foulkes were expelled from the ETU.
Chapple, and com-
They banned Communists from holding office, whereupon a bunch of cynical time-servers tore up their party cards and kept
and The day before they served Haxell; now they would serve their
The union set off at -breakneck speed for the
There was a crackdown on oppositon just like in the old days At present time there are even fewer elections in the EE!PU than there were when
Of course, Perrin did not
Nor did he explain that Cannon and company were the children of Stalinism who found it very
bureaucratic regime for
But then if you are a member of the Frank Chapple fan club it is very hard to dramatise an objective history of the events in the
PO engineers
challenge phone
taps
By Bugsy, POEU THE Post Office Engineering Union is trying to ensure that there is some control on the activities of the security organisations over telephone tapping.
the committee stage of the Bill which allows firms to cash in on profitable tele coms business the POEU-sponsored MPs inserted a clause mak. ing it an offence to inTerre• a cal unicos d warrant has been issued by the Home Secretary
The clause also re-
Ine Secretary to inform the subscriber COUl the tapping, unless it can be shown that this would assist criminal activity or threaten national security.
Guides
Although the new guidelines put forward by the Labour MPs are fairly broad, they would make it less easy to justify eavesdropping on conversations "OUT political or trade union activity However, unless there is a back. bench Tory revolt, the government will have no difficulty in axing
proposals wher Enest the Bill goes back to
the •House of Commons.
The POEU is not Lord Diplock new laws Lord chairperson of the Security
Commission, assured the union that the Secrets Frank Windsor as Frank Haxell, general secretary of the ETU
Act will not be used against Post Office workers wno give in formation about illicit
It is that the security
bend the rules but since
form the war-
are able to
Catch 22!
the various
tapping under-
is authorised or otherwise.
While this will hopefully expose
political trade union
keep
A practice that has
your conask who is
Page 5 scan of this page
By Brian Grogan 'WE'RE going to stick out for the full 15 per cent on basic pay with no strings.' That was the message from John Tomlinson, General and Municipal Workers Union shop steward from the Oldham area, when he spoke to Socialist Challenge last week.
Rank and file unofficial action continued to spread in the North West
CaSu Ince fiance of the union leaders' call to accent the National Water Council's latest offer.
Press reports have put the offer at 12.3 per cent. This is nonsense as John Tomlinson explained: 'All that's different
"WE ARE
WOMEN
WORKERS
FIGHTING
FOR OUR
JOBS"
By Jean Mackenzie 'WOMEN'S jobs are as important as any other, and we aim to prove that women can fight for them' is the message of the 250 workers ccupying the VF Scotland.
The workers, mainly been occupying the plant -jeans — for five weeks. They are protesting at the management's decision to close the plant and transfer production to its two factories in Ireland. The occupiers are demanding that no should be sacked and that the work should be shared out among all the factories.
told Socialist Challenge about the struggle.
THE decision to occupy was unanimous
meeting.
There was nothing left to do if we were to keep the jobs in Greenock. We don't want to take jobs off
plants. We just want the work to be shared.
At the moment the support is fantastic. We occupy factory three shifts. There are usualv between 50 and 60 in each shift. Most of the time we watch the TV or play cards.
Sometimes acts from Ineoca cos come up to perform at the sit-in.
ple going out on delegalions to will suppoll.
We've got the full backing of union, the National Union of Tailors and Garment Workers, and it will be made official. The Scottish TUC have also met
Water workers fight on
from the previous offer is to consolidate the £5 atichuance subolement. There's no more money on table It's only worth 7.9 per cent on the basic.
'And do you know what basic pay is?' asked
G&M member Beard. 'Il's £66 gross for Grade 1 and only t60.52 for Grade 4. Corporation plant in Greenock,
young women, have
which makes Lee
workers
Catherine Fulton, shop steward at the plant,
us and they've promised
everything they Call
At the moment need around €1500 a WC week to keep the occupaLUll going. We've JuSt started going out to other places like Edinburgh ana Dundee io win support. If we get enough support we can hold out till we're grey-headed.
The management are still in some parts of the building. About ten of
their three shifts as well. They hope they can sit us out.
This factory is only nine vears old and some of the equipment has just been installed. We've go flm worth of stock for the Scandinavian spring collection so the owners will be trying something pretty soon.
At the moment we don't have ally difficulties in the оссираGOI. vOSi are
Our initial claim was for
£20 the board.
We've
alicauv
compromise on the 15
per cent. We don't want
any more compromises.
The Oldham workers
are justifiably angry.
negollatons nave aragg-
ed on for four months.
support to take industrial
action for the full claim.
The employers Talesl ol-
fer their third 'final'
offer - came as industri-
al action was spreading.
Now the union leaders
are back-tracking as last
as possible
*The miners gave us a
big boost of confidence, INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY
8 MARCH 1981
young. We were recruited as school leavers.
Even who have kids take part in the
Home News
added Oldham G&M strike committee
member, Bob Lees.
"Iney showed that the
government could be beaten. Action
The union leaders don't want to take on
this Tory
Both the miners and the
water workers have shown that it is through
rank and file action, often in the face of op-
position from the union
leaderships, that the
Tories and the employers can be brought to their
knees.
VF Corporation Sit-in Appeal
about work-sharing broke down.
involved,
name 'Lee' jeans
tion in its Belgian and Irish factories.
occupation. They've usually had some ar-
Very often such unofficial action, like the water workers, is shortisolated. and without the same industrial muscle they would have with national action, they are forced back to work.
But in these pockets ot resistance to the of ficials and executives of the unions, many important lessons are being learnt. 'We should be the ones in control,' argued James Cowan the Transport Union in Oldham. 'The officials have spent all their time trying to keep us in. There are 33,000 members and think, 19 officials. We pay their wages. They Women workers in the occupied Greenock factory — 'The support has been fantastic
This Thursday sees our sit-in fight to save 250 jobs at the VF Corporation factory in Greenock enter its fourth week. The clothing factory has been occupied 24 hours a day since talks with the company
The sit-in has united both the factory and of fice staff, and although we are almost all women
we have received 100 per cent support
Facing a 25 per cent reduction in orders, Corporation, an American multı-national — trade
- finds it more profitable to close the Greenock plant and concentrate produc-
We believe
rangemen: for baby sit-
should be up for election every 12 months. Then they , would be helping us build this strike, not undermining it. Power
As key sections of the working class 'rise like lions' against the Tories, the labou movement should use its power to bring end this
all government once and for
STOP PRESS: At
nectine Monday morning 200 Oldham waterworkers rejected the advice of ten tun-uume ouricials to go back to work. that people come before profits, and have occupied the factory to press our demand for work-sharing across all the company's factories. So far the company has refused even to allow an investigation into the union plan for work-sharing.
workers fighting for our jobs with the only weapons available to us. Women's jobs are as important as any other, and we aim to prove that women can fight for them.
support and donations 1o:
Tailors & Garment Workers, S- Sailers Glasgow,
cupation is being rur = 118 8 =
Sociaist Challenge 5 Mart '#
Dave Nelson, senior steward for the No west Pennine area division, told Socialist Challenge:
unanimous decision we voted to stay out for the full 15 per cent. We've got
Borders from the OUl rank and file, no not the fulltimers be contacting other divi sions to extend the strike'
Bob Lees from the strike committee add. ed: It's obvious we need a national strike committee, a rank and file body All we re operating on at the moment is a list of phone numbers and useless full-time officials.
We are no 'rag trade girls, we are women
With your support we will win. Messages :
tricr
Page 6 scan of this page
SPAIN :
millions
march
against
plotters
By Frank McBride FIRST reactions to last week's attempted coup in Spain were that it was the action of a lunatic fascist colonel together with 200 civil guards.
show the reverse:
• After the coup attook nearly seven hours for the king
make his broad. cast. During unis period he was negotiating with Lic all conditions tor their continued support.
• Among the plotters were many senior army
General
of the 3rd military region, sent his troops into the streets of
complete with vaclicia. tanks, and issued pIoclamations Dallillli strikes, political parties and trau.
•The Brunete tank division miles trom Madrid was put on full
It was touch-andgo whether tanks were sent into Madrid.
"• General Armada, the 'loval officer WIIU negotiated with the plot-
has been implicated in the coup bid and sackSocialist Challenge
FMLN
But the facts which have emerged
ed. A purge senior army personnel is now going on.
Large numbers of
officers knew about the coup and it
likely that security services did too.
completing their transition from the fascist-style Franco state
'democracy', Spanish ruling class have
Over SULU tions like the Civil Guard and the army, large sections which still nanker ror a relurn 10 fascism.
Last Friday more than a million Spaniards marched through Madrid to denounce the plotters and to celebrate their This huge demonstration and the
ones whick took Silliliat place simultaneousiv virtually and villa Spanish
village show that the social polarisa5 March 1981 Page 6
Carlos (right) tion which existed during THe peared.
The mass base of fascism nas evaporated but the fascists remain entrenched Ill the state apparatus.
Despite the huge mobilisations on Friday
International
Washington
AS Margaret Thatcher went off to see her co-thinker in British government gave its clearest indica tion yet of its support for the US line on El Salvador.
The Foreign Office stated that the 'evidence' provided by the United States alleged Cuban, Russian, and Vietnamese arms supplies the rebel force points to activities which can DU
table interference the internal affairs of El Salvador':
As the US steps up its international campaign to Carillo (left), the CP leader, called for loyalty to King Juan
evening a stark fact re-
In the period immediately following the coup, the trades unions and workers' parties were largely passive. Only in the Basque country and Catalonia were any moves laken to moolise working class resistance.
Thatcher's visit to
No British support for US
in El Salvador!
Washington last week, the
for its intervention to support nilitar minsus sign that Bri fice statement preparing give all-out support t the Salvador issue.
Washington
preparing a naval armada oi over 40 warships in the Caribbean, and carrying out exercises, including landings at the US base at Guantamano in Cuba.
These operations are The best response came in the Basque counHere militants from the Trotskyist LKI were aDIC LU Cal blies in the major plants' night shifts and organise an immediate'strike. The far left parties together win ine communist r al ty called for a general
being conducted in co. operatior with the Chilean navy.
The attitude of the British government to El Salvador is in marked contrast to that of ine orner vyest pean countries, in par ticular West Germany.
Reports stated that the first of talks between Thatcher and Reagan were dominated by the El Salvador question.
. The new US ad ministration is deadly serious in its intention of inflicting defeat on the popular forces in El Salvador. Accorstrike. which was called off obviously thilecoup had when the
The Communist Par-
Catalonia, which ly In recently Eurocommunist leader-
Lavoul 'Leninist' grouping, also called for strike action
In Madrid, the Trotskvists called a demon stration of several thousand people in of the parliament building within hours of the at tempted coup which coastalu went unreported by the British press.
But elsewhere the trade and the Communist and Socialist Parties remained passive, calling 'calm' and 'loyalty to the king'
This response gives a crucial SINSIONE reasons for the failure of
The Spanish COUN rulers no longer need fascism, SO long as the demands of the can be kept within the confines of the loyalty to the constitution sup-
both Communist leader Carrillo and Socialist leader Gonzales.
ding to the FDR (Revolutionary Demo. Cocoa mace are now as many US military advisers in El Salvador as there were
Vietnam before the US troops went in.
The ideologica smokescreen behinc which the American operation is being carried out is Tene tion that the Duarte regime IS a SHONESS alternative to both the extremes of right and left 'terrorists'.
It is this fraud which the British Foreign Office is sup. porting.
The being asked by all Spanish people is whether the coup was a rehearsal for a further, determined attempt. No one can say for sure: bul so long a the army and the Civil Guard is not purged fascist officers the danger remains
One thing we can bi sure of. The Spanish working Cass the criminal reformist policies of its leaders, has come a long way since the dark days of the rranco arctatorsup
Unless there are new and defeats flicted the Spanish workers inconceivable that a new military coup successful or not, could be stabilised without provoking a civil war.
The millions who marched last Friday chanted, 'If this is not the people tell what it is'. After last week's events the Spanish workers will give tnel own answer to any new fascist plots whatever the king Communist Party and the Socialist Party say.
Page 7 scan of this page
Cops of
the world
By George Marshall 'I WANT the neutron bomb.! That's what Margaret Thatcher told her New York audience at the Waldorf-Astoria last week. While countries like France and Germany have become distinctly edgy about the cold war policies emanating House, Thatcher's visit to the United States was all about 'defence.
But the neutron bomb wasn't the half of it. Thatcher really Went over when she suggested TACT Britain and the United States need a joint Rapid Deployment Force to defend the oilfields in the Middle East.
This proposal is not exactly original. It obligingly follows the new strategic 'thinking' in Washington.
Besides trying to line up other Western countries besine plans to smash the revolutionary
move ment In Salvador, the Reagan/Haig mafia are trying to persuade the Western
TEne neutron bomb and the
Sociaus
MISS
BRITAIN OUT
Southall marchers
say no to bunker
burearan EALING'S thousands of pounds on renovating ground bunker in Southall. to be used in the event of nuclear war by military and civilian officials to co-ordinate local 'governmer:
at a time when se
tion spending, the bunker is ocates. -3€ local autorities is cutting back ee• school in South Road
Last Saturday several hunc'es ==:
ng CND, including many yours e demanding that Ealing courc more productively. money for school shelters'.
from the White
strengthening Western
extension of NATO's role. The latter would reach beyond West
its striking power eastwards.
In the 1950s the United States organised three alliances with world-wide NATO; CENTO, the Centra Treaty Organisation, which covered Western Asia:
SEATO. the South-east Asian
Treatecouganisatio the
Because political upneavals the last 20 rears CEN
and longer function effectively.
Now the Ameriwith their Carlo economy under strain,
cape
TO!
Tory council is planning to spend
an under-
*==== : =::
want the Western allies to develop their striking capacity to help their defence of 'freedom world-wide.
Thatcher's
help for a strike force the Middle East may well be more bravado than reality.
Although Britain #====-=-:
Stop the missiles
has contributed the SAS and other military officers shore up the truly feudal despotism in the Gulf region, it is difficult to believe that any substantial British forces could be committed outside the European theatre.
The last time that 25:50:- 5y
British
menalism tried such an adventure the Suez inva sion of 1956 - it ended in farce, as the lumbering and outdated British military machine showed itself incapable of deploying its forces with any speed.
Margaret Thatcher's remarks about
dicate even more clearly the loony drift of her 'defence' thinking. 'I want an effec tive at-tank weapon, she said 'It
"bomb" in the first place - it's a weapon' (sic).
Bomb
It's true, of course, that the neutron bomb can be used as an antitank shell; but it has a yield of several kilotons. The weakest neutron bomb would stil cause a gigantic nuclear explosion.
The argument for an effective anti-tank weapon has a clear implication. InCL That. cher and Reagan are
the West use nuclear weapons first in the event of a nuclear conflict
As the world hurtles towards a new cold war, Britain more than any other country
aiding and abetting Reagan's lunacy. The labour movement has to pull out all the stops to put an end to it.
NOT
GONES
KICK OUT
the TORIES
WHAT's on against
missiles? The following are
listed by CND have film show demonstration.
meeting or anti nuclear event. piease seno I11€ details to us and CND
7 March: Bristol CND labour conterence: 'Jobs not Bombs' Sponsored by Bristol Trades Council and Benn Shepherds Market, 10 am-5pm. Films workshops. creene
March: Jobs Bombs march cannam Common Wandsworth Town Hall.
Clapham South
10 March: Picket Stockport conch agains their civil defence plans, o'clock at the Town Hall.
14 March: Sheffield nuclear disarmament demonstration
TalV Assemble 10.30/11.30am, Carlisle St. . Rally in the City Oval Hall featuring Kinnock MP, Ray Bucktor ALer. bruce ken cN.
14.21 March: Cardift Week Action includes of The mai
drive and El Salvador. Rock reading and Sodins, pity reatings demonstration 'No Cruise missiles, No Trident subs Jobs not Bombs on Marcl
invitea speakeis 10 the alone Mineworkers, Labour Par
Plaid Cymru and CND
secretary of Cardiff CND 0ZL2-3120/4
CND
LABOUR
MOVEMENT
CONFERENCE
Organisation:
Political party
Address:
A message for all
S:: = is: Challenge
=-==
Get
delegated
to the
missiles
Socialist Challenge 5 March 1981
Anti-missile
Action Guide
28 March: Ealing Trades Counci Movemen conference against the Manchester Phone Andy (574-2895) for celais. to return 31 March:
CND public meeting Speakers: Richardson MP, Melvyn Bragg, Campbell ClIr Margaret Dr Berry Beaumont
Holoway _centra Koad Library, Londor off N7.
April: 'Jobs Kombs' march in stockton (Bill Rodgers' constituen END Speakers Trades Council Assemble Norton Greet 12.30pm. Details tel. 0642 2444316 11 April: Youth CND conference in Brimingham 12 April: Trans-Pennine Maren starline In recu through Rochdale to Man. chester, April Mass called Cents randor anc Mancheste Against the Missiles to gree the Trans-Pennine March Details tel 061-236 4905 Easter: No will lar mastor march take place There will be large
Stres.
May Dav: National CND don. Details from: CND conterence Lon
Goodwin St London Na Tel 01-263 4954
AGAINST THE MISSILES
Saturday Ush Mrch int ONCHESTER
LABOUR MOVEMENT CON
Go Tube Caret. Led by secretary of delegating body and returned to CND. 11
conference!
Page?
Page 8 scan of this page
1953 1962 1967 children - Kamran, Imran, and Saima. 1975
1976 for their children in Pakistan to join them. 1978
Socialist Challenge. 5 March 1981 Page 8.
Anwar is born in Birmingham.
Aged nine she is sent to Pakistan.
She marries Shuja Ud Din, below the legal age for marriage. She has three
Anwar returns to England where she has another child, Samera. Believing their marriage to be invalid under British laws she and Shuja remarry in Rochdale. They give their status as bachelor and spinster, thinking this the correct thing to do.
As they now have a house they apply
On 21 February they are interviewed.
1979 children to be Anwar's. although 1980
on all of us.
On 18 May the Home Office refuses en try on the grounds that they do not believe the
Anwar's appeal is turned down on 30 July and in September leave to appeal against the decision is refused. The Home Office declares the case closed although the adjudicator agrees that the three children are indeed Anwar's. The reason given are the 'lies' in the past - mis-stating her age on marriage in Pakistan, and declaring herself to be a spinster at Rochdale Registry Office.
Whether Kamran, Imran and Saima are allowed to enter the country now depends
force.
organising Pakistan.
pY
daughter, Daddy,
what's umaerslallu
ference at
there.
meeting,
anything.
Secretary,
say
Barnett
MP for
Party
accused
meetings.
"They think An
going to give up
I'll never give uf
BRITISH Immigration laws
are racist. Through successi
Acts of Parliament the law
has been perfected to allow
easy entry for 'desirable'
whites and to keep out blac
people. Now a new Nationa
ty Bill with the same racist
basis is about to come into
WE'VE been up all night
things in We phoned the children in Pakistan, took ages to get through.
The children were so hap-
talk They wanted to speak to my
Samera. They said: 'Please, Mum, wake her up, please, please.'
She was asleep. It was three o'clock in the morning. But she spoke to them It was the first
She has neve 1 san the She kept crying and saying: want to go and see them
And they said: 'Mummy and
miss you.' People think the kids don't understand
going U11 They do
Some people say, 'But it's five or six years since you've last seen your children, they might not remember vou' That's out
of the question. They know who I am, they haven't forgotten me at all, nor their father.
When did you first realise tha you weren't going to be allowea to bring them here?
When case was turned down. After that it went on and on. I was turned down on appeal
well. Then started. At the tribunal they said the case was closed, but I'm still
campaignto lots
of meetings. I went to the Labour Party con
Blackpool and spoke at the Tribune and the national
ecutive is supposed to be taking
my case up, but I haven't heard
met Labour's Merlyn Rees, and 1
asked him: 'What are you going
to do about the families you've
destroyed?' He replied: 'I can'
anything without knowing
about your case - leave me ine
reference number.'
Sheret he bombe He's been
terested in the Cast trom the
Minor Rochdale where Anwar Cyril Smith (Liberal
lives) turned me down because
im a member of the Labour
He wrote to me saying: 'I sug
gest you ask your Labour Party
friends to help you.
wrote to nim again and he me breaking I haven't broken up
any meetings. He says he can't
One of the many ma Top right: Anwar's t
proved that I've had n SUDOOHI me although one child.
You had a medical exa didn't you?
Yes, Timothy Rais Home Office wan evidence so I had an ex and it proved definitel had more than one chi
'It's som about - in
still wasn't satisfied. W more and more new ev they said they wouldn any more new docume
I'm absolutely I've been to so many that I haven't been abl work done. I make pi for the NHS. I get one one pillow-case - I ha 3000 to make £30. It hour and twenty minu
Page 9 scan of this page
ar Ditta's
meetings.
NG ANWARS
EN HOME
i to bring Anwar's children to Britain. children in Pakistan.
been and fold a pack of 100. than I had a regular job but I had
lo give lt up ob if I want to get my children tion, here. I've sacrified everything for
the campaign. We have no social f the life.
LCW ation last night at half past eleven. We I've didn't sleep, what with phoning at he Pakistan and then talking about out time that
ody spoke up
at's happening
is country'
duce My mother-in-law rang to say: 'I the kids for the rest of the night. e but
pray for you night and day, that k at
sted.
for the authorities. tings
they turn me down there's more et my
new evidence. vasco y for the whole world's documents
nake everything they've
for. I've never refused a blood one › sew test. For five years we've been
No chance.
ANWAR DITTA is a victim of these racist laws. For five years she has tought a heroic battle to bring her children to this country and to reunite her family. JENNY FLINTOFT interviewed her as she rested
briefly between campaign
sayıng
blood tests.
I think give up. not easy
both
done way fligie up.
La housewife the time.
meeting I can't do a regular
We came back from Leicester
Centre Nationality
Stockport
There lo of the Racist from: house
We are getting new evidence Every time I've given them sunday loo
Never asked here think
we're willing have Now after all these years they finally say they want
Do you think they hop you'll give up and go back to Pakistan?
they do reckon I'll because they know it's
tests. It's very complicated. You have to have the same doctor
There and in Pakistan, and you have to go through a lot of procedures to snow that it was
bulgere su give up.
herore une campaign | was just a housewife, now it's totally different. I still do both jobs; I'm
and I'm out speaking at meetings. It's meetings all
On Thursdav 1 went to a
Manchester and yesterday we were in belesler.
THE THIN END OF THE WHITE WEDGE £1
The Thin End of the White
Wedge, Manchester Law
Immigration
Handbook No5- on New
Laws. Cost
£1. Available from: Man-
chester Law Centre, 595
Road, Long-
sight, Manchester.
Stay - newsletel Campaign Against Avalabie Lansbury Camberwell
Grove, London SES.
In twenty minutes me ve col
to go back down to Leicester. It's a long way. I'll have to change trains about four times and it's
Do you find that Asian people
it's a bit strange that should be ad-
dressing meetings?
They do feel strange about it. But I think it's about time that somebody spoke up what's happening in this coun try. You know it could happen to them any time.
Asian people are always being asked questions like: you came into the country you had a moustache, why haven't you got one now? You can't be the same person.'
Or English people spell our names wrong on documents and then the authorities say: not the same person, ing's,different. It's only black people of course white, you're okay.
I read an article in the Times or the Guardian ages ago about Shirley Webster who appealed to the prime minister when her marriage broke up in South Africa. she was allowea to come here, White and T am black. but not children.
And the Nationality make things worse for black people.
Yes, it's a racist law totally. There's no other way to describe it. Whitelaw has been saying it'll be a fairer deal for black people - that's completely wrong.
It means that children born to pell plane to eat no gears for will nave lo wait 10 vears children. White children That means black church. have to wait 10 years. white people go abroad they don't lose their citizenship. But that can happen to black people.
And wnal oes Citizenship mean? Those black
here. They will be clien on
They will be citizens of this country and they won't be able to come here.
But this new Nationality Bill
produced by the Labour Party. I regise heat hey've one. We ve hope the Labour Party voted Labour all our lives but we want better things for black people, we don't just want to be used.
The Labour Party wants your vote but...
about That's right.
that I've met Michael Foot, Joan Lestor, bara Castle I've met them all. I told them al
'When about my case and you can see
what's happened
'A country that destroys
people's families isn't a
civilised country
Joel Barnett is the only take it up: spoken at that many meetings.
'You're the spell- you spoke at a meeting?
if you're how I felt.
tell them.
feel scared or nervous at all
black people realised the truth.
She was
so. A country people's families isn't civilised.
Bill will
the 127
Rochdale 39832.
won't
And if
of a single example, Overseas
destroved.
These people Tony Benn, , Bar- you name them can't
nothing. said:
So I send children
one to Yet every MP must have heard of Anwar Ditta, I've
were vor nervous ie use can up.
Many people have asked me
. This is what I always telling the truth doesn't hurt anybody. So I don't just do it because I'm doing it for my children. It's about time that
Many Asians say Britain is a civilised country. I don't think
that destroys
ou can help Anwar
ampaign by contactin
defence committee Rochdale, Can or st Crawford
now
At a United Kingdom Immigrant Advisory Service conerence a black person asked Al really, hur Latham: 'How many whit rames nave vou seen acollove by the Home Office? Do you know of any?' He couldn't think
because there is none. There's just a list Campaign Against
Racist Laws
National Demonstration against Tor Nationality Bill Sunday 5 April in London
For details benet CARe, Londons ouse, 41
INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY 8 MARCH 1981
of black families that have been
I read in Here to Stay that the adjudicator now agrees that the children are yours. But now they
come this country because you had previously been "telling lies'.
That's right. At first they
'The names and ages your children are similar to those of your sister-in-law's children.'
asked my sister-in-law to photographs the together And children and hers are totally dif ferent sets of children.
For how long are they going to keeo mem out ror now loll: are they going to say no, no no! How long? They think Anwar Ditta is going to give up. No chance, no chance. I'll never give
They've ruined our lives: our family life has been destroyed;
social life has been destroyed. There's no way I'm going to give up. All over England people have heard of my campaign, and in other countries too
We've received letters of sup port from people all over the world asking what they can do There are lots of people tha want to help, and I still want tha help so we can go ahead and do the blood tests.
It's not easy to send investigators because it costs an awful lot of money. I'm beggin people to help me. We ne people's help more nan eve.
whatever anybody can afford. We need at least £2000 or maybe even more than that.
Mildren spel Theyre
children soon.
really strong. It's not been easy running the campaign, sending letters over the country, all the meetings. I just hope I get them soon.
Socialist Challenge 5 March 1981 Page 9
Page 10 scan of this page
Where you can buy
Socialist Challenge
1985 Books,
Bamp. N 430-9.4
Bookshop,
ground, Haymake More inin Chelenham Rid, Monuptier, Bristol BURNLEY: SC on sale every Sai 102-12 At ase B
: Aladyailable 1-0-8 Books,
CHESTERFIELD SC supporters sell
larketplace, satu
Bookshoo High St; Glas
4Ar00OI
Street, Sat
more info contact Paul, Hamide View or John at 54 Elios St, HUDDERSFIELD:
The Piazza. SC also available at KILBURN: SC sales every Sat, 10am
evenings and Thur morVoice Ban, Has a rue th NEWCASTLE SE
outside
NEWHAM: Don Salevery aturday sC Saturday,
NEWPORT: every Sat in town centre
haboui localet 061-682 5151.
OXFORD: supporters sell every
y Sat 10.30-12.30pm 300c am.
STOCKPORT: SC • sold every Satur delivered n hone 483 890°
tside Co-op.
SWINDON: on sale CESSIDE: SC
Cleveland C a Midside Woolworths WOLVERHAMPTON: SC salesi
Poly 4.30-6pm; i near Beatties, town centre from 11am-2pm is our town this sales column
What's Left
For What Let So pe
Mobile cian actress/ acres socialis
Wing 13 April. Write 241E, High St North, telephone 01-470 2581.
Exclusive John Lennon poster! Now in tasteless dayglo - please specify green or red paper Just £1. otherwise, send 30p p&p.
Orders and money to: The Other Printshop, c/o Po Box 50, London N1 2XP
Socialist Challenge
EALING trades council coach to Against the Missiles. Cost £6 return
ular Rd, "
One 574-2895 ev. Contact A intens proces to sport in tit
ers from Sinn Fein anc Leeds 7. TOM D Schoo Mt, tomaton on trans, ToM, Wome
melande Contact Box 199 24 HARINGEY Campaign Against
around
Crises and redunpike Lam.
SMASH the Preven-
tion of Terrorism Act
Campaign. Labour
Movement Conference:
TUC HANDS OFF
IRELAND!
Coventry 14 March
1981.
he TUC has threatenad t
disaffiliate any trades counci
Armagh
WCIN 3XX. Tel 01-274 3951.
SC Events SOCIALIST organisers' fraction on Sat 14 March CHALLENGE WANDWORTH
Oliver Macdor editor of Labour
International Marxist Group notices ING MEMBERS: We urgently need
interested ring Penny on
SOUTHERN
STAFF NEEDED for The Other Bookshop. IMG cde 1ccucu witn accounts exDenence aptitude •wnc could be trained. Cdes to do 01-226 o0s1pply by ringing
tional centre. Agenda includes:
claim:
Revolution Youth notices MEMBERSHIP LARUS nould place orders with national of MISSILES: national fract members involved in building YCND Richard
nard at national office for more REVO 16: next issue underway, out
Bulk orders (over 5) are post free,
5 March 1981 Page 10
ROCK
- on a weekend
visit to Paris
The last Rouge fête in Paris
By Alan Freeman
SIXTEEN thousand
much money
organised raffles on the Glasgow demo.
Our Oxford
porters have found an ef
way to oring In Casil They have visited regular readers and sup porters of the paper ask for a regular monthly contribution, if possible by standing order.
Backing
John from Oxford told us: we got a very good response Everyone
approached has agreed to give something
some people over ten pounds a month. Many socialists see the need for organisation and know that our paper is fighting for socialism in the working class.
"They are willing. to give their backing
OUR supporters ordered a grand total of 1,800 copies of Challenge for local sales on the national sales day, February. Hundreds were sold at the Glasgow march.
Edinburgh supporters topped the league with 300 sales and Manchester sold 250. In Brent, supporters used the opportunity of our interview with MacAliskey to sell round the
Socialist Challenge News
AGAINST
GISCARD
11% won't pay the rent
pounds! That's how we've received towards our £100,000 fund drive target. And we have promises for four or five hundred pound cheques from supporters who sold badges and
even though they don't want become fully politically active.
Organise
So far the Oxford comrades have : orders or pro must had to be But had organised. produc ed special standing order forms, drew up a list of people to visit, and made sure they were all discussed with.
But we're still behind our for Only 11 per cent of our local supporters' goal of €20,000 has been raised so far. So why don't you follow the Oxford sup porters' example?
Just complete the
Sales Day - a step forward
local Irish pubs. extra Socialist used the Schreibers' struggle to sell 64 21 copies to the workers in factory, more factory convenor out to lend a hand. That means one out of every four shop floor workers bought a copy.
supporters ed to try a brief experiment - a one-hour sale estate. This netted 27 sales, a Michael great beginning. Now the comrades are planning a big shift of
By Nick Robin
weekend Paris?
thousands of
political festival?
We'd like to announce
that vour dreams can come
true 11/12 April cine weekend ine French
Trotskyists of the Revolu-
holding
festival, and you are all in
viica
not the can thieulor ine
tion of the campaign
League's
French Presidential elec-
tions, Alain Krivine. It is a
TeLe workers unity
against the corrupt and
epressive Giscard regime, a
tele tor a government of the form accompanying this article to make out regular payment to the
Our thanks this week to the following contributors:
Ms Mackie £1.00 Normand Dubé 0.50
Bath supporter: 20.00
Lambeth/Southwark 150.00 Coventry Words words words Shelley Garigan JA blanco walte kennel Jacksor 2.50 Cardiff supporters 50.00
15.00
Mike Holbrook Canterbury 10.00 5.00 Claire Dismorr 5.00 E Singer 7.50 Edinburgh supporters
45.00 5.00
cedain Outer West London 122.00 Wolverhampton 9.00 H Wally
5,000.00 neme supporter Leeds
24.00 Mary Long
100.00 Hackney supporter Swansea 30.00
In Manchester, supporters
sales report on the
the with the help of the future events.
who came
hope
elections Hackney supporters decid-
concentrating estates. counci
meeting.
HOW'S your imagination? Ever dreamt of a
weekend with
revolutionaries at a huge
Communist and Socialist Parties But it is more than that, it is a fête in solidarity with WOriC over AnO you are guaranteed to have a good time. Fifteen thousand expected to attend a • vl music, acDale. for uns aiscussion ¡ood ana dancing Its political purpose is to assemble the lar demonstration
the tara dain French
Hiall workers Darlies and to ar SOCIALIST CHALLENGE
Your Bank...
Name of Account to be debited Account Number Our Bank
Account No 0179678.
Sorting Code 30-94-57
Amount to be paid First Payment due..
Signed
J Nudger 0.40 AMON 8.96 Manchester 5.00 Total £6,114.86 Accumulative Total €16,302.23
their resources to estate sales.
Local Socialist Challenge
organisers will be meeting on 14 March to assess the national sales day and plan
During the TUC week of action in April we
to focus efforts on workplace sales, while in May in the run-up to the council
our sellers will be housing
local supporters should make sure they send a representative to the 14 March
firm the need for units
workers movement
against the common enemy,
the Giscard regime
Only a halt ycals ana sociansl Parties were calling joint mobilisations of hundreds of thousands of it is only Krivine's campaign which has put workers'
Because it ha expressed the interests of the Was had class lie campalgr response.
We're not Krivine victory in the election, but will pul money on this being the bes
• o1 any canalcate and a nationally important political event.
Socialist Challenge organising pooled transpor for those readers who woulo like to go to the festival. We
have asked our French con rades about of accommodation Let us know if you want to go and will trunsoorr you nave any or writing SCL (Fete), PO Box 50, London NI 2XP News from the Fourth International
BANKER'S ORDER FORM ...socialist Challenge. Lloyd's Bank, 19 Upper St, London N1.
Monthly
And on the same date in the month thereafter.
outthe
orie
WHAT does every mili-
The ul week of action, the forthcoming local elections, in the Labour rally The dicket liner a kic out the Tories' badge. 20p each plus p&p
Why not get your loca Labour Party, unior branch or trades council to raer mem ano make some money at the same time? Bulk ‹ orders (20
free TUre each postage
Send orders to Socialist Educatior Fund, PO Box 50 London N1
Page 11 scan of this page
Preston Trades Council makes headlines
By John Parkinson, secretary, Preston Trades Council IT IS now 18 months since Preston Trades Council decided to establish its own journal, Preston Worker.
media reaction to the 'winter of discontent', but it also reflected dissatisfaction at the bureaucratically-controlled press.
We have produced tive issues or ine z0-30 vast print run of 2,500-3,000 journal, with
copies. This has been
to shop based on sales stewards committees, union branches, and many political and trade union functions
Such Stas been the response to Preston Worker and the associated printing, operation that the counci recently agreed to help establis! a plug co-
'Facelift Apartheid'
By Charlie van Gelderen
sporting authorities
South Africa.
that myth.
The white nationalist
regime of Pieter Botha
claims that it is trying to
humanise the obnoxious
known as Apartheid.
South Africa's lead-
ing capitalist, Harry
Oppenheimer, who
nead Anglo-Ameri-
urges the ment to speed up the pro
cess otherwise matters
may be taken out of the
hands of the ruling class.
The of South Africa will solve matters their own way.
This is no idle threat.
On February the Afrikaans-language
newspaper Die Vader-
land reported a survey finding that the majority
of blacks In Soweto
favoured revolution as
the best and surest means
of improving their lot.
Judy Seidman's valu-
able pamphlet Facelift
Apartheid gives a comprenensive review or tile concessions' which the wards its alleged goal has made
Not achieving c. ually tor all people before the law
and equal chances and
to quote Koornhof, the
Minister of Co-operation
and Development.
Soweto
The first moves were made the Vorster government when it set community councils for black urban residential arcas. The enthusiasm for these In the black community is indicated by the elections in Soweto in 1978, when only 5 per cent of the 200,000 registered voters went to the polls.
The survey reported in Lie vaaeriana snowed that the chairperson Council.
David Thebali, enjoyed
It was a decision easily justified by the
trade union
operative with its own premises in the town cenLIC.
This move was designed to cater for a rapidly expanding printing shop which has outgrown a backroom in a house, and also to act as a focus for trade union and socialist activity the district The initial operation had small beginnings.
printworker and an active, campaigning trades THE furore over the England cricket team in the West Indies has brought apartheid in South Africa back into the news. The British
and the government argue that things are improving for blacks in
CHARLIE VAN GELDEREN reviews a new pamphlet which disproves
cent township residents.
Botha even hinted a couple of vears ago that he was prepared to revise that scullul the morality act which forbids miscegenation marriages. was in 1979, since when he made s a retreat under pressure from his rank-and-file and the Dutch Reformed Church.
The crowning edifice of this 'liberalised apartheid' was to be the new constitution, designed to give the 'coloured'
Asiatic communities (but not the blacks) a share in of the government. It left powel June names of the white assembly
council led to the purchase of an A4 printing press, the raw materials
Letraset layout, platemaking (at first with the help the local poly, and printing.
With the trades coun cil and other campaign bodies swamping Preston in leaflets, and with the warm, if surprised welcome that Preston Worker received, the attraction of the printing operation and the trades council grew.
Orders for cheap
printing flooded in from
Party wards,
Labour trade union bodies, and for factory bulletins. Even booklets on health and satety labour
and Vietnam were churned out.
The turnover grew ane arew. until it now stands at five times the
Knocking Botha
The workers of South Africa will solve matters their own way
which
Call
legislation, while
President 1 Clallls
residual powers of veto.
The pamphlet
the reality of the 'conces-
'The creation of a
privileged stratum and Africans unavoidable corollary -That
African
population must be even
more firmly controlled.
Bulldozed
Influx control
been tightened; pass ar-
TeSTS increased
shanty towns like Modand fical
Town, and Unibell have
been bulldozed.
government's threat
wipe Crossroads off the
map has only been held
Under Review
budget relatively well-heeled trades coun cil with 20,000 affiliated members.
We have provided access to people who would olner wise have ocen uil unsure how to able oI proceed. other trades councils have now established Drillile operations as direct result of our ettorts several others are following closely.
The striking aspect of the operation has been latent talent been discovered People who would walk miles to avoid machinery, or who claimed two lett hands, now happily apply themselves to design, layout. and machine repair and operation.
The flood of ideas and energy has not been
for six
pass by international the pressure
Detentions, ings, political trials con shows tinue unabated; restric-
tions on press reporting have increased; Davers nave occuball ed; black journalists have had banning orders placed on them.
The author Rear-Admiral Edwards, of the South defence force: "Time has running out
run out . I don't think we have years to play with.' *This pessimistic Cape Stalement.
'was after Soweto Wo years made The
For the black workers in southern Africa, for revolutionary interna-
confined to the practical field. Aller all, and layout are all about how to formulate and present ideas. The production preston Worker is a battleground over content, style, and
Putting resources under control Tank -ane-bie and unionists has given us the
chance to puł ideas and expeniences into pracuice. We are also backing the media working group the which has just has established by the Lanca-
shire Association Trades Councils, come to grips with media Dias
Further information from; Kason. 28a Whitby Avenue, Ingol, Preston, Lancs. 0772-731089 (5pm-7pm). tionalists everywhere, it is a reason for optimism. bann- The apartheid regime is
beginning to show first doubts in its capaci ty to govern, one of the black basic precepts for
revolutionary situation What is now required is for the working of South Africa to equip itself politically quotes militarily assaul thi
last stronghold of African Southern
is Africa. And it is for us to
break Britain's connections with apartheid.
'Facelift Apartheid South Africa Soweto' by Judy Seidman. International Defence Southern Africa, price £1.20.
aesign trades
been
of
AUTUMN 1979
Tel
the
class
This pamphlet, with Benn, discriminate against gay
im-
challenge discrimination successfully
after
All books available 328 Bookshop,
Socialist Challenge
PRESPON WORKER NO 1 Other THE BOOKSHOP
Chris Beer, Roland Jeffery and Terry
Munyard Gay Workers: trade unions and
the law NCCL, £1.20 an introduction by Tony examines the ways in which employers workers and proposes ways for trade unions and gay organisations to
Anna Coote and Peter Kellner
Hear this brother: women
workers and union power
New Statesman, £1.50 from The Other Upper St, London N1 2XP.
Please add 15% to each title if ordering by
5 March 1981 Page 11
Page 12 scan of this page
Why abortion isn't a women-only issue
By Our Court Reporter 'PRINCE Charles found Lady Diana ready-made mother for his children... I guarantee she has nothing to be ashamed of hidden in her past...
'He is a person of varied ex-
The will be able to perience form her to his tastes - she is a pertect physical specimen and will be able to have children without difficulty.'
From the doting daddy Diana, „ne caege or cosso col umnists, and the court of the Second Blizabeth comes the real significance of the Royal ding
It is not a story of romance and fashion but a tale of dynasty
which yet another woman acquired for pedigree and breeding potential.
When the world was young, allu dallied whom they wanted. Then certain
with someone from village or only with someone with a different mother...
When some men started accumulating more cattle or more gold than others, they wanted to keep their property in their clan and to be sure that their children were really theirs and not someone else's. So they invented Marriage and Virginity Monogamy (for the
Exclusive access to wullici was very important to these men who owned things - it didn't matter very much to the non-owning classes or to women
- for whom it was very boring.
Through the centuries these men elaborated the ways of marriage. Some had
By Judith Arkwright SOME 350 women debated the central issues of the abortion campaign at a national forum the politics of abortion held on 22 February.
Because of the Tory attacks on the health service and women general, the lack of abortion facilities was a major topic of debate and one on which many local groups are active.
Despite the successes of the movement against the Tory MPs John CorNIC sbury, the campaign has to be drawn together at a national level to push for new laws
Some sisters at con terence saw the ICCU fight for a facilities bill and other legislation as a vital political focus, and
develop labour movement SuoDorl since their demands could not be met without it.
View
Many disagreed with this view and argued that
campaign should exclude men since this is not an Issue on them.
The National Abor-
campaign. should anyone who is prepared
fight for abortion rights. The fight choose is an issue for the a0OU moverneol bec-
basic ause
Socialist Challenge
Crowning the family
has
of
Bed-
her
with
the next
wives, some had only one but
slaves to satisfy their sexual appetites and show their wealth and power In order to justify their control of women they declared that marriage and monogamy - Ior and
women -mandment and that all men and their women should behave likewise.
And the governments and the churches and all the leaders of society agreed and gave voice.. It took a long time before love and romance had anything to do with marriage. In the days of Knights and Ladies, for example, these emotions, had nothing lilaly
International Day of
Action
Solidarity with
all women
fighting for the
right to decide
In London 16 May there
will be a festival of interna-
nonal women speakers. ar
tists, and performers at the
Conway Hall, Red Lion
Souare. London WCl
sponsorea oy ine internanonar L or
Campaign - Women decide.
democratic right and the future the working class lies in the extension
of choice and control to every area or lite.
Proposals came forwall tidl actively campaign on
5 March 1981 Page 12
concubines or Marriage
children, name and property.
but for their the was a god-given com- alliance,
capabilities. was a big deal.
mon Man'
and the
West, the East.
STERILISATIOI
Women from over 20 countries supported International Day of Action in. 1979. contraception and violence against women.
Many issues that affect women have been raised in the course of the abortion campaign, but still the main way that
ruling Class in this country seeks to control
tacks on the right to legal abortion.
To expand the National Abortion Campaign into a multi-issue women's
calllualcil would disarm us on the issue of abortion
What is needed is to build a stronger NAC and to fight labour movement and other organisations to develop Ine struggle on other issues.
I ne forum didn't come up with clear pro. jects, our lne women and the calausan were
one
to do with one's husband or wife.
was for having passing on the Lord's Loe Wives were not selected for their personality, COROUS
abilit bear hildren, sometimes their wealti
bride-price, polluca or management Running tury.
So
When the 'Age of the Com-
arose with the democratic revolution in rrance
United States, ideas arose of women having a choice about whom they married. This women became common currency in the
although it's still rare in
DAY OF ACTION
ABORTION
Labour executive backs abortion conference
supporting the abortion
been called by Campaign and the Rights Campaign.
health service facilities, and positive rights will reach the centre of the
to change the abortion laws.
Starcross School, Rising Hill St, London N1, and begins at 10am. A creche is available. Further details from: NAC London WC1. Tel 01-278 0153
there, indicating the enormous success campaign The
The House of Windsor, which rests on other great British institutions like the Church, the government and the army, has overmola! interest: the maintenance of the monarchy and the private property system By its promotion of traditional values, especially around by demonstrating devotion to duty, it provides a example of how we should all behave.
It is hoped that the alliance of Charles and Diana will see this ideology well into the 21st cen-
while the dole queues lengthen and misery abounds wolle ine batterea women and children cry out for help, we can all look to the Royal Wedding to see that life can be beautiful. can serene and gracious, men strong and gallant a way sooud we k ol changing one damn thing?
THE Labour Party national executive is
conference to be held in London on 14 March. It has
the National Abortion Labour Abortion
This backing will mean that the fight on
decriminalisation,
labour movement, establishing a firm basis for committing the next Labour government
Make sure you're at the conference. It is at
374 Gray's Inn Rd
Labour Movement conference on 14 March will be another step forward.
By Toni Gorton
in a fire at their workplace.
cludi lay. orosuitulol...
re-established in Britain as a day of working class
sterile debates over the exclusion of men.
financial stability.
cent housing.
WOMEN'S DAY
8 MARCH 1981
since our lack of skills and education - and the myth that women's place is in the home most vulnerable.
disease and political repression of a most savage kind.
to make their demands felt. the Chinese state in order to keep the birth rate is glorified in order to increase the birth rate ching on women's day 1917 who sparked off the
led to the Russian Revolution. rights in the early days of the revolution which later
their voices heard: some identify the rulers of the Soviet Union as the cause of their oppression and
Their fight to be heard, whatever their solutions, should be supported.
national liberation struggles. In Nicaragua, El
tion.
decide.
to non-traditional areas of employment - in the
the conservatism of the labour movement, anti-
quacy.
or lne working class
ed in the heroic struggles that. created women like
Zetkin, Alexandra Kollontai...
As well as supporting this year's events, we should commit ourselves now to fight through our women's organisations. the trades unions and the Labour Party for a massive demonstration on 8 March 1982.
Celebrate!
INTERNATIONAL Women's Day is a day born out of struggle - from a strike in the New York garment industry in 1908, which came about because 129 women had died
Throughout the years women have used this day to unite in action on the issues they have considered important: war, food, suffrage, abortion, childcare,
International Women's Day, 8 March, needs to be
solidarity and celebration of women's struggles — led by women. The day is too important to fall victim to
Despite the elevation of women like Margaret Thatcher or Indira Ghandi, life offers little for the majority of women in the way of status, power or
The austerity programmes of all the Western governments are hitting hard at the services women need, such as care of the elderly and children and de.
INTERNATIONAL
Soaring unemployment is hardest on women,
In the under-developed countries women and their children suffer the effects of poverty, malnutrition,
In China and the non-capitalist countries of Asia and East Europe women lack the political structures
The sexuality of women and men is suppressed by
down. In the Soviet Union, motherhood and fertility
It was women textile workers in Petrograd mar-
February Revolution which overthrew the Czar and
. Women won many
were overturned or distorted in the Stalinist take-over.
Today Soviet feminists are attempting to make
turn to mysticism — others believe that only a truly democratic and socialist system can liberate women.
In may countries women are a vital part of their Salvador, Eritrea, and Grenada women are organised as women to ensure that their special demands are part of the revolutionary programme of reconstruc
Women's fight for rights over our bodies countinues to be a major political issue. The international day of action called by the International Abortion, Contraception, Sterilisation Campaign on 16 May will be joined by women in more than 30 countries in solidarity with all women fighting for the right to
In the industrial countries, women are pushing in-
mines, in cars, in steel, in rail. They are confronting women labour laws, and their own feelings of inade-
But their drive for jobs is increasing their self-respect, the respect of the labour movement, and is placing them at the centre of some of the big battles
Our names may be little-known but we are engag Harriet Tubman, Mother Jones, Elizabeth Blackwell, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, Sojourner Truth, Sylvia Pankhurst, Marie Stopes, Rosa Luxembourg, Clara
Page 13 scan of this page
past and
future
struggles
By Cathy Porter TEN years ago, the growing women's liberation movement celebrated International Women's Day with rallies in London, Glasgow and Liverpool.
The 5,000-strong demonstration in London was headed by group of nightcleaners, several Transport Union banners, and a number of men.
We demanded equal pay, equal education and job opportunities, free 24-hour nurseries, and free contraception and abortion on demand.
Women's Day started in February 1908, Wilt women in the needletrade on Manhatten's Lower East Side came out on strike. Socialist women in the United States decided to celebrate the day as all annual political holiday, a day when women could demonstrate to stamp out the last vestiges of male
ano Lne dominate'.
Two years later women in the Socialist International organised conference women's suffrage and the campaign against the imminent war.
Susan Mthemba
These two themes became the rallying cry for International Women's Day. Over the next four years there were 8 March demonstrations Germany, Scandinavia, Switzerland and Russia.
These not onlv OTOUCOL women into confrontation will militarists but also with
the workers' movement. As result
especially Gerwolfcil. many, were soon playing a leading and radical role in the suclalist Huvchiicill.
A festival
of womens
WOMEN UNITE Leaflet from Women's Liberation demonstration.
Quite unexpectedly, demonstrations for TOT women LOOK Austria and Germany in 1911. When polce began to violently break up a demonstration ot 30.00 women in Vienna. a group of men intervened to avoid
ooosned. places men supported women by staying at with the children.
molowing women in Switzerland •weden won une suboorl their socialist parties
day wonels parades, and by being celebrated in Russia
In 1914 the international was smashed under the impact of the war. Its parties lined up with governments rather
of the international working cass
Only the secretariat kept and organised 8 March antiwar demonstrations neutra colne a a corr ference of women from both mela dane dalls
In 1917, Women's first day of the Revolution.
The Vyborg Bolshevik committee issued a directive opposing all strikes.
Ignoring this, women texme workers from several lactories went on strike and sent •eregates to me mela workers for support.
Eventually the Bolsheviks agreed to support them well, followed political tendencies.
When workers were locked out of an armaments plant that day, women drivers at the trolley terminus prepared for a general strike and they sent a delegate to the soldiers camped nearby.
She returned with their promise nol to shoot strike became general - and
workers promptly came out. Traffic ground to a halt.
By midday the wives and
soldiers, mothers
N EN DEMAN
downtrodden stitutes, were abandoning the queues, the bakeries, vast the vote unrough une cily streets
Gathering place colnuchce over unc next rew
days, they began to storm the officers' barracks and their guns. The factories stop ocu. begun.
On Women's Day in 1926 the women in Shanghai came out
home on strike and started an insur-
Erection in which they tought vedi on the front line and General Strike inspired hunfor dreds of women suttrage demonstrate 1913 it was London, and Shipley.
In 194› i stance, women munitions workers
various
their than re-
women's its integrity
the
International
Russian
district
rallies. But the war drive con-
With Hitler women's sick pay and materbenefits;
other invading Abyssinia;
littering Spain with tration camps. and Japan in vading China, Women's Day in 1936 linked demands for equal popular united front against fascism.
Inal year Ilallan with their children lay across it a railwav lines and invaded army barracks to harangue the soldiers: wollicu demonstrated in support of Viennese the protested to the Italian Am-
and the prowomen smashing up and surging
passion and demonstrations Finland and Poland The
Line Soviet The 1917 revolution had
in every theatre.
By that
In Britain on that day, the used to
workers to anguish Manchester, and WOrk sibilities.
joined anti-wa Militant women lead the strike at Chix, Reading in 1980.
an slashing Britain in Mussolini IWD Franco concen- for
International Britain and suffrage and March pay with the call for a and Glasgow.
In Assembly wonder ported Communist Cooperative
Brussels health, and inflation
FEMINISM LIVES!
arred demanded Sal 20,000 Swedish
the League of Nations take sanctions against Germany; and there were large women's da!
in Norway,
largest demonstrations on 8 March 1936 were in
Union WITT meetings, concerts and socials
factory, farm and
time Women's Day in the Soviet Union had become totally tied to general political programmes. It wa:
promote the cult of motherhood and deny all the
of the burden of family respon-
In 1930, for example, the slogan for the day had been '100 per cent collectivisation'.
attended NAW
world
movement
blessing
It was not until 1941 that
International Women's Day commitee was set up In
the new style of not the old. Equal pay meetings were the focus
the next eight years.
In 1949 the IWDC arranged two peace buses to tour
take part in 8 meetings in London
1952 the National of Women, by the Labour and Parties, the
various unons held two open
London education, housing
Several thousand women
LWO subsequent conventions on March under the slogans 'The
want children' and 'Bring back our husbands from Korea'.
It was not until the rise of the new women's liberation
that March regained some of its old spirit,
has become more peripheral in recent years
In 1975, the United Na. biless had give worried then
worried that it might be dressed up as a kind of glorified mother's day or lost in myths of revolutionary Petrograd.
Latin American Women's Organisation invites you to celebrate International Women's Day, Sunday 8 March 6pm-10.30pm The Africa Centre, 38 King Street, Covent Garden, London WC2.
Free entry. A collection will be taken in aid of women in El Salvador Speakers from the Africa National Congress, Chile, The FDR of El Salvador, Ireland. Latin American music, and food. Open to all.
Photo: PŁIE GRANI socialist Challenge.
Women sensitive to these fears felt that men shouldn't join the next year's march and ingenited on Mary Chas tingent 8 March always been day when women demonstrated anger and strength without men
We are now beginning to see the real possibility of huge women's day demonstrations, on the need for strikes for equal pay, against the Thatcher nightmare, against Cruise missiles, against cuts in social services; to make it a day to remember our past and celebrate our strength.
, exhibition
Socialist Challenge 5 March 1981 Page 13
Page 14 scan of this page
Why the new hunger strike, by an H Block prisoner
THE TRIUMPHANT SHOUT
Socialist Challenge has received the following letter, smuggled out of the H Blocks of Long Kesh:
The struggle waged by we Republican socialist prisoners of war to wrest political recognition from the imperialist regime in Northern Ireland once again ascends to the horrific reality of a hunger strike.
This situation could have easily been avoided had the government kept faith with its commitment to implement the solution promised to the last hunger strikers.
This solution was contained in a 30-page document which was presented to the hunger strikers; it was an honourable and principled settlement for all concerned.
Should the Labour
Party organise in
Ireland?
THE Labour Party has produced a consultative paper on
their views.
thern Ireland?
THE discussion paper asks: 'Should we seek LO replace sectarian politics with Labour and Torv politics?
That is a loaded ques-
conception to describe Irish politics as 'sectarian.
Certainly the Northern Irish working class is divided, as is une irish working class as a whole.
Certainly these divisions
approximate to religious
differences. But it is the political divide which is
important.
This political divide is
and always has been centred on attitudes to the
division of Ireland and the division of the Irish
working class.
This is the fundamen-
lar ponucal cuestion
Irish society. HistoricalWhich any. political parly
has been am-
bivalent on this issue has
disappeared at birth.
new political party
in Northern Ireland
would have to take
position on ques-
tion.
If the British Labour
Party were to organise in
Northern Ireland,
would be quite clear
what attitude it would be
British Labour would
be saying it had a right to
interfere in Northern
Ireland, and that, by im-
plication, any other
British institution, up to
and including the British
state itself, has the right
to interfere and to have a
presence Northern
ireland.
Politics
In other words, by
organising in Northern
Ireland the British
Labour Party would not
be seeking to. replace
sculallan politic but
aner wou De culciu.
such politics on the
Loyalist side.
Socialist Challenge 5 March 1981
surrender. its Irish policy. A series of questions are posed and CLPs and affiliated unions are asked to submit
Socialist Challenge is running a series taking up these questions, and this week we deal with the fourth question: should the British Labour Party organise in Nor-
Northern Ireland The Labour Party's consultative document As to the prospect of working class unity, perience has shown that there can be no suCt unity until that which divides the Northern Irish working class, and the Irish working class as a whole, is settled.
The division is concerned with the unresolved Irish national question. There is only one way to solve inal question, and that is to end it: by permitting the unification of Ireland.
United
The Prose oking
united working with a political party of its own, would then be opened up Already the majority of unions which organise in Northern Ireland are affiliated to the Irish Congress of Trades Unions.
If trade unions find it possible to organise on an all-Ireland basis, enjoying as they do fraternal links with the British TUC while being dependent from it, the same principles can applied to the formation oi an all-lelana workig class party.
Once partition abolished the prospects for such a party would be tremendous.
Page 14
However they (the British government) chose the path of perfidy, no doubt enticed by the thought that, with the loss of world interest and the huge momentum, our morale and determination would be weakened to the point of
But these unscrupulous, arrogant adventurers are very much mistaken. We will not dilute or forsake principle. We are political prisoners - the product of 800 years of injustice and oppression.
We experience undisguised political torture and we were jailed by a political judicial system which was introduced solely to remove those who oppose foreign rule in Ireland.
Socialist comrades, we must accept that our opponents entertain the belief that our support base has suffered irreparable damage, and therefore they must feel that they will not have to con-
By Sarah Roelofs
tion,
Armagh Women, Irish feminist Nell McCafferty records their struggle far, mainly 1n the women's own Wores. rowing words that etch women almost destroyca finding the strength to fight back.
In Armagh jail handful of women take the might of the British state, with only their own menstrual blood, urine, and vomit as weapons.
Popular
This short but vivid book fills a vital need for popular of those It tells, too, of the days when "things were not always when special calegory stalus was worl All prisoners benefitted improved prison conditions.
Then in 1976 special category status was spearheading the British Willulawil government's attempt to 'normalise' Northern Ireland. No war: therefore no prisoners or war Prisoners like Rose McAllister, Ann Marie Mulara describe and Eileen Mullan the war's effect on their personal lives and how they came to be actively involved in the nationalist
struggle women talk and
just the war
as son lent in the Noes
wonder thern Ireland battlefield, their LuCH Halllages. children, their hopes and fears.
Strength
The strength that from women Comes organising themselves, each other and fighting collectively as women for their independence DOLO women and as Irish people, shouts triumphantly Promosmost ever lister:
Rose 'The attitude then was that the man you marry is your master. I fought for my independence against this without
Ireland
political pressure again.
Blocks.
Long Kesh ONCE again Irish prisoners are on hunger strike. Soon the first prisoner to take this ac-
Bobby Sands in the H Blocks, will be joined by women prisoners in Armagh jail.
realising it.. 'What I liked best about those years... was the way women in the area organised themselves into vigilante groups and such, blowing whistles and banging bin lids and picketing at the drop of an insult. The Brits are terrified of women... 'It's important always to fight back and women have the staying power for I was women who blocked the traffic for the first time ever in the centre Belfast, hundreds 0, women, sitting down and
tend with such a massive amount of
I do not expect you, our comrades, to submit to complacency. Your support emanates from political awareness, therefore it is solidly intact.
However, I do expect you to increase and expand upon your endeavours to politicise the English working class, if at all possible; and in doing so, to inform them of the grave wrongs which their government is carrying out on the Irish people.
Lastly I ask you to display the truth about the H Block issue to the English people, and I ask those decent working class people of England to mobilise in accordance with truth, and thus help save lives here in the inhumanity of H
PATSY O'HARE, H Block 5,
Nell McCafferty
THE
ARMAGH
WOMEN
singing... And the thing was, those women never realised how brave they were They never knew, really area could not have survived, heraly, wunout inem..
I wasn't aware that we women were politics on the street.
That's when eyes opened to the political power of women organ sing among themselves Jell McCafferty con cludes her book: I nal powerful dynamic has been set oft in Northern Ireland by the protest of the Armagh women political prisoners and
To: The Eilitor-Sorialist Challengt
OF ARMAGH
the support engendered for them.
It is only in the last few paragraphs that the
links between feminism and nationalism, implicit in the women's contributions, are explicitly mentioned. This is a shame because it is the nature of these links that has become a key political question.
While extending our unconditional support to the Armagh women, what is to be our attitude to the nationalist movement to which many of unem belong? call critically discuss that movement's attitudes to women? How do we do that while maintaining our support of Irish women?
More than ever there needs to be an open discussion of the rela tionship between feminism and nationalism. Unconditional support for the Armagh women should not mean that we cannot critically and constructively discuss the Irish nationalist struggl and its implications for feminism.
The Armagh Women, by Nell McCaf. ferty. £1.50 Books S Co-op Merrion Square, Dublin
To Armagh on
International
Women's Day
Demonstrate outside Armagh women's
prison on 8 March.
Solidarity with women political
prisoners Further information from : Di on 01-691 8289
Page 15 scan of this page
Coventry conference - all grass and no roots
By Pat Hickey UNDER the title 'Building working power', more than 150 delegates assembled in Coventry on Saturday to discuss the way forward.
councils, public sector and white collar industrial jobs. It was a waste of a day. There was no voting on policy; there was no clear line of march; it is difficult to see what the delegates will do after the conference
The conference was by-passed events betore it started. Coming a week after the miners nad forced a U-turn the Tories, and after 70,000 plus had demonStrated Glasgow, took no account of these developments.
The tone was set by the opening remarks of Ken Turner, president of Newcastle Trades Coun-
4,000 more
hospital
beds at risk
'GOOD NEWS' was how Tory health minister Gerard Vaughan reacted mendation that London's already hard-pressed health service should have a further 4,000 beds cut by 1988.
ne recommendation is contained arom recently issued
carried end admissions
sUIC sillaller hospitals capital. instead. pauents will be referred to teaching hospitals.
But these hospitals are already example, sl barnolomews Hospital was recently described by NUPE official
Barber as 'bursting at ine seams
The proposed cuts will mean 15 per reduction in acute and surgical beds.
the naliolal campaign against health
'This document is another part or the Tories trateg to run
lown the NHS and develo private medicine.
Gerard Vaughan has stated that 25 per cent of all
services should be provided private meaicine
Fightback has launched a new campaion agains private medicine. Further
sponsorship Fightback, 0 Camden Rd, London NWI.
Rubber workers under attack By Pete Clifford BURY rubber workers are in their second week of strike action over pay. Now management bounced back with threats of 25 per cent redundancies.
GMWU Jonn morris. convenor from ames
Halsteads, Socialist
Challenge:
Tereu a mine per cell pay use supiect to accebuine avelage earnings TOI pay rather than time and a half
class
The delegates came mainly from trades
cil. He said the labour
movement was unable to
respona lo ine lones al-
tacks, that the working
class nau lost contacle
and that the
labour movement was to
rebuild 'where it counts,
at the grass roots'.
He believed trades
councils had a vital role
to this process.
play In
The general line of the
committee won 80 per cent support for
day we occupied the factory
tradings.' the struggle hotted up.
Last rnidav une manage ment got a High Court injunction to remove the
25 of WUINCIS receiveu rcuunuancy notices, including the con-
Lyno, GMWU branch secretary, summed it
'This Michael rawardes-sivle allack on union organisation.
support to:
John Morris, Black Moss Close, Radcliffe, Bury,
delegates was that this
be done
rebuilding working class
organisations from the
Dullulll.
Tenants
Instead of the 'ver-
tical structure' of the
present aDouT move-
ment a 'horizontal struc-
Ture was needed. wack
linked grass roots organi-
sations workers.
tenants groups, women's
groups and so on.
was the way to build an
alternative to the labour
bureaucracy.
A great deal of time
was devoted to the use of
resource
'cross-fertilisation of
ideas and 'mutual learn-
ing situations'.
Speaking at the end Sherry's Wharf - occupied by Squatters Against Sales
fightback Welcome to Liberation
Square, London E9
By Piers Corbyn, London Squatters Union THE mist wafted slowly across the water as the squatters surveyed their first morning at Sherry's Wharf, overlooking Hackney marshes in East Lonaon
Squatters were fulfilling made when they were evicted from Kilner House - to take over more Greater London Council property due to be sold.
newly-built flats and Sherry's month age by a group of w narT were occupied
and housing SAS
operation with the
iculalls a tell cubic
ne siocan was Action is the only language the Tories understand
flats houses and then the Torv GLC decided to sell Them However uncel pressure from tenants they nodified their now intend to let properties
It means a rent of f31 a week tOr a one-bedroom flat, and they will only be let to people who can prove an
News
of the day Hilary Wain-
wright recognised the
problems that the con-
ference had She
put this down to the laci
that working class
organisations were not
ready LO discuss aller
natives to the policies of
LaDoll Tory
governments. Power
The need, said
Hilary, was to develop
policies hinged on "the
disengagement from the
problems of capitalism'
and 'an alternative com-
mon sense to that of
austerity.
rOr the planners of
conference the question
was not which govern-
ment was in still
of Labour
government could be in
the promise they
income of five times the
Such rich would no doubt then purchase une nomes
Support for the squat is extensive the deep anger in working class Tories
agaills. poncies or destroying pubne assets.
Local Labour councillors the celebration to rename Of fers Mead at Sherry' 's Wharf *Liberation • Square
Louillu sur ours unic vccupaloll
proceeaings are now squatters do not intend under way but the
with eviction order made by he court
vitalwille the GLC attempung to Kilner House, South Lon-
power, but whether 'at
the grass roots' there was
an alternative to both.
The conference had
the cart before the horse.
ward any real sense of
direction sprang from its
refusal to deal with the
direction of the labour
movelncil and accord-
ingly to deal with the
Guesuor ot the
ship of the working class.
Rough
One disgruntled dele.
gate drew the analogy of
•ot people who
had had a very rough ride
in a battered old Mini,
and. as a consequence,
built a very fine
KOlIs Royce.
nately they had neglected
to put an engine in.
COOKSON (Socialist Challenge
GM Piers Corbyn don, doing the repairs required after police damage during the eviction
squatters
So SAS is conducting a harassmen campaign such as super-glueing' the security the building.
For more information
Sherry's Whart ano other SWAG, Flat 16, Liberation squats contact
Square, Kingsmead Estate, Hommerton
contacted
WORLD IN CRISIS
United States UND states represen tatives at the United Na.
tions last week opposed
resolutions debated
Human Rights Commission.
The crucial motion was which demned
lolaularldl
otner iceolooles and practices based on denial of human rights.
ed by 3mo, on the s
with the US re•resentative Michard Schifter, abstaining Schifter explained he objected to the LIOn becaust sincled our Nazi. rascistano neo
fascist groups for inter
The resolu
the called or da not supported tonar acuon dealist une
•OLE ATrICa i chitter dolected
these because he
governmen and a peo ple at a time when a pro. cess of change can be en couraged.'
Pakistan Pakistan's military regime,
by General Zia, arrested 150 leaders of onposition political parties last weekend. Those held meeting to discuss a day y of
trie restoraton or aemocracy Leeds victim of
racist laws
By Pete Kirk Leeds resident Jas. winder Kaur has become the latest in a long line Asian women to fall foul of Britain's immigration
She is facing immi. nent deportation ano der manent separation from
three year-old
by her ex-husband it she returns to lola
Jaswinder arrived in Britain in 1975 She was married the followin
who had been residont nore tor eleut years
Demo against
Nationality Bill
take place Saturday. 7 March.
of Brent.
Against State Racism
the Campaign Against Racist Laws
Hariesden the protests.
wood Park, Robson Avenue, London NW10.
World in brief
Pakistan.
The arrested included Nusrat Bhutto wife of the late whose government r me in 19793. overthrown by Bhutte was subsequently hanged the
Demonstratons deals Zia have laken place in a number of provinces. A student was killed bi armed supporter: of Zia in lates the Sind province nas turned down demanas jor a general election or ine grounas oj 'unfavourable conditions'
Brazil THE president of the Brazilian Workers' 'Party, LUS Silva, popularly known 'Lula and 12 other trade unionists have refused to
Fi odo rauro chairperson the Sao Paulo branch of Amnesty boycott said that corne cerence counsel world also not appear at the trial 'the cards are stacked The trial has been barred to all representative.
The Trace unionists rac deal with their part in a steel strike Paulo they face up to 19 years in convicter orIsoN
assaulted hus
Later of and was deported.
Nov WItn
first place. not hild howeve be deported being
nas ap
and defence has
behalf. TICI
which
Blemheim Terrace, Leeds -.
Jaswinder Kaur, Box JK A MARCH against the Tories' Nationality Bill will
in the London borough of Brent on
The protest has been called by Action Against Racism, a locally-based black group which was formed eight months ago in response to increasing harassment by police in the Harlseden district
The group is now organising against the Nationality Bill, and as well as a speaker from Action
the demonstration will feature speakers from Southall Black Sisters and
Anti-Nazi League is also backing
The demonstration assembles at noon, Round
Socialist Challenge 5 March 1981 Page 15
Page 16 scan of this page
The Common Market's man calls out the right
By Fred Atkins DESPITE Michael Foot leaning UVEI backwards to keep them in the party Labour s 'social democrats' have at long last split to form their own party.
The meaning of their politics has been graphically demonstrated over the past few days, not only bv their decision to politically co-ordinate
heir activities with the uberais. proclamations of DUL the policy their leaders
These policies include not only unwavering supMarket, the corner stone Common
complete support for NATO and the siting of Cruise missiles in Britain.
Faith
Most revealing of all was Roy Jenkins' profession or talln in a compulsory incomes policy to control the unions backed by measures to 'weaken financial position of strikers' (in other words to remove social security benefits).
If any doubt remained, these policies show ine ulery and-working class character of this ICW Its sole purpose is to try to rob Labour of a majority at the next election and impose some form of coalition.
The defection of the social democrats has many lessons for members of the Labour Party.
Traipse
Michael Foot pleaded with Shirley Williams to stay in. He traipsed along
right-wing Manifesto meeting assure the right that he would not force through unilateral nuclear disar¡lallicil. would lead a fight back that
against the decisions of the Wembley conference
widening ine franchise.
But to no avail. These pleas were treated with contempt by the right wing.
Far from being the
result the police
Peter chooses to call the 'madcap left', the split of the right is the result of its determination to defend the interests of capitalism inside or outside the Labour Party.
The way to respond
Printed by East End Offset (TU) Ltd, London E2
Socialist
Challenge
to the splitters is not by being intimidated, but to
democracy and
Split
Fifty years ago, 1931, Ramsay MacDonald spli from the Labour Party to establish a 'national government'. Trotsky contemptuously dismissed him
the people who wanted to tie the workers to 'the rich, the lords, the establishment and their dinner parties'.
No description better fits Williams. Owen Rodgers and Jenkins.
The problem remains that most of their co-thinkers remain inside the Labour Party. Roy Hattersley, presently leading the Labour Solidarity Campaign, agrees with the Gang of KOUT detail of policy.
His avowed intention is to start a massive fightDalk azallisi cell l both the constituencies fight in the Labour Par the unions ty is only beginning.
Will Hattersley be a fourth man for the Gang of Three? As the party conference opens in Blackpool themselves whether the "Gang of Three" this week, Labour watchers Rodgers - shouldn't have had a fourth Williams, another ex-Cabinet member. reforming Confidants of the trio tell me that Hat- memoe! • tersley, Labour's Prices Secretary under Jim• Callaghan, was somewhat miffed (in private at least) that they did not invite him to sign, their democratic group if the Left's advance® threatened to form a breakaway open letter to the
wasn't stopped. Indeed, Hattersley is reported to have told.
Williams and Co that he would have happily!
signed if they had altered an odd sentence or
were wondering if the ambitious Hattersley» Aficionados of the party's manoeuvring•
the Three during the conference this week by, would be declaring his public allegiance to
appearing on the platform with them. Well, '
that was a rather different question. Thea
all, when Hattersley was asked to join them! likelihood did not appear too great. After
at a fringe meeting at the TUC conference
this month, he found his diary was rather full
Civil servants
threaten Tory pay
policy
are asking David Owen and Bil
Roy Hattersley,
which' party, social•
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offer. which costs
Trotsky: A Study
Com-
to: Socialist
£17 (12 mon, £22 (12 months)
Socialist
By Stewart Maclennan, CPSA Glasgow DHSS
THE biggest strike so far in the life of this government takes place on Monday - and government's own employees. Over half a million civil servants are expected to take part in a one-day pro. test strike against a derisory 6 per cent pay
In an unprecedented of unity, nine unions have called out their members in support 0I a l) per cent claim,
£10 underpinning the lower paid
The consultanve mass meetings held throughou guarantee that the strike will be a success. Never before lla. uncle been such a willingness from civil servants to take on the government.
Contrary to popular myth civil servants do have considerable industrial muscle. Try running an alroor wilhoul traffic controllers or col-
government fecuing revenue without staff in the computer centres!
Local strike commitlees nave been sel up on regional lines throughout Britain. The CPSA and
Society of Civil Servants have disputes' funds to finance the acnon, ana lor some weeks
the Inland Revenue Staff
(IRSF) has been raising thousands
pound. through voluntary levy of its membership.
But what happens after 9 March is crucial. At the secret
Bla key seekers have
have been drawn up. . The aim is to hit the government's
-collecting powers while still paying out to claimants.
Phil Dexter is a Data Processor in the massive DHSS complex Newcastle. As someone likely to be called out on selective strike he explained the problem with the estate Abbie be
• probably be called out and this will have a damaging effect on the DHSS operation here at Longbenton
there will be 8,000 CPSA members and 2,000 Society members here working normally. For the strike to keep up its momentum, ihey must be more fully involved.'
The Council of Civil Service should set a time limit for the seectve action. If doesn't succeed an indetinite strike should be called There is doubt
such would quickly paralyse the country and put the future the Tory government in doubt.
The miners have shown the wav to detea the Tories industrial aCOn and solidarity from the labour movement. If the civil servants win, they will smash the Tories nine policy and threaten very Tory
government. That's Wory
every worker should rally to their support.
← Socialist Challenge No. 186, 26 February 1981Socialist Challenge No. 188, 12 March 1981 →