Hundreds turn out for Marxism 2015 opening night

The Marxism 2015 conference got off to a great start last night at the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne. Four hundred and fifty people packed into the theatre at the VCA to listen to voices of resistance from around the world.

First off was Khury Petersen-Smith, an anti-racist activist and socialist from Boston. Khury told the audience about the explosive #BlackLivesMatter protests that have swept the United States since the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, last August.

Khury explained that the movement, with actions in 126 cities across the US, was an outpouring of protest against “a four decade assault on the US working class and oppressed sections, including women, gays, particularly Black people, a program of mass incarceration and the elimination of anti poverty campaigns.

“What has changed from the Ferguson uprising is that now we are saying no!”, he said. “The significance of the protests was that when the state mobilised the police, the protesters marched on; when they used the National Guard, they marched on; when they declared curfews they broke them. And instead of intimidating us, it was the cops who backed down.”

Links were forged with other groups under attack and people joined in protests organised by the Fight For 15 campaign for a living wage.

Khury was followed by Eamonn McCann, renowned Irish socialist and one of the leaders of the historic civil rights struggle in Derry in the North of Ireland, and a survivor of the Bloody Sunday massacre of January 1972.

Eamonn emphasised the common fight in which workers and the oppressed are involved whether in Ireland, Palestine, Scotland, Australia or New Zealand. The struggle by young workers to unionise in Derry is the same as that faced by workers in Melbourne – “the same struggle for unionisation, for the 8 hour day, the right to strike”.

The common enemy and the root cause of all the problems, he said, is “the system of capitalism, drenched in blood from head to foot. The job of revolutionary organisation”, Eamonn argued, “is to link these struggles together and relate them to where we are now. And if we can advance that struggle by one inch in this conference, then we will have done great work indeed.”

Amira Hass, the award-winning Jewish journalist who has worked in Occupied Palestine for many years, explained some of the dilemmas she encountered covering the Palestinian struggle in the Israeli press. She also detailed the dead end of the 1993 Oslo “peace accords” between Israel, the US and the Palestinian Authority (PA), which gutted the resistance and entrenched the PA as an organisation complicit in Israeli occupation. She also spelled out some of the limits of the armed struggle which tends to narrow the scope for mass participation in the struggle for Palestinian liberation.

Socialist Alternative industrial organiser Jerome Small was the final speaker. Jerome spoke about his experiences talking to textile and clothing workers in Bangladesh – whom he met as a member of a union solidarity tour to the country last November.

The killing of more than 1,100 workers in the Rana Plaza collapse in Dhaka was one of the worst cases of industrial manslaughter in the history of capitalism. The workers were killed as a result of the insatiable profit drive, and the government authorities did everything they could in the aftermath to reduce the published death toll for fear of jeopardising the country’s reputation.

Discussion spilled out into the bar afterwards.

Last night was just the start of a long weekend of debate and discussion. Make sure you don’t miss out on three more days of talks, debates, film screenings and musical performances, all taking place at the Victorian College of the Arts on Dodds Street in South Melbourne.

Khury, Amira, Jerome and Eamonn will all be speaking again in feature sessions over coming days.

On Friday at 2pm, the organisers are proud to introduce former Black Panther Party minister of culture Emory Douglas from the United States. Emory will also be exhibiting his work along with Queensland Murri artist Richard Bell. The two of them will be leading a tour of their work on Saturday from 1pm.

Audience favourite, veteran Aboriginal activist Gary Foley, will be one of the conference highlights and is speaking on Saturday at 2pm. Anand Gopal, recent recipient of a prestigious US book prize for No Good Men among the Living, about the US occupation of Afghanistan, will be speaking on “Iraq, ISIS and the US empire” on Saturday at 11.30am.

Other drawcards include a stream of talks on the history of Latin American left wing and working class politics, coordinated by Jorge Jorquera. Russian speaker Ilya Mateev will be speaking on Saturday at 4pm about Russian politics from Putin to Pussy Riot, while activists from a wide range of unions and industries will be bringing their stories of union organising from the ground up in Australia in the stream Organising Workers.drawcards include a stream of talks on the history of Latin American left wing and working class politics, coordinated by Jorge Jorquera. Russian speaker Ilya Mateev will be speaking on Saturday at 4pm about Russian politics from Putin to Pussy Riot, while activists from a wide range of unions and industries will be bringing their stories of union organising from the ground up in Australia in the stream Organising Workers.

Other streams of talks will cover Gender and Sexuality, Indigenous Struggle and the politics of the Middle East. For those who are new to radical politics, there is the always-popular “Concepts of Marxism”, which this year covers alienation, exploitation, imperialism, the Russian Revolution, and gender and sexual oppression.

With more than 90 sessions, there is something for everyone, including a Berlin Cabaret night on Saturday.

It’s not too late to get your ticket! Tickets are available on the door and prices start at just $35 for one day for the unwaged. Those who already have one day tickets can upgrade to all-weekend tickets.

Don’t miss out on what will be the biggest left wing conference in Australia this year! And, just a reminder to those who have been to previous Marxism conferences, the venue this year is the VCA in South Melbourne.

More details at marxismconference.org.