Attack on political bookshop

Attack on political bookshop

SYDNEY — Swastikas and right-wing threats were spray painted across the front if the Pathfinder Bookshop in Surry Hills on the night of August 30. Supporters of the bookshop are calling on defenders of democratic rights to protest this rightist vandalism.

Along with swastikas, the graffiti read, "Beta dead than Red!" and "Commies out!". This attack comes less than a month after an arson attack on another political bookshop in Sydney, Black Rose Anarchist Books in Newtown.

The bookshop carries works of writers such as Nelson Mandela, Ernesto Che Guevara, Malcolm X, Karl Marx and V.I. Lenin, titles on trade union and other labour struggles, the origins of women's oppression and others.

Bob Aiken, the Pathfinder Bookshop manager, described the act as "an example of the ultra-rightist attacks taking place here and around the world which are aimed at intimidating and ultimately terrorising working people as a whole — immigrants, Aborigines, trade unionists and others — from expressing political ideas and speaking out in the defence of their rights".

Aiken is calling on the mayor of South Sydney, councillor Vic Smith, and the local council to speak out against this politically motivated act of vandalism. Supporters of the bookshop are also pushing for the police to conduct a serious investigation of the incident.

From GLW issue 114