Hopi’s two day school reflects its resonance in the working class. CS member Chris Strafford reports
Over the weekend of June 14-15 Hands Off the People of Iran held a successful school, with around 70 people attending some or all of the sessions. All the openings were recorded and will soon be available on the Hopi website.
Hopi chair Mark Fischer (CPGB) opened the event by explaining that Hopi’s message has found a “resonance” in the workers’ movement. Two important unions, PCS and Aslef, have recently affiliated, proving the majority of the Stop the War Coalition leadership wrong. At both conferences the delegates found Hopi’s principled stand - against imperialist war, against the theocratic regime - was not too complex, but blindingly obvious. Comrade Fischer reminded comrades of the growing threat of imperialist attacks on Iran, either directly from the USA or from its regional watchdog, Israel.
The Lisbon Treaty has hit the buffers after rejection by the Irish electorate. CS member James Turley outlines an internationalist approach to the European Union
The European bourgeoisie is reeling after the decisive rejection of the Treaty of Lisbon, a putative replacement for the scuppered EU constitution, by the Irish electorate. And, of course, the left is celebrating. As if a defeat for the Eurocracy is a victory for the working class.
Imperialist threats against Iran have been stepped up once again, writes Communist Students member James Turley:
Last July, during a Youtube debate, Barack Obama (now de facto official Democrat presidential candidate) promised he would talk to the leaders of what are perceived as anti-American states - Venezuela, Cuba and Iran among them.
This rather mild pledge, in another reminder of the general state of US politics at this time, has turned up again in attempts to smear the White House hopeful as ‘soft’. Obama, for his part, is having none of it - first, he declared last month that non-specified diplomatic “preparations” would be required.1 Then last week, at the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) conference, he went much further, claiming that “by pressuring Israel to allow Palestinian elections with Hamas participation”, and by going to war against Iraq when “Iran was always the greater threat”, administration foreign policy had made Israel “less secure”.2
Aipac has a deceptively neutral name - in fact it is the motherlode of the so-called ‘Israel lobby’ in the US. Obama was not the only candidate to give a speech at the conference, and all were gushing in their admiration for America’s most steadfast ally in the Middle East. There is little wonder that the Jerusalem Post called the Aipac conference “an expression of all that is wonderful about America and about the US-Israel relationship”.3 What with Obama’s comments and John McCain’s now infamous rendition of the Beach Boys’ 60s hit, ‘Barbara Ann’, as “Bomb Iran”,4 Americans once more go to the polls to choose between two sabre-rattlers.
Last weekends Hands Off the People of Iran (HOPI) school was an excellent event. You can read a report from Green Party comrade Jim Jepps at his blog, ‘The Daily (Maybe),’ here. To enable those who weren’t able to get along to also experience the school, HOPI will be putting a number of videos from the event up on their website soon. As a taster, here we have the beginning of left-Labour MP, John McDonnell’s contribution:
Discussion on Imperialism, the threat of war and the women’s movement in Iran.
During the meeting we are asking for organisations and trade union branches to read out messages of solidarity which will be recorded and put online. We want to make this meeting a meeting of solidarity against war and patriarchy.
7pm on 24th June at the Catholic Chaplaincy to the University of Manchester, Oxford Road (Opposite the students’ union).
With Yassamine Mather (HOPI Secretary) and Tina Purcell (Permanent Revolution).
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