The Chinese with no rights

Scan page 9

juangzhou, The Sail of ownership with true demohanxi, and the organ of the cracy SO that they will ational Unofficial Publica- complement and guarantee pns Association, Duty, each öther in the forward printed the "21 demands stride on the road to true • the Polish workers" and socialism... le "Charter of rights of the blish workers" , so that the that China would accomplish pople could if not the radical revolution by a road etailed demands of the more chaotic than Poland's blish workers. the bruner of proletarian The samizdat publicaons also pointed out that in democracy, and fight eliminate all class rule, class bland, freedom of publica on could be achieved exploitation and class represbrough strikes. sion, and help advance The Qingdo Theoretical China's overall modernisation construction!" anner (February 1981) pinted out that "the primy reason for the victory of workers' movement was not le independent trade union only on militants of the • Poland is the accelerated samizdat publications. Des¿composition of bureau- pite the government blocklatic privileges and the ade of news, fragmentary eneral awakening and true information shows that since lidarity of the masses." November 1980, strikes and workers' actions have repeatRevolution edly occurred in China.

"The rule of the bureau- Moreover, the demands that atic dass must not be the workers put forward are placed by the rule of the not limited to. economic burgeoisie . . • the only ones, but also include the brrect way out is to build a demand to set up Polishistem of proletarian demo- style indepenent trade lacy suitable for this partic- unions. lar transitional period in istory, organically and (December 1980) reported imly linking up true public on spontaneous action by THE issue of dual nationality of Hong Kong and Maran Chinese has heen drawing increasing attention "There is the possibility and worries from among Chinese here in these two places through the increasingly discovered and publi cised cases of the disappearance of Hong Kong Chinese travelling in China and the refusal of the British colonial government in long Kong to take any responsibility…. over the legal and political rights of these Hong The impact of the Polish Kong travellers.

No-one knows how many Hong Kong Chinese travelers have vanished in China: One estimate is that 100 people at least were arrested last year for one reason or another. 4.5 million Hong Kong Chinese visit Chinaeach year.

In one case in 1981, a Hong Kong Trotskyist, Ng Chung-yin, was arrested on visit to China and pressured to become an informer. Dozens of Chinese oppositionists may have been arrested The samizdat The Sail as a result. Ng has been expelled from the Revolutionary Marxist League!.

On the one hand, the Chinese government does not reenonise dual nationalNAME VILLA ity for any Chinese national.

That is apparently and formally in line with the long-existing refusal to recognise the colonial status of these two places, officially spelled out by top Chinese officials in 1949 and thereafter.

However, the continuing colonial rule of Hong Kong under the British and Macao under the Portuguese remains largely impossible without the material support and implicit approval of the Chinese government as the two places depend heavily on the supply of basic foodstuffs, electricity, Mater., etc from the mainland.

The British colonialists, on the other hand, continue to rip off enormous wealth and snatch huge economic and political benefits from the colony. While paying lip-service to the interests of the population of Hong Kong and insisting on the legal justification of the three unequal treaties (in 1842, 1860 and 1898) that brought colonial refusino Hong Kong under rule, they are to defend the hasir legal rights of Hong Kong Chinese, from the colony while travelling in China.

This does not mean to say that it is in the interests of the Hong Kong and Macao Chinese to insist on the consolidation of the colonial rule against the formal alaim of China, but the naked hypocrisy of the colonial government must be exposed and condemned.

And the question of reintegration back into China does not stand on its own. Re-integration without socialist democracy, the right of the population in the democratic say in the running of the economy and of the political administration and without the eradication of the system of privil= eges and bureaucratic fule, is not what the population here wants.

The fight together with workers, peasants and democracy fighters in the mainland and Taiwan for genuine socialist democracy and for democratic re-integration should be• the only viable political way out for the Hong Kong and Macao population.

Meanwhile, we should start from the concrete defence of the political and legal rights of Hansen Huang, Lit Sanqing, as well as Xu Wenli, He Qiu, Wang Xizhe and other detained Chinese Democratic Movement activists.

From the Bulletin of the Chinese Democratic Movement, November 1982. Jailed: He Qiu *Hansen Huang is a lawyer from Hong Kong who vanished in Peking early this year.

*Liu Sanqing, a Hong Kong political activist, went to Canton for a two-day visit in December 1981, and has not been heard of since.

*Xu Wenli, a well-known activist in the Chinese democratic movement, was arres ted in August 1981 and in June 1982 sentenced to 15 years' jail for organising counter-revolutionary clique", , etc.

*He Qiu was reportedly sentenced in May 1982 to 10 years jail for: "counterrevolutionary propaganda" and "sabotage".

*Wang Xizhe was sentenced, also in May, to 14 years' jail on similar charges.

*Contact: Chinese Democratic Movement Resource Centre, PO Box 89278, Kowloon City Post Office, Kong Kong, Socialist Committee in Defence of the Democratic • Movement in China, c/o 41 Brondesbury Road, London NW6.

Scan page 10

Socialist Organiser January 10 THE GORBALS. ALTERNATIVE DEVELOMENT STRATIES WAS TO EXPRESS ANEN SAPNT A SOLUTON BRRRR YOUR CALL / OLD CHAP ..HOWS MISS PICKy UMUZING THE SIR. I'T SYSTEM COMING PLAN NO. 1 RAN NOT • TELHNOLOLTY •MOST ADVANCED ALaNG? AH OUI.

TUMVIYO DI HI D IN GUIVN.. DAMNED RV THE PEST IN GIAGEOU I LE TRACOBATE ....BY THE BEST IN EUROPE • ASSEMBLED no.114 fl reviews it *'Change and Conflict - A Glasgow", Barbara and Richa Press, £6.00.

"Change and Conflict - a Study of Community Work in Glasgow" was published three days before the recent by-election in Queen's Park (Glasgow).

The Glasgow Evening Times reported on this book's contents under the headline "Book's Shock Attack ' on Gorbals MP" whilst the SNP candidate in the by election called for an immediate inquiry into its allegations about the late Labour MP Frank McElhone.

Socialist Organiser supporter Stan Crooke, recently on udy of community work in Bryant, Aberdeen University expelled from Queen's Park CLP for his criticisms of the local councillors and latè MP described the book as "my ticket back into the Labour Party". . But Helen McElhone the widow and now successor of the late MP would only say: "I have not read the book ... to libel the dead is dreadful"

Local community activists who have had a chance to read relevant chapters of the book, however, vouch for its accuracy. Throughout the seventies the authors were community work teachers attached to Crossroads, a network of tenants associations, community groups, etc., covering the Gorbals and neighbouring Govanhill.

Most interesting is their detailed description of the late MP's attacks on two Crossroads "fieldwork units" i.e. information centres, one in the Gorbals and one in Govanhill, in 1977 and 1978.

The first attack came after a particularly stormy public meeting of the Gorbals Anti-Dampness Campaign (then at the height of its activity) at which McElhone had come in for heavy criticism from the local tenants.

After the meeting Richard Bryant was phoned at home by McElhone. The MP accused him and the students under his tuition of "masterminding an attack on the local Labour Party" , and "reminded" Bryant, that he, McElhone; as a Junior Minister at the Scottish Ottice, had direct responsibility for the funding of the Crossroads units.

Not long after this incident, McElhone,, together with various civil servants and Regional Councillors, paid Bryant and his students a visit. In three hours of "tense discussion" he accused them of "encourag*acting as cheerleaders Of "acting demonstrations and generally 'stirring things up' » and claimed that one or two of the units should be transferred since they allegedly represented "too great a concentration of community work resources" in the area.

The Crossroads staff countered McElhone's attack by appealing for support from the local community groups, from their union branch (TGWU voluntary workers) and various colleges and universities in Glasgow.

THE IDEA FOR THE GAUSALS OF REJUVENATION IN AVAUD • URBAN CONTEXT SINATON..

CEVATION THIS CONCERT TAKE - GENERATED ELEVATIN NOL THIS DOWN SITUATION AVAILABLE AT THIS MoMeNT Support was also sought from • sympathetic local Labour Party members such as the late Geoff Shaw, one-time convenor of Strathclyde Regional Council.

Unfortunately "the hard line taken by the MP was supported by a majority of the active members of the local Labour Party". : But elsewhere, due to their deep involvement in the struggles of the communities in the Gorbals and Govanhill, the Bryants and their colleagues had no problem getting support. And this, together with support from individual Labour Party members, was enough to beat back McElhone's attack.

Just a year later, when Richard Bryant handed in his resignation to leave for IN TIME....

BUA BLA YES WHAT IS IT?

USING. THE LATEST IDEAS BaROeRO t027 DOpgOpaegaD AM SUPPOSE YOU WANT US TO CHANGE !T THEV"

WITH LOVING CARE.

vote, the meeting voted to accept McElhone's "proposals.

A replacement was duly appointed. And the transfer of one of the units? With the Conservative general election victory in 1979, McElhone disappeared from the Scottish Office, and with him the threat of a closure of one of the units! "It is ironic to note that Crossroads might have been one of the few community work agencies in Scotland to have positively benefited from the return of a Conservative government", note the Bryants.

Why were McElhone and so many of the Labour councillors opposed to the local community groups? All of them were, after all, TO FRANCE YOUR WHAT'D'YOU CrU 3000 1 YOU ARE A MRENO Of MARSCANZEY 150 * 1s5M84 wotina BTO SHE COMES VERRY WELL MONSIEVA.

MA BEST MEN ARE ON THE JOB REMT NOW CALL IT "LE SYSTEME, •TRAUDBA DESIGNED.. was re-housing and compensation for the tenants in the dampness-ridden Hutchesontown 'E' scheme. This was not achieved by "Tammany Hall" politics, but by mobilisation and confrontation.

• Under : the rule of McElhone, the Labour Party failed to fight alongside the tenants. It was a crutch which McElhone, used to prop up his autocratic regime.

Threat

McElhone's followers in the party were opposed to the anti-dampness campaign:

"Some members of the local Labour Party resented the style and tactics of the

----- pull-quotes -----

without glory is the of a recent book*

NOW ELOUTEX COUNCIL HOUSES POINTS TABLE