Socialist Challenge No. 69, 26 October 1978
The scan: sc-n69-oct-26-1978.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
Socialist Challenge
RETREAT NO
END
THE
TALKS.
ACTION!
TUC- WE INS
THE FORD strike is biting hard. Dagenham body plant convenor Danny Connor confidently predicts a complete shutdown of Ford's European operations from 6 November. Hunted to meal in rad or trang to care an e support into practical solidarity, the union negotiators had other ideas. It looked like a flagrant breach of union decisions The do they in platory talks on Montay
caused by the strike.) committee to sell the strike out for a paltry rise. JOIN 8½ per cent on basic rates living standards back to the 1971 level hours off the blow to Ford workers.
THE United action by
No 69 26 October 1978 15p
HOUSE ATER Ford's Paul Roots, in which Reg talked about the 'ghastly mess (This followed a touching correspondence between Birch and negotiating committee had already rejected the idea of such talks Jones in the 1971 Ford strike. The "Terrible Twins' had appealed to the company and workforce over the heads of the negotiating Ford workers were angry - especially as the union side of the negotiators reminding them of their commitment to the full claim. It brought back memories of the role of Hugh Scanlon and Jack The Langley stewards' committee sent a telegram to their union's Reg Birch me Formal talks broke down with Ford's refusal to offer more than technological advance but also massive unemployment. The company has equally refused to discuss the demand for five Compromise on the principles in the claim would not just be a claim for a £60 minimum wage (a rise of £17) and a 35-hour week Public sector manual workers are next in the firing line with a and are ook interestingside Ford's would working week - vital at a time not only of — nowhere near the £20 needed to take
workers' feeling that they might not win which decided upon the claim, so it can reaffirm its commitment to This would have been the best counterweight to the Vauxhali the full demands and set about the vital task of spreading the strike to other groups of workers with claims pending. It is urgent to recall the Coventry shop stewards conference
*The fight against 5 per cent see pages 3-6
Page 2 scan of this page
enters the debate
EDITORIAL
01-359 8180/9. Distribution/ Advertising 01-359 8371.
Owen to
beyond his
control
when was going to be a bizarre affair.
Trotskyist alongside our latter-day Palmerston.
who are now trying to undermine the regime.
ine area.
LOONIES
government [such as equal rights for women].
circles.
chance for "stability" in the region
against workers' power in central Asia.
and Is happy
all the more pressing.
LABOUR MPs
opposed the
delegation led by
fire. And Owens mervice outburst of anger from the Labour left.
trading and diplomatic relations with the Shah.
support from trade unions.
industry against trade and economic links.
100 per cent support in that task.
If you agree with these principles and want
to be involved in activities by Socialist
Challenge supporters in your area, fill in
the form below and send it to us.
.... . .
* 1 am interested in more information
about activities in my area.
* I would like additional literature and
enclose 50p to cover costs.
Delete if not applicable] NAME ADDRESS
Send to Socialist Challenge, 328/9 Upper St, London N1.
Socialist Challenge, 328/9 Upper Street, London N1. Editorial
circumstances
FOREIGN SECRETARY, you have a reputation as someone who is deeply concerned about human rights.' From the moment
the former Labour member for Ladywood uttered these sycophantic words, it was clear that the Weekend World interview But who could have guessed how bizarre? By the end the right-wing renegade Brian Walden was looking like a raving For those who missed this statesmanlike occasion, 'Owen's argument went roughly as follows: the Shah is a decent chap who has been trying to liberalise and modernise Iran for 20 years. OK, there have been human rights problems [though far less than people claim] but the Shah has listened very carefully to what I had to say and all that has changed now. These highly progressive moves by the Shah have provoked all sorts of reactionary elements
Yes, they were British tanks crushing demonstrators but that's fair enough: You have to decide if you help your friends. And you can't just go on hedging your bets. Afghanistan and Pakistan are unstable, so who but the Shah is going to defend British interests in
The Shah would be replaced by Moslem loonies who would in turn be replaced by Commie loonies and terrorists, all of whom would remove civil rights beloved of the Shah and the Labour
The Foreign Office has denied rumours that David Owen has been booked for the Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show One's first reaction is that the good doctor has lost his marbles. But think about it: the man has committed the cardinal sin for a Labour Minister. He is telling the truth [or what passes for it in FO
Vot about human rights or the character of the opposition evidently. But it is true that the Shah is 'our' friend — if by 'our you mean British imperialist. It is true that he presents the only
and hence the safety of oil from the Gulf and the extensive British economic interests. It is true that he is also 'our" friend in that he buys large quantities of 'our' military hardware. It is also true, as Owen pointed out, that that hardware was used to crush opposition on the streets. And it is true that the Shah is potentially the last bastion
Given all this, it should be more clear than ever where we stand. The fact that British imperialism is behind the Shah to the last ditch
admit it internationalist duty of solidarity with the Iranian people becomes
To their credit, there are Labour MPs who have consistently
government's record on Iran. Only this week, a
evidence on the Black Friday massacre and the Abadan cinema Russell Kerr returned from Iran with new
was greeted with an admirable
The trouble is that we have heard these sort of displays only too
often and they are followed up by...precisely nothing.
Verbal fireworks in the House are not enough [though we hope
there will be some of them as well]. The point is how to take the
campaign on Iran out into the labour movement, to stop arms,
The potential is there. Few people are taken in by Owen's
apologetics. There are many Iranian students in Britain who are
only too ready to campaign against the Shah. And bodies like the
Committee Against Repression in Iran [CARI] have broad paper
What is needed now is action: against SAVAK presence in
Britain, against diplomatic contacts with Iran, and above all in
framework and perspectives to develop such activity. It deserves CARI, which has an excellent campaigning record,
Socialist Challenge 26 October 1978 page 2
JOHN is 16 years old. He is also black.
With the current "debate' on *law and order', we thought it only fitting that John should have the first word this week. I'm going to tell you about when I was smoking with a few guys, at a house in Kilburn, and we got busted by the police and how they beat us up in the cells.
It was Saturday at about 11.30 at night. There were five of us round at smoking in the
There door. This guy Emmanuel got up to answer the door and he had a spliff in his hand.
As he opened the door, six or seven policemen came in. One of them said: We've got you, you black cunts.
RAN
They JUSE through the hall into the room. They picked us all up and took us outside into wagon, there were three cars with it.
We were in there for about five minutes and they back and said: We're going to really do you.
They had this little box, 'cos they'd just searched the house down, you know. No warrant or nothing.
of papers and tobacco. They said:
*This is our evidence against
We were driving for about
twenty minutes till we got to the
police station.
opened the door and took us
and dragged us straight in. We
never general round or nothing.
RIGHTS
this great big hall, and took
names
They didn't tell us what they
were arresting us for, or about
any rights we had.
cells. It was in a little tiny room
with a little bed in the corner.
Then, 'cos I was tired, I rested
and was looking up at the
ceiling.
policeman came in
over towards me with a pillow
hurt you this way."
I immediately
starts to come down.
has the
revolutionary socialists are: • To build
1
THE FIRST WORD
Law and order
UnIS HOUSC back garden. was a knock on the Tan straight
this meat
CalC
cannabis, had •LWU rizla
'The They
had no time to look
They took us straight into
addresses and ages.
They took us off to separate
Then this door opened and a
and bent in his hand, and said: "It won't me up.
guessed what he was going to do, so as he was leaning over the bed to me I punched him on his face and I ine bauc messed up his nose and blood
He called his friends. They came into the cell. About seven of them. They put me into the middle and just started to kick
Capitalism is in crisis. The leaders of the Labour Party and the trades unions offer solutions that are in the interests, not of the workers, but of the capitalist
Socialis Challenge believes that the two vial tasks
class-collaborationism in the labour movement. These should be non-exclusive broad-based class struggle tendencies in in character grouping together militants holding a wide range of political views * To begin to fight for the creation of a unified and democratic revolutionary
socialist organisation which can, through an application of united front tactics
begin to be seen as an alternative by thousands of workers engaged in struggles.
Such an organisation should be based on the understanding that:
The struggle for socialism seeks to unite the fight of the workers agains! the bosses with that of other oppressed layers of society black people, gays — struggling for their liberation. This socialism car only he achieved by creating hew organs of power and defeating with all
ecessary means the power of the capitalist state.
A black youth
FREEDOM from ROP HE POLICE ARGE BRUTALITY cops came back and said: "We're really going to do you" *They got a stack of salt and rubbed it into the wound.' ..they put my head into a sink full of water and cut my hair."
After that one of them got a razor blade and one had a pot of salt. They cut my hand with
• little tiny cuts, you can't even see it. Then they just got a stack of salt and they put t in my hand into the wound It hurt and I cried. Then they got me to the sink and they put my head into a sink full of water and they cut my hair.
confronting
opposition
-women.
COlE
Court."
rastamar
*KID
others all got their dreadlocks cut off too. They told one of them they were cutting his locks 'cos they were an offensive weapon!
Then two policemen came and they took me into this room
started the heavy questioning. asked them:
What am I here for?
They said: Well, first of all
Our socialism will be infinitels more democratic than what exist in
"socialism' in the USSR and tastern Europe have discredited socialism in the eyes of the millions of workers throughout the world. We are opposed to them and will offer full support to all those fighting for socialist democraes.
The interests of workers and capitalists are irreconcilable on a world
scale. Capitalism has not only created a world market, it has created
scale. This unity will in the long run be decisive in defeating both th imperialist regimes in the West and the brutal dictatorships thes sustain in Lati America, Africa and Asia In Britain it implies demanding the immediate withdrawal of British troop from Ireland and letting the Irish people determine their own future.
The Communist Parties in Europe are *Euro-communist nor the pro-Moscow wings have strategy for the overthrow of the capitalist state. New revolutionars socialist parties are more necessars than ever before. Conditions todas are more favourable than over the preceding three decades. But such parties car only be built by rejecting sectarianism and seeing internal democrats not as a luxury but as a vital necessity. This means the right to organise factions and
just for cannabis. Now we got
resisting arrest assaulting a police officer, and breaking the peace.
After all that, they said: •We're going to set bail now. nen you nave to appear in
Willesden High
So very fortunately, "cos 1 got a friend who just come down, a middle class guy
The came and he paid our bail for us. E70 each
We just walked out, didn't know where the fuck we were. But I wasn't going to have it. 'cos I never did nothing wrong. and they were going to do me for all these things and they'd said I'd get eighteen months — at least eighteen months.
So I started to go round all
teachers school for reterences and that MEDICAL
Also, before I'd got arrested I had a medical, cos I fell down the stairs at home, and he said I was Al perfect, fit as a horse.
The day after I got out, the Monday, I went to the doctor again, to have a check-up He told me I got bruised ribs and bruised back, he saw my neac ANGELA was cut and my hand was cut I've got certificates for both of those visits.
Before I'd left the police had given me a number in case wanted to contact the police phone it was a duff number, station, but when not a police station.
After that they'd given a letter to one of the other guys
they were dropping
charges against me.
suppose that was because
They were sated cout. tee
did to me would come out.
others are still on charges, but
none of them were beaten up
We're now organising
demonstration against police
harassment. We'll be marching
to Paddington police station.
SUPPORT
We've got the support of the
students
school, the teachers union, and
Paddington anti-racist cam-
paign already, and we'll be
asking the Anti Nazi League to
back us.
But I'm not going to take on
the police directly, 'cos if I
make a complaint and get lots
Of publicity and all, then maybe
I'll beat them this time, but
they'll be after me then and
sooner or later they'll get me
for something.
Like look at this guy Liddle
Towers -everyone thinks the
police killed him, but no-one
can do anything
ocialist state. The Stalinist model
in crisis. Neither th
Page 3 scan of this page
A till theyre
Ford (UK) Workers
La record of the song.
the Church'
Dagennam,
Fale.
Chorus And it's 1Everybody Out!
Chorus
'Middle bit*
When 1 heard the Company say.
And we walked right out the gate... We're staying out for a higher basic rate.
productivity deal,
they'll want to cut YOU! M
Chorus
accoil for the money.
Take a look around you friend, i UNITY!
(Chorus)
starvation wages: M
begging for permission to go to the toilet.
keeping us under!
(Chorus)
the wives
the end of the WOODWARD.
work.
As eariv as the second week of the strike, the Independent Television News went seeking anti-strike wives in Dagenham. But they didn't have much luck.
Most of the wives that they found to interview were solidly behind the strike.
Last week the press turned up trumps - in Southampton where they found a few wives prepared to urge the men back LO Work.
These women were militant enough to want to organise a demonstration about it,
after a good anti-strike news SLOEV
But the Daily
The Ford Strike Song' was written by members of the
Group (formerly Ford (UK)
Workers' Combine), The group is planning to produce
The tune is that of "Fixin' to Die, by Country Joe
McDonald. The middle bit is There Was I, Waiting At
Well, come on all you women and men, Henry Ford's in trouble
He's got himself in a terrible jam, with strikes at Halewood and
Weput down our tools and we're out the gate, for £20 on the basic
-2 - 3 — what are we fighting for?
You can stuff your five per cent, 'cos that won't pay the
And it's 5-6-7-8—picketing the factory gates, It's one in the eye for Sunny Jim, Whooppee, We're goin" to win! The Company's offer was quite diabolical, but our reply was categorical; When the Halewood lads heard the offer from Beckett,
they went round the plant and started to wreck it.
At every mass meeting you could hear them shout — All Right...it's
There was I, quietly working away, just an average day. Five per cent is all you'll get on pay — Oh how it did upset me So I thought, why should we bother to wait, So I turned round to me mate
- Henry, we love you!
The Union leaders tell us that they feel, they could negotiat They'll cut your mealbreaks and your teabreaks too, and the next in line So we tell 'em in the name of the working class, you can stuff it right up
Eight hours on the line, it may sound funny, We don't do it for the funny.
We're black, we're white, we're hand in hand, And together we'll make
The day will come—-it may sound outrageous — we'll have the bosses working for And for full effect—we wouldn't want to spoil it-we'll have em We'll expropriate the bastards of all their plunder - and get 'em back for FINALLY the wives have been wheeled out to call for
Ford strike, reports JUDE
The Express, Mail and Sun have all quoted from Southampton workers' wives that they are 'shocked', "disgusted' and think it's time the men went back to
'petticoat rebellion at Ford" came to grief when the handful of anti-strike wives were met at the factory gates on Saturday by a much larger contingent of wives and supportCIS Express made as little of that as possible.
ASSERTIVE
Some of the wives involved have clearly articulated rightwing views. They call for secret ballots en- meetings, and demand that the union leaders accept the 8 per cent offer.
Others can easily be led on by Express's | the interviewing techniques of
FORD
ou'll agree, The only way we'll win
The press wheels out
REVOLT
Back to work. susan tells Ford strikers
assertive right-wing reporters:
You're feeling now, aren you. *It'll be better strike's over, won't it.
Some wives are happy to be say, the usca to sap une strikers morale
others don't realise that this is now mich words will be used In Southampton, the organisanon or te anu-strike wives provoked a counter offensive by those women behind the strike.
Not only did they counter the mass Press attack, but they showed their important for the success of the strike.
As Julie Alexander, a Ford wife active
A Ford
song to
strike by
A WIFE'S
the pinch a fortnight
when the
grappling with the supporting the attending meetings
stewards
gulled into SUSPOIL
like Jean Charlton
Langley, behind cries of outrage.
own
what was message.
Government
Britain's
down.
and employers
By
leader, so-called
policy.
policy
ment the
explained in Socialist Challenge
Healey, wives should be involved in all aspects of activity around the sights strike: hearing the arguments,
problems pickets and minimum wage.
If the unions and the shop
were to encourage such involvement, the women would be more likely to support the miners, the strikers every inch of the
engineers,
And they'd be less likely to be
the boil, the supporting the strike-breaking ideas of those
sector and Russell or Susan who hide their By thoroughly reactionary politics
TUC leaders
Talking
blue in
the face
TOP TRADE UNION leaders broke the mandate of
every labour movement conference
unions, the Conference — in their attempt last week to patch up a new pay deal with the Government.
While Len Murray and friends were silent about
said, the
Denis Healey, who led the
side in the talk. with the TUC, gave his message to the bankers at their dinner at Mansion House last Thursday.
first task, DaTE explained, was to get inflation
'That is why we have sought
will continue ask and trade unions alike to work with us to achieve TCOOIS DI pay negotiations, Healey declared
odd
"responsibility was the word used by the Transport Unior
Moss Evans, alternative the Government's 5 per cent pay
The Chancellor's view straightforward: 'responsible collective bargaining involves abiding by the Government's
Failure to do so would be met by the use of fiscal' and "monetary' measures. In plain English this means cuts in social services and higher unemploy-
Jim Callaghan has spelt out what a hard line would mean.
He says that the Government is determined to stand by
WTES offer policy even if it means a long, hard winter of strikes
Meanwhile, Employment Secretary Albert Booth has delivered the Government's massage to the low paid.
Rejecting a union request
The intervene in Wage Council settlements which minimum pay rates below the low-pay threshold stipulated in Phase Four, Booth explainec that only if the settlements were above tae t44.o0 reterred to ur the White Paper would he step the
The Empleyment Secretary pointed out that he had taken action along inese unes wner
Wage Councils fixed minimum rates above Phase Three's 10 per cent.
Callaghan and Booth have clearly set their cent.
on the WaLt claim covering one million public sector manual workers, which to 1s includes the demand for a £60
The employers are due to reply to the claim next Monday
With claims of 40 per cent by
per cent by workers a Levane aneune
and the nurses' demand for 15 per cent all on
Government is anxious to isolate une pubno
manual workers. defeating them, the Government hopes to retrieve what it's lost through Ford and
- those of their TUC, and the Labour Party
Government trumpeted its
British Oxygen overshooting
the 5 per cent limit.
The public sector manual
workers nave to de isolated to
prevent them from becoming
generalisce action
against the pay policy.
The
leaders have
shown their complicity in the
Government's schemes
They scrambled to the
Treasury for three hours secret
talks on Tuesday of last week,
letting whispers about - bogus price controls as ine ont
CLOSE Government's plans is Ford and Vauxhall
At Ford, Reg Birch, the chief negotiator for the Engineering
Union, sent letter to management appealing for talks to get them out of their
'ghastly mess'
As une rinancial times nas acknowledged, a shutdown at
Vauxhall would greatly crease trade union pressure against the government's heavily attacked Phase Four'.
Yet, in response to a derisor offer there, the union leaders set a date for strike action a fortnight away. That falls on 1 November, two days after the
the public sector manual workers is to be made.
Ine vauxnail claim Is io "substantial' rises, a phased cannon to a зo-nour week and consolidation of various Dachs He baserates
The company's offe of increases of between 4.2 and 4.8 per cent on basic rates could not be sold to the membership How much will they now need to come up with to avoid a strike?
Jack McGowan, secretary to
trade union side has indicated that it will need to be nearer the 8.5 per cent offered by Ford Chairperson Cliff Keech said that the union side favoured a productivity deal.
Also due on 1 November is a new offer from British Oxygen to the union's claim for 20 per
There the Transport Union's national officer has said that 14
CCH would b acceptable since the company is likely to agree to the demand for a future change in the date of pay negotiations.
All these wait-and-see manoeuvres will doubtles. wring the odd percent from individual companies
But in the context of the national talks over pay policy,
dallying plays into the Government's hands
nere is a ciear arternanve Break the talks and prepare pay acon now.
Socialist Challenge 26 October 1978 page 3
Page 4 scan of this page
work programme miracle to sell its productivity deal to the strikers. tinuity of production' is a way increase line speed and absolute
Birch by name and birch by....
HOME NEWS
the Ford (UK] Workers Combine. an attack which has the full backing of leading
The occasion was the decision of Hackney Trades Council to collaborate with the Combine in calling a public meeting on *The Ford Strike and the battle
the pay controls'.
At last week's shop stewards committee meetings at Dagenham and Langley, Ford strike leaders said that the 'combine" was designed confuse the trade unionists into believing that the group was the national shop stewards
They also alleged that the group was raising money for the Ford strikers and pocketing
NEWS SHEETS
At the Halewood plant, the attacks have gone further. Combine members and supporICIS distributing news-sheets have come under Divsical intimidation and threats of violence.
Some CP members have opposed this heavy-handed-
which isn't altogether 1C33, surprising since there are party
members involved Combine. Several CP members defended the Combine at the Langley stewards meeting.
The concern of the Communist Party leadership discredit the Combine is not unrelated to the need to cover its own failings. CEnTOUCHOU the Ford strike, the CP talked very left' but has failed to produce the goods.
Ford chief steward matraway. tor example. was quoted in the Morning Star on 16 October, saying that the Ford Strike Committee would launch a massive campaign of
solidarity, including hundreds of factories and trade
union branches
But when this came up at the shop stewards committee it was
Socialist Challenge 26 October 1978 page 4
Communists
attack
Combine group
FORD STRIKE leaders have | in the form of a proposal that
the stewards would simply invitations from ICSDONG LO union branches and stewards CUTTILLCO Moreover, the CP completely
failed to build an initiative of its own, the 'day of action' on 11 October, which was through the No. 8 District of the Confederation building ana Unions.
Fewer than four
turned up; half of them from name MOTO There
to hundred stewards at Dagenham
The rally attracted less than 250 people, and cost the strike fund £400.
The most apparent way building strike crippling the pay norms, linking up with others demanding more than 5 percent, seems not have occurred the strike committee.
There have been no visits to factories like British Oxygen Vauxhall, or to the service workers who now have claims in.
But the campaign to discredit the Combine has back-fired. A specific allegation made at the shop stewards meeting that a Combine member had attended meeting at Rolls Royce Bristol and pocketed the cash has been exposed as a lie.
DISTRIBUTION
The member concerned has a receipt from the official strike fund indicating that he'd paid over the donations -MEIN SUCIl has organised by Combine speak-
ers.
An attempt to have the Sid Hackney Trades
meeting called off was rejected by seven votes to four by the council's executive committee. And to ensure that there is no confusion, the Combine deci•visiting ded to change its name to the
Ford (UK) Workers Group. The group is still in desperate need of funds. Rush them to: 2 Dearmer House, London SW2.
Ford's
For manning
Ford management has always fought for its "right' to fix the speed of the line and manning levels on the job.
The bosses have continually been on the offensive against the shop-floor to challenge this prerogative. Although disputes can go to 'procedure', this can
called
of ShipEngineering
hundred
in the British motor industry. several
The Engineering
and Training Board's
by
vehicle business to LIIS KC afflicted by stagnant or falling the production caused investment and the rundown of
public existing plant.
The report
range, riddled defects and poor quality.
Ryder and Commons Expendi-
motor industry.
just one collections
*REG BIRCH is an extremely shrewd negotiator Council proven
Evening at the key moment in nasty industrial situations to achieve a basically settlement.
So says last Saturday's Daily Telegraph of the Engineering Union's leading negotiator in the Ford strike. The Torygraph was reporting Birch's letter to
productivity plan
...and now
for your new
FORD MANAGEMENT is suggesting it can work a
The bosses claim that no production line speed-up
changes would be involved BRIAN 2: GROGAN explains why they should be told to get lost. bonuses related to national
months.
quick redress immediate -of five hours lost stoppages were content and discipline.
Investment
Car industry
rusts away
AS the Ford strike enters its fifth week, an unlikely document just published reveals the extent of the crisis workers in Birmingham or by unrealistic pay demands Labour Research (Vol 67, at Leyland, Vauxhall and Ford.
Industry 116-page average age of machine tools is
reference paper on employment 12.75 years — a real sign of low and training in the motor investment
shows that quotes engineering sector is strate in detail how old much of STOCK manufacturing is.
that than ten years old — 'a machine
Leyland has an ageing model stock antique by
design dards', says the EITB with Less than half the
Ageing capital equipment is borers, drilling machines, gear
also the order of the day — a hobbing, grinding and milling
feature pointed up in successive machines
automatic lathes and
ture Committee reports on the presses — in the motor industry
are under ten years old with reputation for inter- praise from such quarters.
moderate sible attitude'
accept after being locked out.
action.
It is essentially
stifle a grievance for several targets,
bonus of the is force. unofficial action. Thus in 1975, four out workers
through over work Moreover, (
And it is not being caused by 32 striking toolroom Thus Volkswagen, according to
In engineering as a whole, the
tor. ine
but the EITB figures which demon-
motor vehicle LeTCOLL
For example, only 26 per cent present trend of capstan lathes in use are less
fall even further any stan-
• fine
well as power
whole
the company requesting talks. meetings It's not the first time he has won together
A year ago Victor Matthews,
boss of the Daily Express, was Ford
commending Birch's respon-
in persuading
engineers at the newspaper to few
management's terms
It was a deal which conceded Hugh Scanion
a hard won right to union
Management's call for 'con- woud gain total authority to
of attempting to outlaw such discretion over manning levels.
that industrial action would cut the shift
whole labour
The intention is to pit any agains the rest of the Ford osals are an attempt to cur back with workers, not just management, with the result that the bosses
In the our arse
back.
British investment has remained roughly static in the 1970s, and is way, way below European levels.
3. March 1978), invested £1,350 organisation. million in just three years to creale a new model range te the replace the Beetle. Investmen production
whole of British Leyland was running at below £100 million per annum technology
The prospect for the car industry is domination by the few multi-national giants. suggests, if the -ALS There's
continues em- what's ployment in the industry will
And if there is amalgamation JODS. of the national firms, such as the mooted link-up of Leyland and Renault, the result will aiso be wholesale redundancies.
The only answer is for the
workers to break the capital-
ists logic and nationalise the
motor industry no strings. work time. with talks on
"management's desire to reduce
existing staffing levels.
slightly different picture of Reg
Birch. A Maoist and one of the
remaining lefts on the six
AUEW executive, he tried to
move a censure motion against
following the
deal negotiated by Scanion and
similar ruse 1S being offering attempted over absenteeism. Because of the crazy speed of unofficial the line and the soul-destroying
many workers take days off. By tying bonuses to national targets, the whole workforce would again be hit
Management's other prop
on the limited Ford workers have made in relation to tea and meal breaks.
'60s, managemen sharply reduced these breaks In Halewood, for instance, it was able in some shops to cut the meal break to 20 minutes and the time allowed during the day for going to the bog and having a fag to six minutes. As one worker out it: •We didn't even have time to wipe
Since then, workers have made some gains through local agreements. It is these which management now wants to claw
The bosses basically want to import the German situation In Ford plants there, every worker has an interest in the output of every other worker, which splinters the workforce and results in weak shop-floor
As the article on investment in
details. -Cal machinery Britain is relatively ancient
and already modelled its Bridgend plant on its operations Cologne and Detroit.
no secret about store for the workforce with updated technology: a heavy shake out of
The demand for no job loss needs to be taken up as part of any agreement. Above all, with
various productivity schemes the company would like to impose, we must be fighting for the full claim with
Jones behind the backs of the
negotiating committee in the
1971 Ford strike.
Unfortunately, when Seanlon disclosed his sell-out deal and insisted on a postal ballot of the strikers, Birch did not join the executive menDers voted against the deal.
He abstained. It would be foolish to give him another chance to prove his reputation.
Page 5 scan of this page
Ford militant says
Ford Belfast- divide and rule
FORD
Negotiating Committee.
Brian Grogan.
They called the "71 strike t
big stay at h
In
first day. They have held one in
Halewood, but there was no
discussion just
report and a vote of confidence
PROBLEMS
People argue, even militants,
strike as part of Ford [UK).
Democracy, examines the employment management at the
Andersonstown.
The Six Counties suffer from
unemployment. of discrimination
amromons populanon bears a disproportionate share of the burden. HEHOUEN
make up under a third of the worktorce, ney provide over half the unemployed.
It was generally assumed that the new industries set up in the 1960s, especially the subsidiaries of the big international firms, steered clear of sectarian policies, operating recruitment system.
Not so the giant US-based Ford Motor Company.
JOBS
A survey of the workforce in the Ford (Autolite) factory in the Andersonstown area Bellast shows that Autolite is discriminating against Catholies in the allocation of jobs.
The Autolite factory is subsidiary of the giant Ford Motor Company. It produces carburettors for the range of Ford cars.
A lew years back a malor controversy blew up in Ford (Autolite) when discovered that the personnel officer was tearing up application forms from Catho-
Democracy in the strike
we should
have mass
meetings
THE LACK of democracy in the running of the Ford strike is now hitting the strikers from all sides.
On the one hand there is the call for secret ballots from the press and the bosses; on the other, union leaders Reg Birch and Ron Todd are negotiating with the bosses over the heads of the National Joint
Democratic mass meetings and the election of strike committees become more and more important, as Ford Dagenham worker ROB McCRAE explained to
have f problems and the mcala is tuil or red nerrings the national interest, *yellow penn trom Japanese strike competitors, that the wives are
On top of this propaganda they have to face the OCCUTIEV single handed, they lack information about their
on the shop floor
FORD workers in the North of Ireland are also on
The following article, reprinted from 'Unfree Citizen', the paper of People's
Ford [Autolite]
lies.
Significantly, the the sponsible was not dismissed but merely shifted to another position in the tactory. with the same salary and status as his previous job SECTARIAN The personnel officer currently responsible for processing job applications sergeant in the sectarian Ulster Defence Regiment fair obviously things haven't chanBedhe Andersonstown area is overwhelmingly Catholic; near at hand are •Une ghettos of Turf Lodge, Ballymurphy and winbrook. with high unemployment rates. of Yet the workforce tory is two thirds Protestant.
They obviously don't come from the surrounding areas.
Workers in the factory have said that for the majority of the jobs, no specialised skills are required. Local people could easily fill these positions.
LOYALISTS was Instead OCODIC brought in from Loyalist areas job as far away as Bangor and Portadown to fill the jobs.
pinch.
The Ford Workers' Group (formerly the Combine) has done its best to overcome this isolation, producing a broadSHICCI leaflet containing
CHOULI!
OPEN Democratically ПОСТЕЗ each LUCA 10 everyone comes in to collect
their strike pay throws up We Could
arguments in the bosses' press.
We'd be able to discuss openly the the merits and otherwise of any
We could reply to officials like Reg Birch who talk about "the ghastly mess' that "we' are now in.
Yes. mess. That's what we intended 2h0 10 0 all dions. unars ine way to
make them pay up.
The survey also shows that Catholics who are employed are mainly jobs. Thus Catholics make up policies of 40 per cent of those in the lower plant in grade jobs but only 20 per cent
of those in the better grades.
INDICTMENT
man re
figures indictment of management. They show that Autolite is operating a policy of алстланоп. controuton
population.
WARNING
The figures also illustrate the level of discrimination which has continued there even since the civil rights campaign. They are a warning of what can be expected if the Unionists ever sprawling regain control in the North.
The trade unions and the SOCIA movement North have fought shy of the In the tac- issue of discrimination for far
too long.
EQUAL There can be no real unity between Catholic and Protéstant working class until their positions are roughly equal. those discrimination who divide the are being working class, not those who
oppose it. Discrimination must be fought wherever it raises its
weekly
the latest
is not
run and
week
ИПСИ
would mean mass
counter the
importance to them.
It's sometning now.
Coventry shop
and
the company is in a negotiations. doing the worst
Area of work Toilet cleaners Dyecast Salvage crib are an the Autolite Pressing and flating
Sub-assembly Upper body line making its Lower body line to the oppres Kinsbury anti-Unionist Final build
Chukker 183 distributors PP&C
TOTAL
factory: the Toolroom Maintenance Canteen staff Security Quality control Women operators
TOTAL
OVERALL TOTAL who practise
cent
Militants lobby talks between Ford management and unions
But without any forum in which to counter Birch's kind or talk suen demorans ne 1aeas press will tend to win through.
With frustration building up,
OCaT settlement onse cards, pink attempts to impose people would definitely come
meetings. Worker would see that it is of practical
cent
not too late to do The national stewards conterence coma stul be recallea
recallable strike It's committee elected to carry out militant
As for secret ballots, we're main absolutely opposed to them.
They're a tactic of the bosses to
DISCRIMINATION AT WORK IN FORD (AUTOLITE), BELFAST
Total
60 Miscellaneous machining 28 45
50 Flow room and choke pull
45
757
Percentage of total that is Catholic, 40.2 per cent
The following are regarded as the better jobs in the
36 80 26
28 100
379
1136
Percentage of total that is Catholic, 19.3 per cent Percentage of overall total that is Catholic, 33.2 per cent.
NO RETURN
UNTIL
WE'VE WON
get at every worker in isolation, so that the full weight of the
and uner personal situation can be brought to
In a secret ballot each worker decides on their own; in mass meetings we decide together.
You only have to look at the
secret indicated 2 to 1 support for the sell-out. But subsequent mass meetings at Halewood rejected the deal by over 3 to 1.
TrUC that the more TCLUSeC vote in the secret ballot. But the
factor is Inat Illas. meetings make workers more confident of their strength
Protestants Catholics
36 14 40 18
19
that
33
452 305 reply.
raue the
*+=T8
16
24
306
758 378
Hiles
Rank and File
Where s
the
action?
RANK AND FILE national
council members Fred Leplat and Claire Weingarten have
called for urgent action by the council on the Ford strike
In a letter sent on 6 October to
Rank and File secretary Micky
Fenn, they argued that the Ford
Sirike 'unprece-
dentedly good situation
defeat the Government's 5 per
cent limit, and requested an
ешегчена -meeung
national council.
ELECTED
This council was elected at a delegate conference of Rank and File held during the FBL strike last winter.
In calling for the emergency meeting. Lenlat and Weingarten both members of the #ternanonal Marxist Group suggested that the council discuss the convening or a national solidarity conference to build support for all those going into struggle against the AN HOTE
Their letter emphasised that a big appeal should be made to the Liaison Committee for the Defence of Trade Unions to co-sponsor the conference' and
similar invitations be erienced to an class struggle groupings in the unions.
Fred Leplat says that despite the urgency of the situation, they have not so far received a
ACTION
With all the left talk by the
union leaders and by Communist Party-led LCDTU, he considers, 'we've got to put real pressure on to
'If Rank and File, which is dominated by the Socialist Workers Party, is to mean anything as an effective body, it must act - and act now.
*Socialist Challenge hopes to be carrying an interview with Micky Fenn next week.
A request for an interview
secretary Jim was turned down. don't do interviews, he told our reporter.
Socialist Challenge 26 October 1978 page 5
Page 6 scan of this page
Low paid can win, troops
HOME NEWS
average increases under 10 per cent.
hospital workers. two days of water WOTACIS taking strike action, sewerage would be forcing its way up on to the streets, and within a week of a garbage strike 'undigested" refuse would be piling up alongside it.
Under the guise of "public neaili and safety', we can expect the Government to put still more trash on the streets the troops.
LEGAL
There are two legal means that can be employed to do this.
One Is under Emergency Powers brought in to extend war-time provisions which empowered Ine government exceptional provisions for the protection of the community in case of emergency.
applies where fuel, water, food, light or means of locomotion are threatened. For a state of emergency to be declared under these provisions, Parliament's autnonsanion required for each month of the emergency.
The 'Raglan Operation', plan to use troops to break the
Friday.
against the 5 percent.
PAT
for the full claims.
With militancy fired by the | sector claims.
Ford strike all the evidence
points to the fact that public
sector workers are prepared for
a fight.
Birmingham refuse collec-
tors earlier this month rejected
-oy seven debors to two-all
attempt by the Transport
SHOn -ITHDOSC
scheme involving 165 redun-
dancies before the settlement of
their national claim.
The West Midlands AVIES South-east regional councils of
the health workers' i resignal pay at comi COHSE have voted to set up
regional pay action committees
CONFERENCE
On 7 October, 700
attended the west Midlands
joint union conference of the
low paid neid in birminghan
Ai this conference, however • left OTHeRS
employees' union NUPE, such
as CP member Roger Poole,
tried to prevent discussion of a
resolution calling for a joint
union co-ordinating committee
to organise for the full public
Socialist Challenge 26 October 1978 page 6
or no troops
WITH THE 5 per cent pay limit cracking in the private sector under blows from the Ford and Vauxhall workers, the Government will aim to re-assert its policy in the public sector in the hope of keeping
First in line are the low paid — refuse collectors, water workers, local government manual workers and
If the Government can't buy them off with promises for the future, as they tried last year with the fire fighters, the troops could well be on the streets again, writes RICH PALSER, who argues that these public sector workers can win — troops or no troops.
It is estimated that within | threatened oil tanker drivers'
strike last year, would most likely have been put into elect through this Act.
ADVANTAGE But there is also the 1964 Emergency Powers Act, which for Callaghan has advantage that he does not have to consult Parliament at all. It was this Act that during the FBU strike.
Originally proposed means of authorising the use of troops in floods and disasters 11 nas peen ployed to bring troops into the Act, Hamlets collectors' strike, the fire fighters' strike, and the 1975 Glasgow refuse collectors' strike.
FIRST When the troops brought to fight Xmas, it was the first use of the Act in a despite the - 1975 Regulations for the Army.
These state that the Defence Council can authorise the use of troops under the 1964 THE CLAIM by hospital ancillary workers for a £60
minimum wage will be presented to the employers this
Their pay demands join those of the nurses, refuse collectors, and other public sector workers now up
SIKORSKI, a hospital shop steward in
Birmingham, argues that joint union pay committees can play an important role in the struggle
Birmingham WOrKCES rejected the scheme offer, encouraged by a Rank and File leaflet. unless there are organisational structures to launch a real fight tney will nave no opton but to accept when the union officials bonus come back with a revised deal.
PROBLEM and This problem is faced by the Reliance on meetings of the unions. the local officials, like Poole, would fail to place public sector workers on a fighting footing The shoo stewards' people tures in these unions, being a relatively new development in the public sector, are usually too weak to take on the task.
The way out of this deadlock public can be through joint union pay action committees, from, and recallable by, mass meetings workforce.
They could co-ordinate the fight for the full
the only in cases of a limited and was used local character.
It seems that the Ministry of Defence,
as
anyone OUT re-writing Queens other remove Clu- embarrassment.
ICTUSC DECISION
1973 This way the decision to use troops will lie in the hands of Defence Ministry of Defence. made up of five Government Ministers, five leading military officers, and three senior civil last HICS servants.
But the probable
Queens troops ChOU BOI
think
evitable. The Claims can De won — toops U Act no troops.
Beefing up the pay fight
action
refuse bonus
But the routine
For Or
SOLLUL PAT SIKORSKI claim. workplace, area and regional levels.
Effective joint shop stewards
exist, are ideally placed to set up joint union committees.
CHLIC Without such conditions, the first step can b organise and
single union committees, which
TROOPS at work during the Glasgow refuse collectors' strike in 1975
without recourse to werent exacty
fighting fires.
Regulations this little COunte
Council of the them the - a body
nothing about it. use of SUPPORT make us that a defeat similar to It made
is in- support from public sector They are needed al
the struggle
where they do Public establish favourable now, and thus the full claim.
It's true that the troops are not trained to run tne water ane which sewage works, but then they
The main reason for COL fidence is that it is possible to
by dELCHID Callaghan to demoralise public BCCi sector strikers and isolate them
He from winning broader support. Cell.
In the FBU strike, Callaghan happily brought in the Army to show
alone. was determinee and to acmoralse strikers, who saw troops doing their jobs and felt they could do
Council. winning, active other workers WOTKCES more difficult because the tire fighters felt the strike to be a lost cause. Yet it was the retusal
THE
which response
of the
connerene. instructions.
cient staff.
The
ANL).
under
LOVErSHICH
can lead on to joint work and But fusion in the organisation of
сестог WOrkers -Cal discussed begin the fight to build and
COHHILICE. prepare the ground for a militant fight for of teachers.
of the TUC to lend its support
made the Prime Minister's tactics successful.
CAMPAIGN
Murray ha already action made it clear that he does not
mandated wage campaign against and the TUC Wit the
leave the low-paid public sector workers to fight
Unlike the FBU leadership, Alan Fisher of NUPE and the other union leaders must not be allowed to accept defeat at the
TUC General
How can the public sector
force their union leaders to appeal for support trom the rest or me labou movement over the heads of the
Unity moves among
teacher militants
EXECUTIVE of ellE National Union of eachers recently made two statements
the accurately reveal response, reports he fOreS field.
Socialist Teachers
It condemned NUT associations that had supported the Teachers Against the Nazis
union dedills
But it also approved the action of teachers in refusing to "cover' for absent or insuffi-
executive's position against the Anti Nazi League is part of its attempt to reduce the influence of the left in the union (though it has problems - over
associations support the
But at the same time it is
pressure from the membership to do something about the worsening situation
schools. The executive knows that another round of
CUES IS In the
offing, and hopes that a gesture of militancy will divert the axe
to other sectors. not
its sanctioning of
'no-cover will make it easier
for the left's policies to win a
hearing. One major campaign
the STA's
conference on 14/15 October
was for action to decrease class
sizes and increase the number
The conference also voted to
TUC? By:
*Striking now alongside the Ford workers
*Organising flying pickets to go out to the factories and gain a commitment to solidarity
stration for all workers to
the public sector, demanding an end to Government cuts and decent wages for the low paid
ISOLATE
It is by organising to show that it is Callaghan who will be responsible for sewerage and garbage in the streets, just as he Is responsible ior une cut essential services, that public sector workers can isolate the Government - and the troops prioritise anti-racism and anti-sexism, and to develop an educational strategy to counter
right's offensive in this
The possibility of united left
questions was given a boost at
the
participation of representatives from Rank & File Teacher in a
discussion on left unity.
You're sick,
Mr Ennals
'THEY are playın with
eople's lives', Health Ministe David Ennals said last week
3,500 hospital maintenance supervisors taking industrial action over their regrading scheme.
But just who is putting live
at risk, Mr Ennals? Why, afte
4½ years of negotiations, have the supervisors justified claim:
been met, which would thereby remove the cause of the dispute?
Who was it, Mr Ennals, who put the waiting lists for hospital
admissions up to 600.000 anc continues to cut expenditure on the health service. Just how
many lives have been put at risk
BECAUSE the Labour Government's policies?
Page 7 scan of this page
Social workers occupy union HQ
Feminists confer on rape
HOME NEWS
workers are so insistent that correspond to their work requirements?
strike committee in Liverpool.
Social workers on strike in Liverpool, Newcastle, three London boroughs have
an unprecedented determination to hold out for our acmand to negotiate local agreements, in spite of failure of our union. NALGO. to lift a finger to build the
The anger which has built up during nine weeks of strike
spilled over Thursday when social workers picketed meeting
NALGO's strike operations committee demanding assurance that we would be fully consulted before agreement is reached.
In keeping with the kind of union democracy we have come to know well, the committee retusca to speak to representatives of the strikers October.
the conterence.
Feminists gathered in Bristol trom many sections of the
women's pornography groups, abortion campaigns, women against racism and fascism, consciousness-raising groups - as well as those already active in rape campaigns.
Workshops looked at the
prostitution, sexuality
Others discussed the politics and organisation of the rape crisis centres, the limitations of law reform, and WayS dealing with the media.
Workshops on radical feminist and socialist feminist
WHAT'S LEFT
Sper word or pay see orre publication. Payment in advance.
TrIDI WANICU
iccurate typin
London N1 2XP stating NATIONAL ABORTION
to coordinate the campaign s work, run
organise activities, demos sorense liberatio evening and weekend meetings. Salary
Moran like spaint To. NAC,
work and other experience to: vamoen na, London IYE piery day, on 3pm and to 11
Londo Oxtora
as strike pay is only E6. All to Garners on aa, 2-53 He renta St. London
W02. 01-240 1000
Crisis in the cities
JUST WHAT does a union leadership do when social
their pay
National talks on the demand for local negotiations begin as we go to press, but a deal already reached in Brent is a sign of ominous things to come, PETE CRESSWELL, secretary of the social workers'
outside the NALGO HQ. and So there was a three-hour occupation of the building. The demand conference of strike committees is for representation on the the union's official strike body. ine union met employers for the first time on a
yesterday, when another picket was held. An offer is expected. last SIMMERING of Why all the militancy? The an Issue nas been simmering or a number of years now. any Since 1971, scales for social workers were
has put through 20 Acts of
Many which have had a major impact on social workers
First national conference
THE FIRST national women's liberation movement conference against rape took place on 14 and 15
Nearly two hundred women came together to organise around this aspect of the seventh demand of
WENDY FORREST discusses what happened at
analyses of rape led to a lively debate rather than an exclusive aid, polarisation of positions.
We started with some general
Although rape is an act of violence, degradation, humiliation raIner sexual act it is difficult to draw a line between rape and coercive sexual relations which are considered normal.
The question of consent, on
questionable, we considered, SinCe between free and individuals. brutality darine followed by Anne ventura Marta Campaign for Abortion Rights.
Sending a delegate to ma Sociat 10 Leigh So London at 28 admittance covers food. All welcome.
ESSE
(nr Old Vic)
ARTISANS: North West Spanner new showset in a subsidiary threatened by the Peugeo takeover
University. norpe.
LEICESTER National
At the same time, we have drastic should SCCHI
unemployment, a fall in living standards, and the effects of the culs. the social results of which we are meant to patch argues
We already have many extra responsibilities. manding payment through local negotiations. but me emp overs know dia if we bust through the national standing scales. I could wei cau to IOca
demands from WOTACES. librarians, with the health inspectors, and typists.
Hence their firm resistance to But OUT Call! spreading which is what social workers in hundreds demanding, NALGO is doing its best to contain the action.
Worse still, a deal has been swung in ine Nw borough of Brent which shows the pay ominous signs of being used as
the basis for other settlements.
Carnamen! wen srent council rerusce
their social workers' claim to be nob-evaluated in common wIll the rest of employees, the social workers where the woman is put on trial for being out without a male protector or for not staying at ome in her place We agreed that there can be no reliance on the forces of the state to protect us defend ourselves Finally, men do have, in an immediate sense at least, interest subordination of women, at whose expense they gam some social DEVICECS and On these points we could -inan a Teach some arcelca-
there were differences as to how we ind OUL SCIVOS situation and how we begin to fight back.
All the ideas put forward were fairly tentative, but many TeStS.
women were discussion has begun.
equal What do we do while the
debate goes on? of rape Pickets and court demon-
strations have
LABOUR MOI Tyneside Socialist Centre Connolly.
Ramirez inemationa alternative
Mon 4 Dec: Towards a of living. Speaker: Sheila
upstairs), 10/12 Pilgrim St
ARGENTINE ME MAN Red in Sa
live), food and drink, to raise mon or Argentineresistance Organised o reronis, мополего
REVOLUTIONARY Communist small Chrysl
Ency public meeting: Who needs th
Club 32/38 Theobaids Rd, Londo
PUll
public meeting,
Association).
increase strike action,
this action.
negotiations.
We are dethis,
This
other local such
environmental
SHUT UP instead of the strike action,
council areas are shop.
before.
London from the
728 votes to 373.
the council's
- we musi
an maintaining the
and economic
but
this particularly
glad that the strings.
highlighted and encourage
FAMILY AND THE
organised by boy 15-20; 1 girl capable Children
Boilist a
plus Latin American musi
WEDGES ANL Green ord. 8pm
applied to NALGO to take
with a branch vote of 107 to 30 in favour of
Union leaders moved at once
- by telling certain members of the local branch to re-open
The new offer involving the same amount of cash as perore, was to put a third of the social workers on nigner grades by promonon.
divisive offer was unanimously relected by the Brent social workers, but the union leaders got round this.
A branch meeting was held during me day, with tne breni
agreeing to shut up Needless to say, union had never attempted to
La belligerent speech senior district organisation officer. Andrew Jack, the offer was accepted by
Brent social workers handed out leaflets on the picket of NALGO HQ condemning these manoeuvres and calling on us advertising encourages the view that women enjoy rape.
gross judicial rulings. Rape crisis centres are opening outside London; they to do this. must receive state aid without We
Speakers from these centres can be invited to community, student, and labour movement meetings, to discuss the issues
women national press organise to defend themselves. We looking bay 15-20 to play racist
Sery B8i A the left Paled Seeke
Away Hall, London WC(HolDor
Weaker: Frank Richards Toleram Court Ta London Wi. at The Roebuck
SOCIAL for Basement Fat
bainsoury s)
last. ANU demos de-constru
Government publiespending cuts, rising unemployment and falling living standards all mean more stress and difficulties not to be influenced by the Brent settlement
We won't be, although this is no doubt what our leaders
In'Black and Blue rom
The Rolling Stones
and I love it!
trume against yea
*This is a crime against women' reads the slogan painted on this hoarding. This kind of
Schools need to give women the normation and paysical SKHIS
need concerted campaign against media distortion and titillation а гаре report to spice up page 3. We need to monitor rape in the local as well as the
better street 6913
present Red Roc
Goldsmith's Co ISLINGTON Big Flame open Thompson on Problems of Trotskyist
NFERENCE on 'Value theory
temporary capitalism'. 3, 4 an
Economists egistration: to to Nihe economic conference), 15 Greek St, London Wi
Chile. Sat cheap, late Dal, onle pondanty vampaign WATFORD RAR and FoundatIon CIUD Crisis and Osama. casey rlace benin
Sat 28 Oct 8pm. Adn oup davance, LI OROoO!
ABC TRIAL TWO: Drop it! Pickets o the Old Bailey every Tuesday 12.30 tc
Defence committee meets every Tube, Tel 2781576. 1 (Kings uesday 6.30pm at the G
would like to achieve. Plans are now being considered for national meeting of all social services shop stewards. lighting, more public phones late public transport Small changes maybe, but we are beginning to fight back
The conference agreed to set up a special rape newsletter to exchange experience and
information contact: Londor
Reality I Water Cords (Reggae Wave)
Action Centre 14 bavuss noad. dents with card claimants stu
Thi Future of the
0mm Sandy S 29. iternative
Matthew's Meeting Place, Brixton SW (opposite Organised by big Flame NEWSREEL FILM Divide and Rule Nevolution in Scotland, 3-1i Ner
ondon WC2. Tol 01-734 450B00 S Ipswich, Suffolk. Tel 0473 76012. Hor
agains
he Merchant , Bon Mition, Bol
Socialist Challenge 26 October 1978 page 7
Page 8 scan of this page
PAUL JOHNSON Al BY ROBIN BLACKBURN
IN THE 1930s, David Low's cartoon reactionary, "Colonel Blimp', insisted that the middle classes backbone of the country and attributed all national woes to me bone-lale British worker, the long Ho Shevik telectual anarchist conspirator with a bomb in his pocket.
The message of the modern Blimp is
there are some new targets: the almighty trade union boss, the woman TETTOES. the Marxist lecturer. the welfare punk artist with a subsidy, the football hooligan, and many more swell the insidious conspiracy undermining all that is best in Britain.
BUL ine real change is not a multiplication of the supposed enemies OT SOCCEV always a motley and numerous crew -but a multiplication of
Instead of simply a Colonel on the retired list we now have Prince Blimp. the Queen's husband; Bernard Blimp, the Times columnist; Woodrow Blimp, the millionaire ex-Labour MP; Mary Blimp, the censor of public morals; Reginaid Blimo. another MP. who has now joined the Tories; and Paul Blimp, the former editor of the New Statesman.
What sense or substance is there in this new right-wing trend among the arbiters of public opinion? As in the past they seek to reaffirm traditional truths and to confound all heretical movements of social criticism and revolt. But these days the task is a more difficult one.
-In the past, British conservatism had sucn connaence in Ine institutions that it scarcely saw the need to mustifv them. Conservatism exalted tradition, reverence for precedent, the
British CHILLEC custom, the market as the basis of all Socialist Challenge 26 October 1978 page 8
condemn British were ne
be losing their magic. haired
needs reformulation confronts some though today opponents.
Polytechnic scrounger, the shift in cultural sensibilities,
ecological competing Marxism.
AMBITIOUS Blimps.
ground of social theory
CA-LaDOul
cran namoon or cachon Johnson's Enemies of society.
examining its quality.
cartoon justified?
established
nose WRO and accusation.
Gad. sir., Wagner is right. This' hot' music is
just African propaganda to prevent the white
BLIMP'S WESTERN CULTURE
But now the market itself seems to
industry, and institutions like the House of Lords and judiciary seem to
A pervasive sense of social paralysis and national crisis destroys the old passive self-respect. Conservatism also
because new and puzzling
In the last decade the established order felt threatened as never before by popunst trauc umon wancy, a acep
and the diffusion of the untamiliar doctrines associated with women's liberation, the
and the schools of continental
Paul Johnson, who is probably the most ambitious of the new pundits, has tried to meet these antagonists head-on and to restate conservatism on the high
Ten years ago, as editor of the New Statesman, he was celebrating the May revolt in France as the dawn of a new age. In 1978, he has established himselt as the most prolific and acclaimed
widely praised book, summed up the neo-Conservative world view and is thus a convenient reference point for
Johnson has pretensions to be more inan Just a
reactionary: are they
The principle themes of Enemies of Society run as follows. Since the days of annouity une middie class nas been tne vital custodian of civilised values
"bourgeois" should feel proud of the
But it is not enough simply to
Traces from ровно
slanding
from shoulder to shoulder with Their backs to the wall 310| 377S
proclaim that bourgeois is beautiful western ovusaton is now uncalcuc by a noxious combination of enemies, some Teners accducce bourgeois society, others eager to write out its urdul wallant.
Among these 'enemies of society' are trade unions, the unscientific cults. associated with Marx and Freud, the demagogy of social critics like Ivan
R.D. Laing and Marcuse; the mystagogy of Marshail McLuhan and Teilhard de Chardin, the mass expectations aroused by the wellare stare and neynesian cconomics. the irrational fears played upon by the by Francis Bacon and Tom Stoppard, and, last but not least, the dangerous egalitarianism of those who feel oppressed or discriminated against by bourgeois society
Johnson insists that such threats to Western values must be stamped out by a stern restoration of law and order in the intellectual sphere.
He calls for a reaffirmation racinona Tengion. nor on une eround. that it is valid, but because the old priests are better than the new witch doctors. Without any apparent sense of contradiction he also calls for a new commitment to Truth and Science.
FREEDOM
Finally, the supreme good is the freedom (often confused with privileges) of the cultivated individual. Everything suggests that the individual
predominantly white, male and middle class.
In England, as elsewhere, the social movements of the Sixties
and Seventies were better at identifying particular wrongs and injustices than in proposing adequate and solutions.
Facile slogans like 'Power to the People' implied that a worked-out programme, and harmonious social alliance, already existed and that all that was needed was to smash the old
Even today the left is neither united enough nor practical enough to much more than an irritant to the body
The gurus of radical revolt suffered
an analogous weakness. could offer valuable INS CHILS particular defects prevailing institutions and ideologies, world views they had to offer were frequently naive and fantastic
RESERVE
Much can be learnt from R.D. Laing or even Illich so long as their overambitious cosmologies are treated with reserve. Likewise the ecological critique of contemporary industrialism points to many particular dangers, but it does
COHSUILULC self-sufficient programme for the economy.
Paul Johnson does not seek seperate the wheat from the chaff in
social criticism contents himself with a blanket assault. Moreover he delights to (witting or unwitting) conspiracy between his various enemies.
Confronted with any sign of social revolt or criticism, Johnson reaches for
continually D uncerouss over-estimates the unity and coherence
Abusive amalgamation is essential to Johnson's polemical style. the following representative example of his free association style of argument:
there is also a certain element of crude Marxist-egalitarian analysis in the black power movement. reflects the use made of confusion of categories and the inversions of terms
Laing, Levi-Strauss and others we have mentioned.' (page 239)
Whatever was wrong with the black power movement. we may doubt that ll owed much to Lévi-Strauss or Laing. The indexer of this volume has been so befuddled by Johnson's amalgamation technique that the entry for Ivan Illich simply reads see Lenin'.
TRUTH A recurrent theme of Enemies of Herbert Society is the importance of truth,
respect for language procedure, yet the author has a reckless and uncomprehending way with all three. Thus the repeated injunction to "trust science' (my the author's own distance from the critical scientific spirit.
Johnson's longing for certitude is as evident in his cultural digressions as his
Johnsonian aesthetics is simply stated: Art is a source not only of pleasure but of reassurance; it is not a luxury of civilisation but undermines the common certitudes, it of lowers morale and makes
assault more deadly (page 226).
Just as all the enemies of society are orchestrated bv some subversive hidder hand, so the positive values merge and
mystical unity like that of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost.
The Truth, Religion, Science and Art is that they all help to reinforce the common - the certitudes That is why the
truth is what Johnson calls 'Christian truth, and that is why science must promote trust, and art reassurance Johnson's crusading simplifications and prustnisn early barely concealed hatred of foreigners in
Just as the essence of Truth is Christ's COnCECI truth, so the most precious component
of Western English.
DOUBT Any historical evidence that might cast doubt on the beneficent English genius is rapidly passed over. be Johnson is combining apologetics for
capitalism with celebration of England ne can produce real gems of sophistry: *Those who criticise the industrialists They for exploiting child labour overlook the
fact that the central problem of the age but the By far those or are outer mine ne
far those of any other time history. It was not capitalism which produced these children. What it dic was to enable England to avoid an Irish solution emigration. (pp. 71-2.) of Hass
It does not _ohnson that bo England bear some responsibility in the matter of the Irish' solution, since it was the insisted that millions of Irish peasants must starve in order to allow the grain to market to find its own level
He has no doubt that alien cultural but imports are to blame for much
contemporary social discover roundly declares: Frenchmen, as we are
seeing, pseudo-intellectual and pseudo-scientific movements, and are active in assaulting the civilisation they helped so notably to create." (p.220). Or again he writes:
intellectual, but of a French pseudoConsider
intelectual.
Such fine impressive if Johnson showed any
which and scientific
emphasis) reveals
INCACHCO
La necessity. If art
external most significant thing about
basis of
bourgeois civilisation is
When
clothe and employ
starvation and
apparently occur to Sane endorses the
London government which Popper.
tirades.
malaise. odd blunders. play a notable part in
exceedingly
*Teilhard is a only or a pscude used by rendered scorn would be more Marcuse's
ability to detect the pseudo-inte lectual or pseudo-scientific compone in British culture: instead he naive
scientific claims Eysenck and the Hegel-scholarship
Contidence in Johnson upholder of intellectual standards is n enhanced by the inaccuracy of his ow
For someone who supposedly made a close study contemporary social thought he mak
Since he disdains footnotes it is ofte difficult to check his quotations a criticisms. Thus he speaks knowledg ably of Marcuse, , but has he read him
No work by Marcuse appears in th bibliography, though we are offere several quotations from him. Key term
Marcuse are erroneous Johnson concept of "oppressi permissiveness' (page 239) when 1
Page 9 scan of this page
D THE NEW RIGHT
term actually used by Marcuse is "repressive tolerance'
Many of Johnson's critical barbs seeno nave peen cuce asccone name
mostly, one would guess, from the Fontana Modern Masters series. Since Johnson's book is selling at four times the price of a Modern Master this seems bad value, even where he manages to get his quotes straight.
ANIMOSITY
His inaccuracy seems to be the product of a generally distempered view of the world rather than of a special animosity against the Casual mistakes or misattributions like *Madam Blavatsky's (page 124) 0Г 'Freud's melancholy posthumous book Civilisation and its Discontents (1930) are washed down the reader's gullet by the free-flowing polemic.
who have become intoxicated by When his historv of the
Literar Suplement
that work contains.
For some reason standards nave not
Enemies of Society.
the New left. as a palladin of Tory
Scientology' retorical excess and false bathos.
LaDOUT Thus
already
long
In For mouciale
the
Johnson's methylated cocktail is the book. likelv to give a bad hangover to those
it.
Church was noticed in the Times
the CXDCIL reviewer thought it wise to caution the reader by citing a sample of the howlers
such critical been tougni necessary by those who have acelaimed
Both in his days as Labour editor of which
Statesman. and 1UW freedom, he displayed a similar talent for ignored;
Last year he resigned with a flourish from the Labour Party on the grounds that he would not travel one miserable inch down the path towards Auschwitz and Gulag upon which the Callaghan considered.
government was embarked.
In an carlier article he had described Shirley Williams and her friends as 'a ver mim succ or acmocrane meal ind very thick totalitarian sandwich (i.e.
the Labour Party). Compare this with the following from a New Statesman article written in June 1970:
To look down from the galleries onto a crowded House of Commons is to me a moving experience. There are plenty of good men on the benches; but it is the solid ranks of LaDou men and women situne benne their ministers, which to me is ocular and indisputable proof that - so long as they remain there — the country will not Eu lar astlay. ual we wl connnu freedom tha somentere in e ain combine justice world there will still be a major nation, of great influence and potentiality, to uphold civilised principles.
•...the truth is that there is no greater guarantee of this country's internal
stability and security than a solid
majority House Commons. It is not a formula for
mean that the objectives of social TUSUCC WIll ona occasons ana in every issue, be pursued. But it is an absolute and cast-iron defence against adventurism.
OBSESSION
Evidently Johnson has moved all the wav from being a reactionarv radical to being a radical reactionary.
Johnson's OOSESSIOn
"internal stability and security' was
evident, along with the overblown style and patriotic blather,
before his conversion to the official right wing of British politics. Before becoming a neo-Conservative Blimp, he was a Fabian socialist Blimp.
both guises it has been characersuc or nis orose nalne bace. his own person in direct juxtaposition
questions of the day, whether moved by the sight from the gallery of the House of Commons or refusing to travel even one miserable inch to Auschwitz and Gulag.
Johnson politics and social philosophy are there to refleet and express his emotions. His longing for absolute guarantees of order designed to ward off a chaos he feels all about him.
Unfortunately for the rest of us, the doses of authority required to protect Johnson s concept or trecaom are becoming progressively stiffer.
illiberality Callaghan and Merlyn Rees no longer suffices and is jettisoned in favour of
vigilantes of the National Association for Freedom.
The ostensible unifying theme of Enemies of Society, that of the historical and social conditions which support freedom, is entirely dissipated by the scattered polemic of the latter half of
There is no examination of what contemporary socialist writers like C.B. MacPherson. levenukeso George Novack have had to say about une relanonsmp octweek Capitansın and democracy.
GUARANTEE
There is no attempt to prove that either capitalism or a propertied middle class represents a sure guarantee of liberty. It is simply asserted. Evidence
suggests that, in certain conditions, capitalism fosters powerful anti-democratic forces simply
for example, the fate of Europe in the Thirties or of South America today.
ne imporance ora vey and independent labour movement for any democratic political order is not even
The freedoms we now
enjoy were in large part the fruit of intelectual dissidence struggle, established ideology which systematically identified liberty with property.
Yer Johnson appears to believe that freedom can be protected by returning to this identification, browbeating the more troublesome tethering the labour movement to the state, and strengthening the powers of Tory the police and courts.
UTOPIA
This is a recipe not for conserving or extending freedom but for confining it to a comfortable and intolerant elite, with suspended above a docile, atomised and demoralised mass. It is the sort of reactionary utopia which could only be realised at the expense of drastic social
Attempts to give right-wing politics a contemporary philosophical basis are not in themselves to be despised. The left needs conservative thought, against which it can develop its own ideas - think of Marx's debt to Hegel, or, to take a more recent British example, Raymond Williams's debt to English conservative traditions.
But in Johnson the left has not found an antagonist it can take very seriously.
represents has a strident, paranoid style that muddies the waters of political argument. with It is the intellectual counterpart of the red-baiting and McCarthyism that is returning to fashion in some Western European states.
It springs not from the intuitions of the older school thought, with its community and the particular, but from panic at perceived from an awakened labour movement and a heterodox younger generation.
There is a further moral to all this. In the long departed days of radical chic a wiuc suonc was suducny oscrca up1oi critical ideas which had led a long The
popula.
leading to rejection of an
social critics,
transcend certain body of
zovernmen
bosses
voters
exacerbate
•POr
Ol conservative concern for
activists
Gad. sir. Henry Ford is right. Trades
Unianism is just a plot of the worker
to stop employers from treating
them well of Their own free will.
I0 To I BLIMP
subterranean existence.
Movements developed which had major impact on tne way people nve their lives. Whatever the excesses of those davs they have eft a lasting impact on society.
Todav. the new right eniovs the modishness that once altached to the lett. Reactionary pundits now have the ear of a sizable public, in France and in the United States as well as in Britain
But on the evidence we have seen so far their message seems likely to be a negative and barren one. Rarely do they
the limitations we have identified in Johnson's writings.
In intellectual terms Johnson's work may ve snoday, our nat does noi deprive it of political impact
In the last few years the Labour Party has lost much of its following among tives, whose living standards have beer ravaged by inflation, who resent paying for welfare services which they have deserted for the private sector, and who
the symptoms social disintegration they see about them
Johnson argues that these plagues are the responsibility of a Labour
wnien is innitrated by Marxists and subservient to the union
He pitches his argument at a leve which is unlikely to interest the mass of
though his articles are frequently reprinted in the popular tabloids - but even if he only helps to
the disaffection of the Dera mode casses connson wil have made an important contribution
victory in the near future
elain. the case that Conservatism in Britain is on the attack, and that there is a dynamic union on the right between ideologists like Johnson and the leadership of the Conservative Party
Labour's weakness is that its leadership is alienated from socialist
and devoid any convincing political vision. Thus it is the Conservatives who profit from the
DUDIK opinion adeptly exploited by the Blimp pundits. Socialist Challenge 26 October 1978 page 9
Page 10 scan of this page
RELAND
Bursting
after threatened with arrest demonstrating UaSeOWS George Square, Revolution supporters returned again last week to show their support for Irish political prisoners, reports CHRIS BAMBERY.
OCCaSIOn was launching of 100 balloons to mark Amnesty international's *Prisoners of Conscience Week bv Councillor Burns, deputy convenor of Labour-controlled Strathelyde Regional Council.
was highlighting
Socialist Challenge 26 October 1978 page 10
(e0)
"İF THEY REMEMBER THE THREE
MANCHESTER MARTYRS AFTER
III YEARS, HOW CAN I KEEP IT
QUIET ABOUT THE .BLOCK 380?
Amnesty's balloon
repression in Latin America. for the USSR...everywhere except Inelanu To point out that over 300 Republican OTISOUCHS being denied basic rights only 80 miles from Revolution supporters turned the out with 100 balloons *End H Block Hell', 'Political Status Now', etc.
Councillor Burns even to discuss the condition of the Republican prisoners.
Amnesty members did, however, sign a petition for political status.
WE assembled Prisoners'
Tn ai Falls Road, CURTIS
The building looks disused, with all its windows bricked up. Only a perpetual knot of people rounu thie qoorway betrays the fact that it is in use.
It was drizzling as, with a growing waited tor a minibus.
The minibuses on the run to the Kesh or the Lazv K as some call it] are dilapidated. They are worked hard six days a week, every YCCK
There weren't enough buses to take us on the first run, so we waited for one to get back from the Kesh. Finally it arrived.
We drove off through decaying streets Belfast, past the housing estates on the outskirts and into countryside.
The only along the road was a small old farmhouse painted red, white ane bine flying from a giant pole in TOTE
Otherwise the hills rolled awav trom us on ether side. marked out madke. For ali the world en
might have been in the Home Counties
It was a real shock to arrive at Long Kesh.
The entire camp is surroun-
corrugated iron topped with rolls of barbed wire.
The bus left us off outside the fence and we went to hand in our visiting docket at a hatch in THE SUCCESS of the United Troops Out Movement conference last weekend was overshadowed the following morn-
Edwards, speaker from the Trade Union Campaign Against Repression,
detained Wa.s Prevention of Terrorism Act in Stranraer on his return journey to Belfast.
The irony speech mainly concerned itself with Tacea by trade unionists who
stala imperialism
In his speech Jo mentioned the case of Brian Maguire, who nad workea witn nim to bund were an important Belfast demonstraton and wno was loune Glasgow, hanged in his cell year in Castlereagh marked Centre.
SOLIDARITY refused He also solidarity -action Several forced on the bureaucracy in the case of the dockers held a few months ago in Liverpool. In fact over 3,000
Visit to Long Kesh
we left
outside the the wall.
Welfare Office in
writes LIZ
rooms Witn
along door, crowd, we
somewhat
tera v airover Any removed anO
You sien for them.
anotner walune-room the W eSI jerry-built gated iron fence now the gentle green
walls: massive
untoward sight walls topped
edged with a Union Jack rectangles.
Watch machine-gunners SICAL intervals. netting hanging cobwebs.
waiting-room. graphs", said the notices.
Overseas Visitors"
high fence of that was trying to
SCreW
DeoD e.
Cops prove UTOM
speaker's point
invited
under the
was that Jo's
the level of repression
PTA since 1974 against used to between rish
OTCS SLaLCHICH!
earlier this -ONLUC
Ireland".
underlined how
had been trade «UTOR note
We trembled as
Many visitors gave dole cards as identification. for two hours.
Then it was into the first of a series of prefabricated waiting- blanket for
cream-painted wälls scrawled with graffiti. that
After waiting in the queue, you go one by one into a small see - and cheer room lo be scarenea Dy two screws. Women go through one Finally
men tnrouen anonc
You are allowed only four satery matenes, and no silvei paper in your cigarette packet wall. The heels of your shoes are examined and a screw feels you
forbidden objects are placcu unlocked. envelope to be collected later.
Then vou are let out of the far door into
A tatty coach arrived to take wire, us rounu uc Dunoy ocHicic!
We were through the corru-
Above us loomed the camp
grey concrete with the modern-style barbed wire that
with razor-sharp The
towers containing SLOOC TECHICCS with camouflage like filthy
The coach halted at the final talk
hOLO'No
A soldier in battledress held back a huge, growling alsatian
attack a
The waiting-room was full of VISHOrS
women anc children. We met a family who had come up on one of the first
DAY OF SOLIDARITY WITH IRISH POWS NOVEMBER 26 Called for by the Prisoners Aid Committee *Solidarity with Irish POWs *POW status and amnesty for all Irish political prisoners *Troops out of reland now NATIONAL MARCH IN LONDON To Clerkenwell Green from Speakers Corner Assemble 2.30
people have been held under the
focus for
The Act has been constantly
discourage contact Ireland. udac umonsts and their British comrades. A from
Irom the UTOM on Monday pointed out pledged that this harassment was aimed at "preventing a free flow of information betweeen Irish and British people as to the true the 26 situation obtaining in Occupied stration in
The UTOM conference itself ver 150 prope atte ded ass undoubted success.
International was taken of the new ground broken in the UTOM's and to give 15 months of existence, so that
minibuses. They had been there
All visitors to men on the other
political status down. were being kept till the last. so
remand prisoners would not be able to
- the blanket
the name of the remand prisoner we were going to visit was called out, along with the list of others. We went outside, then filed into a glass corridor that goes through the
It was lined with screws. The door was locked behind us. We were checked off by a screw, then the door at the far end was
We went into a waste of beaten corrugated iron and barbed
then into another prefabricated hut. At no time could we see the compound.
The first part of the visiting hut is lined on each side with tiny rooms known as boxes" where the blanket men have
old.
Ener visus one screw ber room
blanket men get one nal-nour visit per mont
Many of them are now appealing against their
SCHI and they get one 15-minute visit per day.
But they are only allowed to
about their appeal which the presence of a screw anyway makes impossible and if they talk about anything else the visit is stopped.
This is a way of harassing the
— but the visitors keer on making the journey.
At the end of the hut is a long room lined with numbered it is now the major national
work against the presence of the British troops ir
At the conference delegates
the Socialist Workers Party and other left groups
their support for building the movement
conference denicee among other things to build for
November Genen support the prisoners-of-war held in Britain and Ireland, to support the
Tribunal on Britain's Presence in reland.
La new national structure to UTOM.
cubicles. A screw overseer sits on a pedestal at one end, and
screws walk up and We sat down in our cubicle to wait
The remand prisoners came in at irregular intervals. Some visitors had to wait as long as half-an-hour because the screws did not bother to call thi person they were visiting
At last Gerrv came He wa greasy-haired like the rest.
nev naa nol wasne tor a month in solidarity with the blanket men. Yet his hands were surprisingly clean, very waile with uncut nals
Gerry said he thought he woue ene lo omma te mer on the blanket. He was savagely
Castlereagh and signed a statement.
He will be tried in a no-iurv court, so the doctor's evidence that ho wds badly bruised during interrogation will make no difference
He has been 10 months on remand already. He is 20 years
He was anxious to know what we were doing in England to get the Brits our. What did we think of the Daily Mirror's "troops out' editorial? Who did we mink woue wn mne nex election?
Unlike the blanket men, who are completely isolated from the outside world with not even a clock, the remand prisoners have radios.
But their parcels have now been stopped so they get no books, and they are not allowec newspapers. From time to time Loyalist prisoners give them
theroly newsp pers.
Gerri that the prisoners organise educational sessions learning, for example, about the nature of British involvement in Ireland and the dangers of a neocolonial settlement.
It is hard to imagine how these sessions are arranged, since the prisoners are locked in their cells all day save for an nour s exercise ana meats
*Time's up!" shouted screw Our halt-hour was over We shook hands, then Gerry was hurried oft a small figure beside the huge screws
We went back past the screw on the pedestal. Our visit was one of the last, and the blanket men had already been brought over from H Block about halfa-mile away.
A blanker mar wal ahead of us He was being hustled out of the door his visi stopped after a couple of minutes because thev were no talking about the appeal.
No warning was given. his relative told us. The visit was stopped, just like that
He was an almost unearthly sight. Tall and very thin, very white. His long hair hung greasily onto his ill-fitting gre denim uniform, put out for the visit. There were septic yellow sores on his hands.
He was very unsteady on his feet and he put his hands on the walls to steady himself. Every so ofter he stopped to smile and wave as visitors in other boxes cheered him.
We were trembling as we left
Page 11 scan of this page
Racism White justice courts British style
three white youths.
SIVANANDAN, director of the Institute of Race
Relations, at a meeting of the
Saturday. ( Asian Organisations
Here we publish the dossier on the pathology of
victimisation presented by Sivanandan.
IN BRIEF TEACHERS and journalists were among those who picketed InC National Front's headquarters in Hackney as the NF held a press conference to grounds, launch its new pamphlet, Nazi League'. Pickets also grecica simmar press conel-ne meant ences in BLOCKDO L
be a straight return to the or Jewish conspiracy
of British Jews (in fact,
has ANL).
and the
JUDGE MICHAEL ARGYLE on 19 July sentenced
Joginder Singh Virk to seven years' imprisonment,
Mohinder Singh Virk to three years, Balvinder Singh
Virk to two years, and Sukhvinder Singh Virk to three
months for allegedly causing serious bodily harm to
Not only were the sentences savage, but the whole
case rested on the police version of events, said A.
Steering Committee of
Against Racism held on There is the usual talk about Some *the sinister Russian-Jewish City bankers and offspring who own the assets of new the emphasis *Jewish' or "Zionist" and finally
Lifting the Lid off the Anti by people who don't have very
deep roots in Britain'. Asked if Jewish people, NF Birmingham and leader Webster said he did.
Most or ine press cuner
Lifting the Lid turns out to ignored these Nazi-style ravings
theory, contempt they deserve. But not London claiming that the ANE was so The Times. Its correspon begun by the Board of Deputies dent Robert Parker seemingly London
as we didn't notice the anti-semitism: detailed last week, the Board The Front booklet...
refused to support the about the league exactly what countries have got together to
the league alleges of the Front.'
The Virk brothers had in fact
been the victims attacks and racial abuse. They had defended themselves under severe provocation.
The police arrested the Virk brothers while the real attackers went free.
Jugge Argyle accepted the police version of
events Dul went on to concen
as 'irrelevant' the introduction DV acence prejudice' as a motivation — and rebuked them for asking the white attackers they belonged to the National Front.
BIAS
In ruling 'out of court' the whole
"crime' the judge was in effect reflecting and reinforcing the racial bias of the police and _denying justice to the black defendants.
This case raises fundamental issues. brtain ine ponce and tne state afford no protection Tacar aouse ane radar wolence.
Judge Argyle's ruling is not an isolated instance. But it Is difficult to glean examples from press reports of similar court proceedings because the police, and, subsequently the magi strates or Juages, nave already defined for the reporters who is
aggressor — thereby precluding vice deal mc arriculation or the black experience.
The Institute of Race however, reveal a disconcerting
ICCCHIL opinions and decisions:
In December 18-year-old black youth who accidentally stabbed to death a
white attacker was jailed for 18 months. He carried a knife for self-protection. youths who had been put off a bus for conductor attacked him and he defended himself.
The judge, Melford Stephenson, who whites had been responsible for the incident, went on to say:
*I have got to make it clear that people of any race and colour who carry the kind of horrible weapon that you used must learn that the quences must be grave.' (South London Press, 9.12.77).
In April, İssa Ahmodu, a Nigerian businessman "lived in fear of mugging', was pounced on by plain
pulled a penknife in fear and ran to his hotel.
He was later charged and anythin geople will believe their
EIGHT journalists on back- South Kent Gazelle went on the strike on Monday after the accusation that the AN is run editor decided apology to the NF for calling
Nazis' without any reply by the journalists who wrote the original story.
the WOMEN and Ireland, North
Women Racism and Fascism,
Black Group, and women involved in alleges struggles in various third world
organise two one-day women
fined £40.
News, 14.4.78).
In a "Sus"
arrived and
only The
mind her own business."
Bracial *In no uncertain terms, The magistrate
whether
Community, October 78). cases
social context of the
blacke ople.
For black people in
from actually charged.
student al
because of their colour.
the
USUCCES
of the Relations,
CONTRAST
judicial
1977 an
IWO WHILe
grievous A gang of
Upon. black
accepted that the
There is also
Asian, LUIISC" before Old Street Nichols,
who Lane.
clothes two Asians,
indoors every 1317 Gazette, 27.6.78).
October and the Saturday 11 November. start
OTTERE
provided.
Against
North and unlawtully
Women's Great Eastern
headquarters
refused bail.
(South Kensington
case where two vouths were found guiltv. the woman from whom they were ALCECULO Have aCHE DECE LU steal told police that she had noticed nothing of the sort.
magistrate told the London. police in court: 1 hope you told her to get out of the way and
The police officer replied:
Sir'. And now added. 'Ouite right, I don't approve of that kind of person. (Wandsworth
July, where Judges do accept a racial motivation for a Asian crime (unlike Judge Argyle), the sentence on whites and the entire family, apprehension of whites is quite house out of line with those relating to telephone.
murderers of Gurdip Singh Chagger had the murder Front; one
man slaughter and got a sentence of four years. Of the 150 white racists who rampaged through hospital. Brick Lane on 11 June, 20 were arrested and only three were
two Norwich men invoived in repeated assaults on black
BASI AnOR University convinced the judge
were chosen
But the judge did not want to "deprive them of their liberty" and affect their employment'
so he fined them £100 each. (Eastern Daily Press,
Compare the sentences on the Virk brothers with those of
• TaCISES a wover hampton who pleaded guilty to wounding with intent to cause
bodily harm and possessing an offensive wea
One was jailed for 2½ years for a deliberate and unprovoked' racial attack on a West malan, ine orner nad a six
suspended sentence. (Belfast Telegraph, 9.8.78).
La remarkable
being handed out to blacks and
whin June, three youths (iwo
white) magistrate charged with USERS threatening behaviour in Brick
All were given bail, bat the
Rahman and Haque, were ordered to stay
Sunday from 7pm. (Hackney
only educationals on imperial- TWO
The first is on Sunday 29
the second Both 10.30am the Methodist Church Hall, Lancaster Road, WII. Cost: both days t1.50 (unemployed 75p), one day fl (unemployed 50p).
Hon-DavmentCost includes papers. Creche
E17.
FOUR NF members have been charged with making an affray THE
fighting Street after sponsors of a ineidents outside the NF's nev
last Thursday night. James O'Keefe (39] was
Contrast this with the fact that the accused murderers of Ishaq Ali were allowed bail on 7
July on the condition inat tne live in Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool for thei own safety. At their second
apocal alt September, this condition was revoked and they returned to
them
Also on 7 July, at the same court, three Nigerians who had 'overstayed' their visa conditions were remanded in custody.
for the police offensive — which the judiciary tends to underpin:
At 12.15 on the morning of 3
seven plainclothes men broke into the home of
family in Longsight, Manchester. They terrified the
broke up the and pulled OUL the
All the family thought they were mempers or une wanona
Munir, had
even tried to call the police for with help! Nazir, the father, was beaten up and had to go to
THE ILLUSTRATIONS on this page are from Divide and Rule
-Never!', a superb new film featuring and aimed at young people. White and black young women and men talk about racism, the fascists, their experience of diserimination, and their views on its causes. It's direct, engaging.
ANL activists In Waltham Forest,
one unemployed and the other on f41 a CRE, 247 Mare Street, E8 [tel week, have been fined E140 and 986 4121]. ordered to pay compensation of t250 for painting anti-NF slogans on a subway. tions are urgently needed if they are to avoid going to jail for six previous convictions, was
• picase sena to jailed Walthamstow ANL, c/o CRC 25 Church Hill, Walthamstow
Hackney Council out by Racial Equality is among the
conference on *The Law and Race Relations in about you, with your record of Hackney on 4 November from violence, 10.30am to 3.30pm at the John cerned abour other people's Scott Health Centre, Wood-
Both Nazir and Munir
Ahmed have now been arrestect
and charged with wounding
with intent' - a charge which
carries a life sentence. (Ahmed
Defence Committee).
January plain-
clothes men harassed a 19-year-
old black youin in Daistor
who, having been attacked
three weeks earlier by National
Front members, and suspecting
members,
produced a penknife from his
He states that he
verbally abused and punched
by the police - sustaining a
hand injury. He was charged
with possessing an offensive
weapon (Islington Gazette,
6.12.78).
In May 1976, white youths
attacked Bengalis outsielte
Daneford School. The Bengalis
were arrested.
The same month, Shamsu
Uddin was seen by witnesses to
have been assaulted by three
wirie Doys
He was arrested and charged possessing onensive
weapons Hammer found in histome by broom and a
police. (Race Today, June 76).
from the Newsreel collective berry Down, Green Lanes, N4.
details contact Hackne
Dona- NF ACTIVIST Keith Squire, a self-employed scrap dealer with
-tor six monins Monday for putting up a poster with intent to stir racial hatred against black people.
The poster claimed that mos mugging incidents were carried
black people against whites. Commented the judge: *There seems something ironic
being socially con
Socialist Challenge 26 October 1978 page 11
Page 12 scan of this page
Swedish car strike-41 face sack at Volvo
ANGOLA
OVAMBOLANO
NAMIBIA (SOUTH WEST AFRICA) Swakopmund Windhoek
Walvis Bay D APHICAI
OCEAN Oranjemund
THE dramatic events southern Africa are having a powertul impact on brusn polities. The trouble is that Tnere C03S Deen very discussion on the left about the
SaNC SOURCED Africa, and how best
them, writes JOHN HUNT.
The Anti-Apartheid Movement's national committee and annual general meeting are not much help because they heavily weighted against local activists.
The AAM does hold local group meetings, but these have no power and exclude WRO aren't paid up AAM members.
So it's very much to be welcomed that Manchester AAM have called a conference which should provide opportunilv for the broadest range of activists to discuss solidarity and plan activities.
The conference, entitled *Connections Southern Africa', is sponsored hy the North West TUC and aimed particularly at
YOUL open every type organisation.
It has a workshop structure, WILl CISCUSSIOM chosen topics - action in the WOrKD SCe.
Party, Soweto
SIDOUT youth, women under apar-
THE of the Swedish government has been in the news recently. What hasn't is
as in Britain at ICIC workers are in the front line of
fight to defend standards.
KARIN PETTERSON reports.
At the volvo-owned Bil and Traktor repair shop at Boden, a workers nave been or SuiKe for more than 100 days against the enDovers threat reintroduce piece rates
as a test
AC SEKC IS SCCIT case by both sides. Like nearly all strikes in Sweden the Bil and
INTERNATIONAL
ZAMBIA
• Tsumeb
BOTSWANA SOUTH AFRICA
•Connections
-Britain and
South Africa
In theid, and the media.
Socialist Challenge supporHer none o vermer Rue union or Labour Party branch,
group, student union or youth LOUDED SCHU
to
We would like to see the conference fighting for: • a rank and network for militants working on southern a10 publicise the solidarity actions
and ICL with South
• an informal information network among activists to link militants inside and outside the AAM. • a media campaign for press and television to give time and
an space to the views of
liberation movements. • an elected working party to new organise a labour movement
inquiry 3ПTO Ine scandal. conference should condemn the possible use of British troops in Zimbabwe and call trade actions in solidarity
Zimbabwean people.
of For details contact: Man-
chester AAM, 59 Avenue, Manchester 8ND. well-
Venue: Abraham Centre, Crumpsall, and ter. Saturday 11 November,
10-6.
Traktor action is illegal In law a strike is only legal when it is recognised by the central trade union leadership - car
and when there is no signed living agreement between
ment and union. situation rarely occurs.
Before 1977 penalty for an illegal striker was 200 S.kr (£23), but now the fine is unlimited. Several high fines have been imposed SHOOUT COUTE — representatives from employers, union and 'neutrals'.
Several times union repre-
Namibia talks
West
before
the
womens
file contact
in the
African
the SEVERAL thousand people marched through London last Saturday on the demonstration organised by A nartheid Movement.
MARTIN METEYARD.
Contingents
away as Aberdeen and Dundee, with the and apart from many student
unions there were also banners ITOM several Labour and trades
Tintern
number of trade unions M20 including engineers, civil Moss Inland Revenue staff, Corby Manches-
SICCIWOTACES metal workers, London teachers
sentatives have suggested fines higher than the old 200 S.kr limit and have participated in Tueeine une Bil and workers twice manage- SITIKC.
Such Now the management threa-
tens to sack all 41 workers the maximum again with no opposition from
the union representatives But if the bureaucracy do not the
by the sections of the working class a body with do. Support committees have
been set up all over the country; money is collected to pay fines and boost the strike fund; and
buckles
Bothas
DAR the Anti- internationalism reports
from far
Tion, while International was very small. councils and a
public
Zimbabwe
London sheet
and East Africa under support.
TO The
for the same nationwide
unlimited
presemica parliament
strike, large
of the
the five ministers Bothas
Crucially, aulowed
United
the population And that it vet
UN team!
VICTORY
stressed that
electoral
5000 on Anti Apartheid demonstration
Unfortunately the turn-out Nations flag. from most of the far left, which for so long has kept the flag of
flying -in Britain, was extremely disappointing. The Socialist Work- Communist ers Party did not even have a started to contingent on the demonstrat- Nkomo in
that of the Marxist Group surely agree!
The
This situation is rather serious minine at a time when the Labour government's manoeuvres over themselves
reaching climax with the threat to sen
southern free the United ference
many unions have pledged
There is growing opposition
anti-strike laws.
strike fines
upported Dy many amon
The Social Democrats hav
demanding the reintroduction of the 200 S.kr
Jim This shows the opportunism
Social Democratic leaders: they ask for a partial change to an anti-labour law that they themselves helped
SOUTH African military occupation of Namibia will continue after the major imperialist powers caved in to South African demands in Pretoria last week.
RICHARD CARVER reports.
The agreement drawn up by
Western foreign and the clutch of has generally been African presented as a compromise. It is nothing of the sort. victory,
the *five' have SOuL CATTICA maintain its military presence an amoa cune two sets oi forthcoming elections.
South African 'concession' is an agreement to
Nations supervised elections in the new year. But even then the South African army will remain to intimidate
- Pretoria nas insisted the countries who provide UN supervision of the elections. It has already namec a number of the more radical African countries who will not COlOHY be allowed to take part in the
To support their assessment of the meeting, the five' have
South African Prime Minister Pieter Botha has said that he would accept an up its
victory by the nationalist South West Africa People's Organisation.
paid
same
The responsibilities of the far other left were underlined when the IMG contingent raised slogans in relation to this: a section of ance.
SUUOOTICES chant *Smith out, a slogan with
which Dr Owen for one would
crucial question what conditions ousted, and whether the freedom fighters
•will be able lo determine the future leadership
of an independent Zimbabwe
from imperialist inter-
pass and that they participate in
implementing without protests
KAF, the Swedish section of
poses all strike fines and the
other aspects of the anti-labour
laws. But it would still be an
advance it strikers no longe
had to face unlimited fines.
Therefore, and because there
is a huge working class mobilis-
ation behind the demand, KAF
supports and participates in the
collection of names.
The Bil and Traktor workers are not the only ones to be
But there are two reasons why he can confidently do this. First, the presence of South
troops lessens possibility of SWAPO
even though generally acknowledged that it nas une sympawny or a majorly of the population.
VAGUE
And secondly, last week's
suitably about what bodies will come out of the two sets of elections
South African and supervised - - and what will be the relation between the two
In other words, the second election, WHICH will DOLO democratic anyway, will count Tor noting
Namibia is a former Germar
placed under South African mandate by the League of Nations in 1919. It has been ruled by South Africa as if it were a province - with all in apparatus of apartheid and repression
The UN has revoked the South African mandate and set
own administrationin-exile, but this has made little impression on Pretoria and its backers the giant multinanonas who dIC MOIC interested in the country's vast
small questions international legitimacy TOYED
For a time, when he was adopung a more concinaton attitude towards black Africa, Corner rumme Minister JUNI Vorster toyed with the idea of allowing some kind of genuine Namibian independence (so long as he could still get his hands on aforesaid resources).
The collapse the Portuguese colonial regime in Angola and the disaster of the South African invasion put
to that. Although SWAPO is not made of thi
stuff as the Angolan MPA it would still pose massive security problem for
So the preferred solution is a uniatera declaration of inde pendence' for Namibia.
Pretoria's of the
SLODECE Democratic Turnhalle Alliance would be left in charge and South African troops have free passage to deal with the 'terrorists'.
RESISTANCE
The obstacles to such a way out have been the attitude of
African states the sporadic guerilla campaign and
Namibian working class resist-
The five powers represented
in Pretona last week woun probably prefer more
diplomatic solution but faced
with a choice between South
acmoctae)
have consistently gone for the
That being the case, UN
of
decisions and expressions righteous indignation will
achieve nothing. International
solidarity to kick out the South
Africans can
threatened with the sack. At the
big Volvo factory in Gothen-
burg there was a short strike a
couple of weeks ago, after
which the company threatened
the immediate sacking of six
workers.
But the Volvo workers united
behind them. One leaflet said
that if the six were sacked,
would be every worker's duty
to see that the quality of the
cars leaving the factory would
correspond to the quality of the
Volvo management"
The company backed down
Socialist Challenge 26 October 1978 page 13
Page 13 scan of this page
Iran-on the 40th day...
Tens of thousands of people gathered on 16 October at Tehran's main cemetery, where the martyrsof Black Friday forty days earlie
Certainly theres a racist undercurrent
MONDAY Black Friday, the day
this traditional day of mourning was
The Moslem clergy and most of the opposition groups had called tor a one day general strike. In response millions of peopic inrougnout me country stopped work.
Normal life in all major cities ground to •a hali
shops and factories. offices. bazaars remained closed for the dav.
In several major response to the general strike is reported to have been almost total.
In Tehran the poorel southern half of the city, where Ine Dooey massaces oback Friday had occurred, completely closed down.
Thousands of troops backed
British manufactured Scorpion tanks had moved into the capital overnight and stationed at all
Despite the threatening
of troops and the DI COCHIC advice of the moderate wing of the clergy and bourgeois oppositionists to stay at home, tens of thousands of people gathered for a mass meeting at Tehran's main cemetery where Ine marTSO black rnday have been buried.
After the meeting they began TO MarCH the chanting death to the Shah The demonstrators were PUERTO Rico is an example of how population programmes are by the USA mainain control over anoiner coin the last 10 years Telling and petro-chemical
have dominate the economy of the US colony. These need
small workforce.
A recent US government document said that in order to reduce high unemployment in Puerto Rico it was necessary to reduce the growth of the working class.
It mapped out a strategy: 1 million Puerto Ricans are to be ~ forced to migrate to the USA -2 million have gone already and more funds are to be put into a sterilisation programme aimed at all women of child-bearing age not yet sterilised.
Socialist Challenge talked to Zulma Rivera, of the Committee for Puerto Kican Independence in London.
What rights do Puerto Rican women have
Legally, their position is similar
women in the USA HOwever SuRe case l the US Congress whether laws passed in the USA apply to the island.
Recently, there's been a debate over whether the Equal Rights Amendment if passed in the USA should apply Puerto Rico.
In Puerto Rican society as a whole, women are seen inferior beings are suited to look after the children and stay within the family.
What about contraception and abortion?
Both are legal, but virtually
Socialist Challenge 26 October 1978 page 12
INTERNATIONAL
• 16 October was the fortieth day after
on which thousands of demonstrators were massacred in Tehran. As expected
another massive show of opposition to the Shah.
tacked by troops and forced to disperse as they entered the working class districts of south Tehran.
In several provincial towns demonstrations led to violent clashes with police and troops. According sources 16 people were killed more injured, but the real number of cities Casualties is believed to
higher.
KILLED There have also been number other demonstrations since peneral sirike Danicuary! Mashad, Zanjan and Hamadan. been In Hamadan ten people are
reported to have and many injured when police openca tre on a acmonst anor organised by striking teachers ano students In Tehran students organised several large demonstrations on the city's main campuses calling for an end to martial law and the release of all political prisoners.
Meanw nie workers'
SUnKeS severa weeks aro is continue. city Almost the entire public sector
has so lar been allected, and strikes nOW
Puerto Rican woman talks on sterilisation
to
oil
ZULMA RIVERA unobtainable. only be got in private hospitals if you can find a doctor willing perform one and pay the £200-£300 costs.
Contraceptives also have to be bought, and there isn't much information available
howest peery availabre
however very through the organisations and is usually free.
We have heard that 35 per cent of all Puerto Rican women of childbearing age have sterilised. Can you explain how this STELALEON
The American started population programmes in the '30s. they took over the island it was multi-crop economy which they quickly dismantled favour
as
When they found they could ORV
obtair HOTC from Cuba, they withdrew their capital. creating massive unem ployment. It wasn't in their interests to produce more jobs, so they resolved the problem by Federal Aid sterilisation programmes
marked by governmeni
be
major the
been killed
spreading in private industries •newsbaDel have strike, which began when army officers moved into the offices of the two main Tehran dailies and tried to impose CCHSOrSHIO davs on WaVe government gave which began undertaking to
censorship.
The strike had won spread support throughout the
rapidly country because of its political
Sterilisation was first carried our purely for nean reasons and because it was attached to a hean croeramme. the most acceptable form of
Was there a racist element in this?
like Paul Ehrlich who wrote the Population Bomb when he said the idea for the book came to him when through Delhi summer's night and hordes of people came round his car and Abortions can
The felt swamped by them. you get ine same som or feeling when you drive through central London or New LOrK.
to the
available
health
been
about?
• CONTO
When
agricultural
cheap y
into A slum in Puerto Rico
importance. workers' without in
The military ended after four is October when the freedom of
DuDl end press
wideact "responsibly" of a population explosion
It DeLaine there's undercurrent
Latin America, India.
You can see the
driving Was them are very subtle hot
but you wouldn't think in terms | to have a baby, that's when
Its success and doubt an important the struggle for freedom of expression in Iran.
Government's promises of ending press censorship do noto course mean marinere Is
press in Iran.
Opposition papers and particularly left wing papers are still
confuse the
Journalists were warned to
- in oiner CODICS words to censor themselves
Obviously, it's not just the number of people, but the kind of people that matters, and
for certainly racist in American plans to sterilise the women of
Africa and sible.
Puerto Rican women are the youngest women in the world to be sterilised. Are they told that the
Departments, it's an irreversible operation?
Yes, but the pressures put upon
The head of the FPA, Dr Samuel Lugo talks about the "optimum' moment to convince Then nanas women they need sterilisation: when a woman goes to hospital
US gays
next
law as
those SuperatOn States.
most
while the regime's it was subversive. machinery of repression exists they have little choice.
Nevertheless when the papers reappeared after strike there was a noticeable change in inem, snowing that une regin had been forced to make some year
The changes were enough to
police in Ahvaz who decided to confiscate all
of the Tehran daily Ettala'at because they thought she's most receptive to birth control advice — and by that he means sterilisation.
It might be the optimum time
populationists, but certainly isn't the best time for a woman to make a decision, particularly one that's irrever
The other pressure women undergo is from the orientation' programmes carried out by
Welfare and Housing who combine nirin contro aevice win 100g stamps and housing offers.
women realise that sterilisation takes me unto choose azal in the future completely out of
International Campaign for Abortion Rights has as one tion
central slogans the demand for an end to all forced
IN BRIEF
Gay CALIFORNIANS will YUEE US
Wednesday referendum which seeks to out-
TEACHERS other school workers all gays and al
support gay
This proposition has been introduced by Senator Briggs, who has continued the theme of Anita Bryant's crusade: that gays are "corrupters of youth
While Briggs' campaign is dora extremely demagogic, it reflects the real erosion of traditional sexual morality in the United
His proposition is one of the
severe attacks democratic runts so tar. and polls show it is likely to win. shire
selidarity
internona
Universities which were supposed to open a month ago have remained closed because of government fears of student protests. There are rumours now that the current academic
may be completely cancelled
Many schools have also beer closed because either the teachers or the pupils or both have been on strike. sterilisation. Do you think that an international campaign like this, and the International Day of Action planned for 31 March
wil actually help the struggle of Puerto Rican women!
I think it will be a tremendous help. It's only just now that women are becoming aware of the population control mecha nisms they have been subjected fertility has been manipulated to fulfil the imperialist needs of the USA.
Zulma will be one of the three
first InterSOCANCTS the national Women's Forum organised by ICAR (International Campaign for Abor
Rights] Friday 27 •October, 1.30 al ULU, Mare Street, WC1.
badly needed. A demonstration has been called by the London
Activists Alliance, at the Embassy, Grosvenor Square, London WI, at 3pm, Saturday, 4 November.
Chile arrests THE Chilean junta has hit back against the rise in workplace struggles by outlawing the trade
federation responsible for leading them.
Sin leaders of the Co-ordina-
were arrested when security ОГОРІ offices at the end of last week.
paign has called a picket this CAUTSORS banning and arrest at the Chilean Embassy. I2 Devon
Street, London W1. 12.30-2pm.
Page 14 scan of this page
COMMENT
What are
SC groups?
WHAT are Socialist groups? It seems a strange question to ask in view of the fact that the paper is However, as HOW well into o Scialist Challenge second reader since June 1977, I don't think it is one which has been adequately answered This, in my because it has never been adequately discussea in tne pages or une paper.
There seem to me to be a number of forms that Socialist Challenge groups can take. First, they can be more or ICSS tront organisation of the International Marxist Group, involving the local periphery of the IMG in political activities of varying degrees of commitment with eventual recruitment.
Second, in areas where the Socialist Workers Party sympathetic joint work with the IMG, a series of joint meetings can be held with a view to planning joint interventions into ine class struggle locally.
Third, Socialist Challenge groups can groupings of independents, members. and other aligned militants who read Socialist Challenge and sympathise with its aims. that autonomous groups hold the best hope for the future. This is consistent with the call for a new unified revolutionary organisation.
For autonomy to be achieved it would be necessary to committee elected with the responsibility of implementing the decisions of Socialist Challenge supporters. However, if such a committee was
IMG members there would be a
of losing the sought-for
Also, IMG members in a Socialist Challenge group should be prepared on occasions to take a back seat during discussions, otherwise politically inexperienced will just clam-up and eventually lose interest.
Although SWP members, example, should not be excluded from Socialist Challenge groups, it unlikely that their concrete support can be relied upon. This is because of ineir (in my opinion misguidca) vicy of themselves as the revolutionary
Finally, I'm not trying to suggest that Socialist Challenge should not join the IMG, only that these groups should not be used as an IMG front.
STEVE ROSE (Preston organiser in personal capacity)
THE LENGTH of letters printed will usually be kept down to 400 words in order to encourage as wide a
- BOSSIDIe letters may be cut at the Editor's discretion. Unsigned letters will not normally be published, although we will withhold real publication on request.
NORTH WEST WARRINGTON Socialist
Group Meetals hallenge of Marr
tails. 061-236 23:
REATCH MANCHESIEH SOCIBI
10 Me 12281287.
Centre, brice to 26 232 or by witnes contacted
Gc/o 14 Piccadilly, Manchester view to forming a Salford
MANCHESTER Sociaiis!
Thursday at
in 11. 30am and 1p
-ongsight Mark
NWREGION Socialist Challends Group organisers meet next on sunday 12 November at Manchester oocialis
Socialist Challenge 26 October 1978 page 14
Challenge opinion,
Inspiring
view to
high the banner
Forty-seven years
autonomOus
IMG ment here in Britain and nationally was I believe
fresh betrayals Spain.
have a
accumulanon for our movement The revolutionary
reach more presence. Even on that field ine view notable COnHOULIOn militants for the tasks ahead. for
is
Shah
supporters
group YOUR
questions unanswered.
September they
from not to fire on the people.
-6pm. Agenda includes: report bac 'om National Policy Committee: sai and subscription drive progress report: a Nortn-west bulletin NORTH EAST
who NEWCASILE Socialisi
local supporters are active, you wan Join them, Prone Tere on loose
Group Finer Pittington. Durham LONDON HARROW Socialist Challe Box London London 2X, details tro WALTHAM FOREST paper sales every
TOWER HAMLETS leone 2072m7 Oxford HoTe, Derbyshires, 2.2mm Thurs
TOWER HAMLETS socialIst Chal-
corner of Buxton St.).
BAD TASTE
thousands
GREETINGS to all who today hold
of international •rotskyism, now nappylis to tenect that today the programme of revolutonary Marxism inspires thousands
ago, when the has Left Opposition raised its voice in this country, Trotsky's message reached only dozens. Then the workers move-
inter- for. reeling from the impact of great defeats. Stalinism was in the ascendant, preparing itself for
in Germany and
Today inere stands in ine arena ol class struggle a new generation that
COLLE formist and Stalinist treachery. This
revolutionary militants represents a great capital
left is today better positioned, better equipped to
reet the rising tide of class struggle
What remains to be achieved is to
unified compact some steps forward have been made. In my
Socialist Challenge has made a
HARRY WICKS (East Twickenham)
After the
with Iranian Interesting buz let a number ry interesting but let a number
A section of the masses in Iran have clearly decided to overthrow the Shah by insurrectionary means. In early
approached the soldiers with great intelligence, one day throwing stones, another flowers, refusing to disperse, calling on them
Some soldiers mutinied and shot
SOCIALIST CHALLENGE EVENTS
W London Socialist Challenge Grou eets torniontly at 8om at Clar Library, Clapham Common North Side meeting, Weds. 1 Nov: The nature of
Challenge WALTHAMsTOW readers can Sheridan's Newsagents, socialist Chanence LEYTON readers can buy Socialist Challer Patel's 26 Lea Bridge Road, E10
Common tube, Oval tube, Herne Hill BR. TrOm HARINGEY Socialist Challenge public
Thurs. 26 0ct
Community Centre West Green Rd.), N15 (Turnpike Lane
SOUTH WESE
ISLE OF WIGHT reader: 44 Union St., BATH Socialist Challenge sales every Sateries: Ring t further details of activities
their officers. The insurrection was only broken by the shock of the massacre. But that will not be the end of the story.
We might disagree on this assessment. But we must certainly be clear on our ponacal onemanon. Eris not enough just to call for a constituent assembly following the overthrow of the monarchy.
The Durpose ora constituent assembly is to decide on the constitution, in other words the form of state. But it may take many months to arrange. Besides, any such assembly
several conceivable options. Should it give Iran a constitutional monarchy, a republic, a bourgeois democracy, a soviet republic? We must know what we intend to fight
It is good to outline the tasks which have to be solved in Iran nanona Guesson. wolcus ODores sion, the land question, the expropriation of industry. But who is going to solve these tasks? Indeed, who is
arrange the COHSUEUCHL assembly? We must give an answer here as well.
In the heat of the uprising, while the insurgent masses and mutinous soldiers are liberating Tehran from the Shah and his agents, the clerics will seck to give une power wnica une masses win to the liberal bourgeoisie. weuswar ine movement alains!
this e must call on the insurgents to
create a soviet, a council of deputies from among the armed people, that is a workers and farmers government. That should be the power. bourgeoisie get into the saddle, then they will solve nothing and only return the country to monarchy or fascism at a later date.
the soviet may be unlikely. workers parties may be too weak. A period of dual power may open up in
We cannot speculate. Something also depends on us. But we must be clear what we want in Iran and steer openly towards that goal from the very beginning DAVE BAILEY (London)
NF plugs
THE director-general of the BBC considers the National Front have a
Next PORTSMOUTH Smercial Road Precinct.
BRISTOL fror Saturday
south-west, Bristol 6.
THE DEADLINE for this DooKStaHs oUTsIde
Poorator
Haringey Women s Aid
YORKSHIRE
Stanley
Bookshor
sing tom the 02 shop
Ring Bath 20298 or 2997110
right to broadcast. It is a case of their freedom to broadcast set against a
minorities to exist without political HarasSCHE It is not an issue of freedom but a simple question of censorship, which in the case of any other programme which disgusted or harmed people the BBC would not hesitate to exercise.
Revd. MICHAEL HAYES (London W11)
Women's
Voice —
success
- the
I AGREE with Celia October) that Women's Voice cannot both be 'independent' and organisation of the Socialist Workers Party', and that it should be up to all supporters of Women's Voice to decide its role and relationship to the SWP. But I don't think this gives the whole picture.
In particular, I think we can learn something from the debate on the Anti Nazi League, even though there is no direct parallel between the two
first launched, much of the far left (including Socialist Challenge initially) similarly icnaca to concentrate If the on its lack of democratic structures and domination bv the sw? rather than realising the real campaigning potential it embodied I think two aspects of Women's VOICE need acknowledged. First, it produces a monthly journal circulation is completely deserved. It is one of the liveliest campaigning journals the left has yet produced in this country, and one women's movement would be a lot poorer without.
This relates to the second point.
Through its
Women's Voice is attempting - with a certain amount of success — to deal win a very real solution has hitherto escaped the women superator movemere now to forge a link with the daily concerns
workplace and in the home.
It has done this precisely through
SOUTHAMPION Socialst Challen: sales every saturday tom tuam- D
Post Office , Bargate reculany ol Socialist Challeng 11.30am-1pm
'Hole in the Ground', Haymarket TTam-1om FORINFORMATION on activities in the
Box 002, Fullmarks, 110 Cheltenham Road witte
column is une baturday. DeTOrE MIDLANDS 14 Southgate.
Challeng
Realt Club At meeting Tues SOUTHEAST HUDDERSFIELD Socialist Challenge Market.
Friendly Traces Chuman er
Nornumber -HUTS CO UCE CULCMCOICH supportor
questions
reminist groups,
to get
nevertheless
peril.
Pugh (19
*a sister joke about rape
When the ANL
weren't funny. aDOlOgISC
especially be
whose large
which the peace'
quesuons
ANL
40 local
sexism? problem whose
both secondary movement?
DEWSBURY socialist Challenge sale 2949
Westminster Bank, 12.30-2.00pm Yo So Con Call goi
details througocialist of
Ginningham: (021) 643 920
Pugh). Thurs 26 Oct., 7.30pm, Room 4 Peoples Hall, Heathcote St
BHIGHION SocIalist Challenge sale: "FIGHT
Fi Saturday:
London Road, from 11ar
Socialist side.
Hool
putting its overwhelming stress on mass campaigning action
such as playgroups hospital facilities, women in work situations and so on. This also means that it is not necessarily counterposed to women's liberation or socialist
wach are drede active politically on a whole number of aspects of general left politics.
This isn't to say that there aren't problems about the way in which Women's Voice has campaigned on certain questions - - notably its failure
seriously involved in the National Abortion Campaign, even counterposing itself to it. KUIT
remains true that Women's Voice has posed important questions which the rest of the left and women's movement will ignore at its
PAT MASTERS [East London]
Ladies'
sent home
TOWARDS the end of the Bradford Carnival on 14 October a singer appeared on stage and started to tell a
Four women climbed on the stage
The singer agreed to -Then the PA svstem wa switched off and some men got on the stage to throw the women off. Confusion reigned and then the police marched in and cleared the stage.
Ine Anu Nazi beague organiser Geoff Robinson then got a loud hailer and said. Why don't vou g home ladies, we don't want trouble why do vou want to spoil the tun: The women ran towards the stage, the police moved in and arrested people for obstruction' and a 'breach of the
This incident raises a number of
*Why are sexist singers invited to
carnivals?
*Why were the police allowed to move in against people objecting to
*Why did the ANL organiser turn oll ine rA wen une women were making their protests?
*Why is the fight against sexism
anti-fascist
JENNY TIZARD (Bradford)
details phone Steve on Wivenhoe
NORWICH Socialist Challenge sale Place col
SCOTLAND
rot iron on about the paper or l Socialist Scotland blease queer
Winter national pudications. e of Fourt EDINBURGH Socialist Challeng
George
DUNDeE intormation about socisiis Challenge activities trom 64 Queen st SC sales outsiot Reform St) eac saturday, 11am-2pm.
SOCIALIST CHALLENGE now nas
including Dod)
RACISM Good quality white cotton with red desigr Cap sleeve or regular short sleeve Medium or large (s zes are on the smal if in doubt order a • or e1.75 inc. pấp from our office:
Page 15 scan of this page
where to draw the line?
Neil Williamson-a tragic loss
WHEN THE cultural
questions'.
way they open up areas of debate.
narrow debate.
There one issue for socialists that looms over all others in discussion of culture:
WEDCE
LOOKING AT
THE LEFT
crash.
Although aged only 26, Neil
ten years and a leading member
nine. For three years he was the
Scotland, and had been or sedang commutices.
ESTEEM The esteem in which Neil was held by the whole labour and socialist movement in Scotland was shown at his funeral, which representatives from the la was attended not and the Fourth International but from section of the labour movement in Scotland.
Members from Party branches, officers from four trades councils, from the Communist Party. women's movement, and from 01 dicies of major trade Scotland made up the greater part or me more tan zou people who attended
funeral.
Janey Buchan, the Labour
Party chairperson in Scotland,
UNDER REVIEW
Politics and culture
Does 'Wedge' know
magazine •Wedge' launched in the summer of last year, the review in Socialist Challenge considered that its articles did not 'conform to any preconceived position on cultural
Rather, the review added, 'they are suggestive in the
With the publication this month of its third issue, GEOFFREY SHERIDAN argues that 'Wedge' has allowed preconceptions to creep in and is tending to
the relationship and interface ocrween culture 13nG It is an issue which Wedge
THE INTERNATIONAL Marxist Group and the
socialist movement suffered a major loss on
October when Neil Williamson died following a car
was There in capacity, as was the President of the Scottish National Union of Students. well-known socialist writers in organiser mn Scotland such as Louis Sinclair, the bibliographer of Trotsky, and her ticklin and Mcnae.
Cox from the journal Critique. extraordinary range of activities. He was well known for his writing on a range or socialist Issues. particular consciously set himself the task of producing an analysis of the only new prominence of the national queston m scotland.
At the time of his death he was significant comrade en oil comrade, Cuesuon. us manuscros even six Labour before publication, had already established Neil as one of the theoreticians national question in Scotland and its publication will contirm it.
ACTIVIST the But Neil's impact came from the fact that he was not merely a writer but a total revolutionary activist. His first involvement
nas nOI far
considered.
Wedge No 1 carried an In
place of an editorial,
held back
policy statement as such,
presented
Among these was a rewrite of
the women's slogan:
"There will be no cultural
liberation without
revolution - there will be no
political revolution
cultural liberation.
As Annie Janowitz's review politics In 0081s
this formulation seemed to set up as beyond debate the stars
revolutionary
practice in relation to the class
struggle as a whole.
CONFUSING
Wedge No.
around the theme of Looking
at the left
cultural aspects of the British
left", presents us with a view of
politics and culture that
crucial points collapses the one
into the other
It is, I would say, the failure
of the magazine
Many real
between the two
acuvily and analysis that has
led them to publish too much
confusing and
Two examples. In a five-page
article on demonstrations, Carl
(helped by Tim Pigott) argue
against the traditional
parades' which
Hyde Park.
Examining the meanings' of
demos, they conclude that the
*pre-arranged
demo,
ought to
marginal practice, and favour 16
OTTICIal During his
Anso nere were
of the entire Presidency Representative Council. only rentected Nell's Recentiv
League In
he nad
ABILITY For the IMG the particularly
on this The LO
the
tion.
explicitly
displays of all kinds'
WHICH from offering But why COUL several guidelines.
explained by the authors. political It is an inevitably without political
noted, march politically central to marches. cultural The
which is lobbying - a critique of
analysis of and SOCIAlIST Kevin
collective to distinction current issue.) areas of Whatevel such analysis, it is SECHUCHLOUS
author.
and Malcolm Imrie DISTORTED
public set oll trom and preference project
planned ERewith police approval, The choice through which TOUCH MOTE *looks at the
OBITUARY
in politics was at the age of 16 in particularly his native Denny, where he was
organising fellow British school students in building the Party. Labour Party Young Socialists
years at only too most right-wing in Britain, Neil led the fight to get it to join the to lose. National Union of Students and in 1973 he ran as candidate
left for the the Students for
The had played a leading role in the Anti-Naz WOrk
Edinburgh and helped to organise the Scottish realise it. Carnival Against the Nazis.
loss IS severe. Neil had played the key role in leading
national question in Scotland.
through important experiences such as work in the Scottish bookshop Labour Party, and during his something
full-time organiser he had established a political centre and bookshop for the IMG in Glasgow as a base for the Scottish organisa-
Books,
Neil was a strong advocate of unification of revolutionaries,
months was ICHEC
the integration of "the whole gamut of cultural oppositional forms — music, theatre, dance,
techniques cultural analysis should considered as appropriate and largely sufficient to expound on what are political events is not
approach which leads LO false conclusions. The "meanings' they identify as determining the politics of a
exclude what curious. many article
80,000-strong march against the cuts in 1976 is thus eismissed as a taure because the police forced the demon- member strators to march out of Hyde Park in a narrow column and it language all ended up with parliamentary
A second example. Six pages of Wedge 3 are devoted to an
Socialist Worker that. ensuenge by McDonnell. (McDon requirement. neil, waraner, and imne are al members of the seven person collective which produced the avenues
value we might place on a cultural approach to
clear that it is fraught with difficulties, which again are ignored by the
the subject
The article is thus infused
by his OWI for political which does correspond to that of either of
paintings subjects the collective on the left. left' Is Itsel insistent on the neec to ceveos inks with ine Socialist Workers
His combination of theoreti-
rare in Britain, and one the MG could not attord
In his last conversation before his death, Neil had remarked How Dueue use wuure seemed revolutionary socialism.
Although tragically he will not now be part of that future, his and example will strengthen all those fighting to
A Neil Williamson Memorial Fund' has been set up for which donations have already come from a wide range of socialist figures in Scotland.
This will be used to publish a collection of essays on the national question in memory. Any money left over will be used to launch an appeal to develop a major socialist in Glasgow Neil had always
All donations, which will be acknowledged, should be sent to Neil Williamson Memorial Fund, c/o Scottish Socialist 64 Queen Street, Glasgow. Further details will be published in Socialist Chal-
WEDGE
24525 "Wedge', 75p plus 20p p&p. from 44 Eccles Road, London SW11. Orleft bookshops.
The absence of any the cultural contribution of the ANL and RAR is mystifying; as is the content of a nine-page feature
Martin Thom (another Ine production team) on the use of *animal
by anti-fascists.
There is no doubt about the need for a culture magazine on the side of socialism. The sales of Wedge, around 2,000, show
Openness is an essential
There are too many difficult questions to be asked about culture; too many
explored. suppose that any of us has more than a few tentative answers.
Debate on the relationship between culture and politics would serve a valuable function for the left; as would making available in a popular way the views held by Marxists such a:
Brecht, Breton, and Trotsky on
Carnivals, punk, the increasing use of film in struggles, debates on mass mead ssues conflicts over the recent Allen
SCA SU all indicate an increasing awareness of culture
But Wedge is in danger of
the present situation as
La thankful return to the uncluttered days of Tory
against Labour, bosses
against workers, politics of
the period before the rise of
the SNP. Everything points
to the opposite conclusions.
For better or worse the
national question is an
integral part of the British
political crisis. The sooner
we get used
to it the better.
—Neil Williamson, The Left and Scottish Nationalism, Socialist Challenge, 12 Jan 1978.
prematurely closing important areas of discussion.
Although the current issue includes a very informative article by the Newsreel Film collective on their work, other articies that cultural productions with •ranca content cannot succcce if they use a conventional, bourgeois' form of tation.
This highly contentious view appears to be unanimously held by the collective, and Wedge 3 effectively extends it to political activity.
ELITIST
It is unfortunate, too, that the collective spurns contributions from "celebrities'. There are far too few socialists who manage to work in the
of us ti close the door on them. It is futile and elitist to the we need the journal. It's up to the weage collecuve recover the "suggestive way they open up areas of debate, and it is up to us, by discussing with the collective and contributing to the magazine, to neip Wedge achieve the important role it can play.
Many on the left look at
Socialist Challenge 26 October 1978 page 15
Page 16 scan of this page
Britain looks on as Smith's racists rampage MURDER AT DAWN
Registered with the Post Office as a newspaper. Published by Relgoerest Ltd. for Socialist Challenge 328/9 Upper St, London N1. Printed by Goodhead Press Lid., 25 Murdock Rd, Bicester.
women were eating breakfast when writes RICHARD CARVER.
tney ma at once, but invaders captured one women who enticed 80 of her friends out. It was a trap — the
When the invaders sought out the other 30. a well-placed hand grenade dealt with them.
which was not plastered over the front pages of the tabloids, took place in Africa.
SAVAGERY
The attackers have
unbridled Teoutanon Tor vagery among right-thinking scople the world over. They are Rhodesian soldiers.
Needless to say the press didn't pull out the stops over BRIGNULL.
Part of the paper's circulation drive must be to win subseribers, especially readers who only buy Socialist Cnallenge waen tney run auross a seller.
THE LAST week has not been a good one for the paper. Our debtors have been knocking at our doors.
For the first time since the
months under €100 summer arrived in our offices for the Fund Borive. ne received makes the
behind
Domestic: 6 months, f5: 12 months, £10
Name
Address
I enclose a donation for the Fighting Fund of
Complete and return to:
and Mozambique in the same way as incy aa waen tne acad were white -the fact that the death toll ran of the into thousands.
PROUD But even they had to sit up and look when lan army started tramping unhinceree over large pornons southern Africa.
The Rhodesians themselves are proud of this. even released the transcripts of radio conversations between leaders of the bombing raid and air traffic control in Lusaka.
The COLDUICHY Kaunda regime in Zambia is as evident as the contempt Smith feels for his black neighbours in LNC HOLLI Only davs after Zamhia had
Anniversary of the Fourth International
RALLY
Speakers include:
Ernest Mandel (United Secretariat Fourth International)
Willie Mae Reid (leading black woman militant of American SWP)
Stalls, exhibitions, speakers on Zimbabwe, Ireland,
Iran, Latin America, international youth struggles.
Friday 24 November, Camden Town Hall, London. SUPPORTERS of "Socialist Challenge' should now be preparing for the paper's next National Sales Day on 18 November, writes distribution manager STEVE
Everyone who buys a paper new on one of the Sales Days should those be asked to consider the special introductory offers.
It's a good time in particular to sell the £5 for
OUR FUND DRIVE
target. • This means we can't even take up the offer from a comrade to increase the tund drive by for every £100 we get in a week.
We don't want meet our debtors this week with £90.75 empty hands! So we are asking of each and every reader to rally ORIE behind the paper and:
SUBSCRIBE NOW!
Abroad: Airmail, £16.50. Surface, £10 per annum. Cheques, POs and Money Orders should be made payable to 'Socialist Challenge'.
Socialist Challenge, 328/9 Upper Street, London N1.
Socialist Challenge
Rhodesia, the
and this despite
Zambesi.
Smith's
land was Dewnderca Dy whole bizarre episode.
They have
anyway?' he asked.
the MASSACRES
wiped out thousands of unarmed gees.
victims, but that Smith was after
instead the
belted back to square one.
reckon that
African
needees or me
Win subscribers
1979 diary.
The target ourselves for
€1,000 this special offers.
level of new subscriptions.
Every supporters"
6-month
your campus while you are sale. to have to *Organise
effort sale, or Guy Fawkes
racist state Last week's accepted the kind invitation and poured its troops across the
Baffled air traffic controllers had clearly been told to give the Rhodesians free passage. And in case they were a little reticent the racists threatened to bomb shit out of them if they refused.
The pilot of a Kenyan airliner circling Lusaka in an attempt to
the
priority here (This
Well, I think the Rhodesians do at this time,' came the reply.
months ago).
The racist regime has every reason to feel proud of itself. In the latest and largest of a long line of similar massacres it has
refu- with him.
There may even have been
CORPSES isn't what
There hasn't been a word of protest from the imperialist capitals — there never is — and
Anglo-American diplomatic offensive has been
itself
Britain and the United States massacres.
The solemen win some erstwine
nationalists nerenuv unstabie and wIsH te initiate all-party talks involving diplomacy offers, because this includes a
we have set income Towns subscriptions is an additional
quarter of supporters This is apart larger. from renewals and the normal
group has been asked to win at least one
*Take a collection for the paper at your place of work, on
DOO. Stall doing a street *Buy fund-raising _a film show, jumble lottery. bonfire party. Camden Socialist Chal-
lenge supporters showed the
Robbie Mahood
T. J. Gregory S. White B. Wilson
sponsorship
John Thackara Jan colock Ronnie Held
invasions Zambia and Mozambique are both a display of bravado to boost failing white morale and a lasting obstacle to talks.
APOPLECTIC
Joshua Nkomo, one of the Patriotic Front leaders, was justifiably apoplectic at the
accusing white journalists of being racist (true) and saying that he would never, ever talk to lan Smith again
not to be taken absolutely literally since this is the same Nkomo who had secret talks with Smith not two
Hence Smith will now make an effort to present himself as the conciliator (with the help of Fleet Street) and the Patriotic Front will, quite rightly, not dare to have anything to do
The silence from Whitehall has been as predictable as it is deafening. The Foreign Office will use the murders for its own purposes, to demonstrate the need to send British troops in -
La recipe SIOE further
politics behind the murders are thus byzantine in the extreme - but what can be expected from a regime whose
On the corpses of children? new regular reader per week for ten weeks. inals ten special offers per town - except for
Manchester, where the number
is signiticantis
So... we have eight weeks left. Are you doing your bit to help us reach this target?
way last week with a showing of Mick Gold's documentary film on the surrealist move-
- and why not sell? tickets for our mas
We have too many good ideas
on how to improve the paper to let minances stand in our way. But they are doing just that.
THIRSCHS WEEK.
£3.50 Non-smokers sponsorship
€3.70 £1
£3 Pat Fryd (non-smoking
£12.65 Camden SC Group Roland Sheret (in memory
€10 £5 E5
Cash Anonymous €5.20
£90.75
VIDELA
500
BEGIN
1000
SHAH OF IRAN
1500
PINOCHET
2000
SMITH
2500
← Socialist Challenge No. 67, 12 October 1978Socialist Challenge No. 70, No v, 1978 →