'Solidarity' is the cry
BY MARG PERROTT
WOLLONGONG — "Solidarity!" was the cry at two functions here. On August 11, a Broad Left forum attended by 50 people heard Tim Anderson, Sharon Beder and Max Lane discuss globalisation. On August 17, Cuba's consul-general in Australia, Maria Luisa Fernandez, launched a book of speeches by Cuban President Fidel Castro.
Anderson rejected the claim that free market economic growth benefits all, that there is nothing that be done about corporate globalisation and that the resulting erosion of human and labour rights must be accepted.
Sharon Beder, a Wollongong University academic and author, outlined how the big corporations use "agenda-setting" think tanks financed by big business to get their way. "Economic activity takes precedence over any other values. Human rights, labour rights and environmental protection are being made secondary to profits and free market investment", she said.
Max Lane, from Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor, pointed out that "our task is to prise open the crack in the ideological hold of the corporate tyrants". The protests at meetings of the World Trade Organisation, the International Monetary Fund and the September 11-13 protests in Melbourne show that many people in the imperialist countries are beginning to question, and are prepared to fight the corporations, Lane said.
Australian corporate tyrants are active in the Asia-Pacific region, he said. The Australian government supports the "sacrifice of the Indonesian people to the corporate profits" that result from the economic austerity imposed by IMF and World Bank economic programs. These have led to 60-80 million Indonesians falling below the poverty line in the last two years, he claimed.
"Demands of 'End corporate tyranny over the Third World' are meaningless if there is no practical solidarity offered to the people fighting in the Third World", he concluded.
On August 17, Fernandez visited Wollongong to launch the new Ocean Press publication of Fidel Castro's speeches on globalisation and neoliberalism, Capitalism in Crisis. She outlined how the corporations oppress the people of the Third World. She urged more solidarity for the struggles of the Third World.