Ria Aibhilín, speech from the panel in the thematic commission on youth struggles, Anti-imperialist Solidarity Conference for Democracy Against Neo-liberalism, 3 November 2019
I’m here representing the Revolutionary Communist Group, our newspaper Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! and our campaign in solidarity with socialist Cuba, Rock around the Blockade. We are from imperialist Britain, a country that profits from the super-exploitation of the international working class. The British ruling class invades, occupies and plunders oppressed countries around the globe, whilst they tighten immigration controls, ramp up racism and impose austerity on the working class at home.
We raise the banner of Cuban socialism and its achievements. We stand in solidarity with the struggle to build socialism in Latin America and completely oppose the escalation of imperialist attacks on this struggle: we reject the intensification of the genocidal blockade on Cuba and protest against Helms-Burton Title III; we denounce the continuous coup attempts and the murderous economic sanctions placed on Venezuela. We demand the Bank of England releases the $1.3bn worth of gold it is withholding from Venezuela. We oppose the US backed ‘tranque’ violence in Nicaragua and we stand in solidarity with the socialist movement in Bolivia, emphatically rejecting the attempts to launch a coup against the democratically elected government of Evo Morales. Destabilisation attempts against Bolivia have shamefully included British and European sections of the Extinction Rebellion environmental group who have provided a green cover for Bolivia’s elite opposition by calling protests against the MAS government over fires in the Amazon.
We’re inspired by the heroic actions of the popular uprisings against neoliberal governments in Chile, Ecuador, Haiti, Honduras, Argentina and Brazil. The right wing cannot impose its brutal austerity and violence unchecked. We celebrate your resistance and take solidarity action on the streets of Britain!
Since Rock around the Blockade was founded in 1995 we have actively campaigned in defence of Cuba and the revolutionary movements in Latin America. We have sent 14 solidarity brigades to Cuba, the most recent one being earlier this year in April, each one taking material aid to break the blockade and support Cuba’s continued outstanding commitment to democratising sports, arts and culture. We have campaigned to boycott Bacardi and for years campaigned to free the Cuban Five. I was lucky enough to meet Cuban hero Fernando Gonzalez when he spoke in Liverpool, and when I gave him a copy of our newspaper, Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! he told me he had received and read every issue we printed and sent to him during his time in a US prison.
The name of our newspaper – Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! – is a political statement. Fighting racism and imperialism must be at the heart of any socialist movement in imperialist Britain. This has directed our analysis of the Brexit conflict which is essentially a dispute between sections of the British ruling class over two necessarily, totally reactionary outcomes for British capitalism – staying as part of a European imperialist bloc or leaving and becoming an offshore centre for usury capital under the umbrella of US imperialism. We reject totally taking sides in this dispute between sections of the ruling class. Both sides are cynically calling for more immigration controls and whatever the outcome the working class in Britain will still suffer devastating austerity and poverty.
We are currently very involved in the movement against climate change. That movement has been dominated by young people, who understand the urgency of the crisis and the need to act now. It has been inspiring to see tens of thousands of young people on the streets across Europe and beyond, following the lead of Greta Thunberg and the school strikes, as students refuse to go to school when the planet and their futures are being destroyed. In every city where we are active, our comrades have been involved in these struggles, bringing anti-imperialist demands, calling for socialism and holding up the example of the most sustainably developed society on the planet – socialist Cuba!
I live in Liverpool, where we have very lively climate demonstrations. The Revolutionary Communist Group in Liverpool has been supporting an anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist organisation, Earth Strike. Earth Strike Liverpool is a group made up of people of all ages, but the overwhelming majority are students and young people. We organise under the slogan ‘climate change is a war of the rich against the poor!’ bringing anti-imperialist politics to the forefront of the struggle.
Rich imperialist countries, like Britain, are driving environmental destruction and global warming as they exploit poorer countries around the world. British banks and mining companies plunder the natural resources of the poorer nations, their oil, their minerals and their land. They bribe a tiny layer within those poorer countries to hand over resources at rock bottom price. This is a new form of colonialism.
British banks like Barclays are funnelling billions into the fossil fuel industry, while HSBC also pays Indonesian companies to burn down rainforests to turn them into huge palm oil plantations. British based mining giants such as Anglo American, BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and Glencore are now engaged in over 250 mining-related conflicts in Latin America alone. These conflicts include environmental degradation, water theft, fraud, corruption, land dispossession and the repression of community opposition. Meanwhile the search for rare metals such as cobalt and titanium has led to appalling conflicts in the DR Congo and the Middle East.
There can be no solution to the climate crisis or its impact without a complete change in the relationship between rich and poor countries and this requires a challenge to the existing system of imperialist exploitation. None of the existing parliamentary parties in Britain will commit to this and we see no parliamentary route to socialism in our country. The words of Fidel at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio have informed our demands:
- Debt enslavement is used to facilitate the continued looting of poorer countries, so our first demand is to abolish the so-called Third World debt!
- Secondly, monopolies use their position to steal land and raw materials from poor countries, deepening their economic enslavement. They have to be forced to hand back their ill-gotten gains!
We have been so inspired by the mobilisations in Chile that were organised and led by students. Their demands and their tactics have been radical and militant, and that is something the movement in Britain has got to learn. There are many who try and depoliticise the climate movement, calling for us to ‘keep politics out of it’. We decided in Earth Strike Liverpool that we could not water down our politics – any movement that wants to seriously challenge climate change needs to address the unequal relationship between rich and poor countries, otherwise countries will continue to be looted for the minerals and raw materials to mass produce electric cars and solar panels for ‘eco-friendly’ consumerism, the wastefulness of capitalist production will continue and this will just be green imperialism.
Many of the youth see this: they are not tied down to the need to defend material privileges. They want to make noise and cause disruption, because they understand that that is the way demands are met.
Our position has been proven correct through practical experience. We have organised rolling pickets outside of British supermarkets and banks to highlight their roles in environmental and ecological destruction in the name of profit, each time attracting new young people hungry for politics and willing to take up the fight against imperialism.
Between monthly school strikes we are on the streets every single week, running stalls and talking to working class people about the environmental crisis and the need to build an anti-imperialist movement. Last month we hosted a meeting with Reinaldo Funes Monzote, the Cuban environmental historian, as part of a wider speaking tour organised by Rock Around the Blockade. This attracted many young people keen to understand Cuba’s commitment to sustainable development and its anti-imperialist contribution to the struggle.
In London, the Revolutionary Communist Group have been relating to the environmental protests by organising pickets of Esso petrol stations. Esso are owned by ExxonMobil, the first multi-national corporation to file a case under Helms-Burton Title III. These monthly pickets are now attracting youth and environmental activists who are joining the protest against ExxonMobil’s plunder of our planet. This gives us an opportunity to highlight Cuba’s incredible track record in sustainability and environmental protection. These pickets allow us to talk to people about the devastating effects of the blockade and mobilise people in support of Cuba, building anti-imperialist, socialist politics within the climate movement.
We call on anti-imperialists everywhere to take similar action against any companies or individuals pursuing Helms-Burton Title III claims. This is a campaign that could be coordinated internationally, with simultaneous days of action. Let’s send a message to the corporations and individuals that are suing Cuba under this preposterous Title III that if they blockade Cuba, we will blockade them. Together we can fight back.
Abajo el imperialismo! – Abajo!
Viva la Revolución Cubana! – Viva!
Hasta la victoria siempre! Venceremos!
The people continue to fight – Los pueblos seguimos en lucha!
RCG comrades with Gloria La Riva of the Party for Socialism and Liberation in the US and Bolivian ambassador to Cuba, Ariana Campero Nava
Sheila Rubio, speech from the floor at the final plenary session, 3 November 2019
I’m a young Irish-Chilean living in London, organising with the Revolutionary Communist Group. We have some concrete proposals for working in solidarity with Cuba and opposing the Helms-Burton law. Not all of us here live in cities where there are [US] embassies, so we propose holding protests outside companies, entities and individuals that want to sue Cuba through this law. Also, to bring more young people into this movement in solidarity with Cuba – as we see much of the youth are protesting and taking to the streets for the environment and climate, we can connect solidarity with Cuba with climate action. Cuba is one of the most advanced countries in the world in sustainable and ecological development, so we are always talking about that when we are on the streets.
We protest outside Esso petrol stations which are owned by ExxonMobil. ExxonMobil is suing Cuba for US$280m through the Helms-Burton law, so we take to the streets to protest and block them off because we say: ‘If you’re going to blockade Cuba then we are going to blockade you!’
We also propose to protest outside media institutions, who lie, agents of the Empire like CNN and the BBC who say and print absolute lies about Venezuela, about Cuba. They don’t talk about the successes, the advances, what they have managed to do, the achievements!
So: embassies; petrol stations; media. We have to organise internationally, days of actions where we’re going to protest outside all these entities, always in solidarity with Cuba and also speaking about the climate. If we’re on the streets and we are loud, vibrant and lively we can attract more young people to unite with the movement in solidarity with Cuba.
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Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! 273 December 2019/January 2020
