Vapaa Vasemmisto perustettiin puoli vuotta ennen kuntavaaleja 2012. Ryhmään liittyi järjestöjen ja puolueiden edustajia, mutta valtaosa mukaan tulleista oli puoluepoliittisesti sitoutumattomia nykypolitiikkaan ja hallitusvasemmistoon tyytymättömiä aktivisteja.
Declaration of the Revolutionary Workers’ Party
No temporizing, no liquidation! Solve the Kurdish question!
The disclosure of the fact that the MIT [1] Undersecretary Hakan Fidan has been carrying out talks with Öcalan, as well as the visit to Öcalan by Ahmet Türk, Co-chair of the Democratic Society Congress (DTK), and Ayla Akat Ata, MP for the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) [2], have generated the hope in the country that the bloodletting can be stopped this time around and that the Kurdish question can be resolved. However, if one were to lend an ear to the spokespeople of the AKP government, all that is envisaged would turn out to be the “disarming of the PKK”. If we are told that this kind of language is utilised so as to appease the reaction coming from the so-called nationalists, then the question to be asked becomes how the next step will be taken. One cannot solve the Kurdish question by deceiving a section of the population! On the other hand, the proposals of the Kurdish side are clear. The protocols of Ocalan have been in the hands of the government since August 2009. Yet not one single proposal by the government to the Kurds has been disclosed. And not only have the government’s proposals not been disclosed to the public, neither have they been to the Kurdish side, as the leaders of the Kurdish movement themselves have made clear.
Nykyinen kapitalismin maailmanlaajuinen kriisi teki tuloaan 1990 –luvun loppupuolella. Muutamassa vuodessa kriisi levisi epidemian tavoin ympäri maailmaa; Kaukoitä, Venäjä, Brasilia ja Argentiina. Samanaikaisesti puhkesi epävakautta poliittisella tasolla. Argentiinan vararikko johti kansannousuun, joka kaatoi viisi presidenttiä. Maassa vallitsi pitkään kansannousun jälkeen kaksoisvalta, tapahtui tehdasvaltauksia, markettien ”ryöstelyä” ja elintarvikkeiden jakoa. Työttömien piqueteros-liike valtasi valtateitä estämällä siten ulkomaankauppaa. Kapitalismi Argentiinassa stabilisoitui muutamaksi vuodeksi kansainvälisen poliittisen ja taloudellisen tilanteen vaikutuksesta. Kapitalismin globaaliromahdukselta vältyttiin luomalla uusia kuplia ja fiktiivisiä arvoja taloudessa, sekä Kiinailmiön, että Latinalaisessa Amerikassa sovellettujen reformien ansiosta.
Araz Bağban (*)
The new constitution submitted to referendum by Mohammed Morsi, the president of Egypt elected with the support of the Freedom and Justice party, i.e. the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, in addition to its properties of attacking working class achievements as well as women’s and minorities’ rights, is preparing the legal ground for the Brotherhood to seize the whole political power in the country. The powers proposed for the president in the constitution, not subject to any supervision, are leading Egypt towards dictatorship. This picture in Egypt is perhaps not precisely the same with what happened in Iran after the 1979 revolution, but by looking at Iran we can clearly see how the restoration of a dictatorship took place. The only important difference might be that the people of Egypt have detected the prospect of such a restoration and are trying to defend the achievements of the revolution without any hesitation. Although the continuous protests of religious minorities and women (despite all the attempts of the supporters of president Morsi such as sexual harassment and physical assaults) as well as those of political organizations forced the president to make concessions on the content of the constitutional declaration related to the powers granted to the president, Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood have gone on to complete the constitutional referendum, denying any delay requested by protesters and opposition.
The aggression by the Zionist Israeli state on Gaza that lasted for ten days has, for the moment, been stopped as a result of a cease-fire. However, underlying problem have not gone away and pose threats for the future. The peoples of Turkey and of the Arab countries should grasp the essence of the problem, adopt a more active stand against Zionist Israel and reject the hypocrisy of their own governments.
Ahmet Devrim
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is holding a new congress, the 18th, due to start on November 8. The CCP is at the helm of the single-party system of the People’s Republic. The nine-member Politbureau Standing Committee (PSC) acts as the supreme body that rules over this vast country with a population of 1.3 billion souls. The secretary general of the party, ranking number one in the PSC, automatically becomes the president of the country and the number-three member the premier. As is commonly known, under Mao Zedong, the country was ruled not only by a single party but simply by one single man. After the death of Mao in 1976, there was no question of one-man rule, although the rule of the single party was sustained. A tradition was developed whereby the PSC elected in one congress is authorised to rule the country for two consecutive terms. Given that the CCP convenes a congress approximately every five years, this implies that each president and premier serves for a decade. The vice-president and the deputy premier are also members of the PSC. These people are largely expected to take over the posts of president and premier in the future. In short, the elections to the PSC determine who will rule China over the next decade. That is why serious conflicts (and occasionally purges) occur in the period leading up to a congress within the party bureaucracy.
The following is the text of a leaflet that the Revolutionary Workers’ Party (DIP) distributed at the Middle East Conference held on the weekend of 20-21 October 2012 in Istanbul, where a host of Arab and Kurdish left-wing organisations from the Middle East and North Africa were invited to speak. Among those present were Hezbollah and the Communist Party from Lebanon, the Tunisian Communist Workers’ Party, the People’s Democratic Front of Palestine, the Communist Party of Syria, the Democratic Unity Party (PYD) of the newly autonomous Western Kurdistan (Rojava) and representatives from countries such as Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Iraq, Iran etc. The conference was organised by the People’s Democratic Congress (HDK), an alliance of the Kurdish movement in Turkey and a host of socialist parties of Turkey, an alliance that is in the process of converting itself into a political party. The DIP has always been in solidarity with the Kurdish movement fighting for the rights of the oppressed Kurdish people. This is an English translation of the original Turkish text.
Kuntavaalit 2012 käydään kaikkea muuta kuin ruusuisten olosuhteiden vallitessa. Lakisääteisiä velvoitteita palveluiden järjestämiseksi on lisätty samalla, kun resursseja kunnille on vähennetty. Sen seurauksena kunnat velkaantuvat kovaa vauhtia. Oulun talous on epätasapainossa. Kaupungin budjetti on laskusuunnassa. Maan hallituksen ajama kuntauudistus ei tule ratkaisemaan ongelmaa. Uudistus pyrkii vain auttamaan kuntia leikkaamaan palveluiden määrää ja huonontamaan laatua. Pienemmät kunnat jäävät uuden Oulun jalkoihin niin palveluiden kuin demokratiankin osalta. Uudistus suosii myös palveluiden ulkoistamista tarjoamalla kuntalaisten rahaa sosiaali- ja terveyspalveluyrityksille.
Tämänkertaiset kunnallisvaalit käydään haastavissa olosuhteissa. Hallituksen suunnitelmat kuntauudistuksesta pyrkivät säästöihin peruspalveluiden kustannuksella, ja samalla markkinoiden luomiseen yksityisille sosiaali- ja terveyspalveluyrityksille. Valtuustoihin tarvitaan tästä syystä tinkimättömiä julkisten peruspalveluiden puolustajia. Vallitseva talouskriisi tulee näkymään väistämättä myös kuntatasolla, ja valtuutetuilta vaaditaan aitoa oppositiohenkeä, jotta oikeistolainen hyökkäys saadaan aisoihin.
The Wednesday protest in Tehran last week on September 3 was the result of the recent currency crisis in Iran. This so-called foreign currency crisis started last year when the Iranian rial was losing value abnormally. And the difference in the rate of exchange between foreign currencies and rial is rising every second in these days. The rial has fallen by 25% in one week (last week) and has lost more than 80% of its value since the end of 2011. In other words, the rial faces a real free-fall. As a result of this fall, exchange bureaus were unable to do business since the rate was changing every second.
