Issue 447

News

BY JAMES CRAFTI MELBOURNE — While most of the M1 protests around Australia were marked by police violence, Melbourne's M1 blockade and rally was not attacked by police forces. So it came as a shock when the weekly peaceful picket of the Nike
SYDNEY — Solidarity was still needed to help Indonesian workers organise for democracy and justice, Indonesian activist Nieke told a forum here on May 2. Nieke is a leader of the Indonesian People's Democratic Party and a researcher into the
BY TANIA JORQUERA MELBOURNE — Victoria University of Technology will play host to the inaugural meeting of a newly formed refugee rights campaign. Refugee Action Collective (West) will be based in Melbourne's western suburbs to meet the
BY JOHN PERCY SYDNEY — British Marxist intellectual Alex Callinicos will be a keynote speaker at the second Asia Pacific International Solidarity Conference, scheduled for Easter 2002 in Sydney. Callinicos will represent the Socialist

World

BY NORM DIXON May 1, the international day of solidarity with the struggles of the working class and the oppressed, was marked by millions of people around the world. In some countries, young militants inspired by the wave of mass
BY MAX LANE At least 50,000 workers, mostly members of the Indonesian National Front for Labour Struggles (FNPBI), joined protests in 19 cities in Sulawesi, Bali, Java and Sumatra. The largest mobilisations were in Medan and the East Java town of
BY NORM DIXON For weeks before May 1, British Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair, London's mayor Ken Livingstone, the Metropolitan Police and the Britain's capitalist mass media relentlessly demonised and criminalised people intending to peacefully
"One in four Americans has 'strong negative attitudes' toward Chinese Americans, would feel uncomfortable voting for an Asian American for president of the United States, and would disapprove of a family member marrying someone of Asian descent",
BY HEINRICH BOHMKE DURBAN — About 40 kilometres outside Durban is an industrial and farming node called Hammarsdale. It appears suddenly at the end of a short rural road just off the N3 freeway and consists of a grid of streets forming 16 blocks.
BY HARCHAND SINGH Singapore’s People's Action Party government likes to boast that it is tough but “clean”. However, this is a myth. Singapore's corporate life has long being corrupt but few people dare speak out. If you do speak out about
BY VANYA TANAJA DILI — News that Indonesia has formally agreed to set up an ad hoc tribunal to try those responsible for mass murder in East Timor around the period of the 1999 independence referendum was welcomed by Sergio de Mello, head of
BY ALLEN JENNINGS & MICHAEL KARADJIS HANOI — Vietnam will stay firmly on a socialist path as it confronts the daunting challenges of economic reform and equitable development. This was the prevailing theme of the Ninth Congress of the Communist
BY MAX LANE Contrary to many predictions circulating in Jakarta during the last few weeks, the Indonesian capital remained calm after the Golkar-Central Axis-led majority in the House of Representatives voted to censure President Abdurrahman Wahid
BY FAROOQ TARIQ& RIZWAN ATTA LAHORE — "If workers want to remember the martyrs of the 1886 uprising of Chicago, they should hold the meetings indoors", stated retired general Moeen Haider, federal interior minister, on April 28. "No-one,
The following greetings were received by the Democratic Socialist Party to be read out to the M1 rallies across Australia. They have been slightly abridged. Socialist Workers Party, Britain We would like to extend May Day greetings to you from
BY SEAN HEALY The socialist island nation of Cuba received praise from an unlikely source on May Day — from James Wolfensohn, president of the World Bank, one of the chief enforcers of corporate globalisation. Wolfensohn told a news conference
BY JOHN PERCY On May 1, the Socialist Workers Party in Scotland joined the Scottish Socialist Party, an historic development creating a united socialist party in Scotland for the first time in generations. Tommy Sheridan, convener of the SSP, and

Culture

BanditsBy Eric HobsbawmWeidenfeld & Nicolson, 2000226 pages, $40 (hb) BY PHIL SHANNON Thirteenth-century peasants are rarely the objects of Hollywood's attention. The notable exception, of course, is Robin Hood. The celluloid homage paid to Robin
Seeing with the HeartBy Judy KingAt the Galleries Primitif, Woollahra, SydneyOpens May 11 SYDNEY — A stint as a volunteer nurse in Africa was the inspiration for Judy King's exhibition Seeing with the Heart, which opens on May 11. The mixed media
REVIEW BY RICHARD PITHOUSE Live in New YorkBruce Springsteen and the E-Street BandSony Music Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band have released a new double live album that has achieved the unusual feat of winning extraordinary critical
BY LUCIEN VAN DER WALT JOHANNESBURG — The radical magazine, Debate: voices from the South African left, was recently relaunched at the Workers' Library and Museum in Newtown, Johannesburg. The excellent turnout on March 23 demonstrated the
Undue Risk: secret state experiments on humansBy Jonathan MorenoRoutledge, 2001371 pages, $41 (pb) REVIEW BY PHIL SHANNON When Ebb Cade, a black 53-year-old cement worker, had a car accident in Tennessee in March 1945, he received more than he