Socialist Feminist

Revolution as a Process: Learning the Lessons of Our Rich History

2011-11-11T16:09:00.000-08:00

I was reminded by the great leader of the Cuban revolution Comrade Fidel Castro in his recent reflections that the other day, “marked the 94th anniversary of the glorious Soviet Socialist Revolution. Unforgettable pages in history were written by Russian workers, peasants and soldiers and the name of Lenin shall always be shining among men and women who dream of a just future for humankind”. Under the slogan of “all power to the Soviets” Lenin and the Bolsheviks paved the way for the first successful workers revolution in human history, when on November 7, 1917 they declared the triumph of the revolution.

In making the distinction between political revolution and social revolution, Lenin described revolution as a process. Lenin wrote that “political revolution can under no circumstances whatsoever either obscure or weaken the slogan of a socialist revolution … which should not be regarded as a single act, but as a period of turbulent political and economic upheavals, the most intense class struggle, civil war, revolutions and counter-revolutions.” (Lenin, “On the Slogan for a United States of Europe”)

The “revolution as a process” is what we see unfolding in Latin America today as the revolutionary governments of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and Evo Morales in Bolivia rebuild their societies for socialism of the 21^st century. In Venezuela “all power to the soviets” takes the form of the struggle of the communal councils to establish themselves as centres of the class power of those who have been exploited and oppressed – the class power of the ‘wretched of the earth’.

The Russian Revolution was a daring attempt by the working class to win and wield power. Against all odds, Lenin and the Bolsheviks dared to put forward a revolutionary socialist alternative, which won them the support of the masa and the transfer of all power to the ‘soviets’ – the working class and the rural poor.

Today we see an intensification of the class struggle on an international scale, from the Arab uprisings to the working class in the bastions of imperialist power – Europe and the United States. Today we must dare to put forward and campaign for bold alternatives, as Die Linke in Germany, the land of Marx and Rosa Luxemburg are attempting to do, when they put forward demands counterposing public property in the hands of the people against capitalist private property.

We have the responsibility in educating the new forces and new generations that are now in the forefront of the class struggle in the lessons of the Russian Revolution, and as Comrade Fidel points out, “such efforts will never suffice”. The Partido Lakas ng Masa will do exactly this at the Manila Socialism Conference.

European Socialist Renewal Tour, May 2011

2011-06-10T22:25:00.001-07:00

NOTES

Discussion with Hans Modrow, Honorary Chairperson of Die Linke Germany and the last premier of the former German Democratic Republic

Why socialism of the last century could not be sustained?

This is also our question, which is linked to the left political project in Germany.

In Europe we faced a divided Europe and a divided Germany. In Germany the situation was the confrontation of two societies: The confrontation of two military blocs. The situation today, however, is that of one left party. The PDS was the renewed left party created by the former SED of East Germany. In 2005, the two main left movement in West Germany, the social justice movement and the electoral initiatives, merged with the PDS, to form Die Linke. The German Communist Party, the DPK, still exists in the West and did not join the merger.

The merger initiative was primarily to create an electoral alternative. This was successful with our first run in the elections in 2005 gaining us 8.5% of the vote and in the 2009 national elections we received 11.7% of the vote. The focus was not on our convictions, but on our electoral success. This has been a problem for the European left, where many questions have not been discussed, until ‘the end’. It was not only the disappearance of the Soviet Union, but also of the strong left parties in Europe. The CPs in France, Italy and Spain are all much weaker now.

Three electoral periods since unification: 1989 onwards there we two major electoral parties – the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats -- and one smaller party, the Liberal Party which participated in various coalition governments. The second period, in the 1990s, saw the creation of the Green Party, resulting in four parties in parliament, and coalition governments between the Christian Democrats and the Liberals on one hand, and the Social Democrats and the Greens on the other. We have had both these combinations govern the country. Since 2005, neither the Christian Democrats nor the Social Democrats were able to govern this way, so we had an alliance between these two parties. Meanwhile our vote has increased from 8.7% in 2005 to 11.7% in 2009.

There will be new national elections in 2013 and we could see the Social Democrats in Coalition with the Greens then. The Green Party is willing to be in coalition with all of the other parties, but this is not the position of Die Linke.

What is the role of Die Linke today? This is a big question for us. In the Eastern part of the country the party is still big, based on an understanding of socialism of the last century. These members grew up in the former GDR and were even formerly members of the SED. But we need younger people to join the party today. The average age of members in the Eastern part is 68-70. The ‘direction’ of new members, however, is between 35 to 50 years of age. This is also a problem for other West European parties, where the socialist movement is not supported by the youth. In Western Europe the average age of members is 50.

The Western part of the party is mainly created by unionists and left social democrats. In 2005 we had a membership of 75,000, with only 10% of them from the Western part. Today, we still have a membership of 75,000, but around 35% of them are those recruited from the West. Before unification the population of the GDR was 16.3 million. Today its 14 million, i.e. 2 million have left. Because of de-industrialisation of the former GDR the youth, who had no jobs, simply left.

There was reunification in 1990, but we are still divided in 2011. Workers earn 15% to 20% less in the East than in the West. The pensions are also lower. Also the long history of anti-communism is still strong and alive in the West. In the East the failure brought out people who lived and understood socialism, from their own experience and who now understand it better.

So how do we define common traditions? How do we define common political platforms? This is a debate for socialism of the 21^st century. Here we are also looking at Latin America.

The developments in Latin America are different to what we see in the Middle East today. In Latin America we have leaders, personalities, such as Hugo Chvez and Evo Morales, who are promoting socialism. There is also a strong anti-imperialist character to these struggles, unlike the uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa. These uprisings have no socialist character. This is a marked difference.

On the failure of socialism of the last century: It’s related to how the system and structures were created. Marx did not have the idea of ‘socialism in one country’. Socialism was to start on the basis of developed capitalist countries. Russia, on the other hand, was one of the least developed countries and was surrounded by capitalism after WWII. It faced many contradictions. The low efficiency in the economy, the need to develop agriculture, a single party to manage this all – the system of Stalin – today known as Stalinism.

The Soviet Union was the main force to fight German militarism and fascism, but after WWII it had a reduced military capacity and faced the ‘cold war’. But we also need to look at the internal factors in analysing the failure: the contradictions between democracy and socialism.

Externally imperialism succeeded with the arms race ….

Gorbachev today declares openly that his aim was to destroy socialism and the Soviet Union. It’s unimportant whether he new this then. The result is that he succeeded in doing this.

Socialism of the 21^st century is not a model for the whole world. We need to analyse processes and draw lessons.

The development of the GDR

There were two main periods of development. The first was related to the concept of the anti-fascist democratic order. The aim was to build a broadest possible alliance. The lessons for my generation was: ‘no more war’ and ‘no more fascism’. This was the basic idea, that would not be opposed in West Germany. When the GDR was formed the anti-fascist democratic order was the basis of the constitution, not a socialist order.

Only in 1962 did the SED decide to start the construction of socialism: a new economic system of planning and governance, greater efficiency in science and technology, modern economic planning. There was an opening up of the GDR in this period.

We studies modern management models, not linked to the development of the Soviet Union. The emphasis was on economic management, even at the expense of social welfare. The slogan was for the ‘unity of the economy and the social and politics’. This was the slogan under Eric Honecker.

We had a rate of accumulation of 21% to 22%. But the government wanted to distribute more than it was capable of doing… The economy declined and the rate of accumulation dropped to 10%. So we went into joint ventures with overseas capital and raised loans, but we raised loans not for the economy, but for consumption.

In the 1970s we also had a huge housing program to build new houses and solve the housing problem. We needed to make quality housing. The products were subsidised but the state had no money to do this. These inner contradictions led to the collapse in 1989-1990.

In West Germany there wasn’t a better social system, but they had more consumer products. Also, the west German currency was convertible.

There were two main motives for the 1989 uprising: the right to travel and movement and the currency. Initially the movement put forward the idea “we are the people”. Then in January 1990 this changed to “we are one people” and the call for reunification.

On March 18, 1990, the Christian Democrats won the elections. The people of East Germany had the illusion that they would keep their social standards and get new priviledges from the West. For example, in the GDR only 8% to 10% of the income went towards rent. Now its 30% and for pensioners its sometime 50%. Housing was the social responsibility of the state in the GDR. Now its given to the markets. Health was free.

There was no collapse of the government of the GDR. The economy then was stronger than the economy in east Germany today. The real collapse came with the unified currency. Overnight we were forced into a different set up. There was no period of transition.

Until the elections in March 1990, it was unclear which way things would go. Even the big powers – US, UK and France – were unclear which way it would go. When we prepared for the elections we had round table discussions with the new movements.

NATO also existed with nuclear weapons and there was a possibility of civil war. Also we had to negotiate with the countries of the ‘Warsaw treaty’.

The situation today has completely changed. The US is the only strong military force today, however, it does not have the same strength as it did in the 20^th century. The US needs to look for alliances as it also feels that it’s not able to hold down a ten-year war without allies. The EU also wants to develop more and more as a military force. Japan’s power is decreasing and it has no decisive global role to play any more. What could be emerging as a new force is the Organisation of Shanghai with Russia, China and Central Asia. India is also approaching this group …. China is the US biggest creditor and could push the US to bankruptcy. China’s influence in Latin America and Africa is increasing, while that of the US is decreasing. But I believe that China’s role is a defensive one. It doesn’t declare itself a superpower. I truly believe that China does not want a war, so the most aggressive powers today are still the US, EU and NATO.

Berlin, May 20, 2011

Renewing Socialist Feminism European Tour

2011-06-10T22:00:00.000-07:00

This presentation was made during a tour of Europe hosted by the Left International Forum, Sweden, in May 2011.

Renewing Socialist Feminism May 2011.ppt

China's poverty reduction gains

2010-10-14T19:25:00.000-07:00

The left cannot ignore China’s poverty reduction achievements

By Reihana Mohideen

China’s achievements in reducing poverty have been outstanding. From 1978 – when the restructuring of the Chinese economy began -- to 2007 the incidence of rural poverty dropped from 30.7 percent in 1978 to 1.6 percent in 2007. The biggest drop took place between 1978 and 1984 when the number of rural poor almost halved, from 250 million in 1978 to 125 million in 1985. During this period the per capita net income of farmers grew at an annual rate 16.5 percent. Urban poverty, measured by an international standard poverty line of US$1 per day, reduced from 31.5% in 1990 to 10.4% in 2005. No other third world country has achieved so much and made such a significant contribution to reducing global poverty, as China has, over this period.

Between 1978 and 2007 per capita income has increased significantly. Inflation adjusted per-capita disposable income of urban residents grew at the average annual rate of 7.2% for urban residents and at 7.1% for rural residents. While the gap between the rural and urban areas still continues (and has even increased across some development indicators), the fact remains that virtually the entire population has been able to greatly increase consumption of food, clothing and shelter. According to the United Nations “China now has largely eliminated absolute poverty and is meeting the food and clothing needs of its 1.3 billion people”.

And despite the significant gaps between rural and urban areas, between richer and poor regions, migrant and other workers and the increasing class divisions, there is a degree of equalisation of income growth which even has many capitalist commentators bewildered. Higher household incomes has allowed for improvements in nutrition, clothing and housing. Examples include a significant reduction in undernourishment: in 1981 some 30% of China’s population was undernourished and this dropped to 12% by 1997; between 1990 and 2005 the prevalence of underweight children fell from 19.1% to 6.9% and stunting in children under the age of five fell from 33.4% to 10.5%. The greatest reduction in child malnutrition took place in rural China. The country’s under-five child mortality rates dropped steadily from 40 per 1000 live births in 2000 to 18.1 in 2007 – far lower than third world averages. Maternal mortality (that directly impacts on child mortality) dropped from 53 per 100,000 live births in 2000 to 36.6 in 2007 – well below third world averages of 440 per 100,000 live births. China’s average life expectancy was 71.4 years in 2000, higher than averages for third world countries.

These are significant gains for third world countries today and especially so given the sheer numbers of women and children that it involves given the size of China’s population. This is partly related to a massive increase in healthcare spending – total per capita spending on healthcare from all sources – government, private households social -- increased by 1300 per cent from 1978 to 2006. While the effective privatization of healthcare resulted in a massive shift in the responsibility of healthcare spending on to private households, nevertheless, even government spending increased by nearly 700%, to 7.9 times the 1978 levels, an average annual increase of 7.7%.

There are major inequalities that continue to widen in China as a result of the restructuring of the economy along capitalist lines. The state which was previously responsible for almost 100% of health expenditure now only contributes around 18% of total expenditure (compared to over 70% in Western Europe) and large sections of the population especially in rural areas could not afford healthcare. In an attempt to address these inequalities in 2009 the government announced major healthcare reforms, including the provision of basic health insurance cover for 90% of the population.

Class differences are widening along with income gaps. In 2006 the per capita disposable income of the richest 10 percent of families was 9 times more than the poorest 10%. The urban-rural income gap continues to widen – 2.8 to 1 in 2000 to 3.3 to 1 in 2007. The per capital GDP in Shanghai was 65,347 Yuan in 2007 compared to Guizhou at 6,835 Yuan in the west. While Shanghai and Beijing have attained levels of development closer to the industrialized countries such as Portugal, poorer provinces like Guizhou are comparable to Botswana and Namibia. Gender gaps are widening in sex ratio at birth, with the number of new born male children and numbers of female children widening over time, with no sign of declining (these trends will be analysed in future articles). Nevertheless, the fact remains that the country has made major strides in reducing poverty, on a human scale that no other third world country has achieved, and which is perhaps historically unprecedented.

Despite the restructuring of the education sector which resulted in individuals taking primary responsibility for education costs, China has made remarkable progress in its education indicators, partly due to subsequent measures to partially reverse the earlier restructuring policy. Between 1994 and 2001 less than 2% of resources came from national government, with town and township governments responsible for nearly four fifth of China’s compulsory education costs. Because local government revenues barely covered staff salaries the financial burden fell on the people who had to start paying fees, resulting in increasing drop-out rates of poor students, especially in the rural areas and poorer provinces. In a partial policy reversal the central government exempted rural students in western China (where dropout rates were high) from tuition and miscellaneous fees, and by 2007 the government had decided to waive fees for rural compulsory education throughout the country, and provide free text books and boarding expenses. In 2008 fees were waived for urban compulsory education as well. In 2005 the annual education budget was 2.5% of a vastly expanded GDP – a 60 fold increase from 7.5 billion Yuan in 1978 (around 2% of the GDP) to 453 billion Yuan in 2005.

Enrollment rates have increased – 99% at primary school level and 95% at junior middle-school – and adult literacy rates rose to over 90% in 2006, higher than the global average of 78%. The average number of years of schooling received by people 15 years and over rose from 5.3 years in 1982 to 8.5 years in 2005.

The socialist movement, especially in the Asia region, must study and attempt to understand these developments. Simply placing China in the ‘going capitalist’ basket and ignoring developments in the country is a big mistake. Undoubtedly the gains of the great Chinese revolution of 1949 has laid the basis for these developments, including land reform that broke the back of landlordism and semi-feudal relations in the countryside (unlike in the Philippines or even India today) and which laid the basis for major strides in human development, so that when capitalist restructuring was introduced the levels of health, education and life expectancy, for example, were better than for a majority of third world countries at the time. And even today there are several third world countries who are yet to achieve the levels of development achieved by China in 1980.

What's wrong with the conditional cash transfer program?

2010-09-14T17:48:00.000-07:00

Or three reasons to do it differently

The Asian Development Bank is loaning the Philippine government $400,000 million to implement it’s conditional cash transfer program, known as the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps). The conditional health and education cash grants will be provided to poor households by the DSWD, to mothers and/orpregnant women of eligible households, who will receive the cash grants for up to 5 years subject to the eligibility criteria and compliance. Transfers are paid quarterly, directly into women beneficiaries' accounts established in the Land Bank of the Philippines. The 4Ps includes two types of transfers: one related to health and one to education.

Poor households with children 0–14 years old and/or pregnant women are eligible for a health grant currently set at P500 per household per month (for 12 months per year). The conditionalities are: (i) all children 0–5 years old attend the health center to obtain services established by the Department of Health (DOH) according to their age, including immunizations; (ii) pregnant women attend the health center according to DOH protocol, including delivery by skilled personnel and postnatal care; (iii) children 6–14 years old comply with deworming protocol at schools; and (iv) the household grantee (mother) and/or spouse attend family development sessions at least once a month.

Poor households with children 6–14 years old are eligible for the education grant. The education transfer is P300 ($7) per child per month (for 10 months per year), for up to a maximum of three children. Beneficiary households will receive the education transfer for each child from 6 to 14 years of age as long as they are enrolled in primary or secondary school and maintain a class attendance rate of at least 85% every month.

Eligible households can receive both the health and education grants. The average transfer per household is estimated at 23% of the average annual household income.

So far it sounds so good. But let’s analyze the package and the conditional cash transfer instrument further.

Firstly, this is a loan being borrowed by the government to be repaid over a twenty five year period, i.e. a debt that burdens future generations. Furthermore, this is a high interest ADB loan, a part of the ordinary capital resources loans, which charges near market interest rates. The ADB also provides Asian development fund loans, on concessional rates and grants (as opposed to loans) to developing countries. The government and it’s negotiating team should not borrow loans at market rates for such a program, but demand that the ADB provides the government with grant funding instead. If the ADB wants to assist us with our social programs and wants to strengthen the country’s social protection system, let it provide us grant funding – ‘free’ money – instead of loans, especially non-concessional loans, that only serve to increase this country’s debt burden.

The government negotiators should stand firm on this. If the Philippines does not qualify for grants, then insist on changing the terms with the ADB and other international finance institutions.

The country’s historic national debt and the automatic debt appropriation law that sacrifices the budget to loan repayments, should make the government more circumspect. The government should apply the utmost caution in negotiating more burdensome loans.

Secondly, even the ADB admits that the “ Key causes of poverty in the Philippines include high inequality and chronic underinvestment in physical and human capital, especially health and education. As a result, the Philippines is lagging on progress in non-income MDG targets for universal primary education, maternal mortality, and access to reproductive health services.” International donor agencies are in a mild panic as they face the prospect of countries not being able to achieve the less-than-minimum millennium development goals or MDGs. They will pressure us to recklessly get into debt to borrow to try and meet these targets. But this also provides us with an opportunity – to be firm and negotiate conditions that benefit the country in the short and long run. Also, if the new President and government has political capital in the eyes of the international community, why not use this to extract grants, rather than loans.

Thirdly, these conditional cash transfers are short-term measures – essentially anti-crisis measures – to mitigate risks and negative impacts. Therefore borrowing and getting into debt for short-term impacts is short-sighted and even reckless. We need long-term solutions. This means we must increase investments, starting with the national budget, on health and education.

The government should immediately double the national budget on health and education. The Philippines spends only around 6.4% on health as a percentage of total government expenditure, compared to our neighbour Thailand, for example, that spends 11.3%, or China with 9.9%. (UNDP 2009)

A longer-term measure is to provide universal health care and education. The problem with the poverty targeting instruments of the ADB and other IFIs is that in the name of targeting the ‘poorest of the poor’ it effectively excludes large sections of the poor (also referred to as ‘low-income’) thus depriving them of their fundamental and inalienable human right to a decent education and healthcare. Several countries in our region provide universal healthcare, such as Vietnam, which is already ahead of several of its MDG targets, Malaysia, Thailand and the two countries with the largest populations in the world, India and China. So why not us? Let us once again place this issue on the agenda – universal health care for all.

Finally, we need to once again raise the issue of repealing the automatic debt appropriation law. This is fundamental to increasing social investments and addressing structural inequalities that prevent the poor from accessing affordable and quality health care and education.

Disaster Management

2010-09-08T23:20:00.000-07:00

The Case of New Zealand, Haiti and the ‘Cuban way’

By Reihana Mohideen

Comparisons must be made between the impact of the earthquake in New Zealand and the quake that hit Haiti in January and the nature of a global system that harbors these inequalities should be exposed over and over again. Haiti – a population of around 9 million -- some 250,000 people died in the earthquake and (according to government figures) 200,000 were injured and one million were made homeless. Some eight months later disaster still grips peoples lives. Fortunately, but in a staggering contrast, no lives were lost in New Zealand, although the earthquake was of a similar magnitude (7 on the Richter scale).

New Zealand’s building codes set a world standard in seismic building regulations and are incorporated into the building codes of several countries, including the Caribbean Uniform Building Code. Haiti, on the other hand, had no known building regulations. According to a report provided to the Global Task Force on Building Codes by a member of a disaster risk management team that visited Haiti prior to the earthquake in 2009, Haiti reportedly has some building regulations, but they were not focused on building safety and were rarely implemented. Haitian civil engineers and architects said that any codes used for professionally designed and constructed private buildings would not be Haitian - but would depend on where that person studied (USA being most common). Donor funded buildings are usually built to a standard stipulated by the donor or by the professional in charge. The State University’s engineering curriculum did not have any substantive elements on building codes.

The Philippines is one of the countries most vulnerable to earthquakes and studies have found that the country’s school children are especially vulnerable due to sub-standard building construction. Tens of thousands of people could die, in Manila alone, from an earthquake of the magnitude that hit Haiti and New Zealand. The building industry is riddled with corruption, undermining the implementation of building industry safety standards and regulations. The urban poor, who are a significant proportion of the urban population, live in hovel-like structures that are assembled with flimsy pieces of card board, wood and discarded roofing materials, easily washed away by rains and typhoons. Typhoon Ondoy that hit the country in October last year, killing thousands and displacing tens of thousands of people, gives us a terrifying preview of what an earthquake could unleash.

But the problems faced by those of us living in Third World countries in coping with disasters goes beyond the inadequacy of building regulations. The basic problem is poverty. A glance at the UN’s ranking of countries based on its Human Development Index (a measurement of education, life expectancy and income) is an indicator of the problem. Haiti’s ranking is 149 to New Zealand’s ranking of 20 (out of 182 countries). Philippines ranking is 105. The massive numbers of lives lost in disasters is a direct result of poverty. The poor in the Third World are more vulnerable, including to climate-change induced disasters, than those in the industrialized countries.

However, even a poor country can take effective measures to mitigate the loss of lives and injuries if there is political will in government to prioritize protecting the lives of its’ people. If New Zealand sets the world standard with its seismically safe buildings, then Cuba sets the world standard on how a poor country can save lives during disasters. And the Cuban example has been acknowledged and praised even by those not partial to the Cuban revolution, such as the United Nations, which identifies Cuba as a case study in disaster risk management. Between 1996 and 2002, six major hurricanes hit Cuba killing 16 people out of the total 665 deaths in the affected countries. Hurricane Charlie killed four people in Cuba and 30 people in Florida. When Hurricane Ivan threatened Cuba, the country evacuated 1.9 million people, 17% of the population, over 15 days. All shelters were staffed with nurses, and doctors were sent to the high risk areas. Then President Fidel Castro went to the highest risk region to assist the effort. No one was seriously injured or killed as a result of the hurricane.

According to the International Secretariat for Disaster Reduction (ISDR), the United Nations body that focuses on disaster reduction, “the Cuban way could easily be applied to other countries with similar economic conditions and even in countries with greater resources that do not manage to protect their population as well as Cuba does”. The ISDR says that Cuba is an example that the vulnerability of people can effectively be reduced with low-cost measures and strong determination. According to the ISDR the Cuban authorities are determined to implement disaster reduction policies in Cuba. “It is part of their development planning and their culture, which play a key role in saving lives and livelihoods. This illustrates the importance of a strong political will … Leaders of countries around the world have at their disposal the knowledge needed to reduce risk and vulnerability to hazards. Even poor countries are not entirely without options to mitigate or prevent the consequences of hazards. What is often lacking are concrete programs of action and the political will to implement policies and measures.”

This Cuban “political will”, however, does not emanate from particular individuals or even governments. The “Cuban way” is the logic of a society – an entire social, economic and cultural system – that places human beings and their needs as its central and fundamental priority. Cuba’s economy and society are based on socialist principles prioritizing people before imperialist profits resulting in the highest levels of human solidarity and culture. Haiti, in contrast to Cuba, tragically and despite it’s heroic and historic struggles against colonial slavery, has been exploited for decades by imperialism, which has intervened in it’s political affairs with impunity, supporting coups and organizing military interventions to overthrow pro-people governments, a history that we in the Philippines are familiar with as a result of our own semi-colonial relationship with and dependence on the United States.

The Cuban government is unique in that it has paid an equal amount of attention to the structural and physical aspects of disaster preparedness, but has also created a “culture of safety” through successful education and awareness campaigns. The ISDR points to education as one of the main reasons for the low level of hurricane mortality rate in Cuba compared to its neighbors. Disaster preparedness, prevention and response are part of the general education curriculum. People in schools, universities and workplaces are continuously informed and trained to cope with natural hazards. From their early age, all Cubans are taught how to behave as hurricanes approach the island. They also have, every year, a two-day training session in risk reduction for hurricanes, complete with simulation exercises and concrete preparation actions. This facilitates the mobilization of their communities at the local level when a hurricane hits Cuba. Cuba’s entire adult population is literate and therefore can access educational materials about disasters. The Cuban Red Cross, which provides teaching material, is reinforced by training courses and disaster drills for parents in the workplace, as well as by radio and television broadcasts.

There is an adequate road system in the country that facilitates speedy evacuation and building codes are enforced, which reduce the element of highly vulnerable substandard construction. Approximately 95 per cent of the households in the country have electricity and therefore can access information about disasters through radio and television. Most importantly the Cuban population is mobilized through a range of social, professional and political organizations in the country that provide structures that can quickly mobilize the entire population in disaster.

All these features of Cubas’ disaster management program are direct results of the gains of the Cuban revolution, which has created one of the most socially conscious, educated and politically organized and mobilized people in the world. We, in the Philippines, have much to learn from the “Cuban way”.

The Hostage Killings: When Life is Cheap

2010-08-25T22:02:00.000-07:00

Most Filipinos are shocked and angry at the outcome of the hostage taking and believe that the authorities bungled up the operations thus costing the lives of the seven tourists from Hongkong. But then most Filipinos are a compassionate people who also feel a sense of responsibility and even duty towards their fellow human beings. Unfortunately, such humane values are not emblematic of the state institutions in this country – the law enforcement agencies and other government institutions, legislative and executive.

On the contrary, the experience of ordinary people is the systematic violation of their rights by these very same institutions that have a reputation for being corrupt, inefficient, anti-people and inhumane with respect to the treatment that they mete out to their ordinary citizens. Members of the law enforcement agencies, for example, are known to break the very laws that they are meant to enforce. Instead of protecting the rights and even lives of the masa they violate these rights, including peoples lives (witness the recent torture of a petty thief at the hands of the police).

Life, especially those of the poor, is ‘cheap’ in this country. Governments/institutions have abrogated their responsibility to protect poor peoples lives, as seen by the preventable loss of lives due to ‘accidents’, floods and landslides, the regular capsizing of overcrowded boats and the drowning of hundreds, the continuing extra-judicial killing of activists and journalists and the millions of lives wasted by poverty.

This cheapening and degradation of human life in this country has once again been dramatically exposed, and this time in the international arena, with the loss of lives of overseas nationals. The problem is not merely one of better training and equipment for the PNP. It's deeper and more fundamental, tied to the very nature and culture of these institutions, whose structures, internal culture and practice is not geared towards fulfilling their social and human obligations. Their internal functions and culture are in fact the very anti-thesis of anything social -- they are anti-social.

Some governments still carry out their responsibility of protecting their citizens with a certain degree of commitment and efficiency and hence the reaction of the Hongkong authorities to the killings of their nationals on Philippine soil. If the loss of lives were those of Filipino nationals, one cannot help but wonder if the Philippine authorities would respond in the same way – with indignation and anger at the loss of Filipino lives and doing everything in their power to protect the needs and interests of their citizens. Successive governments indifference to protecting the lives of Filipino citizens inside and outside the country -- such as that of overseas Filipino workers -- indicates that this will not be the case.

Philippines Facing Election Failure

2010-05-09T04:48:00.000-07:00

The country faces a possible failure of elections on May 10 due to the inability of the Filipino elite to ensure a resolution to the political crisis through elections and the general incompetence of a corruption ridden, elite-controlled, weak state to conduct credible elections, above all one based on a fully automated voting system.

Only five days before the elections the major test run of the equipment has failed. In several precincts around the country, for example, votes cast for the opposition Liberal Party candidate Noynoy Aquino, were counted as votes for the candidate backed by the government party Lakas Kampi CMD’s (Christian Muslim Democrats), Gilbert Teodoro.

In one important aspect, i.e. the public trust in the electoral commission to conduct credible elections, the elections have already failed. People are extremely distrustful of the electoral commission and its credibility is virtually in tatters. The commission is suspected of being manipulated by the president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (known as GMA in the Philippines) to serve her personal political interests and several commissioners are known to be in the pay of GMA.

The prospect of a failure of elections has unnerved the elite, including the elite opposition. Various elite factions have come up with a chaotic plethora of alternatives to save the system, ranging from the postponement of elections, to a full manual count of the votes.

Arroyo, one of the most unpopular presidents in Philippine history, has faced several impeachment attempts, the wrath of a mass movement that has persistently called for her ouster and several military mutinies by junior officer opposed to her government. She has survived this all, partly due to her ability to buy-off a majority in congress through her plunder of presidential resources, while the sullen anger of the masses against the government has grown. If she no longer controls government, she will face a number of corruption and plunder charges that will see her convicted and jailed, as was the case with the former president Estrada. Therefore there’s a very strong possibility that she will manipulate the election results to hold onto power indefinitely. This could include changing the constitution to install her as a Prime Minister, thereby extending her control of government and protecting the interests of the Arroyo political dynasty.

The failure of the May 10 elections could lead to the explosion of another political crisis. While Noynoy Aquino leading the ‘yellow forces’ has indicated his support for ‘peoples power’, there is also a question mark about the capacity of Noynoy Aquino and the Liberal Party to be able to mobilize peoples power. While Noynoy has substantial middle class support, Estrada who is the runner-up in the polls, continues to command significant support amongst the urban poor. Is there a possibility of a Noynoy-Estrada alliance? The political situation is chaotic and unpredictable. Anything seems to be a possibility at this stage.

Meanwhile election related violence continues with killings reported in various localities around the country. Many of the culprits of the Maguindanao massacre – the worst case of recent election related violence in the country in which 57 people including 32 journalists were massacred – were initially acquitted by the Justice Secretary of the Arroyo government, while one of the murderers continues to vacation in ‘jail’.

Mutinous groupings continue to exist in the military, several of them also supporting various factions of the elite. A right-wing option is also a real danger: a right-wing ‘Generals coup’, orchestrated by the ruthlessly Machiavellian Secretary of National Defense Norberto Gonzales.

Ultimately it’s the deep divisions amongst the elite that drive the political crisis. The left and the mass movement are still on the sidelines, monitoring the developments, but in reactive mode. If an election failure results in triggering the masses into action, this could break open the situation for the left. A major challenge for the left continues to be its ability to force open the divisions amongst the elite. Key to this is mobilising the masses for an anti-elite resolution to the crisis i.e. sustained, nationwide, mass protests drawing the urban poor, laboring masses and the middle-classes onto the streets. This needs to be based on calls that expose the true nature of the problem – the system of elite rule – and for a transitional government based on an alliance of the most consistent anti-Arroyo forces, which has as its main responsibility the clean up of the electoral and political system through fundamental reforms, before conducting credible elections.

Military Rebels in the Philippine Elections

2010-05-06T02:49:00.000-07:00

The Philippine Left and the 2010 Elections (Comment piece No. 4)

Based on an interview with well-known Marxist Francisco Nemenzo.

An important political development in recent years as a result of the widespread opposition to the government of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, is the radicalisation of junior officers and soldiers of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, which has drawn a new generation into progressive politics. Several military rebel groups have recently emerged. These include the Magdalo, led by Lt. Col. Antonio Trillanes, currently imprisoned by the Arroyo government and Para sa Bayan, whose key leaders are also in jail. Trillanes contested the 2007 senate elections while imprisoned, with little or no resources or publicity, and still managed to garner around 11 million votes to win a senate seat (which is the official count, so the actual vote is very likely to be higher than this). General Daniel Lim, who was recently acknowledged as the leader of the various military rebel groupings including the Magdalo and Para sa Bayan, is also running for a senate position in the May 10 elections this year, albeit from behind bars. Colonel Ariel Querebin, currently imprisoned by the Arroyo government, is also running for a senate position. Lt. SG. James Layug, recently released Magdalo leader, is running for a congress seat in Taguig (Second District).

Francisco Nemenzo, well-known Marxist and the former President of the University of the Philippines, is active in the campaign to elect Danny Lim and is featured in television advertisements in support of Lim. In a recent letter to staff and students of the University of the Philippines, entitled ‘How I will vote’, Nemenzo explains his support for Danny Lim: “Of almost 90 contestants for 12 senatorial seats, General Danilo Lim stands out. He is not the soldier we love to hate. He exemplifies a thinking military officer who sees his job as defending the Filipino people, not protecting their oppressors. He is painfully aware of what is wrong with the military and police, but he is not one who merely growls without doing something about it. In February 2006 he made the bold decision to withdraw support from Gloria Maca¬pagal Arroyo, outraged by the revelation in the Garci tapes that soldiers were used to cheat in the 2004 elections. When Arroyo’s minions in the House of Representatives aborted the impeachment process, he realized that defiance was a patriotic act. He reminded himself that he swore allegiance to the republic, not to the incumbent President.”

“Danilo Lim is one of the few respected generals in the armed forces. His military education in West Point heightened his sense of nationalism instead of turning him into a little brown American. He earned exemplary combat record as an officer of the Scout Rangers. He was teaching mathematics in the Philippine Military Academy when he helped organize the Young Officers Union. He is a man of impeccable integrity and was never involved in human rights violation. Danny Lim would have been a strong contender for AFP chief-of-staff had he sold his soul to GMA. When it came to a crunch, he heeded the people’s clamor for the ouster of his commander-in-chief.”

“Now that Danny Lim is pursuing his advocacy for system change in the electoral arena, I shall vote for him and the three other senatorial candidates who stood for the ouster of the illegitimate president in 2006. If elected, they will symbolize our continuing struggle for a just, democratic, modernized and independent nation.”

The military rebels, like the left, have been unable to put up a unified ticket. According to Nemenzo “They [the military rebels] had different origins. There seems to be a difference between the Philippine Military Academy 1990 batch and the batches after 1995. They also had different field experiences: the Scout Rangers, the Marines, the SWAG, the Air Force the regular navy, etc.”

Nemenzo’s assessment is that the military rebels were “never united organizationally” but unlike the left which “was once united but split, distinct groups [amongst the military rebels] are easier to unify than former comrades.”

Nemenzo is also supporting Col. Ariel Querebin, Risa Hontiveros (Akbayan leader running on the senate ticket of the Liberal Party presidential candidate Noynoy Aquino) and JV Bautista (Sanlakas and Partido Lakas ng Masa, running on the senate ticket of the former president Erap Estrada)

In his letter Nemenzo also explains his position on the electoral system: “I do not consider elections as the essence of democracy; in most instances they serve as a façade for oligarchy. I cannot even consider elections in the Philippines a “simula ng pagbabago”. Change will not come as a result of the coming elections, regardless of who wins. The colossal prob¬lems we face today are rooted the system of elite rule. For as long as this system prevails, any change will be superficial and its benefits will not trickle down to the masses.”

The Philippine Left and the 2010 Elections (Comment piece Number 3)

2010-04-07T21:28:00.000-07:00

Ric Reyes for Pasig Mayor: A hallmark electoral campaign for the left

Ric Reyes’[1] campaign for Mayor of Pasig was formally launched at a 5000 strong local rally on March 26. The march, the biggest to be held in that city for many years, snaked it’s way on a ‘long march’ through the working class sections of Pasig. Ric Reyes campaign is a flag mark campaign for the left – an example of how to conduct a united, principled and effective electoral intervention. The campaign unites local mass leaders and activists of Akbayan and the Partido Lakas ng Masa, in a tactical alliance with the local ‘yellow forces’ of the Liberal Party, whose national Presidential candidate is Noynoy Aquino. The local chapter of the Magdalo, one of the political formations formed by military rebels who attempted to lead a military mutiny against Gloria Macapagal Aorroyo, are also supporting the campaign.

Pasig, Ric’s home town, is one of the four richest cities in Metro Manila, with a city government budget of around P5.2 billion in 2010. The city’s political institutions have been in the clutches of a local political clan, the Eusebios, for some 18 years. The clan has controlled the mayoralty of the city over that period, the position oscillating between the father Eusebio, mother and now the son, who is standing again for re-election. The political clan has controlled the Vice Mayor’s position, the entire City Council and even the heads of the local barangays – the Barangay Captain’s positions – for most of this period. The clan runs homeowners associations, interfere in the elections of the local mass organizations, such as the jeepney and tricycle drivers associations, through a combination of patronage politics and terror tactics.

Barangay Pinagbuhatan, the barangay where Ric’s campaign was launched, is controlled by a henchman of the Eusebio’s who has used terror tactics to quell any local resistance, including the liquidation of a number of local leaders. In 2004, an opposition congressional candidate, who was on his way to winning the congressional seat of Pasig, was gunned down and assassinated.

Electoral results are constantly manipulated, using various tricks in the book (standard fare of electoral politics in the country) including buying ‘excess’ ballots from the National Printing Office. On one occasion the certificate of canvass filed by the local electoral commission office had a total number of votes counted, which exceeded the total number of votes cast, by thirty thousand.

According to Ric Reyes, “The Pasig campaign is a good example of the left uniting together. The local Liberal party also has many progressive members, who used to be with the left. Many former activists, individuals, have also come out to support the campaign.” The campaign has mobilized many new activists, with around 300 people working on the campaign on a daily basis. Even some of the local leaders of the Reaffirmists (Maoists, who reaffirm the CPP strategic line of protracted peoples war) are expressing ‘tactical support’ for the campaign.

“Right from the start I made it clear to people that this is a ‘poor man’s’ campaign to oust a dynasty. A dynasty that has taken care of the local roads (which involve lucrative business contracts), but not the people in the area. The state of the hospitals in Pasig are dismal, with people even having to buy their own alcohol (disinfectant) because this is not being provided to them. The public school system is in a mess and there’s a drop-out rate of some 25% at elementary and high school. The city is also a well-known drug den and is one of the main distribution centres for drugs in Metro Manila. The first step to deal with the drug problem in Pasig, is to oust the drug lord controlling the city hall.”

“As for the jobs generated by the city government, these are ‘patronage’ jobs – casual and ‘volunteers’ who are on miserable allowances of around P2000/month. In the city hall bureaucracy, there are people who have been working there for 15 to 17 years who are casuals on three month long contracts, without regular jobs.

“The Eusebios don’t only resort to physical harassment, but also demand ‘grease’ money (payment of bribes) from small businesses who need to have their licences renewed every year, for example. Many businesses, including wealthier ones in Ortigas, complain about this type of harassment as well. Stall vendors in the markets, side-walk vendors, can be thrown out and harassed. Tricycle drivers are victimized and have to pay large fines of P500 for minor violations.”

The city hall’s budget meetings are held in Shanghai and Hongkong. The Eusebios have also accumulated a massive amount of wealth through local plunder and are said to own mansions in London, San Francisco and New York.

Ric Reyes campaign is called “Pasig Libre: Tayo ang Pagbabago” (Free Pasig! We Are for Change!) The campaign will be based on house-to-house campaigning, and mobilizing the people around local issues, such as the threatened demolition of some 15,000 urban poor families living along the flood ways of the Pasig river. The campaign is also attempting to minimize the possibilities of cheating, by checking on the voters lists to make sure they are not padded with false voters and with legitimate voters excluded. The campaign committee is attempting to set up a separate organization to ensure that the voters’ lists and the counting of the ballot is secured.

[1] Ric Reyes is a well-known leader of the revolutionary socialist movement in the Philippines. He was a leader of the Rejectionist movement that left the CPP in the early 1990s, repudiating the CPP’s undemocratic party practices and their line of armed struggle, via protracted peoples war.

CPP-NPA Permit to Campaign Fees: Fundraising or Opportunism?

2010-03-12T05:48:00.000-08:00

The Philippine Left and the 2010 Elections
(A series of commentaries on left electoral tactics in the lead-up to the May 10, 2010 Philippine elections.)

The issue of the New Peoples Army collecting ‘permit to campaign fees’ (euphemistically named ‘revolutionary taxes’ by the CPP) from capitalist trapo politicians wanting to campaign in NPA strongholds has once again resurfaced in the lead-up to the May 2010 elections. The fees buy these trapo politicians a ‘permit to campaign’ in NPA areas. According to a February 5 Dateline news report, documents obtained from an NPA leader arrested in January this year, pegs the taxes from P30 million for a presidential candidate to P5000 for a candidate for local council. It’s a well-known ‘secret’ in the left that this practice of tax collection during elections is a lucrative source of fundraising for the CPP-NPA.

A March 12 statement issued by the CPP (http://www.philippinerevolution.net/cgi-bin/statements/releases.pl?date=100312;refer=ndfev;lang=eng) while denying that the CPP ‘simply accepts bribes to let reactionary politicians win in the election’, at the same time indirectly justifies the practice by claiming that “there are already two governments in the country, two different laws, two different systems of life. If the reactionaries want to campaign in the areas controlled by the revolutionary movement, they must recognize the revolutionary government.” Following the logic of this argument, one can justifiably also ask why a revolutionary government should allow a politician belonging to a reactionary government to campaign in its ‘sovereign territory’? Contrast the NPA practice to that of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, an armed liberation movement, struggling for self-determination of the Bangsa Moro people in Mindanao. The MILF doesn’t open up its base for money to reactionary politicians during election campaigns, so why should the NPA?

The left rhetoric of the CPP-NPA notwithstanding, this is yet another example of the opportunist electoral politics that permeates the left’s electoral tactics in this country. According to some sources several NPA fighters themselves are extremely critical of this practice. Opening up their areas compromises the security of these NPA bases, increases the vulnerability of their cadre who have to collect the money and opens up the organization to military exposure and attacks.

The electoral debacle of the Philippine left

2010-03-12T04:08:00.000-08:00

(A comment piece: the first in a series of commentaries in the lead-up to the May 10, 2010 elections, in the Philippines.)

While Latin America has opened up a new socialist front for the 21^st century and we have the most recent victory of the united left coalition in Uruguay, the Frente Amplio (FA – Broad Front), led by a former leader of the Tupamaros Jose ‘Pepe’ Mujica, winning the Presidency in November 2009, the Philippines left, by contrast, is a tragic and even horrible spectacle going into the May 2010 elections.

While the left is undeniably present in the electoral arena, the main tactic pursued is to vie for positions in the senate tickets of pro-capitalist trapo (traditional politicians) presidential candidates who are the frontrunners in the polls, i.e. the tickets of Noynoy Aquino the presidential candidate of the Liberal Party (which is carrying an Akbayan senate candidate), Manny Villar, the presidential candidate of the Nacionalista Party (which is carrying two senators for the Bayan bloc) and the previously ousted former president Joseph Estrada of the Partido ng Masang Pilipino (which is running a Sanlakas senate candidate). The left candidates on these tickets have unequivocally thrown their support behind these presidential candidates. And the platforms of these presidential candidates have little or no resemblance to the progressive agenda that the mass movements in the Philippines have campaigned for in the last few decades – whether it be the demands of the labor movement, the urban poor, the peasant movement, the women’s movement or any of the anti-neoliberal demands raised by the mass movements throughout the decades of 1990s and 2000. At the local level the situation is even more disgusting with all the left parties without exception involved in unprincipled dealings with capitalist politicians bartering for votes and money – sometimes also known as ‘take the money and run’ tactics.

The left is badly divided and unable to form an electoral front, to put forward an independent left position in the coming elections, during a period of deep crisis in the elite political establishment and social system. The main reason is the deep sectarianism and mistrust that divides the left. The left would rather deal with capitalist politicians – many of whom are thugs and gangsters – than deal with one another. This deep and long-running sectarian politics prevents the left from forming even a minimal alliance in the electoral arena. The left today is unable to unite effectively to support even one-single progressive candidate – from senator to local councillor. The conduct of the Philippine left in these elections is a testimony to the poisonously divisive impact of left sectarianism. It’s a tragic example of how this sectarianism completely disarms the working class and progressive movement in a period when elite rule in this country is facing the most severe crisis since the ouster of the Marcos dictatorship in the 1980s.

Women Dying from the Asian 'Miracle'

2010-03-08T21:25:00.000-08:00

System Change a Must to Save Women’s Lives

Despite the fanfare about Asia’s ‘miracle economies’ the problem of ‘missing women and girls’ is actually growing, according to the UNDP-sponsored 2010 Asia-Pacific Human Development Report. These ‘missing’ girls and women are a result of the abortion of girl fetuses and women dying through sheer neglect – underfed and starved and not receiving adequate health care. The birth gender disparity is the highest in East Asia, home of the Asian ‘miracle’ economies, where 119 boys are born for every 100 girls. China and India, much touted for their economic success, account for 85 million of these 100 million ‘missing’ women.

South Asia – which includes India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh – is one of the worst regions in the world (just above impoverished sub-Saharan Africa) in gender equality relating to health, education and employment for women. It has the highest women’s illiteracy levels in the world with almost half of all adult women illiterate. South Asian women are also expected to die five years earlier than men. The region has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world with 500 women dying for every 100,000 live births – these rates are higher only in sub-Saharan Africa.

Nearly half of the countries in South Asia and some 60% of the countries in the Pacific have no laws against domestic violence. In India and Pakistan fewer than 35% of women do paid work. Pay gaps between female and male wages are as high as 54%.

The Asian miracle economies were built on the sweat and blood of women’s labour – the ‘nimble fingers’ in the garment and textile, electronics and other light manufacturing industries. This super-exploitation of women continues to mark the ‘economic progress’ of the emerging Asian economic ‘super-powers’, such as India and China. The message is clear: the system must be changed to ensure the basic survival of women and girls.

Renewing Socialist Feminism Today

2010-03-06T19:08:00.000-08:00

Renewing Socialist Feminism Today

Women and Revolution: Renewing Socialist Feminism Today

2010-03-06T06:57:00.001-08:00

(These are notes from a talk delivered at a Socialist Dialogue forum in the Philippines to mark International Women's Day.)

The women’s movement, the leadership, needs to start to talk about revolution and socialism again. The movement is subsumed by ‘advocacies, i.e. negotiating, through a series of compromises, for minor reforms within the existing status quo. Major issues of system-change and anti-capitalist alternatives are hardly addressed today.

Has the system delivered? For a minority, yes. For a majority of women, No! We have formal equality (anti-discrimination legislation, etc) but not real social and economic equality. The gap between women in the North and South widening. The class gap amongst women increased and continues increasing.

Why does the women’s movement need to start talking about revolution/system change? Because of the conjuncture we face today.

a. The system is in deep crisis. Economic: Greece, Portugal show the deep cracks, poverty is increasing. Socially: health, education, environment and human survival under threat. It’s not the time to play around the edges of the system. Now’s the time to challenge it.

b. Because we are witnessing the renewal of socialism in Latin America -- in Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba continues.

In the Philippines poor children die at three times the rate of the children of the rich, according to latest UN data. Under-five mortality rates are 66 child deaths to every 1000 live births amongst the poor, compared to 21 child deaths to every 1000 births amongst the rich. The largest wealth disparity for under-five mortality rates is in the Philippines, compared to any other country in the Asia-Pacific region. Child mortality is linked to the health and welfare of the mothers. Maternal mortality rates in the Philippines show little or no improvement and are unlikely to meet even the ‘less than minimum’ Millennium Development Goals. If there is one single reason that we need a comprehensive, modern reproductive health bill and RH program meeting international best standards and practice, this is it. A reproductive health program, which is free and accessible to poor women, which gives mothers a range of choices and educates them about these choices, saves poor children’s lives.

Also in the Philippines, we have supposedly progressed on gender and governance issues: we elect women presidents and have one of the highest proportions of women in Congress, compared to other countries in the region. And yet this has not translated into concrete gains for a majority of working and poor women. The system of elite rule that exploits and oppresses working and poor women is still in place. Women have entered the ‘masters house’ – Congress and government – but instead of throwing out the master, bringing down his house and building a new home for all, these women represent the master’s interests, i.e. the patriarchal system of elite rule. So the issue is not merely one of women’s participation, but one of genuine representation – in whose political social and economic interests, do these women govern?

There is (and never has been) an artificial divide between women’s issues and other issues. Every issue today, big and small, is a women’s issue. Poverty and the economic crisis, job losses and contractualization, health care and reproductive health, education, oil prices, corruption, governance, the illegitimate debt, war, militarism, violence, climate change and the environmental crisis – these are all women’s issues. After all, women are the ones who tend to be the hardest hit by these issues -- from the economic crisis, during which a majority of workers laid off in industries such as electronics are women, to climate-change induced disasters such as flooding, where the casualty rates tend to be higher for women and children.

So how society is organized and in whose interests? Who controls the political system? Who runs the economy? These are all issues that are extremely important to women. These are, in fact, life and death issues for women.

Socialist feminism in its broadest sense is an inclusive project.

· All socialist feminists would see class as central to women’s lives and women’s oppression. Some of us would see class as fundamental from the point of view of explaining the historical origins of women’s oppression, for example. Others refuse to give primacy to any one factor over the other.

· Women’s oppression, however, is not simply reduced to economic exploitation, i.e. the extraction of surplus value. This also applies to national/ethnic or racial oppression.

· All these aspects of society are inextricably linked, i.e. class is always gendered and ‘raced’.

We also need to focus on the inter-relationship between reproductive unpaid labor, paid labor and capital, and not so much on the separation of these categories, as we have done in the past. Capital, wants the lowest possible necessary labor. But, capital would like to expand -- unpaid necessary labor. While capital does not pay for this reproductive labor, it benefits by it. The more work that is done free in the household, the less the wage has to be. As the purchaser of labor power, capital gains from the unpaid labor of women within the household. And the more capital drives down wages and intensifies the workday for wage-laborers, the greater the burden placed on the household to maintain workers.

Women need to make a breach in the system of elite/capitalist rule. We need to link our immediate demands to system change and an end to elite rule. We need to have the perspective of mobilizing masses of women, not just our own base, but hundreds of thousands, to make a breach in the system. Latin America shows us that this can be done.

Sleeping with the Enemy?

2010-01-30T01:48:00.000-08:00

Hillary Clinton, the Taliban and Gender Politics

“You don’t make peace with your friends. You make peace with your enemies.”, declared Hillary Clinton in a CNN interview, as she justified NATO efforts to bribe Taliban fighters into laying down their arms, with a brazenness that would have made Machiavelli blush. Clinton was referring to the $140 million ‘Peace and Reintegration Trust Fund’ announced at the International Conference on Afghanistan hosted by the British government on January 28 this year.

The fund is supposedly targeted at buying off ‘mid-level leaders’ of the Taliban. What’s actually on the agenda, however, is negotiations with the top Taliban leadership to draw them back into government in a possible ‘power-sharing arrangement’ with the government of Hamid Karzai. The UN Mission head in Afghanistan, for instance, had meetings with the leadership of the Taliban in the days leading up to the Conference and Hillary Clinton had been briefed about these negotiations beforehand.

Attempts by the US and NATO to have negotiations with the Taliban are, of course, not new. The fact that such negotiations have been taking place for several years now, has been an open ‘secret’ in government, NATO and UN circles in Kabul. What should not pass without comment, however, is that Hillary Clinton, who also promotes herself as an advocate for gender equality and women’s rights, is now leading the implementation of this strategy.

Lest we forget, the symbol of the ‘liberation’ of Afghanistan by US and NATO troops, were happy images of chador-less Afghan women. The NATO invasion was all about getting rid of these ‘women-hating, Al-Qaeda lovers’, was the propaganda. Gender equity was on the banner headline of the UN agencies, UNIFEM, UNDP and others, who poured in on the coat tails of the occupation forces. Hundreds of millions of dollars were poured into thousands of ‘gender and development’ and ‘violence against women’ projects and programs. The NATO occupation was made synonymous with the liberation of Afghan women from the Taliban.

So is Hillary Clinton now really sleeping with the ‘enemy’, as she describes the Taliban? Not really. Given that the US government created the Taliban in the first place, it could be a case of merely patching up a rift between former bedfellows. Whether the Taliban sees this as such, however, is an entirely different matter.

As feminists, we must reaffirm that women’s rights can only be best guaranteed, in a genuinely sovereign Afghanistan and not under the boots of an imperialist occupation force. Hillary Clinton and the US-NATO governments attempts to draw the Taliban back into government is a case in point. This is why we need to expose the hypocrisy of an ‘establishment feminism’ that falsely speaks in our name.

Defy Destiny

2009-09-03T22:39:00.000-07:00

Becoming President is Noynoy’s destiny, we are told and there have been various attempts to describe 'destiny', both in religious and secular terms. When people talk of destiny, I start to get uncomfortable. Women, after all, have been ‘destined’ to be oppressed for several thousand years now – our biology, we have been told for several thousand years, is our 'destiny'.

As a young feminist discovering ‘herstory’ and trying to demystify the layers and layers of oppression that surrounded my life, I was quick to learn that ‘destiny’ was a mystification for the underlying patriarchal power relations which controlled my life. By mystifying these power relations, 'destiny' in fact, justified them and kept them in place. The only way to struggle for liberation was and is to challenge our ‘destiny’, which meant challenging the underlying power relations.

Anyone born into a powerful political clan in the Philippines is ‘destined’ to rule. That’s the class system of power relations in this country. Why Noynoy and not Mar? That can be put down to what I call the ‘accidental’ factors in life. Mar, however, is still ‘destined’ to be President, by virtue of his belonging to a family with wealth and therefore power and privilege. He could still fulfill his ‘destiny’ in 2016.

I will stick to the lessons I learned hard as a socialist-feminist. We, the oppressed and under-privileged, must challenge ‘our destiny’, or more accurately the 'destiny' that the system of elite rule imposes on us and in doing so challenge the privileged ‘destiny’ of the sons and daughters of the elite political clans.

I am waiting for a poor, Muslim woman, to challenge and defy her destiny and be a potential winner in a Presidential election. Then we know that change is nigh and that the masa are prepared to challenge and defy their destiny.

‘Defy your destiny’, should be our slogan for the day. And in so doing, we make it our own and collectively reshape it.

The Philippine left and Cory Aquino

2009-08-14T02:53:00.000-07:00

THE Philippine left’s reaction to the death of Cory Aquino has been intriguing.

The CPP did a complete about-turn, literary recanting their previous position of Cory Aquino being a representative of the reactionary classes. The NDF statement laid the blame for the massacre of unarmed peasants at Mendiola under the Aquino administration – one of the most tragic episodes in the history of the left in the Philippines – at the feet of the “military and police [who] caused the termination of the ceasefire agreement between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the NDFP when they indiscriminately fired on the peasants and their urban supporters marching for land reform on January 22, 1987.”

Thus a massacre became an “indiscriminate firing” and the Aquino administration was devolved of all responsibility in a stunningly hypocritical rewriting of history.

As for Cory Aquino’s active support to keep the US bases in the Philippines and against moves by the senate then to remove the bases, the NDF statement has only this to say: “She was openly critical of the long running support of the US for the Marcos dictatorship in exchange for the aggrandizement of US economic interests and the continuance of the US military bases.” Not a word on her pro-US bases stance after she came to power.

Even those of us now well-accustomed to the CPP’s unashamed pragmatism swallowed hard while reading the NDF statement signed by top CPP leaders including Joma Sison. However, this is not the first time that history has been rewritten, especially by the CPP, to suit the various twists and turns in its political line.

Partido Lakas ng Masa, on the other hand, issued a statement outlining its assessment of the main characteristics of the Cory regime. It read, in part, “Cory Aquino was the icon of the revival of pre-dictatorial ‘elite democracy’ in the country. She was the symbol of a ‘people power revolution’ which deposed the dictator Marcos but failed to institute a people’s power government. The governmental alliance that she established under her ‘revolutionary government’ quickly transformed into a government headed by elite groups previously persecuted by the Marcos dictatorship.”

Most importantly, the PLM statement issued by Sonny Melencio, its chairperson, implied that what was really posed was the possibility of the left leading the anti-dictatorship movement and taking political power. “While Aquino was seen as leading the downfall of the much-hated Marcos dictatorship, it is classes and not individuals that make history. There were various factors and players at work who made the ouster of Marcos a reality. Edsa 1 itself was a confluence of a military mutiny and a people’s uprising. The build-up to Edsa 1 was a series of protests, sacrifices, and small-scale rebellion led by the Left and other progressive forces. It is unfortunate, however, that the Left which has sacrificed the most during the period of the dictatorship, ended up ‘politically isolated’ due to errors related to its strategy and tactics.”

It concluded by arguing that the current crisis facing the people under the rotting carcass of the GMA regime is in fact a part of Cory’s legacy: “In a sense, Gloria Macapagal’s rise to power was a product of the limited and distorted character of Cory’s ‘revolution’”.

Akbayan did not release a formal statement, but some of it’s individual leaders attempted to expose the real record of the Cory administration, such as its active opposition to the removal of US bases and the burdensome legacy of debt left to the future generations to carry, enshrined in what became known as the Cory constitution, which made the annual repayment of the Philippine debt mandatory.

Some leaders of Akbayan argued that the problem was the bad advisors who surrounded Cory Aquino. Others, such as Emmanuel Hizon, argued that despite this anti-people record, the Cory administration was still seen by the people as a representative of the ideal of freedom and democracy.

“Who could forget the Aquino government’s pro-US military bases stance? Who could not recall her government’s US-backed low intensity conflict and total war policy against “insurgents” which in truth harmed the masses more than its perceived enemies?”

The article then went onto explain the mass support for Cory: “[T]his woman despite her regime’s numerous social and economic transgressions is so loved and cherished by a people representing three generation of Edsas. It’s not so much because she is religious, a mother-like figure to many, a glorified widow or simply a martyr; beyond the labels, our ideological flexing and the comfortable branding of pundits, Cory has been duly recognized by the people as an icon in their transition from despotism to rule of law, their struggle from tyranny towards a sense of freedom and democracy. Cory is first and foremost the representation of that ideal, of that difficult journey towards democratization, of that collective national experience.”

And it continued, “She will also be remembered as a defender of that particular form of democracy, flawed and wanting it may be in so many ways, not measuring up to our Marxist concept of a democratic archetype. From people power 2 which removed an incompetent and corrupt regime up to her participation in the fight to throw out the illegitimate Arroyo regime and its sinister plan to amend the constitution, Cory will be remembered and respected as a person who despite her privileged status joined the people in their most trying and important political junctures.”

No Lessons Reviewed

What struck me most about the left analysis of Cory and the Cory years, however, was the lack of any serious assessment of the lessons that this critical period in history holds for left strategy today. In this sense the analysis has been a-historical. In most cases it hasn’t gone beyond the role of Cory as an individual or the reviewing of some facts of her administration’s record, instead of analysing and attempting to understand the lessons they hold for left strategy today. Does this mean that the left has nothing to learn from the Edsa revolution that overthrew Marcos and stabilised the system of pre-Marcos elite rule? Or is this a form of denial, a refusal to collectively look at the period head on and draw the relevant lessons for today?

After all the Aquino years were a 'traumatic' period for the revolutionary left, having to come to terms with its own failure in losing the leadership of the political revolution, as well as having to suffer ongoing repression with the massacre of farmers in Mendiola, as well as the assassination of leaders of the movement, Rolando Olalia and Lean Alejandro.

The Edsa revolution was a double-edged sword for the revolutionary left: a partial victory in building a mass movement that overthrew the dictatorship, but also a defeat of its strategy. Most importantly, today, we continue to live with the legacy of all this.

I think that the left has only made a partial assessment of the Edsa revolution and its aftermath. I have always believed that a more comprehensive assessment is necessary, because it is of the utmost importance that we learn the lessons for today.

As historical materialists our starting point should be that classes make history and not 'great leaders' (and not even political parties, which are the tools used by the working class in the struggle). As the PLM statement correctly points out, “While Aquino was seen as leading the downfall of the much-hated Marcos dictatorship, it is classes and not individuals that make history.”

We should also internalise that Napoleonic dictum that 'Defeated armies learn well'. This is something that the Cuban revolutionaries managed to do in the aftermath of the defeat of the Moncada rebellion on July 26, 1953 (celebrated a few days ago) and then went on, a few years later, to lead a successful insurrection resulting in the Cuban revolution in 1959.

I think that the Philippine left is still grappling with this and is an army that has not, as yet, learned its lessons well.

Some lessons and more questions

Admittedly some lessons have been drawn by sections of the left and it’s important that these are summarised. While these positions are differently nuanced amongst the various political parties or blocs, the main lessons can be identified as follows:
(i) The importance of the left intervening in the electoral arena, and
(ii) The rejection or questioning of the Maoist strategy of protracted peoples war.
Others have also pointed to the important role that the military plays in an insurrection or political revolution. The transitional demand for a Transitional Revolutionary Government put forward by Laban ng Masa during the height of the struggle to oust the GMA regime, was also partially referenced by the government of Cory Aquino which was then referred to as a ‘revolutionary government’.

A key lesson of the 1986 Edsa revolution is the importance of the electoral tactic in the mobilisation of the masses and the capture of government and political power. The CPP’s ultra-left, electoral boycott tactic was a fatal error leading to the isolation of the left and the victory of the elite over the anti-dictatorship upsurge. If the CPP had fully participated in the election campaign and used the electoral tactic to the fullest extent possible, to mobilise the masses, the outcome of the Edsa revolution would have been different. Cory and the elite forces’ victory in February could have been followed by a revolutionary October, as the CPP Chair Jose Maria Sison, then promised. This never came to pass and instead we experienced a period of decline of the revolutionary movement.

The left learned this lesson hard and through the 1990s started to run its own candidates and participate in the electoral arena. However, the overall character of the left electoral intervention has been to play the electoral card in an extremely conventional way, within the boundaries set by traditional bourgeois politics, that it has become impossible to differentiate the left’s electoral campaigns from those of the trapo candidates. ‘We have to play the game’ was the justification given. And the left certainly did ‘play the game’. So much so, that the CPP’s electoral organisations were the de facto party list of choice of the GMA regime in the 2001 and 2004 elections (an assessment, quite rightly made, in the Inquirer editorial of July 27). The mobilisation of the masses is not the aim, but the winning of seats is, and by any means necessary.

The revolutionary movement in Latin America has once again placed the electoral tactic on the agenda. In Venezuela and Bolivia the revolutionary movement used the electoral tactic to capture government and then proceeded to extend and consolidate a revolutionary political and state power. This lesson and experience is now being extended to Nicaragua , El Salvador , Uruguay and Ecuador .

The lesson for us in the Philippines is that the electoral tactic, under certain conditions, such as during an extreme crisis of elite rule and a sharp rise in the class struggle (as was the case in the period leading to the collapse of the Marcos dictatorship) can be used to mobilise the masses on a massive scale to create a major breach in the system of elite/bourgeois rule. This is a key lesson of the Edsa revolution and a lesson from the advances made by the revolutionary movements in Latin America today. However, as long as we use the electoral tactic purely within the boundaries set by trapo politicians, our political gains will be extremely limited and our movement will suffer the problems of opportunism, that so marks the left’s electoral interventions today.

We also need to start by asking ourselves the right questions in the process of trying to draw useful lessons. Why is it that sections of the elite have time and again been able to use populist rhetoric, to mobilise and lead the masa to serve their own interests, including in winning the leadership from the left? For me this is a key question, or maybe eventhe key question, that needs to be posed over and over again, especially during periods of crisis such as the one we face in the Philippines today. #

The 1986 Edsa Revolution , Latin America Today & the Electoral Tactic

2009-08-02T19:26:00.000-07:00

A key lesson of the 1986 Edsa revolution is the importance of the electoral tactic in the mobilisation of the masses and the capture of government and political power. The CPP’s ultra-left, electoral boycott tactic, was a fatal error leading to the isolation of the left and the victory of the elite over the anti-dictatorship upsurge. If the CPP had fully participated in the election campaign and used the electoral tactic to the fullest extent possible, to mobilise the masses, the outcome of the Edsa revolution would have been different. Cory and the elite forces victory in February could have been followed by a revolutionary October, as the CPP Chair Jose Maria Sison, then promised. This never came to pass and instead we experienced a period of decline of the revolutionary movement.

The left learned this lesson hard and through the 1990s started to run its’ own candidates and participate in the electoral arena. However, the overall character of the left electoral intervention has been to play the electoral card in an extremely conventional way, within the boundaries set by traditional bourgeois politics, that it has become impossible to differentiate the left’s electoral campaigns from those of the trapo candidates. ‘We have to play the game’ was the justification given. And the left certainly did ‘play the game’. So much so, that the CPP’s electoral organisations were the defacto party list of choice of the GMA regime in the 2001 and 2004 elections (an assessment, quite rightly made, in the Inquirer editorial of July 27). The mobilisation of the masses is not the aim, but the winning of seats is, and by any means necessary.

The revolutionary movement in Latin America has once again placed the electoral tactic on the agenda. In Venezuela and Bolivia the revolutionary movement used the electoral tactic to capture government and then proceeded to extend and consolidate a revolutionary political and state power. This lesson and experience is now being extended to Nicaragua, El Salvador, Uruguay and Ecuador.

The lesson for us in the Philippines is that the electoral tactic, under certain conditions, such as during an extreme crisis of elite rule and a sharp rise in the class struggle (as was the case in the period leading to the collapse of the Marcos dictatorship) can be used to mobilise the masses on a massive scale to create a major breach in the system of elite/bourgeois rule. This is a key lesson of the Edsa revolution and a lesson from the advances made by the revolutionary movements in Latin America today. However, as long as we use the electoral tactic purely within the boundaries set by trapo politicians, our political gains will be extremely limited and our movement will suffer the problems of opportunism, that so marks the left’s electoral interventions today.

Cory Aquino's Legacy: Reviewing the Lessons

2009-07-31T19:35:00.000-07:00

The death of Cory Aquino is now being mourned. Over the next few days we will be witnessing a media review of her legacy, which will be overwhelmingly favourable to the pro-elite, anti-Marcos opposition, that took political power, sidelining the left and the mass movement. Cory Aquino has been described as the icon of Philippines democracy. We would like to qualify this to state that she was/is an icon of elite democracy and this is an important qualification.

It's also important that the left, the Marxist left, re-asserts it's own assessment of the Aquino years and the Aquino legacy.

The Aquino years were a 'traumatic' period for the revolutionary left, having to come to terms with it's own failure in losing the leadership of the political revolution, as well as having to suffer ongoing repression with the massacre of farmers in Mendiola, as well as the assassination of leaders of the movement, Rolando Olalia and Lean Alejandro.

The Edsa revolution was a double-edged sword for the revolutionary left: a partial victory in building a mass movement that overthrew the dictatorship, but also a defeat of it's strategy. Most importantly, today, we continue to live with the legacy of all this.

I think that the left has only made a partial assessment of the Edsa revolution and it's aftermath. I have always believed that a more comprehensive assessment is necessary, because it is of the utmost importance that we learn the lessons for today.

As historical materialists our starting point should be that classes make history and not 'great leaders' (and not even political parties, which are the tools used by the working class in the struggle). We should also internalise that Napoleonic dictum that 'Defeated armies learn well'. This is something that the Cuban revolutionaries managed to do in the aftermath of the defeat of the Moncada rebellion on July 26, 1953 (celebrated a few days ago) and then went on, a few years later, to lead a successful insurrection resulting in the Cuban revolution in 1959.

I think that the Philippine left is still grappling with this and is an army that has not, as yet, learned it's lessons well.

I think the passing away of Cory Aquino reopens this whole discussion and we should roll up our sleeves and get 'stuck into it'.

Ka Sonny Melencio is starting to write about it and we will also try and schedule a Socialist Dialogue discussion on the topic.
--
Reihana

Tamil Self-Determination and the LTTE: Some Lessons to Continue & Renew the Struggle

2009-05-21T18:20:00.000-07:00

By Reihana Mohideen

“To save the lives of our people is the need of the hour. Mindful of this, we have already announced to the world our position to silence our guns to save our people," said Selvarasa Pathmanathan, the head of LTTE’s International Diplomatic Relations on May 17, thus flagging the military defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. While the military defeat of the LTTE does not necessarily mean its demise, and it most certainly does not represent the end of the struggle for Tamil self-determination in Sri Lanka, nevertheless it is a major setback to the struggle for a Tamil Eelam.

And while calls for a political settlement of the conflict must be supported, the possibility of a genuine political settlement, i.e. peace with justice, is probably far less likely today than when the Tigers were still a powerful military force willing to negotiate a political settlement. The Tigers are in a far weaker position to negotiate a political settlement for a liberated Tamil homeland today, than they have been in previous years.

At the same time, the Sinhalese government victory is a veritable double-edged sword. The Tamil struggle will rise again and it could take more desperate forms. The fact that the Sinhalese army feels compelled to hold Tamil youth prisoners in military camps, and according to defence ministry spokesperson Lakshman Hullugalle, even up to two years if necessary, is an acknowledgement of this possibility.

The defeat of the Tigers, one of the most powerful Liberation armies in the world which controlled Northern and Eastern parts of Sri Lanka, does come as a shock. How was the Sinhalese government able to defeat a disciplined armed force, with substantial support amongst the Tamil population? While international intervention, such as military support to the Sinhala government by imperialist countries such as the UK and Israel are factors that weighed against the Tigers, the strategy of the LTTE itself needs to come under scrutiny, particularly by those very Tamil youth who will continue the struggle for Tamil self-determination.

While the LTTE has carried out a heroic struggle for the self-determination of the Tamil people of Sri Lanka, one of the main limitations of the LTTE was that it primarily pursued a military strategy and not a political strategy based on mobilising the Tamil masses and building solidarity amongst the Sinhalese and Muslim populations in the rest of the island. The militarisation of the struggle by the LTTE also resulted in human rights violations of Tamils by the LTTE in Tiger controlled areas. The centralised and hierarchical military structures, and the refusal to accommodate different political views and currents which exist (until today) within the movement for Tamil self-determination, all contributed to weakening the Tamil liberation struggle.
As Australian socialist and solidarity activist for Tamil self-determination Chris Slee, writing in Green Left Weekly points out, the military strategy pursued by the LTTE also led to the alienation of potential allies. The LTTE was unable to build strong alliances with any sections of the Sinhala and Muslim populations. As Slee notes, “The Tigers sometimes disregarded the need to win support among Sinhalese workers, peasants and students in southern Sri Lanka for the right of Tamils to national self-determination. This also applied to the Tamil-speaking Muslims of eastern Sri Lanka. The absence of a mass anti-war movement in southern Sri Lanka is a key obstacle to the success of the Tamil self-determination struggle. The LTTE has been willing to negotiate with Sinhalese political leaders whenever they showed any signs of wanting to reach a peaceful solution. But the LTTE has not made a serious effort to get its message directly to the Sinhalese masses, bypassing the politicians whose promises of peace have been deceptive.”
While the lack of a strong anti-war movement in southern Sri Lanka primarily reflects the weakness and political limitations of the Sri Lankan left, the military strategy of the LTTE and the tactics which flowed from this, such as the bombing campaigns in the South which killed civilians, have also alienated the Sri Lankan masses from supporting the Tamil struggle for self-determination.
While our main focus has to be building the international solidarity campaign to free the Tamil population imprisoned in the Sinhala army camps, for the withdrawal of the Sinhala army from Tamil territory and putting pressure on the Sinhala government for a political settlement to the Tamil question, the left especially in Sri Lanka and within the Tamil population, has the responsibility to provide a critical framework to develop a political strategy to continue and renew the Tamil struggle for self-determination. This does not mean relinquishing support of the right of Tamil people under occupation to take up arms against an occupying Sinhala army. In the current situation, however, emphasis on political struggles and campaigns is clearly to the advantage of the Tamil fighters and peoples, and this will also be the case in the mid-term.

Thoroughly Modern Marx

2009-05-05T05:41:00.000-07:00

The economic crisis and the imploding of ‘the faith’, i.e., of the neo-liberal orthodoxies peddled by the likes of Milton Friedman, has seen a resurgence of interest in Karl Marx with a sharp increase in worldwide sales of Das Kapital (one lone German publisher sold thousands of copies in 2008, compared with 100 the year before). Marx, as a thinker, was well ahead of his times. He accurately foresaw many of the fateful factors that would give rise to today’s global economic crisis: what he called the “contradictions” inherent in a world comprised of competitive markets, commodity production, and financial speculation.

The deregulation of the finance sector has been blamed for the current crisis and there have been calls for increased regulation. But deregulation was not the whim of individual governments. It was generalised as a mechanism to increase profit levels. As Marx argued in Das Kapital, speculation is inherent in the functioning of capitalism, and the bankers act and have acted, in unison with the industrialists.

Over the past 30 years the frequency of bursting financial bubbles has increased as we have experienced the biggest ever increase of what Marx called ‘fictitious’ capital, in the history of capitalism. When firms invest in purely financial assets they are deciding to invest in /claims /on new value and profit. This sort of investment in itself adds nothing to the mass of value added.

But beneath this excess of fictitious capital, real profits began to dry up, and another reality expressed by Karl Marx came into play: "The ultimate reason for all real crises always remains the poverty and restricted consumption of the masses as opposed to the drive of capitalist production to develop the productive forces as though only the absolute consuming power of society constituted their limit." Credit, had extended "the restricted consumption of the masses" in the industrialised countries, for a while while real wages were driven down or stagnated, but increasingly the credit couldn't be repaid.

The current cycle of over-production is based on the expansion of productivity and production and the decline in purchasing power. This surplus in production was fed primarily by Asia, and Asian commodities flooded the world.

Governments around the world have no clear strategies to resolve the crisis. Even the partial solutions they put forward to solve one aspect or a particular manifestation of the crisis, exacerbates another aspect of the crisis. For example, industrialised countries converted agricultural food production to producing biofuels to deal with the potential shortages in oil resources. This contributed to a shortage in food production and the food price crisis in 2008. Attempts to intensify oil exploration and conventional fuels such as coal will exacerbate the environmental crisis that threatens the very survival of the planet.

The massive state intervention seen in the last few months, of nationalisation and financial bailouts to save the skins of the capitalist class at the expense of massive public indebtedness of working people and the poor, has as yet not been able to stop the slide. Meanwhile we are also seeing a rapid increase in acquisitions, leading to a new round of unprecedented levels of capital concentration.

If the current restructuring the capitalist system continues down the same road, there will be enormous productive and social costs and the already fragile sustainability of the environment may suffer even more damage.

The crisis is systemic and represents the crisis of an entire model of capitalist development, including of neo-liberal capitalism. This global crisis also has a crucial environmental dimension: that of climate change and global warming. Third World countries are the most vulnerable, already suffering severe impacts.

Economic Crisis Hits Asia Hard

2009-05-05T05:38:00.001-07:00

The impact of the crisis in the industrialised countries was transmitted to the economies of Asia with rapid speed. The initial impact was marked by sudden reversals of capital flows, plunging stock markets and even depreciating currencies, followed by region-wide declines in exports and industrial production. This has triggered widespread factory closures, rising unemployment, and lowering of real wages.

The latest World Bank forecasts are that the global economy will shrink by 1.7% in 2009. Trade volumes would drop a record 6.1 percent from 2008, led by a steep decline in the trade of manufactured goods, the largest contraction in 80 years, i.e., since the Great Depression. The trends in the industrialised countries will continue to determine the health of the Asian economies.

The myth that Asia was decoupled was quickly debunked. The entire model of development, of partial industrialisation of the Newly Industrialising Countries (or NICs) model, was export driven and export dependent. Growth rates in the region plummeted in 2008 and will continue to drop in 2009. According to Asian Development Bank figures GDP rates in Asia have dropped from 9.5% in 2007, to 6.3% in 2008, to 3.4% predicted in 2009. The hardest hit are the most export dependent economies: In Singapore the economy is predicted to shrink by 5% this year; Hongkong China growth is forecast at -2%; Taiwan -4%; South Korea -3%.

For the Philippines, the IMF revised its growth projections from 2.25% in 2009 to zero growth. As a reflection of contracting economies, exports fell 39.1% from February 2008 to 2009. It is expected to drop 13-15% in 2009, while imports are expected to drop by 12-14%.

Increasing unemployment
The most immediate and serious impact are retrenchments, especially in export driven industries such as electronics, as well as reduction in remittances of overseas migrant workers. This also means that the first blows are hitting women workers, given that in the electronics sector in the region, 3/5 are women workers.

This pattern of increasing unemployment is being repeated, to varying degrees, in countries in the region. According to 2009 ILO research in Indonesia some 40,000 workers were retrenchments in the last two months of 2008; Vietnam, 300,000 formal sector workers could be retrenched in 2009. In Asia overall the number of unemployed could spiral by 23 million and by 51 million globally in 2009 alone. Any gains made by working people in Asia, due to partial industrialisation in the last two to three decades, could be wiped out.

The impact of the economic crisis resulting in a rise in job losses, comes after the food price crisis in 2008, where staples, such as rice increased by 400% in some areas in the Philippines. While world food prices have gone down, in many TW countries they are coming down very slowly or not at all. In the Philippines staple food prices are higher than 2007 levels.

Workers and the middle-class hit
For the poor of Asia capitalism has been in crisis for some time now, not being able to provide the basic necessities of life. But what we are seeing as a result of the current crisis is a further intensification of hardship and poverty, especially affecting those sectors that did manage to make some partial gains in the last two to three decades, i.e. low-income workers, and even the middle classes, who are now being affected and find themselves in an increasingly precarious position.

The middle classes, include young college graduates who have traditionally been absorbed into the service sector, are being hit hard. In China, for example, in December 2008, 1.5 million college graduates of the 5.6 million who graduated in 2008 couldn't find work by year-end. There are 4 million from previous years still looking for work. Another 6 million college graduates will enter the workforce in 2009.

Filipino workers face big job losses
An Inquirer article reported that according to economist Benjamin Diokno, 11 million workers could lose their jobs as the crisis hits the Philippines economy in 2009. In 2008, according to ILO researchers, some 250,000 workers in plant and machine operation and assembly were retrenched. If workers in electronics and garment and textiles are included the total number could be well over 300,000 retrenched last year, mostly since October when the economic crisis hit.

Some of the industries hardest hit so far are garments, textiles and electronics. Women account for 72.3% of the work force in the electronics and 86.5% in the garments sector. The Calabazon area has been hardest hit. Seven to eight out of ten laid off workers in the export processing zones (EPZs) are women. Workers in the EPZs are also suffering big reductions in wage incomes due to compressed work week schemes, with women workers only allowed to work for two to three days per week.

Meanwhile thousands of OFWs are returning home as factories close overseas. Those most affected include factory workers in Taiwan and domestic workers in Singapore, Hongkong and Macau, a majority of whom are women. And workers who are still employed face wage cuts as a result of reduced working hours, suspension of implementation of wage orders, contractualization and outsourcing, as well as cutbacks in overtime and holidays.

The DOLE figures contradict the independent research data, claiming that only some 40,000 workers were laid-off in 2008. This under-representation of the impact of the crisis on unemployment is alarming, as it signifies the government’s refusal to acknowledge the seriousness of the economic situation facing the country and its people.

In the 2009 budget, the Philippines government would spend P7,391.54 per person for debt servicing while allotting only P2,050.98 per person for education, P301.52 for health, P57.48 for housing and P112.80 for social services. In a crisis situation, when large-scale economic stimulus to boost the national economy through public expenditures is required, such a budget is grossly inadequate. It’s a ‘business as usual’ budget and the continuation of the anti-people neoliberal economic policies that this government and the political establishment of this country is still wedded to.

Socialist feminist revival: If not now, when?

2009-05-04T19:56:00.000-07:00

There is a revival of socialist feminism in Latin America, spearheaded by the Venezuelan and Cuban revolutions.

I just returned from a workshop on gender-based violence organised by the Ministry of Women's Affairs in Venezuela and the UNDP. Speakers at the workshop included Maria Leon, Minister of Women's Affairs and Nora Casteneda President of Banmujer or Bank for the Development of Women. The two women explained the gains made by women as a result of Bolivarian socialist revolution in Venezuela. A record which was truly amazing in the attempts made in empowering women towards achieving gender equality, reported candidly by both women, who also outlined the challenges women in that country have as yet to overcome.

The Bolivarian constitution is the first in the South (and possibly the world) to recognise women's housework as a legitimate economic activity producing wealth and contributing to the social welfare of the population: "The State will recognise household chores as an economic activity that creates added value, produces wealth and social welfare. Housewives have the right to social security according to the law." (Article 88) As Maria Leon explained in Article 88 "the work of all previous generations of women are also recognised and valued".

In March 2007 the right of women to live a life free of violence became an organic law enacted by the National Assembly of Venezuela. Now the law must be effectively implemented. This includes setting up special courts or legal units to handle violence against women cases across the country, with some 19 courts already set up covering all regions. These courts were described as 'new institutions of the Venezuelan state to eradicate violence against women'. The first courts were on violence against women were set up in Caracas on June 27, 2008.

These courts have the authority to temporarily arrest perpetrators of violence against women and prohibit them from leaving the country. The first dates for the trial should be set ten to twenty days after the act of violence, with sentencing on the same day with penalty and fines. Appeals processes exist. These courts were also described as 'specialised organs on violence against women' and as 'weapons in the struggle against violence against women'.

According to Maria Leon, "Talking is not enough. Laws are not enough. Institutions are not enough. We need a cultural change in our views and outlook." This required mobilising women to become "a real force, a deterrent force, an army to combat violence against women and to change the notion of women as battered victims and weak human beings". To mobilise women some 25,000 'points of encounter' for women are being set up where women have easy access to information and services without cumbersome requirements and bureaucratic regulations. These 25,000 'points of encounter' will consist of at least ten women, who will then organise more women to create "an army to combat violence against women ... the point is not only to decrease violence against women, but to eradicate it".

The Ministry for Women's Affairs and Gender Equality was set up on March 8, 2009. One of the first activities of the new Ministry was to organise a congress of women to consult women on the plans and work of the Ministry. A key objective of the Ministry is to advice the President on 'human development with gender equality' and the 'active participation in the defence and guarantee of women's rights in the revolutionary transformation of the country'. Linked to this a key task of the Ministry is to 'design the criteria for allocating financial and social resources and investments targeting women, especially those who are marginalised and excluded, suffering discrimination, exploitation and violence ... in order to promote a socialist production model with gender equity in the socialisation of the means of production'.

Maria Leon and other Venezuelan women speakers all emphasised the importance of the local popular power structures, the commune councils, in the mobilisation and empowerment of women. According to Leon "Peoples power, popular power, is most important [and] 70% of the commune councils are headed by women".

Nora Castaneda provided updates on the work of Banmujer. Banmujer is a key political instrument of the revolution in the economic and political empowerment of poor and ethnic minority women. Since 2001, Banmujer has redistributed wealth of around US$179 million in 106,616 microcredits to poor women. In 2008 alone it approved a total of 13,689 microcredit loans worth US$35 million.

Meanwhile in Cuba pathbreaking proposals and measures are being advocated and discussed amongst the entire population to advance gender equality in relation to sexual rights, spearheaded by the National Center for Sexual Education (CENESEX). According to CENESEX Director Mariela Castro this year’s celebration of International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia will be held in Havana on Saturday, May 16. It will be dedicated not only to youth, but also to the family, “so that fathers and mothers can better understand their homosexual or transsexual children.”

The National Assembly (Cuba’s parliament) will include in its work agenda an initiative to reform the national Family Code, which has been effective in Cuba since 1975 and contains proposals on gender identity and rights of “sexual minorities.” The initiatives include the legal recognition of the same sex unions, whereby they will enjoy the same rights as consensually united heterosexual couples.

In June 2008 a resolution of the Ministry of Public Health leganised the performing of sex change operations on transsexual persons. Resolution 126 establishes the creation of a center for integral healthcare for people who are transsexual, which will be the sole institution in the country authorized to carry out total or partial medical sex change treatments.

This is a far cry from the former Soviet project with its idealisation of motherhood or anything in the experience of the Chinese revolution. And it is a distinct trend in the opposite direction to what is taking place in a number of industrialized countries in the West, the US and Australia included, where the trend is to take away a range of even formal rights won in gender equality and related sexual rights.