Working-class internationalism, anti-racism and anti-fascism marked the May Day marches in France this year. The main banner in the Paris demonstration of 30,000 read: “International Solidarity and Social Progress.” In Rennes, where 1,000 rallied in Town Hall Square, workers chanted, “French workers, immigrant workers, same bosses, same struggle!”
Among the 120,000 who marched in 280 cities nation-wide, May Day slogans included equal rights for foreign workers and support for the Arab peoples who are rising up for their dignity and freedom.
Hundreds of North African and Middle Eastern immigrants, particularly recently-arrived Tunisians, participated in this years’ May Day. Support for these workers, who were and are victims of racism going back to French colonial times, reflected the anti-racist feelings of the overall marches. This was their answer to the racism of the fascist National Front .
A group of 200 young Tunisians followed the lead banner in the march here, chanting “Defend the Tunisian Revolution.” Syrians, Libyans and Moroccans chanted other slogans attacking authoritarian and dictatorial regimes. “Bashar Beat it!” proclaimed a banner attacking Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad. In previous years, undocumented workers from sub-Saharan Africa had also joined the May Day celebration.
This working-class internationalism and sharp anti-racist, anti-fascist sentiment contrasted sharply with the simultaneous demonstration staged by the fascist National Front (NF). Three thousand people turned out for their march here. Fascist youth formed the largest contingent. They used foul terms to condem undocumented workers.
FN leader Jean-Marie Le Pen attacked all political parties — right and “left” — for “betraying the workers” in an obvious attempt to benefit from popular disgust with the electoral circus. Questioned about the way the FN is courting the working class, Alain Reiller, a teacher who joined the May Day march in Bordeaux, replied, “I trust in the workers’ capacity to understand that we will advance together and not with a policy of protectionism and discrimination.”
A 32-year-old fork-lift driver who joined the march in Marseilles denounced the press for building up the National Front: “Enough of stigmatizing the workers! I spit on the FN and Sarkozy” [President of France].
In addition to the 30,000 marchers in Paris, there were 20,000 in Bordeaux, 15,000 in Marseilles, over 6,000 in Toulous and 5,000 in Nantes.
This year’s May Day turnout was smaller than last years’ when 350,000 marched during the fight against decimating retirement and in 2009 when workers were reacting to the beginning of the depression. The defeat over the retirement issue discouraged many workers.
Meanwhile, the union leaders have been jockeying for position, precluding unified demonstrations. Although five confederations managed to issue a May Day call, this disunity discouraged other workers.The reformist leaders hoped to use May Day to pressure the government for an increase in the minimum wage above the inflation rate, which is running at 2%. They are continuing negotiations with the government over the future of the retirement system. While these demands may aim to defend the poorest and oldest workers, they also reflect a sad lack of revolutionary vision.
PL’ers a rallied before the May Day March of over 1,000 workers here. Old and new friends sought out our contingent as they identified with our emphasis on the international working class, armed revolution and on our open advocacy of communism. Our enthusiasm came from confidence in the working class worldwide because we knew that our comrades were marching around the world for communism.
Our banner read, “Workers, Soldiers and Students, Fight for Communism!” as we led chants in the March and distributed CHALLENGE and leaflets. The literature focused on how capitalism attacks all workers; whether they be immigrants, public workers, or workers in other countries. We addressed the local battles of SF MUNI (public transit) drivers, the growth of racism with the jailing of millions of black and Latino youth, anti-immigrant attacks and U.S. Imperialism. One unifying demand was “Smash All Borders!” We chanted with many: “Workers’ Struggles have no Borders, Fight for Communism!” One immigrant worker asked to carry our red flag and spoke at length with a PL’er about why we need a party.
The March itself was organized by a Coalition Immigrants Rights group and others opposing imperialist war. Immigrant rights issues such as amnesty, ending the federal Secure Communities program, fighting low wages and exploitation of immigrant workers related to the needs of many workers who watched the march.
Although the San Francisco Central Labor Council did endorse the March, and both the Teachers Union and ILWU Local 10 had speakers at the rallies, the unions did not mobilize their members. This is one more sign that the leadership of the labor movement leaves its members defenseless in the face of divisive racist, anti-immigrant attacks.
At the final rally, we confronted the MinuteMen who had police protection and a “legal” permit to broadcast their racist program of attacks on immigrant workers. While the March organizers advocated ignoring the fascists, we were able to attract support from some of the marchers as we chanted:” Death, Death, Death to the Fascists; Power, Power, and Power to the Workers.”
A week earlier, PLP held a May Day event. We worked collectively to honor the Haymarket martyrs who gave birth to May Day and 120 years of May Days around the world, including the Marches organized by PLP before the immigrant rights’ movement was mainstreamed.
Members presented speeches on the devastating state of capitalism, on the varied forms of resistance occurring worldwide and on what kind of party the PLP represents to the international working class. There was traditional music from the Andes and poetry and songs in English and Spanish, which struggled with the contradictions that impact workers’ minds.
“It’s not enough to pray, much more is needed…”; “When people rise up and real change is made
You will say, along with me, it was not enough to pray.”
The hall was decorated with a poster exhibit illustrating the internationalism of May Day. It honored the working class around the world,depicted women workers in armed resistance, emphasized armed struggle, and graphically presented the unity of the working class across all lines of heritage, tradition or ethnic identity
ALGIERS, May 1 — Despite a massive police presence, nearly 100 workers and students held a May Day rally today organized by the National Committee for the Defense of the Rights of the Unemployed (CNDDC) — [initials in French]) to highlight the massive 30% jobless rate in Algeria. Slogans included “dignity, equal opportunity and decent work.”
The CNDDC is a coalition of various student, teacher and youth organizations. The main speaker was a long-term unemployed woman with a college degree, Dalila Touat. The cops had arrested her last month for handing out leaflets and had just released her three days ago.
“The demands of the unemployed are simple,” she declared with tears in her eyes. “How are we to explain the fact that, in a country that is rich in so many natural resources, there is so much scorn for citizens who only ask to work and to live?”
CNDDC spokesperson Samir Larabi said, “We are currently in talks with the Student Coordination in order to unite our struggles.” He added that holding the rally on May Day, a celebration of labor, in order to demand work is “a paradoxical
Reprint of a 2001 CHALLENGE Editorial
The New York Times (9/14/01) published an extensive article by Middle East expert Judith Miller, titled "Bin Laden: Child of Privilege Who Champions Holy War." While it is no secret that Bin Laden was a creature of the U.S. intelligence services, Ms. Miller merely smoothes it over by saying, "…the U.S. had worked ‘alongside’ him to help oust the Russians from Afghanistan…" The U.S. "work" poured in $2 billion!
If anyone is to blame for the terrorist activities of Bin Laden, it’s the CIA.
Why are bin Laden and the U.S. bosses now enemies? Although the present conflict is posed as a "holy war," it is basically for control of the oil wealth of Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden represents a section of the Saudi ruling class (from which he comes) that does not want to share this oil with Exxon-Mobil. U.S. bosses know if they lose Saudi Arabia after having lost Iraq, they won’t control the biggest oil producers of the cheapest oil in the world. Without it, U.S. imperialist supremacy is in serious question. Bush’s "holy war"for oil is likely to wind up with hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia and Iraq.
CIA Trained bin Laden to Wage Anti-Communist Holy War
In 1979, bin Laden, who inherited a personal $300 million fortune from his father (a construction boss billionaire), decided to abandon his former life of luxury and dedicate himself to fight communism. When the Soviet army entered Afghanistan to support a pro-Moscow government there, bin Laden was recruited by the CIA to become the financier of the anti-Soviet "holy war." In 1986, William Casey, CIA chief under Reagan-Bush Sr., approved an old proposal by the Pakistani intelligence services to recruit Islamic fundamentalists worldwide to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan.
While the Pakistanis did the recruiting, Saudi Arabia provided money and the U.S. gave political support and "funneled more than $2 billion in guns and money…during the 1980s. It was the largest covert action program since World War II (Washington Post, 7/19/92). Soon, 35,000 fundamentalists came to fight alongside the Afghani holy warriors. Sylvester Stallone’s Rambo III (1988) was based on this CIA vision of the world: then the "good" guys were the bin Laden "holy warriors" types fighting the "evil communist" Soviet empire.
Bin Laden and his followers learned all their tricks from the master terrorists: the CIA. "It was the CIA which taught him how to be bold…It was also the CIA which taught him the tricks of a secret war: how to move money around using ghost companies and off shore fiscal paradises, how to prepare explosives, how to use coded messages to communicate with his agents and avoid detection, how to retreat into a safe base after a big blow to the enemy…"(El Pais, Madrid, 9/14).
Soon after the Soviet Army left Afghanistan and the Soviet Union itself imploded, the U.S. and its Pakistani allies began supporting the most backward of all the holy warriors, the Taliban. The Pakistani intelligence services financed all of this by smuggling opium and heroin from Afghanistan. In 1991, when the U.S. led an imperialist coalition against Iraq, and U.S. troops were stationed in the Moslem "holy land" of Saudi Arabia, the fundamentalists united against the new "evil empire," their old friends in the U.S. Bin Laden joined forces with other fundamentalist forces like Islamic Jihad of Egypt who had murdered Anwar Sadat, considered a lackey of the U.S. and Israel. These forces represent a section of the Middle Eastern ruling classes which use religion to cover their desire not to share the oil wealth with U.S, imperialism/Exxon-Mobil.
But even while bin Laden has become the number one bad guy on the U.S. hit list, some of his followers are still serving U.S. bosses. Last April, Secy. of State Colin Powell approved $43 million in "humanitarian" aid for the Taleban. Furthermore, many of the veterans of the Afghan "holy war" were fighting alongside the U.S.-supported Kosovo-Albanian "freedom fighters" during the 1999 air war against the former Yugoslavia. And more recently, some have fought with the Albanian forces against the government of Macedonia.
Again, when one talks about terrorism, don’t lose sight of the big ones: U.S. imperialism and its CIA. And don’t lose sight of what is behind the "holy war" between bin Laden and the U.S. bosses: control of oil profits.
MAY DAY 2011
- NYC MAY DAY 2010
Los Angeles: Sunday, May 1st at 11:00am
W 12th street and W Broadway
San Francisco: Sunday, May 1st at 11:00am
24th Street and Mission St
New York City: Sunday, May 1st, 2011 at 12:00 PM
Chatham Square (intersection of Bowery and Park Row)
