http://socialistworker.org/2015/07/08/socialisms-questions-and-answers
Socialism's questions and answers
Danny Katch reports on a meeting of radicals and activists from around
the world.
July 8, 2015
Socialism 2015 participants, including (front, left to right) Wallace
Shawn, Arundhati Roy, Deborah Eisenberg and Boots Riley, send a message
of solidarity to Greece (Carole Ramsden | SW)
Socialism 2015 participants, including (front, left to right) Wallace
Shawn, Arundhati Roy, Deborah Eisenberg and Boots Riley, send a message
of solidarity to Greece (Carole Ramsden | SW)
MORE THAN 1,500 people attended the Socialism 2015 conference in Chicago
for a long and very full weekend of political discussion and debate.
The mood of the conference--sponsored annually by the Center for
Economic Research and Social Change and co-sponsored by the
International Socialist Organization, the publisher of this website--ran
to exhilaration as the weekend ended with news from Greece that a
landslide majority of people had set an example by voting in a national
referendum against the bosses' austerity agenda.
But there was also sober reflection at the major challenges facing our
movements and struggles--from the battles against cutbacks and
repression in the U.S. and Europe, to the struggle, to the effort to
keep unionism alive, to the Black Lives Matter movement's fight against
police violence and the New Jim Crow.
"We didn't choose this," said one New York City teacher who was
attending the conference for the first time. "Our generation had the
privatization of education land in our lap. I'm not a teacher I'm a test
administrator. I can either leave teaching or stay and fight." But for
this teacher, union activism provided a way to fight back--and so did
the discussions at Socialism 2015 on the broader need for a political
alternative.
Many participants appreciated how the conference brought together
activists from a range of struggles. "The ISO has done a great job
bringing together all these people from different spectrums of the
world," said Monica James, an organizer around criminal justice and
transgender issues with the Transformative Justice Law Project of
Illinois. "Yet we all fall into this one huge melting pot because we all
have this same vision. And the vision is just for all people to be
healthy, safe, affirmed and able to live a peaceful life."
Greek socialist Sotiris Martalis, a Central Committee member of the
radical left party SYRIZA that governs Greece and a founding member of
the socialist group Internationalist Workers Left (DEA), was in Chicago
to report on the struggle in his country. But he took inspiration
himself from the evening plenary session about the Black Lives Matter
movement, with more than a dozen speakers representing both family
members of victims of police violence and leaders of the struggle.
"The beginning was so emotional with the mothers of the people who have
died from police brutality," he said. "And then [later speakers] went on
to give answers and ideas. It was a very good moment."
One of the speakers at that session, Martinez Sutton, who has been
fighting for justice for his sister Rekia Boyd, who was murdered by the
Chicago police, powerfully described the arrogance of the judge who
ordered his family to contain their emotions during the trial of Rekia's
killer. The criminal justice system "treated us like we're nothing to
save the dignity of one man," Sutton said.
Bridzette Lane inspired the audience by talking about how she refused a
monetary settlement from the Washington, D.C., police department that
killed her son Ralphael Briscoe because if she took it, "nobody would
know Ralphael's story....I'm going to keep fighting until I get justice
for my son--until I get justice for everybody's son."
"Police are not out of control," Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor concluded at
end of the panel. "They have been unleashed."
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
THIS YEAR'S Socialism conference featured a number of sessions that took
up different aspects of the challenges facing working class people and
socialists in Europe, from the growth of Islamophobia and right-wing
parties to the development of new left-wing parties in Greece and Spain.
The conference drew an unprecedented number of international speakers
and attendees, from Martalis of Spain, to Olivier Besancenot and
François Sabado of the New Anticapitalist Party of France, to Neil
Davidson of the Scottish Left Project, to veterans of the movement in
Brazil, Mexico, Canada, Puerto Rico and far beyond.
There were sessions that brought together activists from many movements,
from Palestine solidarity to public education. But this year's
conference put a strong emphasis on theoretical and historical topics
that have a particular resonance given current events--for example,
presentations on Franz Fanon, Black self-determination and the Marxist
theory of the state, among many others.
There were other sessions to take up different issues regarding
oppression, from debates around identity politics and "call-out culture"
to discussions of disability and capitalism.
For the first time this year, the Socialism conference featured several
sessions co-sponsored by Jacobin magazine, including a forum on
logistics, technology and socialist strategy; "anarcho-liberalism and
its discontents"; and a debate about the Bernie Sanders campaign for the
Democratic Party presidential nomination.
In a session about the legacy of Trotskyism, author Ahmed Shawki
described an earlier generation of socialists as preserving the living
link from Karl Marx and the Russian Revolution through to the present
day. In the same way, the Socialism conference aimed to continue the
socialist tradition of treating Marxism as a living body of ideas that
interacts with a changing world.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
AS IS always the case, Socialism 2015 attracted a range of attendees,
from veteran Marxists to brand new activists, many of whom came away
from the conference inspired to learn more.
"The Women in the Black Panther Party session was amazing," said Brianda
Guzman of New York City. "It's very important...to remember that women
have been at the forefront...[The conference] leaves me with many more
questions than answers. For the next year, my goal is to read more about
everything that I question, and to be able to explain this with
confidence to others."
Jennicet Gutiérrez was already planning to attend Socialism when she
famously heckled Barack Obama as he was giving a speech about Pride
Month at the White House--confronting him about his criminal immigration
policy that affects LGBT Latinas like herself. She said that being at
the conference and "feeling the support and love from all the people
attending" was a great experience.
"Attending the workshops has been essential for my understanding of the
struggle," she said. "Attending the presentations [on LGBT issues]
and...connecting it to the main ideology of socialism gave me space that
I belong in this struggle, and that I want to be part of it."
The conference also drew many lifelong socialists from different Marxist
traditions, and there were many debates throughout the weekend. Almost
all the sessions had a period for discussion, with ample time for
providing a forum for the left to have serious discussions in a
comradely setting.
The conference ended with a finally plenary session that began shortly
after the results of the Greek referendum rejecting austerity became
known. Haymarket Books author Sherry Wolf read out a message from DEA
leader Antonis Davanellos that talked about the mutual support between
DEA and the ISO, a message that powerfully resonated with many long-term
attendees.
Then Martalis gave a speech that represented the combination of sobriety
and inspiration that permeated the weekend. "I prepared two speeches,"
he said. "One in case the vote was for 'yes' and one if the vote was
'no.'" But even though our side won, Martalis continued with a wide
smile, he had decided to talk about what he would have said if the vote
was for "yes"--because the difficult struggles will continue in Greece,
and socialists must confront them and rise to the occasion.
That message applies to all of our movements: We have a long road ahead.
The Socialism conference was a step forward along that path.
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