[L-I] Wealth, poverty and income distribution in Germany
Below are some basic data on the class structure in Germany. It has been taken from: http://www.eiro.eurofound.ie/2000/10/features/DE0010287F.html BTW: The website is an excellent source for recent developments within EU trade unions. Mainly it centers around bread-and-butter issues, but as Brecht remarked communists struggle for both: the teawater and state-power. Johannes Wealth, poverty and income distribution in Germany According to the IG Metall "fair share" memorandum, the existing data on social inequalities are in many respects inadequate. There is currently no regular and systematic monitoring of wealth distribution in Germany. There are, however, some indicators which give at least an overview of existing social inequalities, such as: - distribution of money assets and real estate; - the number of citizens living in poverty; and - income distribution. Inequality in the distribution of money assets and real estate In 1998, all German households together owned net money assets (Geldvermögen) of more than DEM 1.9 trillion, which is a clear indicator of the wealth in German society. An analysis of the distribution of this wealth, however, reveals enormous inequality (see table 1 below). At the top, 4.5% of households owned about 29.4% of the overall money assets, while at the bottom 26.6% of households owned only 0.6% of the overall money assets. The richest third of German households owned more than 80% of the overall money assets, while the remaining two-thirds of households owned only 20%. Table 1. Distribution of net money assets in Germany, 1998 % of households Net money assets % of total net money assets 4.5% More than DEM 200,000 29.4% 29.5% DEM 50,000 to DEM 200,000 51.0% 39.4% DEM 10,000 to DEM 50,000 19.0% 26.6% Less than DEM 10,000 0.6% Source: Federal Statistical Office 1999, Sample survey of income and expenditure 1998, quoted from IG Metall, "fairteilen - Initiative für soziale Gerechtigkeit", Frankfurt aM, 2000. A similar inequality exists regarding the distribution of real estate, which in total was equivalent to a total market value of DEM 6.6 trillion in 1998 (see table 2). The top 5% of households owned more than 30% of total real estate market value, and the top 21.8% of households accounted for 71.5% of total real estate market value, while more than half of all households had no real estate at all. Table 2. Distribution of real estate in Germany, 1998 % of households Real estate market value % of total real estate market value 5.0% More than DEM 700,000 30.6% 16.8% DEM 350,000 to DEM 700,000 40.9% 22.1% DEM 100,000 to DEM 350,000 27.6% 3.5% Less than DEM 100,000 0.9% 52.6% No real estate 0.0% Source: Federal Statistical Office 1999, Sample survey of income and expenditure 1998, quoted from IG Metall, "fairteilen - Initiative für soziale Gerechtigkeit", Frankfurt aM, 2000. Poverty in Germany Although there is enormous wealth in Germany, a significant proportion of German citizens live in poverty. According to a recently published report on poverty in Germany, carried out on behalf of the German Federations of Trade Unions (Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund, DGB) and the Confederation of German Welfare Organisations (Paritätischer Wohlfahrtsverband), every 11th citizen in Germany was considered as being poor in 1998. Using the international standard definition of poverty - which is an income of less than 50% of national average income - the study established that 8.7% of all west Germans and 10.7% of all east Germans live in poverty (see table 3 below). Table 3. Poverty* in Germany, 1998 Group of people % living in poverty Children 14.2% Lone parents about 30% Unemployed about 30% Immigrants 18.6 % All citizens in west Germany 8.7% All citizens in east Germany 10.7% All citizens 9.1% * Poverty = income below 50% of the average income per person in 1998. Source: Walter Hanesch et al, "Armut und Ungleichheit in Deutschland", 2000, forthcoming. The risk of poverty is particularly high among certain groups and households, such as unemployed people, families with children, or immigrants. About 30% of all unemployed people and lone parents can be considered as being poor. Moreover, 14.2% of all children have to live in poverty. There is also a clearly above-average proportion of poverty among immigrants (18.6%). Finally, the percentage of people who live in poverty but have a job at the same time is only slightly below the average, which indicates that Germany has a significant number of so-called "working poor" (Low wages in a high-wage economy - DE9702201F). Overall, the proportion of citizens living in poverty has been relatively stable since the mid-1980s. According to the study's findings, public social transfer payments (ie welfare benefits) have been able to limit a further increase in poverty, but have not been sufficient to eliminate the existing level. Unequal income distribution Significant inequalities can be found in both the functional and the personnel
[L-I] Further on the hypocrisy of a German newspaper article
This is an interesting item posted by Johannes Schneider, "The Muslims the German bourgeoisie loves to see", and we will add a few comments. The FAZ article is indeed hypocritical. For example, it contrasts the "relatively orderly" way the "Turkish left" marches on May Day with the way the German left behaves. The "Turkish left" is subjected to various forms of state surveillance and repression in Germany and the DHKP-C is a banned organisation there. At the moment Nuri Eryuksel is on trial in Hamburg. So FAZ is being especially two-faced in making such a remark. The culture of emigrants from Turkey living in Germany and other European countries is not identical with the culture of the people who still live in Turkey. However "exotic" the culture of the immigrants may appear to the author of the FAZ article, in practice people from Turkey living in Europe are influenced in various ways by the surrounding culture. Alcohol and narcotics abuse and other social ills are not unknown among people from Turkey living in Europe (and they are not unknown in Turkey itself), though to serve a certain kind of reactionary agenda the FAZ article tries here to portray immigrants from Turkey as being free from such things. Islam is held to be the underpinning to social stability among people from Turkey, but the degree of commitment to Islam varies and in any case Islam from Anatolia is not homogeneous - there are major differences between the Sunni and Alevi versions. Organised crime among immigrants from Turkey also exists, and fascist groups like the MHP play a prominent part in it. But again, it does not suit the author of the FAZ article's agenda to mention that. People from Turkey tend to be gregarious and collective, and those who fall on hard times in Europe are perhaps more likely than West Europeans to find someone in their own community who will help them. So they are less likely to end up on the streets. But it must also be remembered that a beggar in Germany who originated from Turkey would undergo extra risks from German fascists and police racists. Many immigrant communities throughout the world have more effective, if informal, social support networks than the surrounding society has. But the life of immigrants from Turkey in Germany or other European countries is not as stable as portrayed in the article. All in all, the article is highly selective, superficial and hypocritical. DHKC London Information Bureau --- Below you will find the most hypocritical piece of so-called journalism in Germany I have come across in recent years. Basically it comes down to preach religion and family values to the German working class. Hypocritical because exactly the same social forces who are praising family values are trying to restrict family members of immigrants coming to Germany. (E.g. Yesterday the conservative CSU demanded to reduce the age of children allowed to come to their parents in Germany from 16 to 10 years). But besides an hypcrosy that is almost comic the article reflects the deep problems the ruling class has created over immigration in Germany. On the one hand they need racism to rally some sort of mass base for their nationalist policies, on the other hands they are afraid that the racist propaganda is running out of their control and creating social turmoil. That is why we are seeing here in Germany an unprecedented wave of 'anti-racism' from above. The following article is a facet of this campaign. Johannes From www.faz.com : 'You Cannot Settle Down in a Void' By Konrad Schuller BERLIN. Six subway stops, six faces. The journey to the Berlin district of Kreuzberg on line U1 begins at Möckernbrücke station. A woman leans against the railings of the steps, talking to the air with flailing arms. Her front teeth are missing; her right hand holds a can of Becks beer. At the station Hallesches Tor, a thin man in a woolen overcoat that is too big for him crouches by an orange-tiled wall as commuters clatter past. His begging hat lies in front of him. On his sleeve, he wears an armband with the yellow circle and the three black dots of the blind. At Prinzenstrasse station, there is no one to be seen. Because the security guards just passed through, the people on the down-and-out have sought shelter elsewhere -- for the moment. At Kottbusser Tor station, a man is lying on the traffic island beneath the viaduct of the elevated railway. The stream of cars along Skalizter Strasse flows around him. Exhaust fumes, the rumbling of the trains, pigeon droppings: This is his garden. His house is a mattress, a plastic chair and a few plastic bags. He sleeps beneath a frayed tablecloth. At Görlitzer Bahnhof, a diabetic and a disabled man have their places. The diabetic to the right of the steps, the disabled man on the left. The diabetic has a sign describing his illness, and a plate to which he has taped a coin. The disabled man sits in his wheelchair, drunk,
[L-I] Immigration to Germany
Since immigration is one of the key issues in German politics today I post an surview about immigration to (West) Germany since 1945. The article (correctly) deals with all various forms of immigration to Germany. This approach is has been used for long in scientific discussion, but in the political discussions usually only the immigration of non-ethnic Germans is regarded. It is at least a sign of intellectual honesty to see the most important German bourgeois paper discuss all kinds of immigration together. Johannes From www.faz.com : Politics, Numbers and Fate By Daniel Deckers Between 1959 to 1998, nearly 30 million people came to Germany from abroad. In this 40-year time frame, about 21 million people left Germany, resulting in a net migration balance of almost nine million into the country during four decades. For most of this time, Germany was also cut off by the Iron Curtain from the centuries-old east-west migration. Immigrants came almost exclusively from southern Europe and then increasingly from Turkey and the countries of the developing world. Only since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 has Germany returned to the center of Europe. Because of its geographical position, Germany has always been a transit route through the continent and because of its economic prosperity also a destination for immigrants, without, of course, losing sight of the emigration factor. The 1990s had the highest immigration rate in the history of the Federal Republic. In the years from 1991 to 1998, 8.8 million people moved to Germany from abroad. Factoring emigration into the balance, net migration totaled three million. Drawing conclusions from these figures for future migratory movements, however, is not so easy. In the years 1997 and 1998, for example, more foreigners left Germany than arrived. The same trend was also visible at different times during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. A number like this says little about the extent and type of migration, which, as of 1998, had 8.9 percent or 7.32 million people from a total population of 82 million living in Germany without German citizenship. In other words, one-in-eleven people are non-Germans. On the one hand -- compared to France -- Germany's restrictive citizenship laws for a long time hindered migrants who wanted to become German citizens. Furthermore, the number of foreigners, as difficult as it is to keep such statistics, also says little about the different groups of immigrants and emigrants and their respective migration dynamics. Finally, the number of foreigners inadequately reflects the actual extent of migration from beyond Germany's frontiers. People of ethnic German origin, such as the Volga Germans from Russia or Banat Swabians from Romania, who on the basis of Article 116 of the German Constitution come to Germany after generations of living abroad, are not considered foreigners because by law they already possess German citizenship. Irrespective of this, these people are still immigrants, just as those people are who reside in Germany illegally, either because they lost their resident status or because they never had it in the first place. Therefore, if the number of registered foreigners is not used as the yardstick for measuring the extent and type of migration but rather the degree of migration across German borders instead, then the figures show that about one-third of the people living in Germany as of 1989 have immigrated since 1945. The largest immigrant group by far is made up of the 15 million ethnic Germans who came to the Federal Republic between 1945 and the end of the Cold War as displaced persons, refugees or as re-settlers from eastern European countries and the former Soviet Union. The immigration of displaced persons from formerly ethnic German enclaves in eastern Europe and East Germans -- about 3.1 million people up until the Berlin Wall was built in 1961 -- was not enough to meet the demand for additional manpower in the Federal Republic's expanding post-war economy. By 1955, Germany had signed its first worker recruitment agreement with Italy. Agreements with Spain and Greece followed in 1960, with Turkey in 1961, with Portugal in 1964 and finally with Yugoslavia in 1968. By 1973, the Turks comprised nearly a quarter of Germany's foreign guest worker population. In November 1973, however, recruitment was stopped because of the effects from the world's first oil price shock and the recession that followed. Immigration from Turkey since then has been limited primarily to guest workers in Germany bringing spouses and family members to join them, as prescribed by the German immigration statutes. This legal immigration has averaged around 60,000 people annually in recent years, in addition to the overall immigration from the two non-EU countries of Turkey and Yugoslavia. The former European-Mediterranean recruitment countries have since become members of the European Union. Migratory movements to and from Italy,
[L-I] Re: Hail the Hitler-Stalin pact!
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 11/14/00 04:43PM The Hitler-Soviet Pact was not the most pleasant deal, and the invasion and subjection of Poland was reprehensible, but the need for the deal was obvious after the West had made its own deal at Munich - essentially pointing Hitler in Russia's direction. The Western powers have no standing to criticize Stalin on that point after happily handing Central Europe over to Hitler. What was more reprehensible was not the deal but the contortions of the CPUSA and other communist parties in its ideological approach to the deal. Instead of promoting it as a pragmatic way to deal with the threat of Hitler, the CPUSA suddenly dropped their anti-fascist position in favor of their "The Yanks aren't Coming" propaganda line - a reversal that discredited them intellectually among a wide range of folks who could understand the pragmatic threat to the Soviet Union but not the ideological backflip. ( CB: Things change, things change back and forth, and sometimes things change quickly, and sometimes things change back and forth quickly, especially in crises. That's dialectics. The Soviets had a tiger by the tail and there tends to be a whipping action. What is missed by many in this is the world historic cunning, spy vs. spy, ultimate European epic war strategizing which involves a world historic level of what I guess I will call intrigue. There are layers and layers of deception and Machiavellianism to the tenth power. To be pragamtic and make their strategic gambit work, the Soviets had to make it look good to the Nazis, hold their enemies closer to them than their friends sometime. For example, they had to make the Nazis think that the Soviet motivation was imperialist land grabbing. The Nazis could understand that motive as it was their's. Don't forget that in the old treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the Bolsheviks had ceded land to Germany. It would be believable to the Germans that the Soviets wanted the territory they had ceded. Without this posture, the German's would be looking for the Soviet motive for making the treaty, and might guess the real motive of delaying the war. One must look at the situation with a bit more street smarts than the average intellectual uses usually. Put on your wily cap when you really want to be pragmatic.To be pragmatic, the Soviets could not announce to the CPUSA and parties around the world that they were just being pragmatic. The Nazis were listening. The CPUSA had to be wily and figure that out without it being announced from Moscow. There may have been lagtime in figuring it out in the CPUSA ( understandable because it is like the ultimate spy novel) and certainly imperfection in the campaign, thus the whiplash effect you note in CPUSA response. But to the CPUSA's credit, it essentially got it correct. They certainly got it more correct than all those on the left who like to feel morally-politicallly superior to the Soviets ( or the CPUSA) because the Soviets made a pact with the Devil. This is a bit of the naive American looking at old jaded Europe phenomenon from Henry James and all that. (( And the backflip when Hitler invaded just added to the cynicism towards the Party and its maneuverings. The contortions were essentially the beginning of the end of the party's broader influence and assisted the anti-Communist forces in their conservative ascendancy in unions and other broad formations. -- Nathan Newman ___ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
[L-I] anti-fascist action uk news
AFA News November 15 2000 BNP and the fuel protests - anti-fascism discredited An article in the Sunday People (5/11/00), written by the editors of Searchlight, is a perfect illustration of how 'anti-fascism' is being discredited. Allowing for the fact that tabloid papers like to use a sensational style of writing, the article fails to address any of the relevant political issues, assumes that by presenting the BNP as a criminal conspiracy the 80,000 people who voted for them in the Greater London Assembly elections, for example, will see the error of their ways, and concludes that the only way to stop them is to collaborate with the police who will then prevent fascism winning support (just like they have in Austria, France, Italy, Germany, etc,etc!). Some extracts from the article illustrate the point: "Our investigators uncovered the plot after we infiltrated the BNP's highest ranks and unearthed a dossier of top-secret memos and e-mails ... a Special Branch source said "This evidence is very disturbing indeed. What you have told us is a clear conspiracy to incite people to break the law. We will be clamping down hard on these people. We must not allow them to sow their sick message of hate." ... Darby and his cowardly cronies try to hide behind the phoney name of the Anytown Fuel Protest Support Group. But we can reveal that the masterminds of the whole subversive campaign are BNP leader Nick Griffin - who has a conviction for inciting racial hatred - and deputy leader Tony Lecomber, who was jailed for 3 years in 1991 for attacking a Jewish teacher in East London ... Our dossier is available to police so that they can smash this evil plot." Anti-fascists, and in particular groups like the SWP/ANL, must publicly distance themselves from those who would seek to hijack the independence of the anti-fascist movement and re-align 'anti-fascism' as part of the police or the establishment. As the fascists continue to win support from those who have been betrayed by the establishment parties and their police, it hardly constitutes a winning strategy for anyone on 'the Left' to be openly linked with those parties who are so completely discredited in the eyes of so many. November 14 2000 If fascists were pacifists, would their politics be acceptable? It has been interesting to read the numerous press reports of BNP infiltration of the fuel protests, especially since it has been revealed that MI5 have devoted considerable resources to undermining the actions. Rather than any considered analysis of the Far Right moving into an area that has traditionally been receptive to the ideas of fascism, eg. small businessmen and the self-employed, the 'anti-fascist' argument has been that the BNP's presence is a problem because they are violent. "Extremist right-wing groups and individuals have infiltrated the fuel price movement and plan to be 'heavily involved' when the protests start again next week, an Observer investigation has revealed. Senior police fear that the presence of neo-Nazis among the protesters will lead to violence and attacks on officers." (Observer, 5/11/00). Since 1994 AFA has been drawing attention to the fact that the BNP have withdrawn from street confrontations and adopted a 'peaceful' Euro-Nationalist approach. The continual obsession to portray the BNP as a violent movement when its present strategy is specifically designed to avoid trouble at all costs is absurd, and their growing support in elections is evidence that anti-fascists will have to come up with better arguments in order to defeat the Far Right. November 14 2000 Far Right in Austria lose support - can the Left rise to the challenge? Haider's Freedom Party (FPO) vote fell from 17% to 12% in the recent provincial elections in Styria (October 15th). This was the first electoral test for the FPO since they entered the Austrian government. The drop in support is because the FPO claimed to represent the interests of the disenfranchised and disillusioned working class, but on taking power proceeded to support major cuts in social welfare spending. In other words attacking the very people who had turned to the Far Right for support. This disillusion with the FPO isn't just confined to Styria, a recent survey carried out by the Format magazine showed that only 24% of Freedom Party supporters believed the Party had stuck to its election pledges in government. What is important for anti-fascists to realise is that the disillusioned FPO voters haven't returned to the Social Democrats, who received their lowest vote in Styria since 1945. The betrayal of the working class by all the major parties allowed the Far Right to pose as the radical alternative. Their failure to deliver in Austria, once elected, shows that a progressive working class organisation, committed to dealing with working class problems rather than middle class liberalism, could win
[L-I] Fwd: [slp-youth] Hungary: Pro-Nazi Officer Promoted - AP
Hungarian Pro-Nazi Officer Promoted == BUDAPEST, Nov 9, 2000 -- (Agence France Presse) Hungarian authorities defended Wednesday the promotion of a retired army officer who has praised the country's pro-Nazi authorities during World War II. The defense ministry said Major Robert Szalay, who was promoted to a colonel, was elevated in rank for his role in the country's 1956 uprising against Soviet domination. "Robert Szalay was an active participant of the 1956 revolution and freedom fight, he is a genuine revolutionary who is still active today," the ministry said in a statement. In a book he wrote on the 1956 uprising and the events that led to it, Szalay praised the 1944 coup by antisemitic and pro-Nazi Hungarian governor Ferenc Szalasi, backed by Hitler's Third Reich. The coup was a "legal action" which "spearheaded the fight to save the nation from Bolshevism and defended Europe from Asian barbarism," according to excerpts published in the Magyar Hirlap newspaper. Szalasi was tried as a war criminal and executed in 1946. The ministry said Szalay's promotion was made under a law that "makes possible the promotion of retired officers" and on the proposal of 1956 revolutionaries, but declined to react on Szalay's views on history. According to Magyar Hirlap, Szalay is also a leading editor of the extreme right-wing nationalist Szittyakuert newspaper published by emigree Hungarians in the United States. Historian Attila Szakolczay said that Szalay's participation in the 1956 uprising was restricted to a single occasion of demanding weapons for upraises. "After that, he disappeared and when the revolution was crushed, he signed a statement that condemned the revolution as a counter-revolution and enrolled in the Communist militia that helped keep (pro-Soviet) order afterwards," said Szakolczay -- eGroups Sponsor -~-~ FONT COLOR="#99"eGroups eLerts It's Easy. It's Fun. Best of All, it's Free! /FONTA HREF="http://click.egroups.com/1/9698/3/_/158091/_/974256366/"BClick Here!/B/A -_- To Post a message, send it to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[L-I] international football
TACKLING FASCISM AT FOOTBALL Football News November 15th 2000 Di Canio on the right wing "Perhaps precisely because I am right wing, I am fascinated by Benito Mussolini. Remember those mobile phone advertisements where they asked people who they most would like to have a one-to-one with? Ian Wright picked Dr. Martin Luther King, my choice would have been Mussolini." Paolo Di Canio writing in his autobiography. October 30th 2000 Lazio, Di Canio and Il Duce. Racism at football grounds has hit the headlines again - but this time its hard to blame the inadequacies of the 'Kick It Out' campaign. The incident in question happened during the recent European Champions League game between Lazio and Arsenal - the racism was directed from one highly paid professional to another in a game televised live throughout Europe. Lazio player Sinisa Mihajlovic was fingered by Arsenal's Patrick Viera for making comments such as "fucking black monkey" - comments that Mihajlovic admitted and put down to the usual 'heat of the moment'. Judging by the Lazio Ultras' history of overt links with fascist groups and propensity to flaunt banners proclaiming this, it seems that these views aren't confined to the supporters but are endorsed by some of the players. Enter the FA - professional hand-wringers that they are, proclaiming their Italian counterparts should introduce sanctions against not only Mihajlovic but also the sizeable racist section of the Lazio support (perhaps arrest them en masse?) On Wednesday 25th October Mihajlovic made a public apology before a game - AFA sources at the ground say the reaction from the Lazio supporters was mixed. It would be good to see the sections of the crowd who applauded him take action in the same tradition that Celtic Fans Against Fascism have in the past - a fan based solution. Meanwhile the FA should concentrate on trying to get their own house in order - for example our man in Paris said the racism expressed by the England followers at the recent France v England friendly was the worst he'd ever heard. As for Lazio, after having read Paulo Di Canio's autobiography and his love of Mussolini, let's hope he isn't asked to broker between 'establishment anti-racism' and the Ultras. October 9th 2000 New issue of TAL available Issue 27 of the anti-fascist Celtic fanzine 'Tiocfaidh Ar La' is now out. With articles on the Hillsborough Justice Campaign, Johnny 'Mad Dog' Adair, the Easton Cowboys, sectarian attacks and of course football, it is well worth reading. Available from TAL Books, BM Box 266, London, WC1N 3XX. It only costs £1 for 28 action-packed pages; cheques should be made payable to 'TAL'. ___ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
[L-I] anti fascist action international
For the first time there is now an international network of militant anti-fascists. The network is launched against the backdrop of the far right's recent successes across Europe and especially in France. As the fascists attempt to gain credibility through electoral strategies, the task for militant anti-fascists is to out radicalise them in the battle for the hearts and minds of working class communities. We stand for the physical and ideological confronatation of fascism, and we are not fighting to maintain the status quo. We see the challenges facing us as a three cornered fight, between the militants, the fascists and the state. We recognise that the ultimate guarantee against the far right penetrating the mainstream, is a strong politically independent working class movement. Militant anti-fascism is a single issue campaign, whose function is to first separate out those who want to fight from those who do not, and then to ensure unity amongst us, to actively combat the isolation we face in our own countries. The groups organised in the network come from a wide range of political backgrounds, but all recognise that if our common enemy is to be defeated it is what unites us, rather than what divides us that must have primacy. The network will ensure active co-operation and communication, to enable us to develop effective stragegies for combatting the rise of fascism. As the fascists and state governments organise internationally, so must we. The network currently comprises groups from 6 countries. We recognise the importance of national organisation as being essential to effective international organisation, and will work to develop militant anti-fascist networks in member countries. Our manifesto document will be circulated as widely as possible, and we call on all militant anti-fascist groups who share our understanding, aims and objectives, to affiliate to the network. CANADA Antifa Forum PO Box 6326 Station A Toronto Ontario M5W 1P7 Canada BRITAIN AFA, BM 1734, London WC1N 3XX, ENGLAND GERMANY Antifaschister Aktion (TR), c/o Der Rechte Rand Postfach 1324, D-30013, Hannover Freundlinnen Irlands, c/o M-99, Manteuffel - 99, Berlin, GERMANY IRELAND AFA Ireland, PO Box 3355, Dublin 7, IRELAND [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.geocities.com/irishafa SPAIN PAZ Fascist Platform Zaragoza Apartado de Correos 585 50080 Zaragoza Spain Liga Antifascista Burgos, Buzon 61-C, San Lesmes No. 10, Burgos, Castilla, SPAIN USA ARA Minneapolis, PO Box 80239, Minneapolis MN 55408, USA Find It at Yahoo! Shopping More... Find It at Yahoo! Shopping Easy to Use. Top retail brands. Express checkout. Everything You Shop for...All in One Place. Visit Yahoo! Shopping [Close] undefined [Close] ___ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
[L-I] IKM: political prisoners in Turkey to go on Death Fast
TO THE PRESS AND PUBLIC OPINION DHKP-C, TKP(ML) AND TKIP PRISONERS, WHO HAVE BEEN ON INDEFINITE HUNGER STRIKE SINCE OCTOBER 20, ARE TURNING THEIR PROTEST INTO A DEATH FAST FROM SATURDAY NOVEMBER 18 (THE 30TH DAY). The fascist state started attacks aimed at putting the revolutionary prisoners in the "F" Type cell prisons, and it is continuing the smear campaigns and demagogy it started at the beginning of the Indefinite Hunger Strike action. What they are saying now is not very different from what they have been saying for months past. The fascist state openly declared that it would not abandon the isolation cells. Everybody has spoken. Everybody has said something. Some have come out against the isolation cells, while others have spoken in favour of them and will continue to do so. The time has now come for the Free Prisoners to speak a word. They are resolute, will pay whatever price needs to be paid, but they will not go into the cells and will break them over the heads of those who ordered their construction. Because the prisoners are the heirs to an honourable history. Comrades like them have given martyrs but not abandoned their beliefs. At Ulucanlar, rather than surrender they preferred to die, and in the 1996 Death Fast, by submitting their bodies to hunger they forced the enemy to give in while imparting confidence to their friends with their heroism and honesty. Today nothing will occur that will alter this picture, and once again imperialism and its collaborationist servants will receive a response in a language they understand. Our friends who live in European countries also have work to do. Now as before, if you want to be released from your bitterness, if you want to demand a reckoning from the fascist state, if you defend an honourable life and do not want our people to be oppressed, scorned and exploited; you who had to come to these countries must also support the resistance of the revolutionary prisoners to the Susurluk state. You can participate in marches, protest demonstrations and hunger strikes. You can write protest letters to the fascist state, make telephone calls and send fax and e-mail messages. It is absolutely certain that there are things you can do. THE REVOLUTIONARY PRISONERS ARE NOT ALONE! We, to support the Indefinite Hunger Strike by revolutionary prisoners which has been going on since October 20, and to be the voice and breath of the prisoners against imperialism and fascism in Turkey, have been conducting three-day alternating hunger strikes since November 4, and since November 14 have turned this into an Indefinite Hunger Strike. Our Indefinite Hunger Strike resistance will take place at the Manor House entrance to Finsbury Park (London). THE PRISONERS' DEMANDS ARE OUR DEMANDS! * The immediate closure of the "F" Type prisons! * The restoration of all the rights in the prisons that have been taken away! * The abolition of the Anti-Terror Law! * The cancellation of the Tripartite Protocol! * The abolition of the State Security Courts, and the cancelling of all verdicts issued by the State Security Courts! * Put on trial those responsible for torture and massacres! PUT AN END TO THE ATTACKS AIMED AT IMPLEMENTING THE ISOLATION CELLS; CLOSE THE "F" TYPE PRISONS! WE WILL WIN! DOWN WITH FASCISM, LONG LIVE OUR STRUGGLE! WE WILL DIE BUT WE WILL NOT GO INTO THE CELLS! LONG LIVE OUR DEATH FAST RESISTANCE! IKM (Committee For Struggle Against Torture Through Isolation) ___ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
[L-I] fwd from Henry Liu] Blaut on Racism
I think Henry had this in mind for L-I as well. Jim will be missed. [Part I of forward from Henry Liu of a piece written by Jim Blaut, broken up into multiple parts and reformatted to look nice for Jim. Les] Henry: You're 100% right. Nonwhites actually make up 80-85% of the world's population. I wrote a paper on this: Reprinted from Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography 23(1992): 289 299. The Theory of Cultural Racism J. M. Blaut Department of Geography University of Illinois at Chicago i. Theory and Practice Very few academics these days consider themselves to be racists, and calling someone a racist is deeply offensive. Yet racism in the universities is just as pervasive, just as dangerous, as it was a generation ago. Nowadays we seem to have a lot of racism but very few racists. How do you explain this paradox? The place to begin is to notice the essential difference between racist theory and racist practice. Racism most fundamentally is practice: the practice of discrimination, at all levels, from personal abuse to colonial oppression. Racism is a form of practice which has been tremendously important in European society for several hundred years, important in the sense that it is an essential part of the way the European capitalist system maintains itself. Racist practice, like all practice, is cognized, rationalized, justified, by a theory, a belief-system about the nature of reality and the behavior which is appropriate to this cognized reality. (The word "theory" is better in this context than the word "ideology," because we are talking about a system of empirical beliefs, not about the cultural bindings of belief.) But theory and practice do not have a one- to-one relationship. One form of practice can be underlain by various different theories. Since racism-as-practice, that is, discrimination, is an essential part of the system, we should not be surprised to discover that it has been supported by a historical sequence of different theories, each consistent with the intellectual environment of a given era. Nor should we be surprised to find that the sequent theories are so different from one another that the racist theory of one epoch is in part a refutation of the racist theory of the preceding epoch. Putting the matter in a somewhat over-simplified form, the dominant racist theory of the early nineteenth century was a biblical argument, grounded in religion; the dominant racist theory of the period from about 1850 to 1950 was a biological argument, grounded in natural science; the racist theory of today is mainly a historical argument, grounded in the idea of culture history or simply culture. Today's racism is cultural racism. I will try to show, in this paper, what cultural racism is all about and how and why it has largely supplanted biological racism (at least among academics). To start things off, I'll explain the paradox that, today, in universities, we have racism but few racists. Generally, when we call a person a racist in the academic world of today we are accusing this person of believing in the hereditary, biological superiority of people of one so-called race over people of another so-called race, with the implication that discrimination is justified, explained, rationalized, by the underlying biological theory. But hardly anybody believes in this theory anymore. Most academics believe that the typical members of what used to be called inferior races have a capacity equal to that of other so-called races, but they have not been able to realize this capacity. They have not learned the things one needs to know to be treated as an equal. They have not learned how to think rationally, as mental adults. They have not learned how to behave in appropriate ways, as social adults. The problem is culture, not biology. And, naturally, the inequality will disappear in the course of time. But in the meantime, discrimination is perfectly justified. Of course it is not called "discrimination" in this newer theory. It is a matter of treating each person in a way that is appropriate to his or her abilities. The people of one race -- pardon me: one ethnic group -- demonstrate greater abilities than those of other ethnic groups, abilities in IQ, ACT, and SAT test-taking, in "need achievement motivation," in avoidance of criminality, and so on. Given that they have these higher realized abilities, they should be given greater rewards. They should be admitted to college, be granted Ph.D.s and tenure, and the rest. And so racist practice persists under the guidance of a theory which actually denies the relevance of race. The differences between humans which justify discriminatory treatment are differences in acquired characteristics: in culture. Another way of putting this is to say that cultural racism substitutes
[L-I] : [Part II] Blaut on racism
[Part II of Blaut via H. Liu.] iv. Cultural Racism All of this notwithstanding, biological racism remained somewhat respectable until the 1950s and 1960s, the classical era of national liberation and civil rights struggles. Racist practice now needed a new theory. At this time, mainstream scholarship was being assigned -- quite literally: with funds and jobs provided -- the task of formulating a theoretical structure which would rationalize continued dominance of communities of color in the Third World and at home. Such a theory would have to accept two anti-biological-racist propositions which were axiomatic in Non-European communities: that Europeans are not innately superior, and that economic development can bring non-Europeans to the same level as Europeans. The problem was to show that non-Europeans, though equal to Europeans in innate capacity, cannot develop economically to the European level unless these societies voluntarily accept the continued domination by European countries and corporations, that is, neocolonialism. The outcome of this truly massive theory- building effort was the theory of "modernization." This theory argued, in essence, that non-Europeans are not racially, but rather culturally backward in comparison to Europeans because of their history: their lesser cultural evolution. And it is for this reason that they are poor. So they must follow, under European guidance and "tutelage," the path already trodden by Europeans as the only means of overcoming backwardness. Non-Europeans were thereby defined as inferior in attained level of achievement, not potential for achievement. This was the real essence of cultural racism. One of the most interesting and important aspects of this theory-building campaign was the deification of Max Weber by various groups of social scientists, among them the Parsonian structural- functionalists (see Peet 1991) and "traditional mind" theorists like McClelland, most of whom were involved directly or indirectly in the modernization-theory construction project. Weber himself, a half-century before, had expressed the then-dominant European views concerning non-Europeans, with some small improvements. Weber's argument, though partially grounded in biological racism (see, e.g., Weber 1958: 30; 1967: 387; 1981: 299, 379; 1951: 231-232), could easily be detached from that grounding because most of what he wrote about European superiority was axiomatic argumentation about the uniqueness of the European mind -- its rationality, its spiritual capacity -- and historical argumentation about the unique rise within Europe, and Europe alone, of institutions and structures which were the source of modernity. (See in particular Weber 1951; 1958; 1981.) Neither rationality nor structure was (in general) connected backward to race, as effect of a prime cause. Thus the Weberian argument could be, and was, detached from race and presented as a theory of modernization grounded in the uniqueness of European mentality and culture, permanent qualities which throughout history gave Europeans a continuously more rapid course toward modernity than non-Europeans.2 Those who think that Weber became popular in the 1950s and 1960s because of his well-known opposition to the Marxist theory of the rise of capitalism are missing the bigger picture. Weber, and Weberianism, became important at that time mainly because Weber provided contemporary social scientists with a theory of modernization, essentially an elegant and scholarly restatement of colonial-era ideas about the uniqueness of European rationality and the uniqueness of European culture history. Weber was to neocolonialism what Marx was to socialism. In a manner of speaking, Weber was the godfather of cultural racism. Cultural racism, as a theory, needs to prove the superiority of Europeans, and needs to do so without recourse to the older arguments from religion and from biology. How does it do this? By recourse to history -- by constructing a characteristic theory of cultural (and intellectual) history. The claim is simply made that nearly all of the important cultural innovations which historically generate cultural progress occurred first in Europe, then, later, diffused to the non-European peoples (Blaut forthcoming 1992). Therefore, at each moment in history Europeans are more advanced than non- Europeans in overall cultural development (though not necessarily in each particular culture trait), and they are more progressive than non-Europeans. This is asserted as a great bundle of apparently empirical facts about invention and innovation, not only of material and technological traits but of political and social traits like the state, the market, the family. The tellers of this tale saturate history with European inventions, European progressiveness, European progress. This massive bundle of purportedly empirical, factual
