Toronto’s 26th Annual Socialist May Day Celebration: Fighting for the 99%

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• nchama miller Internat’l Council of Latin American and Caribbean Women of Canada - Latin@s .

• Barry Weisleder Federal Secretary, Socialist Action, and substitute teachers’ organizer. • M.C.: Elizabeth Byce, federal Treasurer, NDP Socialist Caucus, and retired member of Toronto local, Celebrate with entertainers: Robin Banks, international jazz and blues recording artist; Robert Priest, poet, songwriter, and novelist; Steve-Paul & Maya, actor musicians; Glen Hornblast, folk singer on the social justice scene with a new CD titled “Once in a Blue Moon”; and Bill Heffernan, activist, teacher and song smith. Enjoy delicious food from the menu and drinks from the bar. For details, call the Free Times Cafe at 416-967-1078. At the event there will also be a literature and CDs display, a raffle, and surprises.

Free Times Cafe, 320 College St., Toronto. Admission: $10 waged, $5 non-waged or PWYC Event endorsed by: Toronto Local - Canadian Union of Postal Workers, Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, Toronto Haiti Action Committee, NDP Socialist Caucus, International Council of Latin American and Caribbean Women of Canada - Latin@s , Youth for Socialist Action, Toronto Forum on Cuba, Canadian-Cuban Friendship Association, Workers’ Solidarity and Union Democracy Coalition, and the Canadian Arab Federation. Speakers: • Jorge Soberon Consul General of Cuba in Toronto. • Magdalena Diaz activist with Occupy Toronto. • John Clarke organizer for the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty.

• Farid Ayad National President of the Canadian Arab Federation. • B.C. Holmes representing the Toronto Haiti Action Committee. • Tyler Mackinnon chairperson, Youth for Socialist Action Canadian Union of Postal Workers For more information, go to: www.socialistaction-canada.blogspot.com E-mail: [email protected] Phone: (416) 535-8779 Saturday, April 28, 7 p.m.

sponsored by Socialist Action (Fourth Internationalists in the Canadian state)

So, what is really needed, instead? Keep in mind that this is the fourth year of the global Great Recession. Crippling austerity measures, rising environmental havoc, and the growing threat of a widening war in the Middle East loom on the horizon. The NDP’s current course, packed with band-aid solutions, is a prescrip­ tion for disaster.

The need for a socialist alternative inside the NDP and the labour movement has never been more urgent. It will come, not with slick parliamentary maneuvers, but by winning more working people, youths, women, Que­ becois, Acadians, aboriginal peoples, immigrants, LGBT folks, the poor, and the dispossessed to the party, and to socialist policies and action.

Solidarity knows no borders. So our fight for social­ ism must go beyond the polling booth, into the streets and workplaces. Socialists demand: Stop the capitalist austerity drive. No labour concessions. Organize the un­ organized. For a massive public-works programme to provide jobs for all at union wages. Make big business pay for the crisis of their system. Nationalize the com­ manding heights of the economy under workers’ and community control.

The NDP/NPD is still a labour party rooted in the working class. But it is under siege from the right. Its mass social base, anxious to get rid of Harper, is open to fighting capitalist austerity, and to considering a social­ ist alternative. To advance that alternative, class-strug­ gle leadership is required.

Support for the Socialist Caucus at the NDP federal convention shows that a sharp turn to the left is possi­ ble. Even without the aid of a display table or a meeting room, SC activists distributed nearly 1600 copies of the SC magazine Turn Left to wide acclaim. They collected close to $500 in donations to it. E-visits to the SC web­ (continued on page 11, in “Shakespeare on war & rebellion”)

SOCIALIST ACTION APRIL 2012 9

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Stuart Price / AP (Left) Joseph Kony, head of the Lord’s Resistance Army, meets the press in 2006 in Southern Sudan.

intervene now? And why are charities ostensibly com­ mitted to “peace” pushing for military intervention?

The whole scene is reminiscent of the Save Darfur campaign, which stepped into the picture once the violence had subsided and the worst of the Sudanese military and “janjaweed” paramilitary killings had al­ ready passed. Choosing to ignore what U.S. invasions looked like in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Save Darfur campaign pushed for imperialist intervention in west­ ern Sudan. Rallies were held, with banners demand­ ing, “Out of Iraq, Into Darfur!” The Save Darfur website included videos of presidential hopefuls, who all took the chance to criticize China’s role in Africa as a major contributor to the violence.

If we go back even further we can see how this is ee­ rily reminiscent of an even older “humanitarian” cam­ paign. King Leopold’s colonization of the Congo was preceded by an international propaganda project tell­ ing the world that Belgium would save the Congolese from Arab slave-traders. In subsequent years, and un­ der cover of this propaganda, the Belgians killed per­ haps 13 million people and enslaved a huge portion of the population. (This story is eloquently told by Adam Hothschild in his book, “King Leopold’s Ghost.”)

Yesterday we were asked to accept the narrative that the West was saving Africa from the Arabs. Today we