Global revolt on campus

BY KEARA COURTNEY

CANBERRA — The capitalist system wasn't unable to meet the needs of the majority of people, it was unwilling to, the Democratic Socialist Party's Max Lane told a forum held at the Australian National University here on March 7.

The forum, "Global Revolt: the new movement against corporate globalisation", was hosted by the university's Resistance club as part of a nationally-organised Resistance Marxist Seminar series.

Lane, who is also the national chair of ASIET, Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor, encouraged all those inspired by such protests as S11 and those against the World Trade Organisation in Seattle in November 1999, to get involved in the May 1 blockades of stock exchanges.

In Melbourne, Federico Fuentes reports that Resistance's alternative activist orientation day was a sharp contrast to the typical beer and bands O'day. Attendance on the day typified the increased interest in socialist politics that has occurred since S11.

Of particular interest was the feature talk on the "global revolt" delivered by Resistance activist Marcus Pabian, which went went beyond a superficial analysis of the movement to identify the key forces driving the revolt and developed a strategy to take the movement to the next level.

With over 90 people joining Resistance on Melbourne campuses, the organisation is in good stead to ensure M1 is a success in developing the movement.

"Hundred of thousands of people have been joining a new radical movement for global change" DSP activist Nick Everett told a February 28 Resistance forum at Sydney University, Angela Luvera reports.

Everett spoke of the huge and growing inequalities between First and Third World countries as a result of corporate globalisation. "The welfare rights of the unemployed and pensioners are cut back while corporate welfare to greedy private health insurance firms and huge companies like BHP and Mitsubishi goes up," said Everett.

From GLW issue 440