You get a better view with socialist resistance
OCIALIST RESISTANCE is a monthly marxist L Please put me in touch with the neares Peterson, Kathy Lowe, Piers Mostyn, Karen O Toole. DESIGN: John Lister SPONSORED BY: International Socialist Group, Socialist Solidarity Network and individuals including Patrick Baker, Andrew Burgin, Brenda and Brian Bushell, Mathew Caygill, Duncan Chapple, Julian Coppens, Frances Curran, Norma Dowd, Andy Gibbons, Jamie Gough, Catriona Grant, Marcus Greville, Patrick Hall, Rick Hatcher, Wayne Holmes, Nick Lidgett, Frank McMahon, Alan McCoombes, Martin Milne, Piers Mostyn, Liz Peretz, Sue Phillips, Surykant Raithatha, Norman Traub, Rick Simon, Colin Smith, Murray Smith, Sarah Taversham, Doug Thorpe, Tony Traub, Tessa van Gelderen, Bill Walton, Roger Welch. Published by SOCIALIST RESISTANCE, PO Box 1109, London N4 2UU. Printed by Web Press International, London EI5. Wednesday 19 April BIRMINGHAM Occupation is a crime. Stop the War Coalition meeting with Walter Wolfgang. Broadway School, Broadway, Perry Barr. LONDON Socialist Resistance Forum. What's At Stake For New Labour in the May Elections? Indian YMCA, 41 Fitzroy Square, 7:30pm Saturday April 22 LONDON Respect Education working group meeting, 12 noon, ULU, Malet Street, London WC1 (nearest tube: Goodge Street) Saturday 29 April LONDON London Carnival - Belle & Sebastian, Kano, Boy Kill Boy, The Paddingtons, Sway, Akala, Heartless Crew, The Mentalists. Organised by LMHR and UAF, supported by Amicus, PCS, Unison, Bigga Fish. Monday 1 May LONDON May Day march With Tony Benn, Gloria Mills, Bob Crow, Dave Prentis, Maria Helena Andre, Jonathan Neale, Ken Livingstone. Assemble [email protected]
noon. Clerkenwell Green, EC1. March to Trafalgar Sq May 4th to May 7th European Social Forum in Athens. http://www.fse-esf.org/ If you like what you've read or you want to find out more about Socialist Resistance, get in touch with us by ringing 020 8800 7460, or email SUBSCRIBE. the now papar
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Monday 22 May London Winning the 'Fourth Option' Congress House, Great Russell St, Organised Housing. Go to www.defendcouncilhousing.org.uk Tuesday 27 June LONDON Public Services for Public Profit: rally and lobby of Parliament 11am-4pm. Supported by the Labour Representation Committee and sponsored by nine public service unions. Methodist Central Hall, Westminster. For more information see www.r-c.org.uk Saturday 15 July MANCHESTER No One Is Illegal open meeting (working session). (15pm)Cross St Chapel, Cross Street, Central Manchester Contact: [email protected] or [email protected].
donation of E... Phone Address email • READING Sam Feeney's rather patchy and confusing piece on "What does International Women's Day mean today" (March 2006), I was struck by the failure to mention feminism.
I agree that IWD has fallen by the political wayside, but would have appreciated some ideas as to why this important event has become invisible and not a focal point for highlighting the continuation of women's oppression. Instead the reader is given a basic join-the-dots history and an up-to-date guide of the corporate sponsored highjacking of IWD.
The final paragraph emphases violence against women and equal pay. I tend to agree with what comrade Feeney says about the role of the unions.
I attended the FEM 05 conference last year where TUC women's policy officer, Rebecca Gill, spoke about equal pay.
Asked why there was not more anger about this issue, her response was it was due to the "lack of political momentum." Rather defeatist given the role of the TUC is to flex some leadership muscle and galvanise the rest of the unions into action. • Please send me a year's subscription to I enclose £12 • £15 • £20 • I enclose a RESISTANCE readers' grou
/Mobile
Feeney omits the impact of new technology. There are a proliferation of feminist blogsites and websites - a wealth of information, activism and politics. These show dramatically the creative and imaginative ways activism has changed over the years.
Another creative form of cyber direct-action is to "google bomb" (www.gendergeek.org) Bill Napoli - a republican senator who supports the banning of abortion in South Dakota.
Not everyone has access to a computer but this is one of many ways of directly influencing and helping to radically change ideas.
FEM 05 was built partly through discussions on these websites and was attended by a couple of hundred women.
As a jaded old feminist myself I was pleased to see so many young feminists.
There are young women out there who call themselves feminists who also hate exploitation and oppression. Marxists have to focus on ways of getting them active and involved.
Louise Whittle, London • 7 Age .... Post Code.... - •
page 23 of the scan
The next issue of Socialist Resistance will be produced and distributed in the week beginning May 8. The deadline for feature articles and for letters (which are welcome on any topic, up to 400 words) will be Monday May1. Diary items, reviews and local news are also welcome. Reviewed by Tami Peterson The story of Moazzam Begg, Enemy Combatant: A British Muslim's Journey to Guantanamo and Back, by Moazzam Begg, Free Press a Muslim of Indo-Pakistani origin who fought the National Front on the streets of Birmingham and felt it his duty to embark on aid missions to Bosnia and Afghanistan, could in and of itself make for an engrossing read.
However, this was well before his capture, imprisonment and torture at the hands oI Us millary personnel al Kandahar, Bagram and the notorious Guantanamo Bay which fills up the majority of the book's content.
Begg's account details the psychological and physical torture he suffered while in prison including the use of a screaming female prisoner in the next room. who he believed to be his wife, in order to get him to sign an admission of acts that he didn't commit. He also witI BRITISH MUSLIM'S JUUKNE TO GUANTANAMO AND BAC MOAZZAM BEGG nessed others being beaten and shot to death.
In these sort of circumstances it is hard to believe that there was enough humanity left to have a conversaon wita loose on tae other side, yet Begg surprises the reader again and again by relaying accounts of friendships that he struck up with various US guards and his attempts to understand them.
In this it seems he succeeded in creating a common understanding more than his interrogators cared to do with him. However, despite some guards sticking their necks out on the line to be kind, Begg points to the reality that he remains 'the bad guy' in their eyes. Throughout the book, one gets a feel for the propaganda war that has been won amongst the ranks of the US military who con9-11 to justify the torture and imprisonment of those in their charge.
In fact when Begg is first arrested trom his new home in Pakistan, an American slaps metal handcuffs on top of his plastic cuffs saying to Begg 'I was given these by the wife of a victim of the September 11th attacks'.
The scale of the seeming belief in conspiracy and lack of knowledge of the region by US CIA, FBI and British MIS is almost dizzying.
Begg himself is amazed much of the time at the types of questions he is asked and wonders again and again whether they are trying to play mind games or they actually believe their own delusions.
Most of Begg's three years in prison were in solitary continement, however he was occasionally transferred to units where communication with others was possible.
Most of the conversations focused on Islam or politics. He notes a number of these conversations and particularly his differences with a self proclaimed Al Qaida member about 9-11.
Begg argues that Islam does not allow for the killing of innocents. He is in a similar position later in the book when after being freed, the July 7th attacks happened in Britain and he was bombarded by requests for his views by the media.
The lasting impact of reading this book is the realisation that many of the people Begg met in prison had nothing to do with the groups that the US claim, and further are still held indefinitely without the right to a fair trial and without being charged.
He talks specifically about the British residents who are still being held in varying conditions throughout Guantanamo.
Near the end of the book, he thanks those who worked for his release and points to the website www.cageprisoners.org for more information.
It is vital for political
Henry Suss and the
Jewish Working Class
of Manchester,
Interviews with Dave
Chapple. Available
from Somerset
Socialist Library,
£12/£7 (low-waged)
incl. P&P
Reviewed by Andy
Gibbons
OVER 200 pages of interviews and photos make this
book fascinating reading. It
starts from his upbringing in
the mainly Jewish community of Cheetham Hill,
through his election as a
Communist Party councillor, activists to read this book in order to gain an understanding of precisely what has taken place and is continuing to take place at the behest of our governments and to furmen understano now many innocent people, Muslims in particular, continue to be held without trial or charge in the name of 'freedom'. nuclear disarmament), election material and his thoughts on the CPGB's dissolution.
I'd almost forgotten how viciously they turned on the Shop Stewards Movement, and expelled leading trade unionists like Henry.
The vast bulk of the book is the interviews, which I found riveting. The last section, 'Looking Back on Communism' is probably the weakest part but for most of the book you could almost forget that he is a Stalinist.
Apart from his time as a councillor, I'd have liked more on the Miners' Strike and his Trades Council