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People still wait for help and solidarity, and Erdoğan declares “State of Emergency”!

Statement from Evrensel Daily; paper of ‘The Labour Party” in Turkey; EMEP


12/02/2023

This article from the Labour Party of Turkey early on pointed at Erdoğan’s responsibility both for the construction industry corruption and shoddy constructions, and the completely inadequate efforts after the quake to aid victims.

Criticizing President Tayyip Erdoğan’s decision to declare a State of Emergency in 10 provinces devastated by earthquakes, the Labour Party of Turkey EMEP said, “The people’s need is not a “State of Emergency” but the organization of emergency aid and solidarity.”

In a statement calling for the withdrawal of the state of emergency decree, EMEP said:

“Unfortunately, the most critical hours of the earthquake for people struggling to survive under the rubble were wasted. In freezing cold conditions, lives were extinguished due to hypothermia and frost. The call of “Is anyone there?” – synonymous with the search and rescue teams during the prior Gölcük earthquake trying to reach the survivors, has this time round turned into a gigantic scream from under the mountains of rubble. Following those critical hours, the voices of our people under the rubble are almost no longer heard.”

We wish the government spokespersons’ statements of, “We have reached everywhere, we have control over the situation”, really reflected the truth. But the information coming from the region, the data reaching our party, the screams of despair of people in the news tell a different story. While the public is trying to dig up debris with their bare hands, construction equipment, search and rescue teams, planes and helicopters still have not reached most of the collapsed sites. The survivors, on the other hand, do not have access to food, temporary shelters, tents, heaters, clean water, healthcare or even basic necessities.

While the situation is such, the declaration of a three-months State of Emergency in the 10 provinces by AKP (Justice and Development Party) and President Erdoğan shows how alienated the government is from the people and how afraid they are of the public reaction. The State of Emergency was declared so that the public reaction to the government is not visible, and the facts of the earthquake are not displayed in front of the public any more. The State of Emergency declared in the 10 provinces struck by the earthquakes is also a state of emergency declared over the whole country. It seems that the one-man administration receives the earthquake as a ‘blessing’ and wants to go to the elections under a state of emergency.

The government, which failed to act and fulfill the minimum requirements in saving lives, had already failed to deliver the taxes that were collected for the earthquake; and now failed in mobilizing all the means of the state for the people. Again this shows an ‘extraordinary’ reflex in enacting policies of oppression and intimidation with this State of Emergency.

State of Emergency means the prohibition of strikes, restriction of freedom of speech, the press and expression. It also means a ban on TV and radio broadcasts, that denies the public the right to receive information. The State of Emergency means putting yet another obstacle in the way of public solidarity in disaster areas that the state cannot reach. This decision also means suppressing the poor people’s demands for work, bread and freedom.

The State of Emergency should be withdrawn. Earthquake survivors do not need a State of Emergency, but they do need the organization of emergency aid and solidarity. It is unacceptable to declare a State of Emergency against the public, instead of going after contractors and holding public officials accountable for their mismanagement. The latter put in place negligent and rentier policies, which cost the lives of thousands and injured hundreds of thousands of people.

We call on all forces of labor, democracy and citizens to increase solidarity with earthquake zones and to raise demands for democracy and freedom against anti-democratic practices.”

Originally in  Evrensel Daily 8February, 2023paper of  “The Labour Party” in Turkey; EMEP 

Deutsche Wohnen & Co. Enteignen (DWE) from Wedding and Reinickendorf (Weddorf)

Ahead of tomorrow’s election, housing campaigners are putting pressure on candidates to finally implement the referendum result.


11/02/2023

One week after Berlin’s Constitutional Court declared the 2021 election of the House of Representatives and the District Parliaments (Bezirksverordnetenversammlungen) invalid, a DWE comrade and I began planning an event in Wedding and Reinickendorf. Although we knew a potential re-election was looming, we had no inkling of when it would occur. We wanted to talk to more Weddingers and Reinickendorfers to find out what they thought about the expropriation and socialization of housing.

On January 6th 2023, a crowd gathered at Gesundbrunnen to kick off DWe’s campaign to recall real estate friendly politicians. Our motto?: “Immolobby abwählen”. We want to kick out all politicians unwilling to heed the call of the 1 Million Berliners to expropriate and socialize the city’s biggest landlords. On that day, we heard speeches about voting rights and local organizing.

We handed out flyers, delivered newspapers and discussed with passers-by about the progress as well frustration of the referendum and the failures of Berlin’s ruling politicians to provide affordable housing for all. Between 68% – 76% of Weddingers and 49% of Reinickendorfers (those in the South view expropriation more favorably) had voted yes to the referendum spear-headed by the DWE initiative, yet their will was being undemocratically ignored.

The ire of the campaign was (and still is) directed primarily at the city’s reigning mayor Franziska Giffey (SPD), Andreas Geisel (SPD) – Senator for City Development, Construction and Living – and Kai Wegner (CDU). They have ignored and impeded the demands of the voters at every step. A commission called by the Red-Red-Green government in March of 2021 to check the “possibility, means and requirements for the implementation of the referendum” was seen by many, especially in Wedding and Reinickendorf, as a tactic to delay implementation and beleaguer the campaign’s supporters.

The commission’s intransparency and the senate’s unwillingness to cooperate with the commission compounded frustrations. The indication of a positive result have lifted my own spirits (and those of many in the campaign), but frustration at the anti-democratic tactics of the government remain.

Giffey and Geisel’s beloved “Alliance for new construction and affordable housing“, for instance, in which no tenant’s rights groups were present, promised to build subsidized apartments and ensure rent prices didn’t continue their precipitous climb. Sadly, a few problems have arisen. None of the ‘agreements’ reached were binding. As is so often the case, politicians and business celebrate supposed social achievements, but without the pesky obligations to actually do anything.

A prominent partner in the alliance hasn’t felt particularly obliged as of late. Europe’s biggest real estate conglomerate, Vonovia, has announced a construction stop in 2023. God forbid they stop showering their investors with dividends. They’d much rather kick back and raise rents on their tenants (presumably not over the 15% allowed under the “Alliance”). Maybe, if the city offers the right inflated market price, they might even consider selling of some of their least profitable, least well-kept houses. Anything to keep the profits up and pay back climbing interest on sizeable debt.

Instead of an alliance of real estate and politicians, DWE would like to place decisions in the hands of tenants and workers. After the apartments of Berlin’s biggest landlords are expropriated, they will be managed by an “Anstalt des öffentlichen Rechts” (AöR), an institution, like ZDF, recognized by German law to administer public goods. It will create councils at neighborhood, district, and city level ensuring tenants as well as employees determine what happens with the houses in which they live. Crucially, apartment allocation under the AöR will occur through a blind lottery to compensate for racism, sexism, and general oppression experienced by many while apartment hunting.

The Green party’s top candidate for mayor, Bettina Jarasch, has herself shown an ambivalent relationship to the expropriation referendum. Before the election in 2021, expropriation was to be treated as an ultima ratio. A little over a year later and her positioned has softened. Now, she is “the only one [candidate], who seriously wants to implement the referendum.” Decisive for her new warmer disposition to the referendum will have been the large majority of Green voters, who also cast their vote for the referendum.

The constant reminders from the untiring DWE volunteers questioning her in every public venue, cemented her public avowal. Jarasch’s insistence on patience and due process gives nonetheless great pause to many in the campaign. The more supporters are left sitting on their hands, the less momentum the initiative has, which risks the goal of socialization drifting further from Berliner’s minds.

After the commission has (hopefully) delivered their go ahead, we would all like to see a bill within the next legislative session. No matter the coalition, we expect the socialization and democratization of Berlin’s housing. Until that point, we will continue showing our outrage at politicians, our love for the city and reminding everyone that a better, more just, more sustainable city is achievable. Beside the socialization of hospitals or energy production, putting 240,000 apartments into the hands of those who live in them is a necessary step towards that future.

A Reply on the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

Hari Kumar responds to a historical claim made by Eitay Mack in their article Israel gave up on Raoul Wallenber (20/08/2022)


09/02/2023

February 2, 2023 marked the 80th Anniversary of the Soviet victory at the Battle of Stalingrad. An appropriate time to correct Eitay Mack’s article for Left Berlin August 20, 2022. While I support Eitay’s call for an open enquiry into the still shrouded death of Raoul Wallenberg, they also made two claims I want to contextualise and challenge. First Putin’s identification with ‘The Great Patriotic War’, and secondly that the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was a “collusion between Stalin and Hitler between 1939 and 1941.”

Mack will feel vindicated by Putin’s recent lament at the Stalingrad anniversary events about the reappearance of German tanks on Russia’s fringes. Putin’s personal sordid history, only merits the term rapacious capitalist. Accepting Putin’s claims that his attack on Ukraine is “anti-fascism” not imperialism, is naïve in the extreme. This identification of Putin with the Soviet WWII heroism is therefore clearly ridiculous, and on that we can agree. However, Mack’s allegations on the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact are a widely held mischaracterization. Another “Just-so-story” about Stalin: Where the Soviet government negotiated for a collective security pact with Britain and France against German aggressive expansion, meanwhile signing a pact with Germany precipitating World War II. This necessitates reviewing pertinent history.

Hitler expressed Nazi foreign policy frankly:

“We National Socialists consciously draw a line beneath the foreign policy tendency of our pre-War period. We stop the endless German movement to the south and west, and turn our gaze towards the land in the East. If we speak of soil in Europe today, we can primarily have in mind only Russia”. Hitler, p.584, 604

Thus, the Nazi government in Germany in January 1933 presented great danger to the Soviet Union and the world. How did the USSR and Western powers react? Soviets analysed imperialist Powers into two groups: One (Germany, Italy and Japan) had high productive power but restricted markets and spheres of influence. Hence they were aggressive Powers. Another group (Britain, France and the USA) – had relatively large markets and spheres of influence and were relatively non-aggressive. Consequently in the 1930s the USSR attempted to form a collective security alliance with Britain and France. That aimed to be strong enough either to deter the aggressive imperialist states from war or to secure their defeat.

Instead Britain (Neville Chamberlain) and France (Eduard Daladier) pursued ‘Appeasement’, inspired by their detestation of socialism and wish to see the Soviet Union destroyed. Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax told Hitler in November 1937 that:

“he and the British Government were well aware that the Fuehrer had attained a great deal. Having destroyed Communism in his country, he had barred the road of the latter to Western Europe and Germany was therefore entitled to be regarded as a bulwark of the West against Bolshevism. In an Anglo-German rapprochement, the four great West European Powers must jointly set up lasting peace in Europe” (‘Documents on German Foreign Policy: 1918-1945’, Series D, Vol 1; London; 1954).

Nevertheless, the USSR persisted efforts for a collective security alliance. But by March 1939, delays of the Western powers led to Stalin warning the 18th Congress of the CPSU:

“England, France and the USA draw back and retreat, making concession after concession to the aggressors. Thus we are now witnessing an open redivision of the world and spheres of influence at the expense of the non-aggressive states, without the least attempt at resistance, and even with a certain amount of connivance.”

Imperialist and delaying strategy for an Anglo-French-Soviet mutual security pact stalled it. As it dragged on month after month, Moscow fired several warning shots. On 11 March 1939 Joseph Davies, former US Ambassador in Moscow, now Ambassador to Brussels, wrote about Stalin’s speech to the 18th Congress:

“It is a most significant statement. It bears the earmarks of a definite warning to the British and French governments that the Soviets are getting tired of ‘non-realistic’ opposition to the aggressors. It certainly is the most significant danger signal that I have yet seen” (J. E. Davies: ‘Mission to Moscow’; London; 1942).

On 31 March 1939, the British government unilaterally guaranteed to defend Poland, but Poland refused to enable USSR troop entry in any defence. The leader of the liberal Party, David Lloyd George, said:

“I cannot understand why, before committing ourselves to this tremendous enterprise, we did not secure beforehand the adhesion of Russia. If Russia has not been brought into this matter because of certain feelings that Poles have that they do not want the Russians there, unless the Poles are prepared to accept the one condition with which we can help them, the responsibility must be theirs” (Parliamentary Debates. 5th Series, House of Commons, Volume 35; London; 1939; Col. 2,510).

Public pressure mounted for collective security. So, on 15 April 1939 the British government suggested the USSR should offer military assistance to any state bordering the Soviet Union subject to aggression. On 17 April the Soviet government replied that it would not consider a unilateral guarantee, which would put the Soviet Union in a position of inequality with the other Powers concerned.

The USSR proposed instead: A trilateral mutual assistance treaty by Britain, France and the Soviet Union against aggression; extending guarantees to the Baltic States (Estonia, Finland, Latvia and Lithuania), limiting Germany intentions eastwards; and thirdly that the treaty detail the military assistance required. On 27 May the British and French governments replied to the Soviet proposals with a proposed tripartite pact, but privately PM Chamberlain commented:

“In substance it gives the Russians what they want, but in form and presentation it avoids the idea of an alliance and substitutes declaration of intention. It is really a most ingenious idea” (Chamberlain Archives, 11/1/1101).

Molotov, rejected it as hostilities would not trigger immediate mutual assistance, but merely ‘consultation’ through the League of Nations. On 29 June Andrei Zhdanov revealed differences in the leadership of the CPSU in ‘Pravda’, upon the sincerity of British and French governments for a genuine treaty of mutual assistance:

“the negotiations have reached a deadlock. My friends still think that the English and French Governments had serious intentions of creating a powerful barrier against aggression in Europe. I believe that the English and French Governments have no wish for a treaty to which a self-respecting State can agree. The Soviet Government took 16 days in preparing answers to the various English projects and proposals, while the remaining 59 days have been consumed by delays and procrastinations on the part of the English and French. Not long ago the Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Beck, declared unequivocally that Poland neither demanded nor requested from the USSR anything in the sense of granting her any guarantee whatever. However, this does not prevent England and France from demanding from the USSR guarantees for Poland. It seems to me that the English and French only talks about a treaty in order to speculate before the public opinion in their countries on the allegedly unyielding attitude of the USSR, and thus make easier for themselves the road to a deal with the aggressors. The next few days must show whether this is so or not” (‘Documents on German Foreign Policy: 1918-1945’, Series D, Volume 6; London; 1956).

On 17 July the Soviet government insisted that a military convention be signed at the same time as the political treaty, to prevent any hedging. Meanwhile on 29 July the German Foreign Office instructed Count Fritz von der Schulenburg to state to Molotov:

“We would be prepared to safeguard all Soviet interests and to come to an understanding with the Government in Moscow (we could) so adjust our attitude to the Baltic States as to respect vital Soviet interests in the Baltic Sea” (‘Documents on German Foreign Policy: 1918-1945’, Series D, Volume 6; London; 1956)

On 23 July the British and French governments finally agreed to begin military discussions. Admiral Reginald Plunkett-Ernie-Erle-Drax headed the delegation. The British government being unaware that the aeroplane had been invented, the delegation left by slow boat to Leningrad, arriving in Moscow on 11 August. Furthermore, the British delegation was officially instructed to: “Go very slowly with the conversations”.

Drax said he had no negotiating powers, but would ‘hold talks’. By 15 August Voroshilov concluded that unless Soviet troops could enter Polish territory it was physically impossible for the Soviet Union to assist Poland and it was useless to continue. On 21 August, the negotiations were adjourned indefinitely – after the Soviet government decided they were being toyed with. Clearly Germany was being pointed East by the West.

What eventually precipitated accepting the pressing German proposals for rapprochement was the discovery by Soviet intelligence that the Chamberlain government was secretly negotiating for a military alliance with Germany. This would have threatened the Soviet Union with aggression from four Powers – Britain, France, Germany and Italy.

Ribbentropp arrived in Moscow on 23 August, and the non-aggression pact was signed that day. Its text was almost identical with the Soviet draft submitted to the Germans on 19 August. Neither party would attack the other, and should one party become the object of belligerent action by a third Power, the other party would render no support to this third Power.

Even more strongly criticised than the pact itself has been a ‘Secret Additional Protocol’ which laid down German and Soviet ‘spheres of interest’ in Europe. However where two states are likely to be affected by war but wish this not to start mutual conflict, then the demarcation of spheres of interest is a legitimate and desirable act.

The ‘secret additional protocol’ declared:

“1. In the event of a territorial and political transformation in the territories belonging to the Baltic States (Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) the northern frontier of Lithuania shall represent the frontier of the spheres of interest both of Germany and the USSR.

2. In the event of a territorial and political transformation of the territories belonging to the Polish State, the spheres of interest both of Germany and the USSR shall be bounded approximately by the line of the rivers Narew, Vistula and San” (‘Documents on German Foreign Policy . . . ‘, Series D, Volume 7).

This meant that the German government promised that, if German troops invaded Poland, they would not attempt to advance beyond the ‘Curzon Line’, drawn by Lord Curzon, after the First World War as the boundary separating the Poles from the Ukrainians and Byelorussians. The area east of this line had been Soviet territory seized from the Soviet Union following the Revolution.

Germany agreed that it would raise no objection to the Soviet government taking whatever action it considered desirable east of this line. Speaking to the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union on 31 August, Molotov described the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact as:

“A turning-point in the history of Europe, and not of Europe alone” (V. M. Molotov: Speech to Supreme Soviet of 31 August 1939, in: ‘Soviet Peace Policy’; London; 1941).

Molotov accepted Zhdanov’s conclusion — that the British and French had never been serious in their attitude to the negotiations:

“They themselves displayed extreme dilatoriness and anything but a serious attitude towards the negotiations, entrusting them to individuals of secondary importance who were not vested with adequate powers. The British and French military missions came to Moscow without any definite powers and without the right to conclude any military convention. Furthermore, the British military mission arrived in Moscow without any mandate at all”.

Molotov declared that the breakdown of the Anglo-French-Soviet negotiations was only superficially the refusal of Poland or accept Soviet assistance, since:

“The negotiations showed that Great Britain was not anxious to overcome these objections of Poland, but on the contrary encouraged them. Poland had been acting on the instructions of Great Britain and France.”

He stressed that it was not the Soviet government’s action in signing the pact which disrupted the Anglo-French-Soviet negotiations. On the contrary, the Soviet government had signed the pact only after the Anglo-French-Soviet negotiations had been irrevocably sabotaged by the British and French governments:

“Attempts are being made to spread the fiction that the conclusion of the Soviet-German pact disrupted the negotiations with Britain and France for a mutual assistance pact. In reality, as you know, the very reverse is true the Soviet Union signed the non aggression pact with Germany, amongst other things, because negotiations with France and Great Britain had ended in failure through the fault of the ruling circles of Britain and France.”

Even such virulent anti-Soviet historians as Edward Carr agree that the Soviet government’s decision to sign the non-aggression pact with Germany was an enforced second choice, which was taken only with extreme reluctance:

“The most striking feature of the Soviet-German negotiations is the extreme caution with which they were conducted from the Soviet side, and the prolonged Soviet resistance to close the doors on the Western negotiations” (E. H. Carr: ‘From Munich to Moscow: II’, in: ‘Soviet Studies’, Volume 1, No. 12;1949).

The fact that both German and Soviet troops entered Poland has been used to equate Fascist Germany with the socialist Soviet Union. But, a socialist state cannot be equated with an aggressive imperialist state. Moreover, Soviet troops only entered what had been Polish territory on 17 September – 16 days after the German invasion of Poland – when the Polish state had collapsed, as Molotov stressed to the Supreme Soviet on 31 October 1939.

“Our troops entered Poland only after the Polish State had collapsed and actually had ceased to exist. The Soviet government could not but reckon with the exceptional situation created for our brothers in the Western Ukraine and Western Byelorussia, who had been abandoned to their fate as a result of the collapse of Poland.” (V. M. Molotov: Speech to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, 31 October 1939, in: ‘Soviet Foreign Policy’; London; 1941)

The capitalist press agreed with Soviet contemporary Soviet sources that the Red Army was welcomed as liberators by the Ukrainian and Byelorussian population concerned. Molotov reported:

“The Red Army was greeted with sympathy by the Ukrainian and Byelorussian population, who welcomed our troops as liberators from the yoke of the gentry and from the yoke of the Polish landlords and capitalists.”

In the House of Commons on 20 September, Conservative MP Robert Boothby declared:

“I think it is legitimate to suppose that this action on the part of the Soviet Government was taken from the point of view of self preservation and self-defence. The action taken by the Russian troops has pushed the German frontier considerably westward. I am thankful that Russian troops are now along the Polish-Romanian frontier. I would rather have Russian troops there than German troops.” (Parliamentary Debates, 5th Series, Volume 351; House of Commons; London; 1939; Col. 996)

The most absurd story is that Stalin trusted the Nazis to adhere to the pact and was taken by surprise when the German army invaded the Soviet Union in 1941. But Stalin’s prophetic words in 1931 were:

“We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or we shall go under”. (Tasks of Business Executives)

Exactly ten years later, in 1941, came the German invasion. The test of Stalin’s policy is whether or not it strengthened or weakened the ability of the socialist USSR to defend itself against the future aggression which its leaders knew was inevitable.

By way of a conclusion, Edward Carr admits that the signing of the German-Soviet non-aggression pact enabled the Soviet Union to put itself in an incomparably stronger defensive position to meet the German invasion:

“The Chamberlain government as a defender of capitalism, refused to enter into an alliance with the USSR against Germany. In the pact of August 23rd, 1939, they (the Soviet government — Ed.) secured:

a) a breathing space of immunity from attack;

b) German assistance in mitigating Japanese pressure in the Far East;

c) German agreement to the establishment of an advanced defensive bastion beyond the existing Soviet frontiers in Eastern Europe; it was significant that this bastion was, and could only be, a line of defence against potential German attack, the eventual prospect of which was never far absent from Soviet reckonings. But what most of all was achieved by the pact was the assurance that, if the USSR had eventually to fight Hitler, the Western Powers would already be involved”.

Fuller details are at the Bland Archive on the MIA at German-Soviet Pact 1939

UK Strikes brought Everyone Together

Coordinated strike action in the UK is helping to generalise resistance to the Tories


06/02/2023

Everyone who works in the public sector in Britain is experiencing a deep crisis of underfunding. There is also a crisis of a government that just doesn’t care for ordinary people, whether they’re at work, taking a train, seeing their doctor, calling an ambulance in an emergency, or taking their kids to school or university.

The dysfunction in the UK is affecting more people each week. Poverty has not seen at this scale for a long time. In my job as a Special Needs Teacher I meet parents of kids who need high levels of care. Following the sell-off of social housing throughout the 1980s and 1990s, they are just not getting any.

A mum told me that her three autistic kids are trying to catch the mice that are swarming all over their home ― including in their beds ― to play with them. I first met her and her kids several years ago, when they were living above a crack den. She and her seven children have been evicted twice since then for rent arrears. She only gets benefits for two of those children because of the benefit cap. Their only get out is a “rape clause”. You read that right. You can only get benefits for more than two children if you can show they are the result of rape.

The Conservative government is experiencing an existential crisis. During the pandemic they were forced to admit that austerity was a political choice, as they suddenly found the cash to bail out the economy, printing money as fast as they could throw it at businesses.

As Downing Street hosted party after party, friends of the ruling clique stuffed their pockets with our cash, benefiting from a ‘VIP lane’ for contracts that resulted in unusable PPE, and a track and trace system that was as effective as their advice to flag down a bus when being pulled over by a rapist in a police uniform. (Yes, this was real advice they gave to British women).

How the crisis affects ordinary people

The depth and breadth of the crisis means that many people are very, very angry. Their anger is bursting out in strike action, and the strikes are popular. The BBC struggles to find a disgruntled commuter for the evening news. Government ministers, with a weird throbbing vein in their forehead and a second job as a lobbyist, respond by rehashing worn out tropes – blaming Trans women or scroungers or migrants in sinking dinghies. Gramsci would be having a field day.

The strikes are mainly affecting the public sector and the partly privatised transport sector. We are now experiencing rocketing inflation, particularly in the prices of food and gas and electricity. Our energy bills increased on average by 54% last April, by 80% in October and are set to rocket again in April 2023. Last year, wages increased on average by 6%, in an already low wage economy. Wage rises for most of us have not matched inflation for more than a decade. The Bank of England’s response is interest rate rises which have had no effect on prices but have made housing even more ridiculously expensive than it was already.

Layers of people who were just getting by are really feeling the pinch. My own colleagues at school are talking of skipping meals – only eating in the evening if their kids leave something on their plate. We all laugh about how we have been sleeping in tracksuits and hoodies. But we really have, it has been a hard winter. I know I’m not the only person getting into work early to warm up.

The anger has also been generalised by the fact that we all worked through Covid. Then, we were told we were essential workers and were allowed to skip the queue at the supermarket. Nurses were clapped in the streets every Thursday night. There were pictures all over the media of a pale and shaky Boris Johnson clapping outside no 10. That was before we knew he was joking about the bodies piling up. Our bodies.

Anger turns to action

A few months ago pay ballots started returning resounding majorities, smashing the thresholds the government introduced to stop strikes. The RMT and ASLEF rail unions, a few bus companies, then nurses who had never struck before, ambulance workers and physiotherapists, junior doctors, my union, the NEU (education workers). Even headteachers are re-balloting (not a sentence I ever thought I’d write). The list goes on and on.

Instead of meeting union leaders and negotiating pay deals, the government responded with new anti-union laws that would mean public sector workers could be sacked for striking. The gauntlet down, the unions had to move. They called a day of action.

My union experienced a period of significant growth when we faced the government down over keeping schools open during Covid. Recently that growth has been dwarfed, with 30,000 new members and many new reps reflecting a mood of absolute rage in schools. The fact that the 5% pay rise teachers got was unfunded, and came out of school budgets which were already stretched to breaking, was the last straw. Our ballot was the largest vote to strike of any union in British history. Ever,

Layers of older workers haunted by the Miners’ Strike’s long shadow and younger ones raised in the gap of historically low struggle, have all been enraptured by the possibility of change, unleashing notable leaps in consciousness. The Trade Union movement has suffered from sectionalism for a long time. This is breaking down, as everyone recognises the Tory government and the bosses in general as an enemy that must be defeated with coordinated action. A General Strike, once unimaginable, is now a common discussion on picket lines.

It’s no coincidence that the strikers are nearly all workers classed as ‘essential’ during the pandemic. A veil was lifted in those strange days. Suddenly we could all see who kept the world running. And we saw what we have in common and identified our common enemy.

Falling respect for politicians, the police and Royals

And of course, we lost respect for authority. Not just the politicians who partied and drove to Barnard Castle, who set up a VIP lane of our cash for their mates. The police were revealed to be misogynistic and racist. A woman was abducted, raped and killed by a serving police offer nicknamed ‘The rapist’ by his mates. Another of these mates, nicknamed ‘The Bastard’ has been sent down for numerous crimes against women including 24 rapes.

The naked bodied of two sisters Bibaa Smallman and Nicole Henry were photographed by police at the scene of their murder. The photos were shared on a WhatsApp group with their grubby friends. Refuge, the charity for Women left 1,000 rotten apples outside the Met headquarters as that is how many more cases are still to come to trial.

The crisis in the Royal Family has also fed the sense of crisis. The ruling class are no longer able to go on ruling in the same way. We have discovered that the people who rule us are a bunch of rather dull racists. The arrival of Meghan gave them an opportunity to renew their dusty institution. They blew it when they asked her what shade her baby was going to be. They just couldn’t keep the hundreds of years of empire under wraps for the sake of etiquette.

Diversity on the picket lines

As the strike wave has grown, picket lines have reflected the British workforce – loads of women, notably cleaners in the RMT who have been campaigning against the outsourcing of their work and low pay, black workers, many first-generation migrants. The strikes are an example of the unity that can be built in action.

The government control the supposedly private rail companies. Anger at their lack of response resonated with other public sector workers and union leaders started to concede to the pressure from below to ballot over pay. When the government announced its intention to make strikes in the public sector partially illegal, the Royal College of Nurses passed the extremely high threshold required for action and started their first ever strike action alongside ambulance workers represented by Unite and Unison.

Health workers are universally loved and respected, as is reflected in all the polling. What surprised all the commentators was that all strikes were proving popular with the public and the attempts to paint us as lazy, greedy, controlled by union barons blah blah blah…. fell flat amongst the wider working class.

On the 16th January, after a really effective campaign using the bigger network of reps we had built during our fight to resist unsafe Covid working, the NEU returned a result of 90.44% (92% and 58%% in Wales) for strike action on a turn out of 53%. The support staff ballot didn’t quite make it over the threshold. Between that announcement and the strike day a week and a half later 40,000 people joined the NEU. In my workplace support staff moved from the unions that had recommended they accept the shoddy deal they were offered.

The first strike day was coordinated with the UCU (University and College Union), ASLEF (train drivers) and the PCS (Civic Servants). On 1st February, an estimated half a million workers walked out on strike, with big rallies up and down the country. In London, 40,000 people rallied in the middle of a train strike.

What was remarkable was the resurgence of picket lines.. At many schools, large picket lines enabled support staff, who didn’t have a mandate for strike action, to join the strike. In my own workplace, support staff outnumber teachers about 6 to one and were the driving force behind a noisy, lively picket line. These are workers who are paid between £9.25 and £12.45 an hour.. It had a carnival atmosphere with singing and laughter and home-made placards.

We joined the huge demo. For many the first time they had attended a protest. One of my colleagues was so excited she made a TikTok of the day with pictures of everything we did to Lily Allen’s Fuck You Very Much. This perfectly summed up the mood and confidence of the day.

What next?

It was clear on the huge London demo that many of the union leaders were shocked by the success of the day and the turnout. They had told the police to expect 12,000 people. They will instinctively be looking for ways to put the brakes on the movement. At the same time, they know they have to challenge the ramping up of the anti-trade union laws. Some of the better ones, like our Kevin Courtney, are clearly excited and buoyed up by the movement.

Looking at the RMT and UCU, who have been out on on occasional days for months now, we need to increase the level of pain on the government by coordinating strikes between different unions, and crucially by increasing the number of strike days. This will require an argument. Many people are worried about the effects of the strikes on their ability to pay their rent and feed their kids, so wider solidarity will be essential. But it can be done and the results could be stunning.

Generalisation is running through people’s consciousness, the way a flame runs up a fuse in a Tom and Jerry Cartoon. At my speech at the London rally, I said that it wasn’t refugees and asylum seekers that took away Speech and language therapy from my kids or Trans women who are forcing our support staff to go and work in supermarkets. This got a huge cheer of approval.

When we fight, it is very clear who is on our side. Struggle washes away all the bullshit the other side spray around. Continuing to bring questions of oppression to the staffrooms and union groups is essential, because it is very clear that the right have decided to go hard with the culture war, as they have nothing else to bring to the table.

We will need to tap into all the anger at all the disgusting neglect this government has directed towards ordinary people, and make links between our low pay and the institutional racism and misogyny of the system.

For instance, the fact that Bibaa and Nicole, the sisters who were murdered and photographed by police, were local and related to someone I work with fed the anger in an oblique way. The way we are all struggling to survive fed it directly. One of my colleagues said to me the day after the strike, “we succeeded in one day to do what the management failed to do in three years. We brought everyone together. It was great”. We are working on setting up an anti-racist group at work now to challenge the racism in the curriculum and the way work is organised.

Rosa Luxemburg talked about how the political and economic join up in Mass Strikes, and show that the challenge is to take on the state. In this sense, I am going to propose that we stop allowing the police in our schools. Wish me luck.

 

LINKE Berlin city councillor criticizes bans on demonstrations on Nakba Day 2022

115 people detained. 25 fined over €300 each. This is an attack on our basic right to assembly


05/02/2023

It will soon be the 75th anniversary in 2023 of the Nakba. This was the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homeland. Ferat Koçak (member of Berlin city parliament for the party Die LINKE) asked the city Senate a detailed parliamentary question (19/14 493) about the demonstration bans issued in this context last year. In May 2022, five registered events commemorating the Nakba and in memory of Palestinian journalist Shirin Abu Akleh, who was murdered by the Israeli military, were banned across the board in Berlin.

In the answer to the parliamentary question, the police justified the blanket prohibition on the basis of their experience with “gatherings based on similar themes and events in Israel and the Palestinian territories.” The police do not refer to any known calls for criminal acts in advance – or to participating organizations – as reasons for their threat predictions. Therefore it seems that it was the issue itself that was decisive for the bans, namely the commemoration of the Nakba (a historical event of existential significance for many Berliners) – or the commemoration of a murdered journalist.

Ferat Koçak criticizes this severe interference with the exercise of freedom of assembly:

“From the answer of the Berlin department of the interior, no valid reason emerges for me as to why there was a blanket ban on demonstrations for human rights in Palestine and solidarity with Palestinians around the anniversary of the Nakba. It cannot be that this fundamental right is so severely restricted based solely on experiences with gatherings on ‘similar issues.'”

In Koçak’s view, the police also did not sufficiently exhaust other means under the laws of assembly to ensure that peaceful demonstrators could express their opinions.

“That antisemitism must be fought is beyond question. No one wants antisemitic statements at demonstrations; even the organizers of the Nakba demonstrations reiterated exactly that in advance, as well as a desire to demonstrate peacefully. The police for their part have a number of measures in the run-up to and during the demos that amount to far less than a ban on the entire gathering, for example to prevent unconstitutional statements or calls for violence. Instead, Jewish groups organizing around the Nakba and the assassination of Shirin Abu Akleh, for example, were also banned from gathering: an inconceivable action, especially when we consider that Nazis, protected by the freedom of assembly, repeatedly carry their contempt for humanity into the streets without any problems.”

115 people were detained by police on May 15, 2022 – ironically, “on suspicion of violating the Freedom of Assembly Act” – and 25 received hefty fines of around 330-380 euros each.

“For me, this action is a sad consequence of years of repression of people and groups in Germany who stand up for human rights in Palestine. Today it’s Palestinians; tomorrow, protests for human rights of Kurds will be banned. Where will the restriction of basic rights lead? For 2023, the police must ensure that freedom of expression is possible in this context and they must stop the proceedings against all the people who wanted to exercise their right to assemble on Hermannplatz and Pannierstasse on May 15.”