BY DANIEL OOI
SYDNEY — On December 8, 80 people converged on the Resistance Centre in Chippendale for a day of films and discussion about the past and present anti-war movements. The "teach-in", organised by Resistance, drew participants from as far away as Grafton, Newcastle, Wollongong and Tamworth.
Khaldoun Hajaj, a member of the University of New South Wales Friends of Palestine group, provided a detailed analysis of the historical role of US imperialism in the Middle East.
Park Myoung-Hye, a Korean trade unionist from the Power of the Working Class organisation, analysed the last 50 years of US imperialist interference in Korea — from Washington's crushing of the 1945 revolution, to the present labour struggles.
Throughout the day, a radical film marathon took place. The documentary, Colombia: Peace at What Price?, produced by the Committees in Solidarity with Latin America and the Caribbean, detailed how the US "war on drugs" in Colombia is a cover for repression against left-wing guerrilla groups which have popular support among the rural population.
In the afternoon, Action in Solidarity with Asia and the Pacific national chairperson Max Lane outlined the reasons behind the US ruling class decision to go to war against Afghanistan. A key reason, he said, was to smash the growing solidarity between the peoples of the First and Third Worlds.
Kate Walsh and Lian Phelan from AID/Watch spoke on export credits. Green Left Weekly's Sean Healy highlighted the inequity of World Bank/International Monetary Fund structural adjustment programs and the role of debt in oppressing the Third World.
Resistance members active in the refugee rights campaign, Michelle Brear and Luisa Ludena, examined the links between the "war on terrorism" and the racist war on asylum seekers being waged by the Australian government. Resistance activist Simon Tayler traced the history of 1978 democratic revolution in Afghanistan and Washington's attempts to crush it, culminating with the rise of the Taliban.
The lunchtime plenary address was given by Doug Lorimer, an anti-Vietnam War campaign veteran and a member of the Democratic Socialist Party national executive. Lorimer summarised the history of the Australian movement against the Vietnam War
Sydney Resistance member Lauren Carroll-Harris presented the case for an anti-war movement based on mass action.
The after-dinner session, "The fight against war and racism in Australia", was presented by Tara Povey from the Sydney Network Opposing War and Racism and Kim Bullimore from the Democratic Socialist Party. Povey, an Iranian activist, discussed imperialism in the Middle East and Islamic fundamentalism.
Bullimore took up the links between the anti-racist, anti-war and the anti-corporate globalisation movements. She argued that the struggle against the war was a concrete way in which anti-globalisation activists could show solidarity with the Third World.
From Green Left Weekly, December 12, 2001.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.