IV462 - July 2013

IV 462 July 2013 PDF version available to download

Between 13 and 30 June, Brazil experienced its biggest demonstrations in 30 years. In more than 400 towns and cities, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in daily demonstrations. On at least two days – 17th and 20th – well over a million people protested across the country. (On the second of these days, there were more than a million people on the streets of Rio de Janeiro alone.) Most of the demonstrators were young (students and young wage-earners), but later other sectors joined in, especially those living in poor communities in and around Brazil’s biggest cities.

Ahlem Belhadj is a Tunisian doctor and a member of the Ligue de la gauche ouvrière (LGO - Workers’ Left League) and thus of the Popular Front. An activist in the UGTT union, she is best known as president of the Association tunisienne des femmes democrats (ATFD - Tunisian Association of Democratic Women). She was interviewed on July 18, 2013 by Dominique Lerouge of the New Anticapitalist Party (NPA, France).

The EU and the Eurozone were created solely to favour capital and apply its principles: total liberty of movement for capital, free circulation of goods and services, unrestricted commercial competition and the undermining of the very principle of public services, among others. Capital is given a free rein to maximise its profits, wrongly supposing that if private initiative is favoured all will be well. In following this principle and in reducing state intervention to a minimum in terms of regulations and budgets, we now have a Europe which costs only 1% of its GDP whereas the budgets of the most industrialised countries are at about 40% to 50% of their GDP! This 1% is scrawny and nearly half of it goes to the Common Agricultural Policy. In consequence Europe has not developed the means to reduce the differences between its strongest economies and the others. When these economies are put onto the same playing field their differences are aggravated.

This article reflects on the founding congress of Syriza as a political party, rather than a coalition of fourteen organisations, which took place on 10-15th July 2013.

A few months ago on the New York subway I saw the most incredible poster, a picture of a crying baby of colour with the words, "Got a good job? I cost thousands of dollars each year". While I was still recovering from the shock, I saw a similar poster of a little Black girl: "Honestly Mom… chances are he won’t stay with you. What happens to me?"

This statement was made by Fatma Ramadan, member of the Executive Committee of the Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions on Friday, July 26, 2013.

After one and a half year with the S-SF-R-government (a government of Social Democrats, Socialist People’s Party and a liberal right wing party) we can now conclude that it hasn’t been willing to create the change needed following 10 years of neoliberal VKO-government (a government of liberals, conservatives and a right wing nationalist party). On the contrary its policy has been dogmatic neo-liberal economics. Especially the question of an increased labour supply shows us the extent to which the government’s policy clearly is in opposition to wage earner interests. The demand for an increased labour supply is a guideline for the government’s entire project. This creed makes it impossible to introduce a progressive policy.

Michael Voss is a long time member of the SAP, Danish section of the 4th International. He was recently elected to the National Leadership of the Red Green Alliance.

We reproduce here the report introducing the debate on the international situation, presented at the meeting of the Executive Bureau of the Fourth International in June 2013.