Kindness of Strangers

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“Le Havre,” written and directed by Aki Kaurasmaki, in French with English sub­ titles. A ing last name of Marx (Andre n older man, Marcel, with the tell­ Wilms), shines shoes outside the bus terminal in the port town of Le Havre. He gets few takers and goes home to his dog, Laika, and much younger, but plain, wife, Arletty (Kati Outinen). He takes the dog for a walk while she fixes dinner, and heads for the neighborhood pub. The camera stays on Arletty, chop­ ping onions. A look of pain crosses her face; her hand moves to her chest.

They are the shabby poor, barely able to keep the tin roofs of their slapped to­ gether wooden homes over their head. A meal consists of cheese, bread (often stolen), and a glass of wine, occasion­ ally a stew. On the way to the pub, shop­ keepers along the way hassle Marcel about money he owes them, say he’s a thief. The simple life there is belied by an air of suspicion.

The overall mood of the film is de­ pressing, but many of the characters the actors portray are quite heart warming.

People are stopped by authorities at random and asked for IDs. An Asian regular at the pub, named Chang (Quac Dung Nguyen), confesses to Marcel that he himself is an illegal—Vietnamese— with fake Chinese papers. Things heat up when a watchman at a shipping yard suspects that people have been smug­ gled in from Africa in a container.

Cops are called; an armored strike force shows up. When the container is opened people stare out blankly. A young, teenage boy, wearing jeans and a sweater, dashes out. A cop raises his assault rifle but is stopped by Detec­ tive Monet (Jean-Pierre Darroussin), in long dark overcoat and slouch hat. “He’s only a boy,” he says. Headlines and TV news reports about the immigrants lead to fear of an al Queda connection. Authorities ask if they are terrorists.

Eating his lunch in the harbor one day, Marcel sees the boy hiding hip deep in the water under a pier. With one look, an understanding is reached. From then on, while his wife is in the hospital, dy­ Wing of an unstated fatal disease, Marcel helps the boy, Idrissa (Blondin Miguel).

In a roundabout way involving a visit to an immigration detention center, where he lies about his relationship to the de­ tainee (“I’m the family albino”), Marcel is told that Idrissa’s grandfather lives near Calais, in a camp with other mi­ grants on a beach called “The Jungle.”

Calais is currently home to around 1000 migrants—about 800 Afghans— who want to get to the UK and avoid the strict immigration controls at the port.

French authorities destroyed their camp in a dawn raid in 2009 (the film ableness,” meaning it’s just too much of an increase, five fold—given the circumstances. Secondly, we argued that the only “new” information before the judge were my statements after my first sentence in October of 2008 and remarks I made on the courthouse steps before I surren­ dered to prison. We contend strongly that this is protected speech under the First Amendment of the Constitution, and cannot be used to increase or as a basis for sentencing. (Even if they hate it !!!)

The same group of three judges that heard and decided the original appeal will also hear the arguments on the 29th. The government is not asking for more time; they are satisfied with their pound of flesh but it is not likely that this court will take any action that will help me. The times are askew for prisoners and their lawsuits. (The brief is available at my website, lynnestewart.org.)

The lawyers that argued in July of 2010 will be on board, with the addition of Herald Price Fahringer, an eminent at­ torney in the First Amendment field (the win in the Larry Flynt Hustler case in the U.S. Supreme Court was his. He The Green platform is superior to Anderson’s in many ways. It offers a number of reforms, many of which are radical sounding. However, the Green platform does not advocate doing away with capitalism but rather proposes to “reduce the economic and political power of large corporations, end corporate personhood and re-design corporations to serve our society, democ­ racy and the environment.” At the same time, it would change “the legal design of corporations so that they generate profits, but not at the expense of the envi­ ronment, human rights, public health, workers, or the communities in which the corporation operates.”

This sort of thinking is contradictory. Corporate power and the drive for maximum profits are at the center of the capitalist system. The reforms that the Greens propose are impossible because capitalists would never adhere to them. Exploitation of the en­ vironment, human rights, public health, workers, or communities is endemic to the capitalist private-profit system.

Workers need their own party Socialists argue against support for electoral cam­ paigns that do not have a base in the organized strug­ gles of the working class and oppressed people. We believe it is a mistake to sow illusions in reformist candidates, or to downplay putting forward a clear working-class program in order to find a short cut for obtaining votes. Rocky Anderson, the Greens, and similar electoral campaigns—like that of Ralph Nader before them—will result in no lasting mass working-class organization and little in the way of fundamental change.

That is why socialists call for a labor party in the United States, based in the unions. This isn’t an ab­ was made in 2011). Some inhabitants were imprisoned at the Centre de Ré­ tention of Coquelles; others were taken to detention centers all over France before being released. They then try to make the long journey back to Calais on foot while French authorities threaten to repatriate them to Afghanistan.

A nosy neighbor rats on the boy. The shopkeepers—now sympathetic since Marcel is about to become a widower, along with palpable contempt for the authorities—hide Idrissa during Mar­ cel’s absence. After a long bus ride to Calais, a taxi drops him at the immi­ grants’ beach camp. Idrissas’s stately, robed, grandfather, Mahmat Saleh (Um­ ban U’kset), gives him the name and ad­ dress of the boy’s mother, a legal resi­ dent, living in London.

With Inspector Monet constantly on their heels, the film begins to feel like “Les Miserables” or “The Fugitive,” with Monet as Javert or Samuel Girard re­ spectively. Eventually, Idrissa is stowed away in the hold of a fishing vessel.

Marcel had arranged a charity con­ cert, headed by real-life rocker, Little Bob (Robert Piazza), a strange, small man with a white, birds’ nest hairdo, to raise the fee for the boat owner to take Idrissa across the Channel to England, where he’ll find his mother.

Although the film deals with the themes of injustice, poverty, and the systematic oppression waged against immigrants, its message is never heavy handed. Hopefully, many in the audi­ ence will come away from “Le Havre” with increased sympathy for immi­ grants, and more understanding of their plight. n was also in the line of fire (no injuries) when the shoot­ ing took place.) He will enthusiastically present our case. I will not be present—not unusual once imprisoned. But my spirit will be there to inspire!!!

Of course, my case has always been government firing warning shots to lawyers, that a vigorous defense, of cer­ tain clients, if not conforming to government specifica­ tions, will be punished severely. This chill effect in these days that we are confronted with grand jury investiga­ tions and dismantling of Occupations is not something we should contemplate with anything less than alarm. I have just finished David Gilbert’s book (“Love Struggle”) and the intercession of lawyers when there are arrests of desig­ nated enemies of the “state” are the only meaningful pro­ tection available.

A large outpouring of support in Foley Square and Tom Paine Park and in the courtroom will signal to these arbi­ ters of “justice” that attention must be paid, the 99% are watching them with suspicion and tallying up the roads not taken. n straction, but a reflection of the real needs and inter­ ests of the working class. Class independence and the ability to fight and speak in our own name are funda­ mental tasks for working people. The working class is the one force in society with the potential strength and economic power to fundamentally change society.

More than 25 million working-class people remain either underemployed or unemployed, with no action from Washington to solve the problem. Spending on infrastructure projects would benefit some sectors of the economy, but what is really needed is a massive public works jobs program to put the unemployed back to work at good union wages. Millions could be put to work in a matter of weeks—improving infra­ structure, weatherizing homes and public buildings, cleaning and protecting the environment, providing needed social services and education.

Without class independence, we are forced to de­ pend on the goodwill of politicians who answer to Wall Street. A workers party, or labor party, will emerge from mass struggles to defend the interests and living standards of the working class, protect the environ­ ment, and stand behind all oppressed people—Blacks, women, immigrants, LGBT people, etc.—who are fighting for their rights.

Such a party would not have to be a bureaucratic, pro-capitalist party like the Social Democratic Parties of Europe. Nor would it be a party that merely puts forward candidates in the electoral arena. The labor party that we see on the horizon, having come out of a renewed upsurge in the U.S. class struggle, would re­ main first and foremost a mass-action party—organiz­ ing people who are fighting back in their workplaces and in the streets. n SOCIALIST ACTION FEBRUARY 2012 11