LIBRARIES: They Are Dying in Ghana

Matthew Opoku Prempeh, Education Minister

By Julius K. Satsi

As a developing country like Ghana, there is the need to pay critical attention to the rate at which citizens are committed to accumulating and using information from various sectors without relegating the role of libraries. 

It is highly significant for the government to pay some special attention to what the libraries could bring on board to drive the development agenda, especially linking their roles to the development agenda of the country.

When Mr Samuel Bentil Aggrey, the President of the Ghana Library Association (GLA) took his turn to speak at the Association’s 8th Presidential Inaugural lecture on May 4, 2017, on the theme: “National Development through the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) - The Role of Libraries,” he made  a passionate appeal to resuscitate the deteriorating Ghanaian Libraries.

Mr Aggrey said it was relevant to appreciate the roles of the libraries in the country and mentioned the promotion of universal literacy, comprising digital, media and information literacy and skills, with the support of dedicated library staff. 

He said the libraries also helped in closing the gaps in access to information as well as helping government, civil society and businesses to understand local information needs better.

“Another critical role of the libraries include; the provision of a network of delivery sites for government programmes and services.

“The libraries also assisted in advancing digital inclusion through access to Information Communication Technology (ICT) as well as serving as the heart of the research and academic community besides preserving and providing access to the world’s culture and heritage,” Mr Aggrey added

Outlook of the Ghanaian Libraries    

Mr Aggrey, who is also a Senior Assistant Librarian and Head of University of Ghana, Accra City Campus, identified five categories of libraries in Ghana, which included; National, Public, Academic, Special and School Libraries.

Quoting the Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science 2010 on National Libraries, He said it was supposed to be “the official repository of printed work, the general access library, information bibliographical centre and the centre of coordination, planning and stimulation of the entire library system of the people.”

According to the President of GLA, Ghana has no national library to play the above stated roles although neighbouring African countries like; Togo, Burkina Faso, Liberia, Somalia, Guinea Bissau, Guinea, Cameroon, Mali, Chad, Southern Sudan, Kenya, and Nigeria all have.

On the Ghanaian Public libraries, Mr Aggrey said they provided wide and varied responsibilities ranging from promotion of individual development, commerce, socio-cultural advancement, and technical progress.

He said they also offered traditional library and mobile library services to deprived and distant communities in their catchment areas.

Quoting the Ghana Library Board (2010 unpublished manuscript), Mr Aggrey said the main purpose of the Public Libraries is to “ensure the development of the individual’s social and intellectual capabilities and the creation of a well-informed society for national development”.

He noted that the period of 1950 to 1975 saw the high rate of attention given to the public libraries earning it the description, ‘Golden Age for the public libraries’, which increased the operations of these libraries in the regions in Ghana.

He said the period after 1975 to date earned the description, ‘the sunset of public library services’ as virtually every success achieved, started to dwindle with the reduction in the presence and operations of public libraries. 

Mr Aggrey said the projected increase in professional staff strength from 35 to 500 by the year 2000 has suffered defeat with 12 professional staff as at 2017.

He however commended efforts by West Blue to collaborate with government in an attempt to establish 60 e-libraries in commemoration of Ghana’s 60th anniversary celebration and hoped that the image of libraries would improve. 

Touching on academic libraries, Mr Aggrey said the country was blessed to have academic libraries, which were supporting the mission and vision of tertiary institutions of learning.

According to him, they served as places where students, lecturers, and researchers sought information for academic pursuit, such as research, teaching and learning, databases as well as other needed resources for knowledge development.

He said: “They have qualified staff, automated services, good ICT infrastructure, good web presence, expanded physical library space, increased collections including electronic materials and they have formed a consortium (CARLIGH) to handle among other things their bargaining rights.”

This condition is however not the same as that of the polytechnics and the colleges.

Mr Aggrey noted that although some of the colleges and polytechnics subscribed to electronic materials and had qualified staff, there were large disparities between them and the universities, which needed to be addressed.

He said apart from academic libraries that seemed to be recovering and improving strongly with funds from student user-fees, fee-paying students, institutional commitment; the rest were not in a good shape.

On the Special libraries, Mr Aggrey said, they were within institutions or organisations as an integral part of the entity. They served the information needs of their parent organisations to enable them achieve their aims and objectives.

“I am referring to libraries in the Ministries, Departments, Corporations, institutions including the private and non-governmental organisations,” he said.

According to Mr Aggrey, these libraries were not faring well because their conditions of service could be as good as the institution or organisation.

“Only institutions performing well continue to support them but the majority of parent institutions have turned a deaf ear to their libraries”.

On the School libraries, the President said they operated in institutions of learning from nursery to pre-tertiary and had the goal of contributing to the intellectual development of pupils and students to building their skills in reading.

He expressed dissatisfaction at the state of school libraries saying, “Many schools in Ghana do not have libraries and those which have are virtually collapsed”.

Mr Aggrey lamented that those that existed were converted to classrooms or ICT centres.

He said, “They have no trained staff to handle the libraries and the teacher- librarians seem to be over-burdened with classroom work and cannot combine their core teaching with library work.

Library hour, reading hour, dictation, debating time are not being enforced on school timetables,” Mr Aggrey added.

He was worried about the future of the country if the trend continued and called on the stakeholders to step in to ensure that the goal of libraries were restored in the schools.

Recommendations

Mr Aggrey urged libraries to collaborate with stakeholders for the much-needed support in revamping and expanding their current infrastructure to befit a knowledge management hub saying, “We cannot do it alone and we must engage our stakeholders”.

He said the National Library concept must be established by government through the enactment of a law in consultation with all relevant stakeholders saying, “This is an embarrassment locally and internationally”.

Mr Aggrey called on government to resource the public libraries with the much-needed funds, materials, infrastructure and if possible place libraries as a special unit under the Presidency.

“All districts and towns must have a public library and all schools must have this requirement of a functional library established with a professional library staff,” he said.

Mr Aggrey noted there was the need to revisit the teacher-librarian concept and make it work this time round with a well-defined job-description and conditions of service. 

The Balme Library of the University of Ghana

“The Association is revisiting the issue of establishing a National Commission on Library and Information Services (NACOLIS) to regulate activities of libraries,” he hinted.

According to Mr Aggrey, a committee is working on a proposal to engage the Ministry of Education on the way forward for the NACOLIS, which he believed would assist in the improvement of the library.

He also called on every organisation to have a functional library to support its activities.

“Government must put in place the relevant policies for compliance and enforcement. The Association will help in this direction by providing the technical and professional support for such libraries.”

He recommended the coming into force of a National Information Policy on libraries, which he said would go a long way to give support and create the right legal as well as professional environment to flourish.

Although most libraries in Ghana are a pale shadow of themselves, Mr Aggrey said it was the hope of the association that the acceptance of the SDG’s and working at them through advocacy and support from government would rebrand libraries as a major stakeholder in achieving national development.

Editorial:

JEREMY CORBYN

The leader of the British Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, could become the next Prime Minister with interesting consequences for international politics.

At the beginning not many people took him serious with all the British media or most of it campaigning against him on the basis of their own perception that “he does not look prime ministerial”.

But that was at the beginning and now the British people appear to know better.

Since the labour party launched its manifesto Jeremy has been rising in the polls and some reports say that he could defeat Theresa May, the current Prime Minister.

In the beginning the polls gave him only 20 per cent but as at last week he had risen to 34 per cent and was still rising.

The Insight has always been a keen supporter of Jeremy because he stands with the working people in the confrontation with capital and he supports national liberation movements across the globe.

The election of Jeremy Corbyn will be a breath of fresh air for all the people suffocating under neo-liberalism.

Local News:

SYLVESTER MENSAH SPEAKS ON COMMEMORATING JUNE 4-INTEGRATING CADRES INTO THE NDC, A CADRES PERSPECTIVE

Comrade Sylvester Mensah

Senior Comrades;

Comrades;

Distinguished Invited Guests;

Our media friends, 

I deem it a great honour to be accorded the place of a Guest Speaker and asked to share a few words at an auspicious gathering of this kind. Gathered in this audience today are men and women of great valour whose tenacity, perseverance, and determination shaped the destiny of our beloved country and its modern fledgling democracy. 

Many among us played crucial roles in the mobilization efforts that returned hope to the hearts and minds of our people across the country. I am therefore excited at this unique chance to interact, recount, share ideas and experience, and reignite new hopes to guide and usher our country into the blissful future we continue to work for. 

Let me express my profound gratitude to the initiators and organizers of this conference, for asking me to speak at a gathering of what I consider the assembly of great Ghanaians with social conscience. 

On an occasion like this, it is also important to thank you all for the many ways in which together as cadres we have selflessly used our talents, expertise, and experiences to shepherd our country out of the difficult times of the 1980s and early 1990s.  

I consider this conference yet another step to illustrate our perseverance, persistence, determination, tenacity and drive to remain relevant is shaping the future course of socio-political and economic decisions that have implications for the wealth of our people. 

Senior Colleagues, the National Democratic Congress as a political party remains our only natural home. As you will recall, it is a house built on the foundations of several social forces including in particular the Eagle Club, the Development Union of Progressive Revolutionary Cadres throughout the country, and the Rawlings Fan Club of Progressive Cadres and other Civilians – as well as functionaries, operatives, supporters, sympathizers and all those who believed and participated in the prosecution of the principles and ideals of the 1979 June 4 Uprising and the 1981 31st December Revolution.

Shall we observe a minute silence for the fallen hero-activists as well as those who were at the receiving end of excesses and avoidable errors? We salute all those who have remained steadfast despite emotionally disturbing life changing circumstances. Indeed social progress comes with its inherent hiccups and coke-ups. While we regret the needless and avoidable, we find solace in how far we have come as a people.   

Fellow comrades, permit me to begin with a historical backdrop. I guess this serves our course and the interest of students of Ghana’s democratic history to take a snapshot view of some of the past events. As you recall, in July 1990, the then Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC), established the National Commission for Democracy (NCD) to hold seminars in all ten regional centres to gather public opinion on the future democratic pathway for the country. 

The NCD submitted its report on 1st April 1991, advocating a multi-party system of democratic governance. The PNDC then appointed a nine-member committee of constitutional experts charged with developing proposals for a draft constitution. The prepared draft was then deliberated upon, reviewed and voted on by a larger 258-member Consultative Assembly.  The Consultative Assembly concluded its work on March 30, 1992.

After the PNDC received the Assembly’s final draft, it put the draft to a public referendum on April 28, 1992. Though only a simple majority was needed to approve the Constitution, the referendum passed with 92% of voters in approval. This immediately culminated in lifting the ban on political party activity on the 18th of May 1992, which paved way for the emergence of new political parties and the revival of some previously existing ones. With the approval of the 1992 Constitution, the stage was set for Presidential and Parliamentary elections in November and December 1992 respectively; with the Constitution billed to come into force on January 7, 1993, to usher in Ghana’s Fourth Republic. 

The above narrative is important because every step along the way, cadres worked as conveyor belts to carry the intent and purpose of the PNDC from the urban centres to every part of the country, making sure that every Ghanaians is given an opportunity to be part of the processes. I remember the 5 member Prompting Committee constituted in the Greater Accra Region of which I was a member, tasked with the responsibility of creating awareness on the formation of a new political party – the NDC. Comrades and friends, it was seated here and others who went round every district virtually begging individual to become founding members of our dear party. We again had a historical duty to scout for the first set of Parliamentary Candidates, most of whom became Hon. MPs in the 1st Parliament of the 4th Republic.

Comrades and friends, despite the remarkable achievements, Cadre yielded to the caution to cede front line activities to fresh faces in order to attract greater patronage. This singular act of understanding and commitment to the collective good has had a frustratingly difficult effect on cadres in general, in the bid to effectively integrate into the structures of the party. In hindsight I guess we appreciate that cadres were not well positioned for the transition to multiparty democracy. Nevertheless, Cadre loyalty and commitment has remained undiminished and continues unabated.

Comrades and friends, irrespective of our individual or collective circumstances, the demands of the time impose on us a historical responsibility to close our ranks and unite like never before with all who believe and share in the desire to wrestle political power from the inhumane NPP government, currently dismissing properly appointed civil and public servants to create space for employing unemployed foot soldiers of the NPP. Comrades this is not only shameful but significantly elicits a needless cycle of equal or greater reprisals after each successive government going forward. A bad political culture that our dear late Professor Mill sought to nib in the bud with the concept of ‘Father For All’- but no more! Perhaps this can be a subject matter for another discussion.  

Ladies and gentlemen, our challenges transcend bread and butter issues for today. Our common enemies are disease, ignorance, poverty, inequality and social exclusion, among others. Indeed our enemy is a bad political culture that invites reprisals of equal or greater magnitude. Our enemy is an ill-funded and suboptimal party apparatus. Our enemy is the friend and colleague within, with a dagger behind his or her back, dismembering, frustrating and eating-up its own from within. Our enemy is the lack of trust and sincerity in those we look up to, as well as those who look up to us.  

Former President Mahama

We are in the people’s industry and our unique selling proposition must be anchored in trust. What leadership requires is principled loyalty as against gaping sycophancy, which is creeping up on us.

Our enemy is unethical behaviour and the creeping culture of silence at all level of leadership. Our enemy is the tendency of remaining reluctantly subservient and quiet under unacceptable conduct by those we look up to.

It is no secret that many Cadres feel disenchanted and disillusioned about the turn of developments since the return to constitutional rule. But as the foundation upon which NDC was built, and the true soul of the party, we have no choice but to remain resolute and firmly committed to the forces of good over evil; and selfless dedication over selfish arrogance.  

As cadres, we must remind ourselves that, the Founding Father of the NDC is Flt. Lt. Jerry John Rawlings upon whose vision and leadership the Party was established. It is no secret that many people became members of our great party through the mobilization efforts of Cadre. We must be proud of our heritage and sacrifices for the collective achievements so far and resolve to be committed to the total reorganization of the Party as we prepare for the 2020 General Elections, an election beckoning the NDC for victory! 

As former President John Mahama recently noted, if you ride a lame horse to battle and you encounter defeat, your first duty is to cure the lameness of the horse, irrespective of the cause of lameness (emphasis is mine). Our party obviously needs to be strengthened, and that enterprise needs your expertise, experience and skills. Let’s take the wise counsel of former President John Mahama to make our NDC party attractive again. Let us reconnect our values to the lived experiences of Ghanaians. Let us show that the idea of building a society of equal opportunities in Ghana is within our reach in the NDC.  

Collectively, there is the need for cadres to rededicate to grassroots mobilization at the party branches, communities and workplaces to identify allies and sympathizers and galvanize their support and involvement for the reorganization of the party.

There is opportunity now like never before for cadres to re-locate in all the branches of the party across the country in the first instance and then assess further opportunities into higher structures of the party. Indeed the time has come for the party to create space in the party constitution for cadres as an integral wing. Today there are new corps of party cadres who have not been adequately oriented to appreciate the party’s antecedent, history and sacrifices of those who have come before them. Even past successive party leadership have had challenges with recognition and appreciation. We have a historical responsibility to integrate into the party as party cadres with shared values and nurture growth through new membership of party cadres if we’re not to become extinct. 

Late Prof John Evans Atta Mills

We didn’t get where we are today by accident, or by chance, fate or coincidence, but by careful orchestration and navigation with sufficient consultation

As I prepare to take my seat, let me use this occasion to respectfully and humbly entreat all of us as Cadres to return to the branches, wards, constituencies, and the regional levels of the party, and offer ourselves to be elected to position of influence so that our wealth of knowledge and experience can truly become beneficial to the party. In an environment of competitive elections, we cannot stay outside the vital veins of the party and expect that the change we desire will take place.

Fellow comrades, on the commemoration of the 38th year of the historic June 4 popular uprising I commend all cadres assembled here as well as those whose circumstances could not allow them to be present. Indeed, your concern for the ordinary man, your selflessness, sacrifice and commitment to the abiding principles and values of probity and accountability, transparency and social justice remain the most enduring legacy of our past. You dedicated your youth to a cause we remain proud of. You laid the foundation and moulding blocs for a sustainable political edifice for generations yet to come. You defined the values and attitudes consistent with changing societal expectation and a platform for building our world outlook. 

This is how far we have come, transforming into a formidable political party with our role diminishing after successive governments of our own party. Posterity would remember and acknowledge our individual and collective contribution and sacrifice.

At this juncture, fellow comrades, accept my sincere gratitude for the support, solidarity and confidence you expressed in me during the orchestrated public investigation by the BNI. Indeed we have maintained and lived by the principles and values of probity, accountability and transparency. I am happy the outcome of the investigations ordered by our own government had no adverse findings. 

Prof Joshua Alabi, NDC Presidential candidate hopeful

Let me take this opportunity to also commend the Elections Review Committee chaired by Prof Kwesi Botchwey for their work which has calmed tensions within the party. I urge all party members to desist from inflammatory statements such as sacking all party executives. Some of these executives led us in the 2008 and 2012 successful elections. These statements are divisive and unacceptable!

I commend the organizers of this forum, their collaborators and sponsors for keeping up the spirit.

Finally, as we all know, in less than a month from now, our great party will be celebrating 25 years since the sacrifices and selfless dedication culminated in its birth. Two years from now, we will be celebrating four decades of the June 4th Uprising, the first of the two Revolutions that ushered our new and stable democratic dispensation. Let us step forward forcefully not only to tell our story, but to provide leadership at all levels.

A bit of introspection can be helpful in our quest to pick ourselves up as a party. 

How do we ensure that the party does not suffer a lack of motivation and neglect? 

How do we ensure shared values and shared imperatives of our social democratic agenda?  

How do we remain effective in opposition to regain the people’s mandate? 

How do we interrogate and redefine the ‘Father-For-All’ philosophy consistent with our experiences in opposition? 

How do we give true meaning to social democracy and deepen our social democratic credentials.

How long should it take the party to recognise the Cadre corps as an integral wing of the party with voting rights?

Comrades and friends, making cadres an integral part of the party is long overdue.

It’s been a pleasure accepting the invitation to speak.

It’s been a great pleasure sharing these thoughts with you.

And I know it would be a much greater pleasure working together with you and the party into the future to fulfil some of the thoughts we have shared.

My pleasure, my gratitude.

Thank you

Africa:

What Lessons on Fascism Can We Learn from Africa’s Colonial Past? 

By Leslie James

Mainstream discussion of fascism took a dramatic upturn in 2016. While the term became one of the most incriminatory labels of the 20th century, the reassertion of far-right ideologies and previously fringe political groups across the globe has reanimated popular debate about the term. Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalism and stifling of dissent has been met with considered critiques of fascism in India. In Holland, France, Italy and Germany far-right populism threatens to engulf Europe in a succession of 2017 elections that has mainstream media asking whether this is Europe’s new fascism? The success of Nigel Farage’s xenophobic arguments during Brexit and the circus show of Trump’s rallies brought debates about the nature of fascism firmly into mainstream media discussion.

In the face of populist vitriol against foreigners and enemies, threats and intimidation, demagoguery, and a repositioning (or removal) of the state, its laws and institutions, the repertoire of fascism is under critical debate again. Yet, while fascist behavior often appears loud, aggressive, and speaks in matter-of-fact terms, Jane Kaplan has recently reminded us that fascism is “not just the big bang of mass rallies and extreme violence; it is also the creeping fog that incrementally occupies power while obscuring its motives, its moves and its goals.” To confront fascism we need to “look more closely,” not simply by debating whether the past fits the present, but by applying “the history we already know” in order to look anew at our current circumstance. But what is the history we know?

And what, if anything, does African experience have to say about all this? A great deal, if we care to look. In the 1930s fascism’s face was immediately recognizable in colonial Africa. Historians are now engaging in a fruitful debate about the similarities and differences between fascism and colonialism, and whether one was a form of another. What is less recognized is that this debate was in no way peripheral to colonized people at the time. My own recent research in Ghanaian and Nigerian newspapers has found that editorials debated the nature of fascism on the same page as news reports of forced labor practices in Kenya; of segregation and “extermination” policies carried out by General Hertzog and his government in South Africa; of the use of militarized force to suppress labor in Northern Rhodesia and the power of one-man rule by colonial governors.

What does this tell us? First, that fascism was neither a foreign concept nor an external threat in Africa. In 1937 the Sierra Leone-born trade unionists, I.T.A. Wallace-Johnson, declared that Britain ruled in its colonial territories in a way that “turned the whole land into one large concentration camp.” That same year Jawaharlal Nehru asserted that the British Raj in India “wears a fascist uniform.” When rumors swirled that Hitler might be appeased by returning former German territory in Africa, the Nigerian editor J.V. Clinton argued that to be handed back to Germany “would be no greater treachery… than to place us cheek to jowl with European Colonists.” For Clinton, fascism involved the suppression of freedom of speech and racialized violence against workers, but it also had something to do with land, territory and annexation, and settler colonialism.

The second point that African perspectives on fascism tells us is that, because of the close comparisons between colonial rule and fascism, Africans and other colonized peoples around the world understood the character of fascism in a relational mode. This is vital insight for an ideology that continues to defy clear categorization and definition. My main point is simple: if we are witnessing ideas and behaviors that look a lot like fascism but in a contemporary context and in newer geographies (like the United States and India), then we need to expand our historical perspective beyond continental Europe.

The most famous articulation of the relation between colonialism and fascism is certainly Aimé Césaire’s declaration that fascism was “colonialist procedures… applied to Europe”. With this formulation, fascism’s character struck a different chord. We know that this was not the first articulation of this idea, but rather one voice among many. Césaire’s avowal in 1950 meant that the Allied powers could not walk away from fascism so easily. Nor can any of us, wherever we live, now. His declaration demanded that fascism be examined again, with a wider lens and a broader canvas. It cautioned that every time we think we have diagnosed the culprit, we should look again.

Tanzania ‘Close’ To Discovering the First Cure for Prostate Cancer in the World

By Fmlemwa

Tanzania has claimed to the on the home run to releasing the first cure for prostate cancer in the world, Daily News reports.

The researchers at the Science and Technology Institution in the East African country are on the brink of discovering the cure for the deadly prostate cancer by using herbal based medical concoctions from indigenous trees found in Tanga region in northern Tanzania.

Prostate cancer begins to grow in the prostate – a gland in the male reproductive system; the cancer only affects men.

Apart from curing the cancer the treatment will also prevent cases of prostate enlargement, cure other sexually transmitted diseases and eliminate surgical operations on glands according to the study on ‘Pranus Africana’ tree in the Magamba Forest in Lushoto, one of the eight districts of Tanga Region in Tanzania.

The six month study is being conducted by scientists from the Arusha-based Nelson Mandela African Institute for Science and Technology.

“The tree, which grows naturally in many parts of the country, is on the verge of extinction due to harvest but the Magamba Forest has plenty of it and local residents have been using its barks for treatment… the tree is believed to totally cure prostate infections, including cancer,” said the Institute’s Deputy Vice- Chancellor, Dr Mussa Chacha

The Pranus Africanas tree bark is used by locals to cure fevers, malaria, wound dressing, arrow poison, stomach pain, purgative, kidney disease, appetite stimulant, gonorrhea and insanity. The large tree by any dimension is evergreen and native to forest regions.

Also known as pygeum, the tree which yields small and white flowers and grows up to 45 meters high gives pygeum fruit which resembles a cherry. However it is the back which is said to be red, brown or grey in colour that is used for medicinal purposes which dates to the 1700s.

Foreign News:

CUBA;

Havana youth reaffirm their support for the Revolution

  

By Alejandra García

On May 2, young people embellished the main streets of the Cuban capital with flags and giant banners, and led political-cultural activities in every municipality to show their support for the country’s revolutionary process, just as they did during the May Day march.
Neither annexationism nor a cult around U.S. symbols has taken root on the island, which is why “This May 2, we awaken to raise the Cuban flag,” stated Ernesto Sayas Hernández, first secretary of the Young Communist League (UJC) in the municipality of Plaza de la Revolución.

Meanwhile, Melanie Almeida López, president of the Federation of Secondary Education Students (FEEM) at the Fulgencio Oroz Gómez Pedagogical School, in the municipality of Cerro, speaking during the act, held on the afternoon of May 2, in the school’s auditorium, stated that the May Day march had a special significance for the youth. 

We students and professors at the school “are very proud of having formed part of the first line of the bloc which opened the march. Nothing tarnished our march through the José Martí Plaza de la Revolución and we youth were more united than ever,” noted Almeida López speaking to Granma. 

Students also expressed their contempt for the manipulation by some international media outlets, which focused on an attempt by a citizen to disrupt the beginning of the march, during which millions of Cubans across the island expressed their support for socialism. 

After the act, a meeting took place in the lobby of the Ministry of Foreign Trade featuring dozens of staff from the center, and students from the Tomas David Rollo Pre-university Institute, in the municipality of Plaza de la Revolución

“We vehemently reject any manifestation of anexationism, something that will never be supported by the vast majority of our people, faithful to the legacy of Martí and Fidel,” stated Susely Morfa González, first secretary of the UJC National Committee. 

Activities rounded-off in the theater of the Hermanos Ameijeiras Clinical-Surgical Hospital, where doctors from the center assured that the youth are the vanguard of the Revolution. 

“The fact that we have marched through the Plaza with this joy and spirit is yet more proof that there are still reasons to continue defending our country and our rights,” stated Lisandra Montero Vera, a member of the UJC Provisional Bureau. 

WHO ARE THE WORKING CLASS?

By Matthew Culbert
These words are addressed to the members of the working class. Let us, then, explain whom we mean when we speak of the working class.

 In political economy a class is a body of people united by what are called economic interests, or, to put it another way, material interests, or wealth interests, or bread-and-butter interests—the interest, makes the class.

The economic or wealth interests of a class, though they may clash as far as individuals are concerned, are, as against the interests of another class, a united and solid whole.
 We do not intend, at this early stage, to go into the matter of what causes the division of society into classes. It is sufficient for the present to say that society to-day is divided into classes—into two classes, one of which is. called the working class, because its members have to work for their living, and the other of which is called the capitalist class because those who compose it, owning the land, mines, factories, machinery, railways, raw material and. the like, use them for the purpose of making a profit.

Now the line between.- those who have to work and. those who do not is not sufficiently clear for us to explain by it the class position of every individual—neither is the line between those who possess and those who do not possess.

Many capitalists work in some capacity or other without becoming thereby members of the working class,. while many a working man has a share or two in some industrial concern, but this does not make him a capitalist.

Nevertheless, the fact of possession or non-possession at bottom determines which class a man belongs to, and sets up those distinctions by which we shall show who are the members of the working class.

Since people can only live on the wealth which is produced, and since all the means of producing that, wealth (the land, mines, factories, machinery, and so on) are in the possession of some of the people to the exclusion of the others, it is clear that those who possess and those who do not possess are placed in very different circumstances.

Those who possess have in their hands the means of living, and more than this, they are able to deny to those who do not possess all I access to the means of life. To draw upon our common knowledge, the only terms upon which the non-possessors are allowed access to the means of living are that they- must become the employees of the owners. In other words, they must sell to the owners their mental and physical energies, the working power which is contained within their bodies.

This is the distinction which marks off the member of the working class from the capitalist. The former is compelled to sell his bodily powers in order to live. In comparison what else matters? What does it matter whether these bodily powers are skilled or unskilled or whether that for which they are sold is called wages or salary?

What does it matter whether the labour upon which those bodily powers are expended is performed with a pen or a pickaxe, or in an office, a workshop, a factory, a mine, or the street? What does it matter whether the worker is well paid or ill paid, or whether he is a professional, clerical or so-called manual worker?

The essential thing is that the member of the working class has to sell his labour-power in order to live. Beside this salient fact all else pales into insignificance. The differences of dress, pay, education, habits, work, -and so on that, are to be observed among those who have to sell their working power in order to live are as nothing compared with the differences which mark, them off from capitalists.

No matter how well paid the former is, or how many have to obey his commands, he himself has a master. He has to render obedience to another, to someone who can-send him adrift to endure the torments of unemployment.

Because he has to sell his labour-power his whole life must be lived within prescribed limits. His release from the need to labour is short and seldom; he has no security of livelihood; he has always to fear that a rival may displace him.

On the other hand, the capitalist, because he is able to deny others access to the means of living, and is. therefore, able to compel them to surrender their labour-power to him, is relieved from the necessity of working. His conditions of life are essentially different from those of the worker—different, not in one or two particulars, but in practically every particular. Ease and luxury are only the most obvious features of a life which has little in common with that of the working class.

For the capitalist then are leisure and freedom—for the others the fetters of constant toil; for  the capitalist then is conspicuous consumption—for the others, the office prison, the weary workshop, the choking town, or the drab country labour yard. And yet the complete story cannot be told in these inadequate comparisons.

The whole world is the capitalist's, and-the workers live their hard round simply to enable the capitalist to enjoy his world.

Our words, then are addressed to all those who in order to live, have to sell their labour-power, whether “mental” or “manual” “skilled” or “unskilled,” high-paid or low-paid, for wages or salary.

The Best Way to Oppose Fascism

By Matthew Culbert 

Violence between the extreme Left and Right has been a recurring theme in British politics for nearly fifty years, with some of the most vicious outbreaks occurring in the 1930s. More recently there have been the punch-ups between supporters of the National Front and their leftist counterparts, and although these have died down lately we can expect fresh eruptions in the not too distant future.

 In pre-war days the leftists were squaring-up to Sir Oswald Mosley and his Blackshirts. Then their declared intention was to "smash the fascists" and a so-called United Front was formed to bring this about. They failed and all that the violence achieved was to attract thousands of fresh recruits into the fascist ranks. The Mosleyites continued to march, hold meetings and contest elections until the outbreak of war.

Someone claimed that the lesson of history is that people never learn the lesson of history. Obviously this is untrue (otherwise there could never have been any progress, social or technical) but such a cynical view could be justified if it was based on the antics of the leftists, because they never learn. Now
many of the current crop have formed themselves into the Anti Nazi League and are determined to re-stage the same useless battles that were fought long ago.


 A glance at history shows that ideas which have some roots in existing social conditions cannot be stamped out by force. For example, in Hitler's Germany, the Social Democrats and the Communists suffered twelve years of being killed and jailed yet both those organisations re-emerged at the end of the war. Nor has more than sixty years of mass murder and repression eliminated the various nationalist and other dissidents in the USSR. More significantly, despite the killing of millions, of fascists- during the 1939-45 war and the vilification of fascism by Hollywood and the rest of the media for over forty years; the growth of fascist organisations and activity in Europe is front page news today.

 So the notion that fascism can be destroyed by violence has not a shred of evidence to support it.

 Everywhere the leftists have tried this tactic it has failed disastrously - what happened to their "street fighters" in pre-war Italy and Germany is proof of this.Ideas are rooted in the material conditions of life; people are influenced by the economic and historic situation they live in. It is no accident that fascism flourishes whenever capitalism is in one of its periodic slumps. Then fascist demagogues, by blaming problems like unemployment and bad housing on the failure of democracy and the presence of blacks or Jews, are more likely to be listened to.

Fascism feeds on poverty, insecurity and fear and since these are inseparable from capitalism then fascist ideas will persist as long as capitalism] lasts, no matter how many heads are cracked or meetings broken up.

 The claim made by the "Anti-Nazis" that they are defending freedom by preventing the National Front and similar organisations from holding meetings are absurd. Free speech can only exist when it is open to all and it cannot be defended by those who in fact abolish it. Not only does political violence not preserve existing democratic rights, it positively weakens them by creating a situation in which the authorities may restrict or ban many forms of political activity. This much is certain: the chances of getting the socialist case across in such an atmosphere of intolerance will be considerably lessened.

The only way to deal with fascists is to demolish their obnoxious, anti-working class ideas at every turn. We would welcome any opportunity to confront them in open debate before an audience of working men and women. We have nothing to fear and everything to gain from this because we are confident of the workers' ability to understand the socialist case and of our own ability to present it. Of course, this will not sound exciting enough for leftist hot-heads looking for trouble, but whatever the right method of dealing with fascists may be, theirs is absolutely wrong.

Vic Vanni Socialist Standard December 1980

Technology:

Robots will wipe out humanity in few hundred years

Robots could wipe out humans within the next few hundred years and have billions of years of history ahead of them – much longer than humanity has had, according to Astronomer Royal Lord Rees.

“Within a few centuries machines will have taken over,” making human dominance on Earth just a small phase in the planet’s history, the astrophysicist said.

Speaking to The Conversation, Lord Rees, Emeritus Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics at the University of Cambridge, said there will be technology that will allow humans to search for alien life within the next 10 or 20 years.

He also noted that aliens may not have yet developed into “intelligent life” or could be “electronic entities” that have overthrown and replaced the organic life forms that first designed them.

“My guess is if we do detect an alien intelligence, it will be nothing like us. It will be some sort of electronic entity.

“If we look at our history on Earth, it has taken about four billion years to get from the first protozoa to our current technological civilization.

“But if we look into the future, then it’s quite likely that within a few centuries, machines will have taken over – and they will then have billions of years ahead of them,” Lord said.

“In other words, the period of time occupied by organic intelligence is just a thin sliver between early life and the long era of machines.

“Because such civilizations would develop at different rates, it’s extremely unlikely that we will find intelligent life at the same stage of development as us. More likely, that life will still be either far simpler, or an already fully electronic intelligence,” he explained.

Lord Rees has previously warned that governments should be spending millions annually on asteroid defense, claiming it was a worthwhile investment to protect humanity from a deadly space rock.

Elon Musk, the head of SpaceX and OpenAI, and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates have also warned that artificial intelligence could pose a threat to humankind.

Famed physicist Professor Stephen Hawking has also raised concerns about robots, recently pleading with world leaders to rein in technology before it destroys humanity.

United States:

Condoleezza Rice: US Invaded Iraq to Oust Saddam Hussein

The United States invaded Iraq with its allies in 2003 not to bring democracy to that country but to topple President Saddam Hussein, former US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice told a meeting at the Brookings Institution.

"We didn't go to Iraq to bring democracy to Iraq we went to Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein… It was a security problem," Rice, who also served as US secretary of state, said on Thursday.

Rice, who served as national security adviser to President George W. Bush at the time, denied that the United States was determined to use its military power to impose democracy on Iraq in 2003 or on Afghanistan when it occupied that country in 2001.

"I would never have said to President Bush [to] use military force to bring democracy to Iraq and Afghanistan," she said.

Rice also acknowledged that the populist movements that had arisen in the United States and Western Europe over the past two years were expressions of protest by millions of people against elites who ignored their concerns about such issues as free trade and unlimited immigration.

Britain:

Buying the election? Tory billionaires outspend Labour’s trade unions in donor war

British oppostion Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn (R) and Unite union General Secretary Len McCluskey

Donations from the billionaire business lobby to the Conservative Party are already almost double the total handed to Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour by the trade union movement, figures published by the Electoral Commission on Friday show.

In the first of six pre-poll donation reports, accounting for the week between May 3 and May 9, the Tories received a whopping 56 big-money donations, amounting to more than £4.1 million (US$5.3 million). In the same period, the Labour Party gathered just under £2.7 million from nine donations, of which the main ones came from trade unions.

As per the Political Parties Elections Referendums Act 2000, parties must hand the Electoral Commission a total of six donation and loan reports for any money received ahead of the election in values of more than £7,500.

Spending rules in Britain are strict. The parties are being extra careful this time around, after the recurrent use of a national campaign bus by local candidates during the 2015 election campaign landed the Conservatives in hot water with the commission.

The latest figures show that Corbyn’s party relies mostly on money handed over by trade unions, with all but £61,300 being donations by the likes of Unite, the Communication Workers Union (CWU) and the General, Municipal, Boilermakers and Allied Trade Union (GMB).

The volatile relationship between Corbyn and Unite General Secretary Len McCluskey did not seem to affect donations to Labour. Britain’s largest union was responsible for a total of £2.4 million gifted to the party earlier this month.

The Conservative Party, in turn, counted on the generosity of billionaire donors above all. In particular, John Griffin, founder of taxi company Addison Lee, who was the Tories’ largest individual donor, handed Theresa May’s party £900,000 in one go.

Hedge fund manager John Armitage was the second largest Tory donor in the week following the dissolution of Parliament, giving the party £500,000. His gift was nearly matched by a £400,000 donation by the company J.S. Bloor Services – the corporate front of property tycoon John Bloor.

The Tories’ donors list included a series of other businessmen and philanthropists, including the Chamberlain of the City of London Corporation, Peter Kane, Berkley Square honcho Andrew Law, and oil magnate Ayman Asfari and his wife Sawsan.

Asfari’s donation came mere days before he was interviewed under caution by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) as part of an investigation into Unaoil, a Monaco-based energy company accused of gaining contracts through a series of corrupt dealings.

Asfari’s company Petrofac told the Guardian that inquiries had found no proof that individual directors were “aware of the alleged misconduct.”

Perhaps the most curious donation, however, was made by department store Selfridges in the form of £40,000 to the Conservative Party.

“All donations to the Conservative Party are properly and transparently declared to the Electoral Commission, published by them and comply fully with the law,” a Conservative Party spokesman said.

The Liberal Democrats were third on the list of largest donations, but with a more modest £180,000 total. While the UK Independence Party (UKIP) notably missed Arron Banks on the list of donors, it counted a non-cash donation worth £48,000 from the company of its one-time “sugar daddy” Alan Brown – Brown Properties Ltd.

And despite having been offered a £250,000 donation not to stand in the Richmond Park by-election, the Green Party counted a humble £15,000 donation on their first week of campaigning.

Israel:

Apartheid Israel

By Chandra Muzaffar

If anyone doubts that Israel is guilty of the crime of apartheid, he should read the report “Israeli Practices towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid” commissioned by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA). The report released on the 15th March 2017 and posted on the ESCWA website has now been removed on the orders of the UN Secretary-General, pressured, it is alleged, by the governments of Israel and the United States both of whom have denounced the report in harsh terms.

The withdrawal of the report prompted the ESCWA Executive Secretary and UN Under-Secretary-General Dr. Rima Khalaf, to submit her resignation. In her words, “I resigned because it is my duty not to conceal a clear crime and I stand by all the conclusions of the report.” It is worth noting that the report carried a clear disclaimer that “the findings, interpretations and conclusions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the UN or its officials or Member States.”

The report was co-authored by two distinguished American scholars — Richard Falk, Professor Emeritus of International Law Princeton University who, from 2008 to 2014, also served as UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, and Virginia Tilley, Professor of Political Science at Southern Illinois University and author of Beyond Occupation: Apartheid Colonialism and International Law in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.  Carefully worded, incisively analysed and succinctly articulated, the report is a significant milestone in the endeavour to understand one of the longest political conflicts in modern times.

Using international human rights law as a basis, the report provides ample evidence to show why Israel practises apartheid in various facets of governance. Land policy is one example.  Land occupied by Israel between 1948 and 1967 can only be owned and used by Jews and by law excludes non-Jews some of whom have documentary claims to the land that go back a few centuries.

An even more insidious mechanism employed by the Israeli regime to exercise control and domination is the fragmentation of the Palestinian population into various categories. The authors of the report call them ‘domains.’

Domain 1 comprises those who are citizens of the state of Israel. They receive inferior social services, limited budget allocations, and are subjected to restrictions on jobs and professional opportunities. They live in segregated residential areas and are aware that  access to public benefits are by and large reserved for those who qualify as citizens under the Citizenship Law and the Law of Return, meaning by which Jews.  This creates a system of covert racism and renders Palestinians second-class citizens.

Domain 2, also under Israeli rule, is made up of Palestinian residents of occupied East Jerusalem. They are also victims of discrimination like their counterparts in Domain 1. They have limited access to good educational and health care facilities. In addition, a Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem can have his residency revoked if he cannot prove that Jerusalem is his “centre of life.” Between 1996 and 2014, residency was revoked for more than 11,000 Palestinians.

Palestinians living in Gaza and the West Bank, territories occupied by Israel since 1967, would constitute Domain 3. They are governed by military law. Though Hamas has limited authority over Gaza, it is Israel that has exclusive control over its borders. And since 2007, Israel has imposed a blockade upon Gaza that affects all aspects of life in that tiny peninsula. While the residents of both West Bank and Gaza are subject to military law, the 350,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank are governed by Israeli civil law. This dual legal system underscores stark racial discrimination which manifests itself in many other ways. In contrast to the parlous state of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza, Jewish settlements continue to flourish. Jews from all over the world are offered various incentives to move to these well-endowed settlements, including employment guarantees, agricultural subsidies, school grants and special recreational facilities.

Unlike the first three domains, Palestinians in Domain 4 are the only ones who are not under Israeli control. These are Palestinians who are refugees from the wars and expulsions since 1948 and their descendants who have been living outside original Palestine, in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Egypt and a number of other countries in West Asia and North Africa (WANA). There are some who for generations have been staying in Europe and North America. All of them are affected by one vital dimension of Israeli policy. They are barred from returning home. While they are prohibited from returning to the land of their ancestors, a Jew who does not have the flimsiest link to Israel or Palestine is encouraged to settle down in these territories. This is yet another blatant example of apartheid.

The report prepared by Falk and Tilley argues eloquently that the emergence of the domains and the apartheid practised by various Israeli governments cannot be separated from the desire and the drive in the Zionist movement from the turn of the 20th century to establish an exclusive Jewish state in Palestine. Bringing in Jewish immigrants long before the Israeli state was created, the wars, the expulsions and the laws to prevent Palestinians from returning to their land were all part of that mission. Indeed, there has been deliberate ethnic cleansing of Palestine — a point which has been elaborated with much lucidity by the outstanding Israeli historian, Ilan Pappe in his ground breaking book, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.

In its conclusion, the Falk-Tilley report establishes, “on the basis of scholarly inquiry and overwhelming evidence that Israel is guilty of the crime of apartheid.” It then proposes that an international tribunal examine the report and make an assessment that will be truly authoritative.  If such an authoritative assessment concurs with the finding of the report, the UN and its agencies, regional outfits and national governments should act. They have a collective duty to de-legitimise an apartheid regime and render it illegal. They cannot allow such a regime to continue.

The report also urges civil society groups and non-state actors to step up their campaign against apartheid Israel. Some of them are already doing quite a bit through the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) movement. They should organise and mobilise much more through the alternative media.

That the media has given so little attention to the contents of the report on apartheid Israel is an indication of the power and influence of the states and vested interests that do not want the truth about Israel to be known to the world. This is what we have to struggle against in order to ensure that truth triumphs and justice is done to the people of Palestine.

Dr. Chandra Muzaffar is the President of the International Movement for a Just World (JUST). Malaysia. 

The original source of this article is Global Research