The new Poor Lai

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winter, and that they should not live in temperatures below this.

When it was reported that nine out of ten over65s were living in temperatures below 70° and this necessitated some action, the Labout goverment withdrew its guidelines and buried thém!

This year's figures show 55% of the elderly over 65 years living at temperatures below 60° (the legal minimum level set for workplace health and safety). 75% live below The major reason so few have adequate heating is cost. Few can keep adequate heating in the daytime with electric fires with bills over £100 let alone at night as well.

But Lynda Chalker, Tory Minister for the DHSS doesn't think the government should interfere in the level of heating a person think of elderly women, literally stranded in their homes, with a lifetime of caring behind them and nobody to care for them now.

Look at the conditions they live in. Incontinent and no indoor toilet - over 65 years old, 12%; over 75 years old 15%.

No central heating, no coalfires, no hot water ...

Every worker anticipates old age. Not everyone thinks yf themselves as being unemployed. But for many the poverty of unemployment will simply merge ınto the poverty ot a pension, with just a change ın name.

Feel

Workers do feel as strongly about the elderly and would fight for those who can't fight back, given a lead and a direction.

The employed have shown this year they are capable of great solidarity action over the NHS dispute. It was criminal this "IT MADE me, and I dare say many others, realise that if you're out of work or drawing benefit, you aren't classed as a human being any longer. You are just a government statistic which can be spied on, attacked, arrested, persecuted and used whenever and for whatever reason the bureaucrats and capitalists think up."

Those are the words of Tony Kelleher, one of the people 'held then released when police arrested 283 claimants in Uxiord last autumn, and they form the foreword to a detailed study just published of what the police called Operation Major and the press dubbed 'The Sting'.

The report, drawn up by five organisations, roundly condemns the raid as a political exercise designed to heighten anti-claimant hysteria.

It has been written by freelance journalist Ros Franey, who has painstakingly researched the raid, subsequent court appearances, and press propaganda.

It includes the first published account of a statement to police alleging that one of the landlords was collecting money from claimants not staying at his address.

The report is essential reading for anyone who wants an understanding of the role of the state towards the homeless and unemployed. The presumption behind the whole operation .. to borrow a phrase used about Stephen Waldorf - is that they are cither guilty or "tainted with criminality' and therefore fair game for any abuse of civil rights.

The report publishes figures collected on a local community association computer, which shows the total fraud involved in Operation Major at just under £60,000 including oftences taken into account. This is a far cry from the £1.5 million quoted without a source in the Fleet Street coverage. (In fact, when the amount claimants were entitled to is taken into account, the sum involved in the frauds falls still lower).

'Poor Law' is casy to read, well set out, and a fascinating insight into....the mechanies of the police, courts and press coverage they generated. It is weaker on its recommendations. It calls for a police authority investigation into the role of the police, and an investigation by the Lord Chancellor's department into the role of the courts. by Peter Mcintyr But against this, and encouragingly, 'Poor Law' calls for guidelines to be drawn up by the NUJ and the technicians' union ACTT for filming and reporting of social security events.

•Poor Law' is published, price €1.95, by CHAR (campaign for single homeless people); Child Poverty Action Group; Claimants' Defence Committee; National Association of Probation Officers; and National Council for Civil Liberties. It can be obtained via Socialist Organiser, 28 Middle Lane, London N8 (include 25p p&p).

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Socialist Organiser no. 118 February 3 1983 Page 12 is no- cemo "This community has for generations been used as the agent hat slogans for Bolivia? rs masterpiece ЛМ Denham's letter in SO 116 compounds the confusion in the calls for Protestant autonomy within a federal, united Ireland which have appeared in recent issues of Socialist Organiser.. He says this is part of a democratic programme to "take into account and (hopefully) neutralise the protestant community's fear of and hostility towards unification.

This leaves out of account the political-role allotted to the Protestant community by imperialism and the basis for that community's hostility to Irish unity.

Autonomy for minority groups can have a legitimate place in a Marxist WHILE Martin Thomas' review of The Battle of Algiers explained the historical background, it failed to give an idea of why the film is so powerful and convincing.

Part of Pontecorvo's achievement is that. he doesn't fall into the trap of producing a socialist Western, with the FLN as the 'goodies' and the French as the 'baddies' Events are presented in a far more neutral way - as if they speak for themselves.

The film's political sympathy with the FLN is not based on glossing over the FLN's methods, such as ca programme, e.g. a call for an autonomous Kashmir in a united socialist states of India, or autonomy for the Basque country in Spain. In all these cases autonomy would involve oppressed, disadvantaged minorities.

The Moslem population of Kashmir were forced into the Union of India in 1947 on the whim of their Sikh prince, while centralising governments in Madrid have traditionally suppressed the cultural identity of the Basques.

The situation of the Northern Ireland Protestants is quite different. This community has for generations been used as the agent of British imperialism to oppress, exploit indiscriminately bombing cafes frequented by Europeans. Above all, it comes over because the FLN is shown as representing the oppressed Muslims, who faced every day indignity, racism and exploitation at the hands of the colonists.

The film shows this in many incidents. Women, traditionally viciously oppressed in Muslim society, become part of the liberation struggle and are shown playing a leading role. The French become victims of their own racism when they let women carrying bombs through their checkpoints because they of British imperialism" and divide Ireland; in return it has enjoyed relative material privileges compared with the Catholic majority. Partition enshrined \ these privileges, empowered the Protestants to oppress the Catholics in the north, and perpetuated the division of terp are wearing European clothes and look European.

The French police use loudspeakers to tell the Arab population of the Casbah to break with the FLN; the Muslims pass in sullen silence. A young boy creeps round behind the guard post and steals the microphone and begins shouting FLN slogans. Suddenly, the streets become full of Muslims shouting "long live Algeria! Long live independence!" and whooping in contempt for the real weakness of the French.

The film is partly so convincing because of those taking part, there were few the Irish working class.

The task for Marxists is to convince Protestant workers that their interests lie in unity with the Catholic working class. Of course that must involve the formulation of democratic demands, but in the Irish context autonomy professional actors. Most of the rest were ordinary inhabitants of Algiers, many of whom had liyed through the events the film shows and could bring real conviction to their roles in the film.

Classic

The Battle of Algiers is a classic because it shows a people struggling to determine their own future and escape oppression -but does so without the romantic and uncritical approach so often found on the left. If you get a chance to see it, go at all costs!

BRUCE ROBINSON Islington and federalism can only be seen as concessions to Protestatirs' current sectarian, pro-imperialist consciousness. Thus it reinforces rather than overcomes the division of the working class.

Naturally Protestants fear that they would be disadvantaged in a Catholic Ireland, and we should call for full civil and religious rights for both Protestants and Catholics within a fully secular state. But that is a far cry from autonomy.

What would autonomy mean in practice? However you draw the border an autonomous Protestant province would still include a substantial body of Catholic workers. A number of geographically separate Protestant enclaves (part of Belfast, parts of Antrim, a few streets in Derry etc., etc), perhaps linked by a communal assembly, would not avoid the problem, and the administrative chaos would be a breeding ground for sectarian strife.

The only alternative to geographical autonomy would be special legal provisions, reserved seats in Parliament, reserved posts in the government and so on; in other words a confessional state on the lines of Lebanon.

Clearly the talk of Protestant autonomy is the reverse of a democratic demand. It is a reactionary, divisive notion which has no part in a Marxist programme.

TONY GARD Lewisham Dear S.0 THE article on Bolivia (SO 116) was very welcome and was another indication of the fast improving international coverage in the paper. (At one time there was very little international news in SO).

However, although it was informative the article lacked any demands that should be raised in order to take forward the struggle of the workers and peasants of Bolivia (and the rest of Latin America).

In the elections of 1978, 1979 and 1980 it was only the POR (Masas) who raised the correct demand for a government of workers and peasants, pointing out that in a country like Bolivia there is no economic base for a reformist government and that the alternative to a workers' government was (at least in a lasting sense) a militWe invite readers to send us their letters, up to a usual maximum length of 400 words. Send to Socialist Organiser, c/o 28. Middle Lane. London N8. ary dictatorship.

This was when the rest of the Bolivian left were mesmerised by electoralism.

Only in imperialist countries can there even be the economic basis for reformist governments, as the wealth needed to grant reforms comes from the super-exploitation of the people in imperialised countries such as Bolivia. Despite the personal popularity of H. Siles Zuazo, his UDP government cannot last, caught as it is between international finance capital and the small but militant Bolivian working class.

UFor a workers' and peasants' government in Bolivia!

•Forward to the Socialist United States of Latin JOSE SANTAMARIA Nottingham

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