Socialist Resistance

An archive of socialistresistance.org, 2002–2022

Obituary: Rosa (1995-2003) launches £3,000 memorial fund

Socialist Resistance no4  |  page 23

This is scanned newsprint, not web text. The original PDFs carried no text layer at all, so every word here was read off the page by OCR. Expect dropped opening letters, run-together words and wrong characters. There was no contents page to cut the paper up by, so the articles were found from the size of their headlines: a headline may carry its kicker, and where an article ran beside a boxed panel a few lines of the neighbour can appear. The scanned issue is the authority; this text is here so the words can be found at all.

IT IS with great sadness that we bring you news of the painful and embarrassing demise of one of the most loyal members of the Socialist Resistance team. She was brought in to the Trotskyist movement in the mid 1990s, and when Resistance was launched at the end of last year, Rosa had been working for so long in the office that she almost seemed part of the furniture. She had been key to producing a seemingly endless procession of publications, leaflets, pamphlets, documents and letters. We first realised she was getting past it when her memory began to fade, and then a succession of virus infections laid her low.

In her final days she lost all control, and

No winners

as editor

holds on to €10 prize!

NOBODY came up with the

right answer to our first-ever

competition in Socialist

Resistance. All you had to

do was identify this man.

Our Editor happily took back

the crumpled tenner he had

hesitatingly offered as a prize.

and said he would invest it in

wine. So who was the man

nobody could identify? He is

the new 'leader of the working

class' - TUC General Secretary

Brendan Barber.

with her. Left in silence on Zimbabwe Resistance continues to go from strength to strength with each issue, but we never seem to talk enough about sport and culture.

Surely we should have had something to say about the Cricket World Cup and whether or not to boycott matches in Zimbabwe?

Having raised the issue of a boycott of Zimbabwe within the Alliance, I'm even more convinced that we need more discussion on the role of sport in society.

The SA National Secretary admitted to feeling "ambivalent" about a boycott, and invited me to send a motion to the next executive, but added that they were unlikely to agree a position.

Other people who oppose a boycott bandy around words like "racist" and "right wing", and fail to see that we are missing chances to challenge and explain issues which are relevant to working class communities.

Andy Gibbons, Oxford Socialist severely tried the patience of all who worked

Even the smallest bit of information seemed too much for her to handle... and then one morning she just could not be roused, her hard drive had gone, a specialist was called in, and she was pronounced officially f*****d.

Although now replaced by a much newer, faster model, Rosa has been remembered not only by the large number of floppies and folders she left behind, but by the fact that the new computer has taken the same name.

But other computers in the office are also in dire need of replacement, as part of an investment plan to improve Socialist Resistance, raise its profile and expand the range of publications .....

Will Iraqis fight to save Saddam? Socialist Jonathan Freedland in the Guardian we produce. In memory of Rosa, we are asking readers to help us raise £3,000 for:

• new computer equipment to prioduce

• and to step up our production of other publicity materials for the campaigning work we will have to carry out in opposition to war and in the fight for a socialist alternative.

Please make cheques to Socialist Resistance and send as much as you can afford to:

Rosa Memorial Fund

PO Box 1109

London N4 2UU ....

movement is the possibility that the US will be "successful" in getting regime change through military action. There could even be relatively few casualties and no explosion in the mid-east. Large sections of the Iraqi people could line the streets of the cities and welcome the US "liberation" forces, as happened in Afghanistan and Kosovo. Of course, for us, the issue is the growing power of (US) imperialism and the long term threat it (and capitalment. Our central aims are: right-wing agenda. for decent pay. men and people with disabilities.

• Help us build our sales. area.

• Make a financial donation.

• Send reports, pictures, letters to; Socialist Resistance has been launched by the International Socialist Group, the Socialist Solidarity Network and other individual activists in the Socialist Alliance, the Global Justice and anti-imperialist move• Support for the Socialist Alliance and the Scottish Socialist Party. We believe the Alliance must evolve into a broad socialist party that can give a voice to those effectively disenfranchised by New Labour's

• Building resistance to the international neo-liberal offensive of Bush, Blair and their allies. Capitalism creates war, environmental destruction, mass poverty and unemployment. Mobilising against the planned war against Iraq is central to the resistance.

• The rebuilding of the fighting strength of the labour movement and democracy in the trade unions. Socialist Resistance supporters are helping to organise solidarity with firefighters and council workers striking

• Opposition to racism, the war on the rights of refugees, the oppression of women, lesbians and gay

• Socialist Internationalism. Building solidarity against national oppression, and deepening links with

other socialists and movements in Europe and beyond.

Socialist Resistance is produced by an elected editorial

board. But we need your involvement.

• Please send us your stories, pictures and letters.

• Organise a Resistance Readers' Meeting in your