In memoriam: Carol Brickley 26 October 1947-16 September 2019
In this year of significant anniversaries, our comrade Carol’s political contribution to the political development of the RCG is keenly felt – and her insight and analysis today sorely missed. 100 years after the partition of Ireland and just 40 years since the murder of ten Irish freedom fighters who died on hunger strike in British gaols, we remember that Carol came into politics agitating for Irish liberation and was part of driving the RCG’s commitment to that struggle. In 1981, Carol was among comrades working in the RCG office in Railton Road, Brixton’s frontline, when the uprising by mainly black youth against police brutality began.
Never one for nostalgia or sentimentality, Carol only looked back on those intense moments of political upheaval to try to draw lessons from them for the future. Marking the 30th anniversary of the Brixton uprisings ten years ago, she wrote in FRFI – the newspaper she helped found and would continue to work on until just a few months before her death – ‘When the anger explodes again, as it will, we have to be ready to build a revolutionary movement in Britain, free of the Labour fakers and traitors, unfettered by Tony Benn and a host of “socialist” leaders who have, time and again, failed to take up the cause of the oppressed against imperialism.’ As the capitalist crisis deepens, accelerated by impact of the coronavirus pandemic, and the working class is once again forced to rise up in revolt, we have to be ready to build such a movement. It will be our best tribute to her legacy.
School attacks Palestine solidarity
Alongside organising a day of solidarity with socialist Cuba, we proposed a day dedicated to wearing red in solidarity with Palestine. This proposal was shut down by senior members of staff, who deemed it ‘too political’. This presents a broader issue within the education system, as students with awakened political consciousness are demonised as being ‘radical’ or ‘extreme’.
We continued with the day as planned and it was a huge success. The vast majority of students wore red and engaged in conversation around the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people and British imperialism’s role in the Middle East. We defied the attempts to criminalise solidarity with Palestine. This shows the power of our voices as young people when we come together!
Destinie Sanchez
London
HS2 protests ‘too expensive’
Weeks after Dominic Cummings revealed Boris Johnson had approved HS2 on the basis of ‘garbage’ data, HS2 chief executive Mark Thurston went to Parliament to beg for more government support to deal with ‘disruptive’ and ‘violent’ protesters. The request was framed in a way to suggest protesters are costing the taxpayer money.
The irony of this seems lost on Thurston; this ruinous project is already set to cost over £100bn in taxpayers’ money. As previously written in FRFI, the violence at these protests is being started and carried out by the police and the national eviction team who have been beating and causing significant risk to the lives of activists who have chosen to peacefully resist the project by sitting up in trees and staying in tunnels.
Trevor Rhys
Stafford
Response to FRFI 282
The article ‘Green capitalism in crisis’ in FRFI 282 June/July 2021 has the following sentence:
“Carbon offsetting projects include monoculture tree plantations since trees allegedly absorb carbon from the atmosphere. However, scientific understanding of the interactions between the biosphere (trees, oceans and so on) and the atmosphere is limited. Therefore, there is no scientific credibility for the practice of soaking up pollution using tree plantations”.
Trees do not ‘allegedly’ absorb carbon from the atmosphere; they absolutely do absorb carbon from the atmosphere. Plants, as photosynthetic organisms, absorb carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere and use CO2 along with water and energy from sunlight to produce glucose and oxygen. Plants also produce CO2 from respiration, but there is a net removal of carbon from the atmosphere as CO2 which is ‘locked’ into the biomass of the plant.
Neither is scientific understanding of the interactions between the biosphere limited; we have basic models of the carbon cycle, nitrogen cycle and water cycle which describes how these compounds are ‘recycled’ through the environment and biosphere. The interactions are of course very complicated, but I believe using this as a reason to justify the final sentence of the above quote is misleading.
Bilal
Manchester
COPA America
COPA America (South America’s football championships) was going to be held in Colombia and Argentina. A few days before it, both countries pulled out because of the popular revolt in the former and Covid-19 issues in the latter. Bolsonaro offered to move the championships to Brazil, to which CONMEPOL, the governing body of South American football, agreed at once.
So a tournament under threat, partly because of Covid issues, was moved to the country with the worst Covid toll in the region, and the second worst in the world – due in no small part to the criminal neglect by its rulers.
Mike Webber
PPO: abusive and corrupt
The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman (PPO) is a public body whose role is to investigate complaints by prisoners in England and Wales and to make sure they are being treated decently, fairly and humanely. The PPO is nothing more than a prop for the prison service and an extra layer of protection in covering up serious and sexual abuses by the prison service and its corrupt and cowardly members of staff who take gratification from the suffering and abuse of others. The PPO is unfair, corrupt and not independent at all.
Kyle Major
The Guardian: billionaire press
The Guardian newspaper claims to have an independent ownership structure ‘with no shareholders or billionaire owner’, making it ‘entirely free from political and commercial influence.’ This is a dubious claim as The Guardian Media Group bases its long term stability on endowment funds including UK and overseas assets, hedge funds, and venture capital.
Its Global Development section publishes content transparently funded by other so-called venture philanthropy funds such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Omidyar Group. These funds are at root controlled by billionaires. The Guardian’s view on Cuba’s protests made clear that it sides with the protestors and against the revolution. Those overseas assets don’t look after themselves.
Adam Grey
Birmingham
Reply to Davy Jordan
FRFI 282 dropped through my door on the first Saturday in June. In the Letters column was Irish Republican political prisoner Davy Jordan writing in from Maghaberry Gaol. Davy was rightly drawing attention to the plight of Palestinian Issam Hijjawi imprisoned alongside him and other anti-imperialists there.
We were heading over to Fife that day to march against the Raytheon weapons factory. It produces electronic parts for the missiles dropped on Palestinian families by Israel. Our banners raised the case of Issam Hijjawi and the Saoradh comrades. Canvassing the crowd, we got solidarity cards covered in greetings and messages of support and raised their case right up to the gates of the death factory, despite being refused speaking rights, while the Labour Party got allowed to blather on. Not bad for a two-hour turnaround! Organise!
Michael MacGregor
Dundee
Defend the BLM5
On Monday 28 June, four Black Lives Matter activists appeared at Newcastle Quayside Magistrates court. They pleaded NOT GUILTY to charges of violent disorder from 13 June 2020 when a peaceful BLM protest was attacked by far right ‘statue defenders’. Northumbria Police allowed the thugs, who threw Nazi salutes and hurled racist abuse at BLM activists, to assemble in direct confrontation with the advertised BLM protest.
The Anti Racism Protest Defence Campaign was at court to provide support. The cases will now go to the Crown Court in August but may be dragged out. Young black and Asian men have been singled out by police and face serious charges for the violence caused by organised racists. This is racist, political policing. Defend the right to stand against racism!
Facebook: ARPdefencecampaign
Insta: NEantiracismprotestdefence
Labour calls for boycott of Winter Olympics
As HMS Queen Elizabeth and its accompanying flotilla enters the South China Sea, intended to warn China, so Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition seeks to demonstrate it is a party fit for imperialism. Labour shadow ministers Lisa Nandy, Jo Stevens and Stephen Kinnock have called for a political boycott of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. This, they explain, would mean ‘no member of the Royal Family, UK politician or senior officials should be put in a position where they are only serving to legitimise attempts by the Chinese government to whitewash appalling genocide taking place within its borders’.
In April, the House of Commons decided genocide was being committed against the Uyghur people of Xinjiang province. Kinnock, displaying a bombast worthy of his father, former Labour leader Neil Kinnock, declared, ‘If Global Britain means anything, it should mean upholding our values and defending human rights.’ What about Indonesia slaughtering West Papuans; Turkey and the Kurds, India and Kashmir, or refugees treated like criminals for trying to enter Britain? Without any reliable evidence to back its accusations, the Labour Party joins in the US-led campaign to demonise China. Labour cannot miss such a chance to wave the flag and demonstrate to the ruling class that it stands in support of imperialism.
Trevor Rayne
Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! No 283, August/September 2021
