student demonstrate in Athens

Demonstration in Athens Brutally Attacked by Police

On February 22nd, 2007, more than 25,000 people, mainly students including pupils and teachers, got into the streets of Athens, as a response to the reform of the higher education, announced by the government, in the biggest student demonstration so far. There were also some thousand participants coming from all over Greece. The demonstration was brutally attacked by the police, in several places, while a lot of demonstrators were walloped, kicked and sprayed with tear gas and ammonia. One student was arrested, after being severely beaten, kicked and punched by some riot policemen, while lying on the ground.

This is the second part of the education reform, that has been pushed by the government. The constitutional reform that would stop the state monopoly on Universities, was apparently not supported by any of the opposition parties on the first round; therefore, an increased majority will be required in the next round, which will take place after the elections.

Just a few days ago, the minister of education announced that the frame law for the function of the Universities will be voted in the Parliament, next week. It is a piece of legislation that since its draft version, last May, led to an outrage by both students and academics, resulting to consequent university occupations, strikes, and militant mobilisations of any sort. This law is gradually abolishing the university asylum (the fact that the police cannot enter the university) and introduces further privatisation and speeding up the processes, while keeping the funding on low levels.

The students have decided to resist in any means. 330 university faculties are under occupation, while high-schools starting being occupied in solidarity. On Tuesday and Wednesday the students organised street parties with concerts right in the centre of Thessaloniki [ photos ] and Athens [ photos ] respectively, in an effort to communicate their struggle. Meanwhile 1 MW radio and 2 webradios are operating from the occupations.

Source: indymedia.org

Mulakat Afzal

Mulakat Afzal

By Vinod K. Jose

A rusted table, and behind it stood a well built man in uniform holding a spoon in his hand. Visitors, all of them looked habituated, queued up to open their plastic bags containing food, allowing it to be smelt, sometimes even tasted. The security man’s spoon paved its way through the thick grease floating curries—Malai Kofta, Shahi Paneer, Aalu Bengan, and Mixed Vegetables. As the visitors opened tiny bags of curries the spoon separated each piece of vegetable from the other, quite mechanically. ‘Frisking’ the food of a middle aged woman the spoon took a dip at the water in the steel bowl nearby. It then moved to the plastic bags of the next in the queue, an early teenage boy. By now water in the steel bowl has all kinds of colours. The floating oil gave it a vibgyor effect when light hit at it on the winter afternoon. Around 4.30 my turn came. The man left the spoon on the table and frisked my body top to bottom, thrice thoroughly. And when the metal detector made noise I had to remove my belt, steel watch, and keys. The man on duty bearing the badge of Tamilnadu Special Police (TSP) looked satisfied. I am allowed to enter now. This is the fourth security drill I had to go through to get into the High Risk Ward of Prison No 3 in Tihar Central Prison. I am on my way to meet Mohammad Afzal, one of the most talked about man in the contemporary times.

A room with many tiny cubicles. Visitor and inmate were separated by a thick glass, and iron grills. Both were connected through a mike and a speaker fixed on the wall. Poorly audible, people at both sides of the glass strained their ears out touching the wall to listen other. Mohammad Afzal was already at the other side of the cubicle. His face gave me an impression of unfathomable dignity and calmness. A little short man in his mid thirties wearing white kurta paijama had a Reynolds pen in his pocket. Very clear voice welcomed me with the best of all mannerisms.

How are you sir?

I said, I’m fine. Am I to return the same question to a man on the deathrow, was apprehensive for a second, but I did.

Very fine. Thank you sir, he answered with warmth.

The conversation went on for close to an hour, and continued a fortnight later with a second Mulakat. Both of us were in a hurry to answer and ask whatever one could in the time. I went on scribbling him in my tiny pocket book. He seemed to be a person who wanted to tell a lot of things to the world. But repeated his helplessness to reach people from the current stature of ‘condemned for life’. Excerpts of the interview

There are so many contradicting images of Afzal. Which Afzal am I meeting? Is it? But as far as I’m concerned there is only one Afzal. That is me. Who is that Afzal?……..

Khairlanji: Dalits Rise Against A Caste-Patriarchy Backlash

Though the Khairlanji Massacre has been white-washed as a land dispute, or a minor incident of aberration, by sections of the media and political mainstream, the Kharilanji killings were definitely a case of a backlash against the assertion of dalit and women’s rights. Two women, the mother Surekha and the daughter, Priyanka Bhotmange simply defended their right to use their land as they wished…but this assertion by women, and that too, dalit women upset the caste hierarchy in society and painted them as quarrelsome, immoral and fit to be taught a lesson. Priyanka was the only girl in the village who had studied up to Std. XII ; their family was friendly with a police patil of a neighbouring village, one Siddhartha Gajbhiye who was a politically aware and assertive person. So, after the heinous incident and to build up towards it, a story was spread that the Bhotmanges sold liquor, that they practiced prostitution and that the mother, Surekha had an affair with Siddhartha. How convenient is the patriarchal texture of the fabric of Indian society! Rape and kill women, brutalize their bodies sexually and then blame it on them to clear your conscience. Victim becomes the accused and the real accused go scot free. Perhaps it is this reality that dalits, for generations have seen, all over the country and it is for this reason that in protest against the Khairlanji incident they came out on the streets in huge numbers, faced the wrath of the police and gave a challenge to the state—the Brahmanical, patriarchal state that invariably turns a blind eye towards the dalits and working class women. It is not surprising then that in many of these agitations, the leading activists were women. ……….

Interview with comrade Gaurav

‘India doesn’t want Maoists to come to power in Nepal’

A senior Politburo member of the Maoists in Nepal and in-charge of international relations, CP Gajurel was until recently jailed in India. In Delhi for the first time as an overground leader, he speaks on what lies ahead he reveals further strategies of CPN(M).interview is taken by tehelka.

What is your understanding of what is happening in Nepal today?

Something remarkable has happened in Nepal. We have a situation in which probably for the first time a despotic monarchy is going to be overthrown by the ballot. Monarchies have always been overthrown through violent revolution, but in Nepal, because of the 10-year people’s war and the 19-day street rebellion last year, we have a situation where the monarchy is going to be dismantled by peaceful means. That is what we are trying to accelerate. And the struggle the Maoists waged has meant even the so-called mainstream political parties are now pushing for the removal of the monarchy. And it appears to me that India is supportive of that, although India seems to want the Maoists not to get the majority. India would rather have the other parties in a majority.

Why do you say that?

Because once the Maoists get the majority, India thinks that a genuine people’s republic will be created and India would not like that.

But are you saying this on the basis of something concrete?

I do not have any concrete proof of the Indian thinking but the political line of its establishment is very clear. This is true of the main parties both in government and the opposition. Initially, India supported the monarchy because it thought only the monarchy could suppress the Maoists, but the people of Nepal have changed all that and India has to recognise the new reality. But even then, India will want a convenient sort of republic.

What do you mean by that?………

Onwards to the First Conference of Anti-Displacement Front

Onwards to the First Conference
Anti-Displacement Front

March 22nd, 23rd 2007, Ranchi, Jharkhand

“Heaven is a forest of miles and miles of Mohua trees
And hell is a forest of miles and miles of Mohua trees with a forest guard in it.”

–A popular saying of the Muria Adivasi of Bastar, Chhattisgarh

Whatever contributes to assimilating people to Nature is a dangerous threat…At least that has been the lesson, of any discernible reading of the history of humankind. Here too, in the South Asian sub-continent, the experiences of the vast sections of the people have not been an exception. Specifically, after the advent of British colonialism…

Post-1947, there has hardly been any difference in the experiences of the people of the sub-continent. “If you are to suffer, you should suffer in the interest of our country”, this was what Jawaharlal Nehru asked thevillagers, while laying the foundation stone of the Hirakud dam in Sambalpur, Orissa. Hirakud, or the dam at Bhakra, Nehru termed these’temples of modern India’. Ever since then, through the years of the so-called ‘green revolution’, canal irrigation cultivation, introduction of cash crops and hybrid variety of seeds we have daily proof that we create our world against Nature for want of profit. That people are forced to be the mute recipients of this expropriation of wealth in the name of development; of creating a new world out of Nature that is useful for a few rich and powerful. Even the most conservative estimate of the Government of India in 1994, after lot of jugglery with statistics, had to admit that more than 10 million (1 crore) people are still to be rehabilitated displaced by dams, mines, deforestation and other ‘development projects’. ………

WILL THE COURT PUNISH THE RAPIST S.P?

A fact finding team of CAVOW and PUCL recently visited the Sarguja district of Chattisgarh and found gross voilations of democratic rights.To suppress the democratic movements of the tribals police is terrorising them. here is the press statement —

POLICE TERROR AND BRUTALITY IN SARGUJA DISTRICT

During investigations the team came across the shocking case of a tribal woman who was raped by the Superintend of Police in North Chhatisgadh. This happened after she tried to get her husband to surrender before the police. Her husbnad, who had come to surrender, was shot in front of her eyes and then she went through this prolonged ordeal of gangrape. Two pertinent questions come to mind? How genuine is the surrender policy for Naxalites? We say that one of the achievements of the women’s movement is to have the law amended regarding custodial rape? But where is the law for the women of the toiling classes? Description by Shoma Sen (Convener,CAVOW) —

WILL THE COURT PUNISH THE RAPIST S.P?

Anil (Student, MGAHV Wardha)

NEPAL: A Brave New Approach

(Revolution in nepal is witnessing twists and turns; ups and downs; leaps and bounds as every revolution in the world undergoes.there is not any royal road to the revolution and every revolution have to develop its own path, own set of strategy and tactics.but the proletarian revolutions don’t believe in the empiricist world view and hence take the lessons from the successes and failures of the previous revolutions.in this sense every revolution have a debt of previous revolutions on its head.in the very process development and advancement of any revolution it have to pay the debt of past revolutions by expanding the horizon of the revolutionary praxis and synthesizing the past experiences and in this way develop the revolutionary science into a new level.the process of development and advancement of nepali revolution clearly show this. revolution in Nepal is in a very crucial juncture thus inviting fierce ideological debates in the communist movement.we are posting an article originally appeared in the newly published book - “Democracy, Multiparty System and the withering away of the State, under Proletarian Leadership”this article puts forward the points for discussion in this regard.we think this is the most significant ideological debate in the present revolutionary communist movement — Editor)

Since the defeat of the first wave of socialist and people’s democratic revolutions, there have been many attempts to explore the root causes of these failures. Apart from Bettelheim’s `Class struggles in the USSR’ (1) and W. B. Bland’s `The Restoration of Capitalism in the Soviet Union‘ (2), no other major work on the subject in the English language is known to us. Two recent articles (3) dealing with the political economy of the Soviet Union, by T. M. Khabarova and A. I. Shumkov, presented at a `scientific-practical conference’ under the title “Stalin and the modern epoch”, held in Moscow in December 1999, deserve careful attention. Apart from these, most of the investigations undertaken, devoid of any objective data collected from published or unpublished sources as well as of any `fieldwork’, amongst other tools appropriate for social sciences, can hardly be called scientific. Coupled with an absence of open-mindedness, the initial hypotheses remain unproven, left as they were in the beginning of these supposed exploratory studies.

In this respect, the contributions of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), though from a different angle, mark a qualitative departure. They deal with the problems of such failures from the distinct theoretical premises of socialist state and democracy. Doubtless, this has been possible due to the fact that they are actively engaged and leading what increasingly appears to be the impending successful second wave of New Democratic Revolution of the 21^st Century. Here, deployment of appropriate theoretical tools has been a crucial necessity in order that the revolution may succeed this time around. ………..

Reflections on Water

by Li Onesto

My mother didn’t have a name until she was five years old.

My grandmother came from China to marry my grandfather in the U.S. in an arranged marriage. One day the police raided the laundry where he worked. The workers, who were smoking opium, including my grandfather, jumped in the laundry truck to escape and when the truck stalled on the railroad tracks they were hit and killed by a train. This is how my grandmother became a widow when she was only 19 years old.

My mother was born three months later and since feudal tradition says a baby born in such circumstances is “bad luck”—she wasn’t given a name. She was simply called “babee” until she registered for kindergarten and the school secretary gave her the name Mary.

As a young widow, my grandmother cried every night. Feudal tradition dictated that she was to live out the rest of her life, serving her dead husband’s family. She worked in the laundry, cooked for the workers and took care of two small babies. But one day she escaped and ran off to find another life. When she came back to get her two children, her dead husband’s family wouldn’t let her have them. So this is how my mother and her sister ended up in an orphanage.

This whole story came rushing back to me when I saw Deepa Mehta’s movie Water. It tells another tale of cruel, life-crushing feudal tradition. Of arranged marriage, widows, heartache, and rebellion. ………….