When Snow Melts: Vancouver’s Olympic Crackdown

By Dave Zirin Edge of Sports News Flash: Winter Olympic officials in tropical Vancouver have been forced to import snow – on the public dime – to make sure that the 2010 games proceed as planned. This use of tax-dollars is just the icing on the cake for increasingly angry Vancouver residents. And unlike the snow, the anger shows no signs of abating. As Olympic Resistance Network organizer Harsha Walia wrote in the Vancouver Sun, “With massive cost over-runs and Olympic project bailouts, it is not surprising that a November 2009 Angus Reid poll found that more than 30 per cent of [British Columbia] residents feel the Olympics will have a negative impact and almost 40 per cent support protesters. A January 2010 EKOS poll found that almost 70 per cent believe that too much is being spent on the Games.” 

Officials are feeling the anger, and the independent media, frighteningly, is paying the price. Just as Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman was held in November for trying to cross the border for reasons that had nothing to do with the Olympic Games, Martin Macias Jr., an independent media reporter from Chicago, was detained and held for seven hours by Canada Border Services agents before being put on a plane and sent to Seattle. Macias, who is 20 years old, is a media reform activist with community radio station Radio Arte where he serves as the host/producer of First Voice, a radio news zine.
 
I spoke to Martin Macias today and he described a chilling scene of detention and expulsion. “I was asked the same questions for three and a half hours in a small room. They told me I had no right to a lawyer. I went from frustrated and angry to scared. I didn’t know what the laws were or how the laws had been changed for the Olympics. I kept telling them I wasn’t going to Vancouver to protest but to cover the protests but for them that was one and the same. This is bigger than me. We need to ask who is exactly ordering this kind of repression. Is it the government? The IOC? Why the crackdown?”
 
Then insult on top of injury when they deported Macias and insisted he pay his own way out of the country. “They wanted me to buy a $1,300 plane ticket back to Chicago. I said ‘no way’ and now I’m in Seattle.”
 
Martin’s story is not unique. Two delegates aiming to attend an indigenous assembly taking place alongside the games were also detained and turned away.
 
For people with just a passing knowledge of our neighbors to the north, it must all seem quite shocking. When we think of human rights abuses and suppression of dissent, Canada is hardly the first place that comes to mind. But there actually is a long history in Canada of this kind of abuse of power. The latest chapter in that history has been written during the pre-Olympic crackdown of 2010. Now as protestors and independent, unembedded journalists gather for the February 10-15 anti-Olympic convergence, as tax dollars go toward importing snow, the need to silence dissent becomes an International Olympic Committee imperative.
 
As Chicago’s Bob Quellos, who entered Vancouver successfully after accompanying Macias, said to me,
 
“Walking the streets, residents here are very clear about who is responsible for the billions of dollars of Olympic debt they will be paying off for generations. They are outraged that the over $1 billion that is being spent on security has placed a cop on almost every corner of Downtown Vancouver. And they are outraged by the government’s priorities. For example, while Vancouver’s Downtown East Side struggles with poverty similar to third-world countries and social programs continue to be gutted, VANOC is spending an untold amount of money helicoptering in snow to the Olympic venue of Cypress Mountain that would otherwise be a mud hill due to the warm weather.” 

It’s not hard to deduce why the snow is melting: it’s the heat on the street.
 
[Dave Zirin is the author of the forthcoming “Bad Sports: How Owners are Ruining the Games we Love” (Scribner) Receive his column every week by emailing dave@edgeofsports.com. Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com.] See also: The Vancouver Olympic Blues

ANOTHER LEFT IS POSSIBLE: The Protests in France and the New Anti-Capitalist Party

by Nathan Rao from Socialist Voice Originally published in Rabble.ca 8 April 2009 It would be wrong to see the massively successful protest actions in France [March 21] as distant and exotic, of no particular relevance to us here in Canada. With the economic meltdown heralding a new political era, and with most of the country's Left and social movements still stunned and disoriented following their embrace of the misguided and failed Liberal-led coalition plan, the French experience is instructive and inspiring.

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Upcoming talks by Canadian socialist

APRIL GPJA FORUM: HAITI TODAY: FIVE YEARS OF UN-SPONSORED MILITARY OCCUPATION BRINGS DISASTER Presentation by Roger Annis, coordinator of the Canada Haiti Action Network 7.30pm, Monday 6 April Trades Hall, 147 Great North Road, Grey Lynn In February, 2004, the elected president and government of Haiti were overthrown by a right-wing paramilitary rebellion backed by troops from the United States, France and Canada. A foreign-appointed, regime of human rights violations ruled Haiti for the two years that followed. An elected government has ruled Haiti since early 2006. But the real power is held by a 10,000-member, UN-sponsored military occupation regime. Poverty, human rights violations and environmental degradation are worsening dramatically in a country that was already the poorest in the Americas. MEETING AT AUCKLAND UNITE OFFICES: THE FINANCIAL CRISIS HITS HOME IN CANADA Presentation by Roger Annis, trade union activist and editor of Socialist Voice

6pm, Tuesday 7 April Unite Centre, 6a Western Springs Rd, Morningside During the October, 2008 federal election in Canada, all the parties represented in the federal Parliament peddled a myth that Canada would escape the worst of the U.S.-sparked financial collapse. This in a country where the U.S. market consumes 76% of all Canadian exports. The economic situation in Canada is deteriorating rapidly, presenting new difficulties and challenges for the country's trade unions and social movements. As well, renewed demands for political sovereignty are emerging among the French-speaking Quebecois nation that numbers 7 million and the one million Indigenous peoples.

ANOTHER LEFT IS POSSIBLE: The Protests in France and the New Anti-Capitalist Party

by Nathan Rao from Socialist Voice Originally published in Rabble.ca 8 April 2009 It would be wrong to see the massively successful protest actions in France [March 21] as distant and exotic, of no particular relevance to us here in Canada. With the economic meltdown heralding a new political era, and with most of the country's Left and social movements still stunned and disoriented following their embrace of the misguided and failed Liberal-led coalition plan, the French experience is instructive and inspiring. France has just gone through another day of mass strikes and protests against the hard-Right government of president Nicolas Sarkozy. The protest action is hugely popular in opinion polls and comes on the heels of another successful but smaller day of action on January 29, a victorious six-week general strike on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe that spread to other overseas colonial territories and the proliferation of radical protest actions among students and in a number of workplaces -- all in the context of growing job losses and a deepening financial and economic crisis. 'France's Thatcher' on the defensive Not long ago, Sarkozy was widely hailed in Anglo-American circles, from the Blairite 'centre-Left' across to the Bushite and Harperite neo-conservative Right, as the French Thatcher -- the man that would usher in the 'normalization' of French society by at long last breaking resistance to growing inequality, job insecurity, privatization and cutbacks. And yet, a mere 18 months into his mandate the swaggering and obnoxious Sarkozy is now stumbling in the face of the resilience and scale of popular resistance. Though still very far from being defeated, Sarkozy and the neoliberal project more generally are on the defensive in France, a country at the heart of the global capitalist and imperial order. This has not failed to raise a few eyebrows in other European and western capitals, where the fear is that developments in France will serve as an example for workers and young people in their own countries. Further stoking these fears is the fact that Olivier Besancenot -- the 34-year-old postal worker and spokesperson of the newly created New Anti-Capitalist Party (NPA) -- has consolidated his position as by far the most popular opposition figure in the country. For several months now, polls have ranked him well ahead of the leader of the nominally social-democratic Socialist Party (PS), Martine Aubry -- and even further ahead of the PS candidate in the 2007 presidential elections, Segolene Royal, and centre-Right leader Francois Bayrou. Besancenot recently even earned the unusual distinction of being the only left-wing and working-class figure to be named to the Financial Times list of 50 people 'who will frame the debate on the future of capitalism.' New Party, New Politics for France's Left As its name suggests, the NPA has an explicitly anti-capitalist profile and its program calls for a revolutionary transformation of the country's political institutions and property relations. It is an activist party, with a growing base of more than 10,000 members across the country involved in local organizing efforts and broad activist campaigns and the internal work and debates of the NPA itself. The party brings together former members of the largest surviving (and now 'self-dissolved') organization of the 1968-era far-Left (the 'Trotskyist' LCR), a wide array of experienced and previously non-party-affiliated trade-union and social-movement activists, a new generation of radicalized students and youth and a significant layer of people of all ages for whom the party is their first political experience ever. It is quite easily -- certainly within the industrialized world at any rate -- the most dynamic and radical example of attempts at fashioning a left-wing alternative to the increasingly discredited policies and institutions of neoliberalism and capitalism. Relevant to Canada's Left? This is all very heady stuff. So heady, in fact, that it is tempting to see these developments in France as distant and exotic, of no particular relevance to our own work and debates here in Canada. That would be unfortunate. To be sure, there are important differences between the context and relationship of forces in the two countries. For one thing, today's protest movements are at least in part an extension of those that have shaken France since late 1995; and the initiative to found the NPA was taken only after a long, complicated and occasionally rancorous debate between the various political and social-movement forces involved in these movements in one way or another. It will certainly take time and a significant upsurge of protest and resistance in Canada before these kinds of debates get any kind of traction beyond the margins of political life here. Fundamentally, however, the strategic lay of the land in the two countries is not so dramatically different. Whatever the fate of Sarkozy's cabinet in the face of the present protest movement or of Sarkozy himself in the 2012 presidential elections, the NPA are under no illusions that there will be a serious breakthrough for anti-capitalists in the short term. Even in France, the relationship of forces and rules of the institutional game are firmly stacked against such an outcome. The NPA understand that they are just now entering a long period of rebuilding working-class and anti-systemic movements and of developing a new vision and strategy for enduring radical change. This is something the party's program describes as '21st century socialism,' tipping its hat to the Bolivarian revolutionary process under way in Venezuela and other Latin American countries. What are the broad lessons we can take away from the French experience? For one thing, the protests and strikes, and the organizing that made them possible, show that resignation, panic and 'everyone for themselves' are not the only possible responses to the onset of economic hard times. While people will often respond in a conservative and individualist manner at the onset of a crisis, there comes a time when they realize that systemic issues are at play and that only broad, collective action and political alternatives will do. For another, the party and trade-union organizations of the traditional Left are too weakened and compromised by years of adaptation to neoliberalism and dependence on positions in parliament and the state to respond to the challenges thrown up by the hard-Right and the economic crisis. While rightly associated with a range of measures of socio-economic progress, the post-war mediations between the organized working classes, their party, trade-union and social-movement representation and the state itself were never ideal; but after 25 years of neoliberalism they have ceased even to be operative for some time now. In France, repeated waves of mass protest and organizing over the past 13 years have failed to halt the traditional Left's drift toward the Blairite 'centre-Left.' As the Right and ruling elites toy with various ineffective solutions to the crisis, the forces of the 'centre-Left' will be quick to latch on to the handful of 'stimulus' and ersatz 'Keynesian' measures that are thrown into the mix to artfully declare a major breach in the neoliberal fortress. So the crisis is just as likely to deepen the rightward trend of the traditional Left and 'centre-Left' as it is to push these forces in a more radical and combative direction. The new days of action in France provide further confirmation of this analysis. While they could not have occurred without trade-union unity at the top, this unity 'from above' came about in response to pressure 'from below' and simultaneously acts as a trammel on the further development of the current movement. The pressure 'from below' has itself been the result of a surprising and noteworthy development -- the confluence of a substantial segment of public opinion with radical sectors scattered across traditional and new trade-union groupings, local workplace and activist campaigns, the student and international-solidarity movements and the relatively small party-political organizations of the radical Left. How a 'radical Left' can get a wide hearing And this brings us to the particular significance of the NPA. It is as much a product of this surprising confluence of forces as it is a vital ingredient in ensuring that the present unity and momentum are not lost in the face of hard-Right intransigence and 'centre-Left' weakness and perfidy. In other words, the debate on political strategy and organization now occupies centre stage; and the main lesson of the NPA's undeniable success is that a radical-Left political project can both receive a sympathetic hearing and play this strategically essential unifying and galvanizing role, on condition that: 1. Its message consistently targets the systemic origins of the crisis and identifies those responsible for bringing us to the brink of economic and ecological calamity. 2. It contains an iron-clad commitment to the broadest unity 'in the streets' of all forces willing to oppose the right-wing agenda, overall and on an issue-by-issue basis. 3. It confidently enters the electoral, institutional and media fray but strikes a position of defiance and strict independence on the question of electoral and governmental agreements and alliances with the forces of the traditional 'Left' and 'centre-Left' (not to mention centre-Right forces such as those around Francois Bayrou in France and the Liberal Party here in Canada). These forces are beyond redemption as any kind of credible vehicle for popular aspirations and seek to govern at all costs -- in practice along lines that vary only slightly from those of the Right and hard-Right. 4. It prioritizes work among those sectors of the population and country ignored or abandoned by the traditional institutions of the 'Left' and 'centre-Left.' The NPA has, for example, made a priority of organizing in the working-class and immigrant areas that have been hit hard by neoliberal structuring and were the backdrop of the banlieues revolt of late 2005. This is why the topics of racism and the precarious work imposed on young people figure prominently in the NPA's internal discussions. 5. It aims to be a grassroots force, rooted in the actual struggles and debates of workers and young people, eschewing any kind of elitist, rigid and hyper-activist model of organizing and transformation, throwing its doors wide open to seasoned activists and interested newcomers alike, while creating a democratic and transparent framework for collective discussion, decision-making, action and the drawing of balance-sheets. 6. It takes a long-term approach to its project of social and political transformation and understands that we are in an extended period of resistance and development of alternatives to capitalism and imperialism. While history and politics always have surprises in store, especially in a period of deep crisis such as now, the relationship of forces is too unfavourable, and the vision of an alternative too weak, to expect major breakthroughs on an institutional level in the near term. Better to understand this and get down to the serious work of organizing and rethinking than to feed technocratic and armchair illusions about quick fixes and imminent elite-level 'paradigm shifts.' A new generation's New Left Finally, the protest movements in France and the birth of the NPA inaugurate a new chapter in the life of the international radical Left, especially when viewed in tandem with the developments of recent years in Latin America. The fact that the main figure associated with events in France was born in the mid-1970s also signals the emergence of a new generation of radicals. We had a whiff of this trend during the wave of anti-globalization protests ushered in by the Battle of Seattle in 1999. But now it appears to be asserting itself much more forcefully, with a larger and more receptive audience than the one that existed just a short time ago. This, too, is a tremendously important and encouraging development. Nathan Rao attended the founding convention of the NPA in Paris earlier this year. He lives in Toronto and is a supporter of the Socialist Project. He welcomes comments at natrao99@gmail.com.

Broad Left Strategy in action: first seats in Québec

by Paul Kellogg from rabble.ca Amir Khadir, one of the two spokespersons for Québec solidaire (QS), has won a seat in the Quebec National Assembly. Among the many excellent aspects of the Québec Solidaire platform is a call for the Quebec government to pass a motion opposing "any Canadian imperialist intervention in Afghanistan." The QS success represents an important advance for the social justice and anti-war movements in both Quebec and English Canada. Khadir's victory was not just the victory of one individual. In his riding [parliamentary constituency seat] of Mercier, QS won 8861 votes, 38.06 per cent of votes cast, defeating Daniel Turp, a star candidate of the Parti Québécois (PQ) by 872 votes. But in the ridings surrounding Mercier, QS also did extremely well. In Gouin, the other co-spokesperson for QS, Françoise David, came a very close second to the PQ winning 7987 votes (31.95 per cent). QS was formed in February, 2006. Institutionally, it was the coming together of l'Union des forces progressistes (UFP) and Option citoyenne (OC). What this fusion accomplished was to provide a space for the expression of the hopes and dreams of two generations of struggle in Quebec. Those who attended the 1000-strong opening rally, will never forget the emotion - a video showing the history of struggle in Quebec reaching back through the tumultuous decades of the 1960s and 1970s, from the War Measures Act of 1970 and the general strike of 1972, to the women's movement of the 1980s and 1990s, and the anti-globalization and anti-war movements of the 21st century. There was a feeling of history being made. With a seat in the National Assembly, QS has a new tool to add to the historic commitment of the UFP to be a "party of the street and of the ballot box." The visibility that comes from having a sitting member will propel QS into the public eye in a new way. There were some other encouraging results from the election. In particular, the right-wing Action Démocratique du Québec (ADQ), which had soared to second place in the 2007 election, saw its vote collapse by a stunning 694,487, leading to the election night resignation of leader Mario Dumont. But there remain many challenges, of which QS members are very aware. Celebrations of Khadir's victory were tempered by disappointment over Françoise David narrowly failing to join Khadir in the National Assembly. In addition, the overall result was a majority government for Jean Charest and the Liberal Party, a leader and a party who are a known commodity in Quebec politics - committed to defending the interests of corporate power. The story of QS needs to be given much more visibility. Our sisters and brothers in Quebec have taken up the challenge of forging a united alternative to the traditional parties of politics, and have had some real success.

NZ troops in Afghanistan are supporting an imperialist takeover of the country

There are 64,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan - a strategic military occupation of another country by the US and its allies.

Around 200 New Zealand troops are part of the occupying force in Afghanistan. Labour government minister Phil Goff says there's a "strong likelihood" that the troops will stay until at least 2010.

The government's justification is that they're "helping to rebuild the country". The article below on the involvement of Canada's armed forces makes it clear that this is no "peace mission", but a naked imperialist enterprise to control a strategic area of the world - in the eyes the US and its allies. And at the same time support the corporate plunder of Afghanistan's mineral resources. While billions of dollars stand to be made by overseas companies the Afghanistan people continue to live in desperate poverty.

Labour's support for America's global war must end. Bring NZ troops back from Afghanistan.

Canadian workers demand immediate end to war in Afghanistan

by Michael Skinner
from LINKS - International Journal of Socialist Renewal

On 29 May 2009, the delegates at the national convention of the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), representing more than 3 million workers from every region of Canada and Quebec, voted overwhelmingly to demand that the government of Canada immediately end its participation in the illegal war in Afghanistan.

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The fine art of greenwashing

Helen Clark is backing away from grand pronouncements about “carbon neutrality” as fast as new information emerges showing just how serious and imminent the threat of catastrophic climate change is. The Labour government’s planned emissions trading scheme is being widely condemned for excluding NZ’s biggest polluters until many years from now. Large industrial emitters and the farming sector will get "free credits" based on 90 per cent of their 2005 emission levels, which won't start phasing out until 2018, reaching zero twelve years later in 2030! Current evidence emerging from the climate scientists is that tipping points for irreversible and catastrophic climate change may be only 5-10 years away (see Jim Hansen, the Big Ice Melt & the Mainstream Media). What does this say about the government's commitment to cutting greenhouse gas emissions? But emissions trading was never going to be the answer. It was just one the corporates and their government allies thought they could sell us. It’s been a big con-job from the start. Like the European scheme, emissions were never going to be "capped" at a level that might actually hurt the profits of polluters. And anyway, the big polluters can just pass on any extra costs resulting from the scheme. The costs are pushed down (once again!) on to ordinary people who are forced to pay more for electricity, petrol, food, etc. This is one of the points that's made in a new pamphlet by Ian Angus, editor of the Climate and Capitalism website. How to Avoid Action on Climate Change focuses on the Canadian government’s preference for “market mechanisms”. Ian has collected together nine readable essays on “the fine art of greenwashing as practiced by federal and provincial politicians in Canada”. Something NZ's politicians in parliament have shown a skill for. Climate change activists need to be armed with the arguments against “market mechanisms” so that we can then start campaigning for urgent public solutions to the crisis. Ian's pamphlet is a very good place to start. Also read an earlier recently updated pamphlet from Climate and Capitalism, Confronting the Climate Change Crisis: An Ecosocialist Perspective

Canadian workers demand immediate end to war in Afghanistan

by Michael Skinner from LINKS - International Journal of Socialist Renewal On 29 May 2009, the delegates at the national convention of the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), representing more than 3 million workers from every region of Canada and Quebec, voted overwhelmingly to demand that the government of Canada immediately end its participation in the illegal war in Afghanistan. This CLC demand represents a significant consolidation of labour power. Several national unions, notably the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) and the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), had already adopted policies to oppose Canada's participation in the war in Afghanistan. However, some powerful unions whose members work in the rapidly expanding Canadian military and development industries could profit from continuing the war. The women and men of these unions made the difficult decision to stand in solidarity with the working people of Afghanistan rather than act on self-interest. The Afghan war and the Canadian military The ongoing war in Afghanistan continues to kill uncounted thousands of Afghan civilians and cause immeasurable suffering due to horrendous injuries, the displacement of people from their homes and livelihoods, home invasions, arbitrary arrests and torture, sexual abuse and the general humiliation of Afghans. This is an illegal war that cannot be justified by a few extra jobs for Canadian workers. Since the war in Afghanistan began, Canada has become the sixth largest military exporter in the world, according to data collected by the US Congressional Research Service. Canada is now behind only the USA, Russia, the UK, Germany and China in export volume. The US manufactures more than all other military manufacturers combined, so comparing Canada's military industrial complex to the US mega-industry is ridiculous. But, Canada trails China – number five on the list – by only a hundred million dollars worth of exports in an industry that brings billions of dollars into Canada. No one knows exactly how many billions of dollars military exports bring into Canada though. Why not? Because, for the past four years, the Canadian government, citing security concerns, has refused to release much of the data regarding the export of military products to the US – our biggest customer. Canada's own military spending has risen considerably. Since the war began in 2001, Canada rose from the position of 16th to 13th biggest military spender in the world, and from 7th to 6th within NATO, according to a Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives report. Canada's defence budget projects a 37 per cent increase in spending from 2001 to 2010. The Canadian Association of Defence and Security Industries (CADSI) represents more than 500 companies. In an interview with a CBC journalist, CADSI president Tim Page claimed his industry represents about 70,000 jobs in over 177 federal ridings [electorates/electoral constituencies]. This may not seem like a large number of workers, but it represents significant political power. Many of these high-tech jobs are among the best in the country. However, the workers who build the weapons and everything else needed for warfare, as well as the service workers who make the Canadian state function, recognise that it is the shareholders who profit most from the rising fortunes of the companies in Canada's military industrial complex. Corporations such as GM Canada, Bombardier, Bell Helicopter, SNC-Lavalin, CAE Electronics, Pratt & Whitney Canada, Canadian Marconi and Colt Canada are only a few of the Canadian-based military suppliers profiting from the war in Afghanistan. Canadian development aid in Afghanistan The Canadian development industry also profits from the war and occupation. The 1 billion dollars Canada has "pledged'' to spend on development in Afghanistan, from 2001 to 2011, pales in comparison to the 7.2 billion dollars already spent on the military mission. Nonetheless, a billion dollars is a significant sum. However, most development spending returns to Canada as salaries and expenses. Manufacturers as well as service providers such as construction contractors and airlines profit significantly from the development industry – while the little development spending that actually does reach Afghanistan benefits few Afghans. When our research group toured five Afghan provinces in 2007, we were appalled by the miserable conditions most Afghans must live in. Even in the safest areas of the country, where there is no excuse for the occupying forces' failure to reconstruct essential infrastructure, many Afghans do not have even the barest essentials of clean water and adequate sanitation. In Kabul, where the international forces have occupied the city since 2001, less than 29 per cent of the people have access to clean drinking water, according to reports by the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit. Peter McKay, Canada's minister of defence, frequently claims that more than 6 million Afghan children – one third of them girls – have been enrolled in school. However, his claim is not substantiated by Afghan researchers. Girls represent only 3 per cent of students, according to the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission. The children of poor families cannot afford school; they must work to survive. The Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit claims this fact especially inhibits girls from going to school. When we interviewed people in Afghanistan, their experiences of development sounded very much like what Michael Ignatieff had described in his book Empire Lite in 2003. Ignatieff stated: "The rhetoric about helping Afghanistan stand on its own two feet does not square with the hard interest that each Western government has in financing, not the Afghans, but its own national relief organisations. ...These fly a nation's flag over some road or school that a politician back home can take credit for. ... the international's first priority is building their own capacity – increasing their budgets and giving themselves good jobs.'' Since becoming a politician, Ignatieff no longer talks about these issues, but Afghans see this reality every day. Commercial exploitation Despite the fact there is no systemic development of the basic infrastructure necessary for human survival in Afghanistan, massive commercial developments proceed at a rapid pace. The biggest development to date is the Aynak copper mine just a few kilometres from Kabul. This rich mine site was auctioned, in late 2007, to the Chinese metallurgical corporation MCC for a price of more than 3 billion US dollars. The Aynak deposit is the first of more than 1400 state-owned mineral deposits in Afghanistan slated for privatisation in the near future. A Soviet geological survey in the 1970s found – and US and British surveys since 2001 have confirmed – massive deposits of almost every kind of mineral wealth exist in Afghanistan, such as gold, iron, uranium and copper, as well as hydrocarbons, especially coal. Afghanistan is also one of few locations on Earth where the rare element tantalum, also known as coltan, is found. Tantalum is essential in the manufacture of cell phones and laptop computers. The largest previously known source is in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where tantalum mining played a part in the most destructive war, in terms of human casualties, since WWII. Canadian mining giants are competing with US, British, Russian and Chinese companies in a scramble for the rich mineral prizes found in Afghanistan. Financial predictions for the Afghan mining industry are in the unfathomable hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars. But, as an article by Antony Benham in the October 2007 issue of Nature notes, it is unlikely much of this wealth will benefit many Afghans. Development of the transportation and energy infrastructure needed by the mining industry is rapidly proceeding, while ordinary Afghans suffer without the most basic necessities of life. Some sceptics claim that even the electricity to be transported by a transmission network currently under construction funded by the Asian Development Bank is not likely destined for the millions of Afghans without electricity, but will instead be sucked up by electricity hungry ore-processing plants. Whether it is here in Canada, in Latin America, in Africa, throughout Asia, as it is now in Afghanistan, the Aboriginal peoples who live on the land are perceived to stand in the way of what we in the so-called developed world call "development''. The environmental devastation that can be caused by resource extraction is well known, but this is a fact known better by those people directly affected who rely on their land for their livelihood than by anyone else. However, the disciplinary power of the modern state is being used to counter any protest, eliminate all resistance, and clear the land of Aboriginal Peoples wherever it is deemed necessary. The new Afghan theocratic state The destruction of the Taliban regime by US armed forces in 2001 effectively silenced opposition and effectively re-instituted a theocratic regime. A theocratic state was first imposed on Afghans in 1992 when the US helped the mujaheddin gain power by financing their war with billions of dollars against the secular Soviet-backed government. US President Jimmy Carter initially began providing military and other support for the mujaheddin Islamic revolutionaries on 3 July 1979, which then drew the Soviet military into Afghanistan on 25 December 1979. In coming to power, the mujaheddin declared Afghanistan an Islamic republic. The ouster of the mujaheddin by the Taliban in 1996 brought an even greater degree of social and political repression for Afghans, and intensified the theocratic features of the Afghanistan state, often through brutal means. Secular Afghans, those of other faiths, and Muslims who believe in a separation of state and religion have been profoundly disenfranchised by the theocratic state that first gained support from the Western powers in the 1990s. They have remained so by the new theocratic state re-established, under the puppet leadership of President Karzai, by a handful of Western leaders in the Bonn Agreement of 2001. The Bonn Agreement was instituted despite a UN Security Council recommendation issued several weeks earlier that urged that "the new Afghan government should respect the human rights of all Afghan people, regardless of gender, ethnicity or religion''. The Bonn Agreement accomplished, among others, three objectives with profoundly adverse consequences for many Afghans. First, it rewarded the mujaheddin warlords for their decades of services to the USA. Second, it promised the mujaheddin impunity for the many horrendous war crimes they had committed since 1979, which continue to this day during the US-led occupation. Third, it re-instituted the theocratic state as a means of social control. The US State Department reports: "The government requires all citizens to profess a religious affiliation and assumes all Afghans to be Muslim. According to Islamic law, conversion from Islam is punishable by death.'' The US State Department also reports that socialism is illegal in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, because socialists are atheists. Afghan political opponents of many progressive stripes must remain underground fearing retribution from both the Taliban insurgents and the ruling mujaheddin regime. In essence, the only substantive difference between the Taliban and mujaheddin regimes is that one is an intolerant authoritarian theocratic regime bent on resistance to the new world order and the other is an intolerant authoritarian theocratic regime willing and well prepared to profit from engagement with the new world order. Now that the workers of Canada and Quebec have officially declared our solidarity with Afghan workers, it is time to begin building bridges to join our struggles against the new authoritarianism and theocracy in Afghanistan and Western and Canadian imperialism. Michael Skinner is a researcher at the York Centre for International and Security Studies and a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science, York University. In 2007, Skinner and Afghan-Canadian researcher Hamayon Rastgar, representing the Afghanistan Canada Research Group, travelled throughout much of Afghanistan. They listened to Afghan intellectuals, opposition politicians, and particularly the ordinary Afghan workers and peasant farmers whose views are not represented in the Canadian media (read dispatches on TUAW website). You can see a short video of this research, Searching for Development in Afghanistan at www.youtube.com/watch?v=Re6dJtplTUo. Contact: skinnerm@yorku.ca. This article first appeared in The Bullet, the Socialist Project of Canada's e-bulletin.

Québec socialists on the return of socialism

The Return of Socialism By BENOIT RENAUD

from the latest issue of Résistance! Translated by Daphne Lawless

The idea of socialism, of a society without social class divisions, profoundly democratic, uniting all humanity beyond borders and divisions of all sorts, is as old as capitalism itself. Marxist ideas aren’t the cause of the class struggle, but quite the opposite. At the beginning of a new century, repetitive wars awaken a deep longing for peace, the climate crisis makes us conscious of the urgency to change the ways we produce and consume, and the poverty in which most of humanity lives, as well as a growing minority in the rich countries, inspires many campaigns and mobilizations for social justice. More and more people are conscious that imperialist wars, the destruction of the environment and social inequalities are not accidents or anomalies, but rather the inevitable result of a very specific way of organising our societies: capitalism. When the majority of big social and economic decisions are taken by small groups of the wealthy, as at the North American summit this year at Montebello, we shouldn’t be surprised that the needs of the majority carry very little weight. When the logic of the global race for profit guides the decisions of CEOs and governments, preservation of the ecological balance necessarily takes a back seat. When the only thing that counts is to eliminate the competition by any means necessary, there’s only one step from economic competition to war. In the 1970s, the return to ferocious competition on an international scale, after an unusual period of almost exclusive domination by the United States, forced a big swing to the right in every country of the world. Every national ruling class has sought since then to impose on its workers concessions without end in the name of “competitiveness”. This is what we call neoliberalism or globalization. These policies have been introduced everywhere, but not without resistance. The region of the world where the struggle against neoliberalism has generated the biggest and most successful mobilizations has been without doubt Latin America. After a period of brutal defeats, often imposed by dictatorial regimes supported by the United States (with the blessing of Canada), the mass movements of this continent, from peasant associations to indigenous nations, including the communities of the urban slums, have one after the other raised their heads, changing the political landscape of the continent from the 1990s onwards. From the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas in 1994, to the Oaxaca Commune last year, including the mobilization against the failed coup d’etat against Chavez in 2002 and the struggle against privatization of water in Bolivia, we could draw up a long list of exemplary mobilizations which are still sources of inspiration. In Europe, giant mobilizations against neoliberal policies and the war have equally changed the political landscape. As of now, there exists a “left of the left” breaking with the adaptation to liberalism which is corroding the traditional left parties, from British Labour to the German SPD. Québec solidaire is the only example in imperialist North America of a new left party looking to develop an alternative to neoliberalism. The more this new party takes inspiration from the better examples of what has been done in Europe and Latin America, the more difficult it will be to shift its trajectory in a neo-liberal direction. It also owes it to itself to be consistent in its opposition towards the wars and occupations in the Middle East, and to the racism which goes along with these colonial campaigns, like the islamophobic and xenophobic lunacy which has surrounded “reasonable accommodations” [measures by Canadian governments to reduce discrimination against immigrant communities]. Venezuela is currently moving towards the foundation of a new mass political party, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela. This party, which regroups all the political and social currents rallied around the presidency of Hugo Chávez and the process of the Bolivarian Revolution, explicitly seeks to redefine the project of socialism for the 21st century. Situated at the centre of a vast movement of resistance across the continent, this new political process could relaunch the international movement for socialism, in the same way that the mobilizations against the neoliberal summits beginning with Seattle relaunched the critique of capitalism and that the opposition to war in Iraq has made anti-imperialism relevant again. But this time, it’s not a matter of a negative (against war, against neoliberalism) and to some degree spontaneous movement, but a deliberate and positive move towards an alternative. Socialism will not happen by accident. Deep-down transformation of our way of life, of our political and economic structures , of relations between people and between continents, will not happen without the organization of a movement explicitly dedicated to this transformation, and the rallying of hundreds of millions of people to this project. The International Socialist collective inside Québec solidaire aims to regroup those who want to build a movement of this sort, here and now. We believe that the values that unite the thousands of members of QS and the necessities of the struggle against actually-existing capitalism lead in this direction. At the same time, we respect the diversities of points of view and experience of a non-socialist majority inside the party at this point in time. If you think that we need to put an end to capitalism as soon as possible, before it does more damage to our societies and the environment, join us and together we will search for the best ways to contribute to the specific and localized movements of resistance, as well as to the reinvention of a global project of radical transformation.