In answer to media questions after his speech on the union link (9 July), Ed Miliband was asked specifically about whether the Unison political fund arrangements might provide a model for the shift to 'opting-in' to overt political affiliation for which he is looking.
He said that it might be part of the answer. It is therefore important to understand what the Unison arrangements actually are. Unison does not have two political funds (the law does not provide for this). In law, Unison has one political fund with two sections. The two sections are described (and accounted for) as if they were distinct funds, however.
The General Political Fund (GPF) is used like the political funds of non-affiliated trade unions, for general political campaigning, subject to the proviso that it cannot be used to support a political party. About two thirds of Unison members who haven't opted out altogether pay into the GPF. The GPF is administered by a committee of the national executive council, consisting exclusively of, and elected exclusively by, executive members who pay into the GPF. Formally it is not otherwise accountable to Unison's conference or NEC (although in practice it is at the disposal of the union generally).
The Affiliated Political Fund (APF) - known in recent years as 'Unison Labour Link' - is used like the political funds of affiliated trade unions, to pay our affiliation and for donations to the Labour Party. It also bears the cost of the separate structure of regional and national meetings which administer the APF, which has its own operational rules and is not directly accountable to Unison's conference or executive. Approximately a third of Unison members who pay into our political fund are in the APF.
Existing members can choose, at any point, to switch between the two sections of the political fund, to opt-out altogether or (for a small additional payment) to be a member of both sections of the political fund.
When they join, new members are offered a choice to tick one of two boxes for each section of the fund. Many don't. Those who don't are sent a reminder. Many don't reply.
Because they have not opted out of the (in law) one political fund (just not chosen between two different sections) these new members are then allocated administratively, 50% to the GPF and 50% to the APF.
Without this administrative allocation process, if the only members who were allocated to the APF were those who made a positive choice, the proportion of APF payers - that is, those whose money will go to Labour - would fall well below 33% in a few years.
This isn't the time or place for a detailed history of the Unison arrangements and their consequences. Unison's unique arrangements, which exist because of the need to broker a merger twenty years ago between a non-affiliated union and two smaller affiliated unions, should not however be characterised as an 'opt-in' arrangement, nor do they deliver the individuated relationship between trade unionists and the Labour Party which Ed Miliband appears to seek.
In his search for a 'Clause 4 moment' or that imaginary middle ground, Ed Miliband has simultaneously alienated millions of trade unionists while making himself look weak as he wrestles with his left of centre instincts and his downright Blairite influences (or pragmatism as he would call it). During his speech today in London to party members, Ed made the classic mistake of reaching out to 'ordinary union members' in the national interest, implying that he wanted Labour to speak for them, not 'union bosses'.
His appeal to 'individual trade unionists' to actively join the Labour Party and for the union-link to change from an 'opt-out' to an 'opt-in' system for 'associate members' will have a number of serious consequences, both political and financial.
Financially Labour stands to lose millions of pounds and potentially create an even greater democratic deficit than already present within the Labour Party. Given the apathy toward voting in any kind of individualised process from the public right through to union members, Ed’s claims that his plan will actually lead to increasing Labour’s already poor membership level of 200,000 is fanciful at best.
Miliband plays into the Tory led mantra, ably abetted by right wing media commentators, that the Labour Party is perceived to be in the pockets of the unions and that this is somehow an obstacle to getting elected. Evidence is cited that union membership is historically low (although there has seen a small rise this year) particularly in the private sector where union membership stands at around 14 percent of the workforce.
Anti-union laws
Let’s be clear. The reason union membership has not shot up under austerity is because union power has been severely weakened whether by regressive laws or by constant misrepresentations of what unions are and what they do on a day to day basis. Workers who are suffering who are not politically engaged often say to me: 'What’s the point in joining? They can’t help me.' Although that is factually inaccurate this perception flows from the fact workers know individually they have no real power. The rolling back of collective bargaining agreements and rigid laws on balloting members for strike action remain the two biggest obstacles to trade union recruitment. Only 35% of workers are now covered by collective agreements.
If trade unions are not able to win better pay and conditions for their members, confidence declines and workers outside of the labour movement will not want to get involved. The Tory government understands this perfectly, which is why they have increased the time a worker has to have worked from one year to two years before they can claim unfair dismissal. Changes to the costs of tribunals will see unions having to fork out millions just to see workers get a fair hearing or claim unfair dismissal.
A campaign launched recently by Unite, the RMT and several other unions – the Campaign for Trade Union Freedom - seeks to form a broad alliance to change the law and simply allow trade unionists a more level playing field with the employer.
Under-reported successes
Despite these restrictions and an aggressive media, trade unions have been successful in mobilising thousands to attend demonstrations, raised wages and conditions for millions and have joined up with other social movements to fight the bedroom tax – something which Ed refuses to promise to reverse if he is elected. What other NGO can claim that record?
The presentation by the mainstream media that the unions are a 'special interest' group acting in the interests of some worker elite could not be further from the truth. Being a labour correspondent for over 4 years, it is clear to me that the union movement is a diverse place, containing both left wing and right wing opinions. But the common thread is the shared interested for a better deal at work.
Some of the most exciting and successful campaigns of trade unions with employers receive little to no media coverage. One of the biggest industrial campaigns led by the very people Ed claimed to be speaking to today was the Sparks dispute two years ago. The 25+ week dispute against construction employers who formed an unholy alliance to slash wages by 35 percent and enforce new contracts on to workers without consulting their unions would have got through if union activists hadn’t taken direct action – often in defiance of Britain’s labour laws on balloting and picketing. Many of these employers have been implicated in the current blacklisting scandal such as Balfour Beatty.
And the motivation for this dispute? A hard left faction trying to ruin industry as 'Labour MP' Simon Danczuk would no doubt label it? No. It was about survival, of both the workers themselves and their industry. It was about workers wanting to live like decent human beings and about knowing the value of their labour and fighting for it.
If Ed wants to reach out to these people, rather than alienating working class voters, he will need to enact some of his union affiliates’ basic social policies to kick-start the economy, to protect the vulnerable and to simply offer the electorate an alternative to 'more cuts' at the next general election. Failure to do so will give greater credence to RMT calls for a new workers party to be set up in Labour’s place.
On 11 September it is the 40th anniversary of the event in Chile which marked a historical turning point in the 20th century. The violent and tragic overthrow of Salvador Allende’s government with the first explicitly socialist elected head of state, seemed at the time, and even more in retrospect, to mark the end of a period when socialists could see possibilities of real advances across the world. General Pinochet's coup and subsequent regime, both strongly supported by the US, reflected very faithfully the ruthless nature and the neoliberal policies of international capital as it fought to eliminate such challenges to its ascendancy.
Some Chileans who came to Britain as refugees from imprisonment and torture in the 1970s have been mindful of the possibility that they may not live to see the 50th anniversary of the coup, so they decided to make to make the 40th anniversary a significant commemorative year. A national Chile40Years On committee was formed to support and facilitate as many activities as possible during 2013 to mark the 40th anniversary of the coup. The events will include the mixture of music, poetry, political analysis and discussion which was brought to Britain by those refugees.
The original initiative came from Sheffield where the exiled Chilean community has maintained a high level of organisation. Very soon a network of groups across the country became evident as can be seen from the website www.chile40yearson.org. and one of the early aims was quickly achieved as the next generation have vigorously picked up the baton of organisation in many instances. The network also aims to encourage solidarity with socialist movements in Latin America today by reminding us of what was possible to do in the 1970s.
Events across the country include a film about the Rolls Royce workers refusing to repair Chilean aero engines following the coup at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, a presentation at the Welsh National Eisteddfod, a display of photographs and patchworks in Sheffield, produced by the wives of Chilean prisoners, a picket of the Chilean Embassy on 11th September, and a programme at the biennial El Sueno Existe Victor Jara festival of music and political debate, which focuses this year on the commemoration of Allende and the coup.
The El Sueno Existe Victo Jara festival from 30 August to 1 September in Machynlleth, Wales, will demonstrate vividly the combination of cultural creativity and political purpose which so characterised Chile in the 1960s and 1970s. Contributors to the political discussions include: Victor Figueroa Clarke, author of a fothcoming book on Salvador Allende; Adam Feinstein biographer of Neruda; Jeremy Corbin MP; Chris Searle, compiler of Classrooms of Resistance; Andy Croft, poet and publisher of ‘His Hands were Gentle’, an anthology of Victor Jara’s songs; and Mike Gatehouse, secretary of the Chile Solidarity Committee in the 1970s.
There will be film footage of interviews with Chilean student leaders, and it is hoped that a representative of the Mapuche people will contribute. Music and performance include Chilean musician Osvaldo Torres, a founder member of the band Illapu, Silvia Balducci with Chilean poet Alfredo Cordal presenting the music of Violeta Parra Chilean dance troupe Grupo Del Sur and international band Amigo Artista with revolutionary rhythms for the Saturday night pachanga.
United Friends and Family Campaign procession. Credit: Newham Monitoring Project
Today’s new development in the long-running exposure of undercover police targeting campaigners has suddenly became very personal. The Guardian reported that covert officers from the former Special Demonstration Squad had spied on a number of organisations concerned with corruption and harassment within the Metropolitan Police, including the east London community group Newham Monitoring Project (NMP), and on justice campaigns for people who had died in custody. I have been an activist for NMP for 23 years and from 1997 to 2007 was the secretary of the United Families and Friends Campaign, an umbrella group of custody death families. It seems likely my name appeared in some of the secret so-called ‘intelligence’ reports.
I’m disturbed that NMP was targeted but not entirely shocked. In some ways it might be seen as a positive reflection on our effectiveness in exposing cases of police misconduct and how worried senior officers had become about the damage that the actions of some of their officers was inflicting on the Met's reputation. I certainly know the police have never been able to get their heads around what motivates independent grassroots activism: how campaigns emerge from practical casework rather than, say, an attempt to recruit people to a party and how supporting individuals and families suffering injustice makes the anger that drives a desire for answers feel very personal.
Furthermore, the fact that a decision was made to spy on an organisation whose events were open to the public and whose activities were reported in great detail in our annual reports and publicity says more about the Metropolitan police than it does about NMP: it illustrates the deep level of resistance to accountability within London’s police during the period when the Special Demonstration Squad were snooping around our activities.
However, I’m appalled and angry too, that campaigns NMP advised and supported that were set up and sustained by bereaved families struggling for justice for their loved ones after a death in police custody – always in the face of overwhelming hostility from every part of the criminal justice system – may have been targeted for covert surveillance, for no other reason than to try and undermine them. I can only imagine that, in the absence of any actual ‘plotting’ by these campaigns, undercover officers were simply busy trying to find out more about families' legal strategies or looking for gossip and rumour that they could use to smear ordinary people forced into extraordinary circumstances by grief and the need to find the truth.
On top of the allegations of serious sexual misconduct and betrayal by undercover police and the stories of identities stolen from dead babies, the shameful targeting of the bereaved now means the case for an independent public inquiry is overwhelming. The Home Secretary’s insistence that the current investigation by Derbyshire’s Chief Constable is adequate lacks any credibility. We need a far-reaching and robust inquiry to find out what so-called ‘intelligence’ was gathered by officers, who ordered the surveillance and how it was used. Just as importantly, we urgently need to know to what extent the successors to the Special Demonstration Squad, such as the National Domestic Extremism Unit, are still secretly targeting campaigners.
Personally, I and other NMP activists also really want to know the fake identity and the real name of the officer that we may have inadvertently worked with in good faith. I want to know what kind of person pretends to support campaigns for justice but instead was secretly working to try and prevent the truth from ever emerging. For the sake of the transparency and accountability we have always demanded, the Metropolitan police owe all of us that, especially all the people we have supported over the years.
Because of ill health, I won’t be able to attend the People’s Assembly on Saturday. For me that’s frustrating; I was looking forward to hearing people’s ideas for action and experiences in campaigning.
As Owen Jones and others have said, it’s unacceptable that at this stage there is no broad-based anti-austerity campaign. The People’s Assembly is a welcome step in rectifying that weakness.
However, it’s being held at a time when anti-austerity activity is at a lower level than one would expect given the provocations. The pensions dispute, which seemed for a while likely to light the fuse, fizzled out as unions made their separate peaces. Direct action has also ebbed.
In Spain, there’s hardly a city, town or village without prominent anti-cuts posters and graffiti. Hardly a day passes without the media reporting an anti-austerity action of some kind. Of course, austerity is taking a much harsher form in Spain than here, and there is a different political culture, in which regionalism plays a big part. But the sharp contrast with the streets of England (I don’t feel qualified to speak of the situation in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland) also reflects the initiatives taken in Spain by the unions and the left.
How do we make the anti-austerity message present in everyday life, and across the country? At the moment we don’t even have a widely recognised logo or symbol for opposition to cuts (in Spain they use a red circle and bar imposed over a scissors for a clear cut NO CUTS message). Here it’s less a matter of creating that kind of thing out of nothing than finding what’s already out there and generalising it.
Choices for the PA
It’s common ground that the movement against austerity has to be broad-based, inclusive, politically plural. But inevitably it also faces choices and therefore “divisions”.
Of course, we want and need the TUC, the trade union leaderships and the structures of the labour movement “on board”. But we also need and have to ask for more than nominal support. There’s obviously the particular question of industrial action (or its absence). Union leaders are right up to a point when they say they cannot simply issue orders for an all-out strike or whatever; the will has to be present and discernible among the members, not just the activists. But their risk-aversion and inertia is weakening the anti-austerity forces and has to be challenged. This is not to suggest that we scapegoat union leaders for our wider frustrations but we do need to place demands on them. In particular, I’d like to ask: for what battle are they keeping their powder dry? If not now, when?
Recent statements by Ed Miliband, Ed Balls and Stephen Twigg have made it clear that Labour will sustain the grip of austerity and depending on the economic situation may intensify it. An anti-austerity strategy or movement that places any faith in an incoming Labour government would be self-defeating. At local level, Labour councils – already corrupted by managerialism – are becoming agents of austerity. The movement can’t avoid challenging them just because they are Labour rather than Tory or Lib-Dem controlled. I hope the PA can somehow articulate a clear demand that councillors of whatever party vote against cuts, evictions, privatisations.
The NHS
The NHS is the most popular and widely used public service. Its dismantling surely ought to be a centrepiece of resistance to austerity. In mixing cuts with “reform” and privatisation, the attack on the NHS illustrates powerfully what austerity really is and who it benefits. Yet we have not yet been able to stage a major national demonstration or action of any kind in defence of the NHS. Where local hospitals are threatened, people turn out in their thousands. Why is it so hard to get proportionate numbers to rally to the NHS as a whole?
In this case, there can’t be much doubt that a big part of the problem is the absence of leadership and initiative. Neither health workers nor patients have been given much opportunity to participate in any kind of common defence of the NHS. It’s also true and a significant problem that union implantation among health workers is patchy. In my frequent hospital visits I see the fatalism of NHS workers and I can understand it. It’s the upshot of accumulated disappointments. Labour preceded the Tories in undermining the NHS. In the last few years, the value of their pay has declined, for some by 15% or more. But they have been given no lead, no focus, no strategy. This applies also to the other side of the NHS equation, the patients / users who have no voice and no effective vehicle for participation. The patient advocacy charities – each disease has at least one – are resolutely apolitical and in many cases far too close to Big Pharma. Nonetheless, one thing that does unite, for example, many millions of cancer sufferers in this country is they will be negatively effected by a weakened, fragmented NHS.
I don’t know how we address these issues which is why I would have liked to hear what others have to say in the NHS discussion at the PA. It offers a rare chance to discuss NHS defence strategy as a whole (beyond the local). However, I’m sure there won’t be time enough to do more than touch on many questions. So perhaps in addition to follow-up local people’s assemblies there could be follow-up sectional People’s Assemblies on the NHS (or benefits or jobs, etc.) convened on a regional or national basis.
The development of the PA
As for the role of the PA itself: I hope it’s not seen as a “brain centre” or HQ or regulating body in relation to the movement. Its role is to facilitate and fertilise. The local assemblies that are expected to follow will have (at least) two hard tasks: one, to draw in previously inactive people in significant numbers, and two, to formulate and implement plans for collective action, which may include civil disobedience.
It may be that the anti-austerity feeling in England is just waiting for a spark to ignite it. Some act of resistance that galvanises the latent sense of intolerable injustice.
Open, transparent and participatory discussions and decision-making should become built-in, customary, in the functioning of the PA at all levels. Most will agree with that but it will only become a reality if participants insist on it.
The question of the relation of “platform” to “floor” at the PA is already being debated. With the very large number of speakers to be accommodated it may prove unsatisfactory for many who want to make a contribution. It’s understandable that in trying to build a broad and diverse coalition, to represent its parts and its various fronts of struggle, organisers end up with unwieldy platforms and awkward choices in the allocation of time. The balance isn’t easy to strike. But the mistake to avoid is erring on the side of “platform” (tipping the balance away from the floor). It has a history. Assembling a platform is not the same as assembling a movement or giving it real representation.
I hope one thing we’ll all acknowledge this weekend is that we’re in for a very long and difficult struggle. Persistence is a virtue we’ll have to cultivate.
How would you feel if the UK government shut down the BBC overnight?
On 12 June, without an iota of prior deliberation or debate, the Greek government announced that the state broadcaster (ERT), including its archives, radio stations, and orchestra were to be shut down. The closure, widely perceived as an attempt to silence opposition voices from within ERT, deprives Greece of a public outlet for the free transmission of information and a consistently high-quality source of debate, resulting in the loss of 2,700 jobs. Mainstream media has reported a recent court decision putatively annulling the closure, portraying it as a setback for the governing coalition. The court decision actually supports government policy: it only requires that ERT be reopened, while explicitly granting that all current ERT staff have legally been made redundant. Moreover, and despite appearances to the contrary, the two junior partners to the governing coalition (centre-left Pasok and Dimar) have lent support to the redundancy-allowing decision.
What has been the reaction on the part of the Greek left? One tactic has invested in popular reaction, and another in parliamentary opposition. The rationale behind the first tactic, explicitly—if reluctantly—adopted in tandem by the Coalition of the Radical Left (Syriza) and the Greek Communist Party (KKE) goes something like this: as long as the governing coalition is not toppled by its two junior partners, popular reaction might force it to reverse the closure. The second tactic has consisted in bringing legislation into parliament to annul the relevant law. The rationale behind it seems to be that the governing coalition might thereby lose support sufficient to sustain the closure, or to precipitate its downfall.
Questions of tactics
Both tactics suffer from similar defects: they are over-optimistic regarding popular support, and the responsiveness of parliament, while giving government the initiative. On the one hand, popular support has yet to grow sufficiently to force a government row-back on the closure. And even if it did, merely annulling the closure would return the situation to the status quo ante, that is, the state of affairs containing the very conditions of crisis, wage cuts, unemployment, and futurelessness for ERT. These eventualities cannot be reversed without a change of government annulling the memoranda Greece has signed up to (which consign it to increasing misery and barbarism for decades to come, by the way).
The parliamentary tactic, on the other hand, is founded on deep-rooted parliamentary illusions. First off, any bill proposing closure-reversal is very unlikely to pass in any form, for it implies dissolution of the governing coalition. Neither Pasok nor Dimar have the decency to accept this, despite their flimsy late-night barks over ‘authoritarianism’. But what’s most interesting is what comes after. When the parliamentary tactic fails, the governing coalition will demand that all stakeholders (including the parties that carried the anti-closure bill to parliament) withdraw their active support to former employees now occupying ERT, and allow police to clear the building for its trimmed-down successor, in accordance with court orders. Any failure to comply with this demand will be dubbed a violation of ‘legitimate’ democratic interests expressed by the Greek parliament. What kind of answer will the proponents of ERT offer? This is where the plot thickens.
Urgent demands
Under present circumstances, the protection of ERT’s workers is of paramount moral and strategic significance. Indeed, it is a litmus test for the left, and especially for the leadership of Syriza: any move towards the ‘law’ and ‘order’ slyly propagated by the ruling coalition implies betrayal of the Greek constitution, of democratic principle, and of the workers themselves. But a state-owned-ERT-without-cuts-or-layoffs is not presently on the political table, and promises for future nationalisations are not enough. ERT workers must be supported today at their actual place of work. The demand for a worker-controlled, de facto non-state-controlled ERT therefore acquires unprecedented urgency. The left must defend that demand, with all its rich political, ideological and organisational implications.
This discussion inevitably leads to a more fundamental premise: that the very logic of a state, or ‘public’ television, indeed of state ownership and control more generally, has unsound foundations. More prosaically: state television is, by definition, an apparatus of the (bourgeois) state. State-run telecommunications constitute the central nervous system of the state’s ideological apparatus, as it were, and so are of considerable significance to the reproduction of national capitals. The sooner we wake up to this basic truth, the sooner we’ll rid ourselves of illusions about their emancipatory potential. There is, therefore, a tint of irony to the left’s renewed vows of fidelity to its once-reviled state broadcaster.
Property and prospects
Of course the government made its decision precisely because ERT was deemed unsuccessful in its role as governmental mouthpiece. But it does not follow that state TV is not an apparatus of the Greek capitalist state. Naturally something similar is true of almost all hospitals, schools, and universities in Greece, and no one in their right mind would fail to oppose their closure or deterioration. Yet the main reason why the left should defend state ownership in all of these cases has to do with the prospect of transforming them into cells of worker ownership and control. State forms of property, even at their most democratic, imply bureaucratic hierarchies, a mere choice over one’s masters. Such hierarchies are not eradicated by ministerial seal, parliamentary acts, or party decisions, but by people taking production decisions into their own hands.
What does all this mean? The left parties that recently joined voices outside the main ERT buildings should now join forces for the protection and defence of a new, free ERT, under the ownership and control of its employees. The history of ERT, along with the social possibilities opened up by its infrastructure, can set the tone for a generalised counteroffensive, ‘despotic inroads’ against the devastating onslaught of the memoranda, with a view to the most rigorous expansion of workers’ control throughout Greek society.
Nicholas Vrousalis is a lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Cambridge
The movement on the streets of São Paulo. Photo: Movimento Passe Livre
Massive protests have exploded in numerous Brazilian cities in the last week over public transit fare hikes, preparations for the World Cup, political corruption and general frustration with the poor quality of public services.
On Monday June 17, there were huge demonstrations in 12 capital cities, including more than 100,000 people each in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. In the capital city, Brasília, thousands of protestors invaded the national Congress buildings. There were sizable contingents of trade unionists (teachers, metal and chemical workers) and social movement activists with their own banners on all the demonstrations.
Despite massive police repression, the movement continues to grow, forcing municipal governments to the negotiating table over transit fare hikes and in eleven cities, including nine state capitals, promises by governments to actually lower bus fares. In São Paulo, the mayor has conceded that fare reductions are now on the table.
Majority support
Polls have shown majority support for the protests among the population and there have been demonstrations in solidarity from Brazilians abroad and their supporters in Berlin, New York, San Diego, Montreal, Washington and Dublin with dozens of other cities in North America, Europe and Asia planning similar demonstrations in the next week. Messages of solidarity from protestors in Taksim Square in Turkey have been sent which were reciprocated in the Brazilian protest on Monday with dozens of Turkish flags and placards with solidarity messages.
The Free Fare movement in São Paulo – especially high school and university students, but also trade unionists and activists from a broad section of social movements – organized the first protest soon after bus and subway fares were increased by 6 per cent on June 2.
The municipal government headed by Fernando Haddad of the Workers’ Party (PT) claims that the increases are below inflation, but many analysts have shown that over the last twenty years the cost of public transit has increased well above inflation, making São Paulo the most expensive city for public transit in Latin America. Dozens of other Brazilian cities launched or re-launched similar Free Fare movements in the wake of the São Paulo protests. These movements dovetailed with mobilizations against the World Cup and other local issues.
After massive police repression of the demonstration in São Paulo on Thursday June 13, the movement spread even further across Brazil.
Growing dissatisfaction
The protests come at a time of growing dissatisfaction with the neoliberal politics of the two misnamed main parties in Brazil, the Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB) and the Workers’ Party (PT). Activists have shown that the politics of the two supposedly rival parties are exactly the same: making Brazil safe for business while neglecting the massive social disparities and inequality in the country. Politicians from both parties have condemned the Free Fare movement protests as has the Workers’ Party federal government. But many grass-roots activists from the PT have participated in the protests along with militants from PSOL.
At the same time as the protests against fare increases arose, activists across the country protested the preparations for next year’s World Cup in Brazil. Billions have been spent upgrading stadiums and thousands have been displaced from their homes in an effort which has boosted the profits of large companies and produced few benefits for the population.
Turkish parallels
As in Turkey, Brazil has recently experienced economic prosperity. Just like Turkey, however, economic inequality is staggering. The rich have benefitted proportionately more from the Brazilian “economic miracle”, but expectations have also increased among the population. Healthcare, education, public transport and other public services are still in a shambles and people are beginning to mobilize in large numbers. And also as in Turkey a relatively local and small-scale movement sparked off large nation-wide protests.
More demonstrations are planned in the next few days and militants are debating the next steps, including arguments for the necessity of strike actions in support of the Free Fare movement and against police brutality.
Sean Purdy is a member of the Party of Socialism and Freedom (PSOL) and activist in the Free Fare Movement, São Paulo
An increasingly vocal movement against fare increases on public transport has swept Brazil in the last two weeks, resulting in street demonstrations in several cities and angry confrontations between protestors and police. In São Paulo, Thursday night saw the fourth demonstration in the space of a week, drawing a crowd of almost 10,000 people. Nearly 130 people were arrested and 105 people were injured, according to the organisers of the march, the Movimento Passe Livre (MPL).
Likewise, in Rio de Janeiro, more than 2,000 people took to the streets. Both demonstrations ended in violent clashes with the police, who used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse demonstrators, some of whom responded with rocks and fireworks. Smaller demonstrations have also taken place in the capital Brasília and in Porto Alegre, in the south of the country.
Demonstrations of such strength have not been seen on the streets of Brazilian cities since the movement to impeach the then president Fernando Collor in 1992. However, the current protests involve a new generation, for the most part too young to have participated in the earlier movement. Many are university students. They are politically conscious, well organised and extremely frustrated with the current political landscape in Brazil.
Spark
While the fare increase of R$0.20 (6p) might seem trivial to city dwellers in the US or Europe, it is the spark which has ignited longstanding public anger about the poor quality of public services in general, political corruption and even the preparations for next year’s World Cup, which are badly behind schedule and way over budget.
The protests have also highlighted the gulf that exists between most Brazilians and their elected representatives. While police and demonstrators clashed in São Paulo, Fernando Haddad, the mayor, and Geraldo Alckmin, the state governor, were in Paris, promoting the city’s bid to host the 2020 Expo World Fair.
The protests will have been highly embarrassing for both men, not only given São Paulo’s Expo bid but especially considering the need to promote Brazil as a safe tourist destination ahead of the World Cup and the Rio Olympics in 2016. Alckmin has reacted angrily to the protests, dismissing those involved as ‘troublemakers’ and ‘vandals’, and suggesting that the demonstrations are nothing more than the actions of ‘a few small but very violent political groups’.
However, the number of protestors involved suggests that Alckmin has badly misread both the situation on the ground and the broader public mood. According to opinion polls 55 per cent of the public in São Paulo support the protestors, despite initially negative coverage in much of the national media.
Early reports tended to emphasize acts of criminal damage committed by a minority of the demonstrators. Now, however, most of the national media is beginning to strike a more balanced tone, not least because reporters from both of São Paulo’s two main newspapers, O Estado de S. Paulo and Folha de S. Paulo, were attacked by police during Thursday night’s demonstrations on, despite having identified themselves as press. Seven journalists from Folha were injured, with one reporter pictured bleeding from the eye after being hit by a rubber bullet.
Repression
Policing has been heavy-handed enough to provoke criticism from Amnesty International which condemned ‘the alarming discourse from the authorities, which has encouraged greater repression and the detention of journalists and demonstrators.’ Indeed, the events of Thursday night forced Haddad to admit that the police may have used ‘excessive force’. ‘On Tuesday the enduring image was one of violence on the part of the demonstrators,’ he said, ‘unfortunately today [Thursday] there is no doubt that it is one of violence on the part of the police.’
While Haddad’s tone has been more conciliatory than that of Alckmin, he has also reiterated that will be no reduction of the fares. ‘I do not intend to revise the transport fares because an enormous effort was made over the course of the year to ensure that the increase was well below the rate of inflation,’ he said.
More demonstrations have been scheduled for the week ahead, and protestors have insisted that they will continue until fares are reduced to their previous rate or lower. Haddad has invited representatives of the MPL for talks, in which he will outline a series of measures aimed at improving public transport in the city, and explain in detail how the new fares have been calculated. He will also show how state subsidies for public transport have developed over the years.
However, given that neither side appears willing to compromise on the main issue, more disruption is almost certain in São Paulo and in other cities across Brazil in the coming days and weeks.
This article was first published by Latin America Bureau
Radical and independent media platforms have flourished in recent years; however these are often produced by the movement, for the movement, and can have limited impact on wider public consciousness.
If we are to have a strong anti-capitalist movement, we must seriously compete with the existing institutions of the capitalist class – mass media, corporate advertising and social networks - finding new ways to communicate our narratives in a fresh and relevant fashion.
Communique is a new media project launched by the International Socialist Group in Scotland, which is attempting to redefine radical media practise as the heart of a strategy for new left renewal.
It recognises that in addition to creating our own independent media platforms, we must be highly-skilled at seizing existing media and social networks to our own advantage.
In order to develop these skills amongst activists, Communique recently held its first ‘Skillshare’ event, which included workshops on ‘Branding’, ‘Press Strategy’ and ‘Social Media Engagement’. The workshops were not just about how to use a hashtag or create a logo; instead, they focused on how we conceptualise radical political ideas using these tools.
The left has a problem with aesthetics
How many times have you had a crumpled black and white A4 flyer, filled with illegible text, shoved into your hands at a demonstration, with the word ‘RESISTANCE’ in huge bold letters at the top as a summary? How many placards, flyers, websites, posters, banners and logos have you seen with a big, red, clenched fist?
When Nestle creates a new product, it doesn’t say to its consumer, ‘This is just another product which will give you nutritional sustenance.’ Each new product has its own brand that explains why not only will the product satisfy your hunger, but why your whole life will be considerably better for having purchased it.
Mahmoud Mahdy, brand designer of the viral ‘We are all Hana Shalabi’ campaign, explained in the branding workshop how we must think like Nestle – branding, packaging and selling our radical political ideas - if we are going to seriously compete.
He argued that we must challenge the traditional imagery and out-dated language of the left, and imagine that we have to communicate anti-capitalist ideas to someone standing 5 feet away from us using only images and text.
What press strategy?
The left has a problem with press strategy – it doesn’t have one. In some campaigning circles, engaging with the mainstream media has come to be seen as a bourgeois activity, with any journalists who do take an interest being held under great suspicion. When big actions or demonstration take place, we fire off generic press releases at all times of day to as many news desks as we possibly can, with the hope one will bite.
Robin McAlpine, former Press Officer to the Leader of the Scottish Labour Party and now editor of the Scottish Left Review, ran a session on the day that was less of a skill-share, and more a rattle-speed tour of just exactly how much we didn’t know about media strategy.
He explained that few people really understand the process of putting a daily newspaper together, have a good feeling for the news values of a specific newspaper, know how to develop an idea in a way that gets it in the right form for that newspaper and then have decent contacts to actually make it happen. He emphasised that it was essential to have a dedicated press contact for any new campaign, who can manage relationships with journalists and maintain a consistent narrative that the media can use.
Twitter inconsistency
The left has a problem with Twitter – it is active, but its interventions are inconsistent and incoherent. Campaigners simultaneously proclaim that Twitter was the driving force behind the Egyptian revolution, whilst bemoaning that political apathy is caused by the new ‘clictivism’.
As an activist within the International Socialist Group who has written on the role of Twitter in social movements, I hosted a Twitter workshop that encouraged people to see beyond Twitter as an organising tool, and to understand its power as a creator of meaning and narrative.
A successful Twitter strategy must recognise that we are competing with both the ‘conscious’ right-wing, and the most ‘common sense’ reactionary views in society. I explained how in the aftermath of the Woolwich attack, the EDL peddled their narrative that this was not an attack on just one soldier – but instead Islam’s attack on us all. This narrative has stuck and galvanized the EDL’s street movement, as we have seen in the recent attacks on the Muslim community.
Twitter has been called ‘the first draft of the first draft of history’ – if the left is going to intervene with our narrative of history, it ignores Twitter at its peril.
With thanks to the speakers and participants of Communique Skillshare, whose lively participation and debate helped inform this article. For more information on Communique, visit our Facebook page and watch out for our new website coming soon.
Photo: Ian Usher/Flickr
Yoga and politics: these are two words we don’t often see together.
This week Turkish riot police stormed Istanbul’s Taksim Square, where pro-democracy protestors have been demonstrating. Taksim Square backs on to Gezi Park where the protests began. Here, we have seen yoga and politics come together in a dramatic fashion as protestors held a mass yoga demonstration in the park.
As pro-democracy activists around the world seek new ways to promote non-violent protests, might this be a foretaste of things to come?
More than exercise or escapism
For many political activists, yoga may seem the antithesis of political activism: sitting cross-legged, chanting ‘Om’ and meditating while the class struggle passes you by. And there can be more than a grain of truth in such an observation. Many people, especially in the West, who practise yoga see it as just a form of exercise or as escapism from the stress of modern life.
And within some yoga philosophical traditions, you will find an apolitical stoicism. There is a Sanskrit saying: ‘As the mind, so the man: bondage or liberation are in your own mind’. If you feel bound, you are bound. If you feel liberated, you are liberated. Things outside neither bind nor liberate you: only your attitude towards them does that. Try telling that to those being tear-gassed in Istanbul!
But it doesn’t have to be like that. And for many yogis, it isn’t. I have been practising yoga for 14 years now and teaching regularly for the past six. I’ve found that the yoga philosophy is sympathetic to and compatible with a compassionate, radical and environmentally sustainable politics. In my experience, the majority of experienced yogis are broadly sympathetic to progressive and radical thinking.
Debates within the yoga world
I have noticed increasing interest from yogis to be involved in charitable and low key (non-party) political campaigns. At the same time, yoga has now become a multi-million pound business. Inevitably, this has led to more scandals about the commercialisation of yoga and of sexual exploitation by some of its well-known ‘gurus’.
The media’s focus on the growth of yoga in the relatively privileged and affluent Western world has tended to identify yoga as a very personal, even slightly self-indulgent, pursuit of physical and mental perfection. At a time of unprecedented economic and environmental crisis, it is time for the yoga community to stand together and to reassert its fundamental values – on the mat AND in society.
I have written a further article about Yoga and Politics, which has been published in the latest issue of the British Wheel of Yoga’s magazine, Spectrum. You can read more here: Yoga and Politics.
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