Vietnam
In my article "Vietnam 30 Years After Victory: Towards Capitalism or Socialism" (GLW #624), I accidentally wrote that "Primary school enrolment rose from 88% to 90% between 1990 and 2001", which does not sound very significant. The correct figure is that primary school enrolment has risen from 88% to 95%, a significant difference, and a very high figure by Third World standards.
Michael Karadjis
Hanoi
Venezuela
Roberto Jorquera's inspiring account of May Day in Venezuela (GLW #626) reveals the hopes of the powerful that socialism was dead to be nothing but empty dreams. Through the struggle to make and defend a revolution aiming to overturn the poverty and disempowerment of the majority of Venezuelans, the working class, ie drawing the conclusion that the alternative to the system that condemns the overwhelming majority of the world's population to a life of misery and exploitation is socialism.
Jorquera's article mentioned the slogans of some of the banners at this historic march. Other slogans reported in other accounts include "Socialism advances, capitalism retreats", "Workers councils now" and "All power to the workers". There are big debates about what socialism means and how to implement it. As Chavez has said that the revolutionary transformation of society and the economy has "just begun" and they "shouldn't chant yet that we have won".
But whatever happens, the Venezuelan working class, at the head of a continent-wide rebellion, has already put its stamp on world history by once again raising the socialist banner. The anti-globalisation movement has raised the slogan "Another world is possible" and the Venezuelan workers are answering the question posed by this slogan — "what world?" — decisively: a socialist world!
As the first socialist revolution of the 21st century opens up, the need to defend the Venezuelan revolution from attacks by US imperialism is greater than ever. To stay in touch and get involved in the campaign, GLW readers should check out the Australian Venezuela Solidarity Network's website <http://www.venezuelasolidarity.org>.
Stuart Munckton
Sydney
Tax cuts
The budget delivers tax cuts worth thousands of dollars per annum to the wealthy. Meanwhile, for many people without employment, there will be more obligations and penalties, but no offsetting rise in social security payments.
Indeed, the budget slashes the already inadequate income support which will be available to many people who develop disabilities or become sole parents in the future and who don't succeed in their efforts to find a job.
And John Howard had the nerve to accuse Mark Latham of class warfare!
Brent Howard
Rydalmere, NSW
Refugees
I recently wrote to Laurie Ferguson, Labor's shadow minister for immigration, asking that Labor show some leadership on the locking up of refugees, and specifically asking that he intervene in the case of an Iranian refugee in profound depression who has been locked up in the Villawood detention centre for nearly three years.
Here are extracts from Ferguson's response (in a letter dated April 13): "As shadow minister I have not abandoned my predecessors' practice of refusing to advocate for any claimants. My decision has been thankless. It just leads to an endless stream of people approaching me for their particular friend in detention... I have one extra shadow ministerial staffer above the normal MP allocation in Australia's foremost immigration workload electorate. The mess this created is typified by my adviser spending the afternoon on an Iranian student's permanent visa application rather than doing a press release on the government's 20,000 skilled intake.
"I can assure you that there are five billion 'good blokes', mostly in camps who did not get the chance to engender relationships with Australians. Finally, as for moral righteousness, I would raise that the pass rate on TPVs is over 90%. This is absolutely incredibly at variance with the UNHCR, European and North American processing and Australia's offshore outcomes. Think about this and tell me the people in the camps and slums of Peshawar, Nairobi, Ankara, etc., are getting a good deal, as opposed to the people smugglers and their clients."
Here is the true face of Labor's ('blame the victims") policy on refugees.
Stephen Langford
Paddington, NSW
Sudan
While I do not believe that "Washington's overriding goal is to see the return of US oil companies to Sudan", with few exceptions, Norm Dixon {GLW #626) did a good job of detailing the appropriate criticism of the United States government's policy toward Darfur.
In Darfur, genocide continues and 8-year-old girls are raped night after night. The US government seems to have accepted the genocide with its inhumanity, brutality, bestiality, and monthly death toll in exchange for the cooperation of the government of Sudan in the war on terrorism. Over 400,000 are estimated to have died and over 2 million have been displaced.
And let's not forget that there were 2.25 million southern Sudanese victims of genocide and 4.5 million were displaced almost before the Darfur "ethnic cleansing" began!
The conclusions are obvious. Rather than for oil, for all practical purposes, the United States government has decided that the people of Darfur are expendable — a trade-off for the dubious cooperation of the government of Sudan in the war on terrorism.
And where is Australia? The evidence of genocide speaks just as loudly "down under". Is the moral imperative any different?
Bill Andress
moderator, Sudan Advocacy Action Forum
Lexington, South Carolina
Solidarity
It occurs to me that not many Australians hear about the militant unions or international visits frequently made for solidarity with Third World peoples. I can recall attending a very informative and moving address made by Indonesian leftist Dita Sari to Perth at the Solidarity Park memorial. This was arranged by ASIET and Unions WA and proved very popular.
Perhaps people could organise solidarity events similar to Dita Sari's visit to Perth. If they were organised with a fair time to publicise, these visits could prove very popular at sustaining the effort against Howard's anti-worker legislation beyond June 30. Last time in the early 90s, there were huge rallies throughout Australia against industrial relations thuggery but these were not followed up on very well.
Matthew Davis
Via email [Abridged]
From Green Left Weekly, May 25, 2005.
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