Action Replay: You can’t play here (2026)

The Action Replay column from the April 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

Probably the best-known example of a sporting boycott was that of South Africa under apartheid, which lasted from 1964 to 1992 and involved not just cricket and rugby tours but also the Olympic Games. As other examples, the US and other countries boycotted the 1980 Olympics in Moscow after the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, and in 1984 the Soviet Union and others boycotted the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.

An alternative to a complete boycott has been to allow athletes from specific countries to compete, but as ‘neutrals’ rather than representing ‘their’ country. Russian athletes have only been allowed to compete as neutrals in recent Olympics, so no national anthems if they win a gold medal. Athletes from Russia and Belarus have been barred too, but at this year’s Winter Paralympics they were permitted to compete under a national flag. This is supposedly because there is now less evidence of Paralympic sport being used to promote the invasion of Ukraine.

Suggestions of a boycott have also been raised concerning this summer’s Football World Cup. Iran has been attacked by massive US and Israeli air strikes; their football team was due to play its three qualifying group matches in different US cities, and the head of Iran’s football federation wondered if participation would be possible. Donald Trump has generously said that he doesn’t care if Iran takes part, describing it as ‘a very badly defeated country’. The Iranian Minister of Sport then stated that the country would not be able to take part.

There has also been speculation about countries such as England and Germany not participating because of US global policies, travel bans and the viciousness of ICE. However, it seems likely that there may well be contracts between FIFA and the English FA about taking part, which would mean that a boycott could break any contract and so lead to sanctions.

This year’s cricket T20 World Cup also led to controversies over who should play, and where. The tournament was co-hosted by India and Sri Lanka, and tensions among South Asian countries gave rise to many problems. The Bangladesh Cricket Board said that on safety grounds its team would not travel to India, as it was scheduled to do, and requested that its games all be moved to Sri Lanka. When they refused requests to change their stance, they were removed from the competition by the International Cricket Board.

Then the Pakistan government said its team would not play against India, though it then changed its mind and the match took place. India vs Pakistan is a huge game at any tournament, so big viewing figures and revenue were no doubt a consideration here.

You can’t help wondering if boycotts really have any impact, or whether they mainly occur to make some people feel good.

Paul Bennett

South African time-bomb (1984)

From the November 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

South Africa has recently experienced the bloodiest conflicts between rioters and police since the 1976 Soweto uprising. Several dozen people were shot dead by police, who used live rounds in addition to rubber bullets and teargas. The conflict was concentrated in the Vaal Triangle, in Sharpeville, in Sebokeng, Boibateng and Evaton. More than a hundred people were seriously injured in the rioting, which coincided with the introduction of a new constitution upholding the apartheid regime.

In 1976, the state response to the Soweto uprising left more than five hundred dead across the country. Clearly, not very much has changed since then. At the time of the more recent riots, those who boycotted the elections to the new system of assemblies were beaten up by van-loads of police and some of the candidates themselves. Some reporters sympathetic to those not voting were also attacked. However, the intense discontent felt by the majority of South Africans relates to far broader issues than the new Constitution.

There have been protests at rent increases, increases in bus fares and over the high level of indirect taxation. As in 1976, it is children who have led the protests, organising widespread school boycotts as a protest against conditions in those prison camps for the young. During last month's elections to the tricameral parliament these boycotts reached a peak, with 500,000 staying away from school.

The fact that hand in hand with the racist oppression of apartheid goes an underlying class division has not escaped the notice of the rioters. The black majority are turning against black councillors because of their association with unpopular measures such as rent increases, and the government's attempt to distance itself from the discontent by giving some power to black councils in the townships is certain to backfire in the end.

In South Africa today there is an explosive undercurrent of resentment and discontent among the black majority, who are treated like beasts of burden by the ruling class. But the actions of this reactionary white elite are part of a wider conflict which directly involves us all every day: the power struggle between a propertied and privileged minority, and the majority on whose backs they prosper. Of one thing there can be no doubt: the majority in South Africa will defeat those who today sit smugly entrenched in Johannesburg. Victory will set the end of a class division between a powerful minority and the dispossessed majority and the ownership of the means of life by the world’s inhabitants without distinction of race or sex.

Letter: Living outside capitalism? (2007)

Letter to the Editors from the December 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

Living outside capitalism?

Dear Editors

In talking about freeganism (Socialist Standard, October), much of the media has focused on food and lifestyle, which is what plays best in a society obsessed by spectacle. Most freegans I know are very politically motivated, which some of the articles touch on. Many of us are involved in grassroots and direct action projects, and I’d say a lot of our work would fall into the “deep ecology” category.

Although the NYC-based group started as an offshoot of an anarchist collective called the Activism Center at Wetlands Preserve, there is no party line among freegans, As of 2003 many people across the world already thought of themselves as freegans; the freegan.info website gathered lots of existing info and resources on the subject. Some of us are primitivists, many others are not. There are freegans who are animal rights activists, liberal ecologists, Christians, and various flavors of leftists.

But we are united in our desire to boycott capitalism and its products to the greatest extent we can. Most of us believe that global industrialism, and its drive towards an ever multiplying glut of unneeded commodities, does great harm to all living things. We don’t believe humans have a right to all of the world’s resources, even if we shared them equally among us. We do not see socialist governments doing a better job with it – look at what’s happening in China, for example.

We realize that our practice is seen as extreme, but we don’t think turning one’s back on mass consumer culture has to be a marginal activity. We’re seeing lots of people inspired to reduce their consumption – take a look at the book Not Buying It, the internet support groups called The Compact, writing by Colin Beavan (aka No Impact Man), the “freegan experiment” recently undertaken by journalist Raina Kelley in Newsweek, a very mainstream US magazine. Even without political analysis or motivation, we think the consistent practice of not-buying, refusing to let your relations and life be mediated by commodities, is powerful in itself, and leads people to see the world differently.

And yes, we use the internet, we use phones, many of us have jobs, many of us pay rent or own our homes, some of us own motorized vehicles. These are clear contradictions. Our goal is to live outside of capitalism to as great an extent possible, but as you note, capitalism is very much the dominant force. Like many activists before us, our aim is to create a new world in the shell of the old.

Here’s to dialogue among those of us working for social change!

Madeline Nelson 

for freegan.info

Reply:

If you want to try and “boycott” and “live outside of” capitalism, that’s up to you. We don’t think it’s very practical or a way of ending capitalism. Capitalism can only be done away with by the conscious political action of a majority of the population with a view to making the world’s resources the common heritage of all. In such a socialist world the wastes of capitalism (advertising, packaging, consumerism as well as armaments and everything to do with buying and selling) would be eliminated and the overall consumption of resources per head reduced while still allowing people to consume better food, housing, health care, and the other things needed (desperately needed in many parts of the world) for a decent life.

We are not “primitivists” and reject the idea that it is industrial production as such that has caused the problem of wasted resources; this is caused by the misuse of industrialism in the cause of profit. Industrial production is in fact essential if the reasonable needs of the world’s population are to be met. It’s the same with “globalization”: there is nothing wrong with a more united world; the problem is capitalist financial globalization.

We don’t think China is socialist, so what’s happening there is irrelevant as an argument against socialism. The Chinese government is a capitalist government (a “socialist government” is a contradiction in terms) presiding over the development of capitalism there with all its attendant problems – Editors.

Proper Gander: United by music, non-politically? (2024)

The Proper Gander TV column from the June 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Even more than in previous years, 2024’s Eurovision Song Contest was less about the songs than the political arena in which the show took place. The war in Ukraine has been the backdrop for the last couple of competitions, with the country’s win in 2022 reflecting the sympathy for its plight. But this year’s event barely acknowledged the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, instead being shaped and overshadowed by the Israeli state’s war with Hamas. Unlike Russia, which was excluded from the contest in 2022, Israel hasn’t broken any of Eurovision’s rules by being at war, and so was allowed to compete. Consequently, its participation became a focus of anger and criticism from the pro-Palestinian movement, online and around the venue. Eurovision’s slogan is ‘United By Music’, but this sentiment ended up sounding either naïvely optimistic or sarcastically hollow.

Protests leading up to the final on 11 May were expected, and so security in the host city of Malmö in Sweden was tightened. The area was designated a ‘no fly zone’ to deter any drone attacks, additional police were drafted in from Denmark and Norway, and Israel’s contestant Eden Golan was closely guarded due to death threats. Thousands of pro-Palestinian and anti-war demonstrators gathered in Malmö, not that this was featured in the polished official coverage. The broadcasters also downplayed the booing in the auditorium which accompanied Golan’s performance by disguising it with amplified cheering. It could be argued that this censorship is to keep the event as a celebration of kitsch, an escape from the depressingly real tragedies happening daily. But because the political situation in and around Europe is so volatile, Eurovision can’t exist in its own glitzy bubble. The stated aim of the event’s organisers at the European Broadcasting Union is that Eurovision is ‘non-political’, even though censoring coverage does suggest political motives. The audience members who booed EBU Executive Supervisor Martin Österdahl during the final were making a political point about his perceived politics. To put the EBU’s stance into practice, officials requested Israel change its song, originally called October Rain, to cut out references to the 7th October attacks. Ireland’s singer was asked to remove the word ‘ceasefire’ in body paint, and Portugal’s performance wasn’t initially uploaded after broadcast, apparently because its contestant wore nail art featuring Palestinian symbols. How the death and destruction in the Middle East gets filtered through the spectacle of Eurovision goes beyond disorientating to trivialising the slaughter.

The results of the ‘non-political’ contest were also politically charged. The final score awarded to each competitor is derived from the number of votes from juries of ‘music professionals’ in each country and phone-in votes from viewers, with countries unable to vote for themselves. Jurors are supposed to vote for a song without considering the identity of its singer, a stipulation which the viewers at home have no need to follow. The UK’s effort scored nul points from the public vote and ended up in 18th place, while the winning entry from Switzerland was one of the better songs, most of which were interchangeable power ballads or dance bangers, slickly performed. Israel’s mid-table scoring from the juries was boosted considerably by having the second largest number of public votes, meaning that the country finished in fifth place. Israel’s surprise high ranking suggests that the pro-Palestinian or pro-peace protests and online campaigns had little impact on voters’ views, and leftist activists are presumably wondering where they went wrong. Given the unavoidable political climate around the competition, it’s probable that more people voted for Israel as some kind of statement than because they favoured the song regardless. Whether the result could be called ‘democratic’ depends on how far its definition can be stretched. Still, as a framework to gather votes across a wide area, this is about as good as global democracy in capitalism gets. So, without having the ability to directly influence the war, some people have felt that Eurovision can be an outlet for views they hold passionately, whether by voting for Israel (for some reason) or protesting against its inclusion. The relevance of a song competition as a barometer of international politics highlights the lack of other ways people can collectively voice an opinion or act upon it in capitalist society. The result wouldn’t have been affected by anyone joining the boycott of the event promoted by the pro-Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement. It would be hard to determine whether this campaign, apathy about the overblown circus or sunny weather contributed most to the BBC’s coverage having around two million fewer viewers than last year. But the numbers and scores don’t have any influence on the war. How and how much the event reflects public opinion in Europe is likely to be of little concern to the families struggling to survive the horrors of the war-torn Middle East.

Mike Foster

Sting in the Tail: An Outbreak of Truth (1989)

The Sting in the Tail column from the March 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

An Outbreak of Truth

Edwina Currie the former Under Secretary of Health had to resign because she upset a powerful section of the capitalist class.

Her comment on ITV 3rd December, '88 that "most of the egg production in this country is now infected by salmonella" caused an uproar among that section of the capitalist class who have their capital invested in egg production. As sales, and of course profits, fell they mounted a campaign to get rid of her.

Now socialists have no sympathy with capitalist lick-spittles like Currie. Her insulting remarks on workers dying of hypothermia (lack of food and warmth) — "they should knit themselves woolly nightcaps” — recall the "let them eat cake" of the pre-revolutionary French aristocracy.

But her forced resignation is really somewhat unique. She had to resign because she told the truth!

An outbreak of truth in the Houses of Parliament would certainly be extremely refreshing. Say Nigel Lawson admitting that capitalism controls governments and not the other way about. That he is powerless to control slumps and booms. Or Neil Kinnock admitting that he is opposed to socialism and just wants to run the buying and selling system.

Alas, it appears that truth is less catching than salmonella and Edwina Currie's case is an isolated one.

Lake Plonk

A search through a European Atlas will not reveal its location. But it's there somewhere . . . unchartered, its location unsuspected.

It's Surplusland, a European country with a weird geography. We know something of its topography from newspaper reports. It has Beef Hills, Butter Mountains and a Wine Lake.

In The Independent 24 January ' 89 we were given some of the details of the Wine Lake.

There were 250 million gallons of surplus alcohol (distilled wine alcohol) for disposal last year. Another 118 million gallons is expected this year. A further 92 million gallons is due for disposal Inside of the next three years.

Why not give it away?, you ask. Well to those of you who fancy a couple of free glasses of wine with your Salmonella Chicken Supreme, the Select Committee on European Legislation (Third Report) has the answer.

In practice there appears to be little demand for wine alcohol as such which reflects the cost of production .

In other words — it's not profitable !

A society that produces and stores surpluses of beef, butter, wheat and wine while millions starve is an absolute obscenity.

It's not Cricket

Annoyed at the cricketing authorities' decision to ban players from the England Test team If they played in South Africa, Mr. Norris McWhirter of the Freedom Association has attempted to take action through the courts.

The Independent 25th January, 1989 referring to the Association's defence of Zola Budd and its recent cricket legal case, stated:

The inevitable conclusion is that it must support the race policies of the South African government but this is not so. Both cases the association says, concern the freedom of individuals to carry out their business or affairs as they chose without interference from bullying authorities.

Mr. McWhirter's organisation makes great play of defending a sportsman or woman's right to go anywhere they wish in their sporting careers irrespective of politics.

This apparent disinterest in politics seems a little strange when one recalls that the same McWhirter wrote to British athletes prior to the Moscow Olympics urging them not to go to that country because of Russia's invasion of j Afghanistan.

Writing to Linsey MacDonald, the Scottish runner, he referred to athletes who didn't win medals and said:

. . . having gained no medals you will have earned the contempt of millions of your countrymen.

Such a letter to a sixteen year old schoolgirl is as good an example of bullying as we’ve come across.

The whitewash attempt of The Independent should fool no one. The Freedom Association is just another bunch of well-heeled toffs anxious to protect their class privilege against any real or imagined threat.

Its deep involvement in the Grunwick dispute of 1976, its anti-trade union stance recently against the postal workers proves that "freedom" to the quaintly named "Freedom Association" means freedom to exploit and grow fat on the unpaid labour of the working class.

What's up Doc ?

David Mellor, the Minister of State for Health, is concerned at the long hours worked by junior hospital doctors.

But not too concerned, for according to The Independent 25th January 1989:

But he confirmed the government's intention to oppose the backbench Bill scheduled for debate In the Lords tonight setting a 72 hour maximum legal limit on the junior doctor's working week.

After a survey in Bristol of junior doctors Dr. Ruth Gilbert (quoted In The Independent same day) said :

Suffering from sleep deprivation, Junior doctors are likely to perform monotonous tasks badly, make mistakes over drug dosages and experience mood changes that will make them less sympathetic to their patients.

When asked about the worst aspects of their work 85 per cent of the men and 95 per cent of the women said "exhaustion and hours of work" followed by "acting as dogsbodies doing unrewarding work."

In February 1848 a pamphlet written in German was published in London. It referred to the position of doctors inside capitalism. It stated:

The bourgeoise has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage labourers.

The pamphlet was The Communist Manifesto. The authors were Karl Marx and Frederick Engels.

Letter: Boycott in West Africa (1953)

Letter to the Editors from the April 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

A reader sends us the following letter and asks for our comments:—

S.W. London.

The Editorial Committee.

Dear Comrades,

On February 14th the West Africa weekly newspaper (published in London and of the same company as the Daily Mirror) published an amusing letter. Although no doubt their 9,000 white shareholders would nave us take it seriously.

It concerns the regional propertied interests in western Nigeria. Apparently the leader of the nationalist party of that region has imposed a boycott on the Governor because he considers that the collection of white whisky-boozers are too slow. There has been some delay in the approval of the western regional local government. Poor Sir John won’t be able to attend any more cocktail parties in the West for a while.

Instead he will probably relax in his palatial government house receiving Labour Party delegations all wanting to “save Africa.” But now, this letter raises the age-old question of how far is one capitalist group prepared to compromise with another? Mr. Haig glibly says: “ In your issue of January 10, you describe Mr. Awolowo’s boycott of Sir John Macpherson as “a clumsy weapon." Is this really all you have to say about this piece of colossal bad manners, bad psychology and bad policy? I wonder in what terms you would describe a British boycott of a leading African personality.

“Forgive me saying that this regrettable understatement of yours is typical of your growing tendency to appease the African nationalist even at the cost of good sense and common decency. It is not fair to your African readers, many of whom are inevitably short of education and experience. These readers are exposed, in their own countries, to many newspapers which distort and suppress news, and base their comments not on truth and reason but on the illogical frenzy characterising the emotional nationalist throughout the world.

“You, at least, should give them candid and honest comment based on truth and the accepted standards of Christian civilisation.

“I suggest that Mr. Awolowo’s boycott of the Queen's representative in Nigeria, and one of the best friends Nigerians have ever had, is a disgrace both to him and his party and to the traditional courtesy of the Yoruba people."

In some respects this letter can be applied generally to Africa and expresses a very unobservant

opinion although perhaps that too is an under-statement. However, would the Socialist Party of Great Britain care to examine the letter itself and answer it?

Yours sincerely,

Nigerian Student.

Comment.

Our comments can be very brief. Those who administer capitalism in Britain are not interested in emancipating the British workers from capitalist exploitation nor in emancipating African workers. Likewise the West African-born Capitalist and Nationalist political parties, while interested in ending dominance by British capitalism, are not interested in emancipating West African workers from capitalism.

As Socialists aiming at the establishment of Socialism and the emancipation of all workers everywhere, we are all in favour of one kind of boycott. We look forward to the time when British, African and all other workers will join together in a boycott of capitalism, and all its political supporters and hangers- on, and will gain control of the machinery of government for the purpose of establishing Socialism.

In the meantime there is bound to be the arrogant attitude of the “Empire builders" as exemplified in the letter referred to by our correspondent.

Editorial Committee.

Capitalism 1956 (1956)

From the July 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

The political parties which seek election on a programme of reforms, i.e., the Conservative, Labour, Communist and the now disappearing Liberal parties, all claim though some of them would deny it, that there is nothing basically wrong with capitalism; nothing that cannot be remedied without abolishing the wages system and establishing a classless society. Thus all that it is necessary for workers to do is to follow the right “leaders,” put their trust in promises and, given time, all would be well.

All of these parties have said and continue to say that the hardships and problems with which workers are plagued throughout their lives can be solved given the right leadership and the right policy.

The so-called Communist Party with its changing “cults” of worship is particularly hypocritical in this respect because its members are Communists in name only; obviously no party which believes that COMMUNISM (the abolition of the wages system, common ownership of the means of production and free access to wealth) is the ONLY answer to poverty, housing problems, wars and unemployment would advocate reforms and try to solve these problems within capitalism.

By the time this article is read, another series of Borough Council elections will have been held and workers will tragically once again have voted for the politicians who run the system that robs them.

Once again all the afore-mentioned parties have all promised the same things and childishly blamed one another for past failures in bringing the same “houses for the homeless,” “food for the hungry,” “pensions galore” and “better roads,” etc., as have been promised for many elections past.

One thing that should be glaringly obvious by now is that if any of them had ever redeemed their past promises there would be no need to keep coming back for re-election to do the same thing. This should clearly show to any thinking worker the utter futility of voting for any of them unless you want more in the future of what you have had in the past and if you do, then one could hardly call that thinking

We wish here to pin-point just two of the problems of capitalism, and we have taken, for purposes of illustration, examples of each problem, one at home and one abroad. The idea is to show the worldwide nature of capitalism and its problems and also the world-wide nature of the only solution, SOCIALISM.

First let us look at the housing problem. It is quite obvious from the start that the whole approach of the Socialist Party of Great Britain is very different from and opposed to that of the afore-mentioned parties of capitalism.

We recognise that Prince Rainier and his bride, along with the rest of the class of parasites to which they belong, will not be found in Battersea flat hunting. Shortage of proper housing accommodation is essentially a working class problem and the reason that workers go without adequate housing is the same reason why they go without a great deal of the other things THEY produce; NOT because there is a shortage but because they cannot afford them—they have only very limited access to goods and services of all kinds because they do not own the fruits of their labour they only get WAGES—part payment.

In this wondrous era of H-power, automation and universal “plenty” we read in the South London Press (April 27th, 1956) that “Battersea’s 3,000 housing applicants have no earthly chance of ever getting housed by the Borough.” This sad information comes from a London County Councillor, Douglas Rayment, who, as a Conservative Party politician, has the impudence to say “Too many people sit back and wait for us to do something for them, instead of stirring themselves;”

Was it not the Conservative Party whose Election Platform was based upon, among other things, the assertion that they could solve the housing problem?.

Does not the Conservative Party at ALL elections issue reform programmes of what they are going to do for people who, having voted Conservative, can “sit back” and have the world brought to them on a platter?

The despairing and apathetic attitude of workers is part of the fruits of their having blindly voted for people who promise them things.

The Councillor and some of his colleagues go on to explain that “nearly all new housing in the Borough would go to people moved from slums,” and, of the paltry 246 homes to be built in the “next five years” in “Winstanly Ward, only three go to housing applicants.”

We are told of course that the L.C.C. is not to blame, nor is the Borough Council; it is the fault “of the central planning authority in not allowing sufficient density.” It seems from this that the only thing which stops the L.C.C. and the Borough Council from packing dwellings (as they are aptly called) closer together and piling MORE people into file SAME space, is the central planning authority.

The point which all of these lamentable runners of capitalism miss, when trying to pardon their failure to run capitalism in the interests of the exploited majority, is that in their lying programmes they never say : “We will house you if slum dwellers do not move in from outside,” or “We will solve the housing problem if materials are cheap enough for workers to afford the rents,” “ or “We will bring peace unless war comes, prosperity, unless a slump comes and full employment unless unemployment sets in.” Could it be that to tell workers the truth before polling would be dangerous to their chances of election?

The second problem at which we will glance has had a great deal said and written about it, namely that of RACE. We have ourselves published a 78 page pamphlet on this matter which explodes the false theories of biological superiorities and other such prejudices. It analyses the whole problem from the Socialist point of view and goes into the subject with much greater detail than space permits here. We need only mention one incident as an illustration.

In what is boasted as the most “advanced” country in the world where a lot of shouting is done about “constitutions,” “citizens’ rights,” “freedom” and so on, a case is reported in the Daily Express (April 25th, 1956) of backward and ignorant conduct. The case being that of the segregation of negroes on ’buses in Montgomery, Alabama.

The facts as reported by the above newspaper indicate some “13 states with tough segregation laws” and a Police Commissioner, Sellers, who is a member of the so-called “White Citizens Council.” The Supreme Court having ruled that segregation on ’buses must end. this man said: “As far as I am concerned this damn thing applies to South Carolina only.” He threatened “to arrest any passenger who mixes with the opposite race.”

Of course to carry this threat out would be impossible if the “advanced” individual in question had to define the terms “opposite race” and give evidence that would hold water before he went any further.

It is of particular interest to note that although this threat was made by the chief of police, the ’bus company, despite the fact that the threat also applied to ’bus “drivers who permitted racial mixing on their ’buses,” sided with the Supreme Court ruling and told their employees they need no longer “give front seats to whites and rear seats to negroes.”'

We can understand the tenderheartedness of the *bus company; they were merely responding in the way Capitalists normally do when their gold coffers have been hit. The 50,000 negroes of Montgomery have boycotted the ’buses since last December and this has lost the company “over £1,000 daily.” The negroes, however, are keeping up their boycott “ until the confusion is ended.”

As Socialists we would say the action of the negroes in resisting this callous inequality is the only dignified and praiseworthy thing in the whole sordid and degrading affair.

The most tragic observation of all is not only that members of the working class should behave one to another in such a way, resenting skin colours of fellow members of their own exploited class while their common enemies, the exploiting Capitalist class, live on their backs, but that the move away from segregation came from outside and not from within the states concerned. Unfortunately, the ignorance of the economic forces at work within capitalism, from which this conduct springs, cannot be banished merely by the Supreme Court making rulings although to whatever degree events turn against segregation it is a healthier sign than its unchallenged continuation.

It will finally only be when workers turn to SOCIALISM that they will cease to be a prey to nationalist or racial prejudice of one variety or another, because only then will they no longer see themselves as one with their respective NATIONAL ruling class, but will see that their real oneness lies in union with the wage slaves all over the world, geography, sex and so-called race making no difference. We would conclude by saying that the “education” machine of capitalism whose function it is to turn out obedient, efficient wage slaves will never direct its efforts towards Socialism, but the hard facts of life and the common problems which universally smite all workers will direct their interest our way.

Meanwhile the politicians will go on with their “better world” promises and we for our part will go on vigorously advocating the abolition of the nightmare, which these hirelings seek to preserve, and its replacement by Socialism—the world of the social equality of all men and women of the world, of one community of interest based on holding the means of living in common, and production entirely and literally for use.

Harry Baldwin

From America: The Coffee ‘Rip-off’ and some facts of Life (1977)

From the April 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Permit me to add my two bits-plus worth to the brouhaha over skyrocketing coffee prices in America.

I worked in coffee warehouses where “working in coffee” can mean anything from “bull gang labour, unloading freight cars of 125-pound sacks of green coffee (two men per sack) to stacking cases of 1-pound tins of ground coffee (prior to the advent of fork-lifting machines) in five and/or seven tiers that reached above the rafters (until a tip that fire inspectors were on the way had bull gangs frantically tearing down the top layers).

In between these extremes were stints at loading empty cans on the track at the top of the packing process; and duty at the spout from which the packer keeps pace, like an “appendage of the machine,” with a steady flow of filled and hermetically sealed 1 lb. tins, pumping them with right foot into a carton held against the spout with left hand while the right hand is making ready another carton from the flattened-out pile beside you, then flipping the filled boxes on to a moving track where they are sealed and borne to waiting hands for stacking. All this time, one weather-eye is kept on the onrushing cans in order to pull dents off the line before they enter the spout, jam the machinery and interfere with production-time; while the other one takes note of the diminishing stock of flattened cartons against the time you dash for replacements, getting back to the post in time to keep the process moving. The “coffee nerves” one is supposed to develop from drinking too much of it are nothing as compared to the shakes one gets from packing it!

This sort of familiarity with coffee does not qualify one to explain the economics behind the $3.00 per-lb. —more or less—that coffee brings today at the supermarket. After all, in those times referred to, top grades of the roasted and ground beans retailed at about 40-cents per lb. while one could be served a cup of it, along with a couple of doughnuts, for a thin dime —when one could afford to spend the dime. After Pearl Harbour and the advent of food (and coffee) rationing, prices did advance although with some controls through a Government agency and the problem of getting enough coffee on the white market was considered by President F. D. Roosevelt. He (a non-coffee drinker) advised us to re-use the grounds from each batch, at least once, before discarding!

Why is coffee produced, in the first place? Are growers and processors motivated by the “consuming public’s” love affair with the brew? No question about it. That factor plays a part only in the sense that it enables them to produce profits. That is what any business is all about so coffee growers and processors should hardly care less if the “consuming public” were to lose its taste for the stuff providing some other popular use might be found for their commodity (perhaps it might serve as a land filler or as a fertilizer). And, given the free enterprise mode of production, how can one argue logically against such a principle? How can one, consistently, argue the case for the profit system yet organize and/or participate in boycotts against rising prices? “The consumer is being ripped-off!” they cream. And they call for volunteers for picket duty in a battle to force one group of industrialists to cease taking advantage of a situation that enables them to corner a larger-than-usual share of the profits. They forget that the first duty of an industry is to its owners, or stock-holders and that fat years afford opportunity to recoup from lean years.

Now this is not to turn a cold shoulder to the plight of those who can hardly, if at all, make ends meet as it is without more price-gouging by those who own and control coffee. But boycotts of such items are not organized, generally, by those who cannot afford the high prices. They are the brain children of those who delight in bragging about their large expenditures, trips abroad, etc. Most of us are too busy getting by without joining in such movements. Wage-working people do gripe about prices, search for bargains, frequently strike for higher pay, and even more frequently look to moonlighting to compensate for rising costs of their necessities. All of which does not mean that coffee tycoons, or any other variety, can continue to raise prices at will. There is that other Nemesis that thwarts such a hope—the competition among themselves for a larger share of the market that, willy nilly, eventually leads to a drop in prices.

It should be plain, then, that—like it or not—our system is operating normally, and taking advantage of opportunities to maximize profits is in harmony with sound economics. Would the outraged ones champion a totally different social system than any now existing anywhere, production solely for use rather than for sale on a market with view to profit? Don’t all speak at once!

Harry Morrison

(WSP, Boston)

Flags of Convenience and the Boycott (1959)

From the January 1959 issue of the Socialist Standard

The International Transport Workers’ Federation four-day boycott of “Panlibhonco” shipping began on 1st December. The West German Unions, although they originally voted for the ban, did not in fact support it, following upon a Court award of £30,000,000 damages in a strike case just settled. The Italian Unions refused to take part, and the boycott was ineffective in France where the great majority of the dockers belong to a Communist-dominated union not affiliated to the I.T.F. In Holland, where two-thirds of the dockers are non-union members, the situation was confused. An Amsterdam Court granted port employers an injunction to restrain the unions from joining the boycott. In Rotterdam, however, the Court refused to grant an injunction and the boycott was observed. Japanese supported the boycott in principle, but did not take active measures.

But union members in Britain, the East and Gulf Coasts of U.S., Australia, Belgium and Scandinavia, and in several other countries throughout the world, and the International Petroleum Workers’ Federation, supported the boycott, and by the last day 192 ships were idle. 

What is it all about ?

Many people have become bemused and bewildered and consequently not particularly bothered, because, in spite of the volume of discussion on flags of convenience in the newspapers until the recent boycott, the concern has been regaining the advantages or otherwise from the ship owners' point of view. The recent action by the unions has come as a surprise element of the situation.

Panamanian registration of ships was first invoked in the days of American prohibition to enable liquor to be sold to passengers aboard liners. It was not long before other advantages became known in other countries. Registration was a simple and inexpensive procedure for foreigners; there was no taxation of profits, and owners were not subject to a variety of rules and regulations such as those which had accumulated in maritime countries over the centuries. Some of these were advances won at the cost of great sacrifices by the seamen in the class-struggle with the owners for better conditions and pay. Post-war currency restrictions in the non-Panlibhonco countries have been an additional factor. Above all, American shipowners, by registering ships in Panama, were able to avoid the obligation to ship American crews at (by European standards) much higher wages.

The man who bought the Bank at Monte Carlo

Some of the “Flag of Convenience” owners are public characters and are frequently in the news. Mr. Onassis, owner or controller of a fleet worth an estimated US$300 million, is one of them. According to Time (19th January, 1953) Onassis lunched with Prince Rainier several times and bought him a 137 ft. diesel yacht. The directors of the Casino were kept out of the Palace gates by royal carabinierii and they resigned to make room for Onassis’ representatives. The Casino had been losing money and the Prince was looking for new capital amounting to US$1,000,000. Onassis planned to register ships in Monaco after moving his offices into the Casino building.

Pictures from Ships

His brother-in-law, Mr. Niarchos, also a millionaire shipowner, is another character sometimes in the news. A fairly recent Tate Gallery exhibition of Mr. Niarchos’ pictures gave pleasure to a vast public. He has bought originals of Renoir girls. Degas dancers, Gauguin Tahitans and Van Gogh landscapes at prices which run into tens of thousands. Toulouse-Lautrec’s Aristide Bruant cost him £22,000; Renoir’s Mosque at Algiers, £24,000; Van Gogh’s small Thistles £16,000.

But manoeuvring with “Flags of Convenience” is not Mr. Niarchos’ only occupation—buying pictures such as these is another, for those with American incomes can spend 30 per cent. of their income, tax free, on works of art. provided they are destined for a museum. And during his lifetime he can enjoy them in his own home. Obviously it is more attractive to spend £50,000 on a picture like Renoir’s Girl in a Plumed Hat than to hand the money over to the Inland Revenue. The museum get the pictures when he dies, but he could not take them with him, anyway.

Patriotism—for workers only

For the workers, patriotism is held up as one of the greatest of the virtues, and countless war memorials throughout the world pay tribute to the effectiveness of this teaching. Surely it must be for the workers that the poem, “ My country, ’tis of thee . . . Land where my fathers died . . .” is applicable, for millions of workers have been maimed or killed following the dictates of their ruling-classes. This recalls the story of the monkey who used the cat’s paw to pull his chestnuts out of the fire. But in the case of the Panlibhonco shipowners it seems to be a case of rather “Don’t do as I do, but do as 1 tell you”, for these characters seem intent on finding out ways of not paying taxes to not merely their native country, but to any government at all. How misled are such workers who risk life and limb fighting to protect, or extend the property of their employers, when they themselves own nothing worth fighting for.

The I.T.F. and the Boycott

A statement from the International Transport Workers’ Federation says that the boycott has two main objectives: —

“ Firstly, to draw the attention of governments to the problem and to protest against their inactivity on it. 

“ Secondly, to secure properly-regulated wages and working conditions on all ships flying flags of convenience. We would agree that conditions on board many such ships not under trade union agreements are no worse than on most European-operated ships, and in some cases are even better. But this this largely due to the campaign which the l.T.F. has carried on during the past ten years. There is. in any case, no guarantee that these standards will be maintained, because the crews have no trade union protection at present. Nor do they enjoy the security of employment or the benefits of social legislation which are generally to be found in the traditional maritime countries. What we are trying to do is in fact a straightforward trade union job, the kind of job which unions in all civilized countries have accepted as part of their normal function.”

The Statement later on says:—

" A further very vital aspect of this situation is the question of national defence in time of international emergency. How, for example, can any country claim to exercise effective control over ships which fly the flag of another nation? This is, in fact, a complete negation of the concept of national maritime sovereignty. In any case, as past emergencies have shown only too clearly, the real factor in exercising control over vessels is not their ownership or country of registration, but their crew. Here we would stress that Panlibhonco ships have become a haven for politically undesirable seafarers and others; consequently there can be no guarantee as to how such crews would act in an emergency situation. 

“ The l.T.F. has never adopted such a narrow-minded attitude and has no intention of doing so now. Our campaign is not based solely on the interests of the seafarers, but on those of the community at large—which arc equally threatened.”

Apparently these workers are more patriotic than the shipowners themselves.

Greek shipowners have accused British, Scandinavian and Dutch shipping interests of having inspired the boycott and the Greek Shipowners’ Union, acting on behalf of their co-operation committee of London threatened to lay up ships throwing their crews out of work. About 10 million tons of Greek shipping sails under the flags of Liberia, Panama and Honduras. Almost all the crews on them are Greek.

The owners’ declaration said: —

“ ' It would be obvious to all by now that this boycott . . . is simply one more manifestation of the hostility of certain shipping interests towards their competitors.' Greek shipowners, the declaration went on, already had to face the bitter campaign by owners in the so-called traditional maritime nations, who were frustrated over bureaucratic restrictions and heavy operating costs in their own countries. The l.T.W.F. was inspired by British interests trying to blackmail flags of convenience to give advantage to British and Norwegian shipping which was not threatened by eventual repetition of the boycott.” (Times, 2nd December, 1958.)

The Daily Mail (5th December, 1958) published a feature article written by Mr. Niarchos, who on behalf of the Niarchos Group refuted in detail the charges of the I.T.F. After dealing with working conditions aboard his ships he said this:—

” If international federations of unions are to become concerned in matters of international business and relations between nations, they are assuming a new empire-building role far removed from their original mission of furthering the true interests of their dues-paying members . . . and the handling of genuine union problems will be completely obscured.”

Trade Union action

Trade union action to maintain or improve workers’ living standards commends itself to any Socialist, and particularly when it is international action, for this implies a greater degree of working-class solidarity, and it is this factor which is so encouraging about the boycott. The Capitalist press expressed satisfaction that the boycott was only partial, but it must also be remembered that much of the support which the various workers gave was not to advance their own sectional interests, but that of the seamen generally. The Financial Times in its editorial (2nd December, 1958) said of the boycott:— «

“ It is also international and this use of the international strike weapon could be a precedent for much more undesirable exertions of trade union power.”

We couldn’t agree more, but, of course, although a boycott may or may not serve one section of the Capitalist class, working-class solidarity is liable to be undesirable for the Capitalist class generally.

Frank Offord

Billion-dollar Games (1984)

From the September 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of the biggest media and commercial binges in the last four years got under way at the end of July. We refer of course to the Los Angeles Olympics, rumoured by some simple souls to be a sporting festival but in fact an excuse for making money and reinforcing nationalist prejudices.

These were clearly the most commercialised Games ever held. The stages of carrying the Olympic torch across the United States were auctioned for three thousand dollars a kilometre and prominent alongside each runner was someone in a T-shirt advertising the telephone company, AT & T. Each sporting facility had its own sponsor; McDonalds, for instance, built the swimming pool, and Southlands Corporation the cycling velodrome. Fearing a repetition of the Montreal fiasco of 1976 (where the Games will not be paid for until the next century), Los Angeles only agreed to accept the Games if it could be guaranteed that the city would not lose money on them. This was assured when a consortium of businessmen accepted responsibility and set out to make as much money from the Games as they could.

The modern top-class sportsperson can hardly be other than a full-time athlete. Long gone are the days when it was possible to stay at the top by means of a couple of light training sessions a week. Training nowadays is highly scientific, with different emphases for different events, and a daily commitment is required. This is partly why Olympic eligibility is determined not by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) but by the international governing body of each sport. So runners are allowed to make a living from the sport, while swimmers are not. In 1988, when tennis is part of the Games, professionals will be openly allowed to compete — provided they are under twenty!

The American athlete Carl Lewis has openly stated that "the Olympics are about money and not much else”. And he should know: he calculated that every gold medal he won in the Games (and he won four) would be worth one and a half million pounds to him. There would be endorsements for sports products, of course, but also for clothes, deodorants, and the like. Coca-Cola are discussing an extra contract with Lewis worth over four million pounds. Even this will just keep him in the style to which he is accustomed. He maintains his “amateur” status by having his income paid into a trust from which he can draw generous “expenses”. Not surprisingly, he sees little point in formally turning professional.

It may be worth recalling that the original Olympics of Ancient Greece were not based on amateur ideals either. In addition to victory garlands, sizeable prize money was paid, and athletes eventually organised their own professional associations to negotiate with the promoters of games. It is probably not too far-fetched to discern a professional circuit of games which provided an income for highly-trained full-time athletes. There was no pretence that taking part was more important than winning: victory in competition was what mattered, and there were no records or personal bests.

According to the accepted mythology, the Olympics were revived in 1896 because of the heroic vision and single-minded energy of Baron de Coubertin. In fact, there had been plenty of earlier attempts to do so. In 1612, Robert Dover founded the Cotswold Olympics, which won royal approval from James I (they endured in some form till 1852, when they were discontinued because of “debauchery”). In 1862, some “Olympics” were held in Liverpool, but nothing further came of them. Basically, these were sports gatherings for ordinary people — it took an aristocratic movement to get the Olympics truly going again.

De Coubertin was much influenced by the ethos of the English public schools and sport’s role in them. Thus his list of proposed sports for the first Games included rowing and cricket. The early Games were very much for the rich — ordinary workers could not afford the cost of attending, and sporting organisations were too primitive to arrange and finance large teams. In fact it was not until 1908 that entries were made nationally rather than individually, a change which presaged the later jingoism and national rivalries. Many of the early competitors — especially those from the United States and Great Britain — were university athletes, as these institutions provided some of the best facilities for training and competition.

Ironically it was in 1936, the year of the Berlin Olympics, that de Coubertin died. The Olympics had been assigned to Berlin in 1931, before the Nazi takeover, and no had forseen what would happen. No expense was spared in providing superb stadia and other facilities, or in ensuring that the German squad was trained as well as was possible. In 1933 the American Amateur Athletic Union had voted to boycott the Games if German Jewish athletes were discriminated against: but in December 1935 the American Olympic Committee decided narrowly against a boycott. It is often said that the 1936 Games were the first overtly political ones, but a better candidate for this title is the 1920 Games, which were awarded to Antwerp (as an emotional consolation to Belgium after the war) and from which those countries defeated in the war were excluded.

The organisation of events so as to fit in with convenient television timings is a fairly recent innovation but their manipulation for non-sporting reasons is not. For instance, the marathon distance of 26 miles 385 yards has no connection with Ancient Greek battles. The distance was fixed at the London Games of 1908. The race was run from Windsor to the White City, which turned out to be precisely 26 miles. But an extra 385 yards was added so that the finish could take place in front of the Royal Box.

Talking of royalty, the Games are fated to occur in the same years as American Presidential elections. But for this, there would hardly have been an American boycott of the 1980 Moscow Games. This year President Reagan has noted the potential for exploiting the Games as part of his re-election campaign. Having been thwarted by Olympic officials in his attempt to secure a more than purely formal role in the opening ceremony, he made the most of every American success. As far as the tame American media were concerned, there was certainly only one country competing.

Which brings us to the boycott on the part of Russia and other East European countries. This was ostensibly because of lack of guaranteed security in Los Angeles but is more likely to be at bottom another move in the lofty and lowly world of power politics. In view of the strength of some of the withdrawing countries, it inevitably means that the achievement of the winners will be devalued, thus reducing the capital that Reagan can make out of American medals. One side-effect of the boycott was the decision of the IOC to pay all the expenses of the Rumanian team, as a way of ensuring some East European presence.

With these the third Games in succession to suffer from a boycott, the IOC executive committee has proposed that attendance at future Games be made compulsory. Of course, the only way to punish infringements of such a rule would be suspension from the Olympic movement. Like truancy from school being punished by expulsion. It clearly takes an Olympic committee to dream up something like this.

The Olympics, then, were not a sporting festival designed to promote international peace and harmony, but a further example of the way capitalist rivalries and priorities pollute and distort every aspect of life under the present social system.

Paul Bennett

Running Commentary: Not cricket (1981)

The Running Commentary column from the April 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Not Cricket

Life as a working-class “non-white” in South Africa is an especially abject experience. We say working-class because many wealthy members of the capitalist class who would otherwise be regarded as “non-white”, notably Japanese industrialists. have enjoyed all of the privileges of accommodation, travel and services usually reserved for “whites”. Here the white African capitalist’s thirst for profits from Japanese trade overrides his racialist prejudices.

The lot of the propertyless black in South Africa is to be treated as subhuman, herded in ghettoes and camps, segregated in squalor from whites in every walk of life and relentlessly harried by the forces of the state. A “white” wanting to return a book to a public library, for instance, will probably have to comply with a rule requiring the book to be enclosed in a polythene bag if it is taken back by a black servant.

Against this backdrop it was understandable that the English Test cricketer Robin Jackman was recently ordered out of Guyana because of his links with South Africa. But as this issue developed and the Test match against the West Indies was disrupted, various contradictions were exposed.

In the Summer of 1980 assorted spokesmen and parrots of the “right-wing” (although some Liberals and Labourites were also vocal on this matter) insisted that British athletes should boycott the Olympic Games as a protest against the oppressive regime in the USSR. The policy of the politicians then was to try and use sport as a political medium. Yet a few months later many of these same politicians and their dutiful echoes are sounding the “keep politics out of sport” slogan. The fact is that the politicians have not suddenly changed the principle on which they seek to act from “Use politics in Sport” to “Keep politics out of Sport” as neither of these mottos was ever really their concern. It is economic considerations (and that doesn’t mean yours or mine) which are the reality behind government policymaking in the profit-system. Whereas the Russian Empire and its expansion pose a serious threat to the interests of the British owning class, no such fear is generated by trouble in the West Indies. On the contrary, they have the prospect of continued substantial trading. Looked at like this, it becomes clear why many of the spokesmen for British capitalism could welcome political hostility in sport at the Games and oppose any political disruption to the Second Test match against the West Indies.

Needless to say, governments of several of the West Indian countries, notably Jamaica and Antigua, allowed the Tests to go ahead on their territories to generate some cash for their flagging tourist trades, rather than exclude supporters of apartheid and jeopardise the series. It is not only the white South African leaders who demote principles below the pressure for profits.

Not Cronkite

Walter Cronkite of CBS television was much beloved by many Americans as — in the words of one newspaper — “something between the national flag and God”. Applauded by many at the time of Vietnam for his view that America should withdraw from the war, his recent retirement as a newscaster brought high praises from all and sundry.

Every evening he would enter the homes of millions of American workers to avuncularly present them with a careful selection of reports written unwaveringly from the viewpoint of the owning class. While the working class in America was wrestling with all of the problems of capitalism — inflation, inadequate housing, poverty and insecurity — old Walt would insist on spinning out the old yarns. Every broadcast was impregnated with false assumptions: all American people have a common interest; the protection of property benefits all equally; anyone can become a capitalist if he or she has the talent and initiative; the working class will always have to follow leaders; communism exists in Russia; and if the political ideas of economic equality were given any chance then all mayhem would break loose and Americans would be eating each other alive on the sidewalks.

Did Walt ever open up a bulletin with the news that Americans in employment were being paid less in the form of a wage or a salary than the value of what they had produced? Did he ever report that the wars are the logical outcome of the continuous struggles over trade routes, markets and territories by financiers, industrialists and land owners? Did trusty Walter ever point out that with advanced technology and abundant natural resources there is no need for a third of the world to go hungry? Sadly Walt never uttered a syllable on these points; he dealt only with items neatly processed for general consumption, images and distorted facts designed to maintain the status quo, the string of silent assumptions which riddle every thoughtfully chosen news item.

Gary Jay

'Anti-apartheid' denounced (1970)

From the May 1970 issue of the Socialist Standard

Anti-apartheid was denounced as a slogan of British imperialism at a meeting in Conway Hall, London, on 16 March addressed by I. B. Tabata, President of the Unity Movement of South Africa and N. Honono, President of the All-African Convention (a constituent organisation of the Unity Movement).

The South African ruling class, argued Tabata (what follows is only a summary of his arguments not an exact report of his speech), was split over how to govern the millions of African workers and peasants on whose labour the South African capitalist economy rested. The bulk of the industrial wealth of South Africa was owned either by capitalists from Britain or the English-speaking section of the White population. British imperialism had come to realise that it was no longer necessary to govern places like India and Africa by means of direct colonial rule. They had learned that it was cheaper and less inconvenient to rule through “independent” governments. However the bulk of the South African electorate, made up of White workers and farmers, was Afrikaans-speaking and traditionally opposed to British imperialism. They followed the lead of the Nationalist Party which preached that the only way to govern the Africans was by police methods. Brutal apartheid was the implementation of this policy of suppression. This the British capitalists and their counter-parts in South Africa, like gold magnate Oppenheimer, regarded as unnecessary and even dangerous in that it could provoke unrest and violence that would endanger their investments. They would prefer to rule through the White opposition parties (with their policy of less rigid segregation) or even, if necessary through organisations like the African National Congress. The “anti-apartheid" campaign by obscuring the class struggle of the African peasants and workers against capitalist exploitation and oppression, served their interests. As the Unity Movement put it in their pamphlet The Revolutionary Road for South Africa:

  In terms of the South African set-up, anti-apartheid means anti-Afrikaner Nationalist Government. It means the return to power of the English speaking sections. It means the entrenchment of imperialism in South Africa and all that that connotes for the exploitation of the mass of the Black population.

This is an analysis which the Socialist Party of Great Britain would largely endorse and is one reason why we do not take part in single-issue campaigns such as “Boycott South African Goods” and "Stop the Cricket Tour”. It is in fact in line with what we ourselves have long argued: that the rigid apartheid imposed by a government drawing its support from a farm-orientated electorate is a hindrance to the development of capitalism in South Africa and is against the interests of both the South African capitalist class and the international capitalists who have investments there. We have always rejected the facile view that apartheid is imposed by these capitalists in order to protect their investments.

The Socialist Party is of course opposed to apartheid, but to separate the struggle against apartheid and other forms of oppression and discrimination from the general struggle for Socialism (which will mean the emancipation of all mankind, irrespective of race or sex) is to play into the hands of that section of the South African ruling class that is opposed to apartheid.

We also have fundamental criticisms of the programme and policy of the Unity Movement, which is heavily influenced by obsolete trotskyist ideas about Russia and China being “workers states”, about leadership and "transitional demands” and about guerilla warfare. Nevertheless, on the issue of anti-apartheid, we concede that they take up a basically correct position. Wc doubt however whether their supporters in this country, who include Tariq Ali, really understand the full implications of this line of argument.

The Real Waste (2020)

From the April 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

Many people who sympathise with the socialist case do not join us because they feel that working for socialism requires a lot of time and effort, with no guarantee of success. Much better, they may say, to work for short-term gains that need less commitment and are more likely to be achieved.

I was recently reading Will McCallum’s book How to Give Up Plastic. This gives a detailed account of the problems caused by various forms of plastic, from bags and bottles to straws, nappies and takeaway coffee cups. Many of these are used just the once and then disposed of, eventually leading to the clogging up of rivers, beaches and oceans. Samples taken from the deepest place on earth, the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific, contain microplastics.

McCallum makes many recommendations for how people can massively reduce their use of plastics, such as having reusable water bottles and coffee cups. But aside from what people can do at an individual level, often without too much trouble, he gives examples of larger campaigns. Clearing litter from a park or beach requires a lot of work and preparation, from publicising the event to bringing bin bags and weighing what has been collected. He also posits a ladder of escalating approaches: writing letters, holding a meeting, writing an article for the media, organising a petition, and finally having a protest (which may just mean leaving unnecessary packaging at the till in a supermarket, rather than staging a demo).

What a lot of effort! And campaigns like this will always come up against the simple fact that capitalism is basically about profit, not about reducing pollution and conserving the oceans. Consumer pressure can bring about changes in the ways in which companies source, produce and package commodities, and there is nothing wrong with having a reusable coffee cup, but when seen against the background of all the ecological damage done by capitalism, this really is, well, a drop in the ocean. All the time and ingenuity that is spent on such campaigning would be far better put to the task of making socialists and bringing about a society based on meeting human need, which would include environmental considerations being made a priority.

Paul Bennett

Striking Back (2019)

Book Review from the February 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

On the morning of 19 July 1984, a large number of shop workers at the Henry Street branch of Dunnes Stores in Dublin refused to register the sale of South African fruit. They were immediately suspended by the management and so walked out and took up positions outside the main entrance. However during the day, with the realisation that their actions might lead to the loss of their jobs, many drifted back to work so by the evening only nine remained; eight women and one man. So began an industrial action that would last for over two years, become a cause célèbre amongst the Irish Left (I can personally recall the pickets and solidarity demonstrations outside the store) and garner much international recognition and sympathy. From a socialist perspective it revealed the aggressive and uncompromising nature of certain individual capitalists to maximise profit and the weak and ineffectual response of government; torn between wanting to do what was ‘right’ and indeed popular with the public and the hard-nosed need not to disrupt the operation of capitalism. This story is told in a memoir, Striking Back, published last year by one of the leading strike members, Mary Manning.

The strike took place in an Ireland that was quite different from that of today. It would be hard to underestimate the political power that the Dunnes Stores organisation, headed up by the pugnacious Ben Dunne, wielded at the time. They were by far the dominant retail organisation in the country facing little real competition from any major rival (this was long before Lidl, Aldi, Tesco etc. entered the Irish market in a serious way). The Dunne family cultivated strong links with the upper echelons of both centre-right parties in Ireland, Fianna Fail and Fine Gael. Subsequent tribunals of enquiry (prompted by other public matters) revealed how nakedly and directly this influence was wielded in terms of payments to parties and politicians in return for favours or ‘considerations’. For workers, Dunnes had a well-deserved reputation for being an extremely hierarchical, top-down organisation where successful shop managers were judged by higher management as to how efficiently they worked those at the shop floor. Furthermore Ireland was a much poorer country then than it is now and full-time jobs were very scarce so employment in any large company, even in a firm with a reputation of Dunnes Stores, would have been very desirable. It took tremendous courage for Mary and her colleagues to go out on strike and then to persevere for so long. As she says, they were all working class women with no higher education qualifications and limited employment possibilities.

Trade unions
The origins of the strike are interesting and explain many of the difficulties that the strikers experienced. The retail workers were members of the IDATU trade union (which has subsequently become part of the MANDATE trade union). Historically it was very much one of those small ‘bread and butter issues’ organisations solely focussing on the day to day employment of its members without any real interest in the broader interests of the working class in society. Then a young, radical individual, John Mitchell, who had been involved in the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement, became General Secretary and persuaded the union to endorse resolutions condemning apartheid and specifically directing its members not to handle South African products in their places of employment. His fellow members of the union Executive went along with this, content that this support was meant to be solely rhetorical and probably in their minds indulging his whimsies. Once the strike started and then continued for such a prolonged period, they became more reluctant to authorise the £21 per week strike pay. To be fair, they were probably more representative of the wider membership of the union. The book discusses how in fact only a small number of the union members in the particular shop on Henry Street went out on strike in line with official union policy and none of the union members in all the other stores throughout Ireland joined them until near the very end. Understandably for many of them, the issues in South Africa must have appeared remote and the personal costs of striking disproportionate to any small improvements that might have resulted to the lives of black South Africans. In fact not only were many Dunnes workers indifferent to the cause of the strikers, but as Mary discusses candidly, what she found upsetting was the hostility they experienced from some of their fellow workers who remained inside.

In addition to the union, the strike proved something of a quandary for the Irish Labour Party. As with many organisations that identified with the ‘Left’ they claimed to abhor apartheid and indeed the vast majority of their members surely did. The party formed part of the Irish government at the time and so theoretically at least could have aided the strikers in a meaningful fashion. Some of the senior Labour figures holding full cabinet positions were outspoken in their opposition to apartheid. However, their party was the junior partner with the much larger and more conservative Fine Gael party. Government ministers of that party felt they could not intervene in the action. Their opposition to intervention was either for the ideological reasons of not interfering in the operation of the ‘free market’ or for more pragmatic reasons of trade and employment. Ireland exported more to South Africa than it imported and South Africa had invested in some industrial plants in Ireland. The government was afraid of retaliatory action from Pretoria if they became involved and the harm the loss of trade with South Africa would do to an already fragile economy here. So Labour ended up being sympathetic to the strike while simultaneously being embarrassed by it because of their inaction. It’s another small example of how reformist parties find it difficult to deliver even minor actions when in a capitalist government.

Catholic church
The striking women also sought the support of the Catholic Church, still a powerful institution at that time, in their quest to obtain a successful outcome to their struggle. They wrote to Bishop Eamonn Casey who by the standards of the time was regarded as a liberal, people-oriented, member of the Catholic hierarchy with a particular interest (and to be fair a decent track record) in issues of overseas justice.  His (private) response proved a particular disappointment where he described their request for his support as ‘impertinent’ and their actions as potentially damaging to black South Africans. Probably the main reason for his dismissal of their cause was that while the Church liked to be involved with progressive issues, it was only when they were in control and when the Church itself would be the ultimate beneficiary of any campaigning action. Most curiously the book also highlights the ambivalent attitude of the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement itself to the strike. Initially they gave it their full support but then their leader Kadar Asmal (later a minister in the first post-apartheid government) privately withdrew his support for reasons not clarified in the book. It is suggested that the Movement was becoming alarmed at the radical nature of the protest and how they were afraid it might damage their coalition-building efforts with more mainstream politicians and governments against apartheid. The strikers did receive wholehearted support from Bishop Desmond Tutu who invited them to South Africa to witness the plight of the population first hand although when their plane arrived at Johannesburg, they were refused entry and after a short detention sent home.

The strike at the store lasted for over two years primarily down to the stubbornness of Ben Dunne in refusing any sort of meaningful compromise and insisting to the end that workers in his stores ‘do as they were told’ without any question or debate. He claimed it was management’s sole right to decide what the store did or didn’t stock and made it a principle not to yield to the workers’ ethical reservations. At the time, the other supermarket shops and outlets in Ireland also stocked South African produce but usually the issue was finessed at a local level by allowing staff not to handle the goods if they had moral scruples about it. The strike formally ended towards the end of 1986 in a rather messy fashion though with the strikers ultimately vindicated. Embarrassed by the international publicity and support the strike was garnering, the Irish government finally stepped in and banned the importation and sale of all South African goods from 1987 onwards (one of the first countries to do so). In principle the strikers were free to return to work at Dunnes Stores. Clearly the company didn’t want them back, considering them as troublemakers but they were legally obliged to take them. Some of the strikers did not go back knowing full well the poisonous atmosphere that would await. Some did, including Mary herself, but the company resorted to underhand low-level intimidation in a bid to force them to resign. Within a year Mary felt she had to leave and feeling that her prospects in Dublin would be very limited due to her profile as an ‘agitator’ she decided to emigrate to Australia for a number of years.

As an epilogue, the strikers finally managed to collectively visit South Africa in 2013 for Nelson Mandela’s official funeral which on a personal level was a thrilling emotional experience, though Mary is realistic enough to comment that for many South Africans living in the townships very little substantial change has taken place since the fall of apartheid. Overall this is an interesting account of genuine working-class history conveying the complexity that is involved when individuals become politicised while simultaneously dealing with the threads of family life, personal relationships and hopes for the future. The book highlights the heavy price that workers can pay when taking political action against powerful interests. It also demonstrates the relatively weak position of a small group of people taking political action without broad support showing that real and substantial changes do need the committed involvement of the majority of the population.

Kevin Cronin

Playing with Apartheid (1982)

From the June 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

The present use of sport for political ends was foreshadowed before World War II by the attitudes of the dictators Hitler and Mussolini, who encouraged and financed the endeavours of native footballers and athletes. The disappointment shown by Hitler and other leading Nazis at the win of the negro Jesse Owens over their own German favourite at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, is still well remembered. Most governments nowadays assist the efforts of “their” athletes of international class. They value success at this level because it engenders patriotic feeling and distracts the working class from problems at home. By publicising the country it helps exporters to gain ground on competitors. So sport today often spills over from its allotted place on the back pages of newspapers into front page headlines.

Although coming into a somewhat different category, in one way or another the apartheid policy operated by the South African government is often involved in such instances. Scarcely a week passes without news of some projected sporting conflict being jeopardised by the “South African Connection”. The latest major incident burst on a sick and weary world last February in an announcement from South Africa that a team of “rebel” English cricketers had arrived to start a tour sponsored by South African Breweries. Many South African cricketers, boycotted internationally for years, welcomed this chance to test their skills against top class opposition.

There have of course been many examples of discrimination in sport not involving apartheid. In many cases—polo, racquets and equestrian events—the high cost of competing eliminates the average worker before the event begins. In this country, cricket was for a long time bedevilled by the distinction between amateurs and professionals. Among other things, the latter—working men playing for a living—had to stay at inferior hotels to their amateur team mates who, in the main, had enough unearned income not to need payment. In some cases however, including that of W. G. Grace, amateurs were secretly paid to ensure that they did not have to openly turn professional. Although officially abolished 20 years ago, vestiges of this traditional separation linger on today. Similar distinctions arose in the United States where, until 1947, the major league baseball teams consisted of white players only. There were separate leagues for negro players. Now many of the major league teams have more black than white players on their staff. In none of these cases was their any legal backing for discrimination, whereas in South Africa apartheid operates within a legal framework, as a result of legislation passed by successive National Party governments since 1948.

The aims of the apartheid policies pursued by the South African government since 1948 are analysed in depth in our pamphlet The Problem of Racism, published in 1966. This government has represented the interests of the Afrikaner farming section of the ruling class, and the policy has been an attempt to preserve the values and attitudes of the old agricultural order and hold back the development of industrial capitalism. The latter is largely controlled by the English speaking capitalists, who would much prefer a free market in labour to the present restrictive situation. Until a few years ago the Afrikaners had a big advantage because of their unity, while the opposition became fragmented. However the increasing Afrikaner involvement in industry and the development of modern capitalist farming have led to dissensions within the National Party, as a section want some relaxation of apartheid rigidity, and others see this as “the beginning of the end”. In the case of its policy on sport, pressure from outside has combined with a shift in Afrikaner attitudes to produce some quite significant changes.

When the National Party government took power in 1948 they applied a rigid apartheid policy in sport as in all other walks of life: sportsfields, seating and clubs were segregated. World reaction took some time to gather pace, but eventually boycotts of South African players started to mushroom. Eventually an attempt was made to apply the policy to visiting teams also, and the situation reached a critical point when it was announced that a New Zealand rugby team, including Maoris, would not be allowed in. On 4 September 1965 the then Prime Minister, Verwoerd, addressing a meeting at Loskop Dam, spelled it out thus:

Our standpoint is that just as we subject ourselves to another country’s customs and traditions without flinching, without any criticism, and cheerfully, so do we expect when another sends representatives to us they will behave in the same way, namely not involving themselves in our affairs, and that they will adapt themselves to our customs.

(Quoted in The Broederband, Ivor Wilkins and Hans Strydom, Paddington Press 1979)

This statement was like fuel on the fire but, for a time, the government stood firm. To them, the policy seemed quite fair and they may well have expected it to be accepted. When it became obvious that it was seen very differently abroad, the next Prime Minister, Vorster, changed the policy and allowed the Maoris to tour. However he told Parliament a few weeks later: “Inside South Africa there will not be mixed sporting events, irrespective of the proficiency of the participants. On this there can be no compromise, negotiations or abandonment of principle” (Ibid).

Wilkins and Strydom also relate how the Prime Minister had to ride a tremendous backlash from hard line Afrikaners. These reactionaries did not consider sporting prestige important enough to justify any weakening in apartheid, and were perfectly prepared to accept complete isolation if that was the only alternative. It was very probable that Vorster decided in 1968 to “sacrifice” cricket as a sop to these critics. Although both games have their origin in Britain, in South Africa rugby is primarily an Afrikaner game while cricket is mainly played by the English speaking population. This was the year of the “D’Oliveira crisis”. Basil D’Oliveira, a Cape Coloured and as such ineligible for selection by South Africa, had qualified for England and been chosen to tour. “To a cheering (Orange) Free State National Congress, Mr. Vorster announced that D’Oliveira’s selection was political and unacceptable” (Ibid).

Except for a visit the following season by an Australian team (which incidentally lost every Test Match by enormous margins). South Africa has played no cricket at international level since then. The position with rugby was only slightly different. The 1970 New Zealand tour was a great success, the Maori players being among the most popular. In 1974 a British Lions team arrived and shocked the Springboks by winning three of the four international matches and drawing the other. It was now obvious that South Africa faced an indefinite period of total sporting ostracism and a decline in standards through lack of the necessary level of competition.

The Afrikaner government was in a terrible dilemma. Wilkins and Strydom report that a 1974 survey of opinion within the Broederband, and exclusive Afrikaner body, showed 97 per cent in favour of national sporting policies for every “nation” to be affiliated with world bodies (a policy rejected by these bodies because the “nations” were not considered to be independent); 92 per cent were opposed to mixed teams being fielded in sports other than athletics; whereas 93 per cent accepted the inclusion of non-whites for the Olympic Games, but as an interim measure only. Yet despite this, writing only four years later, Wilkins and Strydom could predict that “in about two years all races will play together on club, provincial and national level, will sit together on stands, will use all the club facilities such as bars and toilets, and that no more applications for permits will be needed”.

Certainly significant changes have been made. The pressure from abroad, combined with internal pressure from inside and outside Afrikanerdom, has overcome a white backlash which, observing events elsewhere on the continent, was and still is terrified of the consequences of “giving in to the blacks”. A British Lions rugby team visited South Africa in 1980 and played against non-whites in some matches. A South African touring party, containing some coloured players, visited New Zealand in 1981. Despite these isolated events however the sports boycott of South Africa is still virtually complete.

Internationally the capitalist class has reacted in fairly predictable fashion to the anti-capitalist policies pursued by the National Party governments. While perfectly prepared to trade with and invest in South Africa, openly or secretly as circumstances dictate, they have nevertheless made it clear that they expect conformity to normal capitalist practice; for example an open labour market, without the reservation of certain classes of jobs for whites. The expulsion of South Africa from the Commonwealth in I960 was a result of this stand.

However, whereas countries like Great Britain—where capitalists are mostly white—would be satisfied with a South African capitalism dominated by a white ruling class, this does not appear to be the case generally. Countries like India and the emergent ‘Third World” nations, where the capitalists are mostly non-white and perhaps under pressure from extremists in their own ranks, want rather more. South Africa has now become an anomaly in another sense: it is the only part of the continent still under white rule. It could well be that India, for instance, feels that better trading terms could be obtained from a non-white ruling class (a class of wealthy Indians has long been in existence) rather than from white capitalists still harbouring old prejudices from the apartheid era.

This difference is reflected in the field of sport. Sporting bodies in states such as Britain and New Zealand, expressing satisfaction with efforts in South Africa to provide multi-racial sport, show some willingness to resume relations. The position of New Zealand is particularly delicate. The large farming element there may to some extent sympathise with Afrikaner attitudes, and their main sport is also rugby football. South Africa and New Zealand have traditionally had the best teams, so New Zealand players and turnstiles have keenly felt the loss of fixtures with the Springboks.

Walter Hadlee, past New Zealand cricket captain and test selector, gives expression to his frustration in an article in the 1982 Wisden Cricketer’s Almanack entitled "The Escalating Effect of Politics in Cricket”. He criticises the Gleneagles Agreement drawn up by Commonwealth governments in June 1977 to effect a common policy on sporting links with South Africa, aptly noting: “Different interpretations have given rise to endless controversy, much of it still continuing . . . Governments and anti-apartheid groups never seem to clarify their demands by setting out the precise requirements to be met either by the South African government or the sporting bodies concerned”. Hadlee interprets Gleneagles as meaning that when apartheid is no longer practised in any particular sport, normal relations can be resumed. From this viewpoint he comments on South African cricket that “they attained this in 1977”. Similar impatience was displayed in an editorial in the April 1982 issue of The Cricketer International". “India, Pakistan and Guyana, for instance, exercise some repression on ethnic or religious grounds. Moreover cricketers from these countries have cheerfully played with and against South Africans in England. Where should principles stop being applied?”

In non-white dominated countries a different view is taken. Here the Gleneagles agreement is interpreted as demanding an end to apartheid—not just on the sports field. They question whether the multiracial South African teams now being fielded are in fact selected on merit. Here there is a practical problem. Because of years of discrimination, only a few non-whites have achieved the necessary standards. What may be a genuine selection on ability can appear to an outside observer as an attempt to appease critics by fiddling one or two non-white “passengers”.

In this case the counter discrimination does not stop at a refusal to play against South African representatives. Teams and individuals who have previously played in, or against, South Africa are also boycotted. The England cricket tour of India last winter was jeopardised because Geoffrey Boycott and some other members of the party had played and coached in the Republic (coaching mainly non-whites, incidentally). On that occasion a declaration by Boycott of his personal opposition to apartheid was accepted by the Indian government. However, when Boycott and other current England players travelled with the rebel band earlier this year, the only way in which India and Pakistan would agree to go ahead with their projected tours of England this summer demanded that these individuals be prevented from taking the field against them.

To prevent a crippling loss of much needed gate receipts, the Test and County Cricket Board had no alternative but to impose a ban lasting for three years on the selection for England of these rebel players. More extreme action has been taken in the West Indies. The Guyana government cancelled a Test Match because the England team included Robin Jackman, a player with a South African wife, who had played in South Africa. The West Indies Cricket Board cancelled a projected cricket tour by a New Zealand team because of the 1981 tour of New Zealand by the South African rugby team. In neither case, it appears, were the opinions on apartheid of the individuals objected to considered to be of any importance.

Criticism is often directed at individuals for allegedly introducing politics into spheres of activity which, it is said, should be outside the political arena. Sport is often considered to be such a sphere, but the criticism is manifestly absurd. Because the class division of present-day society is to some extent reflected in all aspects of life, informed comment on any of these activities, particularly by those who seek to abolish this class division, must of necessity be political in content. We have seen, how pressure applied in the field of sport, but with the broader aim of modifying the wider South African society, does appear to be meeting with some success. It does increasingly look as if this story of sport and apartheid will not end until South Africa has a non-white capitalist government. The present white ruling class can scarcely be expected to acquiesce in this, as it will inevitably mean the reduction of many of them to the status of wage workers. The present unstable condition of many black African states increases still further the paranoia of the rich South African whites. Yet even the establishment of a black capitalism in the Republic will not prevent sundry prejudices from bedevilling sport, as in all aspects of life.

E. C. Edge