IN MEMORIAM
Carol Brickley
26 October 1947-16 September 2019
Three years after her death, we continue to feel the loss of our comrade Carol Brickley, and her huge contribution to the struggle to build a socialist movement in Britain. A life-long revolutionary communist, Carol was a force to be reckoned with, whose uncompromising stance in defence of the working class and against opportunism and sectarianism remain crucial lessons in these most reactionary of times. It’s a legacy we need to carry into the struggle against those on the left who would hijack any emerging struggle by the working class and lead it into respectable channels that pose no threat to the British capitalist state. Most of all, it’s the legacy we uphold through Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism!, the newspaper whose political content and high production standards she helped create and sustain over decades, and which continues to be our best weapon for transmitting the political standpoint needed to build a socialist and anti-imperialist current in any emerging movement in Britain today.
FRFI not covering Donbass
I have been enjoying the current edition of FRFI – the article on Latin America was a particularly helpful and thorough analysis. However as with other recent editions I was again bemused by the position re Ukraine and your continued classification in the spirit of Counterfire/SWP/STW of the war as an inter-imperialist rivalry and the continued non-mention of the people of the Donbass. I was provoked by Mike Webber’s letter to scan your archives and discovered you had a very different position previously even supporting a guy from UK who had gone to fight for militias of the Donetsk People’s Republic. You have also previously referred to the republics and supported their right to self-determination and Russia’s then lukewarm support for them. So this is quite a radically changed position with no explanation as to why?
Your continued support for a positive reading of the legacy of the Soviet Union (a position that reading your paper in recent years has convinced me is correct) is questionable when you now seem to have deserted those who are fighting for that very thing in Ukraine against continual desecration of that memory by the Ukrainian authorities and the replacement of it with a glorification of fascist Ukrainian nationalism and its support for the Nazis in WWII.
RAY
Wolverhampton
Reply
In response to Ray’s letter it has to firstly be stressed that Russia’s military actions in Ukraine today have no connection whatsoever with the actions of the former Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was a socialist state, Russia today is a capitalist, minor imperialist power. Under pressure from western imperialism Russia has resorted to a desperate military adventure in an attempt to defend its political and economic influence in Ukraine and Eastern Europe. Putin is using the reality of a significant fascist presence in Ukraine’s military and the defence of ethnic Russians in the east of the country as a justification for this adventurism.
On the specific question of our support, or not, for the right to self-determination in Crimea and the Donbass, it is clear from our previous coverage that we support that right. The Minsk II agreement – signed up to by Germany and France as well as Ukraine and Russia in 2015 – specifically provided for autonomy for the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. Its implementation was undermined from the start by Ukrainian nationalists and Minsk II has now been comprehensively rejected by Ukraine. With this option closed, any right to self-determination in the Donbass region includes the right to hold a referendum on separation from Ukraine and unification with Russia. However in the present political/military situation the focus of our coverage must necessarily be on the role of Britain, the US and the NATO military alliance in fomenting and pursuing this proxy war against Russia in Ukraine.
BOB SHEPHERD
Protest at Belmarsh
On 27 August family, friends and supporters of Kevan Thakrar protested outside Belmarsh maximum-security prison. Kevan has spent more than 12 years in solitary confinement and more than a year in Belmarsh segregation unit where guards persistently brutalise prisoners, particularly Muslim prisoners of colour.
Protesters blew whistles, shouted support and let off flares, whilst guards glared malevolently. They eventually called the police, claiming protesters had hurled smoke bombs over the prison wall – a total lie.
Guard violence is endemic in Belmarsh segregation unit, and senior staff up to the governor are colluding in the brutality. Kevan actively encourages other prisoners to make complaints and himself complains persistently, which is why he is so despised by those inflicting the inhuman treatment. Kevan has shown incredible courage and fortitude during his long struggle and has become deeply politicised by the experience. He is now a voice of all prisoners and the most oppressed. Another protest is planned outside the Ministry of Justice to let the authorities know Kevan is not alone and his struggle is our struggle.
JOHN BOWDEN
South London
Kwame Ture
Kwame Ture, born Stokely Carmichael, was a revolutionary leader of the black liberation movement in the 1960s in the US. He was targeted for persecution by the CIA and spent the last three decades of his life based in Guinea where he organised with All African People’s Revolutionary Party. Ture agitated against imperialism and in support of the Cuban, Palestinian and Vietnamese revolutions and the Libyan Jamahiriyah.
New research by Rory Cormac, author of How to Stage a Coup (2022), revealed how Britain’s Information Research Department (IRD) issued propaganda defaming Ture. The IRD correctly viewed pan-African solidarity personified by Ture as a threat to British imperialism. Cormac’s research should remind us of the dirty tricks played by imperialist powers, particularly those of information warfare targeted to disrupt revolutionary unity.
MATT GLASS
West London
Free Mumia event
Mumia Abu Jamal is one of the best-known political prisoners in the US. It is 40 years since his wrongful incarceration. A former Black Panther, radical radio journalist and anti-imperialist, Mumia has made, and continues to make, an unrivalled political and intellectual contribution to the movement for freedom and social justice.
We are holding an event to celebrate his contribution. Our international online symposium will be held 10 December 2022. The programme will include analysis of Mumia’s work from Prof Linn Washington, long-time friend of Mumia, Cecil Gutzmore, Selma James, Johanna Fernandez (tbc), Julia Wright and others. There will be music, poetry and film as well as discussion.
Mumia continues to broadcast regularly on world affairs with political commentary via Prison Radio. Tune in and listen at www.prisonradio.org. Find us on Facebook: Free Mumia UK.
SARAH M.
Free Mumia Abu Jamal Campaign,
London
Free Julian Assange
On 18 September a group of protesters marched from Woolwich Arsenal DLR station to Belmarsh prison, where Julian Assange is being held, accompanying Assange supporter Kolja, who began his march from Hamburg, Germany some 500 miles to the prison. Kolja had brought some flowers and a book for Julian, but the prison would not accept them, despite the fact that the book ban for prisoners imposed by Chris Grayling was subsequently declared illegal by the courts in 2015.
On 20 April 2022 a British court formally approved the extradition of Julian Assange to the US on espionage charges. This is a reminder that you can support Julian Assange every Saturday 12-2pm outside Belmarsh prison and at 4pm in Piccadilly Circus. On Saturday 8 October at 12 noon there will be a human chain formed to surround Parliament.
DAVID WAIN
West London
Renegades and rebels
Despite the British National Anthem having a verse which calls upon the monarch to quell rebellious Scots, Nicola Sturgeon of the Scottish National Party shamelessly belted out God Save the King at one of the recent ceremonies of obsequy. This pathetic renegade from democracy was joined by trade union leaders such as Mick Lynch of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers. Boasting an admiration for James Connolly, Lynch was quick to suspend the strikes of RMT members as the population was force-marched into national mourning.
Oppression never sleeps, so the charade of respect was interrupted by bullying condemnation and bans and arrests. Emboldened Loyalist thugs provided an excuse for the police to stop a Republican march in Glasgow to honour the heroes of the International Brigades. A brave lass in Edinburgh faces a charge for holding up a placard of opposition to the monarchy. There were other rebels too: football fans in England and Scotland chanted out loud dissent, union members maintained their line despite the previous evening’s announcement of the death, while a vital foodbank in Dundee refused to close on the day of the funeral.
As the capitalist crisis explodes to affect millions of the people and forces the poor into justified rebellion, the nightmare of media directed bowing and scraping will fade. Up the rebels!
MICHAEL MACGREGOR
Dundee
