Marxism Fringe 2008

Meetings at the SWP’s Marxism school, organised by CPGB, Campaign for a Marxist Party, and Hands Off the People of Iran:

Birkbeck College, Malet Street, London WC1
All meetings start 17:00

Friday July 4 - Room 541
Manifesto of the Campaign for a Marxist Party - pre-launch meeting
Hillel Ticktin and Mike Macnair introduce themes to be explored in detail in this forthcoming CMP publication.
Forms for pre-ordering the manifesto will be available at the meeting

Saturday July 5 - Room 403
Iran - how to fight the war drive
Torab Saleth (Hands Off the People of Iran) and Alex Callinicos (SWP, invited)

Sunday July 6 - Room 541
The lessons of Respect
Respect councillors (invited), and Mark Fischer (CPGB)

Some recommended reading

Here are some interesting things to read from around the blogosphere:

Vicky Thompson of the Hands Off the People of Iran steering committee has recently set up her own blog, ‘Infantile and Disorderly,’ so check it out.

Over at ‘The Storm Breaking Upon the University‘ there is an interesting article on academic freedom and the case of Hicham Yezza by Alana Lentin.

Imperialist pose - report of Manchester HOPI meeting

Chris Strafford reports a Hopi success in Manchester:

Hands Off the People of Iran held a successful meeting in Manchester on June 24, titled ‘Can imperialism liberate women?’ The meeting discussed how imperialism cynically claims to support the rights of women and others to legitimate its own actions, including its military adventures.

The meeting was opened by Ruth Bergan from the Greens, who reasserted her party’s support for Hopi and spoke about the growing military threat to Iran and its use by the theocracy to attack the social movements. The driving force was not concern for democratic rights, but the pursuit of the west’s economic and political interests, she said. She spoke about the need for change in Iran to come from the Iranian people without the interference of the western powers, and slammed Britain’s hypocrisy in regard to nuclear energy and nuclear weapons.

From City Hall to Club Row?

Communist Students member James Turley sees little prospect of future success for Socialist Action and Respect:

When the Respect (un)popular front split last autumn, it provided something of a parlour game for the rest of the left - which fragment would collapse first?

The Socialist Workers Party was seriously rocked internally by the nakedly apolitical nature of the split, and Respect-SWP included very little more than itself. The George Galloway wing had legal ownership of the name and almost all of Respect’s elected representatives went over to Galloway’s side.