Pakistan

To justify their war in Iraq the imperialists have found so-called erudite and intelligent professors to come up with the idea of the  "The Clash of Civilizations". One of these is Francis Fukuyama and the other is Samuel P. Huntington. They have both worked in the US Foreign Office. Lal Khan's looks into their arguments and presents a class-based critique, a Marxist response.

This article was first published in the Pakistani daily, Dawn Metropolitan (Friday, April 23, 2004) under the title “Pakistan can learn from Venezuelan experience: MNA”. It is a report of a press conference held by Pakistani Marxist MP Manzoor Ahmed on his recent visit to Venezuela for the Second International Conference in Solidarity with the Bolivarian Revolution. We are publishing it to make it available to a wider international readership. (April 23, 2004)


Esteban Volkov Greets Manzoor
Alan Woods addresses Congress

Addressing the Congress
Singing the Internationale		  
...

The International Labour Organization's governing body rejected the government measures of suspending trade unions and professional associations at Pakistan International Airlines (PIA)and stressed that the government of Pakistan that all facilities, rights and privileges should be immediately restored and that all declarations of the Geneva Convention should be observed. Read the article at the PTUDC website.

Members of the National Assembly Qamar Zaman Kaira and Chuadry Manzoor Ahmed have submitted two resolutions directly related to the real issues in society and the problems faced by the working classes in Pakistan. The first resolution is for the total repealing of the anti workers ordinance IRO 2002 (Industrial Relations Ordinance 2002). This was imposed by the Musharaf dictatorship at the behest of the IMF and other Imperialist institutions to raise the profitability and exploitation of the multinational corporations in Pakistan. This ordinance even deprives the workers in Pakistan of the meagre rights they had attained after the revolutionary movement of 1968-69. It

...

By. Chaudhry Manzoor Ahmed
(Member National Assembly of Pakistan)

 

Specific historical events give rise to populist leaders and movements. When these movements are organized around a revolutionary leadership that adopts scientific methods based on the ideas of Marxism, it can then lead to the transformation of society and of the whole epoch. However, during such extraordinary revolutionary periods, if the social transformation of society fails to take place, there follows a period of reaction, breeding barbarism, oppression, poverty, and backwardness.

The Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign (PTUDC) and Youth for International Socialism (YFIS) have launched a campaign against the ongoing suppression, terrorism, brutality and corruption of the Chairman of steel mills in Karachi and his administration. To this end the PTUDC, in collaboration with YFIS, organised demonstrations throughout Pakistan.

The Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign and Youth For International Socialism (Pakistan) celebrated the 86th anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution on November 7, 2003 throughout the country. For this purpose they arranged many public meetings in Lahore, Karachi, Rawalpindi, Multan, Quetta and Hyderabad simultaneously.

The Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign's (PTUDC) national bureau announced before May Day that this year it would be celebrated in Pakistan as a "day of collective struggle of the working class against capitalism" and a "day of struggle for socialist revolution in Pakistan". On this basis May Day was celebrated all over the country with the same agenda.

On March 24 the PTUDC (Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign) held a meeting in Lahore, which was attended by more than 300 PTUDC leaders and members who came from all over the country.

At ten o'clock this morning at the Kayani Hall, the High Court in Lahore, Alan Woods delivered a lecture on the war in Iraq and the role of imperialism to the Lahore High Court Bar Association, the most prestigious lawyers elected body of lawyers in Pakistan. It is without precedent that a foreign Marxist should be invited to address this body.

In Multan, the biggest city of the Southern Punjab, Youth for International Socialism and the Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign recently organised an anti-war rally. It was the third rally they had organised in Multan in which hundreds of trade unionists, students’ unions, the Bar association, and PPP workers participated with banners and placards against the war.