GOOD NEWS: Osafo Maafo Promises Jobs For All Agric Graduates

Senior Minister. Yaw Osafo Maafo

By Miriam Hayford

Senior Minister, Yaw Osafo Marfo,  has disclosed that government will employ all graduates from public universities who read Agriculture, but are unemployed.

Speaking at a breakfast meeting on the theme: ‘A public – private dialogue on stability, growth and jobs’, Mr. Marfo said the move is part of efforts by government to create employment in the agriculture sector.

“As part of enhancing agriculture production in the country, we have decided in consultation with the universities, all those who have done degrees in Agriculture and are unemployed. We will be calling all of them for a short term training in extension services so that with their degree background,  they will be in a position to give extension services across the country”.

Mr. Marfo promised during his vetting that the Akufo-Addo government will create the enabling environment for the private sector to grow.

Source:StarrFMonline

Editorial

LET’S TALK

The Socialist Forum of Ghana (SFG) will host a public forum on the 2017 budget presented to parliament by the Minister of Finance, Mr Ken Ofori Atta.

Whiles the budget has been hailed by apologists of the government, the opposition has condemned it as “419”.

The Insight believes that it is the duty of all citizens irrespective of their political or ideological stand to discuss the budget in detail and to make their views heard.

This is because the budget will affect everybody who lives in Ghana or has any dealings with Ghana.

Those who refuse to talk about the budget will fail to draw attention to their concerns.

 We salute the SFG for taking the initiative to bring progressives together to discuss the 2017 budget.

Dr Akwasi Osei Bemoans Mental Health Care

Dr Akwasi Osei

By Julius K. Satsi

Dr Akwasi Osei, the Chief Executive Officer of Ghana Mental Health Authority (GHA) has expressed worry over the poor attention given to mental health care in the country and called for stakeholders’ intervention.

Dr Osei said most mental health facilities were in poor state making the delivery of services very difficult for both patients and health practitioners.

He was speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency in Accra on the sidelines of the inauguration of the “Acute Ward 3” of the Pantang Hospital, which had been rehabilitated through the efforts of Dr Michael Brennan, a Scottish-Irish philanthropist.

He noted: “We have infrastructure challenges in terms of deficit; the few we have are also challenged in terms of rehabilitation.

“We do not have money to be running the services and to be doing the rehabilitation ourselves.”

Dr Osei, who scored the mental health situation in Ghana ‘two out of 10’, said all the provisions for quality mental health care were virtually non-existence in the country even though he admitted there had been few major improvements over the years.

He said: “When we talk of quality mental health care, we are talking about the adequate human resources, the state-of-the-art facilities, the equitability in the spread of services all over the country so that anybody can easily access mental health care.

“We are talking about financial resources thus money to run the services; adequate medications throughout the year, the reduction of stigma that goes with mental health, and the reduction of human right abuses,” he added.  

   

He said the services the psychiatric hospitals were providing currently were skewed in terms of distribution, saying, “They are not spread nationwide” and therefore called for the establishment of additional mental health facilities especially in the Northern belt to deal with cases from that zone.

All the three Mental Health hospitals in the country - Accra, Pantang, and Ankaful Psychiatric Hospitals – are located in the southern belt.

Dr Osei noted that mental health care in Ghana needed immediate intervention of the government and benevolent individuals and organisations to help fix the challenges.

He said the ultimate solution to the mental health problems in the country was the passage of a Legislative Instrument on Mental Health; as it has provisions for raising funds to support the facilities.

He noted that the government was to procure medications every two years, adding “unfortunately the last time government provided for the mental health facilities was in 2011, meaning “we were left on our own to fend for ourselves so we are in serious deficit”.

He said when they run into deficits “it only takes some benevolent individuals, philanthropist, and Non-Governmental Organisations to come in and bail us out, or we write for the patients to get the expensive drugs themselves”.

GNA

            Wikileaks Blows Lid On Scale Of CIA’s  Hacking Arsenal

The major takeaway from the latest WikiLeaks dump centers around the terrifying, ‘all-seeing-eye’ surveillance project codenamed ‘Weeping Angel.’ The CIA appears to have taken espionage to a whole new level if WikiLeaks’ initial analysis is accurate.

According to the preliminary release, the CIA has the capability to hack, record and even control everyday technology used by billions of people around the world.

These include smartphones, tablets, smart TVs and even vehicles with remote control navigation systems.

On these devices themselves, the CIA can allegedly hack into some of the world’s most heavily encrypted social media and communications platforms such as WhatsApp, Weibo, Confide, Signal and Telegram before any encryption can even be applied.

For example, WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption means that only the direct participants in a conversation can read messages; not even WhatsApp is capable of reading them.

The CIA, however, was able to hack into individual private WhatsApp messages before encryption could even be applied.

“Your messages are secured with a lock, and only the recipient and you have the special key needed to unlock and read your message,” the company writes on their website.

To understand the sheer scale of the leak and of the CIA’s high tech surveillance operations, the hierarchy of divisions within the agency’s cyber division can be looked at below.

According to WikiLeaks, the manufacturing division for the Agency’s hacking tools, or ‘zero days’ as they are dubbed in the leaks, is the EDG (Engineering Development Group), which is under the umbrella of the agency’s CCI (Center for Cyber Intelligence).

Smartphone devices

The CIA's Mobile Devices Branch (MDB) developed a variety of tools and techniques to remotely hack and control the world’s most popular smartphones and tablets.

Once hacked, phones can be used to transmit their “geolocation, audio and text communications” directly to the CIA without the user’s knowledge. In addition, the CIA can remotely activate the phone’s microphone and camera.

Apple devices

Despite Apple holding a minority share in the global smartphone market in 2016, the CIA’s Mobile Development Branch has a specific division dedicated to the hacking of Apple devices which run the iOS operating system from smartphones and tablets.

WikiLeaks also alleges that the CIA not only developed but collaborated on or purchased a variety of hacking tools or ‘zero days’ from intelligence agencies and contractors around the world such as GCHQ, NSA, FBI or Baitshop.

Samsung

The EDG has produced a ‘zero day’ capable of hacking Samsung smart TVs, switching it into a fake ‘off mode’ where the device appears to remain on standby while actually recording audio and transmitting it to nearby secured CIA servers.

For context, Samsung was the top-selling television brand in the world for the last decade with a global market share of 21 percent as of 2015. WikiLeaks did not specify in the initial release whether video recordings were also a part of this particular ‘zero day.’

Vehicle control

As far back as 2014, WikiLeaks alleges that the CIA was exploring the possibility of infecting control systems in modern cars and trucks. While the exact goal of such control has yet to be established, WikiLeaks suggests that such hacks could be used for almost undetectable assassinations.

Android devices (Samsung, HTC, Sony)

The majority of the world’s smartphones (approximately 85 percent) run on the Android operating system, with roughly 1.15 billion Android devices sold last year, according to the WikiLeaks statement. Naturally, the CIA devoted an entire subdivision to hacking Android devices, with 24 individual weaponized ‘zero days’ targeting Android devices.

Microsoft

The CIA’s cyber division has developed numerous local and remote ‘zero days’ to hack and control Microsoft Windows users. 

These ‘zero days’ include, but are not limited to: air gap jumping viruses such as ‘Hammer Drill’ that are capable of infecting computers or phones that have never been connected to the internet; hacking tools that focus on removable devices such as USB drives; systems for hiding data, be it in covert disk areas or in images; particular ‘zero days’ that are manufactured to self-perpetuate and hide themselves from detection on an ongoing basis.

Before any tech experts gloat, WikiLeaks also alleges that the CIA has developed advanced, multi-platform malware attack and control systems that cover Windows and Mac OS X but also mixed source platforms like Solaris and open source platforms like Linux. Wikileaks names these specific ‘zero days’ as the EDB's ‘HIVE,’ ‘Cutthroat’ and ‘Swindle’ tools.

The African Union must unite – and reform

By Carien du Plessis 

Some desperate changes are needed at the African Union for the continental body to face the future. Given the serious divisions and difficulties, will this be possible? Carien du Plessis takes a look.

At the founding of the Organisation of African Unity in 1963 it was Ghanaian leader Kwame Nkrumah who urged: “We must unite now or perish.” Fifty-four years later this call was once again made with urgency. Although African states are now united in a continental body, not everyone is pulling in the same direction – and this will be necessary for its survival.

Rwandan president Paul Kagame, who was tasked with coming up with an AU reform plan, had all the right words to say at the Retreat of Heads of State that took place a day ahead of the recent African Union Summit in Addis Ababa at the end of January.

Moussa Faki Mahamat would have to make some unpopular decisions to effect the reforms, while at the same time trying to make himself popular at the AU headquarters.

“It has always been Africa’s moment,” he said. “The demeaning anecdotes that infect the portrayal of Africa deepen cynicism amongst our own youth, who internalise the idea of a helplessly dysfunctional continent.

“We should take responsibility for the part we have contributed to these negative images and work to change perceptions by coming together in real solidarity to transform our approach to the business of developing and protecting this continent.”

If words alone could effect change, these would have been it.

Changes at the top

The no-nonsense Kagame took only six months to come up with a 16-page document of proposed changes, but he said it was up to the leaders themselves to make these work.

In the week before the Gathering of the Heads of State on 30 and 31 January, there were rumours that the election there of a new AU Commission could be postponed so that these reforms could take effect first. All eight commissioners were up for re-election, as were the chair and the deputy.

A postponement would have made sense, because some of the most important changes to happen are in the commission, where portfolios range from peace and security to economic affairs to science and technology.

In future, the AU Commission chair will appoint the commissioners, much like a president appoints their cabinet. The rationale is that this will get the most competent people into the jobs and eliminate the horse-trading accompanying the elections. (Already the election of two commissioners had to be postponed to the next summit because the candidates did not fit into the regional and gender quotas.) So it will be another four-year term before this proposed change can take effect.

The newly elected commission, led by chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat, Chad’s former prime minister and minister of foreign affairs, is now tasked with implementing the reforms. At the same time, he has to find his feet and assert his power in Addis.

He was one of five candidates for the post, and it took an unprecedented seven rounds of voting by heads of state for him to get the two-thirds majority required to become chairperson – a far cry from the pre-2012 convention of appointing AU Commission chairpersons by consensus. In the end, 15 states remained unconvinced and abstained from voting. Mahamat was the only candidate to go through to the final round.

At a seminar a few days after the summit, Yann Bedzigui, from the Institute for Security Studies, asked whether Mahamat, the AU’s “safe choice”, could implement Kagame’s “shock therapy” for the continental body. His conclusion was that it would be politically difficult. Mahamat would have to make some unpopular decisions to effect the reforms, while at the same time trying to make himself popular at the AU headquarters.

Bedzigui said the lack of a clear timeline was also a concern: “The AU is easily bogged down by bureaucracy, so it’s not a good thing not to have a calendar.”

The stock-take at the mid-year summit is likely to determine if these reforms will succeed or sink – like the Audit of the African Union Report of the High Level Panel, which was produced 10 years ago by Nigerian professor Adebayo Adedeji, former United Nations under-secretary general. Back then, when this report was presented at the AU, the new commission was also up for elections. Most recommendations were never implemented due to a lack of agreement in the continental body, and due to a lack of timelines.

Money is the matter

Funding might also prove to be a big issue that could hamper this round of reforms. At last year’s July summit in Kigali it was agreed that the AU should fund 100% of its own operations, 75% of developmental programmes and 25% of peacekeeping operations.

Countries are expected to impose a 0,2% levy on all imports from non-AU countries, which could raise up to US$1,2 billion annually, enough to cover costs.

In 2014 the AU budget was US$308 million, more than half of which was funded by donors. By last year donors contributed 60% of the US$417 million budget, while this year donors will fund 74% of the US$439 million needed.

One of the big problems is that not all member states have been paying up. By December 2016, only 25 out of 54 member states had paid their full contributions. Fourteen had paid more than half their contribution, and 15 had not made any payment. They have this year to get their laws and revenue-raising instruments in order before the new system kicks in next year. Stricter sanctions – such as the suspension of membership – are on the cards for those who don’t pay up.

Divided, the reforms will fall

But what chance is there that the reforms will happen? The AU has just emerged from a summit that saw divisions and suspicions deepen. Despite the spin that the admittance of Morocco was by consensus, there is deep unhappiness among especially southern African states, who wanted Morocco to first recognise the independence of Western Sahara. Morocco left the OAU in 1984 when Western Sahara became a member state. There were open accusations of some states having been “bought” by Morocco to vote in favour of its admission.

Some are also whispering that countries like France still have too much influence over what’s happening on the continent, and this is fanning divisions.

In his speech Kagame used the example of how West African countries united to help The Gambia when they forced former leader Yayah Jammeh to give up power after an election defeat. They put the interests of the African people first, he said. The AU, though, is a somewhat bigger and more complex creature.

Talk of unity of purpose is already ringing ominously hollow.

          South Sudan on Brink of ‘Rwanda-like’ Genocide, UN Warns

By Sputnik

“All of the early warning signals for mass atrocities in South Sudan are there,” a special commission to South Sudan reported at a UN Human Rights Council meeting December 14.

The five-year-old nation remains in turmoil despite the nominal end of a three-year civil war in August 2015. The war, which began as a political conflict between the country’s president and then-vice president, members of different ethnic groups, ended up taking shape along ethnic lines, pitting the country’s two largest ethnic groups, the Dinka and the Nuer, against each other, and exacerbating tensions among others.

Now, the country’s politicians are being accused of using ethnic tensions for political gain, and observers are warning that the ongoing violence could coalesce into large-scale ethnic cleansing as the conflict spreads from the capital to previously calm states.

“There is an increase in polarized ethnic identities, a culture of denial, and in some areas, systematic violations that have been planned, South Sudan commission chair, Yasmin Sooka said in a statement.

“The Commission’s recent visit to South Sudan suggests that a steady process of ethnic cleansing is already underway in some parts of the country. We don’t use that expression lightly. Targeted displacement along ethnic lines is taking place through killing, abductions, rape, looting and burning of homes.” In a country where millions have already been displaced by civil war, the government project to redraw state boundaries is only exacerbating displacement and ethnic divisions, she said.

Sooka’s statement described levels of rape in the country as “epic,” including statistics showing 70% of women in civilian protection camps had been sexually assaulted, widespread and severe food insecurity, targeted robberies and killings by soldiers and police against different ethnic groups and ethnically determined landgrabs and job dismissals, all in a context of uncontrolled inflation and a collapse of basic services.

Hate speech and the dehumanization of different groups is now common in the country, even from government officials and the president, Sooka said. “Coupled with the muzzling of the media and curtailing of civil society groups, this has sown fear in the population.”

[P]erhaps most ominous of all, the South Sudan government’s actions are already leveling villages, resulting in many dead in Central Equatoria state…. There have been ethnic-based killings on all sides and growing demands for vengeance,” noted former US Special Envoy to Sudan and South Sudan Princeton Lyman and President of the US Institute of Peace Nancy Lindborg in an opinion for CNN.

On December 16, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon accused government figures of contributing to ethnic violence and called on the US Security Council to respond.

“President Salva Kiir has pursued an ethnically-based strategy to suppress dissent, muzzle the media, exclude significant South Sudanese actors in the peace process and unilaterally implement an agreement to reach elections. Fighting has now spread across the country. At the same time, actions by South Sudanese leaders including [former vice president] Riek Machar and other armed opposition actors are intensifying the conflict and manipulating ethnicity for political gain. The risk of these mass atrocities, which include recurring episodes of ethnic cleansing, escalating into possible genocide is all too real,” he wrote.

If hostilities are not immediately ceased and an inclusive search for a political resolution begun, “[T]he Security Council should impose an arms embargo and targeted sanctions to change the calculations of the parties and convince them to choose the path of peace. In addition, accountability is crucial so that those responsible for these despicable crimes face justice-from the highest levels to the foot soldiers following orders.”

The US has proposed targeted sanctions on Kiir, Machar and other leaders, but they are opposed by Russia, China, Japan and some other security council members, who say sidelining the country’s leaders won’t help the peace process.

Lyman and Lindborg stressed the role of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) in Eastern Africa, of which South Sudan and its neighbors Uganda, Ethiopia, Sudan, Kenya, Djibouti and Eritrea are a part.

“IGAD leaders must make clear to the government of South Sudan, and the other South Sudan key players with whom they have contact and influence, that a major offensive as threatened by the government in Central Equatoria is unacceptable. They must also warn that sanctions will be imposed by IGAD and the international community against any party undertaking such action, and that IGAD will demand greater progress on implementing the peace plan which the various parties have signed.”

“South Sudan stands on the brink of an all-out ethnic civil war, which could destabilize the entire region,” Sooka warned. “Wherever we visited people told us the country would dissolve into another Rwanda-like situation. While several of the early warning signs of mass atrocities are present that does not mean it is inevitable. The international community must act now. This includes countries in the region, which guaranteed the peace process but are not sufficiently implementing the necessary steps toward justice and accountability.”

The original source of this article is Sputnik

Anti-Imperialism, Pan-Africanism and Nkrumah’s Ghana. The Historic Role of Shirley Graham Du Bois

      

Shirley Graham Du Bois with Malcolm X in Ghana, May 196

By Abayomi Azikiwe

With March 6 representing six decades of statehood for the West African nation of Ghana provides an excellent opportunity for a political, economic and historical assessment of post-colonial developments on the continent.

In 1957 there were very few liberated areas in Africa. Egypt had been considered independent for many years although prior to 1952, Cairo was largely a neo-colony of Britain as a result of its control over the Suez Canal. President Gamal Abdel Nasser, a co-leader in the Free Officers Movement which seized power on July 23, 1952, after consolidating power some two years later in 1954, nationalized the Canal in 1956.

In response Britain, France and the State of Israel invaded the North African state with the intent to remove the Nasser government. The United States under the-then President Dwight D. Eisenhower viewed the British-led intervention as an effort to reassert London’s imperialist project which had been severely curtailed as a result of World War II, threatened to withdraw Washington’s underpinning of their national economy if the intervention was not halted.

The action taken by Nasser represented the emerging assertiveness of African and other oppressed nations during the 1950s. It was in 1954 that the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) launched its armed struggle against French colonialism which had dominated the country since 1830. It has been estimated that one million Algerians died during the liberation war however the movement prevailed over the conventional military superiority of Paris.

Sudan gained its independence from Britain in early 1956. The people had engaged in anti-colonial revolts since the latter years of the 19^th century.

During the European colonial period the nations of Ethiopia and Liberia were considered independent.  Nonetheless, with these states being surrounded and under the economic dominance by the imperialist countries they could in no genuine sense be considered sovereign nations. Ethiopia was invaded by Italy in 1896 and 1935 by Italy. Libyans fought a three decades-long war against Rome in the early years of the 20^th century before being subsumed by imperialism.

The African Diaspora and the Anti-imperialist Struggle

Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois (February 23, 1868-August 28, 1963) was described by Dr. Kwame Nkrumah as the “Father of Pan-Africanism” due to his involvement in African affairs dating back to the late 19^th century. In 1896, Dr. Du Bois completed his doctoral dissertation at Harvard University on the Suppression of the African Slave Trade, 1638-1870.

By 1900, Du Bois had traveled to London to participate in what is considered to be the First Pan-African Conference organized by Trinidadian Barrister Henry Sylvester Williams. Du Bois recalled that he was secretary of the Conference and drafted its resolutions.

Later he would convene a series of similar meetings known as the Pan-African Congresses from 1919 to 1923. By 1927, when the Fourth Pan-African Congress was held in New York City, it was being structured, organized and funded by the women’s organization the Circle for Peace and Foreign Relations headed by Addie W. Hunton, a prominent African American who had intervened in support of Black soldiers during their deployment in France for the U.S. at the conclusion of World War I.

Hunton and her predecessor Anna J. Cooper were instrumental in the rise of independent African organizational culture emanating from the late 19^th, early 20^th centuries. Both Cooper and Hunton were internationalists in their outlooks and had definite views on the essential role of women in social transformation and political development.

Lola Shirley Graham was born on November 11, 1896 in Indianapolis, Indiana, the daughter of an African Methodist Episcopal minister. She had initially met W.E.B. Du Bois through her father while she was a child.

Graham Du Bois attended the Sorbonne in France to study music and later enrolled at Oberlin College in Ohio, renowned for its training of African American women dating back to the pre-Civil War period. She obtained both a bachelor’s and master’s degree at Oberlin in music during 1934 and 1935 respectively.

Graham Du Bois became a prolific writer, composing plays, musicals and publishing biographies. She would spend decades in the theatre while maintaining an interest in political movements as well. She became an organizer for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), where her future husband was a co-founder, serving as the editor of the Crisis Magazine from 1910-1934.

Her politics moved more to the Left resulting in her joining the Communist Party of the U.S. during the 1940s and serving on a high level within its structures and concomitant mass groups and coalitions that were either controlled or influenced by the Marxist-Leninist Party. With the passing of W.E.B. Du Bois’ first wife Nina Gomer in 1950, Graham Du Bois became closer to the retired professor and prodigious author.

Her burgeoning personal relationship with Du Bois moved him further into left-wing circles becoming a consistent ally on the periphery of the CP. Du Bois was a leading member of the Council on African Affairs (CAA) which was founded in the late 1930s by perhaps the leading artist in the U.S., Paul Leroy Robeson, a graduate of Princeton and Columbia University Law School who became an actor, singer and social scientist.

By 1945, Du Bois would travel to Manchester, England to serve as Chairman of the Fifth Pan-African Congress. Other leading people within the conference were George Padmore, an African-Trinidadian who was the former leader of the Red International Labor Union (Profintern) and a member of the Communist Party in the U.S., who later broke with Moscow in 1934 after the rise of Germany as a fascist state. In addition to Padmore, Francis Kwame Nkrumah, was the organizing secretary for the Manchester gathering.

Nkrumah from the Nzima people of western Gold Coast had studied for ten years in the U.S. (1935-1945) at Lincoln University and the University of Pennsylvania. During his tenure in America in addition to obtaining undergraduate and graduate degrees in Philosophy, Economics and Theology, Nkrumah had become a licensed minister providing him with platforms to speak in African American churches and other social organizations.

After being involved in the Left, nationalist and Pan-African movements in the U.S., Nkrumah moved to England in 1945 with the hopes of pursuing a doctorate at the London School of Economics. Instead he became enmeshed in the anti-colonial milieu in Britain. He was embraced by Padmore, by then a well-known journalist who wrote extensively on African affairs.

The resolutions of the Fifth PAC were far more radical than preceding conferences held between 1900 and 1927. A stronger participation of labor and farmer organizations along with youth ensured a more forward looking political direction.

Moreover, the weakening of heretofore dominant European imperialist states such as England, France, Italy, Spain and Germany provided an incentive for colonial territories to adopt an aura of urgency in regard to the attainment of national independence and sovereignty. The U.S. which emerged triumphantly from World War II became the supreme imperialist center of global hegemony backed by international finance capital based in New York.

Although Washington paid lip service to the notions of self-determination for colonial peoples, there was still a protracted struggle to be waged against the rising Socialist camp. The Soviet Union, which bore the brunt of the fighting against Nazi Germany, was able to maintain its existence and expand anti-capitalist influence through the founding of several socialist governments in Eastern Europe.

Asia witnessed revolutions which consolidated after the War in North Korea, North Vietnam and mainland China provided a clear social and economic alternative for the colonized territories. Consequently, by 1947 a Cold War surfaced pitting the world capitalist system against the Socialist countries.

In 1950 full-scale war erupted again in Korea over the direction of the peninsula formally dominated by Japan from 1905 to 1945. The Korean War (1950-53) resulted in the deaths of four million people. The deployment of the 500,000-member Chinese People’s Volunteer Army beat back U.S. imperialism ensuring the survival of the North leading to the formation of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). Increasing numbers of people and territories were seeking a way out of the capitalist and imperialist system.

The Du Boises, Pan-Africanism and Cold War Repression

The year 1948 became a watershed in the intensifying hostility among the two rival camps as the Left in the U.S. began to advocate for peaceful coexistence between the differing social systems of capitalism and socialism. President Franklin D. Roosevelt in an effort to stave off a total collapse of the capitalist system in the U.S., adopted socialistic reforms such as controls on the banking industry, the creation of social security, welfare, unemployment benefits, and public works projects aimed at infrastructural development and employment creation.

These programs did not emerge from the imagination of Roosevelt. They were demands advanced by the CP and other mass organizations aimed at tackling joblessness, hunger, home foreclosures and evictions as well as the threat of global class warfare. The inability of capitalism to resolve its own internal crises was revealed during the 1930s as the Great Depression did not end until the entrance of the U.S. into World War II in December 1941.

Threats of another imperialist instigated conflagration were all too real by 1948-49. Du Bois’ refusal to go along with the Cold War domestic policies of the administration of President Harry S. Truman which was the adoption of an anti-communist position in exchange for minimal reforms in the areas of Civil Rights. In the aftermath of the War, there was an upsurge in racist violence directed towards African Americans. Therefore, the symmetry of national oppression and hostility against the Socialist camp necessitated a duplicitous stance on the part of the U.S. ruling class.

Du Bois’ rejection of the Truman candidacy of 1948 and his embrace of Henry Wallace and the Progressive Party sped-up his inevitable departure from the NAACP for the second time in a decade-and-a-half. After his attendance at the Paris Peace Conference of 1949 and the advocacy of détente with the Soviet Union and China, Du Bois became a target of the federal government. By 1951 he and four associates were under indictment for failing to register as an agent of a foreign government.

It was during this period that Du Bois married Shirley Graham. They embarked upon a national tour of the U.S. to build support for his acquittal. The case against Du Bois collapsed under the weight of its own folly. Nonetheless, many other prominent Leftists were convicted on similar charges resulting in prison terms, deportations and professional isolation. Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were executed by the American government in 1953 for purportedly sharing nuclear information with the Soviet Union.

Shirley Graham Du Bois and her new husband had their passports confiscated by the U.S. government preventing them from traveling abroad during the years of 1950-1958. After the Supreme Court held that these measures were unconstitutional, the Du Boises went on a world tour of Europe, Asia and Africa.

Graham Du Bois visited Ghana in December 1958 to address the All-African People’s Conference held in Accra. The event attracted the participation of 62 national liberation organizations from around the continent.

The paper delivered by Graham Du Bois on behalf of her husband entitled, “The Future of All-Africa Lies in Socialism”, asserted that:

“Africa, ancient Africa, has been called by the world and has lifted up her hands! Africa has no choice between private capitalism and socialism. The whole world, including capitalist countries, is moving toward socialism, inevitably, inexorably. You can choose between blocs of military alliance, you can choose between groups of political union; you cannot choose between socialism and private capitalism because private capitalism is doomed.”

This address goes on to ask: But what is socialism? It is a disciplined economy and political organization in which the first duty of a citizen is to serve the state; and the state is not a selected aristocracy, or a group of self-seeking oligarchs, who have seized wealth and power. No! The mass of workers with hand and brain are the ones whose collective destiny is the chief object of all effort.

Gradually, every state is coming to this concept of its aim. The great Communist states like the Soviet Union and China have surrendered completely to this idea. The Scandinavian states have yielded partially; Great Britain has yielded in some respects, France in part, and even the United States adopted the New Deal which was largely socialism; though today further American socialism is held at bay by 60 great groups of corporations who control individual capitalists and the trade union leaders.”

Such an appeal to the national liberation movements and independent states would of course draw the negative attention of U.S. and world imperialism. This concern was reflected in the thousands of Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) files which were meticulously kept on both W.E.B. and Shirley Graham Du Bois in this period.

After traveling to the People’s Republic of China in 1959 the Du Boises were accused of being in violation of U.S. policy of entering Socialist states without authorization. Their passports were revoked once again. They then successfully appealed this decision which provided the activist couple with the capacity to visit Ghana in July 1960 to attend the Republic Day ceremonies and the Conference of the Women of Africa and African Descent.

Intelligence agencies were concerned about the travel plans of the couple. A confidential FBI memorandum from the office of John Edgar Hoover, Director, forwarded to the Office of Security Department of State dated June 20, 1960, noted that the Du Boises had been issued passports on June 7. The applications for the passports revealed the couple would leave New York by air on June 20 to visit Ghana to attend the ceremonies surrounding the establishment of the First Republic headed by Dr. Kwame Nkrumah.

This memo also made reference to the awarding of the Lenin Peace Prize to Dr. Du Bois by the Soviet government. Linking the Du Boises to the Communist movement the document reads:

“William Du Bois is Negro author, lecturer and scholar who has [a] long history of affiliation with communist front groups. He was a recipient of a 1958 international Lenin Peace Prize awarded by the Soviet Government. His wife has also had history of association with front groups. Subjects have received official invitation to attend the ceremonies of the inauguration of the new Government of Ghana.  Pertinent reports and memoranda concerning subjects have previously been furnished State and CIA, who are interested both in subject William Du Bois’ receipt of the Lenin Peace Prize and in the foreign travel of both subjects. Information re: passports telephonically furnished to Liaison Section by State Department.”

The Chicago Daily Defender, an African American publication, reported on September 4, 1960 that Graham Du Bois would be a featured speaker at an event planned for November 8 at Carnegie Hall in New York entitled “Rally for Peace and Friendship.” The event was sponsored by the National Council of American-Soviet Friendship (NCASF).

This same report indicated the Du Boises spent July and August in Ghana where in addition to participation in the Republic Day activities, Graham Du Bois served as head of a delegation of African American women who attended the Conference of Women of Africa and African Descent held in Accra. While in Ghana, the Du Boises toured the country visiting various villages, cities and rural communities in an effort assess the social and economic measures being implemented by the people.

Ghana, Socialist Construction and the African Revolution

Ghana gained independence in 1957 and became a Republic in 1960 with Kwame Nkrumah moving from being Prime Minister to President. The Du Boises were invited guests of the state ruled by the CPP and President Nkrumah. They were asked by the government to remain in Ghana and become full citizens. Du Bois was solicited to establish his long-planned Encyclopedia Africana Project aimed at the rewriting of African history from the perspective of the people themselves.

Although they returned to the U.S. in 1960, by the following year the Du Boises had relocated in Ghana. A report in the Ghana Evening News on October 11, 1961 stated the couple had arrived in the country that very morning. In another article published by the Evening News on October 16, reports the Du Boises had been paid a visit by the People’s Republic of China Ambassador to Ghana, Huang Hua and his wife, over the weekend of October 14-15. The article notes the ambassador “had a friendly talk with them.”

The following year on December 17, 1962, the FBI was advised by an undisclosed (redacted) source that high-ranking Communist Party African American official Henry Winston, while visiting Moscow had indicated during a personal conversation which took place in November, that Du Bois and his wife Shirley:

“after five weeks in China during late September and October, 1962, stayed in Moscow for twelve days in November, 1962. In China, the Chinese treated them lavishly and gave them many gifts. William Du Bois received medical attention, which, together with treatment received in Great Britain, he credits for saving his life. This same treatment was refused him by the Soviets due to his advanced age. The overall effect of the China visit on the Du Boises was great to the point that Shirley Du Bois thinks of the Chinese as ‘racial brothers’.”

This FBI document goes on to emphasize that:

“The Soviets are fearful of the Chinese influence on the Du Boises, in that they may lose their support in the ideological dispute with the Chinese. To counter this, the Soviets had Winston return to Moscow from Sofia, Bulgaria, to discuss matters with the Du Boises. The Soviets showered Du Bois with gifts and honors and arranged meetings with Brezhnev, President of the USSR, and with Khrushchev. Although the Soviets were not completely successful with William Du Bois, and much less successful with Shirley Du Bois, they were able to get William Du Bois to issue a public statement supporting the Soviet position in Cuba. Another reason why the Soviets tried to influence William Du Bois is that he is very close to President Nkrumah of Ghana, a leader of the neutralist camp. The Soviets believe that they can determine Nkrumah’s position and policy through Du Bois.”

Through other quotes attributed to either one or both of the Du Boises, whose sources are not cited in the FBI files from the above-mentioned report, says:

“We are the only American Negroes in Ghana who have visited the People’s Republic of China. I assure you that none of the remarks attributed to these ‘American Negroes’ were ever uttered by either of us. As you know we were very recently in China as well as in the Soviet Union. During this time in both countries we talked with the highest leaders as well as people in all walks of life. But we do not feel equipped to hand out advice to either of these Socialist Giants as to how they should settle their differences.”

The FBI document then goes on to suggest that the Soviets being fearful of Chinese influence in Africa, were preparing Winston for a visit to the continent. Agencies apparently believed or had been informed that Dr. Du Bois had arranged for Winston to travel to Ghana. There was also the hope that Winston would visit other states in Africa as well in April 1963.

While in Ghana, Graham Du Bois continued to write extensively on the freedom movements of African Americans in the U.S. as well as the overall global anti-imperialist struggle.

In the February 1963 edition of The World Review, the journal of the NCASF, on page 17, there was an article by Graham Du Bois entitled “January 8 in Ghana.” This article reviewed the mass struggle of the Ghanaian people against British colonialism which resulted in the release of Nkrumah from prison in February 1951 and the development of a path towards the acquisition of national independence in 1957. January 8, 1950 was the day of “Positive Action” where the CPP called for a national strike demanding independence for the Gold Coast.

Political Affairs, the theoretical journal of the Communist Party in the U.S., published an article by Graham Du Bois entitled “Africa Must Save the Congo”, where the author traces the events inside the mineral-rich Central African state from the period of Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba’s appeal to the United Nations for assistance in the early days of independence in after June 30, 1960. She concludes that imperialism has created a disastrous crisis inside the country and consequently prevented the UN from bringing stability. She reports that African states were working towards a solution to the Congo problem.

Du Bois became the Director of Encyclopedia Africana and served in that capacity until his death inside the country on August 28, 1963. FBI files reveal that Graham Du Bois renounced her U.S. citizenship and became a citizen of the Republic of Ghana in October 1963.

A memorandum from the Department of Justice FBI dated October 10, says: “On October 4, 1963, the United States Embassy at Accra, Ghana, advised the Department of State that subject had renounced her United States Citizenship under Section 349 (A) (6) Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, on that date. On October 5, 1963, the Embassy advised as follows: Subject intends to apply for United States visa for a Ghanaian passport in order to come to the United States in February, 1964, to attend a memorial rally in honor of her late husband, W.E.B. Du Bois. It was believed that Kwame Nkrumah, Chief of State of Ghana, and the Ghanaian press will be severely critical of the United States Government if subject is denied a visa.”

Subsequently, Graham Du Bois was denied a visa to reenter the U.S. By the concluding months of 1963, the Cold War atmosphere surrounding the direction of the Civil Rights Movement had become even more pronounced. The March on Washington of August 28, 1963 was held on the same day as the passing of Dr. Du Bois. Although NAACP Executive Secretary Roy Wilkins acknowledged the death of the co-founder of the organization, he slandered the legacy of Dr. Du Bois by claiming that he had taken another path in recent years.

The spring and summer months of 1963 were marked by heightened mobilizations on the part of the African American people against legalized segregation and national oppression. Events in Birmingham, Alabama; Danville, Virginia; Cambridge, Maryland; Somerville, Tennessee; Jackson, Mississippi, among many other areas, had aroused the national consciousness in the U.S. and around the world.

Mao-Tse-tung, the Chairman of the Communist Party of China (CPC), issued a statement in response to the unrest in the U.S. marred by the assassination of Medgar Evers, the NAACP Field Secretary in Jackson, Mississippi on June 12. Reviewing the events of 1963, Mao condemned the U.S. for its treatment of the African American people. He began the statement by acknowledging that former NAACP leader in Monroe, North Carolina, Robert F. Williams, then living in exile in Cuba, had urged him on two occasions to make a comprehensive appeal for global support of the African American struggle against the racist U.S. political system.

In concluding this statement issued on August 8, the CPC leader called upon the peoples of the world to express their unconditional solidarity with the African American people:

“I call upon the workers, peasants, revolutionary intellectuals, enlightened elements of the bourgeoisie, and other enlightened personages of all colors in the world, white, black, yellow, brown, etc., to unite to oppose the racial discrimination practiced by U.S. imperialism and to support the American Negroes in their struggle against racial discrimination.

In the final analysis, a national struggle is a question of class struggle. In the United States, it is only the reactionary ruling clique among the whites which is oppressing the Negro people. They can in no way represent the workers, farmers, revolutionary intellectuals, and other enlightened persons who comprise the overwhelming majority of the white people. At present, it is the handful of imperialists, headed by the United States, and their supporters, the reactionaries in different countries, who are carrying out oppression, aggression and intimidation against the overwhelming majority of the nations and peoples of the world.

They are the minority, and we are the majority. At most they make up less than ten percent of the 3,000 million people of the world. I am deeply convinced that, with the support of more than ninety per cent of the people of the world, the just struggle of the American Negroes will certainly be victorious. The evil system of colonialism and imperialism grew on along with the enslavement of the Negroes and the trade in Negroes; it will surely come to its end with the thorough emancipation of the black people.”  (Peking Review, No. 33, Aug. 16, 1963)

The lingering Cold War mentality of two African American leaders of the Civil Rights Movement, James Farmer, the Executive Secretary of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), who at the time was serving a jail sentence in Louisiana, and Roy Wilkins of the NAACP, immediately rejected the statement issued by Chairman Mao. Graham Du Bois in an article entitled “The Great Debate”, admonished Wilkins and Farmer for their anti-Communist responses.

Graham Du Bois accused Farmer of being brainwashed for symbolically biting the hand stretched out to assist him in his Louisiana jail cell. Wilkins’ championed the welcoming of the leadership of the March on Washington by President Kennedy and the legislation submitted to Congress for a Civil Rights bill in the summer of 1963 as proof that African Americans did not need the support of CPC. Conversely, Graham Du Bois noted that the anti-Communist statement by Farmer issued on August 20 could not free him from detention in Louisiana so he could participate in the March on Washington.

The recently-naturalized Ghanaian citizen stressed that people around the world had praised the call by the CPC Chairman to unite in support of the African American struggle. She stressed that never before had such an appeal been made by a large and powerful nation like China.

She went on saying:

“We, in soon-to-be-united Africa, hear this call and the accompanying statement with uplifted hearts. Africans know well that the discrimination practiced in the United States is indeed discrimination against Africa, than not only have the imperialists and racists robbed, plundered and ravaged this fruitful continent, but they have employed every means of degradation, oppression and shame to humiliate Africans and all the children of Africa. The wealth, prosperity and advancement of the United States were built on the annihilation of one people (the American Indian) and the enslavement of another. Beginning with all the back-breaking labor of clearing and developing wilderness and building cities, the Negro’s contribution mounts and expands through every field of endeavor—reaching particular heights in music, literature and science.” (Muhammad Speaks, Nov. 22, 1963, pp. 19-20)

In early 1964, Graham Du Bois was appointed by Nkrumah as Director of Ghana National Television. The project was a massive undertaking which required the solicitation of support from other sympathetic nations. Eventually the Japanese Sanyo Corporation agreed to supply much needed technical assistance.

Not only was she involved in the development of the first national television network in Ghana, Graham Du Bois was functioning on a high level within the CPP government as an administrator within the state publishing house. She worked directly with President Nkrumah and was a part of his inner circle of advisors.

After returning from the Second Summit of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) held in Cairo, Egypt in July 1964, where she consulted with Malcolm X (El Hajj Malik Shabazz) on the efforts of the newly-founded Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU) to build support for the struggle inside the U.S. among heads-of-state, the UN and national liberation movements, she would announce the convening of a course on television screenwriting in Accra. The aim was to train a cadre of writers for Ghana National Television which was due to be launched in a few months.

She had signed up Donald Ogden Stewart, the American Communist expatriate living in London, to serve as Director of Television Writing. Stewart was a screenwriter, widely known for his sophisticated comedies and melodramas, such as The Philadelphia Story (based on the play by Philip Barry), Tarnished Lady and Love Affair.

In a letter to her New York-based attorney, Bernard Jaffe, she reported that she had received nearly 150 letters of application for the class. The course began with 76 people in attendance. By October 17, 1964, after ten weeks, there was regular participation of fifty to sixty people every week. She pointed out the uneven development of the students which were lectured by her in basic writing and techniques for television broadcasting.

A subsequent letter to Jaffe from Graham Du Bois dated February 21, 1965, discusses the mounting pressure by the imperialist states on the CPP government. She conveys to her lawyer how:

“It would be silly to emphasize that Africa is going through a crucial period when the entire world seems to be hurtling through space bent on its own destruction. Until a few months ago Ghana seemed like a safe haven busily intent on attending to its own pressing business, organizing and developing at breakneck speed, working hard and running forward. We never attempted to isolate ourselves—but we do steer our own ship and hold high a pilot light for the rest of Africa. So what happens? Attempts at assassination fail. Attempts at stirring up internal dissension fail! We keep moving forward. So now the World Marketers close in! They are trying to strangle our economy, cut off our trade, freeze certain foreign exchange, while, at the same time, choke us with foreign goods.

Nkrumah answers by refusing to release precious cocoa, imposing rigid import restrictions and telling us we must DO WITHOUT until new adjustments can be made with socialist countries! It will work. Nobody is going to starve, but new, industrial projects such as TELEVISION have been hard hit. Television must import everything in the line of equipment and working materials. And here we are—in the last quarter, ready to make final preparation for beginning and unable to get final essentials for our work. I must ‘hold the line’ ‘keep high the morale and spirits of my workers’, continue with everything it is possible to do—and there is much to do—and radiate assurance that everything will be all right!”

One year after this letter was written the CPP government under President Nkrumah was overthrown in a U.S.-engineered police and military coup. Nkrumah was out of the country on a peace mission to China and North Vietnam seeking to find a solution to the escalating imperialist war against the people of Southeast Asia. The coup led to the purging of the CPP from government and the elimination of hundreds of political and economic projects.

Graham Du Bois was placed under house arrest while being removed from her directorship of Ghana National Television. Many others were killed, imprisoned and driven into exile. Nkrumah left Peking after being told of the coup stopping over in Cairo en route to Conakry, Guinea led by President Ahmed Sekou Toure, Secretary General of the Democratic Party of Guinea (PDG).

Nkrumah was given not only political asylum in Guinea but was appointed by the government as co-president. He would settle there until 1971 when he was sent to Bucharest, Romania for treatment of cancer. He died on April 27, 1972.

Graham Du Bois was able to leave Ghana and would settle in Cairo and the People’s Republic of China where she died in 1976.

The role of Shirley Graham Du Bois and Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois in Ghana was indicative of the political character of the CPP government from the period of tactical action (1951-56) to independence (1957-66). Hundreds of African Americans either visited or settled in Ghana during this time period, many of whom making technical and political contributions to the African Revolution which was centered in Accra.

Since the 1960s, the work of the Du Boises has gained attention among many students, intellectuals and activists in the U.S. and internationally. Nevertheless, the political significance of their contributions remains highly obscured due to the continuing institutionally racist and anti-Communist social atmosphere which prevails in colleges and universities in America.

The current generation of activists and intellectuals must unearth and review these monumental achievements in order to gain clearer insight into the actual political, social and economic history of the U.S. There is much within this period of 20^th century historical processes that could be utilized in building stronger movements for Pan-Africanism and Socialism in the contemporary era.

The original source of this article is Global Research
Copyright © Abayomi Azikiwe, Global Research, 2017

HUMAN: A HIGHLY ADAPTABLE ANIMAL

By Matthew Culbert 

Compared with a lion, a gorilla, or even a horse, the human animal is weak, slow and defenseless. And yet homosapiens has become the dominant species of the planet. Our species developed none of the specialist attributes that have fitted other creatures so perfectly for their environments.

Physiologically, we have hardly evolved at all since we became a distinct species. Whereas other species have evolved to fit their environments and the available food supplies, human beings have remained unspecialised, but very adaptable. Instead of their bodies altering to suit their environments humans have altered their environments to suit themselves.

Human beings spread across the surface of the planet, occupying tropical rain forests, deserts, temperate regions and even Arctic ice. They lived upon virtually every type of food possible, from seal fat to tropical fruits and desert insects. And from this variety of life-patterns arose wide differences in knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, feelings and behaviour. Almost every conceivable kind of belief and behaviour has been adopted by some human beings at some time somewhere. Although we are one species, from the jungle of New Guinea to the streets of New York, the inhabitants of different places may think and act in quite dissimilar ways. And yet a baby, carried across the world from New Guinea to New York and brought up there, could become a complete New Yorker, with the accent, the food preferences, the personal habits, the love of baseball and the Stars and Stripes and the average tendency towards obesity, heart disease, divorce and crime. The basic animal is the same, but all key behaviour patterns are shaped by the society in which the child is brought up.

Making a Living
But if societies mould individuals, different types of society are themselves shaped by a number of external factors, as well as by the activities of individuals and classes of people within them. The basic needs of the human animal are, like those of any other mammal, food, drink, warmth and sex; but these needs have not been easily met. For most of human existence the lives of the great majority have been dominated by scarcity. The methods of making a living from the land and sea have therefore been the major influences upon the sorts of lives people have led, the types of society that have been formed, and the attitudes and behaviour of the members of those societies.

The development of gathering roots and fruits, organised hunting and fishing, the growth of herding with its nomadic pattern of life, the emergence of agriculture, encouraging settlements, and the growth of towns and cities – all this has repeatedly modified relationships within societies. It has modified the material conditions of life and led to the accumulation of riches for some and poverty for others. The discovery and utilisation of metals, and the development of more and more complex tools and machines have often gone hand to hand with progress in methods of making a living, increasing the amount of wealth produced per head of the population many times over; but the benefits of these improvements have not been shared by all members of society.

After the rise of settled townships on an agricultural base in Mesopotamia, trade between localities developed; for the first time the product of hands and brains took on an alien life as commodities to be bartered, and then bought with that abstract commodity, money. Property, realised at the boundaries between tribes, began to impinge within. Laws of inheritance were formulated and the first property society developed when people came to be bought and sold as slaves. Chattel slavery gave way to feudalism with its lords and serfs, and then feudalism to capitalism; and still all the land and factories and mines and transport are owned by a small minority of the population, who make the laws to protect their wealth, and employ the majority to work for them.

Employers and Employees

The fundamental division between workers and employers in the structure of modern society affects all the relationships within it. It affects feelings, attitudes, beliefs, and has a fundamental effect upon the personality of every individual. The child brought up in a family owning a few million shares, a few thousand acres, and four or five houses to live in has a completely different outlook on life from that of the child brought up in the average factory or office worker’s semi-detached house on a housing estate. The children born into a family with adequate capital realise as they grow up that they are part of an elite with the freedom to choose how they occupy their lives. They may also realise that, although they will not necessarily do the hiring and firing themselves when they grow up, and may never even see the mines, factories and offices where their wealth is made, their inheritance of capital will make them employers of other human beings. The vast majority of children, on the other hand, become aware that their future depends upon being able to find someone to employ them. If they want to succeed in this endeavour, not only their education but their dress, their manners, their attitude to authority, even their political opinions must conform to the standards laid down by employers.

The employment they must seek is a fundamental part of a society in which the market, the price mechanism and the profit motive have come to dominate almost every aspect of life. There is a tendency for all relationships to be reduced to that of buyer and seller. And the interests of buyer and seller are opposed to one another. Good business consists of getting the better of someone. Competition means winning by fair means if possible, by fouls means if necessary. The fictional heroes are gangsters, ruthless tycoons, spies “licensed to kill”, or policemen using the same kind of unconventional methods.

Contradictory Values
This, therefore, is the atmosphere in which most children grow up. We are born essentially the same living beings are our ancestors of thousands of years ago; but we learn to think and feel and act from what goes on around us at an early age. From school, the newspapers and television, we take in the knowledge of the world’s hunger and disease. At other times we learn that “butter mountains” are being piled up, milk poured down quarries, wheat burned, or crops ploughed back into the ground. We may not bring these facts together in our mind to raise questions about the system by which society is run – indeed we are actually discouraged by the schools and the media from doing so. Instead we are persuaded to believe that the present organisation of society is eternal – even divinely ordained – and that it is ordinary people like ourselves with our selfishness, laziness and greed, who are to blame. And so, unresolved, these contradictions remain at the back of our mind, causing confusion, frustration, and a vague sense of guilty helplessness.

At school and at home we are repeatedly told that kindliness, co-operation and constructiveness are the guidelines of good social behaviour; but the films about war, robbery and violent crime that form one of television’s staple diets teach very different lessons: there are always “baddies” against whom violence is not only justified but necessary and even enjoyable – terrorists, Nazis, Apaches, criminals, mad scientists, Martians, agitators, Russian spies, and so on.

We are taught that hard work and thrift are the recipe for success in our future “career”; and then occasionally we see members of society’s owning class in the news, who never do a day’s proper work in their lives and spend money like water, playing at foxhunting on their ten thousand acre estates, or racing ocean-going yachts, or shooting grouse on their Scottish moors, while our hard-working, thrifty parents get worn out before our eyes with years of work and worry. Our potential for behaving with affection, generosity, trust and creativity is made to seem naive and ridiculous up against the power of wealth in a society of ruthless competition.

There are many different reactions to the disillusionment (sometimes called “maturity”) that this causes, and none of them is good for the individual. The commonest, because it avoids conflict with authority and the forces of law and order, is an almost complete refusal to be concerned with the problems of society. Workers who take this line silently or openly admit that they cannot make sense of what goes on: and they absorb themselves energetically in their darts team or football supporters club, hobby or garden, trying to remain unaffected by the drudgery of their daily job, or the threats of unemployment or nuclear war. Others look for scapegoats to blame: black people (if they are white), white people (if they are black), men (if they are women), Asians, Jews, atheists, trade unionists, and so on. The fashions change from time to time.

Still others become completely cynical, turning to crime or something close to it, in an attempt to beat the system and to get hold of the only thing which seems to have any value – money. The use of anti-depressants and tranquillisers is widespread and the number of people who receive psychiatric treatment at some time in their lives has risen rapidly. We behave like this because we are forced to live under conflicting pressures which, as individuals, we do not have the power to resolve.

All of us, whether we remain relatively sane or not, are inevitably contaminated by the social values that provide the real motive power of capitalist society. In many ways the urgent, relentless drive to make profits, which can be reinvested as capital to make yet more profit, regardless of human need or suffering, is the essence of avarice or greed, yet it is the essence of modern society. The very structure of capitalism, in which the minority own and control all the means of producing and distributing wealth – and employ all the powers of the state to preserve their monopoly –  has placed insecurity and self-interest at the very foundations of society. None of us can fail to be affected by it.

Yet, adaptable as we are, we cannot completely fit the pattern that modern capitalism demands, because it is inconsistent and, at times, directly contradictory. Articles and advertisements regularly appear in magazines and newspapers explaining how we can become rich by setting up in business and applying “hard headed” (ruthless) business principles. But when workers, especially those organised in trade unions, apply such principles in wage negotiations there is a chorus of condemnation from the press. We hear, only too often, that “there is no sentiment in business”; but as workers we are exhorted equally often to be “loyal” to the company we work for. Modern wars are fought over power and wealth – as becomes only too clear when the truth comes out afterwards – but they are always presented to the working class as fights for freedom of one sort or another, in order to persuade us to risk our lives in killing workers from other countries.

This inconsistency is inevitable. Capitalist society is not a collection of individuals with common interests and a common set of guiding principles. It is a society deeply divided, at odds with itself. Class conflict was built into its foundations and shows up every day in its workings. To criticise workers as being selfish, greedy, uncooperative, deceitful, violent, when these are the main characteristics of the nations and the businesses with which we are compelled to be involved all our lives, is to add insult to two hundred years of injury. Certainly these are anti-social forms of behaviour; but then this is an inhuman social system. As long as we, its working class majority, allow it to continue, we can expect nothing better.