On May 1 last year, May Day was reclaimed as a day of struggle for the oppressed and against the corporate rich. Thousands of demonstrators blockaded stock exchanges around Australia.
A key goal of M1 was to promote the globalisation of solidarity, and oppose the globalisation of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation. As one demonstrator described it, M1 was an "inspiring demonstration of people's power".
The M1 protests were part of a growing global movement opposing corporate tyranny. The first manifestation of this movement in the First World was the shut-down of the WTO's "millennium round" of talks in Seattle in 1999.
This movement was one born of revulsion at the excesses of the First World corporate elite, the pillage of the Third World and the enslavement of the majority of humanity for the benefit of a super-rich ruling class. The fundamental dynamic of this movement is solidarity with the struggles of the Third World.
On September 11, the ruling classes of the imperialist First World saw a chance to undermine this solidarity. The mass murder of workers in the attack on World Trade Center in New York provided the justification for Washington's "war on terror" that followed. Since then, the imperialists have attempted to criminalise solidarity with struggles in the Third World by linking them to terrorist groups.
However, the capitalist mass media's predictions that this would lead to the death of the movement have been proven wrong by the mobilisations in Genoa, Barcelona, Rome and even in New York itself.
The real meaning of the "war on terror" was demonstrated by the fact that more innocent civilians died in the US war on Afghanistan than in the terrorist attacks on September 11. An already impoverished and desolate country was further devastated and left with a regime that is at least as brutal as the reactionary Taliban. The only difference is that it is a puppet of the US government.
Israel's slaughter of Palestinians ("war" does not adequately describe the use of one of the world's best equipped military machines, backed by the planet's only superpower, against poorly armed freedom fighters and civilians) is the latest instalment of the imperialist "war on terror".
Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has launched a vicious one-sided blitzkrieg against the Palestinian people in an attempt to destroy their just national aspirations and their uprising against Israeli apartheid. The Israeli state has been US imperialism's most important ally and partner in the economically strategic Middle East since Israel's creation in 1948.
US President George Bush has repeatedly stated his support for Israel's right to "defend" itself (translated this means "Kill all the Palestinians you want, just don't jeopardise the stability of our Arab allies, 'cause we want to kick the crap out of Iraq").
Australia's Prime Minister John Howard has joined the chorus of imperialist support for Israel, describing the assault on the West Bank as "an understandable overreaction".
Understandable! The murder of civilians? The destruction of people's homes? The refusal to allow ambulances to pick up wounded Palestinians? In Howard's callous eyes, it is an "understandable overreaction" for the Israeli military to refuse to allow a pregnant women to pass a military checkpoint to get to hospital. She was forced to give birth in the street and the child subsequently died. Understandable!
When we take to the streets on M1 this year, we need to make it a massive show of solidarity with the Palestinian people, the latest offensive against the Third World. "Their struggle is our struggle" should be our message.
The Palestinian people have already shown the courage needed to resist what have seemed to be overwhelming odds for so long. We don't face the bullets of a brutal military force or the destruction of our homes, we just face the right-wing pundits that try to justify what amounts to an attempt at genocide by Israel's rulers. We must answer their lies and offer our solidarity to the Palestinian people's struggle for freedom.
From the streets of Ramallah, to the streets of Australia, our message needs to be clear: another world is possible!
From Green Left Weekly, April 24, 2002.
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