Subject: [SocialistWorker.org] Solidarity with the protests
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http://socialistworker.org/2012/05/21/solidarity-with-the-protests
Statement
======== SOLIDARITY WITH THE PROTESTS ========================================
May 21, 2012
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Opponents of war, oppression and austerity around the world looked to the
demonstrations in the U.S. to send their own message of resistance against
the world leaders who gathered for the G8 summit meeting in Washington, D.C.,
and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit in Chicago. Here,
SocialistWorker.org publishes a selection of the messages of solidarity sent
from other countries. Previously, we published a statement from Afghan
anti-imperialist activist and author Malalai Joya [1].
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-------- ANTONIS DAVANELLOS AND SOTIRIS MARTALIS -----------------------------
Members of the Coordinating Secretariat of the Coalition of the Radical Left
in Greece, known as SYRIZA
Dear comrades, dear brothers and sisters of the antiwar movement:
We salute your mobilizations against the NATO summit, and we send you our
solidarity from Greece.
We don't need to say much about the reasons to raise our voices against NATO.
Millions of people are familiar with its record and its crimes over the last
years in the Balkans, in Iraq, in Afghanistan and in Libya, to name just a
few. And if we look further back, NATO had provided nothing but wars,
dictatorships and terror around the globe, from the day it was founded, and
during all the years of its existence.
In summits like the one in Chicago, they are planning the creation of a "new
kind of NATO," even more ruthless, aggressive and dangerous. Under the guise
of the so-called "global war on terror," NATO wants to act as the global
watchdog against anyone resisting the imperialist interests of Western
powers.
We have seen how they label people or movements as "terrorist" in order to
target whole countries in the Middle East, but also antiwar activists in the
West. In a previous summit in Lisbon, NATO named a new challenge it will deal
with: they call it "political turbulence in member states," and this is a
direct threat to social and political movements in the West.
Here in Greece, the struggle against NATO has always been important, and the
demand to exit the war machine and shut down its military bases in Greece had
always been central for the Greek left since the '70s.
More recently, we still remember that the foundations for the emergence of
SYRIZA, which today is on the rise, are back in the antiwar movement of 2003
against the invasion of Iraq. Today, Greece, the country that is the
hardest-hit by crisis and austerity in Europe, maintains a military presence
in Afghanistan, it actively supported the war on Libya and it deploys its
naval forces in Somalia and Lebanon.
Greek governments, in their competition with the Turkish state about which
can act best as the "military bully" of the area, were spending billions of
euros in a frenzy of constant armaments. The military spending continues even
now, at a time when the most severe austerity threatens public schools and
hospitals with collapse. We know that the same is happening with your
government in the U.S.--the trillions of dollars that are spent on wars on
Iraq and Afghanistan, and not on education, health care and jobs.
Today, fighting against NATO is also a fight in solidarity with our brothers
and sisters in the Arab world who revolt against their dictators. The Arab
revolutions are under threat, and NATO is the sword and shield of the
counter-revolution. The antiwar movement in the member states of the war
machine has the duty and the power to block attempts to derail or crush the
revolt of the Arab peoples.
We face this task more than ever before here, as Greece has established a
strategic alliance with the Zionist State of Israel, becoming its number one
ally in the eastern Mediterranean. This is against the will of the Greek
people, who have traditionally been pro-Palestinian, and we pledge to do our
best to break this alliance.
We know that the same goes in the U.S.--that what the White House and the
Pentagon are doing is against the will of the American people. And we are
happy to learn about demonstrations like the one you are staging today, where
the "other America" speaks, where ordinary people can shout: "Not in our
name!"
The struggle against NATO, against imperialist wars, against occupations and
dictatorships, in defense of the Arab revolution, in solidarity with
Palestine and in defense of the right of every people to self-determination
is a global one. But you, comrades and friends in the U.S., are the ones who
are struggling in the "belly of the beast". It is a hard struggle, but it is
a struggle worth fighting. The antiwar movement in the U.S. is the one that
can stop the leading force of the war machine.
For these reasons, you have our deep and sincere respect for all your
efforts, and our solidarity in your struggle. Today's demonstration in
Chicago is exciting news, and we are sure that your presence in the streets
is really bad news for the warmongers. The press in Europe said the previous
days that "NATO is preparing for war in Chicago." You should all be proud for
being out there.
There is a slogan we use in Greece--it doesn't rhyme in English, but today,
it's dedicated to all of you demonstrating in the US: "From New York to
Palestine: workers' struggles, internationalism, peace."
In these times of severe economic crisis, their war machine is more dangerous
than ever, threatening holocausts in Iran or in the eastern Mediterranean,
just to protect profits. And in such times of austerity, it becomes even more
important to organize and fight for our needs and not more fuel to the war
machine.
We can achieve that. In the U.S., in Greece and in every country waging and
sponsoring wars abroad while ruining the lives of the working people and the
poor inside them, it is more important than , to remember an old slogan back
from the '60's and the movement against the war on Vietnam: "Bring the war
home!"
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-------- GEORGE GALLOWAY -----------------------------------------------------
Leading spokesperson for the Respect Coalition in Britain and newly elected
member of parliament for Bradford West
Solidarity greetings and congratulations to all those gathering to protest
the NATO/G8 summit in Chicago.
How arrogant and foolish are those who misrule us. Usually, we have to labor
mightily to explain to the wider public how militarism and corporate
capitalist power concentrated in the wealthiest states are but twin arms of a
colossus that weighs down in the mass of people across the globe. Now, the
parasitic 1 percent have seen fit to do our job for us--bringing together
representatives of the world's most lethal war machine with leaders of the
robber-baron states.
How much easier it must be in one location to move from annex to anteroom,
discussing the immiseration of working people on the one hand, and the wars
to keep them and any state that doesn't toe the line in their place on the
other.
Though separated on different continents, we, too, should show the same
clarity of thought in resisting war and murderous austerity. That resistance
is growing in Europe and in Britain--it is continuing to rage in the Arab
region, despite NATO/G8 efforts to corral and neuter the great upsurge that
began in Tunisia and Egypt.
Movements and parties of the left are making important gains in Europe. The
orthodoxy of austerity is dead, but staggers on like a zombie, as it did in
the 1930s, plunging us into the double catastrophe of depression and world
war. Other voices are gaining a hearing, too, however. The rats of racism and
fascism are scurrying out from the overflowing sewer.
We cannot sit by and hope that progress will emerge from the chaos. We sure
as hell cannot depend on the ruminations of the established political class,
however liberal they may patina themselves. To ruminate is to re-chew the
contents of your stomach. And that is what the institutions are doing as we
slide into deeper recession, ongoing military occupation and the threat of
more war.
You are right to protest and fight for an alternative today. I stand with
you, as do people in Britain who reject the failing system--people who voted
in unprecedented numbers to return me to the British parliament two months
ago.
It is not just the old policies that are failing; it is the old institutions,
the old order.
It will not come crashing down overnight. But if we are to avoid it crashing
on all our heads, the time is now to coordinate our resistance across borders
and together explore the alternatives that we need to make politically
effective.
Do not be deterred by tear gas, a battery of robocops and all the instruments
of repression. The left, progressive people have a powerful idea about how
things can be run differently. It is an idea whose time has come again. We
must work to realize it--not perfected among ourselves, but as a point of
reference and inspiration for the billions who are suffering, but in whose
hands, the future can turn.
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-------- MOVEMENT FOR SOCIALISM / MOUVEMENT POUR LE SOCIALISM / BEWEGUNG FÜR
SOZIALISMUS / MOVIMENTO PER IL SOCIALISM, SWITZERLAND ---------------
In Europe, tens of thousands of workers, students, youth and the unemployed
place great hope in the mass mobilizations of activists, workers, trade
unionists and students in the U.S. against the policies of eight heads of
state who have mounted ruthless and multiple wars; these eight leaders who
are making cinema at Camp David in order to try to give themselves a cheap
political facelift.
This hope is based on:
-- What you showed during the Occupy movement in dozens of cities in your
country;
-- The exemplary anti-racist campaign you waged against the burning
discrimination that affect millions of African-Americans, a campaign that has
condemned internationally the heinous murder of Trevor Martin;
-- The struggles of trade unionists who are fighting against the destruction
of public schools or what remains of a public health system.
The G8 leaders all agree, in one form or another, to comply fully with the
requirements of financial capital, whether the banks, the insurance companies
or the large multinational corporations.
Their real task, once the family photo-ops are forgotten, is becoming
increasingly clear to larger numbers of the populations and to the workers of
the world. This task can be summarized as: socializing the losses of the
banks by imposing brutal austerity to push their losses on the workers; and
to protect, by any and all means, the profits and the social status of the 1
percent who dominate society, in the U.S., just as in Europe.
Your demonstration takes place side by side with those being held in
Frankfurt, beginning last Wednesday, against the politics of the European
Central Bank. Your mobilization takes place side by side with the struggle of
the people of Greece against those who champion a social and military war,
wars that are devastating the planet and that condemn those they claim to
represent to live in unbearable poverty.
The 99 percent must and will be able to take back under its control a world
that the 1 percent has expropriated and make it a socialist and democratic
society.
Long live the international struggle of all those for whom the struggle for
social justice means the overthrow of a society captured by the 1 percent and
the establishment of the creative power of the majority of society--a power
that will give birth to a rich social, economic and cultural life that has
nothing to do with what is worshiped on Wall Street.
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-------- GREG ALBO -----------------------------------------------------------
Socialist Project Canada
Greetings from Canada and the Socialist Project in our common struggle
against the generals of endless war and the barons of endless austerity.
Solidarity in our common struggle for an alternative future beyond capitalism
and imperialism.
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-------- SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE AUSTRALIA -------------------------------------
Solidarity greetings from Australian antiwar campaigners. The NATO conference
in Chicago brings together warmongers and mass murderers from all over the
planet, including Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard.
Australia is not officially part of NATO, but as a loyal U.S. ally,
Australian governments have for decades participated in brutal war after
brutal war, from Korea to Vietnam to Iraq to Afghanistan, in support of
Western imperialist interests. Wars that left millions dead and the lives of
many millions more devastated. In the most recent development, Australia is
set to host a major U.S. military base in Darwin--all part of the ongoing
military build-up to confront China.
We salute your defiant protest. Yours is the real voice of freedom and
democracy.
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[1] http://socialistworker.org/2012/05/18/our-stand-against-nato
