Day of Action on 24 November!
Bring Down the Coalition Government
Build an independent, integrated mass Civil Rights Movement
Build on the power of the 10 November demonstration…
Stop the cuts! Stop the Abolition of the EMA!
Fight for free, equal, quality education for all!
Students are the most powerful force in education. The mass siege of the Conservative Party HQ in Millbank Tower by thousands of students on 10 November, the occupation and it’s mass defence, and the energy of our 50,000+ march allowed us to feel and express our true strength and potentially great power. On that march, conceived by many of its organizers as a certain-to-loose routine moral appeal to the politicians who lack any morality and decency, we went farther and achieved more than many of us believed possible. Closing down the Tory headquarters, stopping ‘business-as-usual’, watching the police cower and retreat and the rich and powerful sneak out the back door was exhilarating, joyful, and a glimpse of the strength and potential of our collective power. For those who missed the day but wished they had been there, we urge you to join us on 24thNov, National Day of Action and Walkouts called to stop the fee hikes, defend public education and defeat the cuts.
What we are building is not just a campaign but rather a new powerful student movement capable of defeating the fee hikes, defending education and ending the stifling effects of the seemingly endless cuts and “belt tightening measures” that have worsened our conditions of life and demoralized poor, working class and middle class communities across the nation. If the cuts go through the economy will spiral down more and further cuts will be proposed. 24 November is an opportunity for the students and youth of our nation that there is a new power and an alternative political leadership that does not fear mobilizing the anger and determination of the youth and the oppressed to cut through the crap and win. If we, the students, succeed in winning our demands it be will be clear to the most oppressed youth and the poor, working class and middle class majority of our nation that we can defeat the new reverse Robin Hood policies of “steal from the poor and give to the rich”, pursued in some form by all the political parties. The solution to the government’s financial crisis is easy and obvious – impose serious levels of tax on the wealth and profits of the banks, the corporations and the billionaires who are responsible for the crisis, subject them to the democratic control of the mass of the people, close the growing gap between the haves and have nots and create massive public works and education programmes to rebuild an economy in the injterests of the whole nation. If we build a movement strong enough to stop the cuts in education, that sees itself as the champion of not just the students but of all those who are losing their jobs, income, housing, dignity, equality and hope, we can create a new era of mass action and popular power aimed at restoring the great social gains that were destroyed, beginning with Thatcher and extending through the Blair era. We are fighting to determine the destiny and direction of our nation.
We have to see our new student movement, still young and still growing, as the centre of a much broader and more powerful independent new movement of all the oppressed fighting for power. We must change the balance of power that exists now. The rich and powerful have regarded the economic crisis as an opportunity to increase their power and wealth and to reverse the last remaining vestiges of the great gains won by the powerful labour struggles of the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s. The Tory attack on education, jobs and benefits, supported by the Lib Dems, and weakly opposed by the Labour Party is a political attack, disguised as an “economic plan” needed to stop the economic downslide. On our side we have lacked an independent leadership capable of seizing on the arrogant political over-reach of the Government to expose the bankruptcy of its plan, and able to seize on the breadth of the cuts being proposed to build a new independent, mass, integrated movement capable of defending the egalitarian, progressive traditions of our society. Building a new independent mass movement is our only hope for saving the economy, defeating the disastrous free market ideology and policies.
The first tactical aim of our actions must be to force the Liberal Democrats to actively and publically oppose the fee hike policy in order to create an immediate political crisis necessitating new Parliamentary elections now. To achieve this, our movement must grow and broaden its source of power. Immediately we must extend our organizing efforts from the universities and colleges to the primary and secondary schools. School students, in particular black Asian Muslim and immigrant will be the boldest leaders. Our movement needs to build a whole new generation of leaders who learn through struggle how to fight and win. The youth from the secondary and primary schools will be the student leaders who are least likely to retreat back into their studies and day to day responsibilities if we stop the cuts in education but the other cuts go through. We need leaders who feel that this fight is the fight for their lives and the lives of their families and communities. School students can help our movement restore the optimism needed to win and counter the cynicism too prevalent, even among university students.These youth can provide our campus-centred movement with the ties to the most oppressed communities we need to win.
No Slowing Down. We March today, We March Tomorrow and We keep on Marching to Build the Independent Power of Our Movement
On 10 November we took to the streets and took Milbank Tower, in answer to the coalition government’s arrogant plans to hand over our education and our futures to the erratic whims of big business. The politicians do not expect determined resistance, but they do expect to have to ride out some marches and some unrest. To build our movement to the level we need to win, it will be essential for us to create democratic organizations so that we can analyze what tactics work, vote on a clear set of political demands and elect the best, most politically clear and uncompromising young leaders to coordinate our actions and lead our new integrated, independent mass movement.
Action is the key to winning. Occupations, walkouts, marches and sit-ins are happening and more are being planned for. The biggest danger we face is not failing in our immediate objective, bringing down the Government, but that our movement will shut down and turn exclusively to electoral politics if and when we win.
There are some student leaders already arguing for our movement to divert its energy into electoral recall strategies. These students are arguing that we should target particular Lib Dem MPs for recall if they vote for the education cuts. To win, our movement must give the Lib Dems two alternatives: vote for the cuts and discredit and destroy your Party, or stand on your supposed principles and promises and vote ‘no’ to the cuts, and bring down the Government. Recall is too little, too late. We can not allow the cuts to go forward now, and then hope we can reverse them later after a new election.
In 2006 the massive immigrant rights which brought millions of people into the streets in America, brought down the Republican Party and paved the way for the election of America’s first black President, failed to win any meaningful gains for the immigrant communities and the oppressed, because the leaders of the movement shut down the movement by urging acceptance of the “today we march, tomorrow we vote” politics of the Democratic Party. The growth of the far right-wing Tea-Party and other groupings in America has been fuelled in part by the failure of the new American immigrant rights/civil rights movement to win lasting victories and to assert its independence from the Democratic Party. If our movement in Britain is unable to prevent the cuts and the economic crisis becomes worse, the bankruptcy of the current political parties combined with our failure will lead to the rapid expansion of the racist far right and fascist organizations.
Some of the more militant leaders of our new movement will argue for us to turn our efforts solely to winning a Labour Party victory if we succeed in bringing the Government down. If we accept this view our new movement will be demobilized and attaining any lasting victories will become impossible. This British version of “we march today and vote tomorrow” will have as devastating consequences for the oppressed here as it has had for the American poor, working class and middle class as a whole and in particular for the minority and immigrant communities. Our movement must have higher aspirations than restoring the policies of Blair.
Finally there will be those who will argue for our new student movement to cede initiative and authority to the Labour movement. There are already some who are arguing that to win we must get the trade unions to call a general strike. These students argue that the general strike is the tried and true method of working class and oppressed communities.The student movement must welcome and urge joint action by the unions. But it would be a mistake to assume that, in the current situation, militant labour action will win the kind of gains it achieved during much of the last century. The most dynamic and determined force for progress for change in Britain today is the black, Asian, Muslim and immigrant youth who have no choice but to fight to survive. If these communities join our fight we will have the capacity to revitalize the unions, place them on an independent footing and fill the vacuum of militant leadership that has paralyzed and severely weakened this once mighty force. Militant student and community actions can shut down London and other urban areas and reassert the ability of the oppressed to assert our power to win our programme. So long as we do not fear the anger or power of the youth, especially the black, Asian, immigrant and poor and working class white youth, we can win a far brighter future for the vast majority of people in our society of all races, religions and nationalities.
Build Our New Student Movement as a Movement to Defend Immigrant Rights and Fight Racism
Black, Asian, Muslim and immigrant youth and communities are facing the increased police repression, prejudice and discrimination that is the by-product of a social and economic policy that offers increasingly less opportunities for education or employment to these youth and then blames the youth for being angry and wanting better. The Tories are making open appeals to racism and immigrant bashing a staple of their politics. The Lib Dems are already abandoning their support for key anti-discrimination provisions of the recently enacted Equality Act. Deportations are on the rise.The black, Asian, Muslim, and immigrant communities understand better than any other community why independent political action is needed to win. They are angry and ready to fight. Black, Asian, Muslim and immigrant students and youth must play a prominent role in leading our new movement for us to have the will to unleash the kind of struggles needed to win real gains for the poor, working class and middle class communities of all races and nationalities in Britain.
In our campus struggles of the last two years, black, Asian, Muslim and immigrant students have been our most determined leaders for progress and for students needs and rights. Last year, the leaders of the NUS black campaign organized militant and determined struggles to defeat the far right wing English Defence League attempts to march and terrorize Muslim and immigrant communities, shut down Mosques and build branches throughout Britain. NUS Black Campaign leaders, weathered slander and threats from university administrators and other NUS leaders when they succesfully organized student action to stop the BNP fascists from speaking on our campuses. Many of our universities elected their first black and Asian student union leaderships last year, precisely because of their militancy and activism. Many of these new leaders had organized mass actions on their campuses, including the building occupations, marchs and rallies that stopped the deportation of one prominent left wing student leader, forced university administrations to declare our universities’ opposition to Israel’s brutal repression of the Palestinian people and to condemn the universally unpopular British support and participation in the U.S. led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. To protect our black, Asian, Muslim and immigrant student leaders from deportations and threats of deportations it is critical for us to demand an end to the immigration raids on our campuses. We must make the demand for our campuses to become sanctuary campuses a key demand of our struggle. Unlike France, we must link our struggle against the cuts and for equality to the struggle for the fundamental right of all to religious freedom and expression. Laws or school policies aimed at preventing the right of Muslim women to dress according to their religious beliefs must be opposed and defeated by our movement.
Vital role of young leaders
To win we need optimistic, honest young leaders to stand up. There will be loads of actions and examples of how to fight, and lots of working stuff out as new people join the movement. Building struggle on a unified, and therefore anti-racist basis, we can build a movement with the vision, optimism and programme strong enough to defend education and to move our whole society in the direction of equality, freedom and respect.
An independent movement
If we lead we can inspire and encourage others to step forward with us. The bonds created through joint struggle can bind our communities together and be the basis of a new Britain. We have shown to ourselves and to the nation the great social power we have when we stand together and act collectively. Now we have to win. The Movement for Justice is committed to building that leadership and that movement; join the MFJ.
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