Fighting spirit

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Dayschool DFA 400 WHICH CLASS DO YOU BELON Which class do you belong to? The ruling class have the money Which class do you belong to? The ruling class get the honey. Which class do you belong to?

Which class do you belong to? The ruling class have the lot. Which class do you belong to? The sun shines on the rich.

Which class do you belong to?

Bryan Edmands revier 'Fighting Spirit, by Milton Smalling IN THIS small collection of short poems (29 in all) we are given a hard and passionate description of everyday life, viewed through the eyes of a black man who sees himself as being at the bottom of society's pile.

The first half of the book takes as its central theme frustration - frustration with unemployment, police oppression, racism and lies, politicians and the rich. An experience of frustration that is ever present in the chain of feelings pounded into the brain by a brutal world -frustration leading to anger, frustration to despair, frustration to bitterness. Frustration to fightback?

There is an optimism in such lines as: "we going to burst" (p.4); "we can't give up" (p.6); "The black colony's ready to fight" (p.8); "The unemployed fuse is burning" (p.11); "It's not too late to shout at the devil" (p.13); "Black people must point a finger at the ruling class" (p.14).

He poses a class solution to society that gives rise to such feelings.

In the second radical, but in office? A few things have changed since Wilson's day. The economic climate makes it much more difficult for a politician like Kinnock to drift to the right.

Secondly, the degree of conand AGM Annual General Meeting, Sunday October 30 at anising for the politics of Socialist Organiser, Saturday October 29, Crouch treated to more of a mixture of themes, but still concerned with an underlying frustration with the way of the world, tinged a little now with a longing for an idealised past.

He comes back to the real world with descriptions of colonialism, of a sordid, money-hungry world, of the Falklands war and threats of nuclear annihilation.

Nowhere is safe or pleasant any longer, not even the Carrib ean, and he seems to be saying that a "Black Star Liner" is no way out.

There is also in Milton Smalling a sense of the abuse and ex reitect a romantic imme of "pure" women living in a mythical, natural, pleasant world of the past.

"Like the dinosaurs, we cannot live in this world any more" (p.28) ends one poem. This most fitful plea to the reader brings a final note of reality. A reality of today and of our future that we ourselves must consciously make if we want change and an end to our destructive system.

Finally, in recommending this work, I'd like to mention one poem (p:21) that reflects bitterness and regret against Asians for being allegedly concerned solely with money-making rather than rights. Well, that may be true of the aspiring Asian petty bourgeoisie (and not just them alone) - but what about the Asian working class youth? trol of the rank and file over the Labour Party is significantly mor considerable than 20 years ago.

It is the task of that rank an‹ file to see that socialist policie: are not ditched for short tern electoral gains.

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