We were struck by the workers’ efforts to build their unity: the refusal of workers in the cutting room to work beyond the compulsory 9.5 hours; the leaflet drafted by veterans of a previous strike, and translated into Mandarin, which made an appeal for unity to workers hired since that strike; the boycott of a company barbeque; the picket shack which displayed the word “strike” in 19 different languages.

I was therefore surprised when the Union Talk article in the January 25 Militant “Lessons of Quality Meat Packers strike in Toronto” didn’t refer in some way to these initiatives. This omission, in an otherwise good article, makes it more difficult to understand those workers who “believe the strike helped us get into a better position to fight when the new contract expires in three years.” It doesn’t help workers seeking a way forward to keep their eyes on the actions of the union members rather than looking to changing unions or to blaming other workers.

The article posed the need for a fighting strategy for the union but didn’t state clearly enough how our fights today contribute to building that future stronger union. However, it seems to me that the resistance of the QMP workers and their “firmness and discipline,” as well as their modest on-the-job actions and efforts to build unity, did point to what’s needed.

The outcome of the strike was similar to that of most strikes these days. The workers weren’t strong enough and were defeated in their attempt to win their demands. But didn’t some of the experiences of this strike help build up that strength and unity for future fights?

Al Cappe
Montreal, Quebec
 
 
Peak of ‘Islamism’
The “Reply to a reader” column by Martín Koppel and Maurice Williams in the January 11 issue of the Militant (“Why ‘Islamism’ peaked in 1979”) was right on the money.

Absolute clarity on questions like the political degeneration of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the role of Stalinism in the Middle East, and the isolation and desperation of various bourgeois nationalist militias and groupings engaging in individual acts of terror, is welcome and essential. This is of a piece with explaining the real nature of the “insurgency” in Iraq and the need to fight anti-Semitism in the Arab world.

Koppel and Williams point out that “so-called Islamist currents are not anti-imperialist,” and that “in Afghanistan and Pakistan, bourgeois groups waving the banner of Islam were part of the reactionary forces that waged war against the unpopular invasion of Afghanistan by Moscow.” It seems to me that Islamism got a new lease on life in the 1970s not just due to the exhaustion of secular bourgeois nationalism and Stalinism in the region, but also because of direct intervention of U.S. imperialism, anxious to counter the threat of the Iranian revolution. These currents became “increasingly incapable of offering leadership in anti-imperialist struggles” because of the success of Washington in co-opting them as part of the anti-Soviet guerilla war in Afghanistan. U.S. president James Carter’s administration began meeting with, organizing, and funding mujahedeen forces in that country and in the region some six months before the Soviet invasion.

In a book published last year, titled Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, The Cold War and the Roots of Terror, author Mahmood Mamdani details how the CIA collaborated with Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence to set up both madrassas (ideological schools) and military training camps for anti-Soviet Islamic recruits. Mamdani cites the case of Sheikh Abdullah Azzam, a Palestinian theologian (who included among his students Osama bin Laden) who “traveled the globe under CIA patronage” drumming up support among Muslims for a “holy war” against Soviet troops in Afghanistan. Azzam was also one of the founders of Hamas, which for a brief period was used by Israel to counter the influence of the secular PLO.

Mamdani quotes a former Israeli military officer who states that in 1986 Tel Aviv “extend(ed) some financial aid to Islamic groups via mosques and religious schools in order to help create a force that would stand against the leftist forces which support the PLO.” Hamas gained a mass following later only after the continued leadership failures of the PLO.

Bill Kalman
Albany, California
 
 
Tsunami and charity
The fact that we have so many co-workers, schoolmates, and neighbors with roots in Southeast Asia has given immediacy to the TV images, and added real seriousness to exchanges in my factory workplace on how to respond to charity appeals for tsunami victims.

The Militant points out that many employees of charitable organizations live well. Contributions are funneled into their wages and benefits at the expense of the donors’ intended recipients. Many of my co-workers are uneasy about precisely this.

There is another aspect of charity work worth mentioning: even the money that actually reaches the villages, health clinics, and water wells of tsunami victims, compounds the problem.

Charities use pathetic photos of human suffering to make workers feel sorry for our “poor” brethren elsewhere, and tell us that giving a few dollars is all we can hope to do to make the pain a bit more bearable.

That’s not international solidarity.

Raising charity money has the effect of demobilizing us. Instead of organizing to force imperialist governments to cancel the debt of the five most-affected countries, which stands at $300 billion, as the Militant points out, we organize telethons to raise a few billion. Or let others organize telethons to which we are to contribute.

It’s different when you give money to a strike fund: you’re giving support to fellow workers who are fighting, taking hold of their lives, and you swell their ranks.

That’s what I like about the Militant—it keeps you abreast of fellow fighters on the go, and gives you an opportunity to hook up with them.

Katy LeRougetel
Toronto, Ontario

The letters column is an open forum for all viewpoints on subjects of interest to working people.

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