From: "Miquel Mayol" <mmayol@iname.com>

18-1

Interesante lista y art¡culo perd¢n a los que no dominen el ingl‚s. Si
alguien se quiere tomar la molestia de traducirlo, o pasarlo por un
traductor inform tico que lo haga a "lo indio" (sin querer ofender a nadie)
supongo que ser  bienhallado por los dem s.

-----Mensaje original-----
De: Green Left Parramatta [mailto:glparramatta@greenleft.org.au]
Enviado el: s bado, 15 de enero de 2000 6:32
Para: map@pencil.math.missouri.edu
Asunto: [leftwing] Marxism 2000 conference great success


From: Green Left Parramatta <glparramatta@greenleft.org.au>


The following article appeared in the latest
issue of Green Left Weekly (http://www.greenleft.org.au),
Australia's radical newspaper.

*****************************************************

Marxism 2000 conference reaffirms Marxism in the 21st century

By Margaret Allum

``In the world, the tendency today is to bury Marxism and
communism. The equation is simple: the collapse of the European
socialist bloc is the end of the ideology and the theory that
inspired their existence. But Marxist and communist ideas have
today, perhaps more than ever, the possibility of demonstrating
their viability.''

With these words Maria Luisa Fernandez, the Cuban consul-general,
opened the Marxism 2000 conference in Richmond, just outside of
Sydney, from January 5 to 9. Her speech followed a welcome by
Colin Giles, a representative of the local Darug Aboriginal
people.

Marxism 2000, initiated and organised by the Democratic Socialist
Party (DSP), was the second Asia Pacific Solidarity Conference;
the first was held in April 1998, also in Sydney.

Far from being a collective international obituary to the ideas
and practice of Marxism, Marxism 2000 was instead a vibrant
reassertion of the urgent need to build an alternative to the
capitalist system and a reminder that such an alternative is the
only way to solve massive global inequalities.

DSP political committee member Peter Boyle, in a
speech on the first day of the conference, strongly
reasserted the relevance of Marxism in the 21st century, a theme
taken up by many of the subsequent speakers. Boyle said that
whenever capitalism experienced one of its regular crises, even
commentators in the establishment media would ponder whether
Marx, in his analysis of the world economic system, was right
after all.

For the 450 participants in the conference, the question of
challenging the profit-driven policies of neo-liberal governments
and corporations was not an academic one. Most of the 53
international guests were from parties and organisations in the
Asia Pacific region. All are building socialist movements to
challenge the pro-big business economic and social policies of
their own governments -- governments which are working in
conjunction with or are under extreme pressure from the US-led
International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank. Most Australian
attendees are also involved in democratic and progressive
struggles in this country.

Globalisation and internationalism

A lively challenge to the pessimistic world view of
``globalisation'' was presented by international keynote speaker
James Petras, a professor of sociology at New York University and
an expert on Latin American politics. It's not a new insight, he
said, to point out that the capitalist economy is operating on an
global scale, it has been for many years.

The propaganda about ``globalisation'', he said, was aimed at
demobilising those who challenge capitalism. It seeks to instill
a belief that the struggle against ones' own government is no
longer relevant or possible, and that the worldwide capitalist
system is invincible.

Because every company still operates under the laws and
regulations of the nation-state to which it principally belongs,
Petras argued that even if a company employs labour and utilises
materials from many different countries, struggles against that
company will continue to occur, and can still be effective, on a
national, as well as international scale. The task of socialists
is still to organise against the small layer of the rich and
powerful within their own countries, he argued, while
simultaneously developing strong and binding forms of
international solidarity with others elsewhere.

It was this internationalism that flavoured many of
the more than 100 plenaries, talks and workshops
during the conference. Many participants spoke of increasing
political links between struggles in different countries,
particularly within the same geographical region.

Some international speakers, particularly speakers from the
Indian subcontinent whose governments are involved in bitter
rivalries, said that the conference provided the first
opportunity to meet with and plan collaboration between
socialists who, despite close geographical proximity, had been
unable to meet previously. Others, such as the representatives
from different organisations on the Philippines left, found that
the conference opened up space for a dialogue that had previously
been difficult.

DSP political committee member Doug Lorimer presented the party's
analysis of the international neo-liberal forces and the
prospects for resistance to this by socialist movements around
the world. Sue Bolton, from the DSP's national executive,
described the fight back against the Coalition government's
offensive in Australia.

John Percy, the DSP's national secretary, outlined the party's
views on the best basis for international left collaboration and
socialist renewal. He argued for internationalism, solidarity and
collaboration through a non-sectarian network of socialist
parties, rather than a centralised international structure.

He explained that past and present attempts at forming tight
internationals, whose member parties related only to a narrow
range of international collaborators, had restricted the
opportunities for building a healthy worldwide movement for
socialism. ``Because we're internationalists'', he said, ``we're
desperate to help others to build revolutionary parties, to build
better collaboration, to build a real network, to build parties
that can make revolutions, in all the countries of the world''.

East Timor and Indonesia

The independence struggle of the people of East Timor and the
fight for democracy in Indonesia were given prominence at this
conference, having been high on the list of priorities for the
DSP's international solidarity efforts for many years.

Avelino da Silva, the secretary-general of the Socialist Party of
Timor (PST) and a member of the East Timor Transitional Council,
received a rousing welcome from conference delegates. He spoke of
the transitional period to full independence and the enormous
task of rebuilding East Timor, both physically and politically.

Da Silva said that international solidarity with the struggle of
the East Timorese had been instrumental to their victory, and
thanked all those who had displayed this internationalism. Da
Silva and Naldo Rai from Fretilin later discussed strategies for
the left in East Timor in a well attended workshop.

One of the few political parties within Indonesia that displayed
such solidarity with the people of East Timor was the People's
Democratic Party (PRD). PRD president Budiman Sujatmiko, recently
released after three and a half years imprisonment for political
opposition to Indonesia's Suharto regime, was welcomed with
thunderous applause from an audience including many people who
had campaigned tirelessly for his release.

Joining him in presenting the PRD's view of the political
challenges facing the radical mass movement were members of the
Indonesian Committee for Socialism, Gatot, Machmud and Jazz. PRD
leaders Dita Sari, also released from imprisonment in 1999, and
Mugianto, from the PRD's international department, addressed the
conference on efforts to build the movement for full democracy in
Indonesia. They said there was a need for a party which would
encourage workers to pick up where the student movement of 1998,
which had caused the overthrow of Suharto, had left off.

Struggles against the Indonesian dictatorship were also described
by representatives from the Australia-Aceh Association and the
Free Papua Movement.

Rebuilding trade unions

Dita Sari, who is also the chairperson of the Indonesian National
Front for Labour Struggle, spoke on a panel bringing together
trade union militants from across Asia. Activists from Australia,
Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Nepal, South Korea
and Sri Lanka joined her in a discussion of the possibilities for
revolutionary trade union collaboration in the region.

Speakers stressed the need for international solidarity between
workers' struggles, especially in the wake of the economic crisis
that hit the Asian region two years ago, causing mass
unemployment and widespread increases in poverty. Dita Sari
estimated that almost 30 million workers lost their jobs during
the economic crisis in Indonesia.

A representative from the newly formed Power of the Working Class
organisation in South Korea told of worsening conditions for the
South Korean working class. He argued that four features were
necessary for trade union effectiveness and strength --
democracy, independence, militancy and solidarity. Identifying
the lack of international contact as one weakness of the South
Korean movement, he explained that the conference was providing
opportunities to overcome isolation. A video of the 1100-day
long, ongoing protest of workers dismissed by steel giant POSCO
was shown and many conference participants signed a petition
demanding that the company reinstate the workers (see article on
page 22).

Farooq Tariq, Labour Party Pakistan general secretary, explained
the state of workers' struggle in Pakistan, where Islamic
fundamentalist organisations are now infiltrating the trade
unions. Only 6% of Pakistan's working class is organised in trade
unions, he said.

Other sessions on trade union activism included a workshop on the
experiences of rank and file challenges to bureaucratic union
leaderships in Australia, such as Members First in the Community
and Public Sector Union in the ACT and the Workers First group,
which recently won leadership of the Australian Manufacturing
Workers Union in Victoria.

A plenary session on strategies for Marxist trade unionists
enabled the exchange of ideas on how workers can be organised
through trade unions and, through their experiences, become
involved in the fight for socialism. Speakers described tactics
and strategies for winning workers to socialism in advanced
capitalist countries, where one of the main obstacles remains the
grip of social democratic forces, such as the ALP in Australia,
on the trade union movement.

Barry Sheppard, from Solidarity in the United States, maintained
that unions must break with the capitalist state in order to
become effective agents for workers' struggles. Discussion of
Marxist strategies for organising workers in less economically
developed countries centred on issues of union independence and
democracy, but also on working with other sectors such as
students, peasants and the urban poor.

South Asia

Tariq explained the effect on the Pakistani people of the October
military coup. The coup's leaders have billed their takeover as
necessary to end the corruption of the previous government. Tariq
explained, however, that far from the military providing a
different direction for Pakistan, its leaders are carrying out
the dictates of the IMF, including privatisation of public
utilities, a process started by the government that the military
overthrew.

Tariq also said that religious fundamentalism, which is now
presenting an ostensibly anti-imperialist face, is a growing
problem.

B. Sivaraman, a member of the central committee of the Communist
Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) and the editor of Liberation,
reported on the rapid rise of the Hindu right wing in his
country, and on the neo-liberal agenda pushed by parties
committed to India's further subordination to the world
capitalist economy. Under these conditions, India's working
people, the largest labouring class in any underdeveloped
country, face extraordinary challenges, but a movement uniting
the millions of workers and poor peasants could lead to a
powerful socialist force.

Sivaraman also discussed the party's stance on the issue of
Kashmir, the subject of a bitter struggle between the Indian and
Pakistani governments, which many fear may trigger the use of
nuclear weapons.

Other international guest speakers from the Indian subcontinent
included Nurul Anowar, general secretary of the Bangladesh
Agricultural and Farm Labourers Federation, Pradip Nepal and
Rajan Bhattarai from the Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist
Leninist) and Priyantha Pushpakumara Wickramasingh from the Nava
Sama Samaja Party of Sri Lanka. The issue of self-determination
of the Tamil people came up as a major difference on the Sri
Lankan left, and a member of the Australasian Federation of Tamil
Associations addressed the Tamil national liberation struggle in
a workshop.

Other questions of national liberation were raised throughout the
five days, including the break up of former Yugoslavia and the
fight of the Cordillera and Bangsa Moro peoples in the
Philippines.

The left in the Philippines was represented by Sonny Melencio,
Reihana Mohideen and Rasti Delizo from the Socialist Party of
Labour, Yusop Abutazil from Alab-Katipunan and Archie
Buenaventura and Thelma Carnaje-Martinez from the National
Federation of Labour. Francisco Nemenzo, president of the
University of the Philippines and long-term Philippines socialist
had been billed as a keynote speaker but was refused permission
to attend the conference by the Philippines' President Estrada.
Maung Maung Than from the Free Burma Committee, and Vikki Johns
from the Bougainville Freedom Movement also prepared workshop
presentations.

Socialist movements in Europe and North America were represented
by activists from Alternatives in Quebec, Canada, the
Revolutionary Communist League in France, the Scottish Socialist
Party and Solidarity in the US. Solidarity activists Caroline
Lund and Malik Miah were unable to attend due to illness, but
Barry Sheppard and Hayden Perry from Solidarity reported on
different aspects of the US socialist movement. Sheppard, a
former leader of the US Socialist Workers Party, presented an
educational series on the history and decline of that party.

Petras outlined the three waves of left parties and organisations
in Latin America from the 1960s to present day organisations such
as the Mexican Zapatistas, the Workers Party in Brazil and
peasant movements for land reform. Speakers from the PSTU in
Brazil and the MIR in Chile also addressed the conference.

>From the Middle East, representatives of the Worker Communist
Party of Iraq spoke and Green Left Weekly correspondent Adam
Hanieh reported on the latest news from the Palestinian struggle.
Another Green Left Weekly correspondent, Renfrey Clarke, recently
returned from almost a decade in Russia, summarised his rich
experience of Russian politics in a talk on the lessons of the
collapse of the USSR and the Eastern bloc countries.

Educational

Green Left Weekly editor and DSP political committee member Lisa
Macdonald addressed the question of women's liberation and its
relation to the fight for socialism. A range of talks and
workshops examined issues faced by women today and explained the
Marxist analysis of women's oppression and liberation.

A Marxist educational series took up some of the classic writings
of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky and James P. Cannon, and Marxist
economics and philosophy, while issue-based workshops addressed
the environment crisis, the student movement, the history of
revolutionary struggle and propaganda tools for socialist
activists today.

As at many conferences organised by the DSP, the politics
continued well into the night, but in a more relaxed and
unstructured style. Many of the international guests braved the
stage to join in a Songs of Struggle evening, and what was
sometimes lacking in talent was make up for in enthusiasm.

A rally featuring the work of the DSP, plus a multimedia
presentation, showcased the breadth of political struggles in
which the party is involved. Finally, political satire came to
the fore with a cabaret on the last night of the conference.

The last conference session ended with a passionate singing of
the socialist anthem, the ``Internationale''. The fact that the
rendition included several language versions sung simultaneously

embodied the internationalist spirit that ran through this
overwhelmingly successful Marxist conference.

[Future issues of Green Left Weekly and Links magazine (see
advertisement on page 21) will carry a range of articles based on
talks presented at the conference. More information is also
available on the DSP's web site at <http://www.dsp.org.au/>.]
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