BY LISA MACDONALD
SYDNEY — How can the growing revolt against greed, exploitation and eco-vandalism transform itself into a mass people's movement that can rid the world of capitalism?
That question was addressed at a seminar here on August 11 organised by the Democratic Socialist Party and Resistance.
Participants in the discussion heard from DSP member and Green Left Weekly journalist Sean Healy about how the anti-corporate movement, while addressing issues that are centuries old and drawing on some of the best traditions of left-wing struggle, is also creating its own forms of organisation and reflects a new consciousness which is less about thinking globally and acting locally than about thinking and acting globally.
Workshops were also held on refugee rights, which generated a lot of discussion about the whether or not the completely free movement of people internationally was possible, and on the anti-corporate globalisation movement, which discussed the need for mass participation, organisation and democracy.
To end the seminar, Bea Brear from Resistance's eastern suburbs branch presented her vision of "utopia". The world she described, in which technological advances make self-cleaning houses and five-hour work-weeks possible, in which children have not one or two but many loving parents, and in which human solidarity makes everyone's sex, race or cultural background far less important than their ideas and desires, brought many smiles to the faces of participants.
But how to get there? That question was addressed by western Sydney Resistance organiser Michelle Brear, who urged activists to learn the lessons of history, reject reformist solutions for revolutionary ones and make their struggle for justice and equality that much more effective by joining with others in the revolutionary party.